Bessang Pass, the Route

Battle Among the Clouds
Script: Bessang Pass, the Route -- First Draft

A jeep trundles over a rough, dirt road. Scrub jungle vegetation lines the side of the road. [Screen legend: Northern Luzon, Route 4, May 17 1945] In the jeep are three men. The camera zooms in succession on their faces, freezing their image briefly while legends identify them: Major George M. Barnet, United Stages Armed Forces in the Philippines-Northern Luzon (USAFIP-NL), 121st Infantry Regimental Commander; U.S. Army Staff Officer O’Connell, Six Corp H.Q. observer; and the driver Segundo Vergara, United Stages Armed Forces in the Philippines-Northern Luzon (USAFIP-NL), 121st Infantry Intelligence Officer. Coming over a rise in the road, the site of dead Japanese soldiers stacked like cord wood along the side of the road greets them.

O’Connell

Stop the Jeep!

Vergara brings the jeep to an abrupt stop. The sound of buzzing flies drifts faintly from the pile of dead bodies.

O’Connell

Christ, why do your guys do that.

Barnet nods to Vergara

Vergara

Makes them easier to count. H.Q. wants accurate Jap kills.

Barnet

Monuments to the sheer joy of bloody revenge! Good for morale!

Vergara

These were stragglers trying to reach General Yamashita. It shows how bad their communications are. They walked right into us.

O’Connell

The great General Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, Supreme Japanese commander in the Philippines, now holed up in these mountains like an outlaw on the lam.

All three men look toward the looming mountains ahead.

Barnet

Yeh! The fortunes of war! However, Yamashita has a mountain fortress the old ‘Hole-in-the-Wall gang would envy, and Bessang pass is the back door.

O’Connell

Yamashita’s boxed in but we’re still going to have to dig him out yard by yard and our resources are stretched to the limit! It’s all part of his strategy—bog us down in the Philippines and buy time for Japan. His forces are divided into three major defensive positions, Bagio, Bontoc, and Bellette Pass. H.Q. calls it Yamashita’s defensive triangle. U.S. First Corp is attacking Bagio. With reinforcements arriving from Manila, Bagio should fall any day. General Krueger’s Sixth Corp is fighting the Japs for Ballette Pass. [Slaps Barnet on the sholder] And the USAFIP gets Bontoc. Krueger realizes there ain't no one else in Northern Luzon but Colonel Russel Volckman and his Filipino guerilla army available to take Bontoc.

Barnet

On behalf of the USAFIP, Honored [facitiously]! Unfortunately Bontoc is on the other side of Bessang Pass. Getting there is over half the battle. Well let’s go see how the posse’s doing.

Vergara

That’s the Ilocos range! The road gets rough from here!

O’Connell

Road? That’s what you call this goat track.

Barnet

Route 4. We call this section the horseshoe.

The road rises precipitously into the rugged mountains and heading east winds in an irregular horseshoe in a north to south arc. The camera pans across the towering terrain. Dominating the center of the horseshoe is Lamagan Ridge, rising from 1,000 feet to more than 5,000 feet in less than one mile. Vergara points out these features as the jeep bounces over the rutted, bolder-strewn road. The road follows a switchback around Yobu Ridge, a steep, vertical rise on North side of the road to over 4,500 feet. Around the bend, a crew Filipino soldiers with shovels and picks are clearing a land slide from the road. Vergara steers the jeep by on the right side with wheels inches from the edge of a cliff drop-off. Mountainous gorges drop steeply from the edge of the road.

Vergara

There are frequent landslides when it rains.

Barnet

Which is about every day.

O’Connell

The road must be a nightmare in the rain.

To the south, a 3 mile long Cadsu Ridge, rising from 4,500 to 6,000 feet at its peak, emerges briefly from the low, misty clouds sweeping the mountains. The steep slopes are covered with dense jungle. Guerilla soldiers appear out the mist wafting the ridge like ghost and wave from the ridge lines.

Barnet

[Shouting over the noise of the jeep] Our line stretches from Baracbac point to Cadsu Ridge [pointing as the camera pans across the landscape]. It’s taken us over a month to gain this ground. Now things get rough! Beyond Cadsu Ridge is Bessang Pass, at 5,000 feet. Bassang Pass runs through 5500 and 6000 ridge lines. The mountain sides are lousy with Jap caves, pill boxes, trenches, tunnels, and Jap artillery staring down our throats. They can dominate the whole damn country side from those ridges.

O’Connell

Sounds like your lines are already overextended. What if the Japanese counter attack.

Barnet

Without reinforcements, then we have problem. Of our five regiments, all the USAFIP has here is our 121st regiment. Our 66th is attached to U.S. First Corp in Bagio, the 15th is chasing General Araki all over Abra province, though Volckmann says we’re supposed to get a battalion of the 15th here any day. Every bit helps. The 11th is engaged at Appari and the Cagayan valley, and half the time we don’t know were the 14th is. The last time Volckmann went looking for the 14th commander Colonel Manriquez his plane nearly landed on a Jap garrison.

O’Connell

[Laughs] As soon as Bagio falls, you’ll have the 66th regiment back. What’s their motto?

Vergara

“Nowhere but Everywhere”

O’Connell

General Krueger’s H.Q. couldn’t believe the 66th’s Jap kills till they sent out a Ranger detach to personally check the reports. The Japs don’t dare move north up Highway 11 with those headhunter bastards on the loose. We’re betting Yamashita won’t be able to reinforce Bessang Pass before we can release the 66th back to Volkmann.

Barnet

Hope your right! We’ve already got our fill of Japs here.

O’Connell

I understand! What I heard was that the 121st is the USAFIP's most experienced regiment--formed by a crazy, dynamite-throwing mining operator Walter Cushing within days of the Japanese invasion in 1942.

Barnet

I don’t know about the most experienced. We’re certainly the oldest. Before the war, Cushing and I were both in the gold mining business together up in the mountains. When the Japs invaded, he formed the 121st from our miners and a group of cut off GIs and put us into action immediately.

O’Connell

McArthur’s HQ designated you the 121st.

Barnet

Right! Was never sure what it signified. The 121st meant something to McArthur’s HQ and it stuck. For a while, we reported to Lt. Colonel Horan and his 1st Provisional Guerilla Regiment, but when Corregidor fell in May 1942 and General Wainwright ordered the general surrender, Horan surrendered to the Japs—damn fool wasn’t much of a guerilla! Didn’t have the heart to go the distance.

O’Connell

Or maybe he was just a loyal soldier following orders.

Barnet

So court martial the rest of us for refusing to obey oders.

O’Connell

Water under the bridge! Things look different in retrospect. Now your heroes and damn valuable ones at that.

Barnet

Without Cushing none of us would be here. He was the heart and soul of 121st, and every Filipino native in these hills knew it. There was no stopping him! He was most tireless, hard ass bastard I've ever known; just swept the 121st along on a nine month rampage of bombings and ambushes against the Japs before they caught up with him. He was too reckless for his own good. Shot himself in the mouth rather than surrender, which really impressed the Jap bastards. After Cushing, I took over the 121st in 1943. Two Colonels, Arthur Nobel and Martin Moses, escapees from Bataan, arrived up here in the mountains, formed the USAFIP and wanted to bring the 121st into their organization. However, before that could happen, the colonels were captured in June 1943.

Vergara

They stopped for rest near a barrio and were betrayed by Filipino spies there! It was a bad year for the resistance.

Barnet

Unfortunately! The Japanese were spreading money around, and some of the locals found the temptation too much to resist. We eventually cured them of that temptation [laughs sardonically], but not until after we lost a lot of good leaders and men. For a while, the Japs had spies and collaborators everywhere. In some areas, we couldn’t send a native runner through without him being caught, tied to a pole like a pig, and carried to the Japs. After the two colonels, Volckmann assumed command of the USAFIP, and we merged the 121st with the USAFIP under his command in 1944.

Barnet

Segundo, stop the jeep before that next curve.

Muffled sound of small arms fire is audible.

Barnet

First Battalion is just round the bend. When the clouds cooperate, you can get a good view of Bessang pass area from there. We’ll walk from here. Loose the jeep, and it’s a long walk back to the coast.

A Filipino officer, Captain Peryam, approaches. Barnet greets him, shakes his hand and casually slaps him on the shoulder with less than strict military formality. “How are things going.”

Peryam

Right now, Jap fire is light but something’s up. There is troop movement on the the ridges. Vehicles are moving to the pass. We can hear them—caughing like sick bastards with that petrol rice alcohol mix they put in their trucks.

Barnet

Maybe they’ll start drinking it go blind. [Light chuckles] Any information from the Provisional Battalion.

Perayam

No! The last message we had, they were having radio problems. Battery was dying.

O’Connel

What are they using for a radio.

Barnet

An SCR-300 walkie-talkie. We started with two. If their’s is out, we’re down to one.

O’Connell

Same as the one on the jeep, range about 16 to 32 kilometers, but in these mountains who knows. Damn dry cells don’t take the humidity well. Where’s the Provisional Battalion.

Barnet

Behind Jap lines northeast of the pass. They’re our eyes and ears on the other side of the pass. Shit!

The four men move warily around the bend in the road. Paryam leads the way.

Parayam

Stay close to the cliff. From here on we’re more exposed.

On the hillside in front of them, they can see the USAFIP-NL front line. Men lay low in shallow fox holes or crouch behind rock outcrops.

Barnet

How do you like the view.

O’Connell

Not good cover. A well placed artillery barrage could wipe them off the side of the mountain.

Paryam suddenly stops. He listens, at first hearing something the others don’t hear. Then high pitched screams of men shouting from the ridge lines echoes across the mountain sides.

Parayam

Japs!

Seconds later the rumble of artillery fire reverberates from above. Explosions erupt everywhere. The Japs on the edge of the cliffs rain down machine gun fire and grenades from their pillboxes and trenches. Bullets tear over the heads of men, raking the ground around them. The abrupt change of events and magnitude of the fury and takes everyone by surprise.

Barnet

Fuck! We’re under attack. Take cover.

The front line soldiers immediately face a life and death dilemma as exploding rounds falling among them throw up clouds of dirt and stones into air: retreat to a safer position or stay put rather than get caught in the open. Their fox holes and cover, while marginally adequate against bullets and grenades, seem like little protection against the heavy artillery barrage. Across the line, men claw frantically at the dirt and gravel for better cover. Nothing in their meager arsenal is of any use against the attack. A mortar shell explodes very close to Barnet. Some men take their chances and crouch-run hopefully to more secure positions. Some are cut down in the attempt by Japanese fire, which now seems closer. Over all, they disappear from view in the billowing clouds of smoke and debree thrown up from the exploding rounds.

Vergara pushes O’Connel behind the Cliff face as shrapnel ricochets off a rock in front of his face. O’Connel crouches low.

O’Connel

Next time you bring me out here, I wanna be able walk, not crawl on my belly!

Barnet

Point taken! Our warning system broke down, and we’re out here with our asses exposed. No fucking clue they were reinforcing their position.

Barnet grabs Parayam by the sholder.

Barnet

Damn! There! Up in those rocks! We gotta get those men out of there. We can’t fight back against this. We’re moving back.

Barnet’s voice is drowned by the noise. He waves his arms and makes jerked hand jesters.

Parayam

Where are are we moving back to Sir?

Barnet

Lamagan Ridge behind us! Good cover! The Jap artillery can’t hit us with direct fire from there and they can’t move their heavier artillery from Bessang Pass after us.

Vergara

[Spits] Back to where we started. It’s taken us a whole stinking month to get this far.

Barnet waves his hand at the steep, rugged ridge line behind them, its 5,000 foot peak disappearing in the grey clouds.

Barnet

Get the jeep and O’Connel back to H.Q.

Vergara

No Sir! Request permission to stay. I don’t cut and run. Someone’s got to get the word to 1st battalion on Cadsu Ridge to pull back. 3rd Battalion on Langiatan Hill is gonna get cut off if they don’t move quick. O’Connel can take the jeep and make his own way back.

Barnet

Permission denied Damn it! You are an intelligence officer. We got runners for that. No one knows what’s goin’ on here. I want Volckmann to hear it from one his own people. Not just from O’Connel!

Barnet looks up at the clouds rolling down the mountains.

Barnet

Peryam will get the word out, we’re pulling back to Lamagan Ridge. Send runners to third and first battalion. We’re gonna be in clouds within an hour. Tell everyone to wait for the clouds before pulling back. That should give us the cover we need. Japs will be shooting blind.

Vergara

And the Japs the cover they need to bonzai attack us.

Barnet

Right! We’ll know they’re coming when the artillery fire lets up. So when we get our chance, we better move quick. That includes you Segundo and O’Connel. Parayam I’ll fire flares when its time. Go

Paryam dashes out from behind the cliff face. Rounds spit up dirt around him as he zig-zags at full run and then disappears through the smoke around a bend in the hill side. Vergara leans out from the cliff face and fires off a clip in a single burst from his Thompson submachine gun toward the Japanese lines in a vain effort to cover him.

Barnet

Hit the road you two. Keep going and don’t stop for shit.

Vergara shoulder slings his Thompson.

Vegara

Good luck Sir. I know we’ll get through this.

O’Connel

Your doing your damned best but your biting off more than you can chew. Take up defensive positions and hold tight till we can get you reinforcements. I’ll tell the brass you needed them yesterday.

The battle resounds over the hills and ridges, much of which Barnet can hear but cannot see, continues unabated. Booming explosions seem to come from every direction. Men in the forward positions cannot hold out. Rock by rock, they begin to fall back. A group of men appear from around the bend, breathing in deep gasps. Several men support others; two men carry/drag a third. Furious unbelieving rage and astonishment etched on their faces. No one has any idea what’s taking place anywhere except where they have been.

Barnet

All of you, listen! We’re not beat, no by a long shot. We go back to Lamagan Ridge. We’ll be safe there from the Jap shells. They stop us today, but tomorrow they pay. Take much more than few Jap shells to stop the brave USAFIP.

The men force smiles and cheer softly.

Barnet

Now look at the sky! See the clouds! We will be in the clouds shortly. They will protect us from the eyes of the Japanese. Wait until I fire flares. Then we move to Lamagan Ridge. I want anyone able to run to spread the word to move up and down the line. Who can run.

A soldier with a flesh wound to his thigh lurches forward with his hand raised and looks at him with intense eyes, his face dark and excited.

Barnet

No not you! You couldn’t run away from your old grandmother if she came after you with stick for breaking her eggs.

The other men chuckle. The soldier holds up a hand grenade.

Soldier

I have no eggs, only grenades. Maybe if I break these, we see how fast the Japanese run.

Barnet claps him on the shoulder. The men smile and seem emboldened.

Barnet

Save them! You will need them later. Now you go to Lamagan Ridge and take care of your wound. [Pauses] Now listen. I fire the flares. Then all men fire at the Japanese. Every second man move down the hill to our old position 100 meters below at the rock piles. There’s better cover there.

English fluency varies widely among the men. A Filipino lieutenant translates in _______ dialect to make sure the men understand. From his years living and working in mountain province, first as a mining operator and for the last three years as a guerilla leader, Barnet can understand enough of the local dialect to know whether his words are interpreted correctly.>

Barnet

That’s every second man goes to the rock pile! Then these men fire at will at the Japs while the rest of the men come down the hill. Make sure you fire over their heads. I don’t want any of our men shooting each other. Now we move out! One at a time! Now I will find Captain Parayam. You watch how I run.
[Quoting a Filipino proverb] Alertness and courage are life’s shield.

Barnet waits for an ever so brief pause in the shelling and slips out from behind the cover of the cliff face and heads off bent over at the waste in a crouch run. Bullets spit at the dust behind him. Falling mortar rounds hurl dirt and chips of rock in all directions but some how he remains untouched. The men now energized by his example, follow one by one. The lieutenant directs them by calling off different platoons. In this manner, the men seem to know which direction to run. When the lieutenant emerges from behind the cliff face, he is immediately struck down by machine gun fire through the chest and dies immediately.

Barnet looks back over his shoulder. He notices that the terrain drops steeply from stretch of the road before the cliff face he had just left. A gulley with steep sides drops from the edge of the road descends to the rock pile, a line of bolders deposited by ancient volcanic forces, where he intends to regroup his forces. Barnet realizes that the gulley provides a sheltered route to the rock pile. He curses to himself for overlooking this feature when instructing his men and ponders how he can communicate this new information to the platoon leaders on the front line.

VERGARA EVACUATES O’CONNEL

Vergara and O’Connel practically leap into the jeep parked behind the protected cliff face. Vergara takes the wheel, careening and bouncing down the steep, rough mountain road fast. The scene is a display of stunning mountain panorama flying at them in jarring motion. The Jeep rounds the curve in the horseshoe coming out from behind the shelter of cliffs. The Japs fire poorly aimed artillery fire at them from great distance. Shells strike the hill top above the road, throwing rock debree toward the road. Vergara guns the jeep. Wheels skid toward the edge but Vergara skillfully countersteers keeping it from going over the edge. A few more shells fall harmlessly behind them.

O’Connel

Jesus Christ! You’re a mad man Segundo!

Vergara

[Grins] That’s why Colonel Volckmann picked me for the job.

Coming down the steep incline from the mountains, the jeep heads toward the barrio of Butac. As they reach the eastern edge of Butoc rifle shots ring out from the hills to the south of the barrio. Several bullets stike the jeep. A rushing woosh sounds overhead and a mortar round hits the road to the right of the jeep. Vergara instinctively weaves the jeep from one edge of the road to other. The road straightens and Vergara pushes the accelerator to the floor racing through Butoc, honking the horn though the barrio appears deserted.

O’Connel

What the hell! Japs here?

Vergara

Fuck! They’re trying to flank us.

O’Connel

Damn right. They must of bypassed your positions at Bessang Pass. They’re trying to catch 121st in a pincher.