“This is as far as we go, Captain,” the driver said. Although it was usually the officer who delivered such announcements to enlisted men like the one behind the wheel, the driver in this case seemed to have decided that experience trumped rank. He was an older man who clearly wasn’t impressed with Oatmire’s captain’s bars or neatly pressed uniform.
“What are you talking about?” Oatmire asked. Their surroundings swarmed with activity as army troops pushed deeper into the city, so he couldn’t figure out why the driver had stopped.
Unperturbed, the driver nodded at the road ahead — which was largely blocked by rubble and the wrecked, burned-out hulks of civilian vehicles. It wasn’t exactly an open road. Oatmire got it then — there was literally no way for the jeep to proceed. Bulldozers worked to clear the debris, but they hadn’t made much progress. The only thing that seemed to be getting through was a tank, which was unlikely to give him a ride.
Above the grinding motors of the bulldozers, they could hear a few shots in the distance. The driver didn’t appear eager to get any closer to the shooting.
“It’s literally the end of the road, sir.”
“I can see that. So this is Manila, huh?”
“Not much to look at, is it, sir?”
He had seen postcard images of the elegant old city with its Spanish architecture that General MacArthur loved so much. That picture-perfect city was rapidly becoming just a memory as the war raged. He sighed. “No, it’s not.”
Oatmire climbed out of the jeep and grabbed his haversack. His only weapon was his sidearm, a fact that the driver noticed.
“Don’t you have a rifle, sir?”
“I don’t plan on doing much fighting, soldier. No need for a rifle.”
“You might change your mind about that, sir.”
“I hope to hell not.”
“There are still a lot of Japanese around.”
“Thanks for the ride,” Oatmire said. “You’d better get on back to the beach.”
The driver gave him a wave that may have been a half-assed salute, then turned the jeep around and headed back toward the landing area. As the sound of the jeep motor faded, he could hear the thump of artillery in the distance and rifle shots nearby. Maybe that driver had been right about taking a rifle along. Oatmire looked out at the battered city and thought, What now?
Oatmire pulled out his map but quickly realized that he didn’t know what the hell he was looking at. The street signs were long gone, and any sort of landmarks on his map were unrecognizable, having mostly been reduced to rubble.
He began picking his way through the city streets, asking for directions to the University of Santo Tomas. Some of the men he asked had no clue; they knew they were in Manila and that was about it, so he kept asking. The areas that he moved through were more or less cleared of the enemy, but not completely. He dove for cover just twice, both times when sniper fire broke out. His clean uniform quickly got dusty, not to mention sweaty.
After two hours of tense movement through the city streets, knowing that each time he crossed open ground, he was making himself a target, he finally arrived at the university.
He soon realized that reaching his destination was only the start of his challenges. It turned out that the university was essentially an island, surrounded by city blocks now controlled by US forces. That much was a relief. Considering that the army had plenty of artillery firepower, the normal course of action would have been to blow the enemy to hell and bury them in the rubble, but that was not an option here. This was because the Japanese held dozens of prisoners hostage. The number of prisoners had been much larger, several thousand at the start of the battle. However, the Japanese had realized that controlling so many desperate prisoners might enable the prisoners to turn on them. Also, they had run out of food and water for the prisoners.
Holding a smaller number of prisoners still gave the surrounded Japanese a powerful negotiating tool. In fact, the presence of the hostages was why Oatmire was here in the first place.
Currently, US forces were surrounding one of the university buildings, a tall stone structure with architecture that would have been at home in Old Spain. The soldiers held their guns at the ready and kept their fingers on the triggers.
Several of the soldiers covering the building’s main entrance were snipers, indicated by the fact that they carried rifles with telescopic sights. Mixed among the sniper squad were several Filipino fighters, including a few women. The presence of the women took Oatmire somewhat by surprise. From their dirty uniforms to the gunpowder grime on their faces, the whole bunch looked like tough customers. Their weapons appeared battered but gleamed with fresh gun oil as if well tended. Oddly enough, there was also a boy hanging around, maybe ten or twelve years old, wearing shorts and a striped shirt, crouched behind a rock next to one of the snipers. He looked more American than Filipino. What a kid was doing here was a mystery. Oatmire decided that one of the first things he’d be doing was sending the boy away. This was no place for a kid.
He noticed that the sniper positioned between one of the women and the boy took his eye away from his rifle scope long enough to assess Oatmire. The man’s gray eyes passed over him cooly, his face indifferent. Oatmire noticed that one side of the man’s face was covered with a raking scar, but he was otherwise rather handsome in a rawboned way, deeply tanned by the tropical sun. The sniper gave the impression that he’d pull his trigger and deliver a deadly shot with no more thought than he would give to smashing an insect. Glad he’s on our side, Oatmire thought. Instead of a helmet, the sniper wore an Australian-style bush hat. The hat was not regulation, but Oatmire wasn’t about to say anything. That wasn’t his role here.
In the windows of the university building, he could see several Japanese with their own rifles at the ready, aimed at the Americans. With a start, Oatmire realized that he was almost certainly in the Japanese sights, and fresh sweat broke out on his forehead.
Nobody was shooting, but for how long? There were itchy trigger fingers all around. He realized that one small miscalculation was going to turn this whole situation into a bloodbath. If that happened, there sure as hell wouldn’t be any hostages for him to rescue.
Nobody but the alert sniper had paid any attention to his arrival. “Who’s in charge here?” he asked.
A tall lieutenant stepped forward, Oatmire noting with surprise that the man wore an eye patch. The patch looked homemade, as if it had been cut from a scrap of boot leather. Oatmire couldn’t help but stare.
“That would be me,” the lieutenant said. He didn’t offer a salute, which was typical of combat conditions where the gesture would make it easier for Japanese snipers to pick off the officers. “I’m Lieutenant Steele.”
“Captain Oatmire.”
“You must be our hostage negotiator.”
“That’s what I’ve been told,” Oatmire said. “It looks as if you have the Japanese bottled up.”
“If they didn’t have hostages, there wouldn’t be a building left, sir,” Steele said. “We’d have called in artillery to level it.”
“How many hostages?”
Steele shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. Too many. Every now and then, the Japanese make their prisoners stand in the windows as a reminder that it would be a bad idea if we start shooting.”
“Damn Japs. We’re getting reports that they’re using civilians as human shields all over the city. Have you talked with them?”
“No, I haven’t, Captain. Seems to me like that’s your job.”
Oatmire nodded, then pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket. He had brought it along for this very purpose. He noted with some disappointment that the handkerchief had been white, but the dusty city was already making it dingy. “All right, I’m going to approach them under a flag of truce. Hopefully they won’t shoot me.”
“Good luck with that, sir,” Steele replied. It wasn’t reassuring that he sounded doubtful that the white flag was going to do anything but get Oatmire killed. “We do have an interpreter if you want him. Yoshio, come over here a minute.”
One of the GIs scurried out from behind a chunk of rubble. Oatmire was surprised at the sight of a young Japanese man wearing an army uniform. He’d heard about these Nisei, Japanese Americans who spoke the enemy’s language. Even at headquarters, there were some who didn’t quite trust their loyalties.
“Thanks, that will be useful if there are any language issues,” Oatmire said. “Some of these Japanese speak at least a little English, but you never know.”
“You never know,” Steele agreed. He gave him another look. “If you don’t mind me asking, how many negotiations have you done?”
“I once bought a used car and got the dealer to knock off fifty bucks. Does that count?”
Steele stared at him for a moment, seeming to wonder if Oatmire was serious or not; then his face broke into a grin and he even gave a short laugh. It had a rusty sound, as if he hadn’t had much reason to laugh recently. “And you’re the guy HQ sent, huh? Sounds about right.”
“That’s the army way,” Oatmire agreed. He also found himself grinning. “On-the-job training. Any advice?”
The lieutenant thought it over. “Just remember that they’re Japs,” he said. “They don’t think like us. Most Japanese could not care less about dying, and I don’t expect that these bastards are any different. Especially the officers. I’ve got to admit, I’m surprised that any of the hostages have survived. But I guess that they want a bargaining chip.”
Oatmire found a low whistle escaping his lips. “That’s not much to negotiate with. A bargaining chip, huh? What the hell do they even want?”