I packed into my car the few things I had been using during the preceding days, checked up for water and air, and left for Jalan Kangsar, where the convoy was to be formed. Down the hill I drove, past the clock which commemorated the Coronation. It had stopped, naturally, the men whose duty it was to tend it having ceased work four days ago. I had the sudden foolish thought that here was one job I could have done before I left, wind the clock up, but ruefully realised how meaningless were such ideas as I ran along Jalan Kangsar to take up my position at the tail of the convoy.

When my car was in position I walked up and down the line, smoking a cigarette and trying to keep out of mind the flood of memories which were making the parting so hard for me. Horsley came up and spoke in a low voice; rather as one speaks at a funeral. And Kuala Kangsar really was dead that night. A solitary Malay on a bicycle, a Penghulu, had come to say good-bye to one of the party. There was not a soul besides.

The young Police officer, my next-door neighbour, passed in his small Morris and gave me a cheerful grin. Good for him. thought I; he had not much about which he could smile, for his Police force had been disbanded and his wife had been evacuated to the south a few days after war had broken out.

The District Officer made hurried final arrangements with the convoy leaders. They walked back, counting as they passed; we were all ready.

It was a moonless night when we moved off. We had left it a little too late, and three armoured cars headed the convoy in case we should meet trouble at Sungei Siput.

The convoy had only reached Iskandar Bridge when rain began to fall. My car battery had faded out, so that I had to race the engine to get a mere glimmer from the blacked-out lamps. If the engine stopped I should have to be pushed along in gear. We crawled along the bridge, over the trenches which contained enough gun-cotton to cut through the decking, bridged over by loose boards. Men were standing by to blow the bridge up as soon as we were over. Although we had only travelled three miles out of the thirty I was tired, my eyes were aching, and my ankles were weak from frequent braking. The engine was hot owing to the low gear work, for the car was overloaded and could not travel slowly in a higher gear.

When we were within two miles of Sungei Siput, at the point where the road runs under the railway in an S-bend, we came upon a convoy of army lorries, parked with lights out on each side of the road. The space left for traffic was about ten feet; it was pitch black and still raining. We stopped, and my engine stalled. When the convoy moved on, I just stayed where I was. It was hopeless trying to crank the engine - it took half an hour to find the hole, and it was a big car. Half a dozen Indian soldiers pushed me for a hundred yards before I could start. I gave them a tin of cigarettes and moved on.

The troops were lining the road for four miles, right through Sungei Siput, and I breathed a very large sigh of relief when we had left them behind. But a little farther on we were stopped by a flood. The heavy rains had covered the road to a depth of at least a foot for half a mile. I saw the shape of an army lorry bogged by the roadside as I passed.

We stopped, restarted, crawled along, stopped again, crawled a little farther and stopped again. And so it was all the way. We arrived at Ipoh after four hours, having travelled thirty miles.

Horsley and I put up in an engineer's home for the night, and though I slept on the floor, that short rest was the most luxurious experience I had had for many long days.

We reported to the State Engineer the next morning, and were told that we were to strike farther south that afternoon. I had to get a new battery, for I couldn't go on like that. I went into the town with another young engineer, a new arrival named Jewkes.

Ipoh was a tragedy of desolation. The main streets were empty save for an occasional army lorry passing on patrol with a machine or Lewis gun crew on the alert for aircraft. The huge glass fronts of Borneo Motors and the other car dealers were shattered, the Chinese shops were boarded up. A light coat of debris covered the broad carriageway. As we drove down the deserted street the air raid siren wailed its grim warning. A solitary Japanese bomber cruised casually overhead, and the ack-ack guns on the edge of the town followed its impertinent manoeuvres. We saw it dive very low, and heard a terrible explosion in the region of the railway station.

It was impossible to buy anything, as there was nobody there to sell; so we walked into a car-dealer's shop and selected a battery, one which was on the charging-bench, and filled it up with acid. I managed to get a spare wheel also, complete with tyre. They were about the only things left in the place, for the shelves of the store had been ransacked for spares by the military. The Japanese would get very little of value from Ipoh, we were glad to realise as we returned to the house.

A second bomber came overhead as we stood in the garden by the car. We sheltered beneath the trees so as not to attract attention, for the aircraft was flying very low, and we could pick out the Rising Sun on its silver wings. The plane went into a dive, straight from the sky towards the spot where we were standing, and we darted for cover. But there was a bigger prize two hundred yards away, at the station, and the raider released his bombs on an ammunition train. The din was terrific. A huge mass of black smoke rose high in the air, mingling with the smoke and flames of the oil and petrol which were burning from the first attack. Roll after roll of noise and great crashes of sound told of bursting tanks and exploding wagon-loads of ammunition. The sturdy house quivered at each reverberation.

The All Clear was sounded, but the explosions could still be heard when we left the scene at 2 p.m.

The rain was sheeting down, so that all windows of the car had to be closed. The interior steamed like a Turkish Bath, and every half-minute I had to run my hand over the wind-screen. Even that was very little help, as the visibility in a tropical rain storm is almost nil. The strain of sitting bolt upright, watching for the car in front to stop or slow down, with eyes peering through the misty glass at the solid wall of rain, was too much for us to stand for very long. After an hour the convoy pulled into the roadside, and the occupants alighted to stretch their legs and ease their backs, not caring if they were drenched so long as there was a little relief. I remembered that a few bottles of beer had been stuffed into the car at the last moment, and we refreshed ourselves, finishing with a cigarette.

Tapah was our first stopping-place, and we besieged the Executive Engineer there at about 6 p.m. I was told to stay the night at the Rest House with another Assistant Engineer named Boardman, and we had visions of a real dinner, a soft bed, and a long night's rest, instead of the scratched meals, doors, and short naps of the previous week.

The Rest House was crowded. A construction unit of the R.N.Z.A.F. took up most of the room, and various officers of the Army and Engineers were occupying the rest. After a great deal of arranging, Boardman and I were given a room, which we shared with a young second lieutenant The limited dining space necessitated our waiting until someone had finished eating before we could grab a place at the table. The menu was very simple; a particularly uninspiring soup, with sausage and mash to follow, and a cup of stewed tea.

When dinner was over we looked around for a seat in the lounge. Three people were sharing each chair, the most fortunate taking the seat and the others balancing on the arms. Then I heard my name, and recognised the speaker as Gaby, a pilot officer of the R.N.Z.A.F., whom I had met in Kuala Kangsar a week earlier. We were very glad to meet again, and he found me a seat and a drink. But my eyes could hardly keep open, and after a short time Boardman and I went to bed.

Harry Boardman had arrived in Malaya from England about a fortnight before the Japanese had bombed Singapore. He had not taken over a district when the orders were given to leave Taiping, where he had first been posted. As this was his first tour, his knowledge of Malay was confined to a handful of words, and he was at sea with the natives. He suggested that we stick together as much as possible.

The bedroom contained two single beds under one mosquito net. The three of us pushed the beds together and shared the space.

We were unfortunate in our journey from Ipoh to be accompanied by an engineer, who, under stress of the excitement, had given way to 'the jitters'. When the aircraft were overhead during the raids in Ipoh, he had cautiously donned a tin hat which he had managed to procure in Taiping, and stood solemnly between two brick walls beneath the house stairs, emerging only after we had assured him that the All Clear really had sounded and that no planes could be seen or heard. He had been most anxious to get on his way, and when the convoy had stopped for a rest en route he paced up and down the line of cars, all tin hat and mackintosh, a diminutive and nervous figure, trying to persuade us to forget our tiredness and push on to safer places.

Boardman and I had discussed this gentleman at some length, and our remarks amused our bedmate a great deal. He thought it extremely funny when Boardman was called to the telephone, which necessitated his dressing again, only to find that the person in question was anxious to know if we were all right. Boardman was inclined to be somewhat terse about it, until we pointed out the humour of the incident. We must have fallen asleep laughing, for the next time we awoke to a furious banging on the door. Boardman was wanted on the telephone again. His remarks were rather strong and very much to the point as he dressed.

A few moments elapsed before his return, with the news that we had to prepare to move on at once. I suppose it was 2 a.m. I jumped up, and was half-dressed before a thought struck me. "Who gave you that instruction?" I asked. Boardman grunted; "George," he said, referring to our nervous colleague.

We debated our next move, but I was certain that 'George' had acted on his own jumpy initiative and, as nobody else in the building had had any message, I said that I intended to stay where I was. Boardman agreed, but suggested that we sleep with our clothes on in case a genuine message should come through. We climbed on to the bed again, consigning George to a much warmer clime and to all manner of horrible experiences. The lieutenaut roared with laughter, which this time Boardman and I were the ones to resent until we again realised it had a funny side and dozed off amidst chuckles and general good humour.

After another half-hour the telephone rang and Boardman answered it again. Sensing what it signified, I put on my shoes and packed a small bag. Boardman returned to say that the whole convoy was awaiting our arrival and we must hurry.

I was in a very bad humour indeed when we reached the party. Horsley was there, looking particularly tired, and I asked him if anyone had thought of checking up on the message. Nobody had. Our nervous friend had heard something from the Local Defence Corps, had jumped to his own conclusion and had passed on the word to the State Engineer who headed the convoy. Again George had fooled us and there was no point in returning to bed. At 3 am. the convoy was on its way farther south.

I followed Horsley's car, and had to keep the tiny red light of his number plate within close range owing to the mist which had followed the rain of the previous day. We were constantly overtaking stationary lines of army vehicles, which took up most of the narrow carriageway, and after half an hour's running the car in front stopped. Horsley came up to me, said that he had lost the rest of the column and was so tired that he was dozing at the wheel. We ran on a few more miles until we reached a small village, and Horsley stopped again. He declared he could go no farther, and proposed to sleep in his car until dawn. One more car was following me, and we three drew in to the side, switched off our lights, and fell asleep.

The light of dawn awoke us, objects of interest and amusement to the earlier risers of the village. We were able to obtain water for the cars and oranges to quench our thirst. After a cigarette we proceeded south to find the others.

We found the convoy at Slim River. The cars had been pulled into the rubber out of sight of reconnaissance aircraft, and the State Engineer was in consultation with an army captain. We were to split up into units, working under the military, and our work was to be jungle clearing and rubber felling, using estate coolies. Horsley, Boardman, Jewkes, myself, and five or six other engineers were instructed to proceed to Tanjong Malim, on the Perak-Selangor border, and to establish ourselves in the Rest House there until further orders.

Horsley found a Chinese coffee-house in Slim River, and for the small sum of twenty-five cents we each had four boiled eggs, toast, and tinned butter and several cups of tea. It was the most delicious meal I had ever tasted, and I realised that enjoyment of a meal depends not so much on what you eat, and not at all on where you eat it, but on just how much you really need it. We had to go much farther, and there were occasions when we fared much worse.

We reached Tanjong Malim, the site of the famous Sultan Idris Training College, at noon. British and Indian troops, engineers, and an Australian transport unit, had taken over most of the accommodation, and the Rest House was already filled with army officers and evacuees. We had to prepare our own meal from the tinned foods we were carrying, and spent the afternoon sorting out the goods in our cars.

It was evening when the newly-formed P.W.D. Construction Unit installed itself in Changat Asa Rubber Estate. Two Assistant Manager's bungalows, the previous occupants of which were serving in the Volunteers, were handed over for our use.

The first and most urgent thing to be done was to take the tremendous load off our cars. Since 8th December the springs had been turned down, and we had travelled the full length of the State of Perak. We took out the clothes and cases, wireless sets, shoes, soap, towels, bottles, tins of food, and blocks of chocolate; pooled all our resources, and handed the food and drink to the boy who had been provided with the house.

It was Christmas Eve. Peace on Earth and Goodwill towards Men seemed to be a long way away, but we decided to have a celebration. There were only three of us on the first evening: Jewkes, Boardman, and myself. Our Christmas dinner was tinned sausages, tinned peas, rice, tinned soup, some puffy dry biscuits, and coffee. As a special treat we had a glass of creme de menth. Somehow, out of the plain meal in that dark, uninteresting house we three of but brief acquaintance found, for a short while, the spirit of Christmas.

December 25th, 1941, in Tanjong Malim was the strangest Christmas Day I have ever experienced. The senior officers of the unit had made arrangements for the coolies from Changkat Asa and another estate to commence work on felling the rubber trees along the line selected by the Army for defence. To reach the site of the clearing it was necessary to drive northwards from the town for two miles or so over a steel girder bridge which carried the Main Trunk Road across a river some forty or fifty feet wide.

The lorry loads of coolies, parangs, changkols, and axes arrived in the early morning, and the men were put to work. The estate had also sent a number of women and children, who we decided would be more of a hindrance on our class of work than a help. The men were put on felling, and the women were chiefly cutting down padi bukit  - particular type of rice which grows on hillsides in dry land, not the usual kind which is planted in water. The rice was ripe for reaping, and there must have been almost a square mile of it to be chopped down. The rubber trees to be felled were of a fair age, with stout trunks and large, top-heavy branches. As they grew to the edge of the road, on sloping land, we were faced with a difficult job to fell without causing serious obstruction.

We were concerned to find that the coolies had not the slightest idea as to how to fell a tree. Two Tamils would take axes and proceed to pick away all round the base, as one imagines rats might gnaw at the trunk. The tree would begin to sway and the coolies would scream warnings to all and sundry. The whole crowd would stop, those near-by scampering for their lives, while those out of range would stand and laugh. This was all very entertaining in its way, but within half an hour the fallen trees were lying about in a mad criss-cross, some only half-felled, and we had to go over the area again, chopping and lopping and pulling branches clear.

We then had to instruct these poor rubber-tappers in the art of felling. The Tamils stood by and grinned as we sweated with the axes, cutting the conventional notches fore and aft. There were awkward moments when even our careful cutting failed to drop the tree in the right direction, owing to its lopsidedness or collision, in falling, with a near-by tree, But we were moderately successful, and soon the coolies had got the idea.

We were settling down to a more or less organised day's work when the drone of aircraft was heard; the coolies stopped work, an excited jabbering broke out, and suddenly everyone was running. Direction was of no consequence so long as these poor creatures could satisfy the mad instinctive urge to get away from the place where they were standing.

The women were terrorstricken; they crouched on the ground as the Jap passed over, and retched violently, their moans and cries joining in a fearful wail.

In the near distance we could hear the explosion of bombs, and we looked at each other in dismay. They were bombing Tanjong Malim. That was the end of that, we thought; no more work could be got out of these people. As the bombing continued the distress amongst the coolies increased, and when at last the aircraft returned and flew home, many of them picked up their lunch-tins and ran away. We never saw them again.

The leaders of the gangs came to us in a deputation and asked to be allowed to go home.

A council of war was held amongst the trees and all the coolies were called together in a circle. We asked them what they were afraid of, and they explained that their wives and children were in the Coolie Lines and might have been bombed. They could not work whilst their families were in danger.

Somebody had an idea - the sort of idea that comes just when it is most needed and saves the situation. If we sent the women and children, the men would stay on to work The women were put in two lorries and sent home. Then we explained that we shouldn't employ the women again, and so they could stay in the Lines to tend the other women and children.

The coolies stayed on. We treated them carefully that day, and allowed them to return earlier than the appointed time to see their families.

Going home we found that the bombs had been aimed at the station, and that a coach had been destroyed. The wooden platform buildings were damaged and a stone wall partly demolished. The amount of damage was very small, and we observed that a crater in the road was only about nine inches deep and four feet in diameter. As far as we could ascertain, nobody had been hurt.

On the second day we made good progress, the only interruption being that caused by a reconnaissance plane, which had a good look at the work we were doing and flew off.

In the meantime the State Engineer had gone to Kuala Lumpur to arrange about supplies, money for coolies, and other matters, and he returned one evening with the news that the nine P.W.D. engineers of our party had been given temporary commissions. We inquired the reason, and were told that, as we had to work with the military, and ran the risk of being cut off by the enemy, we were likely to be shot out of hand as civilians. The uniform would at least assure us of some measure of respect by our captors.

Our captors. The thought of being captured or killed had not entered our heads until that night. Boardman, Jewkes, and I spoke little of that possibility, but I am sure we were all thinking the same thing as we joked and ragged each other about our commissions.

An issue of uniforms followed, and we were busy sorting out the tin hats, boots, and belts. We were not supplied with revolvers, as there were none available, and I was relieved, as I had not the slightest idea how to use one.

The planters who had joined forces with us - they were old soldiers - helped us with our uniforms and gave us a few tips. But the whole thing was a joke to us, though the military had stressed its necessity, and we called ourselves 'Nunn's Army', after the Director of Public Works. This soon degenerated into looser description, until the title crystallised into 'The Circus'.

And very much like a circus we looked. The issue of uniforms was inadequate, so that we wore half-uniforms for the most part. I abandoned my white topee, the only alternative being a tin hat. Others wore black shoes and cotton stockings because the army boots didn't fit. Working with us were the civilians, Mack, the Scots planter, old Dick Prior, and others. Mack drove a bright red omnibus around, and the rest of the fleet consisted of a variety of P.W.D. lorries. But we had a job of work, and were content to do it from dawn till dusk, with no money troubles, no problems of dress, no 'paper work', no red tape. Each evening we sat talking of the day's problems, and decided on the morrow's working. We were a unit, independent, free, of value to the military, doing a vital job that occupied us to the full.

Major Wakeham, my old friend from the Iskandar Bridge job, inspected our progress with a Captain Wilson on the third day, and outlined the work yet to be done. I was transferred from the rubber felling to the area where padi bukit and jungle trees were to be cleared, and a number of Chinese were added to the labour force. Chinese are stronger workers than Tamils, claim higher wages, and will work under more arduous conditions. The next few days were to be a test of this staying power.

On the fourth day we experienced our first Japanese leaflet raid. The usual daily reconnaissance plane flew along our line, and we lay low so as not to be visible. As the aircraft turned to fly home, I saw a puff of smoke behind it, and then heard a pop. I thought that perhaps it had been a backfire of the exhaust, and we resumed our work.

Half an hour later I noticed that the coolies were chattering loudly and looking into the sky. I wondered what was causing the disturbance, and a strange sight met my eyes as I peered against the strong light above. As far as the eye could see there were tiny flashing red flakes, descending with infinite slowness over the whole area of the padi fields. As the shower came nearer the ground I picked the flakes out to be pieces of red paper, fluttering and turning, wheeling and floating in the still breathless air. It seemed an age before the first sheets fell on the ground.

I picked one up. The message was written in Jawi, the natural alphabet of Malay, adapted from the Arabic, and in very bad English.

The text was as follows:

FROM AN INDIAN SOLDIER TO AN ENGLISH OFFICER.

Why don't you gives us soldiers enough food to eat? While we are fighting you English have plenty to eat. "

If the intention was to incite our Indian labourers against us, it was a miserable failure. Those coolies who could read at all could only read their native Tamil, and the excitement of the pamphlet raid had passed before any of them could obtain translations. I was interested in the papers myself, because the Jawi must have been written by a Malay, which added more evidence of the Fifth Columnist activities of that race.

Two other types of leaflets had been dropped at points amongst our widely dispersed gangs. One was a very crude cartoon of a huge white man, intended to represent a wealthy planter; he held a Malay woman on his knee, and a glass of some drink was near by. The second paper had printed on it a cartoon of English troops carrying off native women. Beneath each cartoon were the words:

"THE WHITE DEVILS WHO WILL SOON BE DRIVEN OUT OF THIS COUNTRY."

By the fifth day, in spite of the care we took to show as few scars as possible, the line of felling must have been clear to the regular reconnaissance aircraft. I was not surprised, therefore, to see two bombers approaching at midday, and I called out to the coolies to get under cover. They disappeared like a breath of wind, and I climbed into a small barn constructed of split bamboo walling and attap roof, through the walls and crevices of which I had a perfect view without showing myself.

As there was no opposition of any kind, the planes flew low, in a circle about a mile in diameter. The first got into position so that he would pass straight over the centre of the area on which my coolies were working, and then dived.

My flimsy hiding-place was directly in his path and the sight of the aircraft making straight for me was too awe-inspiring for me to realise my danger. Was it going to be bombs or bullets, I wondered, in the second's time of his dive.

It was bullets. With a deafening crackle the guns opened fire. He had passed on, and was probably fifty feet above the tiny hut at the bottom of his dive. The bomber climbed away, turning for a second assault.

I don't know what type of aircraft it was, nor how many guns there were for firing forward, but he hadn't even hit the hut. He had passed over the coolies' hiding-place before opening up.

The second plane centred itself, and went into its awful dive. This time my hair prickled and the perspiration flowed more freely. I could not move. It would have taken five minutes for me to find any other place of hiding, for the barn stood in the middle of a large area of cut padi.

I saw a small silver bomb drop from the fuselage, and it seemed to be coming straight for me. Foolishly, for I had no means of protecting myself, I threw myself flat on the floor, and waited.

The bomb missed me by fifty yards, fell into the scrub on the edge of the jungle, and exploded harmlessly.

I hadn't a great deal of interest in the events of the next few moments, but lay on the floor, watching the aircraft turn and climb, come round and dive again, drop the small bombs, and return for a further attack. Once they machine-gunned the area where the coolies were hiding, but the spot was littered with huge fallen trunks, and I was sure that nobody had been hurt. No more bombs were aimed at the area near to me, every one falling in the thick jungle on the edge of the site.

The raid was over, and I called out my men. There was a great deal of excitement, and I wondered whether or not I should have any men working on the morrow. But as nobody was hurt it was possible to counteract the nervousness by calm reassurance, and when we at last resumed work the atmosphere was quiet and normal.

On returning to the Mess I was met by a barrage of questions, for the engineers on the other portions of the works had seen that we had been in the thick of it. I resolved to put my men on a portion of the job a little distance away from the day's target, and to oscillate them from day to day.

The wisdom of this was proved on the following day, when the area was attacked again. The nearest bomb dropped fifty yards away fortunately in thickish jungle, and once again nobody was hurt.

We had a surprise in store for the Japanese when they called on us for their third day's raid, for an anti aircraft gun had been placed at the bridge in the town, and its accurate fire caused them to maintain a fair height and keep away. Bombs were dropped on a line of army vehicles between the bridge and our work, and when we returned home we saw a burnt-out truck smouldering in the middle of the road, and a second one, which apparently had been unable to avoid the vehicle in front, charred on its front wings and bonnet and all four wheels tyreless. There were small pieces of burning rubber and patches of burning oil in all directions, and it was necessary to pull the car well off the road and pass on the grass verge. A little farther on a slight camouflet effect had been caused by a bomb exploding on the top of a bank by the roadside, the screeding soil and gravel having covered a portion of the road.

By this time we expected aircraft every day, with raids growing in intensity. On 1st January we had the heaviest and most disastrous raid of all, the sort of raid which we came to recognise as the forerunner of each big Japanese push southwards.

From 1st January until the day we left, my gang was working on the top of a hill, clearing jungle to form a rentus over its crown. From this point we were able to see all that happened two miles away.

An aircraft came over, circling over the area, and the ack ack had a few rounds at it. Presently two more planes arrived, and formed up in the circle which we had found was their favourite strategy. They were keeping a good height, owing to the gun-fire, for the gunners were following them round very well, and a wide circle of smoky dots showed the accuracy of the fire.

Suddenly, to my great surprise, for it was surely suicide, a plane dived, and I saw it come out of its dive and wheel round as a rumble of explosions reached my ears. The second followed, and again came the noise of bursting bombs. Number three repeated the operation, and then all the aircraft made off at top speed. Were my eyes deceiving me, or was one of them losing height? A thin trail of smoke followed it, and certainly the plane appeared to be in dif6culties. I stood up and yelled "We've got one!" with such excitement that my coolies poked their heads out of the scrub to see what was amiss. I told them in Malay what had happened, and they let up a cheer, and one old Chinese picked up his long-handled billhook, put it to his shoulder as he would a rifle, and taking careful aim at the fast disappearing aircraft, made a realistic impersonation of a penny popgun. We continued the work.

The time came for the paymaster to appear, and the coolies were gathered together on the roadside. The tools had been checked, we were only waiting for lorries and the men's pay.

Half an hour passed before we received word that the bombs had damaged the bridge, and the lorries and cars were marooned on the other side of the river.

It was agreed that we should walk back to the town and pay off the men there. When we arrived a sorry sight met our eyes. The flimsy wooden fronts of the shops were shattered, glass and bits of brick, earth and wood were sprinkled over the street.

A stick of bombs bad been dropped across the steel bridge. Along the bank ran a neat line of five craters, about twenty yards apart. One bomb had fallen obliquely under the bridge, which was only about six feet above the bank at that point, and had blown the decking upwards, buckling the deck framing. The main structure was undamaged. On the far side of the river a whole salvo of small bombs must have been aimed at the road, for a large house on one side had been wiped out completely, leaving a sorry heap of debris and charred wood.

The Royal Engineers were already on the job, and after four hours we were able to cross the rough timber patch and go home.

As I stood at the bridge approach, a Chinese coolie came staggering up the street towards me; a number of the workmen were walking behind him, chattering excitedly. He was jerking his legs in an erratic manner, and his whole frame shook as he rocked from one leg to the other. His head was flopping and wagging from side to side, his arms flapping as if the muscles had been cut at the shoulders.

The man tried to speak to me; he wore a silly grin, and his incoherent Malay tumbled uncontrolled from his almost motionless lips. I looked inquiringly at a near-by coolie, who explained that the man was asking for yesterday's pay; he had not worked to-day, they explained, and had been in the town when it was bombed. The bombs, they said, had made him bodoh - silly.

The sight of this poor, blast-wrecked creature sickened me more than anything I had ever seen of death or blood or pain. Here, I thought, was one of the many unsuspecting victims of our Western civilisation.

It was a very quiet meal that night. A coolie and a boy had been killed near their lines in one of the estates from which we were drawing labour. There would be no coolies from that estate again. In fact we should be fortunate if any coolies were available at all, for the whole town's population had probably fled.

On the following day only a handful of Tamils and the Chinese came to work. I took my men to the job on the hill, placing them a short distance-from the previous day's site, and promised that I would sit all day on the other side of the valley, watching over them and keeping my eyes open for aircraft coming from the north.

A dozen times or more I saw or heard the approaching bombers in the distance, and I cried out in warning. After a few times the coolies grew very keen, and the situation became something of a joke. In fact, I laughed heartily at the antics of some of the men, especially one old Chinese who wore a very faded blue overall suit and a dirty white topi. He disliked the prickly grass and ferns, and picked his knees up high in the air as he bounded for cover, stepping gingerly in the deep undergrowth. The speed and completeness with which the coolies disappeared was comical in the extreme.

My own position was not so secure, as there was no cover on my side of the valley. But I wore all khaki, and a tin hat, and I lay flat amongst the sparse ferns, watching for the machines to pass on. I was rapidly becoming an artist at camouflage, for even a thermos flask must be hidden and masked by ferns lest its silver cap should catch the pilot's eye, and my white skin was covered over by folding my arms under my chin as I lay on my stomach, and tipping my tin hat over my neck.

On one occasion the pilot must have spotted as, for, when I thought he was passing on, he turned, banking steeply, dived, and raked the valley with his guns. I was sick with fear that my coolies had been hit, and held a muster immediately the aircraft had down off. Nobody was so much as scratched, and we went back to work again.

At last I called the Chinese off, and we walked up the lane to the roadside. Yet another bomber flew over, and I called the coolies to take cover in the ditch. As we lay there, two great army lorries drove into the lane at speed, the drivers jumped out, and ran for their lives. They were both Asiatics, and I thought that they had panicked.

The aircraft seemed to be machine-gunning the rubber a little farther up the road, then he turned and flew off. The anti-aircraft gun must have been silenced on the previous day, for there was no firing.

I stood up, brushed the dirt from my clothes, and called the men. When the Asiatic drivers returned we saw that they were amazed to find thirty or forty Chinese gathered round their vehicles. The reason for them leaving the lorries so hurriedly was explained when they showed me the contents.

We had been seeking protection in the ditches on either side of a lorry loaded to the roof with about five tons of gun-cotton, and another full of ammunition.

Our work on the hill was finished, and the gang was transferred to a site near to the Mess on Changkat Asa Estate. The numbers were gradually dwindling, thanks to the nuisance raids, and on the 4th January only a handful of Chinese remained. But our job was almost finished, and the Royal Engineers had already taken over for construction of gun-pits.

On the afternoon of the 4th we were instructed to move south, and the evening was spent in loading our lorries with petrol, tools, spares, and all the materials necessary for running the Unit. After a quick meal we loaded our cars, and at 10.30 p.m. the convoy resumed its weary trek.