Three Came Home

by Agnes Newton Keith

  Most of the Japanese officers who came into our campwere overwhelmingly self-conscious when dealing with us.We were women and we were inferiors: we could either bekicked, or slept with. But their orders were to do neither.That eliirunated all method of possible contact.

  Officer baiting was our one weapon. They knew we werelaughing at them, and when we were not, they thought wewere. They could shoot us, but they couldn’t shut us up.W^hy they didn’t shoot us I don’t know. They were eitherkinder or less enterprising than we credited them with being.

  I have watched a Japanese officer walk away from a groupof female internees. At a certain distance he hesitates, l^ow-ing what is going on behind him, questioning himself as towhat to do. Turn back and catch them laughing? Shout atthem and lecture them in Japanese upon the superiority of

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  the Japanese over the white man? Make them stand at at-tention in the sun? Smack them? Or go quietly away andtry to forget those abominable creatures?

  Indecision and indignity is in every inch of him: whateverhe does, he’s licked. He can shoot us, but he caimot shutus up.

  Sometimes he turns back and vindicates his manhood. Butmore frequently, as his knowledge of white women increases,he pulls himself together, and heads down the road towardsthe British soldiers’ camp. There he can feel himself a manwhile slapping the face of a British soldier twice his size —with the guard’s gun in the small of the British soldier’s back.

  George had his third birthday, and his first one in captivity,shortly after our arrival at Kuching. On the strength of itsbeing his birthday, I obtained an unusual concession fromLieutenant Nekata, who permitted me to purchase thirty-foureggs through the canteen, one egg for each child now in camp.I sold a dress to get the money, and paid twenty-five centsper egg. On his birthday morning George distributed an eggto every child with birthday greetings.

  At nine o’clock we were sent for and told to come to theJapanese ofSces. Here we found Harry waiting in the nextroom. Lieutenant Nekata told me to my surprise that we werepermitted to have an interview.

  Harry and I had not met since leaving Berhala. We lookedat each other, and again we were speechless. This time wecould not even touch hands. Then Harry held out his armsfor George, and when he had his arms around him it seemedhe could not let him go.

  I asked Harry if he had asked for the interview. He saidno, that he had been working in the fields when he was called

  the office. When he arrived INekata said, ^'Today is yourson’s birthday. You may see wife and child.” Evidently myrequest to Nekata to buy eggs for George’s birthday had

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  been noted. I did not know how to account for this kindness,especially to me, except that sometimes the Japanese werekind. We had half an hour to talk, then said good-bye.

  George liked my presents least of all, they being necessities.I made him two pairs of pants, cut from the bottom of theold blue gingham counterpane that I had used to bundle our

  blanket roll in, and a bafu and sarong to sleep in, cut from thebottom of my rose kimono. The Oriental effect was moreto his taste than were the blue gingham pants.

  Penelope made him a Tom Sawyer rag doll out of scrapsfrom her clothing, stuffed with cotton from her pillow. Tomhad a fishing rod and line with a fish attached. Marjorie Northmade him a small pillow covered with a piece of her dressand stuffed with rags, also two tiny wool goUiwoggs riding ina newspaper boat. Tony gave him pictures cut out of an oldnewspaper, Pete and Frankie gave him two lumps of sugar,the last of the supply their mother brought into camp.Alastair and David and Derek gave sago-flour biscuits, andEdith and Eddie Cho gave three rusks, the last of Mrs. Cho’stinful that she brought in a year ago. Susan gave a blueelephant that Babs Hill had made out of the end of Susie’sblanket. The greatest luxury was a tiny cake of soap from“Auntie May,” as there was no more soap to be had in camp.

  George went to bed very happy. He would not have likedhis presents any more if they had cost a lot of money. He

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  was so good that he wasn’t spanked all day, a fact worthy ofmention. I went to bed happy, having seen Harry.

  One morning in June 1943 there was a crashing and bang-ing of lorries down the road, a great running and shouting ofNips, and the message was sent in to us to stay away from thefront of the camp — men were passing!

  We soon learned by the grapevine news service i~har fifteenhundred Australian soldiers from Singapore, on their wayto the PO'W camp in Sandakan, were stopping for a fewnights in Kuching. We were all excitement, in the hope ofwar news, and Mary was particularly thrilled at the thoughtof her countrymen near by.

  The men were established in a shelter on the far side ofthe men’s vegetable garden, about a quarter of a mile from thewomen’s camp, but in plain view of us.

  The first thing that happened was that an Australianstumbled across an electric wire which was lying on theground in the vegetable garden, and was electrocuted. Thewire had been there for some time unprotected, our men hadpassed it daily without knotving it, our children had occasion-ally been allowed in that field for recreation, and had missed it.

  The next thing was that the Australians started visiting thewomen s camp at night. They crept across the vegetablegarden to our barbed-wire barricade, then lay there andmade noises to attract attention until somebody ramp out.It was a toss-up if a woman got there first or a Jap guard.

  Ma^ and I hved in the end section of the end barrack, andour window looked out on the wire. The fiirst night we heardhoarse whispers, and stones came rocketing in the windowand dropped at our feet. When the barrage became too thickwe sneaked out to the wire and whispered equally hoarsely:“Cut it out! Shut up! You’ll get us into trouble vsdth the guard.He’s just around the comer of the other barrack right now!”

  “Aw, no, lady. We’re coming in to see you. We ain’t seen

  a lady for a long time. Look, we’ve got lipstick and cigarettesthat we brought from Singapore for you.”

  “Sssh! We’ve got our children here with us, and wheneverthe Nips get angry with us they cut the food ration. Wedon’t want to get into trouble. Now go away before you getcaught.”

  “Get caught! Say, lady, getting caught don’t mean nothingto us. Me and my pal here have been sentenced to death twiceand escaped. We ain’t scared.”

  I could see this wasn’t my pace. “Please go away. I’mscared, if you’re not.”

  “Say, we ain’t scared of no guard. We can do him in! ”

  Worse and worse!

  Then the other soldier spoke. “Now look, when we get tothis place we’re going to, called Sandakan, we are goingto escape. Can you tell us anything about the country?”

  “You can’t escape from Borneo while the Nips controlsea and air, and if you try to escape into Borneo, you’ll bebetrayed by somebody for a price. Now go home like goodboys. A guard is coming.”

  “O.K. But we’re coming back in an hour after the guardchanges, and come inside your wire and talk to you somemore. Say, we like to see a lady again! ”

  “We won’t come out if you come back!”

  We went in. Mary and I talked over what to do. They wereher countrymen, and naturally she trusted them and wantedto help them, and talk to them. I was cautious; I said the onlygood advice we could give them about escaping was Don’t.If we were caught talking with them not only would the Nipsbe furious, but our own camp would be, and it would end upin camp as a scandalous episode described as “Lying out therein the dark in the field with the Aussies! ”

  Soon the whistles, catcalls, hoarse whispers, hissings, beganagain and the stones started landing inside the window. Wehad to go out to quiet them.

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  W^e crawled to our fence in the dark. They heard us.

  “Is everything clear on your side, gals? We’re coming in,”

  “Now listen,” I said in my most forbidding tones, “I’mtough and old, and I would
n’t interest you. If you hang aroundhere you’ll get us in trouble and yourselves too. The guard’sdue to come along in just a few minutes. Please go away andleave us alone.”

  “Aw —lady! . , . Say, what about that other gal withyou? Wouldn’t she like to see us? We got that lipstick andcigarettes to give to somebody.”

  I to Mary: “I’m going in.”

  Mary: “What part of Australia are you from?”

  “We’re from Sydney.”

  “Do you know So-and-So . . . ?”

  “Come on, Mary! Quit being a missionary to them, andsave yourself.”

  Mary: “You boys had better go away.”

  I: “Here’s the guard; I can hear him talking to Doric! Getgoing, soldiers, quick!”

  “Don’t hurry, gals, we’re just going to give you that lip-stick, and cigarettes. Catch . . And through the air theycame whizzing.

  We caught the cigarettes, lost the lipstick in the grass, thencrawled for the barrack, got there just before the guard, andcrawled inside our mosquito nets, panting.

  In the distance we heard rustlings of grass, then further inthe distance we heard a whistled tune: “Waltzing Matilda,Waltzing Matilda, I’ll go a waltzing Matilda with you!”

  The next day we found the lipstick in the grass. The nextnight a guard patrolled up and down outside our wire be-tween the Australian camp and ours. Three days later theAustralians left.

  Some months later we heard that a party of Australians hadbeen successful in escaping from Sandakan POW camp,and that Dr. Taylor had been accused of helping in the

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  escape, and made prisoner. Later again the escape was in someway connected with Harry, by a letter and description ofterrain which Harry was said to have given to one of theAustralians, when they were in Kuching. I always imaginedthat our visitors were among those escapees.

  We learned in time that those Australians who escapedwere probably the only ones to survive, as almost the entireSandakan POW camp was wiped out in a forced march.

  In Kuching we began organized labor. This work was donein addition to our community jobs of camp cooking, keepingthe road and groimds clean, and cleansing of baths, latrines,and sleeping quarters.

  Our first job was clearing a strip of secondary junglegrowth which had once been planted with rubber trees, thenabandoned to jungle again. The largest trees had been cutdown, and our job was to fell the smaller ones, remove therubber tree roots, clear the land of all growth, and thenplant it.

  Our introduction to forced labor was a speech by Lieu-tenant Nekata, as follows:

  “This work is to be done by voluntary labor. You are com-manded to turn out a working party of volunteers every day,to work four hours in the morning and one hour in the after-noon. This will help you to while away the time, so it is toyour advantage to volunteer. This labor is voluntary andmust be done by volunteers. I command you to volunteer.”

  We reasoned with him as follows: “We are too weak — ortoo ill — or too old — or have too many children to care for —to do this work. The diet is too poor to do heavy work on.The implements are too heavy for women to use.”

  Nekata replied: “In Japan poor diet also; women work. Youwill become accustomed. Mothers take children with them.This is my command.”

  At first we did not have a guard. Nekata said that, as we

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  were doing this work voluntarily, we need not have a guard.But we did not work hard enough to suit him. He stationedguards then, saying that if we did not volunteer to workharder, the guards would volunteer to slap our faces.

  The work was very fatiguing. At the end of an hour I wasexhausted, by the end of four hours I could scarcely walkback to my barrack. I would be so filthy that I could not sitdown inside, and so tired I could scarcely stand up to bathe.Later on I learned better how not to work, while seeming towork. But later I was also weaker.

  About this time there was a lot of face-slapping for whichwe could not account. We asked to know the reasons forwhich we were being slapped, and requested instructionswhich we might follow, in order to avoid being slapped.

  Instructions were then -written out by Nekata, and trans-lated to us by the interpreter as follows:

  “To avoid punishments or beatings the ladies should pre-sume themselves to endeavor, with passive behavior notnegative.”

  Nekata would come and -visit our clearing, and stand andwatch us work. He said we did not work hard enough. Heordered extra work hours for us because he saw some womenplaying cards one afternoon, and others resting on their beds.

  One day he told our gardener-overseer that a Japaneselieutenant general was coming to inspect camp, and that ourclearing must be full of gro-wing vegetables in time for his-visit. The tree roots were not then out of the land, nor wasanything planted. Our overseer asked Nekata when thelieutenant general was coming. Nekata said, “Tomorrow, be-cause it is the Emperor’s birthday. It is my command thatthe vegetables be gro-wing.”

  We worked hard and long that night, digging small holesand sticking in sweet potato cuttings. The result was quiteeffective.

  Next day the lieutenant general visited, the garden grew;

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  Nekata flourished, was commended and promoted. The fol-lowing day the potato cuttings died.

  In Kuching we learned to bow seriously. We had printedinstructions, demonstrations, and practice. The Nipponeseorders for bowing were; Incline the body from the waist to afifteen-degree angle, with head uncovered, hands at the side,and feet together: remain thus to the count of five (silent);then recover. (If not knocked down.)

  The first time we were instructed in bowing in the Kuchingcamp, we were being trained to present a good appearancefor the visiting lieutenant general for whom we had plantedpotatoes.

  The day came, we were all assembled in ranks, the Sistersin front, the women and children behind, where it washoped we could do the least harm by our frivolous ways. Theorder was given to bow. The Sisters had wonderful behinds,the bow made the behinds spring into sudden prominence;by standing too close and bowing too swiftly we managed tomeet the behinds with our heads. Confusion and concussionreigned, and order was not restored. The heutenant generalwas hastened away to review the pigs, who had more respectfor heutenant generals than we did, or else did not under-stand the meaning of the phrase “dumb insolence,” as we did.We were never again assembled together in one group to bowto a visiting general.

  The Japanese order demanded that a prisoner bow whenan officer or soldier “came into sight.” This was an equivocalphrase: some of us saw far, and some near, and some turnedtheir backs to avoid seeing, and some saw and bowed beforethe officer saw them. The answer was that the officer was “insight” when he saw you. To bow one was supposed to puteverything on the ground, remove hat, hair band, scarf, sun-glasses, eyeglasses (if the guard so wished), throw away theinevitable stinking, newspaper-wrapped cigarette, and arrive

  at the fifteen-degree angle swiftly enough to escape a slap fornot bowing.

  Sometimes we were ordered to “volunteer” for concertsinging, or some other performance, in order to entertaineither our captors or ourselves on some Japanese holiday tobe celebrated in the camp square. If performers did not volun-teer, individuals were singled out and ordered to perform.

  At these entertainments, there were two or three thousandprisoners present. The Japanese ofEcers sat in the front rowswaiting for honorable insult, while the prisoners spread outbehind them in the dark — either standing, squatting, or sit-ting on some stool contraption they had made. The husbandswere always placed at one side of the audience, and wives atthe extreme other side, with several fireproof layers of RomanCatholic Sisters and British and Dutch soldiers between themto prevent connubial contact, Japanese guards moved busilyabout the outer edges of the crowd, and inseminated warilythroughout the audience with guns and bayonets; not toprevent escape, which was almost impossible from Kuching,but to prevent con
tact between married couples.

  Husbands and wives went to concerts for one purpose, tocatch a glimpse of each other, or to smuggle a note or message.Occasionally a very daring husband would crawl along theground to where his wife sat, and stay near her in the dark.Then suddenly would sound the roar of a wounded bull in thedark: this would mean the guard had discovered the atrocity.It was not the prisoner who was roaring, but the guard, atthe heinousness of his discovery. Then the prisoner would beflicked out of the audience at the end of a bayonet andchased to the guardhouse.

  Harry never came to me in the audience; the indignityof the mode of arrival and the publicity of disgrace if caughtwere discouraging. But he did send me aspirin and notesthrough those asbestos layers of Sisters.

  The British soldiers’ camp put on some very amusing pro-

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  grams, with female impersonations, and some remarkablecostumes were created out of old clothes from the women’scamp, by two British Tommies, “Fifi” and “Annie.” Thewomen adored these programs because of the costumes, andthe men adored them because of the jokes, the costumes beingwell done, and the jokes rare.

  Other camps put on programs of varied ability. Through-out the evening the strain was great: which would the Jap-anese officers do first, take insult at some joke or song whichthey misunderstood — or take insult at some joke which theyunderstood?

  I usually arranged to be ill at concert times in order to enjoythe pleasure of staying behind in the deserted camp, and be-cause I was too tired to exert myself to go. On three occasionsI was sent for by the Japanese officers, and escorted by guardsfrom my “sickbed” to the “voluntary” holiday celebrations.It seemed that they wanted me to commemorate these galanights in writing, as a lasting memorial to Japanese kindliness,and this I was ordered to do.

  But Lieutenant Nekata wrote the best story himself. Fifteenof our women, of which I was not one, put on a concert pro-gram of home songs, wearing their best dresses and make-up.At the end of the program Lieutenant Nekata was asked byone of the women what he thought of their singing. He re-fused to comment. The next day he sent the women this note:“I admire the ladies’ lipstick and gowns more than theirsinging.”