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A few days later, one of my men, Keyhoe by name, fell off the bridge on which we were working, and by a miracle he only had bruises to show for it. The real surprise however was that our guards showed real concern, and told him that he was awarded two days rest on full pay; nothing like that had ever happened before.

That night we were called out of bed at two-thirty and boarded a train to collect a load of firewood for the locomotives. The Japs admitted that the night journey was to avoid air attack. Ten kilometers down the line our engine came off the track, and it took twenty-four hours to get it back on again.

On the twenty-sixth of November, the Japs conducted a major search of the camp, collecting all tools, razors, pencils and paper. Mine, fortunately, were too well hidden to be found.

That evening I was asked to try my hand at writing a sketch for a camp concert, and agreed to try. Just as I was putting the final touches to my first literary effort, I had a sudden attack of malaria, and was taken into hospital.

During the next few days, for the first time the fever caused me to lose a lot of weight. For a while I was delirious, and during that time a bundle of Red Cross blankets arrived in the camp. There were only a few, so it was decided to cast lots among those in hospital to determine who would receive one. When I recovered consciousness a couple of days later I was surprised to find myself wrapped in a soft fluffy cotton blanket. My legs were very weak after this, my worst attack so far, and it was some time before I recovered my strength.

I had managed to preserve one presentable set of clothing right through all the days of our captivity, and had an obsession that I must at all costs, when we heard the war was over, be able to march smartly on parade and let the Japs see the loin-clothed figure transformed once more into a British Sergeant.

The clothes that I had been wearing when we were captured lay always under my blanket, clean, neatly folded, and with scarcely a square inch of trousers or shirt not neatly darned. I wore it only to go to Church (in the few camps where there was one), or on special occasions, in order to ensure that it did not drop to pieces before we were freed.

On the seventh of December, after we paraded for work as usual, the Japs dismissed us without our leaving camp, and they had to ‘stand to’.

The next thing we knew was that a big party of soldiers we did not know marched in, and herded us into an open space. They surrounded us, some mounting machine-guns, others holding hand-grenades. It was clear to us that they were expecting a parachute landing to attempt to free us; what measures would they take to abort such an effort?

However, it proved to be a false alarm; at nightfall they all ‘stood down’ and we were allowed back into our huts. The next day we experienced our first air-raid as direct targets. We all took refuge in the trenches dug round our huts, as we were machine-gunned and bombed by four-engined planes flying low over the camp.

In the weeks before this, a siding from the main line had been built into the camp terminating in what we called a sporry, which was a short earth-covered tunnel built above ground to house and protect one locomotive. We guessed that the planes were after this.

Bombs and bullets landed in every other part of the camp, and the Dutchmen’s hut was blown completely to bits; the sporry was not touched. Although after the raid all our huts and the cookhouse were peppered with holes, lying in our trenches none of us were killed, although two were injured.

The Dutch started to look through the rubble of their hut, trying to find any of their personal possessions not destroyed; I saw one clutching a photograph, but virtually nothing else remained.
The raid showed us for the first time that the Japs were not the supermen that we at times had believed them to be.

While the raid was on, we were frantically waving to the planes, most of us quite unafraid. We saw the Japs nearby, manifestly terrified. It is amazing the difference it can make to be on the winning side. When the Stukas dived on us in Singapore it was we who had been terrified. I never felt quite the same about our captors after this, and took their brave talk of hara-kiri rather than capture with a pinch of salt.

When it was clear that the planes were not going to return, the guards started to shout at us to regain their confidence. ‘Courra! Oroo men in hut speedo speedo!’

Two days later while working on a bridge, there was another raid, and the guards allowed us to disperse into the jungle. Half a dozen large cartridge cases fell on the ground near me as a plane uselessly machine-gunned the railway line. I took some of them back with me as they appeared to be made of copper, hoping to make one of them into a soldering iron.

Some time earlier, I had purchased a pewter mug from a comrade, with the idea of using it as solder, but so far I had been unable to find the copper to make into a soldering ‘bit’. These cartridges were not the answer however; I think they must have contained some zinc, as although I was able to gather plenty of resin for flux, my new soldering iron would not 'tin' so it was useless.

We now noticed a pronounced reduction in the number of trains proceeding up country; instead, Jap troops marched past the camp, pulling hand carts stacked with weapons and stores. On December the thirteenth I had another relapse of malaria, and went back into the sick bay.

While there, news came through that a trainload of prisoners was machine-gunned from the air the other side of Rin-Tin, resulting in forty-three being killed. It was becoming clear that travelling by rail was now a very risky business. Most days we heard at least one flight pass over, followed by the crunch of bombs exploding in the distance.

I now had a period of almost continuous fever, and by Christmas Day had become so debilitated that the doctor told me that I would have to return to Tamarkan with the next party of sick. I tried hard to kick against the pricks, but to no avail.

Christmas Day was my last in Kinsio. I had got to know all the guards with their individual peccadilloes, and they knew me. Although the Kinsio food was terrible, I knew all the other prisoners, and had made many good friends, Dutch, Australian and British. It would be all strange again in Tamarkan, especially without Col. Toosey.

Feeling very despondent and weak, I turned my kit over, half intending to dump all my illegal items rather than endure the constant strain of hiding them from the Japs. Once again, however, a comrade offered to hold on to them while I was being searched, and then he smuggled them out to me on the train.

We moved off at midnight, very glad not to be travelling in daylight, arriving in Tamarkan at eight a.m. after an uneventful journey.

Although feeling ill, I was not too bad to notice that this was no longer the same dear old Tamarkan of yesteryear and Col. Toosey, it was worse even than on my previous sojourn, when we were building the shrine.

It had become untidy and dirty, much like any other camp. There was a Japanese ‘doctor’ nominally in charge of the sick, but his job was just to tell our doctors how many men they were to send up country as ‘cured’ and fit for work. Our people therefore often found themselves being told to turn a hundred men out of the hospital camp as fit for work, when they knew that there were none.

When our doctor told their ‘doctor’ there were no fit men, he would call all men who were strong enough to get off their beds on parade, and walking along the line he would push out a man here and there until the required total was found.

According to reports, this Jap MO had been a vet’s assistant before the war. Once he made up his mind and pushed out a man from the ranks, it mattered not if our doctors explained that he were dying of TB, the Japs would see no reason. After the parade therefore our doctors would hold another one, and exchange any men that were too bad, so that the Japs still had the same number of men.

Tamarkan was now run entirely by the Australians, and although my first impressions of it had been depressing, I soon began to realize that it was being run much better than I thought. Our camp authorities were not getting the same co-operation from the Japs as Col. Toosey had received, now that the war was not going well for them.

In spite of this, a laundry had been organized to wash clothes and bedding for the sick, and I had never seen that done before. The cookhouses were also very well run, in spite of the very meager rations. I had to revise my idea of the Aussies and their organizing ability. They could do it if they so wished.

I was even given my first blood test, and my complaint diagnosed as S.T. malaria. There was also pus in my stools, which indicated that I had not completely recovered from my last attack of dysentery.

The quinine situation in here was so bad that only sufficient was available to give to patients who would otherwise die. Therefore, blood counts of patients were taken in order that the quinine should go to those with the greatest need.

I really cannot speak too highly of those Australian doctors, they must have saved hundreds of lives by their dedicated efforts. Our doctor sent for me and told me that in spite of my infections, my body was standing up to the strain incredibly well, as I still had a blood-count of 68%, which was much better than most of the other chronic malaria patients.

Since there were only four doses of quinine allocated per day for the whole of our ward, needless to say I did not have any.
There were fifty patients in each ward.

On the following day, the ninth of January 1945, I was feeling very low, and very lucky indeed to escape with my illegal gear during a surprise Jap search, as I had not hidden it with my usual care. I felt unable to face the risk again, and asked one of the orderlies to take all my tools to the cookhouse for the cooks to bury for me. I never saw them again, the product of thousands of hours of spare time work, and much ingenuity.

Next day the quinine ration was reduced even further, and it was now only three doses per day for the fifty men. However, after twenty-four hours with a temperature of 106 degrees, I was given a dose the following day.

During the next two months I had constant malaria and it is quite certain that only the constant devotion of the Aussie doctors and medical orderlies kept me alive. Before we were captured we would often call our army doctors everything from butchers to quacks. It seems to be a tradition, probably due to the unending battle waged between them and the lead-swingers trying to escape parades.

Throughout the days of our captivity, both the doctors and our medical orderlies lived up to the highest standards of their tradition. They fought a ceaseless battle against filth and disease, with very little, and sometimes nothing, in the way of medicines; yet I heard of none ever giving up his thankless task.

On the twenty-ninth of January I received nine postcards from home, all over two years old, and older than my last batch of letters. Seeing neighbors die every day, I became very depressed. I had myself weighed on the cookhouse scales, and found that I had shrunk from my last reading of eleven stone to a present four stone. In spite of this I was determined to get away from this camp of sick men as soon as I could, lest I also lost the will to live.

On the third of February at three o-clock in the afternoon, we endured a very heavy air-raid. The steel bridge over the river, with a smaller wooden one a little way off, and also an Ack/Ack gun on a small mountain overlooking the camp, have been mentioned before. The steel bridge on its concrete pillars was only a few hundred yards away, and that was to be the target of the ensuing attack.

Our first intimation that something was afoot was when we heard the drone, and saw a solitary airplane flying high over the camp; this was quickly followed by the sounding of the camp air-raid alarm. As I watched the plane I saw what looked like a great swarm of bees leave its belly; this descended, growing ever larger as it fell towards the Ack/Ack position.

The Bofors gun opened up on the plane, and we saw the shells explode far below it. Suddenly we saw the mountain-top illuminated by thousands of flashes, followed by the crump of small anti-personnel bombs exploding around the gun position. During the following long raid, not another shell was fired at the planes.

A minute or so later the first plane of the main bomber force appeared low in the sky, making a bee-line for the bridge. Machine-guns on the mountain opened fire on the plane, which was so low that we saw the bullets raise dust on our parade ground, heard the Jap bullets click through the roofs of our huts. Several of our men were injured by these but none killed. We had a grandstand view of all that followed.

When the alarm had sounded, our guards ran around the camp shouting that we must stay under cover or we would be shot. However, we got between the huts where they could not see us and waved Jap-happies, or anything we could lay our hands on, at the planes as they came over.

I saw a huge bomb leave the belly of the first plane, saw it fall towards the bridge, and after a few seconds time-delay, heard the roar of the explosion. When the smoke cleared the bridge remained intact. The next plane approached within seconds of the first explosion, and this one dived on the Ack/Ack post, guns blazing. The first pilot must have warned this one of the machine guns up there, and after this we heard no more of them.

There seemed to be seven planes in all, and they came round and round, follow my leader-style, each time dropping one bomb, aimed at the bridge. The attack lasted all afternoon; every now and then one of the planes would release a burst of machine-gun fire as the gunners spotted targets.

Our guards fired not a shot but remained in their trenches, heads down until it was all over. No bullets or bombs fell on the prisoners. On the previous raid, which had taken place on the twenty-eighth of November, eighteen of our lads had been either killed or injured.

This raid tasted for three hours. When the all-clear sounded and we were able to get a good view of the bridge we were amazed to see every span still intact. Three hours non-stop virtually unopposed bombing from low-level, and not one direct hit.

When work-parties left the camp next day, however, they found that the concrete piers had been undermined to such an extent that they were three feet out of upright in places. The purpose of the operation had not been to knock out spans which could be replaced fairly easily, but what they did was made sure the bridge was never used again.

Our men also found out that three direct hits had been made on the wooden bridge, and from this time forth there was always to be a working party repairing it; and as soon as this was done it would be bombed again. This is the fact, as opposed to the fiction of ‘The Bridge Over The River Kwai.’ Incidendally, the Thai word ‘kwai’ means ‘water buffalo’.

From now on, there was also to be a party of prisoners working on the unenviable task of salvaging unexploded bombs from the river bed. There seemed to be hundreds of these, mostly five-hundred-pounders, and before long we saw them in rows along the river bank.

At first our officers had told the Japs that it was against international law for prisoners to do this dangerous work, but the first work-party detailed to do the work was told that any man refusing to do as he was told would be shot, so the lesser of the two evils was bomb retrieving.

Chapter 37

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