A Choice of Evils

by Meira Chand

  Now, in the freezing car, Tilik drew his coat about himself, remembering Rash Bihari’s words. Soon he fell into a fitful sleep, and in his dreams saw Rash Bihari shaking a finger at him. Have you forgotten who you are, his mentor asked. I am the Indian freedom fighter, Rash Bihari Bose. Who are you? Tilik awoke with a start. Shame still pulsed through him. Shame at betraying himself and India, shame before the Russian woman, shame at colluding with the Japanese military. He whimpered in his fear.

  In the morning the woman acted as if nothing had occurred the night before. They finished the rice and a bottle of cold tea before travelling on. The terrain had changed.

  ‘We’ve crossed the front lines,’ Tilik announced, trying to mend the bridge between them.

  Now, instead of a scorched landscape, the earth flourished with vegetation again. On the road they overtook a stream of refugees pushing carts, carrying bundles, babies or old people on their backs. Small children, sewn into their padded winter clothes, trudged towards Nanking and the hinterlands beyond. Bands of Chinese soldiers in retreat, bedraggled and bloodstained, carried their wounded. As the miles to Nanking grew shorter, the river of people increased.

  Tilik no longer assumed his cocky manner and spoke no more Japanese. Whenever he spoke to anyone he played the role of a confused and frightened foreigner, desperate to reach Nanking. Nadya observed him in disgust. Before night they finally reached Nanking. The Yangtze stretched wider, the terrain grew more hilly and then Purple Mountain appeared. Nadya sat up in excitement. The sun set behind the grey walls of Nanking, rising up now on the horizon.

  Tilik stopped as directed by Nadya before Martha’s hospital. After Nadya walked off he drove on to the Japanese Embassy, and sought out Kenjiro Nozaki. He filed a report as the Major had suggested and added the details he had learned of Shepenov. With the disapproval of Hsinking’s Military High Command now stacked against him, he could not afford to miss an opportunity to deepen his credibility.

  Nadya found Martha in the hospital, dressing the wounds of a Chinese soldier. ‘What have you come back for? This is not the place to be. We’re preparing for attack,’ Martha scolded.

  ‘I thought I could be of some use,’ Nadya insisted, handing Martha a pair of scissors with which to cut a bandage.

  ‘We’re taking in soldiers, as well as our usual women patients,’ Martha replied.

  ‘Do you know if Donald is in Nanking?’ Nadya enquired as casually as she could. She sat down on the floor, too tired to think any more.

  ‘I heard he was here. But I think he left with most of the other correspondents, to wait out the attack up river, on the USS Panay. The Japanese have asked all foreigners, for their own safety, to leave before they take the city. On the Panay I suppose Donald will be near the action and be able to enter with the Japanese. As far as the city is concerned, there’ll be little action, I think. There has been a retreat. Chiang Kai-shek and his entourage have left for Hankow. A division of Chiang’s soldiers are still here, but what can they do? It is better the town surrenders and we get the whole thing over with quickly. We’ll have some peace again, once the Japanese enter.’ She bent down to where Nadya sat. ‘You’re not in a good way. Let me examine that cut on your eye. Afterwards, you must have some hot soup and get to bed.’ Martha pulled Nadya to her feet.

  ‘We have a Safety Zone set up like Father Jacquinot’s in Shanghai,’ Martha explained. ‘The Government, before they fled, turned over administrative responsibilities for the city to the Safety Zone Committee. There are twenty-three of us who have decided to remain here to run the Safety Zone. The Zone measures three kilometres by two about the Drum Tower. It encircles several embassies, including the Japanese. Their staff have been helpful. These Japanese civilians are different from their military, and most of them are not happy with what is going on. The Zone will protect Chinese civilians for the few days it might take until the Japanese have completed their occupation, and established law and order in town.’

  Nadya winced as Martha examined the cut. ‘Where have you sent Lily and Flora?’ she asked.

  Martha stopped swabbing. ‘I have sent them nowhere,’ she replied. ‘I am sure this occupation will be quick and bloodless. The Japanese will not be opposed by Chinese forces, as in Shanghai. It seemed as safe to keep the girls with me as to send them off somewhere. As a child I sat through much worse.’

  Martha had found herself unable to make the decision to send the girls away. All advice to evacuate had run off her. Each morning she decided to go ahead and began arrangements. Each night the possibilities inherent in that parting returned, destroying her resolve. Nadya looked at her in surprise. Martha turned away, as if not wanting to meet her eyes.

  ‘Maybe you are right,’ Nadya replied, too caught by the pain of the swab to argue with Martha. ‘Nanking is not Shanghai. The worst might be over in a day.’

  General and Madame Chiang Kai-shek had already left for Hankow, but Nadya found a group of officials at the university who were also departing the following day. She gave them the final edition of TECSAT to deliver to W.H.D in Hankow.

  10

  Last Chance

  General Matsui was confined to bed in Soochow with tubercular fever when news of his promotion came through. He dismissed congratulations with a disapproving silence. All it meant was that he was no longer Commander in Chief of the army about Nanking. There had been criticism in Tokyo of his handling of things in Shanghai. The Emperor had wanted only a brief undertaking, instead the battle had stretched into months. Now the Emperor had relieved him of personal supervision of the field. General Matsui was elevated to overall command of the Central Chinese Theatre. Hirohito had appointed his relative, the ultra-nationalist Prince Asaka, to replace Matsui in the taking of Nanking. General Kesago Nakajima and General Heisuke Yanagawa and their men, who with Matsui and his divisions had made up the greater part of the Japanese force, were now accountable to Prince Asaka. Promotion rendered Matsui obsolete in all but responsibility. He had no control of the army’s hour-by-hour movements and plans. His command had been cleverly distanced from him.

  He put a hand on the table and with an effort pulled himself off the hard bed. He called an aide and gave orders to summon all staff officers. The coughing began again. It had not been easy to find a billet in good condition. Soochow was in smithereens from ferocious bombing. Little was left of the famous pagodas, gardens and ornate bridges. In the past he had visited the city and been captured by its legendary beauty. It saddened him to see its destruction. Beyond the window of his room, General Matsui looked out on a mess of smashed trees and stones. A light frost covered the frozen ground. The house had already been looted by Japanese troops before his occupation. Women had been molested and civilians needlessly killed. Nerves were at breaking point but his staff officers were taking few counter measures. Soldiers were soldiers and war was war. Incidents inevitably happened, but unnecessary excess was not to Matsui’s liking. Ill health sapped his energy. The dark hours on his sick bed were filled with terrifying premonitions.

  He ordered hot water and shaved, clipping at a grizzled moustache. In spite of the heavy uniform he shivered, there being no heating in the room. The army was ready to enter Nanking. The city’s walls had already been breached by bombing and artillery fire, but Chinese resistance still kept Matsui from the city. Fifty Japanese tanks were massed upon a highway one mile from the southern gateway. Air bombardment had destroyed the railway north of Nanking and an important arsenal. Wuhu, a distance south-west of Nanking on the Yangtze, had been occupied the day before with little resistance. Chinese troops dissolved before the Japanese, escaping across the river or discarding weapons and uniforms to masquerade as civilians. This ploy was frequently used by Chinese soldiers to escape detention. No Japanese would act so cowardly; they were proud only to die in uniform.

  It was rumoured that with the fall of Wuhu, there would be an immediate withdrawal of the remaining Chinese troops from Nanking. How Chiang Kai-shek expected hundre
ds of thousands of men safely to cross the fast-flowing Yangtze, in full view of the Japanese Army and with inadequate transport, was difficult to imagine. It would be no less than a duck shoot.

  A group of foreigners had repeatedly asked for assurances, impossible to give, that the Safety Zone they had set up, copying Shanghai, would be respected. Nanking was not Shanghai. It was an entirely Chinese city, and the seat of Chiang Kai-shek’s government. The town had no foreign concessions whose destruction would bring the wrath of world powers. General Matsui was clear in his mind upon this issue as he pinned on the full weight of his medals. No time need be wasted as in Shanghai, pussyfooting about foreign property. He gazed unduly long at himself in a splinter of mirror. With Prince Asaka’s arrival Matsui would be placed beyond the reach of his men. This was his last chance to address them directly. At the time appointed he strode from his room into the icy courtyard. He suppressed a cough as the frozen air gripped his infected lungs.

  He surveyed the officers before him. New faces had appeared. In the past weeks a number of staff officers from the Emperor’s cabal had been injected into his command. He frowned, uneasy, and controlled a shiver. No one must think he lacked stamina. In Tokyo a Grand Imperial War Headquarters had been established in the palace. It was as if the Emperor himself now watched each movement of the war. He must not let the Emperor down, and yet Matsui felt frustrated. Orders from Tokyo appeared to come direct now from the new Imperial Headquarters. And sometimes, he suspected, orders came in sets of two, one for Matsui and another of varying instructions for the handpicked officers who now stood before him. Already he felt undermined. In Tokyo the General Staff made a show for the Western press, drawing lines on maps to indicate where the advance would stop. When troops reached these lines they simply regrouped and moved on according to secret orders. In this manner the impression was created of the men at the front being out of control and moving forward on their own. Nothing was what it seemed.

  Matsui drew himself up, and made an effort to control the twitch in his face. His voice was strong and filled the room. He was determined, to the extent of his capacity, to make sure the occupation of Nanking was orderly. He wished no harm to the population. The order he issued was for his armies to pull up three or four kilometres outside Nanking’s walls. Then he cleared his throat and fixed his eyes sternly upon the men.

  ‘Go into the city with only a few well disciplined battalions. This occupation must be carried out in such a way as to sparkle before the eyes of the Chinese and make them place confidence in Japan. The entry of the Imperial Army into a foreign capital is a great event in our history, and will attract the attention of the world. Therefore, let no unit enter the city in disorderly fashion. Let the units chosen to enter know beforehand the matters to be remembered and the position of foreign rights and interests in the walled city. Let them be absolutely free from plunder. Appoint sentries as needed. Plundering and causing fires, even carelessly, shall be punished severely. Together with the troops let many military police enter the city and thereby prevent unlawful conduct.’

  Once it was over he sank down again upon his bed. There was nothing more he could do. No one was more aware than he of how easily his orders could be usurped.

  On Sunday 5th December Prince Yasuhiko Asaka left Tokyo and three days later arrived at the front to take up his post as Commander of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force. His old friend, General Kesago Nakajima, once head of secret police in Tokyo, was confined to an abandoned country villa some miles south-east of Nanking. On the day Prince Asaka left Tokyo, Nakajima, in a flurry of enemy activity, took a flesh wound in his left buttock. From his bed he reported to his former patron the success in breaking through the outer Nanking perimeter. There had been unexpected resistance along the battle lines. Chinese artillery still hammered the Japanese, preventing the establishment of positions from which heavy guns could be brought to bear upon the city. Chinese lines still held and they had even recaptured a village. Nakajima estimated Japanese forces had sustained many casualties in the present fighting. Prince Asaka absorbed this news. He was also informed of the instructions General Matsui had issued on troop deportment in the city and his hope that Nanking might surrender. Prince Asaka returned to his own headquarters. From there he issued instructions to his staff officers, marked ‘Secret: to be destroyed’. The orders were to kill all captives.

  The stillness was unnerving. After weeks of gunfire, Matsui’s men now faced Nanking in silence. The wind whipped across the frozen ground, soughing through the grass. A light snow settled on their khaki coats and melted. The battalion spread across a wide area, a line of armoured cars in front. General Matsui shrank into his greatcoat, a tiny, skeletal figure. The sides of the car were open and gave him no protection from the biting wind. In spite of the distance Matsui had no doubt the Chinese commander General Tang, still in the abandoned city, observed them through binoculars. If Tang held the city at all it could be for no longer than a few days. Japanese bombers stood ready to fly from Shanghai, loaded not with ammunition but champagne, for a victory celebration. Yet, Matsui was determined, in spite of Prince Asaka, to give this last chance of surrender to the capital. He knew the general impatience in the Military High Command with his scruples towards Nanking. He hoped the city would have the sense to surrender. Leaflets urging this decision were now to be scattered over the town. So great was his anxiety that General Matsui had supervised the wording of these pamphlets himself.

  My outposts east of Nanking must receive your reply by noon Friday. My representative is prepared to negotiate on the spot concerning the procedure of surrender. If no answer is received by the appointed time, we will attack.

  Abandonment of resistance will spare the city its historic relics and spots of beauty. The anticipated hostilities bode no good for anyone, only harm. If you continue resistance Nanking will witness the nullification of all its constructive efforts of the last generation. I advise you to surrender.

  Akira Murata looked up at the sky. The wind unravelled clouds to stream across space and pile up behind the town. A kestrel wheeled above. In the distance the walls of the town rose like old grey gums on the plain. A charcoal-coloured ice lay underfoot. The ground, burned by the retreating army, had quickly frozen. Mud-walled villages were empty, their population bundled inside Nanking. Akira Murata was one of the battalion chosen to accompany General Matsui to this strategic spot. The empty land before them and the silence, broken by a shout of command or a shuffle of boots, seemed more ominous than the rattle of gunfire. Akira drew a breath, icy air filled his nose making him sneeze. The commander turned in disapproval. Akira stifled another sneeze. Once more they silently surveyed the distant walls of Nanking, a prize that would give them control of China.

  Purple Mountain was already under Japanese command. The great gates of Nanking had shut, and the ragged Chinese Army was in disarray. The town was naked of any real defence. The best troops had already departed Nanking with Chiang Kai-shek, leaving the town to its fate. Only a small force still remained inside the walls.

  The wind cut about Akira’s cheeks. An old wound in his leg ached in the cold. He had been shot in a skirmish outside Peking, near a bridge named after an ancient explorer, and was returned to Japan, to a military hospital. On recovery he had rejoined his regiment in Shanghai. The kestrel still glided above. Akira wished he were a bird.

  The bleak winter paddies, textured now by burnt stubble, reminded him of home. On the advance from Shanghai they had passed through villages like his own. He came from an area famous for its pottery. In the Chinese villages he had seen kilns, some of intriguing ingenuity, that he examined surreptitiously. He had watched as stacked pottery was kicked to smithereens when the lust of the troops was unslaked. He thought of the men who had shaped those pots, whose life was spent bending to plant or harvest rice. What was the difference between them and himself? There was nothing he liked about the war.

  Above him now the sky was full of sound. The noise re
sembled the echo of cannon fire within the clouds. At last several planes broke free and were caught by a ray of sun. They flew low over the city. Paper leaflets spewed suddenly from each plane, like flurries of whipped snow. Then, flake by flake, they sank slowly to blanket Nanking. there was a stir amongst the men. The planes sped back into the clouds. The sky was clear again.

  For some time they continued to stand facing the city of Nanking. Would the gates of the town swing open, would a party appear to meet General Matsui? Akira strained his eyes, hoping to see a white flag upon the walls of Nanking. Nothing appeared. At last the armoured cars spluttered and revved, turning one by one away from the town.

  From his car General Matsui observed the battalions of soldiers standing to attention in the icy wind. The men were weary and overstrung by months of fighting. Their lips were blue with cold. An assault on Nanking would be to nobody’s advantage. As Chiang Kai-shek had already retreated to Hankow, it was clear to all that Nanking was not to be defended. In all but name it was already taken. Chiang Kaishek would do best by everyone if he deferred to Japanese demands. The Generalissimo was not like Sun Yat-sen who, more than twenty years before, had talked wistfully with Matsui of Oriental unity and brotherhood. Now General Matsui had twenty-four hours. If the gates of Nanking did not open he was powerless to avoid more carnage. Already an insupportable number of Japanese had been lost since the Shanghai battle. Chinese losses were unknown, but must be far greater. If Chiang Kai-shek did not surrender, how many more would die? The campaign could last for years. General Matsui began to cough. Sickness always caught him when health was needed most.