The Leper Spy by Ben Montgomery Read Free Book Online

first sound they heard in Manila was a chorus of hobnailed boots on stone like some sort of faint hymn carried on the January wind, getting closer, closer. The Japanese soldiers had moved so quickly on the city that the rumor spread that they’d been seen swinging limb to limb through the jungle like monkeys. There was no challenge when they arrived at the ancient city.
    Manila had a new regime by January 3, 1942.
    Around the city the Japanese soldiers marched, rounding up some five thousand British and American civilians, then the Dutch, Australians, and Canadians, pulling them from their homes and businesses and shuffling them off to Rizal Stadium, where they were sorted and sent to the harsh Bilibid Prison or the University of Santo Tomas, which was quickly converted into a prison camp and filled to capacity with men, women, and children. Fear caught in the throats of wives stripped from husbands, children snatched from mothers.
    On January 4, soldiers showed up at the Ateneo to round up American civilians for internment. The priests were told to pack their bags because they were next. Businessmen who saw what was coming had opened up their warehouses and invited citizens to take what they could before the Japanese did. The Jesuits, sensing the war could last a long while, claimed wine in barrels and all the flourthey could carry so Mass could be administered daily. And it did go on as planned, but it was rationed from the first day. Priests prepared a small host and put wine into the chalice with an eyedropper.
    Confusion reigned in those early days, exacerbated by a curious custom among the Japanese soldiers that drove the Filipinos mad. It was common practice for the soldiers to slap citizens who wouldn’t or couldn’t follow directions or didn’t show proper respect. If a Filipino did not bow to a Japanese soldier, or did not bow low enough for his satisfaction, the citizen could expect a hard slap across the face. What was customary in Japan was incredibly insulting to the Filipinos. And while Japanese propaganda posters were being plastered across the city, promising they came as friends to assist theAsiatic people, assaults on citizens solidified Philippine loyalty to America.

    Alejandro Roces, a young man educated at the Ateneo, saw his fellow countrymen beaten in the streets, their hands tied behind their backs, chained to posts. He felt as though the Japanese were trying to break the spirits of Filipinos. Rather than growing scared, anger prompted Roces to join the resistance. Gustavo Ingles witnessed Japanese soldiers drive through his hometown, and when they saw young girls, stop the trucks and chase the girls down. The first-year Philippine Military Academy cadet was hurt and sad. The soldiers thought they could take whatever they wanted. Ingles felt he had to do something, so he began conspiring with his friends in San Juan.
What are we going to do about this?

 10 
BASTARDS
    T he boys on Bataan surged and retreated, advanced and fell back, making the enemy earn every square inch of the hellish Florida-shaped peninsula, every cliff and mangled banyan tree, every bamboo thicket and tangle of wait-a-minute vines. They lost weight and sleep and caught malaria, dengue fever, hookworm, and beriberi, which caused the men to vomit and slur their speech and made their eyes flick around in their heads unnaturally. They carried guns that failed to fire and grenades that did not explode and letters that began “Dear Mama.” They heard regularly that a mile-long convoy of supplies was steaming toward the island, that B-17s and P-40s would soon appear in the sky, that relief was coming. General MacArthur was party to the lie, though he was unaware of it. He crossed to the peninsula from Corregidor to help boost morale. He talked to the rawboned Gen. Jonathan Wainwright and his junior officers and toured the peninsula, talking to his boys, encouraging them to keep up the fight.
    â€œHelp is