Father Abriol was not in great shape as it turned out. His swelling was down but his bruises were now in Technicolor. Tini and her grandmother had been replaced by two much older women, who’d arrived with baskets of herbs and potions. Abriol was mad at them because they’d begun to cut back on the opium-based stuff while they switched him over to less addictive remedies. More importantly, he was horrified that we had “allowed” the Filipinos to take things into their own hands for an attack on Tachibana and his compound. Between the pain and his concern for what might happen now, he was definitely not pleased with the two of us.
“First of all,” I protested, “I did not ‘allow’ them to take charge. That Magron fella was already in charge. He brought his own people when he showed up and those guys didn’t look like farmers to me.”
Abriol sighed and tried to get more comfortable on his cot. His caretakers glared at us; they clearly didn’t approve of our even being there. “Ignacio Magron,” he said, “is at least eighty years old and is my counterpart, so to speak, in the spirit world beliefs here on Talawan.”
“Like a shaman or high priest?”
“Both of those things, but first and foremost he is a warrior. He’s old enough to remember the Filipino insurgencies against the Spanish and American occupiers. He claims to have fought against the American army as a young man, alongside the Moros.”
“Wow,” Rooster said. “No wonder he wanted us to butt out.”
“Perhaps,” Abriol said, squirming on his pallet, still trying to find a more comfortable position. He groaned when he hit a sore spot and then glowered at the two old women crouching near the fire. They ignored him.
“No one can verify that claim, of course, since most of the Moros who fought the American army died doing so. The problem is that the Moros believed their spirits would keep them physically invulnerable. Magron was young at the time and may still believe some of that.”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “Rooster and I were kinda flailing, trying to think of ways to go after Tachibana without getting the whole town of Orotai wiped out. Magron’s the one who suggested doing it in stages. I think he’s as concerned for the townspeople as you are.”
“I still think I need to talk to them,” he said, grimacing when his injured leg started to slide off the pallet.
“Wouldn’t hurt,” I said. “One of the problems was that we don’t speak Tagalog; Tomaldo had to interpret everything, back and forth. In any event, Rooster and I will start working on how to get the POWs out. Right now we need sleep.”
There was a basket of the ubiquitous rice balls, which this time had been dressed with soya sauce. I liked them better than the fish rice balls, now that I knew how that stuff was made. We ate some and effusively thanked the two crones, who cackled their appreciation. Rooster set up his rack down at the end of the chamber, while I set mine up nearer Abriol in case he fell out of his cot during the night. The women departed after brewing up a pot of that wonderful coffee.
Some time in the wee hours Abriol needed to make a visit to that fissure in the floor of the tube. I helped him hobble down and back, where he collapsed painfully and then just lay there, breathing heavily and groaning occasionally. Unable to sleep, I asked him if he would tell me his history. The long story, so to speak. At first he said nothing, making me wonder if he’d even heard me. Then he sighed and began.
“I was born on Luzon, not that far from Manila. My mother was Filipina; my father was a Spanish navy sailor who’d stayed behind after the Americans destroyed their fleet and became the new occupiers. He told us he’d swum ashore near Cavite in the chaos after his ship was set on fire. There were many Spaniards who ‘failed’ to return to Spain after the defeat at Manila Bay in eighteen ninety-eight. He was a good man, and he took good care of our family. He was the son of a blacksmith back in Spain. His entire family back in Spain were metalsmiths and wheelwrights of one kind or another. He was also a very devout Catholic, so we had strict observance of Catholic rules in our house. It was a strong family, and we were respected in our town.”
“How did you end up becoming a priest?” I asked.
“I of course first learned our native language from my mother and our neighbors’ children. It was my father who made it a point to teach me basic Spanish because, when I was growing up, Spanish was still important in government circles. The Church ran the town schools where I continued to learn Spanish. There was an English missionary nun at the school and she taught us English for four years because our new rulers spoke English. I did well in school and especially with languages, but I was useless as a metalworker. I could do basic carpentry and metal finishing, but I just wasn’t strong enough to work a forge and hammer out real steel. My father was very patient but the writing was on the wall. My skills lay elsewhere.
“My parents, especially my mother, then pointed me towards entering the Church. When I applied to the San Carlos seminary in Manila, the fact that I had a grasp of three languages, especially English, led to acceptance. At seminary I added Roman Latin to my inventory, and after eight years in San Carlos, I was ordained a deacon and then, one year later, a priest. My family was very proud of me, as you might imagine. Our entire neighborhood celebrated the ordination of one of their own.”
“And then…”
“Yes, and then. Exile on Talawan. For a while I missed the big city and seeing my family, although my father turned his face from me. I missed things like refrigeration, electric lights, trains, doctors, and the like, but there was no going back. My neighborhood had been disgraced by my indiscretions, and while my mother wrote letters for a while, it seemed best to just become a memory.”
“Did you get that church in town built?”
“That building had originally been a godown. One day about a month after I first arrived they were having a festival celebration which involved fireworks and it got away from them. The building burned, along with several children who were caught in a stampede. I gathered the townspeople around the ruin and said Mass for the children. When some fishermen who hadn’t attended asked if I would say another Mass, I did so and then asked the elders if I could rebuild it as a church.”
“By yourself?”
“Well,” he said, “that’s how I started. Clearing away the wreckage, salvaging what materials I could. I was new, and I think the people wanted to see what kind of man I was.”
“Did they know why you were there?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. The Manila Diocese had occasionally sent a missionary priest to Talawan Island, mostly, I think, because of the Mohammedans in the north, but they never stayed, even though the serious Catholics kept asking.”
“So when you showed up it was ‘prayers answered.’”
“Something like that. Anyway, when I was ready to begin building, I went out into the nearby forest and cut down a tree to make my first building post. It took me all day. Some villagers took pity on me when they heard what I was trying to do. That grew into a community effort and we got our church. It’s not much by Manila standards, but memories of what had happened there made it a special place. Until the Japs, of course. By then I was well established, but so were their instructions from Tokyo as to what to do with priests.”
I had more questions about the local people, but he was obviously tiring. Finally I asked him if I could get him some water. When he didn’t answer I looked over and he was fast asleep. I decided it was time for me to see if I could manage that, too. I was really tired, but sleep had been evasive during this surreal experience. That one constant question rambled through my brain at all hours: What in God’s world am I doing here?
At dawn, one of Abriol’s sentries came trotting down the lava tube. He reported in Tagalog: No Japs in the forest. Then he had more to say, which got Abriol’s immediate interest. I heard the word “Negritos.” Abriol dispatched the young man and then told me that four Negritos had appeared, which was very unusual. They were members of the Batak tribe which lived mostly on the northeast coast of the island, above the central volcano range. For them to be down here on the southwest coast was unheard of, and when the sentry brought the group in he kept his distance, clearly afraid of them.
When they appeared I thought that they resembled African Pygmies. They were not quite five feet tall, with black skin, almost emaciated bodies, and kinked hair. They wore loincloths, sleeveless tunics, and bamboo sandals. Each had a different headdress and they carried long, thin reeds with them, along with a smaller but nastier version of the bolo. The reeds were two feet taller than they were and had a mouthpiece of some kind on one end. Everything about them, from their faces, to their stained, almost pointed teeth, to the charms and tokens worn around their necks, proclaimed primitive. The reeds, I finally realized, were the dreaded blowguns.
Abriol greeted them in Tagalog but got blank looks. Then he tried Spanish, and that worked. Our sentry brought them water, which they accepted. Then they squatted down to talk to Abriol. I’d taken Spanish in high school and again at the academy, mostly because it was one way to unload the academy’s heavy engineering course load. That said, this form of Spanish had some Tagalog or other Asian dialect intermingled, so I understood only bits and pieces. When they were done, Abriol thanked them several times, and then they left, as quietly as they had come. Our sentry chose to stay behind with us.
“As I said,” Abriol began. “They are almost never seen south of the volcano range. Not to say they haven’t been here, because if they wish to remain invisible, they surely can. They’re an ancient tribe and their news is unsettling. They came to warn us that their main village had been bombed by two of those big Jap seaplanes that fly out of Mindanao. No warning, and for no apparent reason. They appeared from the sea and everyone, men, women, and of course, children, came out to see them because they were so big. Then the bombs rained down, killing many of the tribe. They flew over twice, the first time to drop bombs and the second to use their guns. By then those who could had fled into the forest, but they’ve lost about a third of the people in that village.”
“Wow,” Rooster said. “Are they part of the resistance?”
“No, they’re very secretive, hunter-gatherer people. They exist at a bare subsistence level. They’re skilled with natural medicines but also poisons and do not like strangers coming around.”
“So what brought the Kawanishi?”
He wiped his brow which I realized had become sweaty. I wondered if he had a fever. “I suspect a Jap patrol blundered into them,” he said. “And was quickly killed. Otherwise I can’t think of a reason for the Japs to bomb a Negrito village—there’s hardly anything to bomb. There are many different Negrito tribes up on Luzon, and even there, no one bothers them, and for good reason.”
“Are they going back?”
“Not quite yet,” he said. “They told me they wanted to see these Japs who had bombed their villages. There’s no telling what they have in mind.”
“Why would they come to warn you?” Rooster asked.
Abriol had to think about that. “Good question,” he said finally. “But if Tachibana thought there was an island-wide insurrection building, he might well call in those seaplanes on the villagers here, or even Orotai. We must warn the people: if they hear planes coming, run into the forest immediately. In fact, I will do it myself.”
He made to get up and began tottering. Rooster caught him before he fell and propped him back up against the wall next to his pallet. He’s getting worse, not better, I thought.
“Or maybe not,” he groaned. “You two please go to Lingoro at once. Danilo here will take you. Warn them, and they will send runners to the others.”
“And how about Orotai?” Rooster asked.
“I think if Tachibana is there, he will not bomb himself.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that those Kawanishis were perfectly capable of bombing Orotai without touching the Japs’ compound, or that they routinely carried 4,000 pounds of bombs.