But the only amatory adventure I had in Wun Lun was one hot afternoon in the village, when I was haggling with an old Thai to whom I was trying to sell a khaki drill jacket. During the haggle, when he’d offered me only three dollars-fifty, he retired to his house with dignity to let me think it over. Meanwhile, a very unattractive Thai girl who was chopping wood nearby, through unmistakable gestures offered me herself in exchange for the jacket; but I took the three dollars-fifty!

After the first two weeks the work was finished and we expected daily to go up to Wan Po and the bridge, since there was nothing left to do in the Wun Lun area; but we were very lucky and passed a second fortnight there in complete idleness, bathing in the river and going to the market. This was doubly lucky because it gave us, in reality a sick party, a chance to rest and build up a little strength.

The exercise that we liked by far the best was walking several miles round the surrounding country and trying to talk to the Thais in their villages. The first mangoes were just ripening, and mangoes and hens’ eggs we were always trying to buy. The little strips of garden round the Thai houses, as well as containing the inevitable papayas and bananas, used often to have clumps of cannas, even roses, and various trees and bushes with exotic smelling little white flowers which the girls used to wear in their hair; sometimes a man would wear a small red flower behind his ear – perhaps a sign he was in love; and I’ve seen Thai children of the delicate, real Thai complexion, that is like a warm Chinese colour, with three enormous hibiscus blooms, one behind each ear and one in the hair – really very pretty. To hear a tough, grinning Thai excuse himself from talking to you because his tiny son was pulling at his hands and asking for a flower, was rather charming. Unfortunately, what we found the Thais chiefly and often desperately needed for themselves and their children was quinine, and this, if we had been able to spare it, we were forbidden to give. The Japanese controlled all the quinine, and there was none for the Thais.