I turned to the other side, sure at last, that I would be able to enjoy a release from
my torture. To my consternation, I ran into another strand of barbed wire.
My weakened muscles were no longer able to cope, and I soon had evidence that
I might just as well have given up in the first place, and saved myself a long and
harrowing trip.
Only then did I begin to understand why I hadn't been able to find an open stall. I
just hadn't gone far enough into the latrine, and had bounced back and forth
between  the stalls that were permanently barred off.
At any rate, the job was done, and there was no use sitting down in the dark to
think about what might have been.
I still had a problem, of course. I couldn't go back to bed in that condition, so I
started the uncomfortable walk back to the showers.
Showering in cold water in the dark, in 40-degree temperature. in a building with
no windows, is even less comfortable.In the interest of conserving body heat I
showered only the parts where the need was greatest, no mean feat, with no soap,
and only an old army jacket to dry myself with.
The Nullah
What better name for a ditch? The Webster Collegiate Dictionary defines "nullah"
as a Hindi word meaning "Gully or ravine".
In ShamShuiPo Camp we had nullahs. The camp was built on land reclaimed from
Hong Kong Harbour, and was as flat as the Winnipeg Airport.
When the monsoon rains came, there had to be a way to drain the water off. The
British, who had built the camp, had installed nullahs, drains lined with concrete,
shallow at the top end, but getting progressively deeper until they emptied into the
harbour.
There was a water tap on the nullah, where we used to get water for cooking or
to wash our clothes.
Of course, with so many men in the camp and with so few ways to maintain
sanitary conditions, the nullah had to be swabbed out every day.
Those of us who were able, were detailed to carry water and flush out the drain
with help of a home-made mop, a long pole with a rag tied on the end.
We had to be careful at the bottom end, because the electric fence was adjusted
in such a way that nobody could escape from the camp by crawling out the nullah.
Arguments used to rage back and forth as to the amount of electricity that flowed
through the fence, from zero to a lethal amount. We soon found out.
One of the  English prisoners, taking his turn on the swabbing chore, came too
close to the wire, and was electrocuted. We were very careful after that!
Bridge
I learned to play bridge in the prison camp. In the hospital where I was sent after I
had developed a heart ailment as a result of the diphtheria, a number of older
fellows were also patients,
Among them was a chap named Mac MacKernzie. Mac was a World War I
veteran who had been wounded in the upper left arm. As fate would have it, Mac
had been too close to an exploding Japanese grenade and had the same arm
taken off in the battle.
Mac was an expert bridge player, and along with Cecil MacAulay, Doc Savage,
Hughie Anderson, and Ken Court, I learned the hard way.
Mac would tolerate no mistakes. If his partner, and I am grateful that I sometimes
was one, made a mistake in bidding or in play, Mac's comments would make one
feel like something less than human.
Ken Court was often my partner. We became so used to each other that we
would know from the bidding almost to a certainty, what cards the other held.
Unfortunately Ken and I drifted apart after the war, and he once told me that he
hadn't played bridge since then. Ken is gone, now.
Cecil MacAulay was tall, and at that time, very thin. He was an excellent bridge
player, a partner to be sought after in any competition. He had a few salty
expressions which I can't repeat on these pages. I don't play much bridge now.
Frank Bowerbank
Frank came to us on a re-enforcement draft from an Ontario regiment. He was a  
World War I veteran. He had evidently spent a lot of time between the wars
travelling between Toronto and Chicago.
As a nineteen-year-old, just a year away from the farm when Frank joined us, I
found him interesting. He had plenty of stories to tell, some of them probably true.