Born in Bataan
A Novel
by
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The fishermen brought several rusty metal buckets ashore. The people gathered around the buckets searching the contents with hungry eyes. After the crowd had thinned, Alona and I approached two metal buckets that had been left on the sand as if for the foreigner to be able to see the blessings the sea had provided. Alona took my hand and together we started walking toward the buckets. As we made our approach, small hands stretched from naked bodies touched me. The children encircled me and I was relieved somewhat and put at ease by their presence. With the smiling children accompanying us we stopped at the buckets. There was nothing there but minnows and strange looking shrimp that held a genuine likeness to a cock roach having many little leg like feelers attached below a semicircular shell. In Alabama, this catch would have been returned to the water, but here there were hungry people everywhere. I felt shocked at what I saw, so long ago, as I do now when my memory whispers to me and I wonder if it was real.
The sea was the tabernacle of their faith. From it they drew their daily substance. From it they took what it gave and were thankful for everything. They returned nothing to it but their excrement and themselves day after day to take again and again the bounty it offered. As I stood on the shore pondering the problem of these pleasant but different people, something caught the corner of my right eye. It was a naked child.
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About the Book
What is the price of courage? Are honor, duty, and country the noblest ideals of American men at arms? How does a young American boy make the transition from a naïve country bumpkin to a soldier worthy to wear the green uniform of freedom? Are Americans that wear that olive drab uniform always the good honorable sons of the fertile land of Liberty?
Difficult questions fog the young mind of Joshua David Duncan as he enters a world that defies his western imagination by a people whose ordinary acts of daily living are mystifying to behold. He enters the realm of Asia in all its captivating beauty with a relish to explore the land and meet the people. He sees the splendor of the Asian sunrise and sunset and the glory of the mountains and sea, but at the same time he is left stymied by the depravity of the golden skinned people. Without warning a dark, beautiful, native girl captures more than just his attention, but an unexpected war changes everything. And then the children appear: Hungry, ravaged, and frightened, but the paramount question is not asked with a why, but a who. Who do they all come from?
About the Author
Winford Lewis Allen lives in Mobile County, just north of Mobile, Alabama surrounded by a large family headed by his 92-year-old matriarch Grandmother, Ada Marie Havens. Amongst other things, he enjoys riding his bicycle to ‘Grandmother’s house,’ and listening to her stories.
The author lived amongst the Filipino people while working in the electric power industry and was deeply affected by their loyalty, and faith, but most of all their joy.