Back to the travails of Yoshida. (For those of you who need more context, read An Erudite Perv's Reading Journal Parts Five, Six, and Eight.)
A number of the soldiers catch malarial fever in China.
"Fortunately, I didn't catch the fever but the mosquitoes gave me a bad time in another way. One night on the way to the latrine, I caught my head in one of the long green nets that had been draped over our beds in an effort to protect themen from the insects.
When i tried to untangle the mess the entire net came tumbling down, dragging the supports with it. The noise attracted Sergeant Nakamura who summoned Sergeant Kido. They were angry about being awakened. "It's careless guys like you that cause the fever to spread," Kido charged, then whap, whap, whap across the face. Kido made me bring in two straight-back chairs. I was ordered to support my weight on the chair backs and pump my legs as though riding a bicycle. This wouldn't have been so bad except that one of my knees had been acting up. The same knee had been injured in football [when Yoshida was growing up as a boy in the US] and once I had to have it drained. Lately, I'd been putting hot packs on it, but it was still very tender. Now every time I bent the knee, pain shot up the entire leg and I almost blacked out several times before the sergeant let me off the bicycle. I had no doubt that he knew about my bad knee and had deliberately chosen that form of discipline.