The Virgin Queen

On December 5, 1941, Captain Ron Black and Sergeant James Humphries
departed Clark Air Base, Philippines for Baguio Air Base in northern Luzon
on a routine flight.  Their Martin B-10 bomber, "Manila Momma," never
reached Baguio.  Rescue forces mounted a search but World War II cut short
their efforts.  "Manila Momma's" disappearance remained a mysterious
footnote until last year when an archeology team found the wrecked bomber
in the jungle northeast of Baguio.  The archeologists recovered James
Humphries' diary and returned it to his family who graciously allowed us to
publish this excerpt.  We edited some personal comments; we did not alter
the narrative of events.

Dec. 5, morning.  Fine fix this is!  We got caught above the clouds and
missed Baguio on the first try.  Capt. Black followed Bauio's beacon
northeast into the mountains before we realized our mistake.  We ran out of
gas shortly after we turned back south.  Capt. Black commanded a bailout,
figuring we'd hit a mountain in the clouds.  He was right.  I barely got my
chute open before I hit the ground.  Now I'm sitting in the middle of the
jungle with a busted leg and half a pack of smokes.  I hope the captain is
ok.  I hope Baguio heard our SOS.  I hope they find us in this jungle.

Dec. 5, evening.  I've got company.  A patrol of natives appeared
mid-afternoon.  I don't understand a word of their language and they speak
no English.  HQ told us headhunters live in these mountains.  These
gentlemen look fierce enough with wild tattoos and sharp spears.  My leg
won't hold my weight so escape is out of the question.  So far they act
more like rescuers than grocery shoppers.  They offered me supper of
grilled monkey and bananas.  I declined the monkey but managed to get down
a banana.  After supper, they built a rough litter then finished off my
smokes.  Wherever we're going, I hope there's help and not a boiling pot.

Dec. 6, evening.  We just arrived in the village.  Right now, I'm lying
outside the largest building, a communal house where the men live.  It sits
on short stilts with a thatched roof and a row of skulls along the eaves.
Not exactly comforting.  In front of the communal house lies a clear area
with a fire pit.  Smaller thatch buildings surround the village center.
Women and children apparently live in those. They stand behind the houses
and peep at me.  I smile and wave to them.  One young lass with a bunch of
metal jewelry waved back.  Despite their lack of clothes, the village seems
prosperous.  They eat well; the women wear lots of seashell jewelry and the
men swagger about like pilots at the base.
        They served me mystery meat and a yam for supper.  Surprising how
good things taste when you don't know what you are eating.  I wish I had a
cigarette.

Dec. 7, late morning.  I didn't get much sleep last night between my leg
and the screaming.  Just after dark, the village elders headed into the
jungle behind two torchbearers.  A few minutes later, I heard metal
rattling and a woman scream.  After the first shriek, she began yelling in
the native language, cussing somebody out good.  A few words sounded
English though not any English a woman should know.  She calmed down after
a bit.  I heard voices murmuring in the dark for a long time then the metal
rattled, the torchbearers led the procession back to the village and
everyone went to bed.  Everyone except me.  I lay wondering about the woman
in the jungle.
        After a breakfast of bananas and fruit, a woman brought a bowl of
water for my bath.  The children hung behind her and watched.  After my
bath, the woman took the bowl away and shooed the children back.  The girl
with the metal jewelry stayed behind.  When the woman called to her, the
girl dismissed her with a phrase and a wave.  The woman shrugged and
followed the children.
        The girl squatted and regarded me with curiosity as I stared back.
I call her a girl because in this land, women come in but two ages: girls
and crones.  The hard life or the jungle heat sags and wrinkles them
quickly upon the birth of their children.  This girl carried the charms of
a woman on the lithe, smooth body of a child.  Like the other villagers,
she showed no shame at her nakedness.  The jewelry I noticed yesterday
consisted of a heavy bracelet on each of her wrists and ankles with a
matching choker around her neck.  The bracelets and choker showed no hinges
or clasps, forming solid bands snug around her limbs.  Her jeweler worked
the bands from bronze with cunning designs.  As I studied the patterns, I
noticed rings worked into the patterns.  Did the villagers enslave this
girl?  Had the jeweler or blacksmith, fitted her, not with finely worked
jewelry but heavy manacles?  Before my horror at this possibility could
manifest itself another shock caught my eye.  She wore a metal band around
her waist with another band extending between her indigo thighs and up the
back to rejoin the waistband.  Like the bracelets or manacles, these metal
unmentionables showed no method of removal.  I stared at her rudely,
overwhelmed by the sight.  Seeing my astonishment, she smiled then relieved
herself through a tiny slit in the bottom of the metal strap.  I averted my
eyes from this brazen display.  She giggled most gleefully then stood and
walked away.  She swung her hips provocatively as she left the metal moving
with her pelvis as if part of her flesh.  Halfway across the square, she
bent over and looked at me upside-down between her spread legs.  Seeing my
shocked blush, she giggled again and disappeared.
        I considered her situation.  While her bracelets resembled
manacles, she was not bound in any way.  Her voice and manner conveyed
command not subservience.  She laughed freely and walked head high, a prom
queen and not a slave.  Perhaps her manacles serve a ceremonial purpose.

Dec. 8, early morning.  I will attempt a factual account but, had I not
witnessed the events with my own eyes and ears, I would never believe them
myself no matter how careful the telling.
        Just after dark last night, the litter crew picked me up and
carried me into the jungle behind the torchbearers and the village elders.
The prom queen-slave girl brought up the rear.  The trail emerged into a
clearing flanked on three sides by dense jungle and on the fourth by a rock
cliff rising beyond the treetops.  In front of the cliff, a dais of
rough-hewn rock presided over the clearing.  A fire on the front edge of
the dais lit the clearing.  A cave pierced the face of the cliff.  Around
the mouth of the cave, intricate carvings in the fashion of the girl's
bracelets adorned the rock face.  Three large bronze rings hid amongst the
carvings.  Heavy chains led from the rings into the cave.  More chains led
from four rings along the edge of the dais into the cave.
        The men set the litter down in the clearing.  Four of them moved
silently to the sides of the dais and grasped the chains anchored there.
On a nodded signal, they hauled on the chains hand over hand.  A woman's
scream knifed into my ears like a hot spike.  As she emerged from the cave,
she jerked erect, fighting the chains attached to her wrists and ankles.
Bracing their feet against the dais, the four men pulled until she stood,
arms and legs spread, at the front of the dais.  The woman struggled
briefly against the chains then threw her head back and screamed her
diatribe.  Some words were indeed English and indeed foul.  When she
finished swearing, she stood with her eyes closed, pulling against the
chains.  The men's muscles quivered.  Before me stood a beautiful white
woman!
        She wore the same heavy cuffs and belt as the young girl.  Two
chains from the cave entrance led to the belt, the third, to her collar.
All three swung gently at their limit.  Mountains of hair flowed over her
shoulders and down her back.  Her skin shown smooth and sleek in the
firelight.  Naked breasts stood proudly under the strands of hair trailing
down her chest.  Her large eyes and wide mouth gave her face a dramatic
beauty.  She lowered her head and issued a command in the native tongue.
The four men moved back slowly, releasing the chains.  She lowered her arms
to her sides and opened her eyes.
        She gazed at me for a long moment.  She leaned forward against the
chains and reached her hands towards me.  She followed my eyes back to her
body and started as if seeing herself for the first time.  She moved to
cover herself then looked back at me and laughed uncontrollably, tears
welling up in her eyes.  She squatted down and hugged herself, as the
giggles became small sobs.
        "You came." she whispered.  "You finally came."
        "Yes, I'm here."  I pointed at my leg.  "But I may need as much
help as you."
        She looked at my leg then glanced at the natives with narrowed
eyes.  She motioned for the girl to join her on the dais.  The girl
squatted close behind her, nestling her head behind the woman's ear.  The
woman spoke with an old man, the girl occasionally adding a word in her
ear.  The woman and the old man disagreed on some point then resolved the
issue.  The girl climbed down from the dais and squatted beside me.
        "Nima will examine your leg.   Describe to us what you feel."
        I nodded.  My leg hurt like hell when Nima pushed on it and I said
so, loudly.
        "You are lucky.  You cracked your tibia.  The fibula appears
intact.  Do not put weight on it and it will heal well enough."
        She spoke again to the old man.  They argued and resolved another
point.  The elders left save for the old man and a strapping warrior with a
large battle-axe.  The woman spoke in a formal tone.
                "Welcome, stranger.  Please speak only when we ask you a
question.  Your life depends upon doing exactly as we say.  Do you
understand?"  I nodded.

        "The old man speaks a little English.  You live because I saw your
coming in a vision and convinced the elders you possess valuable
information.  We must conduct an interrogation, not a conversation.  We
were Kelly, a nurse, now Kalibaya, prophetess to the Kaliga.  Who are you?"
        I answered her question and we continued in this fashion, she
telling me a little then asking me a question.  She questioned me closely
about the tensions between Japan and the U.S.  Bit by bit she told how she
became Kalibaya.  Here is her story:
        Kelly Flannery arrived at Baguio fresh from Mount Saint Mary's
College, Los Angeles in July 1936.  She worked as a nurse in the Catholic
Hospital.  In August 1936, she flew with Doctor Jack Bowers to a missionary
post deep in the mountains to administer routine vaccinations and exams.
The plane dropped them at the mission's airstrip, planning to retrieve them
a week later.  During the week, monsoon rains washed out the airstrip.
Against the advice of the mission priest, Doctor Bowers engaged two native
guides to lead them to the next mission with a serviceable airstrip. On the
second night of the trek, the guides set up camp then slipped away.  Kelly
wondered if Doctor Bowers planned a tryst.  She found him attractive and,
while she kept her virginity for marriage, she could enjoy a little
romance.  But Doctor Bowers seemed distracted and soon after dark, Kelly
retired to her sleeping bag.  Sometime later, Kelly woke suddenly.  She
heard voices and got up to investigate.  She came face to face with a
tattooed warrior holding Jack Bowers' head.  She screamed and ran down the
trail into the arms of six more tattooed warriors.
        They bound her arms to a wooden pole laid across her shoulders,
hobbled her legs with vine rope and tied her by the throat to a tree.  At
dawn, they marched her into the jungle, her arms and legs still bound and
hobbled.  Along the way, the natives plucked at her clothes, examining the
material and taking articles that interested them.  The native's curiosity
and the jungle's thorns stripped her naked on the first day.  On the
evening of the third day, they arrived in the village.  Bleeding and
bruised, half-mad from pain and fear, Kelly passed out when they halted in
the village square.
        She woke in flickering darkness, unable to move.  She lay
spread-eagled in the village center, tied to four stakes.  A fire just
beyond her feet lit the jungle in a fitful glow.  A strapping native stood
over her, his battle-axe at the ready.  Kelly snapped.  Her body flailed
against the ropes.  Her voice ripped through the night air.  To her great
surprise, hot wetness seeped from her loins and musky odor filled the air.
A long eternity later, she awoke bound with soft leather thongs upon a bed
of grass, her wounds dressed.
        Rest and food brought back her strength, though she could not
escape her leather bonds.  The women began teaching her their language,
whipping her with a thin stick when she resisted participating in this sign
of permanent residence.  From time to time, a grimy male native appeared
and felt her limbs and pelvis.  At first she thought him a witch doctor,
but his rough hands and blackened skin belonged to a worker or artisan.
After a few days, she gave in to her the captivity, awaiting an escape
opportunity.  The opportunity took its precious time.
        One evening, after her wounds healed, the procession carried her to
the cave.  They tied her spread-eagle on the dais next to a crude forge.
The grimy native, the village blacksmith, heated the forge, laid out his
tools and went to work.  As he attached the seven chains to the rings and
the cuffs to the chains, he discussed the project with Kelly in his native
tongue.  Kelly understood few of his words but heard his meaning loud and
clear.  She spent the night in screaming convulsions and sobbing prayers.
When dawn broke, the chains and cuffs lay ready on the dais.  The
blacksmith squatted next to her and talked quietly, a doctor reassuring his
patient before a difficult operation.  He patted her gently and left.  The
women came and forced her to drink a foul-tasting potion.  Lethargy washed
over her body and she fell into a dreamless sleep.
        She woke in late afternoon, alone upon the dais.  She forced her
neck around to look at the massive bonds arrayed around her body.  She
prayed to God for death but He did not answer.
        As night fell, the blacksmith returned with the village elders and
the executioner, as Kelly now thought of the strapping native with the
battle-axe.  The blacksmith wrapped her left ankle in wet leaves then
lashed her leg tightly to the edge of the forge.  He heated the cuff for
her left ankle.  The glowing jaws of the open cuff sizzled across the
leaves then nestled close around her ankle.  The blacksmith hammered the
cuff shut, pounding the almost molten ends together into an unbroken circle
of bronze.  Kelly writhed in pain and terror as the hot metal gripped her
flesh.  Her screams exploded through the night.  Her womanhood flowed with
musky juice.  Cuff by cuff, the blacksmith fastened Kelly to the rock.  He
fitted ankle and wrist cuffs first, then the collar.  As the blacksmith's
hammer rang against the metal inches below her ear, sealing the bronze jaws
around her throat, Kelly abandoned her belief in the Christian god.  The
blacksmith wrapped the belt around her loins, the hot ends searing her
flesh through the wet leaves around her hips.  The center strap, soaked in
water while the ends heated, lay cold and hard against her soft flesh.
Spirits entered her through the metal.  Cold resolve thrust up from below
while burning hunger soaked into her hips and belly.  As the final blows
fell, Kelly lay shuddering with pain and lust, power and terror.  Dimly
aware of some ritual going on around her, Kelly wrapped her soul in the
swirling passions and danced with the spirits.
        She woke in the cave.  A sharp odor hung in the air.  Visions of
carnage and war, tenderness and love flickered across the walls.  She
crawled to the front of the cave, chains rattling.  The clearing lay empty
in the still morning air.  She tested the chains, pulling with all her
might.  She studied the cuffs and the collar and the belt.  She wiggled and
clawed and twisted and screamed.  She lay on the dais and cried.  Finally,
she crawled back into the cave and rejoined the visions.
        Kelly learned her new language and became Kalibaya, the prophetess.
The Kaliga elevated her to the post through necessity.   When the previous
prophetess died, an unfortunate combination of girls captured in battle and
childhood deaths left all potential prophetesses still in early childhood.
The Kaliga lost battles, suffered disease and ran short of food.  Kelly's
aroused dementia while spread-eagled under the executioner's axe combined
with her virginity made her a candidate.  A heated debate broke out among
the tribe while Kelly lay unconscious in the fire circle.  The old women
and some of the men argued for Kelly as the new prophetess, citing ancient
legends of foreign prophetess' and the urgent need for a new prophetess.  A
smaller faction, led by the old man, argued for her sacrifice.  The faction
for Kelly's elevation to prophetess carried the argument.  When Kelly's
body responded to the chains with the appropriate combination of lust and
madness, all agreed on the rightness of her selection, albeit some
reluctantly.  The old man still distrusted her and remained a formidable
political opponent.
        She settled into the cave and studied the visions.  Kelly, the
nurse, suspected mushrooms growing in the cave induced hallucinations based
on her own subconscious hunches.  Kalibaya, the prophetess, accepted the
visions as glimpses of the future.  Under her guidance, the tribe regained
superiority over its neighbors in battle and entered an age of prosperity.
The old man and his cohorts still grumbled about a foreign prophetess but
few listened during this time of plenty.
        Kalibaya also mastered the intricacies of tribal politics and took
steps to cement her position.  She discovered the mushrooms caused an
allergic reaction in young children.  A girl suffering a bout of hives when
she approaches the cave makes an unlikely candidate for prophetess.
Kalibaya insisted upon examining the female infants frequently.  She
succeeded in introducing mushroom allergy to most of the female children
before the old man convinced the villagers to curb the practice.
        Tribal custom granted the prophetess an acolyte to serve her and to
act as her eyes and ears in the village.  If the prophetess died or ceased
seeing visions the acolyte usually became the prophetess.  With the village
girls either too young or unable to approach the cave, Kalibaya struggled
without an assistant until the warriors captured Nima during a raid on a
neighboring tribe.  They brought her to the village for sacrifice but
Kalibaya, warned by a vision, demanded first access to the young captive.
She pulled Nima from the warriors immediately upon the girl's arrival,
hugged her close and claimed her as acolyte.  Unseen by the Kaliga, she
reached between the girl's legs and tore Nima's womanhood.
        Under Kaliga custom, the blacksmith fitted Nima with a full set of
bronze cuffs even though her lack of virginity rendered her ineligible to
succeed Kalibaya.   As the night and our conversation grew long, Nima
cuddled against Kalibaya, their two naked bodies intertwining in an easy
embrace.  Once, the prophetess bent her head and kissed the dozing girl on
the lips.  Seeing my shock, she shrugged and stroked her metal belt.
        "Even with this, tribal law prohibits any man from touching the
prophetess.  We do what we must."
        With Nima as her eyes and ears, Kalibaya sees far beyond her dais.
Visions come, the warriors conquer, the tribe prospers.  Kalibaya,
squatting chained to a mushroom-lined cave, rules a vast jungle empire as
skillfully as the other virgin queen, Elizabeth, ruled hers.
        My arrival changes everything.  The old man beats the drum of white
man's invasion, stirring up the tribe.  If the old man prevails, my skull
will hang on the communal house.  The blacksmith will break Kalibaya's
chains and the warriors will drag her to another cave some miles distant.
Deep underground, the blacksmith will attach her to the cave wall with but
a few links of freedom.  The dripping walls will provide water to sustain
life for a time but Kalibaya will eventually join her predecessors whose
moldy bones still hang in their chains.  Kalibaya believes she may yet
regain control, but circumstances may require quick and drastic action.
She enjoined me to follow her orders to the letter.
        We finished shortly before dawn.  The procession brought me back to
the village.  Unable to sleep, I've been writing since daylight.  Nima
scurries about, keeping an eye on the old man.  Sinister airs hang in the
village.  I hope the cavalry arrives soon.

Dec. 8, noon.  Jap planes just roared overhead, headed south.  Looks like
the war has started.  The planes stirred up the villagers, but good.  The
executioner stands guard over me as I write this.  No sign of Nima.

Dec. 8, p.m. Nima here, her back bleeding.  Kelly scratched message in
skin: "Follow N.  All well. K." Nima and men preparing litter.  More later.

        The diary ends here.
        The recovery team identified "Manila Momma" from markings and
serial numbers.  Team archeologists found one male skeleton at the controls
of the B-10 and another male skeleton lying under the tail.  Dental records
identified the skeleton at the controls as Captain Ron Black; blunt trauma
injuries indicate he died on impact.  Clothing fragments, the diary and a
cracked left tibia suggest the second skeleton as Sergeant James Humphries.
However, the recovery team did not find the skull making positive
identification impossible.  Forensic pathologists did find marks on the
vertebrae consistent with a large, sharp object striking the neck from the
front and severing the head.
        In 1936, the two native guides returned to the mission with Doctor
Bowers' medical case and Kelly Flannery's engraved compact.  They told the
priest the two died in a mudslide and led a search party to the site of a
massive slide.  The search party found no further evidence of Bowers and
Flannery and listed them as missing.  An exhaustive search of Japanese
records following the war uncovered no mention of Flannery or Bowers and
only one report from the area where they disappeared: a heavily armed
Japanese patrol lost three men "northeast of Baguio" in October 1942.
Native warriors crept up on the soldiers at night and beheaded them.
Japanese patrols avoided the area for the remainder of the war.  On April
16, 1947, a California court declared Kelly Flannery legally dead.
        The jungles of northern Luzon contain the last unexplored areas on
the planet.  As recently as the 1990's, anthropologists encountered Stone
Age tribes never before seen by outsiders and scarcely known to neighboring
tribes.
        Queen Elizabeth I, known to history as "the virgin queen," ruled
England for 45 years.  Shrewd and determined, she led England into a golden
age of prosperity, exploration and conquest.  She never married and died in
1603 at the age of 70.
 

The Pacific War Eyewitness History Institute
Las Robles, California
July 6, 2001