Dedicated to military personnel, past and present. Thank you for looking after us. Thank you for keeping us safe.
*****
He felt the kick right in the pit of his stomach and fell to the floor. His knees hit the ground first, then his face thudded on the dry soil. The dust stuck on to his lips and cheek from the heat of the day and the sheen of sweat covering his dirty skin. His throat was parched. He was winded and swallowed trying to catch his breath. The harsh, cutting words of the Japanese soldier rained down on him from above. He had no idea what the man was saying, just that he was angry and that anger was directed at him. Then the rifle butt landed on his head and he was sparked out, lost in a sea of black haze.
His mind had trained itself to compartmentalise the horror of the presence. He could transport himself anywhere he wished to go. Mostly it was back home, back to his love. His thoughts went back in an almost automated way...
He was back in England, the night before he shipped out to the Far East. Harry Rollason was a Lance Corporal in the 1st Leicestershire Regiment, the Tigers. It was November 1939. He could hear his girl, giggling over one of his lame jokes. They had spent a pleasant evening at the pictures watching and laughing at a comedy – "You can't take it with you" starring Jimmy Stewart.
Afterwards they had walked back to his car still laughing at the rats in the restaurant scene. Technically it was his father's car - an Austin Ten-Four but his dad had let him borrow it for the night to take his girl out in style.
Now they were parked up in a secluded spot, out in the country, looking at the stars in the night sky.
"You'll come back home to me won't you Harry?" His girl had suddenly asked, worried that he was going off to war.
She was proud he was going to fight for his country but never the less wanted him safe.
"Of course I will," Harry had promised her, "I'll be home before you know it and then Elsie Jones, I'm going to marry you and make you Elsie Rollason."
And that's how he had proposed, just like that and his wonderful, beautiful Elsie had accepted and flung her arms round him. He had kissed her soundly and she had responded in his arms. He wrapped his arms around her, crushed his mouth to hers and slowly allowed his tongue to invade her mouth.
She had tasted exquisite and he savoured her. She was the most important thing in the world to him. She was an innocent sweet wall flower, a couple of years younger than him and one that he would delight in making a woman. He would wait till she was ready though.
He had told her early on in their relationship, that he wanted to take her to bed but would only do so when she was ready and when she asked him.
She had blushed and told him she could never be that forward.
He had smiled and kissed her breathless. "You will. Your body will tell you." He had told her confidently. "And if you can't tell me, who can you tell?"
She nodded. She trusted Harry and loved him with all her heart.
Harry was not a virgin. He had bedded a few loose ladies along with his friends. The type of woman that hung round with groups of young men, women who would sometimes drink and stay out till the early hours. Maybe it was a way of getting by or feeling some affection.
For whatever reason, these ladies were always willing to drop their knickers for company, a few trinkets or even another drink. Harry, like any man of his age, did not turn down such offers and treated it as a way of learning about sex. He would also read up about the subject where he could.
Sex interested him and he soon learnt that he liked it very much.
He felt a hand tapping his cheeks to bring him round. The harsh sun beat down on his emancipated body.
"Get up H. The Japs will give you another bashing if you don't." A man's voice crept through the fog in his brain.
He opened his eyes and squinted when the sun hit his eyes. Harry ached all over and his head hurt. He looked at the man talking to him and nodded in acknowledgement.
"Damn Nip. That bloody hurt," Harry cursed and his friend, Ron, helped him up to the railway line they were working on. They had a kinship only the constant threat of death could bring.
The Empire of Japan was determined to build a 260-mile rail track which linked Ban Pong, in Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, in Burma. It could easily have had world renowned acclaim as the 8th wonder of the world but instead it quickly became known as The Death Railway as it was built on cruelty and relentless brutality of captured prisoners of war.
60,000 Allied PoWs worked on this railroad - Burmese, Siamese, Australians, New Zealanders, British, Dutch, Americans and Indians to name some nationalities.
13,000 would die through beatings, sickness and injury.
Prisoners worked from dawn to dusk moving earth, building bridges, blasting through mountains and laying track. The work, the hot weather, at times tropical rains and the beatings were relentless.
Water was rationed to one cup of water every day or it came from hand-dug holes in the ground. Food, of course, came in the form of boiled rice, a half cup twice day– usually with grit and dirt in.
If cholera, starvation, gangrene, dysentery, snake bites, over work, bullets or any number of tropical diseases, like beriberi or malaria, didn't claim PoW lives, then the Japanese soldiers were there with their rifle butts only too happy to dish out beatings for some transgression or other.
The Japanese were cruel and unforgiving. They were feared and hated, yet that was probably their intention. Break their enemy, physically and mentally and that would make Japan their masters and conquerors.
Harry had made the unfortunate mistake of using some oil on a rag when he wasn't meant to and he was punished. The beatings were a part of daily life and if by any good fortune, one of the prisoners didn't have one in a 24 hour period, it was classed as a good day for them.
During the creation of Hellfire Pass, where prisoners cut a route through solid rock for the railway, 69 men were beaten to death by Japanese guards.
The Japanese Imperial Army was despised for its brutality. Some days The PoW's would be on the way to work from the prison camps and see heads chopped off and stuck on poles. Sometimes, it was people they knew!
It was harsh, a living nightmare and the men looked after each other as best they could. Some just gave up broken men and got tired of living. Others just accepted what was and had a steel determination to survive. They wanted to return to their loved ones. Harry was one such determined man. He had promised his Elsie and someday, somehow, he would get back to her.
Sometimes, he and his comrades' spoke of escaping, even planned it but they all knew it was futile. They were too far away from anywhere! They were lost in the middle of the jungle, where would they go? Especially in their weakened physical conditions! They would die alone there!
