'We're on emergency rations and waiting for food. I think you can find some just to the back of us. But be careful, this street is mined. Don't step on a steel plate, especially zinc. Don't step on any piece of clothing, paper or anything suspicious.' I didn't have to be told. I'd seen the Japs make those holes. Only I knew something they didn't — that many didn't have mines in them.

Later, I remembered how helpful the civilians had been at the safety station. There was nothing we needed that someone didn't offer or get for us. 'Wounded? I'll carry your bag.... Here's some rice ... go ahead, take it.' As dusk approached at 4:00 PM, the Americans didn't seem to think it was safe anymore — the Japs are night owls. We remembered that on the way in we'd seen Americans digging in. No wonder the boys were so grave. But I knew we had no strength left. My Dad could make it to safety this night, but my mother? Oh, if you only could wash your face, could close your eyes and sleep ... you needed it but you couldn't have it.

Milling throngs of evacuees were all around, walking ... moaning ... weeping. Finally, we were approaching the pontoon bridge that the Americans had said was a 'thousand meters ahead.' As we approached the bridge, an American soldier handed each one of us an emergency ration card that read '600 calories.' Two more Filipinos came up and helped with our last bundle. Then, at the foot of the bridge, we saw an American 'Emergency Kitchen' unit making hot cakes — large ones! It was too much for the crowd — they stormed the unit. 'Now, now,' barked a soldier, 'stand back ... puhleeze stand back.'

Well, I had my pancake, my Dad had his and my Ma had hers — her first real American hotcake made from real, genuine American wheat flour. The first in years! Why, she was crying over it. Minutes later we made it over the Pontoon Bridge to the safe north side. The Japs had shelled the bridge a bit that night but it was completely intact. Safe at long last. That was the end of our battle!

. . . .

Penny is living in the lower floor of a house, sharing with another Filipino family of five ... the hoi polloi. I asked him how they felt about the Japanese.

"Put one of them in front of any of them and you'll see," he answered promptly. As for the American tactics, a few feel "a little sick inside but not bitter.... They feel something went wrong but they don't know what. Mind you, they don't complain ... for the most part they just sit — stunned." As he sat in his rocking chair, Penny was 25 pounds lighter (he was thin to begin with) and still weak from loss of blood. "I've relaxed and banished the worries, at least the grave ones," was his parting shot.

...ooOoo...