He ate and drank what was still left then sank down in despair. He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the horror of his situation. The image of Joy swam before his eyes. She was looking up at him, smiling her shy smile, with tears in her eyes. She was giving him something. A photograph. Automatically he touched the breast pocket of the shabby shirt he had worn every day for months. He could feel the reassuring shape of the photograph, still there next to his breast.
‘Joy,’ he breathed. ‘I’ll come back. One day I’ll come back.’
Then he remembered the flowers he’d taken from the graves. He pulled them out of the pocket of his shorts and, putting them up to his nose, took a deep breath of their scent. Immediately he was back under the pomelo trees, shovelling earth that fell with a dull thud onto the bodies of his friends. The smell of the flowers brought back the smell of their blood, fresh, rapidly congealing in the tropical sun. He began to retch. He brought up the water and his rice meal, vomiting it onto the sides of the hole and onto his shirt. He was sweating and gasping, his body racked with pain. Afterwards he sank back against the earth of his prison, weak and exhausted.
‘How the hell am I going to get through this?’ he asked out loud.
For a long time he crouched there in despair. His thoughts were out of control. They came to him like pieces in a kaleidoscope, sometimes fragmented, sometimes fitting together in a coherent whole. The images of Harry and Ian appeared before him, of their bodies covered in blood and dancing before his eyes as bullets hit and sliced through them. Then suddenly those images faded and Joy was running towards him, emerging from the smoke of the guns. At least it was Joy’s face, but she had the body of a lithe and graceful puma. He tried to stretch out his hand towards her, but the pit prevented him from touching her, and as he struggled to reach her, she melted away into nothingness. She was instantly replaced by the image of his father, who had taken the shape of a lion, and had a tattered mane and rheumy drunken eyes. The lion was crouching, about to spring. Tom again tried to put out his arms, this time to shield himself from the lion’s pounce, but again found his movement constricted. He tried to cry out in fear, but as he did so the lion spun away into darkness, and then emerged again. But now, it had turned into a feral dog, and it was coming to him, and Tom saw that it was injured and limping, dragging one leg behind it. He struggled to remember where he had seen it before. It was moving towards some trees just out of his vision when it stopped and turned towards him. He saw then that it was Archie, his face swollen and livid from his beatings. Tom opened his mouth to speak to Archie, to reassure him that he would help him, but no words would come.
Tom crouched there sweating and panting, trying to get a grip on himself. He knew he had to take control of his mind if he was ever going to get through this. He needed to get hold of something tangible. Sweating and shaking, he tried to focus his mind. He knew he must think about something other than his predicament. But all he could think about were Harry and Ian, and the great emptiness he felt at losing them. How was he going to survive without them? He had depended on their company for everything until now. They had helped him get through each day in the camp. Without Harry’s cheerful banter and Ian’s quiet good sense, he would have given up the will to make it through this hell months ago. His mind kept returning to the image of their bloody corpses lying under the pomelo trees, inside those inadequate shallow graves. How was he ever going to get over losing them?
The four of them – Tom, Ian, Harry and Archie – had been in it together from the start. Or almost from the start at least. Most of Tom’s platoon from the Straits Settlements Volunteer Force had been killed on Singapore Island in the final battle. Poorly trained and unprepared, with inadequate equipment, they had been overwhelmed by fire from Japanese tanks. One by one they had fallen in the muddy storm drain, where the Volunteers had been waiting for the Japs to march into the city. Except for Tom. He had managed to stay alive.
When the order to surrender came and the defeated troops were rounded up and marched through the ruined streets of Singapore to the barracks at Changi, Tom fell in with a platoon from the Northumberland Fusiliers. He noticed Ian on that first march. Ian marched tall and proud, swinging his arms freely, his back ramrod straight, staring defiantly ahead of him. Many of the men were distracted by the crowds of Asians lining the route, waving Japanese flags, throwing vegetables at the Allied soldiers, booing and jeering at them. Tom had observed the bewildered faces of many of the soldiers, humiliated by this display. But Ian had marched on, unperturbed.
Tom had also noticed Harry. Harry had been injured in the battle. His arm was crushed and bloody. Yet, like Ian, he marched with pride, head held high, jaw fixed against the pain, a look of proud determination on his face.
Tom didn’t get to know them, or even speak to them, for several weeks though. He rarely spoke to anyone in those first few weeks. He was still in
