REMEMBERED

A railway was built through pastures green

Strewn with graves that can still be seen

Sixteen thousand sleepers, on a track of fear,

One for each prisoner, no longer here.

 

Never mind Dysentry, Beri Beri and fever,

Get to work and use that lever,

Lift those rails, you English swine,

You'll work like slaves on this railway line.

 

Fall ill and you'll get no treatment or food

No help at all to lighten your load

You'll work every day from the first light of dawn

And wish all the time you'd never been born.

 

All of a sudden there's a blow to the head,

The light goes out, can it be you're dead,

You open your eyes, to know it's not true

But wishing sometimes it just wouid be so.

 

A guard stands there with a look that´s not sweet

Screaming Bugero! Bugero!, get up on your feet

Speedo! Speedo!, you English pig,

Pick up your shovel and dig, dig, dig.

 

You bend your back and ignore the pain,

Then a rifle butt strikes, Oh! not again,

It sends one crashing to the ground

The head is spinning round and round.

 

It's not that easy to carry on,

When the body is weak and the will has gone

Through these hard times you try to cope

But lose the battle, when there's such little hope.

 

They who became the victims of fate

Not saved by the bomb, because it was too late,

And ended their lives in this far distant land

Are now at rest and before God they stand.

To the memory of Comrades who died building the

Thailand to Burma Railway 1942-1945