Part III

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Section 33

August 9^th 1943

Saturday.  Well,  I spent my Bank Holiday in Tarso.  I was told to go and buy cigarettes for the force.  I went down by the railway – quite an experience!  One gets some fine views down the valley which is a wide, barren, covered in bamboo jungle, rimmed by jungle covered mountains.  

I have made a topping new strap for my watch out of a boot tongue.

A remark worthy of an Englishman – Sgt Husse replied when Col. X thanked him for some favour, ‘we do not want your thanks, just be good Prisoners.  Husse is a charming little Japanese, distinct from most of the Haiti (army) who rather like to fraternize.

I went down to the river today to buy eggs, many old acquaintances were there.

We are getting far too much meat these days and we are coming out in spots – it is delicious!  Out of our 3,270 men we have lost over 400 dead and all the rest are sick except 600, so we do really expect to get out.  We are no longer much use.  I had a lazy afternoon on my bed.

A week ago I had an urgent call to Tarso for Pay.  I walked down feeding at camps en passant and arrived, only to be told to come back in 4 days time, so I called on Manley for a chat and saw Sullivan as well, both out of hospital!  Then I walked back to No. 5.  The road was filled all day with Malays, Chinese and Tamils walking up the valley, who had been  forced to leave Malaya by the Japanese to work on the Burma railway.  The sick were just left on the roadside – it’s appalling!

No. 5 fed me very well on a glorious meat stew – this made me ill all next day, so I stayed for 2 days and audited their account.  I was taken for a bathe in their spring; which was very beautiful indeed?  A well boiling up at the foot of a limestone cliff and then pouring over a cascade and sweeping round a bend floored with sand.  It was of course forbidden.  We watched birds on the way back, large black birds with very long black and white tails.  Parrots, green with red heads and one with a blue cap, yellow collar, green back and red tail.

Everything is restless here.  First we had a search by the military police who are after something, but I don’t know what.  Movement between camps has been stopped, except with guards.

A party of 450 men (including 100 officers) has left for the border.  Paul went with them.  As for me, I am staying put.   The Japanese have discovered I can draw and have commissioned portraits.    Kanemoto has found I play a flute and he came along to borrow it.  He learnt the Japanese flute when he was a small boy by having the tonic sol far notes written on his fingernails.

He is a better type of Japanese.  The mess of course has gone bankrupt and the Colonel has had to stand the racket of this.

September 1^st.   Another long break and another new phase in POW existence, marked by my arrival at this base hospital.  

Another letter from you!  This was a most delightful surprise as we thought that all those  sort of things were finished for us, but more first about what has been happening.

I have been rather discouraged from writing to you by these ITA searches, and indeed I have been instructed to burn this.   Also things have been in a state of flux.

We moved into an attap* hut but only stayed two days before being ordered to Tamarkan – Kanchanaburi, the new hospital under construction.  We (7 of us). HQ staff packed and had the usual rush to get away..  Then the usual 6 hour wait for a train and the usual rush to get aboard.  After all that we travelled 5 ½ miles and spent the night at the Spring Camp, where I had signs of dysentery which was quickly cured with M & B 693 – 4 tablets; thank heavens!  

Next day we covered 8 miles to Tarso arriving at 7 p.m.  The Camp is in the paddy fields surrounded by the typical limestone hills of this country.  There are lots of similar attap hospitals in the district but we are penned in ours except for a walk to the river  for a bathe once a week.  Then the townsfolk are treated to a display of a few hundred malformed nudes with sores and other horrors.  Parties of sick arrive in trainloads most days, transported in open carriages, some dying en route.  

It is a pitiful spectacle to see and recognise the broken wretched carried or helped in.  The food here includes plenty of vegetables in the stew and together with fresh fruit and eggs which one can buy down here, it is doing us good.

The Colonel ensued and promptly fought the necessary local battle to get installed, now he is No.1, and Tim and I are HQ staff, me being both camp and Force Paymaster; complete with table and cash.

Now for your letter.  It is dated only a fortnight after your other letter (2).  The first one must have gone astray.  Only a fortnight’s difference and yet about 6 months difference in delivery.  Still, it was so refreshing to get it and it made me feel as if I really was ‘out of the wood’ having left behind that dreadful valley.

 *attap, is a native hut roofing material, made from the dried fronds of the coconut palm.

How on earth can Sandra be pretty and be like me?  It’s absurd, I am ever so anxious to see her and I hope to do so long before she starts growing up.   I have to try and forget that the ITA will destroy this long serial to you.  When I write to you it is all a false dream that I am writing to you at all.

Well, this journal still isn’t destroyed although the Colonel has twice ordered that all diaries must be destroyed.  This has been locked away in my closet until we settle down again.  We all expected to be searched again during our recent move, but rather than destroy this, I thought the Japanese might as well take it – there is nothing in it to which they would take offence, and anyway it’s only between you and me.  

I spent about 3 weeks at the hospital – a grim place – watching parties arrive by train and lorry at all times of the night, and many pitiful cases destined to die in a few days.   Our Mr Fraser died from ulcers on the way down.

Section 34

Before a few days had past Colonel Jackson called a conference and installed Himself and his staff – Ed Penn and myself without more ado.  We moved in an Officers ‘Fit’ hut, together with some old doctor friends of mine specially up from Changi.  It was a congenial hut in an uncongenial hospital.  I had a Paymaster’s desk in the general office and rapidly became the financial of the camp.  I collected funds from incoming parties, advanced capital for the Canteen and issued camp currency of $800, and generally had a busy time encouraging the administration to spend money for the very sick.  Eventually I was ordered to HQ by the Japanese Paymaster.  HQ is a quiet, peaceful camp, a hundred strong, a change from the two thousand in the hospital.   It is in quite pleasant surroundings but we are under canvas and it’s rather hot.    Col. J. is still in hospital, he nearly died with cerebral malaria, but he will be over here shortly.   Meanwhile I have to supervise things and control past claims, distribution and accounts.

I’ve had Singapore foot again, very badly this time, but Doc cleared it in a week by stipulating O. Perm., lukewarm baths, daily and wet bandaging.  I am now walking around and about again.

Here some of the lads are at work digging a well and are now about 30 feet down and have struck water.  We are very well supplied with stores here since much of the stuff from Changi never reached us up in the mountains where it was needed, so we found it down here.

I expect to be here for a month or so before the next move.  Well this camp is in direct contrast to all the other camps in the valley; it has developed more into a real camp.  We have a gramophone and a piano and today we had our first cricket match; a laugh in every way .

Well we have a concert on tonight – I’m supposed to be performing on the flute if I can get it back from Kanamoto  - he’s had it for weeks now.

Still no rest.  There is much gossip about going to a camp in Singapore – fit men only, I suppose because the majority of our 1,771 in hospital are too sick.  Major James took our order for two ducks seriously and came back with two live ducks at $2.50 each.  Last night they were served up roasted between the four of us which I carved and we tucked in, they were very succulent and very well stuffed with potatoes, onions and seasoned boiled eggs.  The second was finished this morning.

This sort of thing in POW camp is most unusual and will not last very long.  However, it is very good to be among fit men again after all the appalling cases at the hospital.  The food here is good and the chaps are benefiting enormously.  Mr Tenei and the Japanese are treating us well are sociable and quite kind in that way.

A Colonel  (ITA) has come to live at the house  from which we draw our water, so we have had to dig a well of our own.  Ian Brown took charge and now we have a well 50 feet deep by 6 feet round and it provides water for the camp – day and night shifts while it lasted.

I have been very busy getting the pay straight with all the men up for evaluation and changing rates, but I have found a PTC Simms who was taking his Accountancy exams with a firm of Accountants in Guernsey.  He is very intelligent and now can be trusted to do most of the work; as a result I am ready for my audit board tomorrow.

Col. Beech is O.C. while Col. James is sick and he is certainly much better to work for although he tends to favour AIF naturally enough.  Another blow is that I now get $30 per month instead of $60 and that makes a big difference.  Still I subscribe to a fund for those who do not get any pay at all.

October 31^st 1943.  

We had some real Malayan storms this week, rain and wind!  One night the sleeping tent spread its wings and flapped away.  We salvaged ourselves and the bedding which we transferred to the office tent.  That too refused to hold but with all night attention we kept it upright.   Next morning amid catcalls from the troops we moved into the hut, so now we have lost our privacy but gained in dryness.

We have started a chess competition and I won my first three games, so the Col. challenged me last night, we started at 7.00 and I eventually resigned at 9.45.  I nearly had him in the early part of the game but he forced an exchange of queens and that spoiled my plans.  After that we very slowly wore each other down getting nowhere for 2 hours, most tedious!  It was almost a forced draw but I saw I couldn’t do it!

This camp is a holiday camp; for a short time anyway.   Everyone is very fit.  It is a treat to see well built figures of men about the place, and my appreciation of the beauty of the human forms has been revived.   But think of the ugly skeletons in the hospital and again of the 800 odd dead!   Food is good and the canteen are good, we get plenty of fruit , eggs and good cigars.  I made a wizard sweet omelette last night.  I fear I now play a little Bridge.  I went down with a grand slam the other evening.

Cricket matches occur fairly frequently and we have another concert tonight at which I have been requested not to sing but to bring the flute.

Well the long promised evacuation is at hand.  500 left yesterday for Singapore.   All No 1 returned from their ideal and Roy Stamford turned up in our camp with about 400 others. 

I was very glad to see him and did what I could to make him comfortable.  Each evening he has been round and we have spent the whole time talking of poets and music and philosophy.

Section 35

Nov. 19^th 1943.   

Well the long awaited evacuation is at hand 500 left yesterday for Singapore.  All No 1 returned from their ordeal and Roy Stamford turned up in our camp with about 400 others.   I was very glad to see him and did what I could to make him comfortable.  Each evening he has been round and we have spent the whole time talking of poets, music and philosophy.

At hospital yesterday on a visit, I ran a temperature of 105.4 and a blood slide showed me positive for Malaria.  Capt. Gavin very kindly gave me a full course of medication and today I am not ill at all, now I shall stick to the course and cure myself!

Nov. 25^th.  

1,000 have left to date out of our force.  At HQ we are now besieged by 1,600 F Force down from Burma, they went up 7,000 strong and already have had 2.500 deaths and are expecting a 1,000 more.  They walked 200 miles before reaching their camps.  Then cholera broke out and each camp was isolated.  They were never able to exchange Malay currency and never received any issues of blankets and clothing.  For a long time it was difficult to reach them from either side, so food was scarce.  Rick Mason is in hospital up there.  I believe Ed is safe down here but I haven’t found Paul Unwin yet.  Many volunteers have died.   Those that arrived at this camp were cold, tired and emaciated; many covered in sores.   We gave away all the canteen stuff such as eggs etc. that we had but it was a drop in the ocean.  I have met a few old acquaintances but very few because these are mainly AIF.  Their officer’s casualties have been only 22 and some of those were escapees; but they didn’t have to work.  They were a party of 8 officers, very well equipped, but they lost everything when their raft capsized crossing a river and then they starved in the jungle, 4 died and 4 gave themselves up only to be sentenced in Singapore to 10 years on rice and water.

January 4^th 1944.   

Many moves and living out of a pack.  Once again my long, long letter to you has survived a search and now I have settled down again and I want to continue.  

Oh how I hated being thanked for doing so little and something which under such circumstances I had no option but to do.  When I came away I left him $5.00.  He is still up there and now we have gone, I hear there is much more food, although water was a big problem; so I hope he stays there and gets strong in himself again. 

Paul has been through far worse than I have ever seen.  Half the men in this Force are already dead, I gravely doubt whether all my values would have remained so intact had I had to face the dire trials for so long a period.  No wonder one couldn’t find much pity for the poor emaciated skeletons of one time healthy men who turned their face to the wall and died, some going insane first.  One felt as they did that they were better out of it rather than living to face years of daily torture and to an educated man as Paul is – and many others – it was terrible.  Among ORs and even some officers, values go by the board and men become just crude animals.   Ed, Stamford and I discussed this one night  - to what extent our fundamental beliefs had stood the test – that only those who had established sound fundamental values could come through mentally unscathed – in fact, I feel very few of us will.

Section 36

Nov. 19^th 1943.   

Well the long awaited evacuation is at hand 500 left yesterday for Singapore.  All No 1 returned from their ordeal and Roy Stamford  turned up in our camp with about 400 others.   I was very glad to see him and did what I could to make him comfortable.  Each evening he has been round and we have spent the whole time talking of poets, music and philosophy.

At hospital yesterday on a visit, I ran a temperature of 105.4 and a blood slide showed me positive for Malaria.  Capt. Gavin very kindly gave me a full course of medication and today I am not ill at all, now I shall stick to the course and cure myself!

Nov. 25^th 1943  

1,000 have left to date out of our force.  At HQ we are now besieged by 1,600 F Force down from Burma, they went up 7,000 strong and have already have had 2,500 deaths and expect a 1,000 more.  They walked 200 miles before reaching their camps.  Then cholera broke out and each camp was isolated.  They were never able to exchange Malay currency and never received any issues of blankets and clothing.  For a long time it was difficult to reach them from either side, so food was scarce.  Rick Mason is in hospital up there.  I believe Ed is safe down here but I haven’t found Paul Urwin yet.  Many volunteers have died.   Those that arrived at this camp were cold, tired and emaciated – many covered in sores.   We gave away all the canteen stuff – eggs etc.  – we had but it was a droop in the ocean.  I have met a few  old acquaintances but very few  because these are mainly AIF.  Their officer’s casualties have been only 22 and some of those were escapees  - they didn’t have to work.  A party of 8 officers. very well equipped, but they lost everything when their raft capsized crossing a river and then they starved in the jungle, 4 died and 4 gave themselves up only to be sentenced in Singapore to 10 years on rice and water.

January 4^th 1944.   

Many moves and living out of a pack.  Once again my long, long letter to you has survived a search and now I have settled down again and I want to continue.

I had settled down after a busy spell to another 2 months in Thailand and quite content to do so.  Food was very good indeed and life generally with Colonel Beech was quite pleasant.  I found Paul Urwin in the hospital and gave him a shirt and a book and nearly all my spare cash.  He was very thin and covered in sores and scabies.  He has been in hospital since the end of June and has had no money to spend for a very long time.  It was pitiful to see Paul, the immaculate accountant in so filthy and unhealthy a state, and I felt I could not do enough for him.  Someone else already had my second blanket so I couldn’t give him that and the nights were so cold that I wished I had lots of blankets to distribute.

Oh how I hated being thanked for doing so little and something which under such circumstances I had no option but to do.  When I came away I left him $5.00.  He is still up there and now we have gone, I hear there is much more food – although water was a big problem – so I hope he stays there and gets strong in himself again. 

Paul has been through far worse than I have ever seen .  Half the men in this Force are already dead, I gravely doubt whether all my values would have remained so intact had I had to face the dire trials for so long a period.  No wonder one couldn’t find much pity for the poor emaciated skeletons of one time healthy men who turned their face to the wall and died, some going insane first.  One felt as they did that they were better out of it rather than living to face years of daily torture and to an educated man as Paul is – and many others – it was terrible.  Among ORs and even some officers, values go by the board and men become just crude animals.   Ed, Stamford and I discussed this one night  - to what extent our fundamental beliefs had stood the test – that only those who had established sound fundamental values could come through mentally unscathed – in fact, I feel very few of us will.

Section 37

While I have been here, I have ventured into the wards.  I still find little in common; but it began to come back and my old scope for sympathy and understanding began to grow.  I can’t do anything to help these lads and bring back confidence in themselves and enthusiasm for life again.  But I am so lazy.  I have some new clothes, boots, socks, shirts and jacket.  They don’t fit but I am having them altered.  All British army issue.  There is talk of a Red Cross ship being in, I do hope so.  Food here is so slight and beriberi is on the increase.  Rice and beans are the standard diet and I am smoking too much to keep my appetite down.   Of course there is a snack bar of sorts but having given away all my November pay I am still broke.   Robbery is rife and I have opened a banking and safe custody service for officers!   I hold gold, jewellery and about $2,000 in cash and have to wear my key night and day.   I am also Mess Treasurer.  I find I am almost universally trusted which is very gratifying, and I am accepted as a capable and trustworthy accountant - all this helps a lot.  I only pray that I do not suffer a loss.

January 7^th. 1944.  

There is a third letter from you dated 13 August, 1043, it was a joy to receive it   I have also received a letter from your dear old Granny, a very short letter, telling me about you.  Comparing the dates of your letters, (2, 3 and 4), I note you are writing once a fortnight, that means that somewhere there about there are 35 letters all for me!!!

Down in the glade by the theatre there are lots of birds, Bulbulls, Finches, Tailor Birds etcetera.  I whish I had those glasses and you to tell me what is what!

I no longer have a job, a dangerous position to be in with working parties in the offing.  I have finally transferred all funds to Selby  and wound up H Force, my job as Finance Officer to the Hospital and Accountant to CMF.   Gavin Lloyd is determined to keep the latter for himself, so I can’t be enthusiastic about a job that someone else can and is doing.

I am enjoying my poems.  Why do I study poetry?  Yes, possibly to some extent to be well read, the higher life and all that, but by no means just that.  Enjoyment of life is tremendously enhanced by the artists’ visions as Roger Fry calls it.   Poetry is full of these artists’ new angles on things.   To study poetry is a generous education in appreciation and good training for creation.   What more?   And how often I find my own ideas repeated in poetry – a consoling thing.

Maclean came along to see me last night, we talked and smoked expensive 0.5  cigars over coffee and a ginger jam tart.  He is looking much better and now well dressed in Dutch green, and the sharp blue eyes have started to twinkle again.  He said that he felt that up country there was someone beside him seeing him through.    I suppose when two on either side of you die of cholera and you get by with no disease at all, it makes one wonder, but let us not admit superstition to such a degree.

As the months roll on, I am more and more thankful for you.  To know that I have you to come back to.  While the bachelors get older and older and have such a lot to catch up with.  The future is even more uncertain for them.

There are 600 letters in today and I am expecting one or two from you, I hope so.  Life continues to be quite pleasant.  I have done a bit of drawing again and hope to get my hand in more.  I wish I had the urge for watercolour.

Mark Moore tells me you are now limited to 40 words – a pity!   But it might help to speed up mail.

Owen Wood is going to cut out a wart from my knee tomorrow.

The ants in my bed have now reached a nice state of balance with the bugs and I get very little trouble.   I had fever on the 14^th but Moore refused to let me take quinine because we are short and my blood slide did not show Malaria.  My stool showed worms so he said they would have been the cause.  The result was that when the second attack came the blood slide showed a heavy infection..  Moore is afraid that the next attack might turn cerebral, so to prevent that, he has injected into the buttock.  I only hope I can get free of this malaria bug.  It lowers one’s whole system.  The stitches have been taken out of my let today.

Letters dated Sept, 13^th, Oct 7^th and May 1943!!!  The last is not numbered so I do not know how many I’ve missed.

Why on earth did you leave Sydney?   You know how we hated it even together.  Get out onto the land.  Grow pigs of something!    Oh I wish I could write to you and tell you what to do, or if only you would think for yourself instead of dreaming of the future and putting up with the present.

And so you are 26 today – I resent you spending two of the best of our years away from me – I shall be 30 soon.  I’m getting impatient.  I know we have a lot left but I dare not lose even 3 years.

Today some 100 parcels arrived from the USA Red Cross and the contents have been divided up, I received 30 Camel cigarettes, 2 oz, of chocolate, 8 prunes, 7 cubes of sugar, 1 oz., butter, cheese, meat etc.   Quite nice but only a drop in the ocean.  However, I understand that the civilians in the goal got a parcel each; they have had a rotten time.

Major Hogan overheard me say that Australia was a crude and uncivil country – that is Sydney!  He was most disturbed, there was almost an international incident.

7^th March 1944 

Well, I was 30 yesterday, but owing to leap year comes a day late.  There’s an end to my hopes of seeing you before I was 30.  At least I pray that will still be in your 20s.

Before my Malaria attack, I was studying Buddhism and philosophy generally and I put it down in metre.  Richards read it and we had a long talk about it yesterday until late in the moonlight.  I think he saw the justice of what I was getting at and hope it may make him think twice before retiring from the world.

We have a Lithuanian Rabbi who has spent a long time in Russia, he is lecturing on the philosophy of cognition, which I shall go and listen to, as I expect we shall have views in common.

Today I think I shall go out and draw something.  When I start looking for subjects it’s surprising how they turn up. 

‘Man of Destiny’ by GBS was put on at the Ham Theatre.  Four good actors made up the cast and it was very well done indeed.  Des Salk’s scenery was up to his high standards.  Unfortunately the stage is small.  Poor old Bill Conway has got dysentery and is being transferred to Changi, I am quite sorry.  It is a proof of our unbalanced diet that even now, 2 weeks after my fever, I have developed skin troubles, ringworm and Bereberi in my legs.  So I am on rice polishings  - ugh! 

11^th March Sunday.  A very pleasant day today, I was early to bed in spite of the glorious moon – 3 mess revellers arguing outside, but I woke up fresh to Red Cross Coffee.  The vitamin deficiency due to my malaria is about made up and I am feeling fit again, so I’m settling down once more.   You know the whole trouble with the outside world is that there is too much to do which claims attention.   Here one has to look for something and the result is that over a period of time the accumulations of knowledge and experience are valuable.   But for this I should never have found such an interest in English poetry and developed my drawing and painting or even appreciated Morris Dancing.    I should still be apathetic towards and quite ignorant of opera.  My interest in the Greek and Roman classics would have remained unstimulated and my philosophy undefined.   I hope when I get out to being able to continue to pursue interests along a few channels at a time, but what a hope!  I’m not made like that! 

Section 38

March 29^th Sunday.   I have been made Mess secretary, treasurer, messing officer and Duck accountant.  We have 11 ducks from Changi and are hoping for eggs.  Cliff is Duck Officer and really they are very amusing.

Leo has told me of a small nest of bees and I hope to collect them soon.

I should have told you of last week’s show.  It had a ‘girl’ dancer who was very good indeed, in a big flowing mosquito curtain dress.  This week’s play is Rope and very well done considering it was written from memory.

The blow has fallen.  I have left no. 6 and Colonel Mason has forbidden us to have anything to do with the hospital – so now I have no job at all – dangerous with a working party of 500 going away.  Don Gentle has sent me some flute sonatas.  He says his bees  have started to build upwards!!  Bill came back from Changi and said it is just one racket but the shows are superb.  Well for the first time I am in a mess of 200 in a dormitory with about 40 others and I have actually dug holes for Camp oil trees, two of which everyone in Singapore must plant for the IJA.

It occurs to me that when we are released we shall get a few months leave during which time my job will have been taken over, and I shall take over later.  This time we must go back to England and I must study.

Well, more changes!  Officers are to be entirely segregated from the men, so more moves are in the air.  Eggs are now $1.00 each and the four we get per day from the our ducks are $6.00 each which is a good return.

Earle grows everything, breeds everything,  and lives off his own food.  It is far more important to know how to live simply that to insure for continued luxury at an exorbitant cost.

Now I really should have learnt French during this POW life now that I am in a French firm and I really must try as much as I hate it, or any language for that matter.  I feel I should have something to show over and above a general deeper wisdom.

It is Good Friday today and we have had a hot cross bun from the cookhouse for tea

A new sort of plane has just gone over and our Kelly, in answer to my question, as to what sort it was said “That’s the Malayan Two-tailed Tit!

April 20.  Moves are on again.  I was definitely on the list for Changi and I wouldn’t have been sorry at all to have gone.  But as usual the move was cancelled.  We now await 600 more from Thailand and understand that half are stretcher cases and some have infectious diseases – with an ever present shortage of drugs.  

Food these days is satisfactory – most meals these days are a sort of bean hash but sometimes we get a meat and bean pie in the evening.  The morning pap rice with sugar is good, the cookhouse apologised for not serving hot tea lately because of the wood shortage – they never manage to get the water above blood heat!

I have joined a French and am making progress and I have now copied out two whole sonatas for the flute and they are going well.  My Bridge has improved considerably and I feel I can now play the game.

I have been put on a fatigue for roof building and each day we have been making atap.  I have invented a wire ring-hook and has speeded up the job, so it shouldn’t take much longer.  Everyone was annoyed with me for actually doing a job of work.   

A huge swarm of bees has settled on a tree in the cemetery.  Unfortunately it was 40 feet up and difficult to get at.   By the time I had made my second visit they left ¼ hour before.

I have found Van der  ?  the Java entomologist, who tells me he thought they were the large type (Apis ducatos) and would not domesticate.  He says they build one large shallow comb in the branch of a tree.  My  type (Apis indenes) are the only ones prone  to domestication  – the tiny ones we found in Changi would not stay in a hive.   

What a fuss!  We were ordered to group 190 officers in one hut, allowing 1’6” x 3’per officer.  This is in order that the 3,000interns from the goal could come into the camps.  The officers’ area has been screened off for the women and children.  It was a terrible crush and it meant making double bunk beds – the whole place rang with hammering, sawing and swearing.  Fortunately I only had to move a few feet.  At 11.00 the Japanese reversed the order and everyone had to move back.  I helped Roy Stamford with his stuff and we translated French en route!  Still it’s all over now but the Medical Officers have left us so I shan’t have the privilege of being with these men any longer.   I took the precaution of leaving a message written on a wall  to Anne and Kath about Roy and Bill and to settle down again.

To get out of the way this morning I took my chair out under the tree and read a book.  I am playing bridge but improving only slowly.   John is rather fed up with me because I treat him like a child and he is about 2 inches taller, although some 5 years younger.   I really should refer to him more than I do.  Why is it than one always takes a defensive attitude and tries to find the faults in one’s fellows?  Particularly if they are decent chaps,

The more we respect them the more we disguise ourselves, this is all wrong!  We try to find faults in them so that we can maintain our opinion of ourselves.  I agree that a complete analysis of our fellows is advisable but let it be unbiased.  We are too intolerant so we only make friends with those who will stand it – and whom we also like – hence the few!

I was stung last night by the bees, they chased me for yards!   I found later that they were being disturbed by ants.

Yesterday I was once more playing drag-horse to the wood party  and we went round the race course and up onto the hills on the far side, about a hundred of us, all officers, and we came back loaded up with wood on a two-wheeled trailer between 20 of us.  I enjoyed it.  I felt very fit and it was a change to see something of Singapore again after 12 months.

The natives seem to be settling down better but there were many fewer.   I took a book of course, and spent the middle of the day under a trees on the hill while somebody made tea.  We returned via the Golf Club in pouring rain.  Very few of the European houses are being lived in but in all of them there appeared to be servants living in and keeping the places tidy.

Well, some of the interns have arrived but we are forbidden to have anything to do with them.  We are now all crowded up 50 to a room 40 x 30 feet and feeding is bad.  I wish I had had the sense to go down into the garden and create a shack of some sort. 

May 7^th 1944.  

We are here and we are settled in Goal at last.  A few days of discomfort and bad meals.  I saw Salk and Tilly.  A Japanese sat on the box of bees all this way not knowing what they were. 

Here I am in a concrete and iron barred room 50 x 20 feet, with 27 people.   Will Rogers, Roy Stamford and Andy Ascot are my new immediate circle which is very pleasant.   Mark Moor is immediately below.

We can see some of the civilians from here in another part of the goal.  The women and children (many Eurasians) are separate and have huts in a grass plot.  I understand that they have been severely treated and seem very cowed.

Section 39

Life here can be extremely pleasant provided one is left alone and manage to dodge working parties.  I have been into a cute courtyard; it has a shaped green plot surrounded by a high concrete wall and a beautiful flowerbed down the centre, with tiger lilies and other lilies.  And a really prize Hibiscus 8” diameter with lots of bees on the henna bushes.  What a sweet smell henna has, Major Riley first pointed it out.    We sat in the shade, I with a cigar and a notebook studying Pluto.

Oh Bett, your letters do mean a lot!   It was nice of you to think so especially about me on our anniversary.  I’m afraid on that day I had my first attack of malaria and cholera was beginning to attack our Thailand camps.

 10^th Wednesday, Changi.  Yesterday I went ‘outside the walls’ gardening and then we were suddenly called in and told to pack ‘to go to Changi’.  Well after the usual fuss, we packed and stood about in the heat, moved here and there until 4.30, then marched to Selarang.  I had my pipe stolen and $6.00 worth of tobacco which was my month’s supply – specially made with dried papaya leaves and sugar.  My bed also was broken so I felt really fed up – but glad to get away and return to Changi.

Will, Roy and I settled in and then after dinner I went to call on Mac and Major Green at Command HQ.   The flowers and well kept lawns looked delightful.  I found Green in a palace of a building with lots of light furniture and space so I stayed chatting and drinking tea until 10.00.   It was quiet and civilized and not until then did I realise the tremendous difference circumstances has effected in 12 months.

We are fairly comfortable here but nothing like as good as this.    Leaving Command HQ I called on Don and he gave me a very warm welcome and his sincere smile along with it.  I borrowed his flute and music and yarned about bees and music and Jim whom I fear is having a bad time.  Then I went and met Paul.  Gosh!   He has changed, he is very plump and well and doing a cashier’s job at the canteen.

This morning I got up before light and nipped some furniture before it was all taken, a table and some shelves, and then I played the old music through again and found my hands ached.

We had a medical inspection a few days ago and due to my malaria I got let off fatigues, not being perfectly fit I have volunteered to fetch rations in the skeleton Ford chassis which we use as a trailer, as a result I have had plenty of spare time.  I have been taking notes on philosophy; also I couldn’t resist buying a dressing gown.  I have always been aware of the psychological affect of dress on the bearer and a gown is a luxury.  Now with my pipe aglow and a robe overflowing me I feel quieter, peaceful and even something of a philosopher!   As of course I am!

Ron annoyed me with comments on Thailand – so I said it was better not talked about as it was not a subject for light conversation!  Dead silence!  Then someone started talking about stew! 

Paul has gone to the goal in the canteen.  Before he went we had a long reminiscence on old times.  He hasn’t heard from Ada for a long time now and seems satisfied.   He says he rather wants to be free after this.   Gosh!  Haven’t we wasted enough time here! 

Roy has been very trying latterly, he is fit and fussy, he’s got a very antagonistic attitude towards everything, and it’s his pose.   He exaggerates his language and talks too loudly and too long – but his Freda still loves him and often I can see why!

Food is short but I am used to that – life is really quite pleasant.  Major Green, Keith Conner and Mac have been very nice.  I went to a light orchestral concert a few nights ago.  It was a treat to hear a violin again.  There is also an electric gramophone which helps.

I played poker last night and lost 14 cents.  I was rather new to the game.

May 21^st .   All of in the hospice clubbed together and I bought two chickens yesterday for $13, plus some tapioca root and onions.  We plucked the birds  - I cleaned one by first of all, cutting it in half and then taking out everything out which was fairly loose.  However, one thick stew certainly helped the very meagre lunch.  Still food here is interesting and tastily though scarcely adequate.

Last Friday I went to see Don Gentle to return his music .  I heard most of Mozart’s violin concerto and had tea with gula Malacca and a chat.  He has invited me to tea today to meet David Pierce again who is here in hospital and to take some honey off the bees.

My tobacco which I made from papaya leaf and sugar is really very satisfactory.

May 23^rd Tuesday.  Another move!   One in 3 days, why can’t they settle down?   I shall be leaving Ed and Roy and going with RASC – a shocking crowd!

Gentle and I took two marmite pots of honey off the bees on Sunday and it is really very pleasant with the morning pap.   I shall endevour to take my old swarm to the goal, the bees seem to be good producers.

Later.  I brought some bees from Gentle, the old original ones and collected the others from Sime Road goal so I now have two hives.  Unfortunately the latter have no queen and a worker bee is doing her best.  I have seen her – she is dropping eggs everywhere, 5 or 6 in a cell and all of them sterile, so the swarm is very miserable the bees sit outside the hive looking gloomy.   I am trying to transfer brood to them.

Don and Ed are in the next hut.  I called in the Goal to see Paul the other day and bought some pineapple.   Calling in on Mac we split one and had a chat.  Poor old Mac, he will live in a dream! 

Fortunately there have been few fatigues lately – the food is small in quantity though well prepared in the newly built kitchen, quite the latest in heat conservation and convenience

Yesterday we had a bathing parade to Tanah Merah Beach.  We all got lost going there and returning – the guards just didn’t know the way, but it rained hard and the tide was out!  Still it was a pleasant change.  The colours of the foliage were amazingly rich and the robins very cheerful indeed.  I think it must be the mating season by their song.

Note.  It is very necessary, in order to maintain an enthusiastic interest for research on a subject to work towards an object – either an address or a paper.

We people who have been away (to Thailand or Burma) have so much in common that we have temporarily lost our class consciousness, so we accept each other and the experience brought me up with a jerk.  It is something for which we shall be unprepared after this is over, but I suppose we shall be pressed into our own small corner.   I must confess |I am not good at the subtle forms of being rude – or am I – do I do it to my ‘inferiors’?  I suspect I do – for my own satisfaction.  God!   Let’s grow up!

Section 40

June 22^nd.  Again it is our anniversary with things more and more favourable.  A year ago was an all time low for me – now I really think we are on the last year and we can settle down to lovely living.

Music

The Orchestra and the Instruments.

Modern Trends in Music.

Musical Theory.

Art

An Amateur’s Approach to Graphic Art.

Accountancy

Information to the Public

Methods of Communication.

Budgetary Procedure.

Modern Accountancy Methods.

Rubber Company Accounts.

Sociology

Comparative Ethics

Cooperative and Trade Unions.

Applied Sociology.

Recreational

Bees

Youth Hostel Association and Kindred MOs  

July 4^th     You know, the POW life is really rather hard work!   To live it without getting severe depression one must live up to our own standard of making the most of life.  This seems to mean that no time must be actually wasted.  To rest one must have ‘earned it’ with the result that one keeps oneself at it each day.

Yesterday I painted a rather effective colour scene of mangroves.  Today, I am struggling through Lambert’s Music and feeling very tired of music.  Obviously I must get a change, but to what?

During malaria the loss of the sense of interest is the most depressing thing ever!   The feeling of wasting time and having no inclinations to set about doing something.

Bravo!   A wireless message.  Oh Bett! How did you wangle it?   It’s extra good to hear so recently of you.  The last news was 12 months old.  

July 7^th.  One letter from you Bett dated Nov. 1942.  It seems very old following a telegram but at least it told me that Sandra had ginger hair and brown eyes, which was just what I wanted to know.

My small swarm of bees dwindled and finally left being unable to keep the ants at bay.  The other swarm however, are very strong and collecting plenty of honey.

July 14^th.  Another letter, this time dated August 1943, the latest yet and a good letter.  I am glad to see you’re taking an interest in a job.

Two letters from Trix (sister), one from Bill (brother) and four letters from Mother:-

Sixteen letters, why bored?

Unless risky try abroad –

Congratulate Trix, Boy or Girl?

Reassure Cotterells.

Wristwatch working.   Home before

Sandra’s Birthday.  Love Galore.  Tom

Oct. 17^th 1944.  

There has been an order about diaries so at last I have been intimidated into stopping this long memoir to you.   However, Col. Mason has now taken over here and we now have an entirely new regime.   All the old Changi folk are doing nothing.  Further I have not felt the need to write now I’m back in such a secure place as Changi after the adventures of Thailand.  I feel now I am just waiting for the inevitable. 

However, herewith a few intimations on what life is like here.  The bees are thriving and the old swarm gives clear honey.  Col.  A is a keen apiarist and looks at them from time to time.  He sent for me to collect a swarm in the garden which I did without gloves or veil.  Much to the shame of certain folk all fully protected.  This swarm is doing well and Camp Office has agreed to make a good hive for it.

I feel I can exchange ¼ lb honey for 2 eggs, they sell well at $1.00 each.

I am teaching accountancy to a small class of officers twice a week and find it good practice.  Also I am official Tutor for an OR’s class on Thursdays which is an experience for me.  Paul took this for me while I was in hospital last fortnight with sinusitis.

I have shared a room with Col. Reeds and Jason Mann who are good room mates.

I have recently joined the “Literary Circle” consisting of notable ones who write short stories and poems for criticism.  I have submitted a short 600 word article which went down quite well.  I went to a poetry evening during which I was outspoken about a bad poem and I was asked to criticise the Circle Anthology which I have done.

Unfortunately no more cash can be sent to friends in Sime Road.  I believe they are doing alright out there.

Some very good shows and debates, quizzes and lectures have been on in the Coconut Grove Theatre (Officers’ area).  We are no longer allowed to visit OR’s in the Goal.

We are still living 42 to a dirty old Atap hut and food is getting less adequate.  I now weigh only 10 stone 10lbs.

I have bought two packs of cards (new) for $6.00 and sold one.  The idea is to get a bit of bridge since entertainments, which used to be every night, have been cut down to two weekly and lighting is bad for reading.

I relived the goal bees with Paul the other night by moonlight.

Dec 10^th 1944.  I am apprehensive about the coming year but ‘take what comes’. The bees are now reorganized, there are queen cells in the small hive, and a brood in the larger one. 

Section 41

Yesterday it rained, so I played my flute solidly for about ¾ of an hour. At least no one objected!

  The Panto was rained off, but I will go tomorrow instead.

Christmas Eve 1944.  It has just come upon me in a flash that you are in Sydney, spending your Christmas with Sandra, while I am this camp; so I am thinking about you.  We both now know that we are well and active, really there has been little for me to worry about; I haven’t a job and I cannot do anything about things outside.  I do a few fatigues and the rest of the time is my own to improve my mind such as it is.   Anyway it’s very fine as long as the books last and my present programme will take me up until April!   This present year is going to be difficult though!   Our captors are daily getting more awkward.

Boxing Day.  Well Christmas was an extraordinary day so everyone thought!  At 11 a.m. there was coffee and cheese and Burns got on the piano and everyone sat around under the trees in Coconut Grove, it was rather like a Bank Holiday morning at the Swimming Club.  The ITA issue of cheroots kept everyone smoking.  Also I bought some large cigars at 50 cents each and there was a ½ oz. Tobacco issue.   I decorated our table with artichoke flowers.  After lunch we slept until 4.00 p.m. when tea and cake arrived and a violinist came to entertain us.   Then I went to the hospital visiting and returned for dinner.  We finished off our food and drank coffee and smoked cigars until there was brilliant moonlight!  Everyone was in high spirits.

I heard from you today

21^st March.   I’m afraid it’s gone (the watch) and it’s a bitter thing but you know why.  I discussed it two or three times with Vince, who always watches your interests and keeps an eye on me.   He agreed that I should sell it, as the position is difficult now.  Rations are short, only 220 grams of rice per day and a sporadic supply of greens.  Although we are benefiting temporarily from a supply of Red Cross parcels, they only provide about 4 oz per man twice per week.  We have all lost weight; I am now at the low level of 9 stone 10 oz, some two stone down and hungry.   Further I get regular malaria every month which demands a bit of building up after each bout.  I was in hospital for a week on the very meagre ration then and lost a pound a day.  Now surely relief isn’t very far off.   Your gift has been a good friend to me for 4 years now and I hope that I shan’t need it much longer.  Anyway I put it off until the last.   First to get food I borrowed money.  Monkey is being sold in the camp exorbitant rates and I was already 40 pounds down, I was tempted to go in for another 50 pounds but it did not seem right paying for a pound of tapioca root after the war.  Root, the only cheap bulk food we can buy in mess.  One borrows money against sterling – although many people are doing this and will have hundreds of pounds to pay back after the war.

There are a great many people who are ill and need help.  I would like to help, so it wasn’t fair to hold on to it.

I refuse to admit sentimental value of anything is more than a common attribute and not a sacred one.  It is a dangerous weakness to permit inanimate objects to attain a share of affection.  Such affection is sterile and misplaced.  No!  the reason  didn’t want to part with it was because I felt it was the greatest complement; it reminded me of you, but I don’t need reminding of you by a watch; you are always an integral part of  my daily life. 

It is a piece of valuable mental discipline in a life where mental slackness tends to but in.  This was the real break, but in a way I am glad it is over, perhaps I was relying too much on an artificial prop;   props I disguise!   Your reactions have caused me no qualms, because you know, if asked you would have urged me to do as I have, only sooner!   It has been worthwhile to wait.  I can help more people and over the last few days I have now realized how selfish it was of me to keep it.   Having some money again, I have been able to get some ink to write a little more; pencils are valuable these days.

June 18^th.  Today is Sandra’s third birthday.   A year ago I had hoped we might well be free by today, but it still looks like another 3 months.   Still, there is a good chance of getting back alive as long as I can dodge the small working parties.  I am thinking about you both today and hoping Sandra will have a happy birthday.  

Generosity in the food line had unfortunately reduced to a very low ebb one fed oneself; a nasty affect, but unfortunately necessary.  Now that this has been lifted and peace once more we can afford to be hospitable.

Gardens have produced well, and the whole area has a good stand of tapioca root, bayam, spinach, papaya, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, as well as cucumbers etc.   All out of sand, compost and urine.

Further my bees have produced 1 lb per week lately of good honey.

I have just finished my 18^th malaria attack, though only a mild one.

  Sunday August 19^th 1945.   

Rain has lately damped our enthusiasm.  This last week has been trying owing to the uncertainty of news – we were told that in a day Lord Louis would be here – he is standing off with the fleet etc. – and nothing happens.  The Japanese do not say a word and work continues as usual.  Days roll on and the news bulletins contradict themselves.  The King makes a speech and England holds peace celebrations and the ack ack fire goes on and so does the war in Manila and Burma, while Singapore refuses to reply to Louis.  Then we hear that he is short of transport!!  There will be some delay in getting away and yet we are told that he was all ready to land; so absurdly contradicting.  Still yesterday I went on the wood trailer, it poured with rain all the way and I caught a thorough cold.  I called at a Chinese shop on the return journey and the Towkey was very pleased and asked if we knew the war was over, and told us that our people would be back soon.

Last night the news came in that Col.  Emmett had been officially told and then it was denied.  The Japanese were intending to fight on?   By the morning, however, the position had been clarified.  Apparently it had not been said that the war was over, but it was announced on both sides that this was known.   Emmett has been given the key of the cupboard and Red Cross staff arrived in camp this afternoon.  The Japanese are stacking their arms and even they seem pleased that there is going to be no slaughter here.

So now we can cook and cook and wait and wait.  The extra food has helped a lot and I have put on weight for the first time for over a year.  When the small ulcer on my hand heals and my cold is better and I’ve been de-wormed and have taken a full course of Attabrin, I should be well again.

The hospital is getting better rations now and about time too!

Well, it seems I sold the watch at the right time to do some good, the price was reasonable and at least twenty of my friends who were hard up have benefited and I am very much fitter in spite of fever.  I now only have $30 left.

November 20^th, 1945  

At last I can write to you knowing that some day you will be able to read it and there is no more danger of a search and burning of diaries etc.

Working parties are returning to the Goal here as a collecting centre.  As they passed through Singapore today in lorries there were no Nips in sight; the natives cheered them as they went by.  The prisoners in Otram Road Goal serving severe sentences were officially discharged yesterday and returned with many very sick indeed, to this camp.

At present we are carrying on as before.  The Nips are still in control but have learnt how to be polite again.   Well, we had a good meal tonight, fancy the Nips holding on to all that food, smoke and clothing while we have patients die of malnutrition!

28^th August 1945.  

Freedom comes gradually to the camp.  More and more supplies of food and clothing come in!   Don Gentle is getting fitter and fitter.   At this rate with a swim every day I might be able to fit a suit of clothes again.  Polished and dressed I feel quite different.   We now have a daily newspaper and hear that you will have letters waiting for us in the first ships.  Also that half the wives have returned to England.  I hope this includes you (it did!), although reports from home seem discouraging in the food line.  Still I can now subsist on precious little.

Sunday 2^nd September 1945.   

This morning at 10.30 we had broadcast in the Coconut Grove, the official signing of the Japanese surrender.  The position in the camp was rather odd.  We heard from the BBC last night that we were free, yet things are still the same and we still salute ITA guards etc.   There is no sign of a Union Jack on the flag staff – considering that the war was legally ended two weeks ago.   It’s rather amazing.  Still no-one worries because it is only a question of waiting and we are so good at that these days.

We are still very crowded but food is quite adequate now and the only thing we use the electric heater for is the warming up of things and making coffee.

I weighed myself this morning and am now 150 lbs as against 141 lbs twelve days ago.  The rapid putting on of weight is interesting.   One notices improvements in shape and line.  It is warmer at night.

Nowadays I have relaxed and let time and events roll by.  I can’t settle down to serious reading again and I am smoking too much with loud speakers in camp.  News seems to be constantly repeating itself, almost as loud as in civilian days; all the good old contradictory blah!    I think I preferred the underground. 

It is infuriating to hear the BBC persuading all you people that terrific efforts are being made on behalf of the POW when it is all too apparent that everyone is taking their time over the whole business and we are really rather a nuisance.    Still it all leads in the obvious way to you and that’s everything.

                                                (THE  END)

                                                                                       EPILOGUE

The Japanese war ended suddenly.  About six months before,   I had brought my three year old daughter Sandra, to England.  We were living in a delightful private Hotel in Gloucestershire, where I was negotiating for a job as a receptionist to a Doctor.   I was 27 years old.

  My husband came back to me thin and yellow from taking mepocrine (the standard medication against malaria available at that time).   I had access to a beautiful wooded estate within walking distance of the Hotel, so we walked and walked amongst the colourful autumn leaves and got to know one another again.

It took us sixteen months to get rid of his hookworm infestation and about two years for the malarial rigors to fade out.

So started a rather long rehabilitation  period,  for all the POWs  and their contacts for they  were suffering from a long gap in their adaptation to the rapidly changing world which had occurred during a long war,    Also they needed to take up their careers but had little knowledge of changes, and were still coping with the aftermath of disease and malnutrition.   Many of the men had a strong fear that the hardships they had endured would have had an adverse effect on their ability to father children, this was understandable, but appeared to be groundless – hence the ‘baby boom’ that occurred a year after the  Japanese war ended!

As for the wives and girl-friends who had been on their own for so long, many had formed other relationships, which in many ways though sad, was understandable, as we were mostly in our twenties and had a horrid impression that we were ‘marking time’  and that ‘life was passing us by’.  Also, there was the knowledge and fear, that although we might have received a card (usually at least a year old) from our man, he could easily have been dead for months.

There was also the situation where the wife or partner had been running her life on her own, (and probably with one or more children) for about 3 1/2 year.  If she was to save her marriage or relationship, it meant, a part from getting her man fit, being careful not to do things better than he could, and to take a back seat, at least until he had regained his health and self confidence, and caught up with the world changes to some extent.   Also it was difficult for parents and relatives in England to realize how different their sons’ experiences had been from their own, and how to understand and help them.

The next morning after his arrival and introduction to the new member of the family, we went downstairs to find our small daughter sitting on the bottom step and talking to the Proprietor.  We heard:-

16. “So your Daddy has come back to you at last!”

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