Located in the heart of Manila, the University of Santo Tomas was a Catholic university founded in 1611. It was unlikely that the founding Dominican friars could ever have conceived that their university would someday become a prison camp. The university’s motto was
Several of the university buildings were substantial structures built of a pleasant light-colored stone, three and four stories tall. They had once been grand, as befitted a place of higher learning for several hundred young scholars — all men, of course — but since the Japanese occupation the campus buildings and grounds had fallen into decay and disrepair. Clay tiles had gone missing from the rooftops, letting the rain in. Pigeons nested in the window ledges. Weeds and small trees had grown up in what had once been well-tended gardens where students and professors could spend a pleasant hour discussing matters of faith or simply reading.
The university buildings were now bursting at the seams with up to four thousand prisoners, many of them Americans. Through no fault of their own, conditions had become increasingly squalid. The old plumbing of the university was nearly overwhelmed, meaning that a sewage smell permeated the buildings whenever the breeze wasn’t blowing, which happened a bit too often on the hottest afternoons.
Water flowed from taps in a rusty trickle. Showering was out of the question, so that the prisoners had to make do with a damp rag to wash themselves down. There was no longer any electricity to power the ceiling fans, which resulted in hot, sweltering days and nights.
In a sense, the lucky inmates were the ones living in huts erected in the university courtyards. At least they had more access to fresh air and felt less confined, although they baked in the midday sun that reached them and slogged through the mud generated by the monsoon rains.
But even being quartered in the courtyard was disconcerting, considering that they were ringed by the high walls, where a few Japanese machine guns were positioned. The guns were a constant reminder that, make no mistake, they were all prisoners. Although the original university had been limited to men, the Japanese captors believed in equal opportunity. Both men and women were held prisoner within these walls. They could mingle during the day but were segregated at night. The grim conditions weren’t exactly conducive to any sort of pleasant courtship. Nonetheless, there had been a few pregnancies as the captivity dragged on, proving the adage that love would find a way.
Back at his office, Tanigawa sat awaiting the arrival of this so-called delegation. He had little patience for such things, but he knew that, as the prison administrator, he had to keep up appearances by hearing them out. Making small concessions helped keep the prisoners in line even better than Inaba’s cudgel.
Finally, the delegation of prisoners was brought before him. He wrinkled his nose at the smell that arrived with them, filling his office with the funk of body odor. The poor water supply meant that the prisoners had a hard time bathing. Maybe next time he could have Sergeant Inaba throw them into a fountain or hose them down before they were brought to his office.
Tanigawa sat at his desk, wearing an impeccable uniform that only brought the shabby clothes of the prisoners into sharp contrast. A black lacquered stand held his samurai sword, both a symbol of office and a deadly object of beauty. Adding to the martial appearance of his office was the heavy double rifle in a wall-mounted rack. Presiding over it all was a portrait of the Emperor, standard decoration for any Japanese military office.
The delegation consisted of a very tall man with red hair; a balding and worried-looking middle-aged man named Littleton, who always looked as if he’d rather be somewhere else; and one of the Red Cross nurses, a fortysomething woman with the very Irish-sounding name of Catherine Rooney. Tanigawa sometimes found the various heritages of Americans to be confusing. Unlike the Japanese, they were not all one thing — a mixture of Irish, German, Italian, Greek, and a dozen others — and yet they stood united.
He studied the woman, her dark hair contained under a white nurse’s cap that had lost most of its starch. Her uniform could not hide her trim figure. She even wore a touch of lipstick in an effort at keeping up appearances.
