F/O Pierce Duration as POW: 254 days.
In my nightmare last night, I got sucked right through the earth into hell and was consumed by flames. I woke up screaming at twenty minutes after two.
Virgil won the bet.
I’m quite certain there is something wrong with my mind.
F/O Pierce Duration as POW: 260 days.
Today, I dropped the rock from Mayne Island that Chidori gave me before she left. It mixed in with the other stones in the yard and I couldn’t tell which one it was. I searched on my hands and knees, but all the rocks look the same. It’s lost here. Forever.
F/O Pierce Duration as POW: 270 days.
I have a craving for chocolate, which is strange since I never much cared for chocolate before. A mouse ran across the floor the other day in search of food. It didn’t find anything, obviously. It squeezed back out through a crack in the floorboards and I bitterly envied it because it could just leave and find some food outside the gate. If I used a tin can like a shovel, I could probably dig a tunnel under the fence. I wonder how long it would take.
If that mouse ever comes back, I’m going to catch it and cook it up.
The lack of sleep must be muddling my thoughts. The melancholy that runs on my mother’s side of the family probably doesn’t help. The content of the letter in my pocket that I pretend to know nothing about doesn’t help either.
The only thing keeping me sane enough to survive this miserable place is Chidori.
F/O Pierce Duration as POW: I lost count recently.
A rainbow arced over Chez Stalag Luft. It disappeared after only a few seconds, though. Who could blame it? It took a look around and realized it had no business being in a place like this.
‘Give to me,’ the guard with the white hair and nasty nose that Gordie had warned me about pointed at the picture of Chidori I was holding.
I slid the photo back into my pocket and stared at the ground.
The butt end of his rifle smashed between my shoulder blades and knocked me to my hands and knees. His long gnarly fingers rummaged through my pocket and he snatched the photo. I seized his arm and tried to stop him, but he kicked me in the stomach. Doubled over and gasping, I grabbed his ankle and yanked. My arms were too weak to pull him to the ground, but he stumbled briefly. Once he regained his footing, he kicked me in the ribs until I was lying on my back and then he held the gun to my head. His boot landed on my chest and he shifted his weight to apply more than enough pressure to prevent me from being able to sit up.
He studied the picture of Chidori and grabbed his crotch. ‘Jap prostitute. I sex her for you.’
My jaw muscles locked up as I resisted the urge to tell him to go to hell. The barrel of the gun pressed harder against my forehead. He glared at me right in the eye and waited for me to react. My chest heaved, attempting to breathe under the weight of his boot. A crowd of other inmates circled around us, but so did a bunch of nervous guards.
The goon’s heel slid up higher until it crushed my throat. With the gun tucked under his armpit to free both hands, he held up the picture of Chidori, then sneered as he tore the photo into pieces and sprinkled the scraps down on my face.
My arms wrapped around his leg and my rage fuelled enough strength to knock him off balance. Without his foot on my throat I was able to get my feet under me and yank him to his knees. He swung the gun around and caught me across the cheek, which sent me flying back. I landed on my backside.
A gun fired in the air and everyone froze in a startled position, including my assailant. The shot had come from the rifle of his commanding officer. One glare from the skinny moustached officer made the white-haired guard stand down. Maybe the body count had been getting too high to justify to the authorities, or maybe the CO actually had some respect for international law, I didn’t know. But my life was spared and two other guards grabbed my arms to drag me to lock-up.
I was thankful that the CO had stepped in, but that veil of protection ended when he left the compound in the evening. The white-haired guard ordered the guard on duty outside the cell to leave. Once we were alone he bound my arms and legs with rough twine. With his boot toe he slid a sloshing full steel bucket of urine across the floor and hoisted me by the armpits to force me to kneel. His palm thrust my head into the bucket and held me down as I struggled helplessly without the use of my arms. My lungs contracted in protest, pleading with me to inhale. He crushed all of his weight down on my shoulders, knowing my instinct would cause me to gulp back the urine if he held me down long enough. Instead of pulling my head up as he expected, I lurched my torso sideways and knocked the bucket over. Livid, he punted the empty bucket across the room and it ricocheted off the bars of the cell. Then he booted my ribs until I blacked out.
Admittedly, it would have served me right if the goon murdered me. Chidori would become so cross if she found out I had gotten myself killed over a photograph. And all for nothing since the photo was already torn into confetti.
I should have learned my lesson the first time I almost died from my own stubbornness. Chidori and I were about eight years old. We were swimming in Bennett Bay and got caught in a rip current that pulled us out into deeper water. I feverishly tried to swim back against the flow into shallow water but made no progress and exhausted myself in the process. She had calmly floated and let the current take her out until it weakened and then she swam perpendicular to the rip into calmer waters. She called to me to do the same but for some pig-headed reason I believed if I struggled hard enough I could out-power the current. I was wrong. A teenager who had been at the beach that day swam out to me, held me as he let the current take us both out further, then at the spot where the outflow lost its strength he cut across at an angle to free us from the drag, just as Chidori had done. I never did figure out why I had been too stubborn and stupid to surrender.
Why hadn’t I learned anything? I was stuck in a rip again. Chidori was calling to me. I needed to stop acting stubborn and stupid.
When the guard returned, I didn’t fight back. Surprisingly, the beating didn’t hurt any worse. It didn’t hurt any less either. But my pacifism did seem to take some of the fun out of the abuse for the guard. And the following day, the minister from the International Red Cross arrived at the camp. Thankfully, someone had reported that I had been sent to solitary confinement after a scuffle in the yard. He inquired about my well-being and I was released. Whether my rescue was a coincidence or a result of my conscientious surrender, I didn’t know. I did know what Chidori would have believed the reason to be. And she would have been proud.
F/O Pierce Duration as POW: No idea.
Surrendering to my fate in solitary confinement might have saved my life but my body has not recovered from the shame of being brutally victimized. My hands have developed a tremor that doesn’t stop all day or night. The water spills out over the edge of my cup if I don’t hold it with two hands. And I can barely read my own writing because the pencil bounces around on the sheet like a telegraph tapping out Morse.
I pray Chidori and her family are not being horribly mistreated by guards or forced to live in squalor. I have had to coerce myself to believe she is safe and well, otherwise I would die of guilt for not rescuing her.
In my nightmare I was strapped, like an ox, to a huge wood cart and struggling to pull it up a steep hill. The cart was filled with the mangled bodies of all the pilots I have killed, along with all my squadron mates who were shot down. The British fellow from the train was also piled on top, clutching a broken doll coated in ceramic and barnacles. The mother seal from Mayne Island and Rose were in the cart, too, along with a load of other tragedies I didn’t want to remember. The cart grew heavier, and if I slowed down, it became more difficult to keep the forward momentum of the wheels. I stopped to take a break and the cart lurched backwards. It hurtled down the hill, dragging me with it. My skin burned off from the friction and my exposed bones snapped against the rocks. I fought to free myself from the harness, but I was trapped.
I woke up wrestling Nigel in the bunk next to me. It took three other fellows to pull me off him. It was eighteen minutes after three.
Lloyd won the bet. And I was officially considered a danger to myself and others.