by Jean Moran
At the very last minute before they left the building and took the road down to the main gate, Dr Black beckoned to them from the other side of the ward.
The pair of them stood in front of him, feeling like naughty schoolgirls.
‘Two hours. No more.’A reflective expression appeared in his eyes when he saw Rowena’s face fall and he sighed. ‘You’re young. Be back before the witching hour.’
He turned away, looking purposeful, but she could tell by the slope of his normally square shoulders that he was very tired.
*
It was seven in the evening and a filigree sunset shimmered through the treetops and fell like orange muslin over the extensive lawns in front of St Stephen’s.
Rowena and Alice set out down the spur of the main drive, which swerved in the direction of what had previously been the preparatory school, its classrooms commandeered as overspill wards. The main road swept down to Fort Stanley, a British settlement built on the ruins of an older one.
The planes that had been absent that morning came round in the early evening. Although a large red cross had been painted on the roof of the hospital, the enemy aircraft still dived at the building, dropping bombs and strafing anything that moved.
Alice’s steps slowed as they got closer to the main gate.
Rowena tried to sound reassuring: ‘Keep going. Just an hour, but a little respite.’
It was unrealistic to think the lull would last. As the Japanese Army advanced, the hospital would fill with groaning men and the swift, sharp movements of medical staff as they fought to stem the tide of blood and death with scalpels, saws, scissors and bandages.
The soldiers on duty threw them admiring glances as they walked by.
‘Handsome buggers,’ murmured Alice, a wicked grin lifting one side of her mouth. ‘Just look at those shoulders.’
‘Just look at those thighs.’
Alice covered her mouth to mute her laughter.
Rowena smiled at all those who smiled at her. Such young men. Such brave young men. Such muscular bodies. ‘One more time before I die,’ she muttered.
Despite the sudden return of the sound of shelling, they kept going. It was Rowena’s plan to walk down the drive and along the road to the cluster of houses and two or three bars just a few hundred yards from the main gate. Originally there had been only the one bar, run by the Chinese Dutchman, but more had sprung up almost overnight once it was obvious that the school had become a hospital to be staffed and defended by British military personnel.
The enterprising bar owners had been proved right and were very happy to be patronised by soldiers in need of a drink and everything else a Hong Kong bar could offer. That included prostitutes, female and male.
The main gate beckoned, wide enough to drive a tank through. It should have been so straightforward and there should have been nothing to stop them – but there was.
‘Get out of the way.’
The soldiers frantically pushed them back, forcing them against the bushes that fringed the guard post.
The smell of petrol and the grinding of engines preceded a convoy of army vehicles. Men crowded the trucks both inside and out. Rowena was reminded of a swarm of bees. Those for whom there was no room on the trucks walked, marched, limped and used their rifles as walking sticks, all gazing ahead to the white-painted building, seeing the red cross on the roof as a sign of refuge.
Rowena knew immediately that they wouldn’t be going anywhere. Already she was thinking of how many bandages would be needed, how many syringes for painkilling drugs and the new penicillin.
The soldiers were from a cross-section of the British Empire, Canadians, Indians, British and Australians, with machine-guns strapped to their shoulders. Some of the Canadians looked like fresh-faced boys who’d not long arrived, their ruddy complexions the result of lives spent in wide open spaces, where prairie land went on for ever and forests were thick with trees that grew so tall they blanked out the sky.
The Punjabis were tall and of aristocratic bearing, their beards and turbans more telling than their uniforms, advertising who they were and where they were from.
‘Number one machine-gun to the left of the gate. Number two to the right. Fall back three and four over there and over there...’
The orders of an officer were repeated by the barked orders of another man, whom she instantly recognised.
It was Connor.
Alice noticed too. ‘Isn’t that...?’
‘Connor of Connor’s Bar fame. The man who wouldn’t serve us a drink but who can make the most wooden feet dance a jig.’ She eyed him with dismay, not because she wasn’t pleased to see him but because she knew that his presence meant things were bad and could only get worse.
The column of men fanned off, obeying orders, the hefty throng that had marched through the gate thinning into a tail, running off in all directions in response to more shouted orders.
‘What do we do?’ Alice asked nervously.
Rowena frowned. ‘I don’t know. Oh, sod it. Come on. Last-chance saloon!’
Alice made to follow Rowena around the red and white pole that served as a security gate to the hospital. A guard came out of his box, crossed his weapon over his chest and barred her way. ‘I’m sorry, miss...’
‘Doctor.’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor. Nobody is allowed to leave.’
‘I have permission from Dr Black for us to spend what little leave we have in the local bars – fly ridden and seedy as they might be. That’s as far as we’re going.’
‘Things have changed.’
The officer who had intervened, spoke with the refined voice of Surrey drawing rooms and the cadets of Sandhurst. She recognised him as Harry, Connor’s senior officer but also his friend. ‘How much have they changed?’
‘Too much.’
‘We do have permission.’
‘Fine. Go ahead if you want to get your head blown off.’
‘We have passes,’ said Rowena, offering him the pieces of paper Dr Black had signed.
He glanced at the signature then tore the passes to pieces and threw them up into the air. The wind sent them scuttling over the gravel path and grass verge.
‘Connor!’
He saw her and strode over. ‘What’s going on?’
‘The girls thought they were going for a night out. I’m afraid I had to disappoint them, old chap. I’ll let you explain our position. Hey! You over there...’ Harry strode off.
Connor braced his hands on his hips. ‘The Japanese are coming this way. I think you’ll find the bar owners have got the message and shut up shop.’
Rowena sighed and exchanged a brief look with Alice, whose usually pink cheeks were now ashen. ‘I think we’re going to be needed.’
‘I think you will,’ said Connor. ‘Now you’d better get inside. It’s not going to be very pleasant out here. Oh, but if you could just take care of this for me...’
He reached into the pile of kitbags that soldiers were identifying and taking to their billets in the brown tents on the front lawn. He handed her his violin case. ‘Take care of it for me until sometime in the future when we can dance a jig and sing our hearts out.’
She felt privileged. He was putting his most precious possession out of harm’s way.
‘One more thing – just in case I don’t get to do it ever again.’
The kiss was short and sweet. It took her by surprise and she couldn’t help fingering her cheek. When again would she be kissed?
She ran back to the hospital, the violin clutched to her chest, a semi-hysterical Alice behind her.
The sky filled with enemy aircraft. The make-up she’d put on with such happy anticipation streamed down her face.
6
Men flowed in endless eddies back and forth to machine-gun posts, their tents and rest areas, the tracks of their feet flattening grass and creating muddy trails across what had been pristine green lawns. The air smelt of oil, sweat and fear. Clutches of men hovered over
their weapons, one set replacing another at regular intervals, eyes peeled, trigger fingers ready for action.
At mealtimes the smell of bully beef and boiled potatoes vied with the more appetising smells coming from the Indians’ food: they were more at ease with the local cuisine, making good use of saffron and paprika, rice and chicken.
Too weary even to unwind the mosquito net and lie down to sleep, Rowena stood at the window of her room. The first casualties were enough to keep everyone on their toes, but her gut feeling of more to come brought dryness to her throat and heaviness to her heart. If she thought she was tired now, it was likely nothing to the exhaustion to come – though she prayed it would never happen.
She saw Connor moving through the mass of men, imagined him doing his best to reassure with glib or saucy comments.
So many men. So young. Against a staccato accompaniment of sporadic machine-gun fire, some ate, some slept, some shaved, some cleaned their rifles, and the Sikhs unwound their hair, bringing it round from their shoulders, washing and brushing it, then coiling it into a topknot and rebinding their turbans. Their naked brown torsos made her think of her grandmother. Her skin must have been as glossy as theirs. No wonder her grandfather had disobeyed his British family and married her. How could he have resisted?
Alice came in just as she was giving in to the idea of trying to rest before duty called yet again. At least she might sleep a couple of hours, perhaps even four…
As the only female doctor, and there being no single rooms available, she had chosen to be billeted with Alice, sharing a room that overlooked the front lawns. When they had time they would sit on the deep window ledge and, despite the threat of stray bullets or shrapnel, watch the unfolding scene, wondering how many of those young men would be injured or killed, how many they would save to fight another day.
‘I’m bushed,’ said Alice, taking off her starched headdress and scratching her head. ‘Is there any tea?’
‘There is, but it’s cold. But there is lemon and sugar.’
‘That’ll do me.’ Alice kicked off her shoes and lifted the pot.
Rowena yawned as she began to undress. ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘We’re managing quite well, though, don’t you think?’
‘I’ll be fine if I can get hold of a new pair of feet. How about you?’
‘Ditto. My feet are killing me.’ Alice’s eyes went to the window. All was darkness except for the few embers from some impromptu cooking fires and the flashes from explosions in the distance, which were gradually getting closer. ‘The Irish oaf asked about you today. He hoped you were looking after his fiddle.’
‘He’s not an oaf and I am looking after his fiddle.’
Unwilling to hear Alice’s rather jaundiced view on anyone who wasn’t from the same stable as herself, Rowena changed the subject. ‘This is my last pair of stockings. And they’ve got a ladder. Hope I can get some more.’
‘He said you had a grand voice and hoped you’d bump into each other, though he did say he was a trifle busy. I said, “Guess what? Dr Rowena Rossiter is also a bit busy these days. So is everyone.” ’
‘I wouldn’t mind some new underwear too,’ Rowena mused. Stockings and silk camiknickers lay on the small chest of drawers at her bedside, but they were three years old.
‘He was aching to see you,’ Alice went on, ‘but when’s that going to happen in this place? I told him I wouldn’t blame you if you vowed never to see him again or look after his fiddle, seeing as he wouldn’t serve us that night. And do you know what he did then? He apologised. Fancy that!’ When Rowena failed to rise to the bait, Alice tried again: ‘Still, at least he’s white. No matter how rich a man is, it’s best that you have some things in common. If you know what I mean.’
She was referring to Kim Pheloung. Rowena did not want to hear that. ‘Goodnight.’
She was bundled up beneath the mosquito net, her back towards Alice. That very evening she had run into Connor on the front colonnade. They’d stood facing each other.
‘Do you think anyone would see if I kissed you?’ he wondered.
‘Would you care if they did? Would I?’
‘Damn it.’
Connor had kissed her anyway. His lips tasted salty and he smelt of sweat and cordite, but she didn’t care. He felt warm and alive and made her feel the same way.
‘Sorry you couldn’t get away for your night out,’ he finally said.
Her shoulders heaved with a sigh. ‘I don’t think any of us will be getting out for some time, do you?’
He shrugged. ‘Probably not. Do you think I might kiss you again?’
She laughed, more lightly than she had for days. Big as he was, he seemed so boyish. ‘I think we should.’
‘I think so too. It could be an age before we get another chance.’
She told herself that she was only doing it to give him support, a sweet memory to cherish. On reflection she knew it was more than that. She needed support and a sweet memory as much as he did.
‘I have to go.’ She disengaged first, then attempted to side-step him, but he countered it with a side-step of his own.
‘I meant it about your singing. You’ve got a grand voice. My mother had a grand voice too.’
‘So have you.’
‘You’re keeping the fiddle safe?’
‘Of course I am. I put it in a cupboard down in the boiler house. Nobody goes there.’
She’d felt guilty that her thoughts were wandering in another direction but told herself that thinking about Kim Pheloung was a form of escapism. It would help her get through all this and whatever was to come.
Now Alice was still wandering around in her underwear, one foot resting on a chair as she began unfastening her suspenders and carefully curling her stockings down her legs. ‘Have you seen those Indians? Stripping off to the waist and washing out front. And their hair! Longer than mine. Longer than yours,’ Alice said suddenly.
‘Can’t say I’ve noticed,’ muttered Rowena, pulling the sheet up to her chin. ‘Goodnight.’
Something in the room buzzed for a while until it was skewered on the blade of the ceiling fan. Beyond the window crickets sang into the night and the clattering of men, their armaments and their cooking pots, softened as they fell into fitful sleep.
At first she thought it was Alice’s snoring or gunfire that had awoken her. Her eyes blinking open, she stared into the darkness her arms folded beneath her head.
His voice, unaccompanied by any instrument, drifted up to her window.
She smiled. The same song again, but not just a song: it was a message. He was telling her how he felt, that she was the colleen from County Down though her hair was nearly black and her eyes grey.
*
Smothered by darkness, Connor O’Connor lay on his side beneath a tree whose slender branches fell like a scented curtain before his eyes. He knew instinctively that she had heard him and, after checking on Harry and a few other things, he’d found this place, a perfect spot from which to observe without being seen by anyone in the grounds or in the main building.
A convenient stone pillowed his head. An opium pipe, long and black, containing the residue of the last smoke, lay cradled in the crook of his arm. Harry had taken it into his head to try opium but he had been unable to smoke it once and leave it. He was hooked. ‘I aim to try everything in life, dear boy. After all, we don’t get long on this earth, do we, so what have we got to lose? Give it a try.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because you and I are soul mates. You’ll always do what I want.’
‘I don’t do what you want. I help save you from yourself.’
‘And those who would do me harm, old boy. And those who would do me harm.’
‘Not tonight.’ Tonight Connor had taken the plug and the pipe from him. ‘Until matters improve, Harry. In the meantime you’ll be needing your wits about you. You’re the man in charge. There’s men depending on you.’
Harry hadn’t
argued and Connor had made a sharp exit before he could change his mind.
Their friendship had begun on a foul night outside a pub in Catterick. Connor had come out of the pub. Harry had come from who knew where, cigarette holder poised in slender fingers, cap set jauntily to one side and smiling like a dockyard tart.
‘Oy. Look at ’im.’
Connor could still hear the raucous twang of a Liverpool accent behind him. Harry had been under threat. Officer he might be and rightly respected but, like others before them, the men had sensed something else.
Connor could still hear the way Harry had greeted them. ‘Nice night to be camping out,’ he’d declared, in a sing-song voice.
‘Camping out’ was not the best expression to use in front of common soldiers, whose favourite topics were football and women.
Dusk had been falling so, despite the blackout, it was easy to see one man smash the neck off a beer bottle and move in on the officer. The other two followed, one flinging a cigarette end to one side, another hurling off his jacket. Heads lowered, the three had circled Harry, like wolves scenting blood.
He remembered the look in their eyes: partly hatred, but also fear, as though he, being different, was a threat to their masculinity.
Connor had been on his way back to barracks, but one look at the glitter in the major’s eyes, and he knew he had to stay.
The three men appeared not to notice that Harry found their behaviour amusing.
‘Fag,’ snarled one of the men.
‘A queer officer. That’s all we bloody need,’ said another. ‘Bound to get us killed. Bloody pansy.’
The man with the bottle moved first, the broken glass arcing over Harry’s shoulder, missing him by inches as he stepped aside. Another man moved forward, straight into his fist. The third took only one step and found himself yanked back by his collar, swung round to be flung against the pub wall.
Connor gripped the wrist of the bottle-wielding man before he could take another swipe. One punch and his victim went sprawling.
