Even in the filth, thirst and starvation of the prison ship, decency would send up timid occasional shouts. The Shirk brothers, Robert and Jack, had been mining engineers in Manila when the Army crooked its finger and gave them commissions. Jack fell sick first, grew worse, and finally the corpsmen saw that he would not live.

They removed him from the sick bay and laid him out on the hatch, where he soon died. Having stripped his body, they were about to tug it roughly from the dying to the dead side of the hatch, when a corpsman looked up and whispered: "Hey, handle this one with a little extra care. His brother is watching us from the upper bay."

When they had laid Jack Shirk with the others, Bob Shirk climbed painfully out of his bay. He went and stood a little while looking at his brother, his matted head bowed. Perhaps he prayed. At length he shook his head slowly and went back to his own bay, where he too died.

Captain John G. Hudgins, an army dental officer, had received four shrapnel wounds in the back and three in the legs at Takao, each the size of a silver dollar.

The corpsman, Pat Hilton, had struck up an attachment with the Japanese cook, who occasionally gave him scraps of food. Hudgins’ unattended wounds were weeping constantly, causing him to dehydrate rapidly.

Hilton would bring him the food scraps which the dentist would trade for water. The pit’s market rate was six tablespoons of’ water for one ration of rice. In this way the Army officer would build up as much as a quarter canteen cup of water in reserve. Then the corpsman would come around an hour later and find the canteen cup empty. "What became of the water, Doc?" The dentist would look contrite. "Pat, I’m sorry, I simply had to drink "

Hudgins had a second friend in another dentist, Major Arthur L. Irons. Over and over he repeated to Irons and Hilton, "I firmly believe that when I leave this place I shall go to a better world."

On Christmas afternoon on the Lingayen beach Hudgins and Hilton agreed that their chances were getting thinner and each pledged to inform the other’s family if one came through. A night came when the dentist passed away. Irons and Hilton stood over him -- clad still in his Philippine Army trousers and shirt, barefooted -- Irons said: "This man will be a bond between us."

When snow fell, the prisoners caught what they could in their unwashed mess kits, waving them back and forth under the hatchway like magic swords to trap individual snowflakes. So as not to miss any flakes, they sometimes had to pull the dying out of the way. They licked cloth that had been wettened by rain or snow.

When snow was falling the half-naked, barefoot men would pretend to have to go on deck to empty a benjo or toilet bucket. On the way back to the hatch, they would furtively reach down and scoop a handful of snow from the deck and stuff it into their mouths. Of course only one man in 100 could get water this way, because more than six were rarely allowed on deck at a time.

What saved a few lives was a steam winch which stood on the deck near the hatch. The winch had a small petcock which dripped, for an adroit man it was possible to pretend to be relieving himself over the side, and at the same time to catch three or four droplets, or even as much as a spoonful, in his extended hand.

"One day," says Major F. Langwith Berry, "I got pretty near a canteen full out of that winch. I kept going up the ladder and approaching the sentry with my hands on my stomach, saying, `toxan bioki’ which means `very sick.’ When he allowed me to go to the side, I would maneuver so that the winch was between us, open my flask and hang it under the steam petcock. Then I would make sick noises until the guard began to act restless. I’d go down again and come back in half-hour. I worked this 10 or 12 times."

Men who had dysentery were placed on the hatch earlier than others. The weakened corpsmen grew weary of circulating to all the bays with the benjo buckets, and were forced to centralize matters on the hatch, windy and exposed though it was.

The corpsmen who worked all night were perhaps the most unqualifiedly admired of the hard working medicos. "You not only had to hustle those buckets for the men on the hatch," says Pharmacist Frank L. Maxwell of Birmingham, "but you also had to stop fights in the bays for the clothing of others who had gone."

Dean A, Cohurn of Charleston, John T. Istock of Pittsburgh, and Estel Myers of Louisville worked hard at saving lives, as did a husky New Mexican, Oscar Otero of Las Lunas.

"The noise and nervous tension at night," says Meyers, "were such that you could never lie down and rest. You tried to nap by day, when some of the patients could take care of themselves."

Sergeant Major James J. Jordan, tough at 53 as a bantam after 33 years in the rough world of the Marine Corps, says, "for the first time in my life, I was beyond knowing or caring what happened."

The hatch, lying barely eight feet below the wind-swept deck, became know as "the zero ward." When a man knew that his strength was ebbing, he would say quite openly, "Well boys, I’ve had enough. I’m going out onto the zero ward tonight." Almost all who lay there ended in the sea, but Gene Ortega of Albuquerque slept there through all the voyage and is alive today.

Mr. Wada was fairly often seen, but Lieutenant Toshino came to the top of the hatch hardly at all. "I saw Toshino only twice in the whole voyage," says one prisoner. Once the Americans began calling for him. Mr. Wada came to the edge of the pit. "If you do that, I shall order the guards to shoot into the hold." he said.

From the bays came a rumble: "To hell with him. We’re going to die anyway, aren’t we?"

Mr. Wada’s rules were the most senseless tyranny. The pure sea was running past the bulkheads outside; it needed only a rope and a few buckets full of sea water to make the hold at least clean. But Mr. Wada would allow only one bucket a day to be used by the whole dead squad, to wash part of the grime of bodies from their hands. Mess kits and canteens were never cleaned.