The Forgotten Highlander by Alistar Urquhart

Author:Alistar Urquhart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2009-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

6

Bridge on the River Kwai

The Japanese put us straight to work. This section of railway, further north, would eventually join up with that of our earlier handiwork at Hellfire Pass. We began clearing jungle, just as we had at the first Kanyu cutting. The work was certainly easier than gouging our way through the rocks and boulders of Hellfire Pass but it was still horrendous. With the same guards and Japanese officers hovering around us it was the same torment. Brutality, disease, starvation and death stalked our every step.

On the first evening of our arrival, still barefoot and naked except for our Jap-happies, we did some remedial work on the huts, some of which leaned at crazy angles like jungle versions of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The roofs all needed replacing with fresh atap leaves. Whether by design or otherwise, we reverted to the same sleeping arrangements as at the first camp, taking up the same places. Men took a lot of comfort from routine and familiarities, no matter how fickle or fleeting they may have been.

After a few weeks of steady progress we were nearing the river Kwai, across which the Japanese intended us to build two bridges, the first to be made of wood and bamboo, the second to be of steel and concrete. It was going to be a major engineering operation and I doubted that we would manage it in our state and with the pathetic tools we had to hand.

We carried on clearing the path for the track of the railway, while work parties went into the jungle felling trees for the bridge and bamboo for the scaffolding.

Then disaster struck. One night I awoke with dysentery calling. Holding my aching stomach I raced to the latrines in the dark but on the way back to my hut a Korean guard stopped me. He had come out of the darkness and caught me by surprise. He yammered in my face. I had no idea what he was on about. At first I thought he was admonishing me for failing to salute him but I had never noticed the bugger. He was still talking frantically and pointing down at my midriff. To my horror I realised he was becoming frisky.

‘Jiggy, jiggy,’ he was saying, trying to grab me.

‘No!’ I shouted at him.

‘Jiggy. You me, jiggy.’

I told him ‘No’ again, firmly. He carried on trying to grab me so without hesitating I kicked him as hard as I could, barefooted, square between his legs. He collapsed, groaning in agony.

I bolted for my hut but his roaring had summoned hordes of other guards. Unfortunately I ran slap bang into one of them. He seized on to me and before I knew it they were coming at me from all quarters. Rifle butts and fists sent me to the ground. Someone stabbed me in the backside with a bayonet. Boots and fists flailed into my body before they hauled me up and dragged me to the front of the Japanese officers’ hut.

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