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Back Railroad of Death
Chapters (40)
  1. FOREWORD
  2. RAILROAD OF DEATH
  3. REFERENCE LIST:
  4. Railroad of Death
  5. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION (1948)
  6. INTRODUCTION
  7. PART ONE: SINGAPORE
  8. CHAPTER 1
  9. CHAPTER 2
  10. CHAPTER 3
  11. CHAPTER 4
  12. CHAPTER 5
  13. PART TWO: RAILROAD OF DEATH
  14. CHAPTER 6
  15. CHAPTER 7
  16. CHAPTER 8
  17. CHAPTER 9
  18. CHAPTER 10
  19. CHAPTER 11
  20. CHAPTER 12
  21. CHAPTER 13
  22. PART THREE: BASE CAMPS AND LIBERATION
  23. CHAPTER 14
  24. CHAPTER 15
  25. CHAPTER 16
  26. CHAPTER 17
  27. CHAPTER 18
  28. CHAPTER 19
  29. CHAPTER 20
  30. APPENDIX ONE:
  31. APPENDIX TWO:
  32. APPENDIX THREE:
  33. APPENDIX FOUR:
  34. APPENDIX FIVE:
  35. APPENDIX SIX:
  36. APPENDIX SEVEN:
  37. APPENDIX EIGHT:
  38. APPENDIX NINE:
  39. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  40. And The Dawn Came Up Like Thunder

Now Hindato was apparently two days’ march from our objective. Tomorrow we could do the seventeen kilometres to Brankasi, and from Brankasi it was a matter of fifteen, eighteen or twenty-three kilometres – it depended to which of the Takanun camps you were going. Two days we thought! And clung on to the idea of rest after two days.

The whole way up the line we had passed working camps every few kilometres, and in this area we noticed more and more Dutch, and when we got to Brankasi we found a Dutch administered camp. The camp commander was a bad type of Hollander, and bully. He kept us all waiting while he read out interminable and unnecessary camp regulations; he tried to swindle us into bringing firewood into the camp to cook his as well as our own food, and he tried to get the Nips to order it so; and finally he tried to give two-thirds of the drinking water that awaited us to the Dutch, who composed only a quarter of our party. A filthy fellow to cheat troops who could barely stand from exhaustion in such a manner, and we told him so. The temperature that afternoon was 106° F in the shade, and in the evening there was a very vicious type of invisible midge that attacked and irritated us till dark.

And so we came to the last day’s march. We saw more and more elephants working, the road went up and down more steeply than ever before and was about four inches deep in soft dust. We passed through a natural teak forest on some high ground and on laterite soil, and then descended into the dust again. On we went, on and on. At about 2 o’clock we reached a large Thai village, and across the river we could see a fair sized town. On our bank we passed the Police Station and the backs of gardens where we could see limes and pomeloes growing, and from the inhabitants we learnt that this was indeed Takanun; but this was only the town – the nearest camp was three kms further on. Forward again on the dusty road that perpetually humped and sank before us, and soon we caught sight of the railway trace once more, the sector of the trace where it would be our responsibility to embank and cut and bridge.