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Knocked him out. Fortunately for him there was a Japanese civil engineer there and he grabbed
the man and took him back to camp, and when the Japanese guard came to, and went looking
for this bloke, he wasn't around. The Jap wanted to know where he was and nobody told him.
We didn't know of course. Then the engineer came back and we saw him speak to the guard.
And that's all there was to it. Nothing happened. He was so lucky. He could have been shot
on the spot. For that was the penalty for hitting back. If you attacked them they were allowed to
shoot you. I never saw any of the Japanese use a sword.
'Funny things happened. We'd been out all day and were waiting for a train to come up, and
they brought some rice up to us with a bit of vegetable in it. Quite often it was off. Not that it
worried you. You still ate it - even if you lost it. You ate anything you could push into your
mouth. I said to the bloke who was with me: "This smells a bit crook today." And he said: "It's
not that bad." And I said: "Well, something stinks!" We were sitting down and there was a big
bush behind us, and I went around the bush and there was a dead Chinese. I reckon he'd been
there for about two weeks. That was funny.
'Some of our blokes who died in Hellfire Pass were buried beside the line, and are probably
there today. A big cemetery was built at Kanchanaburi after the war, but although the names are
there, I don't think some of the bodies are. I think they were lost up the line.
'Wooden crosses were put up when anyone died, and they always had a service in camp.
Services were done whenever they could be organised - you couldn't keep bodies unburied for
too long - and even in the toughest times everything was done the right way, as well as you
could. And there was always somebody in camp who could go to a service - even blokes on
crutches. Somebody would always pay his respects. Sometimes you had to carry the bodies for
burial, wrapped in rice bags, two sewn together. They weren't heavy. You only needed two
men to carry them. You didn't need four.'
In March 1943, Lt Col Weary Dunlop moved up the line to a mountain camp at Hintok.
In May he wrote: 'There are at present about 140 avitaminosis cases in hospital, many suffering
from other conditions as well, particularly septic sores,
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malaria and diarrhoea... Malaria is now most prevalent... Septic sores are a terrible problem.
Practically no resistance to them in many cases and the men become covered with horrible
sores, all over the legs, the arms, and a pustular rash in the armpits, groins and crutch, etc.
Some leg sores are 2V4 inches in diameter... Probably 75 per cent have sores of some sort...
Yesterday, of 214 sick in Hintok, 85 had malaria, 19 beriberi, 13 debility, etc, 3 tonsilitis, 6
acute colitis, 50 diarrhoea, etc, 1 urogenital, 1 furuncles, 19 other skin diseases, 2 bruising, 2
fractures, 9 wounds... These days, in which I see men being progressively broken into
emaciated, pitiful wrecks, bloated with beriberi, terribly reduced with pellagra, dysentery and
malaria, and covered with disgusting sores, a searing hate arises in me whenever I see a Nip.
Disgusting, deplorable, hateful troop of men - apes. It is a bitter lesson to all of us not to
surrender to these beasts while there is still life in one's body.'
In mid-May the rains came and with them rumours of a cholera outbreak up the line.
Dunlop wrote: 'Heavy rain all day and work parties in very late. The roll-
call under the canvas-covered huts is a sea of mud, slush and dripping water...
Rain all night. My bed soaked as usual... Rain and mud everywhere. The
troops must have hearts like lions to go out somehow to work.' On 31 May: 'The
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