Before I could really enjoy life in Takanun, though, I had to cure my septic scabies and ulcers, and because our doctor at the time was a friend of mine and had exactly the same complaint himself, his help and rough treatment did eventually do the job. Each morning I had to scrape off the tops of about 60 suppurating scabs, and apply the agonising Maguire’s and Blue Stone; and each morning in the M.I. hut the doctor and I each had a bowl of hot Pot. Permang. set on top of a biscuit tin, and we then sat in the bowls on either side of a bamboo table and went through various chess openings together, while the hot disinfectant crept and ate its way into our posteriors and cleared up that foul disease.

In the early days, all the officers who had not been with the Officers’ Battalion used to be used only for odd fatigues in the camp, such as carrying in rations from barges on the river, and they were led by Woolley and called the ‘Cardo’ Officers, because for some inexplicable reason the Juni (Nip Camp R.S.M.) allowed them to play cards and chess all day and thought it rather funny. The Juni himself used to think he could play chess, and was continually asking Woolley for a game. Woolley was a very good player, but the Juni sometimes won by taking back one, or even two moves if he saw he’d done something stupid. I could never qualify as a ‘Cardo Officer’ as I was attached to the Officers’ Battalion and because my only attempts to learn bridge had landed my indignant mentor and partner six dollars in debt. But when we all moved into the one Officers’ hut all these class distinctions were gradually done away with as the work lessened.

The one thing completely lacking in Takanun, a thing we’d not enjoyed since Singapore, and which Gibby and I craved, was music. We had tried to get up a gramophone that had been left below some eight months before the big march up, and which belonged to Stevie Lester of the Officers’ Battalion, but had had no luck, for the Nip Corporal who had promised to look after it had himself been moved elsewhere.

This Stevie, as well as being a cellist, was an engineer by profession. One of the most famous incidents in the Officers’ Battalion history had been Stevie’s wonderful ‘plan’, when he told the Nips he’d build a certain bridge in a week if they could only be left alone.

Things didn’t go according to the ‘plan’, it took over a month to complete and by that time looked ready only to fall down again. It was always known as ‘Shokos’ Folly’ – but the trains crossed it.