There was one very famous story of a gallant but futile attempt at escape, led by a senior major, soon after they arrived near the Burma border and saw what was in store for them. They made up a party of nine men, including an Indian and a Burmese cook who acted as their guide. Between them they raised 500 dollars, and the Burmese cook had increased that to 1,000 dollars. Their plan was to make for the Ye River, float on a raft down to the coast, and there attempt to find a boat which they could sail to India. But they had reckoned without the jungle. They found that their route lay through such dense country that it was only possible to hack their way through a few kilometres a day. Their compass bearings took them over river and mountain alike, and sometimes they had to crawl up the faces of gorges and waterfalls – all this carrying heavy hit.

They did at length reach their river, however, made their raft, loaded their kit on it and started downstream. After a short distance they came to some rapids, and the raft broke up and they were thrown into the water. The Burmese cook saved one Englishman from drowning, but their only casualties were some kit and 500 dollars lost. They rebuilt the raft on the banks of this fast-flowing stream and set off for a second time, but when they reached a long series of rapids and waterfalls they had to abandon the idea of a raft and try to reach the sea on foot.

Then their trials really began, and in more difficult country than ever before. Several of them had malaria and, as was inevitable, the bamboo scratches started ulcers, which they had to walk with and could not treat. The leader of the party, a very powerful fellow was the first to succumb under a burden of something like 70 tropical ulcers. In truly heroic spirit he refused to burden his companions and insisted that they should go on; and so he lay down quietly in the jungle to die.

After a week there were six of them left alive in a Burmese village. After letting them stay there for some time, and realising that their future progress was impossible, the village headman apologised, and said that if he kept them there much longer a Nip patrol would be certain to find them, and then he himself would be shot and his village punished. If they really could not go on he would have to inform the nearest Japanese. As this was the case, the Japanese were informed, and the six men were picked up in a condition too feeble to walk, one of them dying of dysentery almost at once.