Chapter 2
The new Year dawned. Pale, smokey sunshine drifted through the window of Room 306.
“Put on your blue gingham dress,” Mother said when she woke me.
I had hoped to greet 1942 in my new blue party dress, but Mother’s tone did not invite discussion, so, fuming silently, I put on the blue gingham.
When we went downstairs to breakfast, the atmosphere in the dining room was hushed, like that at the bedside of a dying person. No one said, “Happy New Year!” No one voiced any kind of greeting. Everyone attended to the business of breakfasting, then slunk back to his room.
When we got back to Room 306, I exploded with questions.
“Why was everybody so quiet? Don’t they know it’s New Year’s?”
“Don’t you know there’s a war going on?” snapped Dad, turning to glare at me from his station by the window.
“Everybody knows what day it is, darling,” soothed Mother. “But they’re worried about the Japs capturing us.”
“Will they capture us today, Mummy?” I was careful to direct my question to my mother.
She looked at Dad, who sighed and replied evenly, “If not today, tomorrow.”
“What will they do to us?”
“We’ll probably be rounded up and separated from the Filipinos. You see, Isabel, the Japanese want Asia for the Asians. They’re telling the Filipinos they’ve come to liberate them from America.”
“How can they keep us away from the Filipinos? Will they send us home to England?”
“Not bloody likely,” Dad growled. “Getting to England these days would be more difficult and dangerous. I doubt if it could be done. More likely we would be exchanged for Japanese prisoners in Australia or America. It’s a way of getting ride of war prisoners and getting your own people back.”
“You mean we might go to Australia or America?” I asked excitedly.
“It’s possible.”
“That would be nice,” I said, satisfied. I crawled under the knee-hole desk to comfort Teddy and Gwen with the hopeful news.
We continued to wait in Room 306. Daddy chain smoked. Mother knitted. I played house.
At lunch time, Van and Emily came down for a snack of Vienna sausage and crackers, washed down with Scotch-and-water. Van brought me a Coke. Together the grown-ups marveled at the rumors of store owners opening their doors to Filipino looters, rather than have their goods fall into Japanese hands. Van and Dad argued about whether Japanese General Homma would follow the American Army to Bataan and let his southern force take Manila, or whether Homma would choose to take the city himself, from the north.
“I’ll bet you a bottle of Scotch,” said Dad, “that Homma decides to take Manila himself. He won’t want anyone else to get that headline at home.”
“He’d be a fool to give MacArthur time to dig in on Bataan,” replied Van. “With Bataan in his hands, Corregidor is safe, and the Japs can’t use the bay. They need it to get their co-prosperity sphere going in the islands. No, Edwin, diverting men from Bataan to take an open city that any general could occupy doesn’t make sense.”
“Oh, I agree with you–it doesn’t make sense–but I don;t think Homma knows that. Look at the easy time he’s had reaching Manila. No U.S. unit has stood to fight. Mac’s been pulling them all back onto Bataan. Homma has no idea what he’ll be up against when the U.S. Army does turn to fight. He thinks he’ll walk the length of Bataan the way he’s walked down to Manila. I’m betting Homma takes the city first.”
“I hope you’re right,” sighed Van. “Mac needs a break in this war.”
New Year’s night was quiet. There was still no sign of Japanese troops.
As we slept we had no way of knowing that General Homma had indeed opted for the headlines at home. On New Year’s Day, he halted the main body of his troops seventeen miles north of Manilla, then ordered them to get cleaned up. In an attempt to curb any tendency among his soldiers to rape and loot once they reached the city, he ordered his officers to tighten discipline among their men. On January 2, Homma ordered the advance into Manila.
We spent the day watching the 14th army arrive. The first group of soldiers put-putted below our window on little one cylinder motor bikes. Their mud-brown uniforms and the rifles slung over their shoulders were caked with oily dust. Next to appear were the bicyclists, peddling along on battered machines, clearly commandeered on the march to Manilla.
After lunch it began to drizzle, and just before siesta, the first foot-soldiers straggled by, rifles at the ready, bayonets fixed, peering nervously from under their peaked caps at the silent Filipinos who dared to peer out of doorways or windows or around corners. The only cheering came from a distance, and we surmised that the Japanese who had been interned in Manila were being freed by their victorious countrymen.
After siesta, during which no one slept, we returned to our window to stare at empty, damp streets. An ominous silence hung over the city. The smell of burnt petroleum permeated everything.
Mother agreed to play Chinese checkers with me, and after that I prevailed on Daddy to read me “How the Elephant God his Trunk” from the Just So Stories. As the crocodile caught the Elephant’s child bu the nose, marching feet and guttural shouts broke the silence in the street.
It was 5:30, but not yet dusk. We rushed to our window and saw three companies of Japanese soldiers and sailors marching along Dewey Boulevard. They stopped in front of the High Commissioner’s office across the street from the hotel. Three sailors strutted up to the flagpole on the wide front lawn. Behind them, sweating sailors and soldiers dragged three little cannons onto the grass. With short jerks, a sailor lowered the Stars and Stripes, detached the flag, threw it to the ground, and stamped on it. Another sailor handed over a folded cloth which the first sailor attached to the rope and raised to reveal the Rising Sun.
“Fried egg,” muttered Dad. As we turned away from the scene, the three little cannons popped in salute.
There was nothing to do but carry on, so we went back to reading about the Elephant Child’s struggle with the crocodile and his discovery of the usefulness of his painfully bought new trunk.
When we went down to the dining room for dinner, we found every chair and sofa in the lobby occupied by a snoring Japanese soldier, we tiptoed past our conquerors, swallowed a skimpy meal, then hastened back to Room 306.
Just before my bedtime, there was a polite knock on our door. Two Japanese soldiers with a civilian interpreter stood there.
“Nationality?” inquired the interpreter.
“British,” replied Daddy.
“You are ordered to remain in hotel. Do not leave outside. Understand?”
“Yes,” said Dad.
The three Japanese moved down the hall, and Dad shut the door.
“At least they’re not turning us out onto the street,” commented Mother.
“Not yet, anyway,” murmured my father.
“Are we captured now?” I asked.
Mother and Dad exchanged startled looks.
“I’m afraid so,” said Daddy, “but that doesn’t change your bedtime, young lady.”
Mother tucked Gwen and Teddy into bed with me. I lay awake, thinking about being turned into the street versus being cooped up in the hotel. Neither alternative seemed very attractive.
Next morning, when we looked out our window, we found the landscape dotted with Japanese flag, and the intersections manned by Military Police, directing an occasional military truck. When we went down to breakfast, the lobby was deserted, but there were two sentries guarding the street door.
After a hurried meal, we went straight back to Room 306 without so much as a glance through the lobby windows. Once upstairs, Mother and I made a beeline for our window, which had become our chief source of distraction as well as news.
“Get away from that window,” warned Dad. “I don’t want to risk any zealous soldiers taking pot shots at us.”
We retreated.
“We’ll be safer if we confine ourselves to what we can see through the vent,” said Dad, as he drew the drapes.
In the days before air conditioning became common in Manila, windows were built to catch every breath of air. To allow privacy and air at the same time, there was, below the usual glass window, and opaque panel which opened out from a horizontal hinge, like the flap of a tent.
We drew chairs over to our vent and peered down. We could see the parking lot and part of the street without being seen by our captors. A band of eight soldiers were roaming round the parking lot trying cat doors. With a whoop, one soldier jerked open the door of a grey Ford. Beckoning a comrade, he slid behind the steering wheel. The whole group hurried over and watched while one of their number raised the side-opening hood and tinkered for a minute. The engine sputtered to life, and there were wide grins all around. With a flourish, the victorious mechanic unfolded the hood, secured it, and waved the car away.
“One down and forty to go,” said Daddy grimly.
This was the only successful theft for the next half-hour. Then an officer appeared, and there was a lively discussion, which we could hear but did not understand. Finally the officer disappeared, and the men squatted in a patch of shade.
Soon our phone rang. We rose and went to the bedside table where it was jangling.
“Hello?” Dad’s voice sounded absolutely neutral, neither welcoming nor hostile.
Silence.
“I can’t give you the keys to my car because I don’t have a car,” lied Daddy.
More silence.
“You’re welcome, I’m sure.”
Dad put down the phone with a scowl.
“They want my car keys!” he snorted, jingling them in his pocket.
“Well, if they want the Hudson, there’s nothing I can do to stop them from taking it, but I’m certainly not going to help them.”
We went back to the vent. Soon the officer re-appeared with a civilian and a sack. From the sack he distributed tagged keys to each soldier. The civilian tried to translate the tags, and we took some measure of comfort in the resulting confusion. Once or twice Daddy even chuckled at the frustration of our conquerors.
By midafternoon, the Japanese had run out of keys and a dozen cars remained. Another animated conference ensued, beside a dusty black Studebaker. Finally one soldier was drawing his pistol, and the others were backing off. With his gun butt, the soldier smashed the Studebaker’s window. A cheer went up from his comrades, who descended on the car, brushed away the broken glass, jimmied the ignition, and waved the car on it’s way.
This procedure was repeated on the remaining cars, until they got to our Hudson. They had no trouble breaking in, but the good foiled them. It was the first of the front-opening kind, and apparently the Japanese were unaware of the Detroit innovation. They fretted and fumed and cursed, to no avail.
There was another group discussion, accompanied by much arm waiving. Finally the officer was fetched. He studied the hood earnestly, first from one side, then from the other. He ignored the front, as had his subordinates. In the end, the Hudson defeated them, and they all went away. At dusk, however, a tow truck came, and a pair of soldiers hooked up our car and dragged it off.
“That’s the end of a good car,” sighed Daddy, jingling it’s keys again.
January 4 was uneventful, until late afternoon when there was a booming knock on the door. Mother dropped her knitting and grabbed me. We stood behind Daddy as he opened the door. A full Japanese Colonel, half a foot shorter than Daddy, grinned at us, his hand on the hilt of a long sword that barely cleared the floor.
He pushed his way in, followed by his interpreter and a trio of soldiers, whose alert eyes scanned us, their hands hovering near their holsters. The soldiers moved around the room, fingering our belongings, checking under the bed, opening the closet, and snooping in the bathroom.
The colonel and his interpreter faced Dad.
“Nationality?”
“British.” the interpreter noted this on his pad.
“Number of people?”
“Three.” more notation.
“Firearms?”
“None.” Duly noted.
“You pack food and clothing for three days–what you are able to carry only. Ready tomorrow morning.”
The interpreter wheeled toward the door. The colonel stepped toward me, and I shrank closer to Mother. The Japanese took his hand off his sword and stroked my reddish blond hair.
The colonel’s hand returned to his sword, and he barked an order whcih catapulted the soldiers through through the door by which the interpreter had already left. The colonel followed, grinning.
Mother collapsed into a chair, and I crawled onto her lap and hid my face in her shoulder.
“Well, that’s that,” said Dad. “We’d better start packing.”
Out came the four suitcases from under the bed–big ones, designed for sea travel and meant to be moved by stevedores or red caps. Dad surveyed them critically.
“Can you carry that one, Helen?” he asked tapping the smallest.
“Yes,” said Mother.
“I’ll take this one and a case of corned beef, if you can manage a roll of bedding, too.”
Mother nodded.
“What do we have that Isabel can carry?”
Mother surveyed the room. “A pillow case?”
“Just the thing!”
Dad came to me in Mother’s lap and bent to my eye level. “We’re going to have to make some difficult choices about what to take,” he said. “I’m afraid we can only take essentials, but you may choose one toy that you can carry with the pillow case.”
I stared at my doll, Gwen, and Teddy.
Mother and Dad set about packing. Mother was an expert. She smoothed out underwear, serviceable dresses, shirts, and slacks into the two suitcases. She filled an extra pair of shoes for each of us with toothpaste, face creams, and a small clock. Daddy opened the case of Vienna sausage, and Mother fill every nook with a can. He got one case of corned beef out, and secreted another with a case of Scotch in the depths of the closet, hoping against hope we would return after the three days mentioned by the Japanese.
Gwen, I concluded reluctantly, was too big to carry comfortably for any length of time, but Teddy was only eight inches high and fit easily under my arm. I piled my Chinese checkers, the Just So Stories, and my army trucks on the desk. I sat Gwen in the desk chair. Then I put Teddy beside my pillow case and volunteered to help. I was told I would be most help by staying out of the way.
Mother and Dad went through all the things we had brought to the hotel, fitting in a sweater for everyone, discarding books, and sorting the important documents from the old letters. Mother sent me to the bathroom to fetch the Mercurochrome, alcohol, and aspirin. She wrapped each bottle in a pair of socks and buried it in the Kotex supply. Mother shut the closet door sadly on my unworn party dress, her own pretty clothes, and Dad’s sharkskin suits.
Then she toured the room and saw my pile of toys. She slipped the Just So Stories out from under the army trucks and took one of her dresses out of the suitcase so the book would fit.
Supper time found us among a glum group in the dining room.. Everyone had questions. “Where will they take us?” “How long will they keep us?” “What will they do with us?”
No one had any answers. The only rumor was not comforting: the enemy alines from the Malate district were said to have been concentrated at Rizal Stadium. No one liked the idea of spending three days in a stadium.
We returned to Room 306 for the last time and went to bed, wanting to be ready in case the Japanese came for us early.
They came at 7 AM. The soldiers pawed through our carefully packed suitcases, unwrapping the medicine and yanking the toothpaste tubes out of Daddy’s shoes . They poked through the case of corned beef and shook out my pillow case, spilling underwear, cans of Vienna sausage, and a box of raisins. They unrolled the Bay View Hotel sheets, blankets, and mosquito net we has trussed up so carefully.
The interpreter then ordered us onto the street immediately to await transport. Hastily we repacked and left. The elevators took forever as everyone was being ousted at once. By 8:30 we were on the sidewalk, sitting on our suitcases in the blazing sun. Uncle Van and Auntie Emily emerged from the hotel with a suitcase apiece, looking as though they were going away for the week-end. Daddy waved to them, and they came over and sat on their suitcases beside us.
There was no shade, and sentries patrolled, keeping us more or less in line. Shortly after 9 o’clock, two trucks drove up in front of a group of former hotel occupants. Soldiers jumped out and indicated by gestures that people should put their baggage in one truck, and climb into the other. The soldiers leaned on their rifles while the captives helped each other heave their belongings into the first truck. They then boosted one another onto the second truck, the last few men pulling themselves up unaided. The drivers and guards climbed into the cabs, and the first load pulled away.
“I hope they don’t separate us from our luggage,” whispered Mother to Dad.
After a while, a couple of old school busses arrived. People jammed the doors trying to get on with suitcase and bundles bulging under their arms. In due course, they sorted themselves out, while the lounging guards looked on unconcerned. When the bus could hold no more, the driver and a guard squeezed in and drove off.
This process was repeated until noon, wjen everything ceased for lunch and siesta. The guard thinned, and Uncle Van and Dad had whispered conference which ended with Uncle Van shaking his head decisively in the negative.
Dad began to pace up and down the sidewalk in ever lengthening laps until he finally reached the hotel door and slipped inside.
“Where did Daddy go?” I asked Mother.
“Shhh!” This was accompanied by Mother’s ask-no-more look, which always silenced me.
Soon Dad was back with the case of corned beef he had left in the closet of Room 306. He sad on it and shared some sticky raisins with us by way of lunch. We each had a ration of Lemonade from out thermos.
After lunch, Dad began pacing again. Van frowned at him wordlessly, but Dad paid no heed. He lengthened his pacing until he was at the hotel entrance, and again he slipped inside. This time he returned in triumph with the cash of Scotch. Even Van had to smile at this feat.
About 3 o’clock, busses and trucks started arriving again. People jockeyed for position to get a bus, but had to be urged by the guards to board the trucks. We hung back, hoping for a bus. Uncle Van got increasingly nervous, wanting to get aboard something before dark. Finally, at 5 o’clock, a bus pulled up right in front of us. Dad grabbed the cases of corned beef and was first aboard. He dumped them on two seats in the back of the bus and pushed his way out, to the annoyance of those boarding. The driver and sentries, bored with the whole business, ignored Dad’s breech of the rules. He picked up his legitimate load and herded Mother and me onto the bus and back to our reserved seats.
Uncle Van and Auntie were already aboard, and I waved Teddy as I passed their seats in the middle of the bus. Daddy shoved the cases of food and scotch under our seats. Out suitcases extended into the aisle, but so did everybody else’s, as people stowed their loads every which way, until there was no room to move.
I sat on Mother’s lap with Teddy, and Daddy nursed the pillow case. No sooner were we settled, then we were off, waving at the few remaining people on the sidewalk.
The bus headed east, and Uncle Van heaved a sigh of relief, commenting for all to hear, “At least we’re not going to Rizal Stadium for a night in the bleachers!” No laugh greeted this sally, and soon the bus turned left onto Quezon Boulevard and rolled north for several blocks, till it reached Calle Espana, where it turned right.
In front of the Dominican University of Santo Tomas it slowed and turned left through high wrought iron gates, guarded by sentries with fixed bayonets.
Just inside the gate the driver stopped, got out with the guards, and indicated that we were to do likewise.
Being wedged in the back, we had to wait while those in front of us got off, Dad dropped the cases of corner beef out the window, and we each picked up our load and staggered off. The driver hopped back in with the guards, drove up the long driveway, turned around in the spacious plaza in front of a large university building, and sped past us out the gate.
In the absense of instructions, the only thing to do was head for the bulky building straight ahead. Dad hid the cases of corned beef in a patch of high weeds and led Mother, me, and the Van Sickles up the drive, which traversed half the width of the sixty acre campus.
At the end of the driveway, the square, stone facade of the Main Building confronted us. Near the entrance a bronze plaque gave the highlights of the Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas, dedicated to St. Thomas Aquinas in 1611. The cornerstone of this building was laid in 1911. Entering through it’s wide doors, guarded only by impassive gargoyles, we found a broad foyer and wide staircase, peopled with scurrying men and women, many dragging whimpering children hither and yon. No one paid any attention to the trickle of newcomers. Dad parked Mother, me, and Emily in a corner, while he and Van went to retrieve the corner beef. It was almost dark when the men returned, each bearing a case of corned beef. We women were left again while the men went to find a place for us to spend the night. The best space was on the third floor, which was deserted. We clambered up three long flights of stairs with the baggage, resting at each landing.
By the time we reached an empty classroom, our chief concern was food and drink. Mother dug out cans of Vienna sausage, Emily produced a box of soda crackers, and we ate hungrily, sitting around a plain wooden table on hard schoolroom chairs. We washed down our meal with the remnants of cool coffee and warm lemonade left in our thermoses, then we took turns going to the bathroom, where the toilets were already stopped-up and the water trickled from the taps.
Sleeping arrangements had to be improvised. Daddy shoved a huge old fashioned desk under the one bare light bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling. Mother unrolled a blankly on top of the desk, and Daddy suspended our only mosquito net from the wire. I stretched it out to cover the desk. Three other desks were blanketed by the time Emily returned from the bathroom, clad in a while silk kimono, bordered in black, with a profusion of flowers, embroidered in green and gold and scarlet.
She settled onto the desk next to Van’s and went to sleep. Uncle Van and Dad took off their shoes and agree it was time to turn out the light. In the darkness, they tossed restlessly on the hard desk tops, while under the mosquito net Mother pillowed my head on her arm, and soon I slept, but not for long.
The light snapped on, and voices barked incomprehensible commands. Mother and I crawled out from under the net to find Dad and Van standing at attention in front of an angry Japanese officer, complete with dangling sword. Two armed guards were leering at Auntie Emily, who ay on the edge of her desk, wrapped in her kimono.
The officer spoke at length with much gesticulation until he realized we did not understand Japanese. Abruptly he wheeled and departed, taking the guards with him. Dad and Van discussed the wisdom of obeying his order, which was clearly for the men to leave. Dad glanced several times at Mother, reading the fear on her face. He decided to risk staying.
Van opted to obey. He rolled up his blanket, grabbed his suitcase, and with a wave at Emily, disappeared. Dad turned out the light, and we tried to get some sleep.
An hour later, the officer and guards reappeared with an interpreter, whose pidgin English was so poor I failed to follow what he was trying to say. He repeated the officer’s order several times. After each repetition, Dad shrugged and bowed politely. Finally, in desperation, the officer wrote his orders on the black board in flowing, picturesque characters. Daddy shrugged and bowed again. Convinced that he was dealing with a total ingnoramus, the officer threw up his hands, bowed, and left. Daddy stayed.
The third time they came, it was past midnight. Daddy stuck to shrugs and polite bows and continued to feign total incomprehension. An impasse threatened, when a piercing scream interrupted Dad’s charade. It came from outside the building and was greeted by running feet and muffled shouts. The officer left on the run, trailed by his companions.
We spent the rest of the night undisturbed in the glow of our third small victory over our captors, a more personal one that the thwarting of the Hudson’s theft or the return to the hotel for the cases of food and drink–a satisfying way to begin captivity.
No comments:
Post a Comment