Search for the Buried Bomber

CHAPTER 27





Leeches



My mind buzzed as I shined my flashlight around the water. At first I could see nothing, but when I squatted closer, my hair stood on end. The water was all leeches, their color similar to the cave bottom. They crowded around our feet. Inch by inch, they crawled over to us, hoping to burrow into the cracks in our boots. Goose bumps rose all over my body. Without second thought we began frantically pulling them off of us, Wang Sichuan using so much force that he flung one directly onto my neck. I cursed violently and told him to get it off me. The deputy squad leader then raised his pant legs. We gasped. Black leeches bulging with blood covered every inch of his legs. We checked our own. They were no different. "How the hell are there so many of them here?" asked Wang Sichuan.

"It's the water temperature," said one of the young soldiers. "It's much warmer than the main river."

Leeches may be disgusting, but they're not fatal. Still, watching them squirm all around us made me deeply uncomfortable, for after latching on to you, they become very difficult to remove. While in the South, I once heard that leeches will sometimes burrow into a man's reproductive organ without him feeling it. This scared the hell out of me. I immediately began to brush off the area around my groin. Wang Sichuan asked me what I was doing. When I told him the story, his face turned pale with fear. "Should I not just take it out and wipe it off?" heasked.

"Try to be a little more civilized," I said, but then the deputy squad leader announced that we had to keep going. There were too many leeches for us to wait here any longer.

We ran like the wind, none of us paying any attention to what was beneath the water. Then, after sprinting about a hundred feet—whoosh—the deputy squad leader suddenly disappeared from out in front. Neither Wang Sichuan nor I had time to react, and in a moment there was nothing but air beneath our feet as well. I cried out, but it was too late. The cave had suddenly sloped downward, right out from under our feet.

Everything went dark. We tumbled together down the slope, somersaulting over and over each other until we were wrapped together. Within seconds my knees, head, butt, and every other body part had been smashed so many times I wanted to vomit. My flashlight was knocked loose. With his great strength, Wang Sichuan tried desperately to grab hold of something to stop our descent, but the drop was far too sheer. A chaos of light pulsed before my eyes. For an instant my body ceased its tumbling, but I had no time to realize the change before air was once more beneath me. The rock was gone, and I was in free fall.

It's over, I thought to myself. Am I really about to die? Is there some jagged cliff below me? Before I could finish imagining this miserable plight, there was a loud boom and my body went cold— the shock went through me as soon as my butt hit the surface, then all at once I felt the force of it—I had plunged deep into a pool of water. The current picked me up in a flash and washed me onward. Wang Sichuan was still holding me in a firm bear hug and wouldn't let go. I gathered my strength and kicked him off, then swam for the surface. With effort, I finally made it to the top. It was pitch-black, and the water seemed to be continuously spinning me around. From the speed I was moving and the sounds that filled my ears, I could tell I'd fallen into the raging rapids of some second underground river. Judging by the roar of the water and the speed of the river— each of them far in excess of the channel we had initially traveled down—this seemed to be the true underground river!

I struggled against the waves and cried out, but my voice was lost amid the crash of the water. Caught up in the current, I was rolled end over end and rushed who knows how far to some dark and distant corner of the cave. There was nothing fun at all about this experience. To be honest, I don't have any direct memory of what occurred, for I could see nothing and heard only the roar around me. Whatever image I have of the place originates almost entirely from my imagination. I remember only utter panic at the thought of being sucked deep underwater. I was washed along in total darkness, knowing neither when nor where my life would finally come to an end.

Then, from somewhere off to the side, the deputy squad leader turned on his flashlight. The sight of it shook me from my stupor. In the extreme blackness of the cave, the beam's radiance was like a beacon of hope. I mustered all the strength I had left and swam hard in its direction. Upon reaching him, I saw his face was covered in blood, though he didn't seem much affected by it. Fighting through the waves, the two of us began to search for the rest of our team. Wang Sichuan was nowhere to be found, and we didn't know whether the three soldiers had fallen in or not. As the deputy squad leader shined about with his flashlight, I saw it was just as I had imagined: the river was extraordinarily wide. I couldn't even make out its sides, only a vast expanse of billowing water.

"What is this place?" shouted the deputy squad leader, his voice hoarse and quavering.

But I had no idea and could only hold tightly to him. With a great deal of effort, we managed to right ourselves and began to float atop the water, though just barely. The speed of the current was astonishing. Great torrents of water rushed us toward the lower reaches of the river. Soon enough I realized I could struggle no longer. The freezing waves had sapped all of my energy. Fortunately, the deputy squad leader did not lack for strength. It was he alone who continued to fight through the water, towing me along beside him. I tried to tell him to forget about me, but I lacked even the energy to utter those few words. Who knew how long the current drove us on? At last we were both completely spent, like dry lamps with no oil to spare, when something suddenly struck my back. As the rapids flowed on around us, we were brought to an abrupt halt.

I was already numb from the cold, so although the collision was severe, I gasped for only a moment and felt not the slightest bit of pain. We felt around. Our way, we discovered, was blocked by an iron lattice sunk beneath the rapids—a screen to keep out any stray objects floating down the river. I could feel a number of branches and twigs and other pieces of debris. Thank heaven, I thought. With tears rolling down my face, I pulled myself up the latticework and clambered desperately atop it. The deputy squad leader did the same, then pulled out his flashlight and illuminated the water around us. The lattice dam was fragmented and washed away in spots. That we'd run into it at all was truly a stroke of luck. We looked at one another, our expressions indescribable—neither joyful nor sad. How strange, I thought, that a dam had been laid here. Had the Japanese been through here as well?

Just as I was thinking this, the deputy squad leader and I both noticed that something in the area beyond the dam seemed to be reflecting the beam of his flashlight. Angling it up, he directed it farther on. Our mouths dropped open. It was a gigantic bomber, the Japanese Shinzan, submerged in the river past the lattice dam. More than half the fuselage was underwater, leaving a great black shadow, while the nose and one of the wings stuck out above the surface. Most astounding, the plane had obviously been ruined in some terrible crash. All that remained before us was the wreckage.