Once again I discovered that there were lots of things I still didn’t know. Such as: Filipino bows and arrows didn’t much resemble American Indians’ bows and arrows. For one thing, their hunting bows looked more like the English longbows used at Agincourt, almost dwarfing the hunters who were using them. I tried pulling one and it took all my strength to get it started. Secondly, the hunting points were much smaller, almost round instead of the familiar triangle shape of American arrows, so the orientation on the shaft didn’t matter. The points, however, were designed to break off inside the victim, and that was because the points had been dipped in the sap of the camandag tree just before firing, thereby injecting a lethal poison. Getting a hit anywhere on the body meant inevitable success. Thus there was no need to construct “war” arrows.
Fire arrows were even easier in the day of gasoline; it turned out they already had them. They used them occasionally to start large brush fires on the upland savannahs to drive larger game into the arrows of a hunting team. They cut a spiral groove into the shaft of the arrow behind the point and filled that with a flammable extract from the Philippine version of a pine tree. Then they wrapped a gasoline-soaked film of cotton on top of that as the igniter. The big surprise was that they also used blowguns both as hunting and defensive weapons. The darts they fired were also poisoned, and they were amazingly accurate out to 20 feet or so.
The men who used the weapons were full-grown men, if only because they needed to be taller and strong enough to handle those extra-long bows. The first night I went to the village I met ten of them, with Tomaldo translating. We were surrounded by several teenagers, who seemed eager to join in. They showed me the armory and demonstrated some of it. One Filipino was clearly in charge of the hunters. He was much older than the rest, with a strong physique and gray hair. His name was Magron, and he seemed to command unusual respect. He made a crucial suggestion. There were two guard towers overlooking the Jap compound, each usually containing three sentries. They had spotlights and light machine guns and were similar to the ones across the river in the POW camp. We would have to neutralize them first before attacking the buildings with fire, because the Japs had cleared the area around the compound and the fire shooters needed to be closer.
The Filipinos kicked this problem around while Magron stood there, arms akimbo, waiting patiently. I’d noticed he’d been giving Rooster and me the once-over the whole time, with an expression that said we’d have to prove ourselves before he’d join us. Once the hunters had stopped arguing, he announced the solution: use the fire arrows on the guard towers first. They were all made of bamboo trunks lashed into tower frameworks and, best of all, they had thatched roofs. When the guards bailed out, some of the archers would go after them while the rest tried for the storage buildings.
They decided that they’d go into Orotai the next morning and reconnoiter the best firing positions for both the towers and the buildings inside. With Tomaldo translating, I observed that, with only ten of them, it might be difficult to get enough arrows on target to keep ahead of Jap efforts to douse the fires. He pointed out that the Japs had to go to the town’s single well to get their water, usually twice a day, just like everyone else. If they used it to put out fires, and something was done to shut down the well, what would they drink? Magron’s demeanor was that of a man who was looking forward to this little expedition.
But that raised my final concern: What about the townspeople, or for that matter, the villagers nearby? Shouldn’t we be thinking about a quiet evacuation of the town before the attack on the compound? And what about the POWs? Rooster asked. Surely the Japs would order the guards across the river to machine-gun all the POWs the moment a whole-scale attack was mounted on the compound in Orotai. More animated discussion and even some arguing followed those two questions. Tomaldo and Magron finally came up with the solution—we would either have to neutralize the prison guards at the POW compound first, and then attack the main compound, or do it simultaneously. With just ten shooters? I asked.
Frowns everywhere. I finally raised a hand. Everyone politely went quiet.
“It is obvious,” I said, as Tomaldo quietly translated, “that we have much more thinking and planning to do. The Japanese did not conquer all of East Asia because they were stupid. If they feel cornered, they will come out of that compound with every man willing to die for his emperor, as long as he takes every Filipino man, woman, and child on Talawan with him. They are Japanese: that is what they do. Yes?”
There were reluctant nods all around. Reluctant because the Filipinos wanted blood. Of course they did, but this nugget was beginning to understand why the generals got paid the big bucks: I didn’t know the first thing about planning out a campaign of attack, or how to solve all the what-ifs that even we amateurs had already identified, so we had to proceed slowly and carefully.
Magron finally raised his hand and then spoke up. Tomaldo listened for a few minutes and then translated. “Magron says there is an old Chinese expression that makes sense here,” he said.
“And?”
“That expression is: slowly, slowly, catchee monkey.”
Right, I thought, nodding. “What does Magron suggest?”
“We do this thing in pieces. First, get most of the people out of Orotai. Not in one night, but over several nights. When most of the people have gone, do something to the town’s well. Not poison, but perhaps fill it in. Then, the English prisoners: do not attack the guards. Wait for heavy rain, then cut the fences instead. Get them out and get them to safety. Send two men for each prisoner—they are very weak. Then when Orotai is empty, and the water is gone, and the prisoners are safe, then burn the two remaining fishing boats. We do not have to attack the compound. When there is no more food or water, they will come out, screaming banzai and all of them ready to die. Then we help them do that.”
“But they have rice stored in that compound,” I said. “They can fish from the shore if they have to. Don’t we still have to burn the godowns?”
Tomaldo asked Magron.
“No,” was the answer. “The rice they stole is still in the open baskets they took from the people in Orotai. All we have to do is get a small boy into the godown one night with some tubes of water. Pour some water into each basket. It does not take much; by morning all the rice in the basket will turn green. Ruined.”
Mold, I thought. Magron was right: in this heat, wet, sticky rice would propagate mold rapidly throughout each basket.
I sat back and thought about all this. Forget the all-out frontal assault, bows and arrows against machine guns. Do it in pieces. Quietly. The town’s population diminishing, while whoever was left behind made themselves visible, as if all the townspeople were still there.
It made sense. I finally realized that these nice people here on Talawan, simple fishermen and farmers that they might be, also had a tradition of stubborn defensive warfare against centuries’ worth of invaders. The Japs were just the latest chapter and the locals had finally had enough. I looked over at Rooster. He was nodding.
“Magron is right,” I declared. “We will do it his way.”
I waited for Tomaldo to translate and watched Magron slowly beam.
“Now,” I said. “You are many. Rooster and I are just two. How can we help you?”
Tomaldo posed that question to Magron and the others. Magron answered for them all. Tomaldo suddenly looked like a man who didn’t want to translate what he’d just heard. I tried to help him out.
“Let me guess,” I said to him. “Stay out of our way and let us take care of this problem?”
Tomaldo looked quite relieved, if a little embarrassed. “He said to tell you that, yes, but to be polite. He does not want you two to lose face.”
“Got it,” I said. “I think we need to get back to Father Abriol. Can someone lead us back to the lava tube?”
Tomaldo began setting that up, but Magron apparently had one more idea. He buttonholed Tomaldo for another minute or so, who then turned to me.
“He asks if you can help with the English prisoners, once we get them out. You speak their language, know their customs. Perhaps one of you can go with the men who will set them free, so that they will know we are their friends.”
“We can both go,” I said. “Tell him that is a good idea.” Then I remembered something my skipper had told me. “And by the way, there is another old saying that applies here.”
Magron looked over at me once Tomaldo translated that, and raised his eyebrows.
“Tell him that in any plan for a battle, the enemy always gets a vote.”
Magron didn’t get it at first, probably because the word “vote” was unfamiliar, but then he did. He laughed out loud, and nodded. Then the war conference broke up as he took charge and began to issue orders. A few minutes later we were on our way back to the mountain to tell our warrior priest that life was about to get really interesting on dear old Talawan.