The Collected Short Stories Read online

  The old rabbi placed the letter down on the table in front of him. He had read it every day for the last ten years.

  COLONEL BULLFROG

  There is one cathedral in England that has never found it necessary to launch a national fundraising appeal.

  When the colonel woke he found himself tied to a stake where the ambush had taken place. He could feel a numb sensation in his leg. The last thing he could recall was the bayonet entering his thigh. All he was aware of now were ants crawling up the leg on an endless march toward the wound.

  It would have been better to have remained unconscious, he decided.

  Then someone undid the knots, and he collapsed headfirst into the mud. It would be better still to be dead, he concluded. The colonel somehow got to his knees and crawled over to the stake next to him. Tied to it was a corporal who must have been dead for several hours. Ants were crawling into his mouth. The colonel tore off a strip from the man’s shirt, washed it in a large puddle nearby, and cleaned the wound on his leg as best he could before binding it tightly.

  That was February 17, 1943, a date that would be etched on the colonel’s memory for the rest of his life.

  That same morning the Japanese received orders that the newly captured Allied prisoners were to be moved at dawn. Many were to die on the march, and even more had perished before the trek began. Colonel Richard Moore was determined not to be counted among them.

  Twenty-nine days later, 117 of the original 732 Allied troops reached Tonchan. Any man whose travels had previously not taken him beyond Rome could hardly have been prepared for such an experience as Tonchan. This heavily guarded prisoner-of-war camp, some three hundred miles north of Singapore and hidden in the deepest equatorial jungle, offered no possibility of freedom. Anyone who contemplated escape could not hope to survive in the jungle for more than a few days, while those who remained discovered that the odds were not a lot shorter.

  When the colonel first arrived, Major Sakata, the camp commandant, informed him that he was the senior ranking officer and would therefore be held responsible for the welfare of all Allied troops.

  Colonel Moore had stared down at the Japanese officer. Sakata must have been a foot shorter than himself, but after that twenty-eight-day march the British soldier couldn’t have weighed much more than the diminutive major.

  Moore’s first act on leaving the commandant’s office was to call together all the Allied officers. He discovered there was a good cross-section from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, but few could have been described as fit. Men were dying daily from malaria, dysentery, and malnutrition. He was suddenly aware what the expression “dying like flies” meant.

  The colonel learned from his staff officers that for the previous two years of the camp’s existence, they had been ordered to build bamboo huts for the Japanese officers. These had had to be completed before they had been allowed to start on a hospital for their own men, and only recently huts for themselves. Many prisoners had died during those two years, not from illness but from the atrocities some Japanese perpetrated on a daily basis. Major Sakata, known because of his skinny arms as “Chopsticks,” was, however, not considered to be the villain. His second-in-command, Lieutenant Takasaki (“the Undertaker”), and Sergeant Ayut (“the Pig”) were of a different mold and to be avoided at all costs, his men warned him.

  It took the colonel only a few days to discover why.

  He decided his first task was to try to raise the battered morale of his troops. As there was no padre among those officers who had been captured, he began each day by conducting a short service of prayer. Once the service was over the men would start work on the railway that ran alongside the camp. Each arduous day consisted of laying tracks to help Japanese soldiers get to the front more quickly, so they could in turn kill and capture more Allied troops. Any prisoner suspected of undermining this work was found guilty of sabotage and put to death without trial. Lieutenant Takasaki considered taking an unscheduled five-minute break to be sabotage.

  At lunch prisoners were allowed twenty minutes off to share a bowl of rice—usually with maggots—and, if they were lucky, a mug of water. Although the men returned to the camp each night exhausted, the colonel still set about setting up squads to be responsible for the cleanliness of their huts and the state of the latrines.

  After only a few months, the colonel was able to arrange a football match between the British and the Americans, and following its success even set up a camp league. But he was even more delighted when the men turned up for karate lessons under Sergeant Hawke, a thick-set Australian, who had a black belt and for good measure also played the harmonica. The tiny instrument had survived the march through the jungle but everyone assumed it would be discovered before long and confiscated.

  Each day Moore renewed his determination not to allow the Japanese to believe for one moment that the Allies were beaten—despite the fact that while he was at Tonchan he lost another twenty pounds in weight, and at least one man under his command every day.

  To the colonel’s surprise the camp commandant, despite the Japanese national belief that any soldier who allowed himself to be captured ought to be treated as a deserter, did not place too many unnecessary obstacles in his path.

  “You are like the British bullfrog,” Major Sakata suggested one evening as he watched the colonel carving cricket bails out of bamboo. It was one of the rare occasions when the colonel managed a smile.

  His real problems continued to come from Lieutenant Takasaki and his henchmen, who considered captured Allied prisoners fit only to be considered as traitors. Takasaki was always careful how he treated the colonel personally, but felt no such reservations when dealing with the other ranks, with the result that Allied soldiers often ended up with their meager rations confiscated, a rifle butt in the stomach, or even left bound to a tree for days on end.

  Whenever the colonel made an official complaint to the commandant, Major Sakata listened sympathetically and even made an effort to weed out the main offenders. Moore’s happiest moment at Tonchan was to witness the Undertaker and the Pig boarding the train for the front line. No one attempted to sabotage that journey. The commandant replaced them with Sergeant Akida and Corporal Sushi, known by the prisoners almost affectionately as “Sweet and Sour Pork.” However, the Japanese High Command sent a new number two to the camp, a Lieutenant Osawa, who quickly became known as “the Devil” since he perpetrated atrocities that made the Undertaker and the Pig look like church fête organizers.

  As the months passed the colonel and the commandant’s mutual respect grew. Sakata even confided to his English prisoner that he had requested that he be sent to the front line and join the real war. “And if,” the major added, “the High Command grants my request, there will be only two NCOs I would want to accompany me.”

  Colonel Moore knew the major had Sweet and Sour Pork in mind, and was fearful what might become of his men if the only three Japanese he could work with were posted back to active duty to leave Lieutenant Osawa in command of the camp.

  Colonel Moore realized that something quite extraordinary must have taken place for Major Sakata to come to his hut, because he had never done so before. The colonel put his bowl of rice back down on the table and asked the three Allied officers who were sharing breakfast with him to wait outside.

  The major stood to attention and saluted.

  The colonel pushed himself to his full six feet, returned the salute, and stared down into Sakata’s eyes.

  “The war is over,” said the Japanese officer. For a brief moment Moore feared the worst. “Japan has surrendered unconditionally. You, sir,” Sakata said quietly, “are now in command of the cramp.”

  The colonel immediately ordered all Japanese officers to be placed under arrest in the commandant’s quarters. While his orders were being carried out he personally went in search of the Devil. Moore marched across the parade ground and headed toward the officers’ quarters. He located the secon