Also by Richard Flanagan The Narrow

Death of a River Guide

The Sound of One Hand Clapping
Gould's Book of Fish
Road to the
The Unknown Terrorist
Wanting
Deep North
Richard Flanagan

Chatto & Windus

LONDON
 Published by Chatto & Wmdus 2014
First published in Australia by Knopf Australia 2013

468 10 9 7 5 3

Copyright © Richard Flanagan 2013

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The author gratefully acknowledges the use of the following texts and translations: Poem 5,
Catullus, from Bed to Bed, translated by James Michie, Orion, 1967; Selected Poems and Prose of Paul
Celan, translated by John Felstiner,W W. Norton, New York, 2001; The Essential Haiku, edited and
translated by Robert Hass, Ecco Press, 1994; Issa and Kikusha-ni haiku from The Sound of Water by
Basho, Buson, Issa and Other Poets, translated by Sam Hamill, c. 1995 by Sam Hamill, reproduced by
arrangement withThe Permissions Company Inc., on behalf of Shambhala Publications Inc., Boston,
MA, www.shambhala.com; The British Museum Haiku, translated by David Cobb,The British Museum
Press, 2002; The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Matsuo Basho, translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa,
Penguin, 1966; Japanese Death Poems, translated by Yoel Hoffmann,Tuttle Publishing, Boston, 1986;
'These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You)', lyrics by Eric Maschwitz and Jack Strachey, c. 1976
by Lafleur Music Ltd, reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.

Every effort has been made to trace and contact all holders of copyright in quotations. If there are any
inadvertent omissions or errors, the publishers will be pleased to correct these at the earliest opportunity.

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cents a day. They spend it on themselves. The Japanese of fish from the Japanese stores to keep the living from
do not expect them to work. They should. dying, Dorrigo Evans said.
Should what, Evans? The Black Prince is a thief, Colonel Rexroth replied.
Should work here in the camp. Digging latrines. This, however, will be a beautiful final resting place and
Nursing in the hospital. Orderlies. Building equipment worthy of the efforts of all concerned for the welfare of
for the sick. Crutches. New shelters. Operating the men and far better than the present practice of just
theatres. marching off into the forest and burying them wherever.
He took a deep breath. The Black Prince helps me save lives.
And they should pool their wages so we draw on it Colonel Rexroth produced a large sketch map outlining
to buy food and drugs for the sick. the location of the cemetery and the layout of the graves,
That again, Evans, Colonel Rexroth said. It is example with different sections for different ranks. Proudly, he told
that will get us through. Not Bolshevism. Dorrigo that he had reserved a particularly idyllic spot
I agree. When it is the right example. overlooking the Kwai for officers. He pointed out that
But Colonel Rexroth was already ascending the stage. the men were beginning to die, and dealing with the
He thanked the entertainers, then spoke of how the corpses was now a matter of the highest priority.
division of the British Empire into arbitrary nationalities It is an irrefutable argument, he said. It's been a lot of
was a fiction. From Oxford to Oodnadatta they were one work getting it this far. I'd love you to be part of this.
people. A monkey screeched in a nearby bamboo grove.
His accent was thin and reedy. He had no gift for I am only doing it for the men, Colonel Rexroth said.
rousing oratory but a misplaced sense that his rank gifted
him with this talent. He sounded, as Gallipoli von Kessler
said, as though he were playing a flute out of his arse.
And for that reason, Colonel Rexroth went on, as 16
members of the British Empire, as Englishmen, we must
observe the order and discipline that is the very lifeblood The trees began sprouting leaves and the leaves began
of the Empire. We will suffer as Englishmen, we will covering up the sky and the sky turned black and the
triumph as Englishmen. Thank you. black swallowed more and more of the world. Food grew
After, he asked Dorrigo Evans if he would like to be less and less. The monsoon came and, at first, before they
involved in planning for the building of a proper cemetery learnt all that the rain portended, they were grateful.
overlooking the river, where they would be able to inter Then the Speedo began.
their dead. The Speedo meant that there were no longer rest days,
I'd rather get the Black Prince to steal some more tins that work quotas went up, and up again, that shifts grew

46 47
longer and longer. The Speedo dissolved an already vague was not. As if rather than him leading them by example
distinction between the fit and the sick into a vaguer they were leading him through adulation.
distinction between the sick and the dying, and because And with him now in tow, they together staggered
of the Speedo more and more often prisoners were ordered through those days that built like a scream that never
to work not one but two shifts, both day and night. ended, a wet, green shriek Dorrigo Evans found perversely
The rains grew torrential, the teak and the bamboo amplified by the quinine deafness, the malarial haze that
closed in around them; Colonel Rexroth died of dysen- meant a minute took a lifetime to pass and that sometimes
tery and was buried along with everyone else in the it was not possible to recall a week of misery and horror.
jungle. Dorrigo Evans assumed command. As a great All of it seemed to wait for some denouement that never
green weight that reached to the black heavens dragged came, some event that made sense of it all to him and
them back down into the black mud, he imposed a levy to them, some catharsis that would free them all from
on the officers' pay to buy food and drugs for the sick. this hell.
He persuaded, cajoled and insisted on the officers working, Still, there was the occasional duck egg, a finger or
as the ceaseless green horror pressed ever harder on their two of palm sugar, a joke, repeated over and over, lovingly
scabies-ridden bodies and groggy guts, on their fevered burnished and appreciated like the rare and beautiful
heads and foul, ulcerated legs, on their perennially shitting thing it was, that made survival possible. Still there was
arses. hope. And from beneath their ever growing slouch hats
The men called Dorrigo Evans Colonel to his face and the ever diminishing prisoners still made asides and curses
the Big Fella everywhere else. There were moments when as they were swept up into another universe in which
the Big Fella felt far too small for all that they now they lived like ants and all that mattered was the railway.
wanted him to bear. There was Dorrigo Evans and there As naked slaves to their section of the Line, with nothing
was this other man with whom he shared looks, habits more than ropes and poles, hammers and bars, straw
and ways of speech. But the Big Fella was noble where baskets and hoes, with their backs and legs and arms and
Dorrigo was not, self-sacrificing where Dorrigo was hands, they began to clear the jungle for the Line and
selfish. break the rock for the Line and move the dirt for the
It was a part he felt himself feeling his way into, and Line and carry the sleepers and the iron rails to build
the longer it went on, the more the men around him the Line. As naked slaves, they were starved and beaten
confirmed him in his role. It was as if they were willing and worked beyond exhaustion on the Line. And as naked
him into being, as though there had to be a Big Fella, slaves they began to die for the Line.
and, having desperate need of such, their growing respect, No one could reckon it, neither the weak nor the
their whispered asides, their opinion of him—all this strong. The dead began to accumulate. Three last week,
trapped him into behaving as everything he knew he eight this week, God knows how many today.The hospital

48 49
hut—not so much a hospital as a place where the very to stop himself dribbling. Staring down at the badly
worst were allowed to lie in filth and gangrenous stench cut, gristly and overdone steak lying in the rectangular
on long, slatted platforms—•was now filled with the dying. cup of his tin dixie, its sooty grease smearing the rusting
There were no longer fit men. There were only the sick, tin, he could not for the life of him think of anything
the very sick and the dying. Long gone were the days he could want more in the world. He looked up at
when Gallipoli von Kessler thought it punishment to be the kitchen hand who had brought it for his dinner.
unable to touch a woman. Long gone was even the The kitchen hand told him how, the night before, a
thought of a woman. Their only thoughts now were of gang led by the Black Prince had stolen a cow off
food and rest. some Thai traders, had slaughtered it in the bush and,
Starvation stalked the Australians. It hid in each man's after bribing a guard with the eye fillet, had given the
every act and every thought. Against it they could proffer rest in secret to the camp kitchen. A steak—a steakl—
only their Australian wisdom which was really no more had been carved off, grilled and presented to Dorrigo
than opinions emptier than their bellies.They tried to hold for his dinner.
together with their Australian dryness and their Australian The kitchen hand was, Dorrigo Evans could see, a sick
curses, their Australian memories and their Australian mate- man—why else would he be on kitchen duties?—sick
ship. But suddenly Australia meant little against lice and with one or several diseases of starvation, and Dorrigo
hunger and beri-beri, against thieving and beatings and yet Evans understood that the steak was to that man too, at
ever more slave labour. Australia was shrinking and shrivel- that moment, the most desirable, extraordinary thing in
ling, a grain of rice was so much bigger now than a the universe. Making a hasty gesture, he told the kitchen
continent, and the only things that grew daily larger were hand to take it to the hospital and share it among the
the men's battered, drooping slouch hats, which now loomed sickest there. The kitchen hand was unsure if he was
like sombreros over their emaciated faces and their empty serious. He made no movement.
dark eyes, eyes that already seemed to be little more than The men want you to have it, the kitchen hand said. Sir.
black-shadowed sockets waiting for worms. Why? Dorrigo Evans thought.Why am I saying I don't
And still the dead kept on accumulating. want the steak? He so desperately wanted to eat it, and
the men wanted him to have it, as a tribute of sorts. And
yet, much as he knew no one would have begrudged
him the meat, he also understood the steak to be a test
17 that demanded witnesses, a test he had to pass, a test that
would become a necessary story for them all.
Dorrigo Evans' mouth was so full of saliva he had to Take it away, Dorrigo Evans said.
wipe his lips with the back of his hand several times He gulped, trying to swallow the saliva that was flooding

50 51
his mouth. He feared he might go mad, or break in some Big Fella was, stole forward and took the steak to the
terrible or humiliating way. He felt that his soul was not hospital, and with it one more story of what an extra-
tempered, that he lacked so many of the things they now ordinary man their leader was.
needed from him, those things that qualified one for an
adult life. And yet he now found himself the leader of a
thousand men who were strangely leading him to be all
the many things he was not. 18
He gulped again; still his mouth ran with saliva. He
did not think himself a strong man who knew he was Dorrigo Evans hated virtue, hated virtue being admired,
strong—a strong man like Rexroth. Rexroth, thought hated people who pretended he had virtue or pretended
Dorrigo Evans, was a man who would have eaten the to virtue themselves. And the more he was accused of
steak as his right and, after, happily picked his highway- virtue as he grew older, the more he hated it. He did
man's teeth in front of his starving men. To the contrary, not believe in virtue. Virtue was vanity dressed up and
Dorrigo Evans understood himself as a weak man who waiting for applause. He had had enough of nobility and
was entitled to nothing, a weak man whom the thousand worthiness, and it was in Lynette Maison's failings that
were forming into the shape of their expectations of him he found her most admirably human. It was in her
as a strong man. It defied sense. They were captives of unfaithful arms that he found fidelity to some strange
the Japanese and he was the prisoner of their hope. truth of the passing nature of everything.
Now! he snapped, nearly losing control. She had known privilege and never spent the night
Still the kitchen hand did not move, perhaps thinking with doubt. As her beauty drifted away from her, a wake
he was joking, perhaps fearing an error in his under- receding from a now-stilled boat, she came to need him
standing. And all the while Dorrigo Evans feared that if far more than he did her. Imperceptibly to them both,
the steak stayed there in front of him a moment longer, she had become to him one more duty. But then his life
he would seize it with both hands and swallow it whole was all duty now. Duty to his wife. Duty to his children.
and fail this test and be revealed for who he truly was. Duty to work, to committees, to charities. Duty to Lynette.
In his anger at the men's manipulation of him, in his Duty to the other women. It was exhausting. It demanded
fury at his own weakness, he suddenly stood up and stamina. At times he amazed even himself. He would
started yelling in a rage— think there ought to be some sort of recognition for
Now! It's yours, not mine! Take it! Share it! Share it! such achievement. It took a strange courage. It was loath-
And the kitchen hand, relieved that he might now some. It made him hate himself, but he could no more
even get to taste a morsel of that steak himself, and not be himself now than he could have not been himself
delighted that the colonel was all that everyone said the with Colonel Rexroth. And somehow what gave him

52 53
 When his next leave—a six-day furlough—arose, he 14
did not return to his uncle's hotel but took the overnight
train to Melbourne, where he spent all his money on Now the day began before the prisoners were awake,
outings and presents for Ella, trying to lose himself in her, before the main body of guards and engineers were up,
seeking to exorcise all memory of his strange encounter some hours before even the sun had risen; now, as
with Amy. Ella, for her part, would look greedily into his Nakamura strode through the mud, breathing the wet
face, his eyes, and—with a growing concern in his heart night air, as his nightmares dissolved, as the methampheta-
which at moments approached terror—he could see her mines cranked his heart and mind, he felt a pleasant
face straining to discover in his face and his eyes the same anticipation. This day, this camp, this world, was his to
hunger. And what had been a beautiful, exotic face to shape. He found Colonel Kota, as Fukuhara had said, in
Dorrigo Evans now simply seemed dull beyond imagining. an empty mess, sitting at a bamboo bench table eating
Her dark eyes—which at first he had found bewitching— tinned fish.
now appeared to him as credulous, even cow-like in their The colonel was a well-built man almost the height of
trust, though he tried very hard not to think it, and loathed an Australian, his physique belying a face that seemed to
himself all the more for thinking it anyway. And so he Nakamura to sag and fall away from either side of a shark-
poured himself with renewed determination into her arms, fin nose to ripples that trailed down his wrinkled cheeks.
into her conversations, into her fears and jokes and stories, Kota did not bother with small talk but got straight
hoping that this intimacy would finally smother all to business, saying he would be leaving in the morning
memory of Amy Mulvaney. as soon as transport could be arranged. From a soggy
On his last night they went for dinner at her father's leather satchel the colonel produced an oiled japara folder,
club. A RAAF major whom they met there made Ella out of which he took a single sheet of typewritten orders
laugh over and over with his jokes and stories. When the and several pages of technical drawings so damp that they
major announced he was leaving to go to a nearby wrapped around Nakamura's fingers as he read them. The
nightclub, Ella begged Dorrigo that they go with him orders were no more complex than they were welcome.
because he was such a hoot. Dorrigo felt a strange emotion The first order was technical: even though the major
that was neither jealousy nor gratitude but a strange railway cutting was already half-completed, the Railway
mingling of both. Command Group had altered Nakamura's original plans.
I love being with people, Ella said. They now wanted the cutting enlarged by a third to help
The more people I am with, Dorrigo thought, the with gradient issues in the next sector. The new cutting
more alone I feel. would entail a further three-thousand cubic metres of
rock to be cut and carried away.
AsTomokawa poured sour tea for them both, Nakamura

110 111
bent down and retied the tapes of his puttee. They didn't machinery or tools. Maybe more coolies. But even that
have enough saws or axes to clear the jungle. The pris- I can't say. We have over a quarter of a million coolies
oners cut the rock by hand with a hammer and chisel. and sixty thousand prisoners working on this railway. I
He didn't even have proper chisels for the prisoners to know the English and Australians are lazy. I know they
use, and when what they did have blunted, there wasn't complain they are too tired or too hungry to work.
enough coke for their forge to resharpen them. Nakamura That they take one small spadeful and stop for a rest.
sat back up. One blow of the hammer, then they halt. That they
Drilling machines with compressors would help, he complain about insubstantial matters such as being
said. slapped. If a Japanese soldier neglects his work he expects
Colonel Kota stroked his sagging cheek. to be beaten. What gives cowards the right not to be
Machinery? slapped? The Burmese and Chinese coolies that are sent
He let the word hang in the air, leaving Nakamura to here keep running away or dying. The Tamils, thank-
finish it off in his own mind—with the knowledge that fully, have too far to run back to Malaya, but now they
there was no machinery, with the shame of having begged, are dying everywhere from cholera, and even with the
the sense of being mocked. Nakamura lowered his head. thousands more now arriving there is still not enough
Kota once more spoke. manpower. I don't know. None of it can be helped.
There is nothing to spare. It can't be helped. Nakamura returned to reading the typed letter. The
Nakamura knew he had been wrong to raise this matter, third order was that one hundred prisoners were to be
but was grateful that Colonel Kota seemed understanding. seconded from his camp for work at a camp near Three
He read the second order. The deadline for the comple- Pagoda Pass, some one hundred and fifty kilometres to
tion of the railway had been brought forward from the north on the Burmese border.
December to October. Nakamura was overcome with I don't have one hundred prisoners to spare, thought
despair. His task was now impossible. Nakamura. I need another thousand prisoners to complete
I know you can make it possible, Colonel Kota said. this section in the time I have been given, not lose even
It's no longer April, Nakamura said in what he hoped more. He looked up at Colonel Kota.
would be understood as an oblique reference to when The hundred men are to march there?
headquarters had approved the final plans. It's August. There is no other way in the monsoon. That can't be
Colonel Kota's eyes remained fixed on Nakamura's. helped either.
We will redouble our efforts, a chastened Nakamura Nakamura knew many would die trying to get there.
finally said. Perhaps most. But the railway demanded it, the Emperor
I cannot lie to you, Colonel Kota said. I very much had ordered the railway, and this was the way it had been
doubt there will be a corresponding increase in either decided that the railway would be made. And he could

112 113
see that, in reality—this reality of dreams and nightmares and man in our army there is churning with the desire
that he had to live in every day—there was no other to massacre all the Americans and Australians. And we will
way for the railway to be built. Still he persisted. win, because our spirit will endure when theirs
Understand me, Nakamura said. My problem is prac- crumbles.
tical. With no tools, and fewer men every day, how do I And as the colonel talked, his terraced face seemed to
build the railway? Nakamura to hold within it so much of the ancient wisdom
Even if most die of exhaustion you are to complete of Japan, of all that Nakamura found good and best in his
the work, Colonel Kota said, shrugging his shoulders. country, in his own life. Nakamura understood that the
Even if everybody dies. colonel, with his gentle voice, was telling him something
And Nakamura could see that, in this sacrifice too, more than this story: that he was saying that no matter
there was no other way for the Emperor's wishes to be what adversity, no matter what lack of tools and manpower
realised. What was a prisoner of war anyway? Less than Nakamura might have to put up with, he would endure,
a man, just material to be used to make the railway, like the railway would be built, the war would be won, and all
the teak sleepers and steel rails and dog spikes. If he, a this would be because of the Japanese spirit.
Japanese officer, allowed himself to be captured, he would But what that spirit was, what it precisely meant,
be executed on his ultimate return to the home islands Nakamura would have had difficulty saying. It was good
anyway. and it was pure, and it was for him a more real force
Until two months ago I was in New Guinea, Colonel than the thorny bamboo and teak, the rain and mud and
Kota said. Bougainville. Heaven is Java, they say, hell is rocks and sleepers and steel rails they worked with each
Burma, but no one comes back from New Guinea. day. It had somehow become the essence of him, and yet
The colonel smiled, and the sags of his face rose and it was a thing beyond words. And to explain what he
fell, reminding Nakamura of a terraced hillside. was feeling, Nakamura found himself telling a story.
I'm the proof that old soldiers' sayings are not always Last night I was talking with an Australian doctor, he
true. But it is very harsh there. The American air power said. The doctor had wanted to know why Japan had
is incredible. Day after day we were pounded by their started the war. And I had explained the nobility of
Lockheeds. Day and night, bombed and strafed. We would universal brotherhood that was our guiding idea. I
be given a week's rations and expected to fight for a month. mentioned our motto, The Whole World Under One Roof.
If we only had salt and matches in the combat area, we But I don't think it came across. And so I said how, in
could have coped with anything. But I tell you, what of short, it was now Asia for the Asians, with Japan the
the Americans and Australians? They can boast only of leader of the Asian bloc. I told him how we were liber-
their materiel power, their machines, their technology.Wait ating Asia from European colonisation. It was very hard.
and see! We will wage a war of annihilation. Every officer He kept on about freedom.

114 115
 In truth Nakamura had had no idea what the Australian years. This railway is the moment when we and our
had been on about. The words, yes, but the ideas made outlook become the new drivers of world progress.
no sense at all. They drank some more sour tea, and Colonel Kota
Freedom? Colonel Kota said. grew wistful about not being at the front, able to die for
They laughed. the Emperor. They cursed the jungle, the rain, Siam.
Freedom, Nakamura said, and they both chuckled again. Nakamura spoke of how hard it was to keep driving the
Nakamura's own thoughts were a jungle unknown Australians out to work, and how if they were only a
and perhaps unknowable to him. Besides, he didn't care little more accepting of the great role destiny had given
about his own thoughts. He cared about being certain, them, he wouldn't have to drive them so pitilessly. It
sure. Kota's words were like shabu for his sick mind. wasn't in his nature to be so harsh. But in the face of
Nakamura cared about the railway, honour, the Emperor, the Australians' intransigence, he had to be.
Japan, and he had a sense of himself as a good and They have no spirit, Colonel Kota said. That's what I
honourable officer. But still he tried to fathom the saw in New Guinea. You charge them, they scatter like
confusion he felt. cockroaches.
I remember early on, when the prisoners still had If they had spirit, Nakamura said, they would have chosen
concerts, and one night I was watching. The jungle, the death rather than the shame of being a prisoner.
fire, the men singing their song, the 'Waltzing Matilda'. I remember when I first went to Manchukuo, fresh
It made me feel sentimental. Even sympathetic. It was from officer school, Colonel Kota said, clenching his hand
hard not to feel moved. as if around a handle or grip. A second lieutenant, very
But the railway, Colonel Kota said, is no less a battle- green. Five years ago. How long ago it seems. We had to
field than the front line in Burma. undertake special field training exercises to prepare us for
Exactly, Nakamura said. One cannot distinguish combat. One day we were taken to a prison for our trial
between human and non-human acts. One cannot point, of courage. The Chinese prisoners hadn't been fed for
one cannot say this man here is a man and that man days. They were so scrawny.They were bound and blind-
there is a devil. folded and made to kneel in front of a large pit. The
It is true, Colonel Kota said. This is a war, and war is lieutenant in charge unsheathed his sword. He scooped
beyond such things. And the Siam—Burma railway is for some water with his hand from a bucket and poured it
a military purpose—but that's not the larger point. It is over both sides of the blade. I have always remembered
that this railway is the great epoch-making construction the water dripping off his sword.
of our century. Without European machinery, within a Watch, he said. This is how you cut off heads.
time considered extraordinary, we will build what the
Europeans said it was not possible to build over many

116 117
 15 letting it run its course. Compared to Keith, he'd had a
strong, young body, and had been vigorous and atten-
On the following Saturday afternoon, the heat had grown tive—too much so. For as soon as she found herself in
to be unbearable. Having finished with the lunch sitting bed naked with him, she was horrified: she could not
and made sure everything was ready for dinner, Amy bear his touch, his smell, his flesh. She wanted to be gone.
Mulvaney decided to get changed and go for a swim. After, she had vomited and felt such a terrible empti-
There was a large crowd smeared up and down the beach ness that she had firmly resolved it could never happen
across the road from the King of Cornwall, and as she again; a resolution that had helped her deal with the
walked along the sand, listening to the waves and squeals, guilt she felt. She reasoned that perhaps, in the strangest
straw-hatted and in a pair of blue shorts and a white way, this infidelity had ensured her fidelity thereafter to
cambric blouse, she was aware of the gaze of both men Keith. And because she had not loved the travelling
and women. salesman, there had been, she came to think, no real
The long, unbelievably hot summer days, the sensual infidelity. Her love for Keith—such as it was—was still
nights, the stuffy bedroom and Keith's sounds and smells love: she still cared about him, was amused by him, and
filled Amy Mulvaney with the strangest restlessness. She appreciated his gentleness and his numerous small kind-
was full of yearning. To leave, to be someone else, some- nesses. The months after that disastrous night had in
where else, to start moving and never stop. And yet the some ways been the best they had known. And yet even
more the innermost part of her screamed to move, the when she slept long and deeply and awoke feeling serene,
more she recognised that she was frozen to one place, with Keith bringing her a cup of tea in bed, Amy
one life. And Amy Mulvaney wanted a thousand lives, Mulvaney wanted something else, but what she wanted
and not one of them did she want to be like the one she was unable to say. As she sipped the tea and watched
she had. his large back lumber out the door, she could not help
She had sometimes taken advantage of the war and but wonder what that wanting was—the wanting that
Keith's lenient nature to escape for a night here and there. ate away at her stomach, the wanting that sometimes
There had been some small adventures—a RAAF officer made her involuntarily shudder, the invisible, nameless,
who had pressed her against the wall after a night's terrible wanting that she feared might be the very
dancing, but to her great relief and slight disappointment, essence of life.
had only kissed her wildly and groped her a little. She And so it had been for the last year, more or less. She
had gone to bed with a travelling salesman who some- flirted, but in a careful way; she made friends with those
times appeared at the hotel's back bar and whom she perhaps she shouldn't have, but again in a way that seemed
met outside a cinema in town one night. It had been an to her and others, if not entirely appropriate, not
awful thing that, once begun, she felt could only end by inappropriate either. For that reason, because she felt a

118 119

1
strange freedom—even a security—in having decided into some new centre of her life. For a moment everything
that no acquaintanceship could end in anything untoward, was in balance, everything waited.
she felt emboldened to sometimes do and say such things Amy floated. Far out to sea a small yacht sat listless on
to men as she had to the tall doctor in the bookshop. the still water. When she turned back around to the beach
But again she reasoned that perhaps, ultimately, there had she saw a middle-aged man in an old-fashioned woollen
been nothing wrong in her behaviour, for in some bathing suit staring at her. He was hairless, his skin like
fundamental way she had loved none of them and she that of a fowl before it went into the oven. He abruptly
still loved Keith. She felt she had found a balance that looked away.
would make that love stronger, and she did not know Once more, she knew that strange, haunting emotion
why as she had walked over to that tall doctor in the that would not let her be: but what Amy Mulvaney wanted
bookshop, she had slipped off her wedding ring. she was unable to say. She swam a few strokes further out,
And when Amy thought about it, she realised that and it was as if the sea, the sun, the slight breeze were all
what she had said to the tall doctor she had never said willing her to do something, anything, but something. As
to anyone else before. She could not understand it, nor she looked up and down the surf, she saw other people in
could she understand why she had put her hand on his line with her, so many people, expectant, hopeful, similarly
at the club, nor why she held him when he had gone waiting for the next wave to break, hoping to ride its power
to leave her rooms. She was simply determined never in to shore. As the ocean began banking up in a rolling
again to do such foolish things. She tried to convince wall behind her she noticed that running along its crest
herself that what had taken place with him was already was a long line of yellow-eyed, silver fish.
over. But in her heart she feared something else and she As far as she could see all the fish were pointed in the
tried hard not to allow her fear words or even thoughts. same direction along the wave face, and all were swimming
Throwing her towel down on the blinding sand, straw furiously as they sought to escape the breaking wave's hold.
hat on top, and skipping out of her clothes, she felt her And all the time the wave had them in its power and
youth and body as power. And despite her insignificance would take them where it would, and there was nothing
and unimportance, Amy understood that if only for a that glistening chain of fish could do to change their fate.
short time she was somehow special and important. She Amy felt herself beginning to rise back into the wave's
ran into the water. Unlike many of the other women, swelling, she tensed in anticipation and excitement, not
who dawdled at knee height, Amy Mulvaney threw herself knowing whether she would succeed in catching it, and,
under a wave just at the point it was about to break on if she did, where she and the fish might end up.
her. And when she burst back up, tasting salt, the sky an
unbearable brilliance, all her confusion was gone and in
its place she had the strange sensation that she had surfaced

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I
 16 once I had cut it open the colours were so vivid, so
alive—the red of his blood, the white of his bone, the
Colonel Kota unclenched his hand and said— pink of his flesh, the yellow of that fat. Life! Those colours
He spread his legs, raised the sword and with a yell were life itself.
swung it down hard. The head seemed to leap away. The I was thinking about how easy it had been, how bright
blood was still spurting in two fountains when we had and beautiful the colours were, and I was stunned it was
to follow. It was hard to breathe. I was frightened of already over. Only when the next cadet officer stepped
making a fool of myself. Some of the others hid their forward did I see that my prisoner's neck was still pumping
heads in their hands, one messed his stroke up so badly blood out in two fountains, just like the lieutenant's
a lung half popped out. The head was still in place and victim, but only a little, so it must have been some time
the lieutenant had to finish off the mess. And all the time after I killed him that I noticed.
I was watching: what was a good stroke, what was a bad I no longer felt anything for that man. To be honest,
stroke, where to stand next to the prisoner, how to keep I despised him for accepting his fate so meekly and
the prisoner calm and still. Thinking about it now, I can wondered why he wouldn't fight. But who'd be any
see that all the time I was looking, I was learning. And different? And yet, I was angry with him for letting me
not only about beheading. slaughter him.
When my turn came I couldn't believe that I was Nakamura noticed how, as he told his story, Kota's
doing everything so calmly because inside I was horrified. sword hand continued clenching and unclenching, as if
Yet I unsheathed the sword my father had given me rehearsing or practising.
without shaking, wet it as the instructor had shown And what I felt, Major Nakamura, the colonel
without dropping it, and for a moment watched as those continued, was something so large in my stomach that
water beads rolled together and slowly ran away. You it was as if I were now another man. I had gained some-
wouldn't believe how much watching that water helped thing, that's what I felt. It was a great and terrible feeling.
me. As if I had died too and was now reborn.
I stood behind the prisoner, got my balance, carefully Before, I worried about how my men looked at me
examined his neck—skinny and old, filth in its folds; I've when I stood in front of them. But after, I just looked at
never forgotten that neck. Before it had begun it was them. That was enough. I no longer cared or was fright-
over, and I was wondering why there were little globules ened. I just stared and saw into them—their fears, their
of fat on my sword that wouldn't rub off with the paper sins, their lies—I saw everything, knew everything. Your
they handed me. That's all I was thinking—where did eyes are evil, a woman said to me one night. I would just
that fat come from in such a scrawny man's scrawny look at people and that would be enough to frighten them.
neck? His neck was dirty, grey, like dirt you piss on. But But after a while this feeling began to die. I started

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 feeling confused. Lost. The men would start talking inso- lowering it when clenched, as though he were readying
lently again, quietly, behind my back. But I knew it. No his sword for another beheading.
one was frightened of me anymore. It's like Philopon— It's not just about the railway, Colonel Kota said, though
once you have it, even if it makes you feel lousy, you the railway must be built. Or even the war, though the
just want it again. war must be won.
Can I tell you something? There were always prisoners. It's about the Europeans learning that they are not the
If a few weeks had gone by and I hadn't beheaded superior race, Nakamura said.
someone, I would go and find one not long for this And us learning that we are, Colonel Kota said.
world with a neck I fancied. I'd make him dig his grave . . . For some moments neither man spoke, then Colonel
And as he listened to the colonel's terrible story, Kota recited:
Nakamura could see that even in such terrible acts, too,
that there was no other way for the Emperor's wishes to Even in Kyoto
be realised. when I hear the cuckoo
Necks, continued Colonel Kota, looking away to where I long for Kyoto.
an open door framed the rainswept night. That's all I
really see of people now. Their necks. It's not right to Basho, Nakamura said.
think this way, is it? I don't know. It's how I am now. I Talking more, Nakamura was delighted to discover that
meet someone new, I look at his neck, I size it up—easy Colonel Kota shared with him a passion for traditional
to cut or hard to cut. And that's all I want of people, Japanese literature. They grew sentimental as they talked
their necks, that blow, this life, those colours, the red, the of the earthy wisdom of Issa's haiku, the greatness of
white, the yellow. Buson, the wonder of Basho's great haibun, The Narrow
Your neck, you see, Colonel Kota said, that was what I Road to the Deep North, which, Colonel Kota said, summed
first saw. And such a good neck—I can see exactly where up in one book the genius of the Japanese spirit.
the sword should fall. A wonderful neck.Your head would They both fell silent again. For no reason, Nakamura
fly a metre. As it should. Because sometimes the neck is felt his spirits abruptly rising at the thought of their railway
just too thin or too fat, or they wriggle or squeal in delivering victory in the invasion of India, at the idea of
terror—you can just imagine—and you botch it and end the whole world under one roof, with the beauty of Basho s
up hacking them to death in rage. Your corporal, though, verse. And all these things, which had seemed so confused
bull-necked, his attitude, you see. I'd have to concentrate and lacking in substance when he had tried to explain
on my stroke and placement to kill him quickly. them to the Australian colonel, now seemed so clear and
And all the time he was talking, Colonel Kota went obvious and connected, so kind and good, when talking
on clenching and unclenching his hand, raising and with such a kind, good man as Colonel Kota.

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 To the railway, said Colonel Kota, raising his teacup. Colonel Kota recited another haiku by Kato, and they
To Japan, said Nakamura, raising his cup in turn. agreed that it was this supreme Japanese gift—of portraying
To the Emperor! said Colonel Kota. life so concisely, so exquisitely—that they, with their work
To Basho! said Nakamura. on the railway, were helping bring to the world. And this
Issa! conversation, which was really a series of mutual agree-
Buson! ments, made them both feel considerably better about
They drained what was left of Tomokawa's sour tea, their own privations and the bitter struggle that was their
then put down their teacups. And because they were two work.
strangers with no idea what next to say, the silence that And then Nakamura looked at his watch.
returned felt to Nakamura a mutual and profound under- You must excuse me, Colonel. It's already 0350 hours.
standing. The colonel opened a dark-blue cigarette case I must reschedule the work gangs to meet the new targets
with the Kuomintang's white sun emblazoned on it, and before reveille.
proffered it to his fellow officer. They lit up and relaxed. As he was about to leave, the colonel put his hand on
They recited to each other more of their favourite Nakamura's shoulder.
haiku, and they were deeply moved not so much by the I could have talked poetry with you all night, the large
poetry as by their sensitivity to poetry; not so much by man said.
the genius of the poem as by their wisdom in under- In the darkness and emptiness of the hut, Nakamura
standing the poem; not in knowing the poem but in could feel the intense emotion of Colonel Kota as he drew
knowing the poem demonstrated the higher side of his arm around Nakamura and brought his shark-fin face
themselves and of the Japanese spirit—that Japanese spirit in close. He smelt of stale anchovies. His lips were open.
that was soon to daily travel along their railway all the In another world, Colonel Kota began. Men . . . men
way to Burma, the Japanese spirit that from Burma love.
would find its way to India, the Japanese spirit that He couldn't go on. Nakamura pulled away. Colonel
would from there conquer the world. Kota straightened up and hoped he had been misunder-
In this way, thought Nakamura, the Japanese spirit is stood. In New Guinea they had butchered and eaten
now itself the railway, and the railway the Japanese spirit, both American prisoners and their own men. They had
our narrow road to the deep north, helping to take the been dying of starvation. He remembered the corpses
beauty and wisdom of Basho to the larger world. with their skinned thigh bones sticking out like gnawed
And as they talked of renga and waka and haiku, of drumsticks.The colours. Brown, green, black. He remem-
Burma and India and the railway, both men felt a great bered the sweet taste. He had wanted another human
sense of shared meaning, though exactly what they had being to know. That they had been starving and had no
shared neither would afterwards have been able to say. choice. To say it was all right. To hold him. To—

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 It can't be helped, Nakamura said. at all. And the more Keith rambled on about drains and
No, Colonel Kota replied, stepping backwards and the pressing need for sewers and modern planning
flipping open his Kuomintang cigarette case to proffer regulations and water closets for all and national mechanisms,
another cigarette to Nakamura. Of course not. regulation and scientific administration, the more she longed
As the major lit up, Colonel Kota said— for the brush of Dorrigo Evans' fingers in the dark.
That night she had difficulty sleeping. Keith woke
Even in Manchukuo twice and asked her if she was ill, but before she answered
when I see a neck he was asleep again, mouth rumbling, a minuscule salt
I long for Manchukuo. pan of dry spume in the crease below his lips.
The next day began with her making her face up twice
He snapped the cigarette case shut, smiled and, before she was satisfied and changing several times before
clenching his fist, turned and left, his strange laughter settling on what she began with: dark shorts and a light
vanishing with him into the noise of the monsoon night. cotton blouse cut to resemble a shawl which would show
herself to advantage. Then she took the cotton blouse off
in favour of a low-cut red blouse she fancied was like
the one Olivia de Havilland wore in Captain Blood. But
17 she had no skirt that went with it. And when, a little
after ten, she picked up Dorrigo Evans from the sentry
Amy Mulvaney was astonished at how easily lying now gate outside the barracks—Dorrigo Evans, who, she
came to her, and she felt both a shame and a joy in her thought, with his smile, and his nose and the way he
new ability. Over dinner Keith had begun one of his wore his hair a little longer than normal, really wasn't
rants about council politics, when she interrupted to tell that unlike Errol Flynn—she was wearing a rather imprac-
him that she was spending the next day with an old tical but, she felt, fetching light-blue floral skirt and a
girlfriend—they would drive to a distant, isolated beach cream halter top.
for a picnic and a swim, and she would borrow the Ford With Dorrigo at her side, everything that had seemed
Cabriolet for the purpose. to Amy dull and stupid now was delightful and interesting;
Of course, Keith said, and then immediately returned all that yesterday felt like an ever more claustrophobic
to his story about the new council clerk and his anti- prison she had wished to escape today felt like the most
quated thinking on sewerage. wondrous backdrop to her life. But her nervousness was
Say something real! Amy had nearly cried out. But what so great that she kept stalling the car and Dorrigo ended
that real thing was, what it might sound like, she couldn't up driving.
say anymore, and besides, she didn't really want his attention God, she thought, how she wanted him, and how

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 The Goanna thought you was taking the piss, Jimmy Why not? Bridge wasn't ever Gyppo's lurk.
Bigelow said, having a puff. Here—he held out the soggy Darky Gardiner drew slow and long on the butt end
cigarette butt for Darky. a second time, dragging the smoke deep inside him and
Jimmy Bigelow's hand was covered with cracked scales, holding it there. For a moment the world was still and
and was badly infected, all yellow and reds. Sickness terri- silent. With the rich, greasy smoke came peace, and he
fied Darky Gardiner. It got hold of you and it would felt it was as if the world had stopped, and would stay
not let you go. stopped for as long as that smoke stayed within his mouth
Here, Jimmy Bigelow said. Take it. and chest. He closed his eyes, and whilst holding the butt
Darky Gardiner didn't move. end out for Jimmy Bigelow to take back, gave himself
Only death is catching round here, Jimmy Bigelow over to the nothingness that pervaded his body with the
said, and I ain't got that. Rightio? rich smoke. But his head was not right.
Darky Gardiner took the smoke and—without letting I hate cards, Rooster MacNeice said.
it touch his lips—held it up to his open mouth. The rain returned. It was noise without comfort. It
Yet, Jimmy Bigelow said. did not sweep faintly through the teak trees and the
Darky took a pull on the cigarette. He watched four bamboo, it did not sigh, it did not create a tranquil hush.
men carrying a bamboo stretcher stumble up towards the Rather, it crashed into the thorny bamboo, and the deluge
hospital. sounded to Darky Gardiner like the noise of many things
Think that's Gyppo Nolan, Chum Fahey said. breaking. The rain was so loud it was impossible to talk.
The smoke rolled into Darky's mouth. It was sour and He went out and stood in the tempest to wash the
sharp and good. mud off. Filthy little creeks appeared around his feet as
That's our four-a-side crib competition down the the rain formed rills and courses through the camp. He
gurgler, Sheephead Morton said. He turned to Rooster watched a dixie bob by their hut, and a moment later
MacNeice.You interested in taking his place? he saw a one-legged West Australian on bamboo crutches
What? Rooster MacNeice said, still smarting from the hopping in pursuit of it.
humiliation of the eggshell. But his head was not right.
Gyppo. He's . . . He's—well. Gone. And he loved the
crib. He'd hate to think him just—
Dying?
Well. Sort of. I mean, the bloke could be an idiot. But
he loved his cards. That was the gyppo I remember. And
I know he'd want us to go on. Every morning Dorrigo Evans shaves because he believes
Playing crib? he must keep up appearances for their sake, because if it

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looks like he no longer cares, why should they? And standover man for a Darlinghurst gang before the war.
when he looks in the small service mirror, he sees its Virtue is virtue, and, like suffering, it is inexplicable,
cloudy reflection blurring the face of a man no longer irreducible, unintelligible. The night Padre Bob died,
him: older, skinnier, bonier, hard in a way he never was, Dorrigo Evans dreamt he was in a pit with God, that
more remote and relying ever more on a few sorry props: they were both bald, and that they were fighting over a
his officer's cap, raffishly angled; a red scarf, tied bandana- wig.
fashion around his neck, a gypsy touch perhaps more for Dorrigo Evans is not blind to the prisoners' human
himself than for them. qualities. They lie and cheat and rob, and they lie and
Three months before, walking to a downriver camp cheat and rob with gusto. The worst feign illness, the
to get drugs, he had come upon a Tamil romusha in a proudest health. Nobility often eludes them.The previous
ragged red sarong sitting next to a creek, waiting to die. day he had come across a man so sick he was lying face-
The old man was uninterested in what help Dorrigo down, nose just out of the mud, at the bottom of the
Evans could offer. He waited for death as a traveller for rock face that marks the end of the Dolly, unable to make
a bus. Walking back along the same path a month ago it the final few hundred yards home. Two men were
he came upon the old man for a second time, now a walking past him, too exhausted to help, striving to
skeleton picked clean by beast and insect. He took the conserve what little energy they had left for their own
red sarong from the skeleton, washed it, tore it in half survival. He had to order them to help the naked man
and tied the better piece around his neck. When death to the hospital.
comes for him he hopes to meet it similarly to the Tamil Yet every day he carries them, nurses them, holds them,
romusha, though he doubts he will. He does not accept cuts them open and sews them up, plays cards for their
the authorities of life, and nor will he, he thinks, of death. souls and dares death to save one more life. He lies and
He notices how they, his men, are also far older than cheats and robs too, but for them, always for them. For
they will ever be if they survive to grow old. Somewhere he has come to love them, and every day he understands
deep within them, do they know they only have to suffer that he is failing in his love, for every day more and more
but not inflict suffering? He understands the cult of Christ of them die.
makes of suffering virtue. He had argued with Padre Bob It has been a long time since he has thought of women.
about this. He hopes Christ is right. But he does not But he still thinks of her. His world beyond here has
agree. He does not. He is a doctor. Suffering is suffering. shrunk to her. Not Ella. Her. Her voice, her smile, her
Suffering is not virtue, nor does it make virtue, nor does throaty laugh, the smell of her asleep. He has conversa-
of it virtue necessarily flow. Padre Bob died screaming, tions with her in his head. Does he love them because
in terror, in pain, in hopelessness; he was nursed by a he cannot have her? He cannot have her. He cannot
man Dorrigo Evans knew was said to have been a brutal answer himself. He cannot.

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 Dorrigo Evans is not typical of Australia and nor are
they, volunteers from the fringes, slums and shadowlands
of their vast country: drovers, trappers, wharfies, roo A sack of letters from Australia had arrived with the bogged
shooters, desk jockeys, dingo trappers and shearers. They truck. This was a rare and unexpected pleasure. The POWs
are bank clerks and teachers, counter johnnies, piners and were aware that the Japanese withheld almost all mail, and
short-price runners, susso survivors, chancers, larrikins, such was the excitement that before breakfast was over
yobs, tray men, crims, boofheads and tough bastards blasted the sack had already been opened and its contents
out of a depression that had them growing up in shanties distributed. Dorrigo was delighted to receive his first letter
and shacks without electricity, with their old men dead in almost a year. Before he even looked at the handwriting,
or crippled or maddened by the Great War and their old he knew from its stiff card envelope that it was from Ella.
women making do on aspro and hope, on soldier settle- He resolved not to open it until the evening, holding off
ments, in sustenance camps, slums and shanty towns, in on the pleasure of feeling that, somewhere else, another,
a nineteenth-century world that had staggered into the better world continued on, a world in which he had a
mid-twentieth century. place and to which he would one day return. But almost
Though every dead man is a reduction of their number, immediately his mind rebelled and he tore open the
the thousand POWs who first left Changi as Evans' J envelope, so excitedly unfolding the two sheets that he
Force—an assortment of Tasmanians and West Australians partly ripped them. He began reading in a greedy fury.
surrendered in Java, South Australians surrendered at Two-thirds of the way down the first page, he halted.
Singapore, survivors of the sinking of the destroyer, HMAS He found himself unable to go on. It was as if he had
Newcastle, a few Vies and New South Welshmen from other jumped into a car and accelerated straight into a wall.
military misadventures, and some RAAF airmen—remain The letters of Ella's elegant copperplate hand kept scat-
Evans' J Force. That's what they were when they arrived tering and rising off the page as dust motes, more and
and that's what they will be when they leave, Evans' J more dust motes bouncing off one another, and he was
Force, one-thousand souls strong, no matter, if at the end, having trouble bringing her face to his mind. It seemed
only one man remains to march out of this camp. They too real and entirely unreal at the same time.
are survivors of grim, pinched decades who have been left He didn't know whether it was the malaria attack he
with this irreducible minimum: a belief in each other, a was still recovering from or exhaustion or the shock of
belief that they cleave to only more strongly when death receiving the letter, his first for the best part of a year.
comes. For if the living let go of the dead, their own life He reread it but was lost in a memory at once precise
ceases to matter. The fact of their own survival somehow and imprecise, the dust motes brighter and wilder, the
demands that they are one, now and forever. late-day sun more blinding than ever, and yet he could
not see her face clearly. Thinking: The world is. It just is.

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and which Rooster MacNeice understood he did not too ill for any work other than light duties. He pointed
possess, made no sense to him and momentarily filled at the prisoners propped up against the log and said that
him with the most terrible hate. Rooster MacNeice there were in addition sixty-two reporting in sick this
turned back to the bamboos and tried once more to morning over there.
imagine them as gothic arches, his prison as a cathedral, That leaves three hundred and sixty-three men for
and to fill his heart with beauty. work on the railway, Dorrigo Evans said.
Fukuhara translated.
Go hyaku, Nakamura said.
Major Nakamura say he must have five hundred pris-
8 oners, Fukuhara translated.
We don't have five hundred fit men, Dorrigo Evans
While the prisoners assembled in the downpour, Dorrigo said. The cholera is destroying us. It—
Evans at their head, the Japanese waited in the adminis- Australians should wash like Japanese soldier. Hot bath
tration hut until the worst of it was over, and only then every day, Fukuhara said. Be clean. Then no cholera.
came out. To Dorrigo Evans' surprise, Nakamura was There were no baths. There was no time to heat the
with them. Normally, Lieutenant Fukuhara oversaw the water even if they had them. Fukuhara's comment struck
selection. Unlike Fukuhara, who always managed to look Evans as the most bitter mockery.
parade-ground perfect, Nakamura's officer's uniform was Go hyaku! Nakamura exploded.
bedraggled and his shirt had dark mould blooms. He Dorrigo Evans had not expected this. For the past
stopped to tie up a puttee tape trailing in the mud. week they had been asked for four hundred men and
As he waited, Dorrigo Evans flexed his body as he after the theatre usually settled on about three hundred
once had on the football field, readying himself for the and eighty. But every day there were more dead and
encounter. The prisoners counted off, a tedious process more sick and fewer able to work. And now there was
in which each man had to yell out his Japanese number. cholera. But he continued as he had begun and repeated
As the prisoners' commanding officer and senior medical that there were three hundred and sixty-three men fit
officer, Dorrigo Evans reported to Major Nakamura that for work.
four men had died the day before, two overnight, and Major say produce more body from hospital, said
that this left eight hundred and thirty-eight POWs. Of Fukuhara.
this eight hundred and thirty-eight, sixty-seven had Those men are sick, Dorrigo Evans said. If they are
cholera and were in the cholera compound, and another put to work, they'll die.
one hundred and seventy-nine were in hospital with Go hyaku, Nakamura said, without waiting for the
severe illness. A further one hundred and sixty-seven were translation.

214 215
 Three hundred and sixty-three men, Dorrigo Evans in health matter. To his opinion this due to absence of
said. Japanese belief: health follows will! In Japanese army those
Go hyaku! who fail to reach objective by lack of health considered
Three hundred and eighty, Dorrigo Evans said, hoping most shameful. Devotion until death good.
they could now settle. Fukuhara got down and Major Nakamura stepped back
San hachi, Fukuhara translated. up on the chair and spoke again. This time when he
Yon hyaku kyu ju go, Nakamura said. finished he didn't get down, but remained standing,
Four hundred and ninety-five, Fukuhara translated. looking up and down the ranks of the prisoners.
There was to be no easy settling. Understand Japanese spirit, Fukuhara yelled from
They haggled on. After ten or more minutes further beneath him, his gannet neck undulating as though
argument, Dorrigo Evans decided that if there had to be disgorging. Nippon prepared to work, Major Nakamura
a selection of the sick to work, it should be based on his say, Australian must work. Nippon eat less, Australian eat
medical knowledge and not on Nakamura's insane less. Nippon very sorry, Major Nakamura say. Many men
demands. He offered four hundred men, citing once more must die.
the numbers of the sick, detailing their myriad afflictions. Nakamura got down off the chair.
But in his heart Dorrigo Evans knew his medical know- Happy bastard, Sheephead Morton whispered to Jimmy
ledge was no argument and no shield. He felt the most Bigelow.
terrible helplessness that was also his hunger eating him Something fell. No one moved. No one spoke.
from inside, and he tried not to think of the steak he A prisoner had collapsed in the front row. Nakamura
had so recklessly refused. strode over, making his way along the row of prisoners
But beyond four hundred, he concluded, we are until he reached the fallen man.
achieving nothing for the Emperor. Men will die who Kunal Nakamura yelled.
would be of much use once they're better. Four hundred When there was no response to this or a second shout,
is the best we can muster. the Japanese major kicked the fallen man in the belly.
Before Fukuhara could translate, Nakamura yelled to The prisoner staggered to his feet, before falling again.
a corporal. A white bentwood chair was hastily brought Nakamura kicked hard a second time. Again the prisoner
out of the administration hut. Mounting it, Nakamura rose to his feet and again he fell. His huge, jaundiced
addressed the prisoners in Japanese. It was a short speech, eyes were protruding like dirty golf balls—strange, lost
and when it was finished he stepped down and Fukuhara things from another world—and no amount of kicking
stepped up. or yelling by Nakamura would move him. His wasted
Major Nakamura have pleasure to lead you on railway face and withered cheeks made his jaw seem oversized.
construction, Fukuhara said. He regret to find seriousness It looked like the snout of a wild pig.

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 Malnutrition, thought Dorrigo Evans, who had Because three hundred and sixty-three wasn't the real
followed Nakamura and now knelt down between him number. Nor was three hundred and ninety-nine. Because,
and the prisoner. The man lay in the mud, inert. His thought Dorrigo Evans, the real number was zero. No
body was a wasted rack covered in sores and ulcers and prisoner was up to what the Japanese expected. All were
peeling skin. Pellagra, beri-beri, Christ knows what else, suffering varying degrees of starvation and illness. He
thought Dorrigo. The man's buttocks were little more played games for them like he always played games, and
than wretched cables, out of which his anus protruded he played games because that was the best he could do.
like a turkshead of filthy rope. A stinking olive-coloured And Dorrigo Evans knew there was a number other than
slime was oozing out and over his string shanks. Amoebic zero that was also the real number, and that number was
dysentery. Dorrigo Evans shovelled the shitty mess of a the one he now had to calculate, the addition of the least
man into his arms, stood back up and turned to Nakamura, likely to die to the now three hundred and sixty-two
the sick man hanging in his arms like a muddy bundle least sick. And every day this terrible arithmetic fell to
of broken sticks. him.
Three hundred and ninety-nine men, said Evans. He was panting now. As Nakamura s blows continued
Nakamura was tall for a Japanese soldier, perhaps five falling he concentrated on running through the hospital
foot ten, and well built. Fukuhara began translating, but admissions again, the ones recovering, the light duties
Nakamura put up a hand and stopped him. He turned men; as Nakamura hit him on this side of his face, then
back to Dorrigo Evans and backhanded him across the that, he counted again the number of sick in the hospital—
face. perhaps forty—who, if properly handled, might just be
This man is too sick to work for Nippon, Major. capable of being transferred onto light duties—as long
Nakamura slapped him again. And as Nakamura went as they were very light—and the same number of the
on slapping him, Evans concentrated on not dropping best of the light-duties men could then be put into the
the sick man. At six foot three, Dorrigo Evans was tall work parties. The combined number was four hundred
for an Australian. This difference in height at first helped and six. Yes, he thought, that's the maximum number he
him ride the blows, but they slowly took their toll. He could find, four hundred and six men. And yet today, as
focused on keeping his feet equally weighted, on the Nakamura hit him again and again, he knew it would
next blow, on keeping his balance, on not admitting to not be enough. He would have to give up to Nakamura
any pain, as though it were some game. But it was not even more men.
a game, it was anything but a game, and he knew that As suddenly as he had begun, Major Nakamura stopped
too. And in a way he felt it was right he was being beating him and stepped away. Nakamura scratched his
punished. shaved head and looked up at the Australian. He stared
Because .he had lied. hard and deep into his eyes, and the Australian returned

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 his stare, and in that exchange of glances they expressed
everything that was not in Fukuhara's translation.
Nakamura was saying he would prevail, come what may, Yours, isn't it? Sheephead Morton asked, proffering Darky
and Dorrigo Evans was replying that he was an equal Gardiner a sledgehammer at the depot where the pris-
and that he would not submit. And only with that silent oners collected their tools. He had huge hands like vices
conversation finally done did the haggling resume in this and a head that he himself described as rougher than
strange bazaar of life and death. the road out of Rosebery. His name came not from his
Nakamura named the figure of four hundred and thirty looks,but from his childhood growing up in Queenstown—
men and would not budge. Evans blustered, held firm, a remote copper mining town on the Tasmanian west
blustered some more. But Nakamura had begun scratching coast, a land made in equal parts of rainforest and myth—
his elbow furiously and now spoke forcefully. where for a time his family had been so poor that they
The Emperor wills it, Fukuhara translated. had only been able to afford sheepheads for food. His
I know, Dorrigo Evans said. gentleness when sober was only matched by his violence
Fukuhara said nothing. when drunk. He loved fighting, and once drunk he had
Four hundred and twenty-nine, said Dorrigo Evans challenged an entire busload of diggers returning from
and bowed. leave in Cairo to take him on. When told to shut up
And so the day's deal was done and the business of and sit down, he had turned to Jimmy Bigelow and,
the day began. Dorrigo Evans momentarily wondered shaking his head in disgust, summed up a world of
whether he had won or lost. He had played the game as contempt with just eight words: You don't get rats out
best he could, and every day he lost a little more, and of mice, Jimmy.
the loss was counted in the lives of others. Tiny's, Darky Gardiner said.
He went over to the Wailing Wall and laid the sick Tiny had marked the best hammer in the camp's collec-
man down by the log with the other sick, and was about tion by notching a T at the top of the handle so that he
to go to the hospital and begin the selection when he or Darky would recognise it each morning.
had the feeling he had lost or misplaced something. It's the best hammer, said Sheephead Morton, to whom
He turned back around. such things mattered. The handle's a bit splintered but
In the same way it covered logs, sleepers, fallen bamboo, the head's a good pound heavier.
railway iron and any number of other inanimate things, And while Tiny had his strength and they had been
the rain now snaked over Tiny Middleton's corpse. It was on a piecework system, it had been the best sledgehammer.
always raining.
Every blow had the extra power of its weight, slamming
the drill harder and deeper and helping Tiny and Darky
finish their quota early. You just had to be as fit and strong

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 Either way, high up on the thigh or at the hip, there's 18
nowhere left to put any tourniquet and he bleeds to death.
There's no fucking leg left, Squizzy. That's the problem. Dorrigo Evans looked at the gaunt face, grey as beef
If I can push down hard with something round and dripping, with white stubble stiff as fuse wire, the large
flat about here, said Taylor, prodding around his own possum eyes, the snub nose and dirty freckles.
groin with his fingers, feeling the arteries, the flesh, the Get a blanket, Dorrigo Evans said.
span of the dilemma. Here, he said, pushing two fingers You got a Pall Mall, doc?
into his groin. Here—on the femoral artery, that might I'm afraid not, Jack. But after, I'll make sure you get
stop the blood enough. a good smoke.
It might not. Nothing like a Pall Mall to warm you up, doc.
It might not. And Jack laughed and coughed and shook once more.
Maybe something like a spoon with the handle bent Van DerWoude arrived with his homemade anaesthetic.
around? That might. Jimmy Bigelow returned with a tablespoon from the
Might. kitchen and a soup ladle as backup. The candles and two
Might. kerosene lamps were lit, but the mass of them only seemed
That'd do the job. And hopefully staunch the flow to accentuate the darkness of the hut. An orderly switched
enough that you can work. He'll still bleed. But you get on a torch.
the stump off, clamp the arteries and then sew up. He'll Not yet, Dorrigo Evans said. We've got no spare
still be bleeding but not so badly he'll die. batteries. Wait till I ask.
I'll have to go quickly. He motioned Jimmy Bigelow and Squizzy Taylor to
You were never a man to dawdle. stand with him alongside the table and slide their hands
Jack Rainbow's wasted body was trembling slightly. A under Jack Rainbow.
low hiss pulsed in and out of his mouth. On the count of three, gentlemen.
Okay, said Dorrigo Evans, shaking his hands dry. He They rolled Jack Rainbow over. When Squizzy Taylor
sent Jimmy Bigelow for a tablespoon and went back to slid the needle into Jack's spine, Jack made a plunging
the bamboo table. noise like a drain being suddenly emptied. They began
We're just going to whittle that leg back a bit more, drip-feeding him the anaesthetic. Wat Cooney, a cook of
Jack, cut that stinking gangrene away and— impossibly small proportions with ears that looked as if
I'm cold, said Jack Rainbow. stolen from a bag of brussel sprouts, arrived with the
meat saw from the kitchen.
Van DerWoude s concoction was good but variable in
strength. Jack Rainbow lost feeling quickly and they

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prepared for the amputation, boiling the kitchen saw and level of Jack Rainbow's stinking remnant of leg, concen-
the few surgical instruments they had. When all was trating on the job at hand.
finally ready, Dorrigo Evans gave the signal they were Major Menadue said only you can stop them.
about to begin. The drip was removed and Jack Rainbow Later.
was rolled back around. When he severed the femoral artery it bled badly, but
We will be as quick as we can, Dorrigo Evans said. not wildly.
Normal procedure. The key here is to keep bleeding to an Clamps, Dorrigo Evans said. Nothing I can do about
absolute minimum. Hold him, he said, turning to Jimmy it at the moment. Fucking yellow bastards. Clamps?
Bigelow and Wat Cooney. Spoon ready? he asked Squizzy Bastards. Clamps!
Taylor. Taylor raised the now bent spoon in a mock salute. He clamped the femoral artery but the tissue just broke
Charge the windmill, Dorrigo Evans said. away and the fleshy tube spat blood out over the table
He took a deep breath. Taylor pushed the spoon head and then continued pumping blood.
gently but with growing firmness into the base of Jack Push harder, he said to Taylor. He was thinking how
Rainbow's wasted belly. he should have been there to stop such an outrage. He
Torch, Dorrigo Evans said. Jimmy Bigelow came thought also of the broken still, the need to buy more
forward and shone the torch on the stump. anaesthetic from the Thai traders, and how in future he
There was noise from the general hospital huts but it must always make the first amputation as low as possible
was almost immediately drowned out by Jack's screaming to allow for such future horrors as this.
as Dorrigo Evans began cutting away his leg stump. The He clamped the femoral artery a second time, and for
stench of the dead flesh was so powerful it was all he a second time it fell away, and he had to push up into
could do not to vomit. But Jack Rainbow's screams the stinking dead flesh and clamp again. He stopped,
confirmed to Dorrigo Evans that he was doing what he waited. This time it held.
had to do: cut into living flesh. Okay, he said, okay.
An orderly came running into the operating hut. He cut away more flesh. Within a minute he had cut
What do you want? Dorrigo Evans asked, not looking off the rest of the rotting meat. There was bleeding, but
up. Taylor was right, it was not too much, there had been
The Goanna's taken Darky Gardiner out of the hospital. enough leg left, just enough to amputate. For the first
What? time in an hour he relaxed a little.
We couldn't stop him. They dragged him out by his Spoon away? Taylor asked.
arms. Something about men missing up on the Line.There's Not yet, Dorrigo Evans said. Pointing to the rotting
a tenko happening now. They're going to punish him. meat on the table, he said to Jimmy Bigelow, Get rid of
Later, Dorrigo Evans said, his face down almost at the it, for Christ's sake.

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 Next Evans flensed enough skin to form a flap to cover live. He would save this man's life. There was the recu-
the final wound. Then he neatly filleted the living leg peration to get through, the chance of infection. But his
muscles back from the bone, so that he could remove chances were now good. Not great, perhaps, but still
the bone higher up and the flesh could in time heal good. He concentrated on doing the best job he could
below and around it to form a tolerable stump. now, imagining a middle-aged Jack Rainbow with chil-
Saw, he said. dren, his stump on a cushion. Alive. Loved. And he knew
An orderly handed him the kitchen meat saw. It was that what he did was not pointless, without reason; that
hard to get the traction he needed, so he worked with he had not failed.
gentle small strokes, scoring the upper thighbone, seeking Torch off, he said.
to avoid splinters and any further damage to the flesh. He was finished.
And soon enough a piece of bone the length of a finger He stood up straight, rubbed his back, winked at Jimmy
dropped away. Bigelow and looked back down at the stump. It was a
The three men were now intensely focused on the surprisingly neat job. He felt proud of his handiwork. He
operation. Dorrigo Evans set to work sewing up the noticed a small seep of blood where he had just stitched
femoral artery with a gut twine Van Der Woude had the flaps of flesh together, but the orderly was cleaning
improvised out of a pig's intestine casings. These had been the stump and wiped it away.
cleaned, boiled and pared into threads, then cleaned and Dorrigo lit a cigarette, breathed in the welcome smoke
boiled again, then boiled a third time before the operation. deeply, and laughed.
Compared to surgical ligatures, they were coarse, but they A spoon, he said.
held. But this time he was sewing into nothing, wetness, A bloody bent spoon, said Squizzy.
a blur of tissue and blood. The torchlight was dimming, That's one for The Lancet.
and he concentrated with all his being on getting each When he glanced back at Jack, a few fresh beads of
suture in exactly the right place. blood had appeared on the stump.
And then the bleeding stopped. Why aren't you dressing and bandaging the stump?
He had done it. He had managed to suture the artery, Dorrigo asked Wat Cooney, as he wiped away the blood
and Jack Rainbow would live. He realised he was a second time.
breathing heavily. He smiled. He began to prepare the As if in answer, the blood almost as quickly reappeared.
rest of the muscles and skin flap for binding over the The stitched flaps were swelling, the small seepage was
bone stump. He looked up at Squizzy. transforming into a persistent oozing, and then blood
Spoon away, Major. Gently. began to drip from every part of the wound. Wat Cooney
Squizzy Taylor lifted the spoon. Dorrigo Evans kept looked up at Dorrigo in horror.
working, more slowly now, more carefully. Jack would The stitches holding the femoral artery together must

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 have given way, Squizzy Taylor said, giving words to a up and down as if electricity were coursing through it,
thought Dorrigo did not wish to have. For a moment and their grips slipped in the blood that now seemed to
he was frozen. grease everything.
Spoon! he suddenly yelled. The leg, said Dorrigo Evans. Get the leg!
What? asked Jimmy Bigelow, who was on the other But there was really no leg left to get, only a weirdly
side of the hut. moving and bloody thing that seemed just to want to
The ligatures are gone on the femoral artery. We've be left alone. The tiny piece of thigh that remained was
got to open it back up. now so slippery with blood that it was very difficult to
Squizzy Taylor ran back with the spoon. work on, and in the dim light and the confusion of blood
Torch! Jimmy, torch! We've got half a minute. Dorrigo Evans was having trouble seeing anything clearly.
For after half a minute, he knew, Jack Rainbow's heart The tremors eased then stopped, and he managed to find
would have emptied his body of blood. Before he could the sutures holding the flesh together so that he could
get the spoon back in position Jack Rainbow's body jolted. get back to the femoral artery, but when he snipped them
Spoon! Jack Rainbow jolted again. Squizzy's spoon slipped in
Jack Rainbow's body had gone into convulsions. the bloody slime, and blood spurted in a wild arc that
Spoon! Dorrigo Evans yelled. reached as far as the foot of Jack Rainbow's good leg.
Squizzy Taylor went to push the spoon down but He was frantically searching the muck of Jack's stump
couldn't keep it pressed against the bucking body. Jimmy with his fingers, trying to find something to stitch,
Bigelow switched the torch on and got back in position, pinching vaulting slime, groping pitching slop, there was
but the torch dimmed further and then died altogether. nothing, nothing to stitch into, nothing that might hold
Torch! Dorrigo Evans was yelling. Where's the fucking the thread. The artery walls were wet blotting paper.
light? There was, realised Dorrigo Evans, with a rising horror
The body was jumping wildly. as the blood continued to pump out, as Jack Rainbow's
Hold him! Hold him down! Hard. Spoon! Hard! Hold body went into a terrible series of violent fits, nothing
the fucker! he could do. But there must be, he told himself. Think!
I'm pushing as hard as I fucking can but the fucker Think! Look!
won't stop, yelled Squizzy Taylor. With each galvanic jolt blood was spewing out in a
Blood was everywhere, blood over the bamboo, blood small fountain. It was as if Jack Rainbow's body were
over them, blood dripping oily lines in the dark mud willingly pumping itself dry. Dorrigo Evans was trying to
below. It took a few more moments for Jimmy Bigelow stitch as far up the artery as he could go, the blood was
and Wat Cooney to get a good grip of Jack Rainbow still galloping out, Squizzy Taylor was unable to staunch
and hold him, but still that emaciated tiny body jolted the flow, blood was everywhere, he was desperately trying

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to think of something that might buy some time but hold and Jack live, and when it was done and he lifted
there was nothing. He was stitching, the blood was his head he knew Jack had been dead for some minutes
pumping, there was no light, the stitches kept ripping, and no one had known how to tell him.
nothing held.
Push harder, he was yelling to Squizzy Taylor. Stop the
fucking flow.
But no matter how hard Squizzy Taylor pushed, still 19
the blood kept surging, spilling over Dorrigo Evans' hand
and arm, running down into the Asian mud and the Asian Colonel Kota found the Korean sergeant ever more irri-
morass that they could not escape, that Asian hell that tating. Everything about the guard seemed untrustworthy
was dragging them all ever closer to itself. and unreliable. Even his affected way of walking and his
The convulsions gave way to shivering. Dorrigo Evans exceedingly slow way of turning seemed somehow false.
was pushing deeper into the stump, the flesh was tearing As he looked up and down the tangle of sleepers, rock,
and falling away as he worked; his needle at one point dirt, irons and naked slaves working like cockroaches,
hit the bone. He was trying to think, he was trying to Colonel Kota understood why Koreans could never be
find some way, he was trying not to give up hope when used as frontline troops.
he heard Jack speak a few low words that were not much While he inspected the railway works—the embank-
more than gasps and cracks of breath. ments and sidings, the great cuttings through rocky hills,
Big Fella? grey limestone cliffs holding up black clouds, and the
Jack? magnificent teak trestle bridges over jungle gorges, bowing
Will I die? like rainbows in the monsoon deluge—all he could think
I think so. of was how he had not killed the prisoner back along the
Cold, he said. So fucken cold. track, and how the Korean sergeant had witnessed his
Dorrigo Evans kept steadily working on Jack's stump, strange behaviour. And yet, even now, he could not
his bare feet ankle-deep in the bloody mud below the remember the exact order of the haiku's syllables. The
makeshift bamboo operating table, his outer calm a strange Korean sergeant annoyed him immensely, seeking to please
thing he knew he preserved at the moments of greatest him with his affected smile, his ridiculous agreement with
inner turmoil. He kept looking for that piece of artery, every comment Kota made, his boasting of the efficiency
trying to find something in his work to hold on to, of their operation. Colonel Kota was convinced that behind
unconsciously clawing at the mud with his toes. every compliment was contempt, behind every agreement
And then finally he had it, and he worked with the mockery, beneath every boast insolent superiority. On a
utmost care and delicacy to make sure his work would hunch that he thought at best might embarrass the Korean

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