The Nugget

by P. T. Deutermann

  Then he stopped and turned around to face the gate. He made a motion with his right hand. One of the officers bowed and then trotted toward the main gate, carrying what looked like a three-legged wooden stool under each arm. I sighted the M3 on him as he came through the gate but held back. The officer walked 30 feet out in front of the gates and set the stools down, one in front of the other. He then yelled something in Japanese at the cluster of burning buildings, did an about-face, and stamped back into the compound to join Tachibana and his formation.

  Two stools, five feet apart. Tachibana wanted to talk?

  I began to make like a snake to get down out of that tree. If all those soldiers made it through the gates I didn’t want to be treed like a raccoon and also shot like one. By the time I got down on the ground Magron was walking nonchalantly out toward the stools, acting as if nothing much was going on. A cloud of smoke obscured the gate for a moment. When it cleared here came Tachibana and his troops. I got the M3 ready from behind the trunk of “my” tree, expecting to have to protect Magron once Tachibana got close enough to unlimber that big sword, but that’s not what happened. The colonel, dressed in his ample khaki uniform and high leather boots, stopped and stared at Magron with an expression of pure contempt. This seemed a bit much given the current state of the Jap compound. His guards came to a rigid parade rest behind the colonel and planted their rifle butts in the dirt.

  Tachibana sat down on one of the stools and gestured for Magron to sit on the other. He then snapped his fingers and one of the officers came running over and knelt down beside the colonel. Tachibana said something and the kneeling officer translated into what sounded like Tagalog. Magron responded in kind and I thought I heard him say his own name. Introductions were being made. I suspected that these proceedings were being observed by Magron’s archers, although there was so much smoke along that line of smoldering buildings behind me that I couldn’t be sure. Another section of the wall collapsed in a shower of sparks, startling me but neither of the two antagonists. Tachibana launched into a long tirade, getting louder and angrier the more he went on. When he was finished his interpreter started to translate. He’d gone about halfway through what the colonel said when Magron raised a hand and spat out a single word. The officer seemed taken aback, as if he didn’t want to repeat what Magron had said. Tachibana snarled at him and the officer made the translation.

  Tachibana straightened up and looked as if he’d been slapped in the face. When the interpreter saw the colonel’s expression he began backing away, still down on his knees. Magron remained seated, arms folded across his stomach. Tachibana ordered his guards to go back into the compound, or what was left of it. Maintaining parade formation, they turned as a unit and marched back through the gates. The colonel started to walk after them but then halted and turned around. Magron was still sitting on the stool. Tachibana yelled at him. Magron only shrugged and then began picking his nose, as if he didn’t give a damn what the enraged Japanese colonel had to say about anything. That apparently was the last straw; Tachibana drew that gleaming sword, raised it high over his head, and advanced on a defiant Magron like a two-legged thundercloud.

  And then stopped short. All of a sudden there was this diminutive black figure standing in his way, cradling what looked like a thin walking stick in his armpit, almost like a Marine drill instructor.

  Tachibana lowered his sword so that the tip touched the ground. He stared at the Negrito and then began to laugh, gesturing to Magron as if to say: This is going to protect you? This? The Negrito drew back and spit on Tachibana’s mighty sword, and then in a move so swift that a rattlesnake would have been impressed, he fired a dart directly into Tachibana’s right eye. The colonel howled in pain and took a step backward, trying to pluck the dart from his eye. Then he went rigid, his good eye looking around as if it was trying to figure out what was happening. He collapsed a moment later onto his knees, leaned forward on the haft of his sword, rolled slowly to the right and expired in a huge sigh. The Negrito slipped his blowgun back into his belt and pulled out his bolo, the one with that wicked hook on the back of the blade. He stepped forward, yanked the dart out of the dead man’s eye, and then used that hook to remove the remaining, “good” eyeball. In full view of his stunned audience, he popped it into his mouth and began chewing. I could hear the collective hissing gasp from the guards inside the compound. Then he just walked away into the shadows, vanishing like the lethal ghost he was.

  I expected the remnants of the garrison to rush back out in full cry, guns ablaze, but they just stood there, looking over at one of the remaining two officers, when another section of the wall collapsed down by the fishing boat pier, as if trying to punctuate the fact that there was no more Japanese compound.

  Magron had remained seated throughout this entire confrontation. Now he stood up, dusted off his clothes, took one last look at the bloody heap on the ground, spat at the still kneeling officer, and walked into the compound itself, not even looking at the group of cowed Jap soldiers. He disappeared all alone into the swirling cloud of smoke and sparks, as if he was looking for something. Then I remembered: The hostages. Oh, God, I thought.

  I stayed behind my tree, ready to even the odds if the Japs decided to keep fighting. Which, of course, one of the officers did. He drew his sword, unimpressive compared to the one lying next to the colonel, and walked over to where the trembling interpreter knelt. He yelled at the man, who shook his head and closed his eyes. The officer raised his sword as if he was going to execute him but then turned on his heel and called back to the one remaining officer. That worthy ignored him. This time he spat on the ground, turned around, raised his sword over his head, and issued what was an obvious challenge to the flickering darkness beyond the compound. Seeing no takers he advanced toward the burning buildings, still yelling, until an arrow appeared in his stomach. He collapsed, bent double in obvious agony, his sword lying on the ground.

  I trained the M3 in the guards’ direction, but they had apparently decided not to follow him in an honorable if suicidal charge. They put down their rifles and gathered into a tight knot of frightened men. I realized they were mostly teenagers. Suddenly there were men behind me, emerging from the hot ashes of the town’s main street buildings, and advancing quietly on the compound. At that moment Magron reappeared out of the smoking interior of the compound. His eyes were bulging in fury. He yelled something to the archers, who began nocking those longbows.

  Wait, I thought. They’ve surrendered. The six archers continued walking slowly toward the gates, forming themselves into a wide arc. Then they stopped. Clamping their quivers between their legs, they began firing into that clump of trembling soldiers, killing every last one of them in under a minute of ruthless, silent slaughter. I was astonished to see the two remaining Jap junior officers, who’d finally drawn their swords, make an attempted charge at the archers. By then all six archers could shoot at the two of them and they went down on their faces looking like pincushions.

  Magron approached the bloody pile and drew that captured pistol. He walked among the dead, kicking each one between the legs, and then shot one of them in the head. He approached me once he’d checked each one. I think he understood the look of horror on my face, because he said something in Tagalog and then beckoned me to follow him back into the smoke. It was not one of my best decisions because he took me to what looked like a small cattle pen between the smoldering godowns, where the bodies of the hostages were strewn like so much trash. The Japs had bayoneted every one of them, probably to save bullets.

  Okay, I thought. This had been a massacre. Just like the one out front. Summary justice if I ever saw any. I turned around, leaving Magron alone to mourn the consequences of his attack on the compound. As I walked back toward the gates I took one last scan around the remains of the compound walls, looking for any lone survivors who might pop up for some revenge. This had been too easy. There should have been more Japs in here.

  I stopped in the middle of
the compound and looked hard between gusts of wood smoke. There was one remaining unburned shed at the end of a line of four; the others were just blackened mounds.

  I looked close. It was just a wooden shed with miniature barn doors on the front and no windows. This one had a metal roof, which is probably why it hadn’t caught fire.

  Something’s in there, I just knew it. While I was staring I thought I heard a sound coming from that direction. A metallic clink. Barely audible, but then I was 15 or so feet from away from those doors.

  A clink? I was really tired, but something was telling me that I knew that sound.

  A clink. And then I remembered: when Rooster and I were humping those .50-cal. ammo belts through the jungle, the cartridges had bumped into each other as I struggled to keep them off the ground, making that identical clinking sound. I saw Magron coming back out of the hostage pen area out of the corner of my eye, but I knew I couldn’t wait. I lifted the barrel of my trusty grease gun and emptied that thing into the front of that shed, concentrating on the lower half of those wooden doors. Apparently I’d had most of a clip left so when the noise stopped the bottoms of those doors were well and truly splintered.

  Magron came running, yelling something in Tagalog that sounded like what the hell? The other Filipinos who’d come into the compound were all down on the deck, staring at me like I’d gone berserker. Still pointing the grease gun, even though it was empty, I walked over to the shattered doors and kicked them aside. There, surrounding a water-cooled, .50-caliber, antiaircraft machine gun on a tripod were four Japs. Two were obviously dead; the other two were moaning and trying to crawl away. Magron appeared behind me and finished them off. Then he stared at that big machine gun, which looked like the ones the Marines had been using on Guadalcanal, only bigger. Tachibana must have known, I thought. Once the fires started, he must have known that he and his garrison were finished. So he’d posted one final detail of soldiers. I could just imagine his orders: When it seems to be all over, they will come into the compound to look and spit upon our dead. Once there’s a crowd, open the doors and even the score.

  Magron tried to speak but only managed a croaking noise in his throat. His face was as white as a mahogany-complexioned man’s could get. Then he looked over at me with my still-smoking grease gun and bowed.

  “My pleasure,” I said, bowing back. “It’s the least I could do.”

  I backed out of the picture as the other Filipinos came over and saw that machine gun. There was a rising chorus of chatter in Tagalog. I walked back to where the gate had been and out into the street. Forgetting my M3 was empty I scanned the remaining portions of the compound wall, but my brain told me it was over, well and truly over. I was pretty sure there were no more live Japs on Talawan Island. The metallic stink of fresh blood mixed with woodsmoke reminded me once more of Guadalcanal.

  I knew we might not be out of the woods yet, especially if Tachibana had had a radio in the compound and that there might now be an entire regiment of Japanese soldiers from Mindanao en route to straighten things out. Still, I felt a great satisfaction. Bows and arrows against 60mm mortars, rifles, and machine guns. Primitive traps from centuries past lurking out in the countryside, snakes in caves, a rock barrage from the dawn of time wiping out the remains of a Jap infantry squad. All of this because they were occupiers, just the latest round, and heartless monsters at that.

  I looked up. Magron was standing not far behind me, nodding at me approvingly, as townspeople began to creep out of the woods around Orotai.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  There was a small crowd around the hut where Rooster lay when I got back to Lingoro. I hurried over, fearing the worst, but was intercepted by Tini’s grandmother. She took my hand and diverted me towards the big tree hide and Father Abriol. He looked about the same and the dressings around his stump were weeping some blood. There was still no hint of gangrene, however, and his eyes were a little bit brighter.

  “I forgot to tell you,” he said, as I sat down on one of the ammo crates. “When your gunner came back wounded I sent a messenger north and asked if Mohammed al Raqui could come down and tend to him. He arrived by boat two hours ago. Word got around, and that’s why there’s a crowd over there. He’s a famous healer and they want him to tend to them, too.”

  “What’s Rooster’s condition?” I asked.

  “Well,” he said, “he clings to life, but I’m very glad the emir is here. The women said the bullet went straight through, but the emir said they were wrong and that he would have to find it and take it out.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said.

  “He brought two other healers with him, probably apprentices. I thanked him profusely for coming and then got out of his way. What happened in Orotai? The rumors are incredible and spreading like wildfire.”

  I told him of what we’d achieved, including the massacre of the hostages and what Magron and his archers did about that. He grimaced, but nodded his reluctant acceptance. “I would expect nothing less,” he said. “So it’s true? All the Japs are dead?”

  “Unless there’s a patrol skulking around out here, I’d say yes. Once Tachibana went down, the enlisted troops gave up. Their officers insisted on doing their duty and thus became good Japs. By luck we discovered one final ambush in place.”

  He sighed. I knew that he was probably appalled at what had happened, and yet he’d been with these people for ten years. Surely he saw the justice of it. I certainly did.

  There were sounds of people approaching outside so I went to open the door. The emir stepped in, stooping to clear the doorway, followed by two others who looked like full-blooded Arabs, not Filipinos. His robes were bloodstained, as were the shirtsleeves of his assistants. He bowed formally to Abriol, who tried to bow back and had to stifle a groan. Then he bowed to me. Surprised, I awkwardly returned the gesture. Then he began to speak to Abriol. I held my breath. When he’d finished Abriol nodded and turned to me.

  “Your gunner will heal, God willing,” he began, translating literally. “The emir found the bullet just under the skin of your friend’s back. He removed it and did some other things, something involving needle and thread that I didn’t quite understand. He’s attended to Tomaldo’s hand and will now examine my leg. He was impressed that you two joined our cause and, because of that, he will send us some help to rebuild.”

  “That’s good news, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” he said with a wry smile. “Although they will come to make some converts if they can.”

  “You did call them ‘the competition’ as I recall,” I said. “I’m going to see Rooster. Please tell him the Americans appreciate his help very much. We are in his debt.”

  Abriol translated my message and the old man replied. “He says there is word spreading from Luzon, Samar, and Leyte that the Americans are coming soon to drive out the Japanese. He asks that this time, once that has been accomplished, you go back to America. He insists that you tell your government that.”

  “I will indeed tell my government that. Actually, after this war is over, the Americans will want nothing more than to go home. We now understand that the Philippines belongs to the Filipinos.”

  The emir seemed pleased with that answer. Father Abriol shot me a knowing look. I wished it was true, but in my heart I knew it probably wasn’t and so did he. But I was getting better at telling people what they wanted to hear and thus preserving that all-important “face.”

  Rooster looked a little worse for wear after the emir’s ministrations and the sight of one of the women carrying out an entire basket of blood-soaked cloths wasn’t reassuring. On the other hand he seemed to be sleeping peacefully and breathing regularly and without the liquid-lung sounds I’d heard before. Young Tini was by his bedside, holding his hand. Then I looked again: Rooster was holding Tini’s hand. Oh, my, I thought. I backed out, conscious of the women’s total awareness of what was happening there. Whatever it takes to pull him through, I thought; whatever it takes. Then
I went to find Tomaldo and through him, Abriol’s radio if it still existed.

  The weather was miserable for the next week as the northeast monsoon began to take hold, with rain, a vigorous, steady wind, thunderstorms, and high seas that made fishing almost impossible. I went into Orotai while waiting to see if they could find Abriol’s radio. The British prisoners of war, who had been dispersed throughout the forest after the big escape, were being brought back into Orotai, where they were housed in the remains of the Japanese compound. The godowns and the Japs’ perimeter wall were gone, but several smaller buildings were being disassembled to make one large one. The townspeople had returned to pick up the pieces after the Japs’ mortar barrage, and there was even a feverish community boat-building operation going on when I arrived.

  The POWs were being cared for by women from the town. One had died out in the forest, but the rest were looking much better, which wasn’t saying much. They couldn’t have looked much worse. I was initially worried that if the Japs did dispatch a retribution force to Orotai, gathering them into the town might be a bad idea, but there really was no other alternative. They couldn’t stay hidden in the bush forever and Lingoro village had its own problems with rebuilding, not to mention scarce food. One place was off-limits in the compound: that shoddy corral where the hostages had been executed. There were already crude crucifixes, flowers, and crossed palms adorning the fence that surrounded a large dirt mound. Apparently Magron had ordered all the bodies burned and then buried right there. The Church would have disapproved, but, again, there wasn’t any other alternative. In the evenings family members were allowed to come in, pay their respects, and grieve.