Subterfuge
Many ingenuous ways were devised to conceal a radio. One of them was to build
it inside a wooden stool. If a nose-count was called in the middle of the night, or
at any other time, a designated "sick" man would carry the stool to the parade
square.
It gave us great satisfaction to know that while the Japs were scouring the huts in
search of a radio, it would be on the parade square inside a wooden stool where
they least suspected it would be.
Sometimes the object of a search was a pair of wire cutters or a pair of pliers. We
used to think that the searchers had a one track mind, in that, if looking for a
radio, a pair of wire cutters would go unnoticed, and vice versa.
And so it went. Day after weary day, marching out to the work site in the morning
and back at night; two weeks at a time, with no time off to wash our clothes or to
recharge whatever batteries our frail and emaciated bodies still possessed.
Getting on in 1945, probably after the collapse of Germany, we began to get
better food. Some water buffalo meat was brought in with the rations. Heavenly
flavour!
Liberation!
One day the word flashed through the camp that something big had happened in
Japan.A bomb the size of a grapefruit had been dropped with devastating effect.
Sure enough, the guards began acting differently, and after a day or two, work
parties were cancelled, and the guards seemed to have abandoned their posts.
What had happened? Had Chiang Kai Chek finally ridden his white horse over
the hills and liberated us?At any rate, whatever had happened, we were sure it
was in our favour.
We then assumed that the war was over, and, perhaps foolishly, boldly
approached the guardhouse at the main gate to tell the Guards. T hey were still
armed, and had nothing to lose by exterminating all of us. Why they didn't react in
that way is something to be pondered.
One glorious day an American fighter plane flew low over the camp and dropped
a spanner with a flag and a note attached.In the note, the pilot told us that we
were to be liberated and that food and medicine would be dropped into the camp.
He advised us to clear a space to the west side of the camp and to stay clear
when the big planes came over to drop supplies.
What a marvellous sight to see those huge red and white parachutes land with
bundles of goodies attached!
Fortunately, most of the chutes landed inside the camp, but some fell outside.
They were immediately rushed by Chinese civilians, who probably had not fared
much better since 1941 than we had, and seized the opportunity to help
themselves.
Free!!
Those were days of jubilation in ShamShuiPo! The realization that we were no
longer prisoners-of-war is a feeling that cannot be experienced by anyone who
has not suffered the privation, hunger, sickness, and humiliation for almost four
years. Long, long, years.
No more hunger! No more malaria! No more festering sores! No more rice and
bak choy! No more lining up in the rain at midnight! No more blows across the
back from a bamboo rod! No more digging tunnels in the mountain! No more
dreams of roast beef and mashed potatoes!
No more waking up from a dream of home, only to find that home was as far
away as ever!Plans for going home! Plenty of ice cream, and peanut butter, and
BEER! Will Sally still be waiting? How are Mum and Dad?
First thing I'm gonna do is buy a car! Will the government pay us for all the time
we spent in POW camps? Oh joy! Oh unbounded joy! The indescribable
happiness!