‘You did Little Hitler in, didn’t you?’ Bright, on crutches, said to Bolt as they finished an arduous two-day march, reaching the second last stop on the railway at Thanbaya Hospital camp. It was 30 miles into Burma and there were nearly 2000 POWs there suffering from all the main diseases, except cholera. Bolt and his group had taken a vote to go there as a small unit to help out; the alternative was to return with the rest of the POWs by train via Kanchanaburi in Thailand and eventually back to Changi.
The work in the cholera camp had inspired them to make an extra effort, with about 50 other medicos and volunteers, to assist the dying and very ill.
‘How’s your knee?’ Bolt asked.
‘C’mon, Dan. You did it. All the lads reckon you shot him. We heard a shot when you were out having a bog, allegedly.’
‘I didn’t shoot anyone.’
‘Noel and I reckon you threw him in the latrine.’
‘I promised not to tell. Now, no more questions, Leading Seaman.’
The others knew not to probe further on the rare occasion Bolt addressed them by rank. It was always said tongue-in-cheek, yet still a gentle reminder of his rank.
‘We never even knew Little Hitler’s real name,’ Noel said, absent-mindedly.
Grout, looking directly at Bolt, said, ‘Shithead, perhaps?’
Bolt was up just before dawn on his jog and taking in Thanbaya, which provided a magnificent landscape in the morning. Mist wreathed the mountains and hills like a huge white crochet blanket. The ubiquitous many shades of green dominated the vegetation, interspersed with the occasional clump of light yellow bamboo and magnificent thick brown teak trees. Night rain had soaked the surrounding woods, giving them a fresh, clean feel. A modest wat (temple), gold-painted and in need of repair, was nearby.
The hospital camp had been agreed to by the Japanese a few months earlier in August 1943 to cater for the large numbers of sick. It would have been ideal for recovery but for one salient fact: there were not enough appropriate drugs for the patients, all suffering badly. Some were dying from malaria, which was now resistant to quinine. Others were falling to beri-beri, which left patients bloated. Then there was the ever-present dysentery, along with grotesque tropical ulcers and a score of other serious ailments.
Despite its natural beauty there was an air of depression about the camp. Unsaid was the gloomy realisation that those who could not be helped would be moved on another 60 miles north to Thanbyuzayat, where they would be expected to die. Bolt was aware that he had a ‘calling’, albeit a temporary one for the rest of his time in captivity. He and the others in his group volunteered to assist the undermanned staff at Thanbyuzayat in the makeshift ‘wards’, hastily prepared bamboo huts that could be blown over in a storm. This also relieved him and his men of any heavy labour, which had shifted in emphasis now that the railway was complete. Work on the sleepers and cuttings by the local Burmese seemed more cosmetic. The trains were moving through.
The Japanese experiment to build the train route through a mountainous terrain over 280 miles in 18 months was hailed by them as a wonderful engineering feat. It was at the expense of more than 250,000 dead slaves, and twice that number who would never recover fully, mentally and physically, from the most inhumane of projects.
Trucks were provided for the drive to flat, less inspiring Thanbyuzayat after much negotiation by Australian officers. There was still an underlying contempt by the Japanese for those who were taken prisoner, and even more disdain for the sick, who were put on half-rations.
This final rail destination was partly a Japanese war administration area, which had been recently bombed by the slowly encroaching Allied forces. The land had been cleared 18 months earlier by Australian and British POWs. There was a rail marshalling yard and huts for the hundreds of dying POWs.
Bolt and his group were billeted together and organised by doctors, including Frank Cahill and Bruce Hunt. Bolt was chosen to assist Cahill, whose main job at the camp was the amputation of diseased limbs.
After breakfast each morning, Bolt observed Cahill walking into the bush to pray for guidance on where to saw off the offending arm or leg.
‘I’m a devout Catholic,’ Cahill told him.
‘You’re a bloody saint! Do you think the prayer helps?’
‘I look at it this way,’ Cahill said without a trace of cynicism. ‘If the patient lives, even a few more weeks, it works. If he dies, then that is God’s will.’
The worst moment for Bolt came one day when he was assisting Cahill in sawing off a leg on a POW who’d been given a local anaesthetic. The chop had to be made at the highest possible point on the green and black limb. The only surgical implement available was an old saw found in a farmhouse. It was slow, hacking work and Cahill had done four others in a busy morning. Sweating, he said to Bolt, ‘Take over, will you? This fellow has a bone like iron.’
Bolt took a breath and sliced as hard as he could, with the patient aware, and in pain despite the drug. Slide, pull, slide, pull. He worked on until the leg was off. There was a gush of blood.
‘Put pressure on the femoral artery,’ Cahill ordered, his words quick, his voice firm.
Bolt and another assistant found the thumping artery at the base of the stomach and pressed hard. Cahill attempted to suture the cut.
The patient put his head up.
‘Am I gunna die, Doc?’ he said, his voice shaking.
‘I think so,’ Cahill said calmly and softly.
The patient began reciting the Lord’s Prayer, with Cahill and Bolt joining in as they worked.
After another twenty minutes, in which the blood stopped running and the patient fell unconscious, Cahill said to Bolt, ‘You did well, as you did at Cholera Hill.’
Bolt bowed his head and glanced at the patient.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ Cahill said. ‘He’s in God’s hands. We did all we could.’ He paused to clean up. ‘How many years’ vet work did you do?’
‘I dropped out a year before completing my course.’
‘Will you take it up after the war?’
‘Haven’t thought about it. Not sure we’ll make it.’
‘No, but if you do, I’d consider medicine.’
‘Medicine?’
‘You’re a natural. It’s a lot to do with temperament and not being afraid to do what has to be done. You qualify on both counts, and also a third. I’ve seen how you handle that miraculous cat, one of God’s true angel creatures. You have compassion. It helps in medical practice.’