by JH Fletcher
From you, she thought. She glanced at the impassive face of the girl beside her and felt a spasm of hatred, extraordinary in its intensity, for the sloe eyes, the smooth brown skin, the impenetrable barrier that concealed thoughts, fears, the essence of being.
These people, she thought. How will they behave if the Japs do come? And was startled that she should consider the possibility.
‘They won’t get here, you know,’ she said. She could hear echoes of Marge D’Arcy in her voice, despised herself because of it. She took refuge in anger. ‘Tidy these things properly.’ She pointed at the neat rows of bandages, many in their original wrappers. ‘This place is a mess.’
The next day it was official. A mud-stained vehicle disgorged a pair of officers, a lieutenant who looked like a schoolboy, a captain, starch-voiced, knees bony beneath voluminous army shorts. Fishy eyes focused on Marge D’Arcy who was after all the more senior of the sisters. Ruth they ignored.
‘Thought you should know,’ he said. ‘Japanese forces crossed the border three days ago. No need for concern. The Chinese Sixth Army is sorting them out now.’
‘Where are they?’ Ruth asked.
The fishy eyes continued to focus on Marge’s sweating face. ‘Last we heard they were somewhere around Loilem Junction.’
Loilem Junction was fifty miles away, less.
‘Somewhere? Don’t you know?’
The captain’s air of weary distaste deepened perceptibly. Damned colonials … Somehow he managed not to voice what he was so obviously thinking.
‘We’ll be moving a fighter squadron to the airfield,’ he said. ‘In case any of the enemy infiltrate up this way.’
An ominous suggestion, if Ruth had ever heard one.
‘To do that they’ll have to infiltrate right through the Chinese Sixth Army. Is that likely?’
‘The front is fluid,’ he condescended. ‘We’re in the jungle here, not fighting on a parade ground.’
Which Ruth had known. She hoped the Sixth Army knew it, too.
‘There will be casualties, perhaps?’ Marge D’Arcy suggested.
‘Too far away for that,’ the captain said and smiled sportingly, reverting to his role of boosting the troops’ morale. ‘I don’t see them getting anywhere near here. All this is routine, just to keep you in the picture. What?’
‘We have tea,’ Sister D’Arcy suggested. ‘If you’ve time for a cup?’
The captain allowed they had time, if not a lot. ‘Perhaps a quick one.’
Ruth got hold of the lieutenant. ‘What’s going on?’
‘A shambles,’ he said.
‘Have they really got as far as Loilem Junction?’
‘No one knows. They could be anywhere.’
‘And the Chinese army?’
‘I doubt they’ll be able to hold them for long. The Japs have got tanks, you see. And dive bombers. Makes things tricky.’ He smiled apologetically as though blaming himself for the quality of the enemy’s equipment.
‘And if the Chinese don’t hold them?’
Their eyes engaged. ‘They’ll be here,’ he told her quietly.
‘What should we do?’
‘Got any patients?’
‘Not so far.’
‘Stay until you hear the guns. With a bit of luck you never will, although I wouldn’t bet on it.’
‘And if we do?’
‘Get out at once. Any transport?’
‘A jeep.’
‘Load it with all the fuel and supplies you’ve got and head north-west.’
‘Is that where the line is?’
‘There isn’t a line.’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t want to sound alarmist but from what we’ve heard it wouldn’t be a good idea to let yourself be captured.’
‘Should we leave now?’
She saw him think about it before answering. ‘You should be all right for a bit. Who knows, you might even be able to do some good.’
‘When the air force gets here?’
Again the momentary hesitation. He smiled cautiously. ‘Right.’
Ruth watched the mud-stained car lurch away down the rutted drive. ‘Until we hear the guns,’ she said out loud. She listened but there was only the soporific murmur of insects in sunlight that had suddenly grown menacing.
‘Best get our things together,’ she told Marge.
‘No need for that.’ Indignation spiked the pale eyes. ‘The captain made it absolutely clear —’
‘I spoke to the lieutenant,’ Ruth said. ‘He told me the truth.’
‘I will not have you saying such things.’ Hysteria was blade-edged in Marge’s voice. ‘We are safe here. Safe.’
As though repetition could make it so.
Ruth went to put fuel in the jeep. Again she paused, listened. Still nothing.
Those soldiers have only been gone five minutes, she scolded herself. What could have happened in that time?
Plenty, she answered herself. If the Japs have advanced so far in three days they could be here tomorrow. Or the day after.
‘It wouldn’t be a good idea to let yourself be captured.’
She would not allow herself to think of rape. Or death. Or other, unmentionable things. She’d read how in China the Japanese had disembowelled women with bayonets. Of course, it might not be true.
She unscrewed the jeep’s petrol cap. There was a patch of mud by the opening. She used the tip of her finger to wipe it away, meticulously, lifted the heavy can of fuel, poured until the petrol came brimming up the pipe, screwed the top back on the can and stowed it on the back seat of the jeep.
‘Food,’ she told herself. ‘Water.’
She walked up the steps into the clearing station. Where Sister D’Arcy awaited her.
‘What have you been doing, Sister?’
‘Gassing up the jeep.’
‘I would be grateful if you would keep your mind on the work of the hospital. Sorting bandages, I believe.’
‘That’s all done.’
‘Please check them again. We can’t be too careful. You heard what the captain said. There will be fighters flying out of here shortly.’
‘I don’t think the lieutenant thought the planes would get here.’
Temper flared. ‘I will not have these alarmist rumours. The captain promised. Besides, we are non-combatants. We shall be quite safe even if the Japanese do get here. Not that they will, of course.’
‘You reckon?’
Sister D’Arcy drew up her scrawny frame, as brittle as sticks, and pointed imperiously. ‘Bandages,’ she said.
‘Japanese come,’ Aung Myat said. ‘What we do?’
He was young, scared-looking, husband of one of the orderlies. Ruth felt a rush of affection that he should show his feelings so openly. Although of course it might be a bad sign.
‘They won’t get as far as this.’
He took no notice. ‘Japanese come,’ he repeated. ‘What we do?’
‘If they do come we shall withdraw.’ She wasn’t sure how much he understood. ‘Go north,’ she explained.
‘We come with you,’ Aung Myat said.
The whole day they waited and the next. The squadron of fighters did not arrive but at least there was no gunfire. Ruth guarded herself against optimism but could not avoid it altogether. Perhaps the Chinese had pushed the Japanese back after all.
The following morning they woke to grey skies and rain falling heavily on the roof of the station, on the broad leaves of the trees. It turned the ground to liquid; water, brown with mud, ran everywhere. Down the hill they could hear the roar of a torrent as it cascaded through the undergrowth. Below them the tree tops were hidden in mist while thunder growled continuously in the distance.
‘They won’t be fighting in this, that’s one good thing,’ Marge D’Arcy said. They were on chatty terms again, her burst of officiousness gone as quickly as it had come. The optimism that Ruth feared had engulfed Marge in full measure. ‘False alarm, that’s what it was.’
Ruth did not beli
eve it but hoped, all the same, and said nothing.
They both turned at the sound of an engine. A car, long-bonneted and luxurious, mud-spattered, drove into the clearing.
‘It’s the Filmers,’ Marge said.
George Filmer, whose hand had caressed Ruth’s arse, with his wife at his side.
‘Maybe he’s come for another go,’ she said.
But the Filmers had come for quite another reason.
‘We’re getting out,’ George said. ‘The Japs have broken through the Chinese lines. They’ll be here by dark.’
Marge refused to believe it. ‘How do you know?’
‘Chinese stragglers have been passing through all morning. The road’s clogged with them. It’s a wonder you haven’t had any up here. The Patersons have already gone. Thought we’d stop by to warn you. Give you a lift, if you like.’
In the circumstances it had been a gallant thing to do. The nurses hesitated, looking at each other.
‘Make up your mind,’ George said impatiently. ‘We’re not hanging about.’
‘We can’t leave the orderlies,’ Ruth said.
‘They’ll be all right. They’ll fade into the jungle. The Japs won’t even know they’re there.’
‘If they don’t give you away first,’ Daisy Filmer pointed out.
Which was a possibility, after all.
‘It’s very kind of you —’
‘Never mind that. You coming or not?’
‘We have our own vehicle,’ Ruth explained.
‘Please yourself …’
The Filmers wasted no time arguing. Within seconds they had reversed the car and disappeared down the track in a fine spray of mud. The two women stood at the top of the steps, the rain falling ceaselessly about them, and watched as the fancy vehicle disappeared like the death of hope.
‘We’d better get our things together,’ Marge said. ‘Quick as we can.’
They ran indoors.
Ruth didn’t have much. Just as well; if the orderlies were coming too there would be little room for luggage. In five minutes she was ready. She went to the kitchen where Aung Myat was placing stores in readiness: rice, vegetables, tea, a large container of water. Ruth helped him carry them to the jeep and stow them inside.
‘There won’t be room for everyone.’
‘Missy?’
‘I don’t see how we’re all going to fit in.’ But saw that he did not understand.
She went into the surgery, put together a first aid kit with what drugs there were and some of the famous bandages, carried it back outside.
It had stopped raining. In the east, over China, the sky was clearing, rags and tatters of blue showing through the regiments of cloud. She walked to the edge of the drop and stared out at the forest and the distant range of hills. Marge D’Arcy had told her that beyond them were more hills, extending northwards for hundreds of miles. All of them drowned in the jungle’s green tide.
She turned to look in the opposite direction but the view was no different. Everywhere the miles of forest with themselves in the midst of it, islanded on their hilltop.
We shall have to drive through that, she thought. With the Japs behind us and no real idea where we are headed or how far away help is. Even if there is any help. What was it the lieutenant had said?
‘There is no line.’
If the Chinese army really had collapsed the Japanese might be anywhere.
Ruth did not see how they could survive.
Even up here, the moist propinquity of the forest seemed to suffocate. How much worse it would be when they were driving through it. And the fuel would not last forever. What would they do when it was gone?
You will walk.
A voice spoke unbidden in her ear.
I can’t, she thought.
But knew, of necessity, she would.
One step after another, one foot, one yard, one mile, one hundred miles …
She imagined herself strangled by the clammy forest in the same way that the snake-like vines murdered the trees. She had a vision of sunlit uplands, the view from the farmhouse that was so far away, and a small, red van trailing its cloud of dust as it climbed the hill.
She could have wept with fear and loneliness. Dear God.
She turned to walk back to the jeep. A sound penetrated her consciousness. The noise of engines, far away but coming rapidly closer, the drone swelling to a roar. She looked up, panic clutching. Heading this way, a pattern of black dots moved swiftly against a background of shredding cloud. The dots swelled terrifyingly, became the wings and bodies of aeroplanes. Sunlight shone through the clouds and gleamed on the perspex cockpit covers, the red circles on the wings. As one, the planes turned on to their wingtips and dived, engines howling. Ruth saw the sleek noses pointing like hunting sharks at the ground. Pointing at her. There was nothing impersonal about this. They were hunting her. Now, it seemed, they had found her.
The sun glinted on the tiny shapes of bombs as they fell, growing larger and larger and an eye blink later disappearing behind the screen of trees that ran along the far side of the buildings. Their scream was like a spike in the head. The impact was terrific. The bombs had missed the buildings but one must have landed this side of the trees. Shrapnel fell in a hissing rain. The earth rocked against Ruth’s body as she lay with her face in the mud, eyes clenched in pink-shot darkness. The din of the planes receded. She raised her head. The bombs had missed but they would be back. And next time …
Ruth ran.
Marge D’Arcy was lying just inside the open doorway. For a moment Ruth thought she was dead but at the sound of Ruth’s running feet she raised her head.
In those few seconds she had aged fifty years. Her face, white and haggard, was the face of an old woman. Her lips trembled slackly, her cheeks were streaked with tears, the front of her uniform was covered in mud that she made no attempt to brush away.
‘We shall all be killed,’ she wept, clutching the doorpost with hands like talons.
Great, Ruth thought. I was counting on the two of us supporting each other. Now it looks like I’ll have to do everything myself.
‘Come along,’ she said. She put her arm around the older woman’s trembling body. ‘Let me help you to the jeep.’
By which Aung Myat was standing.
‘Help Sister D’Arcy into the passenger seat,’ Ruth instructed.
She did not wait to see her orders obeyed but ran back to the building for her case, for Marge D’Arcy’s case. Two of the orderlies watched her. Their brightly-coloured longyis were brilliant in the light but their faces were sullen. They watched her pick up the cases but made no move to help her.
Ruth had no time for sulks.
‘Come along if you’re coming. Where are the others?’
One of them, named Ang Bau, spoke a little English. She said, ‘Where you going?’
‘North.’
‘Japanese come.’
‘Looks like it.’
‘When you come back?’
‘I don’t know.’
The two women conferred. ‘We come with you.’
‘Get a move on, then.’
Here we go again, Ruth thought as they ran down the steps together. Mindowie, Malacca and now Lai-hka. I’m getting an expert at leaving places.
They went to the jeep. Marge D’Arcy sat unmoving, eyes staring through the windscreen. She did not turn her head or speak as the Karen women climbed into the back where Aung Myat was already seated.
Ruth got behind the wheel. Above them the skies were empty but in the direction of town a column of black smoke rose silently into the air.
Aung Myat pointed. ‘What is smoke?’
‘We’ll soon find out,’ Ruth told him. ‘We’re heading that way.’
The Chinese soldiers that George Filmer had mentioned must have gone on; for the moment the road was empty. Which was a relief of sorts. Just before the first buildings of the town a bus lay on its side in the ditch, engine blazing merrily. A dozen passeng
ers sat disconsolately at the side of the road. One of them had blood on his face but when Ruth went to examine him she found it was no more than a bang on the nose suffered when the bus overturned. A line of bomb craters ran down the middle of the road and the stink of explosive was heavy in the air. No one was seriously injured.
Ang Bau, the English-speaking orderly, was clutching her arm.
‘What is it?’
‘Missy come.’
‘We’ve only got a minute.’
But went, anyway.
A small house with a banana palm beside it. The orderly led the way up a flight of wooden steps to a tiny verandah and into the darkness of the only room.
There was a smell: of blood, fear.
In one corner a woman lay on a bed made from sacks. One glance and Ruth saw at once what the problem was.
Beside the bed was an old woman, wrinkled face, toothless mouth. She spoke to the orderly who turned to Ruth.
‘Baby not come. Woman try, try, no good.’
You haven’t time for this, Ruth’s mind screamed. Women have been having babies for thousands of years, it’s a natural process, for God’s sake. Let her get on with it and leave us alone. We must keep moving. The Japanese are coming.
She bent over the woman. She was so young, no more than a child, the bones beneath the golden skin as slender as reeds. Blurred with pain, brown eyes watched apprehensively from a sweat-stained face. There was blood where her teeth had bitten through the lip.
‘First child,’ Ang Bau said.
Ruth examined her. In one part of her frightened mind she handled her roughly, hating the woman for endangering her in this idiotic way, but the rest of her consciousness was checking, assessing, and her hands were gentle.
‘Trying, trying long time,’ the orderly explained, self-important. ‘Baby not come. Now she frightened she die. If she die baby die, too.’
Ruth straightened. ‘The jolly thing is in breech,’ she said.
It was something she could have done without, but …
‘It is my job, I suppose,’ she informed the shadowed room, the uncomprehending faces.
‘Missy?’
