Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Yeah? White trash, ain’t it?’ Jimmy offered.

  ‘What you say, nigger? Did I hear you call me punk and white trash? Now I don’t like that none,’ O’Rourke said, a nasty little smile playing over his face.

  ‘Well, I ain’t too partial to nigger, neither, punk.’ Jimmy smiled back at him seemingly unafraid and then gave a casual little shrug. ‘It jus’ ain’t nice, man.’

  O’Rourke’s men gathered around him, pushing closer. ‘We’re closin’ you down, nigger. You want trouble? You can have it any time you want. Now, hand over that harmonica,’ O’Rourke said.

  Jimmy didn’t reply for some moments. Instead he cocked his head slightly and looked at O’Rourke, a querulous expression on his face. Finally he asked, ‘Hey man, yoh want to join da choir? We needs us a soprano voice bad.’

  Up to that moment the crowd, including the choir, had listened in dead silence. Now there was a gasp, and then a spontaneous roar of laughter. O’Rourke’s face turned crimson. I don’t suppose, with his hoons standing around him, too many of them saw the shiv come out of his trouser pocket. I caught the glint of the homemade blade as it sunk into Jimmy’s gut. ‘Fuck!’ I shouted, lunging towards O’Rourke. I was propped up on my crutches because I’d been playing the harmonica and needed both hands to do so, and as I rushed forward the crutches fell to the ground. But it was all over before I got to where the white corporal was standing. There was an audible tin-like snap and the blade dropped from O’Rourke’s fingers. The look of surprise on his face lasted only a moment before Jimmy grabbed the front of his tunic and, with his free hand, did the same to one of O’Rourke’s henchmen standing beside him. With a sudden vicious jerk, he brought their heads together so hard that those of us in the front row of the choir could hear the crack as their skulls collided. Both men sank to the ground at Jimmy’s feet, unconscious. A thin trickle of blood started running down O’Rourke’s jowl.

  Jimmy turned to the hoon standing nearest to him. ‘Take dem away!’ he commanded. ‘We got us some choir singin’ to do, an’ dis a private session wid no white trash allowed.’

  Someone started to clap and then everyone did – not just our company, but Doug Waterman’s mob from the Royal Ulster Rifles and the white Americans present. A cheer rose from the crowd. Nobody quite knew what had happened – all they could see was O’Rourke and one of his men lying unconscious at Jimmy’s feet. Then Jimmy stooped down and picked up two broken pieces of blade, examined them cursorily and then threw them aside with a grunt. There was a sudden sigh from the crowd as they realised Jimmy had been attacked before he’d grabbed hold of the two men now lying unconscious at his feet.

  I simply couldn’t imagine what had happened. I’d seen the shiv enter, I was sure of it. What’s more I was quite certain it had entered well above Jimmy’s belt, so that it couldn’t have protected him or caused the blade to snap in two. ‘Jesus, what happened?’ I asked Jimmy.

  ‘Later,’ he growled softly. ‘Now we play – “St James”.’

  I returned to the choir, not stopping to pick up my crutches, and blew the opening chords of ‘St James Infirmary Blues’. We watched as four of O’Rourke’s men carried their leader and his offsider away. I wondered if Jimmy had killed them, because neither of them showed any signs of coming around. With the first bars of the music the choir began to hum and the crowd had grown quiet. If the humiliation of O’Rourke meant that Jimmy was now ‘da man’ then things around the POW camp were in for a big change.

  Later in our room I asked Jimmy again what had happened, exclaiming at the same time, ‘Mate, I bloody saw the knife go into your gut with me own eyes!’

  ‘Nah, that don’t happen, Brother Fish, I done pro-tek myself.’ He unbuttoned his tunic and pulled out a tin plate, one of the plates our food was served on at the cookhouse. Now I knew where Lieutenant Dinh’s missing ‘downfall of capitalism’ plate had gone – Jimmy had lifted it when we’d been doing the washing-up after we’d missed our afternoon meal. I felt a whole heap better.

  It was also typical of Jimmy not to remove the plate from his tunic in front of the crowd. By doing so he would have gained a second gratuitous laugh and cheer from the crowd. Later one of my fellow inmates in the house explained to me, ‘Jimmy – he a real cool dude, man!’

  Jimmy told me his tin-plate protection was something he’d learned at Elmira Reformatory. Evidently he’d been wearing it in anticipation from the second day we’d arrived. He’d not known when O’Rourke would come for him, but was convinced that sooner or later he must.

  In the way these things happen the rumour got about that the blade O’Rourke had used had snapped on Jimmy’s abs, and that Jimmy hadn’t even flinched when the knife entered his gut. As far as the American compound was concerned, Jimmy was ‘the man’. Shortly after the incident at choir practice the Chinese found a reason to put O’Rourke in the camp prison – the group of huts on the perimeter of the camp that the guard had pointed out to us with the caution, ‘No want go that place.’ We didn’t hear any more about him for some time, but it was a universal hope that he would be the recipient of some of the more painful tortures the Chinese were capable of administering while still keeping a prisoner alive. Although, in his case, keeping the bloke alive wasn’t of great concern.

  The tedium in the camp continued. It was by now getting pretty cold and the endless lectures were made even harder to bear by the inclement weather, the bad food and sickness everywhere. For me, the only good thing was that the time I’d lunged towards O’Rourke, leaving my crutches to fall to the ground, was the last time I ever used them. Two days later Jimmy discarded Captain Hook.

  We could hardly be described as fit, but being no longer dependent on our crutches made us feel invincible. Moreover, news came through that peace talks were making good progress and it was now only a matter of hanging on. Furthermore, it was in the interest of the enemy to keep us alive for negotiating reasons. The blokes who reckoned they’d nearly frozen last winter were relieved to be allowed to collect a little more wood, and rations increased just sufficiently to stop men dying of starvation and some medication was also made available. The death rate of around ten men a day fell to half that number.

  In Doug Waterman’s words, ‘It’s what you’d be calling a balancing act. The boogers want to keep us alive, if that’s what you’d call our present condition, but not so alive that we’ll be after resisting indoctrination and not taking advantage of the Lenient Policy in return for our confessing to be dupes of our capitalist oppressors. By Jesus, if I get out of this, I’m going to buy me a ticket to America and I’m going to go to Wall Street and tell them warmongering boogers they owe me a pension for life for the abuse I’ve taken in defence of their sodding name!’

  As the war progressed we became more and more disillusioned, and it was increasingly difficult to justify the South Korean regime as the bulwark of democracy in Asia – the reason we were fighting in the first place. Doug told of how the Royal Ulster Rifles were placed in reserve in Seoul during the big bug out of winter 1950–51. It was Christmas, and the snow was up to their knees as the South Koreans prepared for the evacuation of the city. The first thing the South Korean police did was round up a large number of women and children and herd them into the streets, where they shot them. ‘We had to stand by and watch the slaughter of innocent women and children, unable to do anything on what was their sovereign territory,’ Doug said, plainly still upset from the memory. ‘Well, we’re Irishmen, see, and we’ll not put up with that – our own mothers and bairns safely at home, and theirs being shot down in the streets in front of our very eyes – it’s not to be put up with, whatever the reason. So we fixed bayonets and ordered the police to stop, half hoping they’d defy us so we could clean the bastards up good and proper once and for all. The boogers stopped all right, but who knows what happened when our backs were turned. It makes you bloody wonder what we’re fighting for, don’t it? I mean, when the Chinese go on about Syngman Rhee exploiting his people
it’s hard not to agree with them now, isn’t it?’

  This brought us to our favourite subject of the Republic of Korea and the bloody hopeless South Korean forces who’d proved themselves cowards and no-hopers time and time again, costing the lives of the rest of us who’d come to help them keep their country safe from communism. Although, after Doug’s story of the massacre of women and children, I suppose the forces of South Korea could hardly be blamed for their lack of enthusiasm for the war. Doug then told us what subsequently happened to the Royal Ulster Rifles.

  They were given the job of preparing a fall-back position for the 1st ROK Division, who were the front-line troops some twelve miles to the north of Seoul. ‘We’d created trenches, bunkers, telephone lines – the whole box’n’dice. Lovely job, if I say so myself,’ Doug began. ‘The Chinese hit on New Year’s Day and the ROK were supposed to take the initial shock, hold for a while, then withdraw to the fall-back position. But almost from the first enemy mortar the cowards broke and ran for their lives. They passed through our lines like a dose of salts and we were forced to man the fall-back position designed for three times our number. We held the chinks a good bit but the boogers were everywhere, crawling over us like ants. The front had crumbled so quickly we didn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘Same here,’ I said. ‘The bloody ROK did it to us at Uijongbu and Kapyong. Is that how you were personally captured and brought here?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d be happy to tell you, Jacko, but it’s a long story. Are you sure now you’d want to be hearing it?’

  I laughed. ‘Mate, I’m so busy pickin’ my nose I’ve hardly got time to scratch my arse.’

  Doug grinned. ‘You’d make a good Irishman, Jacko. The Chinese finally overwhelmed us and we became isolated. Most fought their way out but quite a few of us got taken prisoner.’ Doug shook his head slowly. ‘How I’m sittin’ here talkin’ to you is a fookin’ miracle. We were lumped together with a large number of other prisoners and started to march north. We marched through the freezing winter nights and holed up anywhere we could during the day – caves, ditches and abandoned villages. I was never warm. The chinks had taken our warm boots and given us their canvas shoes to wear. There was precious little food, and no medicine. The wounded died mercifully early on in the march, which grew harder as we grew weaker and the weather turned even colder. We’d huddle together for warmth during the day and often, when night came and it was time to continue, there were dead lying among us. Often men could go no further, suffering from frostbite and exhaustion. The guards would try to get them going with kicks and blows from their rifle butts, but to no avail. Near me were two brothers, one unable to carry on and the other too weak to carry him, so they both stayed behind to die. There comes a time when a man gives up his life willingly just to be left behind in the snow. Some even pleaded to be shot. The march took us two months, and by the time we arrived here we’d lost three quarters of our column.’ He looked up at me. ‘We’re not out of it yet, Jacko, but if I was a Catholic I’d be saying a hundred “Hail Marys” every day for getting me through that particular nightmare. No matter how hard it is in here, I thank God for a straw mat, a louse-ridden blanket and the handful of vile food we get.’

  Later, I told Jimmy Doug’s story. ‘Jesus, makes our journey seem like a Saturday-night pub crawl,’ I concluded.

  ‘Pub crawl?’ he asked, moved by Doug’s story.

  ‘Getting drunk by moving from one bar to another on a Saturday night,’ I explained. It was as close as I could come to the meaning of a peripatetic piss-up. It had never occurred to me to be grateful for being alive and in a Chinese POW camp.

  As the peace talks grew more intense, so did the afternoon lectures and indoctrination sessions. The Chinese seemed determined that we’d leave them as communists, proselytes ready to spread our new-found political dogma back in our own countries. More importantly, they wanted to persuade more of us to write statements denouncing the ‘American war of aggression’ and accusing the US Army of bombing hospitals and of other atrocities. Not that we’d seen any of these events, but they encouraged us to take their word for it. As far as the conversions were concerned, they did have some success. Twenty-one Americans and one British soldier refused repatriation after the war and went to live in China. A few others returned home embracing the communist doctrine.

  Quite suddenly, the discussions became more relaxed – almost casual, and seemingly without the usual end motive to convert us. We were asked for our thoughts on the running of the camp and encouraged to discuss our lives before the war and our hopes for the future. One afternoon Lieutenant Dinh participated in the group by telling us about his own earlier life before the Long March, which he’d joined at the age of ten and where he had been selected to be educated and trained as an English translator. He told us about his fishing village named Jieshi in Guangdong Province, and at one stage seemed to really relax and wax nostalgic about the fisherfolk in his region, whom he boasted were the best in China. I invited him to hear ‘The Fish Song’, which we’d taught the new choir, and he willingly accepted. Jimmy wasn’t all that pleased, but we had the choir perform it for him and Dinh seemed delighted and clapped furiously at the conclusion, claiming later that our entire compound was now well within the Lenient Policy.

  Things seemed to be looking up. Certainly the quality and quantity of the food improved marginally. I joined in the discussions without first being asked a question, and always Jimmy would caution me. ‘Things ain’t right, Brother Fish,’ he’d say.

  ‘Mate, it’s only a discussion – no harm in that. I ain’t gunna turn into a commo overnight.’

  ‘I been in dis kind o’discussion be-fore – all ain’t what it seems, we still in da jailhouse,’ Jimmy warned.

  I must admit, there were times when he really got on my goat – the way he always seemed to see something ominous in every situation. He’d spent too much time in institutions and found it impossible to trust anyone in authority. Jimmy always looked for the motive behind people’s actions and couldn’t understand that sometimes there wasn’t one. We all knew the peace talks were under way and that the Chinese were attempting to make things look better than they were. So, I guess to show my independence, I kept on joining in the conversations that, as far as I was concerned, made the meetings a bloody sight less boring. Dinh even seemed to enjoy a bit of banter where I (cleverly, I thought) subtly criticised the Chinese People’s Volunteers.

  Then came the big announcement. There was a special parade called with the commandant addressing us, but this time his opening patter had changed somewhat. ‘We, the Chinese people, love democracy!’ he began. There was a ripple of amusement among the assembled prisoners. ‘Not capitalism, where the Wall Street warmongers exploit the proletariat, but true democracy of the people!’ He went on a bit in this manner before announcing, ‘We will soon have Daily Life Committees in every company. You will have your opinions heard and, if they are sound, we will act on them. You will be able to tell the world how the Chinese People’s Volunteers have set you free.’

  Now I understood the softening of their attitude over the past few weeks – it had been orchestrated to lead up to the so-called ‘democracy’ to be introduced into camp procedure. The question now was, why?

  ‘Ha! Brother Fish, somebody come to visit us,’ Jimmy said knowingly.

  As part of the new democratic system, Jimmy was elected as a squad leader in our compound and I was the monitor. In our case nothing much had changed – the ghetto had long since got its act together under Jimmy’s leadership, and as usual I was his dogsbody. Of course, he was right about the visit. No sooner had the Daily Life Committees been established, the hospital cleaned up and the chow improved, than the Chinese authorities announced World Press Day. This turned out to be a visit by photographers and journalists from the English communist newspaper The Daily Worker and the French Communist Party paper L’Humanité as well as newspapers from most of the communist and many neutral countries. The
y took photographs of the assembled committees, of food we’d never before received and interviewed a carefully selected group of prisoners – the converts to communism and prisoners known as ‘progressives’, men who had responded to indoctrination and the Lenient Policy with a willingness to denounce the Americans as ‘warmongers’. Altogether it was a carefully staged propaganda coup intended to strengthen the Chinese hand in the peace negotiations.

  Nevertheless, we welcomed the better conditions. With marginally bigger portions and slightly better food our strength improved a little. Now off our crutches, Jimmy and I were selected for various work parties unloading bags of rice or corn. Jimmy called it ‘nigger work’, as we seemed to do more of it than the other compounds. If we were lucky, we’d be sent to gather wood outside the camp. On one such wood-collecting expedition, one of the blokes in the ghetto found some bush tobacco growing. How a guy from Kentucky knew what Chinese bush tobacco looked like I’m buggered if I know, but he turned out to be right – the stuff was smokeable. Well, smokeable under the prevailing circumstances, anyway, where anything vaguely resembling tobacco was prized above rubies.

  We cured the bush tobacco leaves by hanging them above the barrack room fire, but our next problem was that we possessed no paper for making fags. My notes made after the various discussions were written on three pieces of paper issued to me after every lecture. These had to be filled in and handed back at the next day’s session. As the Muslims say, ‘God is great’ – the tobacco had hardly been properly cured when, after an indoctrination session, Lieutenant Dinh gave me a copy of The Daily Worker. It was the copy that showed the photographs of the visit by the ‘World Press’ and, naturally, reported in glowing terms the findings of one of the visiting journalists, a bloke called Wilfred Burchett, who I later discovered was an Australian and a long-term communist sympathiser and friend of the Chinese. I was instructed by Dinh to read the feature article at the after-lecture squad meeting and to conduct the usual discussion and deliver my notes on it to him afterwards. I recall the front page showed a beaming commandant sitting in the centre of the newly elected Central Committee. Hoo-bloody-ray! I thought to myself – have faith and God will provide, my son. We’d got our cigarette paper, with maybe enough over to distribute a strip to everyone in the barracks to have one glorious arse-wiping crap!