After Darkness

by Christine Piper

  ‘Start the count!’ said the officer at the front of the line, and the others peeled away to walk between the rows, counting as they went. The remaining officer stared at each internee in the first row in turn. He was a stout man, with a girth that matched his thick arms and legs. He wore long khaki trousers, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and a khaki peaked hat, whose brim plunged his eyes into shadow. His mouth was a perfectly still line. In his right hand he held a riding crop.

  The officers who’d been counting reassembled at the front and compared numbers.

  ‘All present?’ the head officer asked.

  ‘All present, sir,’ they replied.

  The head officer stepped forward and addressed us. ‘It has come to my attention that some of you are not observing protocol regarding cleanliness. Belongings in tents must be neat at all times, and beds must be made each day. Failure to do so will result in severe reprimand, and repeat offenders will be detained with a view to punishment. To facilitate this, from this time forward we will conduct surprise inspections of tents and other areas.’

  Yamada groaned. ‘Just what we need. Major Locke going through our belongings.’

  I squinted against the glare, praying the major would stop speaking and we could go back to our tents. He droned on and on. I noticed some of the men around me slump, blinking in incomprehension. Even I, who had a good grasp of English, had trouble following his speech. I wondered why there was no interpreter. My nostrils felt as if they were on fire.

  Several rows behind me, I heard a thud. I turned around, but couldn’t see past the other men. I heard urgent whispers.

  ‘. . . imperative that you observe these rules as—’ Major Locke broke off. ‘Silence down the back! What’s going on?’ He turned to the young officer next to him. ‘McCubbin, see what’s the matter, will you?’

  McCubbin jogged to the back of the group. I saw a flash of blond hair as he passed. A moment later he called back, ‘Someone’s collapsed, sir. Must be the heat.’

  Yamada turned to me. ‘Sensei, you should go.’

  I pushed my way through the lines until I saw a circle of backs surrounding someone on the ground.

  ‘I am a doctor. Can I help?’

  When the men stepped back to make room for me I recognised the man on the ground.

  ‘Harada!’ I dropped to his side. ‘Harada, it’s me, Ibaraki. Can you hear me?’

  His body was covered in sweat. His eyes were half-closed. I pulled up his lids and his eyeballs rolled.

  I checked Harada’s pulse. It was racing. The young officer gave me a canteen of water and I pressed it to Harada’s lips.

  ‘Heat exhaustion?’ McCubbin asked, crouching beside me.

  ‘I don’t think so. He’s sweating too much. I think it’s something else. He should go to hospital.’

  ‘I’ll get a stretcher.’

  I asked some of the men to shelter Harada from the sun while we waited for the officer to return. Harada drifted in and out of consciousness, sometimes opening his eyes to look at me. Each time his head lolled to one side I checked his pulse again.

  At last the young officer appeared with a stretcher and another guard. The three of us eased Harada onto the canvas. He looked small, his feet not even reaching the end of the stretcher. McCubbin and the guard hoisted him up, and we walked slowly to the exit. Major Locke had resumed his talk about cleanliness.

  ‘Hang on, he’s not coming with us, is he?’ the guard said to the officer, nodding at me.

  ‘Please, I’m a doctor.’ My throat tightened at the thought of leaving Harada in his precarious state. ‘This man is very ill. If we delay any longer he might die. If something should happen on the way, I can help.’

  McCubbin’s face clouded. He looked back at Major Locke, who was still talking. ‘Well, okay, then. I’ll have to be on guard. Here, you take this end.’

  I took the ends of the stretcher from him, careful not to jolt Harada. We crab-walked to the gate and onto Broadway. After shuffling along the internal road for several minutes, lurching beneath our load, we finally passed through the birdcage gate and emerged onto the track towards headquarters. My palms became slippery as the handles of the stretcher scraped against the blisters on my hands. I winced at the pain.

  Despite my best efforts to keep a quick pace, I slowed under the load. McCubbin offered to take my end again. I tried to hide my injuries, but blood stained the handles.

  ‘Christ—is that from you?’ McCubbin stared at the crimson streaks.

  ‘Yesterday, when I carried my suitcases from the station . . .’

  ‘Geez, I wish you’d told me. I wouldn’t have made you carry him.’ He shook his head.

  We passed a camp on our right, smaller than Camp 14. It was prettier, too, with shrubs and saplings shading the huts. A couple of Italians who were crouched by a garden near the fence, lifted their heads and watched us walk by. We continued in silence for a few minutes more, then the scattered buildings of headquarters came into view: a large concrete edifice that cast a long shadow on the earth, and several white-painted iron buildings skirted by flowerbeds. The hospital was one such structure, with a peaked roof and windows on all four sides.

  Inside, standing screens divided the room into two wards: the beds nearest the door contained two ailing Australians, one asleep with a towel on his head and the other with a bandaged foot resting on a pillow. I assumed they were military personnel. From the beds beyond the screens, occasional coughs punctuated the silence.

  The medical officer who had examined me the previous day stood at the foot of one of the Australians’ beds. He wore a khaki shirt and shorts beneath his white coat. He looked up from his clipboard. ‘Another one? What is it, the heat?’

  ‘His pulse is very fast,’ I said. ‘He has a fever too. I do not think it is the heat.’

  The physician glanced at me. ‘You’re the doctor I saw yesterday, aren’t you?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Bring the patient into the internees’ ward, then.’ He indicated the back of the room. ‘You too, doctor. You can help with the diagnosis.’

  There were only two Caucasians among the ten or so patients in the internees’ ward; the rest were Japanese. They stared dully as we manoeuvred Harada onto an empty bed.

  The doctor checked Harada’s pulse, temperature and eyes.

  ‘Well, he definitely has a fever. How long’s he been like this?’ he asked.

  ‘Almost half an hour,’ I said.

  ‘Has he had any water?’

  ‘Yes, a little. A few mouthfuls.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Harada. Tsuguo. Or just Harada.’

  ‘Harada? Can you hear me, Harada? Can you open your eyes?’

  Harada turned his head away.

  The doctor put his stethoscope to Harada’s chest. ‘Has he been coughing?’ he asked.

  ‘I was with him for only a few minutes, but I think so, yes.’

  He continued to examine Harada, checking his glands and kidneys. After a minute he folded his stethoscope and returned it to his coat pocket.

  ‘You’re right, it’s not the heat. This patient has TB. I’m surprised we didn’t detect it when he first arrived. Of course, we’ve had hundreds of new internees in the past few weeks.’

  Fever, chills, shortness of breath. I often saw cases of tuberculosis in Broome. Why hadn’t I thought of that? My failure to detect the disease had probably allowed it to spread and worsen.

  ‘George!’ the doctor called out. Moments later the assistant who’d been present at my medical examination entered the room.

  ‘Can you grab this internee’s file?’ The doctor turned to me. ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Harada. Tsuguo Harada,’ I said.

  ‘H-A-R-A-D-A?’ the doctor asked.

  ‘That’s right. From 14C.’

  ‘And what’s your name?’

  ‘Ibaraki. Tomokazu Ibaraki.’

  ‘Dr Ibraki,’ he said, mispronouncing
it. ‘I’m Dr Ashton. We could do with another doctor at camp. We just opened an infirmary in 14B. You’d also have to help the orderlies—handing out meals, that sort of thing. You wouldn’t be paid much, but it beats sitting around doing nothing. I’m sure Major Locke will appreciate your language skills, too, as there’s such a scarcity of Japanese-speaking personnel. So how does that sound?’ He held out his hand. When I hesitated, he glanced down. His expression changed. ‘Good Lord. Whatever happened to your hands?’

  After Harada was given nourishment and allowed to rest, his condition became stable. In the afternoon, he was moved to the tuberculosis ward of the infirmary. I visited him the next day. The complex hugged the eastern corner of 14B, a stone’s throw from the duty guard camp. As I approached, I could see the guards and officers through the fence arriving from headquarters in trucks or on horseback along the dusty road.

  The three galvanised-iron buildings of the infirmary stood side by side, perhaps the largest structures in our camp. An enclosed walkway ran through the middle of the buildings, connecting them, and it was through this I entered, eventually finding my way along the dim corridor and past the other wards to where Harada was kept.

  The TB ward was at the back of the complex and had a heavy curtain covering the doorway. Inside, the shutters were closed against the wind. A dozen patients occupied the room, the sigh of their breaths and gentle rise and fall of their chests the only signs they were alive. Harada lay in a bed close to the door, and when I stood beside him, his eyes fluttered open and he gave a brief smile.

  ‘Feeling better?’ I asked.

  ‘As good as an old man can.’ His voice was raspy and he paused to catch his breath.

  Not wanting to tire him, I returned to my compound. I decided I would apply to work at the infirmary. I’d be able to monitor Harada, and I could think of no better use of my time at camp.

  I mentioned the idea to Yamada after lunch, the midday sun bearing down on us as we walked back to our tent. With little shade at camp, there was no escape from the heat.

  ‘Is that part of the voluntary paid labour scheme, where the Australian government pays you a shilling a day?’ Yamada asked.

  ‘I think so.’ I mopped my brow with a handkerchief.

  ‘We discussed it at the executive meeting last week. Some of the New Caledonians expressed interest in working in the vegetable gardens. While we don’t oppose it, we don’t want to work for the enemy just for pocket money. You can see how that presents a problem, can’t you?’

  I blinked. Yamada’s expression was serious.

  ‘But we also know boredom could lead to unrest in camp,’ he continued, ‘so we’ve approved the scheme, with the suggestion participants commit small acts of sabotage from time to time.’

  ‘Acts of sabotage?’

  ‘Pulling out plants, planting seedlings upside down, that sort of thing. Not so much that it’s obvious, but a few disruptions here and there. But in your case, that would be impossible.’ He laughed. ‘Imagine! Deliberately making patients ill. No, your employment at the infirmary is for the good of the camp, so I’m sure Mori would find no problem in you working there. What’s the matter, Doctor? Are you all right?’

  At the mention of ill patients, I had suddenly felt weak. I pressed my fingertips to my eyelids. I saw blackened limbs and rotting flesh.

  ‘Just the sun,’ I said. ‘I think I’m all right.’

  At the start of my first shift, one of the orderlies greeted me inside the entrance to the infirmary. Stepping in from the sunlight, I took a moment to adjust to the gloom. A fan circled overhead, blowing air onto my face.

  ‘Sensei, it’s an honour to have you join our team,’ the young man said, bowing deeply. His long, thin fingers fretted the sides of his trousers. His name was Shiobara and he was from Saitama prefecture, he told me, although he’d been a clerk at a lacquer factory in the Dutch East Indies the previous six years. I followed him along the walkway into the first building. Two wards of about sixty feet in length opened up on either side.

  ‘These are the general internee wards—for fever, malaria, non-contagious infections and the like,’ Shiobara explained.

  A small desk and chair stood at the entrance of each ward. A stocky young man sat at one of the desks, cheek resting on his hand, eyes shut. His lids flew open when he heard us. He stood up and bowed several times, apologising for his sleepiness.

  ‘This is Matsuda, from tent twenty-one,’ Shiobara said. ‘He’s been working long hours. We all have.’

  Light streamed through the open windows. About twenty beds lined the walls, more than half of which were occupied. The clean, spartan room, the metal beds and white sheets—even the patients who watched us in silence—in some ways felt like home. I couldn’t help but think back to my first few months in Broome, when my senses were keen to the strangeness around me and everything appeared brighter, sharper and crisper, as if a veil had lifted.

  We continued along the walkway, crossing into the middle building. An office and storage space opened up on one side. Among the cabinets, shelves crammed with books and odds and ends, chairs, pillows and piles of blankets was a space for the orderlies: an area big enough for a few mattresses, three chairs and a low table. This was where I would spend much of my time, and where I’d sleep if I was on the night shift. Although it wasn’t much to look at, the evidence of an abandoned go game on the table gave it a homely feel.

  Shiobara led me into the final building. The light dimmed. A curtain of thick white cloth covered the entrance to each ward.

  ‘You already know the TB ward,’ Shiobara said, nodding to his right. ‘And this is the ward for pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses. The orderlies for these wards don’t have to sit in the room due to the risk of infection.’

  I followed Shiobara outside to a small one-room building near the entrance gate. The heavy aroma of frying fat reached me, and when we stepped into the dark room I heard it sizzle and pop. The dull thwack of a blade on wood stopped. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw a stout Occidental man in a white apron staring at me.

  ‘This is Francesco, the hospital cook,’ Shiobara said. ‘He used to work in a restaurant. He makes all the meals for the patients, and for us, too.’

  The cook looked at me and shrugged, then returned to chopping onions. Shiobara showed me where the trays, dishes and utensils were kept and where to wash them. As breakfast was about to be served, he demonstrated how to portion meals and loaves of bread. Two other orderlies entered the room, both from the Dutch East Indies. Together we carried the trays to our waiting charges.

  Soon afterwards, Shiobara left me to return to camp. He’d worked the night shift and had hardly slept. I continued alone in my allocated ward for the rest of the day, asking the other orderlies for help from time to time. The work wasn’t difficult but it required stamina—all day I shuttled meals, cleaned dishes, mopped the floor and changed bedpans, so that by the end of my shift my legs trembled with exhaustion. It brought to mind my hospital internship in Japan, where I’d spent much of my time cleaning up after the patients. Despite everything I had been through in the previous eight years, it seemed I had returned to the point at which I’d begun.

  Tokyo

  1934

  When I was young, I only ever wanted to be a doctor. I was singularly devoted to the profession. From my early teens, I kept a notebook with observations of symptoms displayed by ailing family members, to practise for the future. ‘Temporary blindness in one eye. Pain in temples. Loss of balance,’ read the entry on 17 July 1925, describing my father’s sudden, mysterious illness a few weeks before he died.

  In many ways, it was fortunate I was so inclined towards medicine, for my father was a doctor, and his father before him—as the eldest son, I was destined to follow their path. My younger brother might have been allowed to explore other careers, but never me. As a boy, I often came home with tailless lizards, five-legged beetles and other injured creatures with the hope of restoring their health.
I recall finding a bulbul by the side of the road whose wing had been crushed and leg half-torn from its body. I picked it up and carried it home, feeling it shivering in the palm of my hand, its heart beating through its chest. Hours later, it died at the entrance to our house—my mother wouldn’t let me take it inside—and I cried, thinking if only I were older and a doctor like my father, I could have saved it.

  It was years before I realised that the ambitions of my childhood wouldn’t eventuate—at least not in the way I’d imagined. It wasn’t until sometime after I finished my studies and began interning at Tokyo Imperial University Hospital that it dawned on me how incapable I was—how incapable we all were. Medicine was not the noble, enlightened profession I’d envisaged. Patients still died; there was no secret cure. Greater men might be able to achieve more, but not me.

  Around this time I received a letter from my former microbiology professor at Tokyo Imperial University. He informed me that a medical research unit was opening within the Army Medical College. The deputy head of the new unit, Major Kimura, was a former student of his, and was looking for diligent junior researchers.

  ‘I know you want to practise medicine like your father, but research offers greater rewards for those at the top,’ the professor wrote. ‘In time, someone as focused as you could open up entirely new areas. This could be your opportunity to make a difference.’

  In the subsequent weeks, his words stayed with me as I spent each day performing menial tasks at the whim of the doctors. If the letter had arrived a year later, when my internship was over and I had already accepted a position at a hospital, things might have turned out differently. But at that time, filled with the utter hopelessness of my work, I was desperate to do something else.

  Major Kimura’s office was located within the Army Medical College compound in Shinjuku. I walked there from the station, following a road that grew more isolated and leafier the further I went along it, until I saw the cluster of buildings at the top of a small rise. Following the instructions I had been given, I walked through the gate and followed the path to the back of the complex. Several handsome brick buildings surrounded by lush evergreens and hedges rose up on either side, giving me the impression that I was at an elite college in Europe. Now and then, I glimpsed a silhouette through a window but, aside from that, I saw few other people. I assumed that classes were in session and everyone was hard at work. I turned a corner and saw someone in military uniform striding ahead of me. But after a few more steps, he was gone.