That afternoon one of the nurses came in to change the dressing on the leg. She did not have the finesse or gentleness of the nurse-in-the-mask. She set about removing bandages much as one takes wrappings from a package. I watched as she finished undressing the wound and saw that, where there had been a hole, there was now a two-inch slit. With a pair of tweezers she grasped what appeared to be a piece of loose gauze protruding from the slit. She lost no time tugging on the gauze but I almost lost my lunch. I grabbed her arm and made her stop. After I'd caught my breath, I lay back, gripped the head of the iron bed and told her to continue.

I hadn't thought about the mechanics of a bone-scraping operation, but now envisioned the whole procedure clearly. It involved, among other things, packing the tunnel which had been made along the bone. Of course, when this packing was removed it dragged along the bone. I never enjoyed having people tinker with my bared bones.

This particular nurse did not seem pretty to me, but she was lighthearted and maybe a bit flaky. She did like my wristwatch and on several occasions borrowed it to use on her rounds, as she took pulses of the other patients. I never learned her name either.

Apparently she had some attributes which were attractive to one of my guards. He seemed to be quite a woman-chaser. He had served several tours of duty with me, and it didn't take him long to decide that I wasn't going anywhere and was probably harmless. As a consequence of this appraisal, he would disappear soon after arising and be out of my room most of the day. I caught on to his interest in this particular nurse when she stepped into the room one day while he was feeding me soup, which was especially difficult for me.

She leaned against the wall, just inside the door. They exchanged a few comments as he tried to watch her over his shoulder and feed me at the same time. He soon discovered that this wasn't working very well. The obvious solution — stop feeding me and walk over to her. Placing his hand against the wall next to her, he talked and she giggled. It was certainly not the first time they'd met.

Finally, she looked over his shoulder; and seeing that I was not exactly ignoring them, she said something to him, nodding her head in my direction. He looked at me and then, returned to his original task. After a few more comments and a few more giggles, she left.

There was one other amusing, but at the same time not-so-funny, incident involving the three of us. It took place after I'd been there about five months. You may recall I'd had no bath, only a face wash, to this time.

Scene settisng: The guard is lying on his bed and I'm sitting on the edge of mine.

Action: Enter the nurse. She sits down beside me after returning my watch which she'd borrowed. All parties start to converse. Suddenly she looked at me. She holds her nose and , leaving no doubt, utters the Chinese equivalent of “you stink!”

The guard looks at me for a reaction. I hold up my bandaged hands and a mixture of Chinese and English pours out amounting to something like this. “Your damned right I stink, but what the devil can I do about it?”

They both stare at me pop-eyed for a moment. Then they laugh. The guard says he'll give me a bath “tomorrow.” Tomorrow never comes. He's chicken.

End of incident.

It wasn't too much later that I did get my bath. It happened in a matter of minutes following the removal of my hand bandages. I asked Number One if I could put my hands in water. He said I could, so I asked him to send someone with a basin of water and soap. As soon as it arrived, I stripped and, somehow balancing myself on one foot while leaning on the bed for support, I squatted over the basin. With the washcloth that had hung on my nightstand I worked at scrubbing away the crud — I can think of no better description for it.

There was much more that happened that first five months, and the three which followed them as well.

Little has been said about the military to this point, but they were around. The rather tall, thin, English-speaking officer who had talked to me at the house came to the hospital on several occasions. He was usually attired in blue jacket and khaki trousers, or visa versa. He wore a padded top coat and a fur-trimmed hat with ear flaps. He wore no insignia so I asked him his rank. He said rank did not matter. I suspected he was below major in rank and felt this might place him at a disadvantage if revealed.

He asked me questions of a military nature, which I would not answer. Then he took off on anaother tack. He asked me about myself and my family. When I told him I had four sisters, he asked me their names and where they lived. I said these things were none of his business. He said he certainly didn't mean to cause them harm, I said he had no reason for knowing. He said he just wanted to see if I was being friendly. I told him that would be no indication. He asked these questions on several other occasions — same result. One day he told me he knew I was the “famous” Operations Officer of the 91st Strategic Reconaissance Squadron. I laughed.

He then told me they had Captain Harris and his 91st Squadron crew. They had been missing since a mission they'd flown about six months earlier. He named the crew members and their positions.

He was the “good guy” interrogator, but very obvious.

The “bad guy” was presented by a short, sour-looking individual who was always in uniform. He was the bird who once gave me “one minute to reconsider,” when I wouldn't answer his questions. At the end of the minute he asked if I'd reconsidered and I said I had.

He said, “Well?”

I said, “I've reconsidered and I'm still not going to answer your questions.”

He got very angry, snarling, “You'll be sorry!”

I'd heard that expression before — many years before, in preflight school.