Manila Espionage

AS WE DOCKED AT PIER Number Seven, I spotted my close friend Louise De Martini, waving excitedly, and calling my name.

September 20th, 1941 and journey’s end at Manila. Twenty six days voyaging across the frequently not-so-pacific Pacific on a slow Swedish freighter is not a picnic. Add to this the care of a small child, mal-de-mar [sea sickness], boredom and the inescapable smorgasbord [buffet]. These are a few of the many reasons why I was happy to reach my destination.

In a manner, it was coming home. I might as well recite that closed bitter-sweet chapter of my past life briefly, and then slam the book shut with a decided bang.

Some years before I had played Manila with a touring American musical stock company, and only expected to remain there about six months. I met Mr. Wrong, [instead of Mr. Right] married him, and deemed myself settled as a care-free, station-wagon driving housewife. We acquired a comfortable suburban home, a baby girl, servants, friends, and for a time all was well.

Next to death, marriage is probably one of the greatest of life’s adventures. Mine culminated in a misadventure and as the aftermath, I took my infant daughter, Dian, and returned home.

Call it restlessness, fate, wanderlust or the whirligig of chance. Bill Shakespeare said that “all the world’s a stage” and maybe I was not fond of sitting in the wings, so for some unexplainable reason the States soon lost their lure for me. Despite the dire warnings and vehement protests of my well-meaning family, I packed my bags, took Dian in my arms, and walked up the gang-plank of the S. S. Annie Johnson at Wilmington.

Now I was back. As the motley assortment of gold miners [headed for the gold ore rich veins in the mountains of Luzon or Baguio, or perhaps a small strike elsewhere] and Filipino students, my erstwhile fellow passengers, courteously made way, Dian and I went ashore.

“Honey, I’m glad to see you,” Louise greeted, as we hugged and kissed. “But I think that you’re a crazy fool.”

“That’s a fine way to welcome [back] a pal,” I returned, somewhat surprised. “Why am I so foolish?”

“Mr. Whiskers has been frantically urging all of the American women and children in the Islands to return home for the past six months, and here you come barging in.”

“Well, what of it?”

Louise clapped her hand to her brow in mock horror.

“What of it, she says. Didn’t it occur to you that the navy escorted your tub into the Bay because it is mined? Take a look at the army and navy activity on the waterfront.”

“So what?”

“So there may be a war, and Manila will be a very unhealthy spot.”

“You mean the Japs?” I returned, undaunted. “That’s newspaper talk. They threaten and bluff, but I don’t think that they will ever fight us.* They are not that crazy.”

“This world is chock full of crazy people,” said Louise with a gesture of finality as she led the way to her car.

We stowed ourselves and luggage in it, and drove off. The form of half-forgotten things now began to shape itself in my mind. As we sped through the streets of the ancient city, I became acutely aware of the depressing heat and the pungent ammonia-like odor resulting from the universal human and animal promiscuity. We narrowly averted numerous collisions with carromatas... those quaint little native vehicles drawn by diminutive flea-bitten nags.

“We’re having practice blackouts,” Louise remarked casually.

“That’s interesting. I hope they will have one soon.”

“Well, I don’t! I may be a pessimist, but don’t let me get you down. I am glad that you’ve returned.”

“Then I am not a fool?”

“Of course, you are,” Louise shot back. “But we’re birds of a feather. Plenty of people keep telling me that I should go home, but here I am.”

Louise had two rooms in readiness for us in her attractive bachelor-girl apartment. I liked them and told her so.

“Why not settle down here permanently,” she invited. “And be my family?”

“Oh yes,” I laughed. “We will stay here ‘permanently’ until I can get some singing jobs and a place of my own.”

I soon discovered that whenever three people assembled at Louise’s apartment, a party was under way. Sometimes it was only a quiet tea party. Then again, cocktails or champagne would appear as if by magic; more people would drop out of the blue, and ideas as well as corks would start popping. After some of these shindigs, Louise and I would chin far into the night, discussing mutual friends, both old and new.

One couple, both intrigued and worried us. “Mona” so dubbed because of her “Mona Lisa” smile, and her adoring “Wop,” Charley De Maio, Chief Petty Officer, U.S. Navy, he had good-naturedly “wopped” her right back, for both were of Italian ancestry. I liked him at once because of his infectious grin, his expressive Latin eyes and his impulsive, warm-hearted mannerisms. Charley was good-looking, stocky, and not too tall but tall enough for his petite, red-headed girlfriend.

Mona was about twenty when I met her, very pretty and cute, with smooth olive skin, plus dimples that she could turn on and off like her charm. When she was crossed, her temper flared like her hair. Mona could not “possibly live” on the generous allowance that her father gave her, so she was constantly asking her friends to help her out of her financial difficulties “just until the end of the month.” Wop laughingly commented several times, “I’m engaged to Mona all right, but I’m damned if I know if she’s engaged to me!” Louise said that it certainly did not look like it when Wop’s ship was out. I remember that De Maio told me “Just let me catch Mona two-timing me. I’ll put her right across my knee.” I hastened to let him know that the idea was a good one, adding, “It would be a better one to forget her. She will never be serious about anyone but herself.”

I enjoyed the gossip, the assorted pleasure-loving crowd and the good times we shared, but like all things mortal, this, too, came to an end when I lined up the kind of singing jobs that I wanted. This was not difficult as with few passable American singers around, competition was not too keen. My professional experience, plus my collection of new songs and gowns, fresh from the States, was also a helpful factor. Billed under my stage name of “Claire De La Taste,” I was soon singing for special parties; first at the Manila Hotel ballroom, and then at the ultra-modernistic Alcazar Club.

Ignoring Louise’s well-intentioned protests, I moved to the Dakota Apartments, an airy modern building in Ermeta, one of the most attractive residential sections of the city. My little ménage was soon running smoothly with the aid of Lolita, a young Filipino nurse, plus Maria, an elderly native cook-housekeeper. Lolita was more than just a mere servant from the moment she entered my employ. I left Dian in her keeping on the nights I was working, knowing that the baby would be well cared for. Lolita could “live in” as her husband had recently joined the Philippine Constabulary and was constantly on maneuvers.

The romantic setting of the Alcazar Club, where I sang nostalgic torch songs under a soft cascade of shifting pastel lights, may have been responsible for what happened next. However, it was destined to be, and the result would have been the same if the locale had been a frozen tundra in the Arctic Circle.

No one could miss that soldier!

I saw him almost as soon as he arrived with a group of his friends... over six feet of erect, well-proportioned he-man... brown hair with a wave in it... deep, heavily-lashed eyes under straight brows. The quiet type, I thought, watching his slow, graceful manner of dancing. I had never seen a more handsome man.

When I stepped up on the dais in front of the orchestra for an encore, I sang... and I might as well confess it... to him. The soldier listened attentively as though he loved and understood music. My selection was a sentimental one that was sweeping the States when I left them:

Our eyes met, held, and lingered. The soldier looked at me in the manner that a woman longs to be gazed at earnestly... by the right man.

A faint smile creased his lips as I finished and took my bows. I saw him whisper to a mutual friend, and immediately they crossed the floor just coming alive with dancing couples. Then I met Sergeant John Phillips, radio man, Communications Section, Headquarters Company, Thirty First Infantry.

I cannot recall what I said to him. “Claire, keep your head,” I cautioned myself, “He is too wonderful. He will never notice you.”

“May I have this dance?” asked the sergeant, interrupting my daydreams.

He not only had that dance, but every succeeding one until I begged off from sheer fatigue. As the evening waned, he...