Goto Dengo catches glimpses of a body of water off to the left, and isn't sure whether it is a big lake or part of the ocean. 'Laguna de Bay,' says the driver, when he catches Goto looking at it. 'Very beautiful.'
Then they turn away from the lake onto a road that climbs gently into sugar cane territory. Suddenly, Goto Dengo catches sight of a volcano: a symmetrical cone, black with vegetation, cloaked in mist as though protected by a mosquito net. The sheer density of the air makes it impossible to judge size and distance; it could be a little cinder cone just off the road, or a huge stratovolcano fifty miles away.
Banana trees, coconut palms, oil palms, and date palms begin to appear, sparsely at first, transforming the landscape into a kind of moist savannah. The driver pulls into a shambolic roadside store to buy petrol. Goto Dengo unfolds his jangled body from the sidecar and sits down at a table beneath an umbrella. He wipes a crust of sweat and dirt from his forehead with the clean handkerchief that he found in his pocket this morning, and orders something to drink. They bring him a glass of ice water, a bowl of raw, locally-produced sugar, and a plate of pinball-sized calamansi limes. He squeezes the calamansis into the water, stirs in sugar, and drinks it convulsively.
The driver comes and joins him; he has cadged a free cup of water from the proprietors. He always wears a mischievous grin, as if he and Goto Dengo are sharing a little private joke. He raises an imaginary rifle to his face and makes a scratching motion with his trigger finger. 'You soldier?'
Goto Dengo thinks it over. 'No,' he says, 'I do not deserve to call myself a soldier.'
The driver is astonished. 'No soldier? I thought you were soldier. What are you?'
Goto Dengo thinks about claiming that he is a poet. But he does not deserve that title either. 'I am a digger,' he finally says, 'I dig holes.'
'Ahh,' the driver says, as if he understands. 'Hey, you want?' He takes two cigarettes out of his pocket.
Goto Dengo has to laugh at the smoothness of the gambit. 'Over here,' he says to the proprietor. 'Cigarettes.' The driver grins and puts his cigarettes back where they came from.
The owner comes over and hands Goto Dengo a pack of Lucky Strikes and a book of matches. 'How much?' says Goto Dengo, and takes out an envelope of money that he found in his pocket this morning. He takes the bills out and looks at them: each is printed in English with the words THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT and then some number of pesos. There is a picture of a fat obelisk in the middle, a monument to Jose P. Rizal that stands near the Manila Hotel.
The proprietor grimaces. 'You have silver?'
'Silver? Silver metal?'
'Yes,' the driver says.
'Is that what people use?' The driver nods.
'This is no good?' Goto Dengo holds up the crisp, perfect bills.
The owner takes the envelope from Goto Dengo's hand and counts out a few of the largest denomination of bills, pockets them, and leaves.
Goto Dengo breaks the seal on the pack of Lucky Strikes, raps the pack on the tabletop a few times, and opens the lid. In addition to the cigarettes, there is a printed card in there. He can just see the top part of it: it is a drawing of a man in a military officer's cap. He pulls it out slowly, revealing an eagle insignia on the cap, a pair of aviator sunglasses, an enormous corncob pipe, a lapel bearing a line of four stars, and finally, in block letters, the words I SHALL RETURN.
The driver is looking purposefully nonchalant. Goto Dengo shows him the card and raises his eyebrows. 'It is nothing,' the driver says. 'Japan very strong. Japanese people will be here forever. MacArthur good only for selling cigarettes.'
When Goto Dengo opens the book of matches, he finds the same picture of MacArthur, and the same words, printed on the inside.
After a smoke, they are back on the road. More black cones coalesce, all around them now, and the road begins to ramble up over hills and down into valleys. The trees get closer and closer together until they are riding through a sort of cultivated and inhabited jungle: pineapples close to the ground, coffee and cocoa bushes in the middle, bananas and coconuts overhead. They pass through one village after another, each one a cluster of dilapidated huts huddled around a great white church, built squat and strong to survive earthquakes. They zigzag around heaps of fresh coconuts piled by the roadside, spilling out into the right-of-way. Finally they turn off of the main road and into a dirt track that winds through the trees. The track has been rutted by the tires of trucks that are much too big for it. Freshly snapped-off tree branches litter the ground.
They pass through a deserted village. Stray dogs flit in and out of huts whose front doors swing unlatched. Heaps of young green coconuts rot under snarls of black flies.
Another mile down the road, the cultivated forest gives way to the wild kind, and a military checkpoint bars the road. The smile vanishes from the driver's face.
Goto Dengo states his name to one of the guards. Not knowing why he is here, he can say nothing else. He is pretty sure now that this is a prison camp and that he is about to become an inmate. As his eyes adjust he can see a barrier of barbed wire strung from tree to tree, and a second barrier inside of that. Peering carefully into the undergrowth he can make out where they dug bunkers and established pillboxes, he can map out their interlocking fields of fire in his mind. He sees ropes dangling from the tops of tall trees where snipers can tie themselves into the branches if need be. It has all been done according to doctrine, but it has a perfection that is never seen on a real battlefield, only in training camps.
He is startled to realize that all of these fortifications are designed to keep people out, not keep them in.
A call comes through on the field telephone, the barrier is raised, and they are waved through. Half a mile into the jungle they come to a cluster of tents pitched on platforms made from the freshly hewn logs of the trees that were cut down to make this clearing. A lieutenant is standing in a shady patch, waiting for them.
'Lieutenant Goto, I am Lieutenant Mori.'
'You have arrived in the Southern Resource Zone recently, Lieutenant Mori?'
'Yes. How did you know?'
'You are standing directly beneath a coconut tree.'
Lieutenant Mori looks straight up in the air to see several wooly brown cannonballs dangling high over his head. 'Ah, so!' he says, and moves out of the way. 'Did you have any conversation with the driver on the way here?'
'Just a few words.'
'What did you discuss with him?'
'Cigarettes. Silver.'
'Silver?' Lieutenant Mori is very interested in this, so Goto Dengo recounts their whole conversation.
'You told him that you were a digger?'
'Something like that, yes.'
Lieutenant Mori backs off a step, turning to an enlisted man who has been standing off to the side, and nods. The enlisted man picks the butt of his rifle up off the ground, wheels the weapon around to a horizontal position, and turns towards the driver. He covers the distance in about six steps, accelerating to a full sprint, and cuts loose with a throaty roar as he drives his bayonet into the driver's slim body. The victim is picked up off his feet, then sprawls on his back with a low gasp. The soldier straddles him and thrusts the bayonet into his torso several more times, each stroke making a wet hissing sound as metal slides between walls of meat.
The driver ends up sprawled motionless on the ground, jetting blood in all directions.
'The indiscretion will not be held against you,' says Lieutenant Mori brightly, 'because you did not know the nature of your new assignment.
'Pardon me?'
'Digging. You are here to dig, Goto-san.' He snaps to attention and bows deeply. 'Let me be the first to congratulate you. Your assignment is a very important one.'
Goto Dengo returns the bow, not sure how deep to make it. 'So I'm not-' He gropes for words. In trouble? A pariah? Condemned to death? 'I'm not a low person here?'
'You are a very high person here, Goto-san. Please come with me.' Lieutenant Mori gestures towards one of the tents.
