Papers written by Hodgkin, Ernest P. (Doctor, b.1908 - d.1998) - Part 9
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One further item of interest: we are now being paid at the rate of 15 cents a day for
all the work we do for the camp! now earning $3.75 a month. Little as it is it would be verywelcome if there were anything I could spend it on: practically the only thing the shop has for sale these days is tobacco, so all I can do is to buy this and try to exchange it for peanut toffee or biscuits with people who prefer smokes to food. In the town money has much less than one tenth its pre-war purchasing power so you can judge what 15 cents would buy if one could use it.
This last week I have read a most interesting book, 'The Conquest of Happiness' by
Bertrand Russell. Perhaps the title sounds forbidding, suggesting that it is difficult to
be happy, that happiness is a state, it requires an effort to achieve. And so I suppose
it does, there is no doubt that most people would be much happier if they made up their minds to get the best out of life. It seemed to me that the book would be well worth re-reading when I got out of here and back to ordinary life, because strangely enough
one might need it more and derive more benefit from it then. That of course is
largely because much of what Russell writes about is not applicable to our life in here -
work, financial worries, families, even wives! - and it is difficult to think of them except
in a somewhat abstract manner, (don't laugh, I haven't even seen a woman in six
months). But it is also because I am happy here, strange as that may seem to you
and anyone who has not had the experience of Changi ; andI am no exception.
There was one sentence particularly that set one wondering whether we have
any business to be happy, and why we are.'The man,' he says, 'who has never been
fundamentally thwarted will retain his natural interesting the external world, and
so long as he retains it he will find life pleasant unless his liberty is unduly
curtailed. No, we manage to be happy in spite of prisoners. In general
terms this is I suppose because each of undoes manage to retain his interest
in the external world in spite of the reduced horizon.
Some are happier than others; some are content to enjoy what pleasures there are
to be had while others take a sour pleasure in every misfortune and brood on every
discomfort and ill-usage; and there are all degrees in between. (I do not criticize the
older people who have no longer the resilience that will enable them to submerge the
loss of all they have built up, and others who've lost wives and families - they
have my sympathy.) But most of the young, and many older folks too, have retained
their zest for life and are undoubtedly happy - a few I suspect are happier than they
have ever been in their lives before.
I am not under the delusion that it is possible to be perfectly happy here - it would
be a simple-minded person who could achieve that - the lack of freedom of movement,
separation from families, the loss of material possessions, and above all the underlying
feeling of insecurity are not conducive to perfect happiness; but these disquieting elements recede into the background of consciousness, they have become submerged in the
in the immediate interests of living, to emerge only when stimulated from outside. I knowyou will laugh and say I never was more than half-conscious of anything except the immediate present, but in here at least that is something to be thankful for.
There are many sources of enjoyment here, some more permanent than others. The
fun of roughing it, of making do with simple things and having to do one's own chores
is all very well for a time, but even for meat has rather palled. Strangely there is a
special joy in being alive and young when when life is so insecure, I don't think I had
realised this until I started to think about it, naturally it tends to be overlaid by the
monotonous routine of existence, but it is there and all the more vital for the very
insecurity. There is the lack of immediate worries, no decisions to be made, no
financial troubles, no work requiring serious thought. Admittedly in this last respect
life is on a lower mental level, but there are substitutes that require as much
thought without the attendant worry, study of whatever is one's chosen subject,
serious reading, and sometimes serious conversation (though most Changi conversations required no more intelligence than a savage could furnish). The new and varied contacts are in themselves a joy; there are fare better opportunities for getting to know
others than outside, and a multitude from which to choose one's friends; there are new out-
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looks on life to be found even in the most casual conversation with people one would never
meet in the ordinary course of existence. This is a field I have not explored so much as I
should like but that is partly because I have been so busy exploring another that previously I neglected - books. I have got more real pleasure from books than from anything else here; I have read voraciously and, as far as has been possible within the limits of the library, good stuff of a wide range - history, science, fiction, a little philosophy,
whatever has come to hand - it is impossible to stick to any plan of reading, most
often one has to take what is to be had and fill the gaps as opportunity permits.
Of more material pleasures there are many. There is one's work whatever it
may be: heads of business houses get a thrill out of gardening even when they are
restricted to half- a-dozen crops, a policeman, a dentist, and even a entomologist
turn carpenter and have the satisfaction of acquiring new skill ; engineers are back
at their lathes and anvils instead of sitting in offices; the Director of Medical Services
takes up plumbing; all who have undertaken the hundred-and-one permanent
fatigues must get some pleasure from them or they would not do them. For myself I
have turned my hand to half-a dozen jobs and enjoyed them all.
One can even get pleasure out of food ! There is little enough of it but one
enjoy it all the more for that and the monotonous sameness of the diet makes the
little variety all the easier to appreciate - dried -fish paste can be a welcome addition to white rice and rather flavourless soup! The trace of meat that occasionally
enlivens the soup, a papaya or banana, and once in a wholesome real fish,
are things to look forward to with an interest that one never took in the most
sumptuous meal in the days of plenty. You think I am peculiar? You are wrong;
there are people who grumble eternally about the food but there are also many who
enjoy their food as much as I do. This does not prevent one planning and dreaming
of all the good things one will eat when the great day of an release comes.
Not least of the pleasures here is that of discovering and exploring interests
that are new or that one has never had time to indulge more; sometimes it is work
but very often study (languages, history, maths, whatever it may be)or some quite
useless but no less fascinating subject. I read a book on astronomy and since then
have had great fun learning the stars and constellations and following the movements
of the planets; I even tried to improvise a telescope but with little success. And
lastly it is good to be able to laze sometimes and know that nothing of real importance is being neglected; I am not often lazy even hermit ceases to be a pleasure
when I have more than a little of it and the essence of real laziness is that
one's conscience is pricking even if ever so gently - otherwise it is mere idleness
and I hate to be idle.
Time rarely hangs heavy on my hands and I often wish there were more
(that does not mean I want to be here one minute longer than necessary). There is
happiness to be had from innumerable immediate interests sufficient to overgrow
the mental malaise consequent upon imprisonment; So don't waste any sympathy
on me on account of unhappiness - sometimes life is insupportable but that's
very seldom.
3rd April. The Gestapo have pounced again. This time they have taken six people, including Mrs. Nixon from woman. Three I am told were responsible for the distribution of news,
and today others have been questioned (but not taken away) and made to sign declarations that they wouldn't do it again - writing lines!
A good story, though I am afraid it may be spoilt by necessary explanations. Recently
an order was made that all commands made in the presence of Nip. Officers ('attention','bow', 'carry on', etc.) must be given in Nipponese; naturally few except camp officials are
familiar with them. One evening a Nip. officer was prowling round the camp and
entered one part, unnoticed, suddenly a P.B.S. noticed him and stood up. In a valiant
effort to call his fellows to attention he shouted SUKIMONO (prawn paste) the only Nipponese word he could think of. Luckily the Nip. had a sense of humour; he laughed uproariously.
I have just finished another most interesting book, 'The Martyrdom of Iran' by
Winwood Reade. It is a history of mankind, written like a novel. It is really an evolutionary study of which conventional history is a comparatively small part, being concerned mainly with social developments, religion, and the intellect of man. It was written in
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1872 but the views he expresses on religion, and Christianity in particular, were so advanced that the book was generally condemned. Even today I doubt if it is well received by
the established churches. H.G. Wells drew on Reade’s idea in his books on religion.
The Nips. asked a number of camp officials to write letters saying what they think
of the management of the camp and of our treatment by the military. They were told that they were to write as though they were writing to their fathers, they were to be honest in the
views they expressed, they would not be punished for what they wrote! Mr. Jaminaya is reputed to have finished his instructions by saying, ‘I suppose, I shall be the first to have my throat cut’. The letters all said in polite but unequivocal language just exactly how we have been treated.
Food is up slightly and bellies are full again. For the evening meal we have soya
bean cake - filling and quite tasty - and a wet ‘pudding’ of sago flour and rice, one of the most tasty concoctions we have ever had, but, as someone said ‘it is strength through glory’.
4th April. I have your letter of May ‘41; it leaves me bewildered, I hope some of the missing letters
will turn up to explain; You are teaching - where? what? You have bought a house and are a landed proprietor-how?why? There are a dozen other questions.It all thrills me,
to know that you have your own home; that you are teaching (presumably for pleasure and not because you are short of cash), and all the news of the kids - how I hate missing them for all these vital years. You say you are off colour, I don’t like that but presume it is nothing serious and that you have just been overworking- I wish you wouldn’t.
It is your birthday tomorrow; I have no means of celebrating it, not even one
tin of sardines. I hope for you it will be happy day; I am sure it will with all the
kids around you. I wonder what they will give you! There is always something delightful about children’s presents whether bought or homemade, however useless they may be. I doubt I appreciated them enough in the past-I miss them now.
18th April I have had letters from Mother, Father, and Auntie Ethel; all Nov-Dec '42 so they do not
give any fresh news though they help me to understand my parents strange meanderings. I have
also received a Red Cross message from Maude Bradshaw dated Oct. 5th '43, it reads:- "Friends in Yearly Meeting sent warmest greetings we sympathise with your restricted lives but rejoice
that doors to service are never closed. Affectionate good wishes". It is good to know Friends
at home remember us. I suppose that making people happy by mending their spectacles is service;
I look on it as such. The message is addressed to this camp & I thankfully conclude that by the time it was sent you had heard from or of me.
Six more people are back from the town, but there have been four deaths all including
Adrian Clarke. This week some special food - marmite, bully beef, etc. - has been sent to those who are still in the town and we hope that this means that they may be returning soon.
After a month of dry weather there has been heavy rain; it has dissolved the rotten
flysheet of my tent and I have had to strike it. For a week fine nights have allowed me to sleep
on the concrete outside the hut, but last night a Sumatra forbade the open air and I had to sleep indoors for the first time in almost two years. It did feel strange.
There have been two new internees this week; a woman said to be Russian but with
a British passport, and an Egyptian Islamic teacher. Both are from Kuala Yipis and
are said to have been under the protection of the Sultan. Their arrival pricked one
foolish bubble - the most credulous believed that Louis (Mountbatten) has already
reached K.Lumpur or beyond! I get laughed at, and sometimes people are quite hurt with me because I will not believe all the the foolish tales that are given one as gospel. In the absence of any source of news people are prepared to believe almost any story; this would be
a good place in which to study the psychology of rumour or perhaps I should say
pathology. Had one the patience one could make quite an entertaining study on 'The genesis of rumour'
25th April We are very short commons again, The extras from [[Schissreitger?]]are finished and our
Nippenese rations have been cut so we are hungry again and must tighten our belts. My girth has shrunk two inches but I have lost little weight. The food position is worse than it has ever been - only about 1400 calories away and negligible quantities of protein. All ready there are signs of of dependency, oedema, but nothing serious yet. There have been
black days in the past but something fair always turned up.
Yesterday hope were raised by the visit of a Major-General Saito who addressed
us through a interpreter. The translation was bad but the speech was polite and
conciliatory in tone, sympathising with us for our incarceration and shortage of food. It did
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not seem to me to contain much that was significant, rather it was in the nature of
a 'pep talk'. Needless a medley of interpretations have been built upon it, but far wilder speculation has resulted from have followed the comments on it of one of the Nip. Officials of the
camp. He said that we could expect some very good news within the next month; something that would be 'baniyak baniyak back' for all of us including himself. What that can be
it is difficult to conceive, but everyone is hard at it speculating for all they are worth.
Needless to say repatriation is a hot favourite, but that I fear is reading too much into it. It is amusing to see how heated people gan get arguing over the exact significance of words that
have almost certainly been distorted in translation and which were probably never intended to be
subjected to such scrutiny.
We have Benn supplied with identity disks, pieces of tin can that have our camp number stamped on them and a characters that indicate our various nationalities. I suppose they
are are no more like dog licenses than the ordinary identity disc, but the poor material and the fact that we are only nameless officers savours rather unpleasantly of gaol - where we are.
Another fifteen thousand letters have arrived in the camp. At the present rate at which
they are being censored and issued we can hardly expect to get the last of them before Christmas;
it is hard when we have waited so long for them. One poor unfortunate received an Income Tax
form - total earnings $8.75 a month! At present rates a year's earnings would buy a tin of bully beef! Later - I hear the figure is 55,000 not 15,000; at one or two hundred a day...!
30th April. The 'banyak bank bait' news turns out to be a move to a hutted camp at Bukit Thmak! But what a week of wild speculation it has been. Could you endure some blank verse
that I wrote for Sidney two days ago? though feeble it gives something of the feel of the atmosphere:-
|
This week has been a week of rumour wild Strange stories circulate from mouth to mouth And quickly grow like snowballs as they pass, The core's an insubstantial thing on which Accumulates so great an edifice; We wait in hope and fear for what's to come And having little else to think about The little things that in themselves are nought Are added one to one and then two more Not four, as foolishly our masters taught. And thus we file the evidence prove On board for Goa and repatriation, |
Can be construed to fit whatever view Or, if you're less [[leat?]]-minded, then we'll be Or what we'll find to do I cannot think), A place well suited to our mental state. Are there for you to choose the one you like. Someday maybe we'll be repatriated; ..
|
Of the place to which we are going we still know next to nothing, what accommodation is
available, the size of the camp, cooking arrangements, whether there are any hospital facilities (we
have I suppose about 120 patients here). All we know is that the first1,350 are to go tomorrow by lorry
each taking a knapsack or equivalent and a blanket, the rest of their belongings following gradually. Ive been told to strip the place of all except prison property - can you imagine
the Caledonian market going on treck? that is what we shall look like.
1st May The move has started and it promises to be not nearly bad as we had anticipated.
The General has been here today and has expressed his desire to make the move as easy as possible
for us, he has put this into practice by allowing us to make our own plans for the great trek. Nine hundred have gone today and all their bedding; three hundred a day will go with all their belongings
for the rest of the week, the hospital on Sunday, the women and children Monday, the women's hospital
Tuesday, and the odds and who including myself on Wednesday,all should thus go smoothly except
for the temporary shortage of accommodation at the other end. We appear to be swopping over with
prisoners of war and they are at present occupying the greater part of the new camp, until they
are out there is only about ten square feet per man! But we can endure that in this fairly fine weather, and when we have the whole camp to ourselves we shall be better off than here in every
respect, more accommodation and far more space in which to wander about, and no grey walls.
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4th May It became quite impossible to write anything while the move was on, there was too much to do
and I had to pack up and move my quarters twice before I came to this camp. The new camp is an improvement in almost every way, we are still very crowded in actual living space
but there is ample room in which to move about. The camp is about a square mile of undulating land in the centre of the island between the Bukit Jimah road and the golf course, most of the red
rubber has been felled, and the valleys are planted up with vegetables and the hill sides are covered
in deep ballang and some belukar, the huts are dotted about at varying distances from one another
up and down the hills. Our hut is very isolated, on one side we look out on a ballang covered hillside and away to trees beyond the wire that surrounds the camp, and on the other we look
down a valley to other huts a quarter of a mile away and beyond to squatters huts and gardens and a Chinese cemetery on the hill above. The change is unbelievable from grey echoing
wall shutting one in all around to distant, views, greeness, the calls of birds, and the chirruping of insects - the very air feels different, freer, fresher, and vibrantly alive. One is able to get right
away from ones fellows a thing one could never do in Changi. Of course there are disadvantages,
cooking is more difficult, the elaborate steam cookers have had to be left behind and cooking is
done in smaller units under very primitive conditions - in kualis over wood fires which supply their own flavouring to the kungi, sanitation is also more difficult, there are no incinerators and
mod. san. is neither universal nor anywhere adequate for the large numbers. The Nips have promised
to build more huts so that should ease the overcrowding gradually.
We muddled through the move somehow and are slowly getting straight again, orders were given and countermanded with such frequency that one never knew from one minute the
next what one was supposed to be doing. We had to clear out of half the prison to let the P.O.Ws
get in and this involved moving the Hospital to one of the workshops for four days; we sorted ourselves out somehow and got on with our jobs as best we could. I spent much of my time
pulling down fittings and helping to load them on to lorries, it was hard work but for a few days at anyrate we were well fed. The hospital staff went in three parties (most, naturally went with patients - on the Saturday) I stayed to the Sunday to help move the women's hospital,
they were the last to move except for the cleaners who stayed to Monday. Moving as we did at the end we were Abe to move straight into our new quarters instead of crowding in to temporary accommodation and piling our belongings out in the rain - as it was my books
were left out in the rain overnight and were not improved. Except for the patients everyone we made the journey (about 15 miles) by lorry, the only mishap being a Nip. who fell off the top of one
lorry; the patients travelled by bus and ambulance, no one seems to be any the worse for the trip.
When our lorry left it stopped outside the gaol opposite a crowd of P.O.Ws. among whom were
Dane Heade and Cook (Agric.Dept). I hear that Stuart Duncan is dead, I have no news of Thomas.
Since I arrived here it has been work work work, the first day I spent cleaning up the piles of
debris all around the hospital compound and our quarters, and since then I have been carpentering - putting up shelves, sinks, steps, all sorts of things, a necessary, but unexciting task, I
have also been trying to make our room habitable; there are six of us in a room 20 by 12
feet which is used in the morning by Optician and Ophthalmologist and in the afternoon as
physicians consulting room. I have hung my tent as a curtain across the middle and am making a rack for our luggage and bedding, and boxes and shelves for our small
stuff. Eventually it should be quite habitable, and reasonably comfortable. My
room-mates
are Mekie (with whom I lived on D4) Stuart Johnston (Health Officer, formerly K.L.), Grove-White whom you probably remember at College Rd., Rupert Shelley whom you will also remember at the
same place, and Dr. Pattister who is the M.O. of the Hospital. All of us are on the Hosital staff in one capacity or another and all are doctors except me. Our rooms one in a long,
wooden, attar-roofed hut facing east and west, it has verandahs back and front (I have extended our back verandah with an old door which serves as a work bench & wash up place as well as extra sitting space and in the drier weather I may sleep there. Most of the doors
and windows have been stripped and used for purposes other than those for which they were
intended with the result that when there is a Sumatra it blows straight through - I got wet the second night because a pile of beds prevented me getting my bed in properly when
the storm started. All the inner asbestos walls and ceiling have been shattered by
shell splinters and bullets and are a dreadful mess in consequence; in the course of trying to tidy them up I came across four pairs of spectacles which I have added to our stock in trade.
The building is naturally much damper than our Gaol quarters and more primitive
in many ways, but not for one moment would one prefer that awful place.
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21st May This has been a week of hard work on the usual inadequate diet but relieved by one bright
spot - two letters from you. They are dated July and August ’43 and so still leave a [[?]] gap in my
news of you all, they are addressed to Changi Internment Camp and I hope that means that you
had had some news of me. I suppose you would not be you if you did not overwork yourself but
it seems very unnecessary, in every letter you have some vague reference to ill health besides
you seem to have had your hands full with the kids ailments. It is awful missing so much of the babes when they are changing so much and I can do nothing to help them, Mickey - Jonathan I shall hardly know and I am sure they will have forgotten me, it makes one miserable
to think of it - I feel I have let them down, and you
Life has been complicated by an outbreak of malaria, there are already over forty
cases, though mostly B.T. fortunately. Breeding of [[Amaculatiss?]] has been found inside the camp
and has been dealt with. I am taking a gang out tomorrow to look for breeding outside the camp
I do not want to go as I am sure it will be a difficult and possibly unpleasant task and
am quite content to stay within the wire fence until the day of our release. I am fortunate in being
in a part of the camp where few cases have occurred as yet.
4th June Another half dozen letters today, four of them from you, and a snap. So I am very happy.
They are a mixed batch ranging from Oct ‘42 to March ‘43 (not the latest I have) and they fill
in some of the gaps. I now know what you are teaching and who, but not where; I also know the
that the children are doing so well, though with such long intervals between your letters the
news of them tends to be rather contradictory - that is hardly to be wondered at, I thrilled at G’s
prowess in carpentry and Tricia’s in art, but then I am thrilled with all you tell about
them. It was especially nice to have a scrawl in P’s hand at the end of one letter. Why should poor G. be dubbed Scragga? that individual was a most unpleasant character, utterly unlike
G., perhaps, though, it refers to his untidiness (i.e. scraggy).As it happens I read ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ when we first came here, it was all I was fit able for after the heat and toil of the day.
Life is just a little less hectic now. I do get time to sit and read a book in the evenings
(I am plodding through “Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind “ - H.G. Wells). I have had to give up carpentry except at the weekends and be an Entomologist in the mornings and
spectacle repairer in the afternoons. We have made a rapid larval survey for half a mile
round the camp; the position is far from good, there are many breakdowns in the permanent work and there is an evil-looking, I drained ravine system to the NW of the camp.
Given the labour and materials the permanent work could soon be put in good order, but the other is a much more difficult problem and we shall be lucky if we get away
without a bad outbreak. There have been over 200 cases to date, fortunately they are almost all of the B.T. and very mild, there is a slight falling off in the daily rate but it is certain
that we shall always have the little Plasmodium with us. Having been round the area
we are now doing what little we can by cleaning drains, filling cattle hoof prints,
and an occasional drop of oil on seepages, but that will make very little difference.
Another trial is that we have a number of cases of Japanese River fever.
They again are very mild, but as you know it is a dangerous disease; with so much
ballang and belukar about the camp I am afraid we may get more. We are endeavouring to burn the rats out but you know the rate at which [[baliang?]] grows! Our spacious rural camp is not without drawbacks.
During the week the Propaganda Department has been here to take photographs of the camp; they photographed gardeners working in shirts and shorts instead of quite inadequate
Vs’ that most people now wear; selected patients and a phoney operation at the Nip. Headquarters;
the band playing in the women’s camp (which they have never done before), families playing together
on the old golf course (also an innovation), and happy internees receiving letters from home - all very
artificial, but I suppose that is typical propaganda work the world over.
One day I must try and write you a description of my room mates. We have to live in such close proximity to one another that our lives are necessarily very independent. It is all very well
to see the same face across the table every day of your life when from love you have chosen to do so,
but it is a different matter when one has to do so from necessity; we each have our spines and
prickles and our soft spots, and the one are liable to irritate the other at times. Sometimes I
feel I could scream when the same irritating peculiarity has grated on one day after day and
meal after meal - probably my roommates feel the same about me. I suspect I am just as irritating to them as they are to me.
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13th June Life in the new camp has settled down to a routine; for me as for many others it is a much
fuller routine than that of Changi life. From 9.30 to about 12 I am an Entomologist roaming the countryside
around the camp in search of Anopheles larvae, it is interesting and pleasant but oh how exhausting on one small plate of kunji - by 11 I am ravening. From about 1.30 till
5.0 I am [[tukang?]]
spectacle repairer, carpenter, or else that is required - much less exhausting but time
consuming and it is not ‘till after tea (5.30) that I can settle down to a book or occasionally
to write. I’m not grumbling, I would far rather have too much to do than too much time to think, I
only regret that I have not got on with the handbook on mosquitoes and anti-malaria work that I set out to write.
Some more letters, though nothing special. Auntie Isabel has written very regularly and I have much appreciated getting her letters, they are very newsy and often give sidelights on
the parents' activities that I would not otherwise get. Jack has at last had news of his family, postcards from Joan and Alwyn, but still there is nothing from Elsie, he has waited so
long and I think been so worried that they have made him very happy. You would laugh to
see him here; internment has changed him not at all, he still has no idea of time, comes
late to the lab. keeping the patients waiting, is generally late for his meals, and though his leg has flared up and he has a bad foot, he stands about talkingendlessly to anyone who will talk or be talked to - when he should be resting his foot.
The Nips have evinced great interest in the typhus. A pathologist has been up to photograph the patients sores, take blood for Wasserman and for injection into guinea pigs, and to
demonstrate the cases to army officers; they have also supplied large numbers of rat traps for which
we are grateful as the rat population is altogether to big (sometimes I feel almost hungry enough to eat
rat). By the grace of God all cases so far have been fairly mild, for, as you know the disease is often fatal. Sworden is the latest case, and he poor man was thinner than most, he was out
with us mapping the ravines once or twice but that was not the source of his infection. The mosquito survey work goes on and we have been able to do a little to reduce the anopheline population
by cleaning out drains and spraying a little oil. We spent several days cleaning concrete
drains running through kampongs, a filthy and perhaps undignified job but one that is very necessary because the drains are very overgrown with grass and maculatus are breeding
in them. The malaria is very much reduced - not due to our efforts I hardly think - breeding in the camp was stopped early and presumably the gametocyte reservoir is much less
than it was when the troops were here. We are told that we are going to be given oil and sprayers and allowed to get on with it.
We have been allowed to send another wireless message, it is hard to know what to say in the brief space of 25 words, except that one is fit which is all you really want to know, Some
of the messages must get through because there have been replies, though not many. I wonder
whether you have had any of mine. The mystery message you mention in some of your
letters cannot have been from me - I suspect the name must've been garbled in transmission by the omission of an 's' or 'son'.
The gardens have developed wonderfully in the seven weeks or so we have been here.
They are green and heathy looking thanks to the use of urine, which is our chief source of manure, and to more thorough cultivation than the troops were able to give them.We have
also started to take in considerable new areas from [[slukar?]] and lallang but that is rather hampered at the moment by persistent demands of the Nips. for labour to carry out fatigues
the purpose of which is not at present comprehensible : cultivation of an area of on Bukit Jimah
Road, making a cutting for a road to pig farm, cutting the grass verge along the road outside the camp.
But the most important event is the increase of rations for all 'workers' (about 2,000);
there is about 3oz a day more rice which may not sound much but should make all
the difference between continued loss of weight and maintenance or even increase in
weight. Some tea chang hijau had also come in which should put a stop to the pellagra (of
of which there are about 50 cases), and some rice polishings which will help the B1 position.
Less important from the point of view of health but greatly appreciated for all that is the improvement in the cooking that has been possible with open fires and kualis instead of the
steamers of Changi. We get fried food - fish balls, bubble and squeak , vegetable pie, etc - all of course consist largely of rice but much better flavoured than we have ever known
before (the cooks are liable to overdo the pepper). In spite of the primitive ovens the 'bread' produced
is very tasty. Competition between the various kitchens stimulates ingenuity & produces improvements.
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2nd July. The most important event of the last fortnight has been the visit of General Dohieshara
(I am not sure of the spelling) on Friday. From our point of view it was important chiefly from the
point of view of the preparations that had to be made and took many men from the gardens
it remains to be seen how many of the seemingly pointless fatigues prove to have been eyewash)
a hundred men a day are employed shaving the top off the hill near our hut to make a dairy
farm!). Grass had to be cut all over the camp - a vast undertaking, and a whole day ^ was spent in cleaning
up and in a rehearsal, beds had to be lined up army fashion, and we all had to wear shirts.
In the end the General spent a total of twenty minutes in the camp, in which he walked past
200 specially selected swell dressed internees, through one hut, and a kitchen (where he asked what kunji was), across part of the men’s camp- into the women’s camp, and they drove back
through the camp again- it was a parade of all the best cars in Syonan, all of them
be-flagged. It was all very well stage managed. We do not know the reason for the visit or who the
General is, whether he is the G.O.C. Malaya or is on a visit from Japan.
We celebrated my birthday with a tin of sausages which tasted very good indeed, not
perhaps a very exciting feast by ordinary standards but such are we now reduced to. I wonder did you celebrate it. This beastly business should should all be over before I am thirty-seven, I can’t see how it can possibly go on for another year.
I have not been out for a week having had trouble with my feet. After going barefoot
for a couple of years my poor toes protested against being enclosed in boots once again and
an in-growing toenail developed an abscess . With drastic treatment this cleared up rapidly and
then I trod on a large piece of broken glass - carelessness after years of two years freedom from damage.
Many people develop septic sores but with a healthy skin and care my troubles cleared up rapidly.
Food is a less urgent problem since our diet was increased, one does not think quite
so much about one’s tummy as formerly. I havent started to regain any of my lost weigh and
the increase is hardly enough to make that possible. The rice pollishings seem to be literally “all bran” and are very on the old gut, acting like coarse sand paper on the poor mucous
epithelium and resulting in “squits”. However they must be endured for the sake of the vitamins we endeavour to extract from them and - more important- because they are in corporates in the buns. I envy the termite that manages to extract nourishment from cellulose and wonder whether I could not manage to establish a colony of his flagellates in our own intestines. To that end we examined the gut contents of some termites today
but they disappointed us by being fungus feeders and having no symbionts! It is a pity
not to be able to make full use of the large quantities of green stuff that we eat.
Malaria on is down to on average three cases a day - not I think through anything we have been able to do.We had one film from Sikh sentry packed with crescents
(falciparum gametocytes), a wonderful source of infection for all the wandering maculatus
He is being given some of our precious plasmoquine. Sworder is much better, I was up
to see him this evening and he was very annoyed because the Nip. doctor had been up to take more blood from him.A few fresh cases of typhus continue to come in - by the
grace of God there have been no fatalities yet.
9th July I chose the wrong moment to write the last sentence - a Mr Peters died the next morning of typhus , complicated I believe by heart trouble. Peters had a most adventurous time
during the first few months of the war, living in the jungle under very primitive conditions
There have been no noteworthy events during the past week, apart perhaps from the
arrival of a considerable quantity of peanuts , and Dahl, a vital and welcome addition our diet. I have been out little because of a rush of spectacle repairs and a demand for trusses
which I am expected to improvise for herniated old men. The job of instrument repairer, surgical apparatus improviser and optician's assistant is never ending, I never catch up with
myself. Everything, not excluding many of my tools, had to be made from scrap - bits of old cans
mostly, but including odds and ends of all sorts. To repair spectacle frames I use sheet aluminium from an old bus body and rivets which I have to make from the same; alternatively I use stainless
steel entomological pins and cement made of chopped up spectacle frames dissolved in acetone and painter's thinners. For both types of job I have to make my own drills from worn
out dental drills. Spectacle frames are unobtainable now in Syonan and our only source of
spare frames is from the property of deceased persons (in the camp).
There is a very noticable air of optimism about the camp, feeling that at last the end is approaching - it cannot come too soon, but I fear there may be difficult times ahead.
39
17th July After a period of almost cold weather, when a thick shirt and blankets were
only just enough to keep me warm at night, we are having a hot dry spell, the parched
earth cracks wide crying out for rain, the level of the water in the reservoir is lower every
time we go that way in search of larvae, a blanket can only be tolerated in the early hours,
and the perspiration pours off our naked bodies, not that I mind the heat having plenty to do
and being suitably garbed for the tropics. The clear sky offers wonderful opportunities for star
gazing; by sitting out from ten till eleven each night and rising again at seven I am
gradually getting to know the sky. What good it will ever do me I don't know, it is just another hobby and a very interesting one too; one that can be indulged in spite of black outs
and lighting restrictions. I have completed my star chart copied laboriously from a star atlas to which they are superior in that they are legible by moonlight even if they are less elegant and less accurate.
The excitement of the week has been the 'raid'. One night about 9.45 the sirens
sounded the 'raiders approaching' and nearly two hours later when most of us were asleep they
sounded the 'raiders overhead', soon there was the distant drone of aeroplane engines and a
flare lit the northern sky. The excitement was intense and running commentaries were
provided by the experts as to where and why and what the flare was for (incidentally wrong in so simple a matter as compass directions) - they wanton and on for an hour or so much to the
disgust of self and others who returned again and were not to be dislodged by three or more
flares dropped in other directions. Whether it was a real raid or a surprise practice has has been the
subject of a heated controversy ever since, every possible argument, including those psychological being adduced in support of one or other viewpoint. The stories of what various Nips
are reported to have said strain one's credulity to the limit.
One other notable event is the raising of the ban on sermons - they have been
forbidden ever since the double tenth - I can hear the high-pitched voice of the Archdeacon
forging away at his first sermon as I write. If it were not that every fit man is no required to work four hours a day we might perhaps be allowed start classes again. Orchestral
music in a very attenuated form is already allowed. Four housework does not sound much, but you must remember that for most that means gardening, often swinging a changkol,
in a country where the white man was supposed to be unable to do heavy physical labour,
and on a diet inadequate in almost everything except perhaps roughage (supplied by
mountains of spinach). Personally I do more likes hours work, but much of it is sitting
on a bench fiddling with spectacles and other small work. Mosquito hunting,
though perhaps not hard work, is exhausting and I generally get back at the end of a
morning fagged out and often with a thick head - I suppose that is due to all the bobbing up and down and climbing in and out of muddy drains.
24th July A partial eclipse of the sun on Thursday was cause of some merriment as it
happened to coincide with the visit of General Saito (who appears to be in charge of internment
camps). The General in the course of his remarks to the camp officials mentioned that there was a partial eclipse in Malaya but that in Burma the eclipse was total! As usual various
requests were made to him and in his answers he mentioned that he had not heard from his wife for three months, that submarines made it difficult to bring letters and supplies, and
that building materials were very difficult to obtain - none of it very encouraging to hungry overcrowded internees who, but for their supreme egotism would feel that the world had forgotten
them. In our newspaperless, almanackless, radioless existence we did not know that there was to be an eclipse; in this part of the camp it was discovered because someone noticed
that a fleck of sunlight coming through a hole in the attap threw a crescent image on the floor; the eclipse was then past its maximum but even so was the cause of much excitement in our rather featureless lives. The prize remark of the day was that of a senior Government
official who is reported to have said that it could not possibly have been a
total eclipse because the moon was not full.
Perhaps it was in sorrow for the demise of the old moon that spell of dry weather broke
in one colossal downpour that cheered the hearts of the many gardeners. Drizzling rain all the next day sent me to my bag for a pullover to keep the warmth in my skinny body.
(I have started to put back some of my lost weight again, thank goodness)
One further appeasement has been granted to us. School has been officially reopened
for the children - they have to work five hours a day, after a nine months 'vacation'. The
number of boys in the men's camp has been swelled by the ten to twelve year-olds being sent
40
over from the Women's camp. It is by order of the General that they have been transferred. The
men had previously refused to take them before on the grounds that they would hear bad
language and pick up bad habits, to which the ladies countered that they had already
learnt all the bad habits and knew all the bad language! The real reason for the
reluctance to take them was probably shortage of accomodation, while the women doubtless were sick of them.
The Camp has received a gift of $54,000 'through Rome', and we have been asked
to put up a list of our requirements. At the prices at present ruling it will buy each
internee three [[patis?]] of peanuts ( there would be worse ways of spending the money). It would
be interesting to know just what this sum represents in the currency in which it was originally
subscribed and what was its purchasing power in its country of origin
The deaths from tropical typhus now total four, all but one of them men over
fifty, but recent cases have mostly been more severe than the early cases, and of
the total of twenty-one to date some are still not out of the wood.
8th. Aug. The gap indicates an almost complete dearth of happenings. The one event of note was
the return to the camp, a fortnight ago, of Mr. Hugh Fraser and another man by the Military Police.
Mr. Fraser died the next day 6 27th from chronic dysentery, never having been really conscious since his return. His death was naturally the cause of a good deal of ill feeling and all sorts
of suggestions were made for what would have been quite ineffectual demonstrations, and would
only have anoyed the authorities. As it was about half the camp must have attended the funeral
service and later lined the road when the funeral party left.The service was short
and of course only a few could enter the tiny church, but it was impressive nevertheless, hundreds
of men stood all round the road and on the grass-covered hill sideband joined
in the service as best they could undertake circumstances. The end was somewhat marred by
the arrival of a sentry who pushed through the crowd and ordered the few ladies out of the church
It was an ungracious, almost provocative act, due I can only suppose to some misunderstanding.
Afterwards, as gesture, the earnings of the camp for the day(some $900) were offered
for the purchase of food and comforts for those still in custody - Mrs. Nixon is still among these.
I have not been out for nearly a week; first I had Singapore foot that refused to heal
owing to the daily soakings it suffered the course of Laval surveys, and now I have a
dose of dysentery. Fortunately this was past its worst before I recognised the symptoms as
anything more than injudicious eating, but I am not right yet after five days, and still
feel pretty weak. There were no beds available and so I was allowed to retain my liberty,
though in my leprous condition, I ought to be out of contact with my fellows. Had I gone into
hospital the spectacle repairing business would have been in a chaotic condition because there seems to have been a spate of sitting on spectacle. To go back however, you may
you might think it impossible to be injudicious in ones feeding, but it was the season for [[onegosteens?]] and through the kindness of others we got a good many,. My tummy is now
so unused to assimilating anything, except a soft starchy mess, that it revolted at the
unaccustomed juices presented to it by the fruit. I suspect that our internal organs will take a good idea of reeducating before we can eat a normal European diet again, an orgy of good
food would lay most of us low - thought wouldn't mind having try just now!
3rd. Sept Another gap, a whole month this time! but you are thus spared the inconsequential
detail that I would otherwise have inserted. There have been no significant changes in our life here,
which, in spite of rumour & occasional sirens (which result in nothing more serious than a spate of speculation),
flows on smoothly with the same old round from day to day. From time to time feeling
runs high in sections of the camp over impositions that seem senseless to us: such for instance
was the order some months back that the top of a hill near this hill be levelled; no reason was given
and it only gradually it transpired that it was intended to start a dairy farm there(why it was necessary to level such a vast area remains inexplicable). Now, after a hundred men have worked
at it for a couple of months and moved some hundreds of tons soil, the work has been stopped and the men turned to opening up vacant land in the camp for the cultivation of root crops -
a development for which we have been pressing all along. Personally I find it best to get on
with the jobs that are to hand, and not worry either about interferences with our lives that are
inseparable from our situation as prisoners and which if we would only realize it are far
fewer than they might well be in an internment camper about the immediacy of our release
- or exchange, for that has reared its head again; and I find that others who adopt this attitude are happier & more contented than the politicians & impatients.
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