Back once again in the huts my prime concern was Henry. His thighs were now so thin that they seemed just bone barely covered by a little skin and tissue and he could hardly walk. The special food he got seemed not to help and he was really very ill, though he never complained, but seemed vexed and surprised at the way his body was letting him down. But on the very day we arranged a special medical overhaul for him, something just changed gear inside him and he knew he was going to get better. It was no sudden cure but just an odd, unexplained bodily metamorphosis, and very slowly his appetite improved and the flesh came back on him.

Which was just as well for my peace of mind, for parties up country were again afoot. Rumours of going up and going down were rampant and, whatever happened, many moves from Chungkai were inevitable. The actual moves came about in a typically Nip manner. Our administrative Nips had orders to send a working party of 500 up country in two days time. Chungkai was a sick camp, and the odd two or three hundred fit men in it worked of necessity in the cookhouses and stores and were the bare minimum for a permanent camp staff. Our doctors said flatly that it was impossible; and equally flatly the Horse Doctor said that if we didn’t produce 500 that day, he himself would provide a thousand, even if they were dragged off their sick beds. And so our doctors had a gigantic medical inspection to find the 500 least sick men and send them up.

Although I was only a week out of hospital I was quite justly included among the fittest, and on April 4th we were paraded and told that, for the moment, we were only going about six kilometres up the line to Wun Lun to do some maintenance work. This wasn’t at all bad, and we boarded our trucks fairly optimistically; true, a Nip statement that we were going six kilometres north to Wun Lun could equally easily mean that we were marching southwards to Bangkok forthwith, but this time they spoke the truth, and the short Wun Lun episode was one of the best months we had in Thailand.

CHAPTER 8

BY THE time of the trip to Wun Lun, the railway embankment was complete as far up as Bangkau; and the rails had been laid as soon as it was ready, and light trains drawn by converted diesel lorries were functioning over about twenty-five kilometres of line built by our group within four months of starting. Our journey to Wun Lun was made on one of these Diesel trains, and it was in places rather like a minor switchback. The line had already been ballasted with limestone chips, and we passed safely over two bridges built by the officers; and in spite of contemptuous comments from self-styled experts, there was no doubt that up to that point the railway could serve its purpose for several years. Certainly more ballasting was necessary, and during the monsoon the embankment would often have to be reinforced and built up; but the worst difficulty would be with the timbers of the bridges – Borer beetles had already got to work – the timbers being uncreosoted and not treated in any way.