The Other Side of Paradise Page 16

  Within a few days Peter had recovered completely, and spent his time playing with the boys and the dog. Sometimes the men took him fishing in their boats. His fair skin tanned to a deep brown but his English hair bleached to white-blond. He could never be taken for a native villager, any more than she could, or Hua either, but they could all adapt to life in the kampong. She thought, if we could stay here in the kampong we’d be safe. Then we could go back to Singapore as soon as the Japs were defeated. The children would be no trouble to the villagers and I could work with the women – learn how to cook like them, make myself useful. It wouldn’t be for long.

  She went to see the headman who was sitting talking with the other men under some trees away from the women and children. She asked if she could speak with him and when he nodded, she sat down at a respectful distance. The men watched her intently with their dark eyes, waiting for her to speak. She had the uneasy feeling that she had been the subject of their discussion. In Malay, she asked the headman’s permission to beg a favour.

  ‘Tuan, boleh saya minta tolong?’

  He gestured for her to continue. ‘Boleh!’

  She was very humble, very aware how important it was for a woman to show proper deference.

  ‘I wish to ask if you would permit us to stay in the village with you – myself, the English boy and the Chinese girl. If we have to leave we will probably die because we do not know our way or how to survive in the jungle. May we stay with you until the Japanese have been driven out of Singapore and we can safely return there?’

  He was silent for a moment, very grave.

  ‘I cannot allow you this.’

  ‘Please, tuan. For the children’s sake.’

  He said, ‘The Japanese are already on Bangka Island. Soon they will come here and when they see that we have given a white mem and boy and a Chinese girl shelter, they will punish us severely. We have learned that this is so. All white people must surrender to them. They have made a prison camp on the island and we will take you and the children safely there so that you will not die in the jungle.’

  ‘But we might die in the prison camp, tuan. It is said that the Japanese hate the English and the Chinese.’

  ‘If an English mem and boy and a Chinese girl stay here, we may die, and all our women and children. We must take you to Japanese officers at the prison camp. It has been decided.’

  She saw from the men’s faces that the decision would not be changed, no matter how much she pleaded.

  She said, ‘Do you have news of Singapore, tuan?’

  ‘Only bad news. The Japanese are in Singapore now. Many English tuans are dead and many are in prisons.’ He nodded to her. ‘Tomorrow morning you must go by boat with the boy and the girl, soon after sunrise.’

  They were given a supper of curried chicken and rice and on the next day everyone in the kampong gathered at the river to say goodbye. Peter and Hua were dressed again in their own clothes and Susan had given back the sarong and baju and put on her blue cotton frock. The night before Salmah had sewn her pearl necklace, her gold watch and her gold charm bracelet into the hem of the frock.

  ‘To hide from the Japanese,’ she said. ‘They will take everything.’

  She had given them parcels of food wrapped up in banana leaves, and coolie hats of plaited palm leaves that the women had made specially for them. Susan made a polite little speech of thanks in Malay, and as the boat drew away from the bank the villagers smiled and waved and they smiled and waved back. The two natives paddling the boat beamed at them too. Anyone would have thought they were on a pleasure outing instead of going to surrender to the Japanese and be put in a prison camp.

  She had tried to prepare Peter and Hua without alarming them. She had told the children that they would get the villagers into trouble if they stayed and so they must go, instead, to a camp where other Europeans were living until the war with Japan was over. Hua had said nothing but Peter had been very upset to leave the kampong and his new friends.

  ‘Why do we have to go? It’s nice here. Why can’t we stay?’

  ‘I told you, Peter,’ she had said. ‘The villagers may be punished if the Japanese soldiers find they have been helping us. You wouldn’t want that to happen to them, would you?’

  ‘No. But we could go and hide in the jungle if the soldiers came.’

  ‘It’s too risky, and, besides, the head of the kampong says we must leave. His word is law. It has been very kind of him to let us stay so long.’

  ‘What will the camp be like?’

  She had said truthfully, ‘I don’t know. But whatever it’s like we must make the best of it.’

  He was sitting in the prow of the boat all on his own and she could tell by the sag of his shoulders that he was still upset. Poor Peter, it must have seemed as though everything good was being taken away from him.

  The river wound its sluggish way through the jungle and the sun grew hotter and hotter. The hats helped to keep them cool and, where possible, the natives steered the boat in the shade of overhanging trees. They passed crocodiles lying like logs on the muddy banks – huge jaws, scaly backs, long tails, clawed feet. One of them slid into the water and she could see its hooded eyes just above the surface, watching them.

  Around noon they ate the rice and dried fish that Salmah had given them. She had told Susan that the journey would take all day and that they would reach the place by sundown.

  ‘Apa tempat itu?’ she had asked Salmah. What place?

  ‘Tempat itu orang Jipun suda bikin camp.’ The place where the Japanese have made a camp.

  They came to it after a long bend in the river – trees felled on the bank to make a clearing, a wooden jetty, a crude hut. A Japanese soldier walked out on to the jetty as the boat approached. He was carrying a rifle with a bayonet fixed on the end which he brandished at them, yelling in Japanese.

  Susan refused to be hurried. She said goodbye to the natives and told them to go at once, then she took each child by the hand and stepped on to the jetty. The soldier stuck the sharp point of his bayonet in the belt buckle on her frock and went on jabbering.

  She said coldly in English, ‘I can’t understand a single word you are saying. Where is your officer?’

  More jabbering and then an officer, of sorts, appeared – an ugly little yellow man in a crumpled, dirty uniform, unshaven and wearing thick glasses. The sort of Jap that people had mocked in Singapore.

  She said, ‘I am Miss Susan Roper. This is Peter and this is Hua. Our ship was sunk by Japanese bombs. The natives rescued us from the sea in their fishing boat and brought us straight here to you.’ At all costs, nothing must be said about the kampong.

  He answered her in bad English. ‘You very lucky. Many die.’

  ‘Yes, we were lucky. Would you mind telling this man to remove his bayonet. It’s quite unnecessary. We have come to surrender.’

  The officer barked an order and the bayonet was lowered.

  ‘You British?’

  ‘Yes, I am British. From Singapore.’

  ‘The boy?’

  ‘He’s British too.’

  ‘Not girl. She Chinese.’

  ‘Yes, she is Chinese. Her mother was killed by your Japanese bombs in Singapore. I am looking after her.’

  ‘You run away in ship?’

  ‘We left Singapore by ship, yes.’

  ‘Not Singapore now. Name is Syonan. Light of the South in Japanese.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘The British defeated. They surrender to Imperial Japanese Army. All British are prisoners. You, too, are prisoners. You go to prison camp.’

  ‘Where is the camp?’

  ‘You walk there with this soldier. No escape or he kill you. You understand?’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘English women learn to be very humble now. Very obedient. Your Empire is finished.’

  The Japanese soldier walked close behind them, bayonet fixed and jabbing at them if they slowed. Lakas, lakas, he kept saying. Lakas,
lakas.

  Susan turned on him. ‘We’re going as fast as we can, you stupid man.’

  She held the children firmly by the hand, one on each side. There was no road, only a track with a rough surface that cut into their bare feet and opened up old wounds. After a while, she picked up Hua and carried her. They walked for a mile or more through the jungle and, as the day was beginning to turn into night, they reached the prison camp.

  Eleven

  SUSAN HAD EXPECTED some sort of grim grey building, like Changi on Singapore Island; instead, the prison was an old native kampong surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. The attap huts had presumably been abandoned, or else the former inhabitants had been forcibly removed to make way for the prisoners.

  She and the children entered through a gateway guarded by two Jap soldiers, also wielding bayonets on the ends of rifles. There was a jabbering exchange between their escort and the two guards and, with more jabber and some more quite unnecessary bayonet prods and kicks from booted feet, they were taken to a hut set apart from the rest. Inside there was a bamboo table, a chair, a kerosene lamp already lit against the growing darkness, and, seated behind the table, another Jap officer – presumably the camp commandant. More incomprehensible jabber. Susan stood waiting, Hua balanced on her hip, her free hand gripping one of Peter’s.

  This officer was not quite so ugly as the previous one and his uniform was clean and pressed, his face shaved; she wondered how he managed it in the middle of the jungle.

  He stared at them for a moment.

  ‘Take off hats.’

  As she hesitated, one of the guards stepped forward and knocked their coolie hats off their heads.

  The officer said, ‘British peoples must show us respect now. We are your victorious conquerors. Hat must be off head and then you bow.’

  She bowed.

  ‘Not enough.’

  She bowed lower.

  ‘Children must bow too.’

  She told Peter in English, Hua in Cantonese. They both bowed, though she had been afraid that Peter might argue about it.

  He said, surprised, ‘You speak Cantonese, then?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Malay also?’

  ‘A little.’

  The interrogation started, the questions barked in staccato Japanese-English.

  ‘Your name?’

  ‘Miss Susan Roper.’

  ‘Names of children?’

  ‘This girl is called Hua, the boy Peter. I don’t know their surnames.’

  ‘Why do you not know?’

  ‘Their mothers were killed by Japanese bombs in Singapore. I haven’t asked them their other names yet. We’ve been too busy surviving.’

  It went on. Nationality, address in Singapore, or Syonan as he insisted on calling it. Name of her father, his occupation, name of the ship that had sunk, how they had managed to reach Bangka. The answers were all written down. Her arms were aching with Hua’s weight so she put her down and held her hand tightly instead.

  When the questions were finished, the officer said, ‘You do not look like English woman.’

  What did he expect – a flowery frock, a veiled hat, white gloves, white shoes? After the shipwreck and the raft and the swimming, the sunburn, the bites and the cuts and the sores, not to mention the time spent in the other kampong, yes, she must look very un-English.

  ‘Well, I am.’

  ‘Those are not English hats. Those are native hats. You hide on island with natives. They help you.’

  ‘No. They brought us straight here. The hats are from Singapore. They sell them in the markets there. We often wear them against the sun.’

  He stared at her some more.

  ‘You lucky to live.’

  ‘Yes, I know. We’re very lucky.’

  ‘Many English die.’

  ‘So I hear.’

  ‘The White Devils are being driven from the East.’

  She said nothing, looking at the hut wall over his left shoulder. There was a gecko clinging to it, motionless. It seemed to be listening to the interview with great interest.

  ‘You stay here in camp now. Japanese soldiers treat women and children well. We are not savages. We give you food and water. Then you sleep.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He leaned back in his chair, running his fingers along the edge of the bamboo table. ‘I learn English in England. I stay two months in London to learn.’ He was obviously very proud of the fact.

  ‘How interesting.’

  ‘London very foggy. Very cold.’

  ‘Yes, it can be.’

  ‘Perhaps I return one day, but in summer.’

  ‘Perhaps you will.’

  ‘I have not yet seen Syonan. I hear it is very nice place.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘The English build good buildings. Make parks and gardens. In Japan we have very beautiful gardens, also. More beautiful than in England.’

  ‘Really?’

  She kept her eyes fixed on the gecko on the wall, who was still listening. She might have to bow to this man but she didn’t have to be chummy to him. After a moment’s silence, he snapped something to the guards and with more bayonet brandishing and kicking they were hustled out of the hut, retrieving the coolie hats from the floor as they went. They were given some water and a bowl with a little rice in the bottom; the rice was grey and dirty but it was food and she made the children eat it, Peter pulling disgusted faces.

  By the time they were taken to one of the huts, it was completely dark. The guard carried a torch and flashed it around as they went inside. White women and children were lying in rows on the bare earth floor and they raised their heads, blinking like animals disturbed and frightened by sudden light. Before Susan could find a spare space for them to lie down the guard and the torch had gone, leaving them in the dark.

  There were over two hundred prisoners in the camp – English women and children who had been shipwrecked in the Bangka Strait fleeing from Singapore, and Dutch women and children from Sumatra, including some nuns. At first there had also been men but they had been taken away; nobody knew where or what had happened to them. There was no sign of Stella or any of the other Australian nurses, and no news of them. Several of the women and children had been wounded in the attack on the ships but there were no doctors, no medicines or antiseptics. Water came from a well, carried in buckets, the lavatory was an open ditch, there was no soap and only one towel. When there was a monsoon downpour they stood out in it, faces uplifted, to let it wash them and their clothes.

  The daily routine never varied. Tenko, the camp roll call, was at 7 a.m. when the prisoners lined up to be counted and to bow low to the Japanese commandant, Captain Atsuji. Women who had refused to bow at the beginning had been beaten by the guards. Now, everyone bowed.

  At midday they queued for the first meal – a few spoonfuls of burned grey rice slopped from a bucket and a cup of tasteless liquid from another bucket that was supposed to be tea. At 4 p.m. they were given more rice with tiny pieces of vegetable or specks of something that might have been meat, or little lumps of pork fat floating in water that was called soup. Some of the Dutch had spoons and forks but the English prisoners had to eat with their fingers. There was nothing to do all day but walk up and down until the evening tenko at 5 p.m. Bedtime was at 7 p.m. followed by a seemingly endless night spent lying on the earth floor – the time when mosquitoes and bugs launched their main attack.

  The wounded died, one after the other, and were buried in rough graves dug outside the camp: eight women and four children. The Dutch nuns led the prayers, wooden crosses were made and marked with the name and the date, jungle flowers were picked and made into wreaths for each one.

  New prisoners kept arriving at the camp so that soon there was scarcely room in the huts to lie down. Sleep, in any case, was very difficult. Apart from the attacking insects, the Jap guards had a sadistic habit of shining their torches into the huts, deliberately waking everyone up and making the babie
s and young children cry. Sometimes they hit the prisoners on the legs with their bayonets or kicked them with their hard-toed boots, for good measure.

  The woman standing next to Susan and the children in the food queue said, ‘You’re Susan Roper, aren’t you? I didn’t recognize you at first. I was at one of your mother’s luncheons last November.’

  She hadn’t recognized Mrs Cotton either – last seen all dressed up to the nines and now ragged and barefoot, face burned lobster red by the sun.

  ‘Your mother’s not here, is she? What’s happened to her? Is she all right?’

  ‘She’s on a ship going to Australia.’

  ‘Why aren’t you with her?’

  ‘I changed my mind.’

  ‘Oh dear! You should have gone with her. You really should. Australia would have been safe. Mind you, I wouldn’t have left Singapore at all if my husband hadn’t insisted on it. He stayed though. Heaven knows what’s happened to him now.’

  ‘Have you heard any news?’

  ‘Only what the Japs tell you and, of course, you can’t believe everything they say. They say we surrendered and they’ve taken over and I dare say that’s true. Jim, my husband, always said it was bound to happen in the end. He thought the British in charge were useless and that nobody took the Japs seriously enough. I can remember saying something about it to Lady Battersby at that last lunch of your mother’s. Of course she thought I was talking rubbish. She’s here too, by the way. She was on the ship with me – her husband stayed behind in Singapore, too. We ended up in the same lifeboat.’

  It was hard to imagine Lady B. taking to a lifeboat.

  ‘I haven’t seen her.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have done. She’s been locked up on her own in the punishment hut because she refused to bow to the commandant. We haven’t seen her for at least a week. She may be dead, for all we know. The Japs don’t seem to care if we live or die. And I don’t know how we’re going to stay alive on the rations they give us. Who are these children with you, by the way?’

  Susan explained.

  Mrs Cotton lowered her voice. ‘It’s the children I’m most sorry for. Poor little things. They haven’t got much of a chance in conditions like these.’