DUTCH POW'S SALUTE TO AN AUSSIE BUGLER     OTTO KREEFFT

The Bugler

Every night they came past our camp. A group of Aussies with their large felt hats, clearly visible in the bright moonlight. Their work was apparently further away than ours because they always passed well after we had retired to our sleeping mats, after our wash in the river and our meagre meal of rice with watery vegetable soup.
We could see their camp on a small hill on the other side of the railway embankment. Once the Aussies arrived on the top of the hill they did a roll call to make sure no one had been left en route. Dark silhouettes against the
moon-lit sky, commands sounded clear and crisp in the quiet Burman night. It was as if they were no exhausted POWs but a first draft of young conscripts. It was a prelude to a ritual they performed nearly every night.
The Dutch POWs were full of astonishment and admiration for this level of discipline. They had respect for this close-knit and mentally undefeated group of men, who acted as if they still had to defend the honour of the British Empire.
After the roll call nothing happened for half an hour. The moon had climbed higher into the sky and was bathing the landscape in a light as if a strange sun had started a new day. The two huts on the hill appeared to have swallowed up all life and stood out unrealistically clear against the sky above the dark green jungle. You felt as if you were on another planet.
In the Dutch huts the men were patiently waiting for the rest of the ritual, which they already knew through and through but still wanted to witness again every time.
Then the bugler would play the Last Post.
In such a way that it sent shivers up your spine. As if he wanted to tell the Jap :
Listen.....we are not broken.....because we know for certain that eventually victory will be ours

In the camp you would hear a needle fall on the ground.
Everybody felt the same moral support of the bugler’s unspoken message.