by Martin Booth
Sandingham noticed that the officer was hugging the side of a large crate-like box bound with iron hoops, his head and cap bobbing above his jacket wafting horizontally just underneath the surface. Sandingham reached the side of the crate and, in fumbling for a hold, discovered a handle.
‘I’ve the hinges here. Grab hold of the catch, but for Pete’s sake don’t open the door. I’m sure the air inside is all that’s keeping it buoyant.’
‘What is it?’
‘A cold-box.’
After a time, they could hear the distant throb of marine diesels. They seemed to be getting nearer, but the swell was such that neither man could see a craft, even when on the summit of a wave. All around them in the sea drifted other prisoners. Some clung to flotsam – wood planks, furniture, deck equipment. A very few had life-jackets, and one had a life-preserver on. It hadn’t lived up to its name. As he drifted by, Sandingham saw that the man was dead. His arms moved with the water as though he were feebly attempting to swim, but his mouth was open and water slewed into it and out again.
The diesels came closer.
‘We’ll be picked up now,’ said the officer. Sandingham did not think to ask his name. He spoke with the sure conviction of a master mariner of years of sea-going experience who knows the ways of men afloat.
‘Listen!’ Sandingham blurted, his mouth filling with sea water.
Both men twisted their heads. A mile away there was a dim explosion, the sound muffled by the water and the swell. They rose on the next crest. The Lisbon Maru was stern down, bow up in the water. Her list to port was more pronounced. Dust was thrusting out of her straight funnel in gouts, like a locomotive shuffling to leave a station. The Japanese troops’ laundry, which had been hanging out to dry on some of the jib wires and mast stays, flapped merrily in the breeze. The fo’c’sle and fore deck were smothered with mobile dots.
‘They’re men!’
‘No,’ replied the officer. ‘They’re dead men.’
The swell carried them down into a trough. A small wavelet on the side trickled over Sandingham’s head, cool and refreshing where the sun had tightened his scalp. It was as if the sea were nursing him. They rose on the next run of water.
The surface was empty. The ship had gone.
Sandingham spun his head from side to side.
‘Dead men. They were dead men,’ the officer repeated. He took off his gold braid cap. The skin on his fingers was wrinkled from the water.
‘God have mercy on their souls,’ he said with genuine reverence.
He replaced the cap.
‘Now,’ he spoke clearly with the defiance of a determined survivor, ‘to be rescued.’
The marine engines came nearer. From a swell ridge, they caught sight of a Japanese gunboat. From the stern fluttered the hi-no-maru, the white flag with the vermilion sun disc at the centre. The sides of the boat were manned. The men were holding what looked from that distance like short boat-hooks.
The craft came nearer. It was not slowing.
‘My God!’ said the officer. His words were incredulous, like a man seeing a miracle performed personally for him. ‘It can’t be! They’d never!’
The bow ploughed through the first group of prisoners. The undertow sucked some into the hull, took them down and under the keel and along and through the propellers. The sea pinked, then returned to jade green.
The gunboat turned about and returned to the area of the sea in which the prisoners were treading water, waving, shouting for attention – for saving, for mercy. Some merely shouted. There was a chatter of rifle fire. Some men dived, others jumped in the water. Others still merely rolled over and faced down to the sea bottom thirty fathoms below, viewing with their sightless eyes the way of their going.
So taken was Sandingham by this vista of carnage that he failed to see a second gunboat approaching their cold-box. The first he knew of it was a pumping vibration in the water around him. He turned his head and there it was. The grey sides of the hull loomed above him. Japanese soldiers were peering over the rail: many had their rifles to their shoulders. A command shrilled out over a loudhailer. Sandingham thrust his body downward behind the cold-box. He felt the box shiver as the bullets struck it, then died in the water. They hissed for a second as they sank.
Sandingham surfaced. The gunboat was past, but the officer was gone. Upon the sea floated his peak cap, the right way up. Had not Nelson been shot because a sniper had spied his gold-threaded uniform from the enemy rigging? he thought. The irony of pride, the courage of conviction: and all that was left to show for it was an unpaid invoice in a London clerk’s ledger.
Sandingham stared at the cap as it drifted away, slowly turning about and about as the wind took it.
He was being carried on a fast current towards some islands. Other men were travelling in this direction with him. Some were dead, some were weak and some were strong. A number were dying. Others were stubbornly holding death at bay.
Some were going to land on the islands. It was obvious even to Sandingham at surface level that they were heading towards the shorelines. Many of them, he feared, might be smashed to pulp on the rocks he could distantly hear being pounded and thudded by the sea. Some would be whisked past such a fate only to drown, later that night, far out in the lonely vastness of the sea, slipping slowly into death. A few would be more fortunate.
* * *
Dusk fell.
Upon and within the sea, like glow-worms hovering in the night of the water, phosphorescence shone on and off. Every wave-break, every fragment of spray, every movement Sandingham made – though he made few now, being tired to the point of exhaustion, his arms numb from the gripping of the cold-box – glowed radium green. The magic of the sea took him. It was like a fantastic dream.
Gradually the dream became a reality. Brighter and whiter lights appeared, bobbing and pitching on the swell.
With all the strength he could muster, Sandingham threshed his feet and tried to steer the cold-box towards the nearest of the lights. For all he knew, they could be some weird marine ignis fatuus, a doppelgänger, a mirage of dying, the last cruel trick of the day.
It was a sampan. In it stood two Chinese fishermen, their wet torsos glistening in the lamplight. Each had hold of one end of a net. Sandingham was soon snared in it, like an ugly, brown fish. Had he gill slits, he’d have torn them on the mesh. Instead, it was the flesh of his fingers, bloated from his time in the sea, that were cut, and cut badly.
He was too tired to speak much. He just muttered to them, ‘Yan … Yan … Ts’ing … T’sing…’
Cantonese not being spoken so far north up the coast, they didn’t understand him, but they dragged him over the wooden gunwale of their sampan and laid him on the deck. Around him, sardines and anchovies flapped their last.
‘M koi nei,’ he gasped, but the two men just grinned and studied him before fumbling with his wrists and fingers, stroking his neck in the light of the hurricane lantern by which they were fishing; a strange series of actions, like the preliminaries to a primitive ritual of love-making.
He realised they were looking for a watch, a ring, a St Christopher. When they found nothing, he feared they would throw him back, a worthless fish, inedible and unsaleable. Then he remembered next to his testicles was the small, waterproof pouch he had made from inner-tube rubber and fat. In it was nothing of value – a rolled-up photo, a pinch of tobacco, three matches … He prayed they’d not find it. They didn’t and, having found nothing else either, seemed to decide to help him.
Sandingham had ruined their nets, but they did not seem angered. They gave him a mouthful of fresh water and propped him against the bow board while they dropped their catch into wooden pails of water. This done, they hoisted their sail and set off in the direction of the nearest island. It was now near midnight.
Sliding in and out of consciousness, Sandingham heard others calling from the sea. He paid no heed and, in his half-wakening state, hated himself for his selfishness. He wa
s safe.
A lighthouse blinked from the shore of the island and the fishermen headed for a bay to the leeward of the light. The swell was less and they sailed into the calmer water, to run softly aground on a shingle beach. Sandingham was helped ashore, half-carried and half-dragged to a line of trees and bushes, then sat down against a rock protruding from the sand. It was light enough to see by, though whether moon- or starlight he knew not.
The fishermen disappeared and Sandingham fell into a deep and comatose sleep.
* * *
He was hot. Hot as in Hades where, for all he could know or care, he could now be roasting. He was burning. He could see his blood running in his veins. He opened his eyes. It hurt, so he closed them. Grey light came over him. He opened his eyes again. Someone or something was kneeling over him. Hands like claws were shaking his arms. Water was running down his chest. He flexed his fingers to make a fist. The pain shouted at him. Then it intensified to unbearable levels. He whimpered, not being able to find the urge or energy to scream.
Fujihara must have got him back. Somehow. He couldn’t figure out how, but that must be it. Perhaps it was Tsutada. Tokunaga, The White Pig himself, had managed to swim to land as well and get hold of him. He was even at this moment dislocating every finger joint of Sandingham’s he could grip with his pair of electrician’s pliers.
An acrid stench hit his nostrils.
An English voice made him jerk with surprise as much as the pain did.
‘Keep still! They’ve got iodine.’
Crouched by his side was an old man. He had a wispy mandarin’s beard and colourless pupils in the middle of porcelain-white eyes. His cheeks were made of yellow parchment. Sandingham drew back.
‘Don’t worry. He’s all right. He’s for us.’
The back of the old man’s hand was scarred and one of his fingernails was three inches long and horny as a toad’s lips.
As Sandingham’s sight grew accustomed to the morning light he scanned the beach. In a group around about him were seven or eight other prisoners. He did not recognise any of them. Like himself, they were all dressed in baggy black Chinese trousers and loose jackets that shone like cheap, tarred silk. He realised that, in his sleep, he had been dressed.
His hand slid quickly to his groin.
‘It’s okay. I’ve got it here for you.’
A prisoner with a pencil-thin moustache handed Sandingham his packet.
‘If there’s money in that, we’d like to give it to them.’
‘There isn’t.’
However, Sandingham opened the package, partly to ensure that the contents were dry, and handed the tobacco to the prisoner who gave it to the Chinese. The old man grimaced his thanks and took the package carefully as if it were the sacrament, wrapping it in a twist of paper he pulled from the folded-over top of his own, similar trousers.
A china bowl was placed in Sandingham’s lap. In it was a small heap of cold rice, three dried fish and a spoonful of berries.
‘Eat slowly. You’ve swallowed a lot of sea water.’
He obeyed without questioning this wisdom.
His arms and legs itched badly. All those rescued had been profusely bitten by insects during the early hours.
When he had eaten, Sandingham walked to the water’s edge, took off his newly-acquired clothes and soaked his body in the warm sea. The salt eased the aggravation of the mosquito bumps.
Sitting in the water up to his chest, Sandingham watched the Chinese who had, he presumed, saved them as any mariner might rescue another in distress. Certainly, they were sea-going fishermen and knew only too well the dangers and fickleness of the ocean.
The islanders had, Sandingham knew, suffered at the hands of the Japanese for centuries, though not as cruelly as their fellow countrymen on the Chinese mainland had in recent years. For the fishermen, a passing Japanese ship might loot some food, the crew indulging in a bit of roughing-up for sport but nothing more. On the nearby coast and inland atrocities of a greater nature were more common.
By the line of bushes at the head of the beach, where a path wound through the branches, Sandingham spied a little girl. She was wearing a loose-fitting pair of black trousers and a matching vest-like top. Her jet-black hair was woven into little pigtails on either side of her head, the ends tied with cord. She had a quizzical look on her face.
Sandingham smiled and beckoned to her. Hesitantly, she came to the water’s edge and looked at him with much the same expression as a man might view a mermaid. She tipped her head from side to side to get a better view of the man with the pinky-red skin.
‘Hello,’ Sandingham said rather pointlessly, ‘what’s your name?’
She studied him for a moment, made no reply and then, with an adult composure, turned on her heel and marched up the beach, her arms swinging jauntily and her feet kicking up a small fountain of sand with each step.
The Chinese, who were now collecting up their food bowls to wash them clean, started to jabber together in an incomprehensible dialect. Swiftly, they ran into the undergrowth. The little girl was the last to go, taking a final sidelong glance at the strange men from the sea before following her elders.
Sandingham turned to look out to sea. He had neither heard nor seen anything to cause alarm.
A Japanese launch was turning into the bay.
‘Not bloody likely!’ The words came from nearby with a quiet, unemotional assurance. ‘Not bloody twice!’
Sandingham watched as two prisoners rolled into the bushes. He heard their passage through the branches, the scuffle of leaves in the undergrowth fading to silence. He wanted to join them, to escape the rigours of re-captivity. He wanted to be rid of fandushis and beatings and insufficient food and the ever-present smell of his own dung and fears. Yet an utterly uncompromising resignation seemed to be in command of his soul, an all-accepting lethargy that reasoned that this was not so bad. He was alive, at least. In a manner of speaking.
* * *
They were not allowed to retain the clothing the Chinese from the fishing village had given to them. As soon as they boarded the destroyer they were ordered to remove the black trousers and jackets and throw them overboard. In their place, they were issued with odds and ends of Japanese uniforms and articles of clothing donated by the crew. Those prisoners who were ill or sick from ingesting too much salt water were moved below, but everyone else remained in the open air. Plentiful food was served twice that day, cigarettes were forthcoming, fresh water was in good supply and, as night fell, hot cocoa made with milk powder was given to the prisoners in rice bowls.
The sea was smooth. Sandingham slept on deck against a bulkhead, on the other side of which was some piece of machinery that kept the metal plating warm throughout the night. By morning he would have cramp in his left arm and leg but at least he had slept and not woken up time and again shivering, as some of the others had.
On 5 October they arrived in Shanghai, everyone agreeing that the Imperial Japanese Navy had treated them fairly. The dead officer with the dress cap had been right after all. No matter what the nationality or the circumstance, sailors take pity on those being claimed or seduced by their joint enemy, the deceptive and deceitful sea.
As soon as they disembarked the situation altered drastically. A Japanese Army officer, carrying a briefcase and followed by two minions, strode across the dockside, stepping carefully over the sunken railway lines and avoiding with military precision the various crates and boxes, drums and bales that littered the area. He marched up the gangway and, on seeing the prisoners sitting or standing and chatting in groups on the open deck, barked a shrill string of invective at them before rattling his boots up a companionway in the direction of the bridge.
Ten minutes later, a Japanese officer appeared on the dock. His uniform was neat and crisply laundered and his stance erect and also military.
At first, Sandingham did not recognise him: then it dawned on him. This was Lieutenant Hideo Wada, the officer in charge of the guards on th
e Lisbon Maru. He was accompanied by a merchant marine captain whom some of the prisoners thought they recognised as Kyoda Shigeru, the master of their ill-fated prison ship. He too boarded the destroyer and made his way up to the officers’ quarters.
Forty minutes later, a contingent of IJA troops were marched on to the wharf. Some formed a semi-circular cordon around the bottom of the gangway while others came aboard the warship and lined the rails, guarded the doors and, having herded the prisoners together and brought up the wounded from below, patrolled the deck with fixed bayonets.
Leaning against a warm galley bulkhead, from a porthole in which issued the tantalising scents of frying rice, Sandingham watched the sentries going past him. Beside him was a group of other prisoners. A few spoke in subdued voices.
‘Shaggin’ Koreans!’ suddenly grumbled the man next to Sandingham, who had not spoken at all so far. ‘Right little bastards they is, sir. Worse than th’ soddin’ Nippos.’
With that observation he relasped once more into morose silence.
Sandingham looked at the man through the corner of his eye. He was dressed in Japanese Army general issue pantaloons that were loose below the knee rather than tied by a cord. That was now absent. His chest was bare and his hair was a gingery stubble, matching that on his chin. On his feet he wore a pair of Japanese naval rating’s deck shoes, a cross between a slipper and a plimsoll. His skin was yellowish, as if he had suffered recently from jaundice. Sandingham thought that if he rubbed the man with his sleeve the frost on his skin would clear as from a window and he would be able to see the interior of the man, all the parts working or waiting to be used, like a factory. Nothing showed his rank.
Other men were in command of them. Not special men. Just men like themselves. Shorter, thin-eyed, small-limbed maybe, but nevertheless men. They were just as equal too, in the face of natural order. A small advantage here, a twist of fate there. Kismet. Chance. The spin of the wheel. That was the only difference.