In the Presence of My Enemies (13 page)

A hospital staffer came into the hallway carrying T-shirts from the local school, which other hostages quickly grabbed. He also had a number of half-kilo bags of brown sugar. I didn’t take one because I wasn’t sure what I would do with brown sugar all by itself. (I hadn’t yet learned to hoard any food I could grab at any time.)

The staffer dropped the sugar bags onto the floor. A couple of them burst open, and I watched as the brown granules mixed with the vomit. Suddenly the roar of the shelling ratcheted up, and someone cried, “Drop!” We all hit the deck. For the next thirty minutes, I lay on the floor, my face pointed directly into Sniper’s sugar-soaked, bloody mess. It was almost more than I could bear.

Is this what it’s like to watch someone die?
I asked myself. I felt my mind starting to cloud over; I could no longer think straight. I was slipping into shock.

Glass began to fly through the air, and someone threw a blanket over me. I huddled there and knew I had to try to pull myself together. I gasped a prayer.
Oh, God, help me! Calm me down, please. Keep us safe, and keep me sane.

The heat and the smells were unbearable. I got to the point I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I threw off the blanket.

“What’s wrong?” Martin asked.

“If I die, I die—but that blanket is going to suffocate me. It makes me feel claustrophobic under there,” I told him.

* * *

By now it was late afternoon. Our emotions were drained. Even the Abu Sayyaf were pulling out their prayer beads to recite their pleas. I watched them as they silently prayed, their fingers working through the colored beads. Each rosary (the Muslims also called their beads a rosary) was made up of three sections of thirty-three beads each, plus one special addition on the end, making one hundred in all.

I couldn’t help but feel as if this hospital was going to be our tomb. I looked at Martin and said, “They’re just going to gun us all down. We’re all going to die here.”

Again, Martin reassured me. “I’m not so sure of that,” he said. “It’s got to end soon.” Just then, out of nowhere, a new jeep pulled right up into the courtyard. Out jumped six or seven Abu Sayyaf reinforcements with guns and new ammunition! Immediately, the whole tone changed.

“How did you guys get through the roadblocks?” one of our captors asked incredulously.

“We just told them we were the governor’s bodyguards.” The governor of Basilan was, in fact, a former Abu Sayyaf who had hatched the kidnap-for-ransom strategy back in the beginning of the movement. He had since turned to politics, so he was no longer appreciated by his former comrades. But he still remembered how to organize his own personal army, his own jail, and so forth. At any rate, the mention of his name was enough to get this jeep through the AFP checkpoint.

Within half an hour came a new order: “Everybody start packing up! We’re leaving!” I picked up a nearby sheet and formed a makeshift knapsack for Martin’s extra shirt, our toothbrush, and a few pieces of leftover food. Some of the other hostages were eating a bit of rice, but I was too emotionally distraught to eat.

Before we left, the Abu Sayyaf began to divide up the group, picking out certain people to be released to work on ransom arrangements on behalf of their partners. For example, Janice was selected while Chito was told he’d be staying. Letty was chosen, but not her daughter and niece. Tess was picked, but not Francis. As they prepared to leave, Janice, Letty, and Tess were given instructions on how to send money to a contact point in Zamboanga City. They were told that if they did so, their loved ones would be freed.

After another emotional parting, the three left in one direction, while the remaining eleven of us were retied with rope in groups of three or so, then herded out the back, accompanied by Abu Sayyaf. I was amazed to see Sniper get to his feet and walk out with the rest of us.

Meanwhile, four new hostages were added to our group: three nurses named Ediborah, Reina, and Sheila, and an orderly named Joel.

In the courtyard, a breeze brushed across my face, and I found myself thinking,
Thank you, Lord—at least I’m going to die outside where it’s a little cooler.

I didn’t have much time to reflect, however, as the shooting started up again. “Drop! Drop!” came the signal. Then “Run!” Then “Drop!” again.

We dropped near one house that had a little store attached to it. Bro bashed in the door with his foot and, with gunfire raging on all sides, coolly went inside to scoop up candy from the little jugs. He stuffed his pockets, then came back out and moved along the line of us on the ground, dropping a few pieces in front of each of us.

How weird is this!
I thought to myself.
We’re in the middle of a firefight, and he’s thinking about candy.
We ran again and then were commanded to drop. I found myself lying between Martin and Guillermo. I looked up and saw the flash of a grenade over my shoulder, accompanied by a sudden burst of heat. Guillermo cried out, “I’m hit! I’m hit!”

Martin was very quiet. I turned to him and asked, “Did you get hit, too?”

“Yeah, in my back. But I can’t tell if it’s bad or not.”

In the distance, I could hear Divine and Buddy calling out the same distress. “We’ve been hit!” they cried. “Just leave us, just leave us,” Buddy told the captors. “We’re wounded very badly.”

One of the Abu Sayyaf said to another, “Just leave ’em.”

It would have been nice if they had simply left us all behind at that moment. However, we were not so fortunate. One of the captors came over, looked at Martin’s back, and quickly announced, “You’re fine.” Next he looked at Guillermo’s wounded foot and again declared, “It’s not serious. Let’s go!”

We had no choice but to jump up and run again.

As we got to the edge of town, we slowed to a walking pace and began our second straight night of travel. Guillermo hobbled in pain. Martin’s shrapnel wound proved not to be serious and eventually scabbed over. (Later on during our captivity, we heard on the news that Buddy and Divine had escaped from the jungle and had recovered from their wounds after a couple of months in the hospital.) Every hour or hour and a half, we stopped for a rest. Each time I was so exhausted I just sank down on the ground and instantly fell asleep. They woke us when it was time to march on again.

Oddly, the AFP didn’t pursue us. As time went on, we noticed that they never pursued us. A battle was one thing, but pressing on for capture didn’t seem to be on their agenda. This was one of the continuing mysteries of our ordeal.

We got to a hill beside a farmhouse, and as we looked far across the valley, we could see a firefight underway. Tracers were exploding in the sky.

“What is that?” we asked Sabaya.

“It’s a gun battle our guys started over there to draw the AFP away from us,” he explained.

We lay down under a tree, the first of many nights we slept on the cold ground. By this time, Angie was hysterical without her sister Divine. She was in such bad shape that I said to Martin, “Maybe I ought to sleep beside her tonight, just to help her through.” He nodded.

I brought the sheet I had picked up at the hospital and spread it out for Angie and me. I found two stones to serve as pillows, almost like Jacob of the Old Testament had done. “Everything’s going to be okay,” I murmured to her as I tried to comfort her. “I’ll stay with you tonight. I know you’ll miss Divine and Buddy, but it’s better that they aren’t with us. They’re free, Angie. . . .” I kept my arm around her through the rest of the night.

The next morning, however, Martin admitted that he had just about frozen during the night alone. He needed me, and I wasn’t there for him. I cried and cried as I thought about my husband lying all alone, shivering in the cold.
From this moment on,
I vowed,
I will never leave his side when it is time to sleep, no matter what the circumstances.
I kept that pledge all the way to the end.

8

The Threat

(June 3–7, 2001)

The Abu Sayyaf leaders had spent the night inside the farmhouse, while the other captors had strung their hammocks between the piers that supported it, up off the ground. That morning they killed a goat and boiled it to go along with our usual rice for breakfast.

While we were grateful for the nutrition, the meat proved to be extremely tough. We chewed and chewed and chewed, then finally just swallowed it whole.

Outside the farmhouse, Sabaya found a pair of old, holey boots made of bright blue vinyl—what some people call gum boots or rain boots. They had slits in the back, and the soles were starting to separate from the top. “Do you want these?” he asked me, holding them up.

They looked as if they were falling apart, so I declined them in favor of my
tsinelas.
He moved on to offer the boots to others, but nobody else wanted them either.

Soon he came back around to me. “Sure you don’t want these?” he asked.

I thought I might be able to find a use for them later, so I told Sabaya I’d take them.

By this time, somebody in the group had given Martin a pair of Boston polo slippers, a type of fairly substantial rubber sandal. We left the farmhouse and began walking again that day. While we were fording a brook, the current swept away one of my
tsinelas
and I promptly switched to the new boots. I breathed a silent prayer of thanks to God for giving me a second chance at taking them. I actually ended up wearing them for the next eleven months. I may have looked like a milkmaid just coming out of the barn, but at least I wasn’t barefoot.

About a week later, my guard lost one of his
tsinelas
in the water as well. I gave him my extra one so he’d have a “matching” set.

As we hiked through the jungle trails, we saw
alimatok
(leeches) everywhere. These thin little inch-long things look like worms and sit on leaves waving around, looking for something to grab. When they fasten onto your skin, they begin to suck blood, swelling up in the process.

At every rest along the trail, I’d pull off my boots to inspect for
alimatok.
I got to the point that whenever I felt a slight itch on some part of my foot or leg, I knew right away it was probably an
alimatok.

There’s a certain kind of
alimatok
that goes straight for your eyes. If not quickly removed, it can cause blindness. We learned to be especially vigilant against these.

* * *

Meanwhile, guns and weapons were everywhere. More than once I found myself with a captor sitting across from me, his M16 casually pointed straight in my direction. I would gently reach out and nudge the barrel to one side or the other.

Early June

U.S. State Department and FBI advise politicians inquiring into the kidnapping to say little in public, so as not to raise the Burnhams’ “market value” in the Abu Sayyaf’s eyes.

One fellow saw that this was bothering me, so he was nice enough to reach down and place his finger over the end of the barrel!
That’s really good!
I thought to myself.
First his finger will get shot off—and THEN I’ll die!
Finally I just gave up and accepted that having guns pointed at me was going to be a never-ending hazard.

At night, we began to see a spy plane patrolling the sky above us, apparently looking for campfires. We didn’t know whether it was Philippine or a loaner from the U.S. military. Martin thought it sounded like an unmanned craft, and his knowledge of airplanes was considerable. Back and forth the plane searched. Every time we heard the plane approaching, we’d stop walking and stand perfectly still, so as not to draw attention. Once the plane passed, we’d continue on.

The Abu Sayyaf didn’t want to be recognized by the armed forces, of course. And neither did we. Why? Because we knew by now that a frontal attack to rescue us would probably turn out badly. The AFP wanted to help us hostages, but pulling off an operation that sensitive was simply beyond their training. At this point, we knew that our only real hope of getting out alive lay instead in negotiation. And for the Abu Sayyaf, negotiation meant only one thing: ransom money.

We saw few if any civilians along the way; they mainly fled whenever fighting broke out. As a result, we passed through one deserted village after another. It was eerily quiet.

At a certain time every night, a commercial airliner would pass overhead, its wing lights blinking in the starry sky. Where it was headed, we could only wonder. Australia, perhaps? Lying there on the ground, we would gaze up, and I would say wistfully to Martin, “I wish I was on that plane. . . .”

“I wish I was, too,” he’d quietly reply.

* * *

As the days passed, I was gradually learning the many uses of the
malong.
This piece of batik material is some forty inches wide and probably twice as long, with the two ends sewn together to form a large tube. You can step into it and roll it up around your waist to form a long skirt. You can pull it over yourself on cold nights for a blanket. You can use it as a towel or even a tissue when necessary. Whenever it’s time to move, you can spread it out to become a knapsack for any belongings you’re carrying. If someone is injured, you can turn it into a stretcher if you cut down a couple of tree saplings for poles.

When I stepped inside and pulled it up high to the point where I could grab the top edge with my teeth, I had a privacy curtain for changing clothes, with both my hands free. When it came to bathroom activity, I could also squat inside my
malong.
However, I wound up soiling mine more than a few times as I was learning. That meant trips to the river to wash it out.

One of the most difficult adjustments in the jungle was forcing myself to get along without toilet paper. The others seemed not to mind, but I really struggled. To clean up after a bowel movement with only cold water and my hand was almost more than I could take. And occasionally, there wasn’t even any water to use.