When You Were Absent

34

American Red Cross. They immediately took up the matter with the Japanese and the Japanese found that about this time my husband had been sent to Shanghai to await repatriation. There was now talk of exchange ships and I was on the list with the three children. The nicotine acid worked wonders. In five days the skin was beginning to peel, the crawling pains had lessened and the pitting ceased. I told no one except the doctors concerned and two friends who had helped me with letters, but two of the ladies in the room had noticed even in the dark the time it took me to get on my feet to attend to the baby in the night. One of these brought me soy bean water to drink. She had cooked beans for the police and they throw the water away. I was grateful for this. · One day one of the police who boasted that he cared for nobody and nobody for him came into the room with a fistful of vitamin pills. "Do you want these?" said he. They were mouldy, but I do not suppose that mattered.

"Tablets in the wilderness ... !"

When he saw how much I did want them he said he could get me more but did not know the price. He brought me fifty or more and also concentrated cod liver oil tablets. I asked no questions as to where they came from. We never asked any questions of the police, but they always had a stock of soy beans and oil. It was beginning to give out when we left. I have often wondered since how they are faring. Badly I am afraid, poor fellows. They were often rough and hard-boiled, but more than once they gave bites to the children. When we first took up our quarters in the bungalow, all cooking had to be done over wood fires. Later electricity came on, and our bungalow was equipped with an electric cooker which had been looted. We guarded it jealously. After the

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