It was already 2200 hrs when the group of soldiers and guerrillas who volunteered to climb with the Captain uphill immediately went down and summoned everyone to be ready and attentive since they found some of the j.a.ps were heading towards Gabok. Baldur then ran at the granite house and knocked on the door. When George opened it, he immediately emerged and told him to be ready. They blew all the candles and Baldur was looking for Magee." Where"s Magee?" Baldur asked.
" Ah, she"s in the comfort room,."
" Alright, I have to get back to the wooden house and prepare our men. Just don"t go down, leave it to us when the Captain is around, okay, bye for now." Then Baldur left
George locked the door and proceeded immediately inside the reciprocal mirror closed it properly then opened the sliding door towards room #2 and found her sitting, looking up to the fireflies.
" What are you doing?" He smiled.
" Watching our pets gathering. Anyway, who came in and immediately left?" She asked.
" Its Baldur, he informed us that there are j.a.ps patrolling below us. They suspected the j.a.ps are heading towards Gabok guerrillas" gateway by the river."
" That"s alarming. I"m sometimes so scared, thinking it"s wartime.." Magee sighed.
" You don"t need to worry at all. You"re safe here. Well, it"s midnight, let"s go to sleep."
Magee smiled and teased him.
" Sorry for my brothers this afternoon. They recognized you doing stupid things sometimes, haha!"
" What did you say?" He smilingly whispered and he curled on her while the j.a.ps pa.s.sed by below.
" Oh G.o.d, let those j.a.ps pa.s.s and leave this place. I don"t like my wife being scared." He thought. Half an hour had pa.s.sed, Magee has her sound sleep after George applied some ointment on her wound. A loud burst of mortar again had stricken the Gabok area from the border.
Magee then suddenly woke up and he was holding her forehead.
" Shh....get back to sleep, Mag. It"s alright, those are just loud bursts from afar."
" I"m scared.. the sound"s too close from here." She whispered back.
He then lie down and stayed by her side, looking at her while holding her hands and put them on his face - till she fell asleep.
He stood up and lighted a candle and got back beside her.
" You must not be stressed my beautiful wife, we"re waiting for someone special to come. That little one makes my life more exciting. Sleep now my dear...I"ll wake you very late tomorrow. Sleep tight, I love you very much." Then he kissed her forehead.
Another blast occurred but he was holding her hands and put her head on his chest as she deeply slept. It was 0200 hrs when the mortar blasts stopped and the j.a.ps were marching and chanting while pa.s.sing by their place.
" Go march and chant as far as you can...leave our place behind." He thought angrily at the soldiers while gently embracing her.
Appallingly, he retired to sleep in an hour after the j.a.ps pa.s.sed by.
In the morning, he woke up first at around 0900 hrs and left her still asleep. He opened the daylight optic holes and graciously giving them sunlight then he cleaned up a little and took a bath.
At the wooden house, Sr. Sibal went to Fr. Matias and found him under the smoky angel fruit trees.
"Fr. Matias, it"s good to see you around, it"s me."
" Sr. Sibal ! haha! good to see you too. Come, there"s an empty sack here, you may sit down."
" You"re planting angel fruit trees."
" No, it"s George"s angel fruit trees. He stopped visiting here in a while so I took good care all of these. I"ve heard his wife isn"t feeling well, so I just give a hand for these for more than a week now so that when he gets back, he"ll see them still in good shape." The priest smiled.
" Thank you Fr. Matias. But it will maybe take in a while before he can get back on farming, her wife was stabbed by one of the j.a.ps" soldiers."
" Mighty heaven! how she"s doing now? hope she"ll recover quickly, it must be very painful for a frail woman like her. Huh! this war"s not getting any better at all. A lot of lives has been tormented."
" Yeah, hope it will end up soon." Sibal added. After their conversation, the old man went back to the wooden house and spotted Amado, motioning towards him.
" Manong, have you seen the Lieutenant?"
" Ah, I haven"t seen him yet today."
" Why?"
" I need to ask permission that we need to tightly close the granite entrance gate. Since at 0200 hrs this morning, our guards on duty have noticed that the j.a.ps stopped on our entrance, though, they never knew what they"re doing outside."
" That sounds intriguing. What do you think are they doing?"
" I don"t have any idea either. Perhaps, it"s a warning to all of us. They maybe sensed something."
" Its maybe because the three of their men were killed outside yesterday."
" Who did it?"
" Magee, the Lieutenant"s wife killed one of them and the lieutenant himself knocked out two from their soldiers. One of them, the fourth, had escaped that maybe spilled and reported that a woman has killed their comrade. They first noticed that Magee stabbed the first soldier and they even recovered its body after her disappearance. So they all thought that the ghosts killing of their soldiers was that with that woman. They suspected this place since they found Magee in the vicinity."
" She"s really one of a kind." He smiled.
" Manong, did you train her to be like a jungle girl before."
" No. It was her way of life. Hmm, maybe the everyday farm, poultry and swine swine activities. We have goats, horses and carabaos. She"s the in-charge. Everyday she met a problem. Missing, injured, seeing them bled and suffered, rescuing and running to settle them all at night. She climbed most often and wakes up to start the day with it. During school days, still, she attended well on her a.s.signment in the farm and all sorts."
" She"s beautiful, of course awesomely beautiful, but she doesn"t look like a woman to me." He smiled once more.
He never knew George was behind him.
"Haha! and why?" Sr. Sibal laughed while noticing George eavesdropping.
" She stabbed me once so quickly while we had a physical training in station one. She doesn"t look like lovely unlike my Señorita, so womanly. Magee is so strict and smart, I hate smart women. They think so advance and it makes me so uncomfortable. I like my Señorita, she"s innocent and lovely, intelligent and harmless."
" Haha!" George appeared from nowhere.
" Sir! where you there