W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps VII - Behind the Lines

Weston gestured that he wanted something to drink.

' Wo cerveza," the woman said.

Weston knew enough Spanish to understand there was no beer.

He shrugged, hoping she would interpret this to mean he would be satis-fied with whatever she had.

"Dinero?" the old woman asked.

He reached in his pocket and laid an American five-dollar bill on the bar. She picked it up, examined it carefully, laid it back down, and walked out of the cantina through a door in the rear. In two minutes she was back with one bottle of Coca-Cola. She opened it and handed it to him. Then she picked up the five-dollar bill and stuffed it in the opening of her dress.

"It's a good thing we're not really thirsty," Everly said, and then indi-cated with a barely perceptible move of his head that Weston should look be-hind him.

A small, dark-skinned man had come into the cantina. He was barefoot, and he was wearing a loose-fitting cotton pullover shirt and baggy, ragged cuffed trousers.

"Hello, American buddies," he called from behind the bar. "I speak En-glish. How are you?"

"Hello," Weston said.

"Very bad," the Filipino said. "Goddamn very bad."

"What's very bad?"

"Fucking war," the Filipino said, walking to Weston, putting out his hand, and when Weston took it, shaking it enthusiastically. "Fucking Japons. Bullshit."

"Very bad," Weston agreed.

"Hello, buddy," the Filipino said to Everly.

Everly nodded his head.

"No fucking beer," the Filipino said. "Damn near no Coca-Cola. Fucking Japons."

"Yes," Weston agreed.

"What can I do for you?" the Filipino asked.

"Actually, we're looking for a boat."

"Ha! No fucking boats anymore. You got any money?"

"We're trying to rent a boat to take us off Bataan," Weston said.

"No fucking boats. Japons maybe twenty-five miles away. Next week they be here."

"What happened to the boats that were here?" Weston asked.

"Everybody gone. Except maybe one or two boats hidden."

"We would like to rent one of the boats that are hidden," Weston said.

"Very expensive. Very illegal. Very dangerous. Be very expensive."

"How expensive?"

"Very expensive. Thousand dollars."

"How about five hundred?" Everly said.

"Thousand dollars. No boats left. Fucking war. Fucking Japons."

"All we have is one thousand dollars," Weston said. "And we'll need money when we get to Mindanao."

The slight Filipino looked thoughtful.

"Why you want to go to Mindanao?"

"To fight the Japanese," Weston said.

"Fucking Japons no fucking good. Goddamn. I will ask. But I think man with boat will want thousand dollars."

"If you take us to Mindanao," Weston said, "I'll give you a thousand dollars. Five hundred dollars now, five hundred when we get there."

"I will ask," the Filipino said. "You stay here. Drink Coca-Cola. I will comeback."

"When I see the boat, I will give you five hundred dollars," Weston said.

"You stay here. Drink Coca-Cola," the Filipino said. "I come quick."

He left the cantina the way he had come in.

"That was too easy," Everly said softly.

Weston's temper flared.

"You have any better ideas, Sergeant?"

"Your show, Mr. Weston, but if I was you, I'd put all but the one thousand someplace he can't see it."

Weston glowered at him, which didn't seem to faze Everly at all.

"If he does come back, I wouldn't give him the five hundred until we're on the boat," Everly said.

The Filipino came back after fifteen minutes, but he didn't enter the can-tina. He stood in the door and motioned for them to follow him.

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.