Little Victory
by
Milton Howard
He looked down at the highly polished black jackboots planted, feet apart, on the ground in front of him; gazed upwards to the clean, neatly pressed khaki trousers, past the large uniformed figure with arms akimbo, one hand holding a riding crop; then stared defiantly into the sneering face of the man with the supercilious air.He had been stripped, put in the stocks, and had his feet severely beaten with a bamboo switch. He stood there, naked, in the sunlight, with his hands tied behind his back, his legs trembling in uncontrollable spasms from the pain of standing.
He doubled over in agony as one of the jackboots kicked him in the groin.
He felt sick. He could feel the sour rice gruel, the last meal he had eaten, churning in his stomach. He felt and tasted the sour acid pumping up his oesophagus, into his throat, and filling his mouth.
With an extreme effort he lunged forward and vomited onto the clean, neatly pressed khaki trousers and down the highly polished jackboots.
He received another kick to the head, but, before he passed into oblivion, he smiled in grim satisfaction that he, #8357214 Sgt. Jack Kettle of the Royal Canadian Regiment, had made Col. Aki Tomakawa, Commandant of the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp at Banchoi, change his pants.