The Mystery of Yamashita's Map

Chapter Sixteen

Night was drawing in but inside the hut the revellers still ate and drank and talked. The warm orange glow of the fire made patterns on the wall of the hut and on the faces of those that sat round it. Every now and then, Lisa and Joe would exchange glances and wordless communication would pass between them, each knowing what the other was thinking. After a while, Joe shuffled forward and spoke to Winthrope. ‘So,’ he said. ‘How about letting us out of these ropes, eh? I mean, we’re hardly going to run away now, are we? The jungle is so dark out there I wouldn’t even get past three feet of this place, and besides, all this water and milk, you know — I gotta go use the bathroom.’ Winthrope thought for a moment. ‘OK, and you’re right — you try to run away from the village and you won’t get far. Your only hope is to stay here with us.’ Joe nodded as one of the women set about loosening and then untying his bonds. He made his way out of the hut. As he passed Lisa he reached down and gave her arm a squeeze. Lisa stroked his hand and smiled up at him but he was gone before she could catch his eye.

The night was cool and clear. Above him the stars shone brighter than he had ever seen them before. It was beautiful here, he thought to himself; the sky was clear, the air was clean and the jungle let you know you were part of something bigger, something that needed you as much as you needed it. He knew, though, that it wasn’t home; there was none of the magic of the city, the excitement. He had smog for blood, he knew that, and here he was a stranger. He couldn’t stay; they could never make him stay. He passed a young girl sleeping by the hut, obviously too young to enter. Her long black hair trailed over her shoulders, a blanket was wrapped around her legs and she shivered a little in the cold night air. Carefully Joe unwound the blanket and placed it over the girl’s shoulders, patting it down gently. They were a beautiful people, he thought to himself. Perhaps he was too ugly for them; perhaps he had too much of the city in him, perhaps he had always had too much of the city in him. He stroked the hair of the girl. ‘Gun or no gun,’ he said, ‘tomorrow, we have to leave.’

When Joe returned to the hut, he realised things had begun to go with a swing. He approached the door and heard raucous laughter from inside. He gathered from listening for a while that Winthrope had begun to elaborate on the plan he had for the professor, Fraser and himself. He gently eased open the door and made his way in. The air in the hut was stifling. He coughed as it hit his lungs, an action that made everyone turn around and stare at him. Winthrope was busy smoking in the corner, a strange heady mixture that Joe had vaguely smelt somewhere before, in the back streets of Hong Kong. The pipe from which Winthrope smoked was handed to his left, to Fraser, who took a long drag from it. Joe noticed the blood drain from Fraser’s face as the smoke was shot out of his nose. Fraser coughed and spluttered, causing hoots and giggles to fill the inside of the little hut.

Winthrope took the pipe and laid a hand on Fraser’s chest. Together they breathed slowly and rhythmically, then Fraser’s eyes rolled back into his head and he seemed to lose consciousness. His legs started twitching and his arms flapping by his side, like a fish. Joe had seen this once before, one early morning long ago by the harbour. The boy who had smoked the pipe that day did not return from wherever he had gone. That was different, however — the smoke that he had inhaled was cut with chemicals and other man-made poisons while this was fresh from Nature, in all her benevolent glory.

Fraser started dribbling slightly and sweating. One of the women in the hut shuffled over and began to wipe his chin. Joe could tell Lisa was getting concerned. She knew Fraser was not even used to strong liquor let alone whatever it was that was in the pipe. She kneeled and leaned across to the professor, then whispered in his ear. The professor glanced over at Fraser but merely nodded, sagely; whatever it was he was thinking, he was not about to let the rest of the village know. Joe rushed over to where Fraser lay and placed a hand on his forehead. ‘Is he OK?’ Lisa asked and he could hear the worry in her voice. ‘I think so. He shouldn’t have been given this, whatever it is. He faints at the smell of whiskey.’

The girl beside Fraser gently leaned over and kissed his lips and the change was miraculous. Without fuss, the girl’s breath had calmed Fraser. First his eyes flickered, then his legs and arms stopped twitching and then, as if waking from some strange sleep, he opened his eyes and smiled around the hut. Joe and Lisa sighed. Fraser could say only one word.

‘Wow!’

The look on his face told Joe that wherever he had been, Fraser liked it and wanted more. He gazed upon Lisa, who slouched back against the wall of the hut, the sparks from the fire dancing around her hair, causing her to take on a holy glow. Joe realised he didn’t care where he was or what he was doing as long as he could do it with Lisa. He thought back over his life in an instant and realised that, out of all the women he had known, the only name he could remember was Lisa’s. Hers was the only face he ever wanted to see again. He wanted to do all those stupid things with her that he had never even considered with anyone else before, engagement, marriage… he gulped a little and felt his heart beat faster… kids.

No matter how stupid he told himself he was being, he could not bring himself to do what Winthrope was asking of him. This was not the way to start something big and pure, perhaps the purest thing he had ever embarked upon. He didn’t care if it meant he would be shot, he was not going to aid in the repopulation of the village. He was not going to jeopardise his relationship with Lisa, possibly the only thing worth having in the world now. More precious even than the golden Buddha.

Lisa looked nervous. She had been watching Joe and had finally admitted to herself that the feelings she had for him were deeper than just the casual attraction she thought she had felt at first. As his eyes looked into the fire, she thought she saw all the pain and hurt he had ever suffered in his life mirrored on his face. He was such a boy really — but such a charming, brave, funny one that she knew she had fallen for him.

Beside her Winthrope clapped his hands. ‘In an hour or so, gentlemen, I will retire to my hut and I will allocate you each a number of women for the night. However, this will be just the first of many nights. You can think of yourselves as Adams, ensuring that the human race continues in this small island of beautiful people. One day, there will be a whole village of happy smiling faces, just like Fraser’s here. One day the island will be thriving again. I have ensured that you each have a hut. Joe, you can stay here; Fraser, you can go in the hut next to mine and, professor… well, there is a small one on the outskirts, you can use that. Use these wisely, my friends, for I do think of you as friends now, and most of all…’ He smiled a glinting smile that seemed to speak of many things. ‘Have fun.’

Fraser leered, the professor looked nervous and Joe looked at Lisa and suddenly time slowed. He looked into her eyes and noticed for the first time that one was a slightly deeper brown than the other. It was hardly discernible and could perhaps have been put down to a trick of the light, but Joe noticed it and in noticing was made to wish for more things to know about Lisa. He wanted to know everything about her, every step she had ever made, every thought she had ever thought, every dream she had ever dreamed. He leaned over, pretending to feed the fire, and touched her foot. At first she recoiled but then, as if some current had passed between them, something unsaid but palpable, she relaxed and pushed her legs nearer his hand.

In the crowded hut, full of strangers and smoke, Lisa and Joe shared a moment of intimacy few could boast of in a lifetime. It was merely a touch, the briefest of glances, but it said more about human warmth and fragility than if they had been free to express their thoughts till dawn. As if the fire had connected them with its heat, they both sat back against their respective walls and breathed deeply, knowing that something important had been said without words.

At the allotted time, Winthrope snapped his fingers and the hut was emptied of everyone except Joe, Fraser, the professor and Lisa. Winthrope began to speak.

‘You have made a very wise decision in accepting the hospitality of the village. I have known people who have merely wanted to take what they could get and be on the first plane out, but you have shown courage and respect, my friends. Thank you.’

The professor eased himself forward. ‘Do you know this area well?’ he asked.

‘Do you know the streets where you live well? Do you know your house well, or your apartment? Well, that is how I know the jungle. I have been over most of it in my time, walking here and there, fishing, gathering food and water.’

The professor felt a little light-headed from the smoke he had inhaled earlier. He reached into his pocket. Lisa, realising what he was about to do, tried to stop him but he was insistent.

‘I have here an important document,’ the professor began, ‘That I thought you might like to take a look at.’

The professor pulled the map from his pocket and handed it to Winthrope, who examined it casually. ‘Yes, a map,’ he said. ‘I have seen many maps of this kind.’

The professor smiled. ‘But it is a map of peculiar importance. It is a map of the island. Do you recognise any part of it?’

Winthrope studied it more closely. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Whose map is it?’

There was silence in the hut for a moment, while the professor debated how much to tell him. Finally after what seemed like hours he spoke.

‘Yamashita’s. We think it was drawn for him by a man called Amichi. I knew, or at least had dealings with, his granddaughter. She wanted me to have it. She knew that I would look after it and serve her well.’

The professor bowed his head. Winthrope’s eyes widened. He traced a line with his finger and with each inch it passed his face grew lighter and his smile broader. ‘Yes, I think I do know this. I can’t be sure — it has probably changed since this was written, but I am almost sure I recognise this high ground here. I’d say it was about two and a half miles away.’

The professor was suddenly energised. He shrugged the hazy feeling from his brain and sat bolt upright. ‘Then, we must go,’ he said. ‘Right away, we must leave. There may not be much time to waste.’

Winthrope held his arm. ‘It’s night time, professor, we can’t go now. Besides, you have an obligation to fulfil.’

The professor gulped. He had been hoping that Winthrope would forget about the deal that he had agreed to. It was not that he was scared of women, but he had never had much dealing with them before. Women to him were like mountain climbing: he could see the attraction and he knew why other men did it but, somehow, he could never be bothered. He smiled politely and sat back down. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘The deal.’

Winthrope looked around and caught sight of Joe; he reached across and squeezed one of Joe’s biceps. ‘We need muscle too, eh, Joe? We need the brains of the professor here, your muscle and Fraser’s gentlemanliness, eh?’

Winthrope laughed. Joe turned to look at Lisa but she was looking away. He thought he saw a tear in her eye but it could have been the way the light hit her.

‘Of course, there are rules that need to be obeyed here, the same as anywhere else; you must of course be respectful to the girl and to her successor, in order that the two don’t meet. The door to the hut must remain closed while you are with a wife. If any of the wives see a closed door they will not enter and as soon as they have finished they will leave, making sure the door is left open for the next girl. You see how all these things have their own little rules that make them go swimmingly? Once you have mated with the girls you are free to do whatever you wish. Tomorrow we will test your map and seek out the tunnels but for now please, gentlemen, enjoy yourselves and be proud of your status as founding fathers. Professor, Fraser? Would you like to follow me? Lisa, you can sleep in my hut tonight. You will be all right.’

Lisa followed the others out, leaving Joe alone in the hut. He flicked idly at the fire and watched as the flames sent up tiny sparks of light into the smoky air. Every thought in his head revolved around Lisa; not a second passed without it being filled with images of her. He would not have thought it of himself three weeks ago, he would not have thought it possible but, there it was, it was true. Joe was in love.

He also hated what he was being asked to do. He knew that Lisa would never forgive him, and why should she? It was a poor way to show the woman you love what you felt about her. It was a strange way to declare your feelings for someone. He told himself, however, that it was not his fault. He was being made to do these things, he had no choice — his hands were tied. He doused the fire with some water from the bucket, hoping that this would stop him feeling quite so low. Perhaps if he could not see their faces it meant he was not as guilty, perhaps…

Outside he heard the sound of the village preparing itself for sleep. The occasional child let a cry go out that shook the jungle and caused it a moment’s panic but eventually all was quiet. Joe got on his bed and lay there looking at the ceiling. He laughed to himself and thought what he would have made of this situation a month ago. It would, perhaps, have been the one thing he wished for, but meeting Lisa had changed him. He no longer felt as if he was alone, no longer felt the need to fight. He just wanted to see her, to be able to touch her, to be with her.

He closed his eyes. Perhaps if he could fall asleep they would never come. They would pass by his door on the way to the professor’s or to Fraser’s. The irony of the situation crashed in on him as he rolled over and stared into the darkness. He heard a sound outside his hut that he assumed was his first ‘wife’. It was a nervous shuffling, as if eager to get in but afraid to do so. Joe rolled over to face the door but it was too dark to see. He called out but there was no reply. Slowly, the feet moved inside the hut; Joe steadied himself. He thought perhaps he could communicate with her, try and get her to say that they had done what was asked of them. After all, Joe thought, he was sure it was equally as uncomfortable for her. The shape in the darkness closed the door and moved over to his bed.

‘Look,’ Joe said to it. ‘I think you are very nice and everything but I just don’t think it’s right for me to be doing this. I’ve been thinking a lot about someone else lately and I am sure that anything we could do might get in the way of that. I mean, I know it doesn’t mean anything between us and that if I don’t do whatever it is we are about to do, I’ll get a bullet, but I think that maybe it’s worth it. I mean, I have been a rogue in my life, phew, yeah, I have been with some women, but she’s something else, you know? Pure and innocent, like no one else I have met and I don’t want to ruin things. You see what I mean, don’t you? Don’t you?’

A hand slowly reached out in the darkness and touched Joe’s lips, quietening them for a second. He began to lie back on the bed. ‘Well, I think we should stop this, before it… er… starts.’

Joe felt a face next to his. It was soft and warm and he thought to himself that he should just close his eyes and think about Lisa, pretend it was Lisa. After all, she was a strong girl with a good head, she would understand the position he was in. He could tell her the next day that he had been thinking about her that would be sure to make things better. He did not know if his reasoning was correct but it was all he had.

He felt a pair of lips kissing his ear and a voice began to speak. ‘Quiet,’ it said. Joe recognised it as Lisa’s. ‘I haven’t got much time. I understand. We must keep Winthrope happy in order to get out, to find the gold. Do as he wants.’

Joe stammered a reply but was cut short by a kiss on his lips that seemed to take every breath he could ever have out of his body. He wanted this moment to go on forever, to never get dim and die. He made himself fully aware of everything that was happening, every sound he could hear, every feeling he was experiencing, every taste. Everything, so that in years to come he would be able to recall this moment exactly as it was.

Lisa drew back and passed a hand across Joe’s face. Joe took it and held it to his lips. It felt so smooth and inviting. He just wanted to be near her now, to be with her.

‘I have to go,’ Lisa said with a giggle. ‘Your first wife will be here any minute.’

There was a nervous laugh between the two for a moment, Joe went to speak but thought better of it; there would be time enough later, he thought, to tell her everything that was on his mind.

Joe was woken by the sound of screaming. Something was happening in the village. He rubbed his eyes and realised that it was still dark, but he could hear the sound of shouts and feet running outside his hut. Quickly he dressed and stuck his head out of the door. In the dim light of the village he saw flames being carried this way and that, and women waving their arms and screaming as if trying to chase an animal away. Joe realised that something terrible and strange was happening. The looks on the women’s faces as they passed his door were as if they had seen the devil himself and they ran as if they were being driven from hell. Every now and then a shot from the village’s only gun would sound in the night, sending the animals of the jungle into a panic and waking everything and everyone within a five mile radius. Joe ventured out of his hut and joined a moving group of women as they shuffled to a hut on the furthest outskirts of the village.

There was a strange low murmuring and shuffling as the women made their way over the hard dry dirt to the hut that was clearly illuminated now by a number of torches, all of which jutted out of the walls. Joe was surrounded by women chanting and moaning gently to themselves. In the distance he saw others running and patting their heads in frustration. He didn’t know what was going on but he knew that something was wrong — something was horrifically wrong. Suddenly he saw Winthrope in the throng standing by the door of the hut. Joe pushed his way through the crowd and grabbed him by the arm. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Joe asked, and Winthrope turned. Joe had never seen a man so white. His face had been completely drained of blood and his eyes stared like those of a madman. Joe shook him. ‘What’s the matter? What’s happening?’

Winthrope could only raise an arm and point at the hut in a manner that seemed all the more terrifying for its restraint, and Joe made his way to the door. Pushing through the crowd, Joe looked into the hut, and the sight that met his eyes made him gasp. He had seen a few things in the back streets of Hong Kong. He had seen his fair share of death and blood before — some of it had even been his — but as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the hut and he began to make out the shapes in the darkness he could not believe that what he was witnessing could have been human once.

Blood stained the walls of the hut and sparkled slightly as more torches were brought in to illuminate the scene. Now Joe could quite clearly see the body of a young girl, no more than sixteen, lying on the floor, completely covered in blood and lying beside her what looked like a mass of intestines and organs. Her face, eyes wide open, stared at the ceiling as one of the other women knelt beside her cradling the foetus of an unborn child that could have been of no more than three months’ gestation. The kneeling woman rocked gently and wiped the blood from the dead baby’s face, kissed its head and passed a hand along the shoulder of its mother, who was alive but dying. The hut smelt of iron and bodily fluids or like the abattoir that Joe had visited once on the docks in Hong Kong. No animal has ever died in such pain or fear as the woman who lay on the floor in front of Joe, he could tell that from her face as she looked at him one last time, closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh. Her chest stopped rising and falling and her arm by her side fell slightly as she died.

The kneeling woman began to cry, a loud wailing cry that sent shivers down the spine of every living thing in the area. In the quiet of the night the wail seemed to speak for everyone who had lost and who had known death, and Joe too wanted to cry, not perhaps for the girl or for her baby but for the sheer inhumanity of a life that had ended in this way. He staggered out of the doorway and grasped Winthrope by the arm. ‘What the hell happened in there?’ he asked, barely able to catch his breath. The blood had returned to Winthrope’s face and the two sat down under the warm glow of the torches. ‘The manananggal,’ Winthrope said. ‘The villagers talk about it but I have never seen it until tonight. They come out at night and only when there is a pregnant woman near the perimeter of the village. Usually this girl sleeps with me, in my hut, but because of Lisa… well… she slept here. It starts with the sound, the flapping of wings, the others say they heard it over an hour ago, going from hut to hut looking for victims.’ ‘Is it an aswang?’ ‘A variety, yes. A shape shifter. Most of the time it resembles a woman, like a vampire and flies like the wind.’

Joe thought back to his vision of the aswang a few days earlier. He remembered how it had flown around the group, encircling them, paying special attention to Lisa.

‘It has a long tube like tongue,’ Winthrope continued, ‘it uses it to enter the stomach of its victim and suck out the intestines and the foetus of the unborn child. It is an angry demon that does not stop until it gets what it wants. It drinks the blood and then eats the flesh if it is not driven off in time.’

Winthrope pushed a hand through his hair and Joe thought he saw what looked like blood on the sleeve of his shirt. ‘Rumour has it that it can only be killed if you find its lower half, and put salt or garlic on it to stop it re-joining, but that’s virtually impossible. You saw the power of the thing. You saw what it can do.’

Winthrope’s head fell onto his knees and he began to weep silently. Joe noticed how the blood on Winthrope’s shirt had stained only the underside of the arms. He wondered whether he perhaps he had been one of the first to examine the girl and had picked up the stains then — but why only the underside? Why so little blood anywhere else?

‘If only I could have been near her,’ Winthrope moaned. ‘If only I could have saved her. She was my wife, after all.’

Joe placed a hand on Winthrope’s shoulder and tried to comfort him the best he could. Beside him, the women of the village began to disperse, each one casting suspicious glances at Winthrope and Joe.

Winthrope began to pull himself together. He wiped his nose with his sleeve and realised that it was stained with blood. He quickly lowered his arm to his side and began to wipe it on the side of the hut that he sat against.

‘You believe in the manananggal?’ Joe asked.

‘Of course. Do you think you could not believe after tonight? You have to believe. We all have to believe after tonight.’

‘But most of all, these people believe?’ Joe said, and Winthrope knew exactly what he was implying.

‘Yes, they believe, why wouldn’t they? They believe, their mothers did, their fathers did and their children will.’

‘Yes, their children, they believe for their children.’

Winthrope was silent. Joe sensed a change in the balance of the world — suddenly everything was a little stranger, suddenly things were not as they seemed. As much as he told himself that the blood on Winthrope’s shirt was from the woman as she lay dying, as much as he told himself that the spirits of the jungle really had killed her and taken her baby, and as much as he told himself that the village treated Winthrope as a god because he offered them wisdom and not fear, he still could not rid himself of the feeling that this was not the first time the aswang had visited this village at a time of crisis. How many unborn children were being sucked from their mother’s womb? Is this the reason why Winthrope wants to populate the village? The answers were too horrific for him to comprehend. He decided however to keep quiet, for the moment anyway. There was the gold to consider and Lisa and the rest of the party. He would watch, though, and listen, and see how things panned out.

Patting Winthrope on the back, Joe made his way back to his hut, opened the door and flopped down the bed. Every time he closed his eyes all he saw was the face of the woman staring at him as if she were imploring him to realise something, as if she were asking him one final question. He told himself that he had heard her, had understood what she was saying. The night was going to be long now and the morning seemed far off.