day, so it was important that they go about their business. They worked their lines, catching yellowfin tuna, salmon, and ruby snapper, while Pete and Clay slept for hours in the cabin. When they awoke, they ate more rice and fish, and drank water by the gallon. At dusk, as Tomas mopped the deck and put away the rods, Amato opened a fruit jar filled with a fermented rice home brew and poured it into their empty coffee cups. It was bitter and tasteless and not something Pete would ever find at the Peabody bar, but it was potent, and the alcohol hit fast and hard.
By the second serving, Pete and Clay were giddy. They were free, well fed for the first time since Christmas, and happily getting buzzed on a home brew that improved with each sip.
Amato’s home was the small fishing village of San Narciso on the west coast of the Luzon peninsula. By land, Manila was four hours away, or five or six depending on the roads, mountain paths, and ferries. By sea, it was three hours and the route curved around Bataan, the last place they wanted to see. Amato said Manila was crawling with Japanese and they should stay away. He would not take his boat there.
Late in the day, when San Narciso came into view, Tomas reduced the engine to an idle. It was time for a serious discussion. There would be Japanese at the harbor waiting for their fish, but they were cooks, not soldiers, and they would not inspect the boat. Pete and Clay would be safe to sleep on the boat that night, but tomorrow they must move on. If they were seen or caught, Amato and his sons would lose their boat and probably their heads.
Their first option was to escape, and Amato had a friend they could talk to. But escape meant a long voyage across open seas in a bad boat, and Amato didn’t like the odds. Since the war started, he knew of several Americans who had tried it. No one knew if they were successful. Plus, there was the issue of compensation, and most of the prisoners were penniless. Pete assured him that they were too.
The second option was to fight. Amato had contacts who could take the men into the mountains where the guerrillas were operating. There were a lot of Americans and Filipino Scouts organized in the dense jungles of Luzon. They were hitting the enemy from all directions, at times seriously disrupting the movements of troops and supplies. The imperial army had declared war on the guerrillas and was offering bounties. The situation was beyond dangerous.
“We’re not running away,” Pete said. “We came here to fight.”
“And we have some scores to settle,” Clay added.
Amato smiled and nodded his agreement. He was a proud Filipino and sickened by the Japanese invasion. If he could somehow poison his fish to kill enemy soldiers he would gladly do so. He prayed that the Americans would one day prevail and free his country, and he longed for that moment.
With the harbor in sight, Pete and Clay went below deck and hid in the cabin. At the pier, Tomas and Teofilo removed the heavy tin crates filled with their catch and waited for their only customer. A short, fat Japanese man in a bloodied apron approached without a hello or any greeting and inspected their fish. He made an offer, one that Amato laughed at. His counteroffer was rejected outright, and this went on, back and forth, the same ritual every afternoon. The cook was in too much of a hurry to weigh the fish. He made his final offer, one that Amato really could not reject, and the deal was done. Money changed hands, and from the look on Amato’s face he had been shortchanged again. Two privates arrived with a wagon, loaded the fish, and left while the cook was bargaining with the captain of the next fishing boat.
When they were gone, Teofilo fired up his grill again and prepared dinner. The menu was the same—boiled rice, hot buttered pandesal, and grilled mackerel fillets. It had been ten hours since their breakfast, and neither Pete nor Clay felt sick from overeating. They had consumed a light lunch, been through a couple of cocktail hours with the home brew, and so far their traumatized bodies were holding up well. When they had been starved, all they thought about was food. Now that it was available