‘Peter,’ said the girl and turned to the elderly man who sat next to her, wearing a pince-nez and an old colourless cardigan. ‘This is the person I told you about. She was looking for something about … What was it now? I’ve forgotten exactly.’
‘I wanted to find out about Arthur Stone,’ said Laura. ‘Oh, and I found a second-hand book by him.’ She delved in her bag and produced the pamphlet she had bought in Thailand.
The old man took it eagerly. His eyes lit up, and he examined it with a sort of reverential wonder.
‘Arthur’s thesis! I haven’t seen a copy of this for a good many years. How wonderful.’
He flicked through it eagerly.
‘I didn’t know there were any copies left. May I ask where you found this?’
‘In Thailand, actually. Kanchanaburi. At a little second-hand book stall near the museum.’
He carried on reading.
‘I was wondering if you could help me?’ she asked. ‘Before he died, my father told me that he had told someone about his experiences as a prisoner of war. He told me to ask Arthur Stone about it.’
‘Arthur’s very old now, you know. He’s been retired a good many years. But he knows more about the Thailand-Burma railway than anyone else. He interviewed dozens of prisoners for his research in the 1940s and 1950s. Your father must have been one of them.’
‘Could I speak to him, perhaps? Do you know where I can find him?’
‘Well, I suppose you could go and see him. He loves visitors. He’s in a residential home in Surrey. I’ve got the address here somewhere.’
He rummaged in the desk drawer and produced a battered address book. He flicked through the pages and scribbled something on a piece of paper.
‘There you are. It is in Rushmoor, near Farnham. Trains go every half hour from Waterloo, I believe. Give him my best regards. I should warn you though, he is in his nineties and rather deaf.’
Laura caught a bus to Waterloo and took a train to Surrey. She stared out of the window as it rumbled through the outskirts of south-west London and out into the countryside. It seemed to stop at every station along the way. Soon the suburbs gave way to pine forests and heath land. How different this was to the lush beauty of Malaysia and Thailand. How dark and oppressive this landscape seemed.
At Farnham Station she got a taxi to Rushmoor. The Pines was a rambling old Edwardian house, surrounded by forest on three sides and overlooking a lake on the other.
A formidable looking woman opened the door.
‘Are you a relative?’ she asked peering at Laura when she asked to see Arthur Stone.
‘No, I’m here to see him about some historical research.’
The woman raised her eyebrows.
‘We normally ask visitors to phone first, but Arthur is usually happy to see people. Please don’t tire him. He’s very old, and his health is failing.’
She was shown into a bright airy dayroom with picture windows overlooking the lake. A huge television was on at full blast on one wall. The residents sat staring at it or were slumped asleep in upright armchairs. But the woman bustled past them and guided Laura to the other side of the room.
An old man in a wheelchair was sitting by the window. His knees were covered by a tartan blanket, but he wore a three-piece suit.
‘Arthur? Arthur?’ said the woman sharply. ‘There’s a young lady here to see you. It is about some historical matter, she says.’
He turned round, and on seeing Laura, he held out a frail hand. Laura took it. He looked very old and very pale. He had a wispy covering of white hair on his head, and behind his thick glasses his face was deeply lined. He looked immeasurably older than either Tom or Jim Leech.
‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ said the woman.
‘Do you think you could turn that infernal TV down a bit, Mabel?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ she said, and she bustled away.
‘Hello, I’m Laura Ellis,’ said Laura taking his hand. ‘I think you might have known my father.’
‘Really? What is this all about? Pull up a chair and sit down.’
She did as he suggested.
‘Dad was in Singapore in the war. He was a prisoner on the Thai-Burma railway. He died recently and just before he died, he said that he had told someone about his experiences during the war. He said that I should ask Arthur Stone. I have read your book.’
She handed him the slim volume.
‘Oh, marvellous, marvellous!’ he said, almost jumping up in his chair. ‘I had almost forgotten about it. The toil that went into this, you can’t imagine.’
Like the man in the museum he went into a reverie, flicking through the book, scanning paragraphs, sometimes exclaiming out loud, gasping over certain passages.
Laura waited. In the end he looked up and saw her sitting there. He frowned as if he had forgotten who she was. Then he said, ‘So how was it you said I might know your father?’
‘Well, as I said, he was a prisoner on the Thailand-Burma railway. Just before he died he mentioned that he’d told someone about his experiences and that I should ask Arthur Stone.’
‘Hmm, I interviewed lots of prisoners for my thesis. Some of them wrote accounts for me. I put little advertisements in the daily newspapers, and there were a lot of responses. I think many of them felt the need to unburden themselves. What was his name?’
‘He was Tom. Thomas Ellis.’
‘And what was his battalion?’
‘The Straits Settlements Volunteer Force.’
The old man closed his eyes again and put his fingertips together. He bowed his head as if in deep meditation. After this had gone on for a few minutes, Laura began to worry that he had fallen asleep. She wondered whether to try and wake him.
Then he shook his head.
‘No. I’m sorry. I simply can’t remember any of their names. There were so many. What did he look like?’
‘I’ve got a photo.’ She showed
