Physical conditions on the ship were luxury compared toour past life; anyway, we would have come in a rowboat toget home. But in the past we had been the captives of anenemy race. When the Japanese browbeat, bullied, and hu-miliated us I had been able to comfort myself by saying,“But Americans don’t do that!”
Meanwhile, sitting in the lounge talking, listening to theradio broadcasts, we learned the pay-off. The world had notchanged. The Anglo-Saxons still despised the Jews, the Jewsthe Filipinos, the Filipinos the Negroes, the Negroes the Chi-nese, and the Chinese everybody. The Americans hated theEnglish, the English hated the Australians, and everybodyhated the Russians, who hated each other. Love of country
flourished, while love of humanity withered; worship of Godwas present, and following of Christ was absent. This wasthe victory we had won. This was the world men had boughtwith their blood. This was peace.
We listened to descriptions by the soldiers of their roughtreatment of the enemy, which they felt that we as ex-prisoners should enjoy. Sometimes I asked them, “Why didyou do that? Did you enjoy doing it?”
The answer was, “They did it, so we did it too.” Or else,“Oh well, they had it coming.”
I noticed a tall, unusually husky young POW on boardwho had both his hands bandaged. His story was quickly told.He had incurred these injuries the day after he had been lib-erated from his prison camp in Japan, by beating the Japa-nese commandant and the second-in-command of the prisoncamp. He had beaten them with his fists until both Japanesewere dead. He had broken his hands in the process.
Confused though our thoughts were as to the ideology ofwar, I did not believe that we had fought it in order to retali-ate in kind for the actions which we condemned. But warbrutalizes all whom it touches; if it did not do so it couldnot be endured.
As we approached the shores of the United States I beganto worry about my identification papers, which had been con-fiscated in prison camp. I began to wonder if I could get intothe United States again without proof of citizenship. I sawabout me all colors and states of citizens-by-marriage, withproper passports, while I, who was born there, had nothing.I visioned Harry and George being tom from me and ad-mitted to the United States as visiting British subjects, whileI, because I clung to admission as an American citizen andhad no papers as such, was turned away. I saw port officialsshaking their fingers at me and saying, How can you proveyou were bom there? Port officids never take existence asany proof of having been bom at aU.
Then the weather turned very cold. We had no warm
clothing, as the Red Cross in Manila could only supply tropi-cal things. Harry and many men did not even have blanketsfor sleeping. Everyone crowded into the lounge, and therewere dozens of sitters per chair. The children were over-wrought and excited and noisy. They were not welcome iathe lounge, the decks were too cold for them, the cabinswere too crowded.
The children would play, wrestle, sing, and fight on thestairs and in the corridors, like a mass of struggling worms.I understood P.A.’s sentiments, but didn’t know what to doabout it; they had no place to go. I used to take George andstand in the woman’s toilet for an hour at a time while Itried to keep him quiet.
Then George, thank God, met Edward. Edward was a GI,twenty-one years old, with the face and sweetness of a child,and the bulk and fortitude of a man, and three years of prisoncamp behind him. He kept George on the deck with him allday rolled up in his army blanket, he played with him, bossedand bullied him, made him behave. George soon worshipedEdward, and so did I.
Then George came down with bronchitis, and the doctorsaid, Put him to bed. I was putting George to bed, Georgewas resisting loudly, the other women in the cabin were look-ing unhappy, 1 was wondering how we could live through it,and how soon we would be locked up in the brig, whenthere came a knock on the door. George stopped with hismouth open. Enter Edward, with permission to visit his sickpal, George.
Edward puts George to bed, gives him his medicine, tellshim a story, sings him to sleep, looks dowm on George andMys, “He’s such a purty little fellow! Gee, you couldn’t getcross with him!” Exit Edward. God bless Edward. Edwarddoes this daily until George recovers.
As soon as George was able to creep out again he took upquarters on deck with Edward. The men told me he was
well-behaved, a fine little fellow, a swell American kid, kdy,no fooling. They said, “Sure we like kids! Get us some morekids, lady, let them all stay out here with us. Those guysover there want some kids too, lady!”
I said, “But aren’t you too crowded?”
They said, “Say, we’re used to being crowded, lady, thatdon’t mean nothing to a GI.”
So then the Franciscan Sisters, the Dominican Brothers, thelady refugees, the single gentry, the officers and their wives,and an occasional bold husband, sat in the lounge and listenedto P,A., ration hints, strikes, transportation difficulties, recon-version programs, rum and Coca-Cola, refugee stories; andswapped prison recipes for making edible garbage; matchedup atrocities, and wondered nervously what it was like at theother end.
While on deck in the mist, the GIs moved up and rolledover and made room for the children, played with them,teased them, scolded them, peeled their oranges and unfrozetheir milk for them, told them not to swear, gamble, or lie,told them to do what their mamas said. Told them that Amer-ica was a swell place to come home to, and Oh Boy, aren’t weglad to get there!
And the children looked and listened and learned; learnedthat if America was like what the GIs remembered, then itsure was a swell place to come. And thus, in the arms of themen who had fought for them, our children came home totheir native land.
I have said that the darkest hours of my life were the forty-eight before the Japanese occupied Sandakan. Almost as de-spairing were the last forty-eight hours before we touchedAmerica again.
Harry and I had lost our nerve, we had no heart to fightlonger. The world awaited, and we feared to meet it.
V^e had one hope left, one faith placed in one person, who
could change the aspect of things for us if anyone could.From childhood, Al, my brother, had been best friend toboth of us. All the way home we hoped and prayed that hewould meet us; we said all night before the vessel docked, “Ifonly Al is there!”
The transport had been scheduled for San Francisco: atthe last moment her course was changed to Seattle. Privatelywarned of this, unable to get rail transportation, Al, and Tiahhis wife, started to drive to Seattle. They had a motor acci-dent, chartered a plane, and got there. When the ship nosedcoldly against the wharf they were on the dock waiting.From that moment when we saw them, Harry and I tookheart.
They fed us and clothed us, they bribed a hotel room forus, they gave or loaned us what they had; Tiah gave me hercoat, and Al gave Harry his. They said we looked fine, thatwe were wonderful, that they were proud of us. They gaveus faith in ourselves, and hope in the future. Three days laterwhen we left Seattle we were beginning to be human beingsagain, instead of Displaced Personnel.
The first thing people asked me when I came back was. DidI beheve I had been right in staying in Borneo?
All through my married life I had felt myself to be part ofmy husband. We were one in bodily desires, in dreams andlaughter, and in pleasures of the mind. When war came tohim I could not remain outside, safe, comfortable, prosperous,alone. If I had spent those years in freedom, I know now wecould never remeet.
I will never be free of those prison years. I would kill my-self sooner than live them again. But except by death I wouldnot avoid them.
In estimating the cost to us of captivity, I think the thingsthat really mattered were: the utter waste of those years, thechild that we lost, and the children that we did not have; the
entire absence of beauty, either physical in our surroundings,or emotional in our living; the arrival at disillusionment inourselves and others, and the consciousness of human suffer-ing which has become part of us forever. Those things, evenmore than physical pain.
Now in the security of pea
ce we come together again.With the touch of our hands we put from us that awfulaloneness, with the warmth of our bodies we lose the chill ofthe deaths we have seen, with the beat of our hearts, life isbom out of lonesomeness. Thus together we liberate eachother; together we escape from captivity.
While in captivity, I thought I had become hard, cold,tough, unable to be hurt myself, and ready to hurt otherswithout a qualm. But now I am free I see that I am, as Georgewould say, just an old softie again.
I hope that the hard manual tasks which I learned to per-form under the Japanese will from now on be wasted achieve-ments in my life. I hope that in my future life the necessityto smuggle, fight, and beg for food, as I did in Japanese prisoncamps, will not occur. Those years in Japanese prison campsprepared me for nothing which I hope to meet again.
But those years of captivity convinced me of two things;that there is no war without captivity, both of the victor andof the vanquished. And that there is no life with captivity.
I know now the value of freedom. In all of my life beforeI had existed as a free woman, and didn’t know it.
This is what freedom means to me. The right to live with,to touch and to love, my husband and my children. The rightto look about me without fear of seeing people beaten. Thecapacity to work for ourselves and our children.
The possession of a door, and a key with which to lock it.Moments of silence. A place in which to weep, with no oneto see me doing so.
The freedom of my eyes to scan the face of the earth, the
moxmtains, trees, fields, and sea, without barbed wire acrossmy vision. The freedom of my body to walk with the wind,and no sentry to stop me. Opportunity to earn the food tokeep me strong. The ability to look each month at a newmoon without asking, How many more times must this beautyshine on my captivity?
I will never give up these rights agaia. There may be moreto life than these things. But there is no life without them.
From out of war, from out of death, we three came hometo the North American continent. Here in spring we watchedthe yellow and the purple crocuses appear, the purple poly-anthus and violets, the pussy willows, plum blossoms, andforsythia. The trees that were dead swelled with life, and theplants that had withered turned green. The rain smelled ofnew life, and new earth; death and decay seemed far removed.Once more we were warmed with the sweetness and virtue oflife in its seasons.
Once more we lived through night and day together, as wehad dreamed. We found again affection which existed inevery act. The last embrace at night, the first cup of coffeein the morning, the fresh taste of toothpaste in your mouth,the cigarette before breakfast, the clean smell of the morningair, the newspaper to open and someone to laugh with youat Dopey, the warm kitchen with the smell of toast, and theknowledge that you are not alone. All this we had remem-bered, Hved for, almost died for —now we had. We livedagain, and took heart.
After I had been home for some time, living in peace onthis continent, with rest, good food, and vitamin pills, thecontinued pains in my chest, side, and arm, and inability touse one hand normally, sent me to a doctor. His examinationof me, and X-rays, revealed the scars of two broken ribs, evi-dence of an injury to my shoulder socket, and an injured ten-don in my left arm, the results of Nekata’s questioning in
Kuching. In due time, after treatment, these improved, andnow for the first time in three years I can lie on my side andbreathe without pain.
The doctor was the first person to whom I had ever toldthe story of how I received from Lieutenant Nekata six eggsfor wounded honor and broken bones. I had had three reasonsfor keeping silence in the past. At first in camp I dared notspeak, from fear for myself and husband; and tiben I wantedto forget; and then after peace came 1 did not want the victorsto take revenge upon the vanquished for brutality, which isthe guilt of war, more than of the individual. I knew what itwas to be helpless in the hands of the enemy. Those reasonsare now invalid, and the villains of the story are dead.
In talking with the doctor, I broke through the aura ofhorror and ignominy with which I had come to surround theaffair. I saw the occurrence then for what it was, just onemore incident in war.
I told the story to Harry then, but I wasn’t sure how hewould take it. One anticipates some emotion from a manwhen telling him that his wife has been attacked, kicked, andbeaten. Subconsciously I think I expected a litde melodrama.
There was none. He knew, even while I was telling him,what I was going to say. I saw in his face, as he listened, dis-tress for me, and regret, but no surprise. I saw an acceptanceof brutahty and a resignation to s^ering which those whodo not know captivity will find it hard to understand. Hetook it all for granted; he could feel no private resentmentthat this had happened to his wife.
I saw that we had come far from our old concepts of honorand disgrace. In war, we women must fi^t with all of our-selves, whether we are fighting against Japanese soldiers oratomic bombs.
Now with regained health, I see my native land- Here Isee everything: health, decency, comfort, and virtue, beauty.
314 Three Came Home
and love. We of all this world today have peace, security,and plenty.
We are free under law from starvation, from persecution,from fear of our fellow men. We are free to eat and sleep,to work and pray, to love and dream. We are free to choosethe right.
I am proud to call myself American; but I do not callAmerica mine. Its goods and plenty, its products, its people,its great ideals, and its freedom belong now to the world.
Today we live in a world, not a state. Discoveries of sci-ence eliminate space and time. We have become a body ofhuman beings, not of nationals. The responsibiUty of the en-tire body is ours. No matter how good our own conditionsnow, we cannot ignore starving Europe, a demoralized andfighting Asia.
With return to health my husband was recalled to Borneoafter only six months at home.
He has written to tell me how Borneo has been laid bareby friend and foe. The land has been burned clean by theJapanese, and bombed flat by the AlHes. Wherever you digthere are bones, and the dead stick up out of the soil. Thenatives and Chinese have been murdered or bombed, and theEurasians have been wiped out — they didn’t please anyone.
Three Together 315
The collaborators have been shot by one side for betraying,or by the other side for failing to betray.
Of the Kuching prison camps the Japanese officers all aredead, either by their own hand or by execution as warcriminals.
In our own personal household Ah Yin has died of ill-healthand undernourishment; Arusap, who retreated during thewar to his native interior village, stUl flourishes as Head Man.Usin is dead. Ah Kau survives as cook. Anjibi and Herman,the wahs, are dead of starvation.
One by one now the surviving Borneo Asiatics creep infrom the jungle, the river, the hills. They arc starving, and95 per cent of them are ill with malaria or dysentery. Thereare insufficient food and clothing and drugs in the countryto take care of them. Relief channels contribute little. Thesepeople risked their lives to give us the food that saved us;we owe them a debt that we would not ignore.
British North Borneo has now ceased to be the only sur-viving Chartered Company, and has come under the ColonialAdministration, of which my husband becomes a part. He isin charge of food production.
And so he returns to Borneo. Again, as in prison, we saythat we cannot bear it, to part. And again, we do bear it.
At each stage of the journey we call back to each other,holding that last look, touch, sotmd, as he races further away.
I go with him to say good-bye in Seatde at midnight.Twice I leave him, twice go back to the station, back to theplatform, the train. Then I get in a taxi, and weep. The driverturns to me and says, “I’m sorry, lady.”
I go north to Victoria, Harry goes south to the boat. Hetelephones me from San Francisco, again good-bye, good-bye.He telephones me from Australia. His voice is strong andclear; it diminishes the universe, makes overwhelming ourlove. We speak at twelve midnight, my time, throu
gh starsand night here, through the sunlight between, through layers
316
Three Came Home
of air and weather, into Australian dusk. He calls back to me,and I answer: love you.” We must hold to that, till we
meet.
I shall return to Borneo in May if my health permits,taking George with me. George has recovered completely.His body fills out, he grows inches, his cheeks are red apples,his feet are huge, his hands tough paws. The baby is gone.This is George, young North American, scooter-rider, roller-skater, marbles expert, stone-thrower, tough guy — withblackberry jam on his face. This is George, who is this con-tinent, vital, energetic, robust, intelligible.
This is George, until bedtime. Then, as in prison camp,sweetness and light descend. Then he loves me, “Sure, Mum,I do!” Then he kisses me, and says, “Say, Mum, you’re swell.Say, Mum, Til take care of you now that Daddy’s in Borneoagain— like I did in Kuching, Mum! Remember, Mum? Say,Mum, do elephants squirt at people with their trunks? Didyou ever shoot a big brown bear? Can a tiger eat a lion? Cana eagle kill a lamb? Can a whale swallow a jeep? Say,Mum . .
“Go to sleep, George, Fll tell you tomorrow.” I look downon the long, fawn-colored head, on the cheeks round andbrown, the lashes so long, on the grubby paws held in mine.Tears come. This is our son. He lives. God has been good.
I believe that:
While we have more than we need on this continent, andothers die for want of it, there can be no lasting peace.
When we work as hard in peacetime to make this worlddecent to live in, as m wartime we work to kill, the worldwill be decent, and the causes for which men fight will begone.
Victoria, British Columbia —Novemhr 1946
LAND BELOWTHE WIND
By AGNES NEWTON KEITH
'*Mrs. Keith’s humor is entertaining,her adventures are amusing and inform-ing, but her writing has another.qualitythat transcends these. She has thehuman touch.”—Harry Hansen in theN, Y. World-Tele^am.
Three Came Home Page 29
