Towards midnight we were settled in an old Nip Barracks, now a P.O.W. Transit Camp, en route for Rangoon by air. The Camp Commander was in our regiment and a good friend of ours, ‘Griff’ Dunstan. It was known as the Racecourse Camp, and we might be there a couple of days, or we might be there a week. In the morning we would be grouped together in twenty-fives, sign a lot of forms, kick our heels and wait for news. Once again, because the Nips were not yet disarmed, we were confined to camp. We discussed breaking out that evening but decided we’d give it one night and set a ‘good example’. We went to bed but found it impossible to sleep and lay there under our blankets for mosquito protection and chattered till the morning hours. Actually, we were the whole time kicking ourselves for being so respectable and we were afraid that we’d thrown away our only chance of seeing Bangkok, which, in the moonlight, had looked immensely attractive.

The atmosphere of the Transit Camp was necessarily uncertain, temporary. Everybody expected and hoped to be off within a day or so and at a few hours notice. The only sign of any permanency was a Chinese canteen, but they only brought in daily supplies and were wickedly expensive. We asked Griff what the chances were of our flying that day and he said: ‘Practically Nil.’ We asked no more and decided we’d see Bangkok even if it meant going by a plane twentyfour hours later.

We elected to break out on a flank of the camp at once, quickly, and in full public view. We dressed up, crossed the little wire fence and arrived immediately at our first canal obstacle. Opposite us was a row of Thai houses, and the owners threw a single bamboo across the water and we walked over holding on to bamboos at either side which were sticking up out of the mud. The Nips had at least taught us to do things like that! After following a path for a hundred yards we found ourselves in an enormous barn of a barracks with about 500 uniformed Thai policemen sitting down to breakfast. They knew just what we were up to, and one sentry grinned and asked: ‘Kwai Nai?’ (Where are you going?) but we merely grinned back and said: ‘Sawat dee! Sawat dee!’ and reached the main road.