Hunger, thirst and the cramped conditions began to tell on the survivors. Their skin blistered, especially that of the fair-haired Dutch

After letting three women (no children managed to escape the ship) and five wounded on board, 80 survivors including Gibson clambered into the boat, built to hold a maximum of 28. Each person stood shoulder to shoulder with no room to change position or sit down. In the water, their heads bobbing, were more survivors. Most gravitated to the life boat so that it eventually supported 135 persons, many of whom remained in the water, clinging to the vessel.

The next morning senior officers took a tally of their food and water; much had floated away as the boat was launched. They had a case of bully beef, two 7 lb tins of fried rice, 48 tins of condensed milk and six Bols gin bottles filled with fresh water.

Each person received one tablespoonful of water at sun up and a spoonful of milk and water at night. A tin of bully beef was to be shared between 12 people daily. The wife of a Dutch officer produced a tablespoon as a measure and shared out her thirstquenching tablets.

Paris stood in the boat’s stern and told the evacuees that the captain was in command while he was responsible for discipline.

He tried to reassure them that since the Rooseboom was expected to arrive at Colombo the following day, a search party would soon be sent to find them.

Agony

He expected they’d be rescued within four days. Paris then ordered each uninjured man to spend four hours a day clinging to a lifeline in the water. On the first day sharks approached but the survivors scared them off by yelling at them. A fish stung a soldier in the water and he died in agony an hour later.

The three women on board were Mrs Nunn, wife of Group Captain R. L. Nunn, director of Public Works in Singapore who, after pushing his wife through the port-hole of his cabin, went down with the ship, the wife of a Dutch officer and Doris Lim, a young Chinese woman who had worked for British Intelligence in North China and escaped from Tientsin before the Japanese occupation.

They sat close together surrounded by sweating, groaning Jocks, Cockneys, and Javanese. Half the occupants were 19 to 20-year-old conscripts of the 18th Division, sent just before the Japanese invasion to bolster Malaya’s defences.

Towards dusk, Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas of the Indian Army Ordnance Corps swam from a raft floating 100 yards from the boat. He was at breaking point. With him on the raft was a white woman whose leg had been blown off, lance-corporal Jock Gray, and Angus.

My uncle had carried from the ship a flask of what he thought was water but instead was brandy. He had spent the day on the raft drinking from it.

“Angus Macdonald is raving mad,” jabbered Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas. “I had to leave him. He was trying to push me off the raft.” Douglas’s voice rose excitedly, and as darkness fell he shouted one sentence in English, the next in Urdu, in a crazy, high-pitched babble.

He struck out wildly. “Put him over before he tips the boat up!” screamed a number of voices.

Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas struggled as they ejected him. He gripped tightly the gunwale, but they fended him off with an oar. In the blackness, he slipped away, shouting a stream of Urdu oaths.

Cramped

From the second day, hunger, thirst and the cramped conditions began to tell on the survivors. Their skin blistered, especially that of the fair-haired Dutch.

Many tore off their clothes, dipped them in the sea and put them over their heads to keep cool. All on board were subject to hallucinations.

They imagined they saw ships on the horizon. Some had vivid dreams of food, drink, and friendly gatherings. Many of the young drank sea water and those who swallowed a lot fell into a coma and never emerged from it.

Gibson gargled with salt water and each morning he cleaned his teeth with it and by the end of the first week he started to drink it in very small quantities.

Suspicions arose as people disappeared after dark. The following night, they heard screams and shouts, and in the morning 20 people were missing. Then they realised a murder gang was on board.

At this time, their rations were cut. A tin of bully beef was shared between 20 and the water ration decreased to one spoonful a day.

At the end of their first week, Brigadier Paris collapsed into a coma and died. Throughout those terrible days, Mike Blackwood had shared his water ration with his superior.

Now he tried to hold a simple funeral service for him. The following day Blackwood collapsed and drowned in the bilge water which was lying at the bottom of the boat.

Before his death, Blackwood had said to Gibson that the brigadier wanted to recommend him for a Distinguished Conduct Medal, an award which was presented to other ranks in the British army for gallantry in the field.

At this time one of the engineers stabbed to death the Dutch captain and a number of suicides occurred. Invariably before the individual threw himself into the sea, he tried to grab the rations and fling them overboard as well.

Took charge

Gibson now took charge of the water bottles, but by this time there were only two left. When all the Dutch officers were gone (either drowned or had committed suicide), the Javanese crew began quietly to take over the boat.

At this time all the senior army officers had expired, and Gibson saw discipline was maintained on board. On the seventh evening they ran out of water.

Just as critical to the survival of those left in the boat was the fact the murder gang in the bows had become more powerful.

The rest of the boat realised they had to kill them, so Gibson led an onslaught on the group and rushed them overboard but not before they killed Drummer Hardie, Colonel Stewart’s batman.

Hardie’s courage was legendary. At no time was he ever known to run, not even under threat from the Japanese.

Along with Colonel Stewart, Hardie was the last soldier to cross the Johore Causeway before the sappers demolished it.

More on Monday