Sayonara
Edilberto K. Tiempo
Pascual woke up with the pressure of a gun muzzle on his chest; looking down at him was a Japanese soldier. The gun of another Japanese was pointed at Ladislao who was on his heet and appeared belligerent. Amando was sitting up, dazed, staring at the muzzle of a gun a few inches from his face. Two other Japanese soldiers were at the door.
A Japanese officer joined the soldier standing above Pascual. “UP!” barked the officer. “UP!”
Whoever squealed, Pascual thought. If he got him.
One Japanese, a corporal, was opening a decrepit wooden trunk and another drawer of an old cabinet, scattering a few rags and empty boxes on the floor. They moved the cabinet away from the wall to see if any weapon was hidden behind. The two soldiers then proceeded to the two other rooms in the house; the house had been abandoned by its owners who had been evacuated to the hills.
No, they wouldn’t find anything unless they looked behind the inside band of the hat of Ladislao who had inserted the clipping of a page of Life magazine which had been brought, among other things guns, ammos, uniforms, medicines, mosquito nets by the first American submarine that came in January, 1943, from Australia. The three of them had been assigned to show the clipping to influential persons in the town who had been helping the guerrillas. They also spread the news that the submarine had brought Major Jesus Villamor, the only Filipino to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, together with some men to form the nucleus of counter-intelligence work in the country. Japanese propaganda, strengthened by repeated victories in all fronts in the Pacific, had been quite effective in lowering the morale of the people in the occupied areas and shaking the loyalty of some. To them the clipping, dated seven months after the fall of Corregidor, could only mean that the steel ring the Japanese boasted they had thrown around the country had been breached.
Ladislao’s hat looked harmless hanging on an antler of the stag’s skull pegged to the wall above the cabinet. The Japanese did not even look at it. They found nothing suspicious except a bolo in its sheath dangling on a nail behind the door. The officer ordered a soldier to take it away.
They could have the bolo, Pascual thought. But it was time they left.
The Japanese officer suddenly bellowed him. “Tenshun!”
Pascual stood at attention, and immediately saw his mistake.
“Ah,” the officer said, smiling “USAFFE. You are obedient soldier, Obedient soldier of MacArthur. But MacArthur’s soldiers bow to Japanese in Bataan. The coward MacArthur runs away, tail between his legs.”
He turned to Pascual’s companions. “You are not obedient. You are volunteer guerillas, yes? Your shirts off!”
He thumped their chests, felt of the biceps and the muscles on the shoulders. He smiled again. “USAFFE also,” he declared. “Muscles of right shoulder harder than left.” Pinching the muscles on the right shoulder, he went on, “This is where gun rest.”
Pascual wanted to laugh. Any right handed labourer to this Japanese is a soldier, for two petroleum cans of water balanced on a bamboo pole, a length of wood, or a sack of sweet potatoes were weights heavy enough to mark a man similarly.
“Do not deny. Piripinos, no enemy of Nippon, Piripinos, friends. By Americans” He struck his neck with the edge of his open palm.
