THE train that took us slowly north from Wun Lun was an already fully-loaded goods train, but fortunately the trucks were covered with tarpaulins, and on to the tops of these we climbed and tried to snatch a few hours of sleep. Most of us couldn’t sleep, and we lay half propped up against a protruding something under the tarpaulin, and wondered vaguely why we were heading straight into the Southern Cross instead of going north. But gradually the train bent round, so that those on the rear ends of the trucks now saw the Southern Cross receding from them, and the train clanked slowly northwards. Our progress was very slow, not more than ten miles an hour, and there were frequent, unexplained, jerky halts. All round us was the bamboo jungle, and the noise of the cicadas was terrific. Had the circumstances been otherwise we would have admired those magnificently graceful sighing bamboos, growing in vast solid clumps, and whose delicate, feathery foliage fluttered fifty feet above us; but we thought only in terms of bamboo slats, bamboo huts, ‘bamboo presentos’ (blows from the Nips), and the hundreds of deep bamboo scratches that had started off so many jungle ulcers on the legs of those unconsciously brushing against them.

Some inevitable wise man called out the names of the camps we passed – Wun Yen, Wan Tai Kin, Bangkau – and then a long steady pull. Who in God’s name had built all this track? Christ! It was chilly and wet in the small hours in the jungle. A halt in pitch darkness. A pause while all ears are strained to catch any order. Yes! We’ve arrived. All off! Get the kit off! The side of the track seems very muddy and we can see pools of water faintly by the misty starlight. Gradually the cooking utensils and the camp kit come off; our personal kit we’ve already put aside in a place that felt dry to the touch. More shouting from Nips and whistling from the engine, and slowly the train fades away from us, and we hear it stop in a siding a couple of hundred yards up the line. Christ, it’s cold! Where the bloody hell are we? Is there a camp here? Can we sleep? Is there any food?