By the end of September, Takanun had greatly changed. At long, long last the monsoon was petering out, the three troops’ huts were finished, and the officers’ hut was near completion. Several thousands of sick had already been evacuated, and the railway was past our camp and steam trains were already running on it. I’d had a chat on the line with an officer of my regiment who was in charge of one of the rail-laying parties and he said they were laying them up at the rate of three kilometres a day.

During the last few days in our tents, when I was a neighbour of Gibby, I was again lame through this septic scabies on my feet and the calves of my legs and couldn’t do more than hobble. The last night in our tent was one of brilliant moonlight, and a family of rats went squeakingly down from the top of the tent to the floor via the outside of the mosquito net. One big rat came to a rest not a foot from the back of my head, and I couldn’t decide whether he’d be able to bite me or not if I seized him by the tail through the net. I decided not to, and watched instead, and saw two rats in the bright moonlight playing together and wrestling upright on their hind legs like a couple of miniature kangaroos.

Next day we moved into the hut, and thank God those leaky days in that half tent were over! There had only really been one amusing thing in that tent, for usually it leaked so badly that we were perpet-ually chilled and wretched. This funny thing was what we called ‘Pat Radnor’s Comedy Act’. Pat used to rig a ground sheet over his bed between the canvas and the bamboo frame because there was one very large leak directly over his bed. After a couple of hours’ rain the sheet bulged ominously down, weighted by about a couple of gallons of water. Pat, rather than stand up and tip it safely out over the back, used always to stretch his hands up from a sitting position and try to empty it in the lazy way; but he was too short, and every time succeeded in tipping it the wrong way, and we just used to lie and watch the bulge slowly moving backwards towards Pat’s head as he pushed upwards and, as always happened, about a gallon of water fell out onto his back, and then he’d jump up swearing and empty it the proper way.