‘That’s enough!’ Danny shouted. ‘Nobody touches the fags! Get into line! No shoving! Corporal Thomas, take charge. Count the packs. There’s 410 men in camp, another 63 in sick bay!’ He turned and extended his hand to the American sergeant. ‘Danny Dunn. Bloody good to see you!’ Before the big American could reply, he asked, ‘How many packs have you got in there, Sergeant?’
‘Hell, man, I don’t rightly know,’ the Yank said, squinting up at him. ‘I reckon maybe twenty cartons.’
Danny did a quick calculation: twenty cigarettes to a pack, a dozen packs to a carton, twenty cartons, that was half a pack per man – ten cigarettes. ‘Corporal, five smokes a man. Anyone gets out of line he gets bugger-all! Five more after breakfast tomorrow! Forsyth, you help him,’ Danny instructed.
He turned back to the sergeant, realising he hadn’t allowed the American to introduce himself. ‘Jeez, sorry, Sergeant. I didn’t even give you the chance to introduce yourself. Had to stop the stampede. It’s been a fair while since any of the men enjoyed a smoke. Very bloody good of you, mate.’
‘You’re welcome, Danny. It’s Billy du Bois, OSS, New Orleans, Louisiana,’ the Yank said, looking directly at Danny and once again extending his hand. ‘They do that to your face?’
‘Yeah – Singapore. I took a beating from a kempeitai officer.’
‘Kempeitai?’
‘Yeah, the Japanese military police . . . cruel bastards. I tried to interfere when I thought they were about to kill one of my work detail for stealing food.’
‘Jesus, man! They gone hurt you bad!’ the American exclaimed wide-eyed, looking directly at him, man enough not to avert his gaze.
Danny gave him a lopsided grin. ‘Yeah, I’m an ugly bugger, I know. Fortunately we’re not big on mirrors in camp. But I’m alive and now it seems we’re going to make it. Never thought we would.’ He paused. ‘Not too sure how I feel about that yet.’
‘Hey, maybe we can send you stateside. Have you one o’ them plastic-surgery operations,’ Sergeant Billy du Bois said. ‘They doing great work, I hear. That’s one good thing about war; surgeons they get themselves a whole lotta practice.’
Despite himself Danny was forced to smile at the obvious concern the big ingenuous American was showing for him. ‘Yeah, maybe, Sergeant,’ he replied without conviction. Then, anxious to change the subject, he indicated the road beyond the gate with a nod of his head. ‘When’s the rest of the cavalry arriving?’
Sergeant Billy du Bois dismounted and stood beside Danny, who was genuinely surprised to see that they were about the same height. In fact the GI probably wasn’t any bulkier than Danny had been when he’d left Australia for Malaya, but to him, and no doubt the other starving Australian prisoners, the Yank appeared to be a giant, a creature filled to the brim with life, with personal power and natural authority, confirmed by the way he’d so casually dispatched the two Jap guards. Billy du Bois chuckled. ‘No, like I said, it’s just me, Sergeant. Parachuted into Thailand four weeks ago to help train the Thai resistance.’
‘What? Just one bloke?’
‘Sure. The Brits did it in France. We’re doing it here.’
‘And you decided to come here on your own? I mean, liberate us solo, with fifty Jap soldiers armed to the teeth waiting for you?’ Danny asked.
The American laughed, patting the crossed ammunition belts. ‘Hey, man! I’m armed to the teeth too.’ He paused, glancing down at his torso. ‘All this shit, it ain’t for patrols. Too fuckin’ heavy, man. I wear it on the rig ’cause it impresses the holy Jesus out o’ the Thais. They neutrals, but when their young guys see this get-up together wid the rig it makes recruiting them as resistance fighters a damn sight easier.’ He grinned. ‘Young guys the same everywhere. Long as they get one o’ these ammo belts and a Tommy gun they gonna join.’ He laughed. ‘But the Japs they surrendered, ain’t no cause to be afraid of them now. They ain’t like us. They gonna cut their own throats . . . commit hara-kiri, because they ashamed, see. Now they their own worst enemies, no way they gonna be no danger to us no more.’
‘Hope you’re right, mate,’ Danny said, unconvinced, ‘but if I was you I wouldn’t hang around and ask Colonel Mori to hand over his sword.’ He pointed to the rig. ‘That come by parachute too?’
‘The pig? Yeah, it goes where I go. Harley’s got real good shocks – it don’t have no trouble landing.’
‘The Japs didn’t see it coming down?’
‘Not at night. Paddy field makes a soft landing.’
‘So you knew all along we were here?’
‘Sure. Ain’t you bin gettin’ fresh food from the locals?’
‘That was you? It’s been a godsend. Most of it has gone to the hospital – made all the difference. Half a dozen blokes might not have made it otherwise.’
‘You’re welcome. Glad to be able to help, buddy. Thais don’t like the Japs any more than we do.’
The men who’d already received cigarettes were talking excitedly, though none of them had lit up. Observing this, Billy du Bois reached back and undid the buckles on a canvas bag strapped to the rear of the seat. ‘Hey, wait on! Should be a dozen Zippos in here.’ He handed the lighters out to the men nearest him. ‘Share ’em around, buddy.’ He turned back to Danny. ‘I was half a mile away from my base camp when I remembered the fucking Zippos,’ he laughed.
‘They’ll be worth their weight in gold,’ Danny replied. Then, growing serious he said, ‘Okay, so what now, Sergeant? Do we stick around or attempt to march to Bangkok?’
The American scratched his head. ‘Cain’t say, buddy. They ain’t wrote the script yet. This goddamn war, it’s not suppose to finish till 1946. But now the president, he dropped the atomic bomb, suddenly it’s all over, the whole goddamn shebang!’
‘The what bomb?’ Danny asked, not understanding.
‘Atomic. We got us atomic bombs now. One bomb can take out a whole goddamn Japanese city. They dropped two, first Hiroshima, then Nagasaki – that like Memphis and New Orleans – totalled in jes two motherfucker bombs. After that the Japs decide they had enough; they don’t want no war no more.’ Billy shrugged then smiled broadly. ‘That happened yesterday, so now we got us peace before we’s had time to make arrangements.’ He spread his hands. ‘I ain’t got no instructions about peace. So I thought maybe I’d jes take the pig, load up the sidecar wid cigarettes and mosey up to liberate you folk in the name of Uncle Sam. After that,’ he shrugged, ‘I’m afraid I ain’t done a whole lotta thinking. But I guess you right, buddy – cain’t see no point in a fancy surrender ceremony.’
‘It’s all come as a bit of a shock to us, too,’ Danny replied. ‘We had no idea until after breakfast this morning. I guess we’ll just have to lie low, wait and see,’ he added, not knowing what else to suggest.
‘Yeah, I don’t think you should have yourself a prison revolt,’ Billy replied. ‘Soon as I get back I’ll radio HQ, arrange for an airdrop.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll tell them to throw in a crate of Hershey bars, eh?’
‘Hershey bars?’
‘Chocolate candy; you gonna love ’em, buddy.’
‘No! No, please don’t! Too rich, mate. We’ll get bad stomach cramps. Bully beef, canned veggies, canned fruit, sugar, tea, condensed milk . . .’ Danny turned to Spike Jones. ‘What are your most urgent medical needs, Spike?’
‘We don’t have urgent needs, Sarge. Everything’s urgent. We need the lot – bandages, swabs, antiseptics, quinine, anything they’ve got for malaria, dysentery, tropical ulcers, but we can use whatever they can spare. We’ve got bugger-all, not even Aspro,’ Jones replied.
Danny turned back to Billy du Bois. ‘That would be great, mate . . . Oh, yeah, and maybe more cigarettes if that’s possible?’
‘Beer?’
‘Jesus, you mean it?’
Billy laughed. ‘You’ll have to drink it warm – an ice-machine drop takes a lit
tle longer to arrange.’
Danny laughed in turn. ‘Don’t worry, mate. I’ve just realised we’ve got one. Colonel Mori’s got a petrol generator and his own fridge; I guess I just took it over.’
Billy du Bois grinned. ‘Yep, that’s the idea. You’re a free man now, buddy.’ He swung his leg over the Harley. ‘Hey, gotta kick the dust if I’m gonna get Uncle Sam’s air force to do a drop today, even tomorrow morning. I’ll keep in touch. So long, Danny.’ With this he kick-started the Harley, then manoeuvred the clumsy rig around with staccato bursts of power from the accelerator and the help of his booted right leg. The men were cheering as he waved a salute and roared back out the camp gate, hitting a patch of loose gravel and careening sideways, narrowly missing the now conscious Jap guard. He straightened with a burst of accelerator and a wave, and then the Yankee liberator shot off down the bumpy dirt road.
Spike Jones turned to Danny, pointing to the two Japanese soldiers at the gate. ‘If you don’t mind, Sarg’n Major, I’ll just take a look. One of them may need a wee bit of attention.’
Danny grinned. ‘Yeah, okay, mate, but I daresay it won’t be a popular move,’ he advised. He knew that it wasn’t the generous and brave Sergeant Billy du Bois who’d liberated them, but the diminutive Welshman who’d risked his life to keep a promise to a dying mate to raise the flag. He watched now as Spike bent over the guard who was sitting with his back against the gatepost; Danny could see he was bleeding from the nose and mouth. The little Welshman’s hand rested sympathetically on the Jap’s shoulder as if he were one of his own men. Jones was one of those rare men who, in his heart, carried no hate for his fellow humans.
Ten days after the announcement of the Japanese surrender, the prisoners of war had been trucked to a Japanese-built airport near Bangkok and flown in twin-engine Dakota transport planes to Rangoon, the capital of Burma, where Danny spent the first month out of prison camp in a British army hospital.
In spite of gaining nearly ten pounds, Danny still looked as if the next breeze would blow him off his feet. He’d also lost an inch in height and now walked with a slight stoop, in fact, an inch worth of stoop, brought about by being struck repeatedly in the small of the back with a rifle butt by Japanese or Korean guards. He’d been shown the X-rays of his spine and told bluntly that he was one of countless prisoners of war who would probably (read certainly) suffer from a bad back for the remainder of their lives.
Major Craig Woon, the Australian army doctor in Rangoon, had given him an extensive examination lasting almost three hours. Danny had entered his surgery, come to attention and saluted him, but the young officer had simply waved him to a chair. ‘Forget all the formal crap, Sergeant Major. Take a seat. You’ve been through enough.’ Danny immediately warmed to him as he went on, ‘I’ve read your army record and I’d like to ask you one or two questions if I may. Cigarette?’ He extended a slim silver monogrammed cigarette case.
‘Thanks, sir, I don’t smoke. Please, go ahead, ask away.’
Craig Woon grinned at the habitual ‘sir’. ‘Army habits die hard, but you’ll soon be back in civilian life. Better get used to no longer having to respect someone who is technically your superior but very unlikely to be your better.’ He snapped the cigarette case shut with a flick and returned it absently to the top pocket of his uniform jacket. ‘It would help me if you would allow me to make notes,’ he said, and when Danny nodded, went on, ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me how your face got into such a mess. The damage obviously didn’t come about from an explosive device.’
There was a pause, then Woon added, ‘If you’d rather not, that’s fine, it’s just that sometimes it helps to talk about these things. Buried too deep they can cause problems later on.’
‘You mean psychological problems?’ Danny asked.
‘Yes. I confess we don’t really know a lot about the condition we used to refer to in the First World War as shell shock. But it’s an area I believe we ought to be looking at more carefully. Some of us are beginning to think that there is a lot more to understand about the long-term effects. In this hospital we have over a thousand beds and we know through anecdotal evidence from men like yourself who survived the prison camps that many prisoners of war just gave up, refused to eat, and died – in a manner of speaking – from despair.’
Danny nodded. ‘Yeah, in the first eighteen months we saw it all the time. Nothing you could do about it. Blokes would sink into a state of despair and when they stopped eating their rice ration you knew it was only a matter of time. You could try talking them out of it and occasionally someone would respond, but mostly they got a certain look in their eyes, as if they were no longer listening to you, but to some inner voice. After that it was usually only days or a week or two at most. There was no telling who it would hit – other blokes, seemingly physically worse off, made it through to the end.’
‘Yes, it’s a story we’re hearing all the time and there are patients who, now that it’s all over, are falling apart mentally right here in this hospital. We’re more concerned with treating tropical diseases here than mental problems; we’re a general hospital, with only two psychiatrists on staff, and they can’t begin to cope with the load.’ Dr Woon shrugged. ‘As I said, I’m not yet qualified to have an opinion but I have a feeling it’s going to be important to understand the effects of war when we get around to running the peace. So, thanks for agreeing to talk to me, Danny.’
‘Go for your life, doc. But there’s not a lot to talk about. I simply got bashed up by a Jap officer and a bunch of Jap soldiers under him.’
‘Perhaps a little more detail? The how, why, when and where . . .’
‘It’s a while ago now, doc. I’ll have to think . . . never talked about it before.’
‘Perhaps the day of our surrender in Singapore might be a good place to start?’
‘Oh, okay then. It’s not something I’m likely to forget in a hurry.’ Danny sighed, and his eyes lost focus as he began to recall. ‘We’d fought all night, held our position until dawn, thought we were doing pretty well holding the Japs off in our sector. That is, until a radio signal came through that Percival had surrendered.’ Danny’s voice rose. ‘Shit . . . like I said, we were doing okay. We reckoned everyone was; after all, we outnumbered the enemy two to one on the island. They, the Nips, had no more reinforcements, no backup. Jesus! We had sufficient ordnance and supplies to damn near mount a counter invasion on Japan and it was us who hoisted the white flag, who surrendered!’ Danny was warming to his story.
‘It had a lot to do with water as I remember?’ Dr Woon volunteered.
‘Well, yeah, as it turned out. Talk about biting yourself on the bum. Percival made no arrangements to build defences against a Japanese invasion, in particular for the holding reservoirs on the island, all of which were close to where the Japs landed in the north-west sector. The pipeline that fed them brought the island’s water from Johore on the mainland, and in the process of blowing up the causeway from Malaya the Brits also blew up their own pipeline, their main source of water, ferchrissake! The Japanese took possession of the holding reservoirs – the island’s only remaining supply of drinking water – so they could turn off the taps to Singapore city at any time they wished. No water, no war. Sit down and wait for everyone to die of thirst. Nice one.’
‘I daresay there were other issues,’ Woon said, in an attempt to be fair.
‘Yeah, sure. The Japs had a brilliant general in Yamashita and we had a bloody nincompoop in Percival. Not that our Australian bloke was much better. Bloody General Bennett hopped onto a boat and fucked off back to Australia as soon as the surrender was announced. That was after he ordered us not to attempt to get off the island. Cowardly bastard!’
Measured analysis was beyond Danny, after three and a half years of being a prisoner of war as the result of the biggest military defeat in British history, almost entirely due, in the view of most of the fighting men,
to a monumental cock-up. It was obvious that Danny had built up a deep resentment against his leaders. Woon was later to discover this same resentment and humiliation in a great many other prisoners of war, who felt they had lost something unnamed but akin to their manhood, and had undergone a kind of mental emasculation that would continue to haunt them for the remainder of their lives. They were young warriors who were sent up against the enemy with their hands metaphorically tied behind their backs.
The young doctor generally agreed with Danny’s viewpoint, but he was more anxious to hear his personal story, to have Danny revisit past experiences he may have buried deep in his subconscious. ‘Your facial injuries, did they happen on the day of the surrender? Tell me about that incident,’ he said.
‘Nah, later. The first day we walked – marched, I suppose – but we were that buggered and disillusioned, we walked or dragged ourselves through the streets. I remember the crowds gathered by the Japanese to watch our humiliation were as silent as we were. Everyone, it seemed, was in a state of shock. Before the invasion Singapore was full of Chinese. Now there wasn’t a Chinese face to be seen in the crowd. We soon enough understood why. In the weeks that followed, when we worked in the warehouses on the waterfront, we witnessed the killing of dozens of Chinese and saw the results of hundreds more.
‘All along the waterfront the Japanese erected several hundred poles sharpened to a point at one end and about five and a half feet high. On each pole, they stuck the severed head of a slaughtered Chinaman or woman. Each morning as we marched to work from the old colonial barracks of Selarang there would be fresh Chinese heads on public display, staring at us at eye level, a black cloud of flies buzzing around them.’ Danny glanced at Craig Woon. ‘I don’t know whether the Japs had worked out the height of the average Allied soldier, but there is something very bizarre about a severed head every three feet staring you straight in the eye as you pass. If the Nips hated us, it was nothing compared to how they felt about the poor bloody Chinks.’
The Story of Danny Dunn Page 10