Part I

[ Part 1 ] [ Part II ] [ Part III ] [ Photos ]

PART  ONE

2nd February 1942  to 1^st February 1943

EARLY   DAYS

Section 1  

Today, I was reduced to stealing a biscuit!  Last night the food was so little.  We are getting barely enough food.  I have lost about 10 lbs in two and a half months, although very fit, I am definitely not so strong.*    

Today, I was reduced to stealing a biscuit!  Last night the food was so little.  We are getting barely enough food.  I have lost about 10 lbs in two and a half months, although very fit, I am definitely not so strong.*  

One of the best physically developed men I have met was a clerk in my Unit in Singapore.   Standing 6 feet 8 inches in his socks, he must have weighed 13 stone and had the figure of a healthy wrestler.  After two months in the prison camp I met him again.  Still 6 feet 8 inches his height only accentuated his frail appearance.  His eyes were set back in dark cavities and his hollow cheeks, pale face and spindly limbs gave the impression of someone on the point of death.  I was so astonished by this remarkable change that I enquired from the Welfare Officer if anything was being done to arrange a special diet for him.  To my surprise I was told that even with a recommendation from the Officer Commanding Unit (OC), the medical authorities had refused to make any concessions for him.  This is a serious matter because unless something was done we may well lose one of our best men.

I wonder whether I shall always consider boiled rice and butter a good breakfast.  There were snails for lunch today (boiled in salt water, then fried in ginger.  I do enjoy my meals these days, even though they are so simple, the ‘porridge’ consisting of fried chapatti, coconut macaroons, ground rice with butter or milk and sugar is looked forward to by everyone.  I also discovered that coconut juice was being thrown away so I have obtained it for our rice.

Water is very scarce and rationed.  Often five of us wash in one bowl and no baths, only sea bathing and one water bottle full of water per day.

*He was six feet in height.   Bett.

Today we had very poor meals, so I collected a coconut for tea.  I managed to get tobacco on the black market and gave Lander and Emil Cox two oz each.  Broached a small bottle of wine with Emil, which was quite good with a champagne flavour at its worst.  Bruce swapped a shirt for six eggs.   

The Daily Routine at the moment is:-

          Reveille

          Exercises

          Wash and dress

 9.10  Breakfast

Pipe and read

10.00 Gardening              )

11.00 Study                       )

12.00 Make something     )    interchangeable

  1.00 Write something     )

 Lunch

           Classes

           Tea and rest

            Bath

           Walk

7.30    Dinner

Lectures

 Bed

Being untroubled with the office and the general details of living, everything of interest which does crop up has a much more poignant savour.   Lectures seem more interesting and books are read more critically.

Automatically one tends to find more interesting more enjoyment in less and less.  I hope to retain this habit of ‘savouring’ everything before ‘swallowing’ it.

Anything of beauty should be deliberately savoured and thought about.

This is where a poem, or a note, or sketch, or a photograph helps.

Lectures seem more interesting and books are read more critically.    I have found a Pear’s Encyclopedia and read the section on babies with interest.  Poor Bett is going to have a busy time. 

Today I saw a white–collared kingfisher and golden oriels in a tree by my reading corner.

I have made a very fine bamboo two-piece flute in “C” tuning stop and all of 26” long.  This length calculated after much mathematics.  I have decided to ask David Pierce (a musician) about spacing the holes.  I waited 1½ hours for him and then found he and his pals knew less than I did!  This is a complete failure!   The first hole is in the wrong place due to Emil talking on electricity and Ian talking about something else.  The second hole is too large.  Thirdly the embouchure is too large.

Writing poetry is rather like sketching or photography except that it contains a larger proportion of mental creation.  For this reason it gives a similar satisfaction of expression to the sketch and often more so depending upon the amount of creative thought in it.

The degree of satisfaction is not necessarily dependent upon the quality of the work as much as what it reflects in the mind of the creator.  This also applies to music and explains the satisfaction of the poor musician.  One finds oneself seeing suitable subjects in thoughts, scenes and people, just as one does in photography.   It is a very stimulating mental exercise and particularly if one’s sensitivity is quickened through being in love.  For this reason no second person can ever appreciate another person’s work to the full.   All this arose from a long talk to Michael Gordon and letting him read my stuff.   He was encouraging for which I was grateful; not having Bett to encourage and look after that for me.

Bruce told me of two poems he had written in his life.  One of a man he hated when he likened him and all his kind to a herd of swine, and the other one about someone who pinched his girl.  Both poems of hate!    He said he felt much more kindly disposed to them afterwards, that’s the point!

Tall Trees

Beneath the tracery of tall trees,

          On grass still cool from morning dew,

          Alone, a-sprawl, I lie at ease;

          Below, the quiet cove.

          Two constant friends, a closed book,

          A pipe, well-filled and full aglow.

          Rich flavoured, pungent wisps of smoke

          Drift on the wandering breeze.

           A warship’s wash sweeps Cornish-wise

          The rocks which pierced the still seas.

          The air vibrates; I raise my eyes;

          Three fighters skim the trees.

                                                12^th March 1942

Section 3

I ground rice this morning.  In the garden I saw a fantail flycatcher, a cuckoo shrike, a blackish-backed sunbird and a spotted finch. How difficult it is to distinguish birds without binoculars.

Oh what a glorious morning, pink flecked  sky, dewy grass and pale golden light on the Frangipani with jet black clouds on the horizon.  How I love Malaya!  

A few weeks ago I found I was too easily annoyed but since realizing it I find now that I can stand a devil of a lot of annoyance without losing my head, indeed, I can’t afford to lose my head for fear of getting it snapped off and when living in close contact with six people, nothing is worth a row!

I only obtained about half a cup full.  The brood comb was smaller than our English variety and not so finely hexagonal. 

I collected as much of the nest as possible in a box that  evening, but ants had got in, so I sorted out the comb and laid it on a concrete slab, in sunlight but close to shade.  I cut a door in the side of the box and inverted it on top of the whole with a sack to keep off rain and used a slab for a flight board,  By noon the bees seemed to have settled down flying in and out of the hive, but I feel sure I haven’t got the queen,  How much more of the nest is still on the tree I don’t know, but there are still lots of bees around it.  We are cutting it up this morning.   I tried following bees from the old tree but though they all seemed to fly in the same direction, I couldn’t trace them far.  I wonder if the little colony has the power to multiply and if they can outlive ants.  I wonder if I shall always consider boiled rice and butter a good breakfast dish.

The bees seem to have petered out.  Brian told me I might be able to get a swarm from the 18^th Div.

                   Stillness

           How much longer in this sheltered shell!

          The imperceptible drift of time:

          As a wisp of summer cloud,

          Hangs in the still air.

          Stillness everywhere!

           Suspended lives, devoid of urgencies;

          Discontented with content

          Yet with content embalmed.

          Each jour banner furl’d:

           How much longer ‘till we wake’

          And live again for living’s sake!

                                                22^nd March 1942

 Section 4

I volunteered to go on a local purchasing outing with Brian yesterday – in the capacity of a drag horse.

This was not too bad.  I did twelve miles and free wheeled down hill.  We took an old lorry chassis along.  The Japanese soldier was reasonable and polite, but knew no English or Malay, he was scared of authority, but within reason he let me purchase at a kampong* shop The Tamil** in charge of the shop was a bounder but the Jap saw that he didn’t overcharge me.  I noticed, however, that my change was all in small, dirty, defaced notes.  These days there is no renewal of currency of notes and dirty notes are circulating very rapidly, they will shortly be at a discount and eventually valueless.

We bought about 1000 eggs.  I got a coconut, cigarettes, tobacco (all Chinese), Soya bean sauce and a pair of Chinese clogs (these were very useful).  I also bought two tins pineapple on behalf of other officers because I knew Malay, and after I had paid, I failed to collect all the cash due to me afterwards!!

The impression I drew from the kampongs was that everyone was rather scared.  I felt sorry for these childlike natives, everything was at half pressure.  Only a few shops open and those badly stocked.   No work was being done on the plantations and there was a general air of waiting for this stage of unreality to pass and for British rule to once more stage a return to sanity.   We were treated with respect by the Japanese and Chinese.

*     kampong shop – a local Malayan village shop.

** An Indian 

Section 5

A major turned up with a military fife, a six key English system, Bb, which he gave me.  It’s -a good one!  The fife goes well and I’ve got lots of new tunes noted down.  He has a shelf on which he keeps the photograph of his wife and daughter, and also a bamboo vase which I got him in which he puts local flowers; against the cream wall they look very well, better than my attempt some time ago.  His kindness and obvious respect for qualities he appreciates in his fellows and his complete sincerity make him quite lovable; after 22 years in the army too!  Today he was making a wire trap for pigeons; not doves he says because a dove is a sign of peace.

The other morning, I found a brood of young spiders, about 300 reddish brown balls like eggs, about 1¼  mm in diameter.  They had crawled out of a silk cocoon in the cleft of a stake and were in a mess of web-work in the sun.  An area had been strung and enclosed with a fine network of web, presumably as a protection from outside.  I couldn’t find the female spider.  Ants were endeavouring to attack and one was already fast in the web.

I joined the Architectural classes.  Isn’t it odd that this is about the only way I could possibly have learned the subject I have always been keen on.   Brian. wanted to cut me out of the course as I was already a Chartered Accountant (CA), but I prevailed upon him not to do so.  Strictly it would be more use to me to stick to Civil Engineering, but I will take this Architectural course and get it either out or into my system.

Gosh!  Wouldn’t it be fun to have a red-haired daughter and of course I will love you Bett, if you give me a son, because after all, sons are sons!  Not that I care whether it is masculine, feminine, or neuter, strong or weak, large or small or snub-nosed.  I shall love it anyway, because it is part of you and me!

I saw some beautiful green pigeons today, with grey heads, brown collars, green backs, orange breasts and speckled white under tails.

Section 6

I was up at dawn today and much surprised to find the crescent of the moon and the morning star right in the middle of a rich sunrise, so I wrote a poem, but not good enough!  Poetry is the issues of frustrated loves.

A great shock Selwyn has died with dysentery, he only left a week ago, a topping chap too, only twenty one.

I’ve talked of the lesson learned from the simple life of the advantages of having to live sparsely, frugally and without privilege and comfort.  Ability to sleep, read and work in comparative discomfort, which fades with familiarity and the savour added to simple food and intelligent pursuits.

There was a ration party of officers this morning, pushing a stripped long chassis to Artillery section for rations.   As a unit we appear to be fortunate.  We are having good meals and plenty of good rice.

We are now issued with vitamin ‘C’ tablets, three times a week, although I do not seem to need them.  I’m back to nearly twelve stone; I think the other scales must have been wrong.

Owen is now Chief Alchemist in a black-blackened kitchen with great cauldrons, store jars and demijohns.  He makes the vitamin “B” drink for ROAC officers as a precaution against beri-beri *.

*   beri-beri a B1 vitamin deficiency disease.

I can’t go on thinking about when I shall get out.  I must get used to living day by day and not counting time – and enjoying the leisure

I am as available as much as possible – but I don’t think I shall do anything epic during my period in POW camp.

I must record a very fine fried bread and tea at Fred Sand’s last night with Will, and Gerry.  I quoted a great scheme for furnishing and decorating our room.

In addition I have been rearranging our room.  It is at last fairly pleasant.  We have a long desk – a divan (the almirah* sawn in half) and I have put a mural on the wall in blue chalk.  It was great fun enlarging it by scale from one foot  to 5’ by 7’.   It was a snow scene with ski trails.  We also have a blue rug and a sackcloth curtain for our cupboards and a lamp, so we are doing a little entertaining.

Fred has gone to great detail over his veranda, he even has a dinner service for five made out of tin.

  * a wardrobe

Section 7

On Saturday I was drag horse again for a clothes party to Theo’s barracks, now Australian.  I acquired a beautiful gabardine jacket which fits and is a treat to wear.

The Australians had a most ingenious rice mill made from a bicycle and a lawn mower.

Yesterday there was a terrifying storm, the roof leaked all over and soaked everything.

Yesterday I was gardening from 10 a.m. until 11.30 a.m. and sawing wood until 12.30 p.m.   Today I am cookhouse orderly for the day and again on Sunday.  In addition we get odd regimental details.  The result is that I’m not writing down my thoughts – only thinking them.   Brian said his schoolmaster’s motto was GET IT DOWN.  There is no time for the library or poetry or is it an indication that manual labour and mental labour don’t go together on a poor diet?

Cookhouse duties yesterday got me down.  Twelve hours on and off; mostly doing stupid little things.   May I never forget the tedium of housekeeping and may you Bett never have to feel it in that form.  I’m on again tomorrow so I have insisted on a quiet day today.

“Later” The news last night wasn’t so good, this may be such a long drawn out struggle; with nothing but destruction of civilization at the end of it.  We must get ourselves and our youngster through this mess and into the ultimate daylight afterwards.

Bruce has been browsing this morning in the library.  He tells me the seven attributes of a Japanese soldier are:  loyalty, valour, humility, patriotism, obedience, morality and honour.   So in theory, the Japanese should be a very fine brand of gentlemen.  

Oh dear!  Still, normally, everything should be alright and its our first anniversary on the 27^th and Joey*  is bound to be born by then anyway  and you will be feeling better, so I think I will hold a small celebration  on that day with Fred, Jim and Brian.  I swill serve up some rice, and a tin of fish.

The present world affairs must be very worrying for you.  The more I think of them the more I hope that we can call our youngster Susan these days.  A girl is far more use to the community than a man is.  It looks as though a man must perforce spend all his time waging war for some time to come and culture, kindliness and humanity must be the sacred trust of women.

*Joey, is an Australian term for a young kangaroo carried in its mother’s pouch.                      

Section 8

3 June 1942

We had a German professor in last night and discussed the European situation with him.  He said that from the German point of view Nazi government was a success and the whole policy was satisfactory.   However, he could not explain the world domination attitude.   He made it clear that German industry had for years been organized to meet a long and grim war and she had amazing resources.  He said that our only way to victory would be to break the morale by bombing and hope that Russia could hold them until Christmas 1942.  In any case he says they will rise again unless entirely exterminated – which isn’t really feasible.  He painted a very grim picture of future history indeed, and said that Europe would lose between 20/30 million people in this war.

We’ve only got another 50 years lifetime Bett, so what’s to do?   Bruce  was saying that living in England would be like sitting on a volcano and would it be disloyal to go to America?  These two loyalties, take precedence to one’s family to enable them to exist in security, peace and an environment which permits full development or to go to the center of affairs and see the business through as far as one can, in loyalty to one’s country.

Why should I, as a human being, permit my whole life to be taken by a government or band of politicians and my whole purpose of life frustrated – from a life of love to a life of hate!   Are there any grounds on which I could permit that, could I avoid it?

And then there is the other side of the story.  Life is life wherever it is lived and has always the strong personal element in the middle of war or in the peace of woodlands.   One’s inner life is always one’s own and is the most important to oneself.   If security goes, if we can no longer plan our own lives, then let’s live from day to day and hammer out of the life that is given to us some interesting pattern until we get killed or die, relinquish the idea of home and a family and security and just live as fully as possible; it does work and if things are very bad it’s the only way.  It’s being married that makes war all the more horrible.  Shouldn’t we as a unit, go back after this phase of war and endeavour to pull our weight, and take a full share in the doing?   Adopt the cause and get enthusiastic, so we make it our life instead of regarding it as the frustration of the life we want.  In any case I can foresee the military interfering for a long time to come.  Take the periodical break-up of our living together as part of our contribution to the cause and make the most of what time we have together.  Loyalty first to ones family and secondly to ones ideals (not nation is the correct order, if possible both).

Last night I had a long talk to Fred about daughters and sons and the future of world affairs.

We decided that as nearly as possible every cause should be controlled by pure reason and not by emotion, good or bad.  This rather cuts across traditional heroics and where there is intense anger and fear of one’s life, both pull different ways – it is difficult to find the voice of reason.  However, to the extent to which it can be done, so it ought (e.g. we pocket our pride and salute Japanese Officers), the reasonable attitude is that there is a tremendous amount of cruelty going on everywhere and if we take action on one incident why not on all the others we hear of and we could find by looking.  Action should only be taken if it can be an effective nature, taking into consideration all the circumstances.

If one’s married one’s life is not one’s own.

Fred and Oscar have invited me up to curry and fish tonight to celebrate Joey and our first wedding anniversary, as we shall be moving soon.

Later I went up to Fred’s as arranged and what a feed!  Oscar cooked on an open fire in the back room; curried fish and rice, toast, bananas, roasted peanuts and tea (no sugar or milk).   I contributed some saffron rice cakes and a small sandwich.  We talked smoked, chewed nuts and drank tea until 11p.m.   We drank your health Bett and wished you a rapid recovery.

Section 9

The last two days have been blue days.  I have not been able to settle down to anything.  We were paid yesterday $7/- Japanese currency and I’ve ordered 3 bottles of stout, 4 tins of milk and 2 tins of pineapple on the strength of it.

Surely to hurt a girl’s most sacred feelings is one of the worst crimes a man can commit.

Monday was a good day for me.  Having had a busy week, my design definitely made progress so I was on top of the world.

Cookhouse on Wednesday was wretched as usual and meals are getting worse.  I feel a definite need for fats and sweet things even to the extent of queuing up for the privilege of paying $1.50 for a tin of marmalade!

There was a cigarette issue today. I think my pipe became rank through smoking the Chinese stuff, so I’m looking forward to some English tobacco- a cigarette in a pipe lasts 25 minutes with care.

The postcards have arrived.  Yesterday instructions were that we could only write to our country of origin, so message to Bett has to go via home.  Still it’s a fair feeling to have sent something away.  We were told to keep our message as short as possible and not to mention where we were.

  To celebrate Len Penn’s leaving for up country, we had a good dinner:-

Pilchard Savoury

Roast duck and bully stuffing

Curry sauce

Salted peanuts

Chopped Pineapple

Chopped eggs

Sultanas

Sliced banana

Grated coconut

Chilli sauce

Rice pudding with pineapple and condensed milk

Tea

Samsu brandy

Wah Hens cigars.

Section 10

I am not quite convinced that what we are fighting for is really worth fighting for, a luxury one can allow oneself as a prisoner of war!  I’m still not convinced where is the line beyond which the war ceases to be worth while.  What is the real alternative, not distorted by writers wishing to paint the blackest picture?  If we win, there seems to be the possibility of another potential scandal and general inefficiency.

Bert as ‘Gloria’ makes an amazingly attractive girl and dresses well!  

On Sunday it was a glorious morning, all the foliage and grasses have been allowed to run wild.  It was a bright fresh morning and the velvet riches of the shadows looking down into the pools and streams’ glistening darkly through the leaves was cool, beautiful and refreshing.

The kampong also seems fresh and cool.   I liked Malaya that Sunday morning.

During a halt I had a word with Stephen and after expressing an opinion, I was asked if I was a Pacifist,  I said ‘yes’ when I was allowed to be, and in prison camp I think I can be whatever I want to be.

In the kampongs we were allowed to roam and purchase at will, we stayed there for 21/2 hours.  The Jap in charge was a very pleasant little chap and showed me some singlestick and judo tactics.

I ate lots of coconut and made friends with a Malay family who made me some tea.  Generally the Malays didn’t seem to mind that they were having a lazier time than usual, but the school was closed, to which they objected.   Temporarily their fishing had been stopped on account of a cholera scare in Singapore, but they still carried on boat-building, making nets and lines.

On this trip we collected lots of coconuts and coconut oil.  I nearly made myself ill eating them.  It was very hot and tiring in the middle of the day and I was glad to get back for a sleep.

We are still being paid 25 cents per day by the Japanese.  In fact we are being very well treated and fed.  Our canteen can obtain almost anything we order from Singapore.  

I’m very annoyed because it’s only an ordinary tummy upset and normally I wouldn’t have done anything about it.  Now I find I shall be kept here and put on fluids for three days.  Hell!   I hate starving!  Still I’ve brought a jar of Marmite and added some to my mug of tea which was all I had for dinner tonight!

This is a shocking waste of time.  Later I managed to produce a small stool; a superb consistency by doing some exercises and drinking hot tea; I hope this will satisfy.  I shall have to do at least two days here.

Section 11

I was very hungry in the night.  I was reduced to stealing two biscuits in return for fetching Owen’s fish.  I am feeling much weaker on account of the diet – salts three times a day.  I’ve now refused further salts.  I must have food.  I had an excellent lunch at “R” Block, Penn’s cooking but all these salts have completely upset my tummy.

I couldn’t get to sleep last night, it was very hot and I had a headache and my tummy was playing leap frog with itself.    I’m feeling weak and aching in my joints.  Honestly if I don’t get out of this place soon I really shall be ill.   I am permitted to go out this morning.  I bet I have lost five lbs.  I shall have to be very ill before I come here again.

Brian beat me at chess last night; am I going crackers?

I made some marmite and we set to.  Never have I tasted anything so delicious, butter and cream and strawberries.

I got some yellow chalk yesterday and Fred had made a good dish of rice and papaya flowers.

I have written my first poem for six weeks, it gives me so much pleasure.   I thought I would never write another!  Bruce criticizes it because it is not grammatical!    We had a long talk on technique. He was rather all for style, while I was first for getting down one’s feelings.  If one has good technique to start with, owing to a classical education, all the better,  but if not, to try to concentrate on construction and balances of sentences tends to make one lose tones and emotional strength so necessary for story writing.   I recalled my early story telling at camp-fire!

     Abandoned

          These have I lost, now loot in Nippon hands;

          My books; those valued few I had acquired

          When to me literature made new appeal,

          (Though Fact and Fiction then seemed both as strange)

          And those acquired as my mind awoke;

          All my sketches, however badly drawn,

          And my old ginger coat and woolly scarf

          And sweater which you raced against the weather;

          My music, and my fiddle, my two flutes,

          My well cut formal clothes, my soccer boots.

          Those old brown shoes which served so well on leave

          (The leather was the last of Austrian hide)

          My golf-clubs and the stick I cut away

In Burma’s jungle; from that country too.

My Peter Jackson pipe – an old friend’s gift,

My Parker and Peterson, my Barling ‘straight’

My cherry and my two silver pots;

Those folded funds of memories – my maps,

My pocket Zeiss, my Reflex and my snaps.

But p’rpas it well to lose the selfish ‘things’;

The few remaining links with bachelor days

When inanimate possessions will attract

Undue affection borne of latent love

The blind quests of which now you coordinate

In future, starting thus from scratch afresh

Each acquisition earns our joint interest,

Is better suited to our life together

And so creates a further bond between us

And yet I sometimes wonder what they think

Of all Our things abandoned at Bungsar;

Those murals must first have made them blink

Each time they lolled at ease on our divan:-

Or whether from the sea they dragged our car

To turn it into arms for New Japan.

                                                1942

Section 12

I think I may be ill,  I’ve been constipated again since  I left hospital  and produced some mucus and blood - and yet I feel fine - I think I’ll wait and see – no more hospital for me if I can help it!

Damn!  I must not get arrogant.  I felt like giving myself a hundred lines.   Penn was in last night and a discussion followed which developed into lengthy argument.   All about Nazi methods and contrasting British methods of education, army, civilian life etc. with those on the continent.   He had returned from Ron’s lecture and was enthusiastically for some Nazi methods; but oh, so unthinkingly.  I put it to him.  I grant all that is arising from suppression of individual thought and serving the State blindly, but if I have a son I want him to grow up to be an individual.  How can we reconcile these two ideals?

I went to Tanah Merah with Brian at 9.30 a.m.  The morning was fresh and beautiful and I thought how good it would be to paint the landscape showing the extreme brilliance of foreground foliage against the misty greyness of the background.  The march back in the sun though was hell!

Brian borrowed my pack and filled it with durians* and two bottles of coconut oil, one of which came uncorked and had made a mess of the pack which I fear will always smell of durians and oil.

Later lots of other folk came and had a durian and rambutan** feast.

*A very smelly fruit! purported to be an aphrodisiac

**A red soft spiky fruit with a sweet white meat inside

Section 13

What a night last night!  We went up to Fred’s with 8 eggs, a durian and some Japanese wheat bread provided by Bob Vince.    Fred and Oscar turned out a curry of papaya flowers, toast, dripping and tea!    We had a fine feed and settled down to a long talk until nearly 1 a.m.

Really when one start to remember, we seemed to have had a few lifetimes of experience already.

The wood fatigue was spoilt by a fellow “on saw” with me who was far too weak to do much work.

There was a ‘pep’ talk today from the General (ought I put in for a regular commission?) I think it’s beneath my pride.

I had to wash sheets today!  We now have a batman who will do them.

After the concert last night I drew Brian’s shadowgraph on the wall, it flatters him.  I also did Bruce’s; unfortunately he had to take off his beard today so I added the beard later; as a memento.  He looks quite a boy without it.

Did I mention what we saw the other day?  A red-crested, black-headed and napped, with white cheeks, chestnut back and dark brown tail.  I don’t think the female had a red crest.  The birds were about ten inches long.  

Our new batman appears to be a ‘treasure’.  He looks a complete crook and I feel sure he must be, but somehow Bruce has talked him round and now he can’t do enough for us.  The shorts which were given me were too small.  Batman Mike inserted a two inch gusset with all the skill of a practised seamstress.  His washing would compete with any housewife.   My sheets are all white for the first time since I had them.  Astonishing, and he personally brought a hairdresser down last night to cut my hair, and yet he’s got fishy eyes, a weak mouth and a wandering nose – now why?!

Section 14

 I felt energetic yesterday, perhaps due to the double yolk egg, fried this morning!

 Anyway I pulled the saw with gusto and pulled everyone’s legs equally in a continual chatter which must have got on some peoples nerves.

It seems absurd to think that Britain will let the Japanese get away with this coup and I began to think that we should get Malaya back as a matter of course.

I dreamt last night I was with you Bett and that I held our youngster in my arms.  She was a girl I think, and had ginger golden hair – and was perfectly made - I was so in love with her.

I have had some very bright days recently – due I think, to the satisfaction given by my drawing.  Life classes went well today.  I borrowed some ink from Owen yesterday, he was fed up and so I took him for a walk.

War!  War!  War! Jews now have to register in Singapore – he was very fed up!  Bruce is very much at loose end these days, so I introduced him to S??? as he is also a bridge player.  Bruce’s bridge four has put new life into him and he is much more cheerful.

Life is pleasant again and I felt the other day that, should I not leave Japanese custody alive, I should let it be known that part of this time  - no small part either,  have known life in their captivity to be very good indeed as far as a bachelor type of experience can be.  I attribute this to the pleasure I am deriving from my lecturing, drawing, architecture, music and literature.  

I have been invited to play piccolo in a Symphony Orchestra which is being formed, so I am going along to try it.   I fear it will mean cutting lessons in architecture, but I can always mug that up.  If they demand too high a standard I shall drop out

Section 15                                 

I hear that our postcards have reached England, so you should have my cable by now – that is a comfort.*  

I drew the banana tree yesterday a detailed sketch which Brian thought sacrificed form for detail, one of my usual dashes worked up into a picture, this he liked and said it had power and would make a good woodcut.  At class today I drew another head; I am improving gradually.

Oh I do wish I knew!!  It is not that I am especially partial either way, but it’s a bit hard having an infant and not knowing if it is a boy or a girl!

Honestly my drawing is great.  The music Sam has written for my flute is in 7 flats!  I am trying to borrow an A flat fife for convenience.  I have tried tuning mine but it is not satisfactory.

There were some beautiful things about today.  A shoot of young rubber, the blood blaze of a tree trunk against the grass and shady grey of the bank.  The shape of a certain tree on the bank side.  I feel sorry for all these trees all doomed to fall for firewood, I thought of a poem on it, but then I remembered Brian’s remarks on sentiment and wondered.    NO!    Poetry is the medium of emotion – for me anyway.  Art created purely for the sake of pattern and form is incomplete and should be directed to as greater end.

Bruce annoyed me yesterday, he’s got the graduate’s attitude of nothing is worth thinking about any more.  He did it all at Cambridge.  So my talk on the purpose of knowledge was rather laughed at.  Actually I have been perturbed by my inability to get everything out of life in spite of art, literature and music.   No wonder a married man is more balanced and has a better poise from time to time.  Oh, when will this end?  We still do not know how far we can trust the Japanese after all these days. 

My portrait of Bill is not really first class – like all amateur efforts, its pretty – while Bill is anything but.   To be good one must bring out the strong characteristics in forte.

(Six months today!)

There is said to be a terrific loss of life in Europe and it is most important that we should stay alive until it is over, so perhaps we are both better off where we are.

I enjoyed a Chaucer class today.   The traditional merry month of May was the time of loving and doing things, because during the winter food was bad and people didn’t go outside – they hibernated – but with warmer weather and fresh food they all fell in love again – interesting!

So continually , contentment comes from one’s attitude, not from knowledge, e.g. if you feel you only want to be able in things you are good at, and you are so good at them there is only repetition to do, you will never do anything.  It is surely better to be a little naïve.

It is August Bank Holiday!  How very beautiful this place called Changi is!  Each time I go for an afternoon lecture in “D” Block on top of the hill and look back across The Straits, what a wonderful place Singapore is!   I wonder how I shall take to routine work after all this freedom of timing.

There was Japanese parade today – we exercised.

I had my first lettering class today – rather fun – I have got to make a bamboo pen and buy some Chinese ink and away we go.

Last night’s party was epic.  We fed in the mess room and the orderlies stayed all evening and served us.  The beer was just sufficient to provide the good cheer so necessary to really make a party go, and go it did.   Over smokes N told us the tale of some prisoners who recently escaped and were caught.   T gave himself up and had his head chopped off.  Another fellow swam for a boat and got shot in the shoulder. He swam across the Straits and was nipped by a fish in the shoulder and mauled.  Eventually he managed to get back to Changi and gave himself up, now he is in hospital.   Six others have been shot.  There have been various escape attempts from time to time, but it is really rather hopeless.  Uncontrolled Japanese are pretty brutish.   Bruce has found a friend of his who was taken prisoner and shot in Kelantan.  He woke up next day and got back to his own lines with a bullet hole in his chest and back!  He said when he woke up he couldn’t see any angels so he decided he must be alive.   It is a practice of the Japanese, not to take any prisoners in battle. 

Bob Vince threw me an egg today thinking it was hard boiled - it wasn’t and is still on the wall!

Today there was a loud ‘pop’ and something hit me on the knee it was the rubber tree shedding its seeds.  I never realized they could fly as far as 13 feet.

 Beautiful Night

          The dawn, the morning star, the moon,

Together in the Eastern Sky:

The colours of the dawn alone

Are feast enough for human eye.

Pure point and arc of liquid light,

Confine yourselves each to your sphere:

You’re far more beautiful at night

Than when you dare to trespass here.

Why should the Sky, so richly dressed

Her bravest jewels too, display?

In vain attempt to look her best?

Today may be her wedding day!

And Venus her betrothal stone,

The slender moon, her wedding ring,

But surely then, she should have known

Bright colour isn’t quite the Thing.

                                                13^th May 1942

Section 16

Thank heaven Bett you’ve got a youngster, it makes even my life much more interesting.

I’ve finished Brian’s portrait and it is the best to date.

There was a big Japanese parade today and Fred has at last been told to shave off his beard.  He asked me to do a portrait of him before he shaved it off, so all my time has been spent on this which is coming on very well.

I was shown a delightful Tailor Bird’s nest later.  I asked does a cuckoo always sing a major third, as Beethoven writes it?   Brian said Sibelius put it at a fourth and he himself has taken the trouble to find out.   Young birds sing a fourth, older ones a third, and later still a minor third!!   He also says that the thrush sings in the diatonic scale.  I like Brian very much – he has promised to play Cesar Frank’s ‘D’ minor Symphony today.  

I have at last got a drawing board by finding Bert a table-top to replace it.    I have also made a 60 degree and  a 45 degree pair of squares and a long T-square, so I am now complete for the hid stuff, 3’  x  2’.

The parade today was very tiresome, standing watching marching from 2.35 until 7.15.  We marched to 11 Division and everyone paraded around a large square rather like port’s prize giving.  The new Japanese commander made a speech interpreted to mean that if we were good we would be well treated.   The usual mess was made of drill and saluting.

The Loyals on leaving for Japan have stolen the Piccolo (G), two clarinets and a tenor sax.  I have been endeavouring to get them back.  The orchestra is now no longer functioning – Drat Brian is very upset.

No digging for me today.  I had to attend HQ to be questioned about my commission – to see if it stands!  I jolly well hope it does for your sake Bett.

I played the piccolo downstairs until I couldn’t think of any more tunes; it gives a better tone on a wet day.

Today there was an epic event.  We have received some Red Cross supplies from S. Africa, 1 1/3 lbs of jam, 1 ¼ lbs of soup powder and some vitamin caramels each and also maize flour.  Today we had a tip top dinner, soup - good too!    Followed by roast beef, Chinese green vegetables and boiled rice with a chapatti and after that a plain duff made by Penn; very good.

My portrait of Fred is now finished and I am going to mount it and send it up to him.  I like it.  Bob thinks it is too fierce.  It is always this way.  The model today was quite upset with my sketch of him, but he really has a criminal face and it was quite a good likeness!

At long last I have found a poet after my own heart, Gerard Manley Hopkins 1847-87, that is how I’ve always wanted  to write; read ‘Wind Hover’ or ‘Pied Beauty’  oh they are really good!!

Eggs!  How often have I heard various methods of cooking them discussed at breakfast.   Eggs go into the cookhouse with all sorts of instructions written on them.

I was paid today $2.24.  I think I was short paid by $1, but unfortunately I cannot prove it.  The loss of $1 does not bother me, but when I think it stands for:   1 oz tobacco, 6 bananas, 2 coconuts, 1/2 lb sugar, ½ lb raisins or 2 eggs.   After paying $1 to the mess, I have only 25 cents to last for ten days – I feel cross!   Bob wants to be very generous and make me a loan; to be paid at the end of the war!  But somehow I hardly feel I ought; unless there’s something I badly need.

Both Bruce and I have had ‘dengue’* without realising it.  I have had a bad head for four days, little sleep and felt achy all over.  However, today I have a glorious rash and my headache’s gone.  It is true I felt a little weak but not much.  Anyway it’s all over now.  Most folk get a week off for that so I have decided to take a day or two off.

It really rained on Sunday night and rained in.   Bob just got wet and I moved my bed and slept under a waterproof.  Bruce moved en bloc into the next room and Penn moved his bed and fell through it.

I cut the lettering class!  My rash was very well developed and I had a slight temperature – all gone this morning which confounds the folk who thought it was Japanese measles.

Brian joined us in Fred’s room and talked about music at home, He said very bitter things about the position of music and art in the school curriculum.  He told us of melancholy in camp, an officer just sat down and cried for 2 hours and talked sheer nonsense.  It is quite understandable too if you do not keep busy and keen.

  * A fever carried by mosquitoes which delayed our wedding for a week when I got it.  Bett

           Whose?

A cavern was carved in my heart today

Hollow and empty of all but echoes

Echoes drowned in the depth of shadows.-

Friends of mine many and wives of my friends,

Form a world of laughter, lawn-tennis and sunlight

Torn; and in dazed surprise, flung into horror.

Who can I hate!  Where my revenge take!

(How to appease this pain in my mind?)

Give me a knife, I’ll rip open their bowels!

Give me a club, I’ll smash in their skulls!

Blood for our blood! - -

If only someone will please tell me whose.

                                        25^th July 1942

(On learning of the hate of many civilians who left Singapore towards the end).

Section 17

We have all moved to Selarang barracks which is overcrowded and full of disease.

We had a coldish, sleepless might.  Dawn broke steadily and extracting myself from two pairs, I took a quick look at the slowly stirring humanity.  Selarang barrack’s square is about 200 yards by 100 yards.  And has 10 barrack blocks around it.  Total normal accommodation was about 1,200 men.  There are now about 20,000 men in the same space.  As officers we were allotted half a downstairs verandah.   Bob,  Bruce and I duly established ourselves, but believe it or not, we had to be reorganized and were 3 of 17  allotted to a bay 12’ x 10’.  

Now the sun is getting up and where we are all going to find shade, heaven only knows!   We are living on what rations were brought from the cookhouses and are on a minimum diet of rice and hot water with a faint flavour of boiled tea. 

Washing is out of the question.  Cockroaches run into one’s bedclothes during the night, proper bloody birthday!

Everyone is a bit scared of disease.  Three lads have recently been isolated because of diphtheria and there is no serum.

But getting here!   Thousands of people carrying, dragging and sharing, all trying to save as much of their kit as possible; two miles of them!   I packed everything except my beloved drawing boards and carried it on my back, my bedroll swung on the end of my T-square.  I stopped in the hospital area and returned the flute to an anxious Major Oldham, and then humped on and on resting frequently. 

One of the first things Bob did on arriving was to visit his Australian pals and return with a bottle of hot tea and two rich jam pancakes; hot and marvelous!   Also we had some quite good soup last night.

I just carry on, the same as usual, as far as possible.  I have brought the folding chair, some tobacco and books.  I just wait and lose myself in a story with people swarming around me tripping over my toes and so on.   There are card schools going and eating is just suspended; we are however fairly cheerful.

Three of us went for a joint ‘pee’.  The first today and last I hope.  The latrines which already fill a quarter of the square, stink and are full of flies and rubbish.  It is so crowded here now on account of the digging that that it takes 5-10 minutes to get across the square and I’ve taken to wearing a coat because of brushing against Other Rank’s (OR’s) with skin diseases.

Rumours say that Jackson refused to sign unless an epidemic breaks out.

If I could find a board I would carry on writing our memoirs.  It is a good opportunity.   Jolly good effort.  They are putting on a concert tonight.

Four recaptured POW’s   were shot yesterday in front of a unit commander.  I hear they put up a great show.  It took six shots to finish off one of them.

Still no rain!  There is a very lovely cloud which started very small and curling in the East.  It has unrolled itself in curling veils until it is right across the square and is orange pink from the sunset.  It is a really glorious evening.

The conference is still going on; I believe we are going to sign.   I’m sure I’m not interested.  

There is a big bare man in front of me cuddling a small monkey as if it were his own son.  

Major W called a parade and announced that the Japanese had now ordered us to sign, so the GOC  backed by Jackson had agreed and signed – on health grounds, he said – and we are all ordered to do the same and honour our parole until relieved by the GOC or the Japanese.

Now there is some trouble about illegible signatures.  Two of our officers have foolishly refused to sign - Why Why Why!  When the matter has been taken completely out of our hands by GOC.   This morning was quieter but we still did not finish until 1.30 p.m.; the slack morning was worse than the busy one. 

These rhythms which I play about with and revel in are natural in dialect and Welsh/Irish diction.  Life is richer and nearer the surface amongst the simpler elements of humanity and poetry is more abundant  

There was an orchestral rehearsal in the little chapel.  How incongruous!  It is rather a pleasant chapel with a light and dark blue altar cloth, a pewter crucifix and a painted stained glass window.   To fill it with drums, trumpets, a bass, 3 clarinets, 3 violins, a flute and a piano  and then let them all go off their heads in mad, frenzy of Moeller’s  Invitation to the Waltz, was all wrong.

In the afternoon I went to the concert rehearsal and fell through the stage.  I was immediately sent to the Medical Infirmary room (MI room) to have my scratches and bruises attended to.   Someone had forgotten to nail down a plank and of course, I must walk on it!

Increased tempo of living does not fit in with deeper thought.  Diversion laid on mechanically and a tendency to be amused rather then to amuse oneself and exert creative imagination.  But why is silence regarded as strength and open sentiment regarded as weakness?

There was a dress rehearsal tonight.    I do get a feeling of being completely cut off from the world like Rip Van Winkle, and wonder what changes of thought are going on outside, and I long to talk about the past again and try to understand contemporary problems.

The long awaited concert started tonight.  We all took our places, I was right in the front row, we played five pieces with choir and in the last March the rain started.  The wind first of all interrupted ‘Invitation to the Waltz’ and after that rain stopped play.   The gusts of wind were from a Sumatra* and copies of the music flew about, and then the downpour caused all the ink in the music to run.    Gosh!   What a storm!

I have lost my bed today, it was taken for the hospital and now I am on the cold, hard concret

* A storm originating near the island of Sumatra.

Section 18

I pinched a door for a bed yesterday and Theo was annoyed about it, but I’ve still got it, it is certainly better than the floor.

James said Singapore’s fall was just an incident and unfortunate in his war career.  We contrasted this with my position, one day living peacefully in KL, never really able to feel ‘war like’ and then finding I was suddenly imprisoned on my own doorstep it being all over before one could grasp what was happening,

I was talking to a RAF lad back from Java today, he said they had not been treated well and were packed like sardines into the hold of a ship; except they could not lie down like the fish do!

Sleeping on my board is rather painful.

To what extent should we live for one’s own intellect and to what extent for one’s senses?   Obviously to the extent which the individual derives greatest satisfaction from each.  The danger is from existing independently (more or less).  I am a sensually alive individual and therefore it pays to indulge my senses physically and mentally to a considerable degree.

Appreciation of beauty in nature and the arts gives satisfaction;   Physical exertion in beautiful surroundings gives satisfaction.  In particular love gives satisfaction to a high degree.  The Christian idea that it is necessary for a man to live entirely for other people or another person is not true.  This is merely a means of obtaining satisfaction by reflection.  On the other hand it is in the nature of things that ‘love’ should be a prime factor in satisfactory living, that life should be to a large extent an expression of love.  Therefore there must be a means of expression available in this life.  Love is an expression of life (dear me, what abstractions!) which is the expression of the workings of mind and body (intellect and senses) in their most natural form (e.g. not distorted or one against the other).  This brings us back to where we started ‘body’ enjoyment of physical activity for its own sake (rhythmically beautifully done) emotional satisfaction of the arts, in their creation and  appreciation, relationships with animal pets and relationships with human beings.  

In other words the most satisfactory life is one which is always lived to the fullest extent, all the time.

Thus life in the POW camp should be spent in:

                          a) appreciation and creation of art, including appreciation of nature,

                          b) human friendship,

                          c) physical exertion, eating and drinking etc.

                          d) study to increase one’s ability in a) and b), and occasionally  to stop and think to see how  the general    plan is going.

Alan Grant last night said he takes Peggy’s little dachshund everywhere.  He has had a report confirmed that Peggy was drowned. Previously it was that she was last seen clinging to a raft.  Oh Hell!

We start this month with two new things to break the monotony:

1)     a hive of bees

2)     a new job

The bees settled in the ceiling just outside the OC’s room and as I had tinkered with bees before, I was informed.   It was a goodly little swarm, about 8,000.  The little yellow backs were striped.  I got my leg pulled a lot, but everyone else was so surprisingly ignorant of even the most well known facts that I didn’t mind.  

I made a smoker by putting in smoldering cardboard in a long tube (This worked very well – I did not give them much smoke) but unfortunately it all caught fire and had to be put out in the lavatory amid much laughter,   However, wearing a veil made from my own vest and socks as gloves, I stood on a chair on the top of a table and quickly scraped the bees off the ceiling into a box with a quilt pinned on it.   I shipped the quilt over the top and then upturned it on a board and left them.   In about half an hour they were all safely in – much to everyone’s amazement - and they are now busily being in the garden.  I got two stings , but quite fair ones, one because bee got caught in my eyebrow and the other behind the lobe of my ear – otherwise they were very well behaved and content.

The hive consists of a wooden box 15” x 13” 10” with a 6” flight board and a 2 ¼” door.  I have hung socks over the sides to keep out weather and put a dustbin lid on top.  After my previous experience I have stood the whole thing on a petrol tin pedestal standing in a sunken dish of water with a film of oil on it to make the hive ant-proof.  I am told these are not the sort that make honey – as if I got them for the honey I am now going to look Bee Keeping up in the Encyclopedia  to see what I haven’t done.  The middle section of the box lid I made removable and inserted it in the slit alongside a vertical piece of cardboard 12” x 4” in the hope they might build comb on it and then I can periodically take it out.  I am also going to fit a glass top.  The OC congratulated me!

Today is a dull day.  I opened up the bees (without any protection) and found that in four days they had built four combs measuring about 7” x 5”, rounded at the ends and a very pale yellow – almost white very delicate.  They did not seem to mind me turning the hive upside down, they did not even get angry,   I think I will leave them to themselves for a month or so to build up some strength and then I shall try and make a section on top of the slats smeared with some beeswax, and see if I can induce them to store honey in it.   Seven weeks should see the hive on full strength,

Harold Bell came round yesterday another assistant was required in Command Pay Office (Center for all pay records) and would I join him.    I decided I would and saw Frank who gave me to understand that he had more or less arranged it seeing that I had applied for a transfer to Pay Corps!

          Tai

Alongside, the coolies stood about in groups, waiting,

Loose links for a chain.

At last he crossed the quay and came towards them.

But yesterday again!

The stream of continuous carrying and carrying began,

Automaton toil,

Tai with the tally.

The master’s shout, “Where the hell have you been!”

The whistles and wavering warnings,

The ecstatic sigh of escaping steam

All dinned on his ears and turned back

Counting his long-drawn day-dream

To the bump of the slump of each sack.

Work ceased as the man slid into the

sparse shade, silently,

Tai took his tally. -

“Please excuse, Sir, ma finish,” he said,

“No need work any more, Sir,

Me join Chinese Army instead.”

“But what of the wife and the kids, Tai?”

“has’ ni,  bomb drop on house, Sir,

has’ ni’, Boom! - they dead.” 

17^th September 1942

Section 19

I have taken over all cash and operate a till, we are restricting hours like a Bank and yesterday we balanced and finished at 1 p.m. We hope to reduce this to 12.30.

The bees are flourishing.   After breakfast I took my tea and toast (with dripping in it) and sat down under our tree and spent half an hour watching the bees’ morning work, they have started carrying pollen in.

Some are thinner than others; are they drones?  I take it the drones also are the ones who fly aimlessly about outside the hive in the morning while the workers work in the beehive with no hesitation at all.

I met EC today, I have never seen him looking fitter, he is a really fit man.  He has been stationed at the racecourse.  From there parties are sent out all over Singapore cutting lalang* for fodder.  Apparently there is a cavalry unit there using horses and ponies.  Work also includes grass planting at the racecourse.  Someone was sent back for informing a Japanese corporal that it was no good for horses.  Some of the chaps deliberately plant the grass upside down.   Generally the Japanese guards are reasonable.

Working near the Danish Consul’s house someone who knew him gave him a shovel and invited him in for a cold beer and a chat.   The natives are very kindly and cooks often give the fellows cigarettes and money.

Brian has twice been able to go to Bushy Park, his house is occupied by a Japanese Police Officer, he says the estate is beautifully kept.   All the houses including number 6 are in use.    Brian reckons that in some respects Singapore is better kept than it was before.

Red Cross supplies arrived today!    Red Cross issues are very welcome - a tin of condensed milk – yum!   ½ lb biscuits, ¼ lb jam, 4 tins bully beef, ½ lb cocoa, 1 lb sugar and 65 cigarettes.     In spite of the drop in basic Japanese rations to correspond, all this is very welcome indeed

The Japanese are all bloody minded these days  - Command have actually promoted some officers in camp, and as we are paid  according to rank the Japanese are annoyed and have held up our pay.  As a result there is no money about and very little to do at the Office.  A dull job.  I just handle the cash but it does remind some folk that I am a CA and not just a farm carouser.   The Japanese have also held up repatriation, refused to change bad money and Dutch currency, they have cut down on rations and generally been awkward; when will our Command learn how to deal tactfully with them?  

The bees have caused a fuss.  Half of them went back to U Block and flew around in circles, quite cross, finally clustering on a tree.  In the afternoon I replaced the hive.   Soon after there were hosts of bees flying around in circles at R Block too, so I put up a fake hive for them temporarily, eventually they all went back to U Block , so I had no choice  but to leave them there.  How on earth does one move bees a distance of 300 yards?

I am still smoking Red Cross cigarettes in my pipe.  We are all very grateful to the Red Cross.

Bob is fed up today.  There was an incident in his party and an officer got nearly killed by a Japanese.

Diphtheria has broken out at Changi village.

We are all wondering who are the lucky ones to get letters which we hear are being censored at the goal.   We are all expecting to be moved soon – blast it!  Another scramble, Bob and company left this morning - I saw him off and made sure his valise went also.  I then returned to find the balance of his kit had already been looted.  I took charge of his stamp collection for safety.

I met GW this morning, back from a working party in Singapore.  He is in S Block.  I am getting him to come and try out some of the sonatas,

All Colonels have to go to Japan.  We have a very comfortable room now, we have a lounge arranged by the window with the two cozy chairs and I have a proper table on which to keep my books.   It is very pleasant to have a flute and music on a stand, an odd sketch or two, a desk pipe and a good lamp – these essentials make life bearable.

My dear Mr. W has just been in on a special visit to break the glad news -  WE’VE GOT A DAUGHTER!!   Oh Bett, bravo!  Was I pleased to see him!   I gave him a cigar and had one myself – settled him into a large armchair and pestered him with questions.  He reluctantly told me how he knew.  Mrs Cotterell wrote to her husband who went up country on the last draft and W was censoring all the letters to be sent – ‘and by the way Bett Cramer has a daughter – by the way indeed!  And also I note Bett Cramer dash it, I did have something to do with it!   So Susan is an established fact.  W was so eager to be the first to congratulate me and wish me all the best which he did.   She must be five months old now    I would like to be with you and see that you get everything of the best; a nice pram and things for her.

Of course I remember you wanted a son*; sorry, but I hope you have changed your mind by now.  Besides as I have so often said; she won’t have to fight in these ever bloody and ghastly wars and have her morale and faith in living blasted to hell like so many of us.  It seems too much to ask for a lifetime without at least one or two world wars and although it is pretty bad for a woman, she can continually be spending her life in doing something constructive and that is what matters!  In wartime a woman’s job is always on the constructive side or can be and you do provide the one thing that matters; the one thing to go on living for when there doesn’t seem to be anything else left, then the most constructive thing of all is always left to you women and preferably a woman because a man is a dead end when it comes to rebuilding.

Sociologists always calculate birth rates on the number of girls born and take no account of the male children.   It is the girls that count in the race.   In the present surge of hate, it is love and humanity which must be maintained and it looks as if this most important of all jobs  is more and more left to women to have at least one girl child if she can, no matter how many sons she has, because that girl can have sons too.  Not that I wouldn’t like a son, I would, and sometime perhaps we might but do please realize how necessary and vital it is to have daughters; girls always have a soft spot for their father!   I am sure I shall love Susan. because love grows as you know, and I shall be able to find enough and more.

I suppose by now you will have been in touch with my people in England.  You see we had three boys and only one girl and Susan will make things more even.

*  An easily grown coarse grass.

**A former Amusement Park

Section 20

I lifted up the hive of bees tonight and gosh they were heavy!    Lately they have been bringing in white pollen which I am sure is from the flour sacks stacked alongside the sugar at the supply depot about 400 yards away.  The comb is now stained yellowish and I am pretty sure there are young bees about – 8 combs going now!

F and B fixed their combs on wire yesterday. The bees are very quiet, I did not like standing about watching, I wanted to be doing it myself.  I have got two boxes and I am starting to make a proper hive with an excluder and honey section.

I have definitely joined Command and transfer with them to 18^th division, the new HQ, meanwhile I hope for a days of peace in this comfortable spot.  I am now the proud possessor of a front upstairs verandah in W5 all to myself.   It is really a very nice bed-sit.   The Pay Corps have a house for five of us and another for the officers.  We should be very comfortable, but I understand the Japanese are wiring us in.

Thank heavens!   R  invited me to dinner tonight, our mess wasn’t functioning .  Of course he forgot to tell me to bring my eating things and he went and collected them in my absence.  Immediately after dinner his Japanese officer called and we had to take him climbing with his dog and us.  He was an enthusiastic pleasant fellow and insisted on doing the abseiling and ascends which we did.  It was poor climbing but a start, it was refreshing to handle rope and rock after nearly six years.   I neatly coiled the rope in the approved manner when it got too dark, and we all three returned feeling tired and exhilarated  as if we had really done something.  Comment to R as he left his mess with 190 feet of rope.  ‘Going to hang yourself?   Wait and I will come with you!’

*Not so!  Either would do!  Bett

The news of daughter-Susan’s birth has rapidly got around and I receive congrats and good wishes on your behalf from every side.

We had a storm overnight and my verandah wasn’t very waterproof.  Still the morning was delightful.  I have noticed before how on a dull misty morning after a thorough soaking of rain, colours everywhere seem so extraordinarily rich and varied.   The trunks of rubber trees gleam with an almost dazzling array.  Trees preen themselves like Peacocks – fresh and turgid, displaying every shade of red, green and yellow – and yet these same trees in the sun yesterday were just dull, blue-green and purple-brown.  I think it must be partly due to the

Dilation of the eye pupil, the dull light enabling one to see more – I wonder- I wonder!  There you are, you see, the makings of a poem!

Bett.  I am not superstitious but two things do stick.  I would like to keep your white heather until we meet again.  I shall always believer in the way I, and now you, fall on our feet.  A few months ago I was a private and I am now attached to Malaya Command HQ (albeit POW) and wonder how it will affect things at the end of the show?   We will see!

I shut the door of the beehive on Friday intending to take them to 18^th Division on Saturday but on that morning I found the little devils had got out through a crack in the box.   I hadn’t the heart to take them away when so many heavily laden bees were returning or trying to get in, so I arranged to come back for them.

Anyway the Japanese decided that we should all have a roll call and called at 8.00p.m.   That meant I had to be in 18 Division  by then.  It doesn’t get dark until 8.45p.m., so we had to collect the bees leaving some still out.  I wrapped the box up in a ground sheet and carried it as far as the gate, left it there for roll call and fetched it later.  I carried between two rows of beans in our front garden and this morning everything seemed quite all right.   We are about a mile away from their previous spot and hope that is far enough to prevent them going back and getting lost.  Anyway the Queen and the brood will carry on the swarm, it’s quite heavy now and there are lots of new bees about.

Mosquitoes are bad here and I had to put up a net last night with drawing pins.   The bees have caused a great deal of interest.

Last night several of us went over to the hospital to collect a hive of bees hanging from the rafters of the mess.  Veiled and swathed in mosquito netting, we looked a funny trio.  By the light of a battery lamp I prised the combs away one by one and put them in a box.  The bees were cross, but I only got one sting through my shirt.   I rubbed it with ‘Blue Boy’ and now it is OK.  We carried the box to our house and sorted over the combs, cutting out the honey.   I left a few pieces of comb with the bees and hived them in a box by moonlight.  This morning they flew around a lot and later all went away.  I suspect they flew back to their original spot, which is only ¼ mile away.    Anyway there was enough honey to serve to everyone with porridge this morning and for our teas.    I cut a large square of the best-sealed comb and gave it to JF.  It was all very exciting.

Yesterday morning I climbed a 100 foot Mango tree and reaped a harvest of some 20 Mangoes - delicious – some we are keeping to ripen. 

I was so bruised and bitten all over by red ants when I got down.   We had and orgy of mango and pineapple.

There was a terrific storm yesterday afternoon which brought down lots of mangoes and also a large coconut, what mango orgies we are having!

I love the way Papaya (Paw Paw) trees stand, their leaves held out like the palms of one’s hands on long slender stalks, sturdy and up-turning.   The brilliant yellow of the dying leaves bright against the greens, the pale greens of the young leaves and deeper greens of mature ones, with each reflecting the light differently on its large flat surfaces.

The big bold forms of banana trees swinging their slashed leaves like old festive decorations in a country bar parlour crisped with smoke and age.  The rich red earth after the rain so red that the green grass and plants show up against it like Irish peasant dress “Beautiful!”    I want to draw the delicate tracery of the rubber trees and paint their blotched trunks, only it’s so difficult.   I get fed up about it still I try!

Gosh!   The brood comb is almost full of cream coloured brood.  There should be plenty of honey too.    But I haven’t the heart to take it all away for fear of spoiling the brood.  I’m told the bees I took from the ness had swarmed on the palm tree here outside.  That means that part of them joined those left in the hut and swarmed.  Extraordinary communication.

When I last went down to collect fallen mangoes during the night for breakfast all round, I visited the little whitewashed Chinese Temple 2—yards away.  It is a lonely spot and I wish I could live there and make it into a den.  It would be topping studio.  Heavy Chinese plastered brick pillars whitewashed and thick Chinese tiles – a verandah all round and a cool centre room with and altar and a niche – and a delightful garden.

I came across someone with a longing for a lost youth, which I do not think will apply to me.  Living phase by phase for what each is worth, it shouldn’t happen because as one grows older one’s outlook changes  accordingly and enables one to enjoy to the same extent, life at each period, with few regrets and lots to be thankful for.  In any case the past is past and there is always the present to take all one’s time.

I have had a long chat with OW, he was caught up-country and sent to KL*.  He was with the Brigade as interpreter at Kuanton at HQ.  All he had to do was to question two prisoners taken there.  In the retreat the Brigade was cut off and ultimately rounded up by the Japanese.  He got away and was making for the Straits, practically without food for four days, he eventually stumbled on a Japanese signals group having  an evening meal, as he was crossing the railway line by Scudai – they jumped on him and he talked to them in Japanese.  Then they treated

him very well and he was taken prisoner and ultimately sent to Changi Goal.  The Japanese GOC used him for a while as an interpreter and he borrowed the GOC’s barber and went for a clean up.

*Kuala Lumpur

Section 21

I was orderly officer today.   One just sits and sits in an office with nothing to do.  It is odd the way the army organisation carries on in camp, just the same only instead of dealing with important things , we deal with more or less unimportant  ones which take just as much trouble and have the advantage, especially in our command, that it does not matter much if they go wrong.

I went down to the mango tree in the night and collected a few mangoes, but there were a whole flock of flying-foxes nibbling them. 

After three days of almost incessant rain the countryside is dank and yellow-green, full of sounds of bullfrogs, grasshoppers and crickets and a blue grey sky.

There is a flock of about forty spotted finches hopping over the grass down below – tiny round things with a terrifically fast wing beat.

I am gloriously fit although still perhaps a little underweight in muscle, there is not the same pleasure in being smart and clean as a new pin as there used to be!

I have just finished reading MW’s play about some people he knew in Peking, the manager of a tin mine and his widowed sister who stayed in there and nothing has been heard of them since.  The place was completely isolated except for the minor, and the mine was all flooded.   MW built a very good play around it, he is a remarkable lad, same age as myself, born in Japan, schooled in America, then Edinburgh University.  His father brought him up to be completely cosmopolitan and he says he failed because when he ultimately got to the part of Scotland where his people came from, he knew it was his home and didn’t want to leave it.

I was working non-stop until 2:40.  Still we’ve got electric light now and quite contrary to regulations, I have plugged in a 75 watt bulb instead of the 25 watt we are allowed to use.

Bored,   MA and MW and found them arguing poetry, we agreed that the object of creative writing  was to show the impact of circumstance on humanity and when writing lost its human intent it was no longer really creative dealing with fact and science, it becomes impersonal.

I have just come back from MW’s room, he has invited three artist lads up with some sketches, one of these was S, who draws for Lilliput and Men Only.  He gets £7 per drawing, - rapid pen and ink stuff- and other work too.   He has done lots and lots of rough sketches in camp and he’s now working on some murals at the cinema here.  We have agreed to start an Artists’ Circle in my Chinese Temple on Sundays starting next Sunday at 10.30 and he is bringing a good Java model.  There will be about six of us.  I am very bucked about it.

As I was writing an incessant squawk, squawk, squawk which led me to two red-capped tailor birds on the bean sticks alongside the beehive.  They were having great fun chasing each other in and out of the sticks.  They looked so near in the morning sun   (thank heavens the rain has stopped), they had olive green backs and their characteristic vermilion  topknots.  Their breasts are white, streaked fanwise from their necks with black and have long beaks.   I also unwrapped the bees and left them open in the sunlight, They were streaming out and flying around in the warmth.

Yesterday I found my tobacco stock going moldy, so I fixed up a drier over the oil lamp – it worked marvelously and saved the situation.

It turned out to be a real scorcher today and when I got back from the office the beehive was like an oven!  It was the noise which warned me like a big electric fan!   I should think all the bees were on special duty fanning at every crevice!  I raised the box on a brick to let the air blow in and I covered the top for shade, but the wax had softened and the heavier comb fell out as I was doing it, I pulled it out and flipped the  bees off.  It was a lovely comb – half honey and half brood – I cut out the honey and put the brood back vertically on a stick – wired on – it was all alive.   It was most interesting some of the eggs had just been laid.  I could not find any queen or drones.  Anyway we enjoyed the honey and F, is making boot polish from the beeswax.  I did not wear a veil or anything and not one sting; although on one occasion I did beat a hasty retreat.

Today I continued my investigation of the hospital canteen deficit only to discover that it was undoubtedly due to bad accounting.  I am reporting accordingly.  I quite enjoyed it, a bit like old times, anything like old times, good or bad, is welcome these days.

F, has made some experimental bee frames from bamboo and is making a hive, he is collecting bees next Sunday from a disused house on the coast.

Conversation tonight next door turned on Japanese gardening.  I was telling him about the students I met in Borneo.  MW. Told me how he grew a Japanese stunted pine in Edinburgh, now 8 ½  years old and only 1’ 6” high.  In Japan you can get them 100 years old and only 10” tall; perfectly formed.  He said, you take a seedling and cut the tap root fairly short, pot it and bury the pot outside.   Each autumn, unearth it and cut off all tributary roots, leaving the small fibers.  Each spring cut the main new foliage almost all off and strip the pine needles from the main stem only, leaving all the rest intact.  In this way they make those ‘indoor’ gardens.   The aesthetic gardens in Japan use many old rocks to great effect and these often serve for 200 years or more

Japanese houses have rooms in sizes to fit the rush mat sections.

Thick rush matting (2”) and 6’x 3’, 4, 8, 12, section rooms.  The decoration of the room is in one place only, consisting of scrolls and vases; changed frequently; a good idea!

Sgt K, of the Imperial Japanese Army (I.J.A.) to whom I gave my picture has sent me two glorious sable brushes and a tube of paint and some pastels all free!   These Japanese!!

Section 22

When I got back from the Goal I found F had some mistakes in the cask, and I had to put it right, so I had a late lunch.   The scenery coming back was, I felt, very beautiful indeed and I badly wanted to sketch it.   The gardens being developed by the Java people at Tamparis Road are very picturesque, the freshly turned soil and the long lines of growing things edged with lacy rubber or palms, and over all, a blue and white sky, heavy shadows and bright colours, very lovely!   And where on the road side the vegetation has been allowed to grow wild it looked very majestic and inspiring.

Christmas Eve (1942).

I played some carols this morning  on the flute, certain people seemed to like it and this afternoon I drew three decorative wall posters for the mess, one with balloons etc. , another was a caricature of Hitler and the third ‘A Happy Christmas’ under a grumpy face saying ‘We’ll never get off this island’.

Boxing Day.

Well that’s Christmas that was!  I have enjoyed this one more than the ghastly ones of 1940 and 1941.  Nothing much happened.  It was a wet morning but no parades by permission of the Japanese.  I put up the posters and then played carols on the flute rounding them off with a few Bach; fast jolly stuff.

In the afternoon F and B came round with a piece of bee comb on a branch.  It was a beautiful specimen but had a very small sized cell.  They said it was from an entirely different bee, much smaller, about as big as a fly.  In the top of the comb there were moth cocoons which the bees had sealed off.  An interesting point was that it had been built in the open on a tree and the top of the comb had been built out (to shed rain) and had been built at all angles and all interlocking in the usual clever manner.   We then had a look at my lot and I got stung!    The combs I removed have not been entirely replaced, but they are breeding fast.

Everyone is returning from Singapore working camps and I expect old PW will be coming in tomorrow.  All sorts of theories have been formed.  Some that it is because Brian said in a speech that Singapore would be retaken; some that it is because of the escape of an Australian; anyway it will mean more work for us at the office.

The fiancés and relatives were allowed to go to the goal and see their womenfolk on Christmas Day, the women and children were allowed out on the grass in front of the goal and chairs and tables were provided.  Tea and biscuits were available and it seems to have been quite a pleasant party.  The Japanese guards retired to about 50 yards away.  Reports say that the folk in the goal are in excellent spirits and are being treated quite reasonably well.

Yesterday R explained to me how he got two sons yesterday.  I railed him about it and said didn’t he realize he ought to have daughters with the birth rate as it is.  He reckons that intercourse just before menstruation results in daughters and if indulged in just after, usually produces sons because the acid content of secretion is different.  He says the Japanese have experimented with using a chervil bath and controlling the sex issue that way, but I gather it is only being done with rabbits!

PW is sorry to have to go back to Changi!  He says the first few months at Bukit Timah (Rifle Range) camp were topping.  The Japanese recognized them as volunteers and called them Singapore soldiers and treated them very well and no guards or roll calls, and they were allowed to wander all over CT Hill.   Sometimes the Japanese would kill a stray bullock and give it to them.  Each day they had a whole side of meat between about sixty.  Later they were moved to coolie lines at 12^th miles Passa Panjang Road then into Singapore.  

The Eurasians were taken into Singapore on Sundays and allowed to see their families and go to church.  There are any number of brothels in Singapore.  The clubs and many cafes besides; the SCC is all painted red and white and have heavy curtains; for officers!

  1^st January, 1943.

Greetings!  Gosh!  My writing of last night; actually we got rather drunk.  The Japanese issued a bottle of samsu between every ten men and in addition B received a present of two bottles so we had about half a bottle each, with a touch of lime juice it was quite good. A holiday!

This morning I went along and finished off a new hive.  In the afternoon I called F and B over and we ‘set to’.  In veils and gloves F and I cut out the comb one by one.  He brushed off the bees and took the combs in to B who cut off the honey with a straight slice along the top, and then wired the remaining brood onto a frame.  These we placed them in order in the new hive.  The queen and most of the bees clustered in a corner of the old box.  We then turned the old one upside down and put the new one on top of it.  Tonight, I hope the bees will go up and take possession of the comb again.   When they are all up I shall reverse the boxes.  By cutting all the honey off we have put the brood right at the top of the new hive frames.  I have made a lid with a hole in it laced with wire which I hope will act as a queen excluder.  Above the lid I intend to put the old box with the remains of a comb still in the top and hope the bees will go up and build comb there and stock it with honey, free of brood, it will be simple then to take it away each month.  We have got a whole lot of good honey this time, about 2 lbs.  Half a pound I gave to F and B and we have been eating the rest tonight on biscuits.  There is enough left to supply the mess for breakfast tomorrow.  The bees have behaved very well but got cross occasionally.  I got two stings in my hand and it is all swollen now.  I ought to become immune soon oughtn’t I?   It is easy to build a slat for another comb; take a piece of comb, touch the top of a cooking stove with it and then stick it on to the slat.   Some of the brood was hatching rapidly – bees just kept crawling out.

The bees in a nearby roof and of the block were destructed by a exceptionally heavy storm yesterday and came inside, flying all round the room.  Some of the fellows got stung – I went along – there were about 100 bees caught in spiders’ webs and fat spiders dealing with them.  I nearly pulled the webs down until I realized that from the men’s point of view they were doing a great job of work.  I went up in the roof but could not get to them.

                                      Diagram of Beehive

I am getting too fond of my bees.  I actually got up last night in the middle of a storm and covered them over with canvas to keep out the rain.  This morning they were only half way up the side of the box and only just a few on the combs – the grubs were sticking out of their cells waiting for food.  I move the comb off center and put it all more directly over the swarm.  By the afternoon they had all gone up and were on the comb, so I took away the old hive and remounted the new one properly (see diagram).   F looked in this afternoon to see how things were getting little faces lined the top of each comb.  F. said I had the combs on, and we had another look.  They were all quiet and happy; intriguing but the rows rather too close, so we measured the old wax marking on the old box and marked the top of the new hive accordingly.  Then we re-spaced them; it was just as well we did because they had already started cross joining between two of them.  They have already sealed some of the combs to the slats.   I regret to say the queen excluder is not a success. I cannot get the wire tight enough and B has suggested perforated sheets instead.  I have got a piece the right size and I shall put it in tomorrow – and stick a bit of comb up top to persuade them to start there -  I hope they do!  It is great to have them organized so I can handle them properly now without disturbing them.  Later I made an excluder made of sheet tin with holes knocked in with a nail.

      Awakening  

          From a daylong dream of delight

I was rudely awakened

And forced to face reality for fifty days

A fifty minute news-show on a dim-lit screen,

Malaya run amok – and I

A lunatic at large, -

          Then locked away.

Section 23

I had a long talk with William and Ron on Haiku – a form of Japanese formal poetry.   The most usual style in Haiku is restricted to seven syllables and is written on a standard sized ‘poem card’, a long oblong strip in varying colours.  There are various classical rules, e.g. Not more than one or at the most two emotions should be expressed.  The season of the year should be indicated etc.  The idea of Haiku appears to be to express in a brief poem a fleeting single emotion.  These poem cards are pinned up in a room,  W  told me that a man called Waley has translated  150 of poems of Haiku  as well as other poetical forms into English, still managing to retain their poetical feeling – very difficult since in Japanese the words used to have a double meaning and lead to considerable meditation and many corrected lines of thought.

The river Paul W., came over to lunch today.  I am taking a last risk about the watch I gave to Brian R., and $10 – half my entire wealth and a chit to Eddie to hand the watch to bearer.  Now Sgt is very fond of watches – to what extent will he play the game remains to be seen – we have absolutely no address and must rely entirely on his honesty.

Climbing to the top of the hill here I looked along the coast.  I felt a sudden pang and could not understand why and then realized it was because of memories of the Borneo coast.  Wide stretches of empty sand and miles of casuarinas in dull green fading into the mist.  Somehow very melancholy  and primeval as if the place had never been visited by man, and then in sharp contrast all the good times I had had there, the evening sun shining on, the walks, golf friends; hence the pang.  All that ought to go into a poem;  I wonder!   Having written it in prose it spoils it for verse.

Simon has got two durians!  We had quite a pleasant afternoon. I took him back and met Will, a very nice fellow.  He told me Sel of Socfin  had joined the RMVR and was bombed and sunk endeavouring to get away from Sumatra.  Alan C., is now a prisoner in the submarine base here.

They are isolated from the rest of us as they also have about 30 British seamen from a German ship and left here.  He has learnt Japanese and is acting as an interpreter, I hope to see him later.

I seem to have struck a blue period.  I have been almost bored these last two days, busy in the mornings , felt too inclined to do anything interesting – hence boredom;  to make matters worse Frank beat me in a quick game of chess; you can imagine how humiliated I felt!.  He is very shrewd.

A welcome break; Jim fixed up seats at the AIF pantomime Cinderella, 8.30 to 10.00.  They have a topping theatre there.  A few nights ago they had a trip out at night and pinched petrol from the Japanese trucks to keep the petrol lamps going, but now they have full electric lighting.   The AIF concert party is one of the in things here and with a full orchestra goes very well.   There are ugly sisters, and a very beautiful Prince with an Australian accent, and quite a lovely Cinderella (the slipper was rather large!) with a delightful gown of pale blue lace over a pink slip- and blond hair!

Major Bert on this way to the Japanese saw a coconut fall.  He got off his bike and collected it on his return journey and then spent half the night trying to open it.

My ‘blues’ period is now over , thank heavens, and thanks to a little convivial friendship; how essential friendships are to general contentment.

(19^th Jan)  There is an order today that we have to eat 1 oz of rice polishings per day to balance up our reduced diet.  We boil ours and check the water – it is easier but just as nasty

What a commotion in the bee world today.  My crossbar came unstuck and dropped all the frames on the floor in a sticky mess.  I have had a long job setting them all up again and strengthening the combs – only one sting!   At last I got them all straight again and I shall leave them alone for a day or two to repair the damage.  They have got some very powerful drones about – great bulls of bees, which get very angry and can fly very powerfully.  I have got 10 combs in the bottom chamber now.  I shall insert two more in the center of these and that will make a hive full of good comb available for brood.

Storm

An hour ago there was an electric storm

The quick flash and rapid cannonade (sic)

Heralded the sudden rain

And spiky star-dots steamed on stone

But now the day is closing quietly again.

Two leaves, pinned on a painted tree,

Twinkle as they swing, silently,

          Two early bats, twirling in their flight

 Flicker in the fading wash of light.

This was but another storm

Born from the blind ferment of enduring peace

          And absorbed again.

And the cannon which deafen the ear of the world

Will some-day be silent and cold.

                   20-12-42 

Section 24

There is a holiday tomorrow – a Japanese Prince is inspecting the camp and we have all to stay in our rooms.

 To The Soldiers of TH5

In the last two weeks the number of soldiers off duty in TH5 increased day by day.  Of course they are not idle; they seem to be obliged by sickness to be in bed in their working time. 

Examining the sick men, I have found a few cases of malarial fever but almost all are cases of stomach ache.  When I was orderly officer I made a tour of inspection at night and found that many men were sleeping without covers on their stomachs and I suppose the coldness of midnight and daybreak caused their stomachs to ache. 

But when we see the percentages of casesTH5 has many more than T1, 2, 3, and 4.   This fact suggested that there are other cases of the disease above and beyond the cold caught in sleep.  I think the main cause is that soldiers of T5 cannot keep their spirits high.  Though the soldiers of T1, 2, 3, and 4 are also living the same life of a Prisoner-of-War, they have their lorries and their fellows.  To work for the enemies of yesterday is not cheerful.  As for the repairing, when they have finished they will be glad, forgetting their enemies and themselves.  During the task of repairing they can expect the gratification of finishing their work.

But the soldiers of TH5 cannot enjoy such gladness as they work only against their will, being obedient to Japanese soldiers.  Then I think they cannot feel that life is worth having.  In Nippon, sickness is called ‘Byoki’.  Looking at these two Nippon letters, the first word ‘Byo’ already means sickness and the second  ‘ki’ is spirit, mind, heart and mood.  So that sickness originates in the mood as uncomfortable, unpleasantness or despicable.  In Nippon there is an old proverb as follows ‘Illness comes from mood as the mind rules over the body’.  Moreover we often say to those recovering from diseases, ‘Kaiki’, which means to make one’s mind cheerful.  So I decided without hesitation that there are many sick men in TH5 caused by the uncheerfulness  of their minds.

In rough beds, thinking of the pleasures of the past days, their own native places, wives and children, they will be in deep sorrow without exception.  Moreover, when they catch disease in their bodies, the darkness of their minds will increase and the diseases will be serious even unto death.

My dear English soldiers our lives are not short from some points of view.  The days of peace will come sooner or later.  When peace comes you can go to your dear country and work for mankind and God.

Although you grieved, a day is 24 hours.  Although you are cheerful, a day is still 24 hours.  Sad or not, the mornings come at exactly the same time.  So you must raise your minds, spending your time without sadness and then you must expel your illness.  I will say again, there is a proverb in Nippon that “illness comes from the mind”.   The converse is true here, make good minds cheerful, drive the illness far away and keep your health in good condition until the day in which you go back to your dear home.

*A Club in Kuala Lumpur.

Section 25

The drama of the watch continues.  Dave got so far as persuading Colin to undertake the project of getting it back when Col. Pierce intervened and refused to let it go through. I went along to see Cap. Dave (interpreter) for his advice and he told me to go up and see the Japanese.  Of course, why hadn’t I thought of it before?  I must get permission and then I could go up and see Ben himself.   I spoke to Major Alec and he offered to do it for me – so he got the consent of Col. Bill and today is taking my note and $10 on to the goal and seeing the Japanese interpreter, who may agree to fetch them (Ed’s and mine).  So now we wait again.

Dave came round this morning to change some dollars and we had a look at the bees, I took out a new comb and there was the queen!  This is the first time I have found her, she was just ambling around like any other bee but with a long dark body, she looked very fit and a fine specimen.  Jim was very thrilled also.   I estimate about 50 cells per square and my average comb is about 50 – say 500 total.  This is about 2/5 full of brood – say half even – 25000 divided by 2, 12,500 bees in the course of the next 2 to 3 weeks.  What is the death rate I wonder?  Average life 8 weeks, if so , in three weeks from now I should have about another 7,000 and then I shall start another section of comb by transferring the honey and empty comb below to the upper section.

Considerable interest is at present being shown by everyone in the Atlas Silk Moth, there are a number of cocoons in a tree and next door they have two which they have kept until they hatch out.  Incredibly beautiful things with a wing span of 9 ¼ inches; the colours in the wings are of russets, browns, blue/greys, yellow and touches of back and white.  They are just bursting with eggs.  Vincent tells me they call the males by a sort of wireless contact and that if the females are within a metal screen,  no males will come, but otherwise they come from over two miles away.

I am expecting to get your watch back in about a week’s time.  I confess I am rather slack and bored these days, I think because of the reduced diet and the injections (second jab today and tetanus on Monday and dysentery later).  I am all for having as many as there are going if they will help me to keep alive.

Some days later I recovered from the injections and feel much better

The moth found its mate and they copulated for some 6 hours.  The female is now laying fast!

I spent most of last Sunday morning de-bugging my bedding.  I suspected bugs some two nights ago and gosh!   Last night I woke up and killed about a dozen and this morning found lots of nests in the woodwork of the bed.   I have swapped it and borrowed a rickety camp bed.  How I hate bugs!

My other painting went to the Japanese yesterday.  Colin says it as much as his life is worth to go near ‘Exekiel’s’ shop for the watch for at least two months, so I must postpone hopes of recovering the watch again.

I am thinking of producing a folio of tree sketches, with perhaps a name description on each - if only I could draw!   I wonder if I will ever get very far with it!  The sturdy tall sentinels I would portray against storm clouds;  the delicate Japanese Cherry in dazzling sunlight.  The shade tree in fierce hot sunlight with heavy deep shadows, and the extraordinary silhouetted of the Flame of the Forest trees – but what of a rubber tree, it has almost lost its  personality in commercialism.

After dinner Simon and I went to the Boxing in South area.  A wonderful show – very well organized indeed.  A stage had been built in a large natural amphitheatre under the tree (used normally for concerts) and then the band played a few numbers  - in front was a proper ring with white ropes and padded corners, canvas, mats, buckets, towels, green and red lights, referee’s box etcetera, in fact all the accoutrements.    There were 16 fights in all and well flood lit.  Any fights which got too rough or were one sided were stopped. Each fight was of three 2 minute rounds and in addition there were two exhibition fights by the

European Welter Weight  Champion 1949 – a Dutchman and very pretty to watch.  He had a persistently penetrating straight left.  The crowd all over the hillside must have numbered 3,000 at least, (mostly Java troops).  It was a spectacular sight from where we were high up on the bank in the dim light to see the faint shapes  of masses of seated people reaching right down to the yellow lit ring and the contestants with the tall trees rising up behind bathed in the dim golden glow from the ring lighting.   The shouting and barracking too was often amusing.  There is now talk of stopping boxing in the interests of health.  It would be a great pity as I think it encourages both the onlookers and the contestants to keep fit as well as providing excellent entertainment for everyone – even the Japanese!   I felt the old urge myself and even felt I would like to have been in the ring and know the thrill of it once again – it’s a great feeling to punch a fellow good and hard -  and one so rarely possible to indulge  in these civilized days.

It was a delightful evening today, the sky was deep cobalt and the fleecy white clouds above showed their formations clearly in depths so that they looked like waterfalls falling upwards over boulders.

I missed a swarm of bees on the corner of the house yesterday; they have gone inside the roof and it’s almost impossible to get to them now. Last night someone told us the story of General Jones’ ordeal with the Japanese.  He was ordered to the Goal and was asked a few questions and then, if he would like to see his wife – she was shown in and they were allowed to have tea together.

He was given to understand that it could be arranged that they could live together.  After about an hour Lady Jones was asked to withdraw as there were certain other points to be cleared up.   General Jones was then given a questionnaire on the military strength and strategy of India.  He was furious that his wife should be used as bait for this.   He wrote a good reply explaining that as such an action would not conform to Japanese Military honour, so it could not conform to British standards.

He also said that the information could easily have been obtained by a competent military attaché.  He was then taken to Fort Canning to see Major Kelly (Japanese military attaché) who bawled and bellowed at him.  General Jones stooped to pull up a sock and this annoyed the Japanese still more and he struck General Jones on the side of the face and knocked him out; then demanded he get up and stand to attention.  General Jones was very dazed and the Japanese called in the armed guards who marched the General out and took him to an underground room in Fort Canning, once an air-conditioning office but now bare with no air-conditioning or ventilation.  He was thrown into the place and left there with no furniture except a hand basin on the wall.   Later he wanted a lavatory and called the guard.   The guard indicated the hand basin and went out.  H had to use the hand basin and flush it with the tap but found the water stopped almost immediately as the guard had turned it off outside.  Later he was given a jampan* which already had been used, and he had to live with it and no food for 48 hours.

He managed to prevail upon a Japanese guard impressed by all his medals to bring him a glass of water.   The General was in bad health at the time and nearly passed out.  He has a withered arm and this he rests anywhere convenient.  When talking he laid it on the table while talking to the Japanese and got a rap with a cane on it; nice people to treat a General like that!

*An Asian movable toilet,

Section 27

Jim and I went to see Owen’s bees yesterday – two hives – his bees built on the frames without trouble.  His one swarm turned up on its own.   M has also lost all his honey – it must be a bad time of the year.   Though I noticed one or two trees were quite covered in buds and the rubber trees are coming into flower too.     

In expectation of a ‘flow’ during the next month or so, I have put the empty combs back on top of the brood chamber, and I think it is about time I transferred the other colony onto slats and increased the comb.

Ed came round yesterday and cried off the bee expedition and I was grateful – the  orchestra is including Borodin and Rimsky Korsakov in their next programme and

I am not able to play!!!   Dom very decently offered to let me use his flute and said he was too busy to take it on – I refused of course, but it was very generous of him.   Bamboo is no use for orchestral flutes; the wood is not hard enough.

I had a talk to Major R, the entomologist, about bees.  About the small kinds, he said there are 26 different species – a paper has been written dealing quite fully with them.   They have not such a high social side as the common honey bee.  They use a similar kind of honey storage as the bumble bee and have a number of queens in one colony.

 The very small ones often nest in a roll of paper or window blind.  On other points he verified that a queen’s unfertilized eggs do become drones and she lays a proportion of these each season.  If a colony has no queen at all and no brood, a worker will fatten herself up and be able to lay a few eggs per day.  Also that the main flowering season here is February to April and a subsidiary one in July to August.  So honey should be coming in now – I hope it is good!

There a 40 bags of mail in the Goal, i.e. ¼ million letters.  We estimate it will take 9 years to censor these at the present rate, but at least I stand a chance of getting an early one out of the first bag or so.

With the present rate of war  - B I hope you are pleased we have S and are keeping

T for more settled times.   Is it worth having sons in these times – a boy who gets killed at 20 should never have lived!

Herewith ends my 28^th year and my 29^th begins.  I stayed later in bed this morning and enjoyed a long pipe.  I gather there was rather a row at breakfast.  Another 5,000 people are to go to Bangkok (?) and SA is much disturbed - I hope PW is not going.  I believe malaria is very bad up there and those going are replacing people unfit for work – one officer to 100 men.

My Watch has come back – thanks to Captain Dave who got permission to go to Singapore to collect all watches  Ed was very pleased to get his back too – mine was not repaired because they could not get the back off, so I have taken it to the local watch repairer in camp.  He is the son and grandson of a watch maker and knows his job.  He has a small workshop and electric equipment, but is snowed under with work.   He says it will be ready in about a fortnight or so around the 21^st March.  I shall have to make a new strap for it, but Gosh!   I was pleased to get it back!

I have started another painting, the view across the street, it went very well until I tried to put in the foreground and that spoiled it!   Still the mere effort is well worthwhile; it stimulates one’s consciousness of the beauty of colour and form.

A Japanese turned up in the office today with a simple system flute for which he wanted $20.   I offered him $10; I cannot afford it but I can make it up somehow, it will be better than nothing.

Yesterday evening I went over to SA to borrow the flute that is for sale.

I called on T’s place too and collected the ukulele, met W as arranged at 10.00 and came back with him.  The flute is very low, it is cracked in two places – has a broken cork and one useless leather pad, but it has got a pleasant tone and it plays – but not in tune!  I cannot find out why, but it is hopeless.  I couldn’t play it in an orchestra so I am reluctantly returning it.  It is the only one available and I am very disappointed.

Letters have arrived for various people but not for me.  Very disappointing.  Oh I do hope there is a letter from you B!   I am so anxious to know how you are finding life, alone with our youngster, I am just a bit apprehensive.  Still I know that if you could possibly send a letter you certainly would do so, it is sure to turn up one day.

Yesterday afternoon I packed my paints, board, paper, brushes, pencils, rubber, pans, water can and palette in my haversack and set out with my folding chair to find some thing to paint.  It started raining heavily so I turned back – after all that effort!  After an hour the sun came out again so off I set.   A slight shower started so I put on my cape and do you know?  I walked around sodden palm trees for a whole hour, loaded up with paraphernalia and did not find anything to paint and it rained the whole time – I found a vermilion fungus which makes a good water colour a rich bright red.

S’s caterpillars are about 3 1/2 inches by now and fat.  It takes him quite a time getting fodder for them every day.

The trees are rapidly coming into flower, but honey is slow.

Ed and Jim came to have a look at the bees, we found three combs full of drones!  We found a parasite was living in with the bees.  It is a small brown round pinkish mite which collects in clusters between the thorax and abdomen and those most badly affected were the new arrivals heavily laden with white pollen.  We inspected my other hive and they had it too.  We went and inspected Owen’s and Fd’s bees, they had the same trouble, so we decided it must be from a tree recently come into flower. 

Jim took a bee off a comb and we took it to Pierce’s laboratory and put a specimen of the mite on a slide in spirit and linseed oil.  Under the microscope it was similar to the scarab mite.  Pierce could not tell us anything about the species except that it

 might not be harmful.  I suddenly remembered Major Teal saying on a lecture on instincts that a certain parasite instinctively goes from a flower on to anything hairy, but can only live on a bee;  I must see if he knows something further.

I saw Major T today and he assured me that the parasite is only a temporary guest

of the bee and does no actual harm.   It lives on green stuff but at one period of its life cycle it must be carried on a bee.  He says it will soon disappear from the hive.

It makes a difference here to one’s outlook just as it used to before, to have a few things arranged ahead to look forward to.   I have discovered that the green birds with the red heads, wings like minors and a noise like a rook are parakeets.  Some were climbing over a small tree just like parrots do.

The Papaya trees we planted outside about 2 months ago are now 3 feet tall at least.

I don’t know if you are interested in our organization here, but I’d better give you a rough idea.  At first we were in Areas but not strictly so and the camp was a large one in which we were free to move about.   Then  ‘S Area troops’  (S Malaysia Defenses)  were wired off around Fairy Point, Link Road,  3^rd Indian Corps at Temple Hill,  11^th Division in the village – later moved out towards Selerang.   18^th Div. In the Indian lines and Hospital in Roberts Barracks.   Command was with 3^rd camp at Temple Hill.

Now HQMC (in which I am) is a separate small area behind the gun-park but not wired off.  18^th  Division.  Is across the road from us and the Hospital that is wired off but available close behind.  To get to SA one has to have a Japanese ‘duty’ armband or flag – also to go to 11^th  Division, (now garden and wood area) or AIF lines because in between there is a ‘no man’s land.   At HQMC I as cashier, collect and issue cash from all areas, brought in each day, canteen takings inwards and pay outwards.  I have now reduced this job to comparative simplicity and it takes only half a morning = 10.30am to 1.00pm.

I hear there’s another letter for me BRAVO!  That is surely from you as my people would be certain to miss the post!   Well, I wish they would hurry up and censor them, just try and imagine how keen I am to have them.

I called to see how Kelly is getting on with his flute.  His electric lathe is a beautiful job. It is almost like watch making.  He’s even thinking of silver plating the parts.

Section 28

                                                                       LETTER FROM   Bett!! 5.30 p.m.

 You did this so completely that I who never expected to be loved as much as I love you, and I began to wonder if you weren’t more selfless than I, until I had to jolly well admit that you were.  Well I have said all this in letter and poems but it is good to find that it is just the same after all you’ve had to go through and how I do like being loved by you!!!

By now surely you should be able to get about and enjoy life a bit.   Yes, let us enjoy each other when we get together again and not increase the family just yet.  This is such a waste of our early married life, the POW and wartime life, so for two/three year we will be more careful!

                           Time

“Time” is An insidious thing

But no amount of it

Shall ever be permitted to erase

One thought of you

From the Headlines of my mind.

I have taken on the arrangement of the weekly gramophone recitals.  I offered Brahms N. 2 for last night – I thought – well it is a bit heavy, so I swapped it with Major Alec (both he and Ed were indignant at my not wanting it).  I borrowed the Mendelssohn violin concerto and a Bach, Schumann and Symphonic variations by

Cesar Frank and this was very much enjoyed, also a series of minuets.

One of Stewart’s caterpillars has made a cocoon.  It is an amazing sight to see it weaving the silk to and fro.  Stewart is pleased because they were eating a tremendous amount of green stuff and it took some getting.

May I never lose the curiosity for the odd place and the initiative to try the unconventional;  the inviting lane and the obscure village, farm, pub or church, so as to continually to find new aspects and angles?   Today Vincent has arranged a Canna in an old pot and done it very well.  I found it very satisfying and we looked at it for a long time together,  the same feeling that led me to drawing and painting the young one outside.  Vincent wants to take up the study of Japanese flower arranging when he is back in Japan studying the language.  He told me of a glorious timber house in North Japan designed and owned by his mother high up in the wooded hillside.

I bought 1 pint of palm oil today for 32 cents, a source of vitamin A.   I shall use it on rice and bread instead of butter; its good!  

I have always let other people do things if they want to, knowing well that I could, if necessary do them, but carried too far this does kill initiative, that’s one reason why I accepted organizing of the gramophone concerts.

W’s friend Owen, is going away on the next up country party, an extraordinary fellow he took up art, chucked it and went into a monastery, joined the army and is now a high church agnostic, he has written lots of notes for a thesis on the religious life.

Another 6 months of this I can stand; 12 would be doubtful but more than that I doubt I would ever return to normal after so many years.

I went bathing this morning.  Don relieved me in the office for an hour and off I went complete with sketching materials.  A long stretch of sandy beech with the kampong at one end and Tanah Merah at the other.  We were a queer procession, invalids and off fellows, with a leg off here or an arm off there, sometimes an eye missing, some were wheeled on trailers.  The crippled were lifted into the water, but of about a hundred only two folk wore costumes and it was an unusual sight to see the colonels. Majors and ORs all wandering about in the sun chatting with nothing on at all!

I did a sketch of the Chinese fishing and painted it later.   It is pleasant to smell   seaweed again and swim.  I brought a shell back for a paperweight – I need them on old piles of notes.

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