The Final Race

by Eric T. Eichinger

  Eric and Flo knew World War II had only started to heat up, and it did not appear it would slow down anytime soon. Hitler had just begun to flex Germany’s muscles throughout Europe.

  Eric and Florence, however, had a call from God to serve in China, period. Keeping themselves protected was not their sole objective. They trusted the will of God. If he had called them there—even amid danger—there could be no better place to dwell. The fear of bombing attacks on Britain or an invasion of Britain was imminent. Would they not be just as safe—if not safer—in China?

  After much prayer and discussion, they made their decision: come August, they and their children would head back to China. They said their painful good-byes to their dear ones and boarded a steamer to begin their travels across the Atlantic to spend time with Florence’s family and then on to the Far East.

  Eric gazed back at his special country. This would be the last time he would set eyes on his beloved Britain.

  Unlike during the trip from Canada to England, drama and turmoil filled the trip from England to Canada.

  When their ship arrived in Nova Scotia, Eric found the time to send off a few details to his mother:

  We went on board at the scheduled time. There was a good bit of inspection. Cameras were taken from us and will be returned on landing. The boat has a number of children on board. I don’t know how many, but I should say that at least half are children. It’s a small boat, with a complement of 300 passengers and crew. There are a few even younger than Heather.

  We were in convoy and had an escort. The convoy is a delightful sight. Can you imagine 50 ships, all going along together, not of course in single file, but in about five lines. It is magnificent. Most of the ships are cargo ones; any passenger ships are in the centre for greater protection.

  It wasn’t until we were off the Irish Coast that the real excitement started. It was 8.30 at night, when the children were asleep. We were hit by a torpedo. Whether it was a “dud” and only the cap exploded, or whether it had expended its energy, having been fired from too great a distance, or had exploded right below us, we are not sure. I would say that we were actually hit, and that only the cap exploded, judging from the feel in our cabin. No alarm was given for us to go to the boats, but the signal for all boats to zigzag was given by ours.

  The next night we lost one of our ships at the back of the convoy. The sea was choppy—a very difficult one to spot submarines in. The escort left us the next day. This was the hardest of all days. About 10 a.m. a small boat about a quarter of a mile from us was torpedoed, blew up, and sank in two minutes; they must have hit the engine boiler. We were on deck ready for boats, and everyone zigzagged. About noon the “all clear” went and we turned to dinner. We had just started, and were half-way through the first course, when the alarm went again. Another boat torpedoed. It didn’t sink. We heard later that it was able to get along. Whether it turned back or tried to carry on, I don’t know.[69]

  Eric’s letter went on to explain more of the harrowing consequences of traveling from Europe to North America during the war but ended with “Both kids are well, except that ’Tricia has developed a cough these last two days. They weren’t scared at all, for they didn’t really know what it all meant.”[70]

  During their time on deck, Eric had kept his children occupied with games, even as little Tricia declared to her father, “Daddy, that boat went down.” Eric knew the danger he and his family steered through, but he made certain his young daughters kept their childhood intact, even as he allowed God to still his concerns. He’d watched five of the fifty ships go down and heard the estimated loss of life calculated to be eighty souls.

  From Nova Scotia, Eric wrote another letter to his mother, telling her of an onboard desire for a Sunday service, complete with thanksgiving for their safe arrival. Word leaked aboard the steamer that Eric was a minister, so naturally he had been asked to lead the service—an opportunity he happily accepted.

  As much of a joy as it was to celebrate with the people, to sing and praise God in thankfulness, Eric and Florence’s concern fell to Patricia and Heather, both of whom had contracted German measles. This brought new concerns for their parents who knew what passenger illness meant when it came to leaving the ship. But the authorities gave a green light for travel when they heard that Eric and Florence, along with their two ill daughters, only had two hundred miles to go before reaching their destination.

  Eric and Florence found all the hotels filled in Nova Scotia, but they did not dismay—the Red Cross had a place nearby that supplied tea and milk as well as beds for children. Eric sent his family for a little rest while he took care of the pressing business of retrieving their luggage.

  Still at the station, Eric loaded their luggage—the heavier pieces for Vancouver and the rest for Toronto. The clock struck midnight, and Eric found a ready taxi to take them back to the ship in hopes of bunking there. But as soon as they arrived, a shipmate informed them that “all the beds have been stripped, sir.”

  Bone-weary, Eric, Florence, and the girls slept in their traveling clothes on top of bare mattresses.

  Ten days later, after spending time with family in Toronto, a long train through Canada forged the Liddells across North America. Their visit with the family had been wonderful but not long enough.

  Never long enough.

  Another long but considerably less terrifying voyage across the Pacific to China awaited them. Finally, after a little over a year abroad, they arrived back in Tientsin in late October 1940 and began to prepare for a move to Siaochang.

  Eric and Florence had spent many hours during their trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific journeys discussing the possibility of moving the family to Siaochang. Perhaps it might be different this time, they reasoned. Perhaps it would be safer and their family could stay together rather than having only the snippets of time together that Eric’s solitary work afforded them.

  But their expectations were not matched with the current developments in Asia. Siaochang—and the rest of China—had changed a lot during their time away, and not for the better.

  Quiet murmurs buzzed that there was a possibility of all foreigners being sent out of China—or detained. Eric and Florence immediately felt the shattering of their hopes of staying together. Florence and the girls moved back into their house in Tientsin while Eric headed out for Siaochang.

  But when Eric arrived there, he found the village garrisoned and its south side surrounded by a high wall. Land had been requisitioned without compensation. Graveyards had been desecrated, and the mission had been closed. Because of its value to the Japanese, the compound had also been turned into an impromptu Japanese base camp, although the hospital stayed operational. Dr. Ken McAll and Nurse Annie Buchan worked under that stress and were overjoyed when Eric arrived.

  Eric stayed with area missionaries and traveled around the region on his bicycle.

  His muscles reminded him his first week back that he had not pedaled for a year on the cumbersome trails of the northern China backcountry. He powered through it in his signature style, popping in on various churches. He concentrated on the many new villages in the southern territories of Siaochang that he had not visited much, if at all, in the past, and he realized that in the midst of fears and alarms, the world and life goes on.

  Eric did his best to spread hope by speaking, teaching, and always thinking about how to make a contribution to ensure a better world. Eric described his work as “giving, giving, all the time, and trying to get to know the people, and trying to leave them a message of encouragement and peace in a time when there is no external peace at all.”[71]

  Dr. Ken McAll, a bit of a neophyte to the rural missionary setting he had been called to, offered a portrait of Siaochang life at that time:

  In the hospital we have been able to help the wounded of four armies, the Japanese, the Chinese Central Army, the Eight Route Army, and the Chinese Army that is helping itself under the Japanese. The local people are not unanimous as to which
of the first three types of armies they prefer, as most people think of their own money and food before their country. . . . We have had many visits from troops as they have passed through or used our Mission as a base for operations. . . . With these visits we usually have a huge rush of refugees from the village. We take all the women and children into the Church. It shows that in their mind we stand for a safe refuge, unbroken by the worldly warring outside.

  Our peaceful state is, some of us think, due to an early attitude that Eric Liddell helped us to; one of treating all these soldiers as children of God whom he cares for; and that it was for us, as we showed these over the premises to witness to them, explain why we were here, and try to help them as we ourselves have been helped by the Almighty. To this end, Eric spent most of one day with the Japanese in our Hsien city, and I think those who listened certainly caught some of his idea, for the next time they came they were full of questions, and one Japanese spent an hour with me in my room in hospital.

  It is possible that there was room for doubt as to the genuine spirit of this Japanese response. But there can be none as to the eager sincerity of Eric Liddell’s desire for them.[72]

  Despite the obvious and constant challenges, Eric shared a unique perspective of seeing avenues for the gospel of Jesus in unobvious ways, ways the average person would not see. He wanted to help others see the beneficial effect beyond the naked action of the service itself. Even the smallest labor of love mattered. Eric believed that through service to others, God is there—hidden and helping through the hands of the helper.

  LMS missionaries to China felt a most difficult sting. Months went by without letters from England. For those whose children went to school there, the agony of not knowing how their loved ones were faring during the war was nearly unbearable. Eric and Florence had not heard from family since their return either.

  Even as the usual joy of Christmas wove its way in, Eric watched Chinese men—miserable and dispirited—forced to work for the Japanese. He was more than ready to return to Florence and his girls in Tientsin.

  The menacing murmurs of foreigners being made to leave had graduated to an indisputable cry of inevitability. Eric’s call was his call, though. The perplexing role of a servant of the Lord is the dichotomy of battling weariness in ministry while never feeling worthy enough to rest for too long. After two weeks with his family over the holidays, he headed back to Siaochang.

  Nurse Annie endorsed that one could hardly argue with the value of his unique skill set and ministry. “Eric’s methods in systematically visiting the churches,” she wrote years later,

  preparing plans, drawing maps, and holding regular conferences with the Chinese preachers, were never complicated, but simple, clear and direct, like his own character. In preaching he never expounded elaborate theories, but suggested the possibility of a “way of life” lived on a higher plane, to use his favorite expression, A God controlled life. In Siaochang, our preachers, nurses, and students hung on his words, and the common people heard him gladly.[73]

  When speaking of Eric, Dr. Ken McAll recalled,

  He would just shoot off on bicycle and go anywhere and everywhere, all over the countryside. He was an evangelist to the villages. He didn’t stay put. He was out most of the time, very rarely was he staying with us in our houses. And he kept his wife and babies in Tientsin where they were safer because it really was dangerous. We were constantly being shot at or locked up by the communists for identification.

  He was an extraordinary fearless person, he had this awareness of Jesus being with him all the time. If you ever asked him a question of should we do this or that, he would lower his head, and say, “Yes. Well, just be quiet for a little while,” then would raise his head come out smiling. . . . He gave me a new discipline, because I had someone to check things with.[74]

  Eric often thought of subtle ways he could assist the local Chinese pastors, more than through one-on-one interactions. He began to develop structured ideas for writing his own devotional book during the long intervillage bicycle rides. He thought the work would ideally be for young Christians but could also serve as a tool for area pastors.

  In March, during another Tientsin pop-in with Florence, Eric shared his writing ideas and thoughts. Florence was excited for him, but she had an announcement that she thought might trump his news. They would have another baby soon.

  The great news of a third child also brought more serious discussions of what their life together would and should look like. The violence of the war had escalated. Eric had been shot at on more than one occasion. Foreigners returned home for fear of detainment or of being forced out of their work. The missionary community had shrunk and continued to grow smaller. Even Tientsin was no longer considered safe for raising little ones, let alone the most suitable place to bring another tender soul into the world. Many missionary families around them were sorting out their own judgments and priorities of what to do.

  The time had come for Eric and Florence to face a major life decision. Unlike the choice of whether or not to run on a Sunday, this one demanded to be wrestled with.

  [68] D. P. Thomson, Scotland’s Greatest Athlete: The Eric Liddell Story (Barnoak, Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland: Research Unit, 1970), 166–7.

  [69] Ibid., 170–1.

  [70] Ibid.

  [71] David McCasland, Eric Liddell: Pure Gold: A New Biography of the Olympic Champion Who Inspired Chariots of Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 2001), 223.

  [72] D. P. Thomson, Scotland’s Greatest Athlete: The Eric Liddell Story (Barnoak, Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland: Research Unit, 1970), 168–9.

  [73] Ibid., 148.

  [74] “The Story of Eric Liddell: Olympic Champion—Man of Courage,” Day of Discovery, season 32, episode 22, aired December 5, 1999 (Grand Rapids, MI: Day of Discovery, 2008), DVD.

  CHAPTER 19

  TOGETHER APART

  The LORD watch between you and me, when we are out of one another’s sight.

  Genesis 31:49

  Spring 1941

  As they had so often done, Eric and Florence put their daughters to bed at night, then stole away to their own room to talk. There never seemed to be any other time. The days were spent with work or with family and friends. And Tricia and Heather, of course, were always keen to hear.

  Some things were best left out of a child’s equation, like war and the decisions it forced upon the adults who weighed its consequences.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, Eric crossed to the dressing table, removed his watch, and laid it next to his wife’s hand mirror. His fingers traced the scrolled gilded outlines of the mirror. “Oh, Flossie,” he sighed.

  “Should I make us some tea?”

  He looked at her. She rested, her shoulders against the panels of the door and her feet crossed at the ankles. Eric couldn’t help but wonder whether she was too tired to walk the rest of the way into the room, or too afraid. “No. I’m fine.” He sat in the nearby chair and removed his shoes. “We’ve got to make these decisions, my girl.”

  Florence sat on the bed, curling one foot behind her knee. “What do you think best, Eric?”

  “We could stay here. Together. All of us. Keep up the work.”

  “Or we could call our work here done,” she countered. “And go home to England or to Canada.”

  “Or . . .” Eric raked his teeth over his bottom lip. Their third option was one he didn’t want to consider.

  “Don’t say it, Eric.”

  “I have to.” He looked at her fully. “You could return to Canada, and I can stay. Finish what needs to be finished.” He blinked. “Not forever. Just for a season.”

  Florence shook her head. “I can’t think about it right now.”

  Eric scooted up to rest his elbows on his knees. “I have to think about it, Flossie. Keeping you and the girls safe is the most important thing right now.”

  And in the end—with God’s help—he knew the bulk of the decision rested on his shoulders. His alon
e.

  But could they live with the consequences of that decision?

  * * *

  AS THEIR WORLD CHANGED DAILY, Eric feared that his family might be kidnapped. With his wife expecting their third child, and as a dedicated family man, he prayed harder and more fervently.

  One question overshadowed all others: Could Eric put off making up his mind? With every day—and every moment of the day—that passed, he knew time was most surely of the essence.

  The London Missionary Society had often functioned as a bureaucratic quartermaster for its deployed families. Unexpectedly, they demonstrated an open approach for how to handle the increasingly chaotic world stage. Instead of mandating what all missionaries must do, they allowed each to discern matters on their own and determine what would be best for each family. Some elected to stay, some to go, and others to separate. This was an emotional season for all, sorting out priorities, responsibilities, and the call of God, while watching their precious relationships with family, friends, and colleagues sever one by one.

  Daily life moved forward, despite sociopolitical pressure. A father-daughter relay race against some of Patricia’s classmates in Tientsin had come upon Eric and his family. Naturally, “Team Liddell” was the odds-on favorite. As the first leg of the relay, Patricia had delighted in holding her father’s undivided attention during the “handoff.” In lieu of a brisk exchange, she opted to run around with the relay handkerchief in her hand, playing chase rather than keeping her father’s esteemed track record intact. This may have been Eric Liddell’s only DNF (Did Not Finish), and the afternoon ended with a brief chiding of Patricia. “Now, Patricia,” he said, “remember, we always want to do our best in everything.”