No one knew when they started calling him Tiger. It may have been when he and
cousin Emet, with two other Philippine Scouts were pinned down by the enemy in
a promontory north of Mariveles. His unit was under attack by a Japanese
company and was close to being overrun. Their only advantage was that they
were on a higher ground. The four were huddled together in a foxhole, ankle
deep in mud as it had rained some early that morning. It was almost high noon
and steam was beginning to rise from their wet clothes.
Earlier that morning they had gotten news that the Japanese soldiers were
brutal. They killed every living thing they encountered, men, women, children,
carabaos, pigs. Anything that moved. Rumors were spread around, true or not,
that a fourteen year old girl, Erlinda , was raped by an entire platoon of
Japanese soldiers, on top of a captured American jeep, near the town plaza of
Balanga, then had her decapitated . And worst of all, they played football
using the girls severed head. Knowing that that story would inflame the
Filipinos, the American brass exploited the tragedy and made "Remember Erlinda"
their official battlecry. Popong fell for the propaganda hard.
Emet had been hit and his left ear was gone. There was not much blood and
applying mud on the wound helped stop the bleeding. One of the young boys,
hardly eighteen, was curled up in a fetal position and was crying while the
other clung to his rifle as if it were a security blanket. The Radazas were a
brave clan. During the frequent rumbles between the young Butuanons and
Cabadbaranons, Emet would always be one of those in front. Now he was more
angry than afraid. He was hungry , too, as he had not had anything to eat since
the night before. And he was worried about his cousin, the town playboy, who
had been quiet for a while, staring at empty space.
"Well, stupid, you asked for this." he said to Popong as much as to himself.
Cousins Emeterio Radaza and Adolfo "Popong" Sanchez had been students in
Manila before the outbreak of the war.
There was a lull in the fighting and Emet was exhausted. The adrenalin high was
beginning to taper down. His mind started wandering off.
"Emet, let's enlist."
"Are you kidding? Get out of here!"
"No, I'm serious."
"Popong, your mother will kill you before she gives you permission. You.re the
oldest male and you have eight other younger brothers and sisters, for goodness
sake! You need to finish school and help support them. You must be nuts! You a
soldier? Har, har, har !"
"But the pay is good. Anyway, should there be a war, America will wipe the
Japs out within a month. The family will be safe in Butuan. Besides, if the
Japanese attacks, I would rather have something to shoot back with. And I just
love the uniform! You know how the girls are about men in uniform."
"I don't know, Pong, Nanay will surely have my hide."
" Uhmm, "bayot" !"
"What ??"
"Pisot."
"What ??"
"You heard what I said." Popong smiled sweetly, batting his long eyelashes.
Emet was on the verge of a convulsive seizure. He really hated it when his
cousin would start teasing him. Both knew he was neither gay nor uncircumcised.
Nevertheless, it really got to him. Popong knew which buttons to push. "If this
guy were not my cousin, he'd be eating dirt now.", he fumed.
The following morning, they enlisted.
Being college students, they were given preferential attention and both got
assigned to the same unit, both given the rank of corporal, Philippine Scouts,
K Company, 45 th Regimen.
"Leche", Emet cursed to nobody in particular as he recovered from his
flashback. He applied more mud to where his ear used to be.
"Here I am, about to die, and still a virgin.", he snorted. "Someday,
someday", as his mind wandered off again, to Mary-Go-Round, the girl with the
hairless, white, smooth underarms, whose real name was Mutya G. Redondo. Some
girls had wrinkled underarms, some had hair there, and most shaved. Mooch was
her pet name but they called her Mary-Go-Round among themselves. But when the
boys really wanted something from her, they would call her Pearl. She was the
object of every pubertal boy's fantasy in Agusan High School. She was only
sixteen but had already made the rounds with most of the young men in Butuan.
Among the "cogon", back of the church. It was like a fraternity initiation .
Nobody minded that their behinds would be itching afterwards and their clothes
would be soiled with mud mixed with that white fluffy stuff from the cogon,
that floated with the wind during summertime. These were proofs that they had
done it. "I never had the chance.", he tried to make a lame excuse for his own
innocence.
The Japanese made two mistakes that day. Their first mistake was yelling
"Banzai !!", thinking they could psyche themselves up to fight with greater
fervor and scare their enemies. Instead, they stirred the Filipinos up from
their stupor. Their second mistake was that they messed with the wrong guys.
Emet and the scouts started shooting back at the third wave of advancing enemy
soldiers. A few of the Japanese fell. Popong got out of the foxhole, pulled his
machine gun to firmer ground. The edge of the foxhole was still mushy with mud
and the bipod of his machine gun would not stay steady while he was in the
foxhole. Several of the Japanese soldiers died from the machinegun fire but
nobody had time to count.
Ratatatatat!!! The machinegun barked. Popong was squatting now. Seeing him, the
others got out of the foxhole, too, forgetting all their training, throwing all
caution to the wind, one knee on the ground, using scrawny little bushes for
cover. One of the young men was blown backward over four feet as he got hit on
the breast bone. His sternum was split open and he screamed in horror as he saw
his own heart beating before he died.
"There is no glory in dying." Emet thought. He kept his cool. A "Lapaknon"
warrior if there ever was one. He made every bullet count. He actually scanned
the line of enemy soldiers rushing towards them for an officer to shoot at.
Unlike him, Popong was the emotional one. Popong just went crazy, repeatedly
yelling at the top of his voice, "Remember Erlinda, remember Erlinda!" firing
wildly and indiscriminately at the advancing Japanese. He sustained second
degree burns on his calloused left hand from the overheated machinegun but he
was not aware of it. That was when he lost the fingerprints on that hand. He
held the barrel of the machinegun with his left hand to keep it steady. He
kept on pressing the trigger until Emet yelled, "Grenade !!!."
The grenade exploded near the foxhole a split second after Emetrio had pulled
himself and Popong back into the safety of the foxhole. They both got out again
and started shooting back at the enemy but Popong.s machine gun had been
damaged. He was unable to see clearly and he thought it was due to the smoke
from the grenade. He could smell the burnt gunpowder. He could not see at all
as he felt for his fallen comrade's rifle, grabbed the barrel end, got up, and
started swinging the rifle wildly like a baseball bat in front of him.
"Down, Tiger, down", he heard Emet yell as his cousin tackled him to the
ground. "It's over. They have retreated!."
Emet's left middle finger was gone. He did not know when he lost it.
Except for a small cut on his cheek, Popong did not get hit with any metal
fragment but the force of the explosion made the retina near the maculae swell
and dust abraded most of the conjunctiva. The Butuan mestizo playboy cried,
thinking he was blind forever.
Lieutenant Denitsu Watanabe saw the report. Twenty two of his old company
dead, sixteen wounded. His men spoke of a crazy man with reddish beard.
"I want to meet this enemy soldier in combat. Don.t get killed yet, Tiger.",
he spoke softly as he imagined what Popong looked like.. "Honor my family sword
with your blood."
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