The Angels of Bataan

Giles!!?? I said incredulously, "Are you talking about Giles Pemberton!!??"

She said, preoccupied, "Yes, do you know him."

The coincidence wasn't as incredible as it might seem. Manila is a big city. But its Anglo population was relatively small and insular. Giles had no-doubt seen Ronnie somewhere and her remarkable beauty would have been irresistible to a jackal like him.

I chuckled and said ruefully, "We have a lot in common."

Then I told her the story of Margarita's duplicitous exit on the Philippine Clipper. I added, "Margarita saw men strictly as a means to an end."

Ronnie said thoughtfully, "She was an uncommonly beautiful woman. I remember her from the party the night before the Japanese bombed Clark Field. That was the day Bill was killed."

So, Ronnie was indeed the woman in the blue evening gown. I remember thinking then, that she was the only female in Manila I would trade Margarita for. I said sarcastically, "I wonder what Margarita and Giles have gotten up to while we were starving."

Ronnie said, still distracted, "The rumor on Bataan was that the Japanese shot up the Philippine Clipper when it stopped at Wake Island. I didn't hear how that turned out."

I laughed and said, "I'm sure those two survived. Only the good die young." She laughed.

Then her serious look returned. She said, "You take a step back from yourself when you see who you actually are. And you do a lot of thinking about how to redeem yourself."

I said, "Amen and hallelujah."

Ronnie gave me a grim smile and said, "I realized that I was a woman without substance, a pretty face whose moral perspective had been distorted by her own ego. I was probably a lot like your Margarita in that respect."

I said angrily, "She wasn't MY Margarite, she wasn't anybody's woman."

Ronnie gave me a sunny smile and added, "Neither am I."

She continued, "I told Giles what a cowardly worm I thought he was and then I totally committed myself to serving others. That's why I volunteered to go with the Army when it withdrew to Bataan. I couldn't just sit it out at Sternberg."

She looked both sad and resolute as she said, "Nursing wounded men in all that terrible chaos was uplifting and meaningful, and the more I gave to my patients, the more I got back in terms of a sense of personal integrity and self-respect. It was a humble act of contrition for my prior sins."

She looked pensive for a moment and added, "Ironically, as conditions got worse on Corregidor, and the harder I drove myself in the nightmare of the Malinta Tunnel, the more at peace I felt. I suppose all of the fear and physical pain was my form of absolution."

She hesitated for a moment like she was thinking. Then added, "My point is that the woman you see before you reconstructed herself out of the ashes of her former failed self."

Then she looked at me with her first genuine affection and said, "You've done the same thing. You've become a caring person. I can see that in how you treat this little child," She nodded toward Missy.

Then she added, "And I can also see your redemption in the way that you have chosen to do what's right, no matter the difficulty or physical consequences." Then she paused again like she was deciding whether to throw the dice.

She sighed and added, "And that's the reason why I fell hopelessly in love with you."

I'd been brutalized and starved for three miserable years. And yet, I would willingly go through it all over again just to hear those words. I said tentatively, "If I love you and you love me does that mean we have a future together."

Ronnie gave me a mournful look, nodded, and said, "Until next week. That's when they're shipping us back to the U.S. for some kind of publicity stunt.

*****

It was late November in Manila, meaning the temperature was a mere eighty-degrees and we were presently in-between monsoons. I was sitting on the front porch in the humid tropical air, gazing out over Manila Bay and trying to catch a breeze.

It's funny how life twists and turns. Five years ago, this time, Margarita and I were making plans to attend the big December 7th pre-Christmas blow-out at the Manila Hotel. That era was gone forever ... like the age of the dinosaurs.

In August of 'forty-five, we got the word that the Japanese had surrendered. It was some kind of wonder weapon called an A-Bomb. I didn't know what an A-Bomb was, and I'd probably never hear of it again. But it finally returned peace to my world. So, I was grateful. The nightmare was truly over.

Missy and I lived in a tent city from February to April '45 while the Army fought one of the bloodiest urban battles since Stalingrad. That was mainly in Intramuros. So, Santo Tomas was relatively safe.

After they chased the Japs out of the area, we hitched a ride up to the family home. There, I found to my utter amazement and delight, that the place was untouched thanks to some nameless Japanese General who'd appropriated it for his headquarters.

The house was a mess. But it was heaven compared to the situation we'd been in for the past three years. Of course, the Filipino staff was gone, and my folks had fled to Honolulu on one of the last ships before the invasion. Now it was just the two of us all by ourselves.

Missy and I set up camp in the parlor while I put our life back in order. She would have nightmares if I didn't sleep near her. So, we sacked out for a couple of months on my parents' hideous overstuffed couches - she on one and me right next to her on another.

My Kitten had gained some of her weight back and the appendix scar had healed. She was always a sweet cheerful little bird. And I might add that her happy soul had brightened the lives of a few hopeless people, maybe even enough to save a few lives.

I'd taken some time to inventory my circumstances after the Japanese left. The good news was that I was still rich and likely to become a lot richer. My old man had transferred most of our family fortune to American banks when he fled to Hawaii. So, it was still available for me to draw on.

Better yet, the U.S. was about to drop a massive bag of cash in Grayson & Son's lap as part of rebuilding the Philippines. The retreating Japanese had looted our warehouse facilities. But due to their strategic value, some of the new government largesse was earmarked to rebuild and restock them.

The Filipino workers were still there, and the Anglo managers were getting back into shape after their three-year vacation in Santo Tomas. My dad's right-hand man, Mike Barnes, had survived and he'd told me that it would be business as usual by '47.

My dad had decided to stay in Hawaii, which left me as the nominal head of the Company in loco parentis. Then he abruptly died, which made me the new owner. That was early in 'forty-six. At least he'd lived to see the end of the war.

Since my dad was gone and there was never going to be another son, I arranged for Barnes to come in as a full partner. It was Grayson & Barnes now. Mike was twenty years older than me and a solid guy. He knew our business... I didn't. So, he would make the money and I could devote myself to an idea that had been kicking around in my head since I left Santo Tomas.

I'd gotten a taste for doctoring. As a result, I was negotiating with the Philippine Board of Medical Examiners about what three years of unofficial residency at Santo Tomas amounted to in terms of getting me licensed.

My appointment with their Board of Examination was set for mid-January forty-seven. Fortunately, it was mainly composed of doctors who had spent time with me in the camp. In fact, Lewis was the head of the Board. So, my future looked bright except in one respect.

To my utter dismay, I'd discovered that the rest of the female world didn't measure up to Lieutenant Veronica Chase ANC. So, it was either her or nobody. The problem was that I didn't have her address, and there was no way to contact her

The Angels were the largest collection of American women ever held as POWs. Hence, they were an absolute P.R. bonanza, and the Army didn't want ANYBODY talking to them until they were shipped home to drum up business for the war.

The U.S. knew that the Angels were a valuable commodity. I mean seriously!! They'd made three movies about them during their captivity. Of course, none of the Angels knew about that since Santo Tomas featured starvation, not movie nights. And those saintly women were too busy saving peoples' lives anyhow.

I'd written the Army asking about Ronnie. But they must've been too busy dealing with the aftermath of World War Two to respond to a lovelorn ex-POW. I had pretty-much given up hope of ever seeing her again when she magically reappeared in my life.

Well, in reality -- her appearance wasn't physical. But it was painful, nonetheless.

Like all little girls, Missy loved horses. So, I took her to the Cine Real down in Manila proper to see a little kid named Elizabeth Taylor in a movie called National Velvet. Taylor was an up-and-coming English child actress who at twelve was just a year older than Missy. So, my kitten could relate.

They always ran a few of those Pathe newsreels before the film and lo-and-behold... one of them was a story about a visit by a few of the Angels to the Paramount Studios in late 'forty-five.

The festive atmosphere was obviously faked. Louise Anchieks and Millie Dalton couldn't have looked more ill at ease shaking hands with Ray Milland and the staged shot of Bertha Dworsky and Jane Wyman was like two strangers standing together at a bus stop.

Then I saw Ronnie self-consciously holding a six-gun. She had gained-back most of her weight and with her hair done and her makeup on she was out-of-this-world gorgeous.

My problem was that the love-of-my life was in a clearly staged, corny romantic embrace with an incredibly handsome cowboy. And from the expression on the guy's face... he was in lust. It was shocking.

My heart fell out of my chest and lay beating on the floor amongst all the spilled popcorn and discarded gum. Fortunately, it was dark in the theater because Missy would have been upset if she'd seen my grief.

Losing Ronnie to a Hollywood cowpoke was poetic justice. I had used my good looks in precisely the same fashion. But naive and foolish me... I'd thought that she was my future. I'd counted on her, and I had been dead -- as in nearly deceased - wrong. It put a cloud over all of my good fortune.

We all like to think that life's one continuous river. I mean, it's reassuring to wallow in the predictable routines of living. But it doesn't work that way - does it? The life-changes we encounter are more like going from one strange room to another.

What I mean is...all of life's dichotomies are one-way events. Single/married, no children/children, working/retired, even alive, or dead. They are part of your life. But each is actually a new reality, and each of those realities has different rules and circumstances. So, your ability to adapt is critical.

Seriously... you're in one situation and that's your reality. Then things change and you're in a new one. And the next reality might not be anything that you ever anticipated or were prepared for. For instance, my reality prior to December 8th, 1941, was a whole lot different than the reality of one year later. And there was no going back to the way things were.

Ronnie and I were together because that was our circumstance. Now we were apart due to conditions beyond our control. It would have been different if the Army hadn't whisked her away. But that was the undeniable fact of the matter.

I was sure that she loved me as much as I loved her. But that's not the direction the currents of our lives took us. And my happiness going forward was going to rely on my ability to adapt to that simple truth. So, I mourned her for a couple of months. But I had a little girl to take care of. That was my new reality, and you suck it up for the people you love.

Then something that Ronnie had told me percolated to the top of my brain. Your future lies in what you have, not what you don't have. I still had Missy and I had a future as a doctor.

The truth had always been right there in front of me. I'd just obsessed too much about the past to see it. So, I stopped grieving my lost love and began to deal with the new facts. I had more money than I could spend and a lot of time on my hands. Hence, why not devote my life to operating free clinics, like the one at Santa Catalina, for the Filipinos. It was a way to give back and frankly, they deserved it.

Shaefer had the gravitas and reputation to head up the project. So, I tracked the old boy down and laid out my proposal. Los Banos had been tough on him, and my idea seemed to give him new life. And speaking of giving, I also had another important project on the front burner.

In the weeks before Missy's twelfth birthday, there was a flurry of construction. And a mysterious new structure began to appear in the meadow just down the hill from the main building. Missy was curious. But she never asked. Maybe the little minx suspected something.

She loved National Velvet, which inspired me to buy her a horse. Naturally, she named it Pie, as in piebald. The creature wasn't, but that didn't matter. That was the name of Elizabeth Taylor's horse. The beast was delivered in the dark of the night before Missy's birthday.

Then that morning, I took Missy down to the new shed along with Ernesto who I'd hired as a groom. I'd personally tracked him down for the task. I figured if the kid could take care of a burro in a Pasig slum, he could take care of a horse in a Makati mansion. The barn also had a second smaller stall for Buttercup. I owed the old guy for all the trips he'd made with our lifesaving medical supplies.

Missy's little girl shrieks of delight were only matched by her tears as she said over-and-over-again, "Thank you!! Thank you!!" My heart expanded to fill the natural universe. Hmmm - this "giving back" thing might catch on.

Missy's birthday was on the first of October of '46, and by late November, she had already become adept at riding, at least according to the Filipino riding master I'd hired to teach her. More importantly, she took care of Pie with the same dedication that Ronnie had shown her patients, which brought me back to thinking about my lost love for the one-millionth time.

I was doomed to a bachelor life because only Ronnie haunted the empty corridors of my heart. For all I knew she could be married again, or maybe living the life of a movie queen in Beverly Hills. Whatever the situation... she was gone for good.

Of course, I had thought about other women. I was still relatively young, wealthy, and single. And I was as good looking as ever, with the same sense of style. Consequently, I got plenty of invitations to Manila society events. But my heart knew what it had to have. So, the whole exercise was pointless, and I'd stopped going.

I was sitting there on that hot humid day thinking about all that had transpired in my life when another door opened. The mansion was on an elevation looking down on the city to the northwest. From there, I could see traffic coming up Makati Avenue from the Mandaluyong Bridge.

A black Ford turned onto Real Drive and proceeded slowly up the long winding gravel driveway toward my house. I was curious since nobody ever visited me. My old friends thought I had lost my mind when I turned up with a kid. They just assumed Missy was mine, which she was in every way except biologically.

The car stopped, and Shaefer got out. He had aged at Los Banos, and I rushed down to help him up the steps. He was close to thirty years older than me, so he'd become something of a mentor. He plopped into a plantation chair on our expansive front porch, and I said, curious, "What brings you here, Dieter?"

That was when we were both distracted by a loud WHOOP! as Missy and Pie took off across the lawn at a full gallop. We both watched her disappear around the back of the house. Shaefer said matter of fact, "Everybody remembers her. They call her the Littlest Angel." I just glowed with pride.

It had gotten hotter, so I asked the houseboy to bring us a pitcher of lemonade. It took a minute. We gazed silently out over the bay remembering the hell that we'd gone through and the bond that we'd formed.

When the lemonade arrived, Shaefer took a sip savored it and said with a twinkle in his eye, "You know that we've been advertising in the States for a Head of Nursing, somebody to recruit and organize the staff for the various clinics." I nodded.

Then he paused, arched one of his bushy white eyebrows, and added, "An exceptionally qualified candidate just popped up, and I think you ought to talk to her personally."

I said, "Sure, when do you want me to meet her?"

He said, "Now would be ideal."

I nodded, and he raised his arm and waved toward the car. The passenger side door opened, and a female figure stepped out. She was a bit too far away to see clearly and had changed significantly in the past ten months. But it was unmistakably Veronica Chase RN. She looked both stunningly beautiful and very nervous.

I could have probably managed the next part more genteelly. But my eyes misted with tears, and I bolted off the porch, spilling my lemonade down my pants in the process. Ronnie was standing there looking wary as I came thundering up.

Of course, I didn't have a plan. I stopped abruptly and stood there gazing at her wonderingly like I was afraid she might suddenly disappear. I have no idea how this beautiful woman could turn the fellow who used to be the smoothest talker in the Philippines into a tongue-tied teenage boy. She finally said in her low throaty voice. "Hello, Erik. I didn't know whether you would want to see me."

Okay... That ranked right up there with one of history's most ridiculous statements. But I could understand why she might view it that way. We had a long and tortured past, most of it involving antagonism and starvation. We had never as much as exchanged a hug and I DID have a reputation as being a profligate ladies' man... at least in her eyes.

I got my emotions under control and said, "You DO remember the part about me saying that I loved you, right? How do you think that's changed over the past twenty months?"

She looked like she had been holding her breath. She relaxed and said, "Well, it's a different world now. You're back to being rich and entitled, and I'm still just a scrub nurse from Albuquerque."

I was about to tell her that she was the eternal love of my life when I heard a blood-curdling shriek from behind me. We both looked, and it was Missy. She had gotten back from her ride and seen Ronnie. Now, she and Pie were thundering toward us like something out of the Charge of the Light Brigade. We both cringed in immediate anticipation of being trampled to death.

Missy reined the horse to a shuddering stop, catapulted out of the saddle, and ran toward Ronnie, arriving with enough force to knock her backward a step. Ronnie went, "Oooff!" Missy threw her arms around her and proceeded to weep with joy. Ronnie looked equally delighted. Drat!! Maybe I should take a few lessons from my kid.

Both turned to me, and Missy said peremptorily, "Daddy!!" I got the hint and joined them for a group hug. It was several minutes before we parted, and there might have been some crying involved... damn allergies.

Missy said, with fervent delight, "Have you come to live with us. We both missed you a ton."

Ronnie looked aghast and gave me a questioning stare. I said with enthusiasm, "Of course, she is, Kitten. I'm never going to let her leave."

Missy grabbed Ronnie by the arm and said, "Please, please, please, Ronnie!! We don't ever want you to go away." My kitten was much better at romance than her old man. I guess all it ever takes is honesty and sincerity.