Chapter 25
0300 Hours
April 21, 1942
Hospital Corridor
Malinta Tunnel,
Fort Mills, Corregidor,
The Philippine Commonwealth
Ensign Kari Hansen shuffled away from the operating room, negotiating the stacks of boxes and crates blocking the exit of the surgical theater in the medical lateral in Malinta Tunnel. As she passed through the theater’s outer door into the dank cavern, she pulled off her surgical mask and tossed it into the large cylindrical hamper with the mound of other soiled gowns and dressings.
In any civilized medical facility, the staff would incinerate linens and materials as bloody and filthy as these. Buried in a cavern on Corregidor, the orderlies didn’t have the luxuries of a stateside hospital. Japanese bombardment had created havoc with their precious medical sup
