The Bridge on the River Kwai Read online

  Having said this, he suffered without a murmur a second, still more savage, attack. Saito, who seemed to have gone berserk, leapt at him and, standing on tip-toe, hammered away at the Colonel’s face with his fists.

  The situation was beginning to get out of hand. Some of the British officers stepped out of the ranks and advanced in a threatening manner. An angry growl rose from the rest of the unit. The Japanese NCOs shouted a word of command, and the soldiers cocked their rifles. Colonel Nicholson asked his officers to fall in again and ordered his men to stay where they were. Blood was pouring from his mouth, but he still preserved his air of authority, which nothing could alter.

  Saito, panting hard, stepped back and made as if to seize his revolver; then he seemed to think better of it. He stepped further back and issued an order in an ominously controlled tone of voice. The Japanese guards surrounded the prisoners and motioned them forward. They marched them off in the direction of the river, to the building-yards. There were one or two protests and a slight show of resistance. A few anxious glances of enquiry were fixed on the Colonel, who made it clear he wanted them to obey the order. They eventually disappeared, and the British officers were left alone on the parade ground, facing Colonel Saito.

  The Jap started talking again, in measured tones which Clipton found unnerving. His fears were not groundless. Some soldiers went off and came back with the two machine-guns which were kept at the main gate of the camp. They set them up, one on either side of Saito. Clipton’s uneasiness turned to cold terror. He had a view of the whole scene through the bamboo partition of his ‘hospital’. Behind him, lying in heaps, were a score of wretches covered in open sores. Some had dragged themselves forward and were looking on as well. One of them gave a hoarse cry:

  ‘Doc, they’re not going to . . . surely they can’t? That yellow baboon wouldn’t dare! But the old man’s sticking to his guns!’

  Clipton thought it was quite likely that the yellow baboon would dare. Most of the officers standing behind the Colonel were of the same opinion. Mass executions had taken place at the fall of Singapore. Saito had obviously ordered the men off the parade ground so that there should be no tiresome witnesses. He was now speaking in English, ordering the officers to pick up the tools and report for duty.

  Colonel Nicholson’s voice made itself heard again. He repeated his refusal. No one moved. Saito gave another order. Ammunition belts were slipped in and the guns were trained on the squad.

  ‘Doc,’ sobbed the soldier standing next to Clipton, ‘Doc, the old man won’t give in. I’m telling you, he don’t understand. We’ve got to do something.’

  These words spurred Clipton into action; until then he had felt half-paralysed. It was quite clear that the ‘old man’ did not appreciate the situation. He did not for a moment doubt that Saito would stop at nothing. Something had to be done, as the soldier said; the ‘old man’ had to be told that he could not sacrifice the lives of twenty others out of sheer stubbornness and for the sake of his principles; that neither his honour nor personal dignity would suffer as a result of giving in to brute force, as everyone else in the other camps had done. The words were on the tip of his tongue. He rushed outside, shouting to Saito.

  ‘Wait a moment, Colonel, wait; I’ll tell him!’

  Colonel Nicholson rebuked him with a frown.

  ‘That’ll do, Clipton. There’s nothing more to be said. I’m quite aware of what I’m doing.’

  In any case Clipton had not succeeded in getting as far as the squad. Two guards had seized him and pinned him down. But his violent outburst seemed to have made Saito think twice before taking action. Clipton yelled at him, in a rapid torrent of words, so that the other Japanese should not understand.

  ‘I warn you, Colonel, I witnessed the whole scene; and so did the forty men in hospital. You won’t succeed in inciting us into a general riot or a mass attempt to escape.’

  This was the last desperate card in his hand. Even in the eyes of the Japanese authorities Saito would not be able to justify such an unwarranted execution. He could not afford to leave any British witness alive. Following this argument to its logical conclusion, he would either have to massacre everyone on the sick list, including the MO, or else abandon all thought of revenge.

  Clipton felt he had scored a temporary victory. Saito appeared to give the matter a great deal of thought. He was choking with rage and the shame of defeat, but he did not order his men to fire.

  In fact he gave no order at all. The men remained where they were, with their machine-guns trained on the squad. They remained like that for a long time, a very long time indeed; for Saito refused to ‘lose face’ by ordering them to dismiss. They remained there for most of the morning, without daring to move, until the parade ground was completely deserted.

  It was hardly a decisive victory, and Clipton could not bear to think of what lay in store for the recalcitrants. But there was some consolation in the thought that he saved them from their immediate fate. The officers were marched off to the prison camp under escort. Colonel Nicholson was dragged away by a couple of gigantic Koreans, who were part of Saito’s personal bodyguard. He was taken into the Japanese colonel’s office, a small room which opened out on to his sleeping quarters, thus enabling him to pay frequent visits to his store of drink next door. Saito slowly followed his prisoner inside and carefully closed the door behind him. Shortly afterwards Clipton, who was a sensitive man at heart, shuddered as he heard the sound of blows.

  5

  After half an hour’s beating-up the Colonel was thrown into a hut where there was neither bed nor chair, so that he was forced to lie down in the damp mud on the floor when he felt too tired to stand up. For food he was given a bowl of rice heavily laced with salt, and Saito warned him that he would keep him there until he decided to obey orders.

  For a week the only person he saw was a Korean sentry, a brute who looked like a gorilla, who on his own initiative added still more salt to the daily rice-ration. But he forced himself to swallow a few mouthfuls of it and, after gulping down the whole of his meagre ration of water, he would then lie down on the floor and try to disregard his hardships. He was forbidden to leave the cell, which consequently became as offensive as a cess-pit.

  At the end of a week Clipton was at last given permission to visit him. Shortly before, the MO had been summoned by Saito, whom he found wearing the sullen expression of an anxious tyrant. He could see that he was wavering between anger and fear, which he did his best to mask behind a cool tone of voice.

  ‘I’m not responsible for all this,’ he said. ‘The bridge across the river has got to be built, and a Japanese officer can’t afford to put up with heroics. Try and make him understand that I don’t intend to give in. Tell him that, thanks to him, all his officers are having the same treatment. If that’s not enough, his men will have to bear the consequences of his pig-headedness as well. So far I haven’t interfered with you, or with those on the sick-list. I’ve been kind enough to let them off all duties. I shall regard this kindness as a sign of weakness, unless he changes his mind.’

  He dismissed him with this threat, and Clipton was taken in to see the prisoner. He was at first horrified by the condition to which the CO had been reduced and by the physical deterioration which his body had undergone in such a short time. The sound of his voice, which was barely audible, seemed to be a distant, muffled echo of the tone of authority which the MO remembered. But this metamorphosis was only superficial. Colonel Nicholson’s spirit had not changed at all; and the words he uttered were still the same, although delivered in a different tone. Clipton, who had fully intended to persuade him to give in, now saw there was no chance of that. He soon exhausted all his carefully prepared arguments, then fell silent. The Colonel did not even answer him, but simply said:

  ‘Please let the others know that I’m still quite adamant. On no account will I have an officer from my battalion working like a navvy.’

  Clipton left the cell, torn once again betw
een admiration and anger, a prey to painful indecision, unable to make up his mind whether he should worship the CO as a hero or regard him as a complete fool. He wondered whether it would not be best to ask God to crown this dangerous lunatic with a martyr’s halo and admit him into His kingdom as quickly as possible, so as to prevent him from turning the River Kwai camp into a scene of frightful tragedy. What Saito had said was no more than the truth. The treatment being meted out to the other officers was only one degree less inhuman, while the men were made regular targets for the brutality of the guards. As he walked away, Clipton thought of the danger that threatened his patients.

  Saito must have been waiting for him, for he rushed up, his eyes betraying genuine anxiety as he enquired:

  ‘Well?’

  He was quite sober, and looked rather depressed. Clipton tried to judge how far the Colonel’s attitude was likely to make the Jap ‘lose face’, then pulled himself together and decided to take a firm line.

  ‘Well, it’s like this. Colonel Nicholson won’t give in to force; nor will his officers. And in view of the way he’s being treated, I could not advise him to do so.’

  He protested against the conditions of the prisoners in detention, quoting the Hague Convention as the Colonel had done, arguing from his professional point of view as a doctor and finally from the simple humanitarian point of view, even going so far as to declare that such monstrous treatment was tantamount to murder. He expected a violent reaction, but none came. Saito merely muttered that the Colonel was to blame for the whole business, and then abruptly walked off. At that moment Clipton felt inclined to believe that he was really not such a bad man at heart, and that his actions were all due to fear of one kind or another: fear of his superiors, who were probably badgering him about the bridge, and fear of his subordinates, in whose eyes he was ‘losing face’ through his obvious inability to exact obedience.

  His natural inclination to generalize led Clipton to identify this combination of two fears, the fear of superiors and of subordinates respectively, as the main source of all human calamities. As he put this idea into words, he felt that somewhere or other he had once come across this very psychological maxim. This gave him a certain sense of satisfaction, which helped to allay his anxiety. He developed this train of thought a little further, but was brought to a stop on the threshold of the hospital by the realization that every calamity, even the worst in the world, could be attributed to men who had neither superiors nor subordinates.

  Saito must have thought the matter over. His treatment of the prisoner was more lenient during the following week, at the end of which he went to see him and asked if he had finally decided to behave like a gentleman. He had arrived in a reasonable frame of mind, intending to appeal to the Colonel’s common sense, but faced with the latter’s refusal to discuss a question which was already cut-and-dried he again lost his temper and worked himself up into a state of hysterical frenzy in which he could hardly be taken for a civilized human being. The Colonel was again beaten up, and the gorilla-like Korean received strict orders for the harsh regime of the first few days to be resumed. Saito even struck the guard as well. He was no longer responsible for his actions when seized by these fits, and he accused the man of being too soft hearted. He rushed about the cell like a raving lunatic, brandishing a pistol and threatening to use it on the guard as well as the prisoner in order to enforce a little discipline.

  Clipton, who once more tried to intervene, also came in for a few blows, and his hospital was cleared of all patients who were still capable of standing upright. They were forced to drag themselves to the building-yards and shift heavy loads; otherwise they would have been beaten to death. For several days terror reigned over the River Kwai camp. Colonel Nicholson’s answer to his ill-treatment was a stubborn, haughty silence.

  Saito’s personality seemed to switch from that of a Mister Hyde, capable of every kind of atrocity, to a comparatively humane Doctor Jekyll. Once the period of violence was over, a regime of extraordinary leniency succeeded it. Colonel Nicholson was allowed to draw not only full rations but also a supplementary scale normally earmarked for the sick list. Clipton was given permission to see him and attend to him, and Saito even warned him that he held him personally responsible for the Colonel’s health.

  One evening Saito had the prisoner brought into his room and then ordered the escort to dismiss. Alone with him, he asked him to sit down and drew from his stores a tin of American corned beef, some cigarettes and a bottle of liqueur whisky. He told him that, as a soldier, he felt a deep admiration for his attitude, but war was war even though neither of them was responsible for it. Surely he could understand that he, Saito, was obliged to obey the orders of his superior officers? Now these orders stated that the bridge across the River Kwai was to be built as quickly as possible. He was therefore compelled to make use of all the personnel available. The Colonel refused the corned beef, the cigarettes and the whisky but listened with interest to what he had to say. He calmly replied that Saito had not the foggiest idea of how to tackle a work of such importance.

  He had reverted to his original arguments. It looked as though the squabble was likely to go on for ever. No one on earth could have told whether Saito was going to discuss the matter sensibly or give vent to another hysterical outburst. He was silent for some time, while the question no doubt was being debated on some supernatural plane unknown to mere mortals. The Colonel took advantage of this and said:

  ‘May I ask you, Colonel Saito, if you’re satisfied with the work so far?’

  The insidious question might well have tipped the scales on the side of hysteria, for the work was progressing badly – which was one of Colonel Saito’s major worries, since his career was at stake as much as his reputation. But this was not the cue for Mister Hyde. He looked foolish, hung his head and muttered some inaudible reply. Then he put a full glass of whisky into the prisoner’s hand, poured a large one out for himself and said:

  ‘Look, Colonel Nicholson, I don’t think you’ve really understood. There’s no need for us to be at loggerheads. When I said all the officers were to work, naturally I never meant you, the Commanding Officer. My orders only applied to the others . . .’

  ‘Not one of my officers will work,’ said the Colonel, putting his glass back on the table.

  Saito suppressed a gesture of annoyance and concentrated on keeping calm.

  ‘I’ve been thinking the matter over during the last few days,’ he went on. ‘I think I could put majors and above on administrative duties. Only the junior officers would then have to lend a hand . . .’

  ‘None of the officers will do any manual labour,’ said Colonel Nicholson. ‘An officer must be in command of his men.’

  At this Saito could control himself no longer. But when the Colonel returned to his cell, having successfully stuck to his guns in spite of bribes, threats, blows and even entreaties, he felt that the situation was well in hand and that it would not be long before the enemy capitulated.

  6

  The work was at a standstill. The Colonel had touched Saito on a raw spot when he asked how the task was progressing, and he was proved right in his forecast that the Japanese would eventually have to yield through sheer necessity.

  Three weeks had gone by, and not only was the bridge not yet under way, but the preliminary preparations had been handled so ingeniously by the prisoners that it would take considerable time to repair all the damage that had been done.

  Infuriated by the treatment meted out to the CO, whose courage and endurance they had admired, fretting under the torrent of curses and blows which the sentries rained down on them, indignant at being employed like slaves on work which was useful to the enemy, feeling all at sea now that they were separated from their officers and no longer heard the familiar words of command, the British soldiers competed with each other to see who could be the slackest or, better still, who could commit the most elementary blunders under an ostentatious show of keenness.

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p; There was no punishment sufficiently severe to curb their insidious activities, and the little Japanese engineer was sometimes reduced to tears of desperation. The guards were too thin on the ground to superintend all of them, and too stupid to spot the culprits. The lay-out of the two stretches of line had had to be started all over again at least twenty times. Both the straight sections and the curves, which had been accurately computed and pegged out by the engineer, would relapse as soon as his back was turned into a maze of disconnected lines diverging at sharp angles, at which he would afterwards cry out in despair. The two bits on either side of the river, which the bridge was eventually meant to connect, were palpably at a different level and never ended up directly opposite each other. One of the squads would then start digging furiously and succeed in producing a sort of crater which dipped far lower than the level required, while the fool of a guard would gaze with delight at the sight of such feverish activity. When the engineer turned up he would lose his temper, and beat guards and prisoners indiscriminately. The former, realizing they had been fooled once again, would take their revenge; but the harm had been done, and it took several hours or several days to repair it.

  One squad had been ordered to cut down some trees as timber for the bridge. They would make a careful selection and bring back the most twisted and brittle ones they could find; or else devote considerable effort to felling a giant tree, which would subsequently tumble into the river and be lost. Or again, they would choose trunks which were eaten away inside by insects and collapsed under the slightest weight.

  Saito, who carried out a daily inspection, gave vent to his fury in increasingly stormy outbursts of temper. He dispensed curses, threats and blows, swearing even at the engineer, who would answer back with the retort that the fatigue parties were absolutely useless. At which he would scream and swear louder than ever and try to think of a new form of punishment to put an end to this sullen resistance. He made the prisoners suffer more than if he had been an embittered jailer left to his own devices and scared stiff of being sacked for inefficiency. Those who were caught red-handed in an act of wilful damage or sabotage were tied to trees, beaten with thorn-branches and left out in the open for hours, bleeding and naked, exposed to the ants and the tropical sun. Clipton saw the victims as they came back in the evening; they were carried in by their pals, shaking with fever, their backs stripped raw. He was not even allowed to keep them on the sick list for long. Saito did not forget who they were. As soon as they were capable of standing, he sent them back to work and ordered the guards to keep a special eye on them.