 Chenevix-Trench was a prisoner of war (POW) for three and a half years, first at Changi Prison and then working on the Burma Railway, where he lost an eye and suffered kidney failure.The twenty-four British officers and signallers were separated from their Indian troops – whom the Japanese had hopes of subverting to their cause – and initially lived in fairly tolerable conditions.Chenevix-Trench learned more about India's ethnic and political divisions, read Homer's "Odyssey" in Greek and Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason", and compiled, bound and decorated an anthology of English poetry.