Unnamed Japanese Troops

In The Mansion these Japanese troops attack the retreating group of Americans as well as "Aussies, British, French from Indo-China" somewhere in "Malaya" at the start of the Second World War (305). They are never seen, but readers hear them "chirping" in the dark just beyond a line of American foxholes. Their "English" is the stereotypical dialect that once was spoken by Asians in (white) American popular culture: "Maline" (i.e. Marine), "Tonigh youdigh" (306). Their attack begins with beheading a Negro soldier and tossing his head forward "like somebody throwing a basket ball" (306).