to work long hours with very little
food.
At the end of one of these
impossibly hard days the
demoralised prisoners were
dragged out into the courtyard and
the camp commander announced
that a shovel was missing. He went
on to explain that, unless the man
who had stolen the shovel was
found, every one of them would be
shot. Nobody moved, but the
prisoners knew the commander
would shoot them all. After what
seemed like an eternity, a big Scots
Guardsman stepped out of the line.
The Japanese guards gathered
around him and battered him to
death. Later that day it was found
that there had been a miscount
and there wasn’t a shovel missing
at all. This man had given his life
for his friends.
Two thousand y