Sandakan

Three years in jail and I’ve committed no crime
Except to be fighting to protect what was mine
They came and took us and they beat us down like dogs
I’m a doctor, a father, a husband and a man
But I felt like a waif there inside Sandakan
I don’t remember my own wife’s face no more
I was happy back in Lismore
Until they called my number
And within two months we were landing in Singapore
I’ve walked more in the last three
Than in the thirty that preceded
So if I ever make it home I won't be traveling no more
Two thousand odd men they kept locked up inside
From nineteen forty three to nineteen forty five
With bullets disease and hunger taking lives
I had a radio hidden for the first hundred days
But when it got found it got taken away
And replaced with half rations and instruments of pain
Still, I was happy back in Lismore
Until they called my number
And within two months we were landing in Singapore
I’ve walked more in the last three
Than in the thirty that preceded
So if I ever make it home I won't be traveling no more
They started the marches on January third
Five hundred men were to go in the first
Stick thin figures pounding up the dirt
When June came along all the ones left behind
Were herded at gunpoint up the mountain side
And into a forest ten thousand miles wide
I was happy back in Lismore
Until they called my number
And within two months we were landing in Singapore
I’ve walked more in the last three
Than in the thirty that preceded
So if I ever make it home I won't be traveling no more
They’re killing my men if they stumble or fall
And moving us on with their whips and their calls
I don’t think that I’ll be going home
At all…