The Airmen and the Headhunters Read online

  When the Yanks had first met Makahanap, they had figured him for an extremely cautious, ambivalent man who was working for the Japanese. They now could see that he had linked himself, his family and his district to an Allied victory.

  The next day, when the Yanks reached Long Berang in the driving rain, they could see how much things had changed since their previous stay there. This time their arrival was expected, even welcomed. Before they could moor their perahu, Santoni rushed up to the water's edge to greet them carrying a waxed-paper umbrella and an enormous smile on her moonshaped face. Phil remembered her as a nice, middle-aged woman who had come briefly to the police barrack to see them. He would learn from Christiaan that her husband had disappeared at the time of the Japanese invasion, leaving her with no place here and no way back to her home in Surabaya on the eastern end of Java. Her husband, also Javanese, had been in the Dutch colonial police and had accompanied Makahanap on his official trips through the district. When Phil saw her come up to the boat now, she looked so excited that at first he thought she was going to kiss him, but instead she settled for a hearty handshake. She patted him on the back several times, shouting, "Very good, very good"—possibly the only English words she knew. The Yanks came to think of Santoni as being like themselves, waiting for things to change so she could get back home. Never before had a war impinged so deeply on so many lives in this part of the world.

  Christiaan was on the riverbank to greet the airmen and walk them back to the house. They could see a Dutch flag flying from the D.O.'s office flagpole, where the Japanese flag had been. Christiaan had prepared his wonderful fried chicken for lunch, but the absence of Mama at the dining table was palpable.

  Makahanap explained over lunch that he had sent Mama and the little ones out of harm's way the day before. Binum managed to describe how she had carried three-year-old Thea on her hip while her girlfriend Iwak had carried five-month-old Victor in a basket on her back. Binum said she would never forget that journey: "We were so afraid and we held Thea and her brother up and down the mountains." They had run through the heavy rain along the banks of the Pa' Paru to where it joined the Pa' Silau, and on to a longhouse in a hidden valley at Punan Silau.

  Binum had left Mama and the children with Iwak and had rushed back to help with the Yanks—and to bring the news that Mama and the children were safe, though Mama was sad not to see "her boys" again.

  Makahanap told the Yanks that he and Pangeran Lagan and his warriors would be going to Long Sempayang to kill the Japanese there. He also told them what news he had of the other airmen from their plane who were currently scattered about the Krayan District. He promised that once the whole upriver region was free of Japanese he would arrange for the three airmen to join them.

  The Yanks were thrilled to know that three of the four men from the back of the plane were alive and well. Phil wrote letters for Makahanap to get to them somehow. He wanted to insist on the D.O.'s helping to arrange for them to join their group now, but he sensed that their host could hardly wait to be on his way. And indeed, the D.O. and his group left right after lunch; Makahanap had learned that the two ken kanrikans and five heitais who had been staying at Long Sempayang were about to leave for the village of Pa' Silau, not far from Punan Silau, where Mama was.

  Makahanap and his party made good time to the longhouse at Pengutan despite the rain. Makahanap received confirmation that the Japanese had arrived at Pa' Silau, a couple of hours upriver. Quickly inventing a plan, he asked Apui Sia, the longhouse headman of Pengutan, to invite the Japanese to come visit his village. He asked Apui Sia, an animist, to tell the Japanese that district officer Makahanap was already in Malinau with the other ten Japanese and the captured Americans.

  The pagan headman was not only willing to lie to the Japanese but was evidently good at it. The Japanese at Pa' Silau, delighted at the news, readily accompanied him back by boat to Pengutan, since it lay on the route to Long Berang and Malinau. Makahanap, with help from Pangeran Lagan and Christian longhouse chiefs of the Krayan District, had stationed Dayak forces by the river. There was one spot where there were rapids, obliging the Japanese to get out of their canoes and wade across the river. Makahanap and Pangeran Lagan's combined Krayan and Mentarang forces were in place there and offered to help the Japanese across. Once the Japanese were midriver, holding their guns overhead to keep them dry, the Dayaks, on a signal from the hidden Makahanap, rose up and quietly speared the Japanese one by one—the heitais first, and then the ken kanrikans. None of the Japanese reached the Pengutan side of the river.

  The Krayan Christians, who were generally more devout than their Mentarang counterparts, had taken part in the massacre with reluctance, and only out of respect for Makahanap. They were horrified by the sight of so many dead bodies and the blood that colored the water everywhere. (Years later, Buing Udan, a Lun Dayeh who had been a teacher at the Long Sempayang school at the time, admitted that he had stood back at the fatal moment, unwilling to use his spear, because he had heard that one of the ken kanrikans—probably the English-speaking one from Malinau—had been raised a Christian.) To Makahanap, all that mattered was that the last of the seventeen-man Japanese contingent sent upriver nearly two months earlier had been eliminated.

  To Phil and the others, now staying at the Makahanap house, things felt very different from the last time they had been in Long Berang. They were no longer fugitives, but members of the community. Seeing that there were Dayaks patrolling day and night on regular guard duty, Phil offered his services and those of his men. Christiaan agreed and asked the Yanks to contribute their sidearms to an armory that now held Japanese rifles, pistols, mortars and the famous machine gun that Christiaan had taken and Jim showed him how to use.

  A welcome diversion for the airmen came with the arrival that first day of a Malay doctor named Moli and a young Dutch-Javanese Eurasian, Edward Safri. The two visitors spoke some English and brought precious news of the world beyond the Lun Dayeh hills. They had both been staying in Malinau but had escaped upriver to avoid being captured by three Japanese soldiers who were suspicious of them. Safri, who was an expert in explosives, said he had come north from Java in December 1941 to work for a Dutch company in the oil fields on Tarakan Island. He had been there barely a month when the Japanese invaded and forced him to work in a sawmill.

  Conditions were now bad on Tarakan, and no more oil was being pumped out. The Japanese paid Safri only thirty-five occupation guilders a month for his work at the sawmill. That was not enough to live on but, worse still, there was almost no food to buy. The townspeople were rationed to eight cups of rice per person for ten days, forcing them to live on cassava and mice. The Japanese had control of the news and told the people that they held Hawaii and were fighting inside the continental United States. Safri asked the Yanks if that was true.

  Safri had eventually escaped upriver to Malinau, where he had met Dr. Moli, and the two men headed farther upriver, hoping to meet up with Allied forces that were rumored to be up north and west, maybe near Brunei.

  That night, while Moli and Safri stayed with the Yanks, some other Malays arrived in the dark by dugout canoe. They explained that they had started out from Malinau with three Japanese heitais (perhaps the ones who were chasing Moli and Safri). The Malays had agreed to be their boat paddlers and had offered to help carry things for the heitais when they all had to portage the boat through the rapids. At first, the Japanese soldiers had held on to their weapons but, at the third portage, where the leeches were particularly thick, the soldiers had handed the boatmen their guns to carry. The Japanese said they had been told that the Malays were on their side. If so, these Malays proved to be an exception to the rule. First they shot their passengers dead, then they pitched the bodies overboard and now they had a boatload of Japanese supplies. Did the Yanks want any of them?

  Receiving an affirmative response, the Malays carried in some of their impressive haul: 50-kilo (110-pound) sacks of rice, a few barrels of salt, sugar, fish and
pork, cloth towels, loose tobacco, cigarettes and several bottles of Japanese sake. There were even mattresses, which the Yanks were happy to keep. The airmen had developed sores and calluses over their protruding hipbones from sleeping on the ground or on very thin mats on the longhouse floor. Lying on the mattresses that night, the Yanks took extra satisfaction in thinking that these supplies had undoubtedly been meant for the ten Japanese of the Mentarang District who had been dispatched the week before.

  The next morning, January 24, was like Christmas. Christiaan and Binum appeared with new clothes for the Yanks: shirts, pants, towels, even handkerchiefs. The towels may have come from the Malays' boatful of Japanese stores but the rest of the clothing was made by Ah Tin, who was not only one of Long Berang's three import-export merchants but also a skilled tailor. He had a pedal-powered Singer sewing machine—one of a number of such machines that had somehow penetrated the inmost reaches of Borneo in the late 1920s, ahead of the missionaries. Even more surprising was that Ah Tin had used imported cloth to make the clothes. It emerged that he and the other Chinese traders had put aside some dry goods for a special occasion. That occasion had now arrived.

  Phil and the others remembered Ah Tin, who now also brought them tobacco and fresh eggs, as the man in whose house they had stayed for a few hours of darkness on their way to Long Metuil back in November. Christiaan, with interpreting help from Safri, explained that Ah Tin had been a close friend of Pangeran Lagan's since their youth and had always helped the pangeran whenever he could, getting him semi-refined cane sugar and other scarce commodities for the Long Metuil longhouse people. In return, the pangeran had always helped Ah Tin get Dayaks to load and unload his merchandise.

  The airmen put on their new clothes. It was only then that they realized how ashamed they had felt when they had had nothing to wear but rags all those weeks.

  Christiaan and Binum prepared them a meal of string beans, pumpkin, stewed chicken and a dessert of fried bananas. At the table, Edward Safri passed along the rumor that there were American forces in Brunei that were spreading out to Sarawak. Dr. Moli said he had heard that Tarakan had been bombed and that Allied forces were on the Malay peninsula and in Hong Kong. Phil wrote in his diary that he thought this all was wishful thinking—it was—but it added to the airmen's good spirits. Toward evening, Safri brought out a Hawaiian guitar and played and sang many old American favorites and tunes from films. He had a pleasant voice and a good memory, though he clearly did not understand half the words he sang. The airmen sang along. The music ended by evoking a strong sense of melancholy, because it made them all think of their families and friends so inconceivably far away. Nonetheless, it had been a wonderful day.

  That night, it was Phil's turn to do guard duty, and the heaviest rainfall he had ever witnessed brought the level of the river up some thirty inches. But he felt on top of the world as he sat on the porch of the Makahanap house in a comfortable chair, wearing his new clothes, smoking Japanese cigarettes, eating banana fritters and drinking hot tea. It made quite a contrast to the spartan conditions under which he had done guard duty with the air force cadets. Eighteen-year-old Christiaan, who shared the watch with him, said he wanted to learn enough English to be able to go to the States. In the morning, after a breakfast of eggs sunny-side up prepared by Binum, Phil gave Christiaan an English lesson, using the expanded Malay/Lun Dayeh/English word sheet he and his men had put together during the weeks at Polecat Gulch.

  After the lesson, when the new shift of guards took over, Christiaan went away briefly and returned with a windup Victrola record player that had been in the Presswood house. Its arm was broken but Jim knew how to fix it. Out of its brass horn eventually came the strains of "Stars and Stripes Forever," "Silent Night," "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling." "This place will never cease to amaze me," Phil wrote in his diary.

  Uncomfortable with the fact that Makahanap and the Dayaks were off to the west fighting their war for them, the Yanks took some of their own tools and some borrowed ones to build a pillbox to protect the machine gunner and dig out a perimeter trench. Their objective was to make the Makahanap house and the district office next door more defensible in case the Japanese should attack. It was exhausting work for the Yanks, but they wanted to feel they were contributing to Makahanap's war effort.

  That afternoon, Christiaan took them across the vine-and-rattan bridge to see the Presswood house, which was surrounded by gardenia bushes and a crop of fresh pineapples—one of which was served at dinner that evening. Inside, however, the beautiful hardwood floors and the whitewashed walls were stained with blood. It was a shocking sight, and it brought back the horrors of this war to the men.

  Since the Yanks' return to Long Berang, the Lun Dayeh from the longhouses ranged along the Pa' Paru had done their best to make the strangers feel welcome. They were fascinated by them and liked touching the Yanks' hairy arms and watching them as they went about their daily activities. They gave the Yanks Lun Dayeh names: Phil was called Ya-Kong ("pig trap"—for no reason the Dayaks ever explained); Dan was Lagan (the same name as the pangeran from Long Metuil); Jim's name was Pangeran ("chief") and Eddy's was Farung ("foreigner").

  Singing served as a common language. Phil, who had a good baritone voice, got his crewmates to join him as he marched around the longhouse singing "Onward Christian Soldiers." The hymn had a strong beat to it, and the longhouse people were quick to join the Yanks marching around the outside veranda and indoors past the cooking fires. They all sang the stirring words—or a Dayak approximation of the English lyrics—at the tops of their voices, with the ancient iron drums beating in rhythm.

  When sitting down in the evening with some borak, the Yanks' rendition of the old camp song "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" was a great favorite with both sides. The Yanks enjoyed the mild impropriety of singing this parody of a religious revival song and were tickled by the way the Lun Dayeh, recognizing the one word, "hallelujah," took on a pious expression.

  The airmen's youthful playfulness, dimmed since Morotai, now resurfaced. They liked to swim, though they first had to convince the anxious Dayaks that they could stay afloat. The Dayaks, fearing that the airmen would drown, had tried to discourage them from entering the deeper parts of the river. But once the airmen showed that they were competent in the water, the Dayaks relented and the river became their favorite playground. At Phil's insistence, they had been carrying a one-person rubber life raft since the day they had dropped into Borneo. Phil, who had often wondered whether it made sense to hold on to it, inflated the raft on the river one day and the Lun Dayeh were intrigued. They had never seen anything like it, and they would play with it on the river for hours. At night, Dayaks from one of the Long Berang longhouses would sometimes ask to borrow it, and a few men and boys would take turns lying on it on the veranda, where the bachelors slept, to the accompaniment of cackles of laughter from their friends and neighbors.

  When the airmen went on visits with their hosts to nearby settlements, the first thing their companions did upon reaching their destination was to take the raft to the river in front of the longhouse and show it off to those who had never seen one before.

  Makahanap returned home after stopping off in Punan Silau to see Mama and the children. Mama had told him a fascinating story. While she had been alone with Iwak and the children earlier that week, some Japanese had come by to pay a social call on her and the Dayaks of the longhouse. At Mama's suggestion, the Dayaks served their visitors their strongest brew, an arak (brandy) made from distilled borak. The Japanese tossed it back as they were in the habit of doing when offered borak. The effects came quickly, and soon they were stumbling and laughing, trying to dance with the Dayak women.

  Throughout the evening, they kept asking Mama where her husband was. Mama, at her most flirtatious, said in Malay that she had no idea. But if he was doing something naughty, they should try to find and punish him. After all, "I am still young. I can get married with a Japanese." The Japanes
e had "laughed and laughed, and then they left."

  Makahanap thought about Mama's story all the way back to Long Berang. Among other things, it reminded him of how young and lovely Mama still was, and how it was that she had become his wife.

  He had been a proud young man of good family, who thought he deserved the best wife he could find. He was the sixteenth generation of heirs to the title of rajah of his native Sangir Islands, which were in the northernmost part of the Celebes island group. Sangir was famous in the old days for its sorcerers, but Makahanap's parents were Christian. His father, Pololot, was the pastor of the Lutheran church and kepala kampong (the Dutch colonial government's appointed head) of the Protestant community of Taruna, the capital city of the Sangir Islands. His mother was of Arab descent, her ancestors having come to the Sangir region in the early days of the Spice Islands trade, but she had become a Lutheran when she married Makahanap's father. Pololot's widowed cousin Beslar had moved to Makassar, the capital of the Celebes island group, and had joined the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the Kemah Injil. Makahanap stayed with this cousin in Makassar after high school in order to study at the teacher-training school there and he, too, had converted to Kemah Injil.

  Before going to Makassar to study, Makahanap had already found the woman he wanted for his wife. She was Theresia Manis, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the kepala kampong of the town of Kaluwatu. Makahanap had come to the attention of Theresia's father by being the best bamboo-flute player in Sangir, and he was also the top student at the Taruna high school. When the young man made his interest in Theresia known, her father encouraged the suit. He saw Makahanap as coming from a suitable family, and he had brains—and he shared the father's love of music.

  But Theresia had other plans. Young as she was, she had already fallen in love with a man named Herman who was off working in the Dutch half of the island of New Guinea. Unbeknownst to her father, she and Herman were exchanging letters.