Her heart leapt when she turned a page and came across her father’s name:
‘Thomas Charles Ellis, Private. Captured Singapore, February 15, 1942; Discharged Penang, September 1945.’
There was no Arthur or Alfred Stone on the list, and only two Arthurs altogether.
She closed the dusty book with a sigh. The assistant was hovering close by.
‘Do you think it’s possible that my father left an account of his experiences, and it is lodged here?’ Laura asked her.
‘There are several first-hand accounts by prisoners of war. Most of them are transcribed from original diaries. Would you like to look at the list of names on the microfiche?’
Laura sat at the machine and looked through the microfiche records, which listed the names and other details of prisoners of war who had written down their accounts. There was no Thomas Ellis on the list, and no Arthur or Alfred Stone.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said the girl. ‘When my colleague gets back, he might be able to help you further. He’s been here for years. He’s a real expert. Would you like to read any of the first-hand accounts while you are here?’
Laura glanced at the clock. She had plenty of time. Why not spend the afternoon in the peace and anonymity of the library, instead of languishing at home, feeling sorry for herself?
The girl brought her a pile of cardboard files.
‘Please be careful with them – they’re getting old. Some of the paper is very thin.’
She sat down at the huge polished table and opened one of the files at random. It was typed on an old-fashioned typewriter, on wafer thin yellowing paper. It was by Private George Stringer of the Royal Norfolk Regiment.
‘The three years I spent on the Thai-Burma railroad were hell on earth. We were beaten on a daily basis. Beaten by the Japanese guards and by the Koreans who were worse in their own way. Because the Japs were cruel to them, they wanted their own back on the prisoners. I remember my best mate, Sam Jones, being beaten for not working hard enough. He was ill with dysentery and so weak he could hardly move. Only, they didn’t care about that. When he collapsed by the side of the railway, they set on him with bamboos and sticks.’
‘Food was really short in the camps,’ another soldier had written, ‘and consisted mainly of rice and watered-down stew with the occasional bit of gristly meat in it. Often we would find flies and other insects floating in there too. We were permanently hungry, especially with the physical exertion of labouring all day and with walking to and from the railway. We exchanged anything and everything we owned with the Thai villagers outside the camps, for a few duck eggs or pieces of fruit. One man made the mistake of trying to steal food from the Jap quarters. He was caught, and his punishment was to kneel in front of the guardhouse on sharpened sticks of bamboo buried into the ground. He knelt there for two days, and when he was finally released he had to be carried away by his mates. He couldn’t walk for days and was left with permanent scars on his knees.’
In another soldier’s account, she read, ‘The Japs insisted that we should bow to them whenever they passed, no matter what we were doing or where we happened to be. This rule was applied even when we were working on the railway. One morning we were at work with pickaxes and hammers when a Jap officer happened to come and inspect our section of the railway. One of the men in my platoon was a bit slow in putting down his tools and did not bow to the officer immediately. The Japs dragged him away and tied him to the trunk of a nearby tree with a length of barbed wire. We could hear his screams as the sharp metal pierced his skin. He was there for three days. We weren’t allowed to give him food or even water. When they finally cut him loose the skin on his arms and belly was ripped to shreds and already infected. The men carried him down to the camp on a stretcher, but he died in the camp hospital a few days later of septicaemia.’
Laura felt a lump in her throat as she read on, stunned by the horror of what she read. Account after account of beatings, starvation, illness, of heroic acts, camaraderie and friendship.
The light faded in the skylights in the vaulted roof, and the lamps were switched on above the tables. She read on. After a while, the librarian approached her.
‘I’m sorry, but we’re closing in a few minutes. Could I please take back the files?’
‘Thank you. This is all so interesting. Astonishing. I had no idea. Have you read these?’
’Some of them. But, as I said, my colleague is the expert. He’s done lots of research in Thailand. He’s been to see the bridge and what’s left of the railway. There’s a museum there, you know, by the River Kwai.’
As Laura made her way back to Highbury, she hardly noticed the other people on the tube, or those who passed her by on the street. Her mind was full of the jungle, visualising bone-thin men sweating as they laboured away, moving logs, heaving rocks. How could Dad have kept all this to himself all those years? How could he have been through something like that and never mentioned it to his only child? She thought of how he must have starved and suffered, and the doctor’s words came back to her: ‘bamboo heart’.
Back at home, she stood on the threshold of Dad’s bedroom, staring in. She hadn’t been able to face clearing out the drawers or even changing the sheets since he had died. She wondered if he had anything hidden in his room, any relics of his past. She stepped inside and ran her fingers along the dust that covered the top of Mum’s dressing
