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January 8, 1942

It seems to be more than just registration. Everyone, practically, has been put in Santo Tomas, a huge university with acres of garden space. Nothing is very well organized yet, but people are in amazingly good spirits, which must annoy the Japanese no end. I went over there with the Swedish consul today. He still has a car, being a neutral. We stood outside the fence, getting instructions from people through the fence as to what they needed and what to do for them. A screaming, milling mob, and a most humiliating sight. To think those little yellow boys could do that to us! Beds, mosquito nets, and food seem to be the prime necessities. Also clothing, as most of them had taken the order literally to pack for three days. I told my friends I was going to give myself up and come into camp. Everybody screamed and insisted that someone had to stay out to take care of those inside who needed help. So I shall stay out for the moment. Suppose I can go in any time.

Janson, the Swedish consul, brought me home and we had a bit of dinner. I was so lonely, and bewildered, and so very scared that he suggested I come up and sleep in his apartment. His house had been bombed, his wife and children were in Baguio and he had moved into Hi’s apartment temporarily, thus protecting Hi’s belongings. I told him he’d never made such a suggestion to any woman that was accepted with the alacrity with which I leapt at his invitation. And so I went. We are both worried terribly. He has had no word of Dorothy, his wife, and the children. So many people fled there for safety, but there is no safety anywhere. I’ll bet Hi raises hell when he finds out the Swede and I drank his Armagnac—and he locked up in Santo Tomas!

Hi claimed today that he went in there on the Mayflower, the very first load to enter. Always the aristocrat!