After a couple of demonstration dances, we had to do it ourselves. Unfortunately the lao had never really reached our corner that evening, but lao or no, our honour had to be saved and courtesy to the attractive Thai girls had to be shown. Bloem and George Tilly were the first who danced, Bloem doing very well indeed and George twirling his huge red moustache over his girl as he glided round her. Then we all tried it, and in the end we had to take it in turns with the Thais, for every time a dance started the requisite number of Englishmen sprang up, and as the Thais were very polite, at first they got nowhere. And so the evening wore on, the girls at last thawing out and smiling openly and everyone very content, while the single electric light bulb threw into the view the crowd of Thais and English chatting and drinking and shouting and laughing at the dancers. It struck midnight as we were in the middle of the padang on the way home – Lights Out, 23.59!

During these last days we had several hut moves and thereby came two more additions to our Kongsi: Emney, a journalist from a famous Indian newspaper, and Jack Shelley, a Police Officer in Malaya. Jack threw a party one night and told us his experiences of the last week. It was at this party that we at last discovered how to treat lao; we took three bottles of it, poured it into a bowl, added lime, white sugar and a dozen beaten-up eggs, and it was better and milder than a White Lady.

A Malay Police Sub-Inspector in the neighbourhood had told Jack that there were a lot of atrocities reported as going on in Penang, Jack’s district, and he decided to try and leave Kamburi and get down to Malaya in the hopes of reaching Penang and helping to straighten things out. With this object in view he asked permission from his Colonel, who, though he couldn’t grant it, closed his eyes to Jack’s subsequent actions. The present Governor of Kamburi had formerly been Chief of Police in Bangkok and, as the Malay and Thai police organisations always worked together, there was a good introduction here for Jack. Accordingly he broke out of camp by night and went to the Governor’s house. The Governor in the beginning promised his help and a car, but when he had ascertained that there were thousands of armed Nips between Kamburi and Malaya, he decided that it was too risky. So instead he offered to take Jack to the nearby American paratroops whom he had been helping to supply during the last few months.