大象传媒

The Japs turned us out for work at daybreak, and the rain stopped in time for us to start work. We returned at five o'clock to our wet bedding in the temple, and found that the water had receded sufficiently for us to re-occupy our half-hut.

I found that my foam rubber mattress was still soaked, on returning from work the next day, so I risked hanging it up outside our hut while I went to the river to wash; it had disappeared upon my return.

This was my most precious possession, so I waited until the next day before combing every hut in the camp to try to find it. Sure enough, find it I did, cut up into smaller pieces to avoid recognition, in the kit of a man from the Recce Battalion. I accused him of stealing it and placed him on report, but was disgusted, when a couple of days later, coming up in front of the major, he was only admonished.

The stretch of embankment on which we were working was now twenty feet high, owing to the fall of the land. As we were still given the same amount of earth to shift per man we really did have to work flat out to finish by dusk, and staggered back home in the evenings with trembling legs, after climbing to the top with our loads all afternoon.

The line was to climb from this point to a range of hills half a mile away, where a gang of our men were cutting a pass through very hard white rock. They cut deep holes with hammers and long chisels, and twice daily the Jap engineers filled the holes with explosives and blasted the rock away. Another gang was breaking the fallen rock into small pieces with hammers and carting it off to the completed parts of the track to use as ballast when the line was laid.

A few days later the camp buzzed with excitement as the news circulated that four men had escaped from a working party during that day. The Japs were furious and said that we were all going to be punished. Our British camp commandant called us all together, and lectured us on the folly of trying to escape at the moment. We could be of no help to the Allied Forces that were separated from us by a thousand miles of disease-ridden and foodless jungle, and in addition there were tigers roaming there waiting to prey on us. If that were not enough to convince us, he said that the Japs had offered the natives high rewards for reporting or returning escaped prisoners, dead or alive. 鈥淧lease make no attempt, you can do no good, and others will suffer.鈥�

That evening our ears were alerted by the new sound of aircraft passing high overhead, and the Japs sounded their air-raid alarm. They came round ordering us all to stay in our huts, so we had to be content with peering out under the eaves into the clear starlit sky. Someone said he counted five planes, but I saw none.

The thrill of the realization that up there in the sky were our free comrades, kept us awake with excitement for most of the night. Perhaps the Jap soldiers were having a re-think too, bearing in mind the ridiculous stories they had believed of their victorious advance through India and into Europe.

I slept beside my friend Jimmy Hume, and the other side of Jimmy was the bed space of Sergeant Charlie Stevens our elderly cook, who had served in the first World War; he was was then on night duty; his bedding and belongings were in a neat bundle at the head of his space.

At about one o'clock in the morning I awoke as Jimmy leapt out of bed with a yell and disappeared under the eaves into the (by now) bright moonlight. Jumping out after him, I saw Jimmy chasing someone across the adjacent open space so I joined in. Seeing the two of us after him the fugitive dropped what transpired to be Charlie's kit, in the hope of getting away.

However we caught him and took his name and number. Jimmy went back to collect the kit from the ground where it had fallen, but I followed the miscreant to his hut. Once in the shadow of the hut he took to his heels again, and only by luck I saw him dive into a bed and draw the clothes over himself. I snatched the clothes off and asked him what he was up to, but he professed indignation at being awakened from his 'sleep'.

He could not, however, help blowing like a grampus from his exertion, so I yelled for the N.C.O. in charge of the hut, and in spite of epithets from those all round, I kept yelling until he reluctantly came forward. The man had of course given us the wrong name which proved to be Jackson.

There was unfortunately a lot of thieving from comrades going on in Chunkai camp. Wasters in civilian life are still the same men when they become prisoners of war. "Can the leopard change his spots, or the evil man forsake his way?"

Blankets, most valuable of all the captive's possessions, were stolen and sold to the Thais. With no protection from the malaria-carrying mosquito, many must have died solely because of these camp thieves.

Even the medical hut was broken into, and our scanty supply of medicines robbed for private gain. Some became so wealthy that they were able to bribe those in charge to let them stay in camp as sick men, while the really sick were forced out to work. Jackson was court-marshaled a few weeks later, but I did not hear the result.

The Japs now told us that if we finished the task in nine days we were to have the tenth day off. On the ninth day of our first task under this scheme, although we worked flat out all day, and right up until it became too dark, we did not finish. I was very despondent as I had much to do, most important of all, my washing.

However, the Japs, realizing that we had done our best, showed that they were human after all, and obtained permission from the officer in charge for us to have our free day after all. Or did they want to do their own washing?

I was sharpening my razor the next day when shouts brought me quickly outside the hut, just in time to take part in a snake hunt. I managed to kill the unfortunate creature, and so skinned, cut up, and cooked it for my midday meal. As it had been about three feet long there was just enough for one, which was as well since no-one else fancied trying it.

The flavor of the white flesh was like rather fishy chicken, not at all unpleasant. It was very full of thin bones, and therefore took a long time to eat. I was to have quite a few more, before we left Thailand.

In the afternoon I decided to sell my newly-washed sheet as I was unable to keep it clean now that we were working such long hours. I sold it through the wire to a Thai woman, and after long bargaining settled for three Tickle, fifty Stang, and two bars of 'nutty-nutty', as we used to call the Thai peanut confection.

These Thais would squat on their haunches at secluded points along the long camp boundary, with their wares on display. Some men offered their cash and then at the last minute snatched it back together with the goods.

One boasted that he had polished up some farthings and sold them as gold coins. The Thais soon became fed up with us and would only put their wares into our hands after receiving and examining our cash. Some even got their own back by keeping the cash without parting with the goods.

The vendors were, however, mostly transparently honest, and full of goodwill to us. They were nearly all old ladies, and they would sit behind their baskets until the last of their produce was sold. Besides 'nutty-nutty' there was a sweet jellied concoction (made from unripe coconuts), dried fish, fruit, and both raw and hard-boiled eggs.

The egg sellers had their eggs in separate heaps, and sung their continuous cry of "cook-cook" and "no-cook" pointing the while first to one heap and then the other. All bargaining and pricing was accompanied by finger-arithmetic.

Thais sing their language in several tones, although it is quite unlike Chinese. I soon learned a few simple words, such as "di", good, and "my-di" or no-good; 'sook', ripe, or'my-sook', unripe. Any positive could be negatived by the prefix 'my'.

I became fond of the Thais, although some of them were obviously rogues. The men stalked along the jungle paths, some in sarongs, others in shirts and shorts with shirt-tails flying loose. They were a brave race, and always carried a big knife or 'parang' in their belts as a defence from tigers and robbers, or to cut a path through the undergrowth.

They did not appear over-keen on steady work, as most of the hard jobs and cultivations in their country seemed to be executed by the Chinese. There was inter-marrying between the races, and the local population varied in colour from mid-brown to nearly white.

First thing in the morning many of the Thai women looked quite beautiful, but they all seemed to chew betel-nut, and by midday their teeth gleamed like pieces of anthracite through their smiling lips. Ugh!
We would sometimes see them early in the morning cleaning their teeth with the end of a chewed twig.

Out on the railway, the embankment had by now reached a height of thirty feet, and as we were allowed to organize the work ourselves as long as we finished by the tenth day, our guards slept under the trees, or moved along to chat and play games with guards from other groups.

As soon as we were unobserved we rolled the huge bamboo and other roots we had dug up to the bottom of the heap and covered them up with dirt as quickly as we could. The Japs never seemed to remark on the fact that they were missing, so we continued to do this all along the line.

Occasionally someone would be caught red-handed, and then he would be beaten up. A year or so later, after the white ants (termites) had eaten the stumps away, huge holes appeared all along the embankment, and many gangs of men were employed in filling them up.

It was now the beginning of December 1942. The rains had stopped, but the nights became cold, some nights it almost felt like a frost. Those who had had their bedding stolen suffered a lot as they tried to keep warm under odd bits of rag and sacking.

Other parties of men occasionally passed us as we worked. They were on their way up country from Singapore and the route of the railway was the only road up. Among these parties was one from River Valley, and this included our old pals Skin Barker, Len Dudley and Ron Kitson, sergeants from our regiment.

Life in camp had by now settled down to a monotonous routine. Breakfast at dawn, on the railway at eight o'clock; break to eat our plain cold rice at midday, and back most evenings just in time to wash in the river; but as there was only time to disinfest our bedding once every ten days, and sometimes not even then, we became as lousy as coots, and the split bamboo from which our bed-stagings were made was filled in every crack with the repulsive bed-bugs.

With mosquitoes during the day, life was one long itch, and we dare not scratch for fear of producing the ghastly tropical ulcers which were by now killing many of our men. The one saving grace was that we could at least get in the river to cool off and remove the grime most evenings.

The day after Skin and Co. went through, I was unable to eat all day and felt so bad that on our return from work I called at the medical hut where I was told that my temperature was one-hundred and five point nine, so I was excused work for a week. The next day I was seized by the uncontrollable fits of shivering known as 'rigors' which are typical of malaria. At this point we still had supplies of quinine, so after a week I was pronounced fit to return to the railroad; it was the eighteenth of December.

Theft had by now become so rife that our officers decided to try to take measures against it. The criminals had organized themselves so well that there were receivers who would take anything, no questions asked, out of the camp each night to sell in the nearby village.

The measures resulted in orders that the N.C.O. in charge of each hut was to mount a guard each night, every man taking a turn once a week. Many of the men deeply resented this and insinuated that we were worse than the Japs, who did at least let them spend the night in peace. It was not much fun trying to see these men did as they were told, but I did my best.

As long as the quota of men was available for work each day, the Japs did not at this time make the really sick men go out to work, and our medics were allowed to decide who was fit enough. Until now no officers had to go out on the work parties; they were provided with what seemed to us a substantial cash allowance by our captors, and amused themselves in camp all day as best they could. Whereas they no doubt felt themselves to be hard up, to us on our penny a day they seemed to live like millionaires.

Life changed for the officers on the twenty-first of the month, when the Jap Commandant ordered them out on parade. They were told that their days of leisure were over, and that they would in future be required to work on the railway like the other ranks. In accordance with the Geneva Convention which states that officers may not be put to work if taken prisoner, they refused to go.

The Jap said that his race appreciated the principle of death before dishonour, and invited those who would like to be shot in preference to working to stay behind. After a hurried conference it was decided to submit under protest, and from then on the officers had to work, except that one was to be allowed to take charge of each of our work parties.

We were struggling to finish our task by the twenty-fourth of December; the Japs had given us a twelve day task on this occasion, saying that if we completed it in ten days we could have both Christmas and New Year's Day free.

On the night of the twenty-third I broke out of Chunkai for the first time to do the Christmas shopping for my men. Although there was an official canteen in the camp where most things could be bought at a price, outside they could be bought for half of that. I bought among other things a bottle of native rice spirit, thirty eggs, and a load of biscuits.

Christmas Eve saw us finish our twelve-day stretch with a late night ending, but we felt the effort had been worthwhile. That night Jimmy and I drank to freedom in a cocktail we made up of rice-spirit, lime juice and rice-water. We thought it was lovely.

The cooks, who had been putting rations to one side for weeks, excelled themselves with that, our first Christmas dinner as POW's; and in the evening there was a concert accompanied by a band of home-made instruments. It was a very good effort. I remember finding it hard to believe that it really was Christmas, and wondered if my folk had heard that I was alive and a prisoner, since I had heard nothing from home. As I later was to learn, they had heard nothing, nor were they to hear for another year or so.

The Japs wandered through the camp during the day, and seeing us trying to enjoy ourselves, told us that news had come through that the Allies were retreating fast on every front. Of course no-one believed a word of it. Where did those aircraft we heard take off from, we wondered?

Diphtheria was a killer disease in our camps. Although tracheotomies were performed, very few were successful, owing to the impossibility of keeping germs out of the wounds in our filthy conditions. One of our officers contracted it in this camp a Mr. Bradford, and I used to visit him. He was one of the few to recover. Ken Ireman now also contracted the disease and went into the sick bay.

On New Year's Day we were issued with one pig to about a thousand men. I went to the spot where they were being killed, and collected two sets of entrails, which the cooks were not going to use. Cleaning them out in the river, I fried the lights for my tea, salted the chitterlings for eating later, and produced a pint of pig oil from the belly fat. (There is no lard out there as pig fat does not set in that heat.)

After our New Year's Day break,we started on our next ten-day task. As usual I made my rule of thumb check to ensure that we were not being given more than our designated one cubic meter per man per day.

On this occasion, I calculated that we had half as much more earth to shift than we should have had, and protested to our guards accordingly, but to no avail. Each succeeding day it became more obvious that an error had been made, and every day I tried to make the guards see reason.

At last the Jap measuring team came along to check the task, and after much arguing among themselves they announced that we could have three extra days to complete the work. Before the extra work was completed I was to be put on a charge myself.

On the seventh of January, after returning from work I heard that my old pal Sgt. Ken Ireman the carpet maker was very ill with malaria in addition to the diphtheria. The next evening I found out that he had died during the day and that his funeral party was to leave shortly, for a service at the cemetery.

When we returned, his kit was shared out among his fellow sergeants as was our custom. I was given his puttees, and as no-one else would accept them I took the two small goddess figurines Ken had taken from the temple at the time of the flood. This was the first Chunkai death among our sergeants, and there were those who murmured that it might not have been a coincidence that Ken had been the one with the 'idols'.

However I shunned superstition and put them under my pillow for safety that night. I awoke the next morning feeling very ill, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. The temple was now out of bounds to us, so that evening I managed to pass the offending objects through the wire to a Thai, and hoped he would put them back where they belonged.

By now I had obtained a good deal of experience of working under the Japs, had learned enough of the tongue to understand their orders, and was becoming familiar with both their mentality, and way of working. In addition I had one of the best gangs of men, and we understood one another; they also trusted me to get the best possible deal out of our captors.

On the last day of our task then, our 'beloved' adjutant came out to work with us, the Japs having said that one officer could accompany each working party of other ranks; the remainder were to form a separate working party which would go up country.

Our adjutant hated my guts since I had thrown him in front of the men, and he had chosen to place himself in charge of 'my' gang, rather than work in the officers鈥� gang. I was not very pleased, and neither were the men. As we started work, he sat down on a log beside the track and watched us for ten minutes.

Up to the present we had nearly always managed to finish our tasks fairly well on time, not too early and not too late. I attributed this partly to the fact that I always worked with the men myself, so could then tell when they had had enough; and I was never afraid to tell our guards.

I had split our working party into four groups, with friends together wherever possible. We made stretchers with bamboo poles and rice bags to carry the earth on, as we found the baskets the Japs provided were useless. Two men dug the earth and put it on the stretcher, two carried the stretcher to the embankment and emptied it, and as that was the most tiring job the 'stretcher bearers' obtained a short rest while their next load was dug. Every half-dozen loads diggers and carriers changed round. This way every man could work with his 'mucker', and considering the circumstances, we were a pretty good crowd. We were as democratic as we could be, so when awkward jobs or trouble arose, everyone had his say.

After that first ten minutes, our officer called me over in his usual lordly way and told me that he was not satisfied with the way I was running things. In future I was on no account to work myself; I was to put one quarter of our gang on rest, while the other three-quarters worked extra hard. He would lend me his watch and my sole job would be to call "change" every ten minutes!

He had been a commercial traveler in peace time whereas I had been a builder, yet after seeing us at work for only a few minutes, and having never worked under the Japs before, he was about to change our system of working that we had evolved over months of experience. It also meant that I could no longer work with Jimmy; I was not pleased.

I called the men over to where we were instead of going over to them, so that our adjutant would hear what the men felt about it all. After the initial uproar which broke out when I announced the new rules, one after another, first the N.C.O.s and then the men, each said his piece, unanimously predicting that the new idea would entail everyone working less efficiently and therefore later. Not one word in favour.

I turned my head interrogatively in the direction of the officer, who deliberately turned his head away. I waited for a few seconds for him to speak, and when nothing came took it to mean that rather than admit he was wrong, he chose to carry on as though he had never mooted the scheme. So I told the men to go back to work and to continue as before.

Our officer continued sitting on his log for a while, then called me over out of earshot of the men. In his lordliest manner and speaking so 'posh' that the words were loath to come out, he looked up into the sky and said "You will consider yourself on report Sergeant, and the charge will be 'disobeying the order of a superior officer'."

He made no attempt to tell the men to change their working practice himself. I spent the remainder of that day seething with indignation, and although I was not feeling well, I probably did twice my usual stint, as there was nothing but the embankment on which to vent my spleen.

My diarrhoea had gradually worsened during that day, and I went to the medical hut in the evening. The M.O. told me that I had returned to work too soon after the malaria, and that I must rest for a couple of days. In fact, for five days I had chronic 'squitters', and ate little but ground charcoal; I felt very weak, when on the sixth day I went back to work on the embankment.

I was relieved to find that when the adjutant found out that I was not to be on the work party, he had managed to find himself a camp job. He had not attempted to run the work his way himself. We now had a decent young officer in his place, and I was very grateful for this. It had been bad enough working under our main enemy, the Japs. I never heard what happened to my 'charge' as I was never called up in front of the C.O. as I should have been.

Our part of the railroad now transversed an area of paddy, some of which was still flooded. The lowest of the fields were wet nearly all the year round as the higher ones were gradually drained into them. Fish lived in these lower fields, and the Thai women fished for them. They used a funnel-shaped wicker affair, the narrow part the diameter of an arm. The anglers paddled through the mud, at intervals stabbing the open end of the 'funnel' down between their feet. Their hand was then thrust through the neck of the apparatus and waved around in the mud trapped inside, often retrieving a small mud-gudgeon type fish which they put in a basket slung over their backs.

I had only been back at work for a day when, on January the fifteenth we paraded with our kit to move up country. I had narrowly missed being left behind sick; quite a tragedy then to be separated from one's mates, when friendship was all there was to live for.

Chapter 25

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