Those Americans were George and Marjorie CoUey, mar-
tied two weeks before, Betty and Harry Weber, and Dr.Ashton Laidlaw. George Colley and Harry Weber were en-gineers, used in building Manila defenses, and Ashton Laid-law was an American dentist who had left Shanghai for theUnited States via Manila, and had been almost caught there.George and Marjorie, the honeymooners, had been marriedin Manila. George, who was bursting with vitahty, was, Ilearned, a graduate of the University of California from myyear. Marjorie was very young, with the extreme slendernessof the American girl, a mark not of frailness, but of speedand vitahty. I found her fascinating to look at, with goldenskin, long rope-colored hair, and hazel eyes.
Betty Weber was backbone-of-the-country stuff —soundlooks, warm heart, downright, and a swell cook, they said.Weber was tall and fine-looking. Dr. Laidlaw was convincingand pleasant, the kind that wears well.
They had beaten their way down to Borneo in a small boat,and were fed-up with seasicl^ess and escape. They were pre-pared to relax momentarily in the peace and security of Bor-neo, which, they assured us, nobody wanted except the Eng-Ush!
Harry quoted Murphy then, and said, “Get out! Get out!Get another boat and get out. Keep going. Don’t stop here.We have to stay — you don’t!”
“Aw, nobody wants Borneo but you!” they said.
So they rested and relaxed, and two days later the Japsmoved closer. Harry warned them. Hastily the Colleys,Webers, and Laidlaw got together a boat and crew, andheaded out of the harbor. Too late: they couldn’t get farenough away; they got caught.
Saturday afternoon Harry heard that the Japs had beensighted off the coast of Borneo in small launches, fighting theirway through a heavy storm, headed in our direction.
The darkest hours of all my life followed.
In Sandakan there were then forty-five European men,twenty-four wives, and eleven children to offer passive re-sistance. The plan was that, when warning of a Japanese land-ing came, the women and children were to go immediately toone of three different places, in various parts of the town, asit was feared to leave us alone in our homes when the soldierscame in. When this plan was made I had asked to remain atmy own home, and had been refused. The government menwere of course to go to their posts.
Three residences were chosen for the women to stay in:the Mitchel place on the hill where the children had their big-gest and best birthday party, the home of Mr. Phillipps onthe waterfront at the other end of town, and GovernmentHouse, which was my place to go. Government House wasonly five minutes’ walk from home, and my suitcase was al-ready there.
All day Sunday the rain poured down. Gray sheets of itclosed us off from the harbor, from the hills and the road,from everything but the dripping trees in the garden. Therewas no sound of the town, of the apes, of the servants, ofanything but the rain all day.
Then the telephone rang. “There’s a vile storm at sea. Per-haps they won’t make it, in those small launches! But be ready.The Japs have passed Kudat, we know.”
30 Three Came Home
Six o’clock came, and again the telephone rang. “Go toGovernment House immediately, please.”
I told Harry good-bye in our bedroom. I am very bad atgood-byes. Every nasty thing I have ever said reproaches methen, and all my love overwhelms me: I want to put it aU inone moment. I said good-bye, and I added, “If only we couldbe together!”
Harry said, “We wiU never part like this again!”
George had his best blue checkered pants on, and his bluepullover jersey, and there was milk on his chin. He carriedhis panda bear, and a cigarette tin with shells in it. He wasexcited and his blue eyes were very bright. His round fore-head was smooth and unworried. Thank God he’s so young,I thought, too young to know!
I took George and went downstairs. Harry followed. Hedidn’t say anything to George; he couldn’t.
I put George in Harry’s arms for one moment; then I puthim in the pram and tucked the waterproof cover over him,and put up the hood. Then with Ah Yin holding the umbrellaover us we trundled down the road. Harry watched from theveranda. George popped his head out and shouted good-bye,as usual. But from behind him there came no answer.
At Government House that night I sat with the otherwomen in the long living room while we talked about thingsthat meant nothing to us. Some sewed, some knitted. I justsat. Then we went up to bed.
I got up several times that night to look at George. Heslept. I wondered if Harry was stiU at home, waiting diesignal. I looked out of the window; the rain had stopped. Iwent to bed again. And I learned to pray.
We got up early the next morning, and the women met be-fore breakfast on the veranda; we were gray in the face. Thechildren were fine: quarrelsome, hungry, and noisy.
His Excellency the Governor and the Government Secre-tary were in the reception room waiting. Waiting for the
Dark Hours 31
Japanese to find ont what we had done to the town and itsresources.
That was seven o’clock on Monday morning, January 19,1942. The storm-battered Japanese launches had anchoredoffshore the night before in the dark. Now they ramp to thewharf, they were landing. The British Resident, East Coast,was at the wharf waiting for them, standing alone, unarmed.In the prow of the first Japanese landing launch was theBritish Resident, West Coast, unarmed. The Japanese hadbrought him along and placed him there to get shot first, incase we shot. I always wondered what these two Englishmensaid as they passed each other.
Then a shot was heard. We thought it was the Residentbeing shot by the Japanese. It turned out later to have been aEuropean who had committed suicide in his home.
After the shot, noise, excitement, confusion came up to usfrom the town. Before this, the stream of Chinese women,coolies, and market people on the road had been flowing pastGovernment House into Sandakan; now the stream startedto flow the other way, out of town. Faster, faster, faster;soon the people started to run.
The phone rang. The Governor was to go immediately,quickly, without delay, down into town, and be interviewedby the angry Japanese generals.
Now on the crest of the stream of Asiatics racing past Gov-ernment House came the Japanese troops. Baggy-breeched,heavy-booted, small men with big guns, bayonets fixed, theypoured over garden and lawn. They surrounded, entered,raced through Government House, and stationed themselvesinside and out. They were shock troops; they needn’t havebeen, there was nothing tough about us.
They threatened and browbeat, bullied and frightened us;they moved in wfith us. In the first few days they took ourwatches, fountain pens, knives, and any other belongings theywanted, if we didn’t get them hidden first.
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Three Came Home
They tried to get drunk; we locked up the liquor, thenpoured it out. Sometimes we bluffed them; more often theycalled the bluff. Sometimes they were kindly, sometimes theyplayed with the children, but always it was with a gun bytheir side. Charming them was like charming a cobra; younever knew when it would strike. But they didn’t kill us, orrape us.
From that day until September i r, 1945, we were to live incaptivity. Violent things happened about me, and to me. Butin all of my life there is nothing for sheer mental terror toequal those forty-eight hours before the Japanese came.
When the Japanese fully realized the lack of supplies onhand, they didn’t like it a bit. They said it was an act of waron our part to destroy these things, and that this had washedout their first idea of making a peaceful occupation. It seemsthey had expected us to save our oil, petrol, scrap iron,motors, launches, industrial machinery, and high octane totrade with them, m exchange for our lives, and the spirit wehad shown in destroying them was not friendly.
One young man was actually caught red-handed on thegolf course, pouring out petrol while the Japs marched in.They sentenced him to immediate death. But somebody for-
33
Dark Hours
got to execute the sentence. A few days passed, the Governorpleaded for him, and the young man, who drew marvel
ouslywell, made funny pictures for his guards. More days passedand nothing happened. He was never reprieved, but he justwasn’t executed.
They interned all the government men in the second-classward of the Sandakan Civil Hospital, while they decidedwhom to shoot. They argued about this for a week. Duringthis period the men became familiar with the Japanese meth-ods of extorting information, and their guards went throughthe ward hourly throughout the night, deliberately awaken-ing all the men. Then as the Japanese generals could notagree on whom to shoot, they decided instead to ask certainof the men to come out and work with them.
I remained at Government House two days. Then, as Iknew my home was being looted, and I was at that time mak-ing attempts to save things, I asked the Japanese military au-thorities to permit me to reoccupy my house. In those days,the Japanese termed their relationship to women “protectivecustody,” and under this relationship I was granted permis-sion to reoccupy the house on the hill.
The reason for this may have been that 1 had been intro-duced to the enemy through my book, the Japanese transla-tion of which had been widely read in Japan. Its subject,Borneo, was a country they were determined to take, becauseof its oil. I thanked God then that I had made no rash state-ments about the Japanese. If everyone who writes a bookknew he would sometime be helpless in the hands of hischaracters, literature would grow tame.
So I reopened my house, with George, Ah Yin, and AhKau beside me. Soldiers were billeted on both sides of me, butmy house, the military police said, was to be left alone. Thismeant that once in every forty-eight hours, when I called theinterpreter, the soldiers were turned out; the rest of the timeI held the fort with difficulty. The military police told me to
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Three Came Home
tell the soldiers not to come in. I took this seriously and triedit at first; then I realized it must have been a joke. Ah Yinand Ah Kau were brave as lions, practically spitting in sol-diers’ faces, but in spite of them the soldiers moved the fur-niture out from under us.
At this time I asked the mihtary police if soldiers wereauthorized to remove what they wished from my house. Theyanswered that they had the right to take anything they neededfor the prosecution of the war. I found that colored shirts,pens, clasp knives, silk stockings, piUows and drapes, sweaters,cheese and alcoholic drinks and cigarettes, all came under thishead.
One day I took a hammer and nails and nailed up thedownstairs windows and doors with bars of wood. Then weretreated upstairs to live. A Japanese came slumping acrossthe lawn from the billet next door. He was wearing a bluesilk shirt of Harry’s, and Harry’s gray trousers and slippers.He tried all the doors, then pounded and roared. Seeing nouniform, I stuck my head out of the window and shouted inEnglish, “Get out! Go away! This is my house. I have per-mission to live here.”
He understood. He went away. He came back with a sol-dier with a bayonet who started to knock in the door. I wentdown and opened it. I had George in my arms. The man madeviolent motions with his fists at me, but didn’t really hit me.
Dark Hours
35
I put George down in the next room with his blocks, andreturned to try again to explain that I had permission to behere. The man became more angry. I went to the telephoneto call the military police, thinking they would explain tohim on the phone. He struck the phone from me, and struckme. George picked up his blocks, and started to heave themat him through the door, one by one. The man bellowed likea bull and tore at George with his fist open. Ah Yin grabbedGeorge and faced the man, both of them livid through theiryellow skins. He subsided. But I am sure he would not havestruck George; the Japs were not brutal to children.
Then he called the military police. They came. They ex-plained to me that the man had read Land Beloiv the Windand had intended to make a friendly call on me. When hefound the doors were barred, he was insulted. When Istuck my head out and shouted at him, both he and the Em-peror were insulted, as he was a Japanese captain, just relax-ing temporarily in Harry’s silk shirt and gray trousers.
It took me three hours to apologize adequately for a cap-tain. At the end of that time, both the military police and thecaptain advised me again to close my doors tightly, and not tolet the soldiers in!
Sandakan was now being looted by the criminal elementamongst Asiatic civilians, as well as by Japanese and by un-employed coolies. As the sawmills had no machinery, therewere large numbers of idle, hungry men about. We alwaysslept with golfsticks on the pillow, as they were the onlyweapon left to us by the Japanese.
Meanwhile it was decided by the Governor of Borneo, onhis own judgment and in concurrence with Japanese de-mands, that certain men in essential services should be releasedfrom internment and should attempt to work with the Japa-nese for the good of the civilian occupants of the country.The services thus classified were medical, police, city watersupply, and food production.
The country had at no time supplied its own essential foods,and it was now expected that it would shortly be cut off fromthe outside. My husband, as Director of Agriculture, was con-sidered indispensable for the purpose of food production, andhe was released from imprisonment for this purpose only.
He returned to our home with me. It was a heartbreakingreunion. We thanked God at being together again, and tooknew heart. But I found that the nervous strain was worse whenhe was home. I was ready to put up with whatever I had tofrom the conquerors, but he was not ready to do so for me.When Ah Yin and I were alone together we could run, fight,weep, hide, evade, plead, and, if the time came, give in. WhenHarry was home I constantly trembled for fear chivalrywould force him to resent something on our behalf.
When living in such circumstances, working with the en-emy is impossible, and working against him is also impossible.I learned truly then the abject attitude which best befits thevanquished. We had food enough, and strength enough, atthat time, to resent in our whole beings the humiliationswhich came. Physical disintegration had not started; the com-plete panorama of degradation was not yet revealed to us.
At first I occasionally walked on the street. I was ridiculed,spat at, struck by soldiers; not always, but frequently enoughto soon keep me at home.
One day three soldiers came to the house when I was inbed with an attack of malaria. Ah Yin told them I was sick.They insisted that I come down. I put on a negligee and wentdown to the veranda, where they sat drinking our beer. Theyshowed me a map, and asked me to name the roads and thehouses on it for them. This I did as well as I could.
I was perspiring and the wind on the veranda was cool,and I began to shiver. They insisted that I must name all thehouses, which I could not do, as the map was not correctlydrawn. I felt very ill then, and was shivering, and sat downalmost fainting. They became angry with me for sitting
37
Dark Hours
down, and with the map for being wrong. They shouted, andstruck me, and when I stood up they pushed me roughlydown and struck me again and again. Then they left.
I went upstairs to bed, shaking. I became very ill. I waspregnant at that time. That afternoon I had a miscarriage.
We lived like this for four months. You do not die whensuch things happen. They are not killing matters. In warfare,they aren’t even serious ones.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon and very hot, just amonth after I had lost the baby. I was lying undressed on mybed, reading The First Five Years of Life. George was in thebedroom pulling out the drawers of my dressing table andinvestigating the contents. How much hke the apes he was inhis curiosity, I thought. He was into mischief, I knew, but itwas keeping him quiet.
The book advised me not to despair over infant bad habits,which disappear automatically as the child grows, new onesdeveloping with each new stage. As there is always somethingto worry about, why worry?
“George, take your thumb out of your mouth!”
I returned to the book now, comparing George as he wasat two years with George as he ought to be. Almost normal!Anyway, the book says don’t worry! Yes, Georg
e walks,runs, sleeps, eats, talks when he has something to say, is smartenough to get what he wants from everyone, and to controlintake and output. O.K., George!
Ah Yin’s bare feet come running up the stairs; she entersmy room hastily. “Missee! Missee! Japanese soldier say comequick! I tell him Missee sick, Missee in bed. He say mustcome.”
I knew enough now not to argue with the enemy. I put onmy black day kimono, took my lipstick away from George,put the powder box where he couldn’t reach it, pushed himinside the mosquito room in which I had been lying, and went
downstairs. I never heard the words “Japanese soldier” nowwithout a sickness of heart, George’s howls of rage at beingleft behind followed me.
The soldier stood at the door with his rifle, and handed mea mimeographed piece of paper. I read it. It was an order forall Europeans to appear at the Nipponese Mflitary Adminis-tration Headquarters at 3 p.m. on May 12, 1942. Today, thisvery hour.
I went upstairs and dressed quickly in my white sharkskinsuit. Whatever was coming, I knew it wouldn’t be good. Itold Ah Yin to keep George, and I ran all the way down thehill in the sun, to Japanese headquarters in the old govern-ment Secretariat Building.
There I found Harry, and about thirty men and women,the last vestiges of white authority in Sandakan. Harry and Isaid little. The room was stifling with heat, sweat, nerves, andstrained laughter. What was the joke? Nothing. What did welaugh at? Nothing. We only laughed in order not to cry.
"I^en the future is so bad you can’t face it — but you mustface it, and you wish to face it — what can you do? Humanbeings are hard put to find the right reaction, when strengthis being tested too far: some scream, some cry, some becomeangry, some laugh. We guessed at the news that we had beenassembled to hear that day. We were trying to take it withouttears, so we laughed.
Three Came Home Page 4
