Besides the one dim electric light burning in each hut there were no other supplies in the camp. No soap, no towels, no brooms or stoves, however there was a certain amount of optimism that we would be liberated soon. We had not yet heard of Pearl Harbor or the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. Signs appeared on the walls of the huts written in chalk saying,
“Are we downhearted?”
“ In the fall Churchill says Hong Kong will fall.”
“ The Yanks are coming. Hold everything.”
As the wounded recovered sufficiently to be moved they were taken to other camps. The Japs were assembling the prisoners at these camps preparatory to shipping them as slave labor to different parts of their stolen empire and to Japan itself.
I had an example shown me of the queer mentality of the Jap and his almost childish desire to appear as someone of importance. An otherwise inoffensive soft spoken Japanese civilian will, if inducted into the army as a private, no class (they had three classes, no class being the lowest) or given a uniform in some lowly official capacity such as a watchman at a dock yard, immediately turn into an arrogant little devil, eager and willing to kick his erstwhile civilian companions in the pants. They must all bow to him. He has the right to slap them if they do not, and he usually does. He struts in his ill fitting and shoddy uniform before his inferiors and meekly stands to attention while his immediate superior, a No. 2 private, smacks him. A Sergeant can smack almost anyone. We prisoners got the full benefit of this system as being considered the lowest of low. All could smack us. When I say smack this was a blow administered to the side of the head with an open hand, a cuff, but sometimes sticks, fists, boots and weapons were used.
While I was in the so called hospital hut there was one little man on our guard that looked more like a yellow monkey then the rest. He must have been around forty and a little too old for front line work. We will call him Koto. Koto thought himself a very important person, though actually he was no class private. When off duty he sometimes came into the hospital hut, where he had no right to be, and gravely inspected the patients, moving from one form to another. If the patient was sufficiently alive to notice him, Koto would bow and place a cigarette by the prisoner’s side, then he would gravely continue his inspection. He evidently wanted to talk to someone. I found out later he spoke English fairly well when he stopped and squatted beside my bunk and gave us, that is Scotty and I, a cigarette apiece. He paid several visits and seemed to take quite a fancy to me, showing me photographs of his family in Yokohama and explained how he had come to learn English in a missionary school. He asked many questions about my family but no military ones. He was very pleased to be able to make use of his accomplishment, the ability to speak English.
He assured me that he was quite a personage in the Japanese Army and his present duties were much beneath him and that he was both mentally alert and physically fit. As he said this he arose, took off his belt, bayonet and hat, and choosing a bare place on the floor, he stood on his head. Even the very sick were interested in this strange performance. Were they seeing right? Or did the Japs walk upside down? Koto had almost completed his performance when in walked the Corporal of the Guard. He took in the situation at once, went over to my friend who still remained shakily balanced on his head, and gave him a terrific kick in the pants. Koto was catapulted to his feet, looked with dismay at the Corporal and picking up his hat, belt and bayonet, hurried out of the hut, closely followed by the Corporal still kicking. Koto lost a lot of face that day.
