On the 17th we loaded up all our kit and reserve rations onto our scanty remaining transport, my platoon moving an old piano onto the platoon’s truck, and then the march started. We were all rather doubtful whether our trucks would get through or not, although the official time for handing all vehicles over was not before evening; but there we were lucky, and the trucks passed us on the march and successfully got through the frequent barbed wire barriers manned by pairs of Japanese sentries.

Before we got outside the town, we had to march a mile or so through the city’s streets. Every inch of pavement was packed with Asiatics until three days ago British subjects – Tamils, Sikhs, Chinese, Malays – every Eastern race. One tried hard to guess the feelings behind those blank faces. The only outward sign of gladness at our defeat were numbers of little Rising Sun flags flying from quite a lot of the shops, and triumphant looks on the faces of a few of the Indians. But probably the more general feeling was one of suspense: ‘The British rule, its advantages and disadvantages, we know. Now, here is another Asiatic people come to rule us, and promising great things; let us wait and see what happens, before we finally decide whom we prefer.’

Outside the centre of Singapore we passed street upon street of Chinese and Indian shops. Many of those wretched little red and white flags were there to taunt us, but on we went, trying to preserve what little dignity we could and when we were outside the town, walking between old rubber plantations on either side, we fell out for our first rest in the long grass beneath the magnificently shady old trees. By eleven o’clock the sun was already very hot, we were sweating heavily and impatiently hoping that our transport, having dumped our kit in Changi, would be back to pick us up in detachments.

Mingling sometimes with our column were civilians on their way to be interned in Changi Gaol; mostly old people, they were carrying in suitcases all their worldly goods they could hope to preserve.

Most of the road lay between rubber estates, some old, some young, the trees laid out regularly in lines about ten yards apart. Sometimes we passed cultivated or semi-cultivated patches, and sometimes in a little, sultry, deep-green hollow, we would see a Malay Kampong, or village, nestling amid clumps of the ubiquitous coconut palms, banana and papaya trees. We saw several mosques, and one or two elaborately carved Hindu temples. But everywhere the prevailing colour was deep green – whether it was the eternally waving long palm-fronds, the banana and papaya trees, or the lush undergrowth that sprang up six feet in as many weeks.