The part of Thailand through which we passed now was as dull as Malaya, for we steamed through seemingly endless flat paddy fields. We saw the paddy, half ripe, standing about the same height as barley; we saw it much less ripe, and occasionally we noticed the little plant nurseries from which the big fields were planted out. These nurseries were always a solid wedge of little green close-packed seedlings. Each paddy field was quite small, and separated from the next by little ridges; the water lying in them was about ankle deep, and we learnt that in some parts of the East almost as much money was made from the sale of the paddy fish that abounds in the mud and shallow water, as from the rice itself. Periodically we passed a craggy mass of limestone, like single irregular tables jutting up from the flat lands, and quite unlike any normal range of hills.

At long last, stiff, weary and filthy, we pulled into Bampong station. We got out at once and carried all our kit into the station yard. We were told that it was only a mile or so to the camp, and everything had to be man-handled there. The town of Bampong maybe held some 5,000 persons, and though we marched down the main street, there was little to see beyond the rows of Thai shops on either side and the grubby markets that filled the side streets. The road was very muddy outside the town, but the camp was only another half mile or so, and after a half hour’s trudge we were there.

Now Bampong Camp was at that time the base camp for all railway working parties, and had the only prisoners’ hospital in Thailand. It is worthy of detailed description, for the type of huts, hospital, cookhouses and latrines were to be the same in every camp we built.

It lay on either side of the road. At first we thought it must be the outhouses, or precincts, of a camp, or possibly the place where animals were going to be kept. But no, on closer inspection we saw the huts were filled with P.O.W.s. And then we saw Tommy Jenkins, who’d already had some months on the spot, coming to meet us down the road. He looked unhealthy, pale and blotchy, and had chronic dermatitis all over his body; Mark Cowell, our ex-Black Marketeer, who had gone up with him, had fever, and his legs were covered with small ulcers, so that he was confined to his bed. Tommy offered to show us round.