The canteen was supplied by Pong but was under strict control of the Nips, who took their rake-off. The two managers on the spot were a Cantonese Chinese who spoke a little Malay and an old closecropped grey headed Thai, known as ‘Grey Nob’. Grey Nob had a curious husky voice, and was the chief cook. He had a son who worked in the canteen, a very strong and exquisite young Thai, beautifully built, who answered to the name of Jackie – short for Jack Doyle. Jackie was a hell of a lad in the local village, and one day to his distress his brown face was marred with some unsightly spots. He asked me for some strong medicine, and so we brought him some Pot. Permang. crystals that he put in an enormous bowl of steaming hot water, which promptly went purple, and in which he gingerly bathed his face. But he liked the remains of a pot of cold cream looted from the Empire Docks far better because it smelt nice! Next day the medicine was no good because the spots were still there; but a few days later when Nature had taken its course and the spots had disappeared, it was very good medicine! But Jackie was an attractive and amusing character in spite of his vanity, and we got quite a few good free meals out of him.

One day, before Alan Randall the P.M.C. went into hospital, we went round to the back of the canteen just before Lights Out to sell Grey Nob a blanket. During the cold spell we used to have around Christmas, I’d bought a guaranteed-not-stolen second blanket for six dollars, and had now no further use for it. In parts of November and December, incidentally, the night temperature would sink as low as 45º Fahrenheit and we used to shiver and pray for the sun!

Alan and I arrived and started to bargain with Grey Nob expecting to hear Lights Out blown any minute. I asked him for fifteen dollars and he’d offered me two dollars, and we were just agreeing on a gentlemanly six dollars when a Nip sentry walked in. Of course we should never have been there. A set smile came across Grey Nob’s old face and he looked straight at the Nip; before the Nip’s eyes had time to take the scene in, he had swept the blanket into an empty crate of condensed milk, and we all became very innocent. Naturally enough the Nip was very suspicious, but he couldn’t see what was going on. We told him that we were Battalion canteen officers giving a special order for tomorrow and we hadn’t heard the bugle go. The Nip kurrah-ed and buggairo-ed at us, but by great good luck we got away with it and the following morning collected six dollars from the grinning Grey Nob.