Agent High Pockets by Claire Philips Myron B. Goldsmith

Author:Claire Philips, Myron B. Goldsmith [Claire Philips, Myron B. Goldsmith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781839741876
Google: uS6QzQEACAAJ
Publisher: BARAJIMA Books
Published: 2020-01-15T16:08:14+00:00

12. Under the Nipponese Heel

AS time passed, we became accustomed, but net reconciled to life under the Japanese rule. It was irksome to ask their permission for everything and anything. We never knew when we saw Nips walking down the street, whether they would turn into our house. They came in any time they felt like it, asked for food and drink, and we dared not refuse them. They even made us mend and wash their clothes without pay. If they took a fancy to any article in our homes, they picked it up and walked out. We could not telephone the police and complain that it had been stolen. That would ear-mark us for undue attention, and they would net believe our story. It was plain, unadulterated open looting, but we were helpless.

Many of the former palatial homes of wealthy British and American internees were now occupied by Japs. They took works of art that they liked and sent the “souvenirs” to their homes in Japan. What they did not like, they wantonly destroyed. Many Nips were incredibly filthy; at least when on other people’s property. Every house they occupied had a bathroom, but the little Sons of...say, Heaven, would repeatedly use the corner of any room they happened to be in, and then summon a native to clean up.

It was a common occurrence to hear the harsh shout “Tomare! Halt!” It might be the kenpei, the military police asking to see our paper’s, or a sentry we had forgotten to bow to.

When I heard a shot ring out in the night, followed by the sound of running feet, I would peer cautiously out of the window, but I never saw anything. No one dared investigate what went on in the darkened streets of Manila between the dread hours of midnight and six a.m. These were the curfew hours, when only Nips were allowed to roam unmolested.

Now and then I was awakened by the sounds of a convoy of trucks passing the club on the way to the piers. I would arise and sit by the window, watching old American army trucks loaded with every conceivable cargo...food, electric refrigerators, bath tubs, radios...on their way to the piers to be loaded on ships and sent to Japan. It was maddening to watch them stripping Manila with no one to hinder their plundering activities.

Many people too, began to disappear; picked up haphazardly on the streets, or arrested in their homes or shops, by the military police. A few individuals would eventually return to relate that they had been released after being held in Fort Santiago for several months, without explanation. Some, not so fortunate, were never heard of again, and it was not an uncommon sight to glimpse bloated, headless cadavers floating in the Pasig River. The “guerrillas minus guns” made strenuous efforts to trace these unfortunates, and now and then, were successful. Many of these victims were prominent Filipinos, Spaniards, Swiss, and Chinese. Our enemy seemed to take a sadistic delight in tormenting the celestials.

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