The Nip then ordered mishi, and the Chinese were expected to magic a meal for 40 people out of thin air. But the extraordinary thing was that within an hour the troops were all sitting round a huge bowl of pumpkin, fried as pumpkin obviously ought to be fried, plenty of good rice, and various little spicy side-dishes of fish and meat and chillies that made up the most tasty meal they’d had in Thailand. The Nip insisted that the officers should join him, and we had an omelette, pumpkin and rice, and some of the famous lao (pronounced to rhyme with cow) to drink. This lao was local Thai beverage, and was a very fiery, colourless fluid; though it tasted strong and not unpleasant, it had a delayed effect and, some two or three hours later after half a bottle, you’d have a feeling like a kick in the back of the head, and you’d just go to sleep!

After lunch everybody got really ‘stuck in’, and soon a huge pile of peanuts were sacked up and carried to the river, half a mile away, to await the necessary barges. While we waited, we bathed, and eventually a grinning little Chinese, one of the canteen bosses from Bampong, arrived with one small barge. This was nowhere near big enough and, after a little anxious thought, the Nip instructed us carefully to stay where we were and he would return to camp by river and come back on another barge by four o’clock. It was then already two o’clock, and we thought at the time that the return estimate was a little optimistic, but we returned to the Chinese house to wait and see.