‘They’re important to friends of mine,’ said Jim hastily. ‘But please carry on with what you were saying.’

O’Keefe took a deep breath before lighting a cigarette and once again massaging the jagged scar on his temple. ‘I lost good men during the two years we were incarcerated in what we thought was a hellhole.’ His eyes held no warmth or humour. ‘But we were soon to learn there were far worse hells than Changi.’

Jim remained silent, watching the fleeting expressions on the other man’s face as he recalled those dreadful days.

‘We were all half-starved and sick with fevers, dysentery and a hundred other things. There was no medical help, no decent food, and morale was at its lowest. As my rank demands, it was up to me to keep order, to try and do what I could for the sick and boost morale, but it was hopeless. We were dying like flies in that place.’

He mashed out the half-smoked cigarette and lit another, his hand not quite steady. ‘And then in early 1943, the Japanese told us that those who were deemed fit enough were to be sent out of Singapore to a place where the food was plentiful, and we would be given time and space for recreation in return for a little light work.’

His lip curled and a tic began to flicker beneath his left eye. ‘They promised us there would be no long marches, and only the fittest would be chosen.’

O’Keefe grunted. ‘That was the fantasy. The reality was far different.’ He paused to agitatedly rub his scar. ‘They made no distinction between the half-dead, the injured or the fit – and none of us were fit by then. They took us all, and there were thousands of us rounded up over the next few days to do the short march to the station. None of us knew what lay ahead, and it was a good thing, because if we had, we’d have given in, right there and then.’

Jim wanted to ask about Philip and Jock but remained silent, not wanting to break the thread of O’Keefe’s thoughts again.

‘We endured four days of being jammed into metal rice trucks without food or fresh air, and very little water, as the train took us up the Malay Peninsula. It was too much for many of the men and they never made it to the journey’s end.’

He grimaced and tried to still the tic beneath his eye. ‘They were the lucky ones, really, for what faced us then was a two-hundred-mile march through thick jungle. More men died along the way, and we buried them as best we could, but the Japanese were relentless and kept us moving at a terrible pace until we reached a place called Sonkrai – pronounced Song Cry – which came to mean the place of death to all of us.’

He rubbed his scar again as if to erase it along with the memories of that terrible place Jim had already heard about too often. ‘I can tell you the names of the men I lost on that journey – and the names of every single man I had to bury in the years that followed. They’re etched in my heart and in my mind, and I will never forget them – as I’ll never forget the bastard guards and their commanders.’