When We Had Wings

Malinta Tunnel, Corregidor Island, February 1942

Penny assists in amputating a young soldier’s foot. She reflects that the sights and smells of her profession don’t bother her, but the sounds will never leave her (saw on bone, falling appendages, cauterizing flesh, dripping blood). After completing the surgery and ending her shift, she hopes she’ll have time to watch the sunset and find a few minutes of peace.

Maude returns from surveying the field hospitals. When Penny hugs her in relief, Maude hugs her back “the way a mother would” (55). Maude says field conditions are so bad that she’ll have to send some of her nurses; Penny volunteers, but Maude values her skills too much to let her go. She laughs when Penny says she’s going to watch the sunset because she has lost 12 hours: It’s almost seven o’clock in the morning. In the confines of the tunnel, there’s no natural light by which to mark the day.

Penny heads to the mouth of the tunnel to watch the sunrise. There she meets Charley Russell, who offers her a cigarette. She accepts but coughs hard and remembers that she hasn’t smoked since she got pregnant. She tells Charley she just inhaled “too much, too fast” (61). He asks if she needs anything, and she says to ask Maude what surgery needs. They share a long gaze before he says he wasn’t asking about the surgery or Maude; he was asking what she needs.

Little Baguio Field Hospital, February 1942

Lita agrees to attend Cassie’s birthday celebration but regrets borrowing one of Cassie’s civilian dresses, feeling it’s too revealing. She worries about standing out as the only Filipina there (most of the others volunteered for a transfer). Cassie surprises everyone by reaching into her satchel and pulling a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red, which she somehow managed to hold onto throughout the chaos of war and two evacuations. Lita and the others drink and dance.

Lita dances with Dr. Thomson, who apologizes for reprimanding her about improper bandaging. She forgives him, and they chat briefly before a young medic cuts in. Lon McGibbons asks about Lita’s obvious back pain and offers to massage it, which she interprets as romantic innuendo. Lon attempts to correct this error just as the crowd begins singing “Happy Birthday” to Cassie, and Lita, feeling sick, escapes to her room. The next day she realizes she has malaria.

Santa Scholastica College, Manila, February 1942

Japanese forces take control of the Philippine Islands. Eleanor and another nurse, Peg, watch the Japanese military parade past the college. The next day, a contingent of soldiers arrives to inform them that they’re all now prisoners of war (POWs).

Japanese guards search the camp, taking belongings and medical supplies such as quinine and thus making an outbreak of malaria certain. The soldiers initially ignore the nurses, but as time passes they begin punishing them for infractions (such as failing to bow properly) with hard slaps. Eleanor is surprised to find that one of the worst parts of her imprisonment is not fear but boredom.

The nurses are transferred to Santo Tomas Internment Camp, which is run mostly by a civilian executive committee headed by an American named Jim Hobbes. It’s overcrowded with civilians and children, whose only crime was being in Manila at the time of the invasion.

Little Baguio Field Hospital, March 1942

Lita wakes from her second bout of malaria. Lon is there and admits that he has been hoping for a second chance to make a good impression. He talks about his aspiration to become a banker after the war. After he excuses himself to let her rest, Lita feels grateful that someone is watching over her.

As they get to know each other, Lon explains that he decided he wanted to be a banker when he was 12; he admired the polish and luxury that money could buy, which his farmer father lacked. Lita confesses that she didn’t want to be a nurse and fought with her mother about attending nursing school, refusing to apologize even after her mother caught rheumatic fever. Since her mother’s death, Lita has been burdened by guilt. Lon comforts her, and as the two learn in for their first kiss, bombers appear in the sky, signaling the end of a lull in the fighting.

Lita struggles with the symptoms of malaria. The nurses are being evacuated to Corregidor, and Lon begs Lita to go quickly and stay safe. Their journey includes taking a small motorboat across the bay, and Lita recalls her father’s drowning death with terror but forces herself on board. On Corregidor, she reunites with Penny.

Malinta Tunnel, Corregidor Island, April 1942

Penny and others congregate near the tunnel entrance to watch the sunset. When the distant rumble of bombs suddenly intensifies into a whistle, Penny moves backward into the cave just as a shell lands at the entrance. Charley wants to move her to safety, but she insists on helping the injured.

Penny is called into a meeting with Maude and General Jonathan Wainwright, who share secret news: Two seaplanes are going to sneak through the Japanese blockade and evacuate a small number of people. MacArthur has given a list of civilians and war experts of priority, but there’s room for 20 nurses. The general hopes to send as many women away as possible, alluding to the systematic rape of women when Japan sacked the Chinese city of Nanking five years earlier. Penny is filled with dread as she realizes that the fall of Corregidor is certain.

Several days later, Penny overhears Charley and General Wainwright talking about the likely surrender of Corregidor to the Japanese. She confesses her eavesdropping to Charley, collapsing into his arms with fright. He reassures her and hands her his battle flag, marked with the symbols of the Twelfth Regimental Quartermaster Corps. He says she must keep it for him, so that he can come and get it back “when this is all over” (111), and then kisses her.

Charley admits that having her redo her requisition forms was a way of getting to see her. Surprised, she says he won’t get another kiss until he proves that his feelings are more than a “wartime crush” by promising not to die. He promises, but Penny worries that she has forced him to make a promise he can’t keep.

Japanese forces arrive, saying women shouldn’t be there because they “have no place in war” (116). Lieutenant Akibo tells Penny and 10 others to come outside because they have a message to send to General MacArthur. As a photographer takes hostage photos, Penny notes that Akibo speaks excellent English, and he says he went to Harvard, “one of your universities” (118). That night, Penny wakes to Akibo’s knife at her throat. She commands him not to touch her, and in response he unclasps her gold nugget necklace, saying that it’s his and she’ll be his soon too.

Santo Tomas Internment Camp, Manila, May 1942

Santo Tomas receives news that Bataan and Corregidor have fallen, and Eleanor hopes she might see her friends. The injured and dying arrive at the hospital, and the Japanese suggest that medical staff kill those who are chronically ill or permanently crippled, but the surgeons refuse. Eleanor tries to imagine a future beyond her present horror, and her thoughts often drift to John Olson. One day she stumbles upon a married couple using her bunk to secretly have sex, and she imagines herself with John, remembering the first time their hands touched. John was standing outside the parsonage when Eleanor arrived to thank him for praying with her sick mother. They chatted easily and she felt electric at the touch of his hand.

Eleanor scolds herself for thinking about a man who is no doubt married to someone else by now.

Malinta Tunnel, Corregidor Island, May 1942

Lita wakes to Reyna having a nightmare and offers comfort, but Reyna turns her back. Aggravated, Lita goes for a walk. In the latrine tunnel, she discovers a Japanese soldier trying to rape a civilian in her bed. The woman escapes and the man runs away thanks to Lita’s arrival. A complaint is filed, but the Japanese commandant concludes that the assailant must have been American.

In June, Dr. Cooper convinces the commandant to allow the nurses to move out of the tunnel into an old hospital, where they enjoy fresh air and sunshine. In addition, the commandant gives them cake and beer. As they savor the brief joy, Lita and Penny declare this a “partial HAM Day” and toast to Eleanor. A week later, they’re put on a ship to Manila, where the Filipina nurses—deemed traitors for working with the Americans—are separated from the others and sent to Bilibid Prison, notorious for pestilence and cruelty.

Santo Tomas Internment Camp, Manila, July 1942

Penny falls asleep waiting for the guards to register her at the camp. Akibo wakes her and orders her to empty her rucksack. Groggy, she dumps everything before realizing with horror that Charley’s quartermaster’s flag has fallen out. Afraid that Akibo will see it as a sign of defiance, Penny pretends it’s a scarf, knotting it around her shoulders, and the ruse works.

The nurses are sent across the street to an old convent, where there’s no work to do. Without distractions, Penny can’t escape her memories: the miscarriage of a baby girl who would now be a toddler and the subsequent death of her husband, Sam, in a traffic accident. She feels that his death was her fault because he was exhausted after staying up all night comforting her over the loss of their child. Her thoughts drift to Charley Russell and then to Blanche Kimball, a nurse who uses playing cards to tell fortunes. Every time she reads Penny’s, she deals the eight of hearts, “a sure sign of a love affair” (142). Penny gets up and puts herself to work cleaning the convent steps but can’t stop thinking about Charley.

Maude takes her to meet Ida Hube, a wealthy German woman. Because of her nationality, the Japanese have classified her as an ally and allow her to move in and out of the internment camps, but her loyalties lie with the Americans, particularly women. She brings gifts, including basics like soap and sanitary pads as well as luxuries like chocolate and flowers. Maude reveals that she sends messages through the nuns—who, along with the priests, work with the Resistance—to Ida Hube.

The nurses are moved back to Santo Tomas to work at the hospital. Eleanor explains that the campus is a kind of working city, offering services, classes, banking, and trade. Filipino vendors are allowed into the camp each morning, and they smuggle messages and contraband. The system works but is precarious.

Bilibid Prison, Manila, August 1942

A Japanese officer tells the nurses they’re traitors but will be forgiven if they all sign a loyalty oath to Japan. Reyna immediately refuses.

During the night, a Japanese soldier wakes Lita. At first terrified, she’s elated to discover that Lon bribed the guard to bring her to him. She explains the deal the nurses have been offered and Reyna’s refusal. Lon implores Lita to convince Reyna to sign. He tells Lita he loves her, and they part.

Reyna still refuses to sign the oath. Lita asks why Reyna never liked her and if it’s because she’s a mestiza. Reyna scoffs and says it’s because Lita became a nurse only to immigrate to the US. Reyna cares about the Philippines and its people, and she became a nurse to help them: She reveals that her nightmares are about being in a boat, unable to help patients trying to climb in with her as they drown. Lita says that if Reyna signs the paper and continues living, she’ll be able to save more lives. Reyna signs it, prompting the other holdouts to do so too, and they’re freed from Bilibid.