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Most people are at least aware of the infamous Burma - Siam railway built by Asian slave labour alongside Allied Prisoners off War during the Second World War. Today you can read the book(s), watch the movie, buy the t shirt. Less is known of a railway built under similar circumstances on the island of Sumatra. They have much in common. The heat. Indigenous and Western labour. Japanese and Korean guards. Torture and bravery. And, ultimately, futility. 

As the war progressed the Japanese sought to diminish their taut  lines of command and support which were stretched by their rapid advances through the region. Two other factors lay behind the decision to dust off old Dutch plans for a cross island railway. One, long a headache for Japanese high command was a source of fuel. To gain control of such natural resources was behind much of the expansion of the war machine in the early 20th Century. The other factor was fear of an Allied invasion. A railway line would speed up the delivery of vital coal supplies while on the other hand race manpower to the v ulnerable west coast of Sumatra.  

 The Asian slave labour, or Romushas, attracted by salaries that were never to materialize, started laying the track bed in 1943. The first Allied Prisoners arrived on 19th May 1944 and immediately set about constructing basic shelters in the jungle. This site was to be known informally as Muddy Resort and was the first of 14 built along the route.  5 days later work started on the railway itself. 

For the workers here the day began at 5 am with a measly breakfast, often a tapioca based porridge without salt or sugar. At 6.30 under the beating and screaming guards roll call was carried out where the prisoners were counted. When the numbers finally tallied it was time to work. Railway sleepers and rails arrived at Siak River from all over the archipelago for the project. One rail was 10 metres long, weighing 300 kilos each and would be carried by 6 POWs over a rough, often muddy, path to the rail bed. 

It was hot, tiring, thirsty work but the workers weren't allowed to rest until 1 PM when lunch was served. Well, a drink was served along with some watery porridge. 6 PM saw the end of the working day. Dinner would consist of boiled rice with some greenery. 2 and a half kilomtres a day were laid in this manner. 

Camp 2 was death camp. This was where the sick came to die. The guards here were particularly brutal, seeming to delight in their power over the weak. But while brutality reigned in this jungle bound hell because it could, humanity tried to force its way through the cracks. Here a few military doctors offered succour to those near the end. Hardly an air conditioned hospital catering to the monied medical tourist of today, bamboo huts lacking electricity were manned by doctors using cutlery fashioned to make incisions or amputation by candle light. 

Rats had the run of the place at night, scampering over inert bodies patiently awaiting release. Traps were set and fresh white meat was added to the menu. One day a doctor noticed the chickens were looking well fed. He discovered they were gorging on the  maggots in the latrines. If it was protein for chickens... There was also a medicinal use for the maggots. Wrapped up in a cloth they made short work of dirty tropical sores in the absence of any disinfectant. 

But many didn't survive. There was no quinine for malaria victims. Patients with dysentery would often wallow in their own waste, helpless as the flies buzzed around them. For those who died, their body was cleaned, wrapped in straw matting and taken over a creek to an adjacent field for burial. A brief service would be held under the watchful eye of an armed guard and one more body, often unknown to the burial party, would be laid to rest to the solemn words of Psalm 23. When malnutrition was a cause of death, this could have a negative impact on those who carried the body for the weight would increase. One such prisoner recalls being laid low after burying a 300 pound colleague. As a non working prisoner his food allowance was cut by 50%. He recovered. Many didn't. 

The average age of those who perished on the line, there was some 700, was 37. One gentleman was 66. The final bolt, copper instead of the more traditional gold, was driven home on 15 August 1945, ironically the day the Japanese surrendered. Nothing happened for a while. The guards kept their distance, rumours were rife the war had ended but there was no announcement. 0n 31 August during roll call, a Dutch officer stepped in front of the prisoners on parade and announced that as this day was the Queen's birthday they should sing the national anthem. The guards did nothing so one by one all joined in. One guard approached, laid down his weapon and saluted the prisoners. That was it! 

Food trickled into the camps, a flag was raised and a plane dropped off some sanitary knapkins. The officers took over the running of the camps. On one camp, a Japanese asked his erstwhile inmates whether or not he should commit suicide. In mid September Lady Mountbatten, wife of the allied commander in Asia, visited. She spent some time with a man squatting on his haunches, clad only in a blanket. She offered him a cigarette and passed the time as casually as if they were in a London park. All the while the man was defecating uncontrollably beneath the blanket. 

Today it is as if nothing happened in the jungles 60 years ago. No trains rattle along the primitively laid rails. The track has either been sold off for junk or lies forgotten in the undergrowth. The romusha, buried where they fell, lie unremarked. Some of the officers and guards answered for the crimes but the biggest crime was the absolute pointlessness of the exercise. Thousands died, many thousands more had their lives affected in untold ways, all ultimately forgotten.