Onions planted in July are now being harvested. Several kilos were cut for the first time.
June’s blood count is 4 million but her hemoglobin is low. She needs iron, the doctor says, and there is no more. He is going to put all three of them down for B-1 tablets. The poor doctors hardly know which way to tum when starvation creeps closer and closer.
We hear one Japanese brought in a big lot of unbilled food supplies in his own cash, unknown to the Command. He told the store to disburse it in a hurry and keep it very down-under, for if the Command hears, the purchaser will be transferred to Manila. Furuya is trying to bring all he can before the Americans come in, for then he says the people will hide away and not bring anything to sell and we will suffer. He tacitly admits the last weeks are here. Outside of my quiet room there is a desperate feeling in camp. Jerry seems near the end of his rope.
Jerry said the Investigating Jury turned in their verbal report to the Executive Committee on the Chicken Case. They said it bore rather heavily on them because they had let too many past demeanors go unpunished and this
was just one more, which made it difficult. It is hard to begin now to clear it up because each culprit points backward—”He did it. Everyone was doing it.” There was complete moral and ethical breakdown for some who
only regret that old maxim “It isn’t what you do. it’s what you get caught doing.” They are only annoyed at being caught, not ashamed of it or of the act itself.
Some people don’t seem to have a straight bone in their body. Thank goodness, most of the people in here are decent, kindly, neighborly, and considerate.
There is conflict between the Japanese who like us and those who don’t. Some expect to die but others hope to live on and it becomes acute with both.