And then there was the shame of defeat. Especially this particular defeat. "They got their asses handed to them," Carl Norton said, "by a bunch of people they'd always looked down on as ridiculous little monkeys who couldn't do anything right. That's what's really eating them."
"But not you?" I asked him, grinning. We were good friends; we'd known each other since Corregidor.
"Not me," Carl said. "I saw the little bastards in action in China, remember? I knew the minute the war started we were in deep shit."
There was a lot of arguing among the Army officers, too, about the reasons for the defeat, a lot of recrimination and blame-swapping, some of it pretty bitter. All that frustration and anger had to find some sort of outlet, after all… and anyway, there really wasn't much else to do. The senior officers didn't have to pull labor details, and the supply of reading matter or writing materials was nearly nonexistent, so squabbling like a bunch of old ladies was just about all there was left. That or simply sitting around staring silently off into nowhere.
General Wainwright arrived a few days after the rest of us, in a car from Manila. As senior American officer he might have been expected to do something about the state of morale, but his own obviously wasn't so great either. He looked and moved like a man in tremendous pain, even though they hadn't harmed him; and it wasn't hard to understand why. He'd been the one to surrender-not just Corregidor, but all the American forces in the Philippines. That was one of the things people talked and argued about, though not within his hearing.
Anyway, that was what things were like at Tarlac when they brought MacArthur in.
He wasn't wearing his trademark cap; I guess he'd lost it when Bulkeley's PT boat was sunk. He was bareheaded and his uniform was a stained and rumpled ruin, and he wasn't wearing his stars-none of the prisoners were allowed to wear rank insignia-but it didn't matter; he'd have been recognizable in a jockstrap. He still carried himself tall and straight-he towered over the Japanese guards like an Oregon cedar-and he still moved with that long-legged stride, so that they had to hustle to keep formation around him.
But God, he looked old… he wasn't a young man, of course, but he looked ten years older than when I'd seen him last.
"He looks like hell," Carl Norton said. We were standing maybe twenty or thirty yards away from the gate; we'd just happened to be walking across the compound when the motor convoy drove up in front of the gate. No one in the camp, even General Wainwright, had been told MacArthur was coming. Maybe the commandant didn't want us holding some kind of parade or ceremony to welcome him. More likely it just didn't occur to the Japs to tell us, any more than you'd bother telling the stray mutts in the pound that you're bringing the big dog in.
"Still got that presence, though," Carl mused.
"It's about all he's got left," I said.
"Yeah. Poor devil."
We watched as they escorted him toward the headquarters building. Colonel Sakamoto had come out onto the porch and was waiting. A Japanese lieutenant came up and saluted and handed Sakamoto some papers. Then he shouted a command and the guard detail stamped to a halt.
The commandant stood staring at MacArthur. I couldn't see MacArthur's face from where I was standing, but I was pretty sure he was staring back.
And then, after what seemed like a long time, MacArthur saluted. It was an absolutely West-Point-correct salute, but it was as if he had enormous weights lashed to his arm.
Colonel Sakamoto didn't return the salute; they never did. He just turned and walked back into the building, gesturing for MacArthur to follow. The lieutenant screamed at the soldiers again and they about-faced and headed back toward the gate.
Carl Norton let his breath out in a long ragged sigh. "Jesus," he said.
And after a minute: "I never liked him, you know. I always figured him for a showoff and a glory hound. I still think he handled the defense of the Philippines like somebody trying to stick his dick in his ear. But you can't help feeling for a man who's been knocked down that hard."
We still didn't know, though, just how hard this particular man had been knocked down. We found out a couple of days later, when Sergeant Watanabe, the chief interpreter, told us MacArthur's wife and son had been lost when the PT boat was sunk.
"There's no question about it," Watanabe said. "The bodies were found, washed up on the beach, the next day. The torpedo boat was literally blown out of the water, you know, by the destroyer's guns. The only survivors were the general himself and an ordinary sailor who died of his wounds on the way back to Manila."
He spoke in a clear, flawless English with only the faintest touch of an accent; four years at Princeton had left their mark, and not just on his language skills. He wasn't happy about the war and he'd tell you privately that it was going to end catastrophically for Japan.
"I know Americans," he would say. "You seem so easygoing, but under the surface you are a violent and vengeful people. You also think life is like your Western movies, in which the hero never draws first. An attack like the one at Pearl Harbor was the surest possible way to enrage the American people beyond all reason. You will not stop now until you have had your vengeance, no matter what it takes."
Now Watanabe said, "It was a strange business in Colonel Sakamoto's office. General MacArthur stood there looking straight ahead, without expression, while the commandant spoke and I translated. He only spoke in reply to direct questions, and when he did speak his voice was hoarse and indistinct, as if it hurt him to talk."
He raised an eyebrow. "How has he been behaving, since his arrival?"
We both shook our heads. "We haven't seen him," I said, "except at a distance. The generals don't mix much with us lower orders."
Which was true, not that we'd have told Watanabe if we had known anything. The Japs made a point of not recognizing distinctions in rank among the prisoners, but even so, the generals had their own barracks, and had their meals together and so on.
And MacArthur had stayed out of sight; as far as I knew he hadn't left the barracks except when he had to. We'd seen him at the morning roll-call formations, when we all had to bow in unison to the emperor, who was represented by a white post at the end of the parade ground. Really, I'm not making this up; you should have seen us, over a hundred middle-aged-to-elderly men lined up in ranks, bowing respectfully to a wooden post. Carl kept saying he was going to sneak out some night and piss on it, but he wasn't suicidal enough to do it.
We'd seen MacArthur at mealtime, and a couple of times on the way to the latrine. But we hadn't been close to him, and it wouldn't have mattered if we had; there was a wall around him that was almost visible. It wasn't just the traditional isolation of the man at the top; MacArthur seemed to be on another planet. One of the outer ones, cold and dark and with crushing gravity.
"They say he doesn't talk to anyone," Carl reported, later that evening. He was friendly with a couple of artillery colonels, and they in turn knew some of the generals, and so from time to time he heard things. "They say he just sits around, or lies on his bunk looking at the ceiling."
MacArthur not talking? There was a thought to shake your faith in the immutable laws of the universe.