by Hill, David
Clarry gave him a bow, like the ones we give to Ito, and said ‘Arigato’.
He wasn’t being cheeky. Maybe he just forgot that all Asian-looking people aren’t the same. Tak Yee’s face froze. He jabbed a finger at Clarry. ‘I not Japanese! Japanese cruel and evil! Out! You get out. Now!’
We scuttled out as fast as we could; Clarry didn’t say a word all the way home.
I’m reading another of Barry’s Christmas books. It’s called Out of the Silent Planet, and is about a bloke taken on a spaceship to another world, where he meets these furry creatures with their own civilisation.
Dad brought me home a new journal. Great.
TUESDAY, 12 JANUARY Nothing.
WEDNESDAY, 13 JANUARY Actually, a lot has happened.
Barry had another lesson with Miss Mutter. I felt a bit jealous. He’s having these special lessons, and I think Margaret likes him. Susan Proctor doesn’t like me, I’m sure; she’s just polite to people, like Mum says.
Anyway, Barry was out, and Dad was away at the camp, and even Mum was away half the morning. She walked over to old Mrs Laurie’s, with a basketful of carrots and peas and rhubarb. She came back all excited, with a small jar. ‘Marmite! Mrs Laurie’s grandson has it in his army rations. He hates the taste, so she’s got some — and now we have! First time in three years!’
‘By the way,’ she added, ‘I ran into Mrs Proctor. She said Susan enjoyed talking to you at the baths on Monday. You didn’t tell me about that.’
I shrugged. My mother was smiling, for some reason.
Barry told me that Clarry was still so pale and quiet when they got home from Tak Yee’s on Monday that Mrs Morris got frightened in case he was sick, and started asking him what the matter was. Clarry burst into tears (he would be so wild if he knew I was writing this down), and Barry said how Mr Yee had got angry.
So Mrs Morris took Clarry straight around there to explain and apologise. Must have looked interesting, her towing him along on his trolley! Mr Yee had calmed down, and said he was sorry, too. The Nips had attacked the town in China that his family comes from; they burned most of it, and killed thousands of people. I thought of that newspaper heading I’d read. Clarry was pretty quiet today.
We’re supposed to be having our next Japanese lesson soon, but there’s a problem. Dad told me when he got home.
‘A bunch of the military prisoners are getting stroppy, son. They were too sick to make trouble when they arrived, but the more of our tucker they eat, the more strife they cause.’
He took a swig of tea. ‘They’ve started giving some of the guards a hard time, yelling at them and abusing them if they’re told to do something. It’s all in Japanese, of course, but you can tell they’re not wishing our blokes Happy Birthday. A few of our younger fellows want to give them a good jab with a bayonet.’
Mum was listening. ‘Do you think it will come to that, Jack?’
Dad drank more tea. ‘Some of the Nips, they want to be hurt. That bloke who rammed the nail into his arm, he’s not the only one who feels like that. If they act up and get a cut from a bayonet, they’ll feel they are fighting men again.’
‘How many of them are like that?’ Mum asked.
‘Hard to tell. The civilian ones still don’t give many problems. Most of them work in the gardens, or the chimney factory, or the piggeries out of town, and get along OK.’
Dad began rolling a cigarette. ‘But the CO is finding it harder and harder to get working parties from the military compound. Every day now, there are some who flat-out refuse to go. Ito and a couple of the other officers do what they can, but …’
He shrugged. ‘Ito is expecting you out there tomorrow morning, son. But the colonel won’t let anything go ahead if it doesn’t seem safe, and he’s right about that.’
I tried to read more Out of the Silent Planet. There are these wild animals like sharks that the bloke from Earth helps hunt. But I kept worrying about the camp. Why can’t those Japs behave like normal people?
THURSDAY, 14 JANUARY We did go to the camp after all. But … well, I’ll tell you.
Dad left early, and Barry and Clarry and I headed out later. We talked about school as we rode towards the camp. Clarry can’t wait to be there, the weird kid.
‘I’m gonna play cricket,’ he announced. ‘And I’m—’ An army truck passed us, going in the same direction, and we couldn’t hear all the other things he was going to do, luckily. There were Home Guards in the back of the truck.
The truck was parked at the barrier beside the main road when we arrived, and we knew straightaway that something was happening. Extra men in khaki uniforms stood at the main gates. The blokes from the truck had formed up in three lines and began moving forward. Behind the wire, figures in blue sat on the ground. None of the usual moving around, washing up, wrestling, anything like that. Just rows of prisoners, sitting silently.
The guard at the barrier held up a hand. ‘Wait there, lads.’
‘We’ve come for a lesson with Lieutenant Ito,’ I told him.
‘I know. But we’ve got orders not to let anyone in just now. You’ll have to wait.’
‘What’s g-going on?’ Barry asked. The guard gazed towards the compound, where more guards had appeared with rifles and bayonets, and didn’t reply.
We waited. Quarter of an hour. Half an hour. Nothing seemed to be happening behind the wire. The prisoners sat. The guards stood. Our one watched the compound. Forty-five minutes. An hour.
Finally, an old crank-handle telephone rang beside him, and the guard answered. ‘Yes … Yes … OK.’ He hung up. ‘Sorry, lads, you’d better head back home.’
I remembered what Dad had talked about last night. ‘Is something wrong?’ I asked.
The guard was gazing towards the compound again. ‘You’d better head home,’ he repeated.
So we did. In a bad mood, all three of us.
FRIDAY, 15 JANUARY It rained all morning. Don’t you hate it when it rains in the holidays?
Dad got home late last night. That business at the camp was because a working party from the military compound was supposed to go out and cut gorse, but a whole lot refused. They thought the gorse was being cut so they’d have nowhere to hide if any of them escape from camp. Fancy wanting to hide in gorse!
It took hours of talking and translating until a working party did go. Even then it was only half the size that Colonel Wallace had ordered. ‘Some of the Nips reckoned they’d cut themselves with the slashers before they’d do work like that for the enemy,’ Dad told Mum and me. ‘The colonel did the sensible thing, leaving them behind. But a few of our blokes aren’t happy. They say the Japs are acting like they run the show.’
‘What did the other prisoners do?’ Mum asked. ‘The civilian ones?’
‘They weren’t any trouble. But the whole camp went into lockdown: all the prisoners sitting on the ground until things got settled.’ Dad shook his head. ‘Bruce and I looked at some of the Home Guard fellows arriving — eighteen-year-olds and grandads — and Bruce said “There’s real bullets in those guns, Jack. Let’s hope nothing happens.”’
He was stroking the little carved fish. ‘Ah, well, they’ve made their protest. With any luck, things will be quiet now.’
He tapped yesterday’s Evening Post, which Mr Morris had brought over. ‘Did you read about the Jap submarine that our two New Zealand minesweepers got, near the Solomon Islands? It was bigger than either of them, but they dropped depth-charges, and when it surfaced the Kiwi rammed it while the Moa kept shelling it. It hit the reef and sank. Every day we keep that lot out there quiet, the closer it is to the end of the war.’
I’ve finished Out of the Silent Planet. How can I survive without a book to read?
SATURDAY, 16 JANUARY Two pages to go in my first journal. Went to the school baths with Barry and Clarry. Just us and a few Standard One and Two kids. Pity.
Started another of Barry’s books. He didn’t want it, and I can see why. It’s called Mary Poppins, about ri
ch kids in London. They have this governess who gets blown into their house by the wind. It’s pretty silly, but better than nothing — just.
Things are quiet out at the camp, Dad says. Ito wants us for another lesson tomorrow. Yes, sir! Hai, sensei! But … But you’ll never believe what Mum wants me to do …
SUNDAY, 17 JANUARY We left our bikes at the barrier. I carried what Mum had given me while we were led through the civilian compound. Prisoners moved between huts, shook brooms. One half-lifted a hand as we passed, and went ‘Hurro’. Over by one hut, a group seemed to be doing some sort of weird exercise, moving their heads and hands from side to side.
Ito arrived just a minute after us. We stood and bowed. He half-nodded, and went, ‘Barry … Crarry … Oon.’
Next, our sensei tested us on the words we had already learned. If we got them right, he said nothing. If we got them wrong we had to say them about twelve times.
‘You learn today of our great mountain,’ Ito said then. ‘Fujiyama.’
I’d never heard of it, but he described how the mountain is a volcano that last erupted about two hundred years ago. It’s over twelve thousand feet high (that’s much higher than Mt Cook). Japanese stories say that it rose from the ground in a single day, and that it’s holy. He told us the words for mountain (‘san’: that’s easy) and snow and other things. He and Mr White would get on well, I thought. They’re both good teachers.
When he’d finished, he once again said, ‘You have questions for me?’
Clarry pulled himself up, bowed, and went: ‘Sensei, will you tell us more about your son, Haru?’
Ito turned away and gazed out the window. What was happening? Then I realised he didn’t want us to see his face. But when he turned, he was as calm as ever.
‘He is courage boy. He likes horses. He and I have climbed Fuji-san. Father and son do this in Japan.’
He paused. His eyes were in the wall behind us. ‘On February, third day, it is the end of winter in our land. The father throws seeds to send away winter demons. Haru will do this when I am not there.’
Clarry stood again. ‘Will he be a soldier, too?’
The slim figure nodded. ‘If our Emperor wishes.’
I got up. ‘Sensei, I heard that the men in camp were going to act a play, but you said there is no play.’
‘This is right. It start soon. No play.’
My mind felt blank. My face probably looked blank. ‘But, sensei, how can it start if there is no play?’
Ito frowned, then he seemed to understand. ‘Noh play. Very old Japanese play. There is much using of hands to show.’ He lifted his own hands, moved them from side to side. Suddenly I realised what those prisoners had been doing out in the compound.
‘It’s called a Noh play!’ Barry and Clarry laughed.
Ito’s face stayed stern, but his mouth lifted slightly. ‘You do not listen,’ he told me. ‘Say again: “Noh”.’
I said it again. And again. Twelve times.
The guard stood. ‘Time’s up, lads. I’ll take you back, pal.’
We three bowed. Then I reached for what Mum had given me. ‘Sensei, this is a gift from my mother for teaching us. It’s Marmite.’
Ito took the jar. He opened it and sniffed. ‘Mah-mite,’ he went, and sniffed again. ‘It is poison?’
‘No! No, it’s to eat. You spread it—’ I realised our sensei was smiling. His face changed completely; he wasn’t an enemy fighter or a strict teacher any longer. The guard chuckled, too.
‘You will thank your mother, Oon. She is kind.’ The guard led him from the room.
I told Mum and Dad about it. My mother was pleased about the poison Marmite, but she looked sad when I told her how he had turned away after Clarry asked about his son. ‘He must miss his family so much.’
‘He’s still an enemy soldier, Molly,’ Dad told her. ‘You’ve got to remember that. He does.’
But Dad is glad that the lessons have started again. He was interested about Mt Fujiyama. ‘Did you know your mother and I climbed Mt Egmont, soon after we were married?’
Mum ruffled my hair. ‘We’ll all go up Mt Egmont again sometime, son. Barry and Clarry, too. When this war is over, we’ll all go.’
MONDAY, 18 JANUARY Barry and Clarry were at their gran’s. Dad was at camp. Mum was bottling a whole lot of beans.
I felt bored. The Featherston Library opens only in the afternoons on Monday, and I wasn’t going to read any more silly Mary Poppins.
I chopped some kindling for Mum. I thought about Ito and his son. How long before they meet again? Will the war end this year, or will it keep going until 1944? It can’t last any longer than that, surely? Be great if we can all climb Mt Egmont, like Mum said.
After lunch, I took a penny from my huge riches and biked down to the school baths. Mr White was there, reading as usual. He and I chatted about the holidays and books. He mentioned one I’d heard of, but never read: Huckleberry Finn. ‘Try it, Ewen. Wonderful narrative.’
I swam for a while, then lay on the grass and sunbathed. I must have gone to sleep, because I jerked when a voice went ‘Hello, Ewen.’ Susan Proctor.
We talked about Castlepoint again. ‘The Americans train there,’ she said. ‘Dadd— my father thinks they’re practising beach landings for when they fight in the Pacific. That would be awfully scary.’ I wondered if Moana’s boyfriend was among them.
We yakked about who our teacher might be this year. I told her how boring Mary Poppins was, and she giggled.
I went for another swim, and Susan got in, too, up to her neck. We had just sat down on the grass when Mrs Proctor’s voice called: ‘Susan? Time we were going, darling.’
‘I wish she wouldn’t call me “darling”,’ Susan muttered. I stood up, the way we have been doing with Ito; Mrs Proctor looked surprised and pleased. (There! I’d shown her my family’s manners are good, too.)
We talked about the Japanese lessons: ‘You are being a real help, Ewen. Well done.’
I lay in the sun again after they had gone. This time I did go to sleep. Mr White had to wake me up to close the pool.
I got to the library just before it closed, still feeling sleepy. They had a copy of Huckleberry Finn; it’s about this boy in America a hundred years ago. I was going to read it after tea, but I had a headache, so I went to bed early.
TUESDAY, 19 JANUARY I couldn’t see or hear things properly. My mouth felt dry. I heard Mum going ‘Ewen? Ewen, wake up. Are you alright?’ Her voice got loud, then it went away. My head hurt. A man was there; he lifted up my eyelids and shone a light in them. I tried to ask what he was doing, but my mouth wouldn’t move.
WEDNESDAY, 20 JANUARY My whole body ached. I was boiling, then I was freezing. Mum kept crying. I felt frightened, then I knew: I’ve got polio. I’m going to die.
THURSDAY, 21 JANUARY I tried to move my arms and legs. The man who had opened my eyes stood beside my bed. He put something under my tongue, then took it out again. Mum was crying and smiling at the same time. Dad had his good arm around her. Why wasn’t he at work?
FRIDAY, 22 JANUARY I woke up, and I was better. My legs and arms felt weak and heavy, but I could move all my body. I lay there, and knew that I didn’t have polio, and I felt so glad I almost cried.
I must have made a noise, because Mum came rushing into my room. ‘I’m thirsty,’ I croaked. And would you believe it, she didn’t even get me a drink of water. Instead, she wrapped her arms around me, and burst into tears.
I had sunstroke. ‘We told you not to stay out in the sun too long without a hat!’ Mum went, after I had drunk four glasses of water and said five times I was alright.
Dad has been home for three days, looking after me with Mum, but he had to go to the camp today. After I’d had another glass of water and an orange (where did she get an orange from?), she said, ‘I’ll tell Mrs Morris. Half the town has been worrying about you, love.’ I saw how tired she looked. ‘Dr Waterstone came three times,’ she added.
I dozed during th
e afternoon, and had a boiled egg for tea. The bread and butter (Mum has butter and an orange?) was almost too heavy to lift. Dad came home just as I finished, put a hand on my shoulder and went ‘Hello, son.’ Then he picked me up in my pyjamas and carried me to my room. I was asleep before my head reached the pillow.
I woke in the night, and felt hungry. How amazing. I was alive, and I was going to be alright. I thought of how some kids with polio would never be alright. I slid back into sleep, planning what I’d eat for breakfast.
SATURDAY, 23 JANUARY I was awake early. Mum moved quietly in the kitchen. It took me two goes to get out of bed and wobble along the hallway.
My parents jumped when they saw me. ‘Ewen! What are you doing up?’ Mum exclaimed. ‘Are you alright?’ (The eighty-fourth time she had asked that question, I reckon.) She made me sit down, wrapped Dad’s tartan dressing gown around me. A second orange, cut into slices, appeared on a plate in front of me. ‘Mr Yee sent it for you. The whole town has been asking about you!’ Funny: it was only half the town yesterday.
I’ve missed so much! Dad told me how the prisoners are rehearsing their Noh play. ‘How’s Lieutenant Ito?’ I asked, and saw Mum glance at Dad.
‘He’s OK,’ my father replied. ‘A bit busy at the moment. Might be a couple of days before you get another lesson.’
The way I felt, it could be a couple of years before I biked out there again!
I just sat — or lay — around home for the day. I felt as strong as a mouse. Barry dropped in on his way to Miss Mutter. ‘I t-told her you were crook. She said “Shtupid boy! Why ishn’t he c-careful?”’
Mr White stopped Dad in the street yesterday, and asked how I was. News certainly gets round Featherston fast. I tottered to my room, opened Huckleberry Finn, realised the words were revolving slowly in front of me, and went to sleep again.
A voice woke me. I heard Mum saying, ‘Thank you so much. That’s so kind’, and the front door closing. I was sitting on the edge of the bed when she came in. ‘Mrs Proctor heard you were sick. She brought you a bottle of barley water. Isn’t that nice of her?’
I yawned. I wondered if my being crook had been on the BBC News, since most of the world seemed to know about it. I felt glad Susan hadn’t seen me looking like something that’s just been dug up.
