Brave Hearts Page 20

  The afternoon was a burning misery of heat and fatigue. Catharine no longer thought in terms of how long. She bent every effort to lift one foot at a time, step after step after step. At sundown, when they stopped, she stood unmoving in the water, too tired even to look for a place to rest. Jack took her elbow and helped her up onto a fallen log to wait while the men built a platform of vines and saplings so they could sleep out of the water. When it was finished, the women climbed up and collapsed on the uncomfortable springy platform, too tired even to think of food. Jack brought them a mixture of rice and salmon served on plantain leaves.

  Each day, they moved more slowly, the physical strain telling ever more deeply on their malnourished bodies. One foot after another, day after day.

  Finally, the fourth day, the water fell to their thighs, to their knees, to their ankles. They looked at one another, their faces and hands inflamed with insect bites, their skin mealy from the water, their legs pocked with marks from the leeches, and hope flickered in their eyes. They’d come through the green hell. They’d reached the end of the swamp. One last time, they performed the familiar sickening ritual, the men turning away to provide the women some privacy as they made their leech search.

  Catharine was last. She didn’t want to look, but she could feel the bloated black bodies on her skin. Sally held a burning match to a leech embedded in Catharine’s calf. She shuddered as the worm contracted and fell away, slipping down her leg.

  Billy Miller was already waving them into a huddle. “Manuel says we need to move fast. A Jap patrol may be along here any time now. We’ve got to get past it and get up into the mountains. If the Japs catch us, they’ll intern civilians, kill military personnel.”

  So one fear supplanted another. Now they no longer watched for snakes, stripped away leeches, and fought the insects and heat. Now they listened for the thud of approaching feet or the crackle of gunfire.

  They skirted the villages, keeping to rough paths and trails. Once they hid, faces pressed into the dust, bodies hugging the ground, as a Japanese patrol rattled by. Then Manuel, prodding them to run, led them across the road and ever upward into harsher country—climbing, always climbing.

  Catharine thought it would be better in the mountains, but their shoes, rotted by swamp water, fell away from their feet; the tender skin blistered in angry red and white patches as they stepped on nettles and rocks. Their muscles, abused by the muck of the swamp, throbbed as their legs, unaccustomed to climbing, struggled to keep pace. At first, the cooler air was invigorating after the stultifying heat. But it grew ever cooler as they climbed higher. They began to shiver in their worn cotton clothes and wore any extra pieces of clothing they still possessed. The terrain worsened: steep-sided canyons; sharper, tougher gradients; overhangs; and impassable slopes.

  Manuel led the cargadores at a tireless pace. Spencer and Billy Miller followed close behind, the sailors and nurses came next, and Catharine and Jack brought up the rear.

  One afternoon they came to a shallow stream, icy water swirling over a pebbled bottom. Catharine dropped down, eased off her shoes, and plunged her blistered feet into the sharply cold water.

  “I wish I could stay here.”

  Jack looked up at the enormous hardwood trees towering into the sky, their limbs so thickly leaved the afternoon sun couldn’t pierce the canopy. It was dim, cool, and very quiet. He grinned. “Actually, I’d be happy to trade for Chicago—and a beer at Delancey’s Saloon.”

  Catharine didn’t smile. She shook her head. “This is all crazy.”

  He studied her for a long moment, then nodded. “I know. Destination to nowhere. But what else can we do?”

  “Stop.”

  “And let the Japs catch us?”

  She didn’t reply.

  He reached down and pulled her up. “Come on, Catharine, we’re going to make it, you and I.”

  Tears burned in her eyes. “Make it where, Jack?”

  His hand tightened on her arm. “I don’t know. Nobody knows, but we’re going to finish the course, Catharine, you and I, together.”

  Was it the word together or was it the warmth of his hand? Catharine wasn’t sure, but somewhere she found the strength to bend down, slip her blistered feet into the ragged canvas shoes, and follow him.

  They came around a curve and found the others. Below the path, the sheer side of the mountain fell away for hundreds of feet. They could look down, down, down the tree-shrouded mountainside to the glitter of a stream far below.

  She looked at the ribbon-like path. Was it even four inches wide? It edged along the rock face; part was crumbled away. There was a space, perhaps two feet across, where the path disappeared. Between the one edge of the path and its beginning past the break, there was no barrier from a drop down the mountainside.

  The Americans watched silently as the cargadores moved along the gritty path, then disappeared around the bulging rock. No sound broke the intent silence above the gorge. Finally, all the cargadores were gone. Miller looked at his group.

  “I’ll go first.” He nodded at Jack. “Bring up the rear, Maguire.”

  Miller didn’t look down. He spread-eagled himself against the rock face and began to inch outward on the path, one foot at a time. It took him several minutes to pass the broken spot; then he was gone around the edge of the rock.

  A ruddy sailor took Sally’s hand. “I’ll go first and you follow.”

  Catharine didn’t watch them. She didn’t watch Frances go with the second sailor. Catharine watched Spencer. His face looked like a death mask, colorless and drawn. He stood stiffly by the trail, but he didn’t look out over the dark gorge that slashed between mountains or at the path.

  Only Catharine, Jack, and Spencer remained.

  Catharine reached out and touched Spencer’s rigid arm. When she spoke, her voice was carefully casual. “I’ll go first. You can come behind me. Here.” She took his hand and was terribly aware of Jack watching.

  Spencer didn’t move.

  Catharine tugged gently on his arm.

  He licked his lips. “I don’t think . . .”

  “We can do it. Don’t look down.” Again, she gently pulled on his arm. Catharine could sense his fear.

  Slowly, she stepped toward the path—and Spencer followed. Catharine moved out on the exposed path; Spencer came, too. They moved slowly, so slowly, an inch at a time, their bodies pressed against the rock face. He stopped once. His ragged breathing rasped loudly in the terrible silence.

  “We’re almost around the curve.” Her voice was soft and gentle. It was a lie. They were at the point of dreadful emptiness where the path fell away. They must step over nothing to reach the narrow ledge that continued around the side of the cliff.

  Catharine looked down to gauge the distance she must step; vertigo swept her. She fought the sickening dizziness.

  “I can’t do it. I can’t.” Spencer’s voice was a thin whisper.

  “One foot at a time.” She said it again, then again. She lifted her foot. Two feet of sheer emptiness to the other side. She mustn’t stop. She knew that. If she stopped, it would be impossible to start again. Her foot moved out over nothing. Then, blessed relief, she found the beginnings of the other side and stepped firmly; but her forward momentum checked because Spencer stopped.

  Straddling the emptiness, Catharine turned her face and saw him pressed against the rock face, his body trembling.

  “Spencer, I need your help. Step this way, just a little.”

  He stayed against the rock face for a long moment; then his face turned toward her. “I can’t.”

  “Spencer, remember the summer we met and how we used to go canoeing? Do you remember how still the pond was? It smelled like moss and cedars. It was so quiet, almost as if we were the only people in the world. Do you remember that? It was so peaceful. Think about the pond, Spencer, and how it looked; then you can come closer to me. That’s right. Move a little closer. Now we’re on our way. I’ll step over here, and you can follow
.” She was over the break now; Spencer must step, too. “Remember the green and the stillness, and put your foot over here, yes, a little farther, and now you’re on your way. Let’s make one more big step . . .”

  Step by step, word by word, she drew him across the gap and around the cliff face until the path widened and eager hands reached out to pull them to safety.

  Jack was coming around the curve when Spencer reached out, pulled Catharine into his arms, and held her tightly. She looked over Spencer’s shoulder and saw Jack’s face.

  Jack lowered his head, brushed past them, and didn’t look back.

  Catharine curled into a tight ball, trying to get warm. They were jammed, head to toe, into the one-room living area of the nipa hut. The hard ridges of the bamboo floor cut into her shoulder and side. No matter how she moved, she couldn’t get comfortable, although the hut was unimaginable luxury after the harrowing journey through the swamp and up into the rugged mountains. Finding the hidden camp of refugee mining engineers had been the most marvelous piece of luck, though actually it wasn’t luck at all. An Ata tribesman had come down the trail to meet them with information that refugee Americans were hidden deep in a gully three days’ travel ahead. The three days were a nightmare of perilous crossings, exhaustion, and, once, a near brush with a Japanese patrol searching for fleeing American soldiers.

  They reached the hidden camp shortly before dusk. They were made so welcome that once Catharine had to turn away to brush tears from her eyes. They ate roast chicken and hot rice for dinner, described their adventures, and heard equally exciting stories from the three married couples and two bachelors who had evaded Japanese capture. The miners’ camp had all the luxuries of a rustic mountain hideaway in the Ozarks: water piped through a bamboo trough from a nearby rushing stream, an outdoor privy tastefully hidden in a clump of bamboo, and three nipa huts built on bamboo stilts like the native Bukidnon dwellings.

  A nurse slept on either side of Catharine. She doubted that anyone slept well. It was too crowded, too cramped and uncomfortable. She was terribly aware that Jack was on the other side of the sala. It might as well be a million miles away. Ever since she and Spencer crossed the narrow trail and Spencer held her in his arms, she hadn’t spoken to Jack alone.

  She knew it wasn’t jealousy on his part. She knew Jack too well for that. It went deeper than that. It struck to the very core of their feeling for each other.

  Catharine moved restlessly, then forced herself to lie still. She mustn’t disturb the others. Their journey had been so long, so difficult, that everyone needed rest. She wished she could rest, but every fiber of her being cried out for Jack. He was so near. If only she could reach out and touch him . . .

  Spencer stared sightlessly into the deep well of darkness. Not even a spear of moonlight pierced the damp wall of vegetation that masked the gully. He didn’t mind the hard ridges of bamboo. He felt exultant, triumphant. Against all odds, they’d saved the gold, ferried it out of Corregidor, plucked it from the sinking PT, and carried it through swampland and over mountain trails to safety.

  Relative safety.

  There wasn’t any reason to expect the Japanese to find this camp. The natives liked Americans, and most of them simply slipped away into the jungles and highlands when the Japanese soldiers appeared. All he had to do was keep the gold safe until the American ships came. They would come, of course. Spencer smiled in the darkness. There was no doubt about it—he’d certainly be due a commendation for his work. Actually, it should cap his career. In gratitude, the Department would surely approve his request to return to England—and with a promotion, of course.

  His smile slipped away. Catharine and this absurd infatuation—of course, it would come to nothing. The fellow was just a newspaper chap. Catharine must have been out of her mind. But she’d not had much to do with the fellow the last few days. The muscles ridged in his jaws. He didn’t like to think about it, didn’t like to imagine Catharine and the fellow together. He pushed away the hurtful images. Catharine had never turned passionately to him. That rankled more than the thought of losing her. But if he could have Peggy, he would be the gainer—except that it would be hard without Catharine to manage the kind of life that was necessary. Suddenly, he could smell the coal dust and the damp, heavy fog of London; but he didn’t picture Catharine. Instead, he saw Peggy looking up at him with her sunny smile, drops of fog glinting in her thick reddish blond hair. Peggy turned toward him, her blue eyes full of love. He could feel the taste of her mouth and the softness of her body.

  Peggy sat motionless, her face turned toward the dusty window, but she wasn’t looking out at the dun-colored troop train as it thundered by on the main line. Her train had been sidetracked for three hours now while troop and equipment trains flashed by. They would be very late arriving in Chattanooga, but she didn’t care. She dreaded her arrival. Her mother would be at the station. And Rowley. And she would have to begin her lie.

  Peggy moved restlessly in her seat; the familiar bubble of nausea rose in her throat. She swallowed once, twice.

  “It’s the heat, dearie.” The big woman sitting beside her smiled sympathetically. “Here, I’ve got a fresh lemon. Nothing like lemon to help when you don’t feel so good. I’ve just been to see my son in Norfolk.” The smile fell away. Abruptly, tears glistened in her dark brown eyes. “He didn’t say, but I know they’ll be leaving soon.” The big woman’s hands crumpled the newspaper she held. “Bobby’s seventeen.”

  Seventeen. Peggy thought of all the young men she’d known on Corregidor. So young and now, who knew what had happened to them. Or what would happen to this woman’s Bobby. Peggy reached out and clasped the woman’s hands.

  The woman gave herself a shake, like a big dog coming out of water. “Here, now, I didn’t mean to burden you with my troubles. I ‘spect you have troubles of your own.” She looked down at Peggy’s hands. “Are you on your way to see someone?”

  Peggy paused for just a moment, but she’d made up her mind. She looked down at the plain golden band on her left hand, then turned toward the woman. “No. My husband’s somewhere in the Philippines . . .”

  The quarrel erupted shortly after breakfast.

  In honor of their arrival, the miners and their wives broke out a precious tin of coffee and served a steaming cup to everyone. Jack stood a little apart from the main group. Catharine watched him. She wanted to approach him, but there was something forbidding in the hard set of his face. When he finished his coffee, he walked slowly toward the group and stopped in front of Billy Miller.

  Miller looked up warily.

  Jack jerked his head toward the miners and their wives. “They’ve been hospitable. We owe it to them not to abuse that hospitality.”

  Miller looked at him steadily. “What do you mean, Maguire?”

  “We need to get that gold the hell out of here.”

  Spencer raised his head. “Wait a minute, Maguire. That gold’s none of your concern. You’re—”

  Jack cut in. “It’s everybody’s concern, Cavanaugh. The word will get out about the gold one way or another, and then the Japs will start looking for it, and they won’t give up.”

  “And just what do you suggest? So far as I know, the local bank’s closed,” Spencer said sarcastically.

  Jack ignored him and turned to Billy Miller. “You’re the man in charge. Do you want to endanger these civilians?”

  One of the miners stepped forward. He was a huge man, well over six feet, with a leonine head and powerful arms and shoulders. “What’s all this about gold?”

  Miller hesitated, then said reluctantly, “We’re in charge of a shipment of gold out of Corregidor.”

  The miner looked toward the group of cargadores. “Is that what they’re carrying?”

  Reluctantly, Miller nodded.

  Spencer stepped forward and spoke to the miner. “We’re carrying out a special mission for General Wainwright. It’s critical that we protect the gold.”

  The miner stud
ied Spencer for a moment, then said brusquely, “Look, we’re civilians—and we have our wives with us. We’ve kept ahead of the Japs so far, but we don’t need any extra problems. You and the rest of your party are welcome to stay with us as long as you want to—but not the gold.”

  Spencer flushed and turned on Jack. “You’re really a brave man, aren’t you, Maguire?”

  It was abruptly quiet. Monkeys swung in vines near the tops of tall trees, occasionally pausing to chatter back and forth. Brilliantly colored parrots cawed loudly.

  Jack Maguire tensed. A dull red flush suffused his face and neck. He lowered his head a little as a large animal will as it prepares to attack.

  Catharine called out sharply. “Jack. Jack, don’t.”

  It hung in the balance. The big miner took another step to stand between Jack and Spencer. Slowly, the color drained out of Jack’s face. Then he turned his back on Spencer and again addressed Billy Miller.

  “You’re the man in charge. You know what I’m talking about. We’ve got to get the damned gold to a military camp.”

  The miner nodded. “We’ve heard of a group of guerrillas deep in the interior. There’s a U.S. Army colonel in charge.”

  Now it was Spencer’s face that turned red with anger. “Miller, it’s idiotic to head out God knows where. These people are Americans. It’s their duty to protect important government property.”

  Miller ignored Spencer. “The general would prefer that a ranking officer be in charge of the gold. We’ll take it to the guerrilla camp.” He looked at the miner. “Where is it?”

  The miner shook his head. “A long way. A very long way.”

  “Do you have any maps?”

  A second miner, a small, wiry man, nodded. “I do. As a matter of fact, I’ll come with you. I’d like to join up with the guerrillas. And I speak enough Visayan to help us get fresh cargadores when we need them.”

  Miller looked at him gratefully. “We’d be glad to have you.”