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Broken Jewel

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The Betrayal Game

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Scorched Earth

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The End of War

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Souls to Keep

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David L. Robbins's Broken Jewel
A Summary

After MacArthur retreated from Manila to the Bataan peninsula at the end of 1941, the Japanese moved into the capital city. They found there, and on the rest of the island of Luzon, a civilian population of nearly 8,000 westerners, mostly Americans. The Japanese conquerors rounded these people up and put them in two locations: 5,500 in the University of Santo Tomás in downtown Manila, and the rest at a small agricultural college 38 kilometers to the southwest, in Los Baños.
Early in the war years, the Japanese treated these prisoners with disdain, but without violence or starvation. As the war turned badly for the Japanese, with their occupied islands falling to the approaching Americans, the captors began to turn on their captives. Food and privileges became rarer in the camps as the sounds of explosions drew nearer.

Broken Jewel tells the story of the Los Baños internment camp, through the perspectives of three intimately involved characters. Remy Tuck is the camp’s gambler, a middle-aged widower doing what he can to survive, and to keep his teenage son Tal alive and away from the guards’ growing anger and fear. Carmen, a young Filipina, is one of the Japanese army’s “comfort women,” essentially a slave kept and used for sex. She is housed in a third story room, above the barbed wire of the Los Baños camp where she watches, every day, the captives below.

She and Tal have made a connection, a silent but strong one. Each sees how the other suffers, and draws strength for their own survival from the bitterness the other endures.

When the Americans return to Luzon, the guards of Los Baños turn cruel. Every day, internees die of starvation, beriberi, colitis, some from the guards’ bullets. Information reaches the captives and the local guerilla force that the Japanese intend to execute all the internees. The decision is made to send messengers under the wire to contact the American forces now invading Manila to the north. The Los Baños camp is in dire need of rescue.

Remy, Tal and Carmen will all play pivotal roles in the rescue attempt. They suffer greatly along the way, but to save each other, and the last, best parts of themselves.