Chet and the Prisoners - 7

Chet

March 1

715 Japs have arrived. I expect there will be another couple days on inoculations coming up soon.

So many of the things that these prisoners of war are suffering from could be avoided or quickly cured if they had decent housing and clothing. Many have colds which turn to influenza, and yet even the hospital quarters are not very pleasant. But contrasting the 50 beds at Ft. Lincoln to the five beds we have at the Pen, it makes you think. It is hard to compare really, but I think the food is perhaps about the same quality, but the prisoners at the Pen are definitely warmer. However the prison has had 80 years to figure out how to run the place.

Toyo was excited about the new arrivals, as many are from his home area of San Pedro – and specifically  Terminal Island. He is desperate for news of his families and friends.

I went to work a bit early on Sunday and brought a bag of books. We've got a library of sorts at the Pen, but hardly any books are ever read, so I got the librarian to sort out some that might be of interest.  They are a mixed bunch from novels to cook books, but should help to ward off their boredom.

Toyo asked me more about Kathleen.

“Does she think of you as her father?”

“Not really, because she was already 10 when I met her mother, and didn't feel she needed a father all that much. She has always called me Chet.”

“Is she worried that she will be replaced when the new baby comes?”

“She was as upset as we were when Donald died, and she is looking forward to the new one. But she doesn't want to be used as a babysitter all the time, now that she's a teenager and wants to spend time in the evenings with her friends.”

“You said before she was going to the Catholic school. Are you a Catholic too?”

“Now I am. I became one when we got married. What religion are you, if I might ask? And I wondered about the attitude of your people when that man committed suicide the other day. I know that in the Japanese air force, they do kamikaze missions, where the pilots deliberately crash their planes into a target, which can only be deliberate suicide. ”

“I am Shinto which is a form of Buddhism, and our religion has respect for life of all kinds. We do not approve of taking life of animals and certainly not of other humans. And we feel that suicide is very sad and brings hurt not only to the family and friends of the person involved, but somehow to all mankind.”

“But you eat meat don't you?”

“But you will find that we don't kill it. But once it is killed by someone else, we are not forbidden to eat it. But for the most part Buddhists are vegetarians. But when you are starving, you are allowed to eat anything.”

Toyo asked me if anything exciting ever happened while I was working at the Pen. I had to tell him this story.

The doctor and I were in the treatment room, and a prisoner, who I can't name obviously, but he was in for life on a murder charge, and we don't get many of those, pulled out a knife and told the doctor that if he didn't arrange for him to get out right away, he would kill him. He looked like he meant it too. I worked with crazy people for five years, and I know when somebody looks like they are crazy enough to do anything that they have said they would do.

So I picked up the ordinary straight chair that was in the room, and rushed at him with it, pinning him to the wall. I am pretty strong and had to manhandled people when I worked at the State Hospital, so he knew that I was at least equal to him in strength. In the meantime, the doctor called the guards, and they came in and quickly removed him, and put him in solitary.

The doctor who  is one of the bunch from the Quain and Ramstad clinic who said they wanted me to work for them after the war, was so grateful to me. “I don't know how to thank you Chet,” he said. "You saved my life."

And thinking quickly I said, “You can get me my job at the clinic now, instead of waiting God only knows how long for this damned war to end.”

“I'll do what I can,” he said, and he meant it, I think.