Bamboo Heart: A Daughter's Quest: Echoes of Empire

By Ann Bennett

From award-winning author Ann Bennett comes a captivating WW2 novel of love and survival - a daughter's journey of discovery and a soldier's strength in the bleakest of times.

When Laura Ellis, a successful city lawyer, arrives home to see her dying father Tom, a mysterious stranger is watching the house. This leads her to embark on a journey to discover their connection.

To do so, she has to retrace her father's steps; to the Bridge on the River Kwai: where as a prisoner of war of the Japanese, Tom endured disease, torture and endless days of slavery; and to the beautiful island of Penang, to uncover his secrets from the 1930s.

For Tom made himself a promise: to return home. Not to the grey streets of London, where he once lived, but to Penang, where he found paradise and love.

As Laura searches for the truths Tom refused to tell her, in the places where he once suffered, lived and loved, she will finally find out the story behind his survival, and discover her own path to love and happiness..

The book has previously been published under both titles Bamboo Heart and A Daughter's Quest. It won tthe award for fiction published in Asia, Asian Books Blog, 2015 and was shortlisted in the best fiction category in the Singapore Book Prize in 2016.

Praise for Bamboo Heart: A Daughter's Quest.

'A powerful story brilliantly told. Five Stars.' Richard Kandler, author of The Prisoner List.

'This outstanding novel is a powerful reminder of what prisoners of the Japanese suffered...' Amazon reviewer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ann Bennett
• Release date: Sep 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223718918

Ann Bennett

Ann Bennett was born in Pury End, a small village in Northamptonshire, UK. She read Law at Cambridge and qualified as a solicitor. She started to write in earnest during a career break to have children, and was inspired to write her first book by researching her father’s wartime experience as a POW on the Thai-Burma railway. She is married with three sons and a granddaughter, lives in Surrey and works as a lawyer. Ann is also the author of  A Daughter’s Promise, Bamboo Island:The Planter’s Wife, Bamboo Heart:A Daughter’s Quest, The Tea Planter’s Club, and The Amulet - all based in SE Asia during WW2. She has also written The Lake Pavilion, The Lake Palace, The Lake Pagoda and The Lake Villa, set in India, Burma and French Indochina respectively. Her USA Today bestselling book  The Orphan House, The Runaway Sisters, The Child Without a Home and The Forgotten Children are published by Bookouture.

Book preview

Prologue

Thailand, May 1943

---

‘H ey!’ Tom shouted. ‘I need some more. You’ve spilled half of this.’

The guard bent over to stare at him, breathing heavily, his narrow eyes slits of hatred and derision.

‘What you say?’

‘I said this has spilled. I need some more food.’

The guard leaned over further and slapped Tom’s face. Then he straightened up and spat down at him. Tom felt the warm glob of the guard’s phlegm settle in his hair. His stomach turned in revulsion, but he did not reach up to wipe it away.

‘You not ask!’ screeched the guard, his voice hysterical. ‘You must be punish.’ He aimed his boot at the side of Tom’s head, catching him above his left ear. Everything around spun and reeled from the blow.

‘You bastard! I’m starving in here. I’m going to die.’

But the metal roof was already being slammed shut above his head, and he was left there, reeling from this new pain, his stomach taut with starvation.

He stood, slightly stooped, in this narrow earth prison that was already putrid and festering from the wastes of its former inhabitants. Tom’s whole body cried out in pain. The ache in his back, welded into this awkward position, was excruciating, and his legs had turned numb, were close to collapse. Mosquitoes and flies buzzed around his open wounds and settled everywhere on his sweating body, covering him in bites that swelled and itched. His face was swollen from the kicks and punches of the guards, and his limbs and torso were turning blue with bruises. His ribs cracked sickeningly with every breath he took.

Tom watched as the sun slipped behind the jungle-covered hills in the distance, leaving the sky shot through with streaks of red and pink. Sunset was swift in the tropics, and within a few minutes everything he could see through the bamboo bars above his prison pit would be enveloped in darkness. He welcomed the night. It meant that, if only for a few hours, it would feel a little cooler inside the pit. It also meant that by some miracle he had survived another day.

Each morning, as the sun came up he listened out for the sound of the bugle. This would summon the camp to roll call. He would watch the other prisoners stumble out of their huts onto the open space in front of the guardhouse and assemble there in unsteady lines. They hardly looked like soldiers anymore. Most of their uniforms were filthy and ragged. Some no longer had shirts and wore only loin cloths, exposing their skeletal bodies to the full glare of the sun. Some of them would cast furtive glances in the direction of the punishment pits, no doubt looking out for any sign of life from him, wondering if Tom was still alive, probably thanking God that it was him and not them in the pit. Tom, in turn, would look out for the men he knew, recognising them from the way they walked, the shape of their bodies, the rips on their uniforms.

Roll call and inspection consisted of the Japanese officers marching up and down the lines of men, slapping or shoving with rifle butts any man who did not bow correctly or show proper respect. Tom would watch from the pit, holding his breath, praying that it would be over quickly and the beatings would not be too severe.

When they were released, the men would cross the ground to the tool sheds and collect what they needed for their day’s work on the railway cutting: crowbars, sledge-hammers and pickaxes, shovels and baskets to dispose of the waste. They would then begin their weary march up the jungle track to the cutting. Tom knew what faced them on the day ahead. Endless hours of back-breaking work, chipping away at the granite rock, or shovelling and hauling the waste rock to tip away at the edge of the cutting. All the time they would be bullied and abused by the guards who would slap or prod anyone they thought to be slacking.

But here in his earth prison, shivering in pain and misery, and standing barefoot in his own urine, his shorts covered in excrement, Tom longed to be setting off up the jungle path alongside those men. Each day was plagued with the fear that at any moment he might hear the clatter of the metal lid being thrown aside, might feel the force of rough hands dragging him out of the pit and across the clearing, that he would be made to stand up in front of a tree and mown down in a hail of bullets.

The prisoners would return after dark and queue up at the cookhouse for another meagre meal of rice and stewed vegetables. Tom would then see the dark shape of one of the guards approaching his corner of the camp. The metal roof would be thrown aside, and a tin plate and mug would be shoved towards him. If he did manage to grab the plate and lower it to his lips, he found it difficult to force the food down his throat. His stomach, weak with starvation and sickness would rebel, and if he did manage to swallow any of the dirty, barely cooked rice, he would often vomit it up again, down the front of his ragged shirt, already stained with his own sweat and blood from the beatings. It was at moments like that, covered in vomit and drowning in his own filth, racked with pain and delirious with fever, when he felt like giving up, like simply collapsing here and surrendering to his fate.

It was at moments like that when he needed to distract himself with memories, would focus on those years before the war, the people he had known, the good times he had once had. It was an effort, but with shaking fingers he would sometimes take out the photograph that still sat in the top pocket of his shirt, pressing against his chest. He would gaze at the image of the woman he loved, at her perfect features, at her glossy black hair drawn back from her face. But tears would prick his eyes as he looked at her. Those almond-shaped eyes and soft lips seemed to belong to another lifetime.

It was only after nightfall, when the darkness and silence of the camp blotted out his dreadful reality that he would be able to close his eyes and conjure the image of her face properly. She would then come to him, as if in a vision, and those soft brown eyes would caress his face, easing the burning and throbbing of his wounds, if only for a moment. Then he would reach out a trembling hand to touch her cool smooth skin, and she would smile. She would open those perfect lips to say something to him. But no matter how hard he tried, how much he strained his ears, he could never quite catch her words.

1

Hurrying out of the tube station on to Highbury Corner, Laura shivered in the chill drizzle of the winter afternoon. She glanced at the darkening sky and pulled her coat tightly around her. Hovering on the edge of the pavement, she scanned the lanes of stationary traffic for a cab, but seeing none, stepped onto the road, and nimbly threaded her way through the cars.

Her ankle turned as her left heel snagged between two uneven paving stones, and she cursed her tight work skirt and high heels. A goods lorry splashed past with a hiss of air brakes, spattering her legs and the hem of her skirt with filthy water.

‘Bloody hell!’ Ducking her head against the rain, she carried on, past the assortment of dusty charity shops, ethnic grocers and empty cafés, towards St. Paul’s Road. Soon she was away from the heavy traffic, hurrying along the broad pavements of Highbury New Park in the grey-green light filtering through the plane trees

As she rounded the final sweep in the road, and the old house came into view, she quickened her pace. There it was, still stately despite its shabby paint work. In years gone by it had not looked out of place, but now it stooped apologetically between its two smarter, recently gentrified neighbours with their white windows and scrubbed brickwork.

Laura saw that someone was standing in front of the house. She slowed down, panting from the effort of running. It was an old man. Dressed in a battered hat and grey overcoat, he was almost indistinguishable from the tree under which he sheltered. He seemed to be watching the house. Laura hesitated, puzzled. Then, taking a deep breath to steady her thumping heart, she ventured a few steps towards him. He turned and began to move away from her, shuffling rather than walking.

‘Hey,’ she called out, but he didn’t turn.

She watched his retreating form for a second then shrugged. He was probably one of the tramps who slept rough around Finsbury Park Station and was straying from his normal patch.

She paused before lifting the latch to the front gate. How overgrown the garden was. The scent of damp grass conjured a memory of pottering around behind Dad as a toddler, watching him weed the flowerbeds and prune the honeysuckle that smothered the front wall. She glanced up at the house. The curtains on the second floor sagged across the windows. A few greying socks hung from a clothes horse on the balcony, soaking in the rain. Ken, the lodger, would be fast asleep in the studio, amongst his paint pallets and whisky bottles, where he had been staying since he turned up for a brief visit in the summer of 1962.

There were no curtains on the top floor. It had been empty since the Chaudhry family had moved out. A couple of pigeons nested under the broken guttering, their white droppings streaking the front wall.

The windows of Dad’s study were shut today. Normally he would have them open to let out the smoke as he sat puffing away on roll-ups, reading or working at his desk.

Letting the gate slam behind her, Laura rushed up the path. As she clattered up the front steps, the door to the basement clicked open.

‘Is that you Laura, love?’

She hesitated. She’d wanted to avoid this.

‘Marge?’

The old woman appeared beneath the parapet; her hair was hennaed but grey roots were showing through. She was dressed in the same nylon overall and slippers she’d been wearing for decades. A tabby cat rubbed itself against her legs. Laura caught the bitter tang of cat-piss wafting up from the basement.

‘Thank goodness you’ve come, my love! Your dad’s in the back sitting-room. Ken brought his bed down for him when he came home from hospital.’

‘How is he? You really freaked me when you phoned this morning.’

The old lady’s gaze slid away from Laura’s. Her lips quivered.

‘Not so good, my love. He’s had an awful shock. Poor old Tom.’

‘I’d better see how he is,’ Laura took another step. Why didn’t the old bat just go back to her cats and let her get out of the rain?

‘Coming down for a cuppa later, love?’

‘Yes, sure,’ Laura answered automatically, fumbling in her bag for the key.

She let herself in through the front door. She stood still for a second, taking in the atmosphere and silence of the old house, its familiar smells of tobacco and stale cooking.

Then she kicked off her shoes and threw her coat on the hall table. The door to the back sitting room was shut. She pressed her ear to the panel. There was no sound, so she opened the door. The curtains were closed and she had to pause to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. The room’s furniture had been shoved together to make space for Dad’s bed. His portable radio chattered softly from the corner of the room.

‘Laura?’

She crossed the room and knelt down beside her father.

‘Dad.’

He raised himself onto one elbow. His blue striped pyjamas sagged from his bony shoulders. A crepe bandage was wrapped around his forehead.

‘Come here. I wasn’t expecting to see you. I thought you were in Paris.’

He held out his arms. He was smiling, but his face was pale and drawn with pain. She leaned forward to hug him. She put her arms around him, but sensing the fragility of the bones in his arms and ribs was afraid to hug him too tightly.

‘Marge called me this morning,’ she said. ‘I came straight away.’

‘You shouldn’t have come all that way. What a fuss about nothing. What on earth did they say at work?’

‘Nothing much. They couldn’t object really, could they? Anyway, what happened to you?’

‘Fell down the damned steps to the library. That ridiculous sodding stick gave way. The rubber bottom had worn down so it slipped—’

He paused for a coughing fit.

‘Ruddy leg broken in two places. Not that it was up to much anyway. Banged my head too.’

‘I hope they dosed you up with painkillers.’

‘Of course. Morphine, codeine, the works. I’m rattling like a tube of Smarties.’

She straightened up and smiled down fondly at him.

‘Why don’t you go and change?’ he asked. ‘You don’t want to spoil that lovely suit.’

‘Don’t fuss over me, Dad. I’ll go up and change in a bit.’

‘I’ll tell you what then,’ he looked up at her craftily. ‘I could do with a beer.’

‘You sure? It’s a bit early.’

‘Nonsense. It’s nearly dark. There is some in the fridge in the study.’

She padded through to his study at the front of the house. Her feet were still wet from the walk.

‘Can I turn on the heating?’ she called. ‘It’s a bit bloody cold in here, Dad.’

‘Boiler’s broken down. I’ve been meaning to get it fixed.’

‘Jesus. What a state … ’

She stopped in the doorway to the study. Towering piles of books, newspapers and journals crowded every surface, the desk, the sideboard and even the floor. On the desk, ringed with coffee stains, were dirty cups and glasses, an ash tray overflowing with cigarette ends. She walked in, glancing briefly at the portrait of her mother and herself as a baby placed on the mantelpiece. Then holding her breath to avoid taking in the study’s smells, she pulled up both the sash windows and began to collect the dirty crockery. There was a book open on the desk. She flipped through the pages. What had Dad been reading? A History of the British Empire. Just the usual stuff.

She was about to move away when she saw something poking out from between the book’s pages. It looked like a photograph.

She slipped it out and stared at it. A faded sepia portrait, battered and creased. One of its corners had been torn away. It was someone she’d never seen before. It was a young woman. Although her complexion was pale, she had oriental features: dark eyes the shape of almonds, slightly tilted at the edges, a full mouth, a sheen of black hair drawn back severely from her face. She had a serious, demure expression, betraying a trace of surprise at the flash of the camera bulb. Laura turned over the photograph. The ink was so faded it was almost colourless. It looked as though it had been in water, but she could just make out the words written neatly in flowing script: ‘To my dear Thomas. Good luck. Joy de Souza. Penang, November 1941.’

She stared at the photograph, confused. Then, with a pang of guilt she remembered the day she had found the letter with the Penang post mark, the one that had been scuffed by the letter box. She must have been fourteen or fifteen at the time. The exotic stamp had caught her eye, and when she pulled the letter free from the box, she’d noticed that she could read part of the letter through the torn envelope. It was but a small step to tear it a little further and ease out the letter. She’d heard Dad come in through the front door before she had read beyond the first few lines. She had panicked. Shame washed over her now as she remembered how she’d thrown the letter into the sitting-room fire and watched the flames devour it.

‘Laura. You still there?’ Dad called from the other room.

She slipped the photo back inside the book and went to the fridge.

‘Won’t be a minute,’ she called, steadying her voice.

In the small kitchen at the back of the house, she rinsed one of the dirty glasses and filled it with beer. Dad was coughing and wheezing again when she came into the room. He held out his hand for the glass. After a few sips the cough subsided, and he dabbed his eyes with a crumpled handkerchief.

‘Roll up a cigarette for me, will you? There’s a good girl.’

‘Your cough sounds dreadful, Dad. You should really give it a rest.’

‘I don’t think it’s going to make that much difference at this stage, do you?’ He winked at her. ‘An old man deserves some pleasures in life.’

Sighing, she went to the sideboard and found the green tin of Golden Virginia; the cigarette papers and matches were in the desk drawer. Folding the paper and measuring just the right amount of tobacco, she packed it into the fold and rolled him a cigarette, just as he had taught her to do as a child.

After he had taken a couple of puffs, he lay back on the pillows.

‘Pull that chair up, there’s a good girl. Come and sit with me. I’ve been so damned bored.’ She dragged an armchair over to the bed and sat down beside him.

‘I didn’t notice at first,’ he said, peering at her. ‘You’ve had your hair cut.’

She pushed her hands back through her damp hair. She felt colour creeping into her cheeks.

‘It must look frightful. I forgot to bring an umbrella. I came straight from the office. It wasn’t raining in Paris when I set off.’

‘It suits you short like that. Very gamine, I think they say. What brought that on?’

She hesitated, glancing away, hoping he wouldn’t notice her blushing. Was this the opportunity she’d been waiting for to tell him about Luke?

‘Nothing really,’ she replied. ‘I just fancied a change.’

‘How’s it all going in Paris?’

‘Fine, Dad. I told you on the phone last week. It’s all going really well.’

‘When is it you’re coming back to London?’

‘Next month. The posting ends then. I told you on the phone.’

‘Met anyone out there?’

‘Anyone? What do you mean?’ But she knew what he meant. She avoided his eyes. She wasn’t going to get into all that now.

‘And the work? Enjoying it still?’

‘Of course. Who wouldn’t? It’s a fantastic opportunity.’ It was the answer she knew he wanted.

He reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘I’m so proud of you, Laura. You know that, don’t you?’ She smiled weakly and looked away. If only he knew how much she loathed her job.

‘Marge asked me down for a cup of tea later,’ she said, to change the subject.

He let out a wheezy laugh, which ended in another bout of coughing.

‘Her old ginger cat’s had another litter, you know. There must be at least ten of them down there now. The basement steps stink. So does the flat, probably.’

‘I noticed. She’s battier than ever, Dad. Why don’t you do something about it?’

‘After all these years? You’ve forgotten how good she was to us when you were little.’

She hadn’t forgotten. The endless hours she’d spent in that gloomy basement, staring up from the window at the front gate, waiting for the moment when her father’s shoes and legs would appear and he would be home from the office. The portable TV flickering in the corner, showing Peyton Place, Crown Court, The Flowerpot Men. Marge would make her peanut butter sandwiches on Mother’s Pride, would serve them along with milky tea in chipped mugs.

‘Of course, I haven’t.’ She felt her irritation rise, but tried to hide it in her voice. ‘I’ll go down later.’

The pips on the radio struck the hour, and they both fell silent, listened to the news headlines.

‘Today saw the worst rioting and violence at the News International Plant in Wapping, East London since demonstrations began about a month ago. Eight policemen were injured and over fifty protesters were arrested. Around five-thousand demonstrators were estimated to have assembled at the scene …’

Luke would be there, she realised with a shock.

‘Mounted police and riot shields were used for the first time to control the pickets and demonstrators …’

‘Bloody government. Over-stepping the mark again,’ Dad murmured. ‘First it was the miners, now the print-workers. When on earth will it stop?’

Her mind was racing. Was Luke one of the people arrested? Had he been hurt? She could hear his voice now, his mocking laugh, teasing her for being anxious.

‘It’s got to be done, Loz. Those bastards. They’re out to break the workers. We’ve got to fight back,’ Luke would say.

‘Laura?’

The news had finished and the announcer was introducing a new programme.

‘Today, in 1942, Singapore fell to the Japanese. This was a turning point in the war for Britain and for the British Empire …’

‘Laura! Could you switch off the radio?’

She fiddled with the dial. There was silence. Dad was watching her face. His clear blue eyes missed nothing.

‘Are you OK? You look miles away.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You sure?’

‘Look, Dad, I came here to see how you are. Could you stop worrying about me?’

‘Well, you can see how I am. On my last legs. Or leg I should say.’ He smiled at the feeble joke, displaying his missing teeth.

‘Has anyone else been to see you?’ she asked.

‘Only Marge and Ken. No-one else knows I’ve had a fall. Why do you ask?’

‘No reason. It’s just that there was someone standing outside the house when I arrived.’

He frowned.

‘An old guy,’ she went on. ‘Looked like a tramp. Grey hat and coat.’

His expression changed. The humour and twinkle vanished. His face drained of colour. For a moment she didn’t recognise him.

‘Are you all right, Dad?’

He looked away. He took some deep breaths and drew deeply on his cigarette. Then he turned back towards her, still pale but his features now composed.

‘Was it someone you know?’

Slowly, he nodded his head.

‘Leech,’ he almost spat the word.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth. Laura could see that he was shaking. He turned to her, gripped her hand and looked her in the eyes.

‘He’s been pestering me. If he comes to the door, don’t let him in. Promise me this.’

‘You’re frightening me now. How do you know him? Was he … one of your criminals?’

He loosened his grip on her hand.

‘No. No, he wasn’t a client.’

She waited for him to go on, but he seemed lost in his own thoughts again. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed a quarter past the hour.

‘I knew him in the war, Laura,’ he said at last. ‘He was …’

Then he whispered something. His voice was so hoarse that she had to lean forward to catch the words.

‘In my camp.’

His fist was cold and clenched so hard that she could feel the bones of his knuckles under the stretched flesh. A chill went through her. In her twenty-six years she had never heard him speak seriously of what he had endured during the war. He would often make joking reference to his lame leg – ‘My old war wound,’ he would say. And after a few beers he would break into the bawdy songs he had learned as a soldier. But she had never heard him speak seriously about the war.

They sat in silence, listening to the ticking clock, to the sounds of the drills in the house opposite theirs, to the rumble of a tube train passing them deep beneath the house.

Finally, she asked in a small voice, ‘You’ve never really talked about it, Dad.’

He shook his head.

‘No. I’ve never talked about it.’

The words were said with an air of finality. She had the urge to ask him to tell her. She opened her mouth to speak, but he patted her hand and smiled.

‘Roll me another one, there’s a good girl.’

2

Tom straightened up to ease the burning pain in his back. He looked around him. Night was falling in the jungle. The red sun was slipping slowly beneath the ragged horizon. Kerosene lamps had been lit so work on the railway cutting could continue by their flickering light. All around him, living skeletons laboured, hacking away at the rock with pickaxes, hammering spikes into the granite, clearing rubble into bamboo baskets and passing them down the long chain of waiting men to the edge of the cutting, to be tipped over the precipice.

The light from the lamps and the rapidly setting sun glinted on their sweating bodies. The men were barefoot and almost naked, wearing only ragged shorts or tattered loin cloths, and were so thin that their eyes bulged out from hollow cheeks, their ribs clearly visible beneath the skin. The scene was one of constant movement as men swung sledgehammers above their heads in a rhythmic action and brought them down on the thick metal spikes. The air rang with the continuous sound of chipping and tapping, metal upon metal, metal upon rock.

A sharp prod between his shoulder blades made him lurch forward, and he nearly fell to the ground. He turned to see the Korean guard they had nicknamed ‘Fat-so’ standing behind him, wielding a bamboo cane.

‘Speedo, Speedo,’ squawked the Korean, sweat standing out in droplets on his brow.

The man leaned forward and prodded him again, harder. Tom took a deep breath and raised the heavy sledgehammer above his head, bringing it down hard on the head of the spike. Pain ripped across his shoulders and down his arms and spine, from the motion he had been repeating for over twelve hours now. He winced, blinking away sweat. His eyes met Harry’s solemn stare.

‘Not long now, lad. Nearly the end of the shift. Don’t let ‘em grind you down,’ Harry said, crouched on the ground, holding the spike in position.

‘Speedo, Speedo!’ yelled the guard again, suspicious. He brought the cane down again, this time on Harry’s shoulders, leaving another livid stripe alongside the others he’d inflicted that day.

A shout went up at the end of the cutting, where the track emerged onto a rocky ledge. Tom looked round to see that a prisoner had collapsed on the ground, and was being beaten by a guard. His heart lurched with shock when he saw it was his friend Archie. He had gone down with malaria the day before but had been dragged out from the hospital hut to join the work party that morning, despite the protests of the doctors.

The guard lashed Archie’s body with a length of wire again and again, yelling furiously in Japanese. The rest of the men had stopped work and were watching, mute, helpless. It was a familiar scene. Tom looked around. Where the hell were the officers? They should be intervening to stop this. They were probably further down the cutting. With each blow Tom felt his anger boiling. His fists clenched with rage, and he tried to restrain himself. But after a few minutes he could no longer bear to watch in silence. He threw his hammer aside and ran over to the guard. Seizing the man’s wrist, he stopped him before he could inflict another blow.

‘Stop it, you bastard! He’s sick,’ Tom had his fist tight around the guard’s wrist.

 The guard turned. He was bald, skinny, his eyes narrow with contempt. He dropped the wire whip and pushed Tom backwards. Tom stumbled and fell sprawling on the ground. Sharp stones dug into his back. The guard began kicking him in the ribs, and searing pain ripped through him at every blow. The guard then turned away to focus his attention again on Archie, who was crawling away, squirming towards the edge of the track on his belly. Fat-so had joined in now. He aimed a kick between Archie's legs. Archie stopped moving and lay still in the rubble. The Korean seized one of his hands and dragged him to the edge. He heaved Archie over the top where the waste was tipped, giving him a final contemptuous kick as he slid down. 

 ‘You work, work!’ screamed the Korean turning back to Tom, pointing to where Harry was still crouching with the spike. Tom dragged himself to his feet, picked up the hammer and swung it above his head. Pain tore through his ribcage, but he bit his lips and stayed silent. He wasn’t going to show them how much it hurt.

‘You don’t learn, mate,’ Harry said. ‘You got off light that time. It only makes things worse in the long run. Haven't you learnt anything about how they operate?’

‘What about Archie?’ Tom muttered through his teeth.

Harry shrugged. ‘We’ll carry him back to camp and see what the docs can do.’

As he worked on, trying to ignore his pain, Tom kept his eyes fixed on the edge of the precipice, willing Archie to appear. But there was no sign of him.

After another hour or so a small party of Japanese engineers appeared at the