To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  Nurse Rogers didn’t reply.

  ‘It’s not something any woman likes doing, no matter who it’s with. But if you want to get a man to do something for you …’ She shrugged again. ‘What about you?’ she asked Nancy.

  Nancy said nothing either.

  ‘As long as they didn’t knock you around.’ Vivienne helped herself to fish and rice, using her fingers. ‘Here,’ she added. ‘Show me how to use the chopsticks.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Nancy, though she had been willing to learn herself.

  Vivienne sat back, stabbing a rice ball using her chopstick like a dagger. ‘Because the Japanese are winning the war.’ She looked up at their silent faces. ‘You don’t really believe that we can win, do you? You’ve seen what the Japanese did in Malaya. Thailand. Singapore. The entire American Navy is sunk. Yes, I know the precious mems back there,’ she nodded in the direction of the huts, ‘want to pretend that the British Empire has to win. I’ll pretend all they like. But we can be honest here. Can’t we?’

  ‘Why?’ asked Nurse Rogers.

  ‘Because …’ Vivienne’s voice trailed off. She looked at them. ‘If you don’t think they’re going to win, why did you volunteer for this?’

  Because no matter who wins, it was the right thing to do, thought Nancy, for her and Nurse Rogers and Mrs Mainwaring.

  ‘Where’s Mrs Mainwaring? She should be out by now.’

  Even as Nancy spoke a man yelled at the rear of the house. Boots sounded outside, familiar footsteps. The translator appeared, glanced at them, then stepped down the corridor. He reappeared seconds later, beckoning to them to follow him.

  Nancy looked at Nurse Rogers enquiringly. She shrugged and began to follow him. They walked down the corridor, Vivienne trailing behind. Nurse Rogers paused at the door. She gasped, then pushed Nancy back. ‘Don’t come in here.’

  ‘Why not?’ Vivienne pushed past her. ‘Oh. I’m … I’m going to be sick.’

  The translator’s voice came from behind them. Nancy could feel his anger now. ‘You take her. You bury her. All of you. You do it now.’

  She stepped into the room. Blood stained the wooden floor, the pale blue counterpane — blood from Mrs Mainwaring’s wrists. A broken sake glass lay on the bed beside her.

  Nancy turned to the translator in fury. ‘You did this!’

  The man stared at her. ‘I did nothing. I was not here.’

  ‘The man she was with!’

  ‘She asked the Japanese officer for sake. The Japanese officer gave it to her, one, two, three times. He left. I saw she was not with you so I came here.’

  ‘She died of shame,’ said Nurse Rogers softly. ‘She knew someone had to go. So she sacrificed herself.’

  ‘Better all of you die of shame. Japanese women would not be taken by the enemy. Japanese women would kill themselves first.’

  Nancy gaped at the translator. ‘You think we should all kill ourselves because we have been taken prisoner?’

  ‘English women do not understand honour.’ The translator looked around the room, the blood, the woman on the bed. ‘Maybe this one did. You dig a grave for her. You bury her.’

  ‘What if we don’t?’

  ‘The guards will put her body outside for the dogs.’

  The guards gave them three shovels. The other women peered at them from the huts, but the guards gestured them back.

  It was almost morning by the time the grave was deep enough. Nancy had expected Vivienne to complain, but she scraped at the dry soil as diligently as the other two. She was pale, shivering now instead of confident.

  Two guards watched them. As they stepped back, one nodded for them to follow him to the officers’ club.

  The body lay where they had left it. At least it is night, thought Nancy. At least there are no flies …

  ‘We’ll wrap her in the bedspread and sheets,’ said Nurse Rogers.

  ‘Maybe they don’t want us to use them —’ began Vivienne.

  ‘Too bad,’ said Nurse Rogers.

  Nancy bent to the dead woman. Mrs Mainwaring looked … not peaceful exactly, but the lips almost formed a smile. Oh, yes, she thought, English women know about honour. This woman had the honour to volunteer, to save her friends.

  Would she have done the same as Mrs Mainwaring, if her commandant had wanted more than her attention?

  No, she thought. We all have our own codes. And mine says that I must live to care for those I love. Gavin and Moira belonged to Overflow. She would take them back for it, for Ben. And for herself.

  She had expected an adult body to be heavier, but Mrs Mainwaring had starved with all of them. The guards stood back as they carried her down the hall, across the main room, out into the night. Nancy could hear the sea muttering beyond the bushes. The waves must be high tonight. The stars peered down at them, strangely familiar stars in this all-too-strange land.

  They leant down as far as they could, but the body dropped the last few feet. Nancy and Nurse Rogers reached for the shovels, to fill in the dirt. Vivienne held back, still shaking. ‘I’m going to ask the translator if the other women can come to say goodbye. We need a ceremony.’

  Nancy looked at her, surprised, then nodded wearily. ‘That’s a kind thought.’

  ‘I …’ Vivienne stopped whatever she had been going to say. ‘We have to do what they want,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you understand? We will die if we don’t. A worse death than this. Those men in there can kill us. But they can save us too. Nancy …’

  ‘What?’ asked Nancy tiredly, not looking at her. Her body and mind felt as bruised as if she too had been assaulted.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Vivienne. ‘I’ll get the others while you fill in the grave. I … I’m sorry.’

  Thunk. Thunk. The soil thudded into the grave. Impossible to think that the woman under the dirt, within those sheets, had been alive only a few hours before.

  Thunk. Thunk. It was far faster to fill in the hole than dig it. Slowly, one by one, the other women came out, the guards surrounding them. There was no sign of the officers who had sought their company.

  Mrs Hughendorn lifted her hands in prayer. ‘Our Father …’ she began.

  The others prayed with her. Sally was crying, and Mrs Harris. There was no sign of Vivienne. Suddenly Nancy sensed movement at the huts. She looked over her fingers. The young secretary slipped through the shadows, her suitcase in her hand.

  What else had Vivienne said to the translator? wondered Nancy, as Vivienne walked swiftly not to the house where they had been ‘entertainers’, but to the Japanese living quarters. The door opened. Vivienne shot a haunted look back at her camp companions, then vanished inside.

  ‘Dear Lord, please care for our sister,’ said Mrs Hughendorn. ‘Deliver her from the pain she suffered in this world, into Your love and mercy in the next. Amen.’

  Deliver us all, thought Nancy, from those who think we have no honour because we choose to live.

  They trooped back in silence to the huts. No one asked her what had happened in the house. No one spoke at all till they reached Hut Number One. Mrs Hughendorn paused, then embraced Nurse Rogers and then Nancy. ‘You are the bravest of the brave,’ she said. ‘We owe our lives to both of you.’

  It seemed Nancy had not been the only one to see Vivienne go.

  Moira hugged her back at their hut. ‘Thank you from me too,’ she whispered. ‘And Gavin. They gave us chicken tonight. Chicken! And rice and pumpkin and a whole lot of greens. Darling, are you all right? Can I help with … anything? Will you … will you have to go again?’

  ‘Probably. Moira …’ She couldn’t let Moira think that she had been used as Mrs Mainwaring had been used, no matter what she had been instructed. ‘The man I was with — the commandant. He didn’t touch me. Just talked to me.’

  Moira’s face relaxed into so much relief that Nancy understood the horror her sister-in-law had been trying not to show. ‘Thank God.’ It was a prayer. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘I don’t know. He spok
e in Japanese.’

  ‘What about Nurse Rogers?’

  Nancy shrugged. Tomorrow and tomorrow, she thought, we will have to go back there. What if the commandant changes his mind? What if another man asked her to go to his room?

  Suddenly she remembered her store of dumplings and rice balls, all squished together now, but still food. They could stay where they were in her bra till breakfast, she thought. At least they’d be safe from rats.

  Would they ever see Vivienne again?

  Chapter 28

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 1 August 1942

  New Speed Limit

  A speed limit of twenty miles an hour has been set by order of the premier during all blackouts and brownouts. It will apply between sunset and sunrise. In addition, at all times and places headlights must be effectively screened.

  According to Councillor Bullant: ‘Council-appointed officers will be ensuring that all motorists keep to the advised speed limit at all times.’

  Councillor Ellis commented: ‘If the premier thinks he can drive at more than twenty miles an hour on some of the roads around here, I’d like to see him try.’

  PULAU AYU PRISON CAMP, 1 AUGUST 1942

  NANCY

  The cramps hit her at dawn, so bad she doubled up in pain. She glanced over at the next bed. Moira had vanished, presumably to the latrine, leaving Gavin sleeping on the narrow bed, arms sprawled.

  She hobbled out to the latrine. Moira was crouched on the plank above the trench. Mrs Hughendorn trudged quickly behind her, and then Nurse Rogers. The four of them crouched, like chooks perched in the henhouse, trying to ignore each other’s sounds.

  ‘Dysentery,’ said Nurse Rogers at last, as they staggered weak and dizzy back towards their huts. ‘Gavin … is he all right?’

  ‘I think so.’ Moira’s face looked even paler.

  ‘He was still asleep when I left,’ said Nancy.

  ‘Thank goodness. It’s not the food then.’ Gavin only drank the thin stews they boiled morning and evening. ‘Must be the well water. Better boil it …’ Another spasm hit her. Nurse Rogers ran for the latrine again.

  It passed. Days of agony every time she swallowed, trying to keep the boiled water down. Somehow one of them managed to boil enough for the next day for the others, make a soup of whatever food they were given. Gavin ate it eagerly; Moira was no longer able to give him any nourishment at all. Her body had grown skeletal, her eyes like dark-rimmed moons.

  ‘Drink,’ urged Nurse Rogers, and they did, in sips, as small as possible, for any larger swallow brought the spasms on.

  Nancy recovered first. Because I’m younger, she thought. Or because my body got used to bad water on the way to Charters Towers? After a week, she was the one to light the fire, to boil the water, to feed Gavin, to watch him crawl about in the dirt, his hands and knees becoming crusty, for she did not have the strength yet to wash him as well as do the other chores.

  ‘At least,’ said Nurse Rogers, taking her ration of water mixed with a little rice gruel, ‘the officers won’t want us to entertain them now. Not and risk catching something from us.’

  Nancy nodded. Nor, she thought, could any man want their company now. Even the floor scrubbing had been stopped, for fear the women might infect their guards. Nancy looked at the others: thin to hardness, eyes well sunk into black shadows, hair filthy, smelling of the latrine. Even Gavin was thin now. Vegetables alone were not enough for a growing child, and she hadn’t had the strength to catch ‘island rabbit’, or to ask again if she could go out and pick hibiscus flowers.

  At home Mum would make sure he drank a glass of milk with every meal. He’d be eating meat and vegetables, chopped fine, stewed apple, grated pears, mashed banana …

  She looked at him, slouched in the dirt as if too tired to crawl. ‘Nanna?’ he said. He lifted his arms to her.

  ‘Nancy,’ she said softly as she picked him up.

  ‘Nanna,’ he agreed. He burrowed into her like a baby wombat seeking its pouch.

  She took him into their hut, put him next to Moira. Her sister-in-law rolled over, still half asleep, and wrapped him in her arms.

  For a moment Nancy stared at them. She stepped wearily to the ‘dressing table’ — a block of wood where Mrs Harris had put her brush and comb for them to share. Mrs Harris was asleep too, the skin of her face drooping like sheets of paper, her breathing harsh.

  Nancy brushed her hair, stripped off a shred of bamboo to tie it back as smartly as she could, and changed her dress for her one clean one, already fraying at the edges.

  That was as respectable as she could make herself, she decided. She walked, telling herself that her trembling was from illness, not fear. She knocked at the door of the officers’ club.

  The youngest of the officers opened it. He stared at her as she bowed, as low as she could, then shouted down the corridor.

  She rose from the bow. She stood there, waiting. The same men who had been there the night of Mrs Mainwaring’s death sat in what had been Mrs Hughendorn senior’s armchairs. The commandant sat there too, a glass of what looked like tea in his hand. He neither looked at nor acknowledged her.

  ‘What do you want?’ It was the translator.

  ‘The little boy needs food,’ she said. ‘We are all sick. We need medicine.’

  ‘Japanese soldiers have been generous to give you food. No medicine.’

  ‘We can pay for the medicine! Please!’ She was sure Mrs Hughendorn would agree; she was as sick as any of them.

  The translator looked back. The commandant gave an imperceptible nod. ‘If you give me the money, I will see if I can buy medicine.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She bowed deeply again. She hoped this man would not take half the money for himself. ‘Please, may we have more food for the little boy?’

  ‘If you can pay for medicine, you can pay for food.’

  ‘But … but Japan is defeating the British Empire. We will be here many years. Won’t we?’

  The translator gave no answer.

  ‘We cannot buy food for that long. Please, food for one small boy. And some seeds? So we can begin to grow our own?’

  ‘You have food —’ began the translator.

  The commandant said something to the translator, not to her.

  The translator looked startled. He turned to Nancy again. ‘There will be food for the boy. No seeds. Gardens need tools.’

  ‘Proper food?’

  ‘Do not question Japanese officers.’

  A guard approached, with his bamboo rod at the ready. She bowed again hastily. ‘Thank you. Arigato. I thank the honour of Japanese officers, to help one small boy.’

  ‘Go,’ said the translator. Nancy went.

  The translator was with the guard when he delivered the sago the next morning: two coconut shells full, for the eleven of them. The guard also gave her a hand of bananas, a dozen of them, not much longer than her finger.

  She gazed at them, hunger growling like a dog smelling roast lamb. It was the first fruit she had seen since they had been interned.

  ‘For the boy,’ said the translator, as if he suspected she might eat them herself.

  ‘Nanna?’ Gavin crawled from the hut towards her. I really must wash him today, she thought. And catch rats early tomorrow.

  ‘Come here, darling.’ She lifted him onto her knee. Even that was an effort. He clung there, waiting for the sago to cook.

  She shook her head. ‘Look what Auntie Nancy has for you. Bananas.’

  He opened his mouth, a small starved bird, as she fed him tiny chunks.

  Chapter 29

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 29 August 1942

  Australians Hungry on Kokoda Track

  Reports from letters home suggest that Australian troops are going hungry as they battle along the Kokoda Track since the destruction of the RAAF ‘biscuit bombers’ in an air raid at Moresby.

  See page 4 for ‘How to Pack a Long-Lasting Fruitcake for the Front Line’ and other recipes suitable for food packag
es, provided by Mrs Mah McAlpine.

  ST ELRIC’S SCHOOL, BLUE MOUNTAINS, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA, 30 AUGUST 1942

  MICHAEL

  The phone call came at prep. He was supposed to be working on his Latin grammar. He had been daydreaming about Nancy instead, that last morning by the creek, the words she’d said to him, trying to ignore the chill of the mist seeping in around the rattling window frames. Since the school had moved up to the Blue Mountains, partly for safety and partly because its school buildings were requisitioned by the military, the cold attacked him every time he sat down.

  He missed the old ivy-covered buildings down in Sydney. He missed the river more. No rowing up here in the mountains. No pelicans either.

  He didn’t want to be here. Boarding school was what one endured, even if parts of it were good. Every classroom seemed a prison, walls enclosing him when he wanted paddocks and hills, or the challenge of army life, despite its dangers and hardships.

  His parents longed for the best for him — all that they’d never had. He even accepted that at some stage he might want to go to agricultural college, and to do that he must finish school now. But he also wanted the chance to succeed that they’d had, on his own merits. Mostly he wanted to choose his own future. To be part of the world, now. Australia needs you, the posters said. He needed to be part of that too.

  ‘Thompson. Phone call for you. Your father.’ Wilkins looked sympathetic. Phone calls these days were rarely good news — like parents in town unexpectedly, offering you dinner, an aunt who’d like to visit with a spare five-pound note.

  ‘Thanks.’ Weird that his father would call, just when he’d been thinking about him, then with growing terror: something has happened to Jim, or Mum. Nancy! They’ve found her. She’s coming home.

  He hugged his arms around himself, his blazer too thin to keep out the chill. He’d put on every singlet he had. He would have asked Mum for thermal underwear like Taylor had, but she’d used up the last of his clothing coupons on his school uniform. There had been no choice, the way he was growing, his trouser cuffs heading up to his knees, and Mum would never go black market, like the parents of some of the students here.