The men were lined up to board a ship when I made my next move. I slithered on my belly like a snake in the jungle, freezing and flattening whenever a guard neared. Finally, I made my way into the row of prisoners and toward my friend. Frank dumped the blanket, and once again I jumped into his sack.
I was safe, but we had to stand for hours in the hot sun while we waited for the ship’s gangway to be readied. I could feel Frank’s legs swaying and buckling, but the men around him helped prop him up and keep him standing.
I kept perfectly still, just like I had been trained. The hardest part was when I smelled Captain Nishi approach my friend and heard his mean voice.
Has he found us out? I wondered. It was all I could do not to growl at him and show him my teeth.
“Dog no come?” he demanded.
“Dog no come,” Frank said.
Even from inside the sack, I could sense the captain’s evil joy as he strode away.
We’d made it this far. Now all we had to do was survive the ship crossing and we’d be in Singapore, together.
Eleven hundred human POWs and one dog were forced into the dark, airless cargo holds of the Van Waerwijck. The Dutch steamship, which wasn’t big enough for even half that many men, had been taken by the Japanese at the beginning of the war. It was barely seaworthy and there was no red cross painted on its side to indicate that it carried prisoners.
It was June 25, 1944. I had been a POW for just over two years.
Frank fought his way to a corner in the back of the hold and let me out of the sack. We found a platform near a porthole. It let in a tiny wisp of fresh air, and we slept as the ship made its way through the dark waters. By the next morning, the men were sitting in puddles of sweat and the temperature continued to rise.
It was just after midday when the torpedoes hit.
First one explosion and then another. Smoke and steam filled the cargo hold. Salt water poured through the ship’s hull.
Frank was frozen. I nudged his leg. We have to do something!
My friend eyed the men scrambling for the ladder that would take them out of the hold. Then he turned to the porthole and wrenched it open.
“Out you go, old girl!” he yelled.
I looked out and then looked back at him. Frank wouldn’t be able to fit through that hole.
Are you sure? I wanted to ask him. You’ll be alone.
Frank nodded at me, and I did what he asked. I pulled myself halfway through the porthole. Frank gave me a push, and the rest of me followed. I dropped fifteen feet to the water below.
The sea was filled with wreckage from our ship and others. POWs who tried to climb on lifeboats were kicked away with boots or rifle butts. Only the Japanese were allowed on board. Everyone else had to wait.
I swam from man to man, looking for Frank. Some of them needed help finding a piece of wreckage to help them stay afloat, so I let them hold on to me until we found something. When the rescue vessels finally arrived around three hours later, men tried to pull me aboard. I swam away every time.
I have to find Frank, I thought. I won’t stop until I do.
Finally, there were no more men left in the water, and I let a boat rescue me.
There was still no sign of Frank.
I slumped in the bottom of the boat, covered in oil and muck, sadder and more frightened than I had ever been.
When we reached port, I jumped off the boat and into the crowd of prisoners. My old friend Les Searle was there, but still no Frank.
Searle had just lifted me up to put me onto the truck that would take us to our next POW camp when we heard Nishi’s angry voice.
“Halt!” he yelled. Every inch of the Japanese captain’s body shook with rage.
He screamed an order and two guards grabbed me from Searle and dropped me at Nishi’s feet. The captain stood above me, screaming. As soon as he finished, I was sure the soldiers would lift their rifles and fire.
Then we heard another loud voice. “Nishi!”
It was Colonel Banno!
I don’t like you, I thought, but at least you’re better than the other one.
I didn’t understand all the words flying back and forth, but it was clear that Banno was angry and Nishi was in big trouble. Searle scooped me up and put me back on the truck. We could still hear Banno yelling at Nishi as the truck drove away. The colonel had saved me once again.
It was hard to feel happy with Frank still missing.
Where is my best friend? I wondered. Did he survive, or is he lost to the sea forever?
Searle tried to get me to go with him into his hut when we reached River Valley Road Prison in Singapore, but I couldn’t. I had to do everything I could to find Frank. I went into every building and visited every corner of that camp looking for him.
He wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere.
But there were still men arriving. So I settled just inside the front gate and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Two days later, I was about to give up hope, when I saw him practically fall out of a truck and limp through the camp’s front gates.
Frank!
I was so happy to see him I knocked him right off his feet. We rolled around on the ground, saying hello. My best friend and I were together again!
Having Frank back made me feel much better, but our dreams of a better life in Singapore were quickly dashed. There was no mail, no Red Cross packages, and even less food than in Gloegoer. Men ate leaves and tree bark, and I caught as many rats as I could. It was never enough.
One bright spot was the occasional piece of war news or “V for Victory” sign passed along to us by a sympathetic Chinese local. The war wasn’t going as well for the Japanese as our guards claimed. The men only had to hang on, they told each other.
“The Yanks have the enemy on the run,” they whispered. “The Allies will be here soon.”
Rumors began to spread of a return trip to Sumatra—this one on a mission to work on a fruit plantation harvesting crops. There would be a test, the Japanese told the men, and only the fittest prisoners would go. Every man wanted to pass that test—harvesting crops meant food to eat. Nearly everyone did pass, no matter how weak with malaria, beriberi—a disease caused by a lack of vitamins—or starvation. Only those who couldn’t stand up were left behind in Singapore. The fact that the test wasn’t much of a test at all should have been our first clue that the rumors weren’t true.
This time around, the guards weren’t interested in me. Since no one said I couldn’t go, I marched beside Frank on our trip through the city to the harbor. That should have been our second clue.
If we had known what we were in for, we might have hoped for another torpedo.
We were brought ashore at Sumatra in late July and began a forced march through the jungle. We crossed rickety bridges over rushing rivers, and once, Frank had to carry me through waist-high mud. The jungle cut off all sunlight and we weren’t given anything to eat or drink. The men shuffled along and eventually—after seven difficult miles—we saw campfires up ahead. They didn’t shed enough light for us to really see what our new home was like.
It wasn’t until the next morning that we learned the truth. By now the men knew there would be no crops to harvest, but they didn’t know why they were really there.
“You will have the honor of building a railway line for the emperor of Japan,” a Japanese lieutenant told us. “When it is finished, you will all receive a medal from the emperor.”
It was a good thing he didn’t understand the words the men mumbled about the emperor and his stupid medal.
The Japanese had decided to do what the Dutch had previously realized was impossible—build a railroad to connect the east and west coasts of Sumatra. That meant laying railroad tracks through swamps, over nine-thousand-foot-high mountains, and across raging rivers, not to mention through areas of the jungle that had never been seen by humans, not even the native Sumatrans.
It wasn’t long before the men started calling it the Death Railway
.
Life along the Death Railway was worse than anything we had faced before. There was less food, more work, and many more beatings. This time, our guards were mostly Korean. They were forced to join the Japanese Imperial Army and then sent to this jungle far from the fighting. They were angry, and they took their anger out on the prisoners.
We were awoken by the musical notes of a bugle the first morning at what the guards insisted was seven a.m. It was really four thirty, but all of Japan’s territories had to be on Tokyo time.
The men were forced to work twelve or fourteen or even twenty hours a day for their meager rations—a breakfast glob of a flour-like plant substance called tapioca mixed with water, a cup of rice for lunch, and a cup of rice for dinner. Sometimes there was a watery soup with leaves in it. Men who were sick received almost nothing, which meant they couldn’t get better. Sick men who could sit up were given the job of catching flies, because flies spread disease. If they didn’t catch enough, they’d get no food.
Being carried into the hospital hut almost always equaled death. There were a few British doctors who were also prisoners at the camp, but they had no medical supplies.
Hunger pains kept us awake at night, as did the sounds of the jungle—buzzing insects, bellowing bullfrogs, screaming monkeys, trumpeting elephants, roaring tigers, and the squeals of wild pigs captured in the tigers’ jaws. Our huts were made of palm leaves and bamboo poles, and rats ran around freely. There was no place for the men to bathe and no soap to bathe with. Between the mosquitoes, the ants, the lice, and the mites, the men never stopped scratching. Neither did I.
There were many different jobs on the railway, all of them backbreaking. The guards were always yelling, “Speedo! Speedo!,” forcing the men to work faster.
Whenever the POWs didn’t make their quota for the day or something broke, there were horrible beatings. The guards shouted orders no one could understand and then beat the men for not understanding. Sometimes they beat the men just because they were bored and wanted something to do.
Despite the constant threat of beatings, the men did what they could to sabotage the project. Truck engines were filled with banana mush and sand was dropped into gas tanks. Railway ties and spikes were laid into earth that would soon fall away, and some of those ties were made of wood that was about to decay.
Getting caught meant death, but the rise in morale that came with a successful sabotage effort made it worth the risk.
Foraging for food in the jungle was forbidden, but the men did it anyway—it’s what kept them alive. Leaves, snakes, rats, nuts, berries, and even lizards were added to the men’s dinner each night.
While Frank worked, I stayed in the jungle nearby. I caught rats, snakes, and lizards to share with the men. Often, Frank had to give me the signal to disappear when guards were near. Whenever one came too close, my lip curled back in a snarl and a low growl built in my throat. I couldn’t help it, no matter how many times Frank told me to be quiet. I could smell how mean the guards were, and how much they enjoyed hurting my men.
So Frank would give me the signal to disappear, and I’d wait in the jungle until he said it was safe to come out again.
Day after day was the same—hard work, hardly any food, beatings, and not enough sleep. The men wondered if anyone knew where they were or if they had been completely forgotten. No one had ever received a letter from home. Once, in Gloegoer, the men were given postcards they could write on and send home, and then the guards made a great show of burning them in a campfire while they laughed.
Does the world think we’re already dead? I wondered.
Occasionally we got good news that kept the men going. Somehow the prisoners had put together a small wireless radio from stolen bits and pieces. One of the POWs kept it hidden in his hollow artificial leg, and the men listened to war news when they could.
In October 1944, we learned that the Japanese had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Americans. The news was whispered from camp to camp, POW to POW.
“Hang on,” the men told each other. “Just hang on for a little while longer.”
Christmas came and went. The men were not allowed to sing carols, but we did get the day off and a little extra food. Then, on January 10, 1945, we got some real hope—an American bomber appeared in the sky. It had bombed Padang! The guards started carrying gas masks everywhere. They were frightened. We were hopeful, but worried at the same time.
Will the Allies get here in time to save us? Or will we die of starvation first?
Over the next few months, the work got harder and the guards got angrier.
The angrier the guards got, the angrier I became. More than once I tricked them into stopping a beating. When I spotted large game in the jungle—too large for me to handle on my own—I’d bark for the guards and the men to come with their guns. They kept the best meat, but the men and I got a little bit. It was better than nothing. I learned that if they were beating one of my men, I could fool them into thinking game was nearby. By the time they realized there was nothing there, I was long gone and the men were back to work.
But sometimes I was just too angry for tricks. Sometimes I went directly after the guards.
One day, one of my men dropped a tool down a small ravine. I was hiding in the jungle when I saw a guard start to beat him. I ran out of the bush and barked and snarled, standing between the guard and my man.
The guard raised his rifle.
“Go, girl!” Frank yelled.
I saw a flash and dodged out of the way just in time before dashing back into the jungle. The guard then turned his wrath on Frank, and I thought I might have to go back to help him. But after a couple of blows, the guard gave up.
It was hours before Frank thought it was safe to call me back again. I did my best to apologize. I dropped a rat in his lap and gave him my sorriest smile.
I’ll be more careful, I promised. I won’t let them kill me to punish you.
In March of 1945, we were moved to a new camp farther up the railway line. Every day, we had to risk our lives on a train commute across wobbly bridges and on the edges of steep cliffs and deep ravines.
The men worked in chest-high water to cut railway ties. Leeches covered their bodies. Rations were reduced and the guards forced the men to work faster and faster. Rest periods disappeared.
Every day, more and more men died. Frank and I were skeletons, surviving on a handful of rice per day. Hunting became too difficult. The rats had disappeared and I didn’t have the energy to try to catch anything else. Everyone said that if Frank died, I would die, too, of a broken heart. And if I died, Frank would soon follow.
I’ll do my best to keep you alive, my friend, and you do the same for me.
Twenty-five POWs in our new camp died in March. In April, the rations were cut again and our death rate more than tripled. Ten men died in one day. In May and June, things continued to get worse.
But not all the news was bad. In May, the POWs learned that Germany had surrendered and the war in Europe was over.
“Those soldiers will be heading here now that we’ve crushed the Germans,” the men told each other. Once again they urged each other to hang on just a little longer. “Soon,” they whispered. “Soon.”
The news seemed to make the Japanese even more determined to finish the railway. At the same time, many men were assigned to dig trenches along the tracks.
“We’re digging our own graves,” they muttered.
By July 27, 1945, we had been working on the railway for a full year. Every day, there were signs that the Allies were coming. We saw their planes almost daily. But what were they doing? Did they know we were here? We needed more than the sight of a plane every afternoon. We needed them.
Down here, I wanted to bark at them. We’re down here and we need you.
There were rumors that the Allies had taken back the skies and most of the Pacific Islands. Local Sumatrans started flashing their “V for Victory” signs right in front of the Japa
nese. Then in August, there was news on the radio of a powerful new American bomb dropped over Japan.
Every day, Frank and I kept each other alive.
Until the day we learned that I had been officially sentenced to death.
With the Allies so close to liberating us, the Japanese and Korean guards got even meaner. We had all been infected with lice from the moment we stepped into the jungle, but now—for some unknown reason—they suddenly decided it was time to rid the men and the camp of the annoying little creatures. Maybe they thought our liberators would treat them with respect if we were rescued in halfway decent condition. But given the fact that the men were mere skeletons, that seemed unlikely.
One day a few of the POWs were given razors, with orders to shave every head and every eyebrow. Others were tasked with burning all of the men’s bedding and the rags that passed for clothing.
Then two of the guards squared off in front of Frank. He stiffened, and I sensed danger was near.
“Shoot the dog,” ordered one of the guards to the other. “It’s filthy and covered with lice.” They both gave Frank big smiles. “We’ll cook her—you’ll eat the first bite.”
“Disappear, Judy!” Frank yelled.
I could tell by the tone of his voice that he meant it, and I did, knowing that he would get a beating for warning me away.
For the next three days, rifle-carrying guards walked up and down the railway, whistling for me.
I’m not stupid enough to fall for your tricks! I thought.
I was too sneaky for them, but every once in a while, one of them thought they saw me and fired. I worried about what the sound of those guns would do to Frank. I was sure that every time he heard a gun go off, he thought I was dead. If it wasn’t so dangerous, I would have crept into camp at night to let him know I was okay, but I couldn’t.
Judy, Prisoner of War Page 5