During lunch, after several days buildup of watching and trailing Mr. Menzies, the guards beat him. They found a five-gallon can and four bottles of gin cached in the grass near the cottages. They stopped all the work and said nothing more could be taken from the cottages for building until the owner of the gin confessed. A guard, Miss Shore, and our liaison man were seen with Mr. Menzies, who claimed he knew nothing of it, wished it were his. An hour later, from our windows, we watched him standing at the guardhouse, taking it. About eight guards standing around him, before our eyes, two beat him with bamboo sticks—legs, back, head, anywhere it fell. He tried to shield an infected swollen thumb and a boil on his head. Finally they closed in, made him lie on the ground, beat him with army belts, a golf club, baseball bats, anything at hand, until he was unconscious. His screams at the last were horrible to hear. It was degrading to see, nauseating to witness, and the children watched. He was taken to the hospital and no bones were broken. He had been warned two days ago.
Natalie Crouter
(October 30, 1898 — October 15, 1985). Resident of Vigan and later Baguio in the Philippines. Interned by the Japanese with her family in Baguio, then Bilibid Prison in Manila.
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