The Forgotten Highlander - Alistair Urquhart [63]
‘Do you have anything for malaria?’ I asked hopefully.
‘Don’t eat for a day. That may help for a bit. If you’re still sick, crush up three spoonfuls of charcoal and get that down you. Apart from that there’s very little I can do, even though the world’s largest quinine factory is over on Java. I don’t imagine any of it getting passed on to us, do you?’
He said, ‘The Japs think that poor health is a sign of weakness of the spirit. They think that beating us only makes us stronger. That is the kind of people we’re dealing with here.’
‘What can you do for this?’ I asked him, lifting a foot on to a bamboo chair.
‘Tropical ulcers. A disease of food, filth and friction. Do you know what maggots look like?’
‘Maggots?’ I asked, frantically inspecting my foot, praying that I was subject to some sick joke.
‘Yes, maggots. They’ll fix you right up. Go down to the latrines, find yourself a handful of those wee white beasties and sit them on your ulcers. They will chomp through the dead flesh and before you know it you’ll be right as rain.’
Almost as an afterthought, he added, ‘Remember to count how many you put on carefully. You don’t want to forget one and leave it in there to eat itself to death.’
I left the medical hut, shaking my head, still wondering if I were being had. Letting maggots eat my skin did not sound particularly appetising but I was willing to try anything. I knew I had to stop the rot that was devouring my legs.
The latrines were nothing more than holes in the ground but now with bamboo slats across them. A bunch of jungle leaves usually lay piled near by or you took your own foliage or toilet paper if there was no river water collected for the job. I did not have to go far to find what I was looking for. I gingerly scooped up a handful of maggots, watching them squirm and wriggle. Without thinking about it too much I found a quiet spot near by and sat down, placing just two or three on a nasty ulcer on my ankle. The maggots, which were about a quarter of an inch long, instinctively knew what to do. They started gnawing away at my skin with the most minuscule of bites. The sensation was of tingling, unearthly yet not altogether unpleasant, until the realisation that maggots were eating your raw flesh came racing back to the forefront of your mind. I can still feel that sensation to this day.
But to Dr Mathieson’s credit it certainly worked. Within days the wounds had started to heal and new skin grew back. It was a trick that I persisted with throughout my time on the railway, passing it on to other men when I thought I could do so without being dismissed as a Jap-happy sicko.
No matter how much the Japanese increased our workload, or how hard they pushed us, we generally could not manage to progress more than twenty feet per day. After sixty straight days on the railway – with no days off; no public or bank holidays – we had reached the dreaded slab of rock that barred our path for the next five hundred or six hundred yards. The mere sight of that rock must have been enough for one prisoner, who made a bid for freedom.
I was unaware that anyone had escaped until one morning at tenko a sorry-looking chap was dragged before us. He had been beaten horrifically, his swollen and bloody features virtually unrecognisable. The interpreter told us, ‘This man very bad. He try to escape. No gooda.’
Two guards threw down on the ground in front of us the battered wreck of a human frame and made him kneel. He did not plead for mercy or beg for assistance. He knew his fate and waited silently, resigned to it. The Black Prince, who seemed to have dressed up especially for the occasion, strode forward and unsheathed his long samurai sword. He prodded the prisoner in the back, forcing him to straighten up. Then the Black Prince raised his