To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  Moira said nothing. What was there to say? She clutched Gavin closer.

  ‘Bobble um?’ he said.

  Nancy clutched the wheel and began to manoeuvre the car into the river of people.

  Chapter 3

  Sylvia Clancy

  Overflow

  via Gibber’s Creek

  8 December 1941

  Nancy Clancy

  Craigiethorn Plantation

  via Kota Bharu, Malaya

  Dearest Nancy,

  Your father is writing to Ben today. You know it is serious when your father manages to put pen to paper! He is urging Ben to send you home now, even if Moira still refuses to come with you.

  It is not just that we miss you. War with Japan is too terrible to contemplate, and your father and I remember too well what it was like in the last war for those caught up near the fighting.

  I will write again next week with more news of home, but I hope by then there will be no need to write and you’ll be on a ship for Australia. Wire us as soon as you can and your father will book your passage.

  Gran sends you her love, and hopes if you can’t be with us for Christmas, you can for the New Year. I imagine Michael hopes the same thing. His mother sent you her best regards, by the way, when I met her at the CWA ‘Comforts for Soldiers’ fete. She had even donated a pair of socks she knitted herself. I wish you could have seen them to prove you are not the worst knitter in the world. Matilda Thompson is admirable in every way, but she is not a knitter! Delilah sends you a woof, and Timber a whinny.

  Love always, my darling daughter,

  Mum xxxxxxxx

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 9 December 1941

  War with Japan Begins Yesterday!

  Today the Prime Minister, Mr John Curtin, and the Governor-General, Lord Gowrie, formally signed a statement at the meeting with the War Cabinet. Mr Curtin said the war began from five pm yesterday.

  At the Gibber’s Creek Council meeting, Councillor Bullant said that all of Gibber’s Creek stands behind Mr Curtin and the war effort.

  MALAYA, 9 DECEMBER 1941

  NANCY

  The railway went through the middle of the village (or perhaps the village had grown about the station), built to carry barrels of crude rubber from the plantations, woven baskets of rice from the paddies, bananas and pineapples. A scraggle of bamboo huts, squawking chickens, more women sweeping up the fallen leaves and flowers of the night, vegetable gardens in roughly fenced-off allotments, and then the huts closer together. This was not where white people lived, the colonials from Britain and Australia, but Malays, Chinese, Tamils …

  The dull jungle greens gave way to colour: yellow flowers in the vegetable plots; red flowers, purple bougainvillea; the bright blue top and pants of the rickshaw pullers; the Tamils’ clothes of lolly pink; and the red, green and purple Malay sarongs. Nancy could smell frying onions, hot peanuts, cardamom, coconut. Her stomach growled as she swerved to avoid a black-and-pink patched pig, majestically stepping across the road, and then a water ‘boy’, at least ninety years old, stooped under his pole with its buckets of water at each end.

  The station car park was full. Nancy found a spot further down the road, left Moira in the car changing Gavin’s nappy and dressing him in a cream linen travelling suit, and lugged their baggage to the cloakroom, taking a ticket from the attendant. She went back for Moira, Gavin and the haversack, reluctantly leaving the water bag. It would be stolen, of course, by the time they got back. But they were not coming back. The car would be stolen too. Should she find someone to look after it for Ben?

  She knew no one to ask, just Moira’s friends on plantations out of town, and Ben’s comrades in the army, and none of them could take a car now. Nor could she manage to drive it as far as Singapore, or even Kuala Lumpur, even if they could buy enough petrol, which she doubted. They had just abandoned the whole bungalow, its furniture, bedding, clothes. What did it matter if someone took the car as well?

  For the first time she felt the magnitude of Moira’s loss. Her house, almost everything she owned, her way of life, swapped for this undignified flight to an unknown farm in New South Wales where she must know, from Nancy’s reaction to being waited on by servants, that the only help in the house was Mrs Perkins twice a week to ‘do the rough’. Moira would have to make her own bed, mend her own clothes. No amah to look after Gavin …

  Gavin would love it at Overflow. She’d take him down to the billabong, let him dabble his tiny feet in the slow, muddy water, show him how the golden lizards soaked up the sun …

  The waiting room was full too. She left Moira standing on the platform, Gavin over her shoulder, patting his back with her gloved hands to bring up the burps, cloth ready to catch the white curdy baby vomit. There had always been an amah waiting to do this before. Nancy was relieved that Moira seemed to be able to manage it by herself.

  Now to join the queue for tickets, and ask the attendant if he had any news.

  Half an hour later she pushed her way back through the crush of people on the railway platform. The train sat, steaming gently, making the hot air even damper. Moira still patted a fretful Gavin over her shoulder.

  Nancy reached over and took Gavin from her, breathing in the sweet baby smell of his hair under his hat. She patted his back automatically and smiled at his burp. Gavin always burped for Auntie Nancy.

  ‘What’s happening?’ demanded Moira.

  ‘It really is war. The Japanese attacked Kota Bharu the night before last. Not just bombing. The Japanese have seized the airport, at least.’

  ‘Ben is up there!’ Moira’s gloved fingers clenched.

  Nancy tried to make her voice reassuring. ‘Ben can take care of himself.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Moira’s voice was forcefully calm. ‘How close is the fighting?’

  ‘Still up around Kota Bharu, the stationmaster thinks. That’s all he’s heard on the radio.’

  ‘But you saw Japanese soldiers at our place!’

  ‘I saw six men.’ Nancy tried to find the word, as Gavin tugged a lock of her hair and began to chew it. ‘I think they must have been what Ben calls reconnaissance, sent ahead to spy out the land. If the Japanese Army were close, they’d be bombing us already …’

  Moira stiffened.

  I shouldn’t have said that, thought Nancy tiredly.

  ‘Do you really think Ben …?’

  ‘I think Ben is fine.’

  She didn’t. She had no idea how her brother was. Gran said she knew if her children and grandchildren were safe or unhappy, and even when they were coming home. If that was true, Nancy hadn’t inherited the gift.

  ‘If he’d been involved in fighting, he should have let us know if he is all right.’

  ‘Moira, no one is delivering telegrams out of town right now. He wouldn’t have had time to send a telegram anyway.’

  ‘He’d want us to be safe!’

  Which is why he sent for me to help you go to Overflow, thought Nancy. And a fat lot of good that did. A year of having dresses fitted and learning how to talk about the weather to the Commissioner’s wife — not even real talk, like ‘Will the rains be late this year?’ but ‘Isn’t the heat dreadful?’ — while Moira felt well enough to go on picnics but not to travel. They’d have been closer to a hospital at Overflow than at the plantation. But no point thinking about that now … ‘The good news is the trains are still running.’

  ‘What’s the bad news?’ Moira’s eyes were shadowed, her face even paler than usual.

  ‘No tickets.’

  ‘But there have to be!’

  ‘Bobble bobble erk,’ said Gavin indignantly on Nancy’s shoulder, almost as if he agreed with his mother.

  ‘Not till next week at the earliest,’ said Nancy, patting his back wearily. ‘Not even in second class.’

  ‘Second class!’ Moira looked at her as though she was mad. ‘You’ll have to drive us.’

  ‘Can’t risk it. The petrol tank’s nearly empty.’

 
‘What about the jerry can?’

  ‘The petrol in the jerry can wouldn’t even get us halfway to Kuala Lumpur. We can’t risk being stranded alone on some road in the jungle.’

  To her relief, Moira didn’t argue. ‘Then we have to get train tickets somehow.’

  Nancy took a deep breath. She gave Gavin her finger to chew, forced herself to make her voice quiet and persuasive. ‘There’s a third-class local train later today. If we sit right next to the train line, we can make sure we get on it …’

  ‘What? Crammed up with all the natives! Pigs and chickens and men chewing betel?’

  ‘It’s our only chance! We don’t even have anywhere to stay here. It’s not safe to go back and we don’t have enough petrol to get anywhere else.’

  ‘It’s not safe for Gavin to travel with natives! Heaven knows what he might catch.’

  Why should Malays or Chinese have any more diseases than Europeans? thought Nancy. Her best friends at school had been the Lee twins. But she had given up trying to change Moira’s view of the world months ago. She hunted for the right ammunition. ‘Moira, Ben would say you have to keep Gavin safe. That means getting any train we can south.’

  ‘I am not travelling with a bunch of natives! If you had any idea at all of the proper way to do things …’

  ‘Mrs Clancy?’ The well-bred voice came from the window of one of the first-class carriages.

  Moira checked herself, slipping effortlessly into her garden-party persona. She stepped over to the train, her high heels clicking on the platform. ‘Mrs Armitage! We met at the Smithertons’ dinner party, didn’t we? How do you do?’

  Mrs Armitage was in her fifties: severely curled grey hair under a purple hat, with mauve gloves and impeccable black shoes. And perfect lipstick, thought Nancy. ‘As well as can be expected, my dear. Such dreadful news.’

  ‘Do you know what is happening?’

  ‘My husband had a telegram from Head Office this morning. Mr Armitage is with the Federated Malay States Railway, you know. There has been an attack on Kota Bharu. Have you heard?’

  Moira nodded.

  ‘Mr Armitage insisted that I go south at once. I’m just glad that we decided that the German U-boats made it too dangerous for the children to come to us from England these school holidays.’

  ‘You’re travelling down to Singapore?’

  ‘My dear, it won’t come to that! Our boys will stop them soon enough! No, to Gemas. I’ll stay at the club house there.’ The older woman hesitated, as though unsure of the words to use. ‘My dear, I’m afraid there are no seats left. But if you wouldn’t mind sitting on your luggage, I am sure no one would mind if you shared our carriage.’ She looked at the other occupants — two elderly women, an elderly man, moustached and as thin as a greyhound, a mother with two teenage girls.

  ‘Quite all right,’ said the motherly one. ‘In times like these …’

  Mrs Armitage glanced at Nancy. ‘I’m sure your amah could squeeze in somewhere in second class. I can have a word with the stationmaster …’

  She takes me for a Eurasian, thought Nancy grimly, shifting Gavin to her other shoulder. Then, more charitably, realised that her crumpled clothes, her bird’s-nest hair and lack of make-up, not just her skin colour, might have caused the misapprehension.

  ‘This is my sister-in-law,’ said Moira expressionlessly. ‘Mrs Armitage, this is Nancy Clancy, my husband’s sister. She has been visiting us from the family property, Overflow, in Australia.’

  Mrs Armitage’s expression cleared. ‘Ah, the Australian outback.’ The additional ‘so your skin colour is from the sun’ went unsaid. The flash of calculation on the woman’s face also possibly meant ‘Australian property name: therefore money’. Particularly with a brother managing a plantation. One thing Nancy had learnt in Malaya was the incessant evaluation and re-evaluation of one’s acquaintanceship, each person in their place, but that place shifting according to rank and wealth, connections and antecedents. And always, always, colour of the skin.

  ‘I apologise for my appearance,’ said Nancy carefully. She couldn’t remember the last time she had apologised for anything. But getting Gavin and Moira to safety was more important than worrying what a mem thought of her. ‘I saw Japanese soldiers in our compound early this morning. I only thought of getting Moira and Gavin to safety. I threw on the first things that came to hand.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Well, you can tidy yourself up in the train. One can’t let the side down, especially in times like these … You had better hurry,’ she added, as the stationmaster blew his whistle.

  Nancy handed Gavin back to Moira, then ran for the luggage as Mrs Armitage waved discreetly to the stationmaster to keep the train at the station. Nancy shoved the suitcases into the carriage, then hauled her haversack over her shoulder.

  ‘But our tickets,’ protested Moira.

  ‘You can pay the conductor,’ said Mrs Armitage. ‘And if he objects,’ she gave a small cough, ‘I am sure if we mention Mr Armitage’s name there will be no problem at all.’

  Chapter 4

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 9 December 1941

  Important Meeting Town Hall Tonight

  A large attendance is expected at the Gibber’s Creek Town Hall tonight when Councillors Bullant and Ellis will announce the measures that will be made for safeguarding the community in the event of a national emergency.

  Six pm Town Hall. Ladies, please bring a plate.

  MALAYA, 9 DECEMBER 1941

  NANCY

  There wasn’t.

  Nancy sat crammed in the middle of the seat, with Moira facing her on the other side. Predictably moustache-man had given his seat to Moira, and the two girls gave theirs up too. They now sprawled on the floor, legs out, passing Gavin from white-frocked lap to lap while he delightedly pulled their hair and examined their noses. The elderly moustache-man (in rubber, he said, which made Nancy think of a small rubber moustache-man on the mantelpiece) perched on the suitcase that couldn’t fit on the luggage rack. Nancy doubted the conductor could have even found room to come into their carriage, much less to eject three unwanted passengers. And why should he, when they could pay their fare and had the agreement of the first-class passengers they were travelling with?

  ‘Tea?’ asked Mrs Armitage. Moustache-man politely reached up to bring down her picnic basket, and then his own and the one belonging to the motherly woman. The atmosphere was almost festive, as with each mile chugged south through the jungle and rubber plantations the war was left further behind.

  ‘I would love a cup,’ said Moira.

  ‘I always carry a spare. You wouldn’t mind drinking from the lid?’ This last was addressed to Nancy.

  Nancy shook her head. She thought of their own fruitcake, probably reduced to crumbs in the haversack, and rejected it. She took a slice of Mrs Armitage’s instead and nibbled. ‘It’s delicious,’ she said, then tried to remember if it was correct etiquette to comment on the food. Actually the cake tasted like someone had mucked up the recipe, adding native spices and chunks of pineapple. But she couldn’t leave it uneaten now.

  ‘A Ceylonese recipe. Mr Armitage was stationed there, before the war. Ah, happy times.’ Mrs Armitage offered Moira an egg and lettuce sandwich. Moira took it gratefully.

  The motherly woman proffered fish-paste sandwiches from her tiffin basket, or cheese and tomato; rock cakes, which had turned indeed to rock in the heat, and had to be nibbled slowly; and buns, suitable for satisfying the appetites of teenage daughters. Moustache-man passed around his Bath biscuits, then slices of mango cheeks that he removed with a Swiss army knife. ‘Never eat a fruit you haven’t seen peeled,’ he instructed Nancy.

  She didn’t say that she had been told that by almost every European since she arrived in Malaya. She was too grateful for the hospitality, the seats in the train, the food, the comfort of company — even just to have others making decisions. Mrs Armitage had already decided that she and Moira and Gavin would stay with her at the railway accommoda
tions overnight, and promised that Mr Armitage, in absentia, would arrange for tickets to take them to Kuala Lumpur once she had spoken with him on the telephone. ‘So much easier for your husband to reach you there, rather than going all the way down to Singapore,’ said Mrs Armitage.

  ‘Excellent golf course at Kuala Lumpur,’ said the motherly woman, diluting her tea with a judicious measure of hot water from yet another Thermos. ‘You must join the golf club. Do you play?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Moira.

  ‘No,’ said Nancy.

  ‘Oh, my dear, you really must learn. Spiffing game.’

  ‘I think my brother would prefer us to go straight to Singapore,’ said Nancy carefully. ‘We can get a ship there to Australia.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said moustache-man. ‘Sail to Australia with German ships about? You heard they sunk the Sydney? It is quite impossible that the Japs will actually invade Malaya. Not with British and Indian and Australian forces here. There are only two possible routes down the peninsula. Any invasion force would be wiped out in days. The Japanese only travel on bicycles, you know.’

  Then they’ve bicycled a long way from Japan, thought Nancy sceptically. She suspected a bicycle could go almost as fast on the rutted roads as a car. And what about the Japanese planes, ships and parachutes? The men she had seen early this morning couldn’t have bicycled from Kota Bharu if the attack had only been yesterday. Which meant parachutes, floating down below giant puffs of silk, like the German paratroopers she had seen on the newsreels.

  But there was no point spoiling the conviviality of the carriage.

  The heat grew, despite the open windows. Smuts fluttered and clustered on the girls’ white dresses, on Moira’s neat suit and moustache-man’s tie. Moira dozed, as did the motherly woman. Moustache-man slept with curious half-snores, as if his moustache was too thick to let him make a proper one. The girls played with Gavin, who smelt just slightly of milky burp and dirty nappy.