The Gensui's Treasure. B J Le Chêne
go to this mine and to make it operational. We would have fifteen Japanese soldiers to accompany us on the search, and when it was found, we would get enough workers conscripted from the locals to work it. Akiro was to see to the arrangements and he set about organizing the picks and shovels etc, for the mine.’
The Gold Mine
‘John and I were dragged through the jungle as we were. Our rubber slippers and the clothes we had on our back were all we had to protect us from insects and thorns. One soldier was bitten by a cobra just before we crossed a concrete bridge over the Jelai River and died before he could be taken back to Kuala Lipis hospital. The captain Akiro had charged with our care could do nothing much for him or us. He made sure we were fed and had sleep. What he did do though was to make the soldiers break down the jungle for us to follow them. We were surprised and grateful. This was not something those fellows were happy with and they got at us in other ways as often as they could. John commented that “we must be valuable to someone.” ‘
‘The captain let the soldiers be. He knew they would kill us given the chance, however he warned them to watch out because the Gensui had marked us and that he would have their guts if we came to real harm. We learned that it needed only a mention of the Gensui and most of the soldiers froze. I inadvertently helped our relations with them when a soldier went over a cliff and I instinctively went after him. John helped me get him off the rock he’d fallen on. We hauled him up the bank then tied his broken arm to his chest. The bloke screamed a bit but shut up when his arm was steady. The others gave me a drink and someone found some boots for the two of us and we were able to work better together. They were only shitty when they were overtired.’
‘We found the cave north-east of Kuala Lipis. I had only made a rough calculation, but thought mebbe, sixty to eighty miles. About three weeks of awful jungle bashing. The captain sent a couple of blokes back to tell the general, and after a few more weeks another fifty prisoners arrived. They were in a terrible mess from carrying spades, picks and axes. God, you never saw the like!’ Mac shuddered at the memory.
‘I had realized early on that the captain must know where we were heading. He had maps and a compass which he used. John and I tried to look at the sun. But that’s a useless thing to do because it just sails in an ark across the sky. We found that the mine was in a cave and what a cave! We were forced into a sloping hole in a scraggy-looking rocky outcrop. A soldier went first armed with a kerosene lamp. We were made to follow him.’
‘We didn’t know it then, but we would not see the real sky for two years or more. We stumbled along a narrow opening hardly head high for about twenty feet before it opened into a great vaulted cavern with a ceiling covered with thousands of bats. God, those bleedy things went berserk. We, all of us, cowered on the floor while they whizzed about. I think the captain was more scared than we were. They settled after a while and from then on became a permanent part of our lives.’
‘The soldiers lit a fire and made a meal of sorts. It was a cold, strange, but very beautiful place. The rock formations were fantastic. We were allowed to sleep and we were told where to lie down to keep out of the bat shit that fell perpetually. The air was fresh and I thought that there had to be other openings but we had no chance to look. The soldiers were not letting us out of their sight. We thought perhaps that there were so many pillars and curves about that they knew we could get lost or escape easily. So, we were watched closely.’
‘We spent days and days searching first one gallery and then another looking for the gold. I figured it must be a seam because the ground was not promising and the bat guano made digging difficult. The cave was a wonder. It went on and on twisting about and turning back on itself. I recognized the calaverite(6) seam after weeks of looking in an area deep in the sixth cavern we searched. The veins were rich, but we had to dig that Bleedy mine by pick-axe and hand-cart the stone out, and we did, from dawn to dark, with only a few oil lamps to see with. The gold was, more often than not, visible in the chunks we hacked out. It was so rich it made our hearts hurt.’
‘John had to make sure the chunks and tiny pieces of metal were collected without losing a speck so he worked under an opening in the roof. I asked for, and got, permission to stand under the hole once a day for about ten minutes to get some sunlight. I told the captain I would die and the general would kill him if I didn’t get some sun. The Chinese also took turns to do the same. It took two months to get an assembly line thing going properly and half of the poor Bleedy Chinese and Indians died. The soldiers with us were all almost in the same awful shape as we were. God! But it was a rich seam.’
‘Akiro says he has never seen the site. Gensui Teizo Kawaguchi and General Atuzawa didn’t want anyone to know about that mine ever! Anyone who was sent there, was there for good. Japanese as well as the rest of us, though the poor Bleedy Japs didn’t know that. We learned at the end of the war from your father that when a new Jap shift was sent to the mine to guard us, the returning soldiers were killed on the way out!’
Mac was getting tired and Aziz called a halt to the story. Ah Keat called the servants to bring fresh clothes and towels to the four men in the room who took turns to shower and change for dinner and they talked quietly as they sat together before the meal was ready. Aziz told Yoshiro that the mine yielded a fortune in gold and went on producing until the war ended.
They ate in Mac’s room on a table set up at the end of the bed. Yoshiro asked what would happen if the house was attacked?
Aziz said, ‘There are men guarding every road, and men around the house. We will be safe.’
Yoshiro wanted to hear the rest of Mac’s story and Aziz agreed though Ah Keat was against tiring the man. Mac had the last say and when they had eaten and were once again sitting around his bed, he began where he had left off. He glossed over the hell of the years spent at the mine and took up the story at the point where the Japanese were becoming increasingly worried about the way the war was going for them.
‘Towards the end of 1943,’ Mac began, ‘there had been a change in the dreadful routine of that first year. The soldiers were shooting their own meat and the aborigines were supplying coconuts and jungle vegetables to the camp. A weird kind of friendship had grown between those few Malayans still alive, us two westerners and the soldiers. We shared food and, though the Japanese stood sentry duty at night, there was no threat that the men would run. The soldiers were forced to work in the mine as well as do duty and that was a leveller.’
‘Fewer Japanese came to replace the men who were made to carry the gold out every month or two. Instead of ten or twelve as before, two or three men arrived. A Lieutenant Colonel named Ito was in control for about five months. He was soon showing signs of tension and rarely spoke. He was a decent man who talked to the young Japanese and tried to comfort those who broke down. Men do, you know, when living in a jungle for months at a time being forced to work like a slave. Being a Japanese soldier was no picnic at any time, they were routinely abused by their commanders - bashed for small mistakes. The mine was no different, except that the bashing and brutalizing stopped under Lieutenant Colonel Ito. We were not manhandled as much either. We lived in dread that he would be recalled.’
‘Like I said, working like slaves was a leveller. John and I had talked of running but we knew from the aborigines who sometimes appeared that escape was virtually impossible. Staying alive was our primary goal and as we heard from the little jungle folk about the state of the war, our hopes rose a bit. It was amazing how much those folks knew. Things like the lack of rice and food stuffs. They laughed at the incompetence of the army who couldn’t feed itself properly when food was in the jungle and on foot for the taking. We, it transpired were better fed than was the army until Takafusa arrived!’
Mac shifted his position and said, ‘I am sorry, I am supposed to be telling you what happened and here I am maundering on about life in the jungle. Shit, I am old.’
Yoshiro leaned forward and touched his hand. ‘You bring my father’s life alive for me, but you must not tire yourself,’ he said.
‘My boy, I have little time and I mustn’t waste it. Where was I? Colonel Takafuza! Oh yes - we had a visit from him. An overweight, nasty little bastard. It must have been towards the end of 1944. He