* * *
The next morning when I arrived at work, Ian was typing at his desk, a pencil behind one ear. He smiled uncertainly as I came through the door, and I despised myself in that moment. When all the terrible news had started up in December, I had retreated from our friendship without an explanation. I’d let any feelings between us run cold. He hadn’t deserved that.
I headed toward him, intent on apologizing, but he spoke first.
“I’ve done some investigating for you,” he said.
I grimaced. “I know. I’ve fallen behind in my work. Thank you for picking up after me.”
“No, not that. That stuff’s up to you,” he said wryly.
I walked behind him, peering over his shoulder at his typewriter. “What’s this?”
He pulled the paper out and presented it to me. “I know how hard you’ve been researching Hong Kong. I wanted to take something off your plate, so I started looking into this.”
“The St. Stephen’s Massacre,” I read out loud, my blood running cold. Richie had died at St. Stephen’s. I’d never forget that. It was the one aspect I’d never worked on, because I didn’t know if I could bear the truth.
He studied me, concern etched in his face. “It’s really gritty stuff. When you’re ready, I can tell you about it.”
“Gritty?”
“Not gonna lie, Molly. It was awful. The Japs achieved a new level of savagery that day.”
My stomach rolled with dread. Funny how I was always determined to expose the truth in my articles, and yet I shied away from this. I needed to face what had happened. It wouldn’t be fair to Richie if I didn’t.
“What do you think about going for a walk?” I asked. I didn’t want to be in this noisy, impersonal room for a discussion like this. I needed air. And I wanted to be alone with Ian. “It’s a beautiful day.”
His eyes widened with anticipation, and I knew Hannah was right. This was what I needed to do. I needed to push myself. I needed to move on.
“I’m ready when you are,” he said.
I could tell from the moment we left the building he was bursting at the seams to start talking. He was an enthusiastic man to begin with, and he’d always been attentive to me, but it had been a while since we’d last had a good talk. Now that he was back at my side, I realized I’d missed his company more than I’d been willing to admit.
“How are you feeling?” he eventually asked.
“I’m getting better,” I told him. “I had a good talk with my friend Hannah. She had a lot of wise words for me, and I’m taking them to heart.”
“I’m glad. You deserve to be happy.”
“I do.” I glanced up at him. “And so do you.”
He watched me a minute, assessing. “Are you saying that if I made dinner and invited you over, you might come?”
“I might,” I said, smiling.
That familiar twinkle sparked in his eyes again, and I was so glad to see it. “All right. I’ll make something edible from my ration tickets. Maybe spaghetti.”
“I like spaghetti,” I said, then I tilted my head toward the park on our right. “Feel like telling me about St. Stephen’s now?”
He inhaled through his nose. “You sure?”
“As sure as I’ll ever be.”
We made our way toward an empty park bench, and I prepared myself as well as I could. He had brought notes, but he kept them rolled inside his coat pocket. He had all the information in his head.
“At the same time that D Company faced their last stand, fighting at Stanley Village, there was an attack on the St. Stephen’s College hospital, at the south end of the island.”
I nodded. That much I knew.
Ian reached into his shirt pocket and took out his cigarettes. He offered one to me even though he knew I never accepted, then he lit his, blowing a stream of smoke away from me.
“There were about a hundred Canadians and Brits at the hospital, including doctors and nurses. Other than the medical people, the rest were wounded men.”
So Richie had been one of the wounded, I realized. When had he been hurt? Where? Would I ever know?
Ian squinted, drawing on his cigarette again. “About two hundred Japanese attacked the hospital Christmas Day, claiming they thought it was a fort, despite the hospital flag flying outside.”
“The patients were unguarded?”
“They were in a hospital. No one’s supposed to attack a hospital. And all our fighting men were busy elsewhere.”
“Go on,” I said after a moment.
He regarded me carefully then set both his feet flat on the ground, as if he was bracing himself. “The two doctors in charge of the hospital barred the entrance, but the Japanese killed them both.”
My mouth went dry. I swallowed, reminded myself that this was war. Hadn’t Dad described something similar?
“It only gets worse from there, Molly. It was a massacre.”
I took a breath then nodded, steeling myself. I had to know. I couldn’t ignore the facts. My brother deserved that.
“The Japs stormed into the hospital and bayoneted about sixty of the ninety-three wounded men to death.” Ash dropped from Ian’s forgotten cigarette. “They— They cut them to pieces as they lay in their beds. They showed no mercy.”
“Oh, God. Richie,” I gasped.
He’d probably felt safe there, under the care of the doctors. People were supposed to feel safe in hospitals, weren’t they? I clenched my hands together, squeezing until my nails cut into my palms, imagining the panic he must have felt, the screams that had cut through the day and night.
Ian handed me a handkerchief, and I wiped at my eyes.
“There were also seven Allied nurses and a bunch of Chinese nurses, no one seems to know how many. The Chinese nurses were taken away and never seen again. The Canadian and British nurses were attacked and…” Ian turned his face away. “They were raped all night. Five of them survived.”
Bile seared my throat, and I covered my mouth with a trembling hand. When at last I found my voice, it was barely a whisper. “How could they do that?”
“You know how,” he reminded me gently. “You’ve been studying their POW camps. These guys don’t follow any rules. They believe if a man surrenders, they have forfeited their soul, and they’re less than human. That they actually deserve to be treated that way. But here’s the kicker: the Canadians never surrendered. The Brits did, hours before that attack. But the men of C Force never did.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the grass, grinding it in with his shoe. “In the morning, they made the survivors carry all the bodies, mattresses, and whatever else they could find, then burn them all. Once that was done, they started marching them to North Point Camp.”
“The POW camp.”
“And nobody knows much more than that.”
I sighed. “Because the Japanese won’t allow the Red Cross in.” I stared at Ian’s handkerchief, crushed in my hands. “But by that point, Richie was already…”
Ian lifted my chin with one finger, and I saw the sympathy in his shining blue eyes. Then I saw the love behind it, and I let myself go. I reached for him, and he wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight while I wept into his warm, welcoming chest.
When my sobs slowed, we drew apart, and I caught the pleasant tang of his aftershave as his cheek brushed against mine. I looked into his eyes, feeling truly comforted for the first time in so long, then I tilted my face toward his, finally ready for more.
He paused, inches away. “Are you sure this is what you want, Molly?”
“I am,” I said. “I just needed time. There was so much going on, with the war, my brothers, and everything else. I needed to sort through everything.”
“But even before then,” he said, searching my face. “I don’t know. We were having fun, but you never seemed to want anything more than friendship. I knew you wanted to focus on your career, but I thought it was more than that. And I would never push you if you didn’t want to go there.”
“Establishing my career was part of it.” I paused, leaving words unsaid. “My life has changed, Ian, and I’m moving on. I’m ready to walk down that path with you.”
The corners of his lips curled in a sweet smile. “I’ve been hoping that someday I might hear those words.” It surprised me to see just how vulnerable he was, and I was ashamed that I’d taken him for granted. “I’ve been crazy about you since the moment you first walked into that newsroom.”
I felt his breath on my face, then his lips on mine, his kiss warm and gentle.
“I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he said.
My hands went to the lapels of his tan-coloured coat, and I drew him back toward me. “Then do it again, please.”
eighteen MOLLY
It was impossible not to smile at Ian, bouncing in time to “A String of Pearls” while his fingers tapped the steering wheel. Outside the car window, the golden leaves of October and the dry, harvested fields flew by, warming themselves under a cloudless sky. It was a beautiful day for a two-hour drive, and for a little while, the war and all my troubles seemed very far away.
“Ever been to Bowmanville?” he asked, sticking a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and working his lighter with his thumb.
“I haven’t. I’ve actually never been outside the city at all.”
“Really?” He grinned, then leaned into the little flame. “That’s where I was born.”
“I thought you were born in Toronto, like me. It must have been so nice growing up out here, in all this space.”
“We moved to Toronto when I was just the cutest little tyke you’ve ever seen. I think I was seven. From what I remember, Bowmanville’s a nice little town.” He rolled down his window and hung his elbow over the edge, and the wind played with his hair. “Too little for Mom, though. She hounded my father to get her to Toronto or else. That’s how I heard it, anyway.”
He glanced in the rearview mirror at our staff photographer, Freddy Morris, sitting in the back seat. Freddy hadn’t spoken a word the whole way. In fact, I had never heard him say a word at the office, either.
“How about you, Mo?” Ian asked. “You ever been out this way?”
“Nope,” Mo grunted, and that was it for the rest of the drive.
Mr. Hindmarsh had sent the three of us on assignment, saying there was a situation at a POW camp in Bowmanville that needed covering. He’d handed Ian the folder, but Ian had nodded toward me, suggesting I take the lead. Just last month I had been promoted to senior reporter, and Ian knew there was no one in the office who’d done as much research on POW camps as I had. This would be the first one I’d ever seen outside of photographs.
I’d been looking forward to today for a couple of reasons. First, the POW camp. After everything I’d read, I wanted to see the real thing. Second, I needed to get out of the house, if only for a while.
Last month, my baby brother Liam had come home, wounded inside and out from fighting at Dieppe. His face, once so handsome and eager, was masked by horrible pink scars from a fire, and the agony of what had happened still burned in his expression. Because of nerve damage, he could no longer use his right hand, and he was blind in that eye. He wouldn’t meet anyone’s gaze and had steadfastly refused to see Louise, no matter how many times she called or left a note. He preferred to sit alone in his room, but when he came out to the living room, he wanted to be in darkness, the orange glow of his cigarette the only light in the room. He was constantly tapping one foot, like he was waiting for an opportunity to flee. We were gentle and patient, making sure he was fed and tended, but he’d rarely spoken.
After a few weeks, we received a letter from Liam’s sergeant, filling us in a little about what had happened. Liam’s ship had been torpedoed, we learned, when he’d been below deck. He’d been trapped in a compartment near the bow with two other sailors, completely surrounded by fire, but somehow he had managed, with the other two, to find an opening, and he’d shoved the other men through the flames to safety. But by then the ship had begun to sink, rotating on its way down, and a large pipe collapsed on top of Liam, exposing half his body to the flames as water rushed in on the other side. Realizing he hadn’t made it out, the two men he’d saved rushed back with help, and they’d managed to free Liam in time. But the fire had ravaged the right half of him, from his face to his knees, and his survival had been touch and go at the hospital. The sergeant said in his letter to us that Liam had been saved by the hand of God.
Mum and I were now looking after him as well as caring for Dad. Sometimes when I came home, Dad and Liam were sitting together in silence in the shadowy living room, and I knew to leave them alone. In a way, Liam’s suffering seemed to help Dad come out of his own shell. He was still weak, but he had to be strong for his son. But it was never enough, and Mum and I were exhausted.
“Read me what the notes say,” Ian said, flicking the ash from his cigarette out the window. “Why are we out here?”
I opened the folder, but I already knew the contents by heart. “They’re calling it the Battle of Bowmanville. Back in August, Hitler allegedly saw photos of four dead German POWs at Dieppe with their hands tied behind their backs. Binding prisoners is against the Geneva Convention, of course, so Hitler enforced his Commando Order. Since the Allies had broken the Convention at Dieppe, he ordered fifteen hundred British and Canadian POWs in Stalag VIIIB, one of the German camps, to be shackled.” I suppressed a shudder. “For twelve hours a day for an entire year.”
Ian stared straight ahead, at the highway, but I saw the muscles in his jaw flex. “Tit for tat. That’s mature. Twelve hours a day? How are they eating? Sleeping? Uh, going to the men’s room?”
I set the folder down. “These are just men, Ian. That’s what I can’t get past. These are men like my brothers. In war it’s one side against another, but it all boils down to human beings. What I can’t grasp is how men can treat other men like that.” I paused. “I’ve also been reading about the Japanese internment camps in British Columbia. They’re alarming too, but in a different way.”
Ian raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were focusing on POW camps.”
“I am. Those camps are somewhat similar, except they’re full of regular citizens. Last year the BC government took more than twenty thousand Japanese men, women, and children from their homes. The men were sent to labour camps, where they were paid half of what regular labourers were paid. The women and children were housed in a livestock building, then moved to sprawling, filthy camps with no electricity or running water.”
“They were concerned about national security,” he suggested. “The enemy hiding among them.”
I shook my head. “Before any of it started, the army itself insisted that Japanese Canadians were no threat to national security. Most of these people were born here. They’ve never even seen Japan. The orders came from prejudiced politicians. Why, the things I’ve read from them make them sound like Nazis discussing Jews. That’s how much they hate the Japanese. Get this: the Japanese Canadians are basically paying for their own confinement. The government seized all their assets: they sold their fishing boats, their farms, their cars, their businesses, and their homes just to pay for locking these innocent people up. And nobody’s talking about releasing them anytime soon.”
“You have that look in your eye,” Ian said. “Well, I can add to that a little. I read that the families of the British POWs, the ones who had been living in Hong Kong before the Japanese invasion, were all put in Stanley Barracks, near where D Company took their last stand. So they’re basically in a camp as well. There’s no food, and the buildings are practically demolished. Perhaps there are some parallels to draw from that in, say, a long-form piece? Mr. Hindmarsh would probably go for it.”
I nodded, toying vaguely with the idea. The car raced past the sleeping fields, but my mind still peered through the barbed wire of the camps. Three years of war. When would it end?
Ian cleared his throat. “So, the shackling de
bacle?”
I returned to the notes in front of me. “Yes. Right. So this is all about Churchill demanding reciprocity. Since most of the Stalag VIIIB POWs are Canadian, the Bowmanville camp is under orders to get back at Hitler by shackling a hundred of their five hundred German prisoners. Of course, the German prisoners here want no part of that, so they’re fighting back.”
“How long’s this been going on out here?”
I flipped back a page. “It started this morning.”
“It’ll probably be over by the time we get there.”
“I doubt it. They’ve called in reinforcements.”
After a while we reached the outskirts of town, and Ian nodded ahead. “There it is,” he said. “It used to be a reform school for boys. Built back in ’27.”
He turned onto a tree-lined gravel road surrounded by farmers’ fields. A white, two-storey building with a red-brown roof came into sight, and Ian slowed as we neared it. The guard, a man in uniform who looked to be in his midfifties, held up a hand, and we pulled over.
“This is it?” I asked as the guard approached. “No gates or fences?” Up ahead I could see long, plain rows of barracks surrounded by fields. “This hardly looks like a prison. Look! Cows!”
Ian stuck his head out the window. “Good morning,” he said. “Ian Collins and Molly Ryan from the Star. And this is our photographer, Freddy Morris. We’re here about the shackling incident.”
“Corporal Griffen,” the man said, shaking Ian’s hand. “Yes, I’d been informed you were coming. I’ll take you to the main building, but I have to ask you to be cautious.” His eyes flitted to me. “We have five hundred POWs here, and hostilities are ongoing.”
I frowned. “Is it safe?”
“Oh yes. Most of the prisoners have barricaded themselves inside the mess hall in the main building and we have them locked down inside. There are a few locked inside their own houses as well, but we have them covered.”
Letters Across the Sea Page 19
