Chapter 4 Anchored at Khor Khui; Vitamin Centre; Day of Liberation;...........

THE VITAMIN CENTRE

UNTIL a few years ago very few people outside the medical profession had heard of vitamins. Even today many people regard them suspiciously, as something newfangled that patent food manufacturers say is contained in their products, and which will magically transform a thin anaemic office worker into a veritable Don Athaldo.

How often do we hear people of the older generation say that in their day there were no such things as vitamins, and that they lived quite well on good, plain food, little knowing that this good plain food contained those very vitamins which they believe chemists have recently invented. In Australia, where there is plenty of good food, people can forget about vitamins because there is an abundant supply in everyday food; sickness and death caused by their absence are, of course, unknown.

In the East, however, and more particularly in the prison camp where we were, vitamins assumed a real significance because the poor food supplied to us could not keep men in good health without being supplemented by vitamins from some extraneous source. The main, practically the only, food supplied by the Japanese was rice.

Now rice is the staple food of nearly all Asiatic races, and they thrive on it provided they can supplement it with small amounts of other foods which contain the essential vitamins. Rice, when it comes from the plant, contains quite enough Vitamin B to enable the body to digest it. But to make the rice keep it is nearly always milled, that is, the outside layer which contains the bulk of the vitamin is removed, leaving the white polished rice of commerce.

A diet consisting of this polished rice alone will not prevent the scourge of the East, beri beri, which is caused by an insufficient supply of Vitamin B1 in the food, and it was not long before a lot of men in the camp had this disease.

One of the chief foods containing this essential Vitamin B1 is yeast, and so in April 1942 at Selarang, the Yeast Centre was established to cope with the ever-increasing demands for a supply of this vitamin.

This yeast, which is the same as that used in breweries, is a small living cell. Our hosts supplied some brewers' yeast from the Singapore brewery with which to start our culture and we carried on from this for nearly two years.

The foods on which yeast grows are potatoes, flour and sugar, and these had to be deducted from the general camp rations. The potatoes were boiled and mashed, the flour and sugar added, and some yeast seed was placed in this mixture.

Yeast cells multiply very rapidly and after about thirty-six hours the brew was ready for drinking, and quite a popular drink it was too, judging by the number of people always hanging about trying to get one on the house. In fact yeast was the nearest thing to the dinkum brew in the camp because one of the other things always present with yeast is alcohol, and I venture to say many a teetotaller enjoyed his yeast for reasons quite unsuspected by him.

Before the yeast was distributed the number of cells it contained was always checked by microscope. A good yeast contains about 100,000 cells per cubic millimeter, which will be better understood by the average reader as about thirty billion in a tumbler full.

Our hosts discontinued supplying flour to the camp late in 1942, and the yeast had then to be fed on nice polishings instead. This yeast was not quite as good, but we continued making the brew right up till January '44 when over 100 gallons a day were being made for the Australian prisoners alone. The brewing room looked quite like a brewery with barrels lining the wall, and men who knew said the smell was identical. I suppose in all, thirty to forty thousand gallons of yeast were made in twenty months.

Early in 1943 medical officers were very concerned about some diseases which were breaking out, caused in their opinion by a lack of Vitamin B2 in the food. This vitamin is largely contained in green vegetables and meat, and our supply of these, if any, was always most meagre. It was reasoned that grass, being a green, should contain the same vitamin, and so began a process to extract the vitamin from it. At first the grass was merely boiled and the water drained off and drunk, but it was thought that the heat would partly destroy the vitamin, so a process was evolved to extract it cold. The Ordnance people made a machine which, although it might have made Heath Robinson turn in his grave, served the purpose excellently.

The best grass was found to be guinea or couch, with paspalum next and, a good last, lalang, but grass was so scarce in the camp, and so much was being used that before long we were glad to use any obtainable.

Men were sent out in a trailer to fill bags with grass and bring them to the factory. The machine for treating the grass was driven by an electric motor and consisted of a large lawn-mower and two rollers.

The grass was first put through the mower which cut it into small lengths and it was then fed into the rollers-all by hand, of course. It had to be put through the rollers three or four times to break up the cells of the grass in which the vitamin is to be found.

When the grass was crushed fine enough it was then rammed into large percolators of about twenty-five gallons capacity, similar to the type a chemist uses, and the right amount of water added to the top. The water slowly seeped through the crushed grass, dissolving out the vitamin from the broken grass cells as it went, and when it ran out from the bottom of the percolator it was ready for drinking.

This extract was not nearly as pleasant to drink as yeast. In fact some of the descriptions of its taste I heard would never pass the censor were I to mention them here, but to a camp so deficient in medical supplies of any kind, it was a godsend.

In October '44 eighty gallons of grass extract were being made each day, and in the previous eighteen months I would estimate that some fifteen to twenty gallons were produced. This was made from about 200 tons of grass or 15,000 sackfuls. These figures will give some indication of the work involved in the collection and crushing of the grass.

Grass must be used while it is fresh and cannot be stored against a rainy day. Leaves of certain plants contain the same vitamin as grass and if these leaves are dried and powdered, the vitamin can be extracted by percolation in the same way as the crushed grass. They have the advantage that they can be stored for months. They have on the other hand a serious disadvantage, and that is their vile taste, so leaf extract was used only when the grass-cutting machine broke down or to supplement the grass extract when demand exceeded possible production.

The leaves used most were Straits Rhododendron, Malayan passion-fruit and Leban. The leaves were brought to the factory where they were dried either in the sun or in a charcoal drying-room. They were then powdered up very finely by a home-made ball mill. This mill consisted of a forty gallon steel drum containing old nuts and bolts and it was turned by an electric motor. When it operated the din could be heard miles away. The leaves which were thus reduced to a fairly fine powder were stored for use when required.

Another branch of the Vitamin Centre was the Tempe department. In the latter part Of 1943 the Japanese, either through shortage of rice or kindness of heart, started to replace part of the rice ration with soya beans. As the soya bean is one of the best foods in the world from a nutritive point of view, there was great rejoicing in the camp until the hygiene officer discovered that most of the beans were leaving the body just as they entered it, being too hard to be digested.

Some Dutchmen in the camp then came the rescue and showed us how to make Tempe from the beans. This Tempe is a Dutch, rather Javanese, method of treating the bans and makes them easily digestible. There is a fungus named Rhizopus which is found in hibiscus flowers abounding in Singapore, and this fungus when grown on the beans softens them and makes them digestible.

Before the fungus can grow on them the husks have to removed from the beans. This is done by soaking the beans in water and then passing them between two loose rollers.

In the Tempe factories in Java, I was told, the natives substitute their large flat feet for these rollers, and this may be why Tempe is not eaten a great deal by the Europeans there. After the husks are removed the fungus seed is mixed through the beans which are then spread about one inch thick on trays. After about thirty-six hours the beans are covered with a grey furry fungus (like that which grows on a piece of old cheese) and have become a solid mass ready for cooking. Tempe is excellent fried, baked or boiled; in fact almost anything can be done with it. Medical officers were convinced that making Tempe from the beans was the best way to get the most value from them, and demonstrations were held at the Vitamin Centre to instruct he cooks how to prepare this Javanese dish.

Most thought Tempe most tasty when fried something between mushrooms and pork!

Another branch of the work done in the vitamin factory was the making of rice polishings extract. Rice polishing is that part of the rice which is removed by milling, just as bran and pollard are removed from wheat. Most of the Vitamin B, in rice is removed with polishing so consequently these rice polishings are very rich in vitamins. They were well used medicinally, but anything more than two to three ounces acted like a super dose of Epsom-salts.

Sometimes the medical officers wished to administer more than two ounces, hence the need for making an extract. To make the extract the rice polishings were soaked in slightly acid water overnight and next morning were wrapped in canvas and placed in the extracting press. This was a hollow steel cylinder into which a plunger was screwed. This squeezed the extract containing the vitamin out of the polishings. Men could drink without any ill-effect up to a pint of this extract which was the equivalent of about three quarters of a pound of original polishings.

There was one other department in the vitamin factory which, although not connected in any way with vitamins, deserves mention. This was the distillery.

Alcohol, for use in the operating theatre and skin wards of the hospital, was terribly scarce and vitally necessary. Quite a lot was made by fermenting old peelings, skins and sugar, and distilling off the alcohol. When the price of sugar rose to ten dollars per pound and the peelings and skins were being used in stews, the source of raw material was gone until, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, our hosts sent into the camp a shipment of rice too bad to eat.

With a fungus called samsu, which the Chinese use for making rice wine or toddy, this bad rice was turned first into sugar, then into alcohol. For obvious reasons this manufacture of alcohol was not generally known among the prisoners, and no doubt many would be surprised to know that the spirit which made them smart when applied to their tinea, etc., was made in the camp from rice too bad for them to eat.

How very fortunate the camp was in having at its disposal chemists, botanists and engineers who were able, by their knowledge and ingenuity, not only to keep men tolerably healthy, but to save many lives.

"DIETITIAN"

DAY OF LIBERATION

ANOTHER German winter was over. It was the beginning of spring but there was a biting wind and we were still cold. The guard at the main gate was playing with the key dangling from his neck and stamping his left leg in a vain attempt to keep warm. He limped as he walked because his other leg
was an artificial one. The physical qualities of our sentries had gradually deteriorated over the years and most of them were emaciated dodderers by this April (1945) morning.

None of us walking around the compound took much notice when the sirens down in the town started wailing to greet the first wave of Fortresses. We automatically looked up, but without any great interest. For the past two years it had become an almost daily performance. They weren't very high and seemed to be taking things easy. Way up top, almost out of sight, the packs of escorting Lightnings ambled along keeping an eye on things. Lines of condensation trailed behind them and we assumed Leipzig was due for some more attention. Or perhaps it would be Dresden or Chemnitz. Germany was fast dwindling in size and some of the hitherto neglected cities of Saxony were at last beginning to feel the weight of the Allies' might in the air.

This grim picture didn't even worry our Kommandant, Major Rudolf Kiffin. His home was somewhere in the shattered mess that had once been Bremen and it pleased him to know that these high-talking Saxons were finally beginning to understand there was a war on. But it was a different story when those fifty odd Mustangs appeared out of the blue and proceeded to churn up the convoy of army trucks on the road that passed no more than thirty yards from the outside wire of our pen. Then they picked out the two ammunition trains stranded on the line near the town.

There was a lot of noise. The German gunners on, the trains threw up some vicious but wildly aimed ack-ack but the money was easy.

Some terrific explosions shook the camp. The Mustangs dived over us and waved their wings in recognition.

Higher up the Forts carried peacefully on, unmolested. It was a lovely day and I felt good. It was the day of our liberation and each hour had its story.

9 a.m. Tom Goddard returns his miniature radio to its hiding place in the chimney and reads the forbidden London news to some forty men behind the barrack near the camp cemetery. Standing on the edge of the group I see Tony de Malo, the tough little Yankee Wop from Boston. He is weeping unashamedly. Tom has told us Roosevelt is dead. Patton's famous Third has taken Erfurt and Weimar which is only eighty miles away. It's all happening too easily. I still don't think the Jerries will let us go as easily as all this.

10 a.m. The padre conducts two quick funerals - an American and a Sikh. The graves are filled in and Len Stanford cheekily waves the Union Jack to three fighters that have strafed the Wehrmacht stragglers on the fringe of the forest. The Germans-love to be correct and let us have a Union Jack for funerals. Some of the soldiers on the road are killed and we hear women screaming. I feel unsafe and
write a last note to my family just in case something goes wrong.

11 a.m. Ten S.S. men emerge from the trees, escorting a lone man whose hands are tied behind his back. Every few steps the S.S. officer hits the shuffling man on the back of the neck with a revolver butt. They go behind some bushes and there is a volley of shots. The S.S. come back. When they see some of us watching, they get into step and start singing. They sing beautifully.

Noon. The Forts are still passing over and more fighters machine-gun the road. Some Jewesses come by the camp. Their guards are S.S. girls with pistols strapped around their slim waists and they carry whips which cut across the women's shoulders. They say there is a train waiting to take them to Dresden. No one tells them the lines have been blown to pieces. The S.S. girls are young and attractive but wear no make-up. Not at all sinister looking and I mentally liken them to the average girl you see going to work in Sydney each morning. A Jewess waves to us and a whip around the legs for her trouble.

Bill Simpson hands me a sandwich but I feel too sick to eat.

1 p.m. The B.B.C. is sending out messages to all Anglo-American P.O.W's in East Germany, urging them to be careful and make for the nearest Russian troops. We are now glad the Jerries shifted us west to Saxony six weeks before.

2 p.m. Two Red Cross trucks arrive from Switzerland with a load of food parcels. Both vehicles are damaged and one of the drivers tells us they ran into the middle of a battle the night before. He has been wounded in the left arm but insists on helping us unload his cargo. We all feel the thrill of unspoken gratitude to the Red Cross which has kept us alive and made this day possible.

3 p.m. A diving Mustang crashes a short distance from the camp. The dead pilot's name Wilson Doyle and we find a four-day-old birthday cable from New York in his pocket. My hands are cold so I take his flying-gloves marked "Property of U.S. Army Air Force".

4 p.m. I go into a room to read the news to Jim Curtis, the American Captain from Cincinnati. Jim was picked up after lying wounded in the no-man's land of the Ardennes for nearly fortnight. He will lose both his frost-bitten feet. The stench is almost unbearable. He asks me for the latest Richard Dimbleby commentary. I see two Australian orderlies carrying a stretcher from the diphtheria barrack. It is Gene Larson. I remember promising to write note to his girl if he didn't pull through.

5 p.m. One of the German girls from the office outside the wire says Hauptmann Freitag wants to see me in his office. There is no answer to my knock, so I peep inside. Freitag is weeping with his head buried in his hands. He throws his iron cross on the floor, takes a Luger from his desk and invites me to shoot him. I don't understand but take the thing and put it into my pocket. Through the window I see our guards running down the road. Two minutes later a shell whines over and lands in the forest about a mile away. It is an American shell. The Kommandant hands over the camp to our colonel. Would he mind saying a good word for him when the Americans get there? The Kommandant is still smoking a cigar. Outside there is a rush led by Bertrand the little French hunchback from Rouen. Bertrand's knife slashes a rope that brings the swastika crashing to the ground. Its place is quickly taken by our home-made Old Glory and two thousand men cheer wildly. The colonel commandeers every weapon in the guards' room and gets volunteers to patrol the area. Con Bassett from Sydney and Kevin Houston of the gallant Rawalpindi are put in charge of our security and treat their job seriously. They get plenty of volunteers. There are still streams of German troops and civilians on the road and the colonel orders us to keep quiet and show no lights. Two indignant Frenchmen immediately flash torches and are quickly put under armed guard.

6 p.m. It is now very dark. A German panzer noses its way to the edge of the wire. The blond youth in the turret switches on a searchlight and I can see one of his arms in a sling. He expresses the hope that we will all soon be safely home. Most of us are smoking and he asks for a cigarette. When I say there are none in the camp, he gets angry and shouts out that the war isn't over by a long shot. He says we've only seen the V-1 and V-2 so far, but just wait till the Führer plays his trump card. Anyhow he isn't going to surrender to any mongrel Yankee. The tank disappears into the night.

7 p.m. The American shells are now coming thick and strong but aren't coming anywhere near us, so no one worries. Tom Goddard has his radio in full view and we hear Flanagan and Allen singing "Home Town". An Australian general says there is still a tough fight ahead in the Pacific. We relieve the Kommandant of several thousand cigars. He explains that his cousin in the States sent him a big stock in 1940.

8 p.m. Our cooks turn out a huge meal but we don't feel like eating much. Some of us sit down and play crib in the tower above the main barrack. The Russians, Poles and Czechs are talking about getting out and killing Germans, so the colonel tells our guard to keep an eye on them. They take a poor view of this. Another Frenchman shows a light and joins the others in the guard-room. When the American barrage gets heavier the colonel orders us to carry the non-walking patients into the cellars that honeycomb under the barracks. A shell lands in the Russian barrack but doesn't explode. This makes the Russians even more chary of their Western allies.

9 p.m. Another Yank dies from diphtheria. Jack Lawton, the South African M.O. looking after the contagious cases, hasn't slept for nearly three days. There is an SOS for some penicillin from Major Fulton who has over one hundred patients at Katz which is an annex of our camp. It takes an hour to walk there. Harry Smythe and I take the precious stuff and on the way over we are stopped by some S.S. soldiers carrying Tommy guns and bazookas. We tell them about Armstrong, the Canadian air gunner who has pneumonia. The officer says something about Germans being the most humane race on earth and when we agree, he lets us pass. Both of us are scared but get back to our camp all right.

10 p.m. We play crib again. The padre keeps looking at the Germans on the road. He uses
some language that he will have to forget when he is back with his flock in Scotland. The sirens in the town start screaming again and it isn't long before the R.A.F. is over. Some explosions shake the camp but the bombing is a long way off. The pathfinders drop some parachute flares near us.

11 p.m. Eight British P.O.W's from another camp reach us. Some S.S. troops have burned their camp to the ground and shot most of the German guards. This news prompts the colonel to double our patrol strength.

Midnight. The Lancasters are still hammering away in the distance. A German officer on the road says the Russians are only eight miles from Chemnitz. That means about twenty miles from us. This explains the thousands of Jerries making in the direction of the American advance. London says von Papen has been captured.

1 a.m. Some more stray Tommies crawl into the camp. Among them is Jock Ferguson's youngest boy who was caught in Normandy. He has been on the track from East Prussia for the past seven weeks. Father and son cannot speak for several minutes.

2 a.m. The colonel is still talking to the patients in the cellars. Someone plays a record of "Me and My Gal" and I start packing my kit-bag. One of the Swiss truck drivers can play crib so he joins us.

3 a.m. The lights fail. A Pole's appendix plays up and is duly removed by candlelight. Jim Passlow has the Nazi flag and is getting us all to autograph it.

4 a.m. I am now losing two thousand marks at crib. The Kommandant stands watching the game but is nearly in tears and talks to no one. He gratefully accepts a cigar from Len Stanford.

5 a.m Jock Maclean is busy cleaning a new typewriter he has liberated from the outside office. I argue with a Tommy about the winner of the Wimbledon title in 1933 and I bet him two thousand marks it was Jack Crawford. Someone has cooked two geese and we eat them.

6 a.m. Hauptmann Freitag comes into the tower. His iron cross is back on his tunic. He turns away when I ask if he still wants me to shoot him. There is a shout from a Kiwi sergeant who has seen flashes on the hill about six miles away. Most of us think they must be American tanks. John Cowan is certain the Germans are counter-attacking. He doesn't look normal and is walking about in a daze. On the radio we hear "Watcha know Joe?" and a voice says "This is A.F.N. - American Forces Network-broadcasting in E.T.O. -European Theatre Operations- Third Army. . ."The artillery is still pounding it out.

7 a.m. The cooks are taking food to the patients. I shave and brush my boots. Davey Simmons is taking snap-shots with his homemade camera.

8 a.m. We can all see things moving down the road towards us. The Jerries are still cluttering up the road. They don't attempt to interfere with us and look sullenly at the American flag floating in the breeze. I promise to carry Jud Crowdson down to the road as soon as the moment comes. Jud's gun crew was blown up at Geilenkirchen and he has no feet. The Kommandant asks me if the Americans will capitulate now that Roosevelt is dead.

9 a.m. Everyone is waiting outside the main barrack. The colonel tells us to behave with dignity when the Americans arrive. . . .

10 a.m. We watch in dead silence. Padre stands next to me muttering almost mechanically, "You - - - beauties!" The Germans on the road make way for the strange-looking vehicles. It seems an age before three of the things pull up with a screech of brakes opposite the gate. There are three men in each and a machine gun points skyward. The men wear tin hats we've never seen before and carry little short-barrelled rifles. They vault to the ground and walk slowly towards the wire. No one speaks. Through the comer of an eye I see the colonel make as if to move forward and then hesitate. The padre is still muttering. One of the strangers comes to the edge of the compound, looks at us and then speaks:

"Well, I guess you guys are mighty glad to see us! "

More brakes screech and more smiling men come up to the gate. Colossal tanks roll to a stop and more men get out, young men carrying Tommy guns and all wearing the same dust-coloured uniforms. The colonel's lips move, then he straightens his shoulders and takes a pace forward. I sense that I too am nearing the gate. Padre is shuffling beside me. So are Stanford, Benson, Walters, Ginger Searle and the rest of them. We are moving. Slowly, it seems. Then we are flying.

The colonel breaks into a run but younger men catch and pass him in a flash. In three seconds I am gripping the hand of an unshaven, smiling young man and pumping it up and down. A roar goes up and two thousand voices break into an uncontrolled babble in ten languages. I can see the colonel struggling to catch up with the leaders and he makes it too. He stands yelling to a chap who shoves a packet of cigarettes into his hand. Komorov, Nikitin, Sokov and the other Russians are crying and nattering in their own tongue to no one in particular. So are the French, the Poles, the Tommies. Everyone. . . .

"What outfit were you in, pal?"

" 2/1 Machine Gun Battalion."

"Never heard of it. You're a Limey, aren7t you?"

"No. Australian."

'Been a prisoner long ?"

"Just on four years. Greece, 1941-"

"You poor - - - ! You poor goddam - - It would've driven me nuts."

"A lot of my mates have been here five years. Caught at Dunkirk."

"Yeah, I've heard that name some place."

"Anyhow we think you Yanks are pretty wonderful."

"Say, how did you know we were Yanks?"

"Your accent, I suppose."

"Do you use American cigarettes, Aussie;"

"Thanks. What show are you chaps in ?"

"Show ?"

"Outfit."

"Oh! Fourth Armoured Division, General George Patton's Third U.S. Army. Sure, I like cocoa. Thanks. Hey, Aussie, here's a book for you to read. It's called I Never Left Home. Written by Bob Hope."

"Who's he?"

"Say, are you kidding? Did you get that, George? This Aussie doesn't know Bob Hope. This cocoa's pretty nice. Here, take a few packs of cigarettes. Got a spare 'K' ration, George? "

I carry Jud Crowdson down to the road and sit him up on the first tank and he meets an officer who comes from Kentucky too. Padre is sitting on the side of a tank drinking whisky with an American private. An American recce plane chugs over our heads and more Mustangs appear.

A white-helmeted Yank M.P. tells me the S.S. girls have been caught and are in a cage down the road. Army ambulances are arriving and Jim Curtis calls to me as he is being loaded into one. It is Gotha and then New York by air for him. He waves and is gone. A bit later two American Red Cross waggons swing into the camp. The drivers are girls. They wear slacks and come over to us, grinning. One puts out her hand to me and speaks.

"Welcome to liberty, RAMP."

"But that's not my name."

"You're all RAMP. Recovered Allied Military Personnel. R-A-M-P."

"Oh"

Here I am speaking to a girl who probably doesn't even know a word of German. A girl with a friendly smile. And she speaks English. In a few minutes hundreds of men are filing past the waggons. The American artillery rumbles on and the Mustangs skip over the trees again. I sit on the side of a jeep with Len Stanford. We eat three doughnuts. Then we sip sweet, black coffee. The dream has lasted one thousand four hundred and fifty-four days. Len asks me if I am superstitious. He points to a calendar in his diary.

It is Friday the thirteenth.

We each light another cigar.

IVAN CHAPMAN, SECOND A.I.F.

INVITATION TO SUPPER

IN the Territory where circumstances sometimes tended to upset the human bases of friendship, it was not unknown for a man's popularity to be measured in unorthodox units known as "bottles".

There was no distinction between the "bottle", unit of esteem, and the "bottle" containing beer. They were essentially the same. A three-bottle man, for instance, was quite a fellow. It meant that his allowance plus "contacts" enabled him to get at least three bottles a week!

However, when you spoke of, say, George, as "being quite a one", you did not mean that George was quite a character. You were being disparaging. George was of very low caste; unable to associate with the upper strata of three- and four-bottle types.

The point was you could be guilty of many forms of antisocial behaviour without affecting overmuch your standing in the community provided your bottle status was sufficiently high.

This is not to say that ordinary standards were forgotten altogether. They weren't; but you will better appreciate the state of affairs when I tell you that on one occasion an absent-minded guard sprang to attention and presented arms when L.A.C. Blank, a six bottle type, emerged suddenly from the dusk into the light of the guard-house.

Such incidents help to explain the suspicions which sometimes surrounded the most friendly gestures. Why should I have been cautious about accepting an invitation to supper, for instance?

For no apparent reason. True, the invitation came from my R.A.N. friend, Signalman Wraye, and he had said, casual-like, . . . . . . . . .and bring anything you have with you, old chap! "

It was also true that the Navy had had their issue cut temporarily to one bottle per man, per week, perhaps, whereas I was of two-bottle status, and had been for some time. However, Wraye had mentioned "snorkers" which was vulgar for sausages, and they were hard to come by. He was playing solitaire darts outside his hut when I arrived. Being temporarily shore-based he had to keep fit somehow.

"Step right inside, ole pal, ole friend, ole mate!" he cried, taking charge of the two bottles I was carrying.

I went inside and sat on the best box as befitting my superior status. It was fitted with a top of sponge rubber on which was stencilled in huge letters UNITED STATES NAVY. It was the subject of some comment among Wraye's messmates that lend-lease appeared to operate mainly in favour of Signalman Wraye. In truth there were few more skilled in the art of manufacturing "Japanese" souvenirs than my friend.

He placed my two bottles on the table with a gesture that seemed to indicate that they were easy come by, and produced his own solitary bottle with a flourish. It could have been champagne. We were a long time over drinking "our" beer and I was beginning to wonder about the snorkers when Wraye said, "Now, cooking supper is quite an evolution and I must ask for your co-operation."

"Only too pleased" I said and began to operate under his orders. I got up and fished around for paper while he produced the "primus" from a secret place under the floor.

It was a biscuit tin with a hole in the top to take the tin-lid-frying-pan. There was a stoke hole in front and air-holes around the sides.

"Flash up" he snapped. For a shore-based sailor he could get very nautical at times.

I lit a piece of paper and shoved it in the stoke-hole. Then followed a succession of fashion pages screwed into balls. The fuel ratio per tin of snorkers worked out at something, like three pages from the Women's Weekly and two copies of Army News.

The snorkers were fried in the greasy mixture which enveloped them in the tin. It gave off a particularly thick brand of smoke which Wraye said was the nearest thing to a cruiser's smoke-screen which he'd ever seen ashore.

I had no reason to doubt him. It made me weep.

"They'll start banging soon," he said.

"Who'll start banging?"

"The blokes next door - see that?"

I looked up and through my tears saw the smoke pouring through a hole in the partition which separated us from the next hut.

"It always does that," said Wraye with great satisfaction.

"They'll be asleep, won't they?" I said.

"Not for long," said Wraye hopefully.

He was right. I was just popping the end of the first smoky snorker into my mouth when the banging started.

It was a measured beat designed to annoy. It went on for a full minute to Wraye's great amusement. Then someone shouted through the wall:

"Wraye, you filthy hound-you're frying again!

"Right, first time!" yelled Wraye.

"Put it out-put it out-put it out"

Two voices took up the chant which measured beat for beat the banging on the wall. In huge delight Wrave joined in. Banging the wall with both fists he chanted defiantly. I sat looking on.

I was wondering how long this peculiar ritual would continue when I realized, to my mild amazement, that it was being taken up elsewhere. From one or two huts in the near vicinity came the thud of fists on wooden walls.

Gradually the chant swelled: "Put it output it out-put it out . . ."

Odd behaviour-the compensatory actions of men fed to the teeth with the never changing isolation of an operational area in which only the enemy was occasionally operational - was not new.

In the somewhat foreign atmosphere of a Navy camp, however, I did not feel like joining in. Besides the behaviourism of one bottle men could be expected to be a little more primitive than that of their superiors.

I fled.

Behind me as I walked swiftly down the wide moonlit Darwin street, the noise of frustrated, white savages filled the air.

I got back to the comparative sanity of my own camp and collapsed on the bush-bed. Outside the P.A. system was bawling, "All that meat and no potatoes . . ."-one of the classics provided to keep men sane.

It was an uncomfortable background to my thoughts, but not altogether irrelevant. Wraye was a one-bottle type. True; but there was something about his suppers which was missing from the occasional celebrations in my camp.

Why shouldn't he, with his one bottle, be invited to supper here? There was a little too much bottle-snobbishness and not enough madness in our camp lines.

The mental picture of Wraye in his smoke filled hut, the smell of frizzled snorkers, the sound of wooden-wall tom-toms and chanting neighbours filled my senses.

Outside "Fats" Waller continued to sing about all that meat and no potatoes.

Suddenly I got up and began to beat on the wall.

GUY B. H. SAUNDERS, R.A.A.F.