hunting and fishing with Joel in the woods on their land and bringing home deer, turkeys, rabbits, bream, and crappie that they cleaned by the barn and gave to Nineva to cook for supper. He remembered Stella as a little girl with those beautiful eyes curled up on the sofa in her pajamas listening as her father read bedtime stories. He longed for the warmth of her soft skin. He wanted to be there when his children finished college and got married.
Pete had made the decision that he would not die from disease or starvation. He was a tough farm boy, a West Point man, a cavalry officer, and he had a beautiful family back home. Perhaps luck had given him a stronger physical and mental constitution. He was tougher than most of the others, or at least he told himself so. He wanted to help the weaker ones, but there was nothing he could do. Everyone was dying, and he had to take care of himself.
As conditions worsened at O’Donnell, the men talked more and more of escape. As prisoners, they were expected to attempt it, though in their condition it seemed nearly impossible. They were too weak to run far, and there were Japs everywhere. It would be easy to get outside because of the work crews, but they were not healthy enough to survive in the jungle.
To suppress the urge to run, the Japs implemented some rules that were simple in their understanding but exceedingly brutal in their application. Initially, if you ran and got caught, you were to be struck with a bullwhip until you bled to death. To demonstrate how this rule worked, the guards rounded up several thousand prisoners one afternoon for a show near the commandant’s quarters.
Five Americans had tried to escape and been caught. They were stripped naked and their hands were bound together above their heads and attached to ropes looped over a rail so that their toes barely touched the ground. At first it looked like they might be hanged. All five were emaciated, with their ribs jutting out. An officer with a bullwhip strutted in front of the prisoners, and through an interpreter explained what was about to happen, though it was rather obvious. He was an expert with the bullwhip, and his first stroke against the back of the first soldier caused him to scream. The bullwhip popped with each blow, and his back and buttocks were soon bloodied. When he appeared to be unconscious, the officer moved a few steps to the second soldier. The mauling lasted for half an hour, under a hot sun. When all five were bloodied and still, the commandant stepped forward and announced a new rule: If a prisoner escaped, then ten of his comrades would be whipped and left to die in the sun.
Needless to say, the demonstration curtailed many escape schemes that had been in the works.
* * *
—
Clay found a Filipino Scout who was working as a truck driver and had managed to establish a black market for food within the American section of O’Donnell. His prices were fair and he offered tins of salmon, sardines, and tuna, along with peanut butter, fruit, and cookies.
Pete and Clay made a decision. They would take the cash hidden in Pete’s canteen cover, buy the food they could afford, share it between themselves but include no one else, and try to survive. The scheme would take both of their efforts because it was difficult to hide and eat black market food. Everyone was ravenous and watching everyone else. They felt lousy hiding and not sharing, but they damned sure could not feed the sixty thousand starving souls at O’Donnell. Clay’s first haul was a tin of salmon, four oranges, and two coconut cookies, and for $1.50 they ate like kings.
The plan was to stretch the money as far as possible, and when it was gone, they would think of something else. The extra food energized Pete and he began roaming the prison looking for his old friends from the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry.
* * *
—
The Japanese rarely entered the camp and had little interest in what went on there. They knew the conditions were inhumane and deteriorating, but they simply ignored the prisoners when possible. As long as they remained locked up, and worked when they were instructed, the Japanese didn’t seem to care.
However, the piles of dead bodies could not be ignored. The commandant ordered that they be burned, but General