The Railway Man Page #4

in this good place.

If you don't help us,

you will go back up the line.

Up the line is not a good place.

Now one by one do

number, please.

(YELLS IN JAPANESE)

One. Two.

Three. Four.

Five. Six.

Seven. Eight.

Nine. Ten.

Eleven.

Twelve.

Thirteen. Fourteen.

Fifteen. Who surrendered?

I never surrendered.

We should still be

out there fighting, now.

We're not fighting, are we?

We're working for the Japanese.

I'm not working

for the bloody Japanese.

We should get out of here.

Organise.

Fight back.

Escape?

There's more of us than them.

We could stroll out.

All of us. Calm down, Thorlby.

It's easy enough to walk out.

Then what?

Where would you go?

Well we must be somewhere.

We haven't fallen

off the edge of the world.

Er... sir?

Why don't you sit here?

Well I counted four days,

north, from Singapore

up towards Bangkok,

which would put us

somewhere about here.

Then we turned west.

So?

Well there is no railway

line west of Bangkok.

At least there wasn't

before the war.

How do you know, Lomax?

Well you see, the British...

they thought about building

a railway that would run

all the way from where we are here

in Thailand into Burma.

It would complete a line running

all the way from China to India.

If they'd managed it, it would have

taken it's place alongside

the great railway

journeys of the world.

Canadian Pacific.

Trans-Siberian.

The Orient Express.

Yeah?

Well why didn't they build it?

Well...

building a railway,

is a hard, miserable job.

It's usually done by poor

immigrant workers.

The great American railways

were built by Chinese peasants.

And even the British railways,

they were built by Irish

navvies fleeing from famine.

But sometimes,

a railway is simply too

difficult to build.

Well it's hundred of Miles

to Burma...

through mountains and jungle.

The British decided,

that to build such a railway,

it would be an act

not of engineering,

but of extreme barbarity...

and cruelty.

The conditions

would be such that...

those who did not die,

might well wish that they had.

To build such a railway you would need

more than just poor immigrants.

You'd need an army...

of slaves.

And we've just become that army.

We are not slaves.

We are soldiers.

You remember that.

And we are going to do our best

for those poor bastards up the line.

Lomax, Withins,

how are we fixed for a radio?

(MODERATE INTRUMENTAL MUSIC)

Lomax.

(IN JAPANESE)

That should be the one.

There we go.

There it is.

Did you get it?

Here.

That's good.

We need a battery, but, Lomax...

what else do we need?

Well I can work on an aerial.

But we must have the capacitor.

Who got that?

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