The Naked Island

THE NAKED ISLAND

BY RUSSELL BRADDON

DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC., GARDEN CITY, N.Y,, 1953

FIRST PUBLISHED, 1953, IN THE UNITED STATES
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 52-13375
1952, by Russell Reading Braddon Reserved in the United States At the
Country Life Press, Garden City, N.Y.

AUTHOR S NOTE

This book is written as one man's fear of things that lie ahead. It is also
written as one man's tribute to the Britishers capacity for living
fearlessly and gently.
It is especially a tribute to two men--Padre Noel Duckworth and Major
Kevin Pagan--who lived more fearlessly and more gently than all
others.
It is dedicated to a Welshman called "Mush."
R.B.

BOOK ONE
1 THE FOURTEENTH STEP
2 INSANITY IN THE FAMILY?
3 FIVE-BOB-A-DAY BUTCHERS
4 "NOW IS THE HOUR"
5 "BAD DAMES"
6 "HOW TO LIVE IN MALAYA"
7 "HULLO, JOE"
8 "BATTLE STATIONS"
9 AIRBORNE INVASION

BOOK TWO
1 OUR FIRST GAOL
2 "SHANGRI-LA"
3 "PUDU S GROWING PAINS"
4 HOW TO BE A P.O.W.
5 TOJO NUMBER TEN
6 THE PHONY CAPTIVITY
7 SINGAPORE INTERLUDE
8 BORE-HOLES

BOOK THREE
1 "BRING YOUR PIANO"
2 KANEMOTOSAN
3 "ULCERS AND, BUSHIDO"

BOOK FOUR
1 A HOME TO BE BUILT
2 THE AERODROME
3 THEATRE
4 "HARRY THE HAWK"
5 THE FOURTH YEAR
6 ON OUR RETURN
THE HIROSHIMA INCIDENT
POSTSCRIPT

1 THE FOURTEENTH STEP
There were twenty-two steps altogether from the courtyard of the gaol
up to the cells. I had got into the habit of counting those steps. Made
them seem shorter, or easier. Anyway I had got into the habit of
counting. And at the fourteenth I stopped, done. Because I could go no
further, I lowered myself onto the step above me and took stock of my
surroundings.
At the foot of the stairs, barely visible in the gloom, sat the sentry

steel-helmeted, knees wide apart, rifle and bayonet across his knees.
Silent, unintelligent, unfriendly. Beyond him a small courtyard about
thirty yards square. Round the courtyard ran a high prison wall-sheer
and made unscalable by five or six rows of loose-piled bricks balanced
twenty feet up on its top.
Above my head, all along the balcony which ran from the top of the
stairs round three sides of the ancient block of cells, the darkness was
restless with the small sounds of men who slept neither comfortably
nor well. And at my feet, also on the staircase, lying doubled up over
three or four steps, sprawled a half -naked soldier an Argyll, I
recognized from his cap which, last of his possessions, he wore even at
night.
I had passed him on the way down to the latrines. Then, he had writhed
on the stairs with the griping pains of dysentery; and, having lost all
control of his bowels, his legs were fouled and his pride outraged.
"Anything I can do, Jock?" I had asked him.
"Och, man, leave me alone!" he had exclaimed. I regretted my intrusion.
That was the trouble nowadays; one was never alone, not even on a
prison staircase in the early hours of the morning.
"Sorry," I muttered, and, stepping over him, continued on down to the
sentry.
"Benjo-ka?" I asked him.
"Benjo hei" he grunted. Permission granted, I crossed the twenty feet of
maggot-ridden mud to the latrine. Soon I returned. In accord ance with
instructions, I thanked the sentry.
"Aringato? I said, to which he replied, disinterestedly, "Okayga."
I had walked to the stairs; climbed them slowly; passed the young
Argyll (without speaking) and then stopped exhausted at the fourteenth
step.

I looked at the sprawled figure again. Even in the gloom I could see fair
hair under the black cap with its check colours: sturdy legs: one hand
clenched tightly over the back edge of the step on which my feet rested:
head on one side and a clean-cut jaw.
A Scot of the best type. I hoped no one would come down the stairs and
see either of us at that moment. I decided then that, since I too was
incapable of moving, I could now decently address him.
"How are you doing, Jock?" I asked. He didn't answer. He didn't seem
resentful of the intrusion, however, so I persisted, with a feeble attempt
at humour:
"Toss you for who carries who up the rest of the stairs," I said and
again he didn't answer.
I knew then what had happened: knew without looking. The Argyll was
dead. Within a week of arriving in the gaol, the first man in our seven
hundred had died not of wounds, not in battle, but from exhaustion and
privation.
Weaker then ever, I leant back. This was something I could not easily
understand. Death in war was an unpleasant event which must befall
many not