Are You a Madrasi?
[An Excerpt from the memoir by John Baptist Crasta, Eaten by the Japanese. This scene takes place in Rabaul, New Britain, in a Japanese POW camp.]
I had an attack of malaria in the first week of July 1943. I could not get even a drop of hot water. There on the ground I lay, shivering, helpless. The thin cotton blanket given to me being inadequate to protect me from the cold, I waited for the sun to warm me. I would shiver like a leaf. Then, seized by fever, my body would turn as hot as fire — I would become unconscious, then awake only to find myself perspiring. There was not a soul who could give a sip of even cold water. I could not blame them as all the fit men had been away taken for work and the ailing left to their fate.
Our “Senior Medical Officer,” a Subedar Raja Singh, was a brute of a man. He had not an iota of mercy. He would shout and growl at the patients for no reason at all. One day it happened that the crowd at the Medical Inspection Room was too large. My condition was such that I could neither stand nor sit. I lay down, and as I had high temperature, I become unconscious. In half an hour, I regained consciousness and remembered the sick parade. I dragged myself there to find my name had already been called out.
“Why are you late?” growled Raja Singh.
I explained to him that I had had high temperature, and had fallen down unconscious; that was why I had been late. He then asked me whether I was a “Madrasi.”[12] I said yes. “You seem to be all right now. You can go for fatigue.” And so saying, he sent me away. Owing to my powerless condition, I could not answer him. But the thought passed my mind that not even the Japanese would have been so cruel.