The next dawn, we saw a couple of Japs as they passed us. It was SATURDAY now and daylight was beginning to show. We wondered what the day might bring, probably the END for all of us. We'd been through so much that we almost lost all hope of living. There's a certain numbness of fatigue, hunger, thirst, dirt, perspiration, lost energy and fear, and aches due to crouching and hiding that makes one almost oblivious to reality. My stomach and my wound were hurting, and my head was becoming numb. My throat was parched dry and my voice hoarse. I couldn't take it anymore. Yes, Saturday's moving in, it's 7:30 or 8:00 AM, or what time was it? What matters! Behind us lay the ruins of our house, car and belongings. All around us were debris and ruins. And yet the battle had not reached us! We sat and watched during the pallid smoky morning and simply waited. Then I became conscious the Japs had not been around for hours. I didn't think it strange at all. It had happened before.

Suddenly someone said: 'Americans! I've seen an American!' I found this funny. No, I wasn't hysterical, but it was funny. Someone had seen an American! He'd actually seen an American! Well, maybe next week or in a couple of weeks. Then I froze and looked up. The atmosphere was uncanny — I turned and saw two men who didn't look like Japs at all, but were too dirty and bearded to be Americans ... and that German-type helmet. The second guy was not an American at that. His face was darker ... but the first was. The two were grim and cautious. I rose, stumbled a few steps; I was again aching all over the tourniquet area though I'd almost forgotten it. 'You ... an American?'

'Yes ... get away, fast.' The Americans grimly told us to go towards the Paco station. We saw no one dead nor anyone wounded. Strange war. Nobody had been advancing, just waiting. I couldn't fathom the penetrating gloom that was enveloping the stolid boys who had rescued us. Later I figured it was fear of the grim task that lay ahead of them, perhaps to the point that they were being sorry for us, and still later that they were just plain disgusted at the raging fires, the destruction, the waste of civilian lives. And why not? These boys had learned the value of human life, and there, staring them in the face, was the prospect of the loss of so many innocent civilian lives in one swoop, perhaps enough to match their own recent casualties.

As we stumbled toward Paco station, my mother and father were leaning on each other. We hadn't bathed in a week or slept or eaten in the past two days. Still we went on, beginning to see more crouching GIs who were friendlier in proportion to their distance from the [front] lines. I was hungry and thirsty but I could stand it — my parents couldn't. I asked, 'Got anything to eat you can spare?' And instinctively I felt ashamed for asking.

continues...