The Mystery of Yamashita's Map (26 page)

As the sun came up it stopped, almost as if the one had caused the other. As if being born again, the jungle shone like a treasure chest full of jewels, every leaf turned magically into a reflective surface, every tree turned into a host of mirrors, each one shining in the rays of the new sun. The professor was the first to poke a head out from underneath the shelter. He breathed in the air and it coursed through his veins like alcohol, waking him and giving him life. Beside him Joe lay sleeping. The professor walked into the open air and stretched. He noticed how fresh the jungle seemed, how beautiful and how much like a friend now instead of an enemy. He walked over to the fire and kicked its useless embers, then steeled himself for the attempt at trying to find some small piece of dry wood in this sparkling, water-laden jungle.  Joe opened an eye and stared out of the shelter. The light hit him and made him wince. He rubbed his face and slowly stretched out his legs, kicking Fraser in the process.

The professor came back with a few dry twigs and branches and set about arranging them in the hearth. ‘I’ve found some dry wood, by a miracle,’ he said and attempted to light the fire.

Joe and Fraser extricated themselves from the shelter and sat blinking in the daylight. ‘Today we search for Lisa,’ the professor said. ‘We’ll find her, I’m sure of that.’

All three sat round the hearth and breathed a collective sigh of relief as the wood burst into flames. Although they tried to convince each other of the likelihood of finding Lisa none of them quite believed it. Each of them knew that it was a huge jungle and they were three very small men.

‘Shall we have some tea?’ the professor said, pulling a few bags out of his pocket. He carefully dropped one into their only cup and poured some rainwater into it. He smacked his lips as the steam was sent spinning into the air.

‘There’s nothing like tea in the open air, eh?’

Joe, Fraser and the professor sat and shared the tea, each one in turn taking a small sip of the boiling liquid and feeling it gradually heating their insides.

‘Which way will we go?’ Fraser asked suddenly. ‘Which way do we even start?’ Joe pointed ahead of him. ‘I say we follow the river again. I’m sure she was taken along by it while swimming. I mean, I tried yesterday to get along the bank, but these paths are murderous – you can’t tell where you’re going from one moment to the next.’ Joe began to pack what little he had into his pockets. ‘And I say we get going as soon as possible. The sooner we start the more chance we have of finding her.’ The professor finished the tea, burning his mouth. He looked forlornly into the cup as he drained its last dregs and wished he were at home, where a kettle and a shop could make his life a lot easier. He knew the trip had been his idea; he knew that if he had not talked to Anderson he would still be alive; he knew that if he had only ignored the dreams that came to him in the night, he would be in Hong Kong now, getting ready for the summer vacation. He knew all of these things and knew that the situation they were in was his fault.

He thought of Lisa and wished with all his heart that they would find her, although secretly he believed they would not. It was an easy thing, to lose one’s footing while swimming, to be swept along on the current and never be seen again. She was a beautiful girl and kind; she did not deserve to die like this, alone, afraid and far from home. He washed out the cup and attached it to his shirt with a piece of string.

‘Shall we go then?’ he said, and doused the flames of the fire.

Grabbing some dry firewood and the matches, Fraser pushed on into the jungle followed by the other two. Every few steps, they would drop a stone so that they could make their way back to the camp if necessary.

Already they found it hard going. The rain had made the jungle fresh and alive but it was also laden with water so that each step they took, each branch they brushed against would cover them in icy cold moisture until they were soaked to the skin again, wishing for the dryness of the day before. An hour into their journey, they stopped and took their bearings; the sun was just visible overhead but it was useless to navigate by. All they had was their sense of direction and the sound of the river that they always kept to their right. It was an inaccurate way to navigate and they knew it.

Hour after hour they walked, getting wetter and wetter and more and more tired. Each took a turn to lead and the last man always dropped a grey stone on the ground every few steps. Joe was impatient to find Lisa. Whenever he was in front the pace would suddenly quicken, one step would become two and those behind would have a job to keep up. The quick pace, however, meant that more branches were brushed against and more water sent into the air in showers. Once or twice Fraser shouted at him to slow down but Joe could not or would not hear – he just pushed ahead regardless.

It was Fraser who had taken the front and the pace had slowed down to a sedate walk. Joe was at the back. Suddenly Fraser lifted a hand and stopped dead, almost causing the professor and Joe to crash into his back. Fraser turned and looked at them, his face suffused with a deadly pallor. Fraser’s eyes seemed to dim as he looked at the others and his lids drooped. He bent down, scrambled around in the undergrowth for a second and then stood up, holding out his hand. Slowly he opened his fingers to reveal a clean granite grey stone. The others knew what it meant as soon as they saw it.

Joe almost fell to his knees with exhaustion and the professor just stood and stared.

Fraser was the first to speak. ‘We’ve been walking in a circle,’ he said. ‘How could that be? How could we have walked in a circle? We kept the river to our right at all times, how could it be? I can hear it even now.’

Fraser craned his ears but as he did so he heard many sounds: the sound of the river mixed with the sound of water running from the trees, and the sound of the animals and birds overhead. He was not sure now where the river was. He did not know if it was behind him, in front of him, to the left or to the right. He closed his eyes. The jungle had become one big circus of noise and the sounds he thought he was hearing became lost in a cacophony of other world sounds. What was it that was making them walk round in circles, it shouldn’t happen, they did everything right, is there something preventing them from finding Lisa?

‘I don’t know which way the river is now,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t tell which way it is. Professor, how about you? Tell me I’m not the only one.’

Fraser knew that he should have been following his ears. He knew he had led the other two back on themselves. He knew they blamed him. The professor just shrugged his shoulders.

‘I was following you,’ he said and slumped down to the ground. Suddenly the jungle seemed a bigger place than they had first imagined. Suddenly the possibility of finding Lisa began to fade. Each of them started to imagine her face and saw it disappearing from view. Suddenly everything had changed.

In their makeshift shelter, Kono and Tanaka had begun to talk with the corporal. The three men had begun gingerly at first, exchanging glances, then non-committal noises, then brief words until, by the end of the night, they were engaging each other in conversation. Unlike Kono, Tanaka had guessed pretty early on that the corporal was unaware of the end of the war and had also judged that he could use this to his advantage; he also understood that the corporal knew every square inch of the island. ‘Have you seen anyone else arrive?’ Tanaka asked him, to which the corporal nodded.

‘Four, one of them was wearing an American cap. I don’t know what they want, but I guessed they were spies. Two were Japanese – one a woman! I have heard they send spies to convince strongholds to surrender. I thought you were spies when I first saw you. That’s why I watched you and did not make contact.’

Tanaka nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They are spies. They have been sent by the Americans to flush you out. How else would they do it? They know they could not beat you in hand-to-hand fighting so they come to tempt you out with beautiful women.’

The corporal laughed. ‘What do I want with beautiful women? I only serve Yamashita!’

Kono went to speak but was stopped in his tracks by a touch on the shoulder.

‘Yes,’ Tanaka replied. ‘And General Yamashita is very grateful for all you have done.’

The corporal’s eyes widened suddenly and his face lit up. ‘You have spoken to the general about me?’ he asked. Tanaka nodded. ‘Of course. He is very proud of what you have done here and he asks me to give you his thanks.’ The corporal bowed a generous bow and smiled. ‘But . . . he also gave me orders for you. He said he wanted you to show me where the gold is buried.’ The corporal looked blankly at Tanaka. ‘The gold?’ he replied. ‘Yes, the gold. The gold buried in the mines by Yamashita.

The gold that you are here to protect, the gold . . .’ The corporal smiled. ‘I know of no gold,’ he said. ‘I was sent here after the general left. I have heard of the gold, but know nothing of it.’

Tanaka’s heart sank. At least, he thought to himself, he knew the others were here now and he also knew they could be found with the corporal’s knowledge. Why should he muddy his hands digging for the gold when he could wait until the others had found it and dug it out themselves? Tanaka smiled to himself; all he had to do was wait now, wait and watch. He patted the corporal on the back and handed him a cigarette.

‘I think the general will be very pleased with you,’ he said. ‘Very pleased indeed.’
 

Chapter Fifteen

After about half an hour, Joe stood up. ‘OK, so we’ve been walking in circles but we can’t give up the search just like that. We are looking for Lisa after all – we are doing it for her.’ He wrung the water out of the bottom of his shirt and dragged Fraser by the arm. Fraser moaned and shouted but eventually allowed himself to be dragged to his feet. ‘Come on. Come, this time we’ll all listen out for the river. All we need to do is concentrate and we’ll find our way, I’m sure of it. All we need to do is keep a constant course.’ The three men, tired and downcast, made their way again into the jungle, pushing aside large ferns and foliage as they went. The professor was finding it hard going. He let his mind wander to his classroom, to the bright faces of the students and the easy life of the university lecturer. He tripped over a tree root and cursed his luck. Joe kept up a good pace for an hour and then let a reluctant Fraser take the lead. The speed slowed somewhat but with all three men craning their ears every second they kept a good course. They always heard the river. No matter what other noises polluted the air, they always heard the river. Joe saw the clearing up ahead that he had visited the day before. He pointed it out to Fraser and the three men headed for it, bursting through the dense trees to rest in its spacious, empty environment. The professor sighed with relief as he flopped down upon a log which, unbeknownst to him, had held his niece only a few hours before. ‘Do you think we’ll ever find her?’ he asked, pulling a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiping his forehead with it.

Joe looked at him, not wanting to say no, but unable to say yes. He made to speak but was gripped by a sudden, all-powerful feeling of being watched again. He looked around. Damn this jungle, he thought, there are more eyes here than any street in Hong Kong. The aswang were watching him, their eyes peering out of every leaf, their hot breath steaming in the close air of the jungle. Wherever he went the aswang were there beside him, goading him onwards, taunting him, making him go where he did not want to go. He spoke to no one in particular. ‘I think this jungle is playing with my mind. Every step I take, every time I turn around I think I’m being watched.’ Fraser peered nervously into the undergrowth. ‘Well, if you are paranoid,’ he said, ‘Then I must be too because for the last half an hour I’ve been having the same feeling, as if there are eyes peering at me from behind every tree.’ The professor shuddered. He too had been feeling the same but had failed, or had not dared to mention it. He stroked the three-day-old stubble on his chin and looked up to the tall canopy of the trees. Everything was strange here, he thought to himself, nothing was what it seemed.

Then from out of the trees there came a great blackness, something unexplainable that flew through the air and hit all three like an explosion. They reeled from the force and fell to the ground, moaning and screaming more from surprise and shock than pain. The world for Joe went black. One moment he was standing, staring through the trees, the next he was on his back fighting some invisible enemy. He shouted to the air, ‘The aswang! It’s the aswang!’

The professor and Fraser, though, realised this was a far more mortal foe. They scrabbled at the net that covered them and tried to free themselves but it was no use. The more they struggled the tighter the net seemed to entwine itself around their limbs and catch itself around their necks and torsos. For ten minutes the three struggled but to no avail – the net had completely covered them. Joe finally opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was the legs of a young woman. They were slender legs, legs that he might have gazed upon with lust once; legs that he might have encountered in a bar in Hong Kong, in one of the back streets where love was cheap and lasted a night if you could pay. Joe followed the line of the legs upwards until he caught sight of a beautiful young girl, about fifteen or sixteen. Her skin was brown and soft and her hair flowed in long waves around her shoulders but she had the hard face of a warrior, the look of someone who had known pain and suffering. Joe implored her to let them go but it was no good. The girl just stared and said nothing. She was joined in time by four or five others, all with the same slender brown legs and hard, almost aggressive look. Joe started to wonder whether this was his idea of paradise or his idea of hell. Each new woman that arrived carried a different and increasingly deadly-looking weapon – a knife at first, then a dagger, then a club, then a spear. Joe gulped. If there was a time to be surrounded by beautiful half-naked women, he thought to himself, this wasn’t it. Beside him, in the net, the professor and Fraser were having similar thoughts. Fraser called out to one of the women, in his best pathetic tone. ‘Hello, hello! Could you free us? We are caught in your net. I’m sure you meant to trap an animal or two but you seemed to have caught us.’ He laughed a little but the women were not laughing. They just looked at him and occasionally jabbed him with a stick. The professor was a little more sedate. He had assumed that this entrapment was no accident. Suddenly it all became clear to him: he remembered the feeling of being watched and the noises in the jungle that seemed a little too human to be anything other than a voyeur.