I Saw You Fell - "Angels Of Bataan"

CHAPTER 8

And so, my new role as scrounger-in-chief for the Santa Catalina hospital began. Ernesto showed up the next day with a burlap bag full of bottles of quinine. It was enough to alleviate any of the Camp's problems with malaria for at least the following year. That sack cost me over a thousand in gold. But I'd lost that much at poker waiting for the Japanese to arrive.

Over the course of several months, Ernesto brought other things, cans of ether, sterile dressings, and even aspirin, which did wonders with fevers. It cost another pile of gold coins. But you can't eat gold or use it to treat disease. I was appalled at how unselfish I'd become. It was disturbing.

Then, Vincente showed up at the fence Easter week of '43. He handed me a big monkeypod box. I said, "What's this?"

He said, "Open it and see. One of our boys liberated this from the Japanese."

I did, and inside was a suite of surgical instruments with a complete set of blades. I raised an eyebrow and looked at him questioningly.

He said, "I remembered that one of your frauds was to pretend you were a surgeon. Well, here's all the kit you'll need to really be one - Happy Easter."

I said, "How much do I owe you?"

He laughed and said, "Nothing, it's a gift. Terry's boys lifted it from a Japanese field hospital ... after they'd killed all of them of course. We have no use for it, I thought of you."

I didn't know what to make of it. Was Vincente calling my bluff, and why? I must have been a total asshole back then if he'd gone that far out of his way to remind me of my many former sins. I said as nonchalantly as I could, "Well thanks. Maybe I'll get to use these things someday."

That opportunity came sooner than I expected. But there's a story to it. Very early in my internment, I'd had a comfortable little bamboo and palm frond shack built for me in the open space on campus. Other wealthy people did the same thing and soon all of the empty space was full of those huts.

My shack was a cozy, private spot where I could retreat when the heat and the crushing mass of humanity got to be too much. I'd originally built it out of sheer selfishness. But I'd begun sleeping there once I'd started my indentured servitude at the clinic.

I would check in at the dorms each night for roll call and then the guards would release me back to the clinic. The hut was a lot quieter and infinitely more comfortable than my sleeping space upstairs, and my rotations were geared so that my sleeping times were mainly in the day anyhow.

I kept all of the food I could scavenge in the hut. It was hidden in the tiny trunk that I was allowed to bring with me when we were first interned. I suppose others knew about it. But everybody was watching everybody else and there was a kind of camp code that said we shouldn't ever steal other people's food. So, I wasn't concerned about leaving it when I was on shift.

One scorching hot afternoon, I was dozing next to the trunk when it moved. I realized that somebody had crept stealthily in and was trying to get at my food. I jumped to my feet and shouted angrily, "Oh no you don't!!!" There was a shriek and a scuttling noise.

I yanked back the door curtain to let in some light and to my utter astonishment, there was a little girl ... cowering in fright against the far wall of the hut. She was a beautiful little thing, perhaps eight, or nine, weeping pitifully. My heart melted.

I crouched in front of the snotty-nosed little miscreant and said in a joshing tone, "And what do you think you're doing, young lady?"

She looked at me out of the biggest, bluest eyes and sniveled, "I'm sorry Mister. But I'm so hungry."

I said gently, "Where's your mother? Doesn't she feed you? You get a ration twice a day, you know."

She began to cry hard. I said, now really concerned, "What's the matter, sweetie?" She murmured through her tears, "Mommy died yesterday, and daddy was killed in the war."