When We Were Young & Brave

by Hazel Gaynor

  Chapter 26

  Nancy

  Sprout’s condition hadn’t worsened since we’d arrived at Weihsien, but neither had it improved as we’d all hoped. I was allowed to visit when she was feeling up to it, which wasn’t very often, and even when she was, she was weak and sleepy and it didn’t feel like I was visiting Sprout at all, but visiting her shadow. I didn’t look forward to seeing her as much as I once had. Sometimes, I dreaded it.

  I hesitated as I was shown into the ward and saw how pale she was.

  Nurse Prune gave me an encouraging nod. “She knows you’re coming. She’s looking forward to seeing you.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed. “Hello, Sprout,” I whispered, a little shy, even though she was my best friend.

  “Hello, Plum.” She offered a weak smile, which made me feel sad.

  I fidgeted with the hem of my skirt. “Are you feeling better?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Not really.” She took a deep breath, and sank back into her pillows. “But I’m happy to see you. Tell me about Kingfisher Patrol. Have you any new badges?”

  I told her about the whip-poor-will that sang at my window every night, and about the dreadful latrines, and the awful food we had to eat, and how we were planning to start a vegetable garden in the spring. I told her all about Churchill and Mrs. Trevellyan, and that we weren’t allowed to talk to the ladies who, she’d told me, were called prostitutes.

  “You’d like her ever so much,” I said, relaxing as we started to talk. “She makes us tea made from all sorts of funny plants and she has a wicked sense of humor, and a filthy tongue, but don’t tell Miss Kent or she might not let us visit her anymore.”

  Sprout asked me to tell her the swear words Mrs. Trevellyan used. So I did. I’d never said them out loud, and blushed as I did, and Sprout laughed until she made herself cough, and then we both went quiet again.

  “You will come and visit me, won’t you?” she said, eventually.

  “Of course. Every day, if I’m allowed.”

  “I don’t mean here. I mean in America. In New England. We’ll eat lobster rolls on the boardwalk, and you won’t believe the colors of the trees in the fall. They look as if they’re on fire.”

  I smiled. “I can’t wait.”

  “Guide’s Promise you’ll come.”

  “Guide’s Promise.”

  Mouse sometimes came with me to the hospital, because Miss Kent said it was nicer to do these things in twos. I was glad of Mouse’s hand in mine as we skipped up the road to the hospital together, and even more glad as we walked quietly back again.

  The funny thing about Sprout being so poorly was that everything carried on as normal. The same routines, the same indigestible food, the same boring roll call, the same excitement when we changed into our uniforms for Guides. I missed her terribly, but I also forgot to miss her just as easily.

  “Out of sight, out of mind,” Mrs. Trevellyan said when I admitted to her that I sometimes didn’t think about Sprout for hours, and once hadn’t thought about her for an entire day.

  Mouse and I were sorting through some of the returned library books we’d collected from around the camp. I’d put Black Beauty to one side, and Mouse had chosen a Sherlock Holmes mystery.

  “It happens at your age, girls,” Mrs. T said. “In love with a boy one minute, in love with his best friend the next. And I should know all about that!” She passed us both a slice of orange, which was a rare treat. Neither of us asked her where she’d got it, although I had my suspicions. Edward had told me about a black market that operated in camp. It all sounded terribly dangerous.

  “I feel so helpless, Mrs. T. I wish I could make Sprout better.”

  “You can’t look after everybody, Nancy. Sometimes we just have to look after ourselves, and sod everyone else.” She saw the look of shock on my face. “Although that doesn’t apply to your friend, of course. I’m sure the nurses are doing their very best for her.”

  “Do you think the same applies to parents?” I asked. “Do you think we’re out of their minds, too? I haven’t seen my mother for such a long time. Do you think she forgets to think about me, the way I forget to think about Sprout?”

  Mrs. Trevellyan always told the truth, even if it wasn’t the nicest thing to hear.

  “I don’t imagine it’s the same for your mother at all, Nancy. It’s different for parents. I would imagine she thinks about you every single day.” She dabbed at the corners of her eyes with the end of her sleeve. “I think about my boy, Billy, all the time, and I haven’t seen him since the sixteenth of May 1915.”

  “Did he move away?” Mouse asked.

  “He went to war, dear, and never came home. I miss him as much today as I did the morning I waved him off. You never forget your children, no matter how far away they might be.” She looked up, presumably to heaven.

  We didn’t ask any more questions. Everything was difficult whenever somebody mentioned death. It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about before the soldiers arrived at Chefoo. I’d only ever known one person who’d died—Granny Plummer—and she was ever so old. Three people had already died since we’d arrived at Weihsien. Although we didn’t know them, news like that passed through the camp like wildfire. Two of them were elderly, but one was a young woman, a mother with two young children.

  I thought about death and talked about death so often it became a habit, like picking at a scab. I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t stop. At first, when I’d asked Miss Kent if Sprout might die, she’d said reassuring things like “of course not” and “let’s think about more positive things.” But her answers changed as the weeks passed until she started to say, “Dorothy is in the best place, Nancy.” I remembered Mummy saying the same thing about Granny Plummer.

  Churchill sang in his cage as if he sensed the awkward silence and wanted to change the subject. It worked. Mrs. Trevellyan sat up in her chair and came back from wherever she’d been to think about the past.

  “Now, girls. How about a cup of nettle tea to cheer us up? It’s no good sitting here all maudlin, is it.”

  Mouse looked at me, and pulled a face. “Nettle tea? Doesn’t it sting when you drink it?”

  Mrs. Trevellyan laughed. “Not at all! I make it from the leaves. Far nicer than suffering through a cup made from anemic three-week-old tea leaves. You’d be surprised what you can use to make tea. Flowers, herbs, all sorts. You’ve to be careful not to use the poisonous ones of course, unless there’s someone you want to dispose of!” She winked, playfully. “I’ve been reading too many Sherlock Holmes books, girls! Come along. I’ll show you.”

  * * *

  Our teachers made our days as interesting and comfortable as they could, but we all looked forward to bedtime, because when we were asleep, we weren’t hungry. As the weeks had passed, we’d stopped talking about the ache in our bellies and the dizzy sensation we woke up with each morning. I couldn’t remember what it felt like to sit down to a full plate of food, with sponge pudding for afters. I wondered if I would ever sit at a clean table and eat a proper cooked meal again. I almost felt sick at the thought of eating so much food in one sitting.

  “Maybe we’ll always eat like baby birds, pecking at grubs,” Winnie Morris said as we walked to the kitchen to line up for a breakfast nobody wanted. The awful kaoliang stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  “I can’t wait to eat an enormous bowl full of jam roly-poly and custard,” Mouse said. “And apple pie with tons of cream. And roast beef and Yorkshire puddings.”

  Winnie said Mouse would make herself sick if she ate all that.

  “I’ll even eat sprouts with Christmas dinner,” Mouse went on. “I’ll never turn my nose up at a sprout ever again. I’d eat a whole plateful of them right now and I’d ask for seconds.”

  “Why were you always so quiet before?” I asked as Winnie went ahead with the other girls and Mouse and I walked on in our pair. “You hardly said two words when we were at Chefoo, and now you hardly ever stop talk
ing.”

  “You were all so talkative in the dorm, there was never a chance for me to get a word in edgeways,” she replied. “I often tried, but someone else always said what I was thinking before I could get the words out.”

  I felt mean for not having included her more in our conversations back in the dorm in Chefoo.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, putting my arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry for ignoring you.”

  She shrugged and said it was okay and that it didn’t matter now anyway because we were all much more friendly toward her.

  “People talk too much anyway,” she added as we took our food and sat at one of the long tables. “Nobody ever listens properly. You see and hear so much more when you’re quiet.”

  “Like what?”

  “Nothing in particular.” She looked at me as if she wanted to tell me something.

  “What?” I prompted. “What have you heard?”

  She leaned toward me. “Not heard. Seen.” She glanced anxiously over my shoulder. “I saw something the other day.”

  “What sort of thing?” I asked. “Mouse? What did you see?”

  Miss Kent came over to inspect our hands and nails, which she insisted we kept scrubbed clean, despite the lack of soap and hot water. Cholera and dysentery soon followed those who were too tired or too lazy to boil water, or to wash their hands after a trip to the latrines. When she’d finished and was, thankfully, satisfied with us all, I turned back to Mouse.

  “Well?”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Forget I ever said anything.”

  But I could tell from the look on her face that whatever it was did matter. Very much.

  She went off on her own later that afternoon. When I asked her where she’d been, she told me she’d taken a library book back to Mrs. Trevellyan.

  “You were gone an awfully long time,” I said, a bit miffed that she hadn’t asked me to go with her.

  “Yes. Sorry. I didn’t plan to, but you know what she’s like when she starts talking.”

  We looked at each other.

  “Never shuts up,” we said at the same time.

  We burst into laughter, and I was so pleased to have Mouse as a friend that I forgave her for going off without me, and I forgot to ask her what they’d been talking about for so long.

  As we lay on our mats that night, and I listened to the whip-poor-will at the window, Mouse whispered through the dark beside me.

  “Do you think God can hear when you have bad thoughts about someone?” she asked.

  I thought for a moment. I really wasn’t sure if God heard anything at all. If He was listening, He would have stopped the landslides and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and Mummy would have come to collect me and Edward off the boat in Shanghai that Christmas, as planned. But I remembered the time when my pet rabbit died, and Mummy said we must trust in the Lord, even when we don’t understand his actions.

  “I think He can hear our thoughts, yes,” I whispered. “I once wished Winnie Morris would get the measles so she would be sent to the San, and she did get the measles.”

  Mouse was silent for a moment. “Did you feel awful for wishing her poorly?”

  “Not really. I was mostly glad to not have to put up with her showing off all the time. The dorm was much friendlier without her, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “It was.”

  “Why do you ask?” I added. “Who do you hope will get the measles?”

  The room was silent.

  “Nobody in particular,” she whispered, eventually. “Good night, Plum.”

  The Guide Law: A Guide Is Thrifty

  This means that a Girl Guide is a girl who is wise enough to know the value of things and to put them to the best use.

  Chapter 27

  Elspeth

  December 1943

  From sunrise to sunset, we met the puzzle of each new day, charging quietly on in a constant battle of despair and hope, frailty and strength. In that way, the months steadily passed, and the seasons turned, and the unfathomable reality of life under Japanese oppression somehow went on.

  Incentive, reward, and inventiveness were our best allies during those first unsettling months at Weihsien. The inevitable ebb and flow of morale among the children was addressed by turning problems and difficulties into games. Who could catch the most flies? Who would be king or queen of the bedbugs? Who could gather up the most coal dust and make the most fuel balls for the stoves, ineffective as they were? The strategy worked, although my heart broke as I watched their triumphant faces proudly count up their contributions.

  “They should be calculating fractions and equations.” I sighed. “Preparing for their exams.”

  The prospect of sitting their Oxford Matrics—one of the reasons the children had been sent to Chefoo School in the first place—now seemed like a distant dream. As the children of foreign missionaries, influential diplomats, and important businessmen, they were expected to achieve the highest standards of education, and yet here they were, being congratulated for catching flies. I felt every one of the thousands of miles to Oxford’s famous spires. I’d always wanted to see them, and wondered if I would ever have the chance.

  Our once-daily staff meetings gradually settled into a less frantic weekly event, where concerns were addressed, reassurances offered, and plans made.

  “No challenge is too great,” our headmaster encouraged. “No situation too awful not to be improved with a little imagination and resourcefulness.”

  As our leader, he said all the right things—encouraging, forthright things—but he carried a weariness now that hadn’t been there before. As we approached the end of our second year under Japanese guard, there was a weariness to us all. Two years of indignity, depravity, and continually dashed hopes of liberation had taken their toll, and there were increasingly prolonged spells when it was just too difficult to remain hopeful of ever being freed. Without regular or reliable news about Allied progress, we had no new reason to hope for liberation. Charlie’s homemade radio hadn’t been able to pick up any signal since the move to Weihsien, besides which, it was incredibly dangerous for him to try. It was bad enough that he still even had it in his possession. I was terrified of the consequences should it ever be discovered.

  “If only we knew when it might all end,” I said. “Even if we knew we had to endure another year, it would be a little easier to tolerate.”

  We craved information from the world beyond the compound walls as much as we craved fresh meat and vegetables.

  “Do you ever just want to run up to those big ugly gates and scream until you’re hoarse?” I said at the end of morning lessons. Minnie and I were standing together at the classroom window, through which the compound gates loomed a short distance away, a cruel and ever-present reminder of our captivity. We watched in thoughtful silence as the guards patrolled the watchtowers at either end of the high walls. “Sometimes I think I might burst if I stay here a moment longer, pretending everything’s perfectly fine. Don’t you ever want to just let out a great roar and scream at the absurdity of it all?”

  I tossed my battered copy of Shakespeare’s Hamlet onto the desk behind me but missed the target. It fell with a clatter to the floor. I balled my fists and huffed out a breath.

  “I’m not sure what good it would do to go about the place shouting and screaming,” Minnie replied, calm and unruffled as ever. “You’d most likely get yourself shot.”

  The awful truth of her words settled around us. The threat of the soldiers turning their guns on us was something we were all aware of, but didn’t talk about. We’d heard rumors from some recent arrivals into camp that civilians had been shot in other locations. We held a very real fear that if the Allies won the war and Japan was defeated, the guards might turn their guns on us in a final act of power and control.

  I turned away from the window, picked up the book, and perched on the edge of the desk. I’d spent so much time in Minnie’s company, her habits were beco
ming my habits.

  “‘To be, or not to be.’” I sighed. “That, Minnie, is the question.”

  She offered a thin smile. “To be,” she said, firmly. “It’s the only possible answer.” She looped her arm through mine. “Right. Best get on. We have children to educate. Cockroaches to catch. Socks and stockings to darn. No rest for the wicked British enemy.”

  We were certainly resourceful. Nothing went to waste and a use was found for anything and everything we could lay our hands on. Old editions of The Chefusian school newspaper (which someone had cleverly thought to bring with us all the way from Chefoo) were used again that winter as an extra layer, wrapped against our skin to absorb moisture from clothes that took forever to dry after being washed. We rustled like autumn leaves as we walked about, and newsprint patterned our skin when we undressed at night. Charlie remarked that we would have to read each other when we ran out of books, which made me blush furiously.

  The lack of vitamins and minerals in the children’s diet continued to worry us greatly. We talked about bones so often, and saw them, poking through everyone’s skinny bodies, that I sometimes dreamed we were all walking about as skeletons and nobody batted an eyelid. We didn’t need to show the children pictures of human skeletons to teach them about the human anatomy. Rib cages and sternum, shoulder blades and collarbones were right there, in front of their eyes.

  Minnie had been supremely clever in suggesting we grind up eggshells and feed the powder to the children as a way of getting essential calcium into their diet. Of course, they all grumbled and gagged when we forced them to swallow a spoonful of the gritty powder, but we ignored their protests, pleased to be doing something positive and useful, and improvising for the greater good.

  “Growing children need calcium for strong bones,” I nagged as I passed along the line of girls, their faces scrunched up in revulsion. They barely opened their mouths wide enough for me to get the spoon inside.

  “It’s worse than the cod liver oil Nurse Prune used to make us take,” Nancy groused, pulling the most tremendous face as I presented her spoonful.