Everly gestured for Weston to go first.
The Filipino led them down a trail through the thick vegetation for a quar-ter mile, and then stopped. He pointed toward the water. After a moment, Wes-ton saw faint marks on the muddy, rocky beach which suggested that a boat had been dragged from the water. A moment later, he saw the stern of a boat peeking through the thick vegetation.
"Good fucking boat," the Filipino said. "Carry you to Mindanao. Shit, carry you to fucking Australia."
He left the trail and pushed his way through the vegetation toward the beach.
When they reached the boat, two other Filipinos were there. An older man was dressed like the first, and a stocky, flat-faced young woman wore a thin cotton dress and apparently nothing else.
"They no speak English like me," the Filipino said. "I translate for you."
There was an exchange between the Filipino men.
"He say he want to see money."
"I'll give him the money when that boat is in the water and we're under way," Weston said.
"You no trust me?" the Filipino asked, in a hurt tone.
"When the boat is in the water and we've pushed off," Weston said.
"No go now," the Filipino said, as if explaining something to a backward child. "Must go in dark. Fucking Japons see us if we go now, and maybe fuck-ing U.S. Navy."
Weston wondered if that meant the Navy was patrolling these waters to prevent Americans from leaving the peninsula. From deserting in the face of the enemy. He looked at his watch. It was 1735. Darkness should fall soon.
"OK," Weston said. "We'll wait."
"OK," the Filipino said. "Get off beach where nobody can see you."
As darkness fell, there was a heavy rain shower, and Weston and Everly found what shelter they could under the hull of the boat. It didn't offer much shelter, though, and they could not help but notice the battered condition of the hull.
It was quite dark when other men appeared. `Their' Filipino motioned them out from under the hull, and when they moved onto the beach, they al-most immediately stepped into water. The beach had narrowed; the tide had risen.
The men, using ropes woven from vines, dragged the boat across the beach and got it into the water.
"You give me money now," 'their' Filipino said when the boat was bob-bing, barely visible, several yards offshore.
When Weston produced the money, the Filipino counted it in the light of a Zippo lighter. The lighter had a USMC insignia. For a moment Weston thought, lightly, that might be a good omen. Then he wondered where the Fili-pino found the lighter. Lighters were in short supply. There were no more Ship's Stores or Army Post Exchanges, nor stores outside military bases. Good cigarette lighters were in demand; people took care of them.
Where did this guy get the lighter? Steal it from somebody? Offer some other Marine a way off Bataan, then rob him, knowing he couldn't go to the Military Police? Or throw him over the side?
That's paranoid, he told himself. There's no reason to be suspicious of the Filipino.
If he'd wanted to rob us, he could have done it in the cantina, or while we were here in the bush, waiting for it to get dark And we couldn't have done a thing about it. There is a boat, and absolutely no indication that the Filipino is going to do anything but what he agreed to do, get us off Bataan. What's wrong with you, Jim Weston, is that you 're afraid. You 're afraid of what you 're doing, deserting in the face of the enemy; and you 're afraid of getting killed. For Christ's sake, you're supposed to be an officer. Act like one!
They waded out to the boat, finding themselves in water almost to their armpits, holding their weapons over their heads. When they reached the side of the boat, one of the Filipinos leaned over and took Weston's Springfield from him. Then he reached down for the web belt, with its holstered pistol.
If I hand over the pistol, I'll be disarmed. Maybe they've been waiting for this-to separate us from our weapons.
Oh, for Christ's sake! Stop it! If they wanted to slit our throats, they would have done that on the beach.
He let the Filipino on the boat take the web belt. And then a hand found his in the darkness, and he felt himself being hauled out of the water.
The first thing that happened was his pistol belt and the Springfield were returned to him, which made him feel like a fool.
Everly came aboard a moment later. One of the Filipino seamen took Wes-ton's arm, led them to a small hatch in the deck, and motioned them through it. A match flared, and in its light Weston saw the Filipino lighting a primitive oil lamp, nothing more than what looked like a six-inch piece of clothesline stuck into a bottle of oil. But the flame caught, and the small compartment was dully illuminated. The Filipino handed him the lamp and then left the compartment, closing the hatch after him.
Weston looked at Everly.
"Well, we seem to be on our way," Weston said. Everly did not reply.
Weston saw Everly make sort of a pillow out of his rucksack and then lie down on the deck. Weston had no rucksack, and tried to make himself comfort-able without one. But the confinement of the compartment and the curve of the hull made this impossible; his head hung down painfully. Finally, he took off his shirt and rolled it up. This seemed to work.
He heard creaking sounds from outside; and then he had a sense of motion, as if the boat were getting under way.
"Have you got a match, or a lighter?" Everly asked. It was the first time he had spoken.
"Both," Weston replied.
"Why don't you put that lamp out?" Everly said, his suggestion again sounding more like an order. "If we need it, we can relight it. If that lamp spills, lit, there's likely to be a fire."
"Right," Weston said, and blew the flame out. There was an unpleasant-smelling smoke, and the coal on the wick took a long time to die out.
Then the darkness was complete. There was no question now that they were moving. The hull was canted-which forced Weston to readjust his po-sition on the deck-and he could hear the splash and gurgle of water on the hull.
He started to think. The idea that they were going to be robbed and killed no longer seemed credible. He was almost embarrassed that he had had it. But what was real was that he had now deserted. That was a fact. He had deserted in the face of the enemy, in the foul-smelling bilge of a crude Philippine fishing boat. It was not what he had had in mind when he joined The Corps and went through flight school.
He fell asleep trying to put things in order, telling himself he was going to have to stop dwelling on the desertion business. It wasn't as if he was running away to avoid his military duty; what he really was doing was evading capture, so that he could make his way to Australia and get back in the cockpit of a fighter to wage war against the enemy as he had been trained to fight.
Weston woke in shock and confusion. That immediately turned into terror.
He tried to sit up-a reflex action-and became instantly aware that some-thing-someone-was lying on him. And then whoever was lying on him was thrashing about and making horrible guttural sounds. And then-again without conscious effort-when he tried to push whoever was on top of him off, or to slip out from under him, he realized his hands were slippery.
"Mr. Weston, you all right?" Everly hissed. Before Weston could form a reply, he sensed movement; and then the weight on him lifted.