Free Tears in the Darkness by Michael Norman Page A

Department: He was outnumbered, he said (another fiction), leaving him at “an enormous tactical discrepancy.” He planned to invoke War Plan Orange and declare Manila an open city “in order to save the civilian population.” Meanwhile he would relocate his headquarters to the tiny island fortress of Corregidor at the southern tip of Bataan, then, in a classic withdrawal designed to delay the enemy long enough to allow him to regroup, pull his forces out from between the pincers (sidestepping, in effect) to a “final defensive position” on the peninsula. 26
    Among the thousands of troops in central Luzon preparing to withdraw south to Bataan were a handful of men at Clark Field, salvage teams and a rear-guard of Air Corps ground crews, survivors of thebombings who had volunteered to stay and keep watch—eyes peeled, ears cocked, imaginations running riot.
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    December 25, 1941, Clark Field, Philippines
    â€œWe’re expecting Jap parachute troops at any time,” the Captain said.
    â€œWe’re gonna evacuate Clark Field completely.”
    â€œParachute troops?” Q. P. Devore said to himself. “Can you imagine?”
    Every night there had been a new rumor. Fifth columnists, saboteurs, now parachutists.
    The captain wasn’t joking. Everyone was pulling out, he said, and he ordered Devore to pick six “volunteers” to man a rear-guard listening post at the north end of the main runway, six men in foxholes facing toward Lingayen Gulf and the distant roll of battle.
    Back at the barracks, the first man Devore asked was his best friend, Ben Steele.
    â€œA parachute drop?” Ben said. “God, what the hell could six guys do out there against a parachute drop?”
    â€œWell, yeah,” Devore said, “it is kind of a suicide mission.”
    At dark they dug foxholes at the end of the runway. The captain made sure they were settled, then climbed into a white Plymouth convertible he had commandeered.
    â€œIf you aren’t overrun, I’ll be back tomorrow to get you,” he said, then drove off.
    Ben Steele thought, “God, we’re all by our lonesome out here.”
    They adjusted their Lewis guns, checked their ammunition, and settled down to watch, six soldiers staring into the dark, whispering their worries. In the distance they could hear the sounds of battle, the vague report of the big guns from the gulf.
    Here they were in foxholes at the edge of an empty air base, their enemy perhaps preparing to drop in on them. What man wouldn’t be anxious waiting for that?
    Then the big guns fell silent, and the men stopped talking and started listening. They scanned the sky and cupped their ears to the dark. It was quiet, lonely quiet.
    â€œIf they come,” Q.P. said to himself, “will I fight or will I give up?”
    Sitting next to him Ben Steele was thinking the same thing. “I don’t know what I’ll do. I guess I’ll do what I have to.”
    They watched, they waited. The black night seemed to get blacker,then, at long last, gray. Soon morning was upon them, indigo, then light blue. The sun hung like a silken disk above Mount Arayat.
    Just before noon, a white Plymouth convertible came roaring across the dirt runways, trailing a rooster tail of brown dust. The car skidded to a stop in front of the foxholes. The driver’s-side door swung open.
    â€œGet in!” the captain shouted. “We’re goin’.”
    The sound of the big guns was back now, louder than the day before. The men tossed their weapons into the car, then tumbled in after them, and the convertible was out of sight before the dust had settled down again.

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MORE LIKE A HIRED HAND
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    M ONTANA’S BULL MOUNTAINS are more badlands than alpine peaks, a cluster of hills and rises running east and west along the lower Musselshell River. From a distance the rises look like mounds of earth abandoned on