Commander McCoy
                        
     "You won't like it here," Major Gunn said to me, shortly 
 
after I arrived at Cabanatuan. "Had dysentery yet?"
 
     "No"
 
     "Malaria?"
 
     "No. I thought I had a chill last night. Maybe it
 
was the food."
 
     "What food?" said Major Gunn sourly.
 
     More will be told about the food at Cabanatush later.
 
But at this time there were already many cases of vitamin 
 
deficiency. Our doctors had no medicines to speak of, so they 
 
advised us to crush charcoal and mix it with our rice as a slight 
 
medicinal aid.
 
     "I suppose the charcoal pudding didn't agree with me,"
 
I said.
 
     "A chill, eh?" said Major Gunn. He shook his head.
 
"You're being initiated into the brotherhood, all right."
 
     When ten of us escaped in April of 1945, reaching the
 
United States separately some months later, Gunn and many others 
 
were on the definite downgrade in health--those who were still 
 
alive. I doubt very much if Gunn is still among the living. But
 
I know that if he is dead--he and many others like him--he died
 
without cracking up, and while still fighting to stay alive. A 
 
few of the prisoners may not have been entirely sane when last we 
 
saw them, but there had not been one case of outright mental 
 
crack-up. I still don't know why a lot of us didn't become raving
 
mad.
 
                                           - 36 -