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.
‘Enough to blow five times as much,’ Amichi said.
‘And the captives?’
‘All but a handful still digging inside.’
‘What about Japanese?’
Amichi looked around him, quickly counting in his head.
‘About thirty.’
Yamashita bowed, Amichi did not know whether in prayer or in guilt.
‘Give the order,’ Yamashita said and Amichi raised his hand.
In the tunnel Bayani first heard the explosion then felt the shockwave as it blew through him and the others. At first, of course, he thought that it was collapsing but pretty soon he realised that no collapse was ever so strong or so violent. He felt the bodies of those around him falling; he could hear the breath being torn from their chests and could sense the fear in the air.
Suddenly, someone said that the tunnel had been blown and that there were dead men by the entrance, so he pushed his way to the front. He could smell the rich smell of blood as his fingers scrambled over rocks and bodies and the remains of the wooden boxes. Behind him someone lit a match but was told to put it out quickly. Above the sound of panic he heard clearly the voices of the Japanese soldiers attempting to calm each other down and assure themselves that it must have been some kind of accident. They will be digging, they said to each other, they will be digging us out even now.
Bayani knew, however, that never did the entrance of the tunnel collapse: the entrance was shored by thick wooden beams; there was no chance on earth they would have collapsed.