Above the Fold

by Peter Yeldham

  “And terrified,” Ben spoke persuasively to him and then explained to the others. “He is really frightened. We’re gaijins, foreign invaders, and he thinks we’re the enemy,” he said, then spoke softly again to the boy, who had gradually stopped trembling. He finally nodded and then leaning towards Ben he whispered a reply.

  “You blokes get on with whatever you were doing,” Ben ordered, and waited until he and Luke were alone with the child. “I need to persuade him to take off these clothes so we can dry them, and get him warm and dry as well. See if you can find me a decent sized towel to wrap him in, Luke.”

  The studio had a bathroom and shower in the building, as well as a cupboard with towels. By the time Luke returned Ben had explained about getting dry, the boy was nodding and taking off his sodden shirt. That was when the pair of them saw it.

  “Jesus,” Ben whispered. The skin all over his back was raw. Vivid weals criss-crossed him as if he’d been thrashed by a whip.

  “Looks like he’s been tortured.” Luke tried to remain composed to avoid upsetting the boy, but he felt sheer horror. He stood and watched Ben speak, asking a question, and the child answering.

  “What is it, Ben? Did some bastard whip him?”

  “No. Some bastards dropped a bomb on him.”

  They wrapped him in the towels, and sat him in front of the heater again while Ben carefully asked more questions. Luke, who had mastered only a few words of Japanese, had to wait while Ben gradually started to learn the full story.

  “He was in Hiroshima that day, playing with some friends in the schoolyard before lessons began, but they’d had an argument and he’d was worried there’d be a fight. So he ran away from them. He saw the plane, just the one plane so he didn’t think it was dangerous, or realise it had dropped a bomb until …”

  Ben asked the boy another question, and listened to the answer. “He can’t remember much, except there was a loud banging sound and a dark cloud that made it feel like night-time … and he felt as if he was burning and on fire.”

  “This kind of cloud?” Luke took a sheet if paper and tried to sketch a mushroom cloud from the photographs he’d seen, showing it to the boy who took the sketch and stared at it. At last he nodded, then crumpled it in his small hand as if trying to obliterate the sight.

  Patiently Ben asked questions, and extracted scraps of memory from him about what had happened that day. “He never saw his friends again. They, like all the people in the streets, as well as the trams and motor cars, all seemed to vanish. It had been such a busy time, people going to work, buses, trams and cars in the street … then there was nothing. He was in some sort of air raid shelter, almost buried in it, and by the time he got out he did see some people running towards the river and jumping in. He would’ve done the same, only an old man, a neighbour of theirs, stopped him. That was when he found out people who jumped in to get cool had literally been boiled alive. It was the neighbour who explained this, and who told him that his parents, as well as his two brothers and a sister, were all dead. By the way, his name is Kaito.”

  The boy nodded when he heard his name.

  “Kaito,” Luke repeated the name, and smiled. The boy nodded again, but still seemed too nervous to smile in return. Ben began to quietly ask him more questions, a lengthy process this time, then he translated the answers for Luke.

  “It’s a bloody miracle he survived. He doesn’t remember where he slept that night. He doesn’t even know if it was night or not, because everywhere was so dark and quiet. No sounds of anything. No people. But when he woke up it was daylight. The old man had wandered off somewhere, he never saw him again, and from that time he’s been alone. I think he’s been in constant pain, living in the streets, sleeping where he could find shelter, and existing on food he found in rubbish bins.”

  “Poor little kid,” Luke said softly. “How old is he? Six or seven, by the look of him.”

  Ben asked and was surprised by the answer. “He’s nine. I don’t think he’s had a decent meal or a proper sleep in months. When his clothes stank he tried to wash in the sea, but it was too cold. So he stole clothes when he could.

  “What can we do?”

  “Take him to the hospital,” was the reply.

  While they waited for his clothes to dry, Ben spoke to him and listened to the boy’s halting replies.

  “He found a wooden packing case at one of the seaports, a place called Ngoshi, and slept in that until he was chased out of it. Some fishermen chopped up the crate for firewood. Nobody helped him, they kept chasing him away … as if he had the plague or something. I don’t understand it, but he’s had a terrible few months. God knows how he survived.”

  When his clothes were dry enough Luke asked Jim Marks to back the jeep as close as possible to the door, to avoid Kaito getting wet again. The lieutenant took his own warm sheepskin coat and wrapped the boy in it, saying he’d try the army hospital first. He carried Kaito to the jeep, and the rest of the staff gathered to watch them being driven away.

  Three hours later, when there was still no sign of the jeep returning, nearly the entire unit were at the studio building waiting for news. The four announcers, the engineering staff, the orderly room sergeant, and even the cook and his assistant had all heard about it, and gathered in the music library wondering at the delay. Luke and Tobias had been trying to ring the hospitals, but without getting helpful answers. Yes, the small boy had been taken in to see a doctor, but nobody knew what had happened since then. They thought he’d been moved to another hospital.

  “That’d be the public hospital,” said Billo Saunders, the hugely fat cook of their unit, who everyone said looked like the film star Sydney Greenstreet. “A bloody horrible place, kept me waiting there for hours, when I went to see them with stomach trouble.”

  “That’s what comes of eating your own tucker,” Tobias remarked. The senior announcer considered himself a bon vivant, a patron of Melbourne’s best restaurants, and complained constantly about the kind of food that Billo served. Their frequent arguments sometimes made Luke think with some nostalgia of Steven and Barry.

  It was long after dark when they saw the headlights of the jeep returning. It pulled up as close as possible to the door, and Ben Warren carried Kaito back inside. The boy was almost asleep, still wrapped in the sheepskin coat, and the lieutenant carrying him looked tired and angry.

  “We nearly sent out a search party,” Luke said. “They certainly kept you. What did the hospital say?”

  “They can’t do anything for him.”

  “What? Nothing?”

  Ben warned them with a look not to sound alarmed. “Act normal. Try not to let him see we’re upset. The poor little bloke’s been passed around like a parcel.”

  “But what the fuck happened?”

  “Later. Let’s get him settled down first.”

  There was a spare room at the studio with a bed for off-duty or late-night announcers, as well as a tiny kitchenette. Billo boiled him some rice, Luke fed it to the exhausted child who could hardly open his mouth, then put him on the bed to rest. He fell asleep almost at once. After that everyone gathered back in the music library to hear what had taken place at the hospital.

  “Both hospitals,” Ben said. “We went to the army clinic first, had to wait till one of the quacks there examined him. Not that it achieved much. All he could do was confirm it as radiation sickness, and said the only chance of treatment was at the public hospital. So we went there, waited until they could find someone in authority, which was when we learned they’ve had to turn cases away, because there’s no spare beds, and also there’s no known treatment.”

  There was a stunned silence. “Then what happens?” Tobias asked, and that was followed by a clamour of other questions. “Where’s he going to go?” “What the hell can we do?”

  “Well, I know for sure we’re not going to kick him out to live in the street again,” was Ben’s answer, and none of them disagreed with that.

  “Can we take
him with us back to the barracks?” Billo asked.

  “No spare rooms, Billo. We could rig up something and let him share a room with one of us, but I think in the morning when they came to work we might have trouble with the house-girls.”

  “Why?” Luke was among the others all puzzled by the answer.

  “Do any of you realise that a lot of Japanese believe radiation sickness is catching?” Ben asked. They all stared at him blankly. “That’s what I was told at the public hospital. The doctors and nurses don’t believe it, but people working there in the wards and laundries do. So do half the population. And that’s the real reason why they couldn’t, no, let’s be truthful and not fool ourselves, why they bloody well wouldn’t take him.”

  “Shit!” It seemed unreal to them, difficult to believe. “Catching?”

  “That’s what they said. Think about it, you blokes.” Ben was close to exhaustion and despair. After being forced to wait for hours, then turned away from two hospitals, none of his staff could blame him. He flopped into a chair and they gathered around him. “Just think about it! People keep getting sick. Try to imagine how it is. Someone is okay one day, the next day or next week they suddenly die. This place is a sea port, not a smart university town. People around here are farmers, dock workers, shopkeepers. They’ve seen or else heard that one single bomb killed a hundred thousand people, and still it keeps on happening. Like a curse, an affliction. More than seven months after the bomb, that little boy is sick … can you wonder they might be afraid of him? Might think they’d catch it, too? After all this time it goes on and on … people die and others can’t fucking understand why.”

  Tears were running down his face. He wiped them angrily with his sleeve, as if they betrayed him.

  “Like leprosy,” Luke said, “or the black plague …”

  “Yes, just like that.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “I’m buggered if I know,” Ben replied wearily. “I’ll have to talk to BCOF headquarters about it tomorrow, but one thing’s for certain. He has to stay here tonight, and all I can suggest is we take turns to sit with him, do our best to make sure he gets a proper sleep. Any volunteers?”

  “Of course.” Everyone volunteered. They settled on two-hour shifts, but by general accord insisted Ben Warren go back to the house to get a decent rest in his own room. He’d done all he possibly could, and tomorrow would not be an easy day.

  Four a.m. Luke looked at his watch, and got up from the floor where he was sleeping. His shoulders and arms felt stiff and sore from the hard surface, but he’d managed a few hours rest, and he went to the bathroom to pee and wash, then to the adjacent room where Jimmy Marks was asleep in a chair. Kaito was lying on the bed covered by a blanket. He was awake, his small face confused, eyes watching and recognising Luke as he shook Jim awake, telling him to head back to the house and get himself another hour or two in bed. The arrangement was for him to then drive the jeep back with Tobias to take over the babysitting, as well as bring rice and some eggs to be cooked for Kaito.

  “Did you get any sleep?” Jimmy asked, and Luke nodded. He stood by the window as Jim got into the jeep and drove away, then he turned back to look at Kaito. The boy was still awake and watching him. Luke could not help thinking of what he had seen in Hiroshima, the burnt city, miles of devastation. And a small boy like this running from an argument with his schoolmates, being half-buried in a shelter, then emerging to find nothing left. And ever since, trying to survive, being chased off by people who thought he might bring them death. Somehow surviving all these months. He shifted the chair closer to the bed and the boy, hoping not to frighten him, and held out his hand. Kaito gave a shy smile, reached out and took the offered hand, then closed his eyes. Luke sat there trying not to move, the frail little hand continuing to clasp his as Kaito fell asleep.

  EIGHTEEN

  It was in the next few days that Luke began to keep notes and write about events that followed. Somehow the news had reached headquarters in Kure before the details could be officially conveyed there, and a message was sent asking Lieutenant Warren to report and explain exactly what was happening at the studio building. When he arrived at HQ and described the situation, the officer in charge of personnel, Major Wilfred Bickerton, informed Ben the child must be removed from army premises.

  “Removed to where?” Ben asked, pointing out that no hospital would take him, and it seemed no doctor knew how to treat him. He tried to tell Bickerton there was no answer to the problem, and received a curt reply that the answer was simple. The Lieutenant would obey orders, and the child would be removed. He simply could not remain in military quarters. Ben returned to the studio angry and upset, predicting they would have trouble, and summoning a meeting of the entire unit, all sixteen of them, asking if he had everyone’s support in not complying with this order. The response was a unanimous affirmative.

  Later in the day came an official letter from the same major that was addressed to Lieutenant Warren and began:

  It has come to our attention you are sheltering an illegal Japanese person …

  It was such a cold unfeeling communication, demanding he remove the said person at once, that easygoing and likeable Ben completely lost his temper. He telephoned Bickerton and asked if he or anyone at headquarters had the slightest idea how much this boy had suffered, or how terrified local people were about the fear of transmission from this deadly thing called nuclear radiation?

  “Don’t you realise,” he said, giving the Major no chance to reply, “that most of them believe it’s a plague, and think that he’s a carrier? They’re scared shitless of the idea that this sick little boy could infect them. They think he’s dangerous.”

  “You’re out of order, Lieutenant,” he was told.

  “And you make me feel bloody ashamed,” Ben snapped back.

  None of the unit had heard him explode like this before. No-one could blame him. First that hospitals could turn away a sick child because they were scared of being infected and unable to treat him, and now the army ordering he be turned out into the street to fend for himself in the wind and rain. These reactions were vindictive and beyond anyone’s comprehension.

  When Ben calmed down, he attempted to talk rationally to those at HQ. He took Luke with him, and after apologising for his earlier behaviour, tried his best to reason with Major Bickerton.

  “No-one will take care of him, sir. The ordinary people in this district hadn’t heard of radiation before last year. How could they? Before Hiroshima there’d never been such a thing as a nuclear bomb. And from what I can gather this is something no-one can diagnose; it’s not like measles or scarlet fever or anything else — nobody knows that it’s in their bloodstream until too late. It’s like a pandemic, sir. It killed all those thousands on the days the bombs landed, and now all these months later it goes on steadily killing others. Surely you can understand that’s why people are confused and scared. That’s why we can’t get anyone to look after him.”

  Luke was proud of his commanding officer’s cogency, but could feel the stolid intransigence and knew the plea was wasted. Major Bickerton had been a travelling salesman in civilian life, and a volunteer in the pre-war militia. The same group his father had enthusiastically drilled with each Sunday morning. When war broke out and Bickerton joined the AIF, this previous service entitled him to the immediate rank of captain, and he’d served in military headquarters at Victoria Barracks until the armistice. A comfortable and safe job that never took him outside Australia until hostilities were over. He was in his fifties, occupying another cushy post in Japan as a major, and hoping to remain in the army as long as possible. A man who went strictly by the rules, and unlikely to commit himself to anything the least bit abnormal.

  “I accept your apologies, Lieutenant, and appreciate what you’re trying to say. But I have to remind you this is the army, we’re an occupying force and not here to look after stray children. The regulations are quite clear — he can’t remain on British
Commonwealth premises. You either find someone to look after him, or put him back where you found him.”

  They were both appalled. Luke was supposed to be there as support for his boss and to remain an onlooker, but on hearing this he felt unable to prevent himself. “We found him in the street, in teeming rain, sopping wet, cold and sick,” he said impulsively. “Do you really want us to turn him out to die in the street … Sir?”

  Major Bickerton was clearly affronted. Completely ignoring Luke, he addressed himself to Ben Warren. “You’d better learn to control your men, Lieutenant. If I’m spoken to like that again, this sergeant will be put on a charge. You’re both dismissed. I don’t want to hear another word from either one of you. Just get out, and get rid of that child. I don’t care how you do it, but those are your orders and I want them carried out immediately.”

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” Luke said as they left headquarters. “Dreadful pompous prick, I couldn’t help myself. But I’m afraid I didn’t do the cause any favours.”

  “The ‘cause’ never had a chance, Luke. Not with an amateur armchair warrior like that. It was my mistake to play within the rules. I should have kept it quiet while we looked after him, and never approached this mindless mob at HQ. Have you ever met such an intolerant bastard?”

  “No, I haven’t, mate. But what are we going to do? How the hell can we kick him out?”

  “We can’t. And we bloody well won’t.”

  They organised a schedule. For the next three days the unit took turns in keeping watch on Kaito, so there was always someone by his bedside. Billo kept up a supply of food from the kitchen, Jimmy Marks brought it to the studio each day to be heated over a gas ring they installed, providing food for the boy and his carers throughout the night. There was no treatment they could give him. The advice was to just feed him as much rice as he could be persuaded to eat, as well as fresh fruit, milk and treats like chocolates and ice-cream. Kaito’s eyes dilated with wonder as he ate the ice-cream, and for the first time in his life tasted chocolates.