Something was going on, Hannah and the other POWs sensed. Suddenly, they were virtually unguarded. Where had all the planes and soldiers gone?
Months had passed since Hannah’s last conversation with Robert, and she could only guess that the army had indeed attacked the Philippines at a more vulnerable point in the central islands. Certainly Mindanao wasn’t a target—yet.
“It’s January first, 1945,” Nettie announced one morning. “Happy New Year!”
“What’s so happy about it?” Joan grumbled. “It’s the third New Year’s Day that’s come and gone since we’ve been imprisoned. I don’t think that’s anything to celebrate.”
“It’s also the last New Year’s Day we’ll spend here,” Hannah said. “We’ll be rescued soon.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Pam reminded her.
It was true. Their Japanese captors had been very close-mouthed lately. Hannah hadn’t overheard any news from them, good or bad.
“Let’s find out for sure today,” Hannah said. “It’s been so long since we’ve been allowed to walk outside. Maybe they’ll let us go to the stream if we ask nicely.”
“If the Americans have invaded, keeping an eye on us should really be the least of their worries,” Debbie agreed. “It’s worth a try.”
The women were surprised by how easy it was. When Debbie made the polite request, their guard just shrugged and unbolted the padlock. “Don’t go far,” he ordered, waving them off with his rifle.
It was the most freedom the five had had since their capture. They ran laughing to the stream, their hair flying in the breeze. With the garrison force greatly diminished, their guard was doing double duty; he hung back, watching them with only one eye.
“Maybe we should try to escape!” Pam cried excitedly as they splashed into the stream.
Debbie pointed to the forbidding barbed-wire fence in the distance. “How do you plan to get over that, fly?”
“We could dig under it,” Pam suggested.
“And get shot in the process,” Joan said. “No, thanks.”
“We can’t risk it,” Hannah agreed. “But as soon as I talk to Robert, I’ll be able to give you good news about the plans to rescue us, I promise!”
While the other girls lounged on the grass alongside the reeds, Hannah crawled to the flat stone. It had been so long since she’d visited the spot. Was the radio still there? Would it still work? Her heart pounded thankfully when she found it, intact and operable. But as she adjusted the frequency to radio Robert, another misgiving came over her. What if something had happened to him? What if his carrier had been hit, or even sunk? Holding her breath, Hannah waited for what seemed an age for someone to answer her signal. Please, let him be there, she prayed. “Star? Pacific Star?” a male voice said at last. “Is that you?”
“Sea Eagle!” To Hannah’s surprise, her eyes filled with sudden tears.
“Oh, Star, I thought you were... you haven’t been hurt, have you?”
“No.” Hannah laughed through her tears. “I’m fine. We’re all fine! And you?”
“I’m fine, too. The battle for Leyte finally ended. We lost a lot of men.”
“Oh, Sea Eagle, isn’t this war almost over?” Hannah asked.
“Yes,” Robert promised. “Soon we’ll come for you.” There was a new note in Robert’s voice. “I’ve been in agony waiting to hear from you, wondering if you were still alive.”
“It’s been hard for me, too,” Hannah confessed. “For a while, they stopped letting us go outside. Now, though, the compound is practically empty of soldiers. I think they’ll be less strict with us from now on.”
“We took the Japanese by surprise up here,” Robert said. “They had to pour reinforcements into the area—from your garrison among others, I bet.”
“Sea Eagle, I should go,” Hannah said reluctantly. “But I’ll radio again soon.”
“Pacific Star, I—I think about you all the time. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. But be careful.”
“I will. And you be careful, too.”
“Over and out.”
Hannah replaced the radio, her cheeks pink from the warmth of Robert’s words. It was absolutely crazy, but she couldn’t deny what was happening in her own heart, and what seemed to be happening in Robert’s as well. They’d fallen in love over the wireless.
Time passed slowly, but it was bearable for Hannah because she could contact Robert regularly now that the guards, preoccupied with other matters, had grown lax. One day in early March, the five women hung their wet laundry and then strolled away from the compound along the stream. Debbie and Pam tossed a coconut back and forth, pretending it was a football. Nettie and Joan picked flowers. Hannah slipped behind the reeds to radio Robert.
“Good news!” he greeted her. “Manila is back in American hands!”
“Is it over then?” Hannah asked hopefully. “Have the Japanese surrendered?”
“Not yet,” Robert said. “We still have to eliminate the last Japanese resistance in the southern islands. My ship’s heading south again now.”
“The southern islands... you mean here?”
When Robert assented, Hannah’s heart pounded with a mixture of exultation and fear. Finally, the war was coming to Mindanao!
At that moment, she heard shouting from the direction of the compound. Soon another sound became audible: the distant buzz of planes. Debbie darted around the stand of reeds and grabbed Hannah’s arms. “Come on!” she yelled. “We have to take shelter! Those are American planes, and I think they’re going to bomb the base!” Hannah didn’t even have time to say goodbye to Robert. Dropping the radio, she kicked the stone over it and ran after Debbie and the others.
The girls never even made it back to the compound. As they watched in amazement, a host of trucks and tanks rumbled by them, flanked by foot soldiers—the entire population of the base, Hannah guessed. Seeing the girls, an officer gestured sharply with his rifle. The five fell into line. Pam clutched Joan’s arm fearfully. Debbie and Nettie clasped hands. “What’s happening?” Debbie cried.
The grim-faced troops paid no attention to her. Hannah spotted the soldier who’d been their guard that morning. “Please, where are we going?” she asked him.
“The American army is attacking,” he replied in terse Japanese. “We are abandoning the base to retreat into the mountains, where we can make a better defense.”
Abandoning the base! Hannah glanced back longingly at the reed-fringed stream. If she’d only known! She would have risked detection in order to smuggle the radio away with her. Now there was no way she could retrieve it. A feeling of dread crept into Hannah’s heart, freezing the blood in her veins. From this moment on, the POWs were cut off from all communication with the outside world. The Japanese troops were dragging their prisoners into the jungle to make their last stand, and Hannah knew they would fight to the death.
