by Hill, David
I hardly recognised him when he returned. I was only nine when he went away, and here was this skinny, sunburnt bloke with one arm in a sling, who didn’t look like my father. But he was, and I’m so pleased he’s safe. ‘Now I don’t feel sick if I see the telegram boy in our part of town,’ Mum told Mrs Morris. If someone in your family is killed or taken prisoner, you get the news by telegram.
We stopped just before town while a tractor reversed across the road. ‘Thanks, boys,’ called the woman driver. Women do all sorts of work now that so many men are away fighting. In Wellington, they even drive taxis!
I’m writing so much in this journal!
November 1942
SUNDAY, 1 NOVEMBER I just mucked about, helping Dad fix our back fence (he can do most things with one-and-a-half hands), reading a book about a boy in the navy during the Great War, and talking to Barry and Clarry.
MONDAY, 2 NOVEMBER We lined up in the playground to salute the New Zealand flag and the Union Jack. Then we marched into school, through the Boys’ and Girls’ entrances. We did arithmetic (Barry beat me) and spelling (I beat Barry).
‘You have fifteen minutes to write in your journal,’ Mr White said after lunch. ‘Perhaps you can think about the games other children play — in Great Britain or France, or even Germany and Japan.’
He says things like that, which annoys some people. ‘I don’t want teachers getting soft-hearted about Nazis and Nips and their brats!’ Mrs Connell told Mum one time we were in her shop. But I’ve noticed that people like Dad and Mr White, who’ve been in a war, often talk differently about enemy countries.
I didn’t write about children in other countries. I suddenly started writing about Susan Proctor.
I can’t believe it. But I was staring across the room, and noticed her bent over her flash new book. She was stroking one of her pigtails with her other hand.
I remembered a time last year, when she got a star for her Social Studies test. She’d looked so pleased with herself, like she does whenever she’s top at something. It was morning playtime, and her row marched out just ahead of mine. I hissed ‘Yah! Snobby Susan!’ and pulled her pigtail.
I thought she’d get wild, or even report me. Instead, she stared for a second, then she went pink and rushed away to Margaret Nicholls and her other friends. They all started giggling. Girls are loony.
So for some reason, I wrote about that.
TUESDAY, 3 NOVEMBER One other thing I meant to write yesterday: Susan Proctor’s mother speaks Japanese!
Mrs Proctor’s father was a politician or something who worked in different countries, so she learned quite a few languages. She came one time when we were in Standard Two and taught us some words in French.
I thought about what Mr White said yesterday. When does a Japanese kid or a German kid stop being somebody you might muck about with, and turn into an enemy? Weird, eh?
WEDNESDAY, 4 NOVEMBER At morning playtime, Barry and I were hurrying back into class when Miss Mutter appeared. She went ‘Barry Morrish! Do up your shoelayshes, shtupid boy!’
Barry started to stammer really badly. ‘Sorry, M-M-Miss M-M-M-M—’ Miss Mutter lifted a hand. ‘Slow down, lad. Jusht do up your layshes and get to clarsh.’
I went over to the Morrises’ this afternoon. Clarry was lying on his bed reading. His legs were hurting. His mum gets frightened when that happens. It could just be because he tries so hard to walk and exercise every day, or it could be that the polio is returning. There are so many things doctors don’t know about it.
A girl in Primer Three got polio last year, and she’s been in Palmerston North Hospital ever since. More kids seem to catch it in summer; for a while, we all had to wear these stupid sunhats with flaps down over our necks.
There was also a family out Lake Ferry way whose kid had it. They used to bring him into town, in his leg braces. Mrs Connell didn’t think it was right, crippled children being around where people could see them. So as soon as Clarry came out of hospital, Mrs Morris wheeled him into Mrs Connell’s shop. Mrs Connell said nothing.
‘You want to p-play Snakes and L-L—’ Barry asked this afternoon.
‘Snakes and Ladders. Yeah,’ went Clarry.
‘Don’t cheat this time,’ I warned him.
Clarry looked insulted. ‘I never cheat!’
When I started heading home, Barry came out on the footpath and said, ‘C-Clarry might have to g-go into hospital again.’
‘Why?’
‘They’re worried about his leg b-bones. The polio might have d-damaged them. They m-might have to put st-steel rods into his legs, t-to help him walk.’
I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t.
THURSDAY, 5 NOVEMBER Guy Fawkes Day! No fireworks or bonfires — because of the blackout and because every bit of gunpowder is used for making bullets and shells and grenades. There’s a hand-grenade factory in Christchurch!
Dad and I were sitting by the stove after dinner, while Mum ironed. Dad was smoking and I was reading. ‘Planning on going out to the camp this weekend?’ he asked.
I glanced up from my book. ‘Dunno.’
‘Doesn’t do any harm to come and look. Bruce was telling me a few of the Japs speak English, and they said it was good to see you and Barry. Made them think of their own families back home.’
Dad lifted up the top of the stove and tossed in his cigarette butt. ‘Could be different when the next batch arrive. They’re sailors captured in a sea battle. They’re taught that it’s a disgrace to be a prisoner, and that it’s better to die.’
He lit another cigarette, and blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. I’d love to be able to do that, but Dad says if he ever catches me smoking he’ll whack my backside.
My father chuckled. ‘Major Parsons, the camp commander, he’s got the right idea: says that if the new lot give any trouble, the guards can challenge them to a game of rugby. That’ll make them wish they were dead!’
FRIDAY, 6 NOVEMBER We’d started reciting our twelve times table today — ‘Twelve sevens are eighty-four; twelve eights are ninety-six …’ — when everyone went quiet. The walls were creaking, and my pencil rolled around on its desk. An earthquake.
I held my breath. After a few seconds, the creaking stopped. ‘Well done, Room Six,’ Mr White said. ‘You may talk among yourselves for a minute.’ He left the room, and I heard him speaking to Miss Mutter.
Margaret Nicholls was crying, and Susan Proctor had an arm around her, going ‘It’s alright.’ So she thinks she’s best at being kind, too?
We had a really big earthquake back in June. It was nearly midnight, and the first thing I knew was my bed jumping around, the books on my shelf falling off, and the crash of jars and stuff landing on the kitchen floor.
A bomb, I thought. The Japs are bombing us! Then I heard Mum yelling ‘Get under your bed, Ewen! It’s an earthquake!’ So I chucked myself on the floor and rolled under the bed, stubbing my bare toe on the bed-leg. The floor kept lifting and dropping under me. The door of my room sprang open. From the Watsons’ place next door, I heard a BANG! and a crunching, roaring sound like an avalanche hitting their roof. Next morning I saw their chimney had come crashing down.
Our place was alright, except for heaps of broken jars on the pantry floor, with preserved peaches and beans everywhere. But the Featherston Post Office was wrecked. Broken bricks from its walls had spilled all across the street. The bank’s big columns by its front door had cracked open, and there was a huge mess inside most of the shops. One good thing: we had a day off school while they checked if it was safe.
So everyone in town is still pretty nervous. Margaret Nicholls couldn’t stop crying, and when Mr White came back he said, ‘You may take Margaret outside, Susan.’ Snobby Susan looked like she was someone important.
SATURDAY, 7 NOVEMBER I’ve been doing this journal for a fortnight. Never thought there’d be so many things to write about.
I spent the morning helping Dad get firewood. He and Mr Morris knocked down an
old wooden fence beside Tak Yee’s fruit and vege shop. (He’s Chinese; when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, he put a big sign in his window, reading CHINA, NOT OF JAPAN. But some kids still yelled ‘Jap, Jap! Give him a slap!’ after him in the street, until Mr Morris heard and gave them a telling-off.) So when Tak Yee’s fence started falling over, he told Barry’s dad that he could have the wood. It’s useful, because coal is hard to get now, like just about everything.
The BBC News tonight said that British bombers are attacking German cities, and the Russians are pushing back the German armies that invaded their country. Nothing about Japan. I wonder how many were captured from that Nip cruiser.
SUNDAY, 8 NOVEMBER Last night, the Japs invaded!
That’s what some people thought was happening, anyway. I woke up when a lorry came roaring down our street. Then I heard people calling out. Dad hurried along the hall and opened the front door. I got up and joined him. The street was dark from the blackout, but we could make out people standing on the footpath about four houses away.
‘Stay here, Ewen,’ Dad told me, and headed towards them. I stood in the doorway, shivering in my pyjamas.
Dad came straight back. ‘Someone saw a light flashing on and off in the hills. Probably the Yanks, doing night training. Go back to bed, son.’
The light turned out to be a couple of Home Guards who’d taken a car headlamp and some batteries and gone up into the bush to see how far they could send a signal. Dad laughed when he told us. ‘Bet they get extra sentry duty for a few nights for that one!’
People are nervous about stuff like that. It’s not only because of the war and the Japs. Last year down in Westland a farmer went loony — reckoned the neighbours were poisoning his cows. He threatened them with a rifle. The police came to take his gun away, and he shot some of them. Then he ambushed the people hunting for him. He killed six blokes altogether. He hid in the bush for a week, until they finally found him and he was shot dead. There was a joke going round afterwards how the Nazis sent him a telegram saying YOU CAPTURE ZE SOUTH ISLAND. VE VILL SEND ANOTHER MAN TO CAPTURE ZE NORTH ISLAND.
Didn’t see Barry today. The Morrises were visiting his gran, in Bethune Street. They wheeled Clarry over in their barrow!
Barry and I still want to show him the POW camp. Maybe we can double him out on one of our bikes next weekend.
MONDAY, 9 NOVEMBER We were walking to school this morning when we heard cars coming down Fitzherbert Street. No, they weren’t cars; they were jeeps. Yank jeeps.
There were about six, and four big green lorries. All carrying Americans in their light-coloured uniforms and steel helmets. We couldn’t see any guns; maybe they were down on the floor. We waved and they waved back. I was hoping they would chuck us some chewing gum or lollies, but they didn’t.
Mr Morris was driving a train into Wellington when the first Yanks arrived. He saw these warships steaming in from the sea, with huge stars-and-stripes flags flying. When his train reached the station, all the passengers rushed down to see them. They didn’t worry about school or jobs or anything. The wharves were packed with people cheering and waving.
Since then, the Americans have been in big training camps near Paekakariki. Mum and Mrs Morris reckon it’s sad to think of them going off to fight. ‘Just boys, some of them,’ Mum says.
The girls at school reckon Yank uniforms look much nicer than New Zealand ones. And they say Americans have better manners: they open doors for women and call them ‘ma’am’; they’re even better dancers! Huh, who wants to dance anyway?
The last lorry went past, and Barry said, ‘They’re black!’
They were, too. All of them: faces so black that their teeth gleamed when they grinned at us. No white soldiers in their lorry; I wonder why.
We’re sure to win with the Yanks on our side. Anzac’s sister Moana knows one. He said that when the gates at Wellington wharf were too narrow for their enormous lorries that carry tanks around, they just drove straight through the gates, smashing them off.
Not much happened at school, except that snobby Susan Proctor is going to give a morning talk on Wednesday — on Japan! Dunno how people will feel about that.
The girls knitted some peggy-squares with Miss Mutter; the squares get sewn together to make blankets for wounded troops. We blokes and Mr White tidied up the air-raid shelters and weeded the school garden. The spuds and peas and stuff from it go to families whose men are away fighting or working in factories.
Journal-writing this afternoon. Got all this morning’s stuff down. Wonder what the others are writing in theirs?
Went to the Morrises’ after school. Clarry is bored doing correspondence lessons at home, and wishes he could be at school. He’s crazy!
I think his legs were hurting, too. Barry says he’s heard him trying not to cry out in bed at nights. It was a warm afternoon, but Clarry wore a jersey. Polio can affect your blood circulation.
He talked more about being in hospital. ‘We had these baths like swimming pools that they lowered us into, to do exercises. And some kids reckoned there was one room where they hung you up by your arms, to keep your body straight!’
‘P-Pity they d-didn’t hang you b-by the neck,’ went Barry. He was joking … I think.
When it seemed the Japanese might invade, the Morrises were frightened about Clarry. He wouldn’t be able to escape anywhere; there probably wouldn’t be nurses, since the Japs would take over the hospital for their own wounded. ‘I can’t bear to think of those filthy yellow brutes in our wards,’ Mrs Connell told Mum.
A Jap submarine sneaked into Sydney Harbour back in June, and fired shells at the city. It’s in the paper for the first time. A lot of news is kept secret just now.
TUESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER I had to hurry home from school, because Dad has a day off and he’s been getting vegetables for old Mrs Laurie over in Wakefield Street. Her grandson is a coast-watcher in the part of New Guinea the Japs haven’t captured. He watches out for Jap ships or aeroplanes, and sends information back to Headquarters by Morse code. It’s dangerous. Some kids say that if the Japs capture a coast-watcher, they execute him straightaway, and leave his body to scare others.
Dad tied a sack of spuds onto my bike handlebars, and another small sack of cauliflowers and cabbages across my back. ‘You look like a travelling garden, Ewen!’ Mum laughed.
Dad grinned. ‘We’ll have to check the section for buried treasure sometime, eh, son?’ A few people in Featherston had buried jewellery and stuff like that in their gardens, or even in parks, when they thought the Japs were coming. Now some of them can’t find where they put it!
Old Mrs Laurie was pleased to get the vegetables. She yakked away, then asked if I could post a letter for her. It was for her grandson, the coast-watcher. I looked at the address before I dropped it in the box: 217384 CPL LAURIE J K, ROYAL NEW ZEALAND NAVY, GOVERNMENT BAG, WELLINGTON. Funny to think of letters from Featherston ending up in New Guinea, or in Egypt and Greece, like the ones Mum wrote to Dad.
I pedalled back past the Domain. Then I stopped. A line of six men were on the grass, throwing cricket balls while another bloke yelled at them.
What was—? Then I heard what he was shouting: ‘Hold lever! Pull pin! Arm back! Throw! Down! — I said down, George Wilkins! If that was a real grenade, you’d have had your stupid head blown off while you were admiring your throw!’
The Home Guard training. Hope the Japs are ready to face a heavy bombardment of cricket balls if they ever invade.
I told Mum about Mrs Laurie’s letter. Dad was listening. ‘None of the prisoners out at camp ever write a letter. They’re ashamed that they were captured alive. If they start writing home, their families will feel disgraced.’ He shook his head. ‘I guess their fighting men will be the same, when they arrive.’
‘That’s so sad,’ said Mum. ‘Surely their families would want to know how they are?’
WEDNESDAY, 11 NOVEMBER There’s a woman train guard helping Mr Morris this week, and Mrs Morris is makin
g him shine his shoes and brush his Railways jacket every morning. Dad laughed when he heard. ‘Poor old Harry.’ (I didn’t tell you that, did I? Barry and Clarry’s father is called Harry!)
I wasn’t looking forward to school today. Susan Proctor gave her morning talk on Japan. I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned on the BBC News.
My mother likes Susan, because she always says ‘Hello, Mrs MacKenzie’ if we meet her in town. ‘She has such lovely manners, Ewen. You could at least say hello to her.’
We had flag-raising. Then we all stood in silence for two minutes, since it’s twenty-four years today since the Great War ended. I wonder how much longer this one will last.
Arithmetic first, then Mr White said, ‘Morning-talk time, Room Six. Thank you, Susan.’
Susan Proctor went up to the front. She had her hair sort of brushed back with two blue bows in it. I’d like to give it another good pull.
She took a deep breath, and I realised she was nervous. Serve her right for … for being a snob.
‘Good morning, Mr White and class. My morning talk is on Japan, so I apologise for wearing my shoes inside.’
What was she on about?
‘In Japan, people always take their shoes off and leave them outside when they go into a house. They put on special slippers.’ Crazy! I folded my arms and got ready to be bored.
Crazier — I wasn’t!
She talked about how Jap people have mattresses on the floor instead of beds. How a lot of them don’t use pillows, but a smooth wooden block. ‘Mummy tried it one time.’ Mummy! She must have seen the expression on my face, because she gave an embarrassed smile.
She described how people dropped on their knees and pressed their foreheads against the ground if they ever saw their Emperor. How they play soccer and call it ‘sakkah’. (We all laughed at that. Even I did, until I realised, and stopped.)
‘Mummy — Mum — used to have a Japanese penpal. They stopped writing when the war began. Her friend said things changed after army generals began controlling the government. Now all the boys have their hair cut short, and wear military uniforms to class.’