Enemy Camp

by Hill, David

  For a minute, the man didn’t move. The guards stood tense, their weapons half-raised. Then the old bloke’s head drooped, his shoulders slumped, and he gave a long, shaky sigh. He lowered the gun until it hung again by his side.

  ‘May I?’ Colonel Wallace reached out slowly, took the rifle, and passed it to a guard. ‘Shall we go to my office, sir? You look like you could use a cup of tea.’

  Slowly, the two of them headed towards the main gates. Behind the wire, the Jap officers had gone. After a bit, we kids went, too.

  SATURDAY, 19 DECEMBER Getting ready for Castlepoint. I still can hardly believe we’re going.

  Dad was at the camp all yesterday and this morning. So I dug carrots and spuds, and picked beans and peas. We’ve got a whole sackful of food to take with us. Our blankets and stuff will have to wait until we get up tomorrow morning. It’s seventy miles from Featherston to Castlepoint, and Dad says it’ll take all morning to get there.

  I went over to the Morrises’ this afternoon. ‘Wish I c-could c-come,’ Barry said, and I felt a bit ashamed. Mr and Mrs Morris deserve a holiday, too, but they don’t want to be too far from a doctor in case Clarry gets crook again.

  I’ve got a new book from the library. It’s The Swiss Family Robinson, about some kids and their parents shipwrecked on an island, but I was feeling too excited to read it.

  I haven’t said anything about that bloke at the camp yesterday, have I? I told Dad, of course, as soon as he got home. He already knew. ‘Poor sod. There’s a lot like him — half out of their minds with worry.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ I asked.

  ‘They let him go, but they kept the rifle. Colonel Wallace did a good job.’

  I told Dad about the prisoners who had started yelling back and baring their chests. He grunted. ‘They were telling him to shoot them. It’s more honourable than being captured. Stupid clowns.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘A couple of them in hospital tried to rip off their bandages, or throw themselves out of bed.’

  ‘There was another officer,’ I went.

  Dad sipped his tea. ‘A lieutenant: doesn’t speak English. Captain Ashton is trying to sort out with him and Ito what work the new lot of Nips are willing to do.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Ito’s a cunning blighter. He’s got them playing this board-game they have back home. It’s called Go, and they go, alright! They’re too keen on beating one another to cause much trouble just now.’

  We listened to the nine o’clock BBC News on the wireless. The Yanks and the Solomon Islanders are in a big battle against the Japs in the Pacific. The Russians have cut off a whole Nazi army near a city called Stalingrad, and the Germans are starving. Mum went out of the room when she heard that.

  No more news until we come back from Castlepoint. Except for news from me. I’m going to write all about it in this journal.

  SUNDAY, 20 DECEMBER Nothing.

  MONDAY, 21 DECEMBER Nothing.

  TUESDAY, 22 DECEMBER Nothing.

  WEDNESDAY, 23 DECEMBER I forgot to take my journal. I felt so wild!

  We got back last night. The road between Castlepoint and Masterton is hilly and winding. Most of it’s shingle, but some is mainly dirt, so we had to help push the truck over a couple of slippery parts. Mum and Dad and I walked up the steep hills to lighten the load, and, even then, the truck was hardly moving any faster than us.

  We had an amazing time. We swam. We walked out to the lighthouse, and watched the waves come swinging in, ‘all the way from South America’ Mum said. I climbed the huge Castle Rock hill. Dad caught three fish; I caught two lots of seaweed, one old coat, and another fishing line. We lit the kerosene lamp in the evenings, and read. I finished The Swiss Family Robinson, and I’m halfway through another story called The Sword in the Stone, about King Arthur and how he got his magic sword.

  I nipped over to the Morrises’ as soon as we had unpacked today. Their front door was open, to make a breeze. Clarry was standing in the hallway, staring at the wall. What—

  Then I realised he was gazing into the mirror hanging there. Just standing with the big metal braces on his legs, and the crutches under his arms (he must have been feeling tired), and looking at himself.

  I scuffed one foot on the path, and he swung around. ‘G’day, Ewen.’ He jerked his head at the mirror. ‘Sometimes I can’t believe that’s what I look like. Hey, come and tell us about Castlepoint.’

  I did. But I kept thinking: I’ve had three days swimming and walking and exploring, while Clarry …

  THURSDAY, 24 DECEMBER Christmas Eve. And I’ve got Mum and Dad a present.

  I collected a whole lot of paua shells from Castlepoint beach, ones that glow like rainbows. I found some glue in Dad’s shed, and while he and Mum were down at the grocer’s this morning I stuck the best bits of shell on a smooth bit of wood. They spell out MERRY CHRISTMAS, MUM AND DAD. It’s not much, but I made it.

  I thought of the lighthouse again. The fishing, and the sandhills where I raced Dad up and down. The curve of beach all the way to the headland. Castlepoint is such a great place; I hope we can go there again.

  The postman had so many Christmas cards to deliver, he didn’t come until after lunch. Dad’s friend Bruce has neighbours who got just one letter on Christmas Eve last year. It was from the army, a photo of the grave where their son was buried after he’d been killed in Greece. ‘Dunno how you could ever face Christmas again,’ my father said to Mum.

  I read more of The Sword in the Stone, about King Arthur meeting Robin Hood. In the afternoon, we all walked into town. It was crowded: everyone strolling up and down, wishing one another a Merry Christmas. You’d never know there was a war on, except for the uniforms, and the people wearing a black band around their arm to show someone in their family has been killed.

  I talked to Anzac. Moana’s Yank boyfriend is coming for Christmas dinner at their place. Anzac hopes he’ll bring lots of lollies, and maybe some of that Coca-Cola drink.

  It was funny to see people laughing and enjoying themselves, while just a few miles away there are all these hundreds of Nips who’d been planning to invade us, fight us, even kill us. I wondered what they would think if they could see Featherston’s main street this sunny afternoon.

  Dad went off to the pub to get some beer and see some friends. Mum wanted to go to the dress shop. I didn’t, but I tagged after her anyway. Mrs Connell was in quite a good mood, actually. ‘Merry Christmas, Ewen. Haven’t you grown?’ Be strange if I hadn’t, I told her — silently.

  Then something scary happened. Mum and I had just got outside when a voice said, ‘Hello, Ewen. Hello, Mrs MacKenzie.’ Oh no — Susan Proctor! And her parents.

  Mrs Proctor is tall, and speaks with a plummy voice. Mr Proctor is stocky, and sunburnt from working on the farm.

  They were really polite to Mum, and Mum was really polite back to them. Then Susan’s mother said, ‘Do give our regards to your husband, Mrs MacKenzie. You must be so glad to have him back.’ Mum suddenly reached out and held Mrs Proctor’s hand. ‘I feel so grateful. And so guilty sometimes.’ Next minute, the two of them were hugging each other. Mr Proctor grinned at me, and went ‘Women!’

  Oh, and when we were saying goodbye, snobby Susan said, ‘I wonder if we’ll be in the same class next year, Ewen?’, and gave me a smile. I don’t know what I said, but I know what I wanted to say.

  Dad got home just after we did, with six bottles of beer. ‘Two for me tonight. Two for Harry tonight. Two for us tomorrow.’

  The Morrises all came for tea, Clarry clumping along in his leg braces. We had a great time. The grown-ups yakked away about Christmases when they were young and how they used to stay up half the night.

  Then Mr Morris talked about a friend of his whose parents gave him model planes every Christmas. ‘Les always wanted to fly. Got shot down over France in 1940. Buried there.’ He stared at the table.

  ‘Are they putting on a Christmas dinner at the camp, Jack?’ Mrs Morris asked, quietly.

  Dad nodded. ‘Not
hing too special. The cooks managed a few sacks of rice, and the Nips got all excited. Mind you, they’ll eat most things. Some of the military ones were hiding in caves and places for a week before they were captured. They still can’t believe we feed them properly.’

  ‘They don’t feed our blokes, from the stories you hear,’ Mr Morris grunted. ‘If you ask me, they don’t deserve any—’

  Mum gave us three kids a look. ‘You boys can go to Ewen’s room now.’

  So we did. I told Barry and Clarry more about Castlepoint: how you could hear the waves thumping on the beach all night long; how the reef shook when the big ocean swells charged into it. Clarry wanted to know why I hadn’t brought him back a shark. Barry said something, too, while we were going back down the hall for supper.

  I ate hardly anything. I couldn’t. Mum asked, ‘You feeling alright, Ewen?’

  I just nodded. I couldn’t talk. Barry had told me: ‘Susan Proctor likes you.’

  FRIDAY, 25 DECEMBER I gave Mum and Dad the present I had made with paua shells. They were really pleased.

  They gave me some clothes for school, a cricket bat that Dad had fixed up, an orange, and a new (well, also-fixed-up) carrier for my bike.

  We had a huge Christmas meal of roast mutton, new potatoes, peas, gravy and tomatoes, and a sort of pretend Christmas pudding of bread and some golden syrup that Mum had saved up.

  I finished The Sword in the Stone. The fights between the knights in armour are great.

  And I spent the whole day trying to believe it. Susan Proctor likes me.

  SATURDAY, 26 DECEMBER Boxing Day usually feels boring. You get all worked up about Christmas, then suddenly it’s over. But Dad is going to the camp this afternoon, and said we kids can ride out with him, so that’s good.

  He and Mum just sat around this morning, and drank a million cups of tea, and talked over the fence to the Watsons. I took my bike to show Barry and Clarry the carrier. They got new pullovers their gran knitted them, and some books from the Railways Staff Christmas Club.

  I hadn’t actually gone there to show them my carrier. I wanted to ask Barry about Susan Proctor liking me. I lay awake last night, trying to make sense out of it.

  I couldn’t ask him, though, since Clarry was there. But he can’t be right; not snobby Susan.

  After lunch, Dad put on his uniform. Barry and Clarry arrived, and we all saluted him the way he’d taught us. We set off for camp, Dad towing Clarry. (‘I need the exercise, after all I ate yesterday.’)

  The streets of Featherston were quiet. The Tararuas were clear and greeny-blue. Cows and sheep chewed on their Boxing Day lunch. ‘Corker day, boys!’ Dad exclaimed. ‘You OK there, Clarry?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. Mr MacKenzie? Do you think there’ll be an invasion now?’

  My father chuckled. ‘I reckon we’ve got the Japs on the run. Mustn’t count our chickens before they’re hatched, but I don’t think you’ll need to live in the bush after all.’

  I remembered something. ‘Miss Mutter asked us once: “I hope you all know how to find food in the bush?” Terry O’Donaghue said “I’d look for a meat-pie tree.” He nearly got the strap.’

  It was over a week since I’d seen the camp. Nobody was waving a rifle around today, thank goodness. There seemed to be even more wooden huts; the tents where the prisoners lived at first were all gone. Groups of blue uniforms moved or stood behind the high rows of barbed wire. A ring of figures watched two others moving around in the middle. The Japs were wrestling again.

  We stopped at the barrier. ‘G’day, Jack,’ the guard wheezed, and I recognised Dad’s friend Bruce. ‘G’day, lads. Have a good Christmas?’

  ‘Great, thanks, Bruce,’ my father replied. ‘OK if the boys come up to the gate with me?’

  Bruce winked. ‘Colonel’s away in Wellington. I haven’t seen you.’

  As we began wheeling our bikes forward, a figure turned away from those watching the wrestling. I recognised him straightaway.

  ‘Alright, lads,’ Dad went. ‘Best behaviour, eh? Very polite.’

  As we reached the gate, where two other guards stood with rifles and bayonets slung, he nodded to the man behind the barbed wire. ‘Good day, Lieutenant Ito.’

  The Jap inclined his head a fraction. Then to my surprise, Dad said, ‘This is my son, Ewen. And his friends, Barry Morris and Clarry Morris.’

  Lieutenant Ito said nothing. I hesitated, then went, ‘Konnichiwa. Hello.’ Barry did the same, after a struggle. Some people stare or look embarrassed when they hear his stammer, but the Jap officer remained expressionless. His burn marks were fading. After a second, he gave us another tiny nod.

  My father was turning towards the gate guards when Ito spoke. He was gazing at Clarry. ‘You do not walk today.’

  ‘No. But I can. Look.’ Clarry began lifting his legs off the trolley.

  The Jap lifted one hand. Clarry stopped. ‘I have seen you. Do not be foolish. What is your age?’

  I think we all felt surprised. Dad watched. ‘I’m ten,’ Clarry said.

  ‘I have the son.’ Ito did not raise his voice, but it carried clearly. Other prisoners had turned, and watched quietly while their officer spoke. The wrestlers had stopped.

  ‘He is also ten,’ the dark-haired figure said. ‘You are … high. Tall.’

  Clarry was pulling himself up, holding onto the seat of Dad’s bike. My father reached out a hand, then drew it back.

  ‘What’s your son’s name?’ Clarry asked. After a second, he added, ‘Sir’.

  Ito kept gazing. Then: ‘He is Haru.’

  Clarry repeated it. ‘Haru.’ Then he asked, ‘Will you teach us some Japanese?’

  Another voice spoke from inside the wire. The other Nip officer was walking towards Ito, while prisoners bowed to him. Ito glanced at the newcomer, told Clarry ‘I have not time’, and turned away.

  Mum and I had cold mutton for tea. We listened to the King’s Speech on our wireless. He wished every country in the British Empire a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. King George used to stammer really badly, too, and you can hear him going slowly between words.

  I listened and I kept thinking. Was it true — it couldn’t be — that Susan Proctor likes me?

  SUNDAY, 27 DECEMBER Mr Morris is away, driving a special holiday train for families whose fathers have been killed or wounded in the war. It’s taking them from Wellington to a huge picnic being put on by the Yanks near one of their camps up the coast. Imagine going to something where you’re meant to be enjoying yourself, and your dad is dead.

  I took my cricket bat to the Morrises’, and we played in their backyard.

  ‘You boys be careful!’ Mrs Morris warned us. ‘You break any windows, and there’ll be another war starting!’

  Clarry batted and bowled, even with his leg braces on. But he reckoned he couldn’t run and field the ball, so Barry and I had to do all the chasing!

  Afterwards, we sat on their back step and talked. Barry lent me one of the books he’d got. Clarry asked why Ito had seemed interested in us yesterday, and then had stopped so suddenly.

  ‘W-Wonder what his k-kid’s like?’ Barry said.

  ‘Remember snobby Susan Proctor telling us about Jap families and houses?’ Barry glanced at me when I mentioned her name, so I hurried on. ‘My father reckons we need to treat the Japs decently. It’ll make them realise that we’re more civilised.’

  ‘Have you h-heard about any t-tools missing at the c-camp?’ Barry asked suddenly. ‘Some k-kids said the N-Nips might make them into weapons.’

  I stared. ‘Dad says they count the tools every time they hand them out and collect them back again. I’ve seen them doing it. Who—’

  Just then, Mrs Morris called, ‘Clarry? Time for a leg massage.’ Clarry hauled himself up, and clumped off. Barry and I were alone.

  I swallowed, then blurted out: ‘You said … you said Susan Proctor likes me. You’re kidding!’

  Barry scuffed his foot on the wooden step. ‘She smiles at you, and t-t
ries to t-talk to you. And M-Margaret says she wanted to know what you were d-doing in the holidays.’

  Margaret Nicholls. I suddenly thought: Does my best friend like …?

  Back home, I got carrots and beans for Mum, then read. Barry’s book is called Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton. She’s a British writer, and it’s her first book about these four kids and their dog. Quite good.

  I think it’s good, but I couldn’t really concentrate. I thought about Barry and Margaret Nicholls. I thought about me and Susan Proctor. I can’t make my mind up about … about any of us.

  MONDAY, 28 DECEMBER We three blokes went out to the Tauherenikau Racecourse. It’s just outside Featherston, beside the river. Barry and I promised Mrs Morris we’d be careful with Clarry. The cheeky brat said he’d be careful with us.

  We talked about Ito and the camp, and about the war: how the Jap Navy had been almost wiped out at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway a few months back, when Yank planes from aircraft carriers sank lots of their battleships and carriers.

  Nothing was happening at the racecourse, except for two blokes fixing gates on the far side. We left our bikes and headed for the river. Barry asked if Clarry needed a hand, and Clarry snapped that he didn’t; did he look like he was crippled or something? So Barry and I went ahead, and tried not to jerk around anytime it sounded like Clarry might be going to fall. He’d kept his leg braces on, since the ground was rough.

  But he made it, although he was panting when he got to the river’s edge. ‘Told you!’ he sneered. He flopped down, and unclipped his braces. There was nobody for miles, except the men working in the distance, so we all took off our shirts and shorts, and started splashing around in our underpants, smacking handfuls of spray at one another. Clarry laughed and yelled, and this ache suddenly rose up in me when I looked at him. I hope his polio doesn’t return.

  We’d got our clothes back on, when we heard a car engine. No, a lorry: it came bumping down the track from the road.

  ‘It’s N-Nips!’ gabbled Barry.