There were the shells of only three huts in the camp and there was one Dutch officer in charge, with a total command of about eight cooks to cook for the parties going through. In the huts there were no slats; the roofs were full of huge lizards, and everywhere were bugs, lice, and bloated fat flies. The Dutch officer told us a brief history of the camp. It had only been opened three months before and had had about 900 troops, mainly Dutch, living in it. From the very start there had been a virulent infection of dysentery and people had started to die. The infection couldn’t be isolated, and people died faster; and the faster they died the more frightened they became. After ten weeks the Japanese had to close the camp down as a disease ridden place. By that time 231 people out of the 900 had died. In another six months, at that rate, not a soul would have been left alive.

I wanted to find a spring if possible to fill my water bottle and wandered out of the camp. Everywhere was the stench of excrement and dirt. In a pathetic little oval cut out of the jungle, I stumbled on the cemetery holding the 231 victims of Rin Tin; already the jungle was reaching forward its green arms to reclaim them in the unity of all nature. Another three months and the cemetery, complete with fragile wood crosses, would have disappeared.

I found too, the old hospital. At first I was amazed to see useful boots and odd garments lying on the floors of what had once been the various wards. But I soon understood. There were traces that the whole huts had been pulled down and thrown into the river; only the barest frames remained. The kit lay there undisturbed because the inhabitants of Rin Tin were afraid to touch anything that had been near that fateful hospital and were prepared to abandon even their previous kit provided they could get out alive. It was a camp of ghosts, and I found no fresh water. Thank God we’d be off before dawn next morning.