At Wun Lun there had been a man who worked for the Japanese and he was what was known as ‘Jap-Happy’. The word ‘Jap-Happy’ was capable of various meanings and came about like this. The troops who did regular work for the Nips in the Nip huts or cookhouses used to receive from them various privileges, such as extra food and clothing, and never working on the railway. A job in a Japanese cookhouse meant a very much better chance of survival for that man than for another man just doing the ordinary work. The first clothing of any sort issued to our troops by the Nips were cheap pairs of rubber boots, given to their batmen when they had worn their own leather ones out. These boots became known as Jap-Happys, and then gradually the meaning changed so that the word became an adjective meaning pro-Jap; or it meant, alternatively, that a Jap-Happy person would always try to propitiate the Nips even to British detriment. Ultimately there were three clear meanings – Jap-Happy, the adjective, meant pro-Nip to some degree or other; Jap-Happies the plural noun, meant Jap rubber boots; and a Jap-Happy was a ‘G’ string as issued and worn by the Nips. This last Jap-Happy was a rectangular piece of cheap cloth with a tape at one end. You tied the string round your waist so that the strip of cloth hung down behind you, and you then tucked the cloth up between your legs and stuck it inside the string round the front of your stomach so that a small flap hung over the front. It was just a very simple loin cloth.

But the adjectival use of the word was the ultimate insult, and all those in administrative jobs could expect to be called ‘Jap-Happy Bastards’ if they slipped into the only too easy way of dealing with disputes between the Nips and ourselves of ‘trying to see the Nip point of view’. The Nip point of view was always and inevitably diametrically opposed to ours.

Every day towards the end of April, more and more trucks of seriously sick men were passing through us on the railway on their way down to Chungkai. Obviously we would soon be going up to help take their places. The only question was, how soon? The date given finally was May 4th. On the day, we were merely told to board a train that was due at 9 p.m. that night – and for which we waited on the line until 1 a.m. – and that we were ‘going up’.