After the Storm

by Margaret Graham

  ‘We’ll survive,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘If it bloody well kills me, we’ll survive.’ And suddenly Prue’s eyes were not dull any more but alive with laughter, and Annie grinned, her body limp with relief. She rose, then dusted off her knees and entered the dark heat of the hut to fetch the scissors.

  She cut Prue’s hair as she had been asking all week and told her she looked like Veronica Lake but piebald. Monica called then from the hospital hut next to them and Annie patted Prue’s shoulder, feeling her bones through her flesh.

  ‘Tea-break over.’ She picked up the tin can and checked that some water remained. ‘Take a bit. It’s clear of worms. Just stay in the shade and I’ll do your shift.’

  They had built the hospital hut large enough to take twenty patients and it was always full. She went from bed to bed with the doctor, checking pulses and bathing foreheads, easing discomfort if possible.

  At five she had supper, the last meal before the long night. The rice grain had been spread and sorted all through the day, she had seen the team busy over by the kitchen hut. There were a few vegetable scraps today which was good but nonetheless her throat closed as it did now against the meal which had not varied since they had been interned. She pushed rice deep into her mouth with her fingers, forcing herself to swallow.

  Monica was sitting next to her. ‘Prue all right now?’

  Annie nodded. ‘I saw her come across for first sitting earlier so she’s eating anyway.’

  It was dusk outside. It had come quickly as it always did and the evening felt cooler after the heat of the day but still sticky and Annie walked back to their hut while Monica went over to the Dutch to cut hair for cigarettes.

  Prue was waiting on the verandah, propped against a doorpost, her eyes half-closed, her mosquito-net pulled about her. She smiled as Annie sat down next to her and took the blanket that she passed, wearing it as the pit women wore their shawls only this was for protection against mosquitoes, not the cold. There were groups of women all along the verandah talking in low voices, and in the huts. She took a piece of bible paper from her pocket and rolled it round the shredded leaves they had dried in the sun during the day. Pruscilla hugged her knees.

  ‘Feeling better?’ Annie asked as she put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it. She had packed the leaves tightly so that they would burn slowly. Prue nodded.

  ‘I don’t fancy the idea of the move tomorrow,’ she said.

  Annie drew in the smoke. ‘I’m 30 tomorrow and don’t feel like that kind of a party either. Don’t worry though, you’ll be feeling better by then.’ She swatted at a mosquito that buzzed close to her. It was never silent here; there was always the noise of the jungle, the murmur of insects. She had seen the flash of colour as butterflies wove in and out of the undergrowth around the camp and she had thought how Georgie would love it. Then there were the moans and restless turning of the patients which they could hear easily from here and the children who cried out in the dark, especially those who no longer had a mother living. One hundred human beings here now she reckoned, minus three of course. No wonder there was always noise.

  Prue reached in under her net and held out her hand to Annie. ‘If we hadn’t been on the move tomorrow, I would have given you this in the morning. But since you’re 21 again I thought I’d push the boat out for you.’

  There was a chilli in her hand. ‘More precious than bloody gold,’ breathed Annie. ‘All those vitamins.’ She fingered its shiny smoothness and leant back against the hut.

  ‘Thanks, bonny lass. The best present I’ve ever had. We’ll have a party when we arrive. Chilli con carne but without the con carne.’ She paused. ‘Do you remember the strawberries and salmon, Prue, and how we thought it would last until the end of time? We were wrong and Georgie was right.’

  ‘I know and I said some things I should never have said to you then, about you and Georgie. I’ve always wanted to say I was sorry.’ Prue’s face was in shadow. They were talking quietly as everyone was doing in these moments before they crawled on to their beds.

  Annie drew on the last of her cigarette, feeling the heat near her fingertips. ‘I don’t remember you saying anything,’ she replied, but she did, every word and suddenly she could not wait to be on her pallet and able to think of him. Of the coldness of the beach as they had lain together the first time, of the feel of his skin, the scars that ridged down his back, of his arms as they held her and of later, when they met again and loved again. This is what she thought of each night, what she saved up through the day using it as a prize which beckoned her on through every hour. Georgie kept her sane, kept her alive. That was how she thought of Georgie and all the questions were kept in that little black box in her mind where dark things belonged.

  On the third day of the march, it rained and Annie’s clompers stuck in the mud with each dragging step, wrenching her toes and rubbing further raw patches. It swept over struggling bodies as they toiled along the tracks which seemed to lead nowhere. It was still hot, in spite of the rain, and the humidity sucked away their strength. Four died on that day, and a child. The guards threw the bodies into the swamp and would not allow time for burial.

  Annie watched Monica’s back and counted to fifty and then again and again. They kept in step because it helped them to keep going and made the stretcher they carried less bumpy for the patient who was bloated with beri beri and should not last the night, or so the doctor thought.

  The camp was reached on the seventh day at noon and the woman only died when they laid her down inside the wire. Annie’s hands were bleeding and her shoulders felt as though hot wires were strung from shoulder to shoulder.

  The doctor organised the burials and explained that the smell which was strong was latex and that this was a work-camp. The rubber plantation was all around.

  ‘There’ll be more work for us, more injuries to the women Sisters,’ the doctor said, her face drawn and looking older than her 40 years. Her auburn hair was now almost completely white though she had once been a beautiful woman. ‘Now come on over, we’re to be addressed by the commandant.’

  He spoke through an interpreter while the rain beat down and it dripped down Annie’s bowed neck and face and off the end of her nose.

  ‘Nippon number one,’ he said. ‘And the war finish in one hundred years. You work well, you be treated well. Remember that.’

  They stood up straight as he picked his way through the mud to his car and roared away, klaxon sounding.

  ‘Thank you and goodnight,’ murmured Prue as she walked painfully with Annie over to the hospital hut. Their legs were trembling and so were their arms. The bamboo slats laid down for mattresses glittered with bugs which scattered and scuttled across and down the cracks where each cane met the other, so when the rain had ceased they lit fires with a lighter made of plaited cotton dipped in coconut oil and a flint. Annie felt the heat as they passed the slats quickly through but they knew that still some would survive and that the night for the patients would be one of torment as the bugs bit and the smell of bad burnt almonds rose as they tossed and crushed, and not just for the patients of course.

  There was more rain again the next day and it poured through the atap tiles which were too few to create a proper roof on the bamboo huts. They had to move the patients so that rain dripped only on their bodies not their faces. Then they heard shouting in the compound and a woman’s screams, loud and long and despairing. Annie felt cold rush through her body.

  Guards burst through into their huts then, their boots clumping and kicking at the platforms, tipping patients on to the floor, emptying out the doctor’s bag where they kept what little medicine they had, smashing bottles with their rifle butts. Her mouth went dry. She should stop this but she was too afraid. The guards came towards them, their bayonets fixed, their faces bulging with rage, words spitting from their mouths.

  They were pushed, patients and nurses, out of the doorway. Prue stumbled and Annie caught her and held her upright as they were slap
ped down the steps. She turned and helped two patients and Prue took another across the compound to where the other prisoners were waiting in silence in three long rows. They were not to bow their head, the interpreter said. They were to watch what happened to those who disobeyed.

  Lorna Briggs’s radio had been found. She was 24, still with her Scots accent and covered in freckles from the heat of Malaya. Now she was beheaded quite silently in the centre of the compound and the blood that shot two yards was washed away in the deluge before it had settled.

  And Annie drew in her head beige and pink flowers, any sort of flowers that might do for wallpaper, for curtains, as she had done before in the camps when her friends had been swatted and destroyed and she had been unable to bear it. Why not have matching lampshades and crockery? While the rain sheeted down and they all stood there she closed her mind to the pain, the body and the blood, pushing it into that black box at the back of her head.

  Later she rolled her cigarette on the verandah with Prue and they listened to the cicada and she thought of Sarah’s house, her house now and decided she would start with the bedroom. Tom could help. They would design that first, see how it worked before they went into production. Yes, they would do that and now she must think of a design, a design that would keep today out of her thoughts tonight. She drew on the cigarette and lit Prue’s from the stub.

  Not lush flowers but small gentle pink and beige with an indefinite outline for wallpaper and larger flowers for the bedspread and the curtains. Slowly she cut, pasted and papered the bedroom up to the picture rail and brought soft beige emulsion across the ceiling and down to meet the paper. The lighting was a problem and she turned to Prue.

  ‘Right,’ she challenged. ‘I’ve decided on the wallpaper and curtains, the bedspread too, but what about lighting?’

  Prue flicked away her cigarette stub into the compound and it was doused by the rain before it hit the ground.

  ‘Is this your business idea you’re on about?’ she asked, smiling slightly.

  And Annie nodded. It always worked and made them turn from the present when it became too cruel.

  ‘Yes, but first I’ve decided to do the house and I’m stuck on the light fitting.’ Their voices weren’t quite right yet but by the end of the long night they were sounding normal and they had not had to bother with the agony of sleep.

  It took weeks of arguing through their off-duty hours while they discarded Prue’s chandelier and Annie’s ruche material but finally Annie decided on a glass bowl with bamboo etched on as a centre light with duplicated bedside lamps.

  The monsoons were over and it was not quite so humid though the latex still permeated every corner. ‘How can you want anything that reminds you of this place? You’re inhuman,’ Prue flung at her as they scooped Mrs Glanville’s ulcer. ‘Bamboos, how can you choose bamboos?’

  ‘Come on, Prue,’ retorted Annie as she dropped the final swab into the tin that Prue was holding. ‘Just because we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time doesn’t mean that ugliness is everywhere; the flame trees still flame and the sun still sets.’

  ‘It does that,’ said Mrs Glanville. ‘Right over good old Blighty.’

  They both stopped glaring at one another and turned to the emaciated woman who lay beneath an old torn sheet. Annie ran her hands down her torn, dirty uniform and looked at Prue’s which was the same.

  She laughed then. ‘None of that talk, Mrs Glanville, or I’ll have to talk with the doctor,’ she scolded, ‘and then there’ll be no more grapes at visiting time.’ She took the woman’s pulse and touched her cheek and was glad that she also smiled. They moved on to the next patient.

  ‘God, my legs,’ Prue groaned. Their periods had stopped long ago along with most of the women and their legs had swollen and permanently throbbed but whether it was as a result of this or just the diet and the work no one really knew.

  Not exactly the place for research the doctor had said as they had talked it over in the early days of their captivity. She had worked in a children’s hospital in Sydney and had come to Singapore in 1939.

  Annie stood with Prue at the side of the beri-beri case who was dropsical and exhausted.

  ‘The doctor has asked Cricket Chops for some Vitamin B again but he made her wait two hours in the sun, then sent her back speedo to look after the sick she was neglecting. Without the vitamins of course. No red cross parcels again, he said.’ Annie was angry as they moved away to sit at the end of the hut until they made another round in half an hour.

  ‘Did you do Van Weidens’s washing?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Only half before roll-call. Can you finish when you get off?’

  Annie nodded. ‘It might buy us a banana from the guard, but don’t for God’s sake try with the big one. He belted Monica last week and took her money anyway.’

  Prue raised her eyebrows. ‘Sounds pretty par for the course. Anyway, Annie, you really can’t have that glass bowl. It’s unpatriotic.’ She was looking down the hut towards the other door which corresponded with the one behind them. There was sometimes a slight draught but not today.

  Annie picked up the fan from the desk and rose.

  ‘Well, I’m going to anyway. I like the lines of the bamboo. Tom would too.’

  She stood waiting for Prue to join her in fanning the patients and she did pull herself to her feet but would not look at Annie as she started alone for the first bed.

  ‘Then you’ll have to sort out your own damn sitting-room, because that’s next on your list isn’t it, darling. I want no part of it.’ Her voice was full of bitterness.

  Annie turned her back on her friend and tried to decide on colours for Sarah’s room as her stomach tightened. These rows were breaking out all over the camp as people became as taut as over-stretched elastic about to snap. She soothed Mrs Glanville then moved to the next bed, fanning the woman who lay unconscious on the pallet. Annie wondered if the sitting-room was always empty now or whether the boys were there from time to time to see Val and had anyone heard from Georgie? She knew from the radio – she would not think of Lorna, just the radio – that Rangoon had fallen long ago but that did not mean he was dead. She must not think of him being dead. That would make it impossible to live. So she thought instead of Tom reading letters from Georgie, sitting by the fire with Maud and Grace and Don, eating hot buttered toast while Val poured tea. Were the girls pregnant yet, she wondered? Was Tom safe in the pits and Don in his supply depot? But she would not think of these questions, only of scenes; of people sitting as they had always done; of Georgie watching the sun setting over the lakes and the ducks against the sky.

  A patient called and she moved towards the bed. Her hair hung limp and irritated her neck; she’d have to cut it again although Georgie liked it long. She rubbed the back of her hand across her forehead.

  ‘Nurse, go and wash that hand. Septicaemia we definitely do not want. ’ The doctor was watching her from the end of the hut, then stooped again to her patient.

  Annie stood still, her legs trembling as she saw again the varicosed veins at the fair, so vividly that she was startled. She washed at the basin and wondered whether plain white paper would suit the sitting-room.

  At lunch Prue sat on the Dutch table and did not look up as Annie came in, so she sat with Mavis Anderton who smiled. Her face was drawn and her teeth had rotted into black stumps; her hair was quite white and cut very short.

  ‘Had a row, my dear?’

  Annie murmured. ‘It’s the heat, it gets us all down.’ She felt so tired today, even more so than she had done yesterday but not inside her head, not where she planned the sitting-room and, when that was finished, there was the kitchen and then the greenhouse to plant out.

  ‘Wallpaper can be so dull, can’t it?’ she said as she swallowed the last of her rice. A piece fell on to the atap table and was lost between the weave. The women either side of her stopped eating. Mavis shoved her fingers in her mouth and sucked hungrily at the rice water while her eyebrows lift
ed. Monica looked round at the walls of the hut.

  ‘Yes, I have to agree, palm and bamboo do become a trifle tedious. Let in the the draught too.’ Mavis waved her hands to the walls. ‘Should we complain to the management, do you think?’ The whole table was laughing now and Annie glanced at Prue but she had turned her back to them and was busy eating.

  ‘What are you up to now, Annie?’ someone called from another table. More rice was pushed into open mouths again.

  ‘Just thinking of doing up my house when I get back.’ And that sounded good.

  ‘You’ll use your own firm, will you, the one you keep talking about?’ Mavis was wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  ‘I thought so, my brother and I together.’ The sound of running feet broke into the conversation.

  Camp leader stood panting in the doorway, holding on to the frame. ‘Roll-call, tenko, quickly now everyone.’ Her hair was falling over her face and she flicked it aside with an impatient hand. The women pushed the remains of the rice into their mouths as they ran towards the door knocking over stools in their haste. Mavis was in front of Annie and gripped the leader’s arm. ‘Not another Lorna, is it?’

  ‘No,’ she gasped, still trying to catch her breath. ‘They’ve decided on three a day that’s all, but they’re creating merry hell anyway.’ Then she ran back to the compound past Annie who had begun to run to the hospital. There would be a beating if they were late but she was on duty and needed for the stretcher-cases. She pushed through the running women and struggled up the steps. She could not run for more than a few paces now, she was just too tired and the heat was beating on her head. Oh God, she’d left her hat in the dining-hut.

  The doctor was just leaving. ‘It’s all right, Sister, stretcher-cases can remain inside today. For God’s sake, hurry. He’s in a rage, just look at him stamping.’ The doctor took her arm and they stumbled down the steps and ran again for parade. The others were already lined up and bowing and Dr Jones’s hand tightened on her arm and Annie felt her bowels loosen with fear.