But they weren’t finished with us yet. And it’s difficult to know how to assess the insulting mockery – as it seemed to us – that I must now describe. We were ordered to have a Thanksgiving Service, and the Japanese expressed a wish to attend. To show our devotion to our fallen friends, the service was to be held at the cemetery, at the foot of the huge wooden cross by the bamboo trellis gate; and the Japanese commander as well as all the Nip engineer officers, wished, in conjunction with the British commander, to lay wreaths at the foot of the cross. These wreaths, with possibly one exception, were made from orchids and flowers found in the jungle, and were made by ourselves; three of them were then presented to the Nips so that they could lay them in position.

We were drawn up on three sides of a square, facing the big cross, the Padre turning over the pages of a hymn book as we waited for the Nips to arrive. At length they turned up, led by Yanagida, dressed up in their smartest uniforms of dark green, shuffling along in their cumbersome top-boots, their ridiculously long Samurai swords dangling behind them. The service was called up to attention and Yanagida acknowledged the salute. They then shambled into their places under the shadow of the cross: on one side were those close-cropped hog-like Asiatic equivalents of the Prussians, the Japanese officers of the Engineers who had been directly responsible for the 300 dead bodies in that cemetery alone and for countless hundreds below; and facing them on the other side were the expressionless, slab-like, brute faces of the Nip and Korean rank and file who had relentlessly helped them.

The service then began and, after a hymn and a few prayers, Colonel Yanagida got up on a stool and spoke to us in uninterpreted Japanese, which he formally read out from a vast scroll held before him. The service somehow or other came to a close, and from the restless way some of the Nip officers kept looking at the cemetery they obviously knew the thoughts in every British mind there. But this did not deter several of the worst of them from laying with Colonel Yanagida and Colonel Featherstonhaugh, a number of British-made wreaths at the foot of the cross.

But the farce was not yet over, nor was Japanese munificence quite expended. After again saluting Yanagida we were marched back to the camp, where we were due for an officially interpreted speech. This is what the I.J.A. commander of 2 Group said to the survivors before him: ‘You prisoners of 2 Group started to build this railway in Chungkai. You then went on to Wan Po, where you blasted your way through rocks and made a great bridge. You then came further up with me to Takanun where you completed the sector allotted to us in a satisfactory manner. For one month it was difficult to get vegetable rations in our camp, owing to the bad road, and the ration was reduced. Some of you were sick, and some of you died. But you must acknowledge that you have always been fairly and justly treated by the Imperial Japanese Army. It is now your stern duty to improve your health in order to be able to carry out any further task which may be allocated to our Group.’