John’s ability to note the kinds of comings and goings described above by Richardson, but in a way tailored to help the understanding of the general reader, is clear to anyone who reads Railroad of Death.

Ian Watt, in his article ‘The Humanities on the River Kwai’ almost perfectly captures how the interest in language and other intellectual pursuits described in Railroad, Richardson’s diary and many other writings from or related to the FEPOW experience were formed, with references to the use of ‘loanwords’ or words shared between the different national groups in the camps. Some of these were developed for comic effect or to emphasise the solidarity of different groups in the camps; at other times they were cleverly designed to hide the true meaning of certain activities from the Japanese (Watt 2002: 230).

For example, in Chapter 8 of Railroad John gives a long definition of the origins, according to his knowledge, of the term ‘Jap-Happy’, which shows how words could mutate, change and attach themselves to new objects and meanings, just as they do in today’s street slang: ‘

‘At Wun Lun there had been a man who worked for the Japanese, and he was known as “Jap-Happy”. The word Jap-Happy was capable of various meanings and came about like this, the troops who did regular work for the Nips in the Nip huts or cookhouses used to receive from them various privileges, such as extra food and clothing, and never working on the railway. A job in a Japanese cookhouse meant a very much better chance of survival for that man than for another man just doing the ordinary work. The first clothing of any sort issued to our troops by the Nips were cheap pairs of rubber boots, given to their batmen when they had worn their own leather ones out. These boots became known as Jap-Happys, and then gradually the meaning changed so that the word became an adjective meaning pro-Jap; or it meant, alternatively, that a Jap-Happy person would always try to propitiate the Nips even to British detriment. Ultimately there were three clear meanings – Jap-Happy, the adjective, meant pro-Nip to some degree or other; Jap Happies the plural noun, meant Jap rubber boots; and a Jap-Happy was a “G” string as issued and worn by the Nips. This latter Jap-Happy was a rectangular piece of cheap cloth with a tape at one end . . . But the adjectival use of the word was the ultimate insult, and all those in administrative jobs could expect to be called “Jap-Happy Bastards” if they slipped into the only too easy way of dealing with disputes between the Nips and ourselves of “trying to see the Nip point of view.”’

John’s record of the nicknames given to the guards, and particularly some of the most notorious war criminals, is also important. In the case of ‘Nattering Norman’, a guard at Takanun camp, we can see how the nickname came about: