Colonel Rexroth

Colonel Rexroth is the Australian officer who stands above Dorrigo Evans in authority at the prisoner-of-war camp, despite their equal rank. He tries to make British identity and military discipline into a basis for collective endurance, while Dorrigo repeatedly measures proposals against the prisoners’ immediate needs. Their disagreements over patriotic rhetoric, officers’ responsibilities, and a cemetery reveal two competing responses to catastrophe: the effort to preserve institutional ideals and the struggle to keep people alive. Rexroth dies of dysentery as conditions worsen, leaving Dorrigo to assume command.

Identity and Background

Rexroth is introduced as a man of conspicuous contrasts. He has the head of a highwayman on the body of a butcher, a polished accent despite being the son of a failed draper from Ballarat, and an Australian identity he tries to have mistaken for English. His manner is not simply a matter of accent: he has adopted an English social style and an imperial vocabulary that sit uneasily beside his origins. The narration describes him as someone who turned to the army in 1927 after other opportunities in life had eluded him. Military service thus supplies both a career and a structure through which he can assert authority.

Although Rexroth and Dorrigo hold the same rank, Rexroth is senior by experience and because he is a career military man while Dorrigo is a medical officer. This distinction establishes a tension that is not settled by rank alone. Rexroth possesses the formal authority and institutional standing; Dorrigo’s position as a doctor gives him an immediate view of sickness and survival in the camp.

Leadership and the Language of National Character

At an early camp concert, Rexroth tells Dorrigo that British strengths, esprit de corps, and blood will hold the men together and carry them through their ordeal. His speech turns national identity into a promise of collective resilience. Dorrigo answers by pointing to the need for quinine, bringing the conversation back from abstract morale to medicine. Rexroth objects to what he considers Dorrigo’s negative attitude and insists on positive thoughts and a celebration of national character. Dorrigo replies that he has never treated national character.

The exchange captures a basic difference in their approaches. Rexroth seeks an organizing story in which shared Britishness can sustain the men; Dorrigo’s response is practical and deliberately unsentimental. The concert itself unsettles the boundaries Rexroth wants to reinforce: when English prisoners perform a short play about a German prisoner from the First World War, the Australians begin cheering for the German character. National affiliation does not control the audience’s sympathy as neatly as Rexroth’s speech implies.

Rexroth’s difficulty is not that he lacks conviction, but that conviction does not automatically become effective leadership. His voice is described as thin and reedy, and he has little gift for oratory despite believing his rank equips him for it. In an address invoking the British Empire, English identity, order, and discipline, the strain between intended authority and limited persuasive force becomes audible. The scene places his preferred language of collective purpose beside the prisoners’ more immediate responses and needs.

Disagreement over the Living and the Dead

The practical dispute over officers’ work develops the contrast between Rexroth’s institutional outlook and Dorrigo’s demands. Dorrigo argues that officers who receive twenty-five cents a day from the Japanese authorities should contribute to camp work, including digging latrines, nursing in the hospital, serving as orderlies, and making equipment such as crutches and shelters. Rexroth asks what Dorrigo means, and Dorrigo specifies the tasks. The exchange makes responsibility concrete: the issue is not simply whether officers should serve the men, but what useful work they can do under camp conditions.

Rexroth later asks Dorrigo to help plan a proper cemetery overlooking the river, where the dead could be buried. He presents it as a dignified resting place and contrasts it with the existing practice of carrying bodies into the forest and burying them there. Dorrigo resists the proposal’s priority, saying that he would rather have the Black Prince steal more tins of fish from Japanese stores to keep the living from dying. Rexroth calls the Black Prince a thief, then returns to the cemetery as a beautiful and worthwhile undertaking.

The disagreement is not a simple rejection of burial or dignity. Rexroth recognizes that the dead deserve a considered resting place; Dorrigo insists that the living cannot be set aside while that work is planned. The river-facing cemetery offers a durable form and a measure of order, whereas Dorrigo’s stolen food answers an immediate need. Their exchange gives Rexroth’s ideals a humane dimension, but also shows how they can conflict with the urgent calculations of survival.

Death and Succession

As the Speedo intensifies, rest days disappear, quotas rise, and shifts lengthen. The distinction between the fit and the sick becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. In this worsening period, the rains become torrential and the jungle closes around the camp. Rexroth dies of dysentery and is buried in the jungle with the other dead. The setting of his burial sharply contrasts with the cemetery he had hoped to establish: the intended resting place overlooking the river gives way to the same immediate, improvised burial practice he had wanted to replace.

After Rexroth’s death, Dorrigo assumes command. He imposes a levy on the officers’ pay to buy food and drugs for the sick, and persuades, cajoles, and insists that the officers work. These measures answer the needs Dorrigo had pressed in his disputes with Rexroth, particularly the demand that officers contribute materially to the camp and its sick. The men call Dorrigo Colonel to his face and the Big Fella elsewhere; the narration describes the burden of being made into a self-sacrificing figure by the men’s expectations. Rexroth’s death therefore marks more than a change in command. It leaves Dorrigo to carry forward the authority of the camp under conditions in which ceremony, discipline, and practical care can no longer be kept apart.