Enduring Passions

by David Wiltshire

  She’d gritted her teeth, but as it went on and on she had begun to scream. When they eventually stopped, they asked her questions, the interpreter sometimes whispering softly, at others screaming into her face. Fay just shook her head, again and again. Suddenly, she realized that Major Imamura was looking at her oddly. He started to remove his tunic, revealing a barrel chest and sweating smooth skin. He took the whip from the hands of the corporal, and told him and the interpreter to get out. He slammed the door behind them, and came over and brought the whip handle up under her chin, raising her head so that she had to look into his dark brown eyes and impassive face.

  It was then that she realized he especially liked seeing her hurt, humiliated.

  He began whipping her slowly, down her exposed back, and on to her buttocks. Whatever thrill that gave him didn’t worry her, at least it took the blows away from her ravaged back.

  She still refused to give any names, to say anything.

  Over the weeks the battle of wills went on. Towards the end she was alternately left alone for long periods, then given no respite for days on end. It didn’t take her long to work out that she was only interrogated when he was on duty.

  The other people came and went as the months passed, but she remained.

  The Japanese finally had too much information, most of it conflicting, and they seemed to lose interest. Everybody was released back to Changi, she was now the only one in the cage.

  The day came when Major Imamura came to see her, and nodded for the guard to open the door. He gripped her fleshless arm, forced her, stumbling, along the corridor to the room with the bench and straps.

  Fay, expecting a beating, wondered in her near delirious state whether perhaps this was the end, he would beat her to death this time.

  Instead he forced her down to her knees, and stood, legs apart, over her.

  It was then that she saw his ceremonial sword lying on a side table.

  So that was it.

  Suffering as she was from dysentery, oedema and scabies, death would be a welcome release. She would never give in to Imamura. If she did, they, the enemy, would have finally won, triumphed over everything she stood for.

  It was as simple as that.

  He picked up the sword, all the time staring at her, and drew it slowly out of its scabbard. Its arc gleamed in a shaft of sunlight. Fay did her best to suppress a shiver.

  He didn’t ask her any more questions, or threaten her. With one hand he grabbed her hair, twisted it and brought her face up. For several seconds they stared hard at each other.

  Angrily he bent her down, head nearly touching the floor, and swept the hair from her bared neck. She felt the cold touch of metal on her sweating skin.

  Eyes tightly shut she filled the blackness with a swift cavalcade of images – of her mother and father and her childhood; of Codrington and the Cotswolds, and, above all, of Tom. The coldness left her neck, and there was a swish of steel through air.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Tom lay on his mattress, staring up at the slowly moving fan. It was five o’clock, an hour till dawn. He had been thinking about the impersonal nature of God. On the day he had received news of Fay’s safe internment, he’d waved goodbye to George – not knowing that he would never see him again.

  The wing had returned without him – but someone had seen him bail out. They’d been coming out of a low level attack on a Jap position when he’d been hit by ground fire. He’d managed to get altitude and bale out.

  Tom immediately got into his Hurricane and took off for the co-ordinates that had been given for the attack by a ground observer. He was racked with guilt. If he had gone as usual, it might – should have been him.

  When he arrived over the jungle he’d quickly seen the parachute canopy draped among the trees. As he circled he looked in vain for any sign of movement – but there was none. There was no enemy fire coming up at him.

  Tom racked the Hurricane hood back, and lobbed out several packs of food and survival kits attached to small message parachutes – just to feel he was doing something. The chances of George finding one were remote to say the least.

  It took a month for news of his fate to come through. When it did, it turned Tom Roxham into a man of icy detachment, with only one thought in his head when he climbed into his cockpit. By May of 1944, when the squadron was withdrawn for rest and re-equipping, he had become one of the top scoring fighter pilots in that theatre of operation, and a ruthless, almost suicidal attacker of ground troops.

  But he had changed. Tom now tended to remain aloof, spending time reading, and going through George’s effects over and over again. The legal people at Group HQ had confirmed that George had left everything to him. Amongst these were his favourite books, a much thumbed copy of The Coral Island by R.M. Ballantyne, and Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. He noticed the fly leaf had been inscribed with ‘Love, Mum and Dad, Christmas 1935.’ There were also some papers relating to the family business in Australia. It took some time for him to write to George’s parents, who knew already through official channels that their son was dead, but he wanted them to know how close they had become. He asked if he might visit them when the war was over. The one thing he didn’t add was how George had actually died.

  He’d made it down OK, but when men of 6th Gurkha’s had advanced they’d found his body. He had been bayoneted fourteen times.

  They were saying goodbye to the trusty Hurricane. It was renowned throughout the air force as a magnificent gun platform, capable of soaking up the punishment, and ideal as a fighter or a bomber at low altitude. Only in the higher skies was it eclipsed by the more glamorous Spitfire.

  They were taking on a new machine, one that was well tried and tested in the European theatre and latterly the Pacific. It was a very large, pugnacious fighter-bomber, nicknamed Jug – short for Juggernaut.

  He walked around the Republic P-47D Thunderbolt, a Yankee job.

  It certainly was big, with a fuselage that was deep, ending in a blunt, cowled nose – streamlined it was not. It was camouflaged in jungle green and grey, with roundels without the red centre – so that they could not be confused with the Rising Sun, symbol of the enemy.

  Tomorrow he would fly one for the first time.

  A truck dropped him off at the mess. There was a document waiting for him in the adjutant’s office apparently.

  Maybe God was feeling sorry for him, because he was informed that arrangements were now in place for messages to be sent to civilian internees through the Japanese Red Cross. He was warned that it would be heavily censored, by both sides, and could not be longer than twenty-eight words.

  He spent nearly the rest of the day drafting it, tingling with the knowledge that he was writing to her, that she would be reading his very words – the first they had exchanged in years, and that he must pack as much information in it as possible for her.

  He finally came up with:

  Darling, your mother and father join me every day in thinking about you. You are not forgotten. Can’t wait to be together again. Love you, love you, Tom.

  He copied it, and wrapped it – together with the message he’d received telling him that she was alive – around her photograph. The latter was heavily creased, and had lost its gloss around her face where he had kissed it so much during the last four years.

  He sank back in his chair, and wondered how much longer it would take? How much more could he take?

  That night he went to a film show put on by ENSA entitled Cover Girl with Rita Hayworth. One song got to him so much so, that he found tears running down his face, mercifully in the dark. ‘Long Ago and Far Away’. That summed up the way he felt. He’d only been happy a long time ago, and far away from this green, noisy, biting hell.

  The Jug proved to be as good as they said. When the squadron returned to the fray they now flew ‘cab-rank’ patrols directed by ground, and sometimes airborne, observation posts. With their three 500lb bombs, or 0.50 calibre guns, or ten rockets they played
havoc among Japanese troops and supply lines.

  And they took the damage inflicted on them, and still kept on flying. Just before the war in Burma was finally over, Tom came back with 87 bullet holes in his wings and fuselage, one the size of a football. He invariably went right down on a target, totally ignoring the flak coming up. By now he had a bar to his DFC.

  The fall of Rangoon passed almost unnoticed in Europe, where people were celebrating in the streets at the ending of the war against Germany.

  The Japanese retreat continued. Wherever they fell into the hands of the Burmese villagers, they were shown no mercy; British forces following up sometimes came across scenes of ambushes where gold teeth had been hacked from the jaws of soldiers whilst they were still alive, and disembowelling of the sick and wounded had occurred.

  Tom was spared all this, he just kept flying every minute, every second, of every day, blasting the Army of Nippon wherever it made a stand.

  Ironically, one of his last acts was to attack a train, watching his rockets strike the engine and front carriages. Steam shot hundreds of feet into the air, and the wooden carriages piled up into a blazing pyre that could be seen twenty miles away.

  Dazed survivors struggled out on to the embankment. Younger members of the squadron, fresh out from England, watched in horror as Tom went in so low that his prop flicked pieces off bushes, the .50 calibre machine-guns ripping up the earth, flesh and blood as he rubbed out as many of the survivors as possible.

  On their arrival, they’d heard his views in the mess, as he’d downed a brandy.

  ‘Sub-human buggers, unfathomable savages. They love inflicting pain – and death.’ He’d coughed, then added, ‘Got to be exterminated.’

  He’d straightened up and tossed back the rest of the drink.

  ‘They’ve got their backs to the wall now – but don’t expect them to give in – they’ll fight like cornered rats. Take my advice, if you ever fall into their hands – take your cyanide pill – OK?’

  With that he’d walked in to supper.

  It was a different war.

  And one that still had to be won.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The planning for the invasion of Malaya began in earnest, code name, Operation Zipper.

  As Tom sat in the briefings he found he couldn’t help thinking about Singapore – when would the army finally get there. If there was heavy fighting, would Fay be safe? Would she survive? It would be something he couldn’t live with if anything untoward happened.

  Not after all this time.

  In Singapore the air raids had started, tiny silver aircraft high up in the clear blue sky rained bombs down on the docks and stores, and blew up ammunition dumps and airfields. The Japanese Air force always took off and disappeared before these raids. Enemy ships limped into the Jahore Straits badly damaged, and stayed there, unable to be repaired. Daily, rumours were rife in the prison: they were all to be shot; they were all to be released the next day; they were all going to be taken by the Nips to the ‘Homeland’. Finally it seemed that if an attack started, they would be shot – not fed.

  Fay, who had weighed 8st 1lb when she had arrived in the Colony, now weighed 4st 10lbs on the medical room scales. The doctors and nurses lavished all the care they could give, and even with extra food from the black market, it was still months before she could walk unaided.

  Major Imamura had brought the sword slashing down on to the whipping bench, scything through leather and bloodstained wood. He had said nothing, sheathed the ceremonial weapon, and left.

  When he’d gone Fay had pitched forward on to the floor, body convulsing as she vomited black bile. But she knew she had won.

  Today she was sitting out by the vegetable plot, watching the more able-bodied working on the potatoes.

  Suddenly she was aware of somebody standing beside her. She looked up, and saw a woman who did the internal postal rounds. Not once had she come to Fay, and now she was holding out a strange yellow-orange coloured envelope. Blankly she took it.

  When she didn’t immediately open it the woman prompted. ‘It’s from the Red Cross, dear, it must be from home.’

  Fay looked at it. ‘Home?’

  The woman took it back from her, opened the flap and pulled out a single thin sheet of paper. ‘There, now you can read it.’

  Fay looked down noticing the badly printed scrolling and the illustration of a building – something about Tokyo Headquarters.

  Then she read the message.

  Tom? It was from Tom.

  A wet spot landed on the cheap rice surface and spread out like on blotting paper. Then another. The woman looked up at the sky, but it was a clear blue.

  When she looked down again the letter was splattered, the spots coalescing.

  It was then that she realized that Fay was crying, soundlessly.

  The first hints that the years of stifling captivity, deprivation, and horror were coming to an end, came through the secret radios. VE Day had passed, huge naval victories by the Americans in the Pacific, had followed, Burma was finally free and – the invasion of Malaya was imminent. Then something about a secret and massive bomb on a place called Hiroshima, followed by another at Nagasaki mystified and excited them.

  On 15 August somebody listening to a radio heard the news first. The Emperor of Japan, Hirohito stunned by the awesome power of the bombs, and fearful of his country being systematically wiped off the face of the earth, had surrendered unconditionally.

  To begin with nothing much happened, though the guards became less aggressive. After three days, food that was supposed to be unobtainable began to flow in. Likewise medical supplies came from nowhere, and in great quantities. No one was required to work, and prisoners from the military camp started to wander around. The Japanese didn’t seem defeated, but they no longer had the swagger of old. Cigarettes were shared with the guards.

  Fay, still very weak, tottered out and looked around. It didn’t feel like freedom, until on 5 September the advance troops landed at the docks. British paratroops arrived at Changi, to be greeted politely by the Japanese. They were quickly disarmed and whisked away.

  Some of the men walked into the city to see the official surrender ceremony when Mountbatten arrived, standing fearlessly upright in his car, dressed in a white naval uniform as he was driven through thousands of wildly cheering Malays and Chinese.

  On the steps of the civic hall General Seishiro Itagaki met him and formally handed over his sword, as Major Imamura, alone in his room, committed hari kari.

  For Fay, and the thousands of internees and POWs it was finally over.

  Tom had been in the crowded mess when someone started shouting out, ‘Quiet, quiet you bastards.’

  In the silence they heard the BBC announcer’s voice impart the news of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima with a complete lack of emotion.

  In the silence that followed the details someone said, ‘Christ Almighty.’

  Three days later the same BBC man announced another bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki, and a week later the stunning news that Japan had surrendered.

  So it had finally come to an end.

  And to many of them it was an anti-climax, a weird vacuum. Suddenly there were no more sorties, no strain and anxiety, just a guilty euphoria and almost exotic laziness. When the fact that they had survived finally sunk in, the parties had started, wild and drunken. Frustrated, Tom had tried to get to Singapore, a compelling, overwhelming urge driving his every waking moment, pestering the Transport Section, getting nowhere. Until now.

  He’d decided to make his own arrangements. As the celebrations continued around him he took his whisky out on to the veranda. A flock of green parrots swooped and climbed, screeching to roost in the banyon trees, preening and fluttering and bobbing their heads as the sky turned from violet to dark blue and the stars began to show. He stood looking at them, wondering, praying that she too was seeing them.

  Tomorrow – he would do it tomorrow.

  His SAC lo
oked at him worriedly as Tom climbed on to the wing. ‘Where you off to, Sir?’

  He knew there were no sorties being flown now. Tom shook his hand warmly.

  ‘Thank you for taking good care of me, Jimmy, we must have a pint in Civvy street. I’d like to meet that young daughter you’ve never seen.’

  Jimmy helped strap him in.

  ‘You’re not going to do anything silly are you, Sir?’

  It took a second for Tom to realize Jimmy was worried that he was going to commit suicide – unbalanced perhaps by the guilt of surviving, when so many, including his close friend, had not.

  He grinned. ‘No Jimmy, I’m not. I wouldn’t need external tanks for that, would I?’

  With them he had a range of 1,800 miles – more than enough.

  ‘But you’re right in one way – I’m not coming back. Can’t stand the diabolical insect life a second longer.’

  They both laughed at that.

  He slapped him on the back.

  ‘Don’t be around when they first start asking questions – but at the right time you can tell ’em I said something about going to find my wife, OK?’

  Jimmy’s eyes widened. He knew where the boss was going.

  The two and a half thousand horse power engine coughed, then roared into life as the Pratt and Whitney engine fired up. He waved the chocks away. Jimmy suddenly stood to attention and saluted. Tom acknowledged with a gloved hand – touching his forehead, and then buttoned his mask across his face. He did his checks as he taxied at a fast rate out on to the strip, eager to get off before anybody in the tower, hopefully, nursing almighty headaches, realized what was happening.

  He lined up dead centre on the strip, did one last instrument check, then gunned the engine.

  Five minutes later, still climbing, he was at 24,000 feet and setting course for Singapore.