The Years Between (1939-44)

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The Years Between (1939-44) Page 35

by Cecil Beaton


  On each side of me sat a Chinese soldier who spoke no more English than I speak Chinese. Another stampede, when the hidden band embarked upon the Chinese national anthem. The noises were as if fifty cats had gone mad. I tried to think of all the most horrifying things that could happen — such as the invasion of the room by hundreds of Japanese who would proceed to slash us all with swords — but even this did not prevent my shoulders shaking at the incredible noises.

  Tuesday, April 25th

  A demonstration, involving over 1,000 picked troops, was staged for the benefit of Gordon Grimsdale. An inspection; physical exercises, with the Chinese troops falling twenty-five feet from the ‘Heavenly Gate’, performing all sorts of tough manoeuvres and firing from all makes of gun — the experts said they had never seen such guns before. We inspected the Staff school. We climbed mountainsides to watch five imitation Jap trucks ambushed in a gorge. The programme of events was lengthy. Although the average age of the troops was said to be twenty, most of them appeared to be boys. According to the standards of a crack European regiment, some of the drill did not appear particularly precise, their uniforms were of a poor material, and their sandals of straw. At the end of the long day, after crawling or running up and down mountains, igniting fuses, blowing up targets, firing guns, these youths seemed as fresh and enthusiastic as if they had just come on parade.

  Wednesday, April 26th

  Tropical rain all night. By early morning the compound was flooded. The river has risen six feet and the water leaked through the bamboo matting on to our papers and on to the bed. Woe is me! My stomach troubles are no better, and I have come to know the outdoor lavatory almost as well as my own room. It seems an eternity since I was internally stable; I can hardly remember what life was like when incessant visitations to an insanitary outhouse were not necessary. A Scottish doctor visited me and prescribed M and B. This had to come many miles; but since its arrival I’ve had more confidence.

  Thursday, April 27th

  Rain continues to pour. The mill-wheel is now submerged. We cannot leave tomorrow. Everyone in poor spirits, but for myself the extra day is a relief, as I feel far from well. I got up to go next door to make a drawing of the Chinese General, but by the end of the morning was thoroughly irritated by the nagging of his interpreter — ‘General Li wants you to put his stars on this way — Madame Li thinks the neck is too full — Madame Li does not want you to put flowers on her dress.’ — ‘Why?’ — ‘She says it’s too flowery — Will you do another one of Madame Li?’

  The rain slashes down. I became rather unnerved as the day progressed, for I had apprehensions, though about nothing in particular; would I ever return to Western civilization? I visualized the possibility of being taken prison by the Japs and wondered how I would survive the mental ordeal. All these ruminations were founded on nothing more sensational than a telephone conversation with Leo, who rang me up from a neighbouring house to say he would discuss our plans later in the day when we met, but that it was unwise to do so now. I knew that the Jap advance was continuing and that in certain sectors the resistance was slight. However, in such a vast country there can be no precipitous invasion; progress must be slow. My qualms were the result of some form of nervous exhaustion.

  RETURN JOURNEY WITH CASUALTIES

  ‘You’ve got a weak tummy still; you’d better come with us.’ I sat in the front of the second truck. I enjoyed, as a change, travelling with a new set of companions; nevertheless I had qualms lest our truck should break down and I should be unable to join the others at the lunch halt. We retraced our tracks of weeks ago. The azaleas were now over; double roses, Rosa multiflora, like ramblers, had superseded the big white rose, the Rosa cathiensis, of the voyage out. We caught up with the first truck at a ferry. Dr Young, the interpreter, like the shopkeeper out of La Boutique Fantasque, in a panama hat and white suit, was very gay, helping the coolies to row the truck across the swirling river. At this halt I had meant to get into the other truck; but at the crucial moment I was taking a snapshot. The first truck went ahead; we followed.

  About half an hour later we were halted by an anxious looking Colonel Larcom, from the first truck, standing alone in the mountain highway with an arm raised. At one side of him, a high wall of rock; on the other, a fifty-foot drop to the river.

  ‘We’ve had a serious accident,’ he told us. ‘The truck’s gone over there. The General’s broken his leg.’

  Scattered about on the boulders shelving down to the river lay various members of our vanguard. Bits of luggage, suitcases, umbrellas and pieces of clothing were hanging on the branches of bamboos. Some Chinese boys walked about, their faces marbled with dark dried blood; one of them looked like a prune. A Chinese soldier and Leo, quite undamaged, propped up Gordon whose leg was giving him much pain. A few paces below him at the water’s brink, on its side, lay the dead and battered truck. We were told that the truck had hit a large stone, had jerked over the precipice, before the driver was able to right the steering-wheel and had somersaulted several times as it crashed down the rocks below. With each somersault people and luggage were thrown clear. But for a very short snapshot exposure I would have been sitting next to the driver, inside the truck, in the place occupied by Dr Young, who now lay unconscious on a crag, his suit and hat gore-blotched, his huge boots looking as if they did not belong to his body.

  Bleeding Chinese were sprawled on the roadside, being sick beneath parasols. It was fortunate that a Viennese doctor, who had a huge trunk of medical equipment, was travelling with us. Bandages were applied; a stretcher made for Gordon who was brave and smiling. How could he be dragged up the rocky slope? How to place him in a truck? How could he endure the three hours’ journey back, bumping over the broken road? No, he must go by river. Someone walked miles to the nearest village to try to telephone for a boat, but returned, having found no telephone. Then someone discovered a boat to go back as far as the ferry. The wounded were piled in. At the ferry, the boatman refused to go farther. Some of our party went off to try to find other boats and boatmen. Mr Lee, the Chinese radio expert with us, managed to recruit six boatmen; but, although there happened to be fifteen sampans in the neighbourhood, no one would take the risk of allowing his boat to go on such a long journey. I was told that this refusal to help was typical of what might happen in a serious crisis.

  We felt forlorn when, three hours later, the wounded were still awaiting removal from the ferry. At last everything was ready. A boat was launched. Gordon, in great pain and becoming weak and fretful, was badly bruised; he could not sit up. The Viennese doctor gave morphine tablets which did not help enough. Dr Young was still unconscious. A few minutes later the boat returned with a heavy leak. At last it was righted and sent off again.

  The river was high after the rains, and was flowing fast. But it was a slow journey. When, hours later, we passed the mournful shipload in our truck and shouted from the mountainside, the replies were despairing. They doubted if they would be able to make the hospital tonight; there were rapids; the boatmen, afraid of the approaching dark, had begun to give trouble.

  On arrival at the ferry, from which we had started this morning, I felt so weak I could hardly tell the story of our misfortunes. Meanwhile, night covered the unhappy boatload as it moved forward slowly among unknown dangers. We received continuous messages of its progress; it had passed such and such a village; only twenty more kilometres to go. Later, we heard shouts announcing its arrival as it passed a bend in the river, and at midnight it finally reached its destination. The recent floods had been helpful; if the river had been either higher or lower, the journey could not have been made in one day.

  The local Chinese general ordered the electric light to be kept on until 3.30 am when the doctors finished work. Most of the casualties are not as serious as we had feared. Gordon will have to be flown back to India to have his leg X-rayed; but he cannot yet be moved. Some of the party will stay with him. The rest of us will continue on our return journey in a few d
ays’ time.

  There were about eighteen people in our truck, when, at last, we set off this morning. Added to our usual number was a Chinese woman with her family of four small children, their nurse — a picture of gloom and despondency — their male companion, also four students who had not money enough to get to their university. The journey was uncomfortably crowded, dusty and hot; the sun gave us headaches. It was a relief when we dumped the large family at their destination, for the children had become dictatorial. The small boy aged seven had been furious when the miserable nurse drank out of the same water-bottle as himself. ‘Don’t you know rules and regulations?’ he screamed.

  Every small town and village we stay in is redolent of disease. I am bitten by fleas which, I can only trust, are not plague carrying. Each night I go to bed anticipating visitors from the insect world.

  I think and dream of long baths in Calcutta. This morning the Viennese doctor diagnosed the symptoms of one of the orderlies as those of bubonic plague. Macabre jokes. ‘The Plague Season is on! Have we got a Union Jack? Could we fire a volley with a machine-gun?’

  My luggage has now become a pitiable mess. My bag, made for air travel, does not protect any of its contents. The vibration of the truck has caused all the tubes of cream (tooth, shaving and cold) to twist their caps and become perforated; paints have oozed on to cotton-wool, socks, ties and medicine bottles; my one pair of pyjamas is soused in petrol; no article of clothing remains undamaged.

  The truck was crammed. Someone asked, ‘Could we take three girl students to their school ten lee away?’ ‘Yes.’ So ten girls turned up. Five were allowed on. Their destination, it transpired, was twenty lee away. Tomorrow, God willing, is our last day of truck travel after banging over 700 miles in this old crock, for we arrive at Laiyang, the railhead.

  We ate frogs’ legs and filleted eel; the bill came to 900 dollars.

  Monday, May 8th

  I was called at 4.15 am for the longest lap of our journey, to the railhead at Laiyang. We have been through a variety of ordeals.

  We have taken it in turns to sit, in comparative comfort, in the front of the truck; and, when in the back, we have sat on bedrolls, or stood up holding on to the cross bars while admiring the scenes that fly past so quickly. Ours has been an oddly assorted group. Leslie Shellam, responsible for our comfort and safety, organizing our itinerary, paying the bills and taking everything so seriously; Leo, always reserved and stoic; the smiling, happy Chinese driver, never tired, gleefully shouting ‘Ohay’ each time we set off after a halt or setback; Lee, the young wireless operator going to Laiyang on promotion; another driver being sent back in disgrace for having failed to report that he had venereal disease; and the four students, each with a toothbrush in his breast-pocket, who have spent most of the trip lying asleep on the luggage; somehow they have always managed to get even more dust-covered than the others, or maybe it is just because, being originally dressed in black, they show the dust more; their hair has now become dim-coloured. In addition to this company, there have been the hitch-hikers from each stopping point; we have taken on five or six at every run. It has been a rough and uncomfortable trip. For this experience, at the present rate of exchange, King George has had to pay out 1,000 pounds for petrol alone. It costs twenty shillings to travel each kilometre, and this does not include the oil and running expenses of the truck, or the salaries to be paid to those accompanying us. We have had only the simplest meals, have spent the night in squalid hostels; yet our expenses have worked out at ten pounds a head a day.

  A storm broke unexpectedly. The tarpaulin leaked. Everything in the truck became soaked; but eventually we got through to fine weather. I enjoyed standing up as the avenue of trees sped by, and the scenery changed in character. Everything became flatter — patches of dried terracotta earth sprouted fir-trees and even a few palms. Then came the plumy tame scenery that I prefer, with smoky green trees perforated by sunlight. A great number of magpies and other birds, shrikes, jays, kingfishers and some huge black butterflies with fat bodies like bats. Everywhere labourers at work.

  We passed a coal-patch where blackened infants were waddling along, laden with their yoke of heavily-filled baskets. We passed miserable looking files of recruits being taken to war, their guards carrying enormous cutlasses like weapons out of a medieval shadow-play. Some miles farther a fugitive was being chased by a guard with a gun. Both looked exhausted, but all my sympathies were with the fugitive and I prayed that he might escape.

  The roads became smooth and our truck behaved well. We arrived in good time at Laiyang where the British Military Mission HQ consisted of a small Chinese farmhouse, which was in the process of being reconstructed. About a dozen workers were still sawing wood, planing more laths prior to fixing up walls. A temporary roof consisted of some bamboo matting. Chinese umbrellas, strategically placed, warded off a few rain spouts; the ground was a mess of wet shavings and mud. There were some upright bamboo chairs. Half a dozen Chinese clerks were at work in this confusion and some orderlies were carrying on among the carpenters in the half light. The ground was so wet that the wood shavings were mashed to a pulp; workmen covered the typewriters with sawdust. By the office-sitting-dining-room an open space gave on to the village lane, and children in various stages of nudity came to stare. The view of the river was blocked by a latrine, built eight feet away from the dining table.

  To a stranger like myself, this house seemed quite unsuitable for a headquarters. It had been chosen because it was equidistant from, and comparatively close to, river, road and railway. But it will be cold, damp and dark in winter — in summer, a foetid fly and mosquito trap. The proximity of the village will certainly breed disease.

  The glassless windows let in mosquitoes as well as the cold. Lee, the Chinese wireless operator, who has been so enthusiastic at the idea of being promoted here, said, ‘I think it’s a revolting place.’

  WITH THE RED CROSS

  Wednesday, May 10th

  The rain bucketed down in angry torrents. By the light of a small lamp we packed our bed-rolls, and trekked through the mud and puddles to the truck, half a mile away. God willing, we were about to leave this dump for ever and ever, amen.

  After waiting in the rain at the station the train was signalled to arrive an hour late. When, at last, it arrived we were soaked, and our belongings reduced to a poultice. Cold and miserable we slept sitting bolt upright. At Henyang we moved to ‘first- class’ compartments and could lay ourselves down.

  Insistent rain can make life horribly squalid. Wherever I looked from the train windows unattractive sights assailed my eyes: women disembowelling animals or pulling the skins off eels, squatting to relieve themselves on the ricefields while they picked their noses or searched in their children’s hair for vermin.

  After seven hours we arrived at the rail-end where we ploughed through the mud to a ferry-boat on the river Chang, for a three-hour trip to Changsha. The river was so wide that its banks seemed very distant on this dull, grey day.

  Leslie, our leader, was cheerful for he holds Changsa tender in his memories. It contains the Red Cross hostel where a few months ago he had met, and married, his wife. He had been walking for eight and a half days when he arrived back to spend the night here: he had been given a hot bath, tea out of a nice cup, bread and butter. His spirits had soared, for there was a lavatory with a plug that pulled. Someone had said, ‘Let’s go over and see the Red Cross people.’

  ‘No, I’m sick of seeing Chinese officials.’

  ‘Chinese officials! My eye! They’re beautiful English nurses.’ Leslie had fallen for romance there and then. His wife is now nursing in India, but this place for him is still full of the old magic.

  The compound proved to be American. Some Bible society had built it ten years ago, at the cost of many millions of American dollars — a number of red brick buildings of no particular character, but comfortable, with all the latest amenities. Leslie’s face was transformed, his eyes like stars, his teeth
shining. He received a rapturous reception from the sisters and everyone else working here, including the Chinese gardener. The matron called him by his Christian name every second — it recurred like a hiccup.

  We were fed scones and given tea by bespectacled nurses whose giggles mounted to gales of girlish laughter. To have a bath, wash one’s hair, shave, put on a civilian suit, were great events. We had a good dinner in the suburban villa with the nurses.

  Later a small Scots nurse came in with a lantern. ‘I’m having an awful time with one of the relapsing fever cases; he’s been out of bed three times, and has become violent. I can’t find Dr Wong. Would you look at his papers, Doctor?’ Dr Flowers, grey-haired, and grey-faced, prescribed some palliative; the night sister went back to her work. Suddenly one realized the raison d’etre of these women here — the background of serious work behind a façade of scones and cups of tea. The social trivialities occupy only a very small part of their existence. For the rest of the day they are empresses — rulers, with the responsibility of sickness or health, life or death, over large kingdoms. I was much impressed to hear them all speaking fluent Chinese, and treating their patients, not as strange objects to be stared at (which in a way, I confess, is still my attitude) but as fellow sufferers and fellow human beings. Some of the cases were terrible to look upon; but the nurses did not flinch.

 

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