We found ourselves on a high piece of embankment, and those of us who knew Chungkai of old and now had fever on us, were not keen on carrying our kit for the good kilometre that lay between us and the camp. But presently hurricane lamps appeared and a fatigue party came out to help us. If we couldn’t carry our own stuff, leave it on the line, we were told, and the men will bring it in within half an hour. We followed the lamps and hoped for the best. On our left should have been the old Thai village which we had called Piccadilly; that seemed to have disappeared. We left the embankment, picking our way through several huts full of Tamils as far as we could see, and then struck a road, broad and level, that was completely new to us. This was now the main road into the camp, and on either side of it were rows of huts. Quite obviously Chungkai had changed a lot.

After one of those farcical roll-calls in the dark, we were led back to some empty huts where we soon received our luggage from the train and were told to sleep till about six o’clock, by which time they hoped to have breakfast of sorts ready for us, and the doctor would arrive to check us over and categorise us. So we slept.

As dawn broke the breakfast arrived – plain ‘pap’ porridge of worse quality than we’d had for months. After the breakfast came the doctor, who sorted out the hospital patients, and then we were allocated the numbers of various huts to which we must go during the course of the morning. After a while Henry turned up, moustached, but not looking well at all, and very listless. His hut was next to mine, in Blue Group, the sick half of the camp apart from the hospital, and when I’d moved over he said he’d show me round the camp. At the moment it was a bloody place, chaotically full, nearly 10,000 people in it. But it would get better once things were more settled, and all the parties detailed for Japan had left. ‘Don’t expect good food any more,’ he said, ‘or you’ll be disappointed.’

By 12 o’clock we moved over, and almost as quickly moved out. In the first week we moved four times, but at the end of that time Henry, Jim, George and I lay alongside and the Kongsi (Chinese group) was together once again. We toured the camp on the first morning, and it took more than an hour to do it.