A Multitude of Sins

by Margaret Pemberton

  Ronnie tried to smile, but his facial muscles wouldn’t respond. He was in the back of a truck and, if God was good to him, there would be a hospital bed and morphine at the end of his journey.

  ‘From the way those Japs tried to decapitate him, they must have had money on his horse as well,’ another voice said, and there was a ripple of laughter.

  A shell exploded in the road ahead of them, and the truck-driver swerved sharply. Pain streamed through Ronnie, robbing him of all coherent thought. When they reached the nearest hospital, he was unconscious again.

  The next thing he heard was an incredulous voice saying: ‘You’re a lucky bastard, Ledsham. There can’t be many men who survive a sword-blow to the back of the neck.’

  Ronnie struggled to open his eyes. The hideous shaking and bumping had stopped. He was prone and blessedly immobile, and there was a large dressing supporting the back of his neck. He focused hazily on a weary-looking doctor and managed a mockery of a grin. ‘It would take more than a Japanese sword to put me out of the running,’ he croaked gamely. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Hospital,’ the doctor said, satisfied that his patient would live.

  ‘Thank God,’ Ronnie whispered thankfully, and once more closed his eyes.

  Six days later, when a sombre-faced chief medical officer informed the men in the crowded ward that Britain had surrendered, Ronnie was one of the few who were elated by the news. As far as Ronnie was concerned, it meant that he had survived the fighting, and it meant that he would soon be reunited with Julienne again.

  ‘What do you think the Japs will do with us?’ a soldier asked him.

  Ronnie, now one of the walking wounded, was helping a hard-pressed nurse to change a dressing on the boy’s leg. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, wincing with pain as he did so. He still felt as if he were recovering from the world’s worst hangover. ‘Intern us, I suppose,’ he said optimistically. ‘Life will be uncomfortable for a time, but it won’t last for ever. Nothing does.’

  The little nurse at his side remained silent She had heard hideous rumours of the brutal treatment meted out to patients and staff in some of the more isolated dressing stations, but they were rumours her own patients were still blessedly ignorant of. Only minutes ago a jeep had screamed up to the hospital and a high-ranking officer had hurried inside for urgent talks with senior members of the staff. Seconds later, orders had been given for all stocks of alcohol on the premises to be destroyed, even though such stocks were proving enormously valuable as substitute antiseptics and painkillers.

  ‘It’s being done in the hope it will prevent the Japs indulging in a drunken orgy of rape,’ one of her colleagues had said, white-faced with fear. ‘But there will be plenty of alcohol to be looted from the shops in the Wanchai and, if they find out what we’ve done, it may make them madder than ever.’

  The staff officer who had been despatched from Fortress Headquarters to warn the hospital of the treatment they might expect was striding past the end of the ward on his way back to his car when he caught a glimpse of Ronnie, supporting a patient‘s leg as a nurse deftly bandaged it. He knew Ronnie well, having often shared a drink with him at the Jockey Club, and he stood stock-still, the blood leaving his face.

  ‘What is it, sir?’ the medical officer escorting him back to his car asked curiously.

  ‘That man, Ledsham. His wife was one of the nurses raped and murdered in the attack Major Elliot reported.’

  ‘Christ!’ The young medical officer looked in Ronnie’s direction, horrified.

  The staff officer tightened his lips and turned in the direction of the ward. ‘I have to tell him,’ he said resolutely. ‘The man can’t be left in ignorance.

  ‘But what if the report is incorrect?’ the medical officer asked, hurrying at his side. ‘So many nurses have been transferred from post to post. She may not even have been there when the attack took place.’

  ‘She was there all right,’ the staff officer said grimly. ‘Captain Elliot identified her himself.’

  Ronnie turned round at the officer’s approach. As an American, and an American once more in civilian clothes, he knew better than to reveal to a British officer just what good news he personally thought the surrender was. From the hospital window he could see white flags fluttering in the streets, and for the first time in what seemed an eternity there was no sound of exploding shells or detonating bombs. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said, mindful of his drinking companion’s rank and feeling very chipper. His Volunteer’s uniform had been so saturated in blood that it had had to be destroyed and no replacement could be found. Ronnie had been grateful. He felt much more comfortable in the tussore trousers and white linen shirt and slip-on shoes that had been given to him.

  The staff officer felt sickly disorientated. It was impossible to talk to Ronnie and not remember the other occasions they had talked. The crowded laughter-filled bar at the Jockey Club. The parties at the Ledsham home on the Peak. The palm-filled Long Bar at the Peninsula.

  ‘I need to talk to you, Ronnie,’ he said, wondering how the man would take the news. There had always been gossip that the Ledsham marriage was on the rocks, gossip fed by Ronnie’s blatant army of girlfriends. But the staff officer remembered that there hadn’t been quite so many girlfriends of late and, even when there had been, he had always had the uncomfortable feeling that Julienne Ledsham had known all about them and had not thought them worth her notice.

  ‘What is it going to be for us all?’ Ronnie said chattily. ‘Internment at Shamshuipo Barracks?’

  The staff officer didn’t know. It probably would be. The Japs would have to put them somewhere. He said, wishing that he had never looked into the ward on his hurried dash towards his car: ‘I’m awfully sorry, Ronnie, but Julienne is dead.’

  Ronnie’s smile remained fixed on his face. ‘What was that you said? I don’t think I heard you correctly.’

  ‘Julienne is dead,’ the staff officer repeated gently. ‘I’m sorry, old chap, I—’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’ Ronnie backed away from him, laughing nervously. ‘I don’t believe you. There’s been a mistake.’

  The staff officer shook his head. This was far worse than he had thought it would be. ‘No, Ronnie, it was Raefe Elliot who telephoned the report into Fortress HQ. The dressing station to which Julienne was posted was overrun in the early hours of the nineteenth. There was only one survivor, and that was Lady Gresby. The rest of the nursing staff were raped and murdered. Elliot identified Julienne himself.’

  Ronnie was swaying slightly, taking in great gulps of breath, trying to speak and failing.

  ‘As soon as it’s possible to do so, we’ll make sure her body and the bodies of those who died with her are brought back to Victoria and decently buried.…’

  Ronnie stared at him.

  The staff officer clapped him comfortingly on the arm and then turned, marching swiftly out of the ward.

  Ronnie continued to stare after him and then looked towards the windows. The white flags were still fluttering.

  ‘Thank God the fighting is over,’ a man in a nearby bed said to him, seeing the direction of his gaze. ‘We’re just going to have to tolerate the bastards now, aren’t we?’

  Dead. Raped. Murdered. Julienne. It wasn’t possible. They were going to start a family. They were going to have years of happiness together. Years and years of it. He began to walk slowly towards the door, in the staff officer’s wake. The ward behind him was so crammed with injured men, the nursing staff so overworked and exhausted, that no one noticed him leave. Julienne dead. He stood in the street in the Wanchai, looking dazedly around him. Scores of British and Canadian soldiers were squatting quietly on the pavements, smoking as they dispiritedly awaited the arrival of the Japanese. The streets were riddled with potholes, littered with damaged cars and abandoned trucks. Steel helmets and gas-masks and armbands lay discarded in the gutters.

  ‘We’re just going to have to tolerate the bastards now, aren’t we?’ The w
ords rang in his ears, and he shook his head fiercely. No, by God! Never. Julienne was dead, and the world had gone dark around him. The bulky dressing at the back of his neck made his movements difficult, and he raised his hand, feeling for the Elastoplast that secured it, ripping it free.

  At the corner of the street a group of soldiers sat beside an empty jeep, tommy-guns on the ground beside them. ‘Have you finished with those?’ he asked them tersely.

  They looked up at him, hungry and weary unto death. ‘Everyone is finished with them,’ one of them said bitterly. ‘We’ve surrendered, didn’t you know?’

  ‘I haven’t,’ Ronnie said and bent down, lifting two of the tommy-guns and throwing them into the back of the jeep.

  ‘And where do you think you’re going with that lot?’ their sergeant-major asked, making no move to apprehend him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ronnie said, frozen-faced, as he opened the jeep’s door and slipped behind the steering-wheel. ‘Anywhere, just as long as there are Japs.’

  ‘Then, you’ve got an easy task!’ the sergeant-major said with a savage laugh. ‘Because there’s nowhere on this bloody island that there aren’t any Japs!’

  Ronnie turned the key hanging in the ignition. At the third try the jeep hiccuped into life.

  ‘Maniac,’ the sergeant-major said as Ronnie pulled away from the kerb and drove away down the bomb-blasted street ‘My God, what wouldn’t I give for a decent meal and a drink of beer!’

  Ronnie drove slowly. He wanted to think of Julienne. He wanted to remember her. He knew where there would be Japs. The hills around the gap would be thick with them. He drove away from the built-up streets and the shell-pocked buildings and the piles of Chinese dead. There hadn’t been a day when he had been unhappy with her. There had never been a day when he had arrived home and she had not been pleased to see him. The streets petered out behind him. He could see the Japs now, hundreds and hundreds of them, squatting down on their haunches at the side of the road, awaiting the final order for the victory march into Victoria. None was disturbed at his approach. The surrender was hours old. White flags flew. The fighting was over.

  Ronnie creaked to a halt at a curve where Stubbs Road merged into Wong Nei Chung Gap Road. The stench of rotting bodies fouled the air. He wondered how many men still lay out on the hillsides. He wondered how many of them were not yet dead, just dying horribly, with no access to food or water, terribly maimed.

  He walked round to the rear of the truck and lifted the tommy-guns out, tucking one under each arm. She had never knowingly hurt him. Not ever. She had loved him more than she had ever loved anyone else. He had been her life as she had been his. The Japs had seen him now and were looking across at him curiously. Some of them were beginning to rise to their feet.

  ‘Bastards!’ Ronnie howled, flinging himself down on his belly and opening fire on them with the first of the guns. ‘Bastards! Bastards! Bastards!’

  Tom stood, heartsick, at the gates of Murray Barracks. He and the other men he had been fighting alongside had been ordered to retreat there hours earlier when the surrender had been declared. The fighting was over. The Japanese, with an army Hong Kong society had always regarded as a ludicrous joke, had beaten them to their knees. Tom’s shame was so intense that he wanted no one else to see it, and so, instead of remaining dispiritedly with the rest of the men, he stood alone, wondering if Lamoon was still at the Hong Kong Hotel. Wondering if she was still safe.

  The next morning. Boxing Day, the Japanese came into the barracks and lined them all up and searched them. The weather was beautiful, the sun blazing down from a brilliant blue sky as they stood before the Japanese on the parade-ground. A Japanese private, attracted by the silver badge on the fore-and-aft cap of an adjutant to the Middlesex, pulled the hat from the adjutant’s head. Tom felt his stomach muscles tighten. There had already been gross scenes of unnecessary violence, and now they waited tensely as the adjutant said in a calm voice to the Japanese warrant officer in charge: ‘Tell that man to give me my hat back.’

  Immediately the warrant officer strode towards him, screaming abuse, giving him a series of hard insulting slaps across his face. Tom looked uneasily at his neighbour. If this was how things were going to be, life as a prisoner of war beneath the Japs was going to be no picnic.

  Two days later they were herded together and told they were crossing to Kowloon to be interned at Shamshuipo, the barracks that had once been home to the Middlesex. Degradingly they were marched through the streets, hemmed in by grinning Japanese sentries in ill-fitting shabby uniforms. The Chinese watched them, cowed and dejected. There was no one to arrange food distribution for them now. No one to protect them from the bullying victors. White flags hung desultorily from windows, interspersed with the Japanese flag of the rising sun. The streets were filthy, littered with the bodies of dead Chinese, the bombed and shattered sewers giving off a dreadful stench. Tom’s eyes narrowed as they passed close to piles of the dead. Some of the bodies did not look as if they had been out beneath the sun for long, certainly not since Christmas Day. Which meant that they had died since the surrender. He thought of Lamoon and was nearly crippled by the fear he felt. The European women at the Hong Kong Hotel would be taken away to internment camps. But what would happen to Lamoon? Would she be taken with them, or would she be left to fend for herself, just one more to add to the many thousands of Chinese now openly starving?

  ‘Think there’ll be a chance to cut and run for it?’ the man marching next to him asked, low-voiced.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tom replied. It had been exactly what he had been thinking himself. Breaking free from the column as they were marched past the Hong Kong Hotel, seeking out Lamoon and fleeing with her. But where to? Chungking, the wartime Chinese capital, was over a thousand miles away. There would be a British embassy there, and safety, but between Hong Kong and Chungking lay hundreds of miles of Japanese-occupied territory.

  As they neared the shell-pitted walls of the Hong Kong Hotel, he looked hungrily towards the windows. If only he could see her! If only he could reassure himself that she was still safe! He scoured every window for a glimpse of her, but she wasn’t there. Sick at heart, he trudged on towards the ferry, wondering when he would see her again. Wondering if he would ever see her again.

  Lamoon wearily wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Ever since her arrival at the Hong Kong Hotel she had taken on the role of nurse, and for the last six days and nights had hardly slept. She did not know that British and Canadian troops were being marched past the hotel on their way to internment until long after they had been herded down to the pier and the boats waiting to take them across to Kowloon.

  Even though there might have been the feint chance of seeing Tom among their numbers, a part of her was glad that she had not witnessed their humiliation. She could not bear to think of it. It seemed beyond belief that the soldiers of the greatest empire the world had ever known were being jeered at and laughed at by Japanese troops.

  The Europeans around her were stunned with shock, dazed by the finality of the capitulation, pathetically incredulous.

  ‘But where were the Chinese? I thought the Chinese were sending an army to help us?’ an elderly British woman asked, time and time again.

  ‘Perhaps they will come now,’ another said hopefully. ‘Perhaps we will be relieved.’

  Lamoon remained silent. She knew that if the Chinese army had been able to reach them it would have done so, but it was three years since the Japanese had driven the Chinese army back across country in order to capture Canton, and there had been no sign since of the Chinese being strong enough to regain the territory lost, territory that would have to be crossed before they could reach Hong Kong.

  It had been on her second day in the hotel that she had overheard one of the auxiliary nurses saying worriedly to a colleague: ‘But we can’t just leave two European children in the care of an elderly Chinese. It isn’t right.’

  ‘They won’t be parted from
him,’ her colleague replied wearily. ‘The little boy is adamant that his mummy said they had to remain with the old man. Though he’s only five or six, he objected like the very devil when it was suggested he and his sister should be cared for by one of the women with children his own age.’

  ‘If it comes to internment, then they’ll have to be separated,’ the first nurse said darkly. ‘The Japs have no respect for the Chinese. They certainly won’t waste food on them by feeding them in camps.’

  Lamoon had tried not to think of what might happen to her if the Europeans in the hotel were interned. She had looked across to the old man and the two children that the nurses had been discussing, and had stared at them incredulously. She had never met Tom’s nephew and niece, but she had seen photographs of them and had been struck by the little boy’s likeness to Tom.

  ‘Why is that lady looking at me like that?’ Jeremy said, turning to Li Pi; and, as he did so, Lamoon’s suspicions deepened into certainty. There was something in his movements that bore a definite Nicholson stamp. She hurried across to them, saying shyly to Li Pi; ‘My name is Lamoon Sheng. I am a friend of Mr Tom Nicholson and Mrs Helena Nicholson.…’

  Li Pi’s anxious face creased into a smile. ‘I, too,’ he said with gentle dignity, ‘am a friend of Mrs Nicholson.’

  ‘And these are her children?’ Lamoon asked as Jeremy and Jennifer stared gravely up at her.

  Li Pi nodded. ‘I was entrusted by her to take them to Mrs Harland’s.’ His smile faded, and he looked again very old and very anxious. ‘But Mrs Harland’s apartment has been destroyed by bombing and so we came here. The management know me. My name is Li Pi.’

  His name meant nothing to Lamoon. She thought, as the Europeans thought, that he was an old family retainer. She stared at him, saying horrified: ‘And Mrs Harland? Is she safe?’