Ghosts of the Pacific (14 page)

I never got used to seeing the skeletons. Every time we entered the cavern they startled me. They didn't frighten me,
they just startled me. I kept expecting to get used to them
but never did. Seeing them made me feel that life was short.
One minute you were alive, the next you weren't. That made
me think of Mr. Chee. He said try to live a life less dangerous. How? Seeing the skeletons made me feel that living was
dangerous enough just by itself.

THE SECOND TRIP
through the tunnels was easier because
it was familiar to me now. I started a map and added to it
as we went along. I also carried water. It took twenty-three
minutes to reach the cache, though we could have done it
in less time if we had to. The passage beyond the cache grew
smaller again and I had to crawl on my hands and knees. I
didn't like that very much. The soldiers had probably used
these tunnels a lot. There was just one thing I was wondering about: what if they had booby-trapped the tunnels?
What if there were tripwires attached to explosives? After
all, they were at war when they were here. I started looking
for tripwires.

The passage went up and around a few turns. There was
only enough room for one person to pass. It was so hot. I
was sweating a lot and Hollie was panting. This section was
longer than the other ones. I was guessing it was fifty or
sixty feet long. If we didn't reach an opening soon I was
going to turn back. But we did.

We entered another cache. There were rifles, bottles and
things, and this time there were barrels. How did they get
barrels in here? They must have taken them apart and put
them back together. That seemed like a heck of a lot of work,
but there was no other way. There was something else in
here. The walls were shiny and wet. Water was running in
from somewhere. Maybe we were near the surface. I wished
I knew. I sat down to think. A voice inside told me to go back
now. This was far enough for one day. But what if we were
almost at the surface? It would be a shame to stop now. I
turned around to look at the hole we had just crawled
out . . . and got a fright. There were six of them!

Don't panic, I told myself. There is no need to panic. Panicking never helps. It will be easy enough to find out which
one is the right one. I shone the light on the floor to look for
my footprints but didn't find anything. I went to the wall.
The holes were all the same size. My gut feeling told me it
was the one on the right, but how could I know for sure?

It occurred to me that I would recognize which was the
right one if I backed into each one, then came out again. So,
I tried it, but it didn't work. None of them felt familiar. Now
I was really sweating. I tried it again. I backed into each hole
about ten feet, then crawled into the cache, stood up and
waited for a feeling of familiarity, but nothing came. I sat
down on the floor of the cavern and felt an icy shiver run
through my body. The feeling of being lost kept rising in
me and I had to force it down. “I am not lost. Even if I have
to crawl through all six passageways I will eventually find
the right one, so, see, there is no need to panic.” Even so, I
had to fight down the feeling.

I tried to take a deep breath, but you can't really do that
in caves. The air is too heavy and sluggish. It won't fill up
your lungs. There isn't enough oxygen in it. I was about to
start crawling through the first hole when an idea jumped
into my head. I pulled the tool bag off my shoulder, put it
down and opened it. “Hollie. Go find Seaweed! Go find Seaweed!”

I shined the flashlight on his face, then pointed it towards
the wall. He gave a little bark, took off and disappeared into
the second hole from the right. I got up and followed him. I
could hear him inside the tunnel even though he sounded
very far away. I knew he wasn't. A few minutes later, I found
him. He had stopped where the tunnel went down. “Good
dog, Hollie.” I picked him up and put him back in the bag,
then continued through the passage. Twenty minutes later
we were back at the sub.

I fed Hollie and gave him some fresh water. Then I made
a pot of tea, sat on the floor by the observation window and
ate a can of peaches. My grandfather's words were echoing
through my head. “You think nothing bad's going to happen
to you,” he said. That bugged me. I didn't want to believe
him. I thought of Mr. Chee and wondered if I should try to
meditate before going into the tunnels again. Instead, I ate
my peaches slowly and thoughtfully, and that was surprisingly soothing.

An hour later we were back in the cavern with the six
holes. On the opposite wall was just one hole, and we went
into it. I didn't know if it was my imagination or not but I
thought I smelled a little fresh air. It was certainly damp.
Maybe it was just the dampness I smelled. But Hollie smelled
it too. His nose was twitching. I never really got a good look
at his face in the tunnels because I didn't want to shine the
light directly into his eyes. He was so tough. He never complained.

We crawled through the next tunnel. Then I was glad we
did because it opened up more. I could almost stand. It
looked as though the tunnel was dug by someone about half
a foot shorter than me. This section was level too, which was
a lot easier. I was getting the feeling we were close to the entrance. I wondered where it would be. Where would we come
out? Would it be inside an old well, inside an old house, in
the basement of a church or temple? Or would it come out
in the middle of the jungle or on the side of a cliff? Wherever
it was, I knew it would be well hidden. I was more curious
about that than anything else.

And then, we hit a dead end. I couldn't believe it. There
was a solid wall of rock right in front of us. There was nowhere to go but back. I was disappointed. Probably one of
the other six tunnels was the right one out. But it was hard
to believe that anyone would go to all this trouble just to
create a diversion. I looked closely at the edges of the wall in
front of us. Maybe it was only meant to look solid. Maybe
there was a way through it.

On the top right corner there was a loose rock. I pulled on
it, twisted it back and forth, pushed on it, pulled on it and it
came out. Then I loosened the one beneath it, and the next
one. Five rocks came out. The rest was solid. But now there
was a hole. I stuck the flashlight through. The tunnel went
up at a sharp angle but was very small. I didn't like it at all.
I wouldn't even be able to crawl on my hands and knees; I
would have to lie flat on my stomach and wiggle like a snake.
That was too tight for me. Nobody could squeeze through
there. It was too steep too. We'd have to go back. Rats.

I lowered the flashlight. Then I noticed something. There
was a faint light at the top of the passage. I shut off the flashlight and shut my eyes for a second. It was so quiet. All I
could hear was Hollie's panting. I opened my eyes and looked
up. Yes, there was definitely a light at the top. I turned the
flashlight on again.

“Hmmm. Hollie. Do you think we should try this?” He
sneezed a little. He had cave dust in his nose. I decided to
try it. We could just slide back down if we had to. I would
talk to Hollie the whole way to keep us both calm. Then I
realized that I had been talking to him the whole time already. I pushed him into the opening and climbed up after
him. I forced him ahead a little at a time. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be; it was just really small. It was
hard on the knees and elbows though. Because I was on my
stomach I could only push with my toes and twist my body
back and forth. It was really hot too, but the farther we
went, the fresher the air became. That was really encouraging. Then we heard a strange noise, like a deep humming.
The closer we came to the light, the louder the noise was.
What the heck was that?

The tunnel came out in the most confusing way. But it
was very smart. At the top it went up and backwards, like the
top of a candy cane. It opened behind an edge of rock, and
that was in the very top of the entrance to a much larger cave,
a big open one. So, in a way, the entrance wasn't hidden at
all, but at the same time you couldn't possibly see it. It was
right in front of you if you were standing on the ground
inside the cave, but you couldn't see it. From the ground the
rock looked like one piece, but there was actually a tiny hole
there that you could only see when you were almost in it. To
get into it you had to raise yourself twelve feet off the
ground. But there was nothing to hold on to, to climb up.

The humming noise was the wind. When we came to the
end of the tunnel the wind was roaring like a jet engine.
The typhoon had arrived.

Getting out was hard. I pushed Hollie through and held
on to the tool bag strap. Then, I squeezed my body through,
though the rock scraped my stomach and legs on the way
out. It was a twelve-foot drop to the ground. I held on to
Hollie and tried to climb partway down before dropping
but it still knocked the wind out of me.

The cave was on the edge of a jungle. The wind was flattening the trees. The sky was black. I held Hollie against my
stomach in the bag. The wind was grabbing at everything.
There was shelter in the bigger cave but there was something
I wanted to do. I wanted to find the ocean and identify
where we were from the water.

I climbed the hill above the cave. It was hard to walk in
the wind! It was so strong I knew it could pick us up and
throw us, so I walked low and kept my hands close to plants
to grab them and hold on if I had to. I had never seen wind
like this before, not even at sea.

On the other side of the hill I saw the water. I stared at the
hill's features and tried to memorize them. Then I climbed
back down to the cave, turned right and followed the edge
of the jungle for a few hundred feet. A path went down the
hill into another big open cave. I figured this was the one
with the people in it, that I had seen from the sub. A wooden
sign on the ground said, “Grotto.”

Getting back inside our cave was really difficult. I had to
find a log to lean against the stone wall, climb up on it and
pull myself up, which was really hard with my weak arm. If
I hadn't trained myself to do chin-ups I would never have
been able to get up. There was almost nothing to hold on
to. It looked as though the rock face didn't go anywhere, but
just above the top was a little shadow behind a ridge, and
beneath that shadow was the tiny hole, barely big enough to
squeeze into. As I pulled myself up I kicked the log down
and saw it roll into the cave. No one would ever guess why
it was there. Probably they'd think the wind had blown it
there. As I disappeared into the secret tunnel, pulling Hollie
in after me, I had to grin at how clever the Japanese soldiers
had been.

WE SPENT TWO DAYS
in the cavern. I kept one floodlight on
when we were outside of the sub and had to pump fresh air
into the sub from the tanks. The air of the cavern was stale
and it never felt as though we could get quite enough oxygen. For the same reason I couldn't run the engine, so I
pedalled the bike for a few hours each day to make up for
the power we used. We slept, ate, exercised and relaxed. I
read the entire
Rime of the Ancient Mariner
aloud to the
crew. They were a good audience. Hollie kept his head on
his paws the entire time and Seaweed kept one eye open,
which meant he was either half asleep or half awake. I also
practised diving.

It was seventy-five feet to the bottom. When I flicked on
the underwater floodlights and looked down through the
observation window I could see all the way, though the water
was a little murky. The undercurrent was pulling water in
and out of the tunnel that connected the cavern to the sea.
The pull was not so strong as to affect the surface water
inside the cavern but I'd have to be careful at the bottom
not to get sucked into it.

Lighting up the cavern above and below the surface with
floodlight, I slipped into the water, took several deep breaths
and went down. The sides were smooth and perfectly round.
The cavern must have been carved from millions of years of
erosion. It was the perfect hiding place for a small submarine and a perfect place to practise free diving. For about
two hours I went up and down, timing how long I was underwater. Two minutes and fifteen seconds was my longest, but
I felt that after a few days here I could stretch that to two and
a half minutes. It was the very best place to practise because
there were no distractions, especially nothing to startle me.
Well, almost nothing.

I was coming up very relaxed, had my eyes closed and was
concentrating on Mr. Chee's words. It occurred to me that
diving was probably similar to meditating because you sort
of emptied your mind and had to relax, except that I wasn't
sitting still on a floor, I was swimming underwater and was
about forty-five seconds away from drowning if I didn't surface in time. Except for that, they were probably similar.
Then, my fingers touched something and I opened my eyes.
Right in front of me was one of the skeletons drifting down
slowly. I was face to face with it. I knew which one it was
too—the funny one.

Fright went through me like a bullet and my air was suddenly used up. I started swimming up as quickly as I could,
trying to stay calm on the way. How did the skeleton get in
the water? Did it just fall? I didn't think so. Was there someone or something in the cave? Was I going to surface and
find someone there?

I broke the surface and gasped for air. I turned and looked
at the skeletons. Now there were just four. Standing on the
card table, looking fed up with their company, was Seaweed.
Suddenly he hopped onto the head of another of the soldiers and its head fell off, hit the ground and rolled into the
water.

“Seaweed! Don't! Don't peck!”

Well, that settled that. I decided to give the soldiers a burial at sea. It wouldn't take long and it wouldn't be very ceremonial. I didn't know what to say so I carried my book over
and read a verse from
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
that
seemed fitting to me.

Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing.

Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given!

She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,

That slid into my soul.

I reached over to push each soldier into the water and
watch it sink. But . . . I couldn't do it. I didn't know why. For
the first time, perhaps because of the words of the poem, I
felt more than fascination for the soldiers. I felt sad for them.
Now I was unsure that this was the right thing to do. I stood
and thought about it. Nope. It wasn't right. I didn't know
what to do but I couldn't do this. Shoot! Now I had to swim
back down and bring up the sunken skeleton and the other
head too. Oh boy.

It took eleven dives! What a lot of work. It wouldn't have
been so hard if all of the bones had stayed together. Some
of the smaller bones of the hands and feet were missing but
I decided not to worry about that. They were too hard to
find even with the floodlights on. I just didn't count them.
Getting the two skulls up was the trickiest part. I took potatoes out of a burlap sack and carried them up in that, along
with some of the other loose bones. I piled everything on
top of the card table and told Seaweed to leave it alone.

After two days I decided to check on the typhoon. I shut the
hatch with Hollie and Seaweed inside, took the dinghy to
the ledge and climbed into the passageway by myself. It was
a lot easier alone and I even enjoyed it. I could see why some
people enjoyed cave exploring the way I enjoyed free diving.
Both required self-control, clear thinking and lots of physical energy. Both were personally rewarding.

As I approached the opening I realized there was no humming sound. The typhoon had passed. I wondered how
much damage it had done. I stuck my head out but didn't
bother climbing down. I wanted to go back and let Seaweed
out so that he could fly. To do that, I would have to take the
sub out into the sea.

So, I returned to the sub and we submerged and went
through the narrow tunnel. The undertow pulled us against
the rock a few times on our way out. When the periscope
broke the surface I looked around. It was clear so I opened
the hatch and Seaweed came right up, took a peek, then
jumped into the air. He was one happy bird. Hollie and I
went back into the cavern.

This time I packed a lunch, put it in a bag, put Hollie in
the tool bag, took the camera and climbed through the passageway one more time. It was a lot to carry, but my confidence in knowing the way made it so much easier. Coming
out of the final tunnel, I felt like toothpaste squeezing out of
a tube. Then we jumped down into the sunshine of a brand
new day.

It looked as though giants had stomped all over the island,
crushing trees and leaving broken branches, roots and fruit
everywhere. Saipan had coconuts, oranges, bananas, lemons,
papaya, mangos, and a bunch of other fruits I had never
seen before. And they were all over the ground. There were
also puddles of water everywhere, as if a tsunami had rolled
over the island, though no tsunami could reach so high. I
followed the path that led down past the Grotto and onto a
road that was well paved. The road wound like a coiled snake.
I saw a sign that pointed uphill towards the “Suicide Cliffs, ”
and downhill towards the city of Garapan. I let Hollie out
and we started up.

It was extremely hot and humid. I was sweating a lot and
Hollie was panting. But the sky was blue, the sun bright and
the view very pleasant. We could see ocean all around. After
a while I heard a bus coming from below. As it passed us I
saw it was filled with Japanese tourists. Everyone waved and
took our picture. I waved back and took a picture of the
back of the bus as it coughed and wheezed its way up the
hill. When we reached the top, I saw three more busses and
a small crowd of tourists spread out among a handful of
monuments near the edge of the cliffs. Most of the tourists
were taking pictures but some were kneeling at the monuments and some of them were crying. I was surprised by
that because the war had ended such a long time ago.

Hollie and I went to the edge of the cliff where there was
a railing. If you climbed over it you would fall right off the
cliff. I was a little nervous that Hollie might get too close to
the edge but he was even more careful than I was. From
where we stood we could see far across the Philippine Sea.
We could see the green hills and jungle of the island, which
from the distance didn't look affected by the typhoon at all,
and we could see a dozen beautiful white birds, like doves,
gliding around and around in a spiral below us. It was a
beautiful view from the top of the Suicide Cliffs.

I tried to imagine people jumping from this spot, because
this was where it had happened—a sign sticking out of the
ground said so in several languages. The busloads of Japanese tourists said so, especially the people kneeling on the
ground crying.

I tried to imagine it, jumping from here. I shut my eyes,
opened them and looked down, shut them, opened them . . .
no way! I could never do it in a million years. It would be
impossible for me to jump. Nothing in the world could have
made me. They would have had to shoot me; I would not
have jumped.

But others had. I had read about it. Women and children,
even women with babies, lined up in rows and jumped.
They helped each other jump. They held hands and jumped
together. I couldn't imagine it. There was something missing in my understanding. I had no idea what it was; I just
knew there was something missing. Nothing here made any
sense to me.

And then, almost as if he knew what I was thinking, a
man who had been kneeling at the monuments came over
to me and touched my shoulder. I turned and looked at
him. He stared into my eyes and smiled, but it was a sad
smile. He had been crying. I wasn't used to seeing a grown
man cry. I felt awkward and wondered why he had come to
me. He wanted to shake my hand, so I gave it to him and he
shook it, all the while staring me in the eye. Then, he closed
his eyes. But he was still holding my hand. It looked like he
was praying. He said something to me in Japanese. I didn't
know what to say back so I just said, “Thank you.” He
bowed, so I bowed back. Suddenly he let go of my hand and
reached into his pocket for a notepad and pen. He drew a
picture of a woman jumping off the cliff and showed it to
me. I dropped my head. I didn't know what to say. Then he
drew another picture. He sighed heavily and handed me the
notepad. I took it and looked at it. It was a man sitting
inside a cave.

I stared at the drawing. I wondered if his father had died in
the caves. He said something to me in Japanese. It sounded
like a question. But I couldn't take my eyes off the picture.
He put his hand on mine again and said something and
questioned me with his eyes. How could I tell him that I had
just found five skeletons in a cave? How could I show him?
I couldn't really. He was too old to climb through the caves,
and I couldn't carry them out. Nor did I want to take them
out with the sub. And yet it felt so wrong not to do something or say something. But what could I do?

He started to go. I had to think of something. I reached
over and touched the arm of his jacket. He turned around
very surprised. I pointed to the notepad and made the gesture of telephoning. Would he give me his phone number?
He didn't understand and so I kept trying until he did.
Finally he wrote down his phone number. Then he asked
for mine so I wrote Ziegfried's. We shook hands again and
he wandered back to the monument.

I took pictures from the edge of the cliff. I took pictures
of the tourists, the monuments and busses, then we started
back down the hill. Seaweed spotted us and joined us. Oddly,
it felt as if we could have been walking down any road back
home in Newfoundland on a hot summer's day. But we
weren't. We were in Saipan. Things had happened here that
were worse than my worst nightmares. But I didn't understand any of it.

And I wanted to.

Garapan, Saipan's only town, was four miles away. After a
mile or so we began to see houses and shops, and the farther
we went the more we saw. Everything was made of concrete,
and I could understand why. Anything else would have blown
away in the typhoons. Along the road we saw broken trees,
branches and fruit strewn everywhere. I picked up two bananas and four oranges on the way and ate them. There were
large crabs scurrying across the road too, as if they were lost
and confused. Had the typhoon blown them so far from the
beach? Or did they live in the jungle? Were these the coconut
crabs that I had read about? There were so many of them.
Hollie sniffed at them cautiously. Seaweed attacked and ate
one. I didn't interfere. If I had, he would just have flown farther away and eaten another one. Seaweed didn't take orders
from anyone when it concerned what went into his belly.
How free it must have felt to be him, I thought. When you
were a bird you never had to worry about war or suicide. All
day you could just eat, sleep, and fly. I smiled. The longer I
lived with Seaweed, the more I felt that birds were smarter
than humans.