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April 20, 1942

Pura, my little nurse friend, was still permitted to come in and out of the camp. If there ever was a harbinger of good cheer, she was the number one of them all! She delivered messages to friends on the outside, and she shopped for us.

But this morning when she lifted my net, I saw that her eyes were swollen and red. At first, she didn’t want to tell me, but finally she broke down and told me what she had seen on M.H. Del Pilar Street.

A young Filipino with bayoneted chest and back had been tied to a telephone post since yesterday. He moaned piteously as flies swarmed around his wounds and the hot sun beat down on him unmercifully. Because two Japanese guards stood nearby, no one dared to go near him to dress his wounds or wet his lips.