He fell into the routine of the prison camp at Changi, sleeping in a cramped and foetid hut by night, and by day carrying out tasks that the officer in charge of the hut allocated him. The soldiers had quickly learned that if they didn’t grow their own food to supplement the starvation rations dealt out by the Japanese, and that if they didn’t clean and take care of the camp, they would become sick and die.
Sometimes Tom was detailed to tend the vegetable patch, sometimes to dig the latrines, sometimes to clean the huts. However, on the days he was chosen to go out of the camp on a work party, he had found himself filled with dread. Men were picked out at random from the parade in the morning, loaded with others on the back of a crowded truck, and taken to a piece of waste ground or a beach outside the city. There they were given shovels and ordered to bury the bloated and mutilated bodies of the Chinese who had been massacred as collaborators with the Kuomintang.
On those days, Tom learned to switch himself off, to blank his emotions against whatever he saw. He watched grown men crack after a day of this gruelling work, break down and cry like frightened children. He decided that he would not give in like that.
After a few days, he was struck down with dysentery. His stomach was gripped with searing gripes, and he had to rush to the latrines several times an hour, often not making it in time. He began to lose weight; none of the food he ate would stay in his stomach. He became weak, shaky, was in constant pain.
One afternoon when he was sweating on the latrine, doubled up with agony, the Japanese guards called a parade. Everyone had to come out to the parade ground, stand in line and be counted. The guards often did this on a whim, for no better reason than to amuse themselves. Paralysed by spasms, Tom found he could not move. He tried to get up, but swooned with pain, collapsing back on the makeshift seat. So he stayed where he was, praying that no-one would notice he was not in the line-up.
A stab of fear went through him as he heard the Japanese officer shouting, barking orders to his men. He listened helplessly as they searched the huts, banging the doors back and pulling out bunks. Then they came to the latrines. He heard them search every one of them, getting closer and closer to where he sat, frozen with fear. He was shaking when they pulled him from the seat, his trousers down, brown liquid oozing down his legs. The guards propelled him forward onto the parade area, laughing and jeering. They threw him on the ground and kicked him. Someone stamped on his head, grinding his face into the dirt.
After that they dragged him to his feet and pushed him into the centre of the ground. The guards dismissed the rest of the men and allowed them back to their huts, but Tom was forced to stand there in the baking sun, holding a plank of wood above his head. Each time his strength failed him and he had to lower it, one of the guards would punch him in the stomach and shove his arms up again. After a couple of hours of this, Tom collapsed to his knees, unable to stand. He no longer cared what they did to him. A guard came and kicked him repeatedly until he blanked out with the pain.
He woke up in a strange hut. It must have been the nearest one to where he had collapsed. He was lying on one of the bunks, and someone was bathing his face with a damp cloth. Several men were standing over him, anxious expressions on their faces.
‘He’s coming round now. Let’s get him over to the hospital hut.’ Tom recognised the speaker as the tall proud soldier from the march. ‘Come on, Harry, give me a hand. We can do it together,’ the soldier said to his friend.
The two of them hoisted Tom to his feet, put his arms over their shoulders, then half carried, half dragged him along the line of huts to the one set up as a makeshift hospital.
The officer in charge looked up in surprise as they entered: ‘Good God! Is that the poor chap who was given a beating on the parade ground earlier? I thought he was dead.’
Tom stayed in the hospital hut for four days, unable to move, drifting in and out of consciousness. Harry and Ian came to see him several times a day, bringing him things they had saved from their own rations, or had managed to purloin somehow: a boiled egg, an orange, a cup of thin soup. And gradually he started to recover. The dysentery passed and his wounds began to heal. Tom found himself looking forward to their visits. He began to appreciate Ian’s laconic humour and Harry’s sharp observations, and the two of them seemed to enjoy Tom’s company as well.
After that they all looked out for one another. It was an unspoken contract that they would share their rations between them; if someone was short one day, the others would make it up for him. If one of them happened to be out on a work party and managed to buy or
