by Damien Lewis
First, the POW was beaten unconscious by the guard commander himself, the most senior officer having the honor of delivering the first blows. After that, the entire guard force was free to set upon the unconscious figure. Each tried to outdo the other in the enthusiasm with which he rained down blows from rifle butt or boot upon the prostrate form. Finally the victim was revived by having a bucket of cold water thrown over him, after which he was lashed to the flagpole by his hands and left there to hang under a burning sun.
But if anything the punishment meted out to a Chinese trader—the Chinese being Imperial Japan’s age-old enemy—was even worse. Accused of theft, he was strung up with a notice hung above his head on which was written the one word “THIEF.” A noose was slung around his neck, attached to a large canvas bag. All passersby—POWs included—were encouraged to place a stone in the bag so that the noose would slowly tighten with the weight . . . and strangle him.
Those who witnessed these sadistic acts were sickened, but they also saw in these very public punishments a warning as to what would befall any POWs who fell afoul of the camp rules. And in Gloegoer the rules were sacrosanct. First and foremost, all POWs had to bow whenever they were in the presence of a Japanese or Korean guard. They had to do so from the waist, leaning as far forward as possible, preferably to touch their toes. The lower the kowtow, the less likely it was to trigger a vicious beating for not showing “proper respect” to the victors.
Learning when to kowtow wasn’t easy but most prisoners of necessity learned fast. Even if a Japanese or Korean guard was barely within sight he had to be bowed to. Failure to spot the guard was no excuse not to have bowed, and it was sure to unleash a paroxysm of verbal abuse and violence, whereupon the culprit had to stand at attention while the guard rained punches on his chin and kicked his shins. It was crucial to stand and take the punishment and not go down, for then the guard would put the boot in and literally kick the victim’s head in.
Les Searle, Jock Devani, Punch Puncheon, and the others in “Judy’s gang” watched such acts of casual savagery with deep revulsion and concern—as much for their dog as for themselves. In her own way Judy seemed to have learned to kowtow. She slunk around the Gloegoer camp with her eyes downcast and her head low and doing her utmost to avoid the guards. But she couldn’t hide her hatred of them completely. Whenever one was nearby, her lips would curl into a silent snarl. More than once she went for one of the worst of the guards, and she seemed to be the only prisoner incapable of not speaking her mind.
Such obvious hostility from a lowly dog put Judy’s life in constant danger. This was especially so with the Korean guards, who were very partial to eating dog, as were the locals. In this part of Sumatra any dogs that weren’t strictly under someone’s protection were hunted, shot, and placed in the pot. And in Korea dog meat was viewed as a particular delicacy. There were any number in and around Gloegoer who wanted to get their teeth into the Royal Navy’s mascot.
With camp rations in Gloegoer being so meager and with Judy’s protectors having little or nothing to trade with the locals, there just wasn’t enough food to go around. Once again Judy started to sneak out of camp in search of food. She’d return with a snake or a chicken clutched in her jaws, darting past the angry gate guards and making a mad dash for the British hut and her family.
Not once did she release her hold on her prize until she’d found them and was able to drop it triumphantly at their feet. In time Judy would return from one of her expeditions outside the wire having gotten much more than she had bargained for—but for now it was worry enough that she was running the gauntlet of getting seen, shot, and eaten.
With the lockdown being over in the camp, the forced labor began. Groups of men were formed into “work parties” and marched out daily to their allotted tasks. One of the earliest for Les Searle, Judy, and their fellows was to fetch sand from the nearby river for construction work at the Medan airfield. The Japanese were intent on lengthening the runway so that it could host their heavy bomber squadrons. Digging out and carrying the sand in wicker baskets was hot and exhausting work, and it was only the opportunity to cool off in the river that made it half bearable for man and dog alike.
Knowing the capability of America’s long-range Liberator bombers to strike even this far afield, the Japanese ordered tracks to be cleared into the jungle so that concealed fuel and ammo dumps could be built. This was hard, intensely physical labor, but it offered its own compensations to those for whom hunger had become a constant companion.
Felling the massive tropical giants with hand axes took considerable skill—even more so to get one to crash down in the direction of the Japanese or Korean guards, forcing them to flee in headlong panic. At the yell of “Timber!” the tree—which could be over 100 feet in height—would fall, dragging other, smaller boughs and branches with it.
The second the tangle of vegetation hit the floor, scores of figures dressed in rags would swarm across it, searching for their quarry. The jungle was full of wildlife, and much of it—snakes, birds, lizards, small mammals—proved edible to those who were as desperate as the inmates of Gloegoer One. And there was never a prisoner that was quicker off the mark in seizing her prey than Judy of Sussex.
The forced-labor projects began to multiply as the Japanese set about industrializing their rape of Sumatra’s natural resources. Ships docked at the nearby port of Balawan carrying cement, barbed wire, and ammunition, all of which needed unloading by the POWs. Among the supplies were drums of oil and gas, which needed loading onto waiting railway trucks. With their will and their spirit of resistance far from broken, the human pack animals—Les Searle and Jock Devani among them—saw an opportunity here for a little sabotage.
They stacked the drums on the flatbed carriages with their bungs facing downward. The bungs were loosened when the guard’s back was turned. The hope was that the bumpy ride inland would shake the bungs free so that the drums would empty themselves of their contents along the way. But more often than not the attempted sabotage was discovered, whereupon the guards would fly into a volcanic rage, seizing the first prisoner they could lay hands upon.
After the compulsory savage beating, a new and unspeakable punishment was instituted for any prisoner who had the temerity to try anything so audacious as sabotage. It was Colonel Banno, the camp commandant, who instigated the dreaded solitary confinement cell. At Gloegoer One there was a tiny dark hovel of a hut, one that had once been used to store animal manure. The place still reeked to high heaven.
The only light or air came via the one door, which had thick wooden bars. It had a movable section at the bottom that could be slid aside to allow a prisoner to be shoved and kicked inside. On the colonel’s orders any would-be saboteur would be thrown inside the hovel for a period of punishment lasting days, weeks, or even months at a time.
But it wasn’t the cell itself that betrayed the colonel’s full sadistic bent—it was the accompanying torture. For the long hours of daylight the prisoner wasn’t allowed either to sit or to lean against the cell walls. The agony of having to stand for twelve or thirteen hours without a rest was unbearable. But if the man broke and slumped against the walls, he’d get a savage beating from the watching guards. He was allowed nothing to sleep on but the hard stone of the floor, not even a blanket with which to try to fend off the swarms of mosquitoes. And in Gloegoer, the nights were thick with clouds of such blood-sucking, disease-ridden pests.
No sentence in the cell came without starvation—most usually one sparse meal every third day. The only relief from the gnawing hunger and the ache of limbs locked into one position in an effort to remain standing was to gaze through the wooden bars. But even that brought its own kind of torture. The kitchen lay to one side of the cell, and at mealtimes the work parties would pass close by carrying the cauldrons of rice and soup en route to the barrack blocks.
The punishment cell reduced some to tears, others to sheer madness. Occasionally it moved the Japanese sentry placed o
n guard to pity, and he’d slip a banana or a piece of Japanese chocolate through the bars. Those who did so revealed their human side. They weren’t all monsters. They were also taking a massive risk, for if a superior saw one of his men showing pity to a prisoner—especially one singled out by Colonel Banno for punishment—he would be in real trouble.
But in spite of such horrors there were still moments of lightness in Gloegoer One, at least in the early months. That July a rumor circulated around the camp that the Solomon Islands had been retaken by the Allies. The Japanese had seized the Solomons—a chain of islands lying far to the east of Sumatra—during the first half of 1942 in an effort to cut supply lines between Australia and New Zealand and the United States. The Allies had counterattacked with the landings at Guadalcanal and neighboring islands, initiating a series of savage battles fought by land, at sea and in the air.
The news that Allied counteroffensives had begun proved a massive morale booster for the Gloegoer One prisoners. They celebrated as only they could—by holding a special race in the British barrack block. The hut was around 100 yards long, and makeshift hurdles had been put up using empty kerosene cans. Judy was tasked to race up and down the length of the block, leaping the hurdles at each end, ears flapping crazily and tail streaming out behind her, as the prisoners roared and cheered. As everyone agreed, Judy of Sussex was quite the character at Gloegoer One and an incredible boost to their collective morale.
They would defend her with their lives, as Judy would on pain of death defend theirs.
Chapter Thirteen
For Judy the main struggle was to keep out of the guards’ clutches while still getting her paws on enough food. In this she was to be aided by a fellow prisoner, one of the first brought into her family of friends from outside of the gunboat crews. Private Cousens of the 18th Infantry Division was one of the many British foot soldiers captured after the fall of Singapore. Cousens had fought alongside Indian and Australian forces in Malaya in an effort to halt the advancing Japanese, most notably in the Battle of Muar.
But after the mass surrender at Singapore, Cousens had ended up as a Japanese POW. Even once he’d been sent to Gloegoer One, Cousens remained a happy-spirited young man, with a cheeky grin and a ready wisecrack for his fellow prisoners. Cousens had a special skill that proved both a blessing and a curse in the camp: he was an accomplished maker and repairer of shoes. On learning this Colonel Banno had set him up as the official Gloegoer One cobbler—but not for the prisoners, of course.
After months of fighting, fleeing, trekking the jungle, and now laboring as POWs, few prisoners had any proper footwear. Instead, they’d fashioned crude wooden sandals, which were fastened to the foot by a length of rag or a scrap of wire flex or whatever else could be found. Real leather boots were the luxury of the victors, which meant for now the Japanese. The upside for Cousens was that it got him out of the more strenuous work parties. The downside was that he was forced to have regular contact with the Japanese, which was always a hit and miss affair.
Cousens was forever having to visit the Japanese officers’ quarters to measure one or another who fancied a new pair of knee-high jackboots. Cousens would take with him a large burlap sack stuffed with half-finished boots for try-ons, strips of leather, knives, hammers and nails, and all the rest of his shoemaking equipment. The visits were invariably fraught with danger. Close contact with the officers was best avoided, in particular Colonel Banno but worse still his second in command, Lieutenant Matsuoka.
An exceptionally ugly man, Lieutenant Matsuoka was better known to all as Piggyeyes. He was feared and hated by his own men as well as the prisoners. The next senior in rank was the so-called camp doctor, a man whose giant two-handled sword was so large that it seemed almost taller than he was. The Japanese guards knew their doctor to be so incompetent and careless that they would quietly consult the British or Dutch medics if ever they were ill.
Below the doctor came the camp interpreter, who on the face of it appeared rather like Colonel Banno, a kindly, almost distinguished-looking old man. But looks can be deceptive. Many thought the interpreter to be just that—a harmless, friendly sort—until the day he was spotted smashing a Dutchman’s head against a concrete block wall, and for no other reason than that the prisoner was tied up in the punishment block and hence made an easy target.
The most junior officer was Takahashi, and he was the exception that proved the rule. Takahashi either was quietly pro-British or he’d realized that Imperial Japan was unlikely to win this war and was cleverly hedging his bets. He was supersmart, an archdisciplinarian, and one whom many Allied soldiers would have considered to be a good officer. He was scrupulously fair to all prisoners regardless of rank or nationality.
On one occasion, Takahashi came to the British hut late one night and passed a brown paper bag to the hut honcho—its leader. “Keep well hidden,” he whispered before leaving. The bag contained a photograph of Winston Churchill beneath which was the caption “The man of the hour.” At other times he’d notice a prisoner turn his face skyward as an aircraft flew overhead, scrutinizing it for Allied markings. When invariably it turned out to be Japanese, he’d shake his head and remark, “Never mind. Better luck next time.”
More was the pity when Takahashi was transferred to Changi, an infamous POW camp in Singapore. With Takahashi gone, Cousens was left having to deal with the old guard, who were unrelentingly unpredictable and capable of fits of savage violence, seemingly without provocation. Yet Cousens proved himself willing to risk all in the cause of keeping Judy alive, and in doing so he exemplified a simple truth about her existence in Gloegoer. In this awful place, Judy had gone from being a ship’s mascot to being the mascot of an entire community of prisoners of war. She had become the talisman of the Gloegoer One camp.
In her dogged survival and her unfailing humor and her sense of occasion, Judy embodied the spirit of the thousand-odd prisoners who inhabited this place. They had come to see her as a symbol of their resistance, and her renown had spread far and wide. As she had become Gloegoer’s mascot, so in a sense the thousand prisoners had become her wider family. But Cousens, through his cobbling and his brave generosity, would enter into the first tier of her companions.
Cousens had gotten into the habit of sitting in the shade of an overhanging roof, where he could work on his shoes and boots in the open air. The Japanese provided him with the leather to do so, and like everything that was in very short supply, its use was carefully monitored. But as he cut the leather to craft a new pair of boots, he would hack off a piece especially for Judy, who was very often to be found lying at his side. It was tough and only just bordering on the palatable, but it was after all animal skin, and it never proved too unpalatable for a half-starved dog.
Over the days and weeks Cousens the cobbler grew to care about Judy deeply, especially her welfare. He knew full well that she couldn’t survive on the odd scrap of tough leather. As with the rest of the prisoners, the weight was slowly dropping off her. Her flanks showed sharp and bony through her coat, which was losing the last of its shine. What they all needed—man and dog alike—was food in bulk, and the only way to get that would be to steal it off those who had it—the Japanese.
Since he was part of Judy’s core of diehard companions, it was only natural that Cousens would recruit Les Searle to be his partner in crime in his harebrained yet audacious scheme. Cousens waited until he had a large and heavy sack of boots to deliver to the camp officers, whereupon he enlisted Les Searle as his fellow sack carrier. When he explained his intentions, Les balked at what Cousens was planning. The irrepressible cobbler intended to use the boot delivery as an excuse to steal a bulk consignment of rice from right under the noses of the Japanese officers.
The two men crossed the camp compound, heavy sack held between them, with Les Searle feeling like a fly walking into a very hungry and venomous spider’s web. Having delivered the boots to the officers’ quarters, they now had an empty sack into which they manag
ed to manhandle their intended loot—a sack stuffed full of rice set aside for the officers’ consumption. With the booty hoisted between them, they hurried back to the British hut, fearing every moment to be discovered. As luck would have it, the theft went without a hitch. It was the aftermath that neither man had anticipated or prepared for.
The next day a pair of Japanese guards entered the British hut and announced a surprise inspection. No one doubted they were searching for a large sack of rice that had mysteriously gone missing. Les Searle and Cobbler Cousens had hidden the purloined rice rolled up in a blanket and stuffed beneath one of the sleeping platforms. But one thrust from a guard’s bayonet would soon uncover the theft.
As the guards moved systematically down the length of the hut, both men felt the fear rising in their guts. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife as bit by bit the guards neared the hiding place.
Ever since meeting her, Les Searle reckoned that Judy could sense just about every human emotion there was. Fear, happiness, sorrow, loss, dread—somehow she was able to pick up on them all. Right then, she must have sensed the utter terror that seemed to have gripped the hut or at least held two of her closest companions—the rice thieves—in its thrall. She could feel that the air was replete with mortal danger, for the guards would happily decapitate a prisoner with a savage swipe of a shovel or bayonet him to death for a far lesser misdemeanor than this.
Just as the nearest guard seemed poised to reach beneath the sleeping platform and thrust his bayonet into the forbidden bundle, Judy came tearing into the hut with something gripped between her jaws. Upon spying her, the guard closest to the hidden rice sack froze. An expression approaching fear spread across his features as Judy charged down the length of the hut, her ears flying, her eyes glowing red and crazed, and her jaws wide with the macabre object that she had grasped between them.