SINGAPORE AND THE THAI RAILWAY EXPERIENCES OF ...

e due to the shortage of water when we first arrived; certainly it was very painful and I had
rather a bad attack. For several days I was passing blood. My own theory was that this
complaint was due to the unusually large quantities of fat that we were getting in the Nip pork
stew. When we went on to our own rations, then the quantity, and also the quality, fell off.
Quinine was very short when we came up because we had been told, in the usual way, that we
should get supplies at the other end. We ran out in a week or so and it was lucky for us that
there was a decent Nip doctor who gave us a supply out of his own stocks. As it was, quite a
lot of chaps developed Blackwater fever and we had five deaths in four months. Capt. Young
of the Malay Regt. was the leading light in this camp at the beginning. The Dragon, that is
Sgt. Major Osbourne, was completely hopeless. As a regular soldier we never expected very
much from him in the way of brains, but he was equally bad at keeping discipline. Although
Osbourne was nominally in charge of the camp, it was Young that got things done. As an
MO, Young was not supposed to have anything to do with the routine work of the camp.
Tony Mills was early on picked out by Young to look after the Canteen, and, in addition,
Tony did the library on his own initiative. Charles and I did
48.
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the normal work like the others. We learned to do the Tonga Trot whilst carrying stretchers
loaded with soil or rocks. (The Tonga Trot is a very slow walk.) I should add that a tonga is
a sort of stretcher made out of two bamboos and a sack. The Nips on the aerodrome used to
try and make us work hard, but with very little success in our case. Our reply to cries of
'Speedo' would be that he died in 1943. The food became very poor. Each meal consisted of
rice, kangkong and a very little pork. It became very monotonous and most of us developed
Pellagra.
I had pellagra for three months until the war ended. It got so bad that I could not eat my food
until it was cold and I was unable to smoke. Also I got pellagra rash on my legs. The doctors
were 'tida apa' about things like this and, in point of fact, they were, on the whole, a lazy lot.
They, and the Eurasian medical orderlies, were generally disliked throughout the camp. I will
make an exception in the case of Young. Most of these MOs and orderlies had been looking
after the poor Tamils in the coolie hospitals around Kanchanaburi. From all accounts they did
not do much beyond look after themselves. I heard an authenticated account of how they
would inject the Tamils with distilled water and then sell the proper drug that should have
been used. These doctors, I dare say, were so used to dealing with coolies that they could not
get out of the habit when they came to us. Their manners when the workers came to have
their sores dressed after a day on the 'drome were disgraceful. Most of the men developed
sweat sores and these became septic. The treatment for sweat sores was very primitive, being
merely a dab of pot. permang. and not even a dressing. I was unfortunate enough to get a
good crop of sores.
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It was about three months before my sores cleared up. The marks of them are there today.
When we finished work on the 'drome we stopped on the way back to have a bathe. This was
the best moment of the day. The water was not exactly clean as it was shared with waterbuffaloes,
but it was a good deal better than having to wash out of a mess-tin containing
perhaps two pints. On several occasions men were attacked by large leeches; I was on two
occasions so attacked. These leeches were very large - about four inches long and, when