大象传媒

All the tinned rations entrusted to us were now called in, and it was found that nearly a quarter of the men had eaten some or all of theirs on the train journey, and since the N.C.O.s with them had eaten theirs also, there was very little that could be done about it other than give reprimands, which were easily shrugged off.

There was an air of righteous indignation among my men as they saw the baddies get away with their crimes.

On our third day in Banpong we were told to pack our kit and parade for another move, and at eight-fifteen a.m. we were all lined up ready to go; but not the Japs. We waited there until half past three in the afternoon before they turned up to march us to a row of trucks parked some way along the road.

Some trucks! Each one seemed to be made out of two or three relics from the first world war; most surprising of all, they ran on wood, petrol being unobtainable. Beside the driver stood a huge vertical cylinder surmounted by a chimney, (or was it a funnel'?). At the bottom was a fire-door, behind which red-hot charcoal glowed. The main part of the cylinder was filled with firewood, and it was this that gave off the gas as it was being roasted. This gas was fed into the intake manifold, taking the place of petrol. The amazing thing about the Heath Robinson affair was that it worked!

The drivers were Thais, and this was our first experience of that hardy and independent race. As we moved off, engines coughing and spluttering, men had to crowd on every available ledge, even on the cab roof. Couldn't get another one on we thought; but quite wrongly.

As our truck gathered speed, four Thais appeared as if by magic, and leapt in among us, unseen by our guards; not unseen by our driver though, as with a skid he pulled up and hurled a stream of invective at the stowaways, who turned not a hair. At four-to-one our driver eventually gave up the struggle, and resignedly remounted his steed, and with skill approaching that of the mahouts we were later to see with their elephants, he coaxed it along in pursuit of the others, whom we caught up at the start of an incline; there they were stoking up to provide extra gas for the climb. Every half mile or so, split logs were stacked at the roadside to provide the fuel.

After two hours of stopping and starting, this strange journey came to an end at another camp, which looked similar to Banpong. We were told not to unpack as we should only be staying one night, so we dropped off the truck and put our stuff in an empty hut before looking around.

One of the 'locals' told us that we were at Kanburi, another transit camp with a permanent staff of cooks to provide rice for men passing through on their way up country. I could see the river from this camp for the first time; it was about as wide as the Thames at London鈥檚 Hammersmith.

We were provided with a meal of rice at nightfall and another one at daybreak, after which, at seven-fifty, we were paraded again, to embark on wooden native boats, and cross the Mekong (a branch of the Menam, and now known as The River Kwai for the first time. For many it was to be the last time also.

These big boats were fueled by paraffin, the engine having one big cylinder. To start them, a blow lamp was played on the intake manifold and cylinder head, and the heavy flywheel was rocked to and fro until the engine fired. Once under way, the loud 'poof poof' could sometimes be heard miles away.

We assembled on the far bank, and our guards marched us off into jungle, which came down almost to the water's edge. The flora consisted of huge clumps of prickly bamboo, a kind of fruitless wild banana, great teak-type trees, and endless creepers trailing from nearly everything; it was to become very familiar, as we cleared thousands of acres to make way for our railroad track.

The land soon began to rise, and jungle gave way to paddy fields in about two miles. These are places where the rice is grown. Each field is only about thirty feet square and is surrounded by an earth wall to retain the water; from a distance they look like steps up the hill.

In five miles or so the guards told us that we were nearing our destination, and in front of us we saw a big camp laid out beside the river, which had meandered back to meet us. Our guards made us understand that we were to remain here and help to complete this section of the railway track.

They led us to our bamboo hut, where we saw that each one was about a hundred yards long, and comprised an earth centre floor, with a raised staging covered with split bamboo each side. There were no walls, and attap roof overhung several feet.

At intervals of sixteen feet bamboo poles rose out of the floor to support the roof, and these divided the huts into bays. Each staging was about six feet wide, and formed our communal beds.

These huts became very familiar as they were standard accommodation in nearly every camp. Eight men were ordered into each bay, allowing two feet for housing both body and kit.

As we tried to settle in, men from the next hut wandered in to see if we had brought any 'griff'(news). We learned these men had already been there for several months, and that the camp was called 'Chunkai'. Working parties went out to the railroad each day they said, to build embankments. They were badly treated and beaten up if they did not work hard enough. We, however, were allowed to stay in camp for two days, building a cookhouse, latrine, and doing other camp jobs.

Then, on the thirteenth of November, our third day in Chunkai, we paraded soon after dawn for our first day's work on the now infamous railway.

An English officer in the camp warned us to work at a reasonable speed, without trying to hurry. If we completed our measured task too early, then the next day both ours and everyone else鈥檚 would be increased. Should the Japs think we were deliberately on a 'go-slow' on the other hand, we would be punished. "Try therefore to find a happy medium", he concluded.

Arriving at our appointed place along the line of the projected embankment, we found our gang was to build a thirty foot long stretch, averaging six feet high. The earth, it was explained, was to be excavated from between the trees each side of our task, and trod firmly down after being tipped in the right place. The tools were then issued out, and consisted of long-handled pointed spades-cum-shovels, with flat wicker baskets in which we were to carry the earth.

We could see other gangs of prisoners working on the next strips. Our Jap could speak a few words of English, and benignly explained that our work for the day had been carefully calculated; he assured us that it's cubic capacity was in correct relation to the number of men in our gang. "Finish your task and you can return to camp, even if it is before midday", he continued, "all men then have rest of day Yasumi" (rest).

We surveyed the huge stretch of emptiness between the high bamboo profiles that outlined the space we were to fill, and knowing smiles passed between us. He's surely potty, no-one could do all that work by hand in one day we thought. Starting work, we decided to 'test the climate' and worked at a fairly steady pace.

The heap of earth that was the embryo embankment began to grow, but painfully slowly. If anyone actually came to a full stop, the guard would yell "Courra!" and run over and cuff the offender, otherwise we were getting away with our half-hearted effort; or so we thought. By midday, when we stopped for half an hour to eat the cold rice we had carried with us, we had perhaps completed a quarter of the day's work.

After that the demeanor of our guards changed as they weighed up the situation and concluded that we were 'swinging the lead'. More and more blows began to fall from the heavy sticks they carried. "Courar, Engerissoo soljah no-goodena!" they shouted.

We thought that it was best to endure a few blows today, and to let the Japs see that we were not going to tear about in the hot sun; better for the future, to suffer a little today. We felt sure that all this shouting and cuffing was just a try-on.

Come five o'clock, and we had completed about half the day's task. That meant we had worked just about half as fast as the Japs wanted, and as it would be dark in an hour or so their bluff had been called. You can't beat the good old British Tommy into submission we thought.

The Japs ate at about six o'clock, we'd soon be off back to camp now, so even less work was done for the next hour. A couple of fellows stopped work for a try-on; one of the guards walked over to find out why. "No can see" said one, pointing first to his eye and then to the heap. "No see" repeated the Jap, and turning to the rest of us, "Othar soljah no see-ca?" he asked innocently. "No see" we chorused as with one voice. "Oroo men yasume (rest)" he ordered. (these Japanese were unable to pronounce our "L" so they said 'Roo').

As we sat down it started to rain. With only half our task completed, we had won, but why were we sitting out here instead of going back to camp? Our only drink all day had been the water we had brought in our bottles from camp, and we were now thirsty as well as dirty and hungry.

Two guards had left for camp already, but the remaining two put on their capes and seemed resigned to spending the rest of the night out there with us.

At about six-thirty we were surprised to see the two guards returning, struggling with some heavy equipment which they dumped on the ground. All four Japs started to erect some sort of tripod so I walked over to see what they were doing.

Catching a whiff of acetylene gas as I approached, I stopped in my tracks as the truth dawned. Lights! Within ten minutes two powerful flood-lights illuminated the whole site, and without any order from our enemy, with despair in our hearts we drifted back to work in the rain.

The guards found themselves comfortable spots under the trees and settled down, clearly for the night if necessary. And so we started to work, with the fit ones among us moving at about four times the rate of our earlier efforts, and by half-past eight, working in the rain, we had finished our task.

Too tired almost to put one foot in front of the other, spirits broken, wet through, we stumbled along the track back to camp in the dark.

All was not well in the camp either. Fifty yards from our hut we started to paddle, and by the time we reached our hut we were wading through two feet of swirling water.

The ground upon which our hut was built sloped, and the staging at my end of the hut was still clear of the water; but at the other end, some of the men's belongings, including their bedding, had already floated away, and the staging was a foot under water.

I crept onto my bed, trying to avoid letting my contaminated legs touch the bedding. Lighting my improvised lamp I saw faeces floating along the passage from the flooded latrines at the end of the hut. Men began to move up from the low end, and squeezed into our bed-spaces. We sat up all night watching the water rise; or were the legs supporting the staging sinking into the mud with the extra weight?

At four a.m. the filthy water began to overlap our end of the staging; the time had come to move. Sliding off I felt the water come over my loins, so I was unable to avoid trailing much of my kit in it. Our thoughts, as we waded off, not knowing where we were in the dark, perhaps going uphill, perhaps down dale, are not difficult to imagine.

Nothing was said, blank despair flooded our hearts, as, staying together for safety, we realized we were going steadily deeper into the water; but, again I repeat, no evil lasts for ever. With the water up nearly to our chests we met some more men passing through the waters, and they knew where they were. Follow us they said, and slowly but surely the waters receded as we climbed the only hill in the camp.

The tropical rain continued to fall down in sheets, and we spent the remainder of the night under a tamarind tree. The older camp residents told us that a loop of the river meandered round this camp, and that it had overflowed because of the extra heavy monsoon this year.

At last dawn broke, I saw an open-sided, bandstand-like building not far off, so we moved over to take advantage of its shelter. To our amazement, we soon found out that this was a Thai junior school, and still in use; as the children, together with their one master, trooped in from somewhere in the vicinity, so we had to move out and stand under the eaves.

Ages of the pupils varied from six to about twelve years, but all sat together in one class, on a floor-mat. As they began their work there, miles out in a Thai jungle, they were having an English lesson! The master wrote an English word on the board and everyone intoned the nearly unintelligible Thai effort of pronunciation.

The rain ceased about midday, and I was able to explore this territory more fully. The rising ground became a small mountain a little further on, and the sides were steep like a sugar-loaf. An avenue of beautiful trees led up to a Buddhist temple. The trees were unusual, the branches being formed like sausages joined together, without leaves, and lily-like flowers were growing out of the ends of smaller branches.

There was a long dark cave at the foot of the mountain, and by shading the eyes from the sun, a golden reclining figure, many times life-size, could be discerned.

Then it began to rain again, harder than ever. The Japs had left us alone since the flood; they had troubles of their own. Moreover, we still had nowhere to sleep during the coming night.

However our own officers now took control, and having closed the men up in the huts on the high part of the camp, we were allocated half a hut, sixteen men to a sixteen foot bay. However, lying on one side in the dry was better than standing out in the rain.

An old timer in the hut told me of a spot in the camp boundary where Thais came along at night to bargain for prisoners' valuables. I looked through my kit and sorted out a few items, as I was out of funds, and putting on my gas-cape, made for the wire. After haggling for half an hour I received fifteen Tickel (or Baht) for the remains of my silver pocket watch that I had dropped and broken in Roberts Hospital, sixty Stang for the chain, and fifty Stang for my fountain pen, sold because I had now run out of my home-made ink (there are 100 Stang to 1 Tickel).

The next morning we again went to work on the railroad, determined this time not to repeat our first performance. We were on our way back to camp by half past two in the afternoon, our daily task completed.

That evening the British Lt.Colonel in charge of Chunkai camp came to give us a talking to. He stressed the importance of making our work last the whole day, if we did not, he assured us, our tasks would most certainly be increased.

Later in the evening someone brought in a copy of a Japanese English language newspaper called 'The Nippon Times'. It was full of propaganda from cover to cover, with not one small bit of real news. Everything was so unrealistic that not even the dimmest prisoner's morale could have been affected by any of it.

Someone came in with a bit of alegedly 'real news'. Anthony Eden had flown to Japan to discuss peace terms with Tojo (the Jap Prime Minister). The Japanese soldiers had their own newspaper, full of optimistic and mainly untrue reports of the war's progress, and they often passed on their 'news' to us. Most of it was too ridiculous for words.

Many of us fell ill with dysentery the next day, due to the flooding of the latrines, of course. I spent all night sitting on the latrine pole, and in the early hours nearly dropped off to sleep on it. That night our Quartermaster Sergeant, Bill Wilby, did drop off and dropped in; he was saved from drowning by his best friends, and during the next few days disproved the advert "Your best friends never tell you!"

Those of us with dysentery were given a dose of Epsom Salts by our medics, but we still had to go out to work in order to fill the quota ordained by our captors. This was to be the last time I was to see any medicine of this kind, as stocks ran out shortly after, and no more was ever obtainable. A large dose of the salts, followed by twenty-four hours fasting, was the best cure for this type of dysentery.

I later evolved my own remedy, burning twigs, quenching them, and eating the charcoal. Dysentery was a very enervating and wasting disease; luckily I recovered before losing much weight. I saw pitifully thin men creeping around, with legs hardly capable of carrying their weight, and they were dying daily in ever increasing numbers. Chunkai cemetery on the camp boundary, was already huge.

So that week we progressed from task to task, each day leapfrogging the work that others had done the previous day. It surprised us how fast the embankment was creeping along, on its way through the jungle.

On the seventh day we lined up for our first pay parade. I did not attend as I could not get off the latrine, but I was able to draw mine the following day, one Tickel, fifty Stang.

These wages were not paid in genuine Thai money, but with paper, printed as required in Japan, without backing. Even at that stage of the war the Thais were loath to accept it, and later on it was to become valueless. The face value of the Tickel was, I suppose, about the equivalent of a shilling, but the Thais would only treat the Jap issue as worth half of this.

Although 'Tickel' was the official name for the currency, we noticed that the Thais always said 'Baht'. The Japs paid us twenty Stang a day, buying power of about an old penny (240 to the 拢)in nineteen forty-three. We were in future to be paid every ten days, to make it easier for them to work it all out.

We had nearly all by this time made ourselves little lamps from old food tins. A hole was made in the lid, and a piece of string threaded through for the wick. Coconut oil was our main fuel, a pint bottle bought from the Thais and shared between a dozen men.

During the evenings it rained most of the time, so we just sat on our bed spaces and talked in the feeble flickering light of our lamps. During the quiet spells we heard the constant noises of the jungle. Countless millions of frogs croaked and squeaked, those further away merging into loud background noise, which rose and fell in a continuous slow tremolo.

My neighbor had put his lamp on the ground to avoid it being knocked over, and as I watched, hundreds of winged ants or termites flew around and into the flame. The shadow cast by the lamp was impenetrable.

I dreamed of home as I watched the light, but suddenly, as a draught caught the flame, I saw something strange going on in the shadow. Getting down with my lamp in hand, I saw a huge toad, six inches across, gobbling up the singed insects as fast as it could swallow them. For half an hour I watched, wondering where it was putting them all.

Later, at about midnight I was awakened by water soaking into my side; I was on one of the lowest spaces this time, and I called a warning to the others as I wearily packed up my wet gear again and slid down into the flood. The river had risen yet further, but having some idea of the camp鈥檚 geography by now, we trooped up the hill and spent the rest of the night in the Buddhist temple.

Since everything I had was saturated, I made no attempt to sleep, and sat there leaning against the wall awaiting the dawn. There were little shelves on the temple walls, and on them were many small carved figures. Some of the men helped themselves to these for souvenirs; Ken Ireman gathered up a couple of little jade statues of goddesses.

Chapter 24

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