272
DONALD C. BOWIE
easy for a job or an individual to become intolerable. Most disputes were smoothed out by the patients in charge of wards, the chief wardmaster, or the executive sergeant-major. I used to make regular visits informally to wards after the evening check parade, and here I could chat to patients in charge and to other patients. I thus came to hear of many of the disputes I refer to above and much gossip reached me from these and other sources though nothing in any way approaching an information service ever operated within the hospital to relay news to me. Some disputes reached me officially and on many nights I lay awake for a while pondering over problems which were really insoluble. I developed the ability to comfort myself with the thought that I could do no more and I went to sleep. It was remarkable how many unpleasant situations involving our relations with Japanese and relations within the hospital did in fact solve themselves, possibly not on the next day but within a few days. Solutions came about usually by a change of attitude on the part of someone who had previously seemed immovable. I was extremely fortunate in having a small converted lavatory in which I had my bed and so could occasionally shut my door though I remained available to anybody at any time. In Kowloon again I slept in my own office and so in both places I cannot be too grateful for this boon.
I rested in the afternoon only on some Sundays. All the other days I occupied myself gardening, cutting grass in the grounds, chopping wood or in some way in which I was involved physically. Over months I analysed the war casualties in a great deal of detail and so was able at the end to produce for the editors of the Official History a report which was valuable to them. Otherwise I played a bit of bridge.
SEX
No account of any human activities is complete nowadays without some reference to sex. In the present case I do not need to give much space to this subject. Earlier I referred to the fact that some soldiers before hostilities broke out, were so alarmed by the near certainty of venereal infection if they consorted casually with the local women that they turned to their own sex in the hope of avoiding this disease. The hope was a vain one and many contracted venereal infections from homosexual relationships.
In the seven months during which 50 women were living in the hospital in captivity with us, almost every nook and cranny was