The Mystery of Yamashita's Map (11 page)

‘So,’ Lisa began. ‘Who was Yamashita?’

‘Well, to be honest he was just another general whose operation this was. He was no more or less barbaric than any of them; his story happens to be the one that has become famous because of his public execution. Just before the war ended Hirohito ordered a massive surge in operations and a huge percentage of the Japanese army was dedicated to burying gold and artworks. However, this time it was not to store in order to provide money to fight the Americans but to cover up their activities during the last five years. You see, all of this wealth could not only be used for reparations and the like but it also meant evidence of war crime. Put it this way – it was the embarrassing dust that the Empire wanted to brush under the carpet.’

Anderson poured another cup full of Saki and gulped it down. ‘People have been looking for Yamashita’s gold for years, ever since it was buried. Some of it has been found, but no one actually knows how much was actually hidden. Rumour has it that the Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos found most of it. There could be troves still out there.’

‘Why? Where would you look? I mean there’s only jungle there, no one left to talk about it, no maps.’ The professor said the last word with hesitation. He studied the look on Anderson’s face.

‘You haven’t any information in that line, have you, professor?’

The professor looked the picture of innocence. ‘Of course not, dear Anderson, I am merely interested in your tales.’

Anderson suddenly became as white as the bottle of Saki that he held within his thin bony fingers. ‘Because it would be bad news, professor, to try and recover any of the gold.’

‘Why?’

‘The aswang.’

‘What is that?’ Lisa asked.

‘The spirits of the Filipinos – best not tarried with if you ask my opinion. I have seen things that would make you age twenty years in five minutes where the aswang are concerned. They enter the body and can manipulate you from inside. They can appear in any form they choose, and they do not take kindly to their habitat being invaded.’

Suddenly the professor thought about the dreams he had been having – the smoke, the feeling of oppression, the smell, the darkness and the terror. He swallowed hard and tried to pull himself together. ‘So Yamashita’s gold would be in the Philippines?’ he asked, rather overstepping his own mark of secrecy.

‘Yes,’ Anderson said.

There was silence.

‘You have got something, haven’t you?’

The professor looked around the room. He crossed over and pressed an ear to the door then returned to his seat at the table.

‘We have come into possession of a map, of the location of Yamashita’s gold.’

To their surprise, Anderson burst out laughing. He rocked forward in his seat, holding his stomach and showing his brown crooked teeth. For the first time since she had arrived Lisa wondered whether she could trust Anderson, he seemed duplicitous all of a sudden. For a brief moment he looked ugly in the half-light of the room with the darkness making shadows on his face and causing his skin to appear more and more wrinkled. Perhaps it was the way he threw his head back but, to Lisa, he suddenly became the laughing face of a demon.

Anderson stopped finally and allowed himself to calm down. ‘Please excuse me, professor, but it was the seriousness with which you said that you had a map. Honestly, I don’t think there is a day goes past without someone saying to me that they have a map to Yamashita’s gold. I mean, you are an intelligent man, you are a scholar; I am surprised you are fooled by such ridiculousness.’

The professor looked placid and stared at Anderson. ‘You know of Amichi?’

Anderson thought. ‘Yes, yes, I have heard the story. Wait a minute.’

Again he crossed over to the filing cabinet but this time he opened the drawer second from the top. It was filled with manila files and sheaves of dirty yellowing paper. He flicked through them, eventually stopping on one in particular. He looked at it surreptitiously, then pulled it from the cabinet. He crossed the room and slammed it on the table.

‘Amichi, Captain, served under General Yamashita, 1943 to 1945 when he went missing, believed to have been killed.’

Lisa gasped. ‘Killed?’

‘Yes. It was thought that he was killed by Filipino workers in 1946 after Yamashita himself had been hanged in the prison.’

‘Was there any proof of this?’ the professor asked.

‘Only a body. Is that who you are after, professor? A dead man?’

The professor thought for a moment. ‘His death comes as no surprise to me,’ he said slowly. ‘But the time of it does. You see, we were under the impression that he died only recently. His granddaughter, you see . . .’

‘His granddaughter?’

‘Yes, his granddaughter. It was she who gave me the map.’

Anderson looked interested all of a sudden. ‘Who is his granddaughter?’

‘You heard of the girl in the temple?’

‘The one recently who was found dead?’

‘Yes, the very same.’

‘But it’s impossible. Amichi died in 1946 after Yamashita.’ ‘Did they ever identify the body?’

‘No, of course not. He was merely a captain and besides they would not have let his body return home. They would have scattered it in the jungle as punishment.’

‘So it’s possible it was not him and that our Amichi was alive and well and managed to smuggle a map of the gold tunnels out?’

Anderson thought for a moment. ‘Well, of course it’s possible,’ he said. ‘But it’s highly unlikely.’

‘Well,’ the professor said. ‘I’ll settle for possible.’ He got up to leave. ‘Good day, Anderson. Thank you for your information.’

‘Wait!’ Anderson grabbed his arm. ‘Have you got the map?’

The professor smiled and tapped his pocket. ‘Always,’ he said.

‘Can I see it?’

The professor hesitated; he looked across at Lisa who nodded slightly. The professor reached a hand into his coat pocket and pulled out the map. He spread it on the table. Anderson looked at it intently.

‘Well, it looks as though it’s about the right age. Obviously I can’t recognise any of these features.’

‘What would you suggest?’ the professor asked.

‘For finding it? Hmm, well, it will be difficult whatever you do. If I were you I’d hire a plane to take you all over the jungle to look for these distinguishing features – look, here there is a ridge and a small hillock, there is a distinctive collection of large trees. They will be still there – it is a remote place, there would be no loggers around there.’

Anderson poured the last of the Saki into his cup. ‘You know, professor, for my help I might ask for a little . . . er . . . restitution.’

‘Now or later?’ the professor asked.

Anderson laughed. ‘What with the aswang and the jungle I’d prefer it now if you don’t mind. For you there may not be a later.’ He laughed again and the sight of his teeth sent shivers down Lisa’s spine. The professor opened his wallet and took some notes out. He placed them on the table, picked up the map and put it back into his pocket.

‘Don’t drink it all at once,’ he said and Anderson laughed.

As they turned to go Anderson stopped them. ‘Professor,’ he said. ‘Be careful of the jungle. It bites.’

The professor and Lisa made their way along the corridor again to the canteen. Their talk with Anderson had made them all the more eager to find out all they could about the map and possibly even find the gold for themselves. They chatted casually about what might happen and their feet made short sharp tapping sounds on the floor. They passed the stairwell and headed off back into the refectory. Behind them a pair of deep brown eyes watched them from the level of the floor. As the professor and Lisa opened the door to the busy University restaurant, the eyes revealed themselves to belong to Kono, one of Tanaka’s men. He slowly and silently travelled up the stairs and made sure Lisa and the professor were out of sight before making his way along the corridor to the door that he had just seen them exiting from.

Anderson opened the door. ‘Have you forgotten it all already?’ he said, thinking that it was the professor at the door but his words were cut short by a hand to the throat that nearly lifted him off the ground. Kono barged his way in to the small room, knocking the small Saki bottle from the table.
 

Chapter Six

Fraser was standing in the professor’s office. He flicked through some of the books on the table – they were filled with black and white pictures of rock formations, crystalline diagrams and long-dead geologists. A clock ticked sonorously in the background and seemed to thicken the air with its gentle swaying rhythm. Fraser had been on his way home from the bank and had decided to call in on the professor. It had been a few days since he had heard from him or Lisa and he wondered how the story with the book was going. Slowly, he walked around the desk. Every now and then he would pick up a scrap of paper, read it, consider its meaning and place it exactly as he had found it on the desk. He hated the word snooping – what he was doing was reconnoitring. Glancing over his shoulder at the door, he opened the drawer and inside found a notebook with the words ‘Japanese Military’ written, he assumed, in the professor’s hand. He opened the book and read. It was just a series of names, but he recognised one of them, Yamashita. He had heard of Yamashita’s gold before, the secret network of underground tunnels which housed the spoils of war.

He read on but most of the writing seemed to be in some kind of code created by the professor – either that or his handwriting was so bad Fraser could not decipher it. He knew enough about the workings of the professor’s mind to understand that it would be privileged information indeed if he had gone to the extent of inventing a code to keep people from reading it. Fraser assumed that that professor had always known more about the book that he had been given than he was letting on. He thought to himself: ‘So that was the significance of the map, but the old fool doesn’t believe that, does he? He doesn’t believe in such fairy stories?’ He thought that it would be as well to keep the professor as close as possible. Suddenly, behind him he heard the professor and Lisa walking down the hallway. They talked excitedly about someone called Anderson and what they were going to do next. As the door burst open Fraser had just enough time to close the notebook and throw it in the drawer before banging it shut.

The professor and Lisa walked in. ‘Fraser!’ the professor started excitedly. ‘How good of you to come. We have exciting news concerning our map.’

‘Really?’ Fraser said, trying not to sound too interested. ‘I just dropped by, I was on my way home.’

‘It’s a good day for just walking,’ the professor replied. ‘Come, sit by the window and I will tell you everything. Lisa, go and get a coffee for Fraser, would you?’

Lisa looked offended. She was fine with being treated as her uncle’s unpaid servant but it was quite another thing to be asked to run around after others. She pursed her lips and stood still.

After about a minute of being ignored she turned and headed out of the door, thinking to herself that she really needed to assert herself in these situations as she made her way to the coffee machine in the canteen.

The professor told Fraser what they had learned that day, about Anderson and his knowledge of the map, about Amichi and Yamashita, about his talk with Lisa and about how they were considering finding the tunnels once and for all.

‘It’s odd, Fraser,’ the professor said. ‘But I feel I have a calling. For some weeks now I have been having these dreams – oh, they mean nothing, I know. I am an old man now. In my younger years I would have dismissed them as a glass of Saki or a piece of stuck salmon but now, now I’m older, I find I want to believe.’

‘In Yamashita’s gold?’

‘Yes, in that, but more than that, I think I want to believe in the spirits that draw me to it. Anderson called them the aswang and they are very powerful, so he says.’

‘But surely that’s just myth, professor. You can’t believe in it?’

The professor tapped the side of his head with a finger. ‘The more I learn,’ he said, ‘the less I seem to know. I have known a frog to escape from rock strata thousands of years old, just like that . . .’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Out of the rock as they drilled, its skin almost translucent, its bones as dry as the dust. Who put it there? Who enabled it to survive? God? Nature? Who knows? These are merely different words for the same thing. I am a man of science, but who owns the science?’