To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  ‘That’ll do me.’

  They looked at each other. There was so much she wanted to say — that she loved him, that she would look after Moira and Gavin, would give her life for them if necessary (except that would mean no one to look after them, so she’d make sure it didn’t come to that). But one thing must be said.

  ‘Ben, when this is over, come home. Please. Not to the plantation. Your real home. Overflow. Dad needs you. We all need you.’

  ‘All right.’

  She had expected him to argue, to tell her of the career he was building for himself, that he didn’t want to just take over a family property. To say that Dad could hire a manager, if he needed to take things more easily.

  ‘You really will?’

  ‘I really will.’ He met her eyes. ‘I’ve seen the world outside now, sis. Enjoyed it too. But when we’ve got the Japs beat I’ll be home. And Moira and Gavin will be there with me. For good.’

  ‘Oh. Well then.’ She hesitated, hugged him, hard. Whispered, ‘Stay safe.’ Kissed his stubbled cheek, as brown as hers, then forced herself to walk away, back to the dining room, so that he wouldn’t waste precious minutes he might spend with his wife and son with his sister.

  He had left when she got back after serving breakfast the next day, the yellow linen dress rumpled, crumpled, the silk slippers caked in grease. Moira lay on the chaise longue on the veranda, idly pulling the punkah to fan herself and Gavin, who was lying on a blanket at her feet, drooling and gumming a slice of lime Ah Jong had given him to distract him from his emerging teeth. He waved his arms and legs at her. ‘Mnmmert!’

  She picked him up, kissed his soft cheek and breathed in his baby smell. ‘Hello to you too, froglet. Did Ben get here all right?’

  For once Moira made no comment about Nancy’s appearance. ‘Yes. He left before dawn. He wouldn’t say where he was going.’

  ‘Might not know.’

  ‘That’s true. Thanks for giving us time alone,’ she added.

  ‘No worries.’ She saw Moira frown at the Australian colloquialism. ‘We were busy at the Club so I was useful anyway. Did Ben convince you to go to Singapore and get a ship home?’

  Moira’s face closed off. ‘He tried. I don’t want to go quite yet. Another week or two can’t make any difference. Ben might get leave, or even be posted here. And anyway, Mr Sanderson at the Club says that the army can hold back the Japs for months.’

  ‘Did Ben tell you that?’

  Moira hesitated. ‘No.’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘We didn’t talk about the war.’ Moira got to her feet. ‘Gavin’s nappy needs changing.’

  And you have no amah to do it for you, thought Nancy. No maid to button your dress and slip on your stockings. No boy even to pull the punkah to keep you cool. ‘Moira, please. Think of Gavin. Even if you don’t want to go to Australia, at least let’s go to Singapore.’

  Moira looked at her expressionlessly; Nancy knew it was not her face she was seeing, but Ben’s. ‘Soon,’ she said. ‘Ben might even get stationed here. Just a week or two, and we’ll see.’

  Chapter 9

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 3 January 1942

  Motorcycles for the Army

  Gibber’s Creek was visited yesterday by a party of military officers concerned with the impressment of motorcycles for the use of the military forces. Owners of suitable vehicles have been notified of the place set for the examination of their machines. The machines will be taken at a valuation set by the authorities.

  KUALA LUMPUR, DECEMBER 1941–JANUARY 1942

  NANCY

  Christmas was just another day, though one without an air raid. Neither Nancy nor Moira had made any effort to find presents for each other, or even for Gavin, who at least was too young to know what the day should mean. Most of the shops had been abandoned by their owners so there were luxuries for the taking, even if necessities like bread or car tyres were hard to find. But anything they gave each other would have to be carted off when they evacuated again, or left behind. Nor was there any chance of mail or packages from Australia, or even sending a wire to say merry Christmas.

  Instead Nancy rose at dawn, as usual; drove in to the Anzac Club, glad of the petrol ration Miss Reid had wangled that kept her on the road; served all day with one other woman and the two remaining cook boys, till Miss Reid left work at four pm to join them.

  There was little they could offer the men. Just a month earlier there had been a flourishing canteen, soft drinks, a library, billiard room, ping-pong, darts and a piano and the room where dances were held each Friday night, bands from each of the hotels taking turns in entertaining there.

  Now they had bread, eggs, bacon and milk, not even sausages any more. Bacon sandwiches for Christmas dinner. But one of the men played the piano. They sang carols as she carried out the plates of sandwiches. They had sliced the meat thinly to make it last and fried the bread in the fat to make up for the butter they lacked.

  She crept home at almost midnight. A single lamplight shone in the house through the crack in the curtains. Nancy hoped it was not enough for a Japanese plane to see. She used her shaded torch to find her way up the stairs, across the veranda and down the hall.

  Moira sat in the armless chair in her bedroom, Gavin in her arms. He was asleep, sprawled on her lap, all legs and arms. For a moment the love on Moira’s face made Nancy gasp. She had never seen the Englishwoman’s emotions so open before.

  She knocked on the doorway. ‘Just wanted to let you know I’m back.’

  She expected self-possession to close Moira’s face again. But the softness remained as she asked, ‘How was today?’

  ‘Not too bad.’ She tried not to think of the Christmas party they’d have had at Drinkwater the night before. Who had Michael danced with? Had he sat by the river and remembered her?

  ‘No news?’

  ‘No,’ she lied. There had been nothing about the fighting up north, nor about Ben, it was true. But this afternoon the BBC World Service had announced that Hong Kong had fallen to the Japanese. Nurses in the hospital who had stayed to care for the patients had been bayoneted. Miss Reid had whispered, ‘Probably after much worse.’ American General MacArthur’s forces were falling back under attack from the Japanese in the Philippines. Mr Churchill was in Washington, urging the Americans to give more help for Britain. Help was needed on the Russian front as well. But after Pearl Harbor, how much did America have to give?

  The only other radio station was the local one at Penang, now taken by the Japanese. The canteen had listened to five minutes of what the Japanese Army would do, flattening towns like Kuala Lumpur, dropping Japanese money that anyone of Asian descent could use as soon as ‘liberation’ was complete. Five minutes had been enough.

  But she would not tell Moira that. Not on Christmas Day. Not when, for a moment, mother and child had reminded her of a scene in a stable, almost two thousand years earlier. Instead she said, ‘We sang carols.’

  ‘Even you?’

  ‘My voice isn’t that bad.’ Except it was. ‘I hummed along. How is Gavin?’

  ‘Chewed my finger for an hour. Ah Jong put lime juice on his gums again. It seemed to help. Nancy … he’ll be all right, won’t he?’

  She didn’t mean Ah Jong, or even Gavin.

  ‘If anyone can make it through, it will be Ben.’ It was the truth, though perhaps not tactfully phrased. But it seemed to comfort Moira.

  ‘At least there wasn’t an air raid.’

  ‘Perhaps we’re finally pushing them back.’

  She didn’t tell Moira that there’d been a raid that day on Singapore, that the enemy planes must have been focused there instead. ‘Good night,’ she said.

  ‘Good night, Nancy.’ Moira gazed down at Gavin’s peaceful face again.

  The bombs fell on Kuala Lumpur the next day, on Boxing Day. Hour after hour of them, all through the morning, Nancy crouched in a shelter next to Miss Reid on one side, a Malay policeman on the other.

&nbs
p; At last she crawled from the shelter, her legs so stiff they hurt. Beside her Miss Reid stretched too. ‘At least the Club is still standing.’

  Nancy nodded. She was feeling relieved on several counts. The sound of bombs had come from the side of town as far as possible away from the bungalow where Moira and Gavin were.

  ‘Miss Reid, look.’ She pointed to a small puddle of clothes on the ground. There was another over by the next shelter. It looked as though the person who had been inside the clothes had simply vanished. But how could an air raid do that?

  ‘Malay police uniforms,’ said Miss Reid, as if that explained it all.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s only to be expected. The police are taking off their uniforms, heading back to their villages. It’ll be safer for them not to be associated with the British when the Japanese arrive. Most of the office workers have left already.’

  When the Japanese arrive, not if, thought Nancy.

  The day’s rain hit as they made cocoa in the canteen with the last can of powdered milk while the ARP volunteers collected sodden bodies and carried the wounded to makeshift hospital wards. Miss Reid smiled tiredly. ‘You’d best head home while there’s still light. It might take you a while to find a route through the rubble.’

  Nancy nodded.

  The rain had stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Her car, miraculously, still had three of its four tyres intact. She hunted along the street of abandoned vehicles till she found another, laboriously jacked up the car, kneeling in the puddles, then surrendered the job in relief to a passing sergeant. He finished the job, then gave her a half-salute. ‘Best take yourself home, girly,’ he said.

  ‘You think the bombers will be back tonight?’

  He shook his head. ‘Why bother flying at night when there’s nothing we can do to them during the day? But there’s bad men around. Looting downtown, and no one left to keep it in check. Best to stay clear.’

  ‘Is there much damage?’

  He stared at her. ‘Damage? Most of the town is gone. The government buildings, the Post Office, the Selangor Club. Street after street just rubble. And now I’d better get to work.’ He gave her a tired grin. ‘I’m the only one left in the entire Pay Corps. All the native clerks have left. If this war is going to get its bills paid on time, I’d better try to make sense of the paperwork.’

  A truck rumbled down the street as he spoke. He waved to it. It stopped. He clambered in, waved to her. She waited till it vanished down the street, hoped that if there was any rubble blocking the way they’d clear it before she reached it, then got into the car and followed them.

  The canteen shut on 3 January: with little food, and few staff, there was no point trying to keep it open. Even Moira had to acknowledge now that Kuala Lumpur must soon fall to the invaders. Ben would not be stationed here. The question was not if they should evacuate to Singapore, but how.

  The train station seemed to have a small army all of its own, loading tin, rubber, anything which might be of use to the Japanese. The banks had already sent all their securities down to Singapore. Bridges in the city and along the route south had been mined, the explosives waiting till evacuees were clear and the order came to set them off.

  In the centre of town, hundreds of mine workers stormed the remaining shops, carrying off rice, blankets, whatever was to hand, while the remaining police and the local Defence Corps tried vainly to stop them. Hot, almost smokeless flames came from the grounds of the Club and the main hotels: all alcohol and any other supplies that could not be taken were being burnt to stop them falling into enemy hands.

  Nancy and Ah Jong packed the car with bedding and clothes.

  On the 8th the order came, brought by a tired sergeant. An hour before dawn, they were to rendezvous with other cars at a plantation out of town to make a convoy to travel down to Singapore. ‘Take what food you can. Don’t suppose you have a rucksack?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nancy.

  ‘Good. Make sure you’ve got water in it, a change of clothes. If the road’s blocked, you may need to walk.’

  Or run, thought Nancy, dodging bullets or bombs.

  It was impossible to sleep, even with the alarm clock set. At last, Nancy got up, slipped to the kitchen to get the last of the supplies. Ah Jong was already there, packing a hamper. ‘Bread,’ he said. ‘I baked the last of the flour last night. Bananas, good for the baby. Oranges …’

  ‘You could come with us,’ said Nancy.

  He shook his head.

  He’s right, she thought. He is safer away from us. It had been good of him to stay as long as he had. She suspected the notes they had paid him with would be worthless as soon as the town was under Japanese control.

  She took one of the baskets while he carried the other. To her surprise, Moira was already on the veranda, tying a piece of paper to the post.

  ‘A note to Ben,’ she said briefly.

  ‘Moira, the army is going to blow up the bridges behind us. The railway bridges too. Ben won’t even be able to get here.’ Or if he did, she thought, the area would be full of Japanese soldiers, and he’d be fighting them. ‘He’ll know we’ve gone to Singapore,’ she added. She had said it a hundred times. Knew that Moira knew it too.

  ‘Just in case,’ said Moira, tightening the string.

  They drove in darkness down the silent street, out of the town and along the empty road. Two cars waited at the plantation compound and a harried corporal with a list in his hand. He ticked off their names, nodded at buckets of mud beside his truck. ‘Cover the car with clay,’ he said shortly. ‘Camouflage. There’s a four-gallon drum of petrol for each car.’

  ‘What if that’s not enough?’ asked Nancy.

  ‘That’s why you’re travelling in a convoy.’ He spoke as if to a toddler. ‘If your car breaks down or you run out of petrol, get a lift in another.’ He left as another car rumbled down the road.

  ‘I’ll do the clay,’ said Nancy. ‘No point us both getting dirty.’

  Moira nodded. ‘I’d best feed Gavin now, while it’s private.’

  She opened her blouse and arranged the silk scarf over herself. Nancy dipped her hands in the clay, slapped it on the car’s roof, the sides, the doors. There was a washtub at the other end of the compound. She used it, careful not to splash any on her face — unboiled water carried disease.

  They waited.

  It was light by the time they left, other names on the corporal’s list still unticked. He had evidently decided that there was no option but to leave whoever hadn’t made it behind.

  The convoy snaked and wove between the rubber trees out to the main road. We look like a lumpy caterpillar, thought Nancy, a patchwork of clay and blue and green and brown, bulging with hampers, baskets and what looked like a full-length mirror in the car ahead. At least when we stop we can check our stocking seams are straight, she thought, and suppressed a giggle.

  Gavin woke, cried, was entertained by Moira playing Peepo, peering at him from behind her hands until he laughed. At last he settled on her shoulder, gazing at the jungle they passed as if the journey was made entirely for his pleasure.

  Past Klang, and then Kajang and the AIF casualty clearing station, past troop camps, carriages, trucks and tents and men, and all the way the spires of black smoke rising from the rubber supplies, burning to deprive the Japanese of the resource.

  And yet, despite the stench of smoke and the tiny convoy creeping along the jungle roads, life went on around them. Children picked greens in a wet ditch, giggling and whispering as the cars passed; Malay women with baskets walked along the side of the road, almost as if they were shopping in the main street of Gibber’s Creek; women in black trousers and coolie hats bent, their hands in the water of a paddy field. They didn’t even look up as the convoy passed.

  Normal life: working and eating, laughing with friends, going to bed in your own house. The Europeans were leaving, yet the beat of life went on.

  Did we matter at all? Nancy thought.
Managers like Ben and mems like Moira? So many other races have come here and found their place. Did we just float across the surface of Malaya, and can now vanish, with little changed, after the scars of war have healed?

  Other conquerors were coming. Yet, somehow, looking at another group of children playing by a stream, she suspected that they too would be as ephemeral.

  The sky emptied its rain mid-afternoon, quenching the fires, washing the clay from their car, turning the road into a small river. The cars forged on. At least her driving skills were better now.

  Gavin grizzled, then realising this car was his destiny for the foreseeable future, began to bounce, trying to clamber up the back of the seat, paddling Moira’s lap with his small fat feet as she supported his back. Twice Moira changed his nappy on her lap, awkward and leaving her skirt (and once Nancy’s dress) slightly damp.

  It was dark when they reached that night’s destination, a deserted rubber camp. The beds were all taken; nor was there any food. Nancy made a makeshift bed for the three of them, a pile of blankets under mosquito netting, with a sheet to cover them, and rolled-up clothes for pillows.

  They shared supplies with the women next to them: Ah Jong’s bread with canned sardines, canned bully beef, canned cheese.

  To Nancy’s surprise, they slept.

  No bacon and eggs for breakfast. The bread was gone, but there were buttered biscuits, more sardines, boiled water to drink and to refill their Thermos. Then she applied more clay.

  Drove on.

  The convoy broke up the next morning. One large convoy was too easy a target, the corporal decided (or perhaps a passing officer pointed this out).

  They travelled now in groups of six cars. For a while they tried to travel on back roads, but the going was so slow they headed back to the main road south.

  Troops passed in trucks, in cars, each with a smile and wave. They saw no other women the entire day. Mile after mile, stopping only to fill the petrol tanks, to eat sardines and oranges for lunch. The heat increased. The road glared. The whole world was pounding trucks and once an arrow of Japanese bombers overhead.