The Mystery of Yamashita's Map (22 page)

She took another drink and realised that she had never tasted water so clear or so clean. She had no idea where it had come from or where it was going but this beat mineral water any day. Without looking about her she dived into the water and felt her muscles tense as her body reacted to its coolness. Under the surface, she kicked with her feet and legs, held her breath and swam as far as she could manage. When she had run out of breath she surfaced and felt the sun hit her face in a glorious bath of warmth and light. She smoothed her hair down and dived under again.

Under the water, she could open her eyes and see the bottom of the river that was made of almost pure sand. Tiny rocks and minerals were littered here and there making the whole thing look as if it had been covered in glitter and gold. She dived down and pushed a hand through the silt. It ran through her fingers and disappeared into the ebb and flow of the current. Lisa kicked with her legs and swam further down the river, letting it take her along.

She surfaced again and once more felt the sun on her skin. All about her the sunlight warmed the jungle and made it seem alive and fresh. Lisa kicked and swam against the current, her strong limbs cutting through the water with ease and confidence. She dived and kicked, sending a spray of clear water up in to the air. The current felt strong about her and she swam for all she was worth against it. The harder she kicked the stronger it seemed to get. Suddenly, it was the river that seemed to be in control; suddenly it was the water that moved her rather than the other way round.

She felt herself being taken along on the strong current that ran deep beneath the surface. Every time she tried to put a foot on the river bed the current would take her and she would find herself fighting again. The more she fought the harder it became as she felt the energy being sapped from her. She flayed wildly with her arms trying to get some purchase in the water but nothing she did seemed to help; it was the river who was in control now, the river who showed her where to go.

As if being helped by some malevolent force, Lisa felt her body being carried along. She looked up and could just glimpse the sun through the canopy but it seemed less beautiful, less magical. In a desperate effort she twisted her body and swam with every ounce of energy she had; her arms cut through the water and her legs pushed against the current. Eventually she managed to work her way over to the bank where she clutched at a root that had been exposed by years of erosion. For a moment she hung on, letting the water wash over her body, closing her eyes with the effort.

As the sun warmed her and the feeling began to come back into her legs, she tried to clamber out onto the bank. It was harder than she thought. She hadn’t eaten properly for days, she was tired and the swim upstream had taken its toll, but she managed it. Bit by bit, muscle by muscle, she climbed on to the green foliage of the jungle floor and lay down, feeling her body being drained of all life.

Her head began to spin and she felt herself fall into half unconsciousness. Suddenly the jungle became cold, dark and alien. Her eyes felt dim and heavy and her mind wandered. She thought she heard noises about her but was too tired to look. She thought she felt hands upon her and breath upon her skin, but she was too exhausted to see who or what they were. And she thought she smelt blood, but could not be sure whether it was real or imaginary.

When she awoke she felt eyes upon her. With a start she sat up and there in front of her sat a little girl, staring with big brown eyes. Lisa, startled a little, smiled. The child did nothing. Lisa held out her hand but the child remained still. ‘Hello,’ Lisa said. ‘Hello. I guess you can’t speak English?’ The child remained still, just looked at Lisa and sat, with her arms round her legs. Lisa got into a kneeling position. She was dry now so she figured she must have been lying on the ground for some time. She thought about the others. They would be worried about her by now; they would be looking for her.

‘I . . . I tried to take a swim but was caught by the current,’ she explained to the girl, who seemed to listen but could obviously not understand. ‘I guess I’m not the swimmer I once was, eh?’ She laughed and the child, briefly, smiled. Lisa breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Do you live round here?’ she asked. ‘Only I could probably do with knowing someone like you.’ She held out her hand. ‘I’m Lisa.’ The child leaned over and looked at Lisa’s upturned palm as if expecting to see something there. Lisa withdrew it. ‘I guess you don’t shake hands, eh?’

The two smiled at each other. Lisa got up and arranged herself. She still had her bikini bottoms on from swimming but they were fine in this heat.

‘Well, I really must get back up the river. God knows how far I’ve come.’

Lisa put a hand up to her eyes to shield them from the sun and the little girl quickly got up, crossed over to her and placed her arms around her waist. Lisa was a little disturbed by this.

‘Guess you’re lost too, then. Great, you’re not the only one around here. Guess we are in this together.’

Lisa patted the girl on the head in the most motherly way she could muster and pulled the little girl close to her. She could feel her tremble in her arms and shake softly. Lisa tore a piece of her shirt and gave it to the girl to wipe her eyes, but the girl was brave. She took the cloth and threw it to the ground, making Lisa laugh.

The sun was invisible now; it had hidden itself behind the tall trees that seemed to stretch to the sky anyway. Lisa cuddled the girl, more for her own sake than the girl’s and thought about how she would get back up the river. At the camp, the professor, Joe and Fraser had woken about two hours before and were pacing back and forth trying to work out what had happened to Lisa. ‘You know I told you I saw someone yesterday? It was a Japanese soldier, I tell you. I saw him as clear as I am seeing you now,’ Joe said. ‘He looked angry. Suppose he’s got her?’ ‘We would have heard,’ Fraser said. ‘Besides, did he snatch her from her bed, then tidy it up before he went?’ he said, pointing at the neat sleeping space on the floor. ‘Perhaps she’s gone to get breakfast?’ the professor ventured.

‘Nah, she would have been back by now. I mean, how far do you need to go to get breakfast around here?’

Joe looked around him. ‘Pretty far, I would imagine,’ he said and peered into the jungle.

The professor sat down on his bed. ‘I think we wait,’ he said. ‘I think the most likely scenario is that she is lost and will find her way back to us eventually.’

‘But if she’s lost,’ said Joe, ‘She might never come back. I mean, do you know how big this damn place is? I say we take a look, find the trail, see if we can track her.’

Fraser looked doubtful but Joe was insistent.

‘I know,’ Joe said, ‘We could split up. Professor, you and Fraser stay here and I’ll see if I can track Lisa.’

Fraser was incredulous. ‘Won’t you get lost?’

Joe tapped the badge on his cap. ‘US air force. I won’t get lost.’

An hour later Joe was lost deep in the heart of the Filipino jungle. He had left camp with an idea in mind. It was an old trick his uncle had taught him many years before: look for a path and if it looks like someone else has been there you can’t go far wrong. Unfortunately, he had never experienced terrain like this before; each clearing looked like a path, each new turning in the jungle looked like it had been created by a host of trekkers walking through but he knew it was just the trick of Nature, encouraging trees to grow their branch width apart, the light causing gaps in the undergrowth.

When there were not deceptive looking ‘paths’ there was thick jungle that could barely be hacked through. He pushed at it but it seemed as if it just closed around him again, touching him, pulling at his clothes, scratching his skin and making him feel as though he were being torn apart.

All the time he felt, deep in the jungle, as though eyes were upon him, as though the trees were watching him. Occasionally he stopped and looked around, convinced he was being followed but when he looked there was no one there; the jungle, he thought to himself, plays strange tricks on the mind.

Joe trekked for what seemed like hours. It was no good, he said to himself, he was most certainly lost. He thought what a good idea it would have been to leave a trail behind, to carve signposts into the trees to remind himself of where he had been or even to make a mental map of the terrain as he passed through it; that would have been what his father would have done. That would have been the first thing on his father’s mind, but Joe, Joe was too busy thinking about Lisa, the same as he was always too busy thinking about the girl in the bar, or the woman in the club or some other minor distraction from the real business of trying not to get himself killed.

He pushed through some thick undergrowth and fell on to the jungle floor. It was warm here; the sun beat down on to this area and as he lay down he could hear the river a little distance away gently ripple. Suddenly his eye was caught by something. Usually you would not see such a thing, it would melt into the background, become just another one of the many insignificant finds of the world but here, here in the jungle, it was like a beacon. He turned himself over and stared at it – a small piece of dark blue cloth. He picked it up. It looked like the same material that Lisa’s shirt was made out of – same colour, same feel, same weave. He had gazed upon it for long enough – he would know it anywhere.

Quickly he picked himself up and followed what looked like a trail made in the undergrowth. He guessed that Lisa, if she had been here, would have left some time ago but he forged ahead. Somehow, the connection he already felt to her made him sure that he was heading in the right direction and he knew that he would find her if he just followed his instincts, so he pushed through the dense foliage and made his way deep into the heart of the jungle.
 

Chapter Thirteen

The day was getting on and the jungle was becoming even denser as Joe pushed his way through. Occasionally he would stop and examine the path, more out of a sense of procedure than anything else. The jungle floor was thick with moss, dead and decaying vegetation and insects. Ever since he had been a little kid he had had no time for small things that moved of their own accord; he hated their legs, the way they scuttled, how they felt on his skin and, most of all, he hated the way that they died, crushed under a foot, helpless and unmindful. Here, though, he was in the insects’ kingdom, he knew that and that given time they could crush him just as easily as he crushed them, so he moved onward as best he could, trying to not kill too many as he walked lest they return to haunt him one day. He stopped to listen to the jungle. He had no idea what he was listening for, just that something seemed out of place here. Something on the wind made him suspicious and wary. He craned his neck and stood on a fallen tree. He heard voices somewhere; they were far off but they were human. He couldn’t be sure but he thought there were two voices, one was high and harsh, the other low and soft, but they were too far away for him to make out what they were saying. Joe climbed down from the tree and tried to follow the voices that were so distinctive amongst the animal noises that surrounded them.

In a clearing Kono and Tanaka had stopped. Sweat poured from their bodies and stained their clothes a musty brown. On his back Kono carried a pack that contained everything they would need for a two-day trek on their search to find Joe, Lisa and the others. He dropped it on the ground with relief. Tanaka sat on it. ‘You hear something?’ he said.

Kono craned his ear. ‘Birds, the wind, nothing else.’ ‘I thought I heard footsteps.’

Kono looked around, surveying the area. ‘You think they’re here somewhere?’ Tanaka pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and began to mop his brow with it. ‘I think we would have heard them. Besides, they should be miles away over the other side of the island. I’m sure I heard footsteps though.’ It was Tanaka’s turn to begin to look around him. He peered into the dense foliage but it was too thick, too dark to see anything. ‘Do you think we’ll find them?’ Kono asked, rummaging in the bag for a rice cake.

‘Of course,’ Tanaka snapped back. ‘You have the tracking device?’

Kono pulled a black box out of the backpack and held it up to his face as it flashed out its message.

‘Right,’ Tanaka said. ‘All we have to do is find their plane and that will lead us directly to them, and the gold.’

Kono smiled and reached for the bag. ‘We’d better get on then,’ he said, and left Tanaka desperately trying to keep up.

A brief moment after they had left Joe pushed through the trees. He examined the ground and observed that someone had been there. Some of the vegetation had been disturbed, a sure sign – he remembered that from his two weeks’ basic training. He assumed he must be on the trail of Lisa and guessed that he was pretty close; he looked around the clearing for an exit point. A gap in the branches assured him of the way to go and he headed for it. Soon,’ he thought to himself, ‘Soon I will be with her.’

Lisa held onto the little girl’s hand tightly as the two made their way through the jungle. To Lisa’s relief, the girl was not as lost as she had first thought but walked, with sure and steady feet, through the thick trees and over the small rivers that seemed constantly to block their path. Suddenly Lisa felt afraid; she was being led but she had no idea where or for what reason. The girl pushed ahead of her and their two hands strained at times; the one eager to make ground, the other reticent and wanting to slow down. Every now and then, a branch would flick back into Lisa’s face, scratching her or catching her eye. The little girl strode ahead with a determination that grew stronger by the minute. Occasionally she would glance backwards to make sure Lisa was still following her but mostly she strode onward and onward with purpose. This carried on for about half an hour and Lisa felt her head swimming with the running and the lack of water. She stopped and the little girl pulled on her arm.