For the officer there is perpetual nervous strain, trying to interpret, mediate, procure yasmes and so on. For the men there is physical and nervous strain. The whole morning is a maze of growled Kurrahs! (Here you!) and Buggairos! (Fool!) and Kanayaros! (Look at this idiot!). The Nips have no proper abuse in their language, but the sound of a sudden bellowed Kurrah! was one of the usual introductions to a bloody good clip over the ear or some specially dirty job to do.

Well, the work goes on for a couple of hours and nothing out of the ordinary happens. The tea is boiling, it seems. ‘Nippon – small yasme O.K.? Cha? (tea).’ ‘More ten minutes,’ mumbles the Nip, the expected reply, and after about a quarter of an hour we break off and sit under some big tree where the rain can’t bother us so much; drops on a bare back aren’t noticed. Our ten minutes is soon up, and back at work one of the Nips finds his shift one short.

Immediately a flood of snarls in Japanese and: ‘Shoko! (officer) Kurrah, Kurrah!’ I go over and listen to the stream of ape-like words; we’d never learn their bloody language, but they always expect us to understand them and hit us if we don’t. The troops often understood marvellously accurately from two or three words picked out plus a little instinct. ‘Yes, Nippon, but one man benjo (latrine) jungle.’ I point to the jungle. The Nip understands but continues to shout. ‘O.K. Nippon? He back soon!’ ‘Buggairo!’ the little beauty bellows, ‘no O.K.!’ I’ll be lucky if I can get this chap off a beating when he comes back.

After two minutes the man appears, still fastening his Jap-Happy. The Nip shouts ‘Kurrah!’ at him and he knows there’s trouble ahead. He walks fast, but warily. ‘I benjo, Nippon,’ he says, ready to receive a bang. ‘Benjo no good,’ says the Nip, ‘yasme benjo! Shoko no good!’ ‘But this man dysentery, Nippon. Stomach no good, Nippon.’ I demonstrate in gesture language. But we are wasting time. Suddenly the Nip flashes up with his hand and we both get a swipe over the face, and ten seconds later everyone’s working again and the Nips have forgotten all about it.

And so the morning drags on. At 12.30 the ration carriers go back to the camp for the rice and from 1 to 2.30 we rest and eat at the edge of the jungle. The men are not allowed back into camp, but must stay there near the job; only the officer may go back for his food, and heaven help him if he’s late back.