There were then none of the original sanitary arrangements working, and one of the first orders we received was to satisfy the demands of nature from the pier.
There were several water pipes working outside the buildings, and indeed, there was no shortage of water. In fact, the open pipes were eventually plugged to prevent continual running of water. Eventually also, in certain flats in Jubilee Buildings, water was reconnected so that limited sanitary and washing arrangements were made available in these parts.
No electric light was available in camp, the state of the fittings precluded use of electricity anyway, though there were electric lights burning within a few yards at the Guard post outside the Main Gate of the Camp.
The only bedding which we had was that which we had ourselves carried from Hong Kong, and, of course, there were no beds at the camp when we arrived. I understood that Colonel Ride had managed to get some beds from the Japanese for the camp sick-bays.
Food.
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107'
In brief, this consisted of two meals of rice a day, the rice being broken, polished, white rice, i.e., the worst quality rice from a nutritive point of view. There were very occasional issues made of meat, pig and vegetables although I could never understand whether there were camp or unit issues as on certain days the Naval contingent would be without benefit of these, while other units would have a soup issue with the rice. This meat or vegetable allotment would be used to make a thin soup which, on the average, the Naval contingent received about once every three meals, though the last four meals I received before escaping had no such issue of soup. There did not seem to be any shortage of rice, but in any case, the plain boiled rice was usually so unpalatable that one's issue was never completely eaten.
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Many people had brought tinned food with them from Hong Kong and in certain cases, the Army had a definite unit store of tinned stuff. For the first few days the Japanese also allowed "over-the-wire trading," from which one could, at a price, buy looted tinned stuff, sugar etc., which could be rationed to supplement individual rice issues.
Thus, in the case of a group of 33 Naval contingent to which I belonged, we had brought 6 lbs. apiece of tinned stuff from a looted Barrack Store in Hong Kong and this I issued to our Group at the rate of 3 ozs. per head per day, sufficient to flavour the rice and to last a month.
With the stopping of "over-the-wire" trading and the termination of these private or semi-private stocks of tinned food, future food prospects on the old basis of rice and occasional "soup" will be black indeed.
It is probable that the Japanese will, themselves, loot the majority of the rice stocks in the Colony, said to have been sufficient for a six months' siege, and the Hong Kong Government tinned food stocks had certainly not been released by the Japanese for camp use, if indeed, these stocks had survived competitive Chinese and Japanese lootings.
Sickness
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