The Plantation

by Di Morrissey

  Seeds were bartered for, and a bunch of uprooted green vegetables that no one could identify were also handed over and quickly planted. Yams that had sprouted became the first crop to be harvested.

  ‘This garden might be providing a bit of fresh food but its wrecking my back,’ sighed Babs.

  ‘Gloria and the nuns have made up some sort of liniment,’ said Norma. ‘It burns but seems to help.’

  ‘I wonder if Hannah has any of her fancy cream left. I certainly could use it,’ sighed Bette. ‘At one stage I thought she had brought half her bathroom.’

  ‘She might have face cream, but you’re prettier,’ said Marjorie and they all laughed.

  It was a relief to laugh. And the hard work was worth it. The garden struggled, like the women workers, but eventually it produced small crops of fresh food that helped to halt the outbreaks of deficiency diseases like beri-beri and general malnutrition.

  It was Norma who first said something to Bette. ‘There’s something up with the Japs. What do you suppose is going on?’

  ‘Don’t know. There seem to be a lot of meetings. Captain Toyama took off and hasn’t come back.’

  ‘They’re not paying us a lot of attention,’ added Gloria.

  ‘Hashimoto is waiting for the field gang, though. Let’s go,’ said Bette standing up. ‘I’ll have to get someone to rub my shoulders this afternoon, I feel terrible again.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to work for mean Hannah today?’ asked Norma as they picked up their heavy gardening tools.

  ‘She’s conserving her assets.’ Bette shrugged.

  ‘Poor thing,’ said Evelyn unsympathetically. ‘Maybe she might have to work like the rest of us soon.’

  It was while they were hoeing a new row, cloths wrapped around their calloused hands to protect them, the remains of any hats pulled down low over their faces, strips of cloth across the backs of their necks protecting them from the sun, that Bette thought she heard a whistle, then a shout.

  Slowly, stiffly, she straightened up. The other women stopped what they were doing and looked across the road at half-a-dozen men coming their way. ‘They’re white. It’s some of our men,’ Bette shouted.

  Evelyn limped closer to Bette, shading her eyes. ‘What are they saying? How can they be here?’

  The few times the women had seen the male prisoners marching past, the men had shouted out and sung to them despite the admonitions from the Japanese guarding them. But this time the men were waving, punching the air and smiling as they called out. And there were no guards with them.

  Ignoring Corporal Hashimoto, the women ran to the road at the edge of the garden.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The war’s over. The Japs have surrendered.’

  ‘The war is over? Is that what they’re saying?’ The women all looked at each other trying to absorb this news.

  ‘What’s happened?’ shouted Bette to the men.

  ‘Surrender. The Nips have surrendered. We heard on our radio that there was a huge bomb and now the Japs have given up. You’ll be all right now. We came to tell you the news, but now we’re going back to our camp.’

  As the men turned and went back the way they had come, the women stood, silent and stunned. One woman started sobbing, dropping her face in her hands.

  ‘Do you think it could be true?’ Evelyn asked Bette. ‘Could it be . . . ? How?’

  She turned and looked at sober-faced Hashimoto. ‘He’s not going to tell us anything. I guess we’ll know soon enough if it’s the truth.’

  ‘I can’t believe that the Japs are surrendering,’ said Norma. ‘Too proud. Losing face and all that. It must have been a bloody big bomb.’

  ‘I wish we had some way of finding out what’s happening.’ Bette picked up her hoe. ‘Let’s finish this up. Yam tops and rice for supper.’

  There was a lot more chatter as they worked and later when they headed back to camp they held their shoulders back, heads held high and hopeful. The sad, weary sag of their bodies was gone.

  The news the men had given them spread quickly through the camp and women gathered in groups talking and speculating. Every move by the soldiers was scrutinised. The surrender seemed too good to be true but, until it was confirmed, most women didn’t want to raise their hopes. Nevertheless, Gloria told those in the sick bay what the men had told them in an effort to lift their spirits.

  To everyone’s surprise and growing excitement, the next morning they were called to assembly and it was announced that special parcels were to be handed out, all due to the munificence of the Japanese Emperor. Impassively the soldiers piled packages in front of the women and stood back as they rushed forward as though they were at a clearance sale, tearing the parcels open.

  ‘It’s food!’

  ‘Tinned fruit! Oh my God!’

  Bette suddenly made the connection. ‘It’s from the Red Cross. Something has happened.’ She grabbed Philip’s hand and spun him in a twirl.

  ‘Why are you doing that?’ he asked in a worried voice.

  ‘Now I know that the war is over. We’ll be going home,’ sang out Bette.

  Evelyn was studying the contents of one of the parcels. ‘You know what? I bet this is old stuff. I think this food has been sitting in that shed for damned years while we starved and died.’

  There was a stunned silence. ‘Do you think so? The bastards,’ said Norma.

  ‘Now, ladies. Let’s have some order to this,’ shouted June. ‘Let’s sort through systematically, what we have and take it to the kitchen.’

  ‘Let’s have a party,’ called out Norma.

  After that, it was happy chaos as children ran off with chocolate bars and women sat drinking proper coffee with tinned milk. The soldiers left them to it. After a slap-up meal, a sing-song and a prayer of thanks led by one of the nuns they fell into bed.

  Philip went to sleep immediately. Bette stroked his hair.

  ‘I don’t think he’s gone to sleep with a full tummy for years. You know, wonderful as it will be to go home, it’s all going to be a big adjustment,’ said Bette, cradling the sleeping boy beside her.

  ‘When do you think that will happen?’ said Evelyn. ‘My mind can’t take that in.’

  ‘Oh, I do hope it’s soon,’ said Marjorie, her eyes shining ‘It’s so exciting. What are you going to do first, Mother?’

  ‘Hot bath. Clean clothes. Kiss your father.’

  ‘And you, Bette?’

  ‘I can’t wait to get back to Brisbane and see my parents, and Margaret, and my home again. I’ve so missed them all. But I do wonder what sort of world we’ll find after all this heartache. I suspect that it will be awhile before life settles down again. But I am so looking forward to it.’

  ‘We’ve all changed, haven’t we,’ said Marjorie.

  ‘You certainly have, you’ve grown up,’ said Bette. ‘And we must believe that this terrible time in our lives has given us strengths and knowledge about ourselves that we can use in the future.’

  Uncharacteristically, the Japanese soldiers didn’t appear first thing the next morning, though the sentries were still at the entrance to the camp. After the uninhibited and rather hysterical previous evening, everyone was drained, tired and still disbelieving that the end could be near. That was until there was a drone from above and everybody stopped what they were doing and looked to the sky.

  ‘Is it one of ours?’

  Once the women recognised the Allied plane, they started jumping up and down and waving to it. The plane flew low and a snowstorm of white paper fluttered to the ground, which everybody ran to pick up.

  Philip scooped some up and ran to Bette. ‘Letters, they’re letters. What’s it say, what’s it say?’ He jumped up and down excitedly.

  Bette and Evelyn looked at the leaflet. ‘It’s from the Australian 9th Division. The Japanese have surrendered. It’s official!’ Bette leaned down and hugged Philip as Marjorie dashed towards them.

  Wiping tears from her eyes, Bette read on. �
�Due to your location it will be difficult to get aid to you immediately . . .’ She smiled at them. ‘Not to worry, they’re going to help us. We’re going to be okay.’

  The final days were a blur but eventually the 9th Division arrived to liberate the women. For Bette, to see the cheerful open-faced Australian soldiers, to hear their familiar accents, to suddenly have strong, kind men to look after them, to play with the children, to give them rides in their vehicles and to have enough to eat was all overwhelming.

  ‘It’s wonderful how most of the women have managed to save one reasonably good outfit for this day,’ said Evelyn.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Bette. ‘But it hardly disguises the terrible physical state of their bodies. You can see by the look on the faces of the Australian soldiers that they think we look pretty awful. There is such a yawning gulf between their world and the three-and-a-half years we’ve been here. I wonder how we will manage when we get out.’

  Despite Bette’s fears, Philip and the other children were beside themselves with joy, and the sense of new-found freedom and opportunity. The reality of home and family, barely recalled, was of little consequence in the excitement of the moment.

  Finally the day came when the women went home. Evelyn and Marjorie, arms about each other’s waists, walked beside Bette and Philip. The little boy skipped as Bette firmly held his hand and walked to the smiling Australians and Americans waiting to drive them away.

  Evelyn saw Bette glance over her shoulder at the emptying compound, the huts and the wire that had enclosed their world for so long. Evelyn gave a quick prayer of thanks that they had all come safely through this ordeal. She did not look back. She squeezed Marjorie’s hand and led her away.

  10

  JULIE HAD TEARS IN her eyes. She took Marjorie’s hand.

  ‘What an incredible story. What an experience for a young girl. What happened after you got back home to the UK?’

  Marjorie sighed. ‘It was as wonderful as I had anticipated, and although Mother was still frail, she recovered surprisingly well. My father refused to go back to Sarawak and got a job managing a printing company. I have to say, though, that the cold weather was hard for all of us, at first. It was also difficult to be parted from so many friends. They all went their different ways naturally, but we left some of them behind, too. One of Mother’s closest friends, Babs, died not long before we were freed. Her death was a great shock to us.’

  ‘Oh, she sounded such a jolly person. What happened?’ asked Julie.

  ‘I suppose she just wasted away. A lot of people died in camp from malnutrition and various deficiency diseases. When I think back, Mother and I were very lucky to have survived.’

  ‘Philip and Bette? What happened to them?’

  ‘We were so focused on our lives and wanting to put the war behind us that we pressed on. Bette went back to Australia. Mother and she wrote to each other for a while, but being separated by twelve thousand miles and having nothing in common except the POW camp, the letters gradually ceased, but, as you know, Philip came back into our lives. He was at boarding school in England and he wrote a letter to Mother and me, and so my mother insisted that he come and stay with us when he had holidays. So we saw a lot of him during his school years.’

  ‘You must have enjoyed having him around in much easier circumstances,’ said Julie.

  ‘Yes. And then years later Philip persuaded me to return to Malaysia, and I’ve just kept coming. The memories of the war have faded and you can’t blame this country for what happened during those years. And Malaysia really is a lovely place.’

  ‘I can see why Shane and Peter are so attached to you,’ said Julie.

  ‘Yes, and I’m very fond of them. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you much more about your aunt. Looking back now, it’s a shame that she dropped out of our lives. But perhaps from what I’ve been able to tell you, you can get a sense of how strong she was. She was also very creative. She told me that when she was in solitary confinement that time, she drew in her head as a way of staying sane. And of course there was the card she gave me for my birthday.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to the diary that was kept in the camp?’

  ‘I didn’t know about the diary at all until after we were liberated, but I found out later that one of the women rewrote it and it was published.’

  ‘My aunt wrote a book about the Iban, but I don’t know if she continued her art. She obviously loved to draw,’ mused Julie. ‘Marjorie, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your story. It’s certainly given me an insight into my Great Aunt Bette. It’s amazing what she did for Philip. You would think that when Bette returned him to his mother, she would have been grateful to have her son back alive. I find it very hard to understand why Margaret ended up hating Bette.’

  They sat and chatted a while longer, then Julie hugged Marjorie goodbye, and walked from the villa along the beach, past the coconut palms and freshly raked sand. She continued along the beach to the point, deep in thought. A shout caused her to look up and she saw Aidi jumping from his boat.

  ‘Hi, where are you off to?’ she called.

  ‘I’m collecting a couple of guests for the mangrove tour. What’re you doing?’

  ‘I’ve been visiting a friend here, a lovely lady, who knew my aunt when they were in a prison camp together near Kuching.’

  ‘They were hard times. What are you doing now?’

  ‘Just walking.’

  ‘Be careful of broken glass and rubbish,’ said Aidi, pointing to where the clean sweep of beach in front of the resort was bordered by piles of rubbish on both sides. ‘This junk swills back and forth on the tide between us and Thailand over there. It’s toxic.’

  Julie could see that the naturalist was affronted by the garbage washed from the sea and now lying on the beach beyond the hotel grounds. ‘I’ve noticed that away from the tourist places, the locals don’t seem to care about pollution and rubbish.’

  Aidi sighed. ‘Yes, it’s a big job to educate people not to treat the beaches and the sea as a sewer and a dumping place.’

  ‘I’ve been told the east coast has wonderful beaches but the pollution is getting out of hand over there, too,’ said Julie.

  ‘That’s true. The east coast of Malaysia is different from this side of the peninsula. It is the poorest and most culturally conservative part of Malaysia. In some places the supermarket queues are separated for men and women and the people all dress very modestly,’ said Aidi. ‘But on the island resorts, all regulations about dress codes and alcohol seem to get ignored. But pollution is a problem everywhere in Malaysia.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better not be late. Catch you before you leave. Say hi to everyone,’ he added.

  ‘Will do. Lovely to see you.’ Julie went back through the hotel gardens to reception where she caught a taxi back to her resort.

  Christopher was waiting for her.

  ‘So, how did it go?’ he took her hand. ‘You look a little dazed.’

  Julie laughed. ‘Well, I could do with a long cold drink.’

  ‘How about a swim and a cold beer?’

  ‘Actually, I’d love one of those green coconuts if you can open one.’

  ‘That’s easy, lop off the top and stick a straw in the coconut water.’

  ‘Coconut water?’

  ‘You might call it coconut milk, but it’s called coconut water here.’

  ‘I’d love one of those, whatever it’s called.’

  Bobbing in the pool, she told Christopher about Marjorie’s experience in the camp as a prisoner during the war.

  ‘It’s amazing that she knew your aunt, but it’s not so surprising that they lost touch. You’d want to put all those awful experiences behind you. So where to now?’ he asked. ‘What are your plans? When are you going back to Brissie?’

  ‘I have another few days. Work seems a forgotten country. I feel I’ve been away for months when I’ll have been gone barely two weeks.’

  ‘I know the feeling,’ said Christophe
r. ‘Holidays take a bit of adjustment. Sometimes I miss the routine of my job. Don’t know what to do with a lot of free time, I get bored.’

  ‘Really? Are you bored here?’

  He laughed. ‘Absolutely not! These few days have been a lot of fun. And I’m enjoying sharing it with someone from home.’

  ‘It’s been nice for me, too,’ said Julie thinking to herself how comfortable they were with each other, how unlike it was travelling with David Cooper. As Christopher began playing with one of the cats that had come to the edge of the swimming pool, she decided he was just one of those unpretentious people who made you feel at ease. ‘I’m heading back to Utopia for a couple of days and then I’ll do a bit more sightseeing before I go home,’ she said finally.

  ‘I have to go back to Butterworth. But you should see Penang. It’s a great place. Just about my favourite place in the whole country. If you get there, I’d like to buy you dinner.’

  ‘That’d be lovely. Will you be flying around in your jet, or whatever it is?’

  ‘Not at all. Mostly what I do involves a lot of paperwork and discussions with the Malaysian Air Force.’

  ‘Is that the sort of thing that you want to do for the rest of your career?’ asked Julie.

  ‘I’m happy in the Air Force, it’s a great life and the work can be very interesting and varied, but I might think about being a commercial pilot eventually. It seems the logical career path, though I have a few ideas of other things I might do one day.’ He stepped out of the pool. Julie studied his lean, tanned body and he caught her looking at him. She smiled. He smiled back as they both acknowledged the moment. ‘Would you like some satay? I can smell them cooking from here.’

  They all flew from Langkawi to Penang airport and there were rushed farewells as everyone found their luggage. Ramdin, the Utopia driver, swept them away in minutes in the Jaguar. Once they were in the car, Peter and Shane began to talk business. Martine offered Julie some magazines to look at, but she shook her head, preferring to gaze at the passing scenery.