by Clare Flynn
‘I doubt it. Why bother when we’re all dying anyway? They could have killed the lot of us when they first captured us. That would have freed up all those guards for active duty and saved the pitiful amount they spent on feeding us. Why do it now, when it isn’t going to make any difference?’ I tried to swallow the bitterness in my voice, but I couldn’t. ‘Besides, they take sadistic pleasure in seeing us suffer.’
‘You’re probably right.’ She offered a weak smile.
The Dutch planters who ran this rubber estate had followed the prescribed ‘scorched earth’ policy before they left. The metal tanks once used to hold the liquid rubber, the rolling machines to press it into sheets, the smoke house, the storage sheds – all were destroyed and the crushed and burnt remains heaped on the ground in rusting piles. Only the coolies’ huts remained and, after more than three years of abandonment, the tin roofs were leaking, creating puddles of mud and rainwater on the floors.
I went to claim my sleeping spot, which Penny had reserved for me. She was relieved to see me and pressed her thin body to mine, clinging like a limpet to a rock.
‘Don’t leave me again, Miss Helston,’ was all she managed to say.
I went to reclaim my paltry belongings, which had been transported along with the more substantial quantities of the Japanese goods, only to find they had been looted en route.
All around me anguished cries went up, as other women discovered which of their possessions had been pilfered. Among the missing items was my mother’s mother-of-pearl vanity case, in which she kept her nail scissors, a metal nail file, a tortoiseshell comb and a photograph of my father. It had been all I had left of her. Most of her other possessions, like mine, had been bartered away over the years for a few mouldy vegetables or a scrap of meat to add to the pot. Of my own belongings, the only other dress I possessed was gone, as well as the threadbare towel that had represented my last vestige of dignity. But the most terrible, soul-sapping loss was my engagement ring. I hadn’t had it on my person when travelling as that was too risky – the Japs often searched us for any remaining jewellery. Instead, I’d hidden it in a pouch sewn into the lining at the bottom of my battered canvas holdall. It was the only thing I had been determined never to be parted from. Even when my body screamed out with hunger, I had resisted the urge to barter it for food. I’d told myself that the hunger would inevitably return, but once the ring was gone, it was lost forever. That ring was all I had of Frank. It was everything to me. I stared, disbelieving and bereft at where the lining of my bag was slashed apart with a knife.
I collapsed to my knees and wept.
Penny came and sat beside me, cradling me as I sobbed, just as I had comforted her when she first came to the camp.
‘Come on, Miss Helston. Your boyfriend would have wanted you to be brave. And tears won’t bring it back, will they?’
She was right. I channelled my grief into anger. But it was such a waste. More than three years of guarding that ring with my life, only for it to be stolen. I might as well have bartered it for food. Drying my eyes with the back of my hand, I stumbled onto my feet.
‘Are you going to show me the sights, Penny? What’s the new hotel like?’ I gave her a feeble grin and she smiled back. Her bravery and positive attitude made me feel ashamed.
As Penny led me around our new home, she told me the bad news. ‘There are no toilets and no running water.’
I looked at her in disbelief. ‘Nothing at all?’
She shook her head. ‘We have to wash in the stream where the Japs can see us.’ She looked mortified. ‘And as their huts are upstream, the water’s dirty by the time we get our turn. It’s horrible and they watch us while we’re bathing.’ She fixed me with her big sad eyes. ‘They sit on the bank and laugh at us because we’re so thin and ugly.’
I pulled her towards me and held her emaciated body against mine. I’d gladly die myself if I could somehow get Penny out of here alive and give her a chance to finish what was left of her childhood and experience a very different life.
With God again showing a cruel sense of humour, though life on the Sumatran rubber estate was to prove harsher than anywhere we had stayed before, the property was a place of great natural beauty.
The area immediately around the huts was dark and oppressive, overshadowed by the tall bulk of the rubber trees, which formed a dense canopy to shut out any light. Yet, the little stream – a source of pollution and infection – had an innocent beauty that belied the poisons we absorbed from it.
The flowers that surrounded us splashed vivid colours like an impressionist painting over the dark green of the encroaching jungle. Brilliantly hued butterflies and colourful dragonflies danced over the deceptively clear waters of the stream. Even the forest ferns were things of beauty. Rather than dull matte greens, they offered up a myriad of shades from deepest green to a shimmering blue. Their leaves were equally varied, from broad and straight to the delicate tracery of a paper doily at a tea party. Some were grouped into the shapes of spearheads while others curved into domes like umbrellas.
The cicadas offered a background hissing noise upon which birds of all varieties overlaid their songs. Plaintive calls, delicate trills, love songs, soft whistles, insistent warbles. And the plumage! The hornbill, its red, orange and yellow head with enlarged curved bill contrasting a simple and elegant black body – like a lady in a little black dress wearing too much make-up and an over-elaborate headdress. Birds with yellow stomachs, parrots, woodpeckers, birds of paradise and vibrant kingfishers.
Not a day passed when I didn’t long for a sketch book and pencils. I was no great artist, but I’d always enjoyed sketching and here, where there was so much to inspire me, I had no means to indulge – short of scratching in the ground with twigs.
Against this brightness and beauty, we lived out our days in disease, starvation, misery, pain and exhaustion. Not a single woman or child was exempt from the illness our conditions forced upon us. A small scratch from a thorn or a bite from an insect could transform into agonising tropical ulcers for which we had no antidote and could treat only by applying a smear of palm oil and tying a piece of rag over the top. Beriberi was endemic throughout the camp and the polluted river added to our ills.
We were so weak and undernourished that the only time we had the strength to chop firewood and dig graves was in the early morning. Grave-digging was no longer an occasional activity, but part of our daily rota of tasks, like scavenging for forest grasses, lighting the cooking fires and preparing our meagre meals.
The first time we saw Allied airplanes overhead we all felt a surge of joy. We had no idea that peace had already been declared in Europe. But time wore on and still there was no end in sight for us, and with the death toll mounting, we all grew more and more dispirited and fell into a kind of passive state where nothing touched us anymore.
It was then that I fell dangerously ill. I wasn’t even aware of it, such was my condition. I have no memory of those days, other than a vague awareness of the nurses and the blurred faces of others – Veronica included. It was malaria and the only quinine we had was what we obtained from boiling cinchona tree bark. This was unrefined and not strong enough to treat advanced forms of malaria and I was fading fast. I was unaware of it, but Penny was sick too. She was in the bed next to mine, critically ill.
That’s when Veronica took it upon herself to steal medical supplies from the Japanese.
I have no idea how she did it, but she managed to get into their stores and steal a box of quinine and some bottles of antiseptic. If she hadn’t done this, Penny and I – and several others – would have died.
We made a recovery and though still extremely weak, were able to leave the care of the nurses.
As Veronica must have known was inevitable, the Japs eventually realised that medicines had been stolen from the storeroom where they hoarded them. They took three women randomly from the camp and said they would be punished until the culprit owned up.
One of tho
se women was me. Another was Laura and the third was one of the Australian nurses.
We were tied to posts in the area that was once the padang of the rubber estate, where the daily roll calls would have taken place and where we were summoned every day for tenko.
The sun was savage, and we had no head coverings. The hut leaders asked the Japanese if they might offer us theirs. The request was denied. Sergeant Shoei approached us with a heavy wooden stick.
Of course, I had endured many beatings, countless face slaps, had my legs struck with rifle butts and even been punched in the face. But now, still weak from my sickness, starving, dispirited and barely able to stand, I knew I could not survive what was about to happen.
Writing this is incredibly hard. I don’t want to remember the feelings that went through me. I wanted to get it over with, above all else. Death was inevitable, so all I wanted was for it to come quickly. But I was also afraid. Filled with abject terror at the pain I would have to endure before oblivion came to me. The worst part was waiting for that first blow to land. I lifted up my eyes to the sky and closed them, telling myself that soon I would be with Mum again and reunited with Frank.
Sergeant Shoei was pacing up and down screaming. His custom was for his corporal to do the dirty work – he preferred to watch from the sidelines.
Shoei directed his anger into the lineup of women facing us. I suddenly realised he knew who was responsible.
‘Someone will die here. I promise you this.’
He moved towards me and landed a blow from his stick across my shoulders. The pain was an electric bolt through my entire body. My knees buckled, but the rope holding me to the post kept me in place, burning into my paper-thin skin.
Shoei let forth an angry burst which his translator reiterated in his stilted English. ‘They die, one then other, until person who stole confess crime.’
He swung the stick again. This time it was lower and crashed into my arm above the elbow. I heard the crack as the bone snapped. For a few moments I felt nothing. Then the burning, stabbing agony began and I cried out.
That’s when Veronica stepped forward.
She walked straight up to Shoei until she was so close, they were practically touching. Looking up into his face, she said, ‘Enough. You know damn well it was me. Stop this game. Let them go. They did nothing. It was me.’
There was a collective gasp around the camp. For her bravery was twofold – in stealing the medicines in the first place, then in admitting it when she knew it meant certain death.
For Sergeant Shoei it must have been a huge loss of face. He may have no longer been having sexual relations with Veronica, but there must have been some residual feelings. Shoei, who was a brute to the rest of us, had always been lighter on her.
But Hell hath no fury like a Japanese officer scorned. Veronica would suffer for his loss of face.
They locked her inside a bamboo cage, deprived of food and water, in the full heat of the sun. She was there all day and all night until they took her away to torture her. I don’t know what they did but their favoured methods were to tie people up with hands behind their backs and suspend them from a rope until their shoulders dislocated, or cover their faces with sacks and pour water into their throats. These punishments had been meted out to a Dutch ‘free’ woman they had accused of spying, back in our time in the houses.
After three days, in which we had no idea whether Veronica was alive or dead, they brought her out to the padang at tenko. We assumed her punishment was done and she was about to be allowed to rejoin us. Instead, they made us stand in a circle while they stripped her naked.
Veronica showed no fear, even though she was barely able to stand, and her dislocated arms hung uselessly at her sides. She was slumped forward, her legs barely able to support her, her head raised to look up at the sky, no sign of self-pity on her face. It was a stinking-hot day and we could see the perspiration heavy on her skin – although we tried not to stare at her, to make her public humiliation worse. Instead we looked at the baked hard ground under our feet and tried to pretend this was the same as every other tenko. Yet each one of us knew that it wasn’t. A chill crept over me in spite of the burning sun.
Sergeant Shoei screamed an order to his men and they began to beat Veronica savagely with heavy wooden batons, knocking her off her feet and continuing to club her where she was sprawled on the ground. The beating lasted until we could hardly see her skin under the thick film of blood.
Veronica never cried out. Not once.
Sergeant Shoei screamed at us all. ‘This what happen when steal from us. This woman bad. This woman thief.’ He paced up and down, fixing his eyes on each of us and avoiding looking at her. ‘Steal from us is steal from Emperor. If steal from us, you die.’
They tied Veronica to a post in the middle of the padang under the searing heat of the sun, with no shade, food or water.
None of us could do anything for her, so we stood in a circle, waiting with her, waiting for her to die. No one could possibly survive what had happened in front of us, let alone what had happened away from our eyes. Her body was broken. The pain must have been indescribable. Standing with her was all we could offer. Our useless, helpless presence. Our bearing witness to her fate.
After losing consciousness for a while, Veronica opened her swollen eyes and lifted her head high and began to sing. A frail, tuneless voice, barely above a whisper.
We began to sing with her. We packed up our troubles in our old kit bags, with cockles and mussels, and did the Lambeth Walk on the long road to Tipperary.
Veronica must have known what would happen and that it would be the fastest way to bring her suffering to an end. The singing was a deliberate provocation. The Japs went insane.
Sergeant Shoei, after the beating, had absented himself, shutting himself away in his office in a wooden hut on the other side of the padang. Perhaps he couldn’t bear to see her like that. But as his men began screaming and shouting at us all to shut up, Shoei came striding out, yelled at Veronica to shut up and when she didn’t, he took out his pistol and fired a bullet through her head.
Veronica died instantly, her head sagging forward over her thin little neck.
As that single gunshot rang out across the camp, a huge flock of birds flew up from the adjacent trees and we all stood, our heads lowered, relieved that it was over for Veronica, but horrified by the brutal atrocity we had witnessed. We stood in silence until someone started to say The Lord’s Prayer and everyone joined in.
We buried Veronica that afternoon. With my broken arm, which the nurses had bound for me, I was not able to do much to help. The women wrapped her in the threadbare sheet from her bed and carried her across the padang into the jungle to the area where all our dead were interred. They dug a grave for her, and as Veronica had done for Mum, one of the nuns made a cross from a couple of branches and scratched her name on it. Veronica Leighton.
She died on August 9th. We didn’t know, but it was the day of the bombing of Nagasaki, following that of Hiroshima, three days earlier. But Sergeant Shoei must have known. Perhaps that, and the knowledge that a Japanese surrender would soon be inevitable, had inflamed his anger. At any other time, Veronica’s transgressions might have incurred only a beating. But we knew none of this.
After we buried Veronica, I noticed that Cynthia Pickering, Veronica’s adoring acolyte, the Eurasian sister of Cyril, was weeping copiously.
‘It’s my fault that Veronica’s dead.’
She was sobbing convulsively, so it was hard to make out what she was saying.
‘Why do you say it’s your fault, Cynthia? Veronica died because she was stealing medicine. She was an incredibly brave woman and we should all be grateful for her sacrifice, but it’s not your fault. Almost every one of us has benefited at some time from what Veronica did.’
Cynthia herself had benefited from the morphine Veronica had obtained when the young woman had had an abscess under her tooth. One of the nurses had extracted it in t
he most painful and primitive manner and, without the morphine, I doubt Cynthia would have been able to bear the excruciating pain.
‘Not because of the medicines.’ Her voice was soft, barely more than a whisper. ‘Back in the houses, the deputy commandant picked me out. Sergeant Shoei chose me to be his comfort lady. I was only fifteen. I’m a virgin. Veronica stepped in and took my place.’ Cynthia’s face was streaked with tears. ‘If I had gone with him, Veronica wouldn’t have had to. He wouldn’t have been so angry with her. She’d still be alive.’
‘I don’t understand. How did she do that if he’d already chosen you?’ I found it hard to believe that Shoei would have been anything other than obdurate if challenged.
Under the sheen of tears, I could see she was blushing. ‘He was grabbing hold of me and Miss Veronica started to speak to him. She said things. Told him the things she would do for him. She said he was a powerful man and needed a skilled woman not a girl. She flattered him and she bragged about all the things she could do for him.’ She brushed away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘After what she said to him, he wasn’t interested in me anymore.’
I sighed. A long heavy sigh. I remembered Veronica telling me how she used men’s attraction to get her own ends. It was now evident it wasn’t just her own ends, but to protect and support others.
The longer I had known Veronica Leighton, the more I came to recognise what a complex woman she was. It would be tempting to say that I had misjudged the old Veronica, the woman who stole other women’s men, who used her cruel tongue to belittle others, but that wouldn’t be true. Veronica was all those things and more.
What she did and said to others in Penang before the war can only be condemned – yet it can also be explained. Her background before her marriage was shrouded in mystery. Her fits of black depressive moods drained her and embittered her. Her empty, meaningless, sexual liaisons provided her with a form of validation in the short term, but they consumed her with self-loathing in the long.
