They had been working there for a few months, and had been moved to the second camp along the line, when Ian was chosen to go on a work party to the nearby town to collect food supplies for the camp. He was chosen for his height and strength. He could lift sacks of rice and swing them onto the back of a lorry with ease, despite the fact that he had become pitifully thin. Ian started to bring back small items of food to supplement their diet, and gradually Archie’s spirits seemed to lift a little. His skin improved, and at last he began to talk to the others. Occasionally, his face would light up in a smile.
One day when Ian came back with the truck, he had seemed uncharacteristically excited. He waited until after the evening meal, when most men had gone to their bunks, before speaking to them.
‘I met someone who can help us,’ he had told them in a hoarse whisper. ‘If we manage to get out of the camp and make it downriver for ten miles, he’s got a truck. He’ll drive us to Bangkok.’
‘Why?’ asked Harry, instantly suspicious. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘He goes down to Bangkok twice a week to collect supplies for the camps,’ Ian explained. ‘We’d have to pay him, of course. His child is sick. He’s desperate for money.’
‘But why would he risk it? He works for the Japs, doesn’t he? It must be a set up,’ said Tom.
‘No. No, it’s not a set up. There’s a whole group of Thais who want to help. They’re a sort of unofficial resistance movement. Didn’t you know? They’ve been smuggling medicines into the hospital, and they’ve sent extra food into the cookhouse loads of times.’
Tom and the others still looked doubtful.
‘Look,’ Ian went on, ‘all we need to do is to creep out at night. Maybe on a Saturday, because there’s normally no work on a Sunday, so we wouldn’t be missed. We’d have to get to his house somehow. As I said, it’s about ten miles downstream.’
‘Ten miles? It’s bloody jungle all the way,’ said Harry.
‘He can’t risk coming any closer. The roads are all patrolled by Japs near the camps.’
‘But how are we going to get through?’ Tom asked.
‘There are paths only the locals know about. He’s going to give me a map, if we’re on for it.’
‘But won’t there be Jap patrols in the jungle around the camp?’
‘We’ll just have to be careful. No-one’s saying it’s going to be easy. Are you up for it?’ He looked around eagerly. Tom and the others didn’t say anything.
‘Let’s face it. We’re not going to survive this anyway. We’ll either die of starvation or disease, or they’ll kill us when they don’t need us anymore. Look how many poor bastards have bitten the dust already. I can tell you this – I’d rather die trying to escape than in that filthy hospital hut of some disgusting disease.’
There was a pause as they all exchanged looks. Harry was the first to speak.
‘You’re right. We’ve nothing to lose. What about you, Tom?’
Tom hesitated, then he voiced a concern that had been bothering him since Ian first began speaking. ‘But when they discover we’ve gone, they’ll take it out on the others, won’t they? Remember what happened in Changi when someone tried to escape?’
They all fell silent as they remembered the day a man had escaped from a work party. He had been mown down in a hail of bullets. To discourage the others from trying to flee, six men had been selected from the parade at random, lined up along the perimeter fence and bayoneted to death in front of the rest of the prisoners.
‘Christ, I hadn’t thought of that. How bloody stupid of me,’ said Ian slowly, burying his face in his hands. ‘You’re absolutely right. We couldn’t risk that. We’ll have to do some thinking.’
For days they had carried on with their routine of hard labour, trying to put the idea of escape out of their minds. It was unthinkable to put the other prisoners at risk. They had all witnessed the brutality of the Japanese and Korean guards at first hand. Men had been beaten to death for working too slowly or for stealing food from the Japanese cookhouse. They didn’t want to contemplate what reprisals would be exacted if someone tried to escape.
However, now that the idea of getting out of the camp had been sown in their minds, they found it difficult to drop it. Harry began to talk incessantly about his hometown; Archie visibly brightened; Tom’s own dreams about Joy became more frequent and more vivid. Her face would swim before his eyes without warning at all times of the day and night. Even whilst sweating and toiling on the railway, as he swung the pickaxe down on the black rock of the cutting, her face would be before him, her gentle eyes searching for his, a smile on her lips.
He knew it was useless, and that even if he managed to escape he could never get back to Penang, which was occupied by the Japanese. But the mere thought of getting away from here, of regaining his freedom, somehow made the idea of being with her again more of a reality.
A few days after they had first spoken about their escape, Ian brought it up again during their evening meal.
‘I’ve had an idea,’ he said staring into the fire. ‘I’m going to talk to Colonel Scott about … Well, about you-know-what.’
‘What on
