The Forgotten Highlander

by Alistair Urquhart

  Fort Canning soon became the prime Japanese target. For the first two weeks of February the Japanese kept up a barrage of bombing and shelling aimed at the underground Battlebox and its surroundings. To us huddled on the hill, ridiculously poorly armed and basically defenceless, the shelling was much worse than the bombing and more accurate too. The shells whistled in all the time and we could only pray that our names were not on them. We were just so vulnerable. The boys were especially scared and stayed below in the basement. Even the normally effervescent Freddie remained uncharacteristically quiet and subdued. It was a terrifying time for all of us.

  On 8 February, just two months after the first bombs fell, the Japanese landed on the island and intense fighting ensued. From our hilltop position we could see much of the action. A few days later they entered Singapore City and then on 14 February came the terrible news that Japanese soldiers had committed a massacre at the Alexandra military hospital. Three hundred and twenty-three patients, doctors and nurses were systematically murdered in the shadow of the Red Cross that was meant to protect them. The invaders actually bayoneted some of the patients on the operating table.

  When I read the signal about the massacre I could not believe my eyes; it sent my stomach into knots and my mind reeling. But I resolved to keep quiet about it. There was no point in spreading fear and alarm.

  Churchill had urged a fight to the end and General Archibald Wavell, our supreme commander, told troops that it would be ‘disgraceful’ if the much hyped fortress of Singapore were lost. But to me it was inevitable that we would fall. All of my previous experiences in Singapore, the arrogance, frivolity and sheer ineptitude suggested we were no match for anyone, let alone a well-organised and determined aggressor.

  On 15 February, shortly after the news of the Alexandra massacre arrived, the shelling stopped and a ceasefire was proclaimed. With good reason Percival feared another ‘Rape of Nanking’, the 1937 massacre which had seen the Japanese slaughter three hundred thousand Chinese over a six-week period. With water cut off and no air cover the situation was deemed impossible. During humiliating negotiations in the Ford factory, Percival was bluffed into surrendering to an overstretched and much smaller Japanese force.

  Amazingly, for reasons unknown, no order was given to us to destroy the files at Fort Canning and when the Japanese came marching in twenty-four hours later they helped themselves to all of our military secrets.

  The end of the shelling came as a relief but we lived in terror of the Japanese arriving and the fear of the unknown gnawed away at us. The boys kept on asking what would happen to us. Naturally I kept the news of the Alexandra Hospital events to myself. I did not want to panic the young lads, who were fearful enough already. After two weeks of shelling and now surrender, we were a bag of nerves. I think that feeling sorry and concerned for the boys prevented me from feeling sorry for myself.

  On 16 February the Japanese entered Fort Canning. Sometime during mid-morning I was stood in the office with the boys, when looking out the window I saw Japanese soldiers for the first time. The privates came ahead of the column and rushed buildings, bundling everyone outside. The boys went extremely quiet and retreated into the corner of the office. Barely able to keep my voice from breaking I whispered, ‘Be very quiet and do what they say.’

  Then suddenly two Japanese soldiers burst into the office. They were quite young and very volatile – excited and angry, their eyes looked filled with fury and hate. Yammering and screaming in Japanese, they began jabbing their bayonets at our chests. It was so petrifying, I felt as if the bayonet had pierced my heart and I was staring death in the face. The boys behind me looked on in abject, open-mouthed terror. I had no idea what these soldiers in their mud-coloured, oversize uniforms were saying but in a daze I handed over my old rifle and put my hands over my head. Thoughts of Alexandra Hospital raced through my mind.

  They punched, slapped and kicked us outside, where an astonishing sight met our eyes: hundreds of men filing out of the underground bunker, their hands above their heads, fear writ large across their ashen faces. They lined up alongside us. Then everyone was rounded up at bayonet point into rows and left standing. As we waited for a long time in the burning midday sun, some of the Japanese privates went down the rows of fearful soldiers snatching watches off wrists, cigarette lighters, packets of cigarettes, pens, money, stealing anything of value. No one had the temerity to object to the thievery. Many officers had their faces slapped indiscriminately and their epaulettes ripped off, their caps thrown to the ground.

  A Scouser corporal whom I knew from around the base was standing beside me and the boys. He whispered in my ear, ‘Can’t one of the officers do something? This is looking serious, Alistair.’

  ‘Just keep your mouth shut. There’s nothing to be done. We’re at their mercy now.’

  As we stood there in the blazing sun without food, water or shelter, the horrible reality broke over me in sickening, depressing waves. I was part of Britain’s greatest-ever military disaster, a captive – just like some 120,000 others captured in the Battle of Malaya. I was a prisoner. It was a gut-wrenching realisation to think that my liberty was gone and no telling for how long it would be so. I kept a brave face on for the boys, whose eyes were on stalks but who stayed mute. This was the worst moment of my life.

  Hours later the Japanese commander arrived, strutting in front of his car. He looked us over disdainfully, scowling with a mixture of disgust and contempt before barking orders to his officers and promptly leaving. They put us into columns and told us to march. We didn’t know where to; we were little more than cattle to our captors. But it transpired that we were to cover the eighteen miles to Changi. The Changi peninsula housed the famous prison, the Selarang barracks and a sprawling ramshackle complex that would become a vast permanent POW camp for twenty thousand prisoners. I dreaded to think how different Selarang would look and what awaited us.

  We were in a very poor state on the march from Fort Canning to Changi. Utterly dejected and deep in despair we trudged along, prodded on by bayonets and with stragglers subjected to vicious treatment by the Japanese. There was no defiant singing and little display of pride. We felt defeated and downtrodden. The sheer uncertainty was the worst thing. What was going to happen to us? The thought kept on returning. In the back of my mind the Alexandra Hospital massacre loomed and I really thought that the same fate awaited us. The boys were as anxious as I was but to begin with they did not really show it. They were still in shock.

  Then, as we marched along the dusty road, without warning a horrific sight confronted us. We came face to face with a thicket of severed Chinese heads, speared on poles on both sides of the road. The mutilated bodies of these poor souls lay nearby and the heads, with their eyes rolled back, presented a truly shocking spectacle. The sickly sweet smell of rotting, putrefying flesh smothered us. Retching and fighting the instinct to be sick, I shouted to the boys to keep their eyes to the ground. For the rest of our march spiked heads, mainly Chinese, appeared at intervals in this way. The Japanese had been busy with their samurai swords and had created a hellish avenue to terrify and intimidate. The tactic certainly succeeded.

  Unknown to us we had just walked into the middle of the ‘Sook Ching’ massacre, a well-planned Japanese purge of Chinese opponents, both real and potential. More than fifty thousand Chinese were murdered with the sickening sadism that seemed endemic in the Japanese Army. The worst of thoughts now flashed through our minds.

  Next I saw a column of at least a hundred Chinese civilians being marched across a pedang in the same direction as us. They wore white shorts and white T-shirts but were blindfolded. It struck me then as strange that we had not also been blindfolded. The future of these hapless Chinese, I thought, looked especially gloomy. It was obvious that they were about to be killed. Paradoxically it made me feel a little better about our own immediate future – after all we were not blindfolded.

  About a week later I heard that the Chinese we had seen h
ad indeed been massacred – machine-gunned along with hundreds of others on the beach at Changi. British POWs on a work party had to dig a mass grave for hundreds of bodies. When I heard that news my already diminishing spirits sank even lower. I felt that we were sitting on a time bomb and it would not be long until it went off.

  During the march we saw plenty of other frightening and dismal sights. Bloated and shattered bodies of all nationalities, both civilian and military, lay strewn everywhere covered in great blankets of flies. Some of the local population lined the streets, waving Japanese flags, welcoming the invaders with open arms. They sneered and spat and snarled at us. Only the Chinese seemed restrained – they knew only too well what Japan’s offer of ‘Asia for the Asians’ really meant, but many of the Tamils, Malays and Sikhs fell for it. It was heartbreaking to see, yet after what I had witnessed I could understand their predicament. A few days earlier the Union Jack had fluttered proudly over the Cathay Building; now the Japanese ‘Rising Sun’ flew in its place. The sun had well and truly set on Imperial Britain’s Far East hopes. Many locals were left with little choice but to support the latest batch of colonisers. A very brave, mainly Communist, minority fought on.

  By the time we got to Changi it was dark and we were in bad shape – exhausted, dehydrated and traumatised. The army buildings on the Changi peninsula were designed to accommodate four thousand men and in those first days of captivity we were over fifty thousand. The camp was already crammed full with thousands of prisoners and the barracks were also beyond capacity – the only space left was standing room in the barracks square. I kept the boys with me and had to be pretty firm with Freddie because he wanted to go off on his own and search for some spare space for us.

  The mood was one of complete devastation and total desolation. It was degrading beyond words and humiliation hung over us like a heavy black cloud. There were no toilets, you just had to go where you stood. The Japanese had surrounded the perimeter and had machine guns trained on us. It was hopeless. To try to escape or organise a mass rush would have resulted in a massacre.

  More and more POWs kept flooding into the camp. The arrival of each fresh group added to our dejection and bewilderment. We eventually found a space to lie down and get some fitful sleep.

  The next morning prisoners came around with pails of food, ladling out servings into the mess tins we had brought with us. It was a kind of stew with green vegetables in it. We had not eaten in twenty-four hours and it tasted delicious. It was the last ‘proper’ meal we would get for some time. There would be only rice from here on in.

  Food and the lack of it would swiftly become an obsession for all of us prisoners. The rice we got was sub-standard, quite literally the sweepings off the warehouse floor normally considered inedible, contaminated with vermin droppings, maggots and all sorts. We were grateful for every grain of it. The food was always served outdoors on the parade ground, for breakfast, lunch and tea, from four huge cast-iron pots. The Gordons had their own line and allowed no pushing to the front. We all knew what we were getting and how much of it. It was tough to stomach the plain rice after a while and you really had to force it down.

  It was particularly difficult for the boys. But Colonel Graham took an enlightened view and decided that they should get more food than the rest of the POWs. They received a cup and a half of rice to our single cup, which the cooks factored into the total. Had other prisoners known I am sure that there would have been objections to their extra half-cup. But the boys knew they had to keep it to themselves so as not to cause resentment. Had there been any trouble over it, though, I would have stood up for them. They needed the extra sustenance more than we did. They were going through puberty and needed what little extra boost a half-cup of rice could provide.

  Once most of the prisoners had moved out to occupy other buildings on the peninsula, we had some more space and moved into our old barracks. It was total chaos. Fights sparked like wildfire over perceived prime positions. Fists flew at the smallest infringement of space. Thankfully the officer in charge of assigning places put the boys and me into a small wooden outhouse building. It had been used for storage previously but it suited us fine, with just enough room for four camp beds and little else. Not that we had any possessions anyway. All I had were the clothes on my back, a cheap wristwatch, a few pencils, my mess tin and my cache of photographs. I was pleased to have our own space and the boys were happy too.

  The shower facilities were based in the main part of the concrete building complex and the cold water was on only briefly – usually for an hour in the morning. You could not drink it because it was not boiled and the risk of getting ill was too great. But it did help to try to wash some of the dirt and grime off and it made us feel better for a short time. I tried to get the boys to wash every day. While the other two took some persuading to shower, Freddie required no prompting. He was always fussy about his appearance. I had one piece of soap, which we shared. We had to make it last, which was very difficult with cold water because it was so difficult to work into a lather. When it came to brushing your teeth there was no toothbrush, just some water and your finger. As for shaving there were of course no razors so most of the POWs were fully bearded.

  At first we simply felt relieved that the killing and the shelling had stopped. We had survived and over nine thousand of our comrades had died. But there was a lot of anger in the camp too. Many men had been captured without having the chance to engage the enemy or even fire a shot. Some argued endlessly over who was to blame for our downfall. ‘If only we had been sent tanks. If only we had enough aeroplanes. If only we had launched Matador. If only we had sunk the Japanese Navy before it got too close. If only . . .’

  Churchill wanted to keep Singapore British but it was well down the list of priorities when it came to resources – behind the defence of Britain, the campaign in North Africa and the need to send arms to the Russian front. In my view the ‘pukka sahib’ officers, who incredibly still insisted on having their batmen in the prison camp, were partly to blame. The government was more culpable and Churchill even more so. It was a view that I never missed an opportunity to express. Gradually, though, the recriminations subsided and we found another great topic of conversation.

  Food. It haunted our dreams and thoughts. Hunger was turning into starvation. We were beginning to waste away, the sensation of taste becoming a distant memory. Some of the men already suffered from debilitating vitamin deficiencies and the quest for food became a matter of life or death. It was at this point that the indomitable Freddie and his fantastic foraging skills came to the rescue. One day after weeks of little more than rice, he rushed in to the hut clutching his Glengarry cap to his stomach: ‘Alistair! Alistair! Look what I’ve got! Look what I’ve got!’

  We all hunched over as he carefully opened the Glengarry to reveal his treasure trove – a clutch of gleaming white eggs! Our eyes widened in disbelief and our taste buds went into overdrive. Freddie, our magnanimous provider, was triumphant. We drooled as we fried up the eggs and stared in amazement at them bubbling in the pan, the sizzling sound a symphony to our ears. The familiar smell had us dancing around with excitement. Never, ever did a fried egg taste so good and every succulent mouthful was made to last.

  Soon Freddie was so well liked in the camp that he became the unofficial Changi mascot. Darting about the place he refined his scavenging skills and brought smiles to the faces of men who had little to smile about. I had a special, almost paternal relationship with him but others felt protective of Freddie as well. There was something about his nature that you could not help but warm to. Some of the older prisoners, men with families who had sons in their early teens, saw them reincarnated in Freddie. He was a reminder too of our lost youth. I hated to think what Freddie was up to when he was out of my sight. He was such a curious person and never afraid of bursting into a group or conversation. I was always afraid he would fall in with a bad crowd and I would lecture him constantly on the perils of life.

&nb
sp; But Freddie was irrepressible and became well known around the camp and well liked by all the men. He had such vitality and could bring energy to any situation. Nobody had a bad word to say about him; he reminded them of life before the camp, of a better world that existed beyond the wire in a different time and place.

  Most nights the boys and I went up the grassy hill that dominated Changi to chew the fat. Boredom was a huge problem, not just for the boys but for me too. Invariably it led to depression and we did all we could to fight it. I managed to snaffle a deck of playing cards, which helped pass the time. We played endless games of whist and rummy, while snap seemed to be the boys’ favourite. We chatted about the possibilities of what could happen to us. I would say to them, ‘Look, you’re just young boys. The Nips won’t do anything to you.’ I think the older boys believed me but Freddie would look at me sceptically and keep his concerns to himself.

  After enjoying the spectacular sunset we would talk for hours under the moonlight. The Brinds had never been to Scotland and I would tell them all about life in Britain. Freddie would sidle up and grill me about my life. He wanted to know everything, personal, professional and otherwise. He was eager to learn about life and was especially nosy about girls, and Hazel Watson in particular.