East of India

by East of India (retail) (epub)

  His waiting finally paid off around dawn. The Japanese soldiers, short, stocky men with glinting eyes and square jaws, landed as swiftly and violently as a tropical storm, instantly separating the men from the women and children, and then the men into separate units: civilians to one side, servicemen to the other.

  ‘Line up for tenko,’ ordered a Japanese officer, the toes of his boots barely missing the tip of his lengthy sword.

  A whisper went round. ‘What’s tenko?’

  The word would haunt the dreams of some for ever.

  He interpreted swiftly. ‘Roll call. Line up. Now, please. Japanese soldiers will not hurt you.’

  The Australians overrode their fear by making light of the situation, purposely deriding the enemy’s flat black hair, the sharp almond-shaped eyes and their lack of height.

  Unfortunately they were overheard and understood. The enemy went among them cracking rifle butts across bare flesh already red raw with sunburn.

  Nadine watched with a sinking heart, sensing that she was witnessing a collision of cultures. What did she know about the Japanese? Only that their women wore kimonos.

  The Japanese flag was raised on a hastily made pole cut from a tree branch.

  ‘Bow. All men bow. All women bow. All children bow! All bow to conquering army. Like this.’

  The small men in khaki showed them how to bow, head low, arms fixed to their sides.

  Those injured but able to move were bludgeoned towards the makeshift flagpole.

  ‘Bow!’

  Some were more reluctant – and foolhardy – than others.

  ‘Certainly not,’ exclaimed the woman who had believed they would be rescued. ‘I’m British.’

  The force of a rifle slamming into the small of her back brought her to her knees.

  ‘Bow! Obey!’

  The rays of the rising sun beat on a wave of burned backs as heads were bowed towards the Japanese flag.

  In the midst of bowing, Doreen continued to bleat her concern for her children.

  ‘Nadine. Do you think you could ask the soldiers for some food? William and Wendy have had nothing to eat since noon yesterday.’

  A Japanese soldier heard her. ‘Silence!’

  ‘We’ll get some later,’ Nadine answered once he was out of earshot.

  Next they were broken down into smaller units. Women with children, injured men and healthy men were segregated and counted by three soldiers. They compared numbers when they’d finished but appeared to disagree. Their findings were reported to an officer who ordered them to count again. The disagreements went on and on.

  Standing in the scorching sun began to take its toll. Children whimpered, women sighed. The injured capable of standing sagged and swayed; some of the older women and the weaker fainted.

  The soldiers counted again, their booted feet sinking into the soft sand, kicking those on the ground when they refused – or couldn’t hear – the order to stand up.

  Nadine felt as though her sweat had turned to ice.

  Doreen appeared preoccupied.

  ‘Nadine? The children…’

  Nadine shook her head slowly – just three turns – left, right, left. She had to impress on Doreen just how serious the situation had become.

  ‘But they’re hungry…’

  She repeated her action. Her mouth was too dry to speak.

  The woman on the other side of Doreen told her to be quiet. ‘They’ll beat you if you keep talking,’ she told her.

  The men were ushered towards the water’s edge where the sea curved in ribbons of white surf. Over a hundred of them were ordered to stand in a row facing the sea. Those unable to stand were also included and laid out along the shoreline.

  Five or six women were selected and given a pile of bandages torn from dresses, shirts, petticoats and other items of clothing. With a series of shouted orders and rough handling, they were told to distribute one piece of cloth to each of the men standing at the water’s edge.

  ‘Not to injured,’ shouted the Japanese major, standing like a fighting cock, hands behind back, feet apart.

  Each man looked to his neighbour. Murmurings of disquiet were silenced by a rifle butt in the small of the back, or the tip of a bayonet in the back of the knee. Blood and sweat trickled onto the sand.

  Nadine heard someone say, ‘What’s happening?’ It wasn’t Doreen who spoke. She was looking at the ground and telling her children to do the same. She had been cuddling them to her, but a soldier had insisted they part, the children forced to stand to attention just like the adults.

  Now the soldiers were standing in a row behind the men, rifles poised, waiting for orders.

  The major barked something out in Japanese. The interpreter, a lieutenant judging by the way he deferred to the major and the other men deferred to him, translated.

  ‘Blindfold your eyes.’

  The men looked one to another.

  Hearts leapt into throats.

  A hum of noise rose like a swarm of bees. The initial agitation of the men at the shoreline spread to those watching.

  An Australian soldier with sandy hair and pink skin turned round and addressed the crowd, spreading his arms wide, his eyes and mouth swollen with terror.

  ‘The bastards are going to shoot us!’

  Reaction was instant. A soldier smashed the butt of his rifle into the man’s mouth. He fell back, spitting teeth and blood.

  The condemned men, their faces streaked with terror, sprang into the surf, swimming for their lives.

  Nothing, not even the threat of shooting, could stop the women screaming. The surf turned red.

  Nadine opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Frantically, she tried to make out Martin. Was he there? Was he behind her? She couldn’t remember. Her chest heaved, her breath choked in her throat. She heard Doreen crying, heard the children turning hysterical, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from what was happening. Who was next?

  Broken and bleeding, bodies were flung upwards on incoming waves. Those who avoided the hail of rifle bullets and managed to swim some distance were cut in two by the machine gun mounted on the bows of the patrol launch.

  ‘Will they kill us too?’ a woman murmured, her bottom lip trembling and a trail of drool running from her mouth.

  Nadine did not respond. Terror rooted her into the warm, soft sand. Terror caused her to whisper one solitary phrase that would stay in her mind for a long time to come. I am seventeen. Seventeen! I don’t want to die. No matter what, I do NOT want to die!

  What was it Shanti used to say? She instantly corrected herself. What was it my mother used to say? Life is precious, whatever it is.

  Something flapping drew her attention to the gathering of civilian men: old planters wearing battered panamas, still dignified despite the fact that their trousers were torn and flapping around their bony knees; bespectacled administrators, no-hopers at home in suburban Surrey, who had come out east to serve both empire and themselves. A selfish thought crept into her mind. If anyone else were to die, surely it would be them. Not the women. Not the children. It would be them!

  Please, God!

  ‘They won’t kill us, will they? Not women? Not children?’

  A ginger-haired woman with a blistered face was asking her; her who had just asked herself.

  ‘I hope not,’ she replied. ‘Just be brave. We’ll get through this.’

  ‘You’re young. It’s different for you though I wish I had your courage,’ the woman murmured.

  Courage? Nadine almost shouted out, I’m terrified. Absolutely terrified!

  ‘They’ll kill the other men first.’ Though her voice trembled, the woman sounded almost hopeful.

  Nadine swallowed. Is this what it will come to? Hoping it will happen to someone else, but not me. Please, God, not me?

  At one time she would have been ashamed to think such selfish thoughts, but not now. Now there was only numb fear where shame used to live.

  Doreen drew her a
ttention with high-pitched whining noises. Her features were contorted, an ugly caricature of how they usually were.

  Nadine looked away and clenched her jaw. She could offer no words of comfort. Her mind, even her body, had become hollow.

  The male civilians stood in straight rows as did the women. She saw a tall man standing head and shoulders above everyone else and assured herself that it must be Martin.

  Around her women retched or cried uncontrollably as they crumpled to their knees, whispering the name of the husband or lover they feared never to see again. Some, like her, had turned to stone.

  A woman was loudly exclaiming that the corpses floating in the surf should be buried.

  The Japanese did not respond.

  The woman, a tough Australian, everyone’s ideal of the archetype hospital matron, stepped forward and shouted, ‘You’re all bloody savages. But you wait. You’ll reap what you sow, you just see if you don’t.’

  At an order from an officer, three soldiers dragged her out to the front. Two of them held her arms, tugging them to either side until it seemed they would be pulled from their sockets. A red mist sprayed outwards as the third fired a bullet into the back of her head.

  The shock of those watching spread; a rushing noise like the sound of the surf meeting the shore and sucked into silence by the sand. No one was left in any doubt that protest – or even comment – would not be tolerated.

  The bloody corpses ebbed and flowed on the surf, the redness finally dissipating to a dull pink and then grey.

  The lifeless corpse of the shot woman was left half in, half out of the water.

  The Japanese, their expressions showing no sign of emotion, turned their attention elsewhere. Their first task was to collect all valuables. Nadine took off her wedding ring and a thin gold chain her father had given her as a wedding present. Everything was gathered into a stiff canvas bag.

  An officer walked up and down the lines of women. A common soldier accompanied him, a paintbrush in one hand and a pot of ink or paint in the other. Every so often, at the officer’s behest, he made a black tick on a woman’s forehead.

  Nadine stared at the ground. She didn’t know whether a black tick was a good thing or a bad thing.

  To her dismay, he stopped in front of her. She trembled when he lifted her chin. For a moment – just the smallest moment, her eyelids flickered. She saw his face, black eyes above prominent cheekbones, a thin-lipped mouth.

  She received a tick from the sentry, shivering as the brush wetted her forehead.

  They passed on, formed a huddle, discussed what they had done, and with curt nods agreed a course of action. She thought she saw money change hands. That in itself seemed surreal. Money? For dead people?

  ‘You!’

  The shouted command made her jump. A soldier slammed the butt of his rifle across her back, herding her ahead of him the way she’d seen the natives herding livestock in India.

  ‘There! You! Go there!’

  She found herself in the company of two Eurasian girls, two Chinese, one Indian who still wore the remnants of her nurse’s uniform, two Australians and two young British women.

  The commanding officer strutted along the row looking them up and down, stopping occasionally to make some comment to a lesser officer who turned out to be an interpreter.

  Still presuming they were next to be shot, she stood on tiptoe, searching for sight of her husband. Her husband! There had been no love lost between them, and yet if anyone could save her, he could. A fragile hope, a false hope, but the only one she had.

  Seemingly satisfied with those chosen, the commanding officer said something in Japanese to the interpreter.

  The interpreter, taller than most of his colleagues, saluted his superior before stepping forward to speak. He addressed those selected with a black tick.

  ‘Ladies. Major Yamamuchi declares that Japan does not make war on women. Your men turned and fled the battle. They are cowards. They left their women behind. So sorry. Japanese soldiers are honourable men. We would not do this to our women. We would protect them and we will now do our best to protect you. We will give you the opportunity of working in very good conditions. You will do laundry and other things for Japanese officers. However, you will not be forced to do this. It is your decision.’

  Nadine’s gaze drifted beyond the uniformed figures to where the dead littered the shoreline.

  If she refused this work, how long before she too was lying face down in the water?

  ‘What other services are they talking about?’ muttered an Australian nurse, a pretty girl with dark hair and blue eyes.

  ‘The proverbial fate worse than death?’ added an English girl of similar colouring.

  The interpreter’s eyes followed each sentence of conversation, interpreting it for the officer’s benefit.

  The major nodded and said something. The interpreter gave a respectful bow of the head and faced the women.

  ‘You will not be forced. Those who do not wish to work for their food may rejoin the others and be taken to a women’s camp. We will give you a moment to consider your options.’

  ‘I’m frightened,’ said one of the Eurasian girls. Her name was Kiri.

  Nadine crouched down, picked up a stick and made lines in the sand. ‘We’re all frightened.’

  An Australian girl spat on the beach. ‘Laundry! My aunt Fanny! Who’s crazy enough to go with them believing that? Who really wants to make that kind of choice?’

  Nadine drew a gallows in the soft wetness of the sand. Out of the corner of her eye she could see clouds of flies colonizing the bare backs of the dead as though they were islands.

  She jerked her chin at the floating bodies. ‘They might have liked that choice. Will we live if we stay here?’

  There was instant reaction.

  ‘You don’t think…?’

  Nadine said nothing but concentrated on completing the gallows, digging the rope and noose more deeply than its supporting structure. She raised her eyes to where the Japanese waited, the major inspecting some kind of roster passed to him by someone on the boat.

  He nodded as though something had been agreed.

  Suddenly a woman appeared on the boat. Nadine shielded her eyes. The woman took deep breaths as she walked up and down the narrow side deck escorted by an armed soldier.

  The sun was immediately behind the boat. The sea glittered. For a moment it seemed that the woman stopped and gazed straight at her. Although the glare obscured the woman’s features, there was something familiar about her shape, the way she held herself, the blue-black hair, the yellow dress…

  After completing one circuit of the boat, the woman disappeared. Even after she’d gone, Nadine stared, unsure to trust her sight, but hoping, hoping desperately, that she had just seen Lucy.

  No one else had been killed, in fact a bucket of milky rice and one flavoured with dried fish had been handed to those left on the beach. They fell on it ravenously. Even the remaining injured were being tended to.

  Nadine assured herself that Doreen and the children would be fine and would probably end up in a family camp. One of the Dutch women had assured them such places existed. She hoped it was true.

  Martin was dead. She was pretty sure of that, and although she surveyed the bobbing bodies at the water’s edge, one sunburned corpse was much like another.

  The officer in charge said something to the interpreter. After saluting smartly, he trudged through the blindingly white sand.

  ‘He wants an answer,’ whispered one of the girls.

  Nadine watched him approach, waited until he was just a few feet away, then bowed. ‘I will accept your offer.’

  His round face broke into a beneficent smile, like a priest, she thought, about to baptize a willing supplicant.

  Her stomach crawled with fear. Like the others she wasn’t sure of what she’d really agreed to, but Lucy was on that boat. For that reason alone she was drawn to it.

  The interpreter, lieutenant so someo
ne said, addressed the others. ‘All of you?’

  To Nadine’s surprise, they bowed in unison, gathered around but slightly behind her.

  ‘Looks like you’re our leader,’ said one of the Australian nurses.

  This was a responsibility she could well do without. ‘You don’t have to do as I do.’

  ‘I will if it means staying alive.’

  The Japanese officer was beaming. ‘You have made good decision. You board boat now. Do not be afraid. You will not be harmed. Japanese are kind to those who serve army.’

  Nadine studied her companions and saw the fear in their eyes. It occurred to her that all of them were young, all pretty. Fear coiled like a tight rope in her stomach.

  They were waved forward with shouted commands and violent gestures.

  ‘What about the women and children staying behind?’ whispered one of the two Australian nurses.

  Nadine whispered back, ‘They’ll be all right. They don’t shoot women and children.’

  She realized the hollowness of her words when her gaze rested on the woman who’d been shot and was slowly being sucked out in the undertow. They chose not to mention her. Holding on to hope. It was all they had left.

  The urge to look was too overwhelming to ignore.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Nadine studied the beach, looking for Doreen, William and Wendy. Would they ever meet again?

  They were herded through the water to the base of a ladder at the side of the boat. The ladder stopped short of the surface by a few inches. The weight of the water and their weakness as a result of hunger made it difficult to clamber aboard.

  An order was snapped out in Japanese which resulted in a body being wedged at the bottom of the ladder to make clambering aboard that much easier. She forced herself not to mind, not to feel anything, even trepidation. She only glimpsed the back of the body on which she stepped as it sank beneath her weight. It was broad. Red. She retched, but nothing came up. For once she was glad that there was so little in her stomach.

  When she’d been helped up onto the deck she took one last glance towards Doreen and her children. Then, overcome by revulsion and fear, she closed her eyes. What she had seen today must be stored to memory. There were no rules in love and war, but surely no human being should be allowed to treat others like this.