by John Muir
CHAPTER 16
WAITING & SETTLING IN
ILIGAN, NORTH-WEST MINDANAO.
Raul de los Reyes, her faithful little aide, came into the room to see Warvic bent over the detailed area maps. She looked up and saw his wide smile.
"Well, it looks like good news, is it?" she asked.
"Yes. It wasn't that there was a problem in getting the bancas from Mercedes for transport like we thought. It's just that there was a problem in selecting which were the best available from a wide selection. There were so many locals prepared to loan their bancas, even though they didn't know what they were needed for," he replied.
"That's the last one then. If we hadn't got word about the bancas by tomorrow, I was going to scrap Apuao Grande. It was my last choice. I only included it because I had a spare group available for that area. So we now have a go for sixty-six resorts."
"It's a big operation. I don't know who else could've pulled it together," Raul complimented her.
"Thanks Raul, but to partly quote a man from English history, Churchill, this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, it is only the end of the beginning."
Raul looked at her strangely.
"Forget it, Raul. What I was meaning is that we have only just begun. Not all our other plans have gone exactly as we want. Once this starts, it's out of our hands. There are sixty-six chances of success, just as there are sixty-six chances of failure. We know that if we fail at more than four or five, our real success reduces accordingly."
Warvic knew it was probably too late to call it off. Even if she could contact some groups it would be unlikely she could contact them all. To try and reorganise another action day would take months. Her Libyan financiers would lose faith and might undertake retribution. No. It had to proceed.
----------
APUAO GRANDE.
When the film finished, T.A. and Malou moved to the bar. Rose was still on duty even though it was just after 11:00 p.m. She was still serving a few remaining drinkers.
"I was hoping you were still here," said T.A.
"Yes, just about to finish up," she replied.
T.A. selected some Cola, Seven up, and fruit juices, signed their chits and headed off to the beach for the ritual they had established on their first visit six years before. They found the hobie-cat furthest from the restaurant and lay down on the trampoline to stare up at the stars. Tonight was dark, almost black. The light of the young new moon was still weak. For the moment they could enjoy it as the full brightness of the stars were little diminished. Within a few days the moon's light would dominate so much they would not need their torches to see their way, except when walking under the forest canopy. Then, it could be so black you could not see your own feet.
They had often fallen asleep here before making their way back to the house. It was peaceful and secluded. This was another little sanctuary which had rarely been violated. Occasionally, the sounds of laughter from the beer hut would drift to their ears. Lying flat and remaining still, unseen, they would watch as couples walked past their hobie-cat for a moon-lit walk. Remaining still and silent protected their invisibility.
Sometimes, after falling asleep, they would wake long after the beer hut was deserted and all the restaurant lights were dimmed. They had to make their way back to the house with the beam of the penlight torches lighting their footfall, skirting the side of the restaurant and swimming pool and nervously stopping as toads jumped out of their path on being picked up in the beams.
The windows of the brightly lit porch swarmed with moths of all sizes. Dozens of toads sat beneath on the concrete floor ready to jump at any moth unlucky enough to lose its grip on the ceiling or window and not regain flight in time. Smaller moths on the windows had the added problem of surviving the fast window running geckos as well.
T.A. and Malou always carefully picked their way through the gauntlet of the toads. As soon as they were inside T.A. would switch off the outside light to reduce the moth slaughter.
This first night back, Malou made her way directly to the shower without speaking. When she had finished, T.A. too showered, but by the time he entered the bedroom Malou was already feigning sleep. She had been uncommunicative even on the trampoline of the hobie-cat. Generally, time on the trampoline was a type of relaxation and reconciliation when they felt closer. Somehow tonight it had not worked.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" he snapped.
"Nothing." she replied.
"If you don't want to be here, you can always go back on the banca tomorrow."
"That's what you want isn't it. Then you can look at all the other girls without me being in the way."
"So that's what it's all about."
"If you don't want me here, why don't you send me back?"
"If that's what you want."
"No, but it's what you want?"
"Can we stop all this childishness and get on with our holiday."
"Maybe it's a holiday for you. You just look at the other girls as if I wasn't here. I saw you looking at Di. But you've missed out there because she's married."
"I guess you'd think I'm gay if I talk to men. For God's sake grow up. I look at Rolls Royce cars too, but I wouldn't buy one."
"But you might like to test drive one."
"Not if it meant I'd lose my own car."
"So that's all you think of me as, a car?"
"Now what do you want trying to argue about?"
"Oh nothing, you just don't understand."
"No, but I'm trying."
"You'll never understand.
"Can we drop it?"
"You started it. Just leave me alone, O.K.?"
T.A. knew he was getting nowhere. Hopefully tomorrow would be another chance. Tonight was a write-off. He just turned his back and he too began to feign sleep, until the pretence of sleep was superseded by the real thing.
---------
APUAO GRANDE
The cicadas began their normal loud welcome to the new day, quickly reaching their crescendo. Again the noise woke T.A. much sooner than his normal waking time. He wanted to roll over and go back to the comfort of sleep. The noise was too loud and the suddenness of his waking had made his mind too alert to manage an immediate return to sleep. Beside that the pressure of his full bladder was making him uncomfortable. Nature was demanding attention both inside and outside.
After seeing the flush of the toilet, T.A. remembered the beautiful taste of the house's own bore water supply. He would never use the tap water anywhere else in the Philippines. But this water was as fresh as any he had ever tasted. He rinsed the largest glass he could find. After a few gulps he realised it was just as good as he remembered, pleased that this too had not changed. It seemed to have a special quenching effect.
He looked through the back window above the bench. The attempt to sow a lawn in the back yard was being met by an equally determined rain forest trying to claim back the same area. It was only about ten metres from the back porch to the thickness of the forest. Where the grass and forest met was a humanly cleared narrow bare patch. It was dominated neither by lawn nor the hacked-back ground ivy trying to invade the lush green patch of grassed area.
Thirst quenched, he began to make his way back toward the bedroom. He paused to look out the lounge window at the front. Little hade changed here either. The lawn of the front yard was doing much better than the back yard. To the right of the lawn, the thick forest was held back by a nicely tilled garden without flowers. To the left another narrow tilled area separated the Brooke house from the neighbouring house.
Twenty metres to the direct front was the trailer track. Going right it led to the restaurant, going left led to the barrio. He had only been watching a few minutes when a carabao pulling a trailer passed by heading toward the restaurant. T.A. knew that using the carabao meant the tractor had broken down again. This pass-by was an early morning routine, though T.A. had never seen anything on the trailer and never thought to ask about it. Always at less than a norma
l walking pace, even with the tractor. Sometimes, as now, the driver slouched over as though still asleep. The carabao knew its destination, presumably from years of following the same route. Strangely he had never seen it on the return journey back to the barrio. He went to check the time on his watch and realised it was still on the bedside table. Some deep recesses of his memory told him that the carabao passed by around 7:00A.M.
He returned to the bedroom and stood outside the mosquito net for a few minutes. In the dim light he looked at Malou lying naked on top of the sheet. Though it was full daylight outside, the closed shutters barely allowed enough light in to see darkened outlines.
He remembered Malou had told him the shutters were called jalousie. She had taken pains to point out that there were two types of jalousie, wooden and glass. This house had wooden ones, with a normal glass window fitted outside. He toyed with the idea of opening the jalousie a little to see more of Malou's nakedness then remembered they squeaked noisily when they were adjusted. So, missing his opportunity of voyeurism, he got back under the mosquito net and onto the bed. It was cooler here, helped by the little wall-mounted electric fan. He thought about caressing Malou and making love. While he was thinking about it he fell asleep.
----------
ILIGAN, NORTH-WEST MINDANAO.
Warvic, Suraido, their aides, guards and equipment were ready for their trip to Mt. Kanlaon on Negros. Tests had shown it was the most suitable place for monitoring and sending radio transmissions throughout the Philippines. It was also a very strong NPA area.
To avoid attracting attention, they would travel in separate slightly larger but much faster bancas departing a few minutes apart.
Warvic was not looking forward to the long trip. Along with her other frailties, she included the weakness of sea-sickness. She knew the debilitating sea-sickness would be followed by a hard trek into the high terrain of Mt. Kanlaon. That would produce muscle aches and strains, to be compounded later by stiffness as the stretched muscles tried to return to their normal length.
This trek would again test her nicotine stained lungs. Why did she ever start smoking? Maybe if a real Peoples' Party was in power she would try to have cigarettes abolished. As an example to others she would then be forced to give up. Maybe she would try to stop after all this was over. Once she had given up she could chide others about their weakness. First she had to get to the base camp.