Meanwhile a steady stream of sick people was coming into Chungkai from the working parties ten to fifteen kilometres above us and the hospital was spreading relentlessly over the whole camp. The two original hospital huts, sixty metres long, had been filled as soon as they had been built, but the five now available huts were filled to overflowing and another block of four huts was soon to be taken over; that, however, would only last for a few weeks, and eventually out of about twenty huts, there would only be three left for fit personnel. As the sick moved in, the fit moved out, and people were to be seen sleeping on the floor of the little atap church, under the mango trees, or just anywhere on the ground.

Among the sick officers coming in after about two months was Henry Baird; usually a strong, stocky little man, he’d become absolutely scrawny due to some unidentifiable disease of the stomach. We managed to get him on an extra diet of milk and hens’ eggs, which were bought outside the camp each day – the total ration for the whole camp was only about four pints of milk and a dozen eggs, so he was really very lucky. Nevertheless, he just couldn’t improve, and became too weak to walk down to the river to bathe.

And then I had a phoney attack of diphtheria. Whether or not it was diphtheria or just chronic pharyngitis was never finally decided, but a description of the ‘dip’ ward, as it was called, may be of interest; and the doctor in charge of the ward is certainly of interest, because he became one of the most respected figures in Thailand. His name was Ginger de Huguenot.

The diphtheria infection had been brought up with us from Changi, and had been slowly getting worse in Chungkai. The death rate was high, and many big tropical ulcers were becoming infected with it, and there was a special section of the ward given over to them. The doctor originally in charge of the ward had been an expert on malaria, with no experience of ‘dip.’, and when Ginger arrived in the camp, with the reputation of a coming young physician, he immediately took over.

The battalion doctor decided about 8.30 one evening that I had probably got diphtheria. He ordered a stretcher party from the hospital and I was dumped down by the hospital reception hut just after dark. Naturally it was a rather frightening and depressing thing, for everybody knew the high casualties of the past, though the ward was strictly out of bounds. As the stretcher was put on the ground I heard one of the orderlies call out: ‘Dip case. Officer,’ and the reply: ‘O.K. Isolation ward,’ and then we jogged off again. The entrance to the ward was shadowed by clumps of tall bamboo, and was now in darkness except for the flickering lights of coconut-oil lamps made out of old tins. Three rows of bamboo slats faced us as we entered, but we could only see the ghostly shapes of the white mosquito nets covering the patients. Occasionally a horrid retching broke the stillness. I lay on my stretcher with my morale somewhere about zero.