The Mystery of Yamashita's Map (2 page)

He examined the map again. He recognised its contours and its landmarks. He carefully folded it up, flattening the folds with his strong stubby fingers. He leaned across his desk and picked up a small leather volume concerning the Buddhist temples of China; he smiled to himself at the aptness of his choice. Taking the folded piece of paper he eased it gently into the space between the spine and the binding, making sure it could not be seen from the outside. He opened and closed the book a few times to make sure it was safe and then replaced the book back on the shelf where it belonged.

For all his military history, for all his pride, for all his ruthlessness, Yamashita was a lacklustre man. Throughout all this his heart and mind raced with the thought of returning after the war and opening up the tunnels to find the gold that was waiting for him. One could live easily on a general’s salary, but easy only. He had felt to himself that he was owed greater things by the Empire – the Empire that had taken his father and his grandfather, that had harried him round from place to place, never letting him rest, never allowing him any peace.

He thought about the time in the future when he could afford the lifestyle he knew he was born for. He thought of the faces of those who had ridiculed him in the past. He thought of their jealousy and of their hatred for him. In fact, he thought so hard of these things that he failed to notice, across the other side of the tent through a hole in the fabric, the eyes that had been staring at him for the last five minutes. The eyes of Amichi, which blinked once and then disappeared.

In one of the sweltering tunnels Bayani sat with his back against the cool wall of earth. He had been digging all day and the blisters on his palms began to ache with the pressure. The scarf tied tightly around his forehead was soaked with sweat and with the blood that dripped from the wound in his head. But he was a strong one; he had been born nearby and only just been captured by the Japanese. He could stand more of this; he could stand more than they could ever give out.

He glanced over and saw an old man he recognised from that morning. The old man looked in trouble – he was breathing heavily and his eyes were closed. Bayani noticed that there was a thin stream of spittle running from his lip, almost ready to hit the ground. The old man had been carrying boxes all day and was already broken by the weight. Someone, somewhere, thought Bayani to himself, must know about the things that are going on here. Someone must be able to help. He slowly stood up and crossed the tunnel to where the old man sat. He put his arm around the old man’s shoulders and wiped his mouth with his shirt. The man rested his head on Bayani’s shoulder and, as he gently stroked his head he felt the old man weeping.

Suddenly, there was a noise; a Japanese guard was pushing through the bodies in the tunnel. He reached the spot where the two sat and prodded Bayani with his rifle. Bayani did nothing, just continued to look after the old man. Again the guard pushed his rifle into the ribs of Bayani but again he did nothing. Quickly the guard raised his rifle as far as he could in the tunnel and brought it down squarely on the head of the old man, splitting it open and causing the blood to gush out over Bayani’s chest. The old man fell forward and lay in the dust and the earth of the tunnel floor. Bayani shot up and stood facing the Japanese guard.

For a moment there was silence: all digging stopped, all movement ceased. The Japanese guard was shaking slightly, with fear or with anger, neither were really sure. Bayani picked up his spade and the guard flinched, holding and cocking his rifle at Bayani. For the briefest of moments the tunnel seemed to fill up with the breathing of the two men. There was nothing to choose between them; Bayani knew he had death on his side – here in the hell of the tunnel he owned death. He had no family to speak of now, no home to miss, no position to think of. Here, in this tunnel, he had all that he would ever have. Bayani swung the shovel and felt it come crashing down into the wall of the tunnel. He began digging as he had that morning and all the others like it since he had been taken captive. The Japanese guard smiled slightly and lowered his gun. Deep inside him he knew he had had a lucky escape; there is a fear that only an oppressor can feel – it is the fear of knowing you are pushing someone who has nowhere else to go.

Outside, Amichi was overseeing the digging of the collapsed tunnel. Diligently he ordered the earth to be removed with hands rather than spades to avoid further collapse. As the tunnel was freed, men clambered out with their faces and bodies covered in black dusty earth. They looked for all the world as if they were crawling from their graves on judgement day – their eyes blinking in the sun as they crawled through the ever-widening gap that had been opened up in the side of the mound. From the tunnel he worked in Bayani could hear the commotion. He had felt the tunnel implode and guessed it was only a few hundred feet away, perhaps even the tunnel next to the one where he was working. He had got used to collapses, either of his tunnel or the surrounding ones. Some days there would be as many as three or four right after each other. The earth would shake and rumble and then there would be silence. The awful silence of men trapped. Amichi dragged a comrade out of the hole in the ground. The man coughed and spluttered and his spittle made dark patches around his mouth. Amichi cleared his throat and poured some water over his face to wash it. He could see the fear on the man’s face. Whoever works underground, whether they are miners or tunnel diggers or those who oversee them, gradually comes to accept the danger, but it is ever present. There is a constant fear of a collapse, a constant notion that the walls are beginning to move and the roof is beginning to cave in. Amichi himself had had friends who had entered the mouth of the tunnel in the morning and not come out again.

The tunnels were freezing cold in the morning, but as the day and the bodies in them heated up they became ovens which slowly cooked those inside until they thought they would rather die than last another day. All the time, there was the moving of the boxes, all the same size, all made of strong Japanese oak, each one containing gold, stolen and melted down into perfectly-sized ingots, for after the war. Of course, Amichi knew that the Filipinos knew nothing about the gold. They were merely told to dig and carry and they dug and carried. They were expendable in this operation and they were the one commodity that was cheaper during war than at any other time. Slowly, all of the Japanese were removed from the tunnel and, one by one most of the diggers came out also. Had there been a head count, it would have revealed that six were missing, lying dead by the portion of the tunnel which had seen the heaviest collapse. But there were no head counts anymore; there was not the time and besides, one never counts that which is useless.

In his tent Yamashita was writing his report. This whole operation, of course, was sanctioned by the Imperial Army and, because of that, he had to document everything. Of course, what was the harm if a few details here and there went missing, like the location of a certain tunnel, the full map of the area, the number of boxes stored or the exact contents of each box? Yamashita smiled at his creativity as he managed to weave all four of these lies into his report, which concluded that a great many of the Filipino captives were, even now, cheating the Imperial Army out of many of the gold bars by storing them in tunnels dug under the cover of darkness. He wrote of his suspicions regarding Captain Amichi, thinking that perhaps the young officer would be better utilised if he were to be offered a desk job in Manila, ordering supplies or seeing to everyday logistics. He thought that he should be sent word of his family and wished for leave to see them.

Sealing the paper he placed it in his case and poured more tea for himself. He did not mind the heat here – the heat was something that one could regard as rather pleasant after a time – but he hated the flies. They crawled over your skin and on your eyes as you slept; they buzzed around your face and caused a gentle breeze to blow eerily across your skin. Once again, he swatted one but it evaded him and flew out of the tent. Yamashita arose, crossed the tent and lay on his small mattress. He sighed to himself. These days of war were torture for a man of his sensibilities. What did he really care about General MacArthur escaping from Corregidor, under the very noses of the Japanese army; the ‘Death March’ to Bataan, and deaths of thousands of Filipino and American soldiers? He had always thought of himself as more of a peacemaker than a warrior. How cruel fate could be. With a groan he eased himself down and lay, gazing up at the ceiling of the tent, where the sun illuminated it. His eyes closed and he heard the faint sound of the men as they worked. He could feel himself drifting off to sleep.

He awoke with a start, realising there was someone next to his bed. He sat up and quickly grabbed the gun that he kept beside him. As his eyes opened, however, he realised it was only Amichi. ‘Yes?’ he said, angrily. Amichi held a piece of paper in his hands. He nervously fidgeted with it, rolling it over in his fingers, creasing its edges.  ‘This came, sir.’

‘What is it?’

Amichi held it out before him. ‘I think you should read it.’

Yamashita rose and took the paper. He crossed the tent and picked up his reading glasses from the small desk. The script was hastily written with a pencil that obviously needed sharpening. It said that General MacArthur had landed on Leyte and was pushing northwards. Yamashita eyes widened and he grunted in disbelief, the time was nearly up, the Americans had killed hundreds of thousands in one day, and that he had to return to Manila and then go on to Tokyo.

Yamashita slowly sank down into his chair. He thought to himself for a moment. He knew what this meant. In war, you do what you can, you survive for that day only, you are happy when it ends and you can say to yourself, ‘I have made it for another day’. You sleep and then the next day it begins all over again. This strategy only works, however, if either the war continues or you win. In war the loser loses everything. Amichi hovered over the General’s shoulder. He knew too what the letter meant. He knew that the dead in the hills and the gold could not be found. He knew that nothing of what they had done here could ever get out to the Americans or the world that they represented. The new world that was coming closer and closer with each day. Amichi leaned closer, until his breath flecked the side of the general’s face. ‘General?’ Yamashita was silent.

‘General? What will we do? General?’

Slowly, the general turned. His face was splashed with beads of sickly sweat that emanated not so much from the heat as from the situation. Again Amichi spoke. ‘General? We can’t leave the tunnels as they are. We can’t leave the area like this for . . .’ He stopped briefly. ‘The Americans.’

The General looked again at the paper he held in his hands and brought his face up to the level of Amichi. Avoiding his gaze and staring straight ahead he whispered, ‘Blow up the tunnels.’

Amichi had feared this moment. He recoiled. He had lived this moment for the last few months. He knew that there would come a time when the choice would be made, but there was nothing to say now. ‘Make preparations, Amichi.’

Amichi left the tent and crossed the small patch of land to the tunnel entrances in a daze. He knew what this meant. For there to be no sign of what they had done here, for there to be no record, those who had worked the tunnels day and night for a year or more would have to be buried with them. He just didn’t know yet if he was to be one of them. The day seemed darker now, the sun a little dimmer, the flies a little closer. He found it hard to breathe as he surveyed the tiny holes cut into the side of the hill, out of which small men like ants constantly appeared.

He called a sergeant over and ordered all the dynamite they had to be brought up to where he stood. From where he was he could see the rest of the jungle. It seemed so peaceful, so serene and so still. Somewhere he heard the striking of shovel or pick on hard earth and it seemed to sound on forever. This was a sound he had heard every day for longer than he cared to remember. He knew what was happening here. He knew that this was merely the outcome of one man’s ego. He knew that all these deaths were avoidable, that they were a product of a mind that had become diseased and removed from reality. He knew that there would be nothing for him unless he took it and made it his own.

Quickly he ordered the explosives to be piled high in the tunnel entrance. These were good soldiers of the Empire – they acted without thinking, without questioning. When it had been done he walked to Yamashita’s tent. ‘The tunnels are primed, sir,’ he said. Yamashita was sitting in his chair, head bowed in a strange intensity which seemed to transcend the tiny surroundings. He was silent and his eyes were closed. Amichi moved over and stood beside him. Still the older man said nothing. ‘The tunnels, sir . . .’

Yamashita raised a hand to stop the other from talking. Quietly, he lowered it again and placed it on his knee. The two men stood together in a silence that lasted for minutes.

Suddenly, Yamashita opened his eyes and stood. ‘Shall we prepare?’ he said, and walked out. Amichi, thinking that his time was ripe, reached a hand out and grabbed the small book where he had seen Yamashita hide the map of the tunnels. Quickly he placed it inside his shirt and followed his general outside to the heat of the day. Yamashita stared at the tunnel entrances. ‘Is there enough?’ he asked, nodding at the explosives.