13 Feb 1944, Journal of Lt. Donald W. Kerr

((Lt Kerr has spent a second night hiding in an old foxhole in the mountains above Kowloon…waiting for Small Boy to bring the guerillas))

This time I slept late… The sky was clear and the opposite mountain was already framed in sunlight…These miserable burns aren’t doing too well.  Dirt in them, and nothing clean for bandages.  There’s precious little sulfa, either.  This big burn on my leg is a drippy mess.  All I can do is rinse it off and hope for the best.  And my arm is a bother, even though I can move it below the elbow.  But the bruises look better, anyhow.

For breakfast, I ate half the remaining chocolate and dared one of the battered cigarettes.  I had discovered a smoothed, oval hole in the back wall of the foxhole into which I puffed the smoke.  That hole was a puzzling item – I had thrust an arm into it as far as I could but could feel no end.  It seemed that it connected to a larger space.  Might be some system of tunnels connecting to the foxhole so that a sniper could be supplied with ammunition?  I couldn’t figure it out, but it did serve as a dandy chimney.  

As the sun disappeared behind the hills I again had hopes for Small Boy’s reappearance.  Surely this would be the night!  I had gotten around to feeling pretty good again except for a gnawing hunger and could hardly wait for darkness and a change of scene.  I pictured all sorts of rosy possibilities – any minute now a band of friendly Chinese would be around . . . probably with a basket full of fine chow . . . and doubtless with a sure fire plan for getting me back to Kweilin…

(later) … Certainly, Small Boy, you’re not coming tonight, was my regretful conclusion.  At full darkness I had crept from my cozy (and cramping) little den down to the stream and in the shadows of a clump of rocks had waited out the hours.  Eight o’clock, Nine, Ten-fifteen, Eleven-five, Eleven-thirty-two; and now it was only a few minutes until Midnight when, I resolved, I would start out on my own.  … I began … pondering which way to go next.  Down the valley lay the open sea, (or at least a bay) and a town.  The large path must lead to the town and surely I’d not get lost.  A town . . . many people, certainly some who would help.  And hadn’t that fellow, the first hour of my downfall said that “they” in the town would assist me?  Yes, but a town . . . a likely place for the Japanese to watch, especially since this one must be on or near the isthmus of this land.  Um.  Up this ravine and near the top of the ridge was another path – the one over which Small Boy had been guiding me.  Surely he had some place in mind – a cave, his home, a guerrilla hideout?  But then . . . on the crest of that ridge were those flak emplacements . . .  and, doubtless, sentries of some sort, more substantial ones than the bush I had seen the first night.  Um.  Um.  Um!  One thing, the night was thoroughly miserable with a fine rain, a high wind and low blowing clouds.  The moon was obscured most of the time and the wind would cover any noise I might make.  Midnight now, time to start.  I wasn’t too keen on it – the shadows of the rocks on the hill opposite seemed to hold imagined Japanese watchers, the fortified hillside leading to the ridge could have alarm devices, traps of some sort hidden away, and the ground itself was covered with coarse grass brambles and lumpy, irregular boulders.  … tying the water bag to my belt, I took gun in hand and started – up.        

((Lt Kerr climbed to the top of the rise…)) when suddenly the clouds left, the moon was clear, and there, a dozen feet away at the end of the path was a sunken concrete building with a flak gun jutting out of it.  From inside the sound of loud oriental voices!  It didn’t take me long to leave that area for the safe darkness on the valley side and slip into a crumbling trench to catch my breath.  Whooie!  Suppose it had been a clear night and that Japanese crew had been on the job!?!  This ridge stuff is not for me – the valley route is bound to be better, for sure.

…

It was only a short distance to the lower path.  …  It was nice and dark.  The rain would discourage any late strollers.  I came to a fork – one path went in the direction of the town, the other disappeared over a low pass.   Which to take?

((Lt Kerr headed over the low pass) )

The first point of interest on this new tack was a large square stone sitting right by the path.   On the top there is an inscription cut into the stone.  It’s in English!  I couldn’t quite read it in the darkness, so I traced it out with my fingers.  T-O-C  B-A-T-T-E-R-Y  O-B-S  P-O-S-T  …

At the top of the pass I could see a dim valley, rather wide and sloping up near where I was and getting steeper and steeper as it went down towards the far distant bay… I crossed the rice paddies in the shadow of a high dike and angled down and across to (the) next farm.  …

…Part way up the hill was an outcropping of large rocks that looked like a possible shelter from the rapidly approaching daylight.  It was just past five o’clock and the pre-dawn wind was rising so I knew it was high time to bivouac in the next likely spot.  Reaching the rocks, I found them to be half overlaid with creepers and brush, abounding with large fissures and cracks between the blocks.  I poked around a while, half feeling and half seeing, until I found a deep cleft covered with vines and trash.  Carefully displacing the greenery, I slipped down into this miniature canyon and squirmed around the dead leaves in the bottom until I was stretched out fairly comfortably.  Then sleep caught up with me.