The colonel's secret

Chapter 2: Sevilla
TWO blocks away from the Leyte Provincial Capitol, the detachment commander Col. Theodore Cornell and his men, some 300 in their khaki uniforms of the United States Armed Forces of the Far East, had assembled at the Capitol parade ground for the turnover ceremonies. They waited for the Japanese commander and his officers to show themselves and receive the assorted guns and bladed weapons they were supposed to surrender. It was only 8:00 in the morning but their perspiration came down in large beads when the surrender ceremonies began. The sun mercilessly struck on the assembled soldiers

The speech of the Japanese commander was short, threatening.

"We have come in peace. We have asked you to lay down your arms so that we will not be forced to use violence. What you have been hearing about us is not true. Erase them from your minds. Remember, we are your Asian brothers interested only in your prosperity and progress. For forty years, you have been under American rule, but have you become prosperous? Did your lives improve? No, because the Americans only took away your resources. You have become mere pawns in the game of progress."

What progress is this bastard talking about? Perhaps progress for them Japs, Capt. Antonio Sevilla thought.

"Give us a few years and you will see what real prosperity means. Join us in this quest and you will not regret your decision. We have taken up arms so that we can defend ourselves against our enemies - your enemies, too - and free ourselves from their tyrannical rule. Your surrender is just a step forward in this. It is not a dishonorable act. You surrendered because you do not wish to cause harm to your people. Your surrender shows your cooperation in this thrust to prosperity."

"Some of you will be tasked to talk to your fellowmen, others will be deployed to preserve peace and order. Whatever it is that you will be used for, think of it as a patriotic act."

A patriotic act? Working with the enemy a patriotic act? The words rang in Sevilla's mind. The English-speaking Japanese officer continued for a few more minutes before finally concluding his speech.
The men stood at attention for several minutes more, then ordered to march to their new home - the old high school building of Tacloban about an hour's march away. It was located near a limestone hill popularly known as 'Quarry' because new town settlers usually got their filling materials from the hill. The high school building was one of those vintage structures built at the turn of the century that still functioned 40 years later. A loose barbed wire fence surrounded the building. For most of the prisoners, it was going to be their home for the rest of the war.

The company officer Sevilla felt like a stone statue whose senses had been dulled. The events happened too quickly. Last week, they had paraded around the same grounds, proudly flying the Filipino and American flags after the governor said they were not going to surrender. Two weeks later, the temperament had shifted. They recanted, tried to explain their reasons, but they flipped nonetheless. Today, they formally accepted the offer of their enemies, surrendered their arms, and marched with heads bowed to the concentration camp. Hundreds of civilians were staring at them plodding slowly to the camp, and not one of the surrendered soldiers could stare back.

Sevilla could only stare ahead, trying to avoid the sullen faces of civilians along the dusty road to the camp. Feelings of guilt and disgrace weighed him down like a huge stone tied around his neck. How could they be expected to resist when their sworn defenders had defaulted on their duties? He was only 30 years old but he felt like 60. That was probably the most depressing moment in his young life. He had imagined that the life of a soldier was all honor and glory, but here he was, unable to find redemption in his conduct.

The soldiers were told to occupy the three classrooms, with the wooden floors made of hard wood called narra as beds. They had no mats or pillows. The Japanese did not provide them with cots which they reserved for their own soldiers. Sevilla occupied one corner of the room, placing his knapsack and mat on the floor as he started to unpack his sparse clothing - an extra clean white shirt, a pair of khaki shorts issued by their supply officer, spoon and fork, a toothbrush that needed replacement but no toothpaste.

He brooded over his own condition, a caged animal confined to the boundaries of the building and a small yard outside. He could only stare at the world outside as he thought about his fate and those of 300 other soldiers. How so many able-bodied men could so easily be subdued by less than half their number? Unthinkable. They could have at least fought back, shoot their guns before surrendering when defeat was inevitable. Probably some of them would have died, but they would die a hero's death. Surrender would have been more honorable, less demoralizing to the civilians who saw them marching to their prison camp. At least they could have justified the act and marched proudly. The thought pounded his troubled mind.

The Japanese brought the American Cornell and his deputy, Lt. Col. Juan Causing, somewhere else for further interrogation. Capt. Glicerio Erfe, who was supposed to be with the group, was missing. There were rumors that he had gone to the hills of Burauen, an interior town some 40 kilometer away southeast of Tacloban, with other soldiers who refused to surrender. Sevilla was envious of Erfe wherever he was now. He had disappeared when he had the chance. The man did not hesitate to make his own decision when called for it. He, Capt. Sevilla, had second thoughts about living the life of a hunted man. Now he was starting to regret. The thought was depressing.

Life before this was the exact opposite. He used to spend hours and hours with friends over bottled drinks or the native bahalina with sizzling broiled fish dipped in a mix of hot vinegar and dark soy sauce. The bawdy stories that came with the heady drinks made for boisterous afternoons in some cool nipa sheds. He heard his friends were still up to it in the southern part of the island where the Japanese were fewer and hardly bothered people. He wished he was with them now. But that picture was now a distant dream.

For an instant, thoughts of his family flashed in his mind. The old ancestral house in Tarragona surrounded by all kinds of bushes that his mother wouldn't want trimmed because the spirits of their dead ancestors said so. His two younger siblings who argued on almost anything because they had nothing much to do. His old man who was still teaching Math and music in the elementary school. What could they be doing now? What would his father say about this surrender? His mother would probably approve of it, preferring peace to war. But his father? He'd have disapproved of it, he was sure of that.

Sevilla nevertheless endured his new life under the watchful eyes of his enemies. He endured the mosquito bites in the evenings, the hot days inside the old Gabaldon building, the stale food they were being fed morning, noon and evening and the endless boredom of doing nothing. Life outside did not change much, he learned, and he did not hear gunshots. It seemed everything had become normal, with people accepting their fate under the Japanese eyes, including the obligatory bow of submission at checkpoints.

Save for one thing.

Two weeks later, the Japanese military police called Kempetai formed what they called as Home Guards from surrendered soldiers, with Sevilla as their 'captain'. The group had to accompany the governor in his daily sorties to the different towns with two other armed Japanese soldiers and a Kempetai officer who took notes of everything that went on. After three days, Sevilla was exhausted physically. The exercise was draining. He was tired of hearing the governor's repetitious exhortations to civilian populations in the different towns they had been to. He had his speech memorized, but it was apparent that the speeches were contrived, forced at the point of an invisible gun behind his back. These were make-believe exhortations concocted to please the Japanese invaders, farcical shows that the people understood as such, and they in turn had to pretend understanding and consent.

Very soon they would reach his town of Tarragona, before his own relatives and friends and other acquaintances. He did not bother to think of what they would think of him. For sure they would not be impressed. For sure they would think that he had gone to the enemy's side. For sure his own family would disown him. Ugh.

One morning an escape plan began to hatch in his mind.