by Hill, David
Barry and Clarry arrived, and we talked for a while. ‘Were you scared?’ Clarry asked. ‘When you were really sick?’
I knew what he meant. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I was. I thought … I thought I might have polio.’
Barry nodded. ‘Your m-mum came over to our place. She was c-crying.’
‘I got frightened the first time I was in hospital,’ Clarry said. ‘I could see Mum and Dad staring at me through the window of that isolation ward.’
He grinned suddenly. ‘And the time they lowered me into the exercise pool on a stretcher. I thought, if the rope breaks, I’ll drown!’
I felt better and better as the day went by. Mum made me a special afternoon tea, with some of Mrs Proctor’s barley water. It tasted like weak sago, but I didn’t say so. I had one more visitor, but I’ll tell you about him later. I’m still a bit shocked by what he said.
Dad came home just before tea. He gave me this huge smile, and ruffled my hair. He loves me. It’s not the sort of thing blokes say, but I really knew it today.
My visitor was Dr Waterstone. ‘Be more careful of the sun next time, eh, young fellow? Your parents had a real fright. Drink plenty of that barley water (Eerkk! I thought), and take things easy for a few days, right?’
Mum asked whether he would like a cup of tea. Dr Waterstone glanced at his watch and shook his head. ‘No thanks, Mrs MacKenzie. I’m due at the POW camp.’ (Doctors get extra petrol rations, too.)
As he started towards the door, he went, ‘I have to check on that prisoner who was stabbed with the bayonet.’
SUNDAY, 24 JANUARY It’s not as bad as it sounds. It happened on Thursday. One of the guards lost his temper with a couple of military prisoners who wouldn’t stop their wrestling when it was time to line up for roll-call. He ordered them twice, then grabbed one by the arm and pulled him. The Nip half-fell, and gashed his arm on the guard’s bayonet.
‘Gave everyone a shock,’ Dad told us. ‘Bloke’s got a nasty cut; needed quite a few stitches. Guard looked sicker than he did. Had to lock down the camp, everybody sitting around again until things were sorted. It’s all under control now.’
Mum smiled and nodded. ‘That’s good, Jack.’ But something about the way she and Dad were talking made me wonder.
I felt almost normal today, just tired. I wandered around outside. (I had to wear a sunhat!) I read some of Huckleberry Finn. The boy runs away from home, and meets a Negro slave who’s escaping because his owners want to sell him to someone else.
Barry and Clarry came around. Clarry had this huge grin on his face; he’d walked all the way without braces.
‘You had t-to hold onto the fences, though,’ Barry told him. My friend’s speech is so much better.
Clarry glared. ‘So?’
They brought a newspaper from Mr Morris. The government says blackout rules might be lifted soon. I’ve almost forgotten what streetlights look like!
Tomorrow I’m starting my new journal. I’ve filled the first one up completely — right now! And Ito has ordered us to report for another lesson.
MONDAY, 25 JANUARY First page of my second journal.
Meant to write that when Dad passed on Ito’s message, he said: ‘He’s just about running the camp, that bloke. He calmed down the Nips who got all worked up over that one cutting himself on the bayonet. There are still some looking to cause trouble, though, and Colonel Wallace wants to come down hard on them. Tricky situation, son.’
I feel important when Dad talks to me that way.
We all rode out to the camp. Well, I didn’t actually ride; Dad doubled me on his bike, while Barry towed Clarry. Even then, I had to get off three times and sit down by the side of the road for a few minutes. Makes me realise again how gutsy Clarry is.
Dad said he’d arrange a lift back for me on a stores lorry. A young guard led us past the prisoners. More of them nodded or half-smiled. One said ‘Hurro’ like last time, and an older bloke went ‘Good day-ee’. The guard grunted ‘Shut up, Tojo’, which he didn’t need to do. There seemed to be more khaki figures on duty than last time.
Our guard took us into the room. Ito arrived almost immediately. We three stood. I was pretty tired after the bike ride, and sort of staggered. Barry went, ‘Ewen’s b-been sick.’
Ito’s face stayed expressionless. ‘You will be strong,’ he said. The guard snorted.
We repeated lots of words he’d taught us. I realised he was getting Barry and Clarry to answer most of them, and letting me stay sitting.
Today’s lesson was about kendo. It is a fighting sport with bamboo swords; it teaches speed and courage. We learned about the special gloves and masks and the black robes that fighters wear. ‘It has made our people great fighters,’ Ito said. The guard muttered something. I felt embarrassed; Barry turned and glared at him. Ito ignored him.
Our teacher got us to repeat the words ‘shinai’ for the sword and ‘men’ for the mask, over and over until he was satisfied. ‘Japanese swordsmen are the finest of the world,’ he told us. ‘Japanese man can write poetry, have flowers, make war. He is a whole man.’
The guard sniggered. Barry whirled around again. ‘We respect the sensei! D-Don’t be rude!’
The guard’s face flushed red. ‘Don’t you start telling me what to do! Your fancy Nip is—’
Ito’s palms smacked together. ‘You will not speak!’ he told Barry. ‘This is lesson. You do only what sensei tells you.’
Now Barry went red, too. He bowed and said, ‘Sorry, sensei.’ The guard stayed silent.
We repeated more words. Outside the hut, voices called to one another in Japanese. A guard went, ‘OK, blokes. Let’s go.’ It all sounded relaxed enough.
Finally, our teacher asked: ‘You have questions for me?’
Clarry stood straightaway. ‘Sensei, are you still our enemy?’
Barry and I held our breath. Ito didn’t even blink. He said nothing for a few seconds, then: ‘You are child. I am not your enemy. But I am soldier of Japan. I will always fight for my Emperor.’
The guard snorted again. This time, we all ignored him. The door opened, and Ito’s guard entered.
No, it was my father. ‘Lieutenant Ito, I’d like to speak to my son.’ His voice was polite but normal, the way I had heard him speak to Mr White sometimes.
The Japanese officer nodded slightly, and Dad turned to us. ‘There’ll be a lift for all you lads on the stores lorry after you’ve finished here. Thanks, Lieutenant Ito.’ Our sensei gave Dad a second nod, and I felt once again that they respected each other.
My father left. Now Ito’s own guard arrived. ‘You will thank your mother for the Mah-mite,’ our sensei told me. ‘It is … interesting.’
He and his guard left. We three followed, with our guard. As we got outside, he sneered at Ito, ‘Going to play with your flowers, Jap?’
Ito whirled. His eyes burned. ‘You are mouth!’ he hissed. ‘Big mouth. Nothing more!’
Our guard snatched at his rifle. ‘Don’t you bloody—’ Next minute, the gleaming bayonet was just an inch from our sensei’s chest.
He stood perfectly calm, not moving, gazing at the angry face in front of him. ‘You kill me?’
‘No!’ Clarry’s voice. ‘Leave him!’
At the same time, the other guard spoke. ‘Easy, Tom. Don’t be stupid.’
I remembered those other military prisoners facing that old man with his rifle. A few yards away, some of the civvie ones began to stand from their game of Go. Ito took half a step forward, until the front of his blue tunic touched the steel blade. ‘You kill me?’ he asked again. ‘Or you only mouth?’
He looked hard and fierce. I was seeing a different person. He was a Japanese soldier, alright. The other guard went ‘Easy, Tom’ again, and put a hand on Ito’s shoulder. ‘Come on.’
For a moment, I thought our sensei was going to fling his hand away. Then he turned, ignoring our guard, and strode off.
We made our way to the main gate and the waiting stores lorry, while our guar
d muttered to himself. As we chugged back into Featherston, the three of us and Barry’s bike on the tray, Clarry said, ‘I thought he was going to stab him.’
Barry spoke, stuttered, took a deep breath. ‘He’s a Jap, isn’t he? D-Dad’s right. He’s a g-good bloke, but he’s a Jap.’
I shrugged. I felt worn out suddenly. I just wanted to get home and lie down.
TUESDAY, 26 JANUARY Barry and Clarry went to the school pool. They said Margaret and Susan were there, and asked where I was. I’d wanted to go; I was well enough to go. But Mum said that was where I got sick, and I had to stay home one more day. So I hung around. I read a lot of Huckleberry Finn, which is a stupid book, and I was in a bad mood.
WEDNESDAY, 27 JANUARY OK, Huckleberry Finn isn’t stupid. The boy, Huck, makes friends with the escaped Negro slave, who’s called Jim. Most people feel that because Jim’s black, he’s hardly human. Some of the Yank soldiers here in New Zealand are like that, even though the Negroes are fighting alongside them.
It made me think about the Japs, too. They torture and starve some soldiers they capture. They also carve and do plays and poetry, and teach us. I suppose every country has lots of different people. Really intelligent thought, eh?
I talked to Dad about it this morning while he patched our shed roof. And I told him how Ito was a really good teacher, and a strict one.
‘He said to Bruce that you are hard-working pupils,’ Dad said, and I felt pleased.
‘Dad?’ I went then. ‘Why did the Japs declare war on us?’
Dad grunted. ‘Professors are going to write books about that one day, Ewen lad. From what I can make out, their Emperor and their generals want to set up a Japanese Empire, right across the Pacific. When Germany seemed to have our blokes on the back foot, the Japs decided it was a good time to get what they wanted. Now they’re finding out how wrong they were.’
‘We’ll win,’ I went. ‘Won’t we?’
Dad drove in another nail. ‘We will, son.’ He stared into space for a moment. ‘But it’s going to be hard, Ewen. The Jerries aren’t finished yet. The Japs will fight to the end. I just pray it’s over long before you—’ He glanced at me. ‘Before too long.’
‘I like Ito.’ I felt startled to hear myself say it, but it was true. Dad didn’t reply. ‘Clarry and Barry and I want to go to Japan sometime after the war is over.’
Dad nodded. ‘Just keep anything like that to yourselves, OK, son? There’s people around who wouldn’t like hearing you talk like that.’
The afternoon was cloudy. Five days until we start school. After Mum had asked me six times if I could manage, I walked down to the grocer’s to get some tobacco for Dad, and met Mrs Connell coming along the footpath.
I started to go ‘Hello, Mrs Con—’. She stared at me, went ‘Still visiting your evil little yellow friends, are you?’ and walked on. My face felt hot all the rest of the way home.
A message from Ito: we are ordered to another lesson tomorrow.
THURSDAY, 28 JANUARY I don’t know what to think about the things that happened today.
We three kids rode out to the camp about the middle of the morning — after Mum had asked me seven times if I was …
Barry towed Clarry all the way. I felt tired, but I managed. Clarry nattered away about how he can’t wait for school to start next week. Barry and I told him he’s a raving loony.
We reached the barrier by the camp road. A guard checked his list, said, ‘OK, lads; wait by the main gates,’ and we started off, Clarry walking carefully but steadily without his leg braces.
A yell from the military compound. A high, wild yell: a howl, almost. We stopped and stared.
A figure in blue stood gripping the barbed wire of the inside fence, about fifty feet from us, jerking his head up and down. He wore a red scarf around his head.
No. Barry gasped; Clarry cried out. The man was clutching the jagged barbs, squeezing them between his hands, plunging his head against another spike in between. The red scarf was in fact a stream of blood, and more blood was pouring down his face. He howled again.
A guard began running towards him. ‘Let go, you idiot! Stop!’ The prisoner took no notice, plunged his face into the barb again, wrenched it from side to side.
A second guard sprinted towards the howling man. The first grabbed him by the shoulders, yanked him backwards while he clung to the wire. The second guard skidded to a halt, rifle raised, aiming at the prisoner as the first guard wrestled him to the ground.
Voices yelled from all sides. More guards came running. Prisoners had appeared everywhere. Many of them were shouting, too. Shouting and punching the air with their fists. What was happening?
The bleeding figure squirmed on the ground while two guards knelt on him. Others tried to push away the growing, chanting crowd of blue-clad figures. They shoved back, and I saw one guard stagger.
The barrier guard was calling to us. ‘Come here, you three!’
A different man in blue strode towards the jostling mass of guards and prisoners. The other Jap officer. His men fell silent, bowed, stood at attention. He ignored the guards and barked words at the Nips. They bowed again, began moving away. More guards rushed towards the scene, rifles and bayonets ready.
‘Come here!’ The three of us retreated towards the barrier, still staring. The injured prisoner was being pulled to his feet, blood all over him. Guards hustled him away.
‘Wait,’ the barrier guard ordered. The prisoners were now sitting in rows, just like we had seen them before. A ring of guards surrounded them.
After a while, the guard’s telephone rang. He muttered into it.
More waiting. Then a figure in khaki uniform strode briskly towards us. An officer, with three pips on each shoulder tab. He returned the guard’s salute, spoke briefly to him, then came over to us kids.
‘I’m Captain Ashton.’ I recognised the interpreter’s name. ‘There will be no lessons for you today, I’m afraid.’ He gazed at us. ‘You’re good blokes, coming out here the way you do, but you can see we’ve got a problem just now. Best be on your way.’
We rode home, trying to make sense of what had happened.
Dad wasn’t back by the time I went to bed. I read a lot of Huckleberry Finn. Huck and Jim the Negro seem to be heading for freedom, but you can feel something bad is building up.
I feel like something is building up at the camp, too.
(Big news! I’m going on a railway engine tomorrow! Mr Morris is driving a goods train to Wellington. He says we can all come along.)
FRIDAY, 29 JANUARY I told Dad about the prisoner and the barbed wire. ‘They’re trying to sort it out’ was all he said.
I didn’t think about it much during the day. I’m not being silly; there was just so much else happening — I went on the goods train to Wellington!
The train stood hissing and snorting at the platform: a long line of wagons filled with vegetables, meat and timber. There were two big engines to start hauling it up the Rimutakas. Mr Morris, in his railway overalls and cap, called to us from the front one.
We rumbled out, through farmland with stupid sheep galloping away in the paddocks, up towards the hills. Mr Morris checked dials and gauges, blasted the whistle when he saw a goat on the line ahead. His fireman shovelled coal into the blazing firebox, grinned at us, white teeth shining from his soot-streaked face. Black smoke poured behind us.
At Cross Creek Station, three small engines were linked onto the train. ‘Fell engines,’ Mr Morris told us. ‘Special sideways wheels in the middle. They grip a centre line; help pull us up.’
The line snaked around bends, through tunnels, climbing all the time. The engines thundered and shook. We passed burned patches of bush where sparks from the engine had started fires. The wind blew through our hair. Bits of grit blew into our faces. It was so noisy we could hardly hear anyone speak.
We ground our way up to the Rimutaka summit and its little station. The shingle road appeared beside us. A car had stopped to fill its boil
ing radiator with water.
Then we were off again, grinding down the far side, picking up speed through the Hutt Valley. A big army camp went by, soldiers marching across a parade ground. Wellington Harbour glittered in the sun. I’m going to write stories about this someday.
Wellington Railway Station was enormous. The huge statue of Kupe the Maori explorer. People in uniforms and civilian clothes hurrying in all directions.
‘Hey, li’l buddy, how you doin’?’ A group of American soldiers, kitbags over their shoulders, were moving past us. A Negro face beamed down at Clarry. ‘Gettin’ around OK?’
If we ask Clarry that, he snaps our heads off. But he just went, ‘Yeah, I’m OK. Where are you blokes from?’
‘Alabama,’ the Negro soldier told him. ‘Best state in the USA.’ Beside him, a white soldier laughed. ‘Don’t believe him, kid. I’m from Texas, the really best state.’
‘Are you going to fight the Japs?’ Clarry asks questions nobody else would dare to.
The Yanks just smiled. ‘Well now, we’d better keep that private,’ the white soldier said. ‘Y’all take care now, boys. Here, have some gum.’ He dropped a packet into each of our quickly-held-out hands.
‘G-Good luck,’ Barry said. The Americans — they were all so young — grinned again, and moved on. I wondered whether they’d ever see New Zealand, or Alabama and Texas, again.
We chewed our gum while we wandered along a few streets. Trams clanged past. A policeman in his tall blue helmet stood at one intersection, directing traffic.
After a while, we went back to the station, and the staff lunchroom. Mr Morris shouted us all a huge sandwich with cheese and cold meat. ‘We’ll head off in half an hour, soon as we’ve coaled up.’
We watched Hutt Valley speed past, then the bush crawl past as we ground up to the summit again. It felt good, seeing all this with my best friend. I suddenly wished everyone could be friends: the Japs and us and other countries.
SATURDAY, 30 JANUARY A brilliant blue sky. That always happens at the end of the holidays!
