The Mystery of Yamashita's Map

Prologue

The broken bodies lay like hideous eruptions on the surface of the dried earth, their dull skin reflecting no light from the sun that beat down relentlessly in the midday. Of the living, there were two kinds: those that had guns, and those that had spades. Those that had guns stood on the high ground or under the shade of small beige tents which were flecked with fly droppings and particles of mud thrown up over time, time that had been harsh and unyielding. Those that had spades dug on and in the ground or occasionally, with backs bent, carried wooden boxes which weighed much more than their undernourished frames could manage. Every few minutes another body would lose its will to cling on to what little life it was allowed to have and fall to the ground where it was first beaten, to make sure of its lifelessness, and then dragged away from the mass of people to the makeshift open grave at the edge of the encampment. Those with guns knew that time was running out: they knew that the war was coming to end and things had to be taken care of before it did. This was why their guns were seldom in their holsters; this was why their whips had more ferocity these days. This was why their beatings aimed to kill rather than to reprimand. A dead worker here was better than a sick one and so the transition from one to the other was undertaken swiftly and with precision. The flies made their home in the bodies that were left for the animals and the sun to pick over. The mounds of tanned leather human skin were a testament to the worthlessness of the lives of those who once inhabited this area but had now fallen victim to slavery or greed. You might, if you glimpsed a slight percentage of this picture, think that it was, perhaps, a vision of hell, that the faces of those who dug and carried and sweated and died were those of the dammed, forever doomed to carry on as they were now for all eternity; that the relief of death would never come. Here though those who keep guard are all too human. In one of the tents, at midday, General Tomoyuki Yamashita sits and eats. The rice bowl he holds in his lap has been with him all through the war and before that was his father’s. He is a man who likes to do things correctly, with little or no fuss. Gently, he lifts the bowl to his lips and, with his fingers slightly bent, scoops the rice into his mouth, letting the pale brown sauce fall over his lips and run down his chin. His light brown uniform is stained slightly with sweat and dust but, unlike most of those around him, is in near perfect condition. He places the bowl on the small side table, pours some green tea into a cup and drinks. With thought, he shouts to his second in command who has been standing outside the tent waiting for just such a call. ‘Amichi!’ The flaps of the tent open and a young officer shuffles in apologetically. He knows also that time is running out; he knows that soon the Americans or the British will be coming through and that the questions they will ask will be hard for him to answer. This is the time, he thinks to himself, that one becomes a man again instead of a soldier; these are the times when one has to answer to oneself. He can barely believe he is thinking such things and, quickly, checks about him to make sure no one has been reading his thoughts.

Trying to avoid eye contact, he watches Yamashita slap his open palms on to his knees.

‘How is the tunnelling?’

Amichi bows. ‘Very well, General. We have eighty percent of the gold stored already, a little more to go.’

‘Good, good. What about the jungle, how long will it take to cover the ground?’

‘Not long at all, General, perhaps a year at the most. The growth around here is tremendous. They say if you stand still for an hour you will become part of the jungle.’

Yamashita laughed, exposing his shining white teeth and blood red tongue. ‘Good, but I don’t intend to become part of the jungle. As soon as this is done I am returning to Tokyo. I have done with this place.’

‘Yes, General.’

‘However, I need you to do something. I want you to map the area. Once the jungle reclaims this land you won’t be able to tell this place from thousands of others.’

‘Yes, General.’

There was a pause between the two men; a question that remained unasked seemed to disturb them both. The tunnels that hid the gold, that were being dug day and night by the Filipino workers, would surely pinpoint the location even after the jungle had grown back. The entrances to the network of underground safes would be visible from the ground. All they had to do was come back to the same area and there they would be. Amichi hesitated but Yamashita waved him away with a magisterial movement of the hand.

Outside, the air was hotter than he had remembered and Amichi felt it hit his skin. The sun was so bright now it hurt his eyes to look at the dry ground that would be watered by the rains of the rainy season and spring to life again. He called to a foot soldier to bring him a pencil and paper and began to scout the ground. Mapping the area was going to be difficult, it all looked so similar, but eventually he found local landmarks: the river, the hill, the pile of earth where last week’s dead were buried. Signs were etched out on boulders should the jungle swallow up everything in its unrelenting quest to assimilate everything in its path. Amichi found himself staring at the map, his mind wondered back to the good old days of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy where he had been a student. He thought about the visit last week of the Emperor’s grandson, Prince Takeda, who spent most of his time in General Yamashita’s tent studying maps and talking tactics. He found it strange that Prince Takeda should take such a personal interest in this particular tunnel. “Booby traps”, he remembered. The soldiers and the Filipino prisoners had planted mines in the tunnels, but where exactly, he had no idea. He decided to leave this information off the map, it might be better this way. Anyway, he didn’t want some treasure hunter to find the gold. Taking one last look to check that the map accurately showed the area and location of the tunnel he folded it up and called over to one of his soldiers, instructing him to take the map to General Yamashita. He hoped it would be acceptable to his General, as Yamashita had an uncanny knack of spotting his mistakes.

Hour after hour, day after day the trucks kept coming with gold. Most of it had been looted from temples and rich homes across almost the whole of South East Asia. It had been one of those spoils of war that is broken and invested by the winner but hidden and longed for by the loser. Amichi thought that, in a war, very rarely do those who own the riches ever get to keep them — eventually they will always be taken either by the victor or the vanquished. His thoughts turned to his own two daughters at home and, not for the first time that week, he wished he could see them again. Suddenly, one of the guards of the tunnel entrances rushed up to him, bringing him out of his dream with a jolt. ‘The tunnel,’ he shouted. ‘The tunnel is down.’ Amichi weighed up the situation. He knew in these moments there was protocol to be followed. He had been given orders for such occasions and these had to be adhered to, whatever the moral implications. He examined the mouth of the tunnel. ‘Any Japanese in there?’ he asked.

‘Yes, Captain.’

‘How many?’

‘Six, Captain.’

‘How many Filipinos?’

‘Thirty-eight, Captain.’

Amichi thought a moment. There were enough Japanese to warrant digging them out; no amount of Filipinos however could justify the spending of time and the endangering of Japanese lives. If the ratio was a little higher, the tunnel would just be closed up and work begun somewhere else. He ordered the tunnel to be dug out and made his way to the general’s tent.

In his tent, Yamashita studied the map. He liked its thoroughness and its complexity. He had thought very little of Amichi since he joined his unit: there was something weak about him, something untrustworthy. Yamashita decided that after this spell he would have Amichi sent to the units in Malaya, where the jungle is likely to swallow up young, irresponsible captains who look and listen too much.

He examined the map again. He recognised its contours and its landmarks. He carefully folded it up, flattening the folds with his strong stubby fingers. He leaned across his desk and picked up a small leather volume concerning the Buddhist temples of China; he smiled to himself at the aptness of his choice. Taking the folded piece of paper he eased it gently into the space between the spine and the binding, making sure it could not be seen from the outside. He opened and closed the book a few times to make sure it was safe and then replaced the book back on the shelf where it belonged.

For all his military history, for all his pride, for all his ruthlessness, Yamashita was a lacklustre man. Throughout all this his heart and mind raced with the thought of returning after the war and opening up the tunnels to find the gold that was waiting for him. One could live easily on a general’s salary, but easy only. He had felt to himself that he was owed greater things by the Empire — the Empire that had taken his father and his grandfather, that had harried him round from place to place, never letting him rest, never allowing him any peace.

He thought about the time in the future when he could afford the lifestyle he knew he was born for. He thought of the faces of those who had ridiculed him in the past. He thought of their jealousy and of their hatred for him. In fact, he thought so hard of these things that he failed to notice, across the other side of the tent through a hole in the fabric, the eyes that had been staring at him for the last five minutes. The eyes of Amichi, which blinked once and then disappeared.

In one of the sweltering tunnels Bayani sat with his back against the cool wall of earth. He had been digging all day and the blisters on his palms began to ache with the pressure. The scarf tied tightly around his forehead was soaked with sweat and with the blood that dripped from the wound in his head. But he was a strong one; he had been born nearby and only just been captured by the Japanese. He could stand more of this; he could stand more than they could ever give out.

He glanced over and saw an old man he recognised from that morning. The old man looked in trouble — he was breathing heavily and his eyes were closed. Bayani noticed that there was a thin stream of spittle running from his lip, almost ready to hit the ground. The old man had been carrying boxes all day and was already broken by the weight. Someone, somewhere, thought Bayani to himself, must know about the things that are going on here. Someone must be able to help. He slowly stood up and crossed the tunnel to where the old man sat. He put his arm around the old man’s shoulders and wiped his mouth with his shirt. The man rested his head on Bayani’s shoulder and, as he gently stroked his head he felt the old man weeping.

Suddenly, there was a noise; a Japanese guard was pushing through the bodies in the tunnel. He reached the spot where the two sat and prodded Bayani with his rifle. Bayani did nothing, just continued to look after the old man. Again the guard pushed his rifle into the ribs of Bayani but again he did nothing. Quickly the guard raised his rifle as far as he could in the tunnel and brought it down squarely on the head of the old man, splitting it open and causing the blood to gush out over Bayani’s chest. The old man fell forward and lay in the dust and the earth of the tunnel floor. Bayani shot up and stood facing the Japanese guard.

For a moment there was silence: all digging stopped, all movement ceased. The Japanese guard was shaking slightly, with fear or with anger, neither were really sure. Bayani picked up his spade and the guard flinched, holding and cocking his rifle at Bayani. For the briefest of moments the tunnel seemed to fill up with the breathing of the two men. There was nothing to choose between them; Bayani knew he had death on his side — here in the hell of the tunnel he owned death. He had no family to speak of now, no home to miss, no position to think of. Here, in this tunnel, he had all that he would ever have. Bayani swung the shovel and felt it come crashing down into the wall of the tunnel. He began digging as he had that morning and all the others like it since he had been taken captive. The Japanese guard smiled slightly and lowered his gun. Deep inside him he knew he had had a lucky escape; there is a fear that only an oppressor can feel — it is the fear of knowing you are pushing someone who has nowhere else to go.

Outside, Amichi was overseeing the digging of the collapsed tunnel. Diligently he ordered the earth to be removed with hands rather than spades to avoid further collapse. As the tunnel was freed, men clambered out with their faces and bodies covered in black dusty earth. They looked for all the world as if they were crawling from their graves on judgement day — their eyes blinking in the sun as they crawled through the ever-widening gap that had been opened up in the side of the mound. From the tunnel he worked in Bayani could hear the commotion. He had felt the tunnel implode and guessed it was only a few hundred feet away, perhaps even the tunnel next to the one where he was working. He had got used to collapses, either of his tunnel or the surrounding ones. Some days there would be as many as three or four right after each other. The earth would shake and rumble and then there would be silence. The awful silence of men trapped. Amichi dragged a comrade out of the hole in the ground. The man coughed and spluttered and his spittle made dark patches around his mouth. Amichi cleared his throat and poured some water over his face to wash it. He could see the fear on the man’s face. Whoever works underground, whether they are miners or tunnel diggers or those who oversee them, gradually comes to accept the danger, but it is ever present. There is a constant fear of a collapse, a constant notion that the walls are beginning to move and the roof is beginning to cave in. Amichi himself had had friends who had entered the mouth of the tunnel in the morning and not come out again.

The tunnels were freezing cold in the morning, but as the day and the bodies in them heated up they became ovens which slowly cooked those inside until they thought they would rather die than last another day. All the time, there was the moving of the boxes, all the same size, all made of strong Japanese oak, each one containing gold, stolen and melted down into perfectly-sized ingots, for after the war. Of course, Amichi knew that the Filipinos knew nothing about the gold. They were merely told to dig and carry and they dug and carried. They were expendable in this operation and they were the one commodity that was cheaper during war than at any other time. Slowly, all of the Japanese were removed from the tunnel and, one by one most of the diggers came out also. Had there been a head count, it would have revealed that six were missing, lying dead by the portion of the tunnel which had seen the heaviest collapse. But there were no head counts anymore; there was not the time and besides, one never counts that which is useless.

In his tent Yamashita was writing his report. This whole operation, of course, was sanctioned by the Imperial Army and, because of that, he had to document everything. Of course, what was the harm if a few details here and there went missing, like the location of a certain tunnel, the full map of the area, the number of boxes stored or the exact contents of each box? Yamashita smiled at his creativity as he managed to weave all four of these lies into his report, which concluded that a great many of the Filipino captives were, even now, cheating the Imperial Army out of many of the gold bars by storing them in tunnels dug under the cover of darkness. He wrote of his suspicions regarding Captain Amichi, thinking that perhaps the young officer would be better utilised if he were to be offered a desk job in Manila, ordering supplies or seeing to everyday logistics. He thought that he should be sent word of his family and wished for leave to see them.

Sealing the paper he placed it in his case and poured more tea for himself. He did not mind the heat here — the heat was something that one could regard as rather pleasant after a time — but he hated the flies. They crawled over your skin and on your eyes as you slept; they buzzed around your face and caused a gentle breeze to blow eerily across your skin. Once again, he swatted one but it evaded him and flew out of the tent. Yamashita arose, crossed the tent and lay on his small mattress. He sighed to himself. These days of war were torture for a man of his sensibilities. What did he really care about General MacArthur escaping from Corregidor, under the very noses of the Japanese army; the ‘Death March’ to Bataan, and deaths of thousands of Filipino and American soldiers? He had always thought of himself as more of a peacemaker than a warrior. How cruel fate could be. With a groan he eased himself down and lay, gazing up at the ceiling of the tent, where the sun illuminated it. His eyes closed and he heard the faint sound of the men as they worked. He could feel himself drifting off to sleep.

He awoke with a start, realising there was someone next to his bed. He sat up and quickly grabbed the gun that he kept beside him. As his eyes opened, however, he realised it was only Amichi. ‘Yes?’ he said, angrily. Amichi held a piece of paper in his hands. He nervously fidgeted with it, rolling it over in his fingers, creasing its edges. ‘This came, sir.’

‘What is it?’

Amichi held it out before him. ‘I think you should read it.’

Yamashita rose and took the paper. He crossed the tent and picked up his reading glasses from the small desk. The script was hastily written with a pencil that obviously needed sharpening. It said that General MacArthur had landed on Leyte and was pushing northwards. Yamashita eyes widened and he grunted in disbelief, the time was nearly up, the Americans had killed hundreds of thousands in one day, and that he had to return to Manila and then go on to Tokyo.

Yamashita slowly sank down into his chair. He thought to himself for a moment. He knew what this meant. In war, you do what you can, you survive for that day only, you are happy when it ends and you can say to yourself, ‘I have made it for another day’. You sleep and then the next day it begins all over again. This strategy only works, however, if either the war continues or you win. In war the loser loses everything. Amichi hovered over the General’s shoulder. He knew too what the letter meant. He knew that the dead in the hills and the gold could not be found. He knew that nothing of what they had done here could ever get out to the Americans or the world that they represented. The new world that was coming closer and closer with each day. Amichi leaned closer, until his breath flecked the side of the general’s face. ‘General?’ Yamashita was silent.

‘General? What will we do? General?’

Slowly, the general turned. His face was splashed with beads of sickly sweat that emanated not so much from the heat as from the situation. Again Amichi spoke. ‘General? We can’t leave the tunnels as they are. We can’t leave the area like this for…’ He stopped briefly. ‘The Americans.’

The General looked again at the paper he held in his hands and brought his face up to the level of Amichi. Avoiding his gaze and staring straight ahead he whispered, ‘Blow up the tunnels.’

Amichi had feared this moment. He recoiled. He had lived this moment for the last few months. He knew that there would come a time when the choice would be made, but there was nothing to say now. ‘Make preparations, Amichi.’

Amichi left the tent and crossed the small patch of land to the tunnel entrances in a daze. He knew what this meant. For there to be no sign of what they had done here, for there to be no record, those who had worked the tunnels day and night for a year or more would have to be buried with them. He just didn’t know yet if he was to be one of them. The day seemed darker now, the sun a little dimmer, the flies a little closer. He found it hard to breathe as he surveyed the tiny holes cut into the side of the hill, out of which small men like ants constantly appeared.

He called a sergeant over and ordered all the dynamite they had to be brought up to where he stood. From where he was he could see the rest of the jungle. It seemed so peaceful, so serene and so still. Somewhere he heard the striking of shovel or pick on hard earth and it seemed to sound on forever. This was a sound he had heard every day for longer than he cared to remember. He knew what was happening here. He knew that this was merely the outcome of one man’s ego. He knew that all these deaths were avoidable, that they were a product of a mind that had become diseased and removed from reality. He knew that there would be nothing for him unless he took it and made it his own.

Quickly he ordered the explosives to be piled high in the tunnel entrance. These were good soldiers of the Empire — they acted without thinking, without questioning. When it had been done he walked to Yamashita’s tent. ‘The tunnels are primed, sir,’ he said. Yamashita was sitting in his chair, head bowed in a strange intensity which seemed to transcend the tiny surroundings. He was silent and his eyes were closed. Amichi moved over and stood beside him. Still the older man said nothing. ‘The tunnels, sir…’

Yamashita raised a hand to stop the other from talking. Quietly, he lowered it again and placed it on his knee. The two men stood together in a silence that lasted for minutes.

Suddenly, Yamashita opened his eyes and stood. ‘Shall we prepare?’ he said, and walked out. Amichi, thinking that his time was ripe, reached a hand out and grabbed the small book where he had seen Yamashita hide the map of the tunnels. Quickly he placed it inside his shirt and followed his general outside to the heat of the day. Yamashita stared at the tunnel entrances. ‘Is there enough?’ he asked, nodding at the explosives.

‘Enough to blow five times as much,’ Amichi said.

‘And the captives?’

‘All but a handful still digging inside.’

‘What about Japanese?’

Amichi looked around him, quickly counting in his head.

‘About thirty.’

Yamashita bowed, Amichi did not know whether in prayer or in guilt.

‘Give the order,’ Yamashita said and Amichi raised his hand.

In the tunnel Bayani first heard the explosion then felt the shockwave as it blew through him and the others. At first, of course, he thought that it was collapsing but pretty soon he realised that no collapse was ever so strong or so violent. He felt the bodies of those around him falling; he could hear the breath being torn from their chests and could sense the fear in the air.

Suddenly, someone said that the tunnel had been blown and that there were dead men by the entrance, so he pushed his way to the front. He could smell the rich smell of blood as his fingers scrambled over rocks and bodies and the remains of the wooden boxes. Behind him someone lit a match but was told to put it out quickly. Above the sound of panic he heard clearly the voices of the Japanese soldiers attempting to calm each other down and assure themselves that it must have been some kind of accident. They will be digging, they said to each other, they will be digging us out even now.

Bayani knew, however, that never did the entrance of the tunnel collapse: the entrance was shored by thick wooden beams; there was no chance on earth they would have collapsed.

He knew that for some reason it had been blown.

He dug with his hands at the wall of solid earth that stood before him but after a few minutes gave up. The fallen beams and the earth had formed a thick wall which completely covered the inside of the tunnel. There was no way out. He slumped down onto the floor and placed his head in his hands.

To his right a fight started out. Two Japanese guards had been arguing over what to do next and voices were raised. The air in the tunnel got thicker as they screamed and screeched at each other, pulling at each other’s clothing. One of the guards pulled a gun and fired. The noise reverberated around the tunnel and caused clods of earth to fall from the roof. Bayani jumped up and made a lunge at the guards in the darkness. He found the gun, wrenched it from the hand of the guard, then made his way to end of the corridor, where he sat again.

All about him men were moaning, in pain and in fear, their voices — some in Japanese, some in Chinese, some Filipino, some in dialects he could not understand — had a strange eerie quality about them. The panic had receded now and all that was left was the dim roar of humans trapped like animals.

For hours, they waited for the digging but no one came.

Bayani, coughing with lack of air, crawled through the tunnel to where he had stood as the explosion happened. The voices were less now, there was less movement. As he made his way across the bodies that now seemed stacked almost to the roof, there was very little resistance. He felt each one as he passed and realised they were dead, either from their wounds or from suffocation. He reached the area of the tunnel that was clearer and sat, gently rocking. The guards who had been desperately trying to find a way out had stopped now; mostly he could hear them gently crying in the dark or talking to loved ones or saying nothing at all, just breathing deeply as the air became thinner and their heads became lighter. He felt the urge to cry but no tears fell from his dehydrated eyes, his thoughts were of his wife and family, hopefully they had made it to the hills, just as they had planned in case the Japanese occupied their village. He wondered if their little Nipa hut was still standing, he had spent his life there and had never gone to Manila in search of a job like most of his friends. He loved the life in the village, the sounds, the smells, the children playing Bahay-Kubo.

When he could hear no more, Bayani reached for the gun and lifted it to his head. He closed his eyes. Outside nothing was disturbed by the single gunshot that came from deep within the tunnel. All the soldiers had gone now, moved out in the past six hours. All the captives had been killed or else had escaped back into the jungle. The sun was down and only the empty tents fluttered slightly in the evening breeze giving signs that the life that had been here was here no longer.

The trial had ended and the verdict was in. Anyone who watched it was in no doubt as to the outcome: these were some of the worst crimes of the Second World War. The litany of inhumanity seemed to stretch on forever and no one really knew how many had died on the various missions of General Tomoyuki Yamashita. The General was taken into the holding cell to wait for his time. The fall of Singapore on the 15th of February 1942 seemed like a distant memory. Yamashita remembered how proud he was as he led his 30.000 men to a famous victory over the 130.000 British, Indian and Australian troops. The largest surrender of British-led personnel in history. He was proud of his nickname, the "Tiger of Malaya".

Whatever happens, he would remain dignified. He had served his Emperor to the best of his ability and had no regrets. Outside in the street people were smiling as they heard the news. They had followed the trial ever since his capture and were glad that it was finally over. Most people knew someone or had heard of someone who had been killed by Yamashita’s troops and now they were satisfied that the justice that had been promised to them was coming. Only a few mumbled and moaned about the paucity of real justice, the imbalance — one’s man’s life for thousands. Most, however, smiled and slapped each other’s backs, thinking the war had finally delivered its last victory and it was theirs.

In the morning they took the General, who had freshly shaved, and led him to the gallows. The day was bright and hot as many days are in Laguna. They led him up the 13 steps to the platform and placed a rope around his neck. There was a small crowd gathered outside the prison where the execution was being carried out; men and women jostled for position, straining to hear anything from inside the walls, but it was impossible. A seller of fruit wandered among them, lifting the atmosphere to one of market day or carnival and the look on the faces of each of those attending was of quiet joy, tinged perhaps with anxiety that all should go well. Inside, they pulled the lever and the General fell. The gates were opened and a guard let the crowd see the body, gently swinging in the sunlight. The crowd cheered, some women hugged each other, men pushed and shoved so that they could get a better view, desperately wanting to make sure it was him, that it was Yamashita and that he was finally dead.

Towards the back of the crowd, a man with a large head scarf stood quietly contemplating the scene. He felt that the trial had been a bit hurried, as if it had taken place to appease all those who had suffered at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army, as if General Yamashita was somehow responsible for each and every death. In his hand he held a book close to his chest and in the book a map was concealed. On the back of the map he had written his name, Amichi, so that history would know his own culpability, his own guilt.