The Angels of Bataan

Shafer said gently, "That must have been hard."

Ronnie gave a quick little nod tears filled her eyes.

I just looked at her in stunned awe.

Shaefer added curious, "So, what brought you out of retirement?"

I was hoping she'd say, "Erik did."

Instead, she said, "I was bored." She wasn't going to give me a break.

Shaefer turned to me and said, "That was excellent work Erik. Your cutting was adequate. But I've never seen such superb suturing." I almost blushed like a virgin. After all - I wasn't ALWAYS playing with myself when I had my hand jammed down in my pants pocket.

Ronnie said directly to me, "That was clever work Doctor. I think you're actually ready to make a difference." Why were those words so important to me?

I said pointedly, "WE make a good team." Ronnie colored and nodded. Was she human after all?

My little cherub was asleep in the general ward when I came out of the operating room, which in its earlier incarnation had been the clinic's administrative office. Sallie Durrett was the circulating nurse on duty. She was gazing down at Missy like a person taking a refreshing drink of water.

My sweet and innocent little daughter had that effect on weary and hopeless people. I smiled at Sallie. She said calmly, "She's been sleeping all the time you were in there."

I bent down to wake her with a kiss on her forehead. Her eyes opened and she looked at me with the faith that a child has in its parent and said, "Hi Daddy." She'd been calling me that more-and-more. I liked it.

*****

In May of 'forty-three, the Japanese set up a second internment camp at Los Baños. Initially, eight-hundred internees were sent there to ease the crowding at Santo Tomas. The war was going badly for the Japs now. So, they had begun interning everybody, even the very elderly, the missionaries, and the clergy, who'd been heretofore exempt. Soon, Los Banos started to mirror the conditions at Santo Tomas.

All of the Navy nurses were transferred to Los Banos. They soon immediately to be known as the "sacred eleven." Some of the docs were also sent along. The Japs chose them randomly and unfortunately, they picked Shaefer. That left me as the only person with any surgical training in the entire camp.

I was genuinely appalled when I got the word from Maude. Hell!! I was no surgeon. I mean seriously!! I wasn't even a doctor. I was summoning the courage to tell Maude that she was making a big mistake. That was when Ronnie sat down next to me.

She said gently, "This is your moment, Erik. Nobody will blame you if you take the easy road. But you won't be able to live with yourself if you do."

She sighed and added, "Pretty girls get all of the breaks. But beauty fades and once it's gone there's nothing left. So, I decided to do the right thing, no matter how difficult it was. I never regretted it and I will be with you every step of the way if you choose to stand and fight."

Where did all that wisdom come from? What had happened in this woman's past to make her so smart and strong? I said sheepishly, "You really think I can do it?"

She gave me a lopsided grin and said, "God help me for saying this. But I have faith in you."

For the next several months it was just me and the best scrub nurse in the Philippines. Fortunately, for the health and safety of the camp's residents there was very little call for my services. People who might have needed significant surgery just died. I did some stitching and the occasional C-section, nothing any of the Angels couldn't have done in their sleep... and I gradually improved.

We had a major typhoon at the end of 'forty-three, which flattened my shack. After that, Missy and I were permitted to sleep at the clinic because Maude and Earl Carroll convinced the Japanese that I had to be available. I'd reinforced that decision with a few of my dwindling supply of gold coins.

Time slowed for everybody. We lived in a fog of basic survival. Our only goal was to make it to the next day. We had no energy. Even the most straightforward task was daunting. Mostly I did my basic patient care duties, the familiar things I had done for the past two years. But it was getting harder to concentrate, and mistakes were made.

Then something happened that convinced me once-and-for-all that my new life had some meaning. Missy was sleeping next to me. It was the middle of the day. But we slept when we could. I heard her cry. I said, "What's the matter, sweetie-pie."

She said, "My tummy hurts, Daddy."

Everybody had digestive problems by that point. It's what happens when you're living on almost no food. Still, her pain was my pain. So, I said, "Let me get you something to eat," and dipped into my stash.

There was nothing left except a couple of chunks of stale bread. I gave them to her and said, "Eat this, and I'll try to buy you something better at the fence." That was getting more difficult because the Japs had begun patrolling the perimeter to stop the Filipinos from selling us food.

Missy whined, but she ate the bread. We settled back to sleep, and perhaps fifteen minutes later, she began to cry again. I said, "Does your stomach still hurt?" The bread should have helped.

She sniveled, "That's not where it hurts, Daddy. It hurts here." She stood up and pointed to her lower right abdomen. A chill passed over me. I pressed the place where Missy had indicated, and she yelped. I felt her head, and it was feverish.

One of the Angels, Jean Kennedy, was nearby. I said, "Jean come over here a second, would you?" Jean was reading a patient's chart. She made a couple of notes and walked over to us.

I said, "Could you please confirm a diagnosis for me? Missy says that she has pain in the right lower quadrant of her abdomen."

Jean got a guarded look and said, "Lie down Honey." Missy lay back and Jean did a practitioner's trained assessment using the tips of her fingers, poking in certain spots, and asking, "Does it hurt here?"

When she got to the spot that we both dreaded, Missy cried-out in pain, Jean looked meaningfully at me. I said, "Get Ronnie."

My beautiful friend seemed utterly exhausted as she helped me move my little angel into the improvised operating room. Her formerly full and buxom body was like a scarecrow's. But her eyes were as focused and potent as ever.

She did the sterile prep as I scrubbed up. Then I waited while she prepared the instruments. Not a word was said as Earlene calculated the anesthesia ratios. We were all moving like we were wading through mud... at the absolute limits of our physical endurance.

It is utterly insane for a surgeon to operate on his own child. The emotional baggage amplifies the stress beyond enduring. But there was no other option. Thanks to Vincente's mocking gift, I had a complete set of surgical instruments. Ronnie was a master surgical nurse. We could do this. We would beat this together.

I realized this was the quintessential fulcrum on which my life teetered. The potential for error was high. Yet the stakes were far too critical to make a mistake. So, I barricaded myself inside the island fortress of my mind. Every thought was banished. I stopped thinking; I only saw and acted.

I made the incision in Missy's precious skin. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. The blood welled, and Ronnie cleared it with deft, precise moves. We were working very cautiously, too debilitated from hunger and stress to move quickly.

Ronnie's skillful hands worked the retractors, and the evil thing was revealed squatting there like a malevolent toad, swollen and infected. The proper instruments appeared in my hand by Ronnie's magic. I did the simple suture and cut.

Ronnie meticulously cleansed the area as I did a painstakingly delicate removal. The close was routine. I looked at the clock. Appendectomies are typically a forty-five-minute procedure. It had been two and a half hours. I glanced across the table at my stalwart friend, and she was crying. Earlene was weeping at the head.

We left the patient on the table to recover. We had no gurney to move her, and we didn't need the room. Then, as I turned to congratulate both Angels it came rushing at me like an express train out of a tunnel. My vision blurred and I collapsed on the floor, out colder than that proverbial mackerel.

It might have been ten seconds. It might have been an hour. I came back to consciousness with a body pressed on mine and a beautiful weeping face hovering over me. I said puzzled, "What happened?" Not intelligent but I was still pretty out of it.

When she realized that she had been lying half on top of me she looked momentarily embarrassed. Then she snapped into nurse mode and said, "You passed out after the operation. We didn't know what'd happened so Earlene went to get Josie and I was just keeping an eye on you."

That's when I said it. The crushing tension of what we'd just done combined with the proximity of that beautiful face made me say it. But I was glad I did.

She had called me names, she had inspired and supported me, she had given me encouragement in my darkest moments, and just now she had helped me save my precious little girl's life. She could laugh at me and tell me how foolish I was. I didn't care. I had to blurt it out.

I said simply and honestly, "I love you."

I had been thinking about it for over a year, and it was the only thing in this hellhole I knew for sure was true - besides my love for Missy. Ronnie reacted as if I had hit her. She rose slowly and stood there staring at me, anguished, and confused.

I added calmly, "Yes, I love you. I have nothing to say beyond that. We probably won't survive this place and I have no expectations, or intentions. But before we die, I want you to know that I love you."

She finally said, "I don't know what to say Erik."

I said, "Don't say anything. You don't need to. I'm not looking for anything from you. I just need you to know that I finally understand what a genuine connection with another human being feels like."

Then I paused and added bashfully, "You taught me a lot, Veronica Chase."

*****

I'd like to be say that a long and passionate affair followed. But that would be ultra-unrealistic and stupid given our situation. The Angels fought on valiantly, never budging an inch. But the only cure for malnutrition is food and we didn't have any of that stuff.

We'd been growing vegetables in any airable space. But then in early '45, the Japanese confiscated all of it for their own troops. When the Japs did that, all remaining hope went out of us.

Now, there were almost as many Angels lying in hospital beds as there were Angels attending to patients. I worked side-by-side with Ronnie, as awkward as that might have been given what had transpired between us. Not another word was ever said about my unfortunate admission.

Missy never left my side. She was the last flickering light in the all-consuming darkness, bringing a child's promise of hope to the patients.

We didn't have rehabilitation facilities. So, my brave little kitten just lived with the pain. I used up the last of my cash to buy aspirin for her. At night I would hold her, rock her, and tell her it would be okay. But I knew that I was lying. We were all going to die.

Then an ironic thing happened. The first hint that my life was going to change was when that flight of Japanese planes passed over the Manila Hotel. Well, it happened again like a harbinger of hope.

We were going about our business late in January when we heard the sound of powerful aircraft engines and flight after flight of gleaming fighters swept low over the camp. But instead of a meatball, those planes had a white star on a blue field. The Americans were coming!!

Then, two days later, we heard explosions and the rattle of machine-gun fire next to the compound gate. There was a loud crash, and a green tank with a white star and "Battlin Basic" painted on its side burst through the heavy doors and into the compound.

The cavalry had arrived!! Specifically, a Sherman tank from the 44th Battalion of the U.S. First Cavalry. I was standing on the steps of the clinic holding Missy's hand as the internees erupted into spontaneous cheers. Four more Shermans followed, and the accompanying infantry quickly spread out into the compound.

The internees were shouting and trying to hug every dogface as they arrived but there was still work to be done. The Japanese guards had fled into the Education building where they used the two hundred people trapped with them as human shields. I saw Carroll and the interpreter Stanley go into the building and come out with a couple of Japanese officers.

There was more negotiation outside the building which featured one of the Japanese being shot by an American guard. The story was that he reached for a grenade. Anyhow, after backing-and-forthing for an hour or so the Japanese all appeared single file and walked out of the camp. We were officially in the hands of the U.S. military.

It was pathetically anticlimactic. We had spent thirty-seven months in painful confinement longing for this moment. And when it finally arrived, we just stood there, no celebration, no fireworks, just 3,200 starving, exhausted people milling around on a hot Manila night.

*****

There was a war going on. So, Missy and I couldn't just hail a cab up to Makati. In fact, we stayed at Santo Tomas for an additional month-and-a-half while they sorted out the Japanese.

Once MacArthur had finished congratulating himself in front of the cameras -- oh, and the Angels as well. They were all assembled and trucked away. That was the second week after the liberation. They were going back to the States for a hero's welcome, whether they wanted it or not.

They certainly got a hero's departure. Ronnie gave me a forlorn wave, as their trucks swung out of the compound and onto the Calle Dapitan. She was riding with Jean and Sallie. But previously, she'd tracked me down in the chaos of that first night of freedom and we'd had a heart-to-heart conversation.

I was sitting in an upholstered chair that I'd dragged out of the education building when Ronnie appeared in the doorway of the clinic. I'd brought it over so I could rock my little angel before she went to bed.

Missy was lying on a cot in front of me now, and we were talking. We had just eaten our fill of Spam and beans from the army mess. I had slimmed down from a fit 177 to a 108-pound skeleton on the Santo Tomas guaranteed weight loss plan. Hence, Spam was an epicurean feast.

Missy had fared a little better because I'd given her most of my food toward the end. But she was still painfully skinny, and her appendix scar was not healing well due to malnutrition. That had been the subject of several of my worst nightmares. But it was behind us now. She could get the treatment she needed, including a new wonder drug called penicillin.

Missy noticed Ronnie first. She hopped out of the cot and ran to give her a hug. I rose from the chair to greet her, and Ronnie said, "Sit down Erik, there's something we need to talk about."

I gestured to a nearby table, and we sat. I said to Missy, "Go lie back down in your cot, Kitten. Miss Ronnie and I have something important to talk about." She went skipping off without a care in the world, which was not exactly my case.

I said as casual as I could, "So what do you wanna talk about my friend?"

Ronnie looked grim. She said, "Do you remember that little moment we had after you passed out?"

I said lightly, "I assume you're referring to my declaration of love for you. Well -- it's still on the table if you're interested." I gave her a breezy grin. I knew she wasn't serious.

Ronnie looked even more uneasy. She said, "Did you ever wonder whether I was married?" Married??!! Seriously??!! The thought never entered my mind. I don't know why it hadn't. Veronica Chase was a once in a lifetime woman.

I said, hoping the meaning was clear, "I told you that because that's the way I feel about you. Honestly, there's nothing more than that. So, your marital status is immaterial to me. I see you as an epitome of womanhood, not a romantic target."

Ronnie blushed. It was an endearing trait. She was gorgeous, even while on the brink of starvation.

She said, "Life's easy when you look like me. It isn't anything you earn. It's just genetics. But people treat you like you're special. So, I grew up expecting everything and giving back nothing. The term is over-entitled. But the more accurate description would be 'spoiled brat."

I said grinning, "That sounds familiar."

Ronnie gave me a look like she wanted me to just shut up and listen. She said, "I was a Nurse Cadet when I married William Chase. It was June of 'thirty-nine. We met at a dance at Kirkland Field. He was a lieutenant colonel and the commander of the B-17 squadron based there. I was twenty-one."

She added wistfully, "He was a lot older than me, very good-looking and he just swept me off my feet. To say that our early married life was passionate would be an understatement."

Then her face hardened, and she said, "Bill was transferred to the Philippines with the 19th Bomb Group in November of 1940. I followed in February of '41. I was an ANC second lieutenant by that point and an OR/perioperative nurse specialist. That's a valuable area of expertise in the surgical wards. So, it was easy to wrangle a transfer to Sternberg."

She sighed and added, "I got to the Philippines too late. Bill was a handsome flyer with a great line and by the time I'd arrived he'd already had several flings. He didn't even try to hide them. He said that's what all of the flyboys did."

Heavens!! This WAS getting delightfully juicy.

Ronnie was becoming more-and-more upset as she talked, "We constantly fought - real blow-outs... and he finally told me that he was what he was, and he didn't plan to change. So, I'd better accept it."

That little tidbit no doubt meant that Ronnie wasn't married any longer. I tried and failed to put on a sympathetic face. She, as usual, read my mind and added acerbically, "I know what you're thinking. But what I'm trying to tell you is that AFTER that ultimatum I decided to not be any more faithful to Bill than he was to me."

I couldn't see the self-sacrificing woman I knew straying off the reservation. But it was a different time and place, and people are human. Moreover, they can change. I was living proof of that. I said lightly, "Oh well, that was how things were back then." Then I hesitated and added incredulously, "Was that only four years ago? It seems like a century."

Ronnie was getting frustrated. She was trying to confess... and I wasn't giving her minor indiscretion the significance she thought it deserved. Of course, back then, flaming affairs were my stock in trade.

She said, "I won't bore you with the details. But the ending was heartbreaking and a turning point for me. Bill was the first pilot killed in his group. He was trying to get his bomber off the ground when the Japanese shot it down." She looked sad and added, "It was so Bill, always leading from the front."

Then her face turned angry. She huffed, "When I got the news I was totally devastated. But my lover was overjoyed. He told me that it was the best thing that could ever happen because then I would be all his."

She added with revulsion and self-loathing, "I mean... I'd just lost my husband. Bill might have been a womanizer, but he did his duty and paid the ultimate price, while this worthless piece of human trash was sneaking around seducing me. Even worse, I was stupid and weak enough to fall for it."

Ronnie took my hand in hers. It was the first time we had ever intentionally touched. This was very important to her.

She said with bitterness, "I finally saw Giles for what he was, a self-absorbed, scheming bastard whose only talent was corrupting anything he touched. I also realized that I had sacrificed my honor and principles for something as banal as revenge. The guilt nearly killed me."