270
DONALD C. BOWIE
I was told by the Japanese, usually at about twelve hours notice overnight, to have a given number of patients for discharge. Such was our crowded state that, particularly in the early months we had to select patients best fitted for discharge even though we would have preferred to keep some longer. Patients for discharge were selected by their own medical officers in wards, though occasionally I would have to adjudicate when difficult decisions had to be made. I never felt that the hospital was really securely settled in Bowen Road throughout our whole time there.
The Japanese usually made their requirements known to me direct, though often enough I learned of some development through Major Boxer while he was a patient, or the quartermaster, or the sergeant major, or the engineers or even others. I never regarded these varying approaches as attempts to undermine my position. It merely chanced that they were convenient to the Japanese at the time.
I never achieved any conversation with our Japanese authorities on other than official business. I soon found it was useless to hope for any comment at all if any two Japanese were together. Neither would speak under these conditions. When talking to one of our Japanese authorities on business he might easily appear to agree with something one had asked for, and it took me some time to learn to be wary about apparent agreements. An agreement signified by one Japanese was quite often changed by another or even by the same man on a later occasion. The hissing intake of breath through the teeth and the comment "Ah So", (the phrase was “Ah So Desuka" which means roughly "Is that so") were sounds to which we became thoroughly accustomed.
The Japanese regulated our total numbers of patients, our intake and the numbers of our discharges. They sent in our rations and our fuel and in both cases they allocated a scale for use. We found it wise to issue on slightly lower scales than we were authorised to do in order to make sure that we did not run out of stocks before the next supplies arrived. We received from time to time supplies for the repairs of boots and clothing while small quantities of drugs and dressings came in on a scale quite inadequate for our needs if we had been dependent on these only. Some Japanese could be wheedled if they were in the right mood, but this was a skill in which I had no great proficiency and our prize wheedler was our Corporal R. Thompson, some of whose coups were most entertaining.