Three Came Home

by Agnes Newton Keith

  All our old Asiatic friends, Chinese, natives, Filipinos, indue time established contact with me. The proper time fordoing so was between two and four m the afternoon. This washospital rest hour and smuggler’s hour. The nurses eitherwent to sleep, or went into town to play Bingo, or listened onthe telephone for lottery results. The patients slept, died, or

  82 Three Came Home

  made their beds. But no oJfEcial was ever afoot with legitimatebusiness at this hour in the hospital.

  I would be awakened from my nap in the afternoon by someold Asiatic friend seated on my bed, with a fistful of Japanesemoney and a basket of food. Generally I would not take themoney, for I knew they were making very little themselves,and could not spare it.

  I .spent the last evening before I expected to return toBerhala sewing $350 in Japanese currency into the hems ofmy trousers. This was sent by various Asiatics to be deliveredby me to their friends in camp. Our return was unexpectedlydelayed twenty-four hours when George developed a boil.Thanks to this delay, the following afternoon at rest hour ayoung Chinese arrived, sat on my bed, puUed out from underhis coat a stack of one-dollar notes, requested me to deliverthem in stated sums to the people whose names he had on alist. He said that he had brought it in one-dollar bills think-ing these would be more easily disposed of by us. Therewere I325 in all. This, with the other cash I had, made $675.This was a fortune in the first days of the war, with moderateprices.

  I was horrified. My clothes were already stiff with money,I had no place to conceal more, and I did not dare to take alist of the people to whom it was to go. I might be called onto leave at any moment, but I could not refuse to take whatmeant food and health to the prisoners of Berhala. I asked theChinese to change his money into ten- and twenty-doUarbills and bring it back to me, saying I would do my best toget it in. In twenty minutes he was back with the change inthe biUs I had requested, and with the physical dimensionsof the cash considerably decreased.

  I sewed busily that night. I made an mner belt for mytrousers and lined it with bids, and then sewed two brassierestogether with the money between them. None of this con-cealment would stand up against an exhaustive search, but I

  hoped that the Nips would continue to be stupid aboutsearching, I then memorized the list of people to whom themoney was to go.

  I did not sleep easily that night. In addition to the money Iwas hoping to get into camp ten pounds of sugar, two finsof butter, two tins of powdered milk. This was “concealed”in a moderate-sized suitcase; that is, it was bundled insideclothing. If the Japanese questioned my having it, I wouldsay that the nurses had given it to me, and hope that nothinghappened.

  None of this contraband compared in hazard to the deliveryof the letter from the Australian officer at the Australian POWcamp in Sandakan to a civilian prisoner on Berhala. This wasconcealed in George’s panda bear, and George carried thebear.

  During all internment, George’s toys and other possessionsconcealed my secrets. I could not take him into my confidencefor he had the habit of confiding our secrets trustingly toeveryone he met. Instead I put my trust in his toys and pos-sessions, which he treated with a casualness that gave me heartfailure.

  We left the hospital at 9 a.m;. By 10.30 we were back onBerhala. The same officer who had brought us from Berhalawhen we were iU escorted us back. The guard searched ourluggage, and made no comment on the food; he felt me allover carefuUy, turned my pockets inside out and pinchedthe thick places in my garments, and passed me in.

  We re-entered prison camp. The blank wooden fence againbore down on me. The barbed-wire barricade closed to behind.I was met at the gate by a friend. “Is there any news? Is ittrue that Singapore has been retaken by the Allies? ”

  “No.”

  “Will it be much longer do you think?”

  “A year anyway.”

  “Oh, don’t be a pessimist!”

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  Three Came Home

  This was December 1942.

  George was met by a pal of his. They instantly engaged ina struggle over Panda. The pal grabbed the bear and threwit over the barricade outside camp. It fell ten feet away at thefeet of the Japanese guard. In it was the news letter fromthe Australian POW. I felt sick.

  “George, ask the guard to throw in your bear.” The guardswould do things for the children that they wouldn’t do foradults.

  George, becoming coy: “The guard will be angry.”

  “But you want your bear, darling.”

  “I don’t care; the guard can have it.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Ask him for your bear.”

  “It’s my bear, and I don’t want it.”

  “GET THAT BEAR!”

  George recognized the tone; he got the bear. The Berhalaprisoner got the letter. And the next time I concealed secretsin Panda, I told George that Panda had an operation and hadto rest in hospital. Then I sewed up the incision and laidPanda to rest in the suitcase, until release came.

  I sent word to Harry to meet me that night at ten at theusual place. I hadn’t seen him since the night George and Iwere delirious with fever and the sympathetic guard broughthim over to us.

  Harry was waiting for me under the coconut palm. I passedover a wad of money to him, for the men in his camp. He hada nice little hollow scooped out in the grass for us. It wasgood to be with him again, even here, even back in prison.

  We looked up at the sky and the stars. Not the moon, forif there was a moon we didn’t meet. We listened to the mensinging in his camp.

  “My God, how can they do it? What keeps them cheerful?”I said. “It’s no use kidding ourselves — we won’t be out ofhere for a year. None of that dope about Hong Kong and

  Malaria

  85

  Singapore being retaken is true. The U. S. hasn’t even beenheard of yet! The doctors in Sandakan told me that the waris just where it was six months ago. My God! I just can’t standit for a year more. I’ll be dead by then!”

  “There’s a lot of talk in camp about repatriation,” saidHarry. “Perhaps the women and children will be sent home.”

  “But what about you? I don’t want to go home withoutyou.”

  “If you get a chance to go, you go!”

  “But Harry, I can’t believe that we may be here for monthsand years more! It isn’t possible. Why, we can’t stand it sixmonths longer on this food, in this climate, and in this filth.”

  Happy New Year

  Here on Berhala I remet a family of four Europeans fromSandakan, who had gone up the Kinabatangan River to escapethe Japanese before the occupation. The mother and twochildren had been staying on Dr. Stookes’s farm up the riverfor some time before, and when news came that the Japanesewere on their way to Sandakan the husband joined them, andthey went hastily up the Kinabatangan in a small boat, formany miles.

  Here they hid for some months, establishing a small home-stead well away from traffic. If they had been self-supportingthey might have remained undiscovered for some time longer,but they had to rely on the nearest native shop on the riverfor tinned milk and certain foods. When a price was placed onthe heads of escapees by the Japanese, someone who knew ofthe whereabouts of this family betrayed them for a reward.The Japanese came up the river, surprised and made themprisoners, brought them back by boat, and imprisoned themon Berhala Island with us. There I found them when I re-turned from the hospital in Sandakan. They told us that theyhad not been mistreated by the Japanese when taken prisoners.

  Here now were two more of the Sandakan Junior Leaguers,lovely, elusive, redheaded Fenella, who was George’s age, andsolid, big-eyed, stubborn little Fiona, two years younger,bom the same month as Eddie Cho.

  This family had brought news that Hong Kong and Singa-pore had been retaken by the British; the victory had beenduly celebrated in camp. And then I returned from thehospital!

  Some three months after Colonel Suga’s visit on Berhala Is-land, some military personages of superior importance and in-ferior size, surrounded by a swarm of civilian Japanese ye
s-menand two interpreters, arrived. From the bustle and the in-terpreters accompanying them we knew something unpleasantwas coming.

  We were mustered, and sunned, and taught patience, andin time we were told: the women were to leave Berhala prisoncamp for an unknown destination. The men were to remainbehind for an unknown fate. This was to happen at 5 p.m.two days later, January 12, 1943, at Colonel Suga’s command.We were meanwhile to be happy, cheerful, keep up ourmorals, keep clean and healthy, and get ready to depart.

  The evening was spent listening to the rumors of the guards;we were going to Kuching (i) to a new camp, with electriclights, beds, and furniture, (2) to be repatriated, (3) to workfor the Japanese soldiers in a brothel.

  The men were to stay behind on Berhala to be (unfortu-nately there was little disagreement on this) executed.

  The next morning some Japanese ofScials arrived at themen’s camp with aniiloads of European clothing, which hadbeen collected at random from the houses in Sandakan inwhich we had lived. Some clothes were bundled like dirtylaundry into sheets, some were loose, some in suitcases; anumber of suitcases and trunks arrived empty. There seemedno reason behind the choice of goods. Everything was dumpedin the men’s compound.

  Having delivered this mass wardrobe, the Japanese de-manded that we sign documents saying that we had receivedfrom them all of our possessions. This we refused to do,although I felt it made no difference what we signed in thewar, as whoever won the war would scrap the papers.

  The women were told to identify their things. I found anassortment of dinner dresses, tweeds, silk scarves, sheer silkstockings, fancy pocketbooks, but very little that I could usein prison camp except a tweed coat, and my box of “scraps”from old dresses.

  When I looked at my clothes dumped on the ground atBerhala, it made me ill to see them lying there, the remnantsof glory passed. It didn’t bear thinking on. I abandoned mostof them, saying that anybody could have them who wouldcarry them away. Women with more foresight than I pickedup a few, but many felt as I, that they did not have the heartfor finery. Nor did we have receptacles to hold them, norstrength to move them. The box of scraps, however, I tookfor mending.

  The next dajr my empty trunk was thrown into the com-pound by the Japs. Now it was the men’s turn to salvage fromthe clothing heaps. Harry fell upon my trunk and filled it withwhat was left of my wardrobe, hoping that some day, if hewasn’t executed first, he could get it to me.

  The day came. We packed up our miserable belongings,and ate our miserable meal at four o’clock. We looked aroundour barrack which had been so dreary to us, which we hadhated so. Now, compared to the unknown it was almost home.We climbed down the broken steps, and walked out of theprison compound. I carried two suitcases and the blanket roll,and George dragged behind him a httle bag and his stool.

  Our husbands were lined up outside in the rain, on the farside of the drainage ditch. We had five minutes to tell eachother good-bye, they standing on one side of the ditch, weon the other.

  Harry was there. I stood and looked at him. He had smug-gled a letter to me the night before, enclosing a farewell giftof five handkerchiefs. Whien I read the letter I had cried andcried.

  Happy New Year

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  The letter said:

  Take care of our little son. I love him because he is you. He isours, he is you and I that will live. Although our bodies may die,I know there is something between us that will never die.

  The letter said everything in this world that I wanted theman I loved to say — and it said good-bye.

  I looked at this man across the ditch who was my husband.I could not see him clearly because the tears were pouringdown my face. I felt that nothing could ever happen to meagain that would hurt like this, because if I lived throughthis, my heart would be broken.

  We had five minutes to say good-bye. I reached across theditch and took his hand. Our hands clung. It seemed that Icould not let his go.

  George puUed at me and said, “Don’t cry, Mum.” NowGeorge was the one to comfort me. The rain poured downand washed away my tears. I let go of Harry’s hand; loneli-ness began.

  Something very hard and cold formed inside my chest,where I had used to feel a heart. This something said: I amalone, I, in all this world, stand between my child and destruc-tion. I only. There are certain things which have gone outof me now forever: softness, love, dependency. Those areback there with Harry. I am no longer a woman. I am hard,I must fight, I am alone.

  The rain poured down, and mixed with my tears. Withoutone word I mmed away from Harry, and started towardsthe wharf, George following and sobbing.

  When we were on the deck of the launch I looked back.The husbands had followed to the beach and stood on theshore; they didn’t wave. The open windows of the men’sbarracks were blocked with men’s gray faces, with men’sgray smoke-stained handkerchiefs extended towards us ingood-bye — they didn’t even flutter in the rain. There was no

  sound at all, except the noise of the launch and the slappingof the waves, and a little sound of women crying.

  At the Sandakan wharf we transferred from the launch toa small steamer. There was no gangway, and as it was hightide, in order to get on board we had to straddle a strip ofwater, and climb up the side. The Japanese officers watchedand laughed. We could not lift our luggage on board our-selves, and we asked for help. They shook their heads andlaughed. In the end we found we could lift ottr luggage onboard, sooner than leave it behind.

  It was a small steamer with only one cabin, which wasoccupied by three Japanese officers, and three Japanesewomen with the ugliest legs that I have ever seen detachedfrom pianos. One officer was Takakua, former Commandantof the Sandakan Civilian Internees, who hadn’t thrown meout of the hospital once. He was being transferred, we learned.He was known as a hot lover and a cold master. He was grossand greasy-looking, had venereal disease, was a womanchaser and a rump rubber. We laughed at most Japaneseofficers, but Takakua we hated.

  There were forty-seven women and fifteen children onboard. We squatted on the open deck of the boat for tendays and nights, travehng without lights at night, eating little.There was not space enough to open out our blanket roll orto He down. We slept in the clothes we wore. There wereneither Hfe belts nor Hfeboats. It rained most of the time, andthe deck was awash with rain, sea, urine, and vomit.

  At first Takakua came out of his cabin in his kimono, andstood on the fringe of his captives — guffawed, leered at, andpatted them. By and by we stank, and he stayed away.

  There was one water closet without water on board. Thissoon filled up with excrement, which then poured over, ranunder the door, and leaked out on the deck. Then we used thechildren’s pots and emptied them overboard.

  92 Three Came Home

  We had the last meal on Berhala Island at 4 p.m. on Mon-day. We had our next meal at 5 p.m. on Thursday. For drink-ing water we got water out of the boilers, climbing over thecoal pile to the engine room.

  The crew of the boat was Chinese, Malay, Javanese. Neverhave I received so much care, courtesy, politeness, and helpon any ship. And there were no tips. The journey was hell,but we lived through it; without the help of these men I donot think we could have done so.

  They hung and draped our wet blankets and the children’swet clothes over the boilers and around the engines in aneffort to dry them, until the engine room looked like a steamlaundry. They placed a bucket by the pump for us to bathe,and looked the other way when we did so. They helped uscook in the galley and boiled water for us. By every lookand deed they showed us kindness and sympathy.

  The Japanese had tried to eradicate the use of honorific“Mem” and “Tuan” in address to Europeans. But on thisboat I never heard a woman addressed other than “Mem,”and I heard no Japanese addressed as “Tuan.”

  One thing the trip did for us. I had felt broken on leavingmy husband. We mothers particularly felt the weight of ourchildren. Each one now, like myself, knew that she must goit alone; the very aloneness drew us together.

&
nbsp; On that boat, shivering on the deck, lying with our chil-dren in the rain and the spray and the vomit, we sealed apact of unity. From then on we mothers stuck together. Ourchildren were all that was left to us of our men. We werethe preservers of our children now, against every other hu-man being, and against overweening fate. Never again didwe think in terms of one child alone: from then on we foughtfor The Children.

  We were seasick much of the time because of the heavyswell. Between spells of sickness the children were famished.They would rear up their heads from being sick into a pot,

  and demand food. The food given us was limed rice andJapanese tinned fishballs. The children would eat it, besick again.

  There were a number of Japanese soldiers on board whoshared the deck with us. One of these, a young man with athin face, large glasses, and hesitant English, told me that hehad read Land Below the Wind in the Japanese translationsand liked it. He said he was sorry to see me there, and I saidI was sorry to be there.

  At every port native peddlers came to the side of the boatwith fruits, sweets, and eggs, which they sold to the soldiers,and sometimes, through the soldiers, to any prisoner who hadmoney. When the children saw this, they begged for fruit. Iasked my soldier friend if he would request the Japanese au-thorities in charge of us to get us some fruit for the children,who were aU ill from traveling. He said that he would ask,but did not think that they would do it, and I could see hewas nervous about asking.

  He came to me that night and told me that the officers hadrefused his request. Then with a finger on his lips, and awhispered, “Do not tell,” he handed me an envelope. Theenvelope enclosed ten dollars, and a letter which said:

  I present to you $io which is my salary. That is a few money.I am regretable not to be able to give you enough money becauseI am only soldier. Please don’t fear. Take this money. I don’tneed money because I may die in battle and have no wife, nochild, no father, only mother.

  That gift went far to make the journey bearable, not onlyfrom the material aspect of food, but from the warmth itskindness brought to my very cold heart.