Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  Despite the hard work the Chinese were putting in with their boots, the long cane and their various tortures, they were not having it all their own way. Their precious progressives, who had become the foot soldiers of our oppression, were copping a heap. Though I can’t speak for myself, as I was too numbed and isolated to be a part of anything, quite suddenly there was resistance coming from the prisoners. This was sparked off when the Chinese proudly paraded Corporal O’Rourke and announced that he’d seen ‘the truth’ and was henceforth a progressive. He was attacked and cut about and discovered bleeding behind the latrines one night, and then several of the more odious progressives received the same treatment. Some of the progressives reported the attackers, who were badly beaten by the Chinese. But then posters began to appear with the headline ‘Traitors and Spies’, followed by the names of the better known progressives and others who had been secretly informing on their mates. I lived in dread that my name might appear, even though I hadn’t given the chinks any information and continued to take my weekly beatings. The posters promised never to forget the treachery and ended with the words, ‘You cannot kill us all, and the last man standing will carry your names to justice. We will never forget your treachery!!’

  Perhaps the most effective morale booster came when the poster of Chairman Mao on the wall of the camp headquarters was defaced one night with the slogan, ‘Running Dog of the Russian Imperialists!’ And another of Joe Stalin, only recently displayed, was altered to read ‘Emperor of China’. In retrospect these captions may not seem like very courageous initiatives, but in the context of the time they were enormously brave – the perpetrators risked their lives in the process. In the eyes of the Chinese, the disfigurement of the posters was a crime that merited the death sentence.

  The peace talks seemed to have slowed down and The Daily Worker, our only source of information, mirroring the line of the petition we had been forced to sign, accused America of stalling the negotiations so that the greedy Wall Street capitalists could continue to enjoy the profits of war. Tucked away in the same issue was a small piece that suggested that part of the continuing negotiations might involve each side exchanging prisoners. You couldn’t believe anything you read in The Daily Worker, but for a moment my heart soared. Though almost as quickly my common sense told me not to be fooled by what I’d read. But what this did mean was that in some small part of me hope remained.

  The weeks passed with working parties unloading rice and more of the same daily routines, but with the disruptions continuing. Nobody seemed to know who was responsible, and while the guards became more active and vigilant the incidents didn’t stop. Whoever was behind this continued defiance must have controlled a pretty tight-lipped mob because no one had yet broken ranks. Perhaps most of the reactionary prisoners did know who was behind the continued fracas, but morale had lifted to such an extent that even the wimps became bold and the secret was kept.

  I longed to be a part of this covert revolution but I was outside the loop. It was like being a ghost, aware that you are present among people but that they appear unable to see you. As a child, one of the most onerous punishments at primary school was known as ‘being sent to purgatory’. This was when the other kids were instructed not to talk to you. I can remember how even after a couple of hours of this treatment a small child would be reduced to copious tears. Now, with Doug Waterman gone and Jimmy out of my life, I found myself in a continual state of purgatory.

  I had also come to realise how very much I had depended on Jimmy’s presence in my life. His peculiar syntax and grammar had added colour and humour to even the darkest hours, and his sanguine outlook had never failed to lift me out of my despair. After I recovered sufficiently from the initial shock of his betrayal, what puzzled me was that his ‘betrayal speech’ had been delivered in almost perfect English. It drove me crazy thinking why this might be, or even how he’d achieved the change in the way he spoke. I’d not, even once, heard him speak this way – even as a send-up or while telling a joke. I was unaware he could speak in any other manner than in his ‘dis’n’dat’ vernacular. Was he trying to get some sort of message to me? If so, what was it? Was he telling me not to take what he was doing seriously? If so, it hadn’t worked. I was unable to convince myself that this was the reason.

  I mean, the whole way he’d gone about it was totally alien to his personality. If Jimmy had decided to convert to communism he would have thought it out carefully and talked about it to me. There were no secrets between us. Besides, Jimmy never did anything spontaneously. He was a natural-born thinker. He would have argued, debated, persuaded, turned every aspect upside down and the right way up again. That was his way. He was the most persuasive person I had ever known and could talk the hind leg off a donkey, but he always made sense. He’d often talked about the situation of Negroes in America and the injustice meted out to coloured folk. He’d remarked bitterly about the disparities in misdemeanour sentencing and the disproportionate numbers of Negro prisoners within the US prison system. But he’d always seen it as an ongoing struggle against racism, and was completely aware that America wasn’t unique in this respect. We had also discovered that the Chinese were racist, particularly against blacks, and that a dogma such as communism wasn’t going to be the answer for the American Negro.

  He’d once remarked, ‘It done start in da bible, Brother Fish. It say we da chillen of Ham – we gotta hew wood and draw water for-evah, man. Amen! But dat time der ain’t no Christians. So, how come it da Christian folk dat hate da Negro? Dey all Jews dat time, and da Christians dey also hate da Jews? Dat don’t make no sense. Da Jews, dey don’t hate da Negro – no way, man. King Solomon, he done marry dat Queen o’ Sheba – she black da ace of spades. He da wisest man in da world at dat time, and he gone marry dat beautiful queen.’ It was one of Jimmy’s more playful theories but it clearly indicated that he didn’t simply blame America for the troubles of his human tribe.

  So, why had he remained silent? Despite the fact that I’d warned him not to give me any pertinent information, I told myself surely this was different. Spilling the beans to my Chinese interrogators by telling them he’d decided to be a progressive wouldn’t be informing or spying. Just the opposite, I would be bringing them glad tidings, and the news would have been accepted as another coup in the cause of communism. Why, why, why? It damn near drove me crazy.

  The Chinese announced another parade in front of headquarters, this time to listen to some visiting expert pronouncing ‘the truth’. His truth was titled ‘Russia, the Workers’ Paradise’. I confess I was beyond listening, simply too mentally exhausted to take in any more communist claptrap. I could hear words and phrases such as ‘capitalist oppression’, ‘working class no longer shackled’, ‘production lifted by 300 per cent’, blah, blah, blah, when I felt a sudden tugging at my sleeve.

  ‘Don’t turn ’round, Brother Fish,’ Jimmy’s voice said. My heart started to pound fiercely but I managed to nod my head. ‘We meet two nights’ time, one o’clock, da millet storehouse behind da latrines. Trust me.’ I nodded again, suddenly feeling quite dizzy. Then he added, ‘Bring yo’ parka an’ dress warm.’

  The speaker raved on and on for an hour or so but I didn’t hear another word. My mind filled with possibilities, not all of them good. Perhaps Jimmy was trying to compromise me – there’d be guards waiting when I arrived at the storehouse and I’d be placed back in the cells for attempting to escape. His advice to dress warm and to wear my parka could have been so that the chinks would be further convinced that I’d planned to escape. I’m ashamed of this and other such thoughts now, but at the time my confusion, disappointment and distrust were so great, anything seemed plausible.

  Moving very far from your compound unobserved after curfew, or at any time, wasn’t easy. The camp comprised a large number of staff, and every one of them saw it as their duty to report even the slightest suspicious movement. The staff lived in the tin-roofed accommodation scattered throughout the camp, which mea
nt there were always eyes on the lookout for aberrant behaviour. The Chinese people, if nothing else, were ever-conscientious in their duties towards the State.

  However, both the staff and the guards were accustomed to seeing prisoners going to the latrines at any time during the day and night. Dysentery was so common among the men that the guards took no notice of someone shambling towards this building, which had been built on the outskirts of the compound, supposedly to prevent the smell from reaching their own accommodation. Though why they’d put a millet storehouse close to the latrines was difficult to fathom – it was yet another example of Chinese inscrutability, and the joke, of course, was that this was one of the reasons why the food tasted like shit.

  Next day I checked my sandshoes and made sure the laces were strong. Those of us still wearing our boots on arrival at the camp had soon lost them on the grounds that they might help us to escape. It wasn’t long before they’d appeared on the feet of the guards. As the Chinese are a small race it was amusing to see a pair of size-eleven boots on the feet of a diminutive guard. These became known as ‘Horace boots’ after the cartoon character Horace Horse. I also had a small store of food that I’d pilfered, one handful at a time, while unloading rice on working parties, when inevitably a sack would be dropped on a carefully positioned sharp-edged rock so that it broke open. We took turns getting beaten for this ‘accident’.

  On the afternoon of the second day I left the political discussion group on three occasions saying I had a touch of dysentery, and watched as Lieutenant Dinh noted my various departures down in his notebook. Nobody would suspect me for doing a runner, though on the other hand, if all this was a set-up, it would be further evidence of my intention to escape. I wore all my clothes to bed and at a quarter to one that morning, wrapped in my blanket (the usual way to go to the latrines in the cold) I left my room in the barracks. Jimmy was waiting for me, and without saying a word we hid as a strolling sentry passed, then headed south into the hills.

  We walked until dawn, Jimmy doing most of the speaking. It was early spring, and a misty vapour rose from our mouths as we started to climb. ‘There gonna be eight of us cats,’ he said. ‘Dey all da bad guys.’

  ‘You mean the blokes that caused the attacks on the progressives and wrote the captions on the Mao and Stalin posters?’

  ‘Yoh got it, Brother Fish. Da Chinese, dey done jus’ about work out who we is and it be time to vamoose!’

  ‘Thanks for including me,’ I said.

  Jimmy smiled, and then to save me any mawkish sentimentality he said, ‘Yoh part da plan, Brother Fish. It ain’t gonna work yoh not der, man.’ He went on to explain the escape plan to me. They had the combined knowledge of several previous escape attempts to help them, and at first they decided to head south in an attempt to get to the front-line. But on the latest reports they would not get there till they had traversed 200 miles of the rugged central mountain range. ‘Maybe it too far an’ we ain’t got enough food to get der, which is what we suspek,’ Jimmy said. ‘Even if we make it der, we gotta creep our way through miles o’ da Chinese army before we get to ours. So we change da plan. We head south foh a couple o’ days, den west foh ’bout fifty miles till we reach da coast. We steal us a fishing boat an’ go out to sea an’ hope one of our planes or ships come.’ He paused. ‘Ain’t none of us know nothin’ ’bout sailing no fishin’ boat – yoh da man, Brother Fish.’

  There was no way of evaluating whether this was a sound plan or not, but the sea sounded a much safer place to be than on land and the Chinese would not be expecting it. We continued walking for a while and at one stage, after a steady climb, we drew to a halt and rested. That was when Jimmy said, ‘I guess I got me some explaining to do, Brother Fish.’

  ‘Yeah, just a tad, you black bastard,’ I replied.

  Jimmy grinned. ‘Do dat mean I ain’t comin’ to yo’ island? Ain’t gonna get none o’ yo’ mama’s cray stew?’ Jimmy had long since come to understand the different meanings of the pejorative ‘bastard’ in the Australian lingo.

  ‘I’m thinking real hard about withdrawing the invitation,’ I said, trying not to laugh.

  He went on to explain that all along it had been obvious to him that the Chinese regarded the coloured prisoners in the camp as a soft target. ‘So I listen up some and soon ’nuff Dinh, he bring up da subject foh general discussion. Dis mah chance. “Boss, we should be comrades,” I say to him, ’cos dis the right jar-gon. He done light up like a Christmas tree. “We must fight the American imperialist together,” he say. “Your people and mine.” Because he heard ’bout me do dat busi-ness with O’Rourke an’ how everything clean an’ orderly ’round here, he reckon he done caught himself a big fish – da biggest in da black sea.’ Jimmy laughed at his own pun. ‘He say I should come to headquarters straight off. Dem Chinese cats dey parade me ’front da commandant and I tell dem my story – da orphanage, how da Kraus twins done beat me up, Elmira Reformatory.’ Jimmy laughed suddenly. ‘I tell dem stuff I don’t even know happened. Time I finish da commandant, he shake mah hand. “You is a true believer,” he says to me. All dem other officials, dey smilin’ an’ shakin’ mah hand, an’ I think pretty soon Lieutenant Dinh he gonna be Captain Dinh. Dey say from now on I gonna work at da camp headquarters, man!’

  ‘So it was you who leaked the traitors and the spies list?’ I asked.

  Jimmy nodded, and then added, ‘I get to see da notes dem undercover progressives dey write. It ain’t good, man – dem muth’fuckers dey reporting on what da other prisoners dey bin talkin’ ’bout. So I makes me a list. But who I gonna trust wid dat list? Well, Brother Fish, dat easy, man. Dey send me roun’ to talk at indoctrination an’ give me da names of da bad guys so as I can target dem, try to convert dem. Well, I target dem all right. I pass da lists o’ dem undercover progressives to dem an’ den we start talkin’ ’bout makin’ us an escape team.’

  ‘There were six of them on the escape committee?’

  ‘Nah, only three. I tell dem bring a companion dey trust wid der life who ain’t sick or got hisself dysentery. Iffen we gonna make it we gonna need eight men for sentry duty, an’ to steal da crew an’ boat.’ He explained that we were to rendezvous with the others at a river junction the following morning.

  ‘Well, mate, I’ve got to admit – you fooled me. I was convinced you’d betrayed me.’

  Jimmy looked surprised. ‘Brother Fish, I give you dat signal.’

  ‘What bloody signal?’

  ‘Mah speech, when I stan’ up by da microphone. I done speak like I some white turkey. Dat means yoh know it ain’t me, man! Dat da signal!’

  ‘Well, I want you to know it was a bloody piss-poor signal because I didn’t get it.’ I paused, and then asked, ‘Where did you learn to speak like that, anyway?’

  ‘Da Somerset Messenger-Gazette newspaper, when I read to Frau Kraus. It easy, man – think like a turkey, talk like a turkey.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be buggered,’ was all I could think to say. As always, Jimmy had managed to surprise me. I had to make up my mind on the spot whether to remain shitty with him or to forgive him. The bastard had put me through hell, but it was damn near impossible to resent him for too long. He’d come back and he’d included me in the escape plan, so it served no purpose to remain angry with him.

  We continued on our way, and every once in a while we’d stop and Jimmy would check his crude homemade compass. At last he pointed to what appeared to be a small cave – not really a cave, more like an overhanging rock. ‘We stop here foh a while – chow time,’ he said. We gathered a few twigs, made a fire and cooked a little rice, and Jimmy produced a nearly full bottle of fish sauce and added a dash to the rice. Rice was a luxury in itself, but with the fish sauce added it became sheer ambrosia.

  We walked all that day to within striking distance of the rendezvous point, and slept in a hollow between two rocks in order to avoid the icy wind. Christ help anyone trying to escape in winter. Next morning we headed off at daylight, ho
ping to come across a road Jimmy said ought to be there if our navigation was right. He’d handed me the compass along with the written directions. Navigation was something I’d learned very early in life, but I have to say I was bloody glad when we hit the road at just about the spot we ought to have come upon it. Staying well concealed within the surrounding bush, we walked parallel to the road for some distance, then veered off down a gully until we reached the river junction.

  ‘According to your notes we must be just about there – it says to look for a group of big rocks just downriver from the junction,’ I said.

  Jimmy gave a soft whistle and I was surprised to hear a reply. ‘Da compass, it works – yoh da man, Brother Fish,’ he said, congratulating me.

  Four other prisoners were waiting, concealed within the rocks. I was introduced to everyone and Jimmy to the two mates the escape committee had brought along. We lit a fire and cooked the last of the rice and Jimmy added more of the precious fish sauce. From now on it would be millet and whatever we could scrounge off the land – or steal. Pretty soon a seventh bloke arrived, whom Jimmy addressed as Don Bradman. I couldn’t help smiling, which the bloke noticed.

  ‘Aye, and I’m not even Australian,’ he volunteered, grinning wearily. ‘North Yorkshire. Me dah was the village cricket umpire.’

  I guess he’d accepted his name as the particular cross he was forced to bear in life. Jimmy handed him his portion of the rice and he devoured it hungrily.

  ‘Where yo’ partner?’ Jimmy asked, when he’d completed eating.