Retired teacher recalls day when guard said 'ichi' and PoWs started scratching By Phan Ming Yen EVEN a prisoner of war can have his moments of fun and laughter. Mr Cleaver Rowell Eber, 80, recalls football matches among prisoners and a little joke played on his Japanese guard. Of the River Valley Road Camp, where he was held prisoner for about five months from May to October, 1942, before being sent to work on the Death Railway, he said: "We were not ill-treated there and had freedom to do what we wished to do. "I suppose they were nice to us because they were winning the war then." Mr Eber, a teacher for 41 years and now retired, was with the 1st Battalion 'D' Company Singapore Volunteer Corps when he was taken prisoner on Feb 15, 1942. He was first sent to Changi Camp where he was held prisoner at the Selarang Barracks for four months. It was there that he heard that the Japanese wanted volunteers for a working party at River Valley Road Camp. He said: "I heard that life was good there, so I volunteered." According to him, about 3,000 soldiers, mostly volunteers and a few British soldiers, marched from Changi to the prison camp at River Valley Road. "There, we lived in attap huts which were about 100 feet long. They were there when we arrived," he said. They had to build warehouses along Alexandra Road and when this was done, they were later sent to saw planks at a saw mill factory called Fodgen-Brisbane at Havelock Road. He said: "We had about an hour of lunch break when we worked and our guards did not care where we went. "That's when I went to the shops nearby and bought a tin of ikan bilis to add to my daily meals. It was also when I could meet my brother who I asked to bring socks, a blanket and other things that would make life comfortable." He also recalled occasions when he and his friends would make a little fire between the huts and cooked meals. He said: "We cooked with a pan which I asked my brother to bring for me and we made dishes from belachan, luncheon meat and Chinese sausages which we bought from nearby shops." Among the more memorable and humorous incidents which happened was when the prisoners were asked to line up and to number themselves. He said: "So we started to count 'one', 'two' 'three' 'four', 'jack' 'queen' 'king' and then followed by all the vulgar words we knew. "When we got to the vulgar words, the Japanese guard started to scratch his head in confusion." Mr Eber said the soldier asked them to repeat after him as he counted in Japanese. He recalled with laughter: "When he said ichi, meaning 'one', we started scratching ourselves all over. Then he said ni, we looked at our knees and then at san, we looked at the sun and when he said go, we started marching off !" He added that the guard then chased after them, scolded them and asked them to count in Japanese. "Learning to count in Japanese was useful for when we were in Thailand, we would sometimes be woken up and asked to line up and number ourselves. If we did not know how to count, we would be slapped by the guards there," he said. He said that at that time, they had thought the war would end in six months' time. "Of course, that was not to be. But all that changed when we were sent to work on the Death Railway in Siam." First published in The Straits Times, 28 February 1992 Nura's start page Copyright © 1998 Singapore Press Holdings. All Rights Reserved.