At Singapore our newly formed labour unit found itself in temporary quarters alongside Ghurkha prisoners. These tough, hardened little warriors had suffered many privations like everybody else, but they were still astonishingly cheerful. Their flashing smiles, gleaming white teeth, erect bearing, and cleanliness impressed us enormously. Even though their tropical kit was patchy and torn, they still retained a soldierly appearance and all of us felt better for meeting them. It was like a tonic.

Our new unit was not destined for any duties in Singapore. After a short rest, more than 1,000 prisoners were herded into the two holds of a dirty little Japanese merchantman. I was among them. On July 4, 1944 - American Independence Day - the ship, in convoy, steamed out of Singapore harbour for an unknown destination. In the holds, each of us had an adequate amount of sleeping space. Double bunks were fitted out in rows on each side. We were allowed some freedom of movement on the decks during the daytime.

It was not long before sickness hit us again. There were the customary outbreaks of dysentery and recurring malaria. One of our men was overcome by acute body pains and the British army doctor allotted to the hold diagnosed appendicitis. For a couple of days he pondered on the best kind of treatments, for he had few medical supplies. Then he decided that the only way out was to operate. He had the help of several medical orderlies, but his surgical instruments were by this time blunt and rusty. He began to make his preparations.

In the centre of the hold he had a make-shift operating theatre put up. Planks were placed on top of several boxes; over them went a blanket, and the patient was lifted on to this. The Japs allowed the orderlies to bring several buckets of boiling water from the galley for the sterilisation of the operating instruments. The patient was given a spinal injection.There was a deathly silence as everybody in that hot, stinking hold watched the operation begin. Darkness had fallen when the doctor put the final stitch in the incision, working in the light of two storm lanterns. He moved away from the operating table quite exhausted, sweating profusely, but triumphant. His face had a ruddy glow, and through the tiredness we could see a look of satisfaction. It seemed to us that he had achieved the impossible in those primitive conditions, and we crowded round, congratulating him, when he indicated that he thought everything would be all right now.

We learned that it was his first appendix operation. Four days later the patient was recovering, and able to move about with assistance. The piece of tissue which had caused all the trouble was put into a jar and was an object of consuming interest for many of us in those conditions. I scrutinised the small piece of reddened flesh with as much pride as the others. It seemed to have as much importance for us as a trophy of war.

The ship was old and slow and creaked along, eventually having to lay off Brunei, Sarawak, for temporary repairs to her ancient engines. Somehow they were patched up and we sailed eastwards again.

Our meals, always a vital topic for us, were two small portions of rice a day. We used sea water for washing. Wooden buckets attached to ropes were flung over the side and hauled in.

Strapped over the ship's rails, too were wood contraptions for latrine use. The ship limped on, black smoke belching from her funnel, and the engines clanging and groaning as though ready to burst apart at any moment, and eventually we sailed into Manila harbour and dropped anchor. There we lay for days while engineers came aboard to probe and tinker with the ailing engines. There was an air of drowsiness over all. The guards, too, were spiritless after the long journey and with the delays and they took practically no interest in the prisoners, for which we were, of course, thankful. After more delay and listlessness the repairs were done and the ship joined up with a convoy leaving Manila. We soon found out that in spite of the long drawn-out repairs the ship was still scarcely seaworthy. The engines still groaned, the old tub still had the greatest difficulty in raising steam and there were the oddest clanging noises from the mechanical parts. Since leaving Singapore, the ship had carried no markings to indicate that she was transporting prisoners of war. We were all convinced by this time that she was a Jonah.

Daylight usually brought sunny skies, but we saw them for much of the time only through the chinks because since leaving Manila most of us had been confined below decks. The boredom seemed endless. Then, one day, the shock came, swiftly, ruthlessly, shattering the tedium in a few dramatic moments. We heard the droning of aircraft ..... intensifying as it came nearer .... the vital throb of power and menace. The ship's siren shrilled out a warning to the crew and guards. Suddenly all hell was let loose. Aerial bombs splattered the convoy. Guns of the naval escort vessels boomed a repelling challenge.

The planes were zooming overhead now. Men huddled below decks as the throbbing, revving engines reverberated in their ears, sensing with fear the sudden downward swoop for the bomb release. A terrific crash jolted the ship, which veered drunkenly. The elderly merchantman quivered and shook in every bulkhead joint as she came to a dead stop.

Formerly, with many others, I had slept on the ballast in the lower hold. Although it was less comfortable than above, there was more room to stretch out and it was cooler at night.

Running from the berth, to which I had returned only the night before, was an iron ladder from the deck into the hold. The crushing bomb blow had dislodged the deck planks over the hold on which sacks of rice were stored. Now light penetrated a small opening through which I could see the sky. There was just enough room for a man to squeeze through a gap between two planks.

I was second man up that ladder and out of the flooding hold. A quick glance at the side rail revealed to me that the ship was sinking swiftly. Not a guard or member of the crew was in sight. Several other prisoners came tumbling up the ladder to sprawl on to the deck. We moved together to the rails and then raced back, frantically seeking cover in the alleyway alongside the stack, as planes bearing the American star screeched down at us in a power dive. Their guns spat venomously in wicked bursts. They flashed by, circled, turned and attacked again. The sky was alive with fighters and medium sized bombers, droning about at will, raking the convoy with deadly precision. Again and again they came at us. We crouched there helplessly, shivering, and my heart was beating madly. I tingled with fear. I wanted to cry out "you bloody murderous fools! You're attacking the wrong men!" But how were they to know?

For them, we were the enemy. Our ship bore no P.O.W. markings. But at last it was all over. The fleet of planes joined up in formation high over a tip of the mainland, and disappeared into the blue. We were thankful to see them go, but our plight was still desperate. Steam was hissing from our ship. She was settling lower and lower in the water. Over the rails we could see other ships of the convoy floundering after the bombardment. It was a scene of chaos. There was nothing for it but to abandon ship.

When I took off from the side the sea was barely a foot below the deck level. The water was warm and refreshing. I came to the surface, gulped air, swam a few yards and grasped a passing spar. That, I thought, would help to keep me afloat for the time being. I looked around, saw another piece of timber, grabbed it, and began to have a feeling of security with both arms balanced over the two supports.

I was then about 50 yards behind the stern of the ship. By this time her bows were submerged. There was an odd air of peacefulness about her. She might have been a toy on a park lake. Then reality banished the thought. Without a warning her stern reared high into the air. Up and up went her propellers and I saw the barnacles tightly packed round her girth, the rusty metal from which the paintwork had long since gone. Silently, awesomely, she slipped downwards into that blue water, and vanished. What followed seemed like the events of a nightmare. Suddenly the calm sea was a maelstrom. There was a terrific upheaval of churning and threshing water and I went down, sucked by the power of it. The spars were swept from my arms as if they were matchwood. As I was dragged deeper the colour of the sea changed to dark green. I had no more control then a celluloid ball in a tornado. My lungs were bursting. I was choking, and losing consciousness, grappling helplessly with a darkening immensity, relieved only by an occasional flash of blinding, agonising light, as if rockets were soaring in the brain. This was the end.

Then, when, I suppose, the ship had settled on the sea bed, and the threshing turmoil was subsiding - I found myself shooting upwards at colossal speed. I broke surface, gasping desperately for air. I submerged again, came up, and went down once more. When I resurfaced I felt as if every bone in my body had been mauled and crushed by a giant. I remember vaguely paddling around, borne by the waves, filling my lungs with air. In this bruised, semi-conscious condition, I floated somehow until I began to feel better, and could again muster strength to look at my surroundings. There was a lot of scattered debris about. The undamaged ships in the convoy were making off. I got hold of two floating spars, wedged my arms thankfully over them, and rested.

I noticed other heads bobbing around in the water for the first time. Until that moment I might have been the only survivor of this shipwreck. A man was holding on to a piece of wood with one arm; the other was bloody and injured. He called out for help and I paddled towards him. I grabbed several pieces of wood, and then managed to wedge them under his body until he was secure.

Feeling some strength had returned to my bruised limbs I swam to a small wooden life raft, not far away. Just as I was putting an arm over the edge, another survivor was doing the same thing at the other side. We hauled ourselves on to it, grinned at each other, and made ourselves comfortable. We began to drift towards the shore, which seemed to be about a mile away. Far out at sea the rest of the convoy, with smoke pouring from their funnels, were scuttling off. They were now almost out of sight.

I saw more survivors drifting about. Some appeared to be close in shore; others were farther out to sea. My companion on the raft and I decided the chances of reaching land were good, so we went over the side and, pushing out with our legs, tried to propel the raft along, but our strength gave out. We realised we were making no headway and had little hope of getting ashore; the tide and the strong inshore currents were, in fact, sweeping us out to sea again. There was time to reflect on the fact of how much I owed to my friends in Thailand for teaching me to swim. I had not been the best of pupils; water was not my natural element. But it is certain that but for their persistence and patience then I should have drowned when the ship went down.

As I sat on the raft again, I reflected that a cat was supposed to have nine lives. I, too, seemed to be having my fair share of survival chances.

In the distance I saw a beached ship. It was one of those damaged in our convoy. It seemed probably that the surviving ship had not picked up many survivors. They had gone too quickly. All around were shipwrecked Japanese seamen and guards.

I was to learn later that a few British survivors were picked up by a destroyer guarding the convoy. They were lashed to the guns for the rest of the journey to Formosa.

In the distance I saw a Japanese officer, who reminded me of a Gilbertian character. He was standing on a raft and making a terrific din, yelling his head off and gesticulating dramatically with his drawn sword. What he hoped to do with it I could not make out. Perhaps he was annoyed that the ships of his own nation had sailed away without stopping to pick him up. He stood for a long time on his raft, legs astride and shouting away. I regret to this day that I know insufficient Japanese to understand what he was saying. I was glad, however, that I was not having to share the raft with him. I am sure that had there been any prisoner survivor on the raft the Jap in his frenzy would have cut him to pieces.

Turning from the Jap, my companion and I talked about the chances of being picked up. There was no vessel in sight yet. We tried to count the number of survivors and decided that not many of the 1,200 or so prisoners on our sunken transport had been able to get free.

As the hours went by I thought with regret of many of my friends who had moved into the lower part of the hold for better sleeping accommodation. It was clear that many of them, in the sudden attack on the ship and its swift sinking, must have had not a ghost of a chance of escaping.

I was to learn that some survivors did manage to get ashore and find help. They were led into the interior of the Philippines through the assistance of an underground insurgent movement, and eventually were taken off by allied submarines to the freedom of Australia. Lucky men!

As the sun sank towards the brilliant horizon, we were unexpectedly rescued. Several small converted fishing craft used as coast patrol boats by the Japanese, hove in sight. My companion and I were hauled aboard one of them. As soon as I reached the safety of the deck I lay down with my head over the side and was violently sick, not caring what happened next. I had been in the water for eight hours and was at the limit of my endurance.

The patrol boats circled, picking up more survivors. Soon there were seven other prisoners on our craft and we were all ordered into the tiny tarpaulin-covered hold.

The convoy of little ships resumed its southerly journey, and, hugging the coast, at length found a sheltered cove and dropped anchor for the night. The four surly members of the crew occasionally peeped down at us, and that was all. They gave us neither food nor water. Tired out after our long immersion in the sea and with our nerves still tensed over the sinking, we settled down to broken sleep and a most uncomfortable night, lying on wooden boxes and steel drums. Nightmares and sinister dreams plagued me. I sweated profusely, racked on the steel, and it was a relief when dawn came. The crew prepared a meal for themselves, and in a moment of flinty generosity handed us the left-overs. We scraped the rice from the bottom of a wooden bucket and eagerly shared it out. A few mouthfuls of drinking water completed our breakfast. It was over a day since we had eaten and this meagre fare helped to ease our hunger pains.

The anchor was hauled in and our small convoy set off, obviously making for Manila. For some time the stillness of the early morning was broken only by the chugging of the small motors of the ships. We went on our way peacefully enough.

Then we heard it, for the second time in two days; the menacing sound of aircraft engines. Every muscle tensed and fear crossed our faces as the noise became louder. The planes were coming our way.

George, my companion of the raft, gripped my shoulder and cried out hoarsely. "It's those bloody Yanks again! What the hell do they think they're playing at, the bastards?"

It was the Yanks again. We had no time to reflect than that the fact of their presence was, in itself, a heartening sign of the way the war was going. If any of them ever read this, they will, I know, understand our feelings at that moment.

Peering from beneath the tarpaulin, we saw the Yanks in action. They could have no idea that prisoners of war were on these patrol boats. The Yank pilots, presumably from the same carrier force of the previous day, were out for more blood. We prayed again that it was not going to be ours, as their machine-gun and heavier armament fire sprayed the boats. The little convoy split up and scattered.

The patrol vessel crews had little to defend themselves with, for the boats carried no real armament. Seamen raised rifles to the shoulder and fired from the shelter of the wheelhouse.

Bullets from an attacking fighter splattered the water alongside our bows. I crouched low, with a feeling that this time we were doomed. There could be no escape from that murderous hail of fires. A plane, having failed to put us out of action, flashed low over the water, swept upwards, and banked for a terrifying attack again. I saw its gleaming fuselage hurtling towards us, and again the water churned as the bullets zipped into it, missing us only by feet. Out of the blue flashed another plane, its engine misfiring. It lost height, burst into flames and crashed into the sea not far away. There was a shout and I saw one patrol boat was hit. Flames were licking its deck and there were cries for help. Our boat circled and veered off towards it, drawing alongside as the blaze took hold. Our boat's crew took off the other's crew and three prisoners only just in time, pushing away with boat hooks as the craft began to burn. The three rescued prisoners joined us in the already crowded hold, as our boat sheered off on a zig zag course near the coast.

By now the planes had gone as swiftly as they came. The attack was over. We were all convinced that the Yanks would return. We stared anxiously at the skies as we chugged on to Manila, but we arrived there safely without further attack and docked. There we were bundled into lorries and taken to a prisoner of war camp for Americans.

Our story of how we had come to be there interested the American prisoners greatly. They were upset about the sinking, and commiserated with us, but they could not hide their jubilation over the success of their own aircraft. To them it was a sign of reviving American power in the fight. Freedom was on its way. An attack on the Philippines could not be long delayed. The US star was in the ascendent. The Japs, the skulking bastards, would soon be fleeing as 'Uncle Sam' lashed the yellow hide off them. They talked themselves, as only the American can, into a fury of optimism and hope, until they had almost convinced themselves that the war was virtually over, and the only thing remaining was to wait for the rescue party.

Their enthusiasm was infectious and, I suppose, had an excellent psychological effect on us after our privations, but most of us, though longing for release were less sanguine then they were. It seemed better to get down to the humdrum business in hand; concern about the old mailbag for bedding, the tin plate, the battered mug and ancient spoon issued to each prisoner from the limited camp stocks. We settled down in our new quarters in the old gaolhouse - and waited.

There was time now, after the recent hectic happenings, for me to take stock. I had lost my small but most valued and treasured possessions in the sinking. My photographs and letters from home, the most cherished, were at the bottom of the sea. This upset me greatly. They had come to have an importance too deep to convey; a few tattered sheaves and fading, cracked lineaments. They had cheered me immeasurably during the months and years. Now they were gone.

I had been in the habit of making notes on any scrap paper I could find in Singapore and Thailand. This self-imposed task had helped me often to combat the weary hours and the desolation; indeed, sometimes, it had seemed to me the last link with sanity and civilisation. I had kept them from the prying eyes of the guards by every dodge and trick I could think of and hoarded them with the cunning of a miser.

They, too, were gone. There was nothing left I could call my own. I felt stripped to the bone, naked and nameless as a human animal in the slave market. What had the Americans said? Ah, yes, hope. There is always hope.