by Meira Chand
The questions began and she answered as best she could.
‘And will you tell us why Dr Clayton is not here,’ Nadya was asked at one point.
‘She is unable to leave the convent in Nanking where she has been confined by extreme ill health since 1938, several months after the reign of terror in Nanking.’
‘You have a diary of Dr Clayton’s with you. Would you read us some passages from it?’
Nadya nodded and opened the book and began to read.
‘Many hundreds of innocent civilians are taken out before our eyes to be shot or used for bayonet practice, and we must listen to the sound of the guns that are killing them. It seems a rule that anyone who runs must be shot or bayoneted. It is a horrible story to try and relate. I know not where to begin or end. Never have I heard or read of such brutality . . .’
Nadya looked up at last from the book. Tears misted her view of the old men in the dock, who sat huddled within themselves. One or two had sunk their heads in their hands, as if ashamed to hear the details. When she returned to her seat she was shaking. Beside her Donald said nothing. She knew it was not for lack of sympathy but to control his own emotions.
Suddenly, across the court, Teng’s name was called out. Nadya looked up in surprise. She knew from Bradley he was supposed to fly in the day before, but there was some delay. She had been told he would arrive a day or two later.
At first, once more, she did not recognise the monk with shaven head and robes who made his way across the court. Under the klieg lights his bald head shone like polished bone. His arms were folded across his chest, hands hidden in the wide sleeves of his gown. He mounted the steps to stand in the witness box and prepared to answer the questions.
‘You were in Nanking at the time of the terror?’ The Prosecutor stepped forward.
‘At that time I was Professor of Religious Studies at Nanking University. Subsequently, when the terror began I joined the Red Swastika Society, the Chinese equivalent of the Red Cross.’
‘You were detained to bury the dead?’
‘The killing was prolific and indiscriminate. The policy was to let the bodies lie where they had died as a lesson to those still living in Nanking. We were not allowed at first to bury the dead. But later, because of the danger to the troops of epidemics we were ordered to begin burials.’
‘How many bodies did you bury?’
‘We were not permitted to keep records. During the time I worked with the Red Swastika Society it was roughly estimated we buried forty-five thousand bodies. But the actual number must be much higher. I worked with them only for a short time. Most of the corpses we were ordered to bury were those who the military had shot in large batches. Many had their hands tied behind their backs with rope or wire. It is Buddhist practice to unloose a dead body if it has been tied. We wished to bury each body separately but the numbers we had to deal with, the state of decay and the wire that bound them, made all these things impossible. We had to bury them in mass graves.’
Sir William Webb raised his hand. ‘You need not go into these details. The method of disposal of the bodies is not helpful.’
‘You were arrested by the Japanese Army? Will you explain how you escaped.’
The examination of Teng’s evidence was extensive, but at last it was over.
The next day General Matsui was called. He walked forward, his chin raised firmly. Although many might see him as a criminal, Donald could only view his diminutive figure with respect. Against himself, he had come to feel a bond of friendship towards the General. Matsui exuded a sad nobility as he walked towards the witness box. Donald was eager for the packed courtroom to see and hear the man he had met so recently at Sugamo Prison. He was sure the judges would discern that Matsui was no more than a scapegoat in a deadly game; the sincerity of the man would come through to them.
But immediately, Matsui adopted an attitude at odds with the face he had shown Donald at Sugamo. He attempted at first to feign ignorance of atrocities in Nanking, rambling on at considerable length about Chinese-Japanese brotherhood. He sounded to all half-senile.
‘I was always firm in the belief that the strife between Japan and China was a quarrel between brothers in the so-called household of Asia. It was no different from an elder brother thrashing his younger recalcitrant brother after putting up with him for so long. The action was to make China come to her senses, not out of hatred, but out of love.’ Matsui would not be stopped, and in the gallery people yawned. About events in Nanking Matsui was at first slippery.
‘You say you heard a rumour towards the end of December about atrocities. Where did this rumour come from?’ the prosecution asked.
‘I heard from persons who had heard these rumours,’ General Matsui answered.
‘In your affidavit you say that when you inspected the city on 17th December 1937, you saw only about ten dead Chinese troops lying on the streets. How many bodies of dead civilians, including women and children, did you see?’
‘I did not see any,’ General Matsui showed no emotion. The Prosecutor frowned.
‘The reason I ask is because in your interrogation before this trial you were asked the same question. Your answer then was that “they had all been removed by that time. I saw only a few dead soldiers by the West Gate”. These were your words at that time.’
Later questions turned to his interviews with Donald. ‘When did you first see Mr Donald Addison? What did you talk about?’
‘I explained to Mr Addison my views with regard to respecting foreign rights and interests in Shanghai. I explained that I wished to extend the hand of friendship to China.’ A stubborn note entered Matsui’s voice.
‘Did you have further conversation with Mr Addison in January 1938?’
‘Yes, I saw him twice. I sent for him. There were many foreign correspondents, but Mr Addison was the one I considered most trustworthy. I met him to hear what he had to say and to impart to him information I had,’ General Matsui replied.
‘In other words, you wanted to quell the rumours of atrocities abroad at the time.’·
‘I ordered an investigation into the rumour of these so-called atrocities. I ordered every unit to investigate.’ General Matsui answered strongly, his voice rising on his last words.
‘Did they report back to you the results of the investigation you ordered?’
‘Each specific unit did not report to me directly. If I received reports it would have been for the commanders of the various army divisions.’ General Matsui was again evasive.
‘What reports did you receive?’ Counsel for the Prosecution asked. Matsui was silent for a moment before finally replying reluctantly.
‘I received none up to the time of my departure from Shanghai in February 1938, the following year.’
‘Did you ask for reports?’
‘Yes.’
‘We were told in this court earlier by prosecution witness Hidaka, a diplomat who visited Nanking at the height of the outrages, that reports of atrocities in Nanking were sent to the Foreign Office in Tokyo, and to the army in Nanking. Where would such reports go if they went to the army in Nanking?
‘They would go to the Headquarters of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force, that is the Headquarters of General Prince Asaka,’ Matsui answered curtly.
‘And these headquarters were in Nanking?’
‘Inside the walls of Nanking.’
‘Are you aware of any communication from Tokyo addressed to anyone in China?’
‘I know nothing.’ General Matsui pushed his chin forward defiantly over the stiff collar of his uniform.
‘Was a communication sent to Prince Asaka, Commander of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force?’
‘I did not hear anything.’ Matsui’s voice was stubborn again.
‘The claim is made that Lieutenant General Prince Asaka was a field commander who should have had some control over that part of the army that first entered Nanking. Is it correct that Prince Asaka was so placed?’
�
��That is correct.’
‘And Prince Asaka is married to one of the daughters of the Emperor Meiji?’
‘That is correct,’ General Matsui was forced to admit.
‘Some people claim Prince Asaka was responsible for very much of what happened in Nanking, but because of his relationship with the Imperial family little or nothing has been said about it. Is that correct?’
‘I do not think so. Prince Asaka had joined our army in China only ten days before its entry into Nanking. In my view, because of the very short time he was connected with the army, I do not think he can be held responsible. I would say the Division Commanders were the responsible parties.’ General Matsui appeared like an insect squashed slowly to death for all to see, between two sheets of glass.
Only towards the end of his testimony did the General, for just a few sentences, attempt to make some form of appeal for himself. To Donald his deep voice, echoing out of his shrunken frame, seemed caustic with unspoken pain.
‘I am not trying to, nor do I evade all responsibility or connection with the capture of Nanking as area commander. However, I am only trying to tell you that I am not directly responsible for the discipline and morals of the troops under the respective armies under my command. I myself did not have the authority to take disciplinary measures, or to hold a court martial. Such authority resided in the Commander of the army or the Division Commander.’
‘How then do you explain your previous statement to this court that you did everything in your power as Commander of the Central China Area Army to give severe punishment to those guilty of atrocities?’
‘I had no authority. I could do no more than express my desires as overall Commander of the army.’ General Matsui’s voice rose and wavered for a moment, before he fell silent, looking about aggressively.
Donald shook his head in distress for Matsui as, at last, the General was released from the stand. It was useless to talk of sacrifice to the ritual slaughter of the court, and yet that was how Matsui’s performance appeared. Matsui sat once more in the dock and closed his eyes, withdrawing deep within himself.
The following day Donald was at last called to the witness box. There was a stir as he crossed the court. He was now a famous man. There had been much in the Japanese newspapers about his part in making public to the world all that had gone on. Across the court, standing in the witness box, facing the dock of elderly men, he cut a tall, forbidding figure. He looked about the courtroom. The heat and humidity were intense. All the terrible details of the day seemed to hang upon the air, like a stench that would not clear. Donald felt a sudden claustrophobia such as he experienced sometimes in lifts. Nanking pressed in upon him. The questioning began.
‘I returned to Nanking, after the bombing of the Panay in which I was involved. I climbed the walls and entered the city undetected. I returned with the intention of getting news of Nanking and what was happening there,’ Donald stated.
‘And how did you do this?’ the prosecution asked.
‘Statistics were most important. Each day I went out about the city, between other duties with the Safety Zone Committee. However grim the scenes I tried to write them up objectively for later use and evidence.’ He spoke calmly, giving numbers, describing conditions. The auditorium listened in silence.
‘Although we can never know the exact numbers, it is thought several hundred thousand people were killed within six weeks in Nanking. And perhaps as many as fifty thousand women were raped. Some of the worst treatment was reserved for the women. We could do nothing. Nothing.’ Donald’s voice cracked upon the word.
‘You have taken film of this. Will you explain to the court how you managed to do this and what was on this film.’
Donald’s mouth felt dry. The great hall was silent before him, waiting. Wherever he looked he saw eyes, caught in the blaze of lights, moist, bright, watching him. Ahead he saw General Matsui and all the old men of the dock. Some closed their eyes in concentration, or an ostrich-like disassociation. The headphones they wore gave a strange bulbous shape to their heads. They looked to him suddenly like a box of shrivelled praying mantises, with small heads and carbuncle eyes.
‘What was it that has made this movie film so special, that gave it credence to the world?’ The prosecutor’s voice prompted.
The dryness increased in his mouth. He looked about him, but saw no escape. The tiers of packed seats rose before him, the interpreters waited in their section. The microphone before him waited. The cupped ears of the defendants waited. The court closed about him, a well into which for eternity his words would echo, written down in print, shelved in archives. For ever.
The great lights above him threw his shadow over the sloping front of the witness box. It moved as he moved, as if mocking him. He suddenly feared all that his shadow held locked within it. He feared it was intertwined with all that was locked in that terrible film. His terror grew as he contemplated what he must voice to the court. Things fused together in his head and would not separate. The heat in the room grew intense.
‘The court is waiting.’ The prosecutor’s voice was now curt.
‘It was a cold morning. My biggest worry was not to be seen by soldiers, otherwise the camera would be taken. As ever, there were plenty of dead bodies to record. And fires. The torch was put to so much without reason. Besides rape and murder there was also looting. I took some footage from a distance of a supply line loaded with high-grade black wood furniture. I do not know what I was looking for, except a record of Nanking as it was then. I came to a canal. Bodies were floating in it, enormously bloated. It stank.’
He felt the nausea still. He remembered the thick plates of the lotus leaves about the rotting corpses. ‘There were houses beside the canal . . .’
His mouth was too dry for his tongue to move. He considered making this excuse to Sir William Webb. The shadow before him on the witness box trembled as he trembled. He tried shifting his position, but the shadow shifted with him.
‘Go on.’ He heard the impatience in the prosecutor’s voice.
‘I heard a lot of screaming. Then a middle-aged woman and two men ran out of one of the houses. I set my camera working. There were three or maybe four soldiers, I have forgotten. But they took hold of the woman, pulling at her clothes. They began to rape her. When her husband and the other man protested, they were bayoneted and fell at the side of the road.’
His mouth was so dry now his voice emerged in a cracked and uneven drawl. It was not how he wanted to sound. And something terrible had begun. It was as if a film continued now to wind on by itself without his words, pulling him into the picture. The jerking, pathetic, black and white images he had taken were now flooded by colour. The sound of screaming filled his ears. He saw again the mesh of limbs, the pumping bodies of the men, the closed eyes of the woman, stoic in her peasant endurance of pain and violation.
And even as everything had tangled in his mind on that morning, it tangled now again. He saw the image of Cordelia superimposed upon the wretched peasant woman. He saw not the scrawny limbs of those soldiers, but the pale, fleshy, heaving buttocks of his father, thrusting at Cordelia. He saw Cordelia’s eyes, closed in an expression he had never aroused, her lips parted in emotion.
Desperation flooded through him. On the sloping front of the witness box the shadow now jerked and pulled at him, its anger palpitating. It loomed up unexpectedly, throwing itself upon him, thrashing back and forth.
He looked up in terror and saw that a bird had flown into the courtroom and struck the side of one of the lamps, causing it to sway about. This did not lessen the throb of fear. The film seemed imprinted now upon his very life. He forgot why he was in the courtroom. Film and life now merged as one.
‘I could have stopped it.’ He raised his voice and it cracked again. ‘I could have walked forward and torn those soldiers off her. But I did nothing. Nothing. While I was filming all I could see was Cordelia. It was as if I could no longer see that Chinese woman and what they were doing
to her. I stood and watched them, like I watched Cordelia. But Cordelia wanted him, and he was my father. I always feared him, I suppose. I was a coward. They thought I was out, you see. It was Christmas Eve. He shot himself. He made sure I heard the shot. That was typical of him. His brains were everywhere, all over the wall and the desk. I could have stopped him too, from killing himself. Perhaps I hoped he would do it. Perhaps I made him do it. I knew he had a gun . . .’
He slumped upon the shadow that now lay still before him. His face was wet with tears. Two MPs stepped forward and led him from the box, across the well of the court and out into the corridor. A nurse and a doctor hurried towards him.
41
New Worlds
1946
The remains of the house still stood. The lantern had survived, although about it the garden had died. When he had returned to the house it was the first thing Kenjiro had sought. His relief at its survival was overwhelming. That a useless weathered relic should have acquired such importance was beyond comprehension. He spread out his quilts on the rotted floor of his old room, so that upon waking he could see the lantern.
‘It is a kind of icon, I suppose. And yet, it is such a useless object. I cannot understand it,’ Kenjiro observed to Teng, who was staying with him until his return to China in a few days. They sat together, the large shutters pulled back upon the verandah and the smashed garden.
‘I had no wish to come to this trial and testify. At first I refused Nadya’s request,’ Teng said. ‘The evil was done, I thought it should be forgotten as quickly as possible in the seeking of a new future. But I think now this was my own fear of confronting within myself all that has happened. I saw that I must come here, for myself and for others. In a world where nothing is what it seems, your lantern is a symbol of all that is unchanging.’
Kenjiro sighed. ‘The trial appears to me to be plotted from the start. A sort of ritual before the sacrificial slaughter. I do not know what will be learned from it. Its concept of justice is, of course, a Christian one. In the Western world such concepts are based upon centuries of a particular philosophy and religion. But in Japan, you could say that we worship only nature. And in a world ruled by nature the question of individual responsibility is more difficult to assess. The cultural differences in the case have not been given enough consideration.’
