Everly reappeared carrying blankets. Weston saw that he had the snub-nosed pistol jammed in his waistband, and that he, too, now had a first-class wristwatch. Weston had seen it on the man's body.
"I also found a bunch of good fucking charts," Everly said.
"What do you think we should do about the boat?"
"What do you mean, do about it?"
"Burn it, maybe?"
"And call attention to ourselves? The Japs already strafed this boat once. Those were machine-gun bullets in the woman." He indicated the bullet holes in the desk and glass.
"We can't just leave them in there like that," Weston said.
"Yes, we can," Everly said. "We load this stuff on the boat and get the fuck away from here before some other Jap airplane comes this way."
Weston felt anger well up within him, so quickly and so fiercely that he was frightened. He forced himself, literally, to count to ten before he spoke.
"Sergeant, find something to weight the bodies down. Maybe an engine battery. We'll wrap them in blankets and put them over the side."
"Didn't you hear what I said, Mr. Weston, about getting out of here before the Japs come back?"
"Didn't you hear what I said, Sergeant, about finding something to weight the bodies down?"
Everly met Weston's eyes for a long moment.
"The proper response, Sergeant, is 'Aye, aye, Sir.' "
There was another hesitation, shorter, but perceptible.
"Aye, aye, Sir," Sergeant Everly said.
"Where's the charts you said you found?" Weston asked. "I want a quick look at them."
"Over there, Mr. Weston," Everly said, pointing to what looked like a brand-new briefcase. "We also have another three thousand dollars."
"You found a wallet or something?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Names of these people in it?"
"I guess they're their names."
"Don't lose it," Weston ordered. "Someone will want to know what hap-pened to these people."
"Like when we get to Australia?"
"Or when we win the war," Weston said curtly.
Everly smiled.
"Something funny, Sergeant?" Weston said as he felt his temper rise again. Then his mouth ran away with him.
"When I was in the Officers' Basic Course, Everly, I had an instructor, a man like you. As a matter of fact, I recall him mentioning that he was an old China Marine. You know what he told me a Marine was? He said that a Marine was somebody hired by the Government to take bullets for civilians. And that's what we're going to do. We're Marines, and we're going to bury these civil-ians. If we take a bullet while we're doing it, that's how it will have to be."
Everly continued to smile.
"You think that's funny?" Weston snapped.
"No, Sir, what I was thinking..."
"Out with it, Sergeant!"
"That maybe you're not the candy-ass I thought you were at first."
"Well, fuck you, Sergeant!" Weston heard himself say.
"Yes, Sir," Everly said. "I'll go see if I can find some batteries or some-thing."
As Everly said, the charts were good. Within a minute or so, Weston was sure he had found where they were-in the passage between Lubang Island and Ambil Island, to its east. According to the chart, Ambil was uninhabited. To the south, across the Verde Island Passage, was Mindoro.
Now that he had the charts (presuming the boat didn't come apart on them, or Japanese aircraft didn't strafe them, or Japanese vessels didn't intercept them, or, for that matter, they didn't founder in one of the sudden, violent storms for which these seas were famous), he saw a good chance of making it through the inland Sibuyan Sea, and then the Visayan Sea, past the Visayan Islands (Panay, Negros, Cebu, and Bohol) into the Mindanao Sea and to Min-danao.
There was a Waterman pen-and-pencil set in the briefcase. He used the pencil to mark a tentative course, aware, but pretending not to notice, that Ev-erly had brought the bodies onto the deck and trussed them neatly in blankets. Each of them was weighted down with two batteries.
Everly found that a portion of the aft rail of the cruiser could be opened inward. He opened it.
"Anytime you're ready, Mr. Weston," he said.
"I think a word of prayer would be in order, Sergeant," Weston said as he replaced the charts in the briefcase.
Having said that, the only thing he could think of was the Lord's Prayer. He recited it, as Everly stood with his head bowed.
His mind then went blank.
After a long moment, he said, "Into the deep we commit the bodies of our brother and sister departed. Amen."
"Amen," Sergeant Everly parroted.
They pushed the blanket-wrapped bodies through the opening in the rail into the sea.
Thirty minutes later, they cut loose from the Yet Again and Weston pointed the bow toward the Verde Island Passage.
He looked back once at the cabin cruiser drifting on the blue water, and was sorry he did.
[FOUR]
Headquarters, 4th Marine Regiment
Fortress Corregidor
Manila Bay, Republic of the Philippines
0415 Hours 6 May 1942
"You know what I know about burning the colors, Paulson?" Colonel S. L. Howard, USMC, who was the senior Marine officer on Corregidor, asked of Major Stephen J. Paulson, USMC, who was acting S-l, 4th Marines.
"No, Sir."
They were perhaps one hundred feet in a lateral tunnel opening off the main Malinta Tunnel. From their lateral, it was perhaps two hundred yards to the entrance to the now sandbagged entrance. The colors, the national flag, and the regimental flag of the 4th Marines were behind Howard's desk, unfurled, their staffs resting in holders.
"Not very much," Howard said. "And I can't even remember where I learned-I must have read it somewhere in a novel-what I do know. I know that it is a disgrace to lose your colors to the enemy, and at the last possible moment before the enemy is to lay his hands on them, it is the duty of the senior officer present to burn them."
"That's how I understand it, Sir."
"I would say we are at that moment, Paulson, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, Sir."
There was no question about that. Two days before, the Japanese assault on Fortress Corregidor had begun, with a massive, unceasing, around-the-clock artillery barrage. Someone had calculated that eleven explosive rounds were landing on the Fortress every minute. That translated to 667 rounds per hour, 16,000 rounds each twenty-four hours.
The Japanese landed on the island the day before, at what was called the "Tail of the Tadpole," and suffered heavy losses. But they kept coming, and it was impossible to throw them back into the sea. To avoid firing on their own men, that portion of the Japanese artillery fire initially directed at the Tail of the Tadpole had shifted, and was now falling on Top Side-the Head of the Tadpole-where the barracks had once stood, and beneath which was the tun-nel complex.
Japanese infantry was making its way up from the Tail to Top Side, slowly but irresistibly.
There were approximately 15,000 American and Filipino men and officers defending Fortress Corregidor, very few of whom (approximately one-tenth) had training as infantry soldiers. The vast bulk of American military personnel, except for the regular Corregidor garrison-Coast Artillerymen-were techni-cians, staff officers, and clerks of one kind or another, who had moved to Cor-regidor when General MacArthur had moved his headquarters to the Fortress early in the war.