The Final Race

by Eric T. Eichinger

  Eric sat at his desk working on his manuscript when Cullen came to the door with the news. At that, Eric closed the Bible that rested open near his elbow, then turned back to his roommate. “What do we have to do?”

  Cullen’s face remained steadfast in the wake of change. “We have to find a new place to live, I’m afraid. Within the British concession.”

  Mere days later, bitter cold cut through Eric’s clothing and nipped at his fingers and face as he moved what meager possessions he could into the home of Howard Smith, who lived with his family at the Methodist Mission Compound. Another LMS missionary, Gwen Morris, along with Gerald Luxon and his family, also took refuge with the Smiths.

  “Tighter fit than we had before,” Gerald quipped to Eric.

  “You mean back when we were flatmates?” That seemed a lifetime ago.

  The unrest of the past few months cast a shadow over Gerald’s face. “Who would have ever imagined this, Eric? Would you?”

  Eric willed his eyes not to drop to the floor. One day at a time meant one day closer to reuniting with his wife and children. “No,” he said. Then he held out his hand palm up. “But God has us, Gerald. I have no doubt.”

  Gerald nodded. “Where did Cullen go?”

  “A family—friends of his who live near Union Church—offered him a room.”

  “And the Longmans?”

  “They’re with the Earls.”

  “I see.” Gerald started out of the room, his shoes scuffling along on the hardwood floor, all the while muttering, “Who would have imagined this . . .”

  * * *

  WITH THE FRENCH CONCESSION—including MacKenzie Hospital—now evacuated, the Japanese required foreigners to wear armbands that designated their nationality. Whenever they left home, Eric and the others from LMS slipped on a red band with the word YING (for Ying Kuo, which means “England”) stitched in black. While they were free to move about in the concession, the Japanese required that they bow to the sentries who stood guard at the checkpoints. Eric never made a fuss; he respected others and in turn received the same respect.

  The Japanese sealed the French concession with an electric fence. This meant that the missionaries were effectively kept not only from their homes but also from their work. Not that this created idle time for Eric. He may not have been allowed into the rural areas for ministry, but that didn’t keep him from organizing prayer meetings. This proved to be tricky, though, because the Japanese—in an effort to discourage uprisings—forbade large gatherings of ten or more within the foreign community, whether inside or outside of homes or other buildings.

  Essentially, meeting for worship became illegal.

  However, family clusters could continue to meet within houses, and the LMS ladies could still organize afternoon teas. Eric suggested that each pastor write a sermon for Sunday and allow the tea party rotations to use their time together to present God’s Word. In this way, everyone stayed busy and spiritually fed, and fellowship morale remained high.

  Eric spent a good deal of his time meeting and praying with individuals as well as completing his book on discipleship. He also worked on another short devotional, Prayers for Daily Use, which he penned specifically for the congregants of Union Church. “I have tried to bring before you certain thoughts which I have found helpful in the Christian Life,” Eric wrote in the preface. “The aim is that we should be like Jesus, thoughtful, kind, generous, true, pure and depending entirely on God’s help, seeking to be the kind of man or woman He desires us to be: seeking, in all things, to do His Will and to please Him.”[80]

  Eric wrote feverishly during this time. He enjoyed it, and it served a greater purpose than passing the time, although such an effort could hardly go unrecognized. At home, when he wasn’t writing, he did his part by teaching cricket to the Smiths’ sons and tennis to their daughters.

  While her children enjoyed living with and being taught by an Olympic gold medalist, Mrs. Smith discovered new challenges. With so many people under one roof, getting enough bread for their meals became nearly impossible.

  “By the time I get to the bakery,” she told the adults in the house, “the bread is gone.”

  Eric cleared his throat discreetly. “I’ll go,” he said. “I can get up early enough to be there by five o’clock each morning.”

  And so he did.

  Mrs. Smith also discovered that Eric knew his way around a broom. During the year that Eric lived with the Smiths, one of North China’s famous dust storms blew over Tientsin. Even with the doors and windows tightly shut, dust crept into the house and settled on the furniture, shelves, and tables.

  Mrs. Smith sighed over the enormity of the task in front of her. “I’ll take care of it first thing tomorrow,” she told her husband the evening after the storm had passed. “Before everyone comes down for breakfast.”

  But the next morning when Mrs. Smith crept down the stairs at six o’clock, she found Eric quietly finishing up with the cleaning. He’d risen at four thirty and, without waking a soul inside the house, cleaned the house thoroughly.

  Many years later, Rev. Smith said of Eric,

  For a year we had the privilege of his sharing our home. I never saw Eric angry. I never heard him say a cross or unkind word. He just “went about doing good,” and he did so unobtrusively, so self-effacingly, and so naturally that one just took it for granted that Eric was just like that, because day by day he kept an early morning tryst with his Lord. The pattern of his daily living was so little marred by faults because he offered up, quite simply, each smallest thing to Christ. He was Christ’s man.[81]

  The buds of spring finally bloomed, bringing with them the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. Remarkably, on Good Friday, an assembled choir performed at Union Church to a standing-room-only crowd. Two days later, the people returned for the Easter service.

  Eric continued the work he’d found to do, his writing, and the long walks with Cullen. The two men talked openly about their wives and children, sometimes repeating the same stories they had told the day before because news from England and Canada came so rarely. By this point, Cullen had not seen his family for two years and at times wondered if he ever would again.

  As Eric explored the theme of surrender to God, which impacted his humble approach to the rest of the world, he returned to his writing desk:

  When surrender is being made, whether alone or with another person, the mind should not be focused only on our act, but also on God’s forgiveness. The Cross, and what has been done for us by God, is far greater than anything we are doing. We are saved by grace and by grace alone. Surrender means the end of the great rebellion of our wills. We capitulate; God can act.[82]

  In August, as the time came to let the LMS know whether he intended to stay or go, Eric received an invitation to come to Canada after the war, where the offer to take up a rural pastorate awaited him. He wrote to Florence, asking for her thoughts, and saying that even though he knew the work would be difficult—and of course they must consider the children—he thought it sounded like the best thing for them to do. He also let her know how the writing of his “manual” was coming along.

  About this same time, Florence received a letter from LMS Foreign Secretary Cocker-Brown asking if she thought Eric, once he was able, would go to Canada or the UK for repatriation. For a moment, Florence wondered if Eric might—indeed at that moment—be on his way back to Canada. But she guarded her heart against that hope.

  In October, Eric again wrote to his wife, telling her of the books he’d been reading to better grasp and understand the mentality of war, books such as The Grapes of Wrath, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Journey’s End. But, he told her, he had also read a book on the life of George H. C. Macgregor, which he had chosen to keep his reading material balanced. This was a book, he told her, about “one of those men whose work is finished at 36, but who, by that time, are ready to join the Choir Invisible.”[83]

  In a letter dated November 5, 1942, Eric wrote to Flo
rence again, telling her more about the book he’d worked so diligently on, the one filled with daily Bible readings: “If it never comes to anything it will have been useful for my own thinking. And to me will always be a companion booklet to the Daily Prayers which I got out. It would be so easy to let this time go by with nothing done; nothing really constructive, and so have the days frittered away.”[84]

  In Canada, the MacKenzie and Liddell families moved into a house at 21 Gloucester Street in Toronto. At night Florence and her girls sang songs, then ended their day with a prayer for all those they loved and who now served in the war.

  Then, each night before lights-out, the girls whispered into the night air as their father began a new day in China. “And help Daddy to come home soon.”

  As was true for everyone in China, little was certain for the LMS missionaries who lived there. No one was sure how long they would remain in reasonable living conditions. Word on the street had been that the foreigners would soon be moved to an internment camp. They were told by the Japanese not to be concerned, that they would have all the amenities they had been accustomed to in Tientsin. But only the foolish believed that. Eric, who’d been made a representative for the missionaries to the Japanese officials and vice versa, decided it would be better to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

  On March 12, 1943, he called a meeting and relayed the news everyone had dreaded. All foreign nationals—British, Americans, Dutch, and Belgians—would be interned four hundred miles away at Weihsien, in the Shantung Province, which had, at one time, been an American Presbyterian mission. The location was isolated, yes, but those interned there would experience “minimum force.”

  Those about to be interned were told they could send ahead four pieces of luggage per person—one to be bedding and the other three trunks or boxes. They would be allowed to carry two suitcases by hand. Great speculation arose as to what might be deemed of absolute necessity. Blankets? Books? Perishables? What about pots and pans? Should doctors and nurses carry medical supplies? It was certain they would need eating utensils, one plate and one cup per person.

  Reducing one’s life and household to a few bags seemed an impossible task. Salvation Army Officer Brigadier Ken Stranks urged anyone with a musical instrument to bring it along because, when times got bad—as surely they would—at least they would be able to make music.

  The four pieces per person were scheduled to be sent to Weihsien on March 26, 1943. The new internees they belonged to were sent by train in three shifts—the first on March 23, the second on March 28, and the third on March 30.

  Both Eric and fellow missionary Carl Longman took the third train.

  In describing those days, Rev. Longman wrote,

  Arrangements for the rail journey of over 400 miles were splendidly carried out. We assembled at 7.30 p.m. on March 30th and had our luggage inspected by Japanese guards—our first contact with them. We moved off at 9 p.m., marching along the streets lined by sympathetic, silent crowds of many nationalities, the majority, of course, being Chinese. Third class carriages—very crude compared with British “Thirds” were provided, and we took our allotted places in them. We moved out of the railway station at 11.40 p.m. and sat up all night.[85]

  At ten o’clock the next morning, the third shift of internees changed trains at Tainan, then arrived at Weihsien at three forty that afternoon. After reaching the camp, they walked beneath iron gates where, many years before their arrival, “Courtyard of the Happy Way” had been carved in Chinese within the arch.

  The new internees were eagerly greeted by those who had arrived previously. Eric and his fellow inmates gathered on the athletic ground, where they received preliminary instructions and were then led to their living quarters. Single men and women filed into dorms. Married couples and those with families were sent to thirteen-by-nine-foot rooms.

  Initially, Eric shared a room such as this with Rev. Edwin Davies (called Bear) and Rev. J. A. McChesney Clark (called Josh). Gone for them were spacious rooms and rambling streets. Gone were cafés and restaurants. Gone were the everyday comforts of private baths and uninfested bedding on which to sleep. With only a little space for three grown men, Eric felt as though he had somehow been transported back to boarding school.

  More than 1,800 people lived indefinitely inside the mission, walled off by an electrified barbed-wire fence where watchtowers rose from stone perimeters. Armed guards and Alsatian police dogs marched along the walls, and every day the detainees woke to roll calls, bayonet drills, and hunger.

  Early on, Eric discovered that his group from Tientsin had not been the only detainment of foreigners. Other segments from around China had also been transported to Weihsien. Numerous new faces made Eric and the others intrigued yet anxious as they quickly realized how tight their living conditions would be. Filtering into cramped quarters solely with familiar faces would have been much easier than doing so with a large group of strangers. “First come, first served” had not been the most hospitable greeting they could have hoped for but had been the general sentiment.

  As cumbersome and complex as settling had been, another train soon arrived with more foreigners from Peking, among them Nurse Annie Buchan. She was relieved to see Eric and Cullen, just as they were to see her.

  The weather did not and would not work in their favor. The spring and autumn climates were tolerable, but the summer brought sweltering heat to that area of China. In late August, when the rainy season began, roads washed out, walls collapsed, and roofs leaked. The winter blasted the internees with arctic chills, so much so that blankets became precious commodities.

  Sanitation, or the lack thereof, also became an issue. With only twenty-three latrines for 1,800 men, women, and children, lines—especially first thing in the morning—were exceedingly long. The plumbing, due to limited water supply, did not work, which meant a backup of excrement onto the floors of the bathrooms.

  But the biggest mess they had to deal with in the camp would be of their own creation.

  [80] David McCasland, Eric Liddell: Pure Gold: A New Biography of the Olympic Champion Who Inspired Chariots of Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 2001), 241.

  [81] D. P. Thomson, Scotland’s Greatest Athlete: The Eric Liddell Story (Barnoak, Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland: Research Unit, 1970), 179.

  [82] Eric Liddell, The Disciplines of the Christian Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), 10–11.

  [83] D. P. Thomson, Scotland’s Greatest Athlete: The Eric Liddell Story (Barnoak, Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland: Research Unit, 1970), 182.

  [84] David McCasland, Eric Liddell: Pure Gold: A New Biography of the Olympic Champion Who Inspired Chariots of Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 2001), 247.

  [85] D. P. Thomson, Scotland’s Greatest Athlete: The Eric Liddell Story (Barnoak, Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland: Research Unit, 1970), 185.

  CHAPTER 22

  INCURVATUS IN SE

  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

  Philippians 4:12

  Early April 1943

  “We have to organize,” Eric said to the men who had gathered outside the dorm room he shared with Josh and Bear. “And we have to be logical.” He placed his hands on his hips, splaying his fingers. “We don’t know exactly how long this could go on—how long before we return home.”

  “What are you saying, Liddell?” one of the younger men asked him, a man Eric recognized as Langdon Gilkey.

  Eric raised his chin ever so slightly. Gilkey came from solid—though certainly liberal—theological stock. But he had barely crawled into his twenties when he arrived in China as a missionary, shortly before being interned.

  “Call me Eric. And what I’m saying—” Eric glanced around the small crowd and then beyond to make certain none of the Japanese were nearby. “What I’m saying to all of you is that we’re here. That much we can know for sure. And this
place used to be a mission compound, so we’ve got, at the very least, the buildings we need. We have doctors here. We have nurses—like Annie—and an old hospital.”

  “Gutted,” someone reminded him.

  “But it’s there.” Eric refused to be dissuaded and looked to his friend Cullen for support. “We have teachers—men like you, Cullen. And me. We can organize. How many children do you suppose they’ve brought in from the boarding schools or with their parents?”

  “Too many,” Gilkey replied, his voice tinged with bitterness. “And I’ve heard more are arriving from the Chefoo School.”

  “Do you know when?” Bear asked him.

  “No.”

  “Could be a while,” Cullen said with authority. “Could be tomorrow. The way things have been . . . who knows.”

  “Whenever they arrive, they and the children already here will need continued education,” Eric replied. “And sports. They must be kept active.” He looked at Cullen again. “Especially those who’ve already made it to adolescence.”

  Cullen groaned in agreement.

  “We can do this,” Eric said, the confidence rising in his voice. “If we put our minds and hands together, we can.”

  “And what do you propose for schoolbooks?” Gilkey asked. “What will you teach them with?”

  Eric had already given that question to God. He prayed that the teachers from Chefoo would bring textbooks with them, but until then . . . “I’ve taken that to the Lord, and God has provided an answer. My knowledge of science doesn’t reside in a schoolbook. My knowledge resides here,” he said, pointing to his head. “Give me paper and ink. With God’s help, I’ll write the books myself.”

  * * *

  WEIHSIEN BOASTED ONLY four showers and little water. That meant that most of the internees bathed using water caught in buckets.