Why would important town doctors leave their lucrative practices and step into the hell-fire of World War II's Pacific campaign? One is a chief surgeon who must go against the wishes of his wife, his family and his town to enter the War. The other, a young Japanese doctor, the fourth generation of family doctors through his father's line, steps into the midst of malaria and other suicidal dangers in Palau.

This is a work-in-progress based on a 1941 Pulitzer-winning story of my grandfather and my Japanese father-in-law, both doctors on opposite sides of World War II.

Chapter 1

"Stand up!"

Mary Ann heard a voice from within her head and instinctively obeyed. An explosion shook the living room. The 16-year-old girl felt a burning in her throat, but no pain. "Did a firecracker go off?" she thought. But judging from the look on the face of the boy across the room, a look that went from menacing grin to horror, she knew something was wrong. She didn't even see the gun in his hands until he held it to his chest, smoke curling from the barrel.

"I'm sorry!" screamed the terrified boy. Mary Ann looked down at her shirt. Her white cashmere sweater had specks of red. She felt her sweater for a wound. Nothing. But when one finger pressed on her throat region where the burning sensation was, she could feel a small hole the size of her pinky finger. She pressed on the hole for a second, then lifted. Blood surged from the wound like water from a spigot. She covered it up again and started to feel faint. Her hands tingled, her mouth unable to swallow.

"Help me!" she gurgled. Blood had settled on her tongue with a teary saltiness. The head of the household, Mr. Klevins, a slow-moving man in his 50s, appeared from nowhere to help Mary Ann to the couch. He disappeared into the next room. She could feel the blood wanting to escape from her solitary finger. Mary Ann held back its desire, playing with the stream of blood in a giddy delirium. She studied the crystal chandelier above her and pushed against the hole. Mr. Klevins reappeared with a stack of bathroom towels. He put one under her head. Mary Ann let go of the hole for a second, a red glistening stream spouted straight up, gushing to the rhythm of her heartbeat. The chandelier grew larger, diamond reflections turning into suns.

"Edith, connect me with Lucile!" yelled Mr. Klevins through the mouthpiece of the kitchen phone.

"The line's busy!"

"Break through the line. Her daughter's been shot for God's sake!"

"Edith broke the line and quickly relayed the message to Lucile.

"She's been shot!" Edith said. "Charlie Klevins says your daughter's been shot."

Lucile yelled back as if they were a million miles away. "What?!" She was only three houses away from Mr. Klevins. She was in the kitchen helping Delilah plan the dinner. She had been on the line with the local grocer.

I'll call for an ambulance, you go see what's the matter," said the grocer.

Lucile dropped the phone and was searching the house for her husband's black bag. Delilah was hunched over the kitchen sink and praying. "Lord almighty!" Lucile, a trained nurse, found the bag and raced as quickly as her short legs would carry her across the neighbors front lawns.

"My God. My God. My God," she said with each step. It was always her twin sons, Giles and Leonard, who were the ones in trouble. Broken arms, crushed digits, fractured skulls. Rarely had Mary Ann been in this kind of emergency. She stopped to bang on the front door, turned the knob and opened.

The blonde curtains in the living room had Rorschach designs of blood. A pair of hush puppies extended from the edge of the couch motionless. Mr. Klevins stood in a strange calm, overly calm, so as not to excite Lucile. He held a stack of bloody towels to his chest and said, "Let her die there in peace."

Lucile looked at him, her eyes turning red-hot with anger. Her mouth curled and she said with a low voice, one that commanded authority, "Over my dead body."

She pushed in his 6" high frame with all of her 5 2" frame, shoving him practically into the wall and knelt at the side of her daughter.

"Shhhhh," said Lucile to Mary Ann. "Don't talk. You have a throat wound."

She took the pulse of her child. "That's right, child. Hold the finger to the wound."

An ambulance siren shrieked louder and louder. In minutes, three men dressed in white burst into the living room; one was a giant man, 6 4" tall, 240 pounds. The large man began directing the other men. He was the Chief Surgeon of the hospital. His hands took her vitals with the dexterity of a concert pianist. He rested one large hand on her pale forehead. The man and Lucile exchanged worried looks. Mary Ann opened her eyes for a moment to see the large man, his spirit shining through the circles of his wire glasses.

"Be still, honey," he said.

"Daddy," she mouthed, just before she passed out.

Chapter 2

Lucile and the twins sat the waiting room of the Chicago hospital where Dr. Day was the chief surgeon. Giles and Leonard were identical twins, Giles the older by a few hours. The two were strikingly handsome. They had inherited their mother's high cheekbones and their father's broad smile, capable of lighting up a room. They lost an older brother twelve years prior, the year they were born. Lemule, famous in the family for memorizing the Old Testament, had stood barefoot in the snow when the twins were brought home from the hospital just after delivery. Soonafter he died from pneumonia. Lucile could not afford to lose another child. Giles and Leonard began to argue over a copy of the "Weekly Reader."

"I was going to read that!" said Giles.

"I had it first!"

"Give me that!"

Lucile grabbed the copy herself, swatted Giles and sat between the two twins, putting a firm arm around each strapping twin.

"Stop it, both of you. Your sister's life is in danger, and all you can two can do is bicker!"

Both twins lowered their heads. Giles said, "Gosh, Mom, we didn't mean it."

"I'm sorry, Mom," said Leonard. Lucille gripped their shoulders.

"I'm sorry, too, boys. Your sister's in good hands. I'm sure she'll be fine."

She held them close to her, shushed them and rocked them a moment. A circular clock read 12:30.

Dr. Day entered the room accompanied by another man. Both wore hospital greens, chests blotted with blood, talking to the other in low tones.

All three looked at the large man. Time stopped. Dr. Day flashed his famous grin, a grin capable of lifting the moral of any patient, and said, "She'll be fine, Lucille."

All three family members spontaneously began to cry.

"Oh, thank God. Thank God."

Chapter 3

"How's the Doc today?" said the janitor, face dark as ebony, a voice as gravelly as Louie Armstrong.

"I'm just fine, Jim. How goes it with you."

"Couldn't be better, boss," He leaned on his broom and wiped his brow with a wadded handkerchief. "Catfish in season, boss. The muck-eaters are as big as the babies you deliver." He laughed a full belly laugh. Dr. Day, who was trained in gynecology and had dozens of patients to see that morning, laughed hard, too. "You're making me jealous, Jim. Did you eat like a king?"

"Just like a king, Dr. Day. Fried it up with lemon and butter, added some grits and hominy, little kale, some sweet tea, and mmmm-mmm. I tell you, it was sheer heaven, Dr. Day, sheer heaven."

"Glad to hear it, Jim." Dr. Day put a hand on Jim's back, delivered a huge smile. You could see Jim light up and smile himself long after Dr. Day disappeared into his daughter's room in intensive care.

Chapter 4

"You're looking good, honey. You'll be here another week. I think Lucile is loading up the ice box with all the home-made vanilla ice cream a 16-year-old can stomach."

Mary Ann tried to speak but her mouth and nose were filled with tubes. Her face was swollen from the trauma of the operation and lung complications. "Shhhhh. Don't try to talk. Your throat is still healing from the wound. Your cheeks are slightly swollen from a puncture in your lung, you should be healed in no time. You're a lucky girl."

Mary Ann grinned and pointed to a pad of paper and pen on the hospital side table. Dr. Day handed it to her and she wrote out, "I'm sorry."

Dr. Day put a hand on her shoulder and said, "You're fortunate to be alive. Had you been sitting, the bullet would have entered your skull and we would not be having this conversation."

Dr. Day leaned into his daughter, pressing his lips to her forehead. "You're forgiven, sweetie. In my eyes, you can do no wrong."

Mary Ann's eyes began to well up with tears. Dr. Day ruminated, "Yes, you're very lucky to be alive. If you hadnt been standing, most likely you would've caught the bullet between your eyes."

Mary Ann scribbled, "I heard a voice."

"Heard a voice? You mean the boy's voice?"

"No. A voice! It told me to stand up."

Dr. Day grinned and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure," he said with disbelief, your father removed many a bullet during WWI. Soldiers told me all kinds of things, things that occur at the edge of life: visions, voices. I came to the conclusion that, like a pain response, we have a protective mechanism. People hallucinate in extreme situations."

Mary Ann's brow knitted in anger. She bit her lip and furiously wrote, "Well, this hallucination saved my life."

Chapter 5

Lucile was whistling and pushing a carpet sweep across the Persian rug in the living room, Delilah was pulling the cake from the oven. The twins were hanging a large sign above the guestroom off the main room that said, "Welcome Home, Mary Ann!"

Leonard, can you find a good radio station?" called Lucile. This occasion calls for a little music.

"O.K Mom."

As the radio crackled between stations, Leonard stopped on an upbeat Benny Goodman tune.

"That's it!" said Leonard.

The doorbell rang and Lucile called Delilah to bring in the cake.

"Coming, Lucile."

Lucile opened the door to find their neighbors, the Hinderson's at the door.

"We'll only stay for cake," the father said. "We know Mary Ann will need her rest."

"Are the Klevin's coming?"

Lucile paused a moment. "Edna, did you here about the boy who shot Mary Ann?"

The twins stopped a moment to listen. Just after the accident, he was out in the middle of the traffic. He was trying to get hit by a car."

"For God's sake," said Lucile.

"He didn't know it was loaded. His brother put in the bullets as a joke."

Lucile just looked down and deeply sighed. Dr. Day's sedan suddenly pulled up the driveway, pebbles popping against the tires.

"Hurry, Mama," said Giles, "They're here!"

Delilah rested the cake on the table. She got out a large tub of homemade ice cream from the icebox.

"Enough ice cream to last until Hitler is defeated," mumbled Delilah.

"Ya-volle!" said Giles. Leonard gave him a swift punch in the arm. "Ouch!"

"Twins!" said Lucile with exasperation.

The door burst open. Standing huge in the threshold of the door was Dr. Day. He carried Mary Ann in his arms. Mary Ann had inherited her father's height, standing 5'10" with a figure that elicited whistles from construction workers.

"Welcome home!" yelled the crowd. Mary Ann's face was still swollen, bandages his her throat, but she was able to speak.

"You shouldn't have," she said.

"Glad you're home, Sis."

Both twins gave Mary Ann a kiss on the cheek. "We've been watching Delilah and Mom stir the ice cream for a week. Now we can dig in!"

"Boys, that's for your sister."

"Mom, I'll share," said Mary Ann. "A little." She stuck her tongue out at the twins.

"How soon before we can give her a noogie?" said Giles.

The neighbors laughed and the tune on the radio changed to a scratchy version of Beethoven's Fidelio.

Dr. Day set Mary Ann down on the guest bed. Lucile puffed up the pillows and directed Delilah to serve the guests.

Mary Ann and Lucile were talking in the guest room while Dr. Day shushed the twins with a middle finger.

"Listen," he said. This is Beethoven."

Both twins plopped down on the couch, willing to be patient with their father until the ice cream and cake were served.

"Hear that?" said Pop. "This isn't your swing music. This is life!"

Giles leaned foward.

"What do you hear?" asked Pop.

Giles said, "A storm!"

Leonard said, "War! A victory!"

"Beethoven was already totally deaf when he composed this."

"What do you hear, Pop?"

Dr. Day though a moment. "The systems of the body."

"Ice cream and cake! All you can eat!" shouted Delilah as she brought a tray and a cake with lighted candles into the guestroom.

"Daddy, help me blow out the candles," said Mary Ann.

Beethoven's Fidelio suddenly stopped.

"Hey!" said Giles.

"We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news. The Japanese have just bombed Peal Harbor."

Both Mary Ann and Dr. Day blew out the candles, the flames lighting up the doctor's face for a moment before turning to darkness and smoke.