The Mystery of Yamashita's Map

Chapter Eighteen

Joe raced to the others who were by now setting up camp. ‘Come! Come!’ he shouted, hardly able to say the words. Luckily, Lisa had followed behind him and managed to explain the situation in a clear and concise manner. The professor dropped his water flask and rushed over to where the tree now lay on the ground. He picked up the skull and examined it closely. ‘I would say this was buried in the last sixty years or so,’ he announced after a while. ‘Certainly in the last hundred. I’d say the person was a man and probably Asian. He could well have been part of Yamashita’s group.’ He handed the skull to Winthrope, who held the skull up to the fading light. ‘There’s no sign of any damage, but there is slight marking to the bone, as if something has been growing in and around it.’ ‘The tree had grown into it,’ Lisa explained. ‘Just a small tree — look.’ She held up the tree for the others to see. Winthrope began to look at the sky.

‘There’s absolutely no point in trying to search for anything in this fading light. We have to set up camp and start tomorrow.’

The professor looked heartbroken and began to speak but thought better of it. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ he concluded. ‘The gold has been there for over sixty years now. One more night won’t make any difference.’

That night the aswang were busy in the jungle. As Joe and the professor closed their eyes to sleep they made their way silently through the trees and entered their heads where they made them dream of dark deep tunnels that led nowhere but had to be walked down.

Joe found himself in a small room with no doors and no windows. It was cold and the ground was hard underfoot. He reached up and touched his chest and felt blood there but there was no pain, just a freezing cold that seemed as if it might go on forever. He began to search around the room but found nothing. Then he heard a voice, it was a sweet voice and familiar — Lisa’s voice. She was calling to him from outside the room and he could barely hear her. He moved over to the wall and placed an ear against it. Yes, it was her, he could hear her, she was calling him. He shouted to her but he knew she could not hear. He shouted again but still knew that it was useless. Her voice began to fade and he called out ‘No!’ — he did not want her to go. He wanted her here beside him. He wanted to touch her and to hold her and to tell her that everything was going to be all right, but her voice just got dimmer and dimmer, softer and softer until he could hear it no longer. He began to bang on the wall with his fists and shout to her until his throat and hands ached. If it was the last thing that he did, he wanted to see Lisa again. He kicked the wall and pounded it again and again but no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried the wall would not budge. He was trapped inside and she was outside.

Joe woke up to find that the rest of the group were still asleep. The first thing he did was to glance over at Lisa and was relieved to see her breathing gently, her soft breaths making wisps in the cold night air. He leaned over, tucked the blanket that covered her over her shoulders and began to gather wood for the fire. He looked up and saw the first rays of the sun dancing over the trees, sending scudding waves of light into his eyes. He thought to himself that never before had he experienced a place so beautiful and yet so utterly isolating, where one minute he felt like a king and the next he felt like nothing. He stoked the fire and watched as one by the one the party began to wake.

When everyone had woken they made their way along the ridge to where Joe had pulled out the tree the night before. He felt that he was being led towards something, but what? All those dreams, what was he being told? His eyes were drawn to a boulder almost completely hidden in the undergrowth. The etchings on the boulder seemed to be some sort of sign pointing to the area where he and Lisa had fallen. An army of insects had been unearthed from the baked soil where the branch had been uprooted. They stood in a circle and examined the hole. It was about as big as a dinner plate and looked as though it might collapse at any minute. The professor moved closer and looked further in. ‘There’s not much there,’ he said. ‘Looks like we might have to move some of the earth and… er… the rest of our friend here.’

Joe and Fraser set about digging into the hole with their bare hands and it wasn’t long before the rest of the body, which was nothing but bones and rags, came out of the tunnel entrance. Winthrope kicked at the skeleton with his boot.

‘Yes, looks like Imperial Army to me. I’ve seen that uniform before,’ he said, and squatted down to shake some of the dirt away from the scraps of material that still clung to the bones like some eerie woven skin. Winthrope motioned to two of the women and they ran forward, picked up the skeleton and moved it away. Joe and Fraser were grasping at handfuls of earth and passing them through their legs. With each handful the smell got worse. It was clearly the smell of death and stale air. It hit everyone’s noses and turned their stomachs.

‘There’s an entrance,’ Joe said, and furiously scrambled at the earth with every last drop of energy he had in his body. After about five minutes of digging, they had fought their way through to a small wooden door set into the ridge. Its surface was covered in earth and insects and the roots of plants that had attached themselves to it over the years. Joe brushed it clean.

‘Is there anything on it?’ Lisa asked. Fraser looked at it closely but decided that the door was just a door — a bit damp, a bit dark but just a door. ‘Let’s get it open,’ the professor said, and barged his way through.

‘Hang on a minute,’ Winthrope said. ‘You have no idea what is on the other side. There could be anything. I have heard they booby-trapped all of these tunnels, with bombs, with sharpened staffs, with anything. We’d better be careful.’

The professor thought for a moment and then agreed wholeheartedly. Quickly Lisa ran into the jungle, to return a few minutes later with a long green vine. She tied one end to the door and carefully walked backwards until she was well out of range. ‘All we need to do now,’ she said, ‘Is pull, then if anything happens we’ll be all the way over here.’

So Joe, the professor and Fraser grabbed hold of the vine and started to pull. Suddenly there was a crack and the whole door came off its hinges. Moving closer to it they could see that its reverse side had been almost stripped of its surface patina by what looked like fingernail marks; someone had been desperately trying to get out. Gingerly, the professor put his head through the doorway then recoiled sharply. He clutched his throat and clawed at his face, his skin began to turn purple as he gasped for air and his eyes became bloodshot.

‘Gas!’ he managed to shout through the pain. ‘Gas, in the tunnel.’

Joe quickly pulled out a handkerchief and placed it over his face. He then tore a piece of his shirt off, grabbed a water flask from one of the villagers and started to wipe the professor’s face. Gradually, he calmed down. Joe encouraged him to breathe easily until finally the professor lay on the jungle floor looking up at the sky, breathing deeply in and out and feeling the colour return to his face.

‘Was that a trap?’ Winthrope asked.

‘Could have been,’ the professor said. ‘Or could be just natural gas. There are a lot of bodies in there. We’d better wait a while before we go in there with torches, just in case.’

The group made masks from their clothing and any other scraps of material they could find and busied themselves while they were waiting by making torches from short thick branches and dry twisted leaves. After an hour or so, the professor once again put his head into the tunnel, this time readying himself for a quick exit if need be. It was not necessary, however, as after thirty seconds of sniffing and breathing he turned round and smiled at the rest of the group. It was OK.

Slowly and with caution, the group all entered the tunnel. The professor went first, followed by Fraser, then Joe and Lisa, then Winthrope, then the village women. As they moved, each one of them felt the sides of the tunnel with their hands and noticed how cold it was and how it felt like nowhere on earth. About three metres in the light suddenly faded and the professor decided it was time to try to light one of the torches. Joe was passed one by the villagers and he carefully raised a lighter to its end. Thankfully after a few sparks, the torch burst into flames and illuminated the inside of the tunnel and the group could look around them.

Joe and the professor shuddered. Only they knew that it was exactly what they had seen in their dreams. The walls of the tunnel rose up and met at an apex just above their heads and their surface was covered in small gnarls and pick marks. The floor was uneven and littered with bones that looked as though they might have been scattered by some animal at some point in the past. From the way they had come, a thin shaft of light shone in through the door. From the way that they had to go there was only blackness. Lisa reached out and clutched Joe’s hand. This was what she had wished for, for weeks and now it was here she wished she were somewhere else.

They continued to walk along the tunnel until they came to an intersection that was being guarded by another dead soldier. Fraser examined him.

‘Looks like he’s been shot. Look — there’s a bullet hole in the back of his skull.’

‘Possibly killed by his commanding officer,’ the professor said, ‘Who may well have been the remains we met by the door.’

Joe suddenly said with a start, ‘Professor, look at this! This tunnel looks as though it has been bricked up. Now, why do you think they did that?’

The professor moved over to where Joe stood and shone a torch over it. ‘To hide something?’ he said and the two looked at each other for a moment. ‘This must have been their last act before they were themselves shut in. Look, the last brick at the top has still to be put in.’

The professor was right. Towards the top of the tunnel, in amongst the bricks there was a single gap the size of the last one that had yet to be put in its place.

‘We can use that as a starting point,’ Joe said, and began to pull at the wall. Fraser darted forward and began to help and together the two of them started to dismantle the wall. They pulled and pulled, occasionally turning round and depositing bricks onto the floor of the tunnel until the wall that blocked their path was nothing but a heap of broken rubble.

The group made their way through the hole in the wall and found themselves in a large underground room that had a huge stone block in its centre.

‘The gold must be inside that block,’ Fraser said to no one.

He moved closer to the block and gently tapped at it. The professor stepped forward and touched it, feeling nothing. Winthrope did the same and for a while each member of the group had their hands on the block, assessing it, testing it, trying it out. Suddenly there was an explosion and the world seemed to erupt in light. Two of the village women recoiled in horror as they realised their flesh had been ripped open and their limbs severed by its force.

‘Mines!’ Joe shouted and rushed over to the woman who had been thrown back against the wall of the room and sat moaning and dying. ‘Jesus, everyone else watch out.’

Quickly Winthrope organised for the two women to be taken out of the tunnel by the other villagers although he could see that they would not even make it to the entrance. For a moment the group watched them disappear and it began to dawn on them exactly what they were up against here. This was a place of death and pain, a place from which none of them would escape entirely unscathed.

Lisa suddenly shouted in excitement. ‘Look — the explosion has blown a hole in the block. There are steps leading downwards. We must be going in the right direction.’

Joe stopped her from getting closer to the block. ‘You’d better be careful,’ he said, holding her by the arm. ‘I don’t want any more accidents.’

Carefully the professor stuck his head into the hole and asserted that it was safe for everyone to clamber into the hole and move carefully down the steps. The steps led them downward for only a few metres into another darkened room, this time a lot smaller and a lot colder. Lisa shuddered as she breathed the stale air. Fraser flashed the torch around the room and realised they were surrounded by wooden crates, stacked right up against the ceiling.

‘This could be it,’ Fraser said and the professor dropped to his knees. He had never fully believed he would get here — he had thought that this day would never come. He closed his eyes and gave a prayer to whatever God was watching over him at this moment. Winthrope lunged forward and began to scrabble at the boxes with his fingernails. ‘Come on, then!’ he said. ‘This is Yamashita’s gold. Let’s get it and get out of this place.’ Winthrope ripped open the lid of the nearest box and the sight that greeted him took his breath away. As if illuminated by some magical internal radiance the whole room seemed to grow suddenly lighter. Winthrope held his breath for a moment and let the sight sink in but the professor pushed past him. He reached a hand into the box and pulled out a shining gold ingot.

‘These bars come from Cambodia,’ the professor said, holding one up to the torch.

‘I don’t care where they’ve come from, I know where they’re going,’ Winthrope replied, snatching the ingot back and throwing it into the box with the others.

‘These need to go to their rightful owners,’ the professor said, but Winthrope began to pull boxes out from the pile and stack them by the steps.

‘Well, you can do what you like with your share, professor, I know what I’m doing with mine.’

‘Your share!’ Joe shouted. ‘Who said you had a share! You struck a bargain with us.’

‘I’m not greedy,’ Winthrope said. ‘Just an equal share like the rest of you.’

‘He might be right,’ Fraser interjected.

‘But he’s been useless the whole way through,’ Joe said. ‘Why the hell does he get a share?’

Lisa tried to calm him down but it was no use. Joe began to pull back the boxes that Winthrope was stacking. There was sudden animosity in the tunnel and Lisa could feel the temperature begin to rise. She would have been grateful for more warmth, but not this hostility, not here.

The professor put himself between Winthrope and Joe. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, remember where you are. This is a place of deep sadness. Do not make it more so. There is bargaining to be done later but first we must get this to the outside.’

Joe and Winthrope agreed and one by one the group hauled the boxes back up the stairs, through the tunnels and out into the open. When all but one of the boxes had been removed Joe stood in the empty room, alone, and a strange sensation came over him. In the dim light of the room he saw shapes appearing. They were barely discernible at first but after a while they began to manifest themselves into recognisable forms. All of a sudden he made out the boy in his dreams.

‘You!’ he said to the shape, but it could not hear him. It took him by the arm and led him across the room to where the last box stood. The shape knelt down beside it and beckoned to Joe to push it to one side. As he did so he saw a hole behind it — a hole barely big enough to get his shoulders through but somehow, for some reason, Joe squeezed through.

As he did so Joe came out into a small alcove that was pitch black. Joe fumbled for his flashlight, and swore to himself in frustration as he rummaged through his rucksack, why did he have to put it at the very bottom. To his immense chagrin the flashlight didn’t work, despite banging it a few times on his palms, as if the impact would suddenly recharge the batteries. He quickly lit a match and saw in front of him the golden Buddha sitting with legs crossed and with its hands placed peacefully on its knees. It was surrounded by crates of gold and jewels, far too much to carry. If there ever was an Aladdin’s cave, then this is what it would look like. Suddenly Joe knew why he had been brought here and he understood the visions in his dreams. He knew everything. He turned, expecting to see the boy who had shown him the way but instead, just caught a slight glimpse of a wisp of energy entering the golden Buddha’s head.

“Ouch!” the match had burned right down and burned his fingers. In the darkness Joe thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. He saw movements, dark shadows floating across the room in front of him. He strained to make out exactly what he was seeing. For all the life of him he thought he could see the shapes of two people and one, well it was like nothing he had ever seen before. If he didn’t know any better it looked like the shapes were struggling in some sort of dark vortex. Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light from behind the wall, sending beams darting through the cave like tiny spears, and then everything went black and still. He lit another match and he could see he was alone in the chamber, the silence only broken by the sounds of the others returning to the room behind him. Joe quickly dragged the Buddha through the hole in the wall and pushed the crate to once more cover the entrance to the hidden vault. The cave was still dark, dark enough to stop anybody noticing where had been.

The tunnel echoed with voices as the rest of the team arrived, to take one last look, and to make sure they had not left anything of value behind. Joe decided to keep what he had seen a secret, anyway, they had all the gold they could carry. Maybe he could come back later, there was a sinister feeling about the place, and the last thing he wanted was to expose Lisa to anymore danger. That’s what he told himself and that’s what was going to happen. “Hey, look over here.” Joe called out, as if he had just found it. The professor stood and stared in awe at the statue.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he said. ‘I think it comes from one of the Hong Kong islands, perhaps Lantau. I have a feeling it is from the Po Lin monastery. I don’t know why but… I just seem to know. It must have been stolen by the Japanese and brought here.’

‘How much is it worth?’ Winthrope asked, but Joe declared suddenly and with venom, ‘It’s not for sale! I’m taking it back.’

‘You’re joking! Think of the money you could make.’

‘It goes back to Hong Kong!’ Joe shouted.

‘Well, what about my share?’

Joe took Winthrope by the collar and brought their faces close together. ‘You can have whatever you want of the rest,’ he sneered. ‘You can keep my share. I only want this and it goes back to the monastery.’

‘Well, if you do, they won’t reward you for it.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘Well,’ Winthrope said with a shrug. ‘It’s your life.’

Joe began to haul the golden Buddha up the stairs alone until Lisa ran forward, took a corner of the base and helped him. Together they slowly inched it up the stairs, along the tunnel and out into the open air. Once out it looked more beautiful than ever and Joe could not take his eyes from it as they stood it gently on the green of the jungle undergrowth.

Behind them the others were exiting with the last of the gold. They were sweating and puffing but smiling as they dumped the boxes on the ground near to the Buddha.

‘All my life I’ve chased money,’ Joe said. ‘It’s never got me anywhere. I’m still as poor and stupid as I ever was.’

Lisa laid an arm around his shoulder and rested her head upon it.

‘I need to do this thing to make amends,’ he told her. ‘To try to do something good for once, to try and set things straight and put things right.’

He stepped up to the Buddha and placed a hand on his head. He noticed that it rocked a little as if loose so inquisitively he pushed it, then rocked it, then pushed it some more. Eventually the head of the Buddha came loose revealing a hollow space inside that was filled with precious stones and gold coins. Joe darted a hand in and pulled out a fistful of them, letting them run through his fingers and fall back into the cavity. ‘There must be a million dollars’ worth in here,’ he said to Lisa. ‘And it’s beautiful, it’s all beautiful.’

There was a snap in the trees that seemed to reverberate around the whole island and the group looked round in unison. There, standing above their heads on the ridge that they had climbed over the day before, stood three figures: Tanaka, Kono and the Japanese corporal.

‘It is indeed beautiful,’ Tanaka said, smiling and aiming his gun at the group. His eyes were flashing widely and the yellow of his teeth was clearly visible in the strong light of the early morning. ‘I do thank you for finding it for me and I thank you even more for bringing it out into the open.’

The professor began to lunge forward but Joe grabbed him by the arm and stopped him.

‘Yes, it would be very unwise to do that, professor,’ Tanaka said. ‘After all, you are not a young man any more but you still have a lot to live for.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ Lisa implored. ‘At least allow us to take some of these things back to the museum or back to the monastery where they belong.’

‘Your words are admirable, my dear, but I’m afraid they are a little romantic for me. I am a simple fellow, you see, and I like to wrap things up cleanly and neatly.’ The group was stunned into silence. Lisa began to speak to the two men standing either side of Tanaka. ‘All we want is to take this back to the rightful owners. They come from poor communities that were raped and plundered by the Japanese army. It may have been war but it is a war that is over. There are no sides any more. There are no winners and losers, there is only right and wrong now.’ The corporal beside Tanaka turned his head at this. He looked at Lisa. ‘There are still orders to be carried out,’ he said brusquely. ‘There are no more orders,’ Lisa said.

‘Yamashita ordered,’ the corporal said.

‘Yamashita’s dead,’ the professor replied. ‘He died after the war. The war is over, time has passed and there is no fighting anymore.’

The corporal looked stunned and opened and closed his mouth trying to find words.

‘There are no American planes any more — you must have noticed. There are no uniforms here, no spies.’

Suddenly the truth of the situation hit the corporal and he fell to his knees. All of a sudden the one thing that had kept him alive now came crashing down around his ears. He began to weep softly into his hands, sniffing loudly and breathing more and more deeply as the tears stained his uniform a deep dark beige.

‘Get up, fool!’ Tanaka shouted and kicked him like a dog, but the corporal was a broken man. He rolled over and lay face down on the ridge, weeping into the ground.

Joe went to pick up the jewels that flowed out of the golden Buddha, but Tanaka spun round and stopped him in his tracks. ‘I wouldn’t touch that if I were you. It could be very, very bad for your health.’

Joe froze. He had been in this position a number of times in his life and he knew there were only two things you can do: you either stand still or hope that the other doesn’t kill you or you lunge at them… and still hope that the other guy doesn’t kill you. Either way there was a chance you would end up with a bullet in you. The ratio was three to two. Three times in his life he had lunged, twice he had stood still; he decided to make it three all and did not move. Tanaka was enjoying the power he had over the group. He shot into the ground near one of the village women and sent her running into the undergrowth. Tanaka laughed to see her run and gave her a final shot in the back dropping her to the ground. ‘That was a warning to you all,’ he said. ‘We are in the middle of nowhere, are we not? There is no law out here.’

‘Who the hell is this?’ Winthrope asked, but there was silence. Everyone was waiting for Tanaka to speak. They knew that he was in control now; they knew that he gave the orders.

He nodded to Kono. ‘Go and pick up the gold.’

Kono shrugged and sighed wearily then trudged down the ridge to where the boxes lay. As he got to the bottom his eyes met Lisa’s.

‘You don’t have to do this,’ she said to him, sensing the trepidation in his demeanour. ‘This gold should go back to the people it rightfully belongs to. You don’t have to go along with this.’

Kono turned his face away as if her words were painful to hear, as if they spoke to something very fundamental within him. He picked up a box of gold and heaved it to the top of the ridge. As he got to the top Lisa shouted out to him, ‘You don’t have to do this.’

Tanaka pointed his gun at Lisa. ‘Shut up!’ he shouted.

Lisa stepped forward, all the time feeling the gun trained upon her. Joe clutched at her arm and tried to pull her back but she moved forward anyway, not caring for Tanaka or the weapon that he held in his hand.

‘You don’t have to rob the people of their history again. It was done once, don’t let it happen again. This is our chance to put right the wrong that was done to them. This is our chance to give something back and to make sure history is not repeated.’

Tanaka scowled at her. ‘Shut up! Shut up or I’ll damn well shoot. Do you think I care who or what you are? Do you think I won’t shoot the whole lot of you?’

Kono was making his way down the ridge again for more boxes of gold as Lisa implored him. ‘Take the gold if you want. Take it all but leave the Buddha. The Buddha is a sacred object, someone’s image of eternity; it should not be bought and sold on the market to the highest bidder. It belongs to the people who made it, who invested it with their thoughts and their prayers.’

Tanaka spat on the ground. ‘Take the Buddha!’ he ordered. ‘Take the Buddha!’

Kono closed his eyes momentarily and he was in the tunnel again; there was pain all around him and he wanted it gone. He didn’t care any more about the money, about the respect of his father, about Tanaka — he just wanted the pain to be gone. Then he saw her, the girl in the temple, her face as he had killed her. She was nothing to him, she hadn’t harmed him or done him any wrong and yet he had killed her because of an order.

Kono heard a shot hit the ground near his feet.

‘Get the Buddha!’ Tanaka barked through gritted teeth and Kono bent down slowly to pick it up.

‘You don’t have to do this,’ Lisa shouted, and made a move towards him. Tanaka fired a shot over her head and sent her tumbling to the ground; seeing this Joe leaped forward and made a grab for the gun, only to hear the sound of it firing and feel the sting of hot metal hit him. He recoiled with the shock and suddenly everything was happening in slow motion. The clouds stopped moving in the sky, the jungle stopped breathing and the only sound that could be heard was the echo from the crack of the bullet that had struck him in the chest.

He landed on the ground with a thud and the first thing he felt was Lisa’s hand on his head, stroking his hair and the whispering of her voice as it played gently in his ear. ‘Don’t die, Joe, don’t die.’

The world was growing colder and seemed to be getting further away. In his head he saw the woman from his dreams motioning to him; he didn’t want to go with her but he knew he must. Everything in him wanted to stay with Lisa but he knew she was somewhere else now. She was outside of the room and he was inside — there was a wall between them now.

Lisa was trying to stem the blood that pumped from Joe’s chest. She frantically held a piece of her own clothing over it to stem the bleeding but it was no good — the more she tried the harder it got until her hands were stained red and felt warm.

Tanaka grinned and aimed his gun at Lisa. ‘I hate to see two people divided. Perhaps you should join your boyfriend.’ He pulled the trigger. But it slammed down to silence — the chamber was empty. In frustration he threw it away and barked an order at Kono.

‘Kill the bitch!’ he shouted. ‘Let her go with her boyfriend.’

Kono dropped the golden Buddha and moved towards Lisa. As he looked up, he saw her kneeling by Joe’s body, covered in Joe’s blood, and for an instant was transported back to the temple and the girl. He closed his eyes, but the image would not go away. No matter how hard he tried the face of the girl came back to him — her eyes looking at him, her mouth opening as the last breath left her body and she died. He would not let it happen again. He could not let it happen again. There had been too many deaths, too much suffering, and now it was time to end it.

Kono felt a strange revelation taking place in his mind; the spirits of the jungle were in him. With fire in his eyes, he ran up the ridge and grabbed Tanaka, who struggled lamely in his grasp. Kono cried out like an animal in pain as he lifted Tanaka off his feet and held him in the air; Tanaka kicked but found he was no longer able to reach the ground. He desperately struggled as he felt the last vestiges of air being squeezed from his body and his face turned a deep shade of purple. Tanaka made a last lunge at Kono’s neck but it was no use. Kono shook the other man and, with a crack that was clearly audible from several feet away, broke his back and let his body fall, like a crumpled pile of clothing to the earth.

Joe felt himself in some other place, a place where he had been before. He recognised it from a dream he had once had. He knew he was safe here, he knew that he would be safe for ever. All the running he had done in his life was coming to an end and he knew that here was where he wanted to be more than anywhere else in the world.

‘We need to get him to the village quickly,’ Winthrope said. ‘We need to get him to the holy woman.’

‘The holy woman?’ the professor said. ‘What this man needs is a hospital and a doctor.’

‘Fine,’ Winthrope said mockingly. ‘You just call for one and I’ll stay here. Come on, help me with him, we need to get him there quickly.’

Fraser and Kono picked Joe up and began to carry him to the village while the other members of the team sadly collected the bodies of the three unlucky women or hoisted some of the gold upon their shoulders and followed them. The rest would have to be collected later.

The hut of the holy woman was a little way from the rest of the village and as they approached it the whole group began to feel nervous and afraid. Joe was still conscious and murmured to himself as they hoisted him over the threshold and lay him on the floor. The woman lit a pipe and began to chant. She blew smoke over Joe’s body and passed a hand just above his chest, intoning as she did so. Without taking her eyes off him, she spilled hot wax from a candle on to a silver dish plate. The drying wax seemed to take the shape of Joe’s face agonising in his battle between worlds, as the smoke seemed to engulf him and enter into his every pore, transforming his corporeal body into something dreamlike and magical. Lisa thought she could see his spirit desperately trying to free itself only to be caught by the smoke that surrounded him. Joe seemed to recognise this woman, she was vaguely familiar, like he had seen her before in a dream.

It was a fight between life and death, between the forces that want to snatch a soul away and those that want to keep it on earth to feel, to breathe and to live. Lisa could see that Joe was fighting for all he was worth. She knew that he did not want to leave her now they had found each other; she knew he was desperately battling not for his sake but for hers. The holy woman blew more smoke and Joe began to feel a warmth around him. Suddenly there was a light behind his eyes and everything seemed alive again. Something was calling to him just like in his dream. He seemed to recognise this woman, not anybody he had met in the earthly realm, was she a vision, or was he dead? The woman reached forward and placed her hand on Joe’s chest; she closed her eyes, blew more smoke in his direction and violently pulled the bullet from his flesh. It was lifted up triumphantly and then dropped on to the floor where it sat, a harmless shard of metal.

Joe began to feel his legs and his arms again. Something was pulling him back to life; something was making him swim against the tide. He opened his eyes and the light streamed in. Lisa reached over and kissed his forehead and the world had begun again. The holy woman smiled and said something to Winthrope, who translated.

‘She said you must rest for a few days but you will be fine. She said it was lucky it didn’t go in any further, or else she wouldn’t have been able to do anything at all.’

Lisa hugged Joe’s head and cried a single tiny tear that fell onto his cheek and seemed to stay there.