Then there were comic stories. We heard once again about our old friend from Changi, Gutty Browne, who’d apparently come up country on a later party. He was doing famously in Thailand, and in some camp near Kanu, where a Nip was beating up one of his troops, Gutty had interfered, and when he was struck in the face, so far from flinching, he caught the Nip’s hand in his teeth and nearly bit a finger clean off.

The next three stories are from various places and periods, but they all concern the gentle art of ‘flogging’ – kit, not men.

There was once a Nip in a store holding forth to some Australians and telling them he knew how they stole tinned food from the other Nip stores. He played a pantomime, creeping up to a crate of tinned food – looking all round him carefully – and then suddenly slipping a tin into his hat and hiding it in a corner. That was how they did it, wasn’t it? asked the Nip. Oh no! said the Australians and when the Nip went to retrieve his hat he found that the tin that had been in it 15 seconds ago had vanished!

There was a driver up country who had to stop his truck on the road while the Nip Guard went into the jungle to have a benjo. As soon as the Nip had gone, a couple of Thais appeared and offered the driver 150 dollars in cash for his spare tyre. At once the wheel came off, and one of the Thais rolled it quickly down into the village. The remaining Thai then offered another 150 dollars for one of the wheels actually on the truck. Not knowing quite how he’d get out of it, the driver jacked a wheel up, whipped it off, and down rolled a second wheel into the village. Now, quick, what to do? The driver thought faster than he’d ever thought before, saw a way out, and went into the jungle himself to benjo. When he was certain that the Nip would have finished, he emerged again himself on the road, doing up his shorts. There he found the Nip running madly up and down shouting, ‘Thai man no good! All Thai pucking!’ The driver got clean away with it and 300 dollars!

The last tale came from Bampong. One of our drivers there was ordered to take his Nip to the local brothel, and while he waited outside, a Thai came along and offered him 200 dollars for the rifle the Nip had carelessly left behind on his seat. The rifle went, the Nip came out, and off they drove. After about five minutes the Nip discovered that he was without his rifle, and asked the driver hastily where it was. Very calmly the driver said he must have left it in the brothel.