Collecting Salt
Ordinary table salt was a precious commodity during those days in ShamShuiPo.
Of course, everything that is taken for granted in normal times became scarce and
of value to our starved senses.
Sugar and salt ranked first as agents to make the rice and green horror more
palatable.Not much could be done about sugar, although now and then a little
filtered into the camp and became available by one means or another.
Someone realized that sea water contains, among other chemicals, a lot of
ordinary NaCl, and although the method we used to extract the salt is by no
means original, having been practiced from time immemorial.
So, under whose instructions I cannot now recall, we set to work forming "beds"
in the dirt of the vacant space to the west of the main camp buildings.
We formed little walls around a "bed" about twenty feet square and swept off as
much loose dirt as possible. Then, under Japanese supervision, we bailed water
out of the harbour and dumped it in the "beds" and waited for the sun to
evaporate it.
That worked well, and a thin coating of salt crystals was left behind. It was pure
salt, but there were other objects present as well.When we tried to lift the salt off
the ground, little balls of mud came with it. It was bothersome, to say the least, to
have to pick the mud out of your meager rations of rice. The project was
abandoned.
After all these years I still marvel at the guiding spirit that kept us alive through all
the beatings, starvation, mental stress and disease. Eating mud-filled salt off the
parade square could have killed us off with dysentery, or worse. Would I do the
same thing again? Perhaps, but a little more carefully.
Knitting Sox
After a year or so behind barbed wire, most of our clothes were wearing thin or
gone altogether. Somehow or other, I had got hold of a British Army issue wool
sweater. Light green in colour, it had been machine knit from the best of wool, but
that too was badly worn.
I had no sox at all, so I decided to rip out what was left of the sleeves of the
sweater and knit the yarn into a pair of sox. Great idea, but there were a few
problems to overcome.
First, the sleeves had a seam from wrist to armpit, with the result that the yarn
came out in pieces from six to ten inches long.
Another problem was, what to use for knitting needles. As a boy, I had often
watched Mother knit sox and mittens, so I had a faint idea of how to go about it.
The needles had to be found.
I solved the problem by getting some pieces of barbed wire (there was lots of
that!) twisting the barbs out of it, straightening the wire, cutting four pieces about
eight inches long, and sharpening the points on the concrete floor.
The wire had been "galvanized", and in the straightening process, bits of the
protective metal flaked off, leaving a rough surface on the needles. That didn't
make for smooth knitting.
Then I had to learn how to knit. I got no encouragement from my friends, who
thought that I was slightly off kilter. Perhaps I was! Anyway, I persevered, and
eventually devised a way to make sticthes.
Then I was faced with the problem of the short pieces of yarn. These had to be
spliced together every ten or twelve stitches, something else I had learned on my
way to becoming master of the craft!
How to turn the heel? That too, I overcame after much head scratching and bad
advice from my tormentors. Then, "take off" the toe.
Finally, a pair of wool sox! Wool, no less, a little small, and with legs only about
six inches long measuring from the heel. I wish I had them now. I would put them
in a frame!