A Multitude of Sins

by Margaret Pemberton

  It wasn’t the Maginot Line, either. Alastair had long been dubious as to the benefits of fighting from such a fixed position, and his doubts grew by the moment. Some embrasures in the pillboxes were so constructed that it was impossible to depress the machine-guns sufficiently to cover the steep slopes below them. The scrub-filled ravines that surrounded them offered treacherously covered approaches to any attacker, and the rugged jagged terrain made mutual support between positions a near-impossibility.

  ‘When an attack comes, we’ll use the redoubt mainly for cover,’ he told his men crisply. ‘Our main fighting positions will be on the outside.’

  There was a general murmur of relief, but when darkness fell, and when the attack came, it came with such suddenness and such ferocity that it was in the dimly lit passageways and foul-smelling pillboxes that most of them died.

  Alastair had time only to press one hand against the breast pocket containing Helena’s photograph and then the screaming hordes swarmed down on them, heedless of the Royal Scots’ machine-gun fire, heedless of the casualties they were suffering.

  Grenades were lobbed through pillbox embrasures and hurled down ventilation shafts; steel doors were blown in, exits were sealed off.

  ‘The bastards are coming in!’ Alastair yelled, leaping away from the guns and towards the tunnel from which he heard the pounding of running feet and frenzied cries of ‘Banzai! Banzai!’ ‘Kill! Kill!’

  In the smoke-filled acrid-smelling darkness, Alastair let off every round in his pistol and then, as ever more Japanese surged forward over the bodies of their dead comrades, he resorted to a bayonet, knowing that he would never now marry Helena. Never even see her again. Blood was pouring from a bullet wound in his shoulder and from a shrapnel wound in his head.

  ‘They’re falling back, sir!’ a young corporal, fighting hand-to-hand alongside him, cried out triumphantly.

  There was a second’s respite as the Japanese no longer tried to storm the passageway, and then a grenade came whistling towards them, landing and rolling on the floor between Alastair and the corporal. There was no room to back away from it, nowhere to sweep it to. Alastair saw the youngster’s terrified face and then, with a savage cry of ‘Helena!’ he hurled himself on to it, taking the full force of the blast, his flesh and blood spattering the cordite-fumed tunnel and raining down on the unconscious but barely injured boy.

  The first intimation Helena had that the Gin Drinkers’Line had given way and that the troops were in retreat was when Miss Gean, her hospital matron, took her to one side and informed her that the news was grave and that, as she knew Helena had children still in Kowloon, she was giving her permission to leave her post and remove them to the greater safety of Hong Kong Island.

  ‘But what of everyone else?’ Helena had asked, aghast. ‘Are the other nurses to leave, too?’

  Miss Gean shook her head. ‘No,’ she said briefly. ‘Even if the troops withdraw to the Island, we shall not. We are needed here and we shall stay here.’

  Helena ran from the hospital still in uniform. She drove through the bomb-blasted streets in her open-topped Morgan, cursing herself for her blind belief in the Royal Scots’ability to thrash the Japanese. She had foolishly put her children’s lives at risk, ignoring Elizabeth’s pleas that she take them to Victoria while it was still relatively easy to do so. Once the news Miss Gean had imparted to her became general news it would be impossible to get a place on one of the ferries. And God only knew what would happen to Jeremy and Jennifer if they fell into the hands of the Japanese.

  She screamed to a halt outside her block of flats, running up the stairs. There was still time. She could have the children and their amah at the ferry within fifteen minutes, and then Jung-lu would take them direct to Elizabeth’s. She mustn’t think of Alastair. Alastair would be safe. Alastair would come back to her. She would be able to tell him that she was sorry she had been so hesitant about marriage. That she had changed her mind. That she wanted to marry him more than anything in the world.

  ‘Missy Nicholson! What happen? What wrong?’ Jung-lu gasped as she raced into the flat.

  ‘The Japanese are approaching Kowloon! Pack one bag and then I’m taking you and the children down to the ferry. You are to go and stay with Mrs Harland in Victoria. This is the address. Her household staff will be expecting you.’

  ‘No, missy,’ Jung-lu said, shaking her head vehemently. ‘Me not leave Kowloon. My family here. My mother, my father, my cousins.’

  Helena was already throwing the children’s toilet things and a change of clothes into a large canvas holdall.

  ‘Where are we going, Mummy?’ Jeremy was asking curiously. ‘Can I take my toy soldiers?’

  ‘Want to take teddy,’ Jennifer said, toddling round the room after Helena. ‘Please can I take teddy?’

  ‘Of course, darling,’ Helena said, adding toy soldiers and a teddy bear to her mental list of absolute essentials that had to be taken with them.

  ‘You must take the children to Victoria,’ she said fiercely to Jung-lu. ‘I have to return to the hospital. I’m desperately needed there!’

  Jung-lu shook her head. ‘No, missy, I not leave my family. Not now, not even for you.’

  The canvas bag was nearly full. Helena scooped up her silver-framed photograph of Alan and laid it on top of the clothes, and zipped it up. Please, God, she was thinking, don’t let Alastair, be killed, too. Don’t let the grieving begin all over again.

  ‘You can return immediately you have left the children with Mei Lin,’ Helena said, casting a last, hasty look round the room to make sure that she had not forgotten anything of vital importance.

  ‘No.’ Jung-lu’s mouth had set defiantly. ‘Sorry, missy, me no go.’

  Helena felt sobs of frustration rising in her throat. She had brought all this on herself with her damnable optimism that such a move would be unnecessary. If she took the children herself, Miss Gean would understand. After all, she had given her permission to leave the hospital and not to return. But, in Helena’s eyes, leaving now would be deserting her duty. The little hospital had been originally built to accommodate a hundred bed patients, and now there were close on a thousand Chinese crammed in the wards and corridors, all of them hideously wounded as a result of the savage air raids and all of them desperately in need of help. No, she could not remain in Victoria with the children herself, not if there was an alternative way in which she could be sure of their safety. The alternative way occurred to her as she lifted Jennifer high in her arms and picked up the bulging holdall. Li Pi. Li Pi was still in Kowloon, and she knew that he had been as adamant as she had been in refusing Elizabeth’s request to take shelter with her in Victoria.

  ‘’Bye,’ she shouted to Jung-lu in the last few seconds before she closed the door of the flat behind her. Any anger she had felt had now dissipated. She only prayed that wherever Jung-lu went she would be safe. The Japanese were reputed to be utterly merciless where the Chinese were concerned.

  She bundled the children into the car, driving through the rubble-filled streets towards Li Pi’s luxury apartment.

  ‘… and so you see, I really would be most grateful if you could take the children to Elizabeth’s for me,’ she said, trying to sound less desperate than she felt.

  ‘Is this the man who teaches Aunty Lizbeth to play the piano?’ Jeremy asked curiously, looking round at the unusually bare room and the concert grand piano dominating it.

  Li Pi smiled down at him. ‘Would you like to be able to play the piano?’ he asked.

  Jeremy nodded, his eyes bright. Helena took a deep steadying breath. Perhaps she had been wrong in keeping panic from her voice. Perhaps Li Pi had not appreciated the seriousness of the situation. ‘Our troops are no longer holding the Japanese,’ she said carefully. ‘They are in retreat. It is only a matter of days before they reach Kowloon.’

  Li Pi had been bending down, talking to Jeremy. Now he stood upright, holding Jeremy’s hand, and said: ‘And so you wish me to tak
e the little ones to Victoria?’

  Helena nodded. ‘Please, Li Pi. They will be much safer there.

  Even if the Japanese do reach Kowloon, they’ll never be able to cross to the Island.’

  ‘No,’ Li Pi said smilingly. ‘Of course not.’

  Helena stared at him, suddenly certain that it was not what he really thought. Oh God, she thought despairingly, am I being an optimistic idiot again? Could the Japanese invade the Island? ‘Prince of Wales and Repulse are on their way to us,’ she said confidentially. ‘Once they arrive, the Japanese will give us no more trouble.’

  Li Pi had nodded and smiled and said: ‘I will be more than happy to take the little ones to Victoria for you. But I would not put my faith in battleships that have still not arrived, Mrs Nicholson. The Japanese have probably already taken them into account.’

  Tom had found himself with the Volunteer Field Engineers, helping the Royal Scots blow up the bridges over the Sham Chun. When the Japanese had poured over the border at seven-thirty in the morning, he had been on his way to give a message to a nearby platoon and from then on remained with them, cut off from the Engineers, fighting with the Royal Scots as they withdrew to battle positions on the Gin Drinkers’Line, a few miles to the left of the Shingmun Redoubt. By early Wednesday morning, they were falling back even further, this time to Golden Hill, where he had often walked with Lamoon.

  There was no pleasant walk in store for him on the night of 10 December. Exhausted by the retreat from the Gin Drinkers’Line, weighed down with equipment and ammunition, he followed his orders, climbing and crawling up the steep slopes in almost total darkness.

  ‘At least we’ll be able to see the bastards coming from here,’ one of his companions said as they finally hauled themselves to the bare summit.

  Tom wasn’t so sure. At the Gin Drinkers’Line the Japanese had attacked in rubber-soled shoes, approaching so silently that no one had been aware of their presence until they were nearly on top of them, their uniforms heavily camouflaged by twigs and grass inserted in the cross-stitching.

  He slapped his arms around himself, trying to keep warm, trying to forget the fact that he was tired to the point of exhaustion and desperately hungry.

  ‘Have a tot of rum,’ his companion said dourly. ‘It’s the only breakfast you’ll get today.’

  The attack came as dawn was breaking. Mortar shells rained down on them, the impact area igniting in sheets of flame, a thick pall of smoke enveloping them as they fired relentlessly back, only to be savagely mortared yet again. Tom hurled himself forward, firing his Bren gun, hurling hand-grenades, shouting barrack-room obscenities at the Japs that he didn’t even know he knew. All around him men were falling, screaming out in pain, the ground beneath their feet slippery with blood. He heard a voice to his left yelling for him to get under cover but he ignored it. ‘Bastard!’ he yelled as he ran forward like a Dervish, his Bren gun firing. ‘Mother-fucking bastards!‘

  He heard a voice at his side saying, ‘I’ve bought it, mate,’ and he turned his head fleetingly just in time to see his breakfast companion, a look of disbelief on his face, slide to the ground. Tom ploughed on, in a man-made fog of smoke and dust and cordite fumes. The earth seemed to be blowing up all around him. The noise was deafening. And then, inch by inch, he knew he was being pushed back. They were losing the fight for Golden Hill, just as they had lost the fight for the Gin Drinkers’Line.

  When the order finally came for them to pull back to less exposed ground closer to Kowloon, Tom sobbed in bitter rage and frustration. They were being defeated. Defeated by bloody mother-fucking Japanese.

  They had scarcely reached their new positions when a further order came. The mainland was to be evacuated, anything of any use to the enemy was to be denied them. Cement works, power stations, dockyards, all were to be destroyed. From now on, all further fighting would take place on Hong Kong Island.

  Helena had safely deposited Li Pi and the children aboard the ferry

  the previous day and was sincerely glad that she had done so. Gunfire could be heard in the Kowloon streets, the air raids had increased and the Chinese dead lay in the streets, their bodies rotting alongside the living. The medical staff of the Kowloon Hospital, doctors and nurses, were gathered together and sombrely told that despite the evacuation of the troops it was the Governor’s wish that they all remain at their posts.

  Even in the hospital, the sound of the disorder in the streets could be heard. Windows were being smashed in Nathan Road; riots had broken out, and looting was rife. Helena returned to her terrified patients, wondering where Julienne was, where Elizabeth was, and if Alastair and her children were safe.

  Tom fumed and swore all the time he was being driven down towards Kowloon Point. After all they had gone through, he and his companions were being ferried down to the embarkation point in a bus! To Tom it was the final indignity.

  ‘Looks a bit nasty round ’ere, don’t it?’ one of the men who was with him said as they saw evidence of looting and a rotting pile of Chinese dead.

  Tom was just about to turn his head away from the chaotic street scene when he went rigid, the blood draining from his face. ‘Lamoon!’ he uttered with a strangled cry. ‘Lamoon!’

  She was pushing and battling her way in the midst of the crowds streaming towards the docks.

  He couldn’t believe his eyes. For a long near-fatal moment, he couldn’t even move. ‘Lamoon!’ he shouted again as the bus continued to speed away from her. ‘My good Christ! Lamoon!’

  He leaped to his feet, ignoring the shouts and cries around him. ‘Let me off this bloody bus!’ he yelled, and then, not waiting to see if it would stop, not caring if he was court-martialled and shot, he launched himself from the bus platform and into the road.

  He fell heavily, rolling over and over, scrambling to his feet and running back up the street shouting ‘Lamoon! Lamoon!’ like a man demented.

  She stood still as the crowds milled around her, turning her head to see where the shouts were coming from, her almond eyes wide and fearful.

  ‘Lamoon!’ he shouted at the top of his lungs, barrelling his way through the hurrying Chinese. ‘Oh, good God! Lamoon!’

  When she saw him she swayed on her feet, kept upright only by the pressure of people jostling and pushing her.

  He cleaved his way through the throng, his eyes blazing with joy. ‘Lamoon!’ he uttered as he swept the last human barrier easily aside. ‘Oh, my love! My darling! Lamoon!’

  She fell into his arms, her head against the broad safety of his chest, tears streaming down her face. He crushed her against him, sobs of thankfulness and joy rising in his throat. ‘Oh, my little love,’ he uttered chokingly. ‘Where have you been? What did they do to you?’

  Air-raid sirens screamed into life.

  ‘I thought I would never see you again!’ she said rapturously, raising her face to his.

  All around them Chinese and Europeans were running for cover.

  ‘My love, my life,’ he whispered thickly, lowering his head to hers, kissing her with all the pent-up passion of months of longing.

  There was a sudden blinding roar as the planes swooped down on the narrow streets. ‘Quick!’ he yelled, seizing her wrist. ‘I’m sure as hell not going to be killed now!’ He sprinted with her across the road, thrusting her into a doorway, shielding her with his body. The sky darkened as the planes roared overhead, and then there came the terrible whistling sound of falling bombs.

  ‘Don’t let me die! Dear God, don’t let me die!’ he prayed silently for the first and only time since the war had begun. He couldn’t die, not now he once more had Lamoon. He had to be alive to protect her; to love her; to keep her safe.

  The bombs tore into streets some distance away. The ground rocked beneath their feet, a shower of white concrete dust falling over their heads and shoulders.

  ‘Is it over?’ Lamoon shouted above the roar of falling buildings and the continuing scream of sirens.

  ‘I think
so.’ Cautiously Tom lifted his head, peering upwards. The sky was as blue and as clear as it had been minutes earlier before the attack. ‘Come on, I’ve got to get out of here. Where were you going when I saw you?’

  They were back out in the street; to the left of them, about half a mile away, tongues of flame were shooting skywards, great billowing clouds of smoke beginning to choke the air.

  ‘The ferry,’ she gasped as they weaved and dodged through the crowds erupting from the street-shelters. ‘I thought it would be safer on the Island.’

  ‘Damned right it would!’ Tom said grimly. My God! The mere thought of what might happen to her if she fell into Japanese hands made him go cold with terror.

  ‘The trouble is I haven’t got a permit!’ she gasped as he lunged across the street towards a taxi-cab abandoned by its driver.

  ‘To hell with bloody permits!’ Tom expostulated, half-throwing her into the front seat of the taxi and running round to the driver’s seat. ‘Let’s hope this old jalopy has some petrol in it!’

  It had, and seconds later they were speeding through the congested streets towards the docks.

  ‘You haven’t told me what happened to you yet,’ he said, swerving to avoid the fire engines and ambulances screaming their way towards the fires and the injured.

  ‘I was married,’ she said simply.

  He jerked his head towards her, the taxi-cab veering dangerously. She gave a small smile. ‘It is over now.’ Her smile faded. ‘He was killed in a raid. We were visiting my father.’ She looked away from him, out to the ravaged streets. ‘They were all killed. My father. My brothers. There is no one left.’

  ‘Yes, there is,’ he said gently, removing one hand from the wheel and placing it over hers.

  Her eyes were bright with tears as she turned her head once more towards him: ‘I love you,’ she said softly. ‘For all of my life, I love only you, Tom.’

  Kowloon City Pier was in a shambles. European women, amahs and small children in their wake, were thronging the area streets deep. Extra launches were waiting to ferry them across to Victoria, taking on board so many passengers that by the time they put out into the channel it seemed a miracle they didn’t sink beneath the weight.