Brave Hearts (27 page)

“God, please.” Catharine said aloud, her voice harsh and deep. “Don't let me lose my baby—please.”

She knew that pain, that deep, wrenching, pulsing pain. The pain eased, fell away. Panting, Catharine tried to walk. God, she had to walk. Tears burned down her face. She didn't try to wipe them away; she just kept on walking, one heavy, limping footfall after another. The trail widened, and she was in the clearing. A faint, luminous glow of light was hanging above her from a quinqui in a hut.

“Spencer.” Her hoarse, desperate call pierced the quiet of the night.

A pale beam from a flashlight cut through the darkness.

Catharine shielded her eyes and stared up. “The Japs. They're coming.”

Pain jolted her again; she bent over, clutching the basket.

The match flame wavered in the breeze. Jack shielded it with his hand.

The words were scrawled hugely on the piece of cloth: “Japs. Gone to warn Spencer and girls. Then to west.”

No salutation. No signature.

He looked inside the hut, at the disarray and signs of hurried flight, and at the stiffening body of the soldier.

He'd come from the west. He knew he wouldn't have missed her. When had she left? He'd met a Filipino an hour from their hut who told him of the Japanese search party.

Catharine had gone the way they were coming.

Jack clattered down the ladder and set off in the direction of Spencer's camp, running, thrashing through the night, his heavy pack banging against his back.

Flames crackled against the night sky. Jack crawled on his belly, slowly, and felt the heat. He strained to see through the swirl of smoke. When he did see, he felt such a rush of rage that for a moment he thought his head would explode.

The bodies were piled in a heap close to the nearest burning hut. Jack recognized one of them: Billy Tremartin, the three-year-old son of a missionary couple. Then Jack saw the bodies of Paul and Polly Tremartin. When the soldier had finished with Polly, he had taken his bayonet and rammed it into her.

Jack buried his face in his hands, but he couldn't blot out the images of horror: elderly Mrs. Farris, her skirt bunched around her ample waist, her legs sprawled wide; her husband, his chest pulpy from the bayonet thrusts.

It took Jack an agonizing fifteen minutes to be certain that Catharine wasn't a part of the carnage—not Catharine, Spencer, or the nurses. Catharine must have reached them and warned them. Why the missionaries hadn't fled, he didn't know. But he had one hope of finding Catharine and the others. One word—west.

Sally Brainard clutched the .45 pistol. She lay on a tilted slab of rock overlooking the trail. She didn't know how to shoot a gun or reload it, but she was going to kill anyone who came near them. When she heard a machete flailing through the vines, she stiffened, aimed the gun, and waited.

The misty, half-seen light of dawn filtered grayly through the canopy of immense trees. Sally narrowed her eyes. Then she drew her breath in sharply because she heard Catharine's scream. It rose with a sob, then cut off to nothing. The baby must almost be here, but Sally mustn't think about that now; she had to kill the Japs, every last one of them.

Sally's finger tightened. The trigger was stiff and hard to move. The foliage jerked and fell away. The man came around the curve.

Sally braced herself to fire; then she screamed. “Jack, oh, Jack, thank God.”

“Push, Catharine, push,” Frances commanded.

The pain blotted out everything. Frances's voice came from a long distance. Catharine tried to respond, but the pain was too strong. She felt a scream deep in her throat, but she stopped it. Her hands scrabbled against the gritty, uneven floor of the cave.

She was dimly aware of Spencer, his face haggard in the occasional light from the flashlight which Frances used so sparingly. It was Spencer who had known about the cave and had insisted they make the difficult journey down the steep slope to its safety.

The pains were coming frequently now. It was almost time. It hurt too much to think. There was no time now. Perhaps this was the way her life would end—with a deep, riveting pain that would never stop. She would push—God, she would—but if the baby was like Charles, then there was nothing she could do.

“Push, Catharine, now.”

It wasn't Frances's voice.

Catharine was panting and moving with the pain, but she lifted her head. Even in the dim, fitful light, she knew.

Jack gripped her hand, gripped it so hard, and talked to her. His voice was the rope over an abyss. There was a final crescendo of agony, and they were all calling and crying. She heard Jack's voice over them all.

“The baby's here. The baby's here!”

Jack found Spencer sitting wearily by the edge of the stream, his back against an enormous banyan root. The gurgle of the water swirling over the chunks of rough rock made a dull, steady roar and had covered the sound of Jack's footsteps. Jack paused for a moment. Spencer looked years older than he had in Manila. His khaki shirt and pants were creased and dirty. In Manila, he had often worn immaculate white linen. Now his hair was thinning and hung lankly down onto his forehead. He needed a shave.

Spencer looked up, slowly pulled himself to his feet, and waited, his face furrowed with exhaustion. Jack picked his way across the jumble of boulders and stopped in front of him.

“Frances says you carried Catharine the last half mile.”

For a moment, Jack didn't think Spencer was going to answer; then Spencer lifted a hand to rub wearily against his eyes and said, “Half mile? It seemed like a hundred.”

“You saved her life. Hers and Amelia's.”

Something flickered in Spencer's light eyes. “Did you think I'd leave them to die? For Christ's sake, what do you think I am?”

“A very brave man,” Jack said quietly.

Slowly, Spencer shook his head. “No. My guts were shaking like jelly. I kept thinking about the Japs and how they were going to find us.”

“You stayed with her.”

For a long time, Spencer didn't say anything. He took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and drew the smoke in deeply. “Catharine was my wife for eight years—and the mother of my son.” Then he shook himself briskly. “Well, I'm going to be on my way. You don't need me anymore.” He frowned. “You've got food for the baby?”

“Pounds of it. Dried formula. I got it this last trip.”

“Good.” Spencer picked up his pack; then he paused again. “Look, I'll tell you. No need to talk to Catharine now, but when we get back to the States, I won't cause any problem about a divorce.” He shoved his hair back. “Catharine can file against me. I made up my mind this last month. I won't contest. I've written Peggy a letter. I'm going to marry her when I get home. I plan to send the letter out with the next batch of stuff that a sub picks up.”

“Catharine told me about her. She says she's a special person.”

Spencer paused in tightening his pack. “Did Catharine say that?” At Jack's nod, Spencer grinned. “Do you know something? Catharine's right.”

When Spencer started up the trail, Jack stared after him fondly for the very first time since they had met.

Spencer paused at the top of the gully and raised his hand in farewell.

When he was out of sight, Jack turned to walk back toward the cave. He heard his daughter faintly cry and broke into a run. The sun was coming up in a sweep of gold and mauve and pink. Jack's heart felt full and light. He felt lucky now that everything was going to work out. They were going to make it, he and Catharine and Amelia—and Frances and Sally—and Spencer, too.

Then malaria struck.

The specter of malaria was constant. It had been only a matter of time after they ran out of their last supply of quinine, which everyone took as a preventative.

Frances came down sick first. Then Amelia.

Amelia cried fretfully; her skin felt hot. Catharine held her close and tried to get her to nurse, but her tiny mouth wouldn't fasten on a nipple.

She had to eat. And the fever. Catharine remembered the way Charles's face had felt—the dreadful, hideous dry heat. Panic and horror bubbled inside her. She began to shake; long, deep shudders racked her body.

“Amelia, Amelia,” and there was a sob in her voice.

Footsteps slapped across the bamboo flooring. “Here now,” Sally said briskly, “that won't do our little girl any good.” The nurse reached down and scooped up the baby, then paused to pat Catharine's shoulder. “You lie back now, dear. You're still weak from labor. Don't you worry—we'll get Amelia eating again. I'm going to give her some water right now.”

“Fever.” Catharine's voice was high and rising. “She's got a fever. She's going to . . .” Catharine clapped her hand over her mouth and rocked back and forth on the bamboo sleeping platform.

Sally looked at her worriedly. Putting Amelia in her makeshift bassinet, the nurse eased Catharine down. “You rest now. I've got a little something here for you.” She held a drink to Catharine's mouth and waited patiently until it was gone. When Catharine lay quietly, the nurse turned to the baby. She, too, felt the flaming skin and bit her lip. If only she had some medicine. She looked across the hut at Frances huddled on a pallet.

The rains pounded against the hut. Water splashed through leaks every foot or so apart, sounding eerie and mournful.

It was past dinnertime when Jack returned. The minute he clambered up the ladder, Sally was on her feet. Her fear was evident as she moved toward him, demanding, “Did you get some medicine?”

Jack was already opening his backpack and lifting out the small vial to hand to her. She hurried to the bassinet and lifted Amelia. The baby lay limply in the nurse's arms.

Catharine raised up on the sleeping platform, her hair streaming down behind her, her face pale and frightened.

“Jack.”

He came to her and reached out to take her hand, but his face turned toward the nurses and his tiny daughter. “Is she . . . I hurried as fast as I could.”

“She's worse,” Catharine said painfully, “and today she couldn't nurse. Oh, Jack, she couldn't nurse.”

“Sweet girl, sweet girl,” Sally said softly as she held a spoon to the tiny, slack mouth. “Oh, good girl.” She looked up and smiled. “She's taken it. I got it all down her, and earlier, Catharine, while you slept, I mixed an aspirin with water.”

She nodded reassuringly at Amelia's frightened parents. “She's a tough girl. And she took her medicine. She's going to be all right.” Sally spoke as strongly and brightly as she could. She wished in her heart that she could believe what she'd said. And Frances was in very bad shape.

Jack looked at Sally. “When will they be strong enough to travel?”

Sally didn't answer. She thought of the sweeping sheets of rain that drenched anyone stepping outside for even a minute and stared at Jack.

“There's a sub coming.”

Once his words would have electrified them all with joy. They knew, of course, as the word swept around the country from pockets of guerrillas to hidden refugees, that occasional U.S. subs touched in at out-of-the-way spots to bring messages and medicine and pick up escaping servicemen. They'd talked about the subs and how, one day soon, it would be their turn to leave.

The rain splatted, hissed and gurgled against the nipa hut.

“I don't know,” Sally said uncertainly. “I just don't know, Jack.”

Frances died three days later. As Jack and Sally wrapped her in the faded quilt that would cover her in her last resting place, tears slipped down Catharine's face. Frances dead. And Amelia so terribly ill.

It was later that night that Sally woke Jack and beckoned for him to come past the partition into the kitchen area. She whispered so that Catharine wouldn't hear.

It was gray and ghostly in the hut. Catharine looked blankly around when she woke; then consciousness and fear returned together. She struggled to get up, realizing that odd, unaccustomed sounds had awakened her. She stared at Jack, who stood by the bassinet—his full pack was on his back. Sally stood beside him, and she, too, was dressed for travel.

“You just got back,” Catharine said slowly, wondering if she were caught up in an odd and fretful dream.

Jack came and sat down on the platform. He bent over and kissed her cheek.

“You just got back.” She said it louder and knew this was no dream.

“Catharine, the sub will be here in five weeks. It takes twenty days to cross to the rendezvous point.”

“What are you telling me? Jack, where are you going?”

“You have to rest and get your strength back. I want you to eat a lot and try to walk, even here in the sala, because you must gain strength to walk to the coast—I've arranged for a guide to bring you in a couple of weeks, when you are stronger.”

“Jack, you'll be with us.”

His face was drawn and white, his nose almost pointed, his jawline a ridge of bone. “Sally and I talked it over.”

Catharine clawed to get up and to see past him, to look into the bassinet. “Amelia, where is Amelia, where is my baby?”

Jack gripped her shoulders, then pulled her roughly into his arms. “Sally and I are going to take her ahead, Catharine. We've got to find a doctor for Amelia.”

He had the baby formula in his backpack, matches, and dry wood to make a fire to heat water, and the one bottle and worn nipple that a guerrilla had gotten for them from a storekeeper in Davao.

They'd rigged a carryall for Amelia, a sling that hung around Jack's neck. She nestled in the crook of his arm. They'd taken a single piece of oil cloth and fashioned a shield from the rain.

Jack and Sally were ready to leave at dawn.

Catharine took her baby from Jack and held her in her arms. She kissed the tiny dry, hot face, smoothed the silky fringe of reddish hair, and willed Amelia's eyes to open, but she lay slackly in Catharine's arms—hot, limp, quiet. Then Catharine put Amelia in her sling and held one tiny hand.

Catharine and Jack didn't speak. They stood close together for a moment. She pressed her cheek to his; then he turned and was gone. The rain shunted down, a dusky gray curtain, and all the world was rain.

Catharine stood in the opening; the chilled rain splashed and hissed.

Catharine stared out into the opaque world. “The rain . . . Charles got all wet . . . he was wet and chilled and then . . .” She lifted her hand, pressed it against her mouth. The wetness of the rain mixed with the hot wetness of her tears.

Catharine fixed her meal and dutifully picked up her spoon and took another bite of rice and another; then she set down the spoon. But she had to eat. She lifted the spoon again. Jack had arranged for a guide to lead her down to the coast—she had to keep her strength.

“Hello, hello there, Catharine.”

Catharine jumped up from her dinner, rushed to the doorway, and looked down at Spencer, waving from the ground. The rain had stopped three days before. Catharine was scheduled to leave in the morning to begin the arduous journey to the rendezvous point.

“I saw Jack and Amelia and Sally . . .” Spencer began.

Catharine moved quickly. She was down the ladder and clinging to Spencer's arm. “You saw them? Where? When? How was Amelia?”

“They were only a few days from Masamis and scheduled to take a banca the next day. She's better, Catharine. Not all well yet, but the medicine was helping. Jack said she was eating.”

Tears spilled down Catharine's face. She tried to speak and couldn't.

“Anyway, I wanted to check on you while I was this way.”

“What are you doing back here? I thought you were already across the island.”

“I've come back for the gold.”

“The gold,” she said sharply. “But, Spencer, isn't it hidden in an area under Japanese control?” Spencer had put the gold in a cave not far from the one where Amelia was born. That was the area where the Japanese had rampaged, killing scores of missionaries and refugees. They still controlled that territory.

“I'll be careful.”

She wanted to warn him not to do it, to leave the gold where it lay until the war was over. For God's sake, there was a submarine coming for them. But she had no right now to tell Spencer what to do.

She said only, “Come with me tomorrow, Spencer. I'll be glad of your company.”

But Spencer shook his head; his light eyes glistened in a way Catharine knew.

“I was assigned to bring the gold home. I'm going to do it.”

Twenty days of struggle, days of slogging through the lowland jungle and pausing every few hours to burn off the leeches, bloated a disgusting bluish black with their blood; days of climbing, skirting thousand-foot drops and roaring falls that plummeted down mountain gorges; days of fording streams while crocodiles sunned on the banks, their eyes watchful. Every day Catharine remembered how Spencer had said Amelia was better, but still she wondered if her baby was alive.

Catharine pressed forward, never admitting fatigue.

They skirted Japanese-held towns and slipped alongside Japanese-patrolled roads. Twice patrols spotted them, but they escaped into thickets of jungle. They were a day's march from the beach where the Americans were gathering when Catharine awoke with fever and chills and couldn't rise.

The guide knelt by her side. “We're almost there.” He tried to lift Catharine.

Catharine peered through eyes glazed by fever. She licked her lips. “Can't.” It wasn't surrender; it was the recognition of truth. Catharine burned with the hot onset of malaria; the fever alternated with racking chills. Through clenched teeth, she ordered the guide to go ahead. “Go on. Find Jack, and tell him.”

The guide, Eduardo, found a deserted schoolhouse and fixed a pallet for Catharine. He placed water near her in a newly scoured milk can and promised to return with help.

Catharine heard him dimly. The words were insubstantial and meaningless. She huddled against the schoolhouse wall and shook with chills or ached with fever. Pictures and places rolled in her mind. She slept and waked and slept again. The images moved in her mind: her father's face, heavy with sorrow; Charles laughing, his blue eyes dancing with delight; Spencer and Peggy clinging to each other that bomb-splintered night on Corregidor; and Jack turning toward her, the love in his eyes bright and clear as the shining arch of the sky at a sun-flooded dawn.