Another Poke

Every two hours, one of the VC guard would come by my cage. The guards carried thin bamboo rods, about as thick as the "cane poles" I used for fishing when I was a boy. The VC had a standard procedure for disturbing POWs in their cages. The guards would rake their bamboo rod across my cage to make a clatter, which was impossible to sleep through. Then they would slide their bamboo rod into to the cage and poke the prisoners a few times. If the guard was in a bad mood, he might poke hard enough to leave bruises. Every two hours.