Valor by Dan Hampton

Author:Dan Hampton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

SEVEN

LOST SOULS

Fish.

The deck stank of fish, and old brown scales rotted in the crannies and corners. Heavy and unmistakable, the stench hovered just above the worn deck like an invisible, slightly foul cloud. Though not a fishing boat, the Japanese had plainly used the motor launch that way to supplement their diet, and who could blame them? Inside the wheelhouse, the smell wasn’t much better. Fumes from the old diesel floated around the engine room until thick enough, then escaped into the wheelhouse, where they swirled around until sucked out by the breeze.

Bill Harris didn’t mind one bit.

Once again free of land, this time he had an engine instead of a sail, plenty of food and water, and a crew. There were five Filipinos, including Lieutenant Sergio Estoiko along with Chamberlain and Armstrong. A surprise addition were two army soldiers, both claiming to be lieutenants, who appeared at the guerilla camp on November 13, the night before departure. Barefoot and skinny, they were thrilled to find the three Marines and immediately asked to accompany them to China. Errold Glew began the war in the 48th Material Squadron of the 24th Pursuit Group at Clark Field. After its mauling by the Japanese, the remaining aircraft deployed to Del Monte Field on Mindanao until Bataan surrendered. Glew and a few others, not wishing to be prisoners, made their way across the Bohol Sea to Cebu, where they joined up with Colonel Irvine Scudder’s 2nd and 83rd Infantry (PA). Arriving just before the Japanese landings on Cebu, Glew retreated with Brigadier General Bradford Chynoweth’s survivors into the hills, where, according to him, the general commissioned him a lieutenant.* Hiding in the hills, Glew finally made it across the Visayan Sea to join the guerillas he’d heard of on Panay.

Paul Cothran, from McClain County, Oklahoma, followed a different path to Panay. Enlisting in 1940, he’d served with the Coast Artillery at Charleston’s Fort Moultrie before transferring to the 31st Infantry Regiment in Manila. A sergeant by the time war came, Cothran fought with the 31st under Lieutenant Colonel Jasper Brady all through the Bataan campaign and was awarded the Bronze Star with an officer’s commission. After his regiment was wiped out at the Alangan River on April 8, 1942, Cothran joined those fleeing south and ended up on Panay, where he was captured during the summer. Escaping in August from the Japanese prison camp at Iloilo, he’d come north with Glew looking for Peralta’s guerillas in August.†

They were all on deck now, except Bill, who remained at the wheel. A crowded mass of cheering Filipinos lined the bank, and Harris remembered shouting over the wind and chugging engine, “So long … I’ll see you after the war!” Easing the launch away from the shore into Banga Bay, he turned around and glanced down the river mouth for a moment, then beyond to Mount Sinalay. With a final wave, Bill leaned from the wheelhouse and stared west over the bow at Tabon Island. It was

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