The Forgotten Highlander - Alistair Urquhart [89]
I was still drifting alone. By the time the sun came up on the fifth day I could no longer see; my eyes had been seared by the dazzling sun and sparkling sea. I had no eyebrows or hair on my head; I think the sheer shock of what was happening to me had caused my hair to fall out. I kept moving around in my tiny raft the best I could and prayed for rain. I sang to myself and vainly tried to croak out loud, urging myself: ‘Hang on in there until you can’t hang on any longer.’
Badly burned by the sun, my tongue swollen, gripped by a maddening thirst, effectively blind and completely hairless, I fell into a trance-like state. I was on the very edge of death. At some point on that fifth day there came a lot of shouting around me. I was lifted into a small boat and then on to a Japanese whaling ship. I must have been left on deck but from there on I have no real recollection. I don’t know what the Japanese on board that ship did for me. As far as I was concerned they just left me alone but they must have at least given me some water. I was as close to death as I had ever been.
The next thing I knew I was being dropped off at a port, which I later learned was on Hainan Island. Congregated there were other shipwrecked POW survivors. As a punishment we were paraded through the village stark naked. One man shouted out, ‘If we work like horses, we may as well look like them.’
I was so burned and emaciated and ill that I staggered through the streets like a drunk. Some of the locals turned their backs on this terrible procession but others jeered and spat at us. I was past caring. There must have been at least a hundred of us, and then came an incredible and inspiring episode. As we stumbled along in the pouring rain someone started singing. It was ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, and slowly we all took up the song and joined in, singing a very rude version of the hit – complete with altered lyrics crudely deriding our Japanese captors. Even in this terrible condition and after all we had been through, my comrades, ravaged by exposure, naked and in slavery, were defiant, their spirits unbroken.
Eight
Sentimental Journey
The effects of the exposure I suffered during my ordeal in the South China Sea had led to a complete collapse in my health. At the camp on Hainan I hovered at death’s door, drifting in and out of awareness, but out of it for most of the time. Eventually on 18 September I was stretchered on to another hellship and lowered into the hold. As our ship made a dash for the Japanese mainland, dodging prowling American submarines, I lay blissfully unaware of the grim conditions in the bowels of the vessel.
It was another terrible journey and must have been full of angst for the conscious survivors. We were on board for eleven days with no drugs or medical assistance whatsoever for 120 ill men in our contingent. Terrified of further attacks the Japanese had commandeered all of the life-belts and despite the protests of Captain Wilkie had two or three each, while there were none available for prisoners. In fact our convoy was attacked again and a destroyer sunk. We were lucky to escape being sunk for a second time and it was nothing short of miraculous that only five men died in the holds during the voyage. Unknown to me I was lucky and had a guardian angel – Dr Mathieson was tending to me.
I came to my senses as we arrived in Japan and found myself being driven into the middle of a barren, almost desert-like landscape to a bleak prison camp surrounded by a ten-foot-high wooden fence, with barbed wire on top. Along with others I was slung into a timber hut, where we slept on the floor Japanese style. Exhausted I did not wake the entire night. Next morning I struggled to make it out of the hut for roll-call. We were issued with Japanese-green, all-in-one boiler suits with zip-up fronts, and rubber boots like the Nippon soldiers wore. I had to roll the sleeves up on my overalls,