The Reckoning

By 1933, Pete has restored the fortunes of the farm. Nineva and Amos are family servants. They have a grandson, 15-year-old Jupe, who often helps around the farm. He is fascinated by Liza, but shy around her. Liza is interested in the lives of the field hands who live on the Banning land. Liza is shocked by the poverty of the field hands and resolves to improve their lot. When Liza has another miscarriage, she falls into a deep depression. When she recovers, she and Pete resume their enthusiastic relationship, but Liza doesn’t conceive again and becomes convinced that she is barren.

In 1941, Pete and Liza’s son Joel is 15, and his sister, Stella, is 13. War has been simmering in Europe and East Asia. Germany has invaded Russia and begun bombing London. Japan is turning its attention to the Philippines, which is at the time, an American territory. In September of 1941, Pete is called back to his old regiment, which is already in the Philippines.

Chapter 24 opens with a description of the Philippines, an archipelago of 7,000 islands in the South China Sea. It is virtually impossible to defend and geographically close to Japan, which is in a period of expansion, invading neighboring countries with a nationalist fervor. Major General Douglas MacArthur commands the US forces in the far east. The US military in the region is vastly outnumbered and mostly made up of untrained and under-equipped Filipino troops.

A few months after Pete’s arrival, MacArthur orders his troops to withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula for a last stand. American forces dig in and hold off the Japanese forces, but their food supplies are inadequate.

Japanese forces continuously bomb the starving Americans. Orders from Washington are for the Americans and Filipinos to fight to the last man, but the general on the field knows his men are too weak to fight. He has no means of saving his surviving men except to surrender. The Japanese are known to be brutal conquerors, but the Americans believe they will be protected by the Geneva Convention, which governs the treatment of prisoners of war.

They are wrong; the Japanese never signed the international treaty concerning the treatment of prisoners of war. The Japanese soldiers have no hesitation in brutally beating, even beheading, prisoners for minute infractions. They deprive the Americans of water and force them to march in extreme heat. Thus begins the notorious Bataan Death March. Men who fall are killed. Pete encourages the men around him, pushing them to keep up while his rage against their captors grows.

The American prisoners are marched 66 miles in six days to San Fernando. On the way, a passing Japanese soldier knocks Pete unconscious, and he falls into a ditch. His fellow prisoners believe him to be dead. When Pete covers consciousness, he is forced back into line. From San Fernando, the men are transported by train to the O’Donnell prison camp.

At camp O’Donnell, the camp commandant tells them they are not honorable prisoners of war. Surrender was an unpardonable sin to the Japanese. As cowards, they would not be treated like soldiers. He would prefer to kill them all, but he is a true warrior and true warriors show mercy.

As the prisoners are distributed around the camp, the 26th cavalry is broken up, and Pete’s former comrades, believing him dead, report his death to General King. The Japanese, being proud of their death count, allow the names of the dead to be sent back to the US.

Pete contracts dysentery and malaria. His friend, Clay Wampler, learns of a black-market dealer with medicine from one of the hospital doctors to help Pete recover. The dealer demands an exorbitant price for the medicine. Outraged, Clay beats him unconscious. A watching guard tells Clay to kill the unconscious man, but Clay refuses, saying that is what the Japanese do, implying that it would be dishonorable. The Japanese soldier allows Clay to walk away. Later, the same guard brings Clay the medicine Pete needs.

In Clanton, Joel is 16 and Stella is 15 when Liza receives the news that Pete is missing and presumed dead. Pastor Bell visits frequently in the following weeks, sitting and talking with Liza. The housekeeper, Nineva, overhears every word and here’s nothing shocking or inappropriate.

At Camp O’Donnell, Pete recovers from dysentery and malaria. Death is everywhere around them. By June, 100 men are dying every day. Death never leaves Pete’s mind. Sometimes he is tempted to lie down and die himself. It takes an iron will to keep getting up every morning and facing another day of hell. Pete survives by thinking of his wife and children, his farm, and his family’s long history in Clanton.