by Emily Hahn
I must get back to Stanley Camp. The unpleasant part of the story dealt with the British. It was whispered in town that the British young men, mostly police — for police were counted as noncombatant because they weren’t armed during the war, and they were able-bodied and husky — didn’t behave well. They were duly sent ahead to get the place ready and they did, but only for themselves. When the great mass of the British civilian population arrived, the lame and the halt and the blind, the old and the babies, these young men refused to give up their comfortable places to the newcomers.
Extenuating circumstances, I should think, are these: everybody was hungry. Young men suffer much more from hunger than do other people. Also the British had a bigger task than the Americans or the Dutch or the Belgians: their community was huge in comparison with the others. A larger proportion of Britons were very old or very young, which put a heavy burden on the in-betweens. The Americans weren’t responsible for many women because of the order, earlier that year, from the American banks and oil companies which had sent most of the wives home. Nevertheless they did send me a few kind messages, telling me that they would be glad to have me and Carola when the time came. They could easily take care of us, they said. Gibson, an oil man, was left free in town to be their representative. The diplomatic squad, however, including Barbara Petro and Walter Hoffman, were cut off from the rest of the Americans and held in a special house outside the boundaries of the camp.
Waiting in the Queen Mary for the end of that phase, I thought that I had made up my mind to be interned like a good girl. I was miserable at the prospect but I didn’t see any way out. It was just a matter of time, I thought, before this pretense of being ill would fall down. I tried to be in bed whenever the Japs made a tour of inspection, but it was pretty obvious that none of us could go on like that much longer. Some of the Chinese patients were being removed. It was cold and dark and sad in the hospital and we were all really very hungry. Our food, already insufficient, was being stolen, little by little, as it came up from the kitchen to our wards. Sometimes none of it was left when it arrived. The amahs and the cleaning boys ran away, one by one, stealing blankets as they went. I had acquired two blankets of my own, by special gift of one of the officers who had himself taken those blankets from a dead comrade. They disappeared, and I insisted on taking two of the hospital’s blankets to make the loss good. We all began to think hard about blankets and clothing and such, in preparation for the end. The sisters thought so hard about it that many of them neglected their duties with increasing abandon. I’m not naming names, though I should like to. Toward the end many of them acted like dissatisfied guests in a hotel that wasn’t being run properly, and they were utterly callous about the patients. All they talked about was their own affairs, and they speculated all day about how much of their property they would be allowed to take with them to Stanley.
Still the cases of food in the cellar were jealously guarded, and upstairs we pulled in our belts and wailed unavailingly. Somebody was stealing Carola’s powdered milk at a great rate. Somebody even stole her last orange out of the icebox.
I think it was the twentieth or the twenty-first of January when the blow fell. Even with all the preliminary omens, Selwyn expressed himself as amazed and horrified that the Japanese wanted us to get out of the hospital that day. He acted quite as if it were an atrocity. I suppose it was, and yet, on the other hand, he should have expected it. The Japanese have their own code, and it is well known that they consider everything in a conquered village as their own. Nothing belongs to the inhabitants, literally nothing, not even the clothes they wear, not even themselves. The Japanese have always behaved according to this rule and Selwyn need not have been surprised that they took his prize hospital. And, damn it, he need not have left that food for them, either. I hate to harp on that, but I was hungry, and Charles was hungry, and we all were hungry, all but the staff. At least I will admit one thing: Selwyn was hungry too. Selwyn never took the better of anything.
I am bitter. I know it. Just about then I realized that I would have to wean Carola soon; my milk was no good. It was the worst time in my life to date. I am bitter. I don’t blame Selwyn for the war but I can’t forget all the carefully hoarded food that the Japanese took over.
Hilda, during the first days when we knew about Stanley, was wild with worry. “I’m making Selwyn ask the Japanese for a special camp for mothers and children,” she told me. “Some place like the Maryknoll Convent grounds, for example. Perhaps they would allow us to have better rations: they seem fond of children and we can make an appeal on those grounds.”
A few days later when I met her she was looking more cheerful. “It seems fairly certain,” she said, “that Selwyn and the Medical Department will be permitted to remain out of internment, as long as they are working for the community like this. Colonel Nguchi (Selwyn’s new chief) said that Mary and I can stay out with him. We’re looking now for a building that will house all of the medical officers; the Japanese stipulate that we must all be under one roof.”
“What about the special camp for mothers and children, Hilda?”
She looked at me blankly. She had forgotten all about it. “Oh, that,” she said vaguely. “Well, that seems to have fallen through.”
The hospital was suddenly in a terrible rush. The Japanese had evidently been arguing a long time with Selwyn and they lost their tempers. They often did, arguing with Selwyn. They probably were bulldozed by him for a certain amount of time and then suddenly they caught themselves up and said, “What the hell are we arguing with this damned Englishman for? Aren’t we boss? Clear the decks, there!” First thing we knew, patients were being carried out by the dozen, loaded into trucks, and carried away to other hospitals. When Selwyn said he didn’t have stretcher-bearers the Japs promptly supplied their own men for the work. They didn’t want to lose any more time moving in. Our doctors stood in a row, their hands upraised in horror, their feet frozen to the ground. Old Digby, the surgeon, made an impassioned speech of protest when the authorities asked him if he were willing, like many of the other doctors, to stay outside of camp and work for the health of the community. No, he said, he would not co-operate with such vandals as the Japs, such barbarians, such — people, in short, who were capable of evacuating a hospital in such a heartless manner. The Japanese officer who heard this outburst said, in a remarkably good-natured way, considering: “You are lucky it’s me you are talking to, Doctor,” and sent him to Stanley forthwith. The Japanese medical officers invariably seemed better than the other military men.
I want to tell the truth, in so far as I know. I have heard since this all happened that the Japanese stretcher-bearers were brutal in their work that day, slamming sick men around regardless and “pulling splints off of broken limbs, et cetera, et cetera. ” I saw nothing like that. The stretcher-bearers I watched were gentle and considerate. I don’t suppose you like to read that. I admit I don’t much like writing it. It isn’t artistic; it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the picture, and it isn’t fashionable. It would be easier just to report atrocities. Please bear with me, though: I do want to tell the truth. It seems to me that the truth doesn’t hurt anyone in the end.
We should be able to take the smooth with the rough, even in wartime.
We, the hospitalized enemy mothers, were not to be sent to other hospitals unless our own doctors thought us sick enough to go into the old Tweed Bay Hospital that was now open in Stanley. All the enemy patients, except for very special cases, were being sent to Stanley. Almost everyone I knew at Pokfulam was going, except for the Weill family. They had already been to the Japanese Foreign Affairs office in town and got new “passes,” pieces of stamped paper that stated they were French neutrals. Veronica was French by virtue of her husband’s nationality, but Sophie, whose husband was Russian, managed to retain her French pass anyway. The Japanese were easygoing in such matters. Lena, for example, was given her choice between her own Russian nationality, which she had held until s
he married, and her husband’s British citizenship. Since she would have been popped into Stanley immediately if she had claimed to be British, she called herself Russian. But there was one peculiarity in the Jap reasoning which it took months of experience to figure out. According to them, you were a citizen of that country where you had been born, regardless of any other consideration. Thus my friend the Frenchwoman, Michelle Marty, who happened to have been born in Hong Kong, had a tremendous row with the man who filled out her pass. He said that if she had been born in Hong Kong she must be Chinese. In the end he settled it by writing down, “Place of birth: Paris,” and he wouldn’t argue with her any more. Lots of people had trouble over that quirk in Japanese law, especially the White Russians who were born on the China Coast.
Anybody with oriental blood was called “Asiatic” and not liable to be interned.
It was Sophie who made me try to stay out of Stanley. It might not have occurred to me, in my then gentle, yielding frame of mind. I thought I simply had to go to Stanley, and on the day everyone was moving I stood out on the veranda and cried. I cried softly because it wouldn’t do me any good to yell. I cried because Hilda had rushed in and taken the key of my flat, saying happily that she and Selwyn had to find a place to live immediately, and would I mind? I cried because I thought Charles would be taken away from me for good, this time. I cried because I was afraid Carola would die of starvation. I cried because I was tired; Carola had given me a bad night.
Susie was packing all her things to go home. She came out on the veranda and put her arm around me and said, “Mother says, try to stay out. She’s fond of you. She says she’ll look after you and Carola. Can’t you work it? Can’t Charles say something to the Japanese? I’m sure they would do it for him.”
I said, “I don’t think he would, but I’ll ask.” I wiped my eyes, powdered my nose, and went up to Charles. I was afraid to ask him. I knew he would be angry. He was.
“Once and for all, Mickey,” he said coldly, “I will not try to use my influence, if I have any, to get special treatment for my family. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I know. Listen, suppose I myself managed to stay out; that wouldn’t step on your toes, would it? I mean, if I did it on my own?”
Ah King chimed in: “Don’t go Stanley, missy. We can do. Fish is cheap.”
Charles studied me warily. “I don’t know what you mean. I can’t make up your mind for you. … Why don’t you want to go to Stanley, anyway? Everybody else is going. How can you manage if you don’t?”
“I won’t be able to see you any more if I’m interned.”
“You probably won’t anyway. I’ll be put into clink myself.”
“Not yet. You’re too weak. If I take Carola out there she’ll die, Charles.”
He didn’t answer.
“There’s no bedding, no food, nothing.”
“They’re bound to make special arrangements,” he said, “for women with children.”
“They’re bound to nothing of the sort. I don’t want to bother you, but gosh … Can’t you see, I’ll die myself in prison? I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it.” I realized with some surprise that I meant it, too.
“Just how do you intend to go about this, Mickey?” he asked, suddenly mild.
“I don’t know yet, but never mind. I’ll leave you out of it, you and your military honor.” I went downstairs again and reported to the Weills. Sophie, the stubbornest one of all, bit her lip and thought hard.
“Can you claim to be something else than American? I mean, German or something? They’re accepting that sort of thing. I know several Americans who — ”
“Not German, Sophie. What do you think I am?”
“No, I can see that. … Isn’t there something?”
All of a sudden it broke with a blinding flash of light. “I did have a Chinese husband once. …”
Sophie took no time to be surprised. She grabbed my hand and led me at a run down the steps, out into the green courtyard of the front garden, and over to a small medical officer, a Japanese, who stood there talking to some non-commissioned men.
Sophie made a little speech to this man, who had helped her with her passport the day before. Her friend, she said, was married to a Chinese and hadn’t realized until this minute that such a fact could keep her free from internment. Her friend was a patient in hospital and had not been able to get to town during the period when people were taking out their passes. If the officer would give her friend permission to go into town, a written pass so that no soldier would arrest her friend, she could adjust this matter with the Foreign Affairs Department.
The little officer looked at me with interest. “Chinese husband, eh?”
I lowered my eyes and said, “Yes.”
He studied me. His eyes warmed. He was pleased that an American girl should have married an Oriental. It made him more friendly to both of us. “Sit down,” he said, and sat down himself, plop, right on the grass.
“How many children?” asked the officer.
I smirked demurely. It really would have been impossible to explain, so I just said, “One.”
“So des.” He smiled at me. He took out a card. He wrote something on it, and stamped it with his seal, and gave it to me. I was a free woman for two days more, anyway, until I had consulted the Foreign Affairs office. Sophie and I ran back into the hospital and I staggered as I ran. My head was spinning. I still felt guilty and breathless. I ran slam-bang into Matron.
“I’ve got a chance to stay out of internment; should I take it?” I demanded. I would have asked anybody and taken the advice of anybody, just then.
“Certainly,” she said promptly. “Why be locked up if you can help it? Good luck. Wish I could do that.”
I went back to Charles and handed him the card; he could read it, even if I couldn’t.
Charles lay on his pillow and looked at me, and looked at me. “God,” he said at last. “Do you think you’ll get away with that?” “If I do,” I said, “it’ll be the best thing Sinmay ever did for me.” There was a long silence. He had a strange expression on his face. I would almost have said he was afraid of me. Or maybe he was beginning to be afraid of all women.
“You ought to stay with your own people, you know,” he said at last. “The British are not my own people. I feel more at home,” I said, “with the Chinese. I’ll be all right. But of course it’s for you to decide.”
With his good hand Charles rubbed his brow. There was a suspicious quirk at the corners of his mouth. “Oh yes,” he said. “Well, Mickey, it’s up to you.” Then he said again, thoughtfully, “God.”
Chapter 45
Everybody had been shipped out of the place now but a skeleton staff, my ward of assorted maternity — or anyway, gynecological — cases, Charles, and the Selwyn-Clarke household. Hilda had found that my flat was full of refugees, a fact I had already reminded her of, but until she saw them in the flesh she had been under the impression that she could easily kick them out. Close up, Irene Fincher and Co. were evidently uncompromising. Irene was still seething with rage later, when I got back to the house; some idiot Chinese doctor had said, appalled by her refusal to step out promptly into the street with her aged parents when she was asked: “But it’s Dr. Selwyn-Clarke and family!” However, Hilda had found a better flat next door, after all, one which belonged to a man in the American consulate. She managed to get a letter from him, for what it was worth, saying that they could live there. The Jap health officer, Colonel Nguchi, was rapidly becoming their guardian angel, and he said that the Selwyn-Clarkes could live in Tregunter Mansions if they liked, and they trustingly planned to move in. We had yet to learn how easily Japanese officers give permission, and how easily other officers take it away again.
So now Hilda was faced with the problem of moving from the Queen Mary with all those stores and things, and with no transportation. I had a similar problem except that I didn’t need to move anything but a couple of suitcases and the baby. Old Ah Cheung ran aw
ay the day the Japs started moving people out, and I hadn’t given any thought to finding another domestic, naturally. I still believed I would be sent to Stanley sooner or later. And I was managing Carola fine by myself, bathing her like a veteran. Oddly enough, in that deserted place there was still one Chinese woman, and she wanted a job — Margaret Watson’s amah May, who had been left among the furniture of the Watson flat and who was still hanging on. She came up and begged me to let her come with us, to look after Carola. I didn’t know her, but as she had been Margaret’s amah I thought she must be all right, and I said, “Sure, only I’ll probably go to jail myself pretty soon.”
May was willing to take the chance. Her eyes were bright with hope. She had seen Ah Cheung when the old girl left, and she was impressed by the fact that I gave her in farewell, in lieu of wages, a ring of chip diamonds and bits of jade that Sinmay’s wife had once made for me. I suppose May thought I always paid off in jewels, or perhaps, like the other British-trained Chinese, she was simply panicky at the idea of being on her own. As it turned out, it was a bad day’s work, taking her on, but at the time it seemed a sensible thing to do.