Judy: The Unforgettable Story of the Dog Who Went to War and Became a True Hero by Damien Lewis

Author:Damien Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Military
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2014-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

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.

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