Warren Fellows - The Damage Done: Twelve Years of Hell in a Bangkok Prison

I would like to thank Jack Marx for all his hard work in helping me write this book. Without Jack, this story would never have been told.

THE DAMAGE DONE

TWELVE YEARS OF HELL IN A BANGKOK PRISON

Warren Fellows

This is dedicated to my mum and to the memory of Paul Hayward

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Epub ISBN: 9781780572260

Version 1.0

www.mainstreampublishing.com

Copyright Warren Fellows, 1998

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

First published in Great Britain in 1998 by

MAINSTREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY (EDINBURGH) LTD

7 Albany Street

Edinburgh EHI 3UG

This edition 1999

ISBN 1 84018 275 X

First published in 1997 by

Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

St Martins Tower, 31 Market Street, Sydney

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

I AM GOING to tell you about the worst thing that ever happened to me.

I dont really want to tell you, because its too terrible for me to recall, but I have to tell you. Its important that you know, and I have to get it out of my heart.

This thing went on for eleven and a half years. Think about that. Think of the most wretched day of your life maybe its when somebody you loved died, or when you were badly hurt in an accident, or a day when you were so terrified you could scarcely bare it. Imagine 4,000 of those days, together in one big chunk, and youre getting close.

I do not tell this story to bring pity on myself. I know that many people hate me for what I did and would believe that I deserved whatever I got. I can only ask those people to keep reading. If, at the end of my story, you still believe that anyone could deserve the horrors that I saw, then you, too, are a criminal. A vengeful and sadistic one. Maybe you just havent been caught yet.

Ill tell you of something I saw in a prison called Bang Kwang, nine years into my imprisonment in Thailand. This isnt an isolated incident its one of many but it is one that stays in my head and plays like a short horror movie, over and over.

I was awakened late one night by the screaming of a young French prisoner in the cell next door. The sound of his scream was excruciating. It wasnt just a scream of pain, but of madness too. It was the sort of sound you would never want to hear coming from a human being. Ill never forget it. For hours and hours he screamed, until I and a friend called David, who was in a cell opposite, began screaming back, begging him to tell us what was wrong. It became obvious that whatever was torturing him was so overwhelming that he couldnt hear us at all. He was lost in his own pain.

Eventually, David and I began shouting for the guard. We knew that the hospital staff, who didnt care too much at the best of times, wouldnt be interested at this hour. So we pleaded with the guard to let us into the Frenchmans cell to see what was wrong. David had served in the US army, knew a fair amount of first aid and thought he might be able to help. Luckily, we had a good guard this night, and he agreed.

When we entered the Frenchmans cell, he was alone, curled into a ball, facing the corner. His screams didnt stop for the whole time we were there he seemed totally oblivious of our presence. As soon as we turned him over, we saw what was wrong. On his neck, just below the ear, was an enormous lump, about the size of an avocado. As we looked at this lump, it appeared to be moving.

David seemed to know what was going on and dashed back to our cell to get a razor blade (keeping razors was illegal in Bang Kwang, but the guard, who was now as concerned as we were, turned a blind eye this time). David told us to hold the Frenchman down, as he was going to lance the lump with the razor. As soon as the blade sliced the skin, the wound opened up like a new flower. And out of the gash in the Frenchmans neck spilled hundreds of tiny, worm-like creatures, wriggling and oozing out like spaghetti. It was appalling, a dreadful dream, only real and right before my eyes, happening to a human being. According to the hospital staff who examined him later, a cockroach had crawled into his ear, burrowed through to his neck and laid its eggs. A man who, somewhere, had a mother and a father, family and friends, had been left to become a living nest for maggots. And when I remember the grotesque sound of his screams, Im certain he knew what was happening to him.

This little scene didnt have a staggering impact on me at the time. It should have, but it didnt. Such visions marked my days like the chimes of a clock. One ill moment means a lot on its own. Place it in the middle of a million other ills and it means nothing.

I remember seeing a young American, whod just arrived in the prison, crying one night and I said to him, Whats the matter? Looking back, it was a ridiculous question. Everything was the matter. But Id lost touch with how sick our circumstances were, and I no longer had any recollection of what it was to live like a normal human being.

Today, when I walk around, I sometimes find myself wondering if the whole thing, my whole experience there, really happened at all. It seems so unreal. At other times, it feels as if this new life is far away even though Im surrounded by it and the one I lived through in those dungeons in Bangkok is my true life, still out there, waiting for me to return. It seems impossible that both worlds could exist at the same time. Theyre natural enemies. Surely one would conquer the other.

CHAPTER

CHANCE

MY FATHER RODE the winner of the Melbourne Cup in 1949. Bill Fellows and Foxzami strode home easily, a few lengths ahead of the field. Things looked good for the family, which at that point consisted of my father, my mother, four-year-old Gary and two-year-old Gail. I was to follow in 1953. But the future of the Fellows family began to collapse before I had even entered it. Six months after my fathers victory, Gail died of a bowel complication. My father never really recovered. He lost interest in competing and, by all accounts, seemed to surrender his spirit. I remember him as a fairly happy person, but I was always aware of a certain sorrowfulness underneath, a discomfort from which he didnt seem to want to escape.

Nevertheless, he continued working with racehorses and became a very sought-after trainer. Naturally, I spent a lot of my youth around him, at the training sessions and the racetrack. I used to love going to the track with my father. I knew he was an important figure and I enjoyed being a part of the action.

It was at the track where I developed my interest in punting. Like every punter, I loved winning, but I also loved the thrill that came from knowing that I was always close to a catastrophic loss.

This compulsion continued until, 30 years after my father, my picture appeared in the papers too. But Im not raising a trophy or being congratulated by anyone I am cowering behind my own hand as 8.5 kilograms of heroin are displayed on a table in front of me.