The Mystery of Yamashita's Map

Chapter Twelve

The jungle was sighing as the professor and the others pushed their way through it. Time was getting on and the sun was getting hotter. Fraser and Joe tried their best to forge a path through the dense growth but it sapped their strength and made them perspire with the effort. With every step they felt themselves getting weaker, until Fraser slumped down onto the jungle floor, his eyes rolling in his head, his hair matted underneath his cap. The professor looked at him closely. ‘What do you think?’ he said to Lisa. ‘He looks bad.’ Lisa bent over Fraser and felt his forehead. ‘I think we’d better rest a while here,’ she said, and sat down beside Fraser while Joe rested against a tree and began to suck at a twig that he had found digging into his shoe.

Suddenly there was movement all around them. There were no shapes, no tangible sights, just the sense of bodies flying through the canopy. Lisa covered her ears as the noises got louder and louder. All around them they heard the flapping of wings and the sound of the air being torn apart. The professor tried to stand but was knocked to the ground, his face flushed and scarred by tiny invisible talons. He put his hand to his face and felt warm wet blood on his fingertips; something that he could not see, something that was beyond his comprehension had struck him. Up against the tree, Joe stood transfixed, his eyes flickering from place to place, following as if in a trance. Lisa called to him but he made no reply. She crawled over and tugged on his legs, but Joe was somewhere else. His eyes darted this way and that, searching for something, tracking something that Lisa was not a part of. She screamed at him, pulled at his trouser leg, anything to shake him out of the trance he had fallen into. ‘Joe! Joe! Wake up, we need you.’ But Joe didn’t hear her. He merely stood, transfixed, looking at the sky and following the demons that were playing in front of his eyes. Lisa knelt on the ground, put her head on her knees, closed her eyes and felt her hair being played with by whatever it was that was surrounding them. As quickly as it had started it stopped. There was silence. Lisa lifted her head and looked around her. Fraser was seated on the ground, exhausted, barely able to move. The professor was flat on his back with pinpricks of blood on his cheek and Joe — Joe was smiling a huge smile as his head slowly lowered to the vertical again. ‘What was that?’ Lisa asked. The professor wiped his cheeks. ‘I don’t know for certain,’ he said. ‘But I would guess that that was our first meeting with the aswang.’ They looked at Joe, who had by now recovered. ‘The aswang?’ he said. ‘I see.’ And he moved off, through the jungle.

On the other side of the island, Kono and Tanaka were setting up camp. They had spent their first night in the open air of the Filipino jungle and they were little used to roughing it. Kono heaved his bulking frame over the guy ropes that held their canopy up and tripped over it, sending its canvas roof to the ground. ‘Idiot!’ Tanaka admonished. ‘Watch where you are going, can’t you?’ Kono apologised for the fifth time already that day and began to tie the roof back up.

Tanaka made his way down to the beach, where the pilot was moored, bobbing up and down on the soft waves. ‘You stay here,’ he motioned, ‘Until we return. We will give you the money when we come back.’

The pilot began to get suspicious and he mimed that he would fly away if they had not returned in two days, then showed Tanaka a bag with what looked like rations in it.

‘You’ll be able to buy plenty of that when we return,’ Tanaka said. ‘Just be sure to be here when we come back.’

He turned and walked off up the beach again, making his way through the slight undergrowth to the camp where Kono was fixing the stove. ‘I have a bad feeling about that pilot. We should have got a decent one, I think.’

Kono sighed. ‘But where do you get a decent pilot that would come on a trip like this?’

Tanaka began to argue, then thought for a moment. ‘Yes, you might be right there,’ he said. ‘Don’t bother making yourself too much at home, we are moving soon.’

Kono looked a little disappointed. He had liked camping in the hills with his father when he was young and this reminded him of it. He looked down at his stove, and the bed he had made nicely, with its blanket to keep the cold from coming up from underneath and the sleeping bag that would make sure he would get a good night’s sleep. He had owned these things since he had been a boy and had treasured them. With his life, it was hard to partake in things like camping these days. It was difficult to remember the child he had once been, in the life he had now.

‘Why are we moving?’ he asked.

Tanaka flicked his ear. ‘To find the professor and the girl. That’s why we are here; they will lead us to the tunnels and the gold. We are not here for you to play at boy scouts.’

Kono sat on his bed. The jungle was noisier than he had imagined. He didn’t mind that but he liked the peace and quiet of the hills where he used to go with his father. He liked how they made him feel and he missed them. Tanaka crossed the small patch of ground between their two beds and put a hand on Kono’s shoulder.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said, and Kono looked downward. ‘Your father loved the outdoors, right? He liked to sleep under the stars and be out in the open air?’

Kono nodded.

‘He was a good man,’ Tanaka said.

Kono nodded again.

‘We can make him proud of you again with this gold. We can make him think of you again as his son. You know you want that, don’t you?’

Kono nodded. He thought of his father’s face, he thought of his disappointed look.

Tanaka spoke again. ‘You know that when you are rich everyone respects you, don’t you? You know that your father would have no choice but to see you as his son again.’

There were painful things in Kono and Tanaka knew how to access them, with a simple word or a sentimental reminiscence of their shared childhood. Tanaka knew how to get what he wanted out of Kono, which was usually a violence that didn’t come easily to the other.

‘Remember that time we camped out and it rained all night?’ Tanaka said. ‘Remember you came into my tent because yours had split right along the seam and you were shaking and moaning all night because there was thunder and lightning and you couldn’t sleep?’

Kono nodded.

‘Who was it that told you jokes until you eventually fell off to sleep?’

‘You.’

‘Yeah, and who was it that fixed it so you didn’t get scolded when you got back, who exchanged tents with you?’

‘You.’

‘Yeah, me, so when I say we are going to do something, when I say we’ve got to move soon, you know I’m doing it for you, aren’t I?’

‘Yeah, I suppose.’

‘I’m doing it because I love you like a brother.’

‘You do?’

Tanaka punched Kono’s arm playfully, ‘Course. Now, get the camp ready, I’m going to talk to that pilot again.’

The plane pitched and rode on the waves as Tanaka waded out to it. He noticed that the pilot was asleep in the cockpit. How dare he question me, he thought to himself as he carefully checked over his shoulder. Climbing aboard and with the speed of the consummate professional, Tanaka pulled a blade from his sleeve, held it under the throat of the pilot and pulled. From the outside of the cockpit all that could be seen was a single spurt of blood on the window. It stayed for a moment as if suspended by the shock of its release and then fell in small rivulets onto the dashboard. He knew that the guy with the professor was a pilot, and even if he did get stranded he could call Manila for assistance on the plane’s radio. Once again his high pride had got him into trouble, but he didn’t care. He demanded respect from these lesser mortals.

A moment later Tanaka dropped down into the water, washed his hands and the knife in it and strode over to the beach again. As he got to the camp, he placed the knife into the backpack that was suspended from the bed and lay down on it breathing slightly but audibly in the hot air. Kono busied himself unpacking and packing his possessions.

Joe moved through the jungle like a cat through treacle. This wasn’t his terrain; he knew about it, he had read a few books about jungle warfare but, when it came down to it, he was a fish out of water and he desperately wanted a drink. The only thing that kept him going was the thoughts and images in his head of the boy he had seen in his dreams. With each step, with each difficult breath, he cursed the journey but somehow he knew it would be worth his while in the end. He placed his hand on his head and felt that it was damp with sweat. Try as he might he could not shake the sight of the aswang from his head. Until he had spoken to Lisa about it he was unaware that none of the others could see what he had seen. However, they had all sworn that when they looked to where the sound was coming from they saw nothing. Joe though, Joe saw it as clear as the light that shone through the trees. At first he thought it had been a ghost, the type that might appear to children and the superstitious; it was an old woman floating before his eyes, but only part of her body was visible. She had a strange face, old and tired, but eyes that could melt steel — red and violent. He had tried to scream but nothing came out of his mouth, all he could do was stare at her, stare and submit to whatever it was that she wanted. She floated right up to his face and he could smell her breath as it shot out of her mouth in thick, foul clouds. She smiled at him and he felt her lick his skin with her hard, scratchy tongue. Joe had tried to close his eyes but, again, he could do nothing.

Then there was a laugh, a flash and the aswang disappeared, flying off into the canopy of the trees. The first thing Joe remembered was Lisa calling to him. He felt as if he had been out cold; there was sweat running down his face into his eyes and he could still smell the breath of the aswang. The professor was moving more quickly than any of the others in the party. Every now and then he would rush off into the forest, dig around in the undergrowth and return with a prized sample or a handful of earth. They seemed to trek for hours when suddenly Lisa stopped them. ‘Shh,’ she said. ‘What’s that noise?’

They all craned their necks to hear.

‘I can’t hear anything,’ Fraser said, but Lisa placed a finger to her lips.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, it’s there. I can hear it.’ ‘Hear what, Lisa?’ the professor asked.

‘The river,’ Lisa answered. ‘The river.’ And she marched off into the jungle.

Joe and Fraser looked at each other, shrugged and followed her. As they parted the last of the branches, Fraser and Joe heard splashing and caught sight of Lisa diving head first into the river. The sun was high above and beat down into golden rivulets, hitting the surface of the water and sending warm rays of light throughout the area. Fraser kicked off his shoes, put his bag down and nervously joined Lisa in the stream. Joe sat by the bank, took his canister from its belt hook and filled it up. The professor stood behind him.

‘What’s it like?’ the professor asked.

‘Cold,’ Joe answered.

‘Not the water. The aswang,’ the professor replied. Joe stopped filling his flask and turned slowly. ‘How did you know?’

‘Just a hunch,’ the professor said.

Joe continued filling his flask. ‘Nothing to say, really. Nothing to say at all.’

The professor knelt down beside Joe. ‘I guess we’ll all find out soon enough, won’t we?’

Joe turned and began to speak but thought better of it.

The day was almost over but the sun was still warm. The group decided to camp by the river for the night and began to cut down vines and large leaves to make the shelter. Fraser set to finding dry wood for the fire; in an hour they had the camp as they wanted it and Lisa sat by the fire slowly drying out after her second swim of the day. Fraser looked at her, her skin looking a bright luminescence in the glow of the fire. He loved to watch her in moments like this — moments when he knew she wasn’t aware of him. He noticed how she dug her toes into the soft earth to cool them down after the fire had made them too hot; he noticed how she moved her shoulders to and fro so that they did not get burnt and he noticed how she looked at Joe every time he moved and that she laughed every time he spoke. Fraser wondered why he was here. He was too old for adventure and not nearly old enough for one last fling. He guessed he was here for her, but she was here for someone else. Perhaps that’s the way it always goes, he thought. Perhaps, the ones we really want are destined to be with someone else; perhaps that’s why we want them. He looked into the flames. They flickered and made his eyes hurt. Of course, he thought to himself, there was always the money; there is always the money.

That night the jungle was quiet; it breathed softly as the moon came out and folded its arms around itself. The night sky looked beneficently down upon the group. The river moved silently on, deep into the jungle’s heart. The jungle gives up her noises easily at night and Lisa lay awake listening to it move and sigh, scream and wail. Every time she closed her eyes, the noises got louder as if the volume were being turned up to full. She tried to block her ears but nothing seemed to work. She could hear Joe breathing heavily over the sounds the jungle made and it reassured her. She reached a hand out and touched his skin; it was warm and damp. Slowly she rose up on her elbows and looked into his face. She could tell he was dreaming. His face flickered, his eyelids moved with rapid intensity, his arms twisted this way and that. She wondered what he was dreaming about; whatever it was, she was glad not to be a part of it.

Eventually she lay back down and tried to concentrate on the sound of the river as it gently flowed.

The morning came quickly and suddenly. As soon as the light came streaming through the canopy, Lisa awoke with a start. She blinked her eyes, barely able to believe how light it was. Beside her, the professor snored so loudly she wondered how she had ever got to sleep. She shook him.

‘Uncle, uncle, wake up.’

The professor turned over and the snoring stopped. Glancing over to the other two she saw that they too were fast asleep so she lay back, with her hands behind her head, and closed her eyes. Five minutes later she opened them again, failing to fool herself that she was sleepy. She decided she might as well get up and go for a swim in the river. Whenever she had been camping before she had loved to go swimming just as the sun was coming up, before it could warm the water.

She wriggled out of her covers and quietly set them in a pile to one side, then placed her feet neatly in her shoes and stepped gingerly over the professor, who snored again and rolled over the other way. Feeling free, she skipped through the branches that surrounded their temporary campsite and made her way down to the river.

The sight of the river in the early morning sun was so beautiful it made her sigh as she set eyes on it; the water was so clear and so blue and the light spread itself out on its surface and made it shine. She knelt down by its edge, took her shoes and shorts off, reached down into the water and took a deep drink. She felt the coolness of the water flowing through her body, literally taking the sleep away with it. Suddenly she felt more alive than she had felt for all of her life. Around her the jungle was quieter than it had been during the night. The animals that came out after dark had calmed down now and there was only the slight sound of insects buzzing and the occasional bird somewhere far off.

She took another drink and realised that she had never tasted water so clear or so clean. She had no idea where it had come from or where it was going but this beat mineral water any day. Without looking about her she dived into the water and felt her muscles tense as her body reacted to its coolness. Under the surface, she kicked with her feet and legs, held her breath and swam as far as she could manage. When she had run out of breath she surfaced and felt the sun hit her face in a glorious bath of warmth and light. She smoothed her hair down and dived under again.

Under the water, she could open her eyes and see the bottom of the river that was made of almost pure sand. Tiny rocks and minerals were littered here and there making the whole thing look as if it had been covered in glitter and gold. She dived down and pushed a hand through the silt. It ran through her fingers and disappeared into the ebb and flow of the current. Lisa kicked with her legs and swam further down the river, letting it take her along.

She surfaced again and once more felt the sun on her skin. All about her the sunlight warmed the jungle and made it seem alive and fresh. Lisa kicked and swam against the current, her strong limbs cutting through the water with ease and confidence. She dived and kicked, sending a spray of clear water up in to the air. The current felt strong about her and she swam for all she was worth against it. The harder she kicked the stronger it seemed to get. Suddenly, it was the river that seemed to be in control; suddenly it was the water that moved her rather than the other way round.

She felt herself being taken along on the strong current that ran deep beneath the surface. Every time she tried to put a foot on the river bed the current would take her and she would find herself fighting again. The more she fought the harder it became as she felt the energy being sapped from her. She flayed wildly with her arms trying to get some purchase in the water but nothing she did seemed to help; it was the river who was in control now, the river who showed her where to go.

As if being helped by some malevolent force, Lisa felt her body being carried along. She looked up and could just glimpse the sun through the canopy but it seemed less beautiful, less magical. In a desperate effort she twisted her body and swam with every ounce of energy she had; her arms cut through the water and her legs pushed against the current. Eventually she managed to work her way over to the bank where she clutched at a root that had been exposed by years of erosion. For a moment she hung on, letting the water wash over her body, closing her eyes with the effort.

As the sun warmed her and the feeling began to come back into her legs, she tried to clamber out onto the bank. It was harder than she thought. She hadn’t eaten properly for days, she was tired and the swim upstream had taken its toll, but she managed it. Bit by bit, muscle by muscle, she climbed on to the green foliage of the jungle floor and lay down, feeling her body being drained of all life.

Her head began to spin and she felt herself fall into half unconsciousness. Suddenly the jungle became cold, dark and alien. Her eyes felt dim and heavy and her mind wandered. She thought she heard noises about her but was too tired to look. She thought she felt hands upon her and breath upon her skin, but she was too exhausted to see who or what they were. And she thought she smelt blood, but could not be sure whether it was real or imaginary.

When she awoke she felt eyes upon her. With a start she sat up and there in front of her sat a little girl, staring with big brown eyes. Lisa, startled a little, smiled. The child did nothing. Lisa held out her hand but the child remained still. ‘Hello,’ Lisa said. ‘Hello. I guess you can’t speak English?’ The child remained still, just looked at Lisa and sat, with her arms round her legs. Lisa got into a kneeling position. She was dry now so she figured she must have been lying on the ground for some time. She thought about the others. They would be worried about her by now; they would be looking for her.

‘I… I tried to take a swim but was caught by the current,’ she explained to the girl, who seemed to listen but could obviously not understand. ‘I guess I’m not the swimmer I once was, eh?’ She laughed and the child, briefly, smiled. Lisa breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Do you live round here?’ she asked. ‘Only I could probably do with knowing someone like you.’ She held out her hand. ‘I’m Lisa.’ The child leaned over and looked at Lisa’s upturned palm as if expecting to see something there. Lisa withdrew it. ‘I guess you don’t shake hands, eh?’

The two smiled at each other. Lisa got up and arranged herself. She still had her bikini bottoms on from swimming but they were fine in this heat.

‘Well, I really must get back up the river. God knows how far I’ve come.’

Lisa put a hand up to her eyes to shield them from the sun and the little girl quickly got up, crossed over to her and placed her arms around her waist. Lisa was a little disturbed by this.

‘Guess you’re lost too, then. Great, you’re not the only one around here. Guess we are in this together.’

Lisa patted the girl on the head in the most motherly way she could muster and pulled the little girl close to her. She could feel her tremble in her arms and shake softly. Lisa tore a piece of her shirt and gave it to the girl to wipe her eyes, but the girl was brave. She took the cloth and threw it to the ground, making Lisa laugh.

The sun was invisible now; it had hidden itself behind the tall trees that seemed to stretch to the sky anyway. Lisa cuddled the girl, more for her own sake than the girl’s and thought about how she would get back up the river. At the camp, the professor, Joe and Fraser had woken about two hours before and were pacing back and forth trying to work out what had happened to Lisa. ‘You know I told you I saw someone yesterday? It was a Japanese soldier, I tell you. I saw him as clear as I am seeing you now,’ Joe said. ‘He looked angry. Suppose he’s got her?’ ‘We would have heard,’ Fraser said. ‘Besides, did he snatch her from her bed, then tidy it up before he went?’ he said, pointing at the neat sleeping space on the floor. ‘Perhaps she’s gone to get breakfast?’ the professor ventured.

‘Nah, she would have been back by now. I mean, how far do you need to go to get breakfast around here?’

Joe looked around him. ‘Pretty far, I would imagine,’ he said and peered into the jungle.

The professor sat down on his bed. ‘I think we wait,’ he said. ‘I think the most likely scenario is that she is lost and will find her way back to us eventually.’

‘But if she’s lost,’ said Joe, ‘She might never come back. I mean, do you know how big this damn place is? I say we take a look, find the trail, see if we can track her.’

Fraser looked doubtful but Joe was insistent.

‘I know,’ Joe said, ‘We could split up. Professor, you and Fraser stay here and I’ll see if I can track Lisa.’

Fraser was incredulous. ‘Won’t you get lost?’

Joe tapped the badge on his cap. ‘US air force. I won’t get lost.’

An hour later Joe was lost deep in the heart of the Filipino jungle. He had left camp with an idea in mind. It was an old trick his uncle had taught him many years before: look for a path and if it looks like someone else has been there you can’t go far wrong. Unfortunately, he had never experienced terrain like this before; each clearing looked like a path, each new turning in the jungle looked like it had been created by a host of trekkers walking through but he knew it was just the trick of Nature, encouraging trees to grow their branch width apart, the light causing gaps in the undergrowth.

When there were not deceptive looking ‘paths’ there was thick jungle that could barely be hacked through. He pushed at it but it seemed as if it just closed around him again, touching him, pulling at his clothes, scratching his skin and making him feel as though he were being torn apart.

All the time he felt, deep in the jungle, as though eyes were upon him, as though the trees were watching him. Occasionally he stopped and looked around, convinced he was being followed but when he looked there was no one there; the jungle, he thought to himself, plays strange tricks on the mind.

Joe trekked for what seemed like hours. It was no good, he said to himself, he was most certainly lost. He thought what a good idea it would have been to leave a trail behind, to carve signposts into the trees to remind himself of where he had been or even to make a mental map of the terrain as he passed through it; that would have been what his father would have done. That would have been the first thing on his father’s mind, but Joe, Joe was too busy thinking about Lisa, the same as he was always too busy thinking about the girl in the bar, or the woman in the club or some other minor distraction from the real business of trying not to get himself killed.

He pushed through some thick undergrowth and fell on to the jungle floor. It was warm here; the sun beat down on to this area and as he lay down he could hear the river a little distance away gently ripple. Suddenly his eye was caught by something. Usually you would not see such a thing, it would melt into the background, become just another one of the many insignificant finds of the world but here, here in the jungle, it was like a beacon. He turned himself over and stared at it — a small piece of dark blue cloth. He picked it up. It looked like the same material that Lisa’s shirt was made out of — same colour, same feel, same weave. He had gazed upon it for long enough — he would know it anywhere.

Quickly he picked himself up and followed what looked like a trail made in the undergrowth. He guessed that Lisa, if she had been here, would have left some time ago but he forged ahead. Somehow, the connection he already felt to her made him sure that he was heading in the right direction and he knew that he would find her if he just followed his instincts, so he pushed through the dense foliage and made his way deep into the heart of the jungle.