Unknown to us an Indian - I don't like saying this and I'm not being racist, it could have been any nationality - blackmailed a Chinese who was helping us on the aerodrome picking up bits of iron for us and various other things. He blackmailed him but the Chinese wouldn't talk, so the Kempitai arrested the Chinese and put him on a rack; he mentioned in the course of his cries for help - which was not a nice thing to think about but I don't blame him - he mentioned Captain Matthews and a couple of other people; I think I would have done the same thing at that stage.

The Japanese then decided to make a raid on the camp, which they did, and I was then charged and taken away by the Captain; he wanted the receiver and I gave it to him in the end after a lot of leading him round the camp with his soldiers. I could almost laugh at some of the things that happened. He must have told them he was looking for a radio set; a Jap soldier came running up to him with a piece of metal which looked like a piece of horse harness or something; the Captain almost kicked him and told him what to do. So in the end I decided that I couldn't talk to anybody before the rest of the troops on this parade ground, and I felt so conspicuous. He walked back and said "Are you going to tell me because we want the wireless set?", so I said "Yes, I've just thought where it might be". So I went across and told him where the hole was, and they dug the hole up and, of course, there was the transmitter. He said "Ah, you've been sensible at last", so he took the transmitter and they took it away.

From that day on, I was worried about this because I knew the receiver was OK and the troops would be happy about that; they would still be able to get news. And then he took me up to the platform where he stood and addressed everyone. All he said in English was "You all look at this man, you will never see him again" and led me off. I had a sort of a dying wish, going in on the vehicle to Sandakan to be interrogated, that somehow or other this set could be preserved and, of course unknown to me, it was. They continued using it but not until after about a week or so - their nerves were a bit shaken. But they used it for some months afterwards until the big moves came and it was a successful source of morale lifter.

During the trial, that was when the shock came to me when this transmitter was brought out by the prosecution as evidence that we had been using a receiver, but the Court accepted it. It was never mentioned after that because had it been, I don't think either of us would have been alive, because we had planned to get some crystals from the Philippines and try and fit them in this set then we could call them on CW and give them some news about ourselves. But we did get some news by other means, via an agent taking a sandalwood vessel across, that the British and Australian authorities knew where we were, and it was proved at the end of the war that they knew exactly where to come for us. They had guerilla parties in behind the lines, but they couldn't contact us and they had to watch some of our people just die virtually, because they were there and there would have been trouble otherwise.