Whispers of a New Dawn by Murray Pura Page B

to call them that. They planned to do as they wished with them and didn’t want to be bound by any code of conduct regarding prisoners of war.
    “From that point it became difficult for anyone in the safety zone to find out what had become of Nate Whetstone. Many Chinese POWs were machine-gunned and bayoneted and thrown into the Yangtze River. It was only a few months ago that we found out Nate was alive—he had escaped the Japanese in 1938 and was with Chinese guerrillas in the countryside.”
    Into the quiet, Lyyndaya spoke. “When—may we see him?”
    “At any moment.” Nordstrom checked his wristwatch. “I asked our fellow agents to bring him here from the hotel in Lancaster at seven o’clock.”
    Lyyndaya put her hand to her mouth. “I can’t believe it.”
    Nordstrom fixed his eyes on her. “To us he is a hero, Mrs. Whetstone, an American hero. But we can’t say anything about it. Not now. Not yet. Nevertheless, the day will come when the world will know. For now, it is enough that you know. And we know.” He looked out a window at the sun pouring over the sky and the fields. Then back at Jude and Lyyndaya and Becky. “This was all a preamble to help you understand his condition. He was starved and tortured along with the other POWs in Nanking. He was wounded several times in the years he fought alongside the guerrillas. Food was scarce, water was rarely clean, medical care was nonexistent. He’s skin and bones, Mrs. Whetstone.
    “We got him out of China after he was almost killed in an ambush. He’s been in a naval hospital for several weeks. All that can be done for him by our doctors and nurses has been done. Now he needs goodfood and rest and—” The agent looked at his coffee cup again, his voice tightening. “He needs home. He needs all the love a home can give him. All the love Bill or I here or any of us would give to our own kids. I’d take Nate in myself and get Nancy to fatten him up. We’d treat him like the hero he is, I swear it. But he needs his own family. He needs you.”
    “How did you manage to find him and get him out?” asked Jude.
    “I’m not at liberty to say. We brought out a number of American nationals along with your son.”
    Gravel and stones popped under car tires in the farmyard. Everyone got to their feet and began to move toward the door.
    “What shall we tell our neighbors, Agent Nordstrom?” asked Lyyndaya.
    “What they already know. He was a missionary in China. He was caught up in the Japanese attack on Nanking three years ago.”
    “But they will see him, how he looks—”
    “He was a prisoner in a Japanese camp. He escaped and American officials overseas were able to get him back to the States. That is the story. They do not need more than that.”
    Three men in blue suits and hats were standing in front of the house. One of them opened their car door and another bent down to help a man climb out. The man stood up shakily as he pushed down on two canes. His arms and legs looked like sticks and the white shirt and pants in which he was dressed hung from his frame. One of the suited men went to take his arm as he moved forward but the thin man shook his head.
    “Nate…” The word came out of Lyyndaya’s mouth in a sudden rush of air.
    His hair was gone. Everything about him was impossibly thin, including a face that was sharp as an axe blade. But Becky knew the eyes, and those eyes gleamed when they spotted her and her mother and father. She ran down the porch steps and threw her arms around him. He dropped one of his canes so he could hold her.
    “Nate.” She could feel the water and heat on her face. “We never stopped praying or believing. Never. Oh, God, thank you.”
    “Baby girl.” His voice was rough. “I didn’t think you would.”
    Lyyndaya had her arms about her son’s back and was crying into his shoulder. Jude ran a hand over Nate’s head and kissed him on the cheek.
    “We missed you so much,” Jude said. “Everything that