How It All Goes Down
Plots Afoot
- In the summer of 1944, Louie, Tinker, and Harris decide they should try to escape.
- There are a few problems, though: Harris has beriberi and Louie is doing odd jobs around the camp (like starching shirts and shaving guards) to earn food.
- The men are being starved and beaten severely, and the guard they call S***head "open[s] his pants and violate[s]" (4.22.23) Gaga the duck, then kills him.
- Louie and his bros decide they can get over the barbed wire fence, commandeer a plane, and get out of Japan.
- However, they can't disguise themselves as Japanese guards because they're much taller than all the guards.
- The day before they plan to try it anyway, they're told that if anyone escapes, the Japanese will kill people in the camp. So they suspend the plan.
- Instead, the sneak into the Quack's office to find information about how the war is going.
- They recover a map from his office, which Harris copies onto a strip of toilet paper.
- His work is discovered, and Harris is severely beat in front of everyone; when he recovers consciousness, he doesn't know who any of his friends are.
- In September, Louie is transferred to a different camp called Omori.