Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘The officers received permission from Hoshijima to start a vegie garden outside the compound. He also gave them an advance on their pay to start an officers’ canteen and the canteen officer was allowed to go into Sandakan to buy stuff. This allowed the beginnings of an intelligence ring in the camp. Getting information in and out of the camp was a great morale boost to the men. We felt we were still in the war doing something useful, this was more true when we began to build the airfield.’ ‘Pay? The Japanese paid you?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah, occupation money, the men got ten cents a day and the officers twenty-five. We called it banana money because there’s this picture of a bunch of bananas in the centre of the notes. Don’t sound like much but it could buy the odd necessity that made a lot of difference to our general state of misery.

  ‘It was the fifteenth of August that we finally got told what we come there for. Hoshijima calls us altogether for another tenko, he’s just been promoted to captain and at the same time his position as commandant has been confirmed, so he’s full of himself and polished from his bootcaps to eyeballs.

  ‘“You have been brought here to Sandakan to have the honour to build for the Imperial Japanese Forces an aerodrome. For this you will be paid ten cents a day. You will work. You will build this aerodrome if it takes three years!”

  ‘“Shit, what are we gunna do for the other ninety-seven years?” Cleary says next to me.

  ‘There’s laughter among the men, because we don’t reckon the war will last another three years. Hoshijima waits for our laughter to cease then starts to rave in Japanese. Mr Ozawa gets out his first words which are, “I tell you . . .” But then Hoshijima, who’s pretty bloody upset, stops him with a wave of the hand, takes a step forward and, waving his finger at us, says in English, “I tell you! I have the power of life and death over you. You will build this aerodrome if you stay here until your bones rot under the Borneo sun!”

  ‘You don’t forget words like that and suddenly there ain’t no more laughter and that’s when our miseries truly began.

  ‘Some of us had already had a taste of what was to come. I was a member of a working gang who first brought back the news of the proposed airfield. So, when Hoshijima finally announced it, all he did was confirm what we’d already known. How we found out was like this: two days after we’d arrived in the camp, those of us younger, fitter men were roused at dawn, then marched off, supposedly to build a road, a road, which at that time seemed to lead nowhere.

  ‘I remember it was bucketing down, but this made no difference to the Japs. The rain wasn’t any worse than the first two days in the camp, just wet, miserable and steady. At first we slogged down a track in the jungle that wasn’t much more than an overgrown path that soon petered out, ending nowhere we could see that was important to any thing. Then the guards handed out parangs and told the front blokes to start cutting the path onwards and the rest of us slosh along behind. It’s all going reasonably well when the worst thunderstorm I have ever witnessed in my life hits us.

  ‘The bloody sky opens, there’s thunderclaps to take your head off and lightning bolts hitting the earth with a fizzing sound, all of it fused together so we know it’s striking down real close, maybe onto us. Giant trees that have stood fifty years come crashing down in the forest around us, the lightning splitting them like matchsticks, leaving only their splintered stumps standing. Mate, I kid you not, it was worse than any of the fighting I’d been through in Malaya and Singapore and I’m certain this time I’m gunna die. We’re lying in the mud, holding onto bushes for grim death as a torrent of water sweeps down the path.

  ‘The storm don’t last that long but it’s done more damage in ten minutes than a heavy artillery battery could do in ten days. Suddenly, it’s all over except for distant rumbling thunder and a few sharp flashes of lightning. With the storm passing, the rain eases off and there’s even a bit of blue sky above.

  ‘Now there’s more water around than the earth can absorb and the path we’ve cut turns into black mud that sucks the boots off our feet, but the Japs make us get on with the job. It soon becomes apparent we can’t continue. We’ve stopped at what looks like a large clearing in the jungle about two miles from the camp. “No more!” the Jap sergeant in charge of us yells, waving his arms. “Stop now! We work aeroplane place!”

  ‘That was the first time we realised that we’d come to Sandakan to build an airfield. The Jap sergeant decides if we can’t work on the path we might as well get started on the aerodrome. It doesn’t look much like a place to build anything, much less an airfield. The ground undulates ahead of us like a series of soft-backed waves.

  ‘Each of us is given a hoe known as a “chonkol” and a wicker basket. The sergeant positions himself on the top of one of these undulations and issues his instructions. The sun has come out but that only makes things worse. Steam rises from the ground and the sergeant, half-obscured in the rising steam, uses a pick handle to indicate the area he wants levelled. “Hill here go in valley over there!” he shouts out. He speaks pretty good English for a Jap sergeant. Most of them haven’t a clue, they know one or two words and work on the principle that he who shouts loudest is best understood and, with a pick handle in his hands, he speaks perfect English anyway.

  ‘We get stuck in, first clearing the tangled mess of secondary growth and discover the ground underneath is composed of a coral-like substance, probably some distant volcano eruption that deposited its ash in this area. The ash has become a form of white porous rock which we learn is called “tufa”. It’s hard to see how it can sustain any vegetation.

  ‘It turns out tufa is easy to work when it’s hard but when it’s wet it’s a real mongrel. It becomes jelly-like, so when you scoop out a bit, the hole you’ve just made fills up again, a bit like a kid digging a hole on the beach with the waves pushing in every few seconds and washing the sand back into it.

  ‘We’re now standing up to our ankles in this white jellylike substance and spend the next three hours trying to scoop it into our baskets. The work is backbreaking and we’re tired and haven’t eaten nothing all day because we’ve been marched out of camp before breakfast.

  ‘The idea is to chop at the tufa with the chonkol and then scoop it up and into the baskets with our hands and carry it over to the sergeant’s valley then tip it out of the baskets again. But the valley doesn’t fill, the tufa simply disappears, washed away by the run-off from the storm. After several hours the world around us remains exactly the same. The only way you’d know we’d been there is the pile of secondary growth we’ve hacked down. The Jap guards get real angry and we’re taking a hiding from their swinging pick handles.

  ‘A guard comes up to me and he’s jabbering away, “More! Work more!” and he lets go and cops me in the ribs with his pick handle. I fall to the ground, more angry than hurt. I point to where I’ve been working, “You have a go, you bastard!” I shout at him, “See fer yerself!”

  ‘He must have worked out what I’m saying, ’cept he probably don’t know the word “bastard” yet, or I’d have got more than a pick handle in me ribs. He throws down the pick handle and grabs the chonkol and sets to work. Whack goes the chonkol and its head sinks into the tufa up to the haft. He tries to pull it out but the suction in the tufa holds it firm, just like our boots in the black mud a bit earlier. In a minute or so, he’s puffing like a sumo wrestler and he hasn’t got any tufa in the basket yet. He grunts and throws down the hoe and tries to scoop the stuff up with his hands. It’s no good, it’s like picking up that stuff Sarah sometimes makes when your stomach is crook.’

  ‘Blancmange?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s like that. Then the guard throws down the chonkol, picks up the pick handle and storms off. It must have done some good, because pretty soon he’s consulting with the sergeant and some of the other guards and there’s heads shaking in agreement. Then the sergeant gets up on the rise that’s not grown any smaller and waves
his arms across his chest. “Fineesh! No more!” he yells, “All mens go back now!”

  ‘Some of the blokes who saw me get clobbered, shout over, “On ya, Tommo!”

  ‘So having done bugger-all except find out that we’re here to build an airfield, we trudge back to camp down the muddy black path we’d previously created through the jungle.

  ‘So, I suppose I can claim I was one of the first to start on the new Jap airfield in Sandakan. Not that that’s an honour, far from it. We know we’re building an airstrip from where the Jap aircraft can bomb and strafe the Allies. That’s gunna be our job for the duration of the war, that’s why we come to Sandakan in the first place. But we’re not proud of what we’re doing and it’s common practice to steal tools and material and bury them in the fill to slow things down and sabotage progress any way you could.’

  Tommy looks at me. ‘That’s a funny thing, some of the blokes on the Burma Railway were dead proud of their achievement. They suffered something terrible, we all did and in the end, ours was the worst fate of all. Some of the Brits who built that bridge on the River Kwai were dead chuffed at what they’d done, bloody engineering marvel, they boasted. What we done, building an airfield in the middle of the jungle, was maybe just as remarkable. It’s now the Sandakan civil airport but nobody even fucking knows how it’s come about!’

  Tommy’s voice is suddenly bitter, ‘Sandakan is the war’s best-kept secret, there’s families don’t know what happened to their husbands, brothers and sons. They just disappeared into thin air, it’s as if they never existed. I once asked our local member to find out about Sandakan. He come back to me and says nobody knows anything, nothing he can do, it’s government policy and he’s hit a brick wall. It’s a bloody conspiracy of silence if you ask me. All the families know is that they get this telegram, “Your husband is missing, believed dead”, nothing more. Can you imagine how they feel?

  ‘Anyway, we wasn’t none of us proud of the so-called engineering feat we performed even though it was thought to be impossible to do in the time. I’m just bloody sad that nobody gives a bugger for the men that died. Because there’s nobody to march on Anzac Day, the public don’t even know about us, about me mates, who, in the end, were as good as any Aussie soldiers who ever fought. There’s lots should have got medals, the MC, even the VC, for what they done but because they all died there’s nobody to do their citations. Can’t be giving medals out, can yer, people would start asking why, wanting to know the full story, so the government put it in the too-hard basket and forgot all about the families.’

  Tommy stops a while, hanging his head, thinking, not wanting me to see how upset he is, trying to regain his composure. Eventually he speaks.

  ‘You see, the Japs need oil and they come to Borneo eight days after they attack Pearl Harbor because they need the oil that’s buried along the island’s west coast. Oil means fuel for their tanks, trucks and planes, they can’t fight the war without it. Besides this, their aircraft can’t fly non-stop between Singapore and the Philippines, or even to the most distant part of the Dutch East Indies. They have to stop to refuel and Sandakan is gunna be one of the places they’ll do it. What’s more they’re in a flamin’ great hurry to get going.

  ‘But in early September we’re woken in our huts at dawn with rifle butts in our ribs. The Jap guards are fully armed, screaming, shouting out and having a go at anything that moves in the dark. It’s not what we’ve become accustomed to, we’ve settled down to POW life and everyone sort of knows the rules. Sure, we get beaten for the smallest thing or even for nothing, but it’s individuals do that. Not since the second morning when we went out to make the road and ended up at the airfield, have we been rousted out like this.

  ‘This time it’s not to make up a working party, or even just the young blokes, it’s the whole camp and involves a full kit inspection and hut search. We’re stumbling about in the dark getting clobbered and wondering what the hell it’s all about. Must be something pretty bloody important, something’s happened we don’t know about, most likely an escape.

  ‘At the end of July, eleven POWs escaped and the Japs went berserk. They eventually caught them and sent them to Outram Road Gaol in Singapore, all except one who died in Kuching. We all copped the shit for that escape and as a consequence, we now have to wear a square of white cloth on our hats with a personal identifying number.

  ‘At first light, tenko is called beside the big tree and we assemble on parade with full kit and a Jap warrant officer screams “ki wo tsuke!” which is their word for “attention!” We all do as he says and Captain Hoshijima, accompanied by his escort of guards plus the bedraggled-looking Mr Ozawa, march into sight.

  ‘The captain as usual looks as if he’s attending a trooping of the colour ceremony, with his immaculate uniform, Eyetalian pistol at the hip, boots shining like polished glass. Him and Mr Ozawa mount the platform where there’s a table been placed and both stand behind it. Then right off, Ozawa, as if he’s had the words waiting in his throat for hours, shouts out, “Ze oase!” which is how it will be pronounced ever after. He’s got this piece of paper in his hand and begins to read. For once Captain Hoshijima doesn’t interrupt, I suppose because the words written down are probably his very own.

  ‘“One!” shouts the Formosan. “We abide by ze rules and regulation of ze Imperial Japanese Army!” He stops and looks at Hoshijima for approval. The captain nods for him to continue.

  ‘“Two!” the little man shouts out. “We agree not to attempt to escape!”

  ‘There is this murmur from the men who suddenly cotton on to what’s happening, “ze oase”, is supposed to be “the oath”, something we are all collectively taking. The guards move forward, and the warrant officer shouts for us to be silent. Susumi Hoshijima nods to Mr Ozawa to go on.

  ‘“Three! Should any of our soldiers escape we request that you shoot him to death!”

  ‘There is this stunned silence. Nothing moves. It’s like time stands still. “Shit, what’s gunna happen?” I think to meself. I can’t believe what I’ve just heard.

  ‘Suddenly our most senior officer, Colonel Walsh, breaks rank and mounts the platform. He reaches out and takes the piece of paper from the startled Mr Ozawa. You can hear a pin drop. I remember the birds were just beginning to sound in the jungle, nothing else can be heard, just the birdcalls at first light, the cook-a-rooing of wild doves and the sound of the breath in my chest. Walsh is a mild bloke, but we don’t know how he’s gunna react.

  ‘“Gentlemen, I for one will not sign such a document!” he shouts out, so we can all hear him plainly. Then he throws the paper down and it flaps and lands on the edge of the table and slowly slides off. We see it land at Captain Hoshijima’s feet.

  ‘There’s a gasp from the ranks and then cheers. “Shit, the old man’s got guts,” Cleary says next to me, “Good on ya, mate!” he shouts out and immediately cops a kick from a guard standing nearby. The guards start kicking all and sundry, to stop us cheering.

  ‘Next thing, the Jap guards surrounding Hoshijima drag Walsh from the table and frog-march him out the gates. There’s a post just outside the main gate and they tie him to it and Captain Hoshijima goes up and slaps him across the face. Then the guards line up into a firing squad and pull back the bolts of their rifles and take aim. Meanwhile the machine guns are trained on all of us in case there’s an uprising. The men are shouting and bellowing and the Japs are in danger of losing control of the situation.’

  Tommy looks at me, ‘Christ, I dunno what would have happened if they’d shot him, there’d have been a riot. There’s fifteen hundred of us and we greatly outnumber the Japs. If they’d shot the C.O., I reckon we’d have broke ranks and gone for them. They’d have massacred us with the machine guns but we’d have got a few and Hoshijima would have been one of them.

  ‘One of our officers breaks ranks, it’s Major Workman the 2/IC and he goes up to Hoshijima and t
ries to calm him down. I don’t suppose Hoshijima being only a captain was all that anxious to assassinate a colonel. He’d probably have some explaining to do at the Jap High Command at Kuching. The Japs respect rank and shooting Walsh without a trial wouldn’t have been a good move. Hoshijima’s a young bloke and educated and he’s in a jam. But Japs can’t afford to lose face and Hoshijima can’t be seen to back down in front of his men. So a way has to be found to calm him down and save his honour and, at the same time, save Walsh’s life.

  ‘Eventually the major comes up with the suggestion that the wording of the document be changed slightly so that it isn’t a collective statement taken on behalf of all the men by their commander. The suggestion is that the words are changed to read “we individuals”.

  ‘At first the Japs have a bit of trouble understanding this. They don’t go in for individuals in the Imperial Japanese Army. Not that we do a whole lot neither, but their troops can’t say boo to a mouse. With them it’s total obedience, or death. They’ve all sworn an oath to die for the Emperor which covers bloody everything. Eventually Hoshijima, who understands Western ways, agrees and “ze oase” document is changed, the Jap captain’s face is saved and so is Walsh’s life.

  ‘So now we’ve all got to sign the document personally by writing down our names. Hoshijima changes the words on the document with his fountain pen and the guards distribute enough blank sheets of paper to hold all the signatures. They keep us on parade for six hours in the hot sun while the guards ransack our huts and the officers’ quarters, stealing anything they can find.

  ‘They’re supposed to be looking for contraband, but it’s just an excuse to help themselves. They find bugger-all that’s a punishable offence because we’ve got all that sort of stuff well hidden, but a lot of personal things go missing. Among them is the post office clock Johnny MouleProbert pinched from the Bukit Timah post office on Singapore Island and lugged in his kit all the way to Sandakan. It’s been hanging in our hut, tick-tocking happily away. When you wake up from a nightmare and you hear it going tick-tock-tick-tock, like time isn’t taking no notice of what’s happening, it’s comforting, and helps to keep you calm when you’re a long way from home and you’re lying there in the dark, rats scuttling, wonderin’ if you’ll ever get back.