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Back Railroad of Death
Chapters (40)
  1. FOREWORD
  2. RAILROAD OF DEATH
  3. REFERENCE LIST:
  4. Railroad of Death
  5. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION (1948)
  6. INTRODUCTION
  7. PART ONE: SINGAPORE
  8. CHAPTER 1
  9. CHAPTER 2
  10. CHAPTER 3
  11. CHAPTER 4
  12. CHAPTER 5
  13. PART TWO: RAILROAD OF DEATH
  14. CHAPTER 6
  15. CHAPTER 7
  16. CHAPTER 8
  17. CHAPTER 9
  18. CHAPTER 10
  19. CHAPTER 11
  20. CHAPTER 12
  21. CHAPTER 13
  22. PART THREE: BASE CAMPS AND LIBERATION
  23. CHAPTER 14
  24. CHAPTER 15
  25. CHAPTER 16
  26. CHAPTER 17
  27. CHAPTER 18
  28. CHAPTER 19
  29. CHAPTER 20
  30. APPENDIX ONE:
  31. APPENDIX TWO:
  32. APPENDIX THREE:
  33. APPENDIX FOUR:
  34. APPENDIX FIVE:
  35. APPENDIX SIX:
  36. APPENDIX SEVEN:
  37. APPENDIX EIGHT:
  38. APPENDIX NINE:
  39. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  40. And The Dawn Came Up Like Thunder

But for me by far the best periods were those when I listened to Benson practising. He used to play periodically on Sunday evenings, and as he had no intention of desecrating good music doubly by playing without proper rehearsal as well as on a poor piano, he was allocated two hours practice each morning. Nearly every morning I walked past the Orderly Room Tent to the garden so that Gutty could see me, and told my men that I was going to collect seed or some implement from a neighbour; this I did so as to establish an alibi, but the great majority of the time was spent at Benson’s rehearsals.

Benson, in addition to being a pianist, was also a very good linguist. He could speak about eight languages, including Russian and some other Slav language. He had applied for a commission at the beginning of the war, and had come up before a brigadier for interview who must have been the grandfather of all Blimps. Benson asked for a commission in the Intelligence; and he was asked where he was at school, what games he played and even with what pack he hunted! His answers to these questions being neither satisfactory nor reverently given, he remained a Signaller in the ranks.

Those of the men who had had five or six months in Changi and had never had the slightly better diet of the working parties, were beginning to go down with many serious diseases. Some were directly due to lack of vitamins and weakness due to the poor food; others were brought about because they just didn’t have the resistance to fight the fever and stomach troubles that attacked them. The hospital had enormously expanded, and the drugs had correspondingly decreased, and there were now well over 2,000 patients.

The worst and most common illness was dysentery. There are two forms of dysentery: amoebic and bacillary. From our point of view, although amoebic might get you in the end, an attack of acute bacillary could kill you in a few days. For the amoebic there was no Emetin, but it was not a rapid disease. For the bacillary there was only a limited supply of Mag. Sulph. We got none of the needed Sulphaguanidine for over two years.