 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
'It was when I was on the line-laying gang that one of the Japs threatened me with a bayonet. It
was my own fault. We'd been out for about 20 hours and
473
were going home and had pushed the last bogey back up onto the embankment. And it came
down and knocked the line a little bit out of alignment - the last bloody rail. And he started to go
off at the top of his voice. And I said: "You can go and get stuffed! If you don't like it, you know
what you can do!" And I walked right up to him. Well, I'm not brave, and I thought: God, what
have I done? And he looked at me, stepped back, put his hand on his bayonet and pulled it out.
And I said: "All right, you bastard! Let's finish it off!" Because I thought there was no hope then.
He was going to do it. And then four or five of the boys walked up to me and just stood there,
looking at him. I think he must have thought twice about it, for he said: "All right. On the
truck." And we all got on the train truck and went home. That was sheer stupidity on my part.
But we'd been out for 20 hours, working our butts off. I'd had enough. You snap. You can
take a certain amount and then you snap.
'A lot of them understood more English than we thought. Early on we had a lot of fun, calling
them all sorts of names and making remarks. And then all of a sudden one of them would walk
up and say "Sergeant" -1 was made a sergeant in Singapore - and he'd speak to you in English
and then clout you. So we learned to be a bit more careful after a while.
They learned more English than we learned Japanese. They put me in charge of a roll-call one
night and I had to call out, in Japanese, how many Australians were present, and I didn't have
the faintest idea what to say. Not the faintest. So I got well bashed that night. But I still didn't
learn Japanese.
'If they hit you with their fists or slapped you with their hands, it didn't really worry you. You
might get a bit of a bruise or a black eye, or something. It wasn't like one of us hitting each
other. They had no idea really - no idea how to punch. So long as they didn't have anything
heavy in their hands. If you saw a Jap with something heavy in his hands you steered clear of
him - didn't get too close.
'After the spiking job we were sent up to Hellfire Pass, beyond Konyu. There were a lot of
bashings from then on. It was "Speedo, speedo" all the time. The Japs must have got the word
that the line was behind schedule, and this was when they really tore into everybody. They had
to have 100 men out on a job, and if they only had 70 fit men, they'e take 30 out of the hospital,
even if they lay on a stretcher all day in the sun. Some they'd kick out of hospital. They'd get
these blokes on their feet by kicking and bashing them, with rifle butts and baseball bats. No
one died through a bashing, as far as I know. But people were dying all the time through
diseases like beri-beri, and cholera, which had broken out at some of the other camps. You
see, they'd brought up a lot of coolie labour, some from Thailand, some from Malaya, and some
from Indo-China. And they were the big problem when it came to cholera and the worst
diseases. They had no hygiene at all.
'We were a mobile working party, and as we moved along up the line, we lived at various
camps. Konyu was one of the worst.'
474
Weary Dunlop was the senior officer at an Australian camp at Konyu at this time, in charge of
875 men, who lived in bamboo and rattan huts. He was at Konyu until the middle of March
 |