But it wasn’t. A few days later the Nip came back and asked for me. Hell, I thought this is it. But again it wasn’t. Could I find him a fountain pen, he asked? He would give a fair price. Now Gibby had a pen he seldom used, and this we offered the Nip for seven dollars. He paid slowly, looking very wise and crafty: ‘I tink you one dollar, other man six dollar,’ he said. ‘No, Nippon. English officers no take commission off each other.’ ‘No commission-kah?’ he queried. ‘No,’ I said, ‘but you must pay me commission.’ ‘I commission-kah? I pay commission-kah?’ ‘Yes, Nippon, that’s the usual way in England.’ The Nip thought it over: ‘You want, what?’ he asked at length. I was ready with that. ‘I think some sugar, some benjo paper, and a fishhook, very good commission.’ He repeated it slowly, said ‘O.K.’ and slouched off. Next morning he was back, and he brought with him a small glass jar of white sugar carefully sealed with cellophane, several months’ supply of lavatory paper and two fishhooks. As I’ve said before, you never can tell with Nips!

Our hut was one of the best we had built in Thailand and had a higher roof and longer slats than before. Besides the central gangway, there was a narrow path at the head of our beds between us and the three-foot-high atap wall – a new luxury. then we only had three persons to a bay, i.e. nearly a metre and a half of slat-bedding a man, and our equivalent of luxury. Only the food continued perniciously bad. The work was still building and improving the camp, and we even built latrines that had a roof, the first in Thailand. The only occasional food relief was a Red Cross issue of doubtful origin and which consisted of about one small tin of Nip pilchards every month or so. In the canteen, run by Hokkien Chinese, you could only buy coffee. There was little to spend your few tikals on, though one small adulterated coffee cost 40c.

It now did seem fairly certain, according to all reports, that the railway would be finished by the end of October. Confirmation of this belief was brought in by George Tilly, who, to my delight, appeared up from Tarsao, and it was also confirmed by another man I’d long wanted to meet, Jim Dixon, who’d come in from one of the up country communication parties. Jim is worthy of a proper introduction, being, a very picturesque personality.