For the next two days and nights Rooster and I hid out by ourselves at the lava tube. No one knew, or would say, where the padre was off to. The same grandmother and granddaughter took care of us with food twice a day. One of us kept watch on the trail we’d originally come up after the sinking during daylight hours. If Abriol had posted sentries in the forest we never saw any signs of them. More importantly, there were no Japanese patrols, either.
The granddaughter, whose actual name was quite complicated but who went by the name Tini, was indeed the young woman I’d seen running to the dying boy the night of the massacre. She was very pretty, shy but with obvious intelligence, and apparently fascinated by Rooster. The grandmother played the part of a Spanish duenna, outwardly very strict and highly protective, but probably aware that Rooster had noticed Tini. She, it turned out, was twenty years old and not the teenager I had thought she was. It was part of the charm of the Filipinos that they kept their youthful looks well into adulthood. During our time of waiting she appeared reserved and a little sad, as were most of the villagers down in Lingoro. It was Rooster who took to talking to her and discovering thereby that she spoke some English, courtesy of Tomaldo. I wanted to quiz her on what they were hearing in from the jungle drums, but the words Tomaldo had taught her had nothing to do with Japs and gunboats.
I had time to seriously consider our situation while keeping watch over that long valley. Rooster and I had taken three rifles with us to the tube, along with that hair-triggered handgun. We had twenty-seven rounds among the three rifles. Father Abriol had kept back three grenades, so that constituted our “arsenal.” I had been impressed by Tomaldo’s sibat, but even a squad of second-rate infantrymen with submachine guns would clean our clocks in a New York minute.
On the third morning we enjoyed another small earthquake, except that it was followed by a low, booming roar coming from some distance away. We checked the Orotai end of the tunnel. I was halfway expecting to see flashes from Jap artillery but there was nothing to be seen. The east entrance was a different story. That volcano east of us which had been sending up a lazy column of smoke when we first arrived was now in full eruption. A muscular column of red smoke, fire, and ash rose through the low clouds. Its base was a fierce glow of red, and silent lightning bolts flickered through the column. Above all this a big, dirty cloud was building its way up into the stratosphere. I guessed that the volcano was 10, maybe 15 miles away, but still we could hear it rumbling and roaring.
After the first booming eruption we had earthquakes in our vicinity on an hourly basis. Finally, at about noon, that cloud got too heavy for the atmosphere to support it and it collapsed down in a great dark mass and then flattened out at what used to be the base of the cinder cone. God help anyone within about five miles of that, I thought, as we glimpsed red rivers following it down the cone’s slopes. While we were perched on some rocks just outside of the tube, mesmerized by the scary spectacle, one of the villagers appeared in the tube entrance and indicated we needed to follow him back in. He looked scared.
We saw why when we followed him back into the lava tube. Father Abriol was sitting on a bench with his back to the sloping wall of the tube, obviously exhausted and injured. He was a mess: red-stained bandages on his head, both arms, and one hand, all complemented by a swollen black eye and a nasty purple bruise on his neck. One leg was extended straight out, the other bent back under the bench. The grandmother was tending to him, trying to give him water and having a hard time of it, while giving Tini a string of orders. Tomaldo was among the villagers in the room. He told us an alarming story.
Apparently the Japs had sent out a patrol to a place where the three paths that led to the three largest villages converged at a large freshwater spring. There they’d laid an ambush in the surrounding jungle, hoping to catch members of the resistance or even the priest himself. A woman had come to the spring to fill two water jars and smelled cigarette smoke, which told her there were Japs lurking in the surrounding bush. She’d pretended not to notice and had walked back to her village where she informed the elders. They sent a runner to the village where Father Abriol was hiding, alerting him to the danger. He and three others had decamped immediately and headed for the crater where we’d done our Neanderthal number. They took a different route than the one we’d taken, which involved crossing a shallow crevasse in an old lava field. He stepped onto an invisible bubble in the lava field and had broken through, falling into a conical-shaped pit that sloped down 20 feet to a pile of sharp rock rubble. It had taken his three-man escort two hours to go find some vines, make a rope and crude harness, and get him out of there.
The whole point of heading for the ash crater was to lead any Jap patrols away from the lava tube, especially if they had dogs with them, but there was no other option after his accident. They’d made a bamboo litter and carried him to the west side slope of our volcano and then summoned help. The villagers had their own form of herbal pain-killers, so he wasn’t hurting as much as he should have been, but he was definitely out of action for a while. He gave us a wan smile when we came into the hidey-hole.
“Nice day for a hike,” he said through cracked lips. “Or so it seemed.”
Another rumbling boom from that distant volcano squeezed our ears. I half-expected our volcano to answer with a sympathetic earthquake. Rooster, ever the claustrophobe, looked uneasy. The lava tube was beginning to remind him of scary times on Hagfish.
“We got the gunboat,” I told him. “Do you think the Japs know what actually happened yet?”
He shrugged and then winced. “The villagers know that it wasn’t an accident, but so far, they’re telling me the Japs haven’t reacted. They hauled in some fishermen for questioning, who told the Japs they’d seen the gunboat, but that it was heading out to sea. After that, they paid no attention. The Japs let them go. Someone reported they’d seen one of those big seaplanes flying around Orotai the next morning and then out over the sea. Other than that, my town sources are all silent. And nervous.”
“I figure they’ll commandeer some fishing boats and go out and take a look,” I said. “See if there’s wreckage, bodies, anything.”
The floor gave a little shudder, producing a fine cloud of dust in the tunnel.
“These goddamned volcanoes talk to each other?” Rooster asked nervously.
“Remember, Talawan is all one big volcano,” Father Abriol said. “With many mouths. That eruption over there is a good thing. It means the entire island isn’t going to be blown into the sky, at least not just yet.”
“Not yet,” Rooster said. “Great. That’s really great news.”
“What’s our next step?” I asked.
“Next I’m going to fall asleep for about twelve hours. After that, it will depend upon the Japs. If the Kawanishi reports an oil slick and they take the gunboat’s disappearance as an accident or perhaps the work of an American submarine, not much will happen. If not, God knows.”
“That’s not exactly what I was asking, Padre,” I said.
“I know,” he said with a painful yawn. “Why don’t you two think of something. I’m going to sleep now.”
He closed his eyes and then his whole body relaxed on the bench. For a moment I thought he’d just died, but then I saw his chest moving. I asked Tomaldo what the woman had given him. He grinned.
“The Moros to the north grow opium on one of the higher inland volcanoes,” he said. “They trade it for our fish sauce. What do you want us to do?”
I realized then that we’d just crossed a very important threshold. The padre was out of action. The Americans were now in charge, especially since we’d lit the fuse on stage two. If only one terrified fisherman told the Japs that they’d seen the gunboat in pursuit of Emilio’s boat, and that’s when shooting started, things here on Talawan would come to a sudden and violent head.
“Can you go into Orotai safely?” I asked him. He nodded.
“I need to know what the Japs are doing, and what rumors are going around.”
He nodded again. “You will not stop, then?”
“We’re not going to stop, Tomaldo,” I replied. “After the gunboat, we must not stop.” He got the message, loud and clear.
He came back just after sunset, while Tini and her grandmother were preparing food. He was really upset.
“What’s happened?” I asked him. He slugged down some water before replying.
“Tachibana ordered his troops to burn all but two fishing boats in the harbor,” he reported. “The boats came back in at the usual time and there were soldiers everywhere. They drove all the Filipinos off with bayonets, took all the catch, and then started setting the boats on fire. Next morning he put his men on those two boats and sent them out for fish—but only for the Japanese. He claimed the fishermen were not telling him the truth about what happened to the gunboat. Two fishermen were bayoneted for objecting and thrown into the bay in front of their families.”
“So he’s figured it out,” Rooster said.
“Maybe,” Tomaldo said. “It may be something else. If it was an accident, then Tachibana is responsible as the commander. An act of the resistance? He is safe from blame. He saves face by punishing the people.”
Face, I thought. I’d heard that expression before, and now I knew why it was important. So: maybe use that concept against Tachibana? I asked where the Japs stored all their food supplies in their compound. He said in two heavily guarded godowns, inside the compound itself. Like everything else in Orotai, it would be built of mostly bamboo, except perhaps for a metal roof.
“I have an idea,” I said. “But it will remove all doubt about what’s happening.”
Tomaldo, still fuming over what had happened, made an impatient gesture. “Tell me,” he said.
“Do you know what a fire arrow is?” I asked him.
He frowned and then his face lit up. “I have heard stories,” he said. “From the old times. When the Moros first came, they invaded by sea. The hunters took the points off their arrows and then covered the point in the sap of the hayan tree. Then they would wrap a piece of cloth around the sap and soak it in plant oil and a secret powder. When the Moros’ boats closed in the hunters fired many flaming arrows, setting the boats on fire. When the Moros abandoned their boats, the hunters would kill them all in the surf.”
“This will take planning,” I said. “But we must strike quickly, before Tachibana realizes he’s facing an uprising and calls for help from Rabaul or Mindanao.”
“Our people understand,” Tomaldo said. “No fishing boats, no food.”
“Good. As soon as you can collect the men who can handle bows and arrows, I’ll come in and show them how to make the new arrows. When we’re ready, we’ll go into Orotai at night. I want to attack the Japs’ food warehouses in the compound and set them on fire. When the defenders come out with guns, I want archers to kill as many as they can from hidden positions around the compound.”
“We have hunters who use the bow, but ‘archers’? What are archers?”
“Hunters who shoot men instead of animals. In this case, they will be shooting Japs.”
“Animals, Japs,” he said with a shrug. “Same-same.”
“Not quite,” I said. “Hunting arrows have points which go up and down; war arrows have points that go sideways.”
“What?” Rooster asked.
“Animals on four legs have vertical ribs; humans walking or standing upright have horizontal ribs.”
Rooster, Southern city boy that he was, gave me a horrified look.
“Learned that in Scouts,” I said, proudly. “Along with how to make a fire arrow.”