There was an hour of waiting, then the Japanese Com-mander in Chief appeared, and addressed us at length in Japa-nese. While Japanese interpreters argued with each other asto the exact text of the Commander’s words, we got the driftunaided: We were to be ready to leave for prison camp in anhour’s time. We were permitted to take one suitcase each.The men would be imprisoned separately from the women.
We knew it had to come. It was one step further along theroad to the end.
Harry and I returned to our house under guard. We went
39
Dark Hours
upstairs and finished packing our akeady half-packed suit-cases. In my suitcase I placed a Bible, a dictionary, a RogersThesaurus, and writing materials, two pairs of canvas shoes,a pair of California play shoes, two sharkskin sport dresses,three pairs of shorts and three men’s shirts, two pairs of slacks,three woolen sweaters, a rose-colored kimono, nightgownsand underthings, wool socks and stockings, two berets, bathtowels and sheets, sanitary goods, a sewing kit, a few piecesof jewelry, four pairs of scissors, documents of identificationand nationality, a medicine flask of whiskey and an assortmentof necessary drugs in small quantities. And hidden through-out ail my clothing in pockets and hems were George’s tinyhaliveroil bottles and the calcium tablets.
We had already packed a separate small leather medicinecase, equipped completely with all drug supplies.
In George’s suitcase I packed a number of cotton sun suits,a few napkins for emergency, two pairs of canvas shoes, socks,several wool jerseys and shawls, and aU his baby bedding,small blankets, and so on, some cotton material, and a numberof his playthings.
We made up a small bedding roU, and also rolled up sepa-rately a small camp mattress. We had been told to bring onlyone suitcase each, but hoped we might be allowed more — al-though I knew I must be limited by my own carrying capac-ity, and the fact that I had George, in addition to the luggage,to maneuver.
We filled a packing case with concentrated foodstuffs es-pecially suited to a small child’s needs, such as powderedmilk, tinned butter, fortified milk, cereal, sugar, honey, glu-cose, prunes, raisins, corned beef. We also packed a smallbasket with china.
I took George from Ah Yin, who was in hysterics, huggingGeorge, sobbing frantically, begging me to take her with us,which I could not do, saying that we would aU be killed,which I thought probable. Then we were ready to leave oui
bedroom. Harry and I kissed each other good-bye, andHarry kissed George. Even George knew this time that therewas trouble, and whimpered in a puzzled way. I saw lying onmy bed The First Five Years of Life, open where I had leftit. I pushed it into my bag.
We dragged our luggage downstairs. We had done a lotin that hour. There was nothing to do now but wait for themihtary truck that was coming to take us. We went to thestoreroom and unburied from their hiding places two bottles.One was very fine, very old Three Star Brandy; the otherwas not so fine, not so old. We went out on the veranda. Theguard was at the door. We gave him the not-so-fine-or-oldbottle, and we sat doAvn ourselves with the other.
We drank our bottle. We wanted something to stupefyour senses and slow down our reactions; something to makethese last moments of parting bearable, to make these firststeps on the long road ahead of us endurable. We wantedcourage, drunken if no other. We drank our bottle. It didabsolutely nothing for us. Our strained nerves could not bereached by alcohol.
The guard drank his bottle; he went under the bushes snif-fling; he spoke good Enghsh now. “I feel so very sorry foryou — so sorry that the father and the mother and the childmust be parted. It is so very sad. It makes me cry.” He cried.
The military truck arrived. We walked out of our home.My mother and father still hung in their photos on the wall,in the dining room were the green crystal goblets of whichwe were proud, on the shelves were the ancient Celadonbowls. There was no place in our luggage for sentiment.
Thus we turned our back on all our worldly possessions.On things irreplaceable: on Harry’s library of Borneo books,perhaps the most complete in existence, his one self-indul-gence, collected through sixteen years; on the Chinese potterywe had bargained and gambled for with excitement with ped-dlers; on our wedding presents with their sentiment and ex-
41
Dark Hours
travagance; on my wardrobe of beautiful clothes — a weak-ness, but I loved them! On all the pleasant household godsthat other people had said to leave at home — “They’retoo good for Borneo!” But we didn’t look at it like that.Thus we turned our backs on these things. They were mate-rial. There was just one thing to fight for now . . . ourlives.
We left Ah Yin and Ah Kau on the veranda crying, Jibiand Herman in their cages calling, the guard under the bushessniffling, and we went down the path to the truck.
The Japanese officer in charge allowed us to put our suit-cases and the bedding roll on, but he refused the rolled-upmattress, he threw off the leather mediciue box, and he threwoff George’s box of foodstuffs. A tin of powdered nulk brokeopen and spilled in the dirt on the road; life and health in tinsand bottles, mixed with the Borneo soil. The truck started. Idid not look back.
The next stop was the Hills’ house. Susan and her mothergot on. They were escorted by a different Japanese officer.Their suitcases were loaded on, bedding rolls, basket withfoodstuffs, and Susan’s large red rocking horse. George eyedthe rocking horse and then me balefuUy; why hadn’t Ibrought his?
At the wharf the men were separated from the women.We were searched for money and it was confiscated. Wewomen compared notes on what we had brought; some hadbeen permitted more than others, according to the varyingwhim of each officer. And here on the wharf they were,the children of the birthday parties: Alastair, Sheena, Ranald,Derek and David, Carol and Michael, Susan and George.
Twenty-four women and nine children packed themselvesonto a very small launch. It was a twenty-minute ride toBerhala Island, but with Japanese military efficiency, withtheir backing and filling, we made it in five hours. LikeHarry and me, most people had sought for Dutch courage.
and on the launch reaction set in. Here in the dusk and thedark, we wept, prayed, laughed, cursed the enemy, and sanglullabies to the children. It was ten o’clock at night, the chil-dren had no supper, they were tired, excited, frightened, theycried until they dozed.
Finally we arrived at Berhala. The Lepers’ Settlement wason one side of the island and we were on the other, about amde distant, at the abandoned Quarantine Station. Here onthe broken wharf in the dark we unloaded children, selves,and luggage. Most of us had flashlights, and by the aid ofthese, carrying children and dragging suitcases, we climbedover the broken wharf to the land and followed the path tothe filthy wooden building which had once been the Govern-ment Quarantine Station.
That leaking, rotting, unventilated, unlighted, wooden-windowed building was retribution on us Europeans for al-lowing such a place to exist for the housing of anyone. It hadonce been used for quarantine of Asiatic arrivals, and in thissame building we had imprisoned some of the Japanese in-ternees five months before, when North Borneo was stillBritish. When I entered the building that night I wished thatwe had never initiated the idea of any human being occupy-ing it.
In the dark we were greeted by women from whom wehad been cut off for three and a half months, the wives ofthe government men who had not been released to workunder the Japanese. These women had been interned togetherin one home in Sandakan, while their husbands had beeninterned at Government House. Now today, with the sud-den order from Japanese headquarters that all Europeanswith the exception of doctors were to be placed on BerhalaIsland in complete isolation and custody, these women andwe ourselves had come together again. They had arrived onBerhala in the afternoon.
Here amongst them is Penelope Gray. Here also are Mar-
jorie Colley and Betty Weber, the two American womenwho escaped from the Philippines, and who were recapturedwhen the Japanese occupied Sandakan. And here are Mrs.Cho, Edith and Eddie, the Chinese Consul’s family.
Th
e sound of men’s voices in the distance tells us now thatthe men are bemg landed on the island too. They cannot bevery far.
Now in the darkness, with every need for calm and ac-complishment, that bottle of brandy suddenly takes effect.We have no food or drinking water, for we are afraid to useunboiled water from the tank outside. We have no fire, beds,baths, or lights; the children are exhausted, frightened, cry-ing; they cling to us tightly, making work even more hard.Now is the time when I need cool thought, clear head, andgood wind.
Instead I find I am stiff. Only with great concentration canI manage to hang up my mosquito net and lay down theblanket inside. Then in my white sharkskin suit, now mussyand dirty, with rats and cockroaches beside me, George and Ilie down together on the floor.
It is our first night of imprisonment. We are soft, weak,foolish, and helpless.
Some days later in the prison compound, behind a thirty-foot wooden boarding, we listen to the first of many addressesby Japanese commanding officers, expressing the followingsentiment; “You are a fourth-class nation now. Thereforeyour treatment will be fourth-class, and you will live and eatas coolies. In the past you have had proudery and arrogance!You will get over it now! ”
Throughout three and a half years they did their best tocure us of proudery and arrogance.
OtJR children in captivity were all less than four years old,three of them were only six months. One child was stUl inthe mother’s womb when we entered Berhala prison camp.
It was a strange nursery. There was no furniture, and weslept and ate on the floor, which was so rotten that when thechildren jumped on it they broke through. Centipedes livedunder us, and rats lived over us. The rats were so numerousthat the noise of their fighting, playing, eating, and copulatingkept us awake at night. They were so hungry they ate soapand buttons as well as food, and so aggressive that when wegot off our bedding rolls in the dark they bit om: bare feet.We tucked our mosquito nets under our blankets to protectourselves when we were asleep.
As we could leave no food around without the rats eatingit, I used to take remnants to bed with me to save them forGeorge the next day. Sometimes the rats would gnaw theirway into the net for the food. The first few times that therat and George and I found ourselves together in the net weall went crazy, including the rat. By and by we got usedto it.
The first week on Berhala was mental and physical torture.My muscles were unaccustomed to the work of carryingheavy buckets, of digging holes, of lifting weights and ofclearing land, and my stomach was unaccustomed to the food.I suffered inside and out.
But far worse to accept than the physical discomfort wasthe change in George. I saw that he was badly shocked bythe brutal shift in surroundings and manner of living. I wasthe only thing in that new grim life that meant security andsafety, and even I was different. He clung to me doggedly,with a grip that could not be loosened.
He followed me every waking moment, hanging to theedge of my shorts. If I went to the latrine shelter he stood inthe grass outside as near as possible, his thumb in his mouth,waiting. If anyone tried to remove him —or take care ofhim for me — he screamed in terror and rage. I watched hiscomplete unnerving, his loss of confidence, his mystification,his fright, and I saw that he was on the verge of establishingfor life nameless complexes and psychological maladjustments.The realization then of his complete dependence on me formental and emotional stability in his future life, as much as forphysical health, forced me to make a tremendous effort toaccept difficulties and dangers, if not calmly, at least withouthysteria or tears. Weak though I knew myself to be, I wantedhim to believe me all-powerful, ready to cope with all emer-gencies.
Fortunately this struggle to establish mental security forhim took place before my physical strength was drained bystarvation. By the time that I was fighting for the actual foodto keep him alive, he believed me all-powerful to do anything,took it for granted that the food would appear, and acceptedother incidents of camp life in his stride.
For a while we kept small bowls of oil with wicks floating,which we burned at night to give us light. The oil was coco-nut oil given as a ration. But soon the Japanese stopped givingus oil, and we got so hungry we ate what we had, and bythat time we had burned up all the cloth for wicks. So thenwe lived in the dark.
The barrack had no glass in the windows, just solid woodenshutters. Although it wasn’t the rainy season when we ar-
rived, it rained much of the time on Berhala, the rain andwind driving furiously upon us from the sea side of theisland. At such times we had to have the shutters closed tight,leaving no ventilation or light, either by day or by night.
The building itself was made of loose shakes, with cracksbetween, and the rain drove through. I lived on the side ex-posed to the ocean wind. It rained almost every night, and forsix months I rolled up George’s and my sleeping thingsnightly and moved them to a dry spot, and sat on them untilthe rain abated. I never could unroll them in a dry spot,because there wasn’t room enough. The dry places were fullof somebody else. Those nights George slept with Edith andEddie and Mrs. Cho, the Chinese Consul’s family, the four ofthem lying on her feather mattress which her amah hadrescued for her.
There were two cement latrine holes in camp. These hadno containers or outlets, and no manner of being emptied, soafter a few experiments we stopped using them. Then theJapanese gave us two corrugated tin buckets to use, and thesewe stood outdoors behind a shelter.
We took turns disposing of their contents. At first we dugholes in the compound, and buried the refuse, but we had nogood digging tools, and there was a rock layer just under thetopsoil; when it rained we couldn’t get the refuse to stay be-low water level, and excrement floated about the compound.The compound became crowded with refuse holes, and thewhole place stank. It was like nothing else I ever smelled. Wedidn’t pass through that smell holding our noses. We simplyate, slept, and lived in it.
In time the Japanese decided to permit us to empty thelatrine buckets in the sea, five minutes’ walk away, twice aday. The men’s camp asked permission to do this work for us,but the Japanese refosed, as they beheved in equal rights forthe sexes when it came to excrement. When it was my turn toempty the bucket, I used to carry George on one side and the
bucket on the other. We carried the buckets out to the endof the wharf, experimented with the wind, dumped in therefuse. From thence it was carried back to the shore by thecurrent, to the beach where we bathed.
It was a rule in camp that the buckets should be used forfaeces only, as otherwise they filled up too fast, so one cornerof the compound was used as a urinal. It did not offer theseclusion of those in Paris.
A hooded cobra was said to sleep in the latrine shelter atnight, by one of the buckets. Some said they saw it, and allof us heard it. I never saw it there, but I know that there werecobras in the grass outside the compound. Whether the cobrawas in the latrine or not, the idea of his being there wassufficient.
The change in diet for all of us, and a dysentery epidemicamong the children, made it necessary to keep one latrinebucket in our sleeping quarters on rainy nights. The soundsof that bucket in use, the odor of it, the thought of it, makewar more deadly and unendurable to me now than does thememory of all the bombs dropped over us in 1945.
The first few months on Berhala we had comparativelygood food and didn’t know it. Looking back later, we enviedourselves.
In our homes we had been used to a balanced diet of freshvegetables and fruits, milk and butter and eggs, meats andfish, and rice or bread or potatoes.
Now we had rice. It gave us indigestion, but there wasplenty of it. It was broken rice with powdered lime through-out to keep the weevils out, which it didn’t do. It had to besieved and shaken and washed many times to get rid of thelime, and hunks of lime stUl turned up in the finished product.The rice kernels were broken, and it was what the Chinesecalled Number Three, or Number Four, or “sweepings,”meaning rice that had been swept up off the floors whengood rice was being packaged. Not even the Chinese coolieswou
ld have used it in Sandakan. This was the bulk of our diet.
Once a day we had masses of what we then considered aninedible vegetable. It was in the same category as spinach:green, leafy, with a metallic flavor; but where spinach wascapable of being masticated this had to be swallowed in ropes,as the stalks were Hke green rubber tubes. The local namewas kang kong. In time we improved our technique with itby chopping it up small before cooking. Then the effect wasthat of swallowing small rubber washers, instead of lengthsof tubing.
Sometimes we had salt fish or dried shrimps. We said wecouldn’t eat that rotten stuff. Then a few experimented, andgot sick. We got hungrier, and more ate it and got sick. We
got hungrier still, and everybody ate it, and soon nobodygot sick.
For breakfast we had two rolls, then one roll, then after sixweeks the flour gave out and we had none. Then we hadbananas, in diminishing quantities, until in time we had nobananas.
We always had tea. It was dished up in a bucket similar tothe latrine bucket, with the tea floating thickly on top (be-cause the water hadn’t boiled) and in the bottom —bugs.A small ration of salt was supplied and a little sugar, about adessertspoonful a day. Later the salt ration disappeared, andthe sugar diminished.
The contract for feeding us on Berhala was let to a Chinesefrom Sandakan. He supphed the materials and cooked thestuff, and hurled it at us. In time the contractor was dis-covered in a deal with some prisoners and he lost the contract.Then our men were told to do the cooking for themselves andus. The kitchen was outside the women’s compound and wewere not allowed near it. The men cooked the food and thenstood it outside our barbed-wire barricade in buckets, whichwe collected and brought inside our camp. Berhala was theonly camp in which the women did not do their own cooking.
We learned, by watching through a crack in the fencewhen the men went by to work, what men were interned onBerhala Island now. His Excellency the Governor and all thegovernment men were present, with the exception of Dr.Taylor and Dr. Wands, and Dr. Laband, the dentist. Most ofthe commercial men of Sandakan were here, a number ofRoman Catholic priests both British and Dutch, and theChurch of England priests. The Chinese Consul and his as-sistants, Mr. Li and Mr. Yang, were also interned.
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