The Nugget

by P. T. Deutermann

  The padre was conscious but well under the influence of whatever the women had given him this time, which was a good thing. The cavity in the tree trunk smelled of honey, which the women had applied to the massive burn. Abriol was breathing normally and his face had regained some of its usual color. He lay back on his cot, mumbling parts of the Catholic Mass in Latin. The women shooed us out after a minute, so we joined the conference outside. Tomaldo said the Negritos had agreed to help us at the POW compound, especially when they realized that this village, too, had been bombed by the Japs, just like theirs.

  “They will kill the guards in the towers for us,” Tomaldo told us. “Then they will go to the guards’ hut and kill anyone who comes out.”

  “That’ll be a lot of shooting,” Rooster said. “Surely they’ll hear all that over in Orotai.”

  “Blowguns make no sound,” Tomaldo said. “Once the guards in the towers have been silenced, banca boats will gather along the creek and then take the prisoners upriver. There is one new problem: the Negritos saw a Jap patrol in the forest while they were making their way here. They said there were five men, and that they were being very quiet.”

  I groaned out loud. Tachibana had put patrols out into the forests, confirming that old rule about the enemy getting a vote when you made a plan. “What’s Magron think about that?”

  “He says we cannot go tonight. We cannot make the attempt until we know how many patrols are out there. When we do make the move he has asked the Negritos to take the lead when we go down to the camp. He says they can sense the presence of Japs in the woods and give us warning. We will then have to evade or silence that patrol, hopefully without using guns.”

  The next day was one of more feverish preparation for the night’s operation. Magron had sent out four patrols, each made up of five Filipinos and one Negrito. Their job was to make sure the villagers hadn’t been discovered assembling banca boats, food, and bamboo canteens for the POWs. I was getting increasingly concerned about what messages Tachibana had sent off to his superiors up on Mindanao Island from that communications ship. Rooster asked Tomaldo how they were going to cut the barbed wire; Tomaldo said they had no tools for that, so they would cut through the base of several bamboo poles holding up the wire, and then collapse the fence when the time came. It looked to me that Tomaldo had become Magron’s second-in-command, so he was busier than a one-armed wallpaper-hanger. We decided to, once again, get out of their way. Then Rooster had an idea: let’s go get that twin fifty mount.

  “And then what?” I asked.

  He thought for a moment. “Mount it on a banca boat, or maybe two banca boats lashed together, with outriggers on both sides. If I can figure out how a Jap fifty-cal works, we could bring it along tonight down the river. Might come in handy.”

  I wasn’t so sure about mounting that heavy beast on banca boats, but it certainly would be nice to have a gun like that if Tachibana caught us in the act and sent a bunch of troops across the river to wipe us out. We caught up with Tomaldo one last time. He agreed to send us out with six strong teenagers to hump the gun back to the village.

  It took damn near all day to accomplish that, but at last we got back to the village around three in the afternoon with the gun mount suspended between two poles like a dead pig. Rooster and I had taken turns carrying the two belts of ammo, draped around our necks. I never want to have to do that again: those things were heavy, and they clinked incessantly the whole way, which made us all nervous. By nightfall Tomaldo and our teenagers had married two banca boats together, lashed a bamboo platform between them, and fitted outriggers for stability on both outboard sides. Rooster had removed all the unnecessary parts of the ball turret, reducing the two guns to a single unit which still could be trained and elevated. He checked the headspace with the gauges conveniently wired to the barrels and then loaded up the two belts. He wanted to test it, but we decided that the distinctive boom of a fifty would carry a long way and surely alert any Jap patrols.

  The four villager patrols came back in at nightfall in time to eat and then get a nap before we all went out at 2200, two hours before the guard shift change at the camp. Our flotilla of banca boats had set sail earlier to get down to the main river before tying up to the banks upstream to wait for the signal to approach the camp. Rooster and two rowers were assigned to our “battleship,” while I went with Magron and Tomaldo to make first contact at the wire. We had, of course, no idea of what we might find: all the POWs dead by execution, an entire company of Japs waiting inside the wire—or many other nasty possibilities. Tachibana clearly was fully alerted once his patrols reported that Orotai was practically empty and that the jungle was alive with people coming and going furtively. His taking of hostages into the compound confirmed that.

  The weather and the moon were on our side. The night was warm, as usual, and there were periodic rain squalls blowing in from the straits. The moon, such as it was, flitted in and out of low-flying scud. The four Negritos led the advance party, just in case the Japs had sent out night patrols. They usually didn’t because that’s when the green vipers came out to hunt. I shared their concern on that score.

  By 2330 we were crouching in the dense bushes lining the creek and scoping out the camp. There were dim lights over by the guards’ hut and we could hear that creaky generator running. The prisoners’ huts were dark as usual. The odor of the latrines hadn’t improved. We were waiting for one of the spotlights to make a sweep of the perimeter before making our move, and that took what seemed like forever. Once the tower nearest the creek lit up and jerked its yellow beam around the entire camp and then switched back off, we would send in the Negritos while we made the break in the fence.

  The moment it was switched off the Negritos slipped into the creek and headed in. Magron had told them to take one tower at a time, beginning with the one nearest where we would cut down the fence. The way they moved was amazing to watch. One moment they were right in front of us; the next they were simply gone without a single sound. The forest had gone silent when we’d first approached the creek banks but now the night insect orchestra was back in full cry, which should mean we were alone out there.

  I heard Magron grunt as he pointed at the target tower. A black shape was going up one leg of the tower like a snake. He wasn’t using the ladder for some reason, until I remembered that the ladders were attached to the gun platform. Anyone climbing the ladder would shake that platform, alerting the sentry. Once the black shape reached the actual platform it merged with the shadows underneath. Then: silence. I’d half-expected a cry of pain or an exclamation from the sentry as he got hit by a dart, but there was no noise at all. We didn’t see the Negrito again until he stepped out from under the platform and headed for the next tower. The other three had been told to surround the guards’ hut in case an alarm was sounded.

  It took them just over a half hour to neutralize the sentries, during which there were no alarms or spotlights lighting up. A light was still on inside the guards’ hut and we could hear a radio playing some strident Japanese music, if you could call it that. Magron decided it was time to get to the fence. He had left a small handsaw with the sergeant major with instructions to cut halfway through the backs of the fence posts at the rear of the compound, the line that faced the jungle. We couldn’t be sure they’d managed it but it would save us a lot of time if we didn’t have to make the entire cut through the eight-inch-thick bamboo poles. We stepped down into the creek, which was deeper than I remembered it. It was probably high tide in the river. Coming up the opposite bank we lay still for a few minutes, listening for any sounds that might indicate waiting guards. Or dogs.

  Finally Magron made the birdcall they’d agreed upon. Nothing happened. He waited for a few minutes and made it again. Shit, I thought. Had they executed the prisoners? No—there were still guards in the towers, although they were now sleeping the long sleep. There was 25 feet of cleared dirt we had to cross to get to the base of the actual fence. Magron decided we’d g
o to the fence and try the call again. It was the longest 25 feet I’d ever crawled, expecting a sudden glare of spotlights and a blast of machine-gun fire. When we finally reached the wire it was really dark. We felt around the base of the fence poles for cuts but found none. Magron signaled that we needed to crawl along the fence, away from the creek. After another tense 15 feet we found the first cut. Obviously we’d gone to the wrong part of the perimeter. There was a dark shape sitting by the fence which turned out to be the staff sergeant.

  “Cheerio,” he said, softly, handing the saw through the wire. “Tonight the night?”

  “Yes, it is,” I told him, while Magron got to work on the fence poles. I told him the plan was to bring them through the wire, one by one, help them cross the creek, and put them on litters, after which two Filipinos would carry them into the woods on the other side of the creek.

  “What about that lot?” the sergeant asked, pointing a thumb at the nearest tower.

  “They’re all dead,” I said.

  He grinned in the darkness, then experienced a coughing fit. He clamped both hands over his mouth, bent over and suffered a full minute of excruciating chest spasms. I waited for the fit to subside, realizing we’d made the right choice in allotting two bearers for each prisoner. Sergeant Mason had put on a good front but he was very sick. They probably all were. Hardly any food, dirty water, crude sanitation, the heat, mosquitos, and the sheer hopelessness of being prisoners half a world away from England. The little bits of fruit and rice we’d smuggled into the camp were probably why they were still alive. Magron, finishing the first pole, looked up. The generator had stopped.

  We held our breath. Was this the normal routine? Turn it off after midnight to save fuel? But what about those random spotlight sweeps? We heard a door bang open down by the guards’ hut and saw the wobbling beam of a flashlight. We couldn’t see the soldier carrying it, but he was headed for that little shack where the generator lived. Halfway there the soldier spat out what sounded like a curse. A moment later the flashlight went down on the ground, where it remained motionless. Now what, I wondered. Was there anyone else awake in the guards’ hut? Would they all turn out to see what was going on?

  Nothing happened. The flashlight lay there on the ground, illuminating a tree stump. Magron resumed sawing on the next pole. Mason crept back to the nearest prisoner hut and soon we could see figures stirring in the darkness. Once Magron got three poles cut all the way through the fence sagged almost to the ground. I thought he would cut one more, but instead he produced a tree branch with a Y-shaped crotch in it and propped the bottom wire up about two feet, enough for a man to crawl under it.

  The silence was a bit unnerving. I kept waiting for the off-duty guards to wake up as their subconscious minds realized something important was amiss. Then the four Negritos were at the wire, appearing so quietly that I almost shouted an alarm. The headman pointed back to the guards’ hut and puffed out his cheeks five times in quick succession. Clear as a bell, I thought. They’d gone into the hut and taken care of business, which should mean there were no more Japs on this side of the river. Magron made a different bird cry in the night and the banks of the creek were suddenly crawling with villagers, bearing their litters and slipping down into the water.

  It took much longer than I’d anticipated to get them all out, some forty piteous souls by my rough count. We no longer had to worry about making noise and that helped move things along. Magron let the Brits organize themselves under the urging of Sergeant Mason, while we went through the camp collecting Jap weapons. We took the machine guns and their ammo off the towers and some rifles and pistols from the guard hut. It took four Filipinos to carry all this loot, which left Magron looking very satisfied with the night’s activities.

  Once everyone was accounted for he and I went back across the creek to join the Filipinos as they carted the POWs down to the main river and set them on the waiting banca boats. I had wanted to burn the camp once everyone was out but Tomaldo had pointed out that a big fire over here would bring out the Orotai garrison. I wondered what he and Rooster were doing. As we climbed out of that miserable creek, hopefully for the last time, we found out. The unmistakable sound of a twin fifty erupted out in the Orotai harbor.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Immediately I knew what they’d done. They’d paddled down the river and gone after that communications ship anchored in the harbor. From the controlled rate of fire, even at this distance, I could tell Rooster was doing the shooting. Disciplined bursts, never rapid-continuous fire, he always told me. The barrel jumped when it was fired, so you wanted to let it settle back on target between bursts of three to four rounds. After not much more than a minute, the racket ceased. If Rooster had succeeded in wrecking the Japs’ communications ship, Tachibana and his remaining garrison were now isolated in beautiful downtown Orotai.

  Moving the POWs to safety in the surrounding forests took the rest of the night. Villagers from the smaller settlements had been called into service to bring food and clean water. Others had been tasked to build small encampments up on the edge of the lowland forests where they gave onto the volcanic fields. There wasn’t all that much food to go around, but the POWs were used to surviving on a cup of watery gruel per day. Now they were getting clean water, fresh fruit, and the ubiquitous rice balls flavored with protein-rich fish sauce. They were also getting the first baths they’d seen since arriving in Talawan. Heretofore they’d had to stand or lie out in the tropical downpours; now there was the miracle of soap. These were simple things, but a vast improvement on their prior conditions. Above all they now had hope of survival. For all our success, however, I was still mindful of Tachibana and his hostages once he discovered what we’d done.

  A hue and cry awakened me just after dawn as bearers brought two men in on litters. I first thought we’d missed a couple of POWs, but then I realized it was Rooster and Tomaldo they were bringing in. I hurried over to see how bad it was. Tomaldo had been shot twice, once in the hand and a second wound on the side of his neck. He was conscious and anxious to tell me what happened. Rooster had a bullet wound to his chest. The bandages someone had put on were blood-soaked to the point of saturation and his face was a frightening gray color. He was in and out of consciousness. I leaned in close to see if I could hear the sounds of a sucking chest wound, but his breathing appeared to be normal if very shallow. The entry hole indicated that the bullet may just have clipped the top of his right lung. I couldn’t find an exit wound, and that spelled trouble. The healing women immediately surrounded him, including Tini who cried out when she saw all the blood. I asked Tomaldo what had happened.

  They’d been able to surprise the floating comms station under cover of a rain squall. Rooster had wanted to get in as close as possible and then shoot half the ammunition into the single, center deckhouse and then use the rest to punch a hundred holes in the ship’s side right at the waterline. The remains of the ship’s crew climbed out of the smoking wreckage of the deckhouse while Rooster was busy opening her hull to the sea and fought back. They were using rifles and Tomaldo had been hit twice almost immediately. Rooster had then lifted the barrels of the fifty and mowed down the Japs, firing at them on the deck until he’d run out of ammo. One lone survivor then stepped out of the trawler’s pilothouse and shot Rooster in the chest before losing his balance as the ancient ship lurched over onto her starboard side, preparing to capsize. A moment later she rolled completely upside down while the Filipino paddlers backed the banca boat away from the scene as fast as they could. They stopped their frantic paddling once the trawler disappeared into the darkness to tend to Tomaldo and Rooster and to dump the fifties over the side.

  Having done what they could they then paddled back into the river, keeping as close to the far bank as they could. The Jap garrison in Orotai was by then fully alerted. There were searchlights everywhere amid the sound of police whistles and even a bugle carrying across the dark water. They knew that their communications ship had been att
acked but that was about all they knew.

  Magron appeared while Tomaldo was telling me all this and began to talk to Tomaldo in Tagalog. Magron was clearly excited, so much so that Tomaldo couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I interrupted and asked Tomaldo what was going on.

  “He wants to attack the garrison in Orotai immediately,” Tomaldo said, sitting down now as the pain began to sink in. “Before Tachibana kills all the hostages. There is word that Jap soldiers were seen in the POW camp at daybreak, so Tachibana now knows they’ve escaped.”

  I knew what that meant: there would be no more doubts about a general uprising of the Filipinos on Talawan. The question was: What could he do about it? Killing the hostages might make him feel better, but it wouldn’t change his tactical situation, especially now that his radio links had been severed. The problem was that a dawn attack on an alerted garrison would produce more casualties on our side than theirs, and would certainly seal the fate of the hostages.

  “Tell him I think he should spend the day moving his people into position around Orotai. He has some machine guns from the towers and some rifles now, plus his fire archers, but it will take hours to get his men assembled and into position. Tachibana will put patrols out during the daylight hours, so you will need patrols of your own. Take the Negritos with you on patrol; they can probably mount an ambush better than you and your people can.”

  Tomaldo was translating all this as I spoke. I could see Magron was frustrated. He was a man of action, not delay. Tomaldo kept going after he’d translated what I’d said. He used a respectful voice while arguing for my plan over some sudden charge of our very light brigade against the compound.