Miracle On The River Kwai

The guard fell on him in a fury, kicking and beating the prisoner, who despite the blows still managed to stand at attention. Enraged, the guard lifted his weapon high in the air and brought the rifle butt down on the soldier’s skull. The man sank in a heap to the ground, but the guard continued kicking his motionless body. When the assault finally stopped the other prisoners picked up their comrade’s corpse and marched back to the camp. That evening, when the tools were counted again, the work crew discovered a mistake had been make; no shovel was missing.

One of the prisoners remembered the verse “Greater love have no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.”

These acts of self-sacrifice shone like beacons causing a transformation in the camp. Prisoners started treating the dying with respect, organizing proper funerals and burial, marking each man’s grave with a cross. With no prompting, prisoners began looking out for each other rather than themselves. Although to be caught meant death, prisoners undertook expeditions outside the camp to find food for their sick fellow. Thefts grew increasingly rare. Men started thinking less of themselves finding ways to help others.

The new spirit continued to spread through the camp. Death was still with us – no doubt about that. But we were slowly being freed from its destructive grip. We were seeing for ourselves the sharp contrast between the forces that made for life and those that made for death. Selfishness, hatred, envy, jealousy, greed, self-indulgence, laziness and pride were all anti-life. Love, heroism, self-sacrifice, sympathy, mercy, integrity and creative faith, on the other hand, were the essence of life, turning mere existence into living in its truest sense. These were the gifts of God to men … True, there was hatred. But there was also love. There was death. But there was also life. God had not left us. He was with us.

5. LET ME HELP YOU

Ernest Gordon could feel himself gradually wasting away from a combination of beriberi, worms, malaria, dysentery, and typhoid. Then a virulent case of diphtheria ravaged his throat so severely that when he tried to drink or eat, the rice or water would come gushing out through his nose. As a side effect of the disease, his legs lost all sensation. Paralysed and unable to eat, Gordon was in the Death House, where prisoners on the verge of death were laid out in rows until they stopped breathing. The stench was unbearable. He had no energy to fight off the bedbugs, lice and swarming flies. He propped himself up on one elbow long enough to write a final letter to his parents and then lay back to await the inevitable.

“There is no escape,” whispered a voice in his mind. Gordon however said to himself “Life has to be cherished, not thrown away. I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going to surrender”. “All right, but what do I do about it?” he asked himself. Another voice replied, “You could live. You could be. You could do. There’s a purpose you have to fulfil. You’d become more conscious