The Bridge on the River Kwai Read online

  They had stayed two days in this reception centre, long enough for the Japanese to issue them each with some meagre haversack rations and a triangle of coarse cloth which fastened round the waist with strings, which they referred to as ‘working kit’; long enough also to see General Yamashita perched on a makeshift platform, with his sword at his hip and pale-grey gloves on his hands, and to listen to him first explaining in faulty English that they had been placed under his command in accordance with the wishes of His Imperial Majesty, and then telling them what was expected of them.

  The tirade, which lasted over two hours, had been painful to hear and hurt their national pride just as much as the curses and the blows. He had told them that the Japanese had no quarrel with people like them, who had been led astray by the lies of their government; that they would be decently treated so long as they behaved like ‘zentlemen’, that is to say if they contributed with all their heart and with all their strength to the South-East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. They should all recognize their obligation to His Imperial Majesty, who was giving them this chance to mend the error of their ways by contributing to the common cause and helping to build the railway. Yamashita had then explained that in the general interest he would have to impose the strictest discipline and would tolerate no disobedience. Laziness and neglect would be treated as crimes. Any attempt to escape would be punished by death. The British officers would be responsible to the Japanese for their men’s behaviour and efficiency.

  ‘Sickness will not be considered an excuse,’ General Yamashita had added. ‘Reasonable work is the best thing in the world for keeping a man physically fit, and dysentery would think twice before attacking anyone who makes a daily effort to do his duty towards the Emperor.’

  He had concluded on an optimistic note, which had driven his audience wild with anger.

  ‘Be happy in your work,’ he had said, ‘that’s my motto. Make it your motto as well from now on. Those who live up to it will have nothing to fear from me, nor from the officers of the Japanese Grand Army which is now protecting you.’

  Then the units had been dispersed, each one moving off to the sector it had been allotted. Colonel Nicholson and his battalion had made their way to the camp on the River Kwai, which was quite far off, only a few miles from the Burmese border. The commandant was Colonel Saito.

  3

  Some nasty incidents punctuated the first few days in the Kwai camp, where an uneasy undercurrent of tension was at once noticeable in the atmosphere.

  The cause of the initial disturbances was Colonel Saito’s proclamation stipulating that all officers were to work side by side with the other ranks and on the same footing. This provoked a polite but firm protest from Colonel Nicholson, who outlined his ideas on the subject candidly and methodically, adding in conclusion that the task of British officers was to command their men and not to wield a pick and shovel.

  Saito listened to the whole speech without a sign of impatience – which the Colonel interpreted as a favourable omen – then dismissed him, saying that he would think the matter over. Colonel Nicholson returned full of confidence to the squalid bamboo hut which he shared with Clipton and two other officers. There he repeated for his own personal satisfaction some of the arguments he had used to convince the Japanese. To him each of them seemed quite conclusive, but the soundest of all in his eyes was this: the total output of a few men unused to manual labour was negligible, while the extra effort that would be made under the supervision of efficient officers was immense. In the interests of the Japanese, therefore, and to ensure that the work was properly done, it was preferable not to deprive the officers of their position of authority, which they would lose if they were detailed to do the same fatigues as the men. He warmed to his subject as he outlined it once again for the benefit of his own officers.

  ‘Well, am I right or wrong?’ he asked, turning to Major Hughes. ‘You’re an industrialist. Do you think we’d get any results on a job like this without a hierarchy of responsible executives?’

  As a result of the losses during the tragic campaign, his headquarters staff now consisted of only two officers apart from the MO Clipton. He had managed to keep them together ever since Singapore, for he liked to have their opinion and always thought it advisable to put his views before them as a subject for collective discussion before taking any decision. Neither of them was a regular officer. Major Hughes in civilian life was the director of a mining company in Malaya. He had been attached to Colonel Nicholson’s battalion and the latter had at once recognized his administrative ability. Captain Reeves in peace time had been a Public Works engineer in India. After joining as a Sapper, he had been separated from his unit during the initial fighting and had been picked up by the Colonel, who had appointed him to his advisory staff. He liked collecting specialists round him. He was no military dunderhead. He was the first to realize that some civilian concerns are occasionally run on methods which the army might do well to adopt, and he never missed an opportunity of adding to his own knowledge. He had an equally high regard for technicians and executives.

  ‘I think you’re quite right, sir,’ Hughes replied.

  ‘So do I,’ said Reeves. ‘If you want to build a railway line and a bridge (I believe there’s some scheme afoot for a bridge across the river) you can’t afford any shoddy, amateur work.’

  ‘I’d forgotten you’re a specialist in that sort of thing,’ the Colonel mused out loud. ‘So you’ll understand,’ he added, ‘why I hope I’ve driven a little sense into that fellow’s thick skull.’

  ‘And besides,’ Clipton chipped in, looking closely at his CO, ‘if the common-sense argument doesn’t work, there’s always the Manual of Military Law and the Hague Convention.’

  ‘There’s always the Hague Convention,’ Colonel Nicholson agreed. ‘I’m keeping that up my sleeve for a second interview, if necessary.’

  Clipton spoke in this sarcastic, pessimistic tone because he was very doubtful indeed of the value of an appeal to common sense. He had heard various reports on Saito’s character at the transit camp where they had halted during their march through the jungle. The Japanese officer, it was said, was sometimes open to reason, when he had not been drinking; but he turned into an utterly vicious brute as soon as he hit the bottle.

  Colonel Nicholson had launched his protest on the morning of the first day, which had been set aside for moving the prisoners into the semi-derelict quarters. Saito thought it over, as he had promised. He felt there was something fishy about the whole business, and started to drink in order to clear his brain. He gradually convinced himself that the Colonel had shown intolerable lack of respect in questioning his orders, and his attitude changed imperceptibly from suspicion to cold fury.

  Having worked himself up into a paroxysm of rage by sundown, he decided to assert his authority and called everyone out on parade. He too had made up his mind to deliver a speech. From his opening words everyone realized that there were dark clouds gathering over the River Kwai.

  ‘I hate the British . . .’

  He had started off with this phrase, which he had then inserted between every other sentence as a sort of punctuation mark. He was fairly fluent in English, having at one time served as military attaché in a British possession, a post which he had been forced to give up because of his chronic drunkenness. His career had petered out into the ignominious position which he now held, a chain-gang warder without a hope of promotion. The hatred he felt for the prisoners was intensified by all the humiliation he had suffered from not having seen any action.

  ‘I hate the British,’ Colonel Saito declared. ‘You’re here, under my personal command, to carry out a job which is necessary for the victory of the Japanese Grand Army. I want to tell you, once and for all, that I won’t have my orders questioned in any way. I hate the British. Non-compliance will be punished really severely. Discipline has got to be maintained. If any of you are thinking of putting up a show of resistance, let me remind you that I’ve got powe
r of life and death over the lot of you. I shan’t think twice about exercising that power in order to bring the work with which His Imperial Majesty has entrusted me to a successful conclusion. I hate the British. The death of a few prisoners leaves me cold. The death of the whole lot of you is a mere trifle to a senior officer of the Japanese Grand Army.’

  He had climbed on to a table, as General Yamashita had done. Like him, he had seen fit to don a pair of pale-grey gloves and polished riding-boots instead of the canvas shoes which he had worn during the day. His sword, needless to say, hung from his hip, and he kept slapping the hilt, either to lend more weight to his words or to work himself up into the state of rage which he considered suitable to the occasion. He was a grotesque figure. His head wobbled on his shoulders like a puppet’s. He was roaring drunk, drunk on European alcohol, on the whisky and brandy left behind at Rangoon and Singapore.

  As he listened to these nerve-wracking words, Clipton remembered the advice he had once been given by a friend of his who had lived for some time with the Japanese. ‘Never forget, when you deal with them, that these people believe in their divine destiny as part of an unquestionable creed.’ All the same, he thought, there was no race on earth that did not entertain more or less the same religious belief in itself. So he tried to find another reason for this display of self-satisfaction. To be quite honest, he had to admit that in Saito’s speech there were certain basic principles to which the whole world subscribed, East and West alike. In the course of it he was able to recognize and identify the various influences behind the words which spluttered on the lips of this Jap: racial pride, a mystic belief in authority, the dread of not being taken seriously, a strange sort of inferiority complex which gave him a jaundiced, suspicious outlook on life, as though he was in perpetual fear of being laughed at. Saito had lived abroad. He must have seen how the British sometimes made fun of certain aspects of the Japanese character, and how comic the affectations of a humourless nation were in the eyes of one to whom humour was second nature. But his uncouth manner of speech and uncontrolled gestures could only be attributed to a legacy of brutish violence. Clipton had felt vaguely uneasy when he heard him talking about discipline, but at the sight of him jumping about like a jack-in-the-box he came to the happy conclusion that there was something to be said for the inhabitants of the Western hemisphere: at least they could take their drink like gentlemen.

  With their own men looking on, and with the guards crowding round in threatening attitudes so as to emphasize the commandant’s fury, the officers listened in silence. They clenched their fists and deliberately assumed expressions of impassive calm, following the example set by Colonel Nicholson, who had given instructions to meet any hostile demonstration with a show of quiet dignity.

  After this preamble designed to stir their imaginations, Saito got down to brass tacks. He became quite calm, almost subdued, and for a moment they thought they were going to hear a little sense.

  ‘Now listen, all of you. You know what sort of job it is that His Imperial Majesty has been good enough to allocate to you British prisoners. We’ve got to connect the capitals of Siam and Burma so as to enable the Japanese convoys to get across the four hundred miles of jungle in between, and to provide a way through to Bengal for the army which has liberated those two countries from European oppression. Japan needs this railway to continue her victorious advance, to enable her to overrun India and so bring this war to a rapid conclusion. So this work had got to be finished as quickly as possible: in six months. Those are His Imperial Majesty’s orders. It’s in your interests as well. When the war’s over, you’ll probably be able to go home under the protection of our army.’

  Saito continued in an even calmer tone of voice, as though the alcohol in his blood had all evaporated.

  ‘Now, do you want to know what your specific task is, you men who are in this camp under my command? I’ll tell you; that’s why I’ve called you out on parade. You’ll only have two short stretches of line to build, to link up with the other sections. But your particular responsibility will be the erection of a bridge across the River Kwai that you can see over there. That’s your main task and you ought to feel proud of it, for it’s the most important job on the whole line. It’s quite pleasant work, requiring skilled men and not just navvies. What’s more, you’ll have the honour of being ranked among the pioneers of the South-East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.’

  ‘Just the sort of pep-talk a Westerner might have given,’ was Clipton’s immediate reaction.

  ‘The work, of course, will be under the technical direction of a qualified engineer, a Japanese engineer. For purposes of discipline, you will be under me and my subordinates. So there’ll be no shortage of administrative staff. For all these reasons, which I’ve been good enough to explain, I’ve given orders for the British officers to work side by side with their men. Things being what they are, I can’t have a lot of idle mouths to feed. I hope I shall not have to repeat this order. Otherwise . . .’

  Saito relapsed without warning into his initial state of frenzy and started raving like a madman.

  ‘Otherwise I’ll have to use force. I hate the British. I’ll have you all shot, if necessary, rather than give food to slackers. Sickness will not be considered a reason for exemption. A sick man can always make an effort. I’ll build that bridge over the prisoners’ dead bodies, if I have to. I hate the British. Work will begin at dawn tomorrow. You will parade here on the first blast of the whistle. The officers will fall in as well. They’ll form a separate squad on their own, and they’ll be expected to get through the same amount of work as the rest of you. Tools will be issued and the Japanese engineer will give you his instructions. That’s all I have to say this evening. But I’d like to remind you of General Yamashita’s motto: “Be happy in your work.” Just bear that in mind.’

  Saito left the platform and walked back to his headquarters with long, angry strides. The prisoners dismissed and returned to their lines, with the incoherent speech still ringing unpleasantly in their ears.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to have understood, sir. It looks as if we’ll have to fall back on the Hague Convention after all,’ said Clipton to Colonel Nicholson, who had remained silently wrapped in thought.

  ‘I believe you’re right, Clipton,’ the Colonel solemnly replied, ‘and I’m afraid we’re in for a rather stormy passage.’

  4

  At one moment Clipton thought that the stormy passage which Colonel Nicholson had forecast was going to be a short one and would end, almost before it had begun, in terrible tragedy. As an MO, he was the only officer who was not directly involved in the fuss. Already up to his eyes in work looking after the countless casualties due to exposure in the jungle, he was not included in the labour corps; but this only served to intensify his fear when he witnessed the first clash from the building pompously labelled ‘Hospital’, where he had reported for duty before dawn.

  Woken up while it was still dark by the whistles and the shouts of the guards, the men had gone on parade in an ugly mood, still fuddled and not yet fully recovered from the effects of the mosquitoes and the wretched quarters. The officers had fallen in where they were told. Colonel Nicholson had given them definite instructions.

  ‘We must co-operate,’ he had said, ‘as far as is compatible with our sense of honour. I, too, shall go on parade.’

  It was understood that obedience to Saito’s orders would go no further than that.

  They were kept there for some time, standing to attention in the cold and damp; then, as the sun rose, they saw Colonel Saito appear, surrounded by junior officers and walking in front of the engineer who was to direct the working parties. He seemed to be in a bad mood, but beamed as soon as he saw the British officers lined up behind their commanding officer.

  A truck full of tools brought up the rear. While the engineer was supervising the issue of these, Colonel Nicholson stepped one pace forward and asked to speak to Saito. The latter’s face clouded over. He said nothi
ng, but the Colonel pretended to regard this silence as a sign of assent and went forward to meet him.

  Clipton could not follow his movements, for he had his back to him. But after a bit he came into view, sideways on, and the MO saw him wave a little book in the Jap’s face, drawing his attention to one particular paragraph – in the Manual of Military Law, no doubt. Saito was taken aback. For a moment Clipton thought that a good night’s sleep might have put him in a better frame of mind, but he soon saw what a vain hope that was. After the speech he had made the previous evening, even if he was no longer in a bad temper, the vital importance of ‘saving face’ now dictated his conduct. He went purple with anger. He had expected to have heard the last of this business, and here was the Colonel bringing it up all over again. Such obstinacy drove him all of a sudden into a fit of raving hysteria. Colonel Nicholson was calmly reading, running his finger along each line, unaware of the transformation that had taken place. Clipton, who could see the change in the Jap’s expression, almost shouted out loud to warn his CO. It was too late. With two swift strokes Saito had sent the book flying and slapped the Colonel in the face. He was now standing straight in front of him, bending forward, his eyes popping out of his head, flinging his arms about and yelling abuse in a grotesque mixture of English and Japanese.

  In spite of his surprise – for he had not expected this reaction – Colonel Nicholson kept his head. He picked up his book, which had fallen into the mud, stood up again in front of the Jap, over whom he towered head and shoulders, then calmly announced:

  ‘In that case, Colonel Saito, since the Japanese authorities refuse to abide by the laws in force in the rest of the civilized world, we consider ourselves absolved from our duty to obey you. It only remains for me to let you know what orders I’ve given. My officers will not do manual labour.’