In charge of the officers there was always a certain cretin of a Nip who could never stop mumbling and whom we christened ‘Nattering Norman’. He knew one word of English, and that was ‘bamboo’; and apparently only one word of Japanese, too, which sounded like ‘mortikoi’, and meant ‘bring’. Otherwise he just mumbled, dribbled and worked – a complete dopey; and as for us, well we ‘bamboomortikoi- ed!’ When we had finished three very long troops’ huts we were due to build one for ourselves; and by the time that was finished Takanun would be a ‘Fit Camp’ because all the serious sick would have been sent below.

The sick were already going and, as before, by barge. Nobasawa showed his authority wherever he could, and though he knew the conditions of the hospital cases only too well, he dragged those emaciated bodies out of the hospital and kept them hours on parade while he sent this one on one party, and that one on another – a job our own M.O.s could have done infinitely quicker and better without moving a man out of the huts.

Tropical ulcers and skin infections had become really shocking. The commonest disease was scabies, highly contagious and which was always complicated by some vicious secondary infection which in turn ended in ulceration. The two normal starting places were the private parts and the hands, though if you got it badly, in a week you could be in a rash of pus-filled pimples from neck to toe – mercifully scabies doesn’t touch the head. A normal way of getting the infection was through lice bites, and the treatment was very painful, being either a black concoction known as ‘Maguires’, and which looked like engine oil and was very hot; and then there was the ‘Blue Stone’, or copper sulphate, which bit into your flesh and stung like the devil for hours. But it did ultimately cure you. The M.I. room queues were full of men having great craters in their backsides touched up with crude ‘Blue Stone’, and all over their mottled bodies they were daubed black and blue. And as regards the ulcer cases who had been compelled to go on working, for many of them the only thing was amputation if they could stand it. What could doctors do with a great pink and green ulcer taking in the ankle and stretching right up to the knee, exuding a frightful stench and bared literally to the bone? There were quite a few like that – I believe altogether there were about 250 successful amputations for such cases; many others couldn’t pull through.