The Forgotten Highlander - Alistair Urquhart [88]
Images began flooding back. I could see the fantastic sight of the mighty carts that belonged to Wordie and Co. picking up goods from the warehouse to take them down to the railway goods station. It was amazing to see the giant Clydesdales struggling in pairs up frosty braes, hauling huge loads with their masters whipping them on and shouting out obscenities. The carters were a ‘gallus’ lot, really rough and ready.
I laughed to myself as I thought of the rag and bone man too. At the sound of his bugle we kids would swarm behind his cart like a plague of locusts, hoping to be given a balloon or to pick up the steaming horse dung to take triumphantly back home for Mum to put on the garden. There were some real fights over that dung!
When the sun went down again it was bitingly cold. A full moon on that cloudless second night made it feel even colder for some reason. I had the bits and pieces of canvas draped over me but I was so cold. Terrified of rolling off the raft, I still had to stay awake. I was at my lowest ebb. The light from the moon struck the water and reflected bright in my eyes. I started to see things that weren’t there. Imaginary bits of wreckage or a boat would suddenly come into view. I began to lose my senses, saying to myself, ‘Come on, let yourself go. Go to sleep.’ It was always an inner battle. Half of me wanted to give up. The other half refused. And so it went on.
Alone with no sight of land, birds, dolphins or life of any kind, I sang songs to keep my mind occupied and awake. No words would come out of my parched throat but I sang them in my head. I went through all the pre-1940 dance songs I knew and always returned to my favourite: ‘It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie’.
It was a hit for Fats Waller and I sang it over and over and over in my head.
Be sure it’s true when you say I love you
It’s a sin to tell a lie
Millions of hearts have been broken
Just because these words were spoken
I love you, yes I do, I love you
If you break my heart I’ll die
So be sure it’s true
When you say I love you
It’s a sin to tell a lie
Unknown to me over 650 survivors of the Kachidoki Maru had already been picked up by the Japanese and the Pampanito, which had returned to the scene of the original attack to make a horrible discovery. As the submarine surfaced amid the debris and wreckage of the Rakuyo Maru, the crew saw survivors who had been in the water for three days and were horrified when weak voices started shouting. At first the young Americans could not understand the British and Australian accents, until one of the sailors made out the words ‘pick us up, please!’ Then the awful reality dawned. These oil-covered survivors were not Japanese but English, Scottish and Australian. The wolf pack had sunk two hellships packed with prisoners of war. One thousand four hundred and three allied servicemen had died as a result of the failure of the Japanese to observe the Geneva Convention and apply red crosses to our hellships.
Pampanito promptly radioed for assistance, and the Sealion II and two other American submarines returned to the scene. With survivors too weak to clamber aboard the subs, American sailors dived into the sea to pull men out, rescuing a total of 159 men. A handful died on board and the Americans were horrified at the condition of the survivors and to hear about the Death Railway and the privations we had endured. Incredibly the evidence gleaned from these survivors allowed the allies to discover for the first time the true extent of the horrors on the Death Railway and simultaneous announcements were subsequently made to stunned Houses of Parliament in both London and Canberra.
The men picked up by the subs were the lucky ones. Joe Bates, communications officer on the Sealion II, later told how his captain angered the crew by ordering the submarine to dive after rescuing just fifty survivors, leaving behind dozens of others frantically calling out, ‘Over here! Over here!’ It was a heartbreaking decision