Shortly after this a Japanese general made a visit toKuching. The camp was held to a high pitch of exhibitionism,during which we were not allowed to hang out any washingfor three days, in order to keep the camp “neat and clean.”Our Concert Ladies were ordered to sing at a lunch partygiven in the general’s honor, being ordered to “dress neatlyand wear make-up.”
This had an early Roman Empire flavor, and the singers
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were not pleased, but the order could not be disobeyed. Itwas decided that the eight eldest singers would be sacrificed,either to whet or to take the appetite of the general. Theseven younger women would be kept safely at home.
The day came. The hoary-headed hostages were oiled andanointed to appear before their captors. Lieutenant Nekatawas handed a list of the singers. He looked at the list andlooked at the singers, and saw what had happened; the virginshad been sent to the rear! He tore up the list, and commandedthat cell the Concert Ladies should appear.
Tears on the part of a mother or so, but the virgins had togo forward. The lunch took place, the ladies sang, Nekataleered, the general smiled and relaxed. The ladies were givenbiscuits and bananas and returned to their camp in the samecomplete condition in which they had left it, only less hungry.
News came that a barricade would be erected betweenourselves and the Sisters, who lived in the front part of thecamp, from whose territory we could see our husbands. Theobject of the barricade was to prevent us from seeing ourhusbands, and from “misbehaving,” as the Nips termed ourhabit of gazing longingly at each other.
Lieutenant Nekata ordered the erection of the barricade,and work was begun. We were dismayed. Dorie Adams, nowthe camp master, went to Nekata to plead. She promised nomore “misbehavior” on our part, if only the fence was noterected. Nekata refused to listen. Dorie requested an interviewwith Colonel Suga; Nekata refused it.
She came home and reported, and the camp seethed withunhappy women, dismayed at the idea of more barbed wireand less husbands. We decided that the only hope for a re-versal of decision was to picket Colonel Suga unofficially andmake a personal plea, if he should visit camp, as he frequentlydid in the evenings. As Nekata had expressly forbidden Dorieto speak to Suga, I was chosen to make the plea. Suga had
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just recently commanded me to write for him, and it wasthought that I might have influence with him.
Fate was with us. While we were discussing this matter,Colonel Suga’s motor car drove up to the men’s camp, andhe entered. We waited hopefully inside our barbed-wiregate, praying that he would visit us, too.
Waited an hour . . . then our dinner gong went, and Ihad to go for George’s dinner. I had just gone for it whenyiolet ran to my barrack to tell me that Suga was now leavingthe men’s camp. I ran to the front, George racing after me.
Suga was standing outside our camp near his motor car,talking to Nekata and other oflScers. I prayed that Nekatashould not accompany him inside our camp.
Henrietta, uninvited, joined George and me.
Suga came towards us and entered the compound. We aUbowed.
Suga: “How are you?”
“Well, thank you. How are you?”
Suga: “I am well. How is George? And how are you,Mrs. Keith?”
I: “I am well, but very unhappy.”
Suga: “Very unhappy?”
I: “Yes, we are all very unhappy because you are going tobuild a barricade and separate us from the Sisters. We love theSisters: they are good and kind, they teach our children, andplay with them. Also, this space in front of camp is the onlyplayground for the children. If this is fenced off, they willhave no place for exercise. We beg you, do not build a bar-ricade between the Sisters and us.”
Colonel Suga, somewhat floored: “But Sisters live life ofseclusion! Not nice to have men staring at them! Wivesoccasion husbands to stare at women’s camp now! Also, weJapanese think not nice for husbands and wives to stand andstare at each other. We think this misbehaving — not nice.Must stop.”
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I: “We promise if you so instxuct us that we will not wave,or try to communicate with our husbands. But please, do notbuild a barricade. You are always kind to us and our children.Please be kind about this.”
Henrietta (determined to be practical): “And if you divideus and the Sisters with a barricade, the Sisters will have notoilets. Their toilets are in the back of camp. Anyway, youcould put up a nice big barricade in front of the men’s camp,instead of our camp, to hide the husbands. Now I can showyou just how to do it. . .
I: “Colonel Suga, we all beg you to reconsider the erectionof the barricade because you are kind to us. You say you wishus to be happy; you told us before we left Berhala that theladies here were happy. We beg you not to cut us off from ourfriends, the Sisters, and to shut up our children in a morelimited space. Remember our health! Remember our hap-piness! We all beg you for this kindness.”
Henrietta: “And you can make a nice barricade in front ofthe men! I will show you how! And still the Sisters will havetheir toilets!”
The next day we were told that the barricade would notbe built. We relaxed. But in time we relaxed too much: wecould not resist the temptation of looking across at our hus-bands. It seemed such an innocent pleasure!
But not innocent from the point of view of the Japanese.Or else it was only an excuse they gave, when they told us afew weeks later that we must move to a new camp.
Getting Rid of Prouderyand Arrogance
The new camp site was to be over the excrement pits of thesoldiers’ camps, where the ground was full of hookworm,and the air was full of mosquitoes. It was the third time wehad moved in fourteen months, and with each change we loststrength, and gained new diseases. This time we were ex-changing our newly planted vegetable garden for an offal pit.
We begged Colonel Suga not to move us, pleading that thechildren would die of hookworm, as they had no shoes; theadults would die of malaria, as they had no medicines; wewould both die of starvation if we had no garden; we wouldall die of the move anyway, as we were overworked andunderfed.
Colonel Suga answered that it was too bad and he was verysorry because he Hked us to be happy, but we must be re-moved from the sight of our husbands.
He could not move our husbands to the new camp, hesaid, because it was half a mile further down the road and hedid not trust them so far from the Japanese officers. Thusisolated, husbands might smuggle — might even escape! Butnot so ladies . . . ladies he trusted!
So we trusted ladies were to move camp at nine o’clock
in the morning. George and I had been ill in our barrack forthree days and nights with malaria, which was always withus. George had a high temperature, and I had had no sleep,fearing convulsions for him again — and I was dopey withfever and fatigue.
Now moving day came, muster was called, and I was notthere. Had I been executed for it, I could not have been readyat nine that day.
I arrived at the camp square ten minutes late, dragging twosuitcases, and George; he feverish, but uncomplaining, withan unchildlike submission now to pain — which hurt me morethan his tears. In the square there were eight other women andfive children standing at attention, under arrest for being late.The rest of the camp personnel had already left for the newcamp.
The Nipponese officer was furious with us. We ladies hadno sense of discipline! (Bang! Bang!) We were not standingat attention even now! (Bang, bang.) If the Japanese werenot so kind they would beat us! (Three bangs.) For kind-ness was wasted on us! (Bang, bang.)
We had insulted him, and the entire Japanese Army, bybeing late! Therefore we would spend the day standing inthe public square, and the night in the guardhouse, and notproceed to the new camp until tomorrow, in order to wipeout the insult we had paid the Japanese Army by being late!(Bang! Bang! And a Bronx cheer!)
The way I felt about the Japanese Army at that moment,the insult could not have been wiped out by
a lifetime spentin a brothel.
So we stood at attention in the sun, while our husbands, whohad arrived at the old camp in a group, to help with themoving, were allowed inside with guards. I saw Harry, butcouldn’t wave; when he saw me he looked worried. It was anunusual concession on the part of the Japanese to let the hus-bands help us move.
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Fourteen months before we had been imprisoned with onesuitcase each. Since then we had acquired furniture. Insidethe barrack our homemade acquisitions of stolen timber hadbeen comparatively inconspicuous, lost under the seethingmass of women, children, dirty clothes, falhng mosquito nets,and reclaimed garbage. But when our husbands came to re-move the furnishings from the old barracks, one waU of theplace fell in, and when they carried the furniture down theroad to the new camp the Japanese officers were confrontedwith the fact that 50 per cent of the old housing system hadbeen converted into furniture.
Faced with the evidence of our wholesale disobedience,they were put to it what to do. The ladies had been naughtyagain! But what could one do? One could not shoot themall, one could not beat them all, one could not shame them,for they had no shame. One could not even successfully ignorethem.
Meanwhile Lieutenant Nekata rested in the shade of thetrees near by, watching the movers at work. His polished armyboots were olf, his stocking-clad feet propped upon a treetrunk, his trousers undone and open, with cotton under-pants visible underneath. If the Britons had built their Empirein dress suits, the Japs were equally determined to tear it topieces in their underpants.
The movers themselves matched the goods that theyhandled: they, like our material belongings, were broken-down, ragged, pathetic; they, like our beds, chairs, stools,and tables, were inelegant, but invaluable. Shirtless, shoeless,stockingless, hatless, each one bandaged, with a septic leg orarm, a cough, a limp, a droop —in the past these men hadsuflfered with excess punctilio; today they scarcely had pants.Yet when one looked from them to Nekata, one could ap-preciate the fact that even so one distinguished them fromapes.
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Our husbands soon finished their moving work, and I sawHarry look anxiously over at me in the punishment party, be-fore he disappeared into his own camp. We had been told tostand at attention for punishment: soon we just stood, andthen we sat.
It was twelve o’clock now and very hot, and we were in thesun, and George became sick at his stomach. I carried himover to the side of the road and placed him in the shade of atree, and stayed with him. Soon we all moved under the trees,opened our baskets, and took out the bottles of boiled waterand tea without which we never left camp. Lieutenant Nekatawatched us without comment from his seat near by. All Icould think of as I looked at him was, **The little army-adjective so-and-so!” — which was a quote from Harry thatused to comfort me greatly.
After a 'while Teresa, another one of the late mothers, whowas always lor per cent Mother Love, came to me and said,
* You should tell Nekata that George is ill. Tell him we are allvery sorry we were late, and ask him to let us go on to thenew camp now. Perhaps he’d do it.”
' No, I’m not going to. He’s just sitting there waiting forus to plead with him. Look at him, with his pants half off!I’m sick of these Nips! No. We were late, and they can pun-ish us.”
“For George’s sake, you ought to,” she urged. I knew thatI ought to, but I wasn’t going to.
“You go over yourself and tell him about Alastair’s soretoes!” I said rudely.
However, I did go over to Nekata and say, “It is lunchtime,and we have no food. Will you send rations for the children?”
He nodded “Yes,” and I returned to tell the others. Wemade a little fire with twigs, and started boiling water fortea. Then Teresa could stand it no longer, she had the courageof a hundred con-victions where the kids were concerned. Shewent to Nekata and spoke as always — volubly, dramatically.
hysterically, as if demonstrating complete, utter, abject mis-ery. In answer to her story of pain, Nekata’s face remained asblank as a piece of paper. She returned, and we drooped inthe heat.
Then “Wilfred,” the Japanese civilian who interpreted forthe military, came over to me. Wilfred was almost invisibleowing to negative personality plus anemia, but the Japa-nese had awarded him a position of contentious importance,which perpetually involved him in breaking bad news topeople, conveying insults and epithets, telling people unpleas-ant dungs about each other, witnessing violent scenes. Allthis had made poor Wilfred into a nervous wreck.
He came over to me, sent by Nekata, and asked if Georgewas ill. I said yes, he had malaria; yes, that was why I waslate to muster. Several voices around me spoke up and saidthe children were not well, it was too hot for them, we all feltill, and could we go on to the new camp now?
Wilfred returned to Nekata and reported. Then after sometime he came back and ordered us to go over to the lieutenant.We did so, and stood at attention before Nekata, who stilllolled at ease with trousers agape. Nekata spoke, and Wilfredinterpreted:
“The lieutenant says you are very bad ladies because youwere late, and you have thus offended the Japanese officers.This is a great crime. If you were soldiers he would put youin the guardhouse for five days, without food, or beat you, orshoot you.
“But you are ladies — and the guardhouse is not big enoughfor you all. Also Nekata is very kind, like all Japanese, andvery kind to ladies and children, like all Japanese. So he willforgive you this time, and you may now pick up your luggageand proceed to the new camp.”
So then like good ladies we proceeded down the road toour new camp, swinging three and four suitcases on longpoles between every two women, and dragging our children
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behind us, while the Japanese, like very kind Japanese, per-mitted us to do so.
At the new camp I found that my “flat” was a good one,near a doorway, which meant opportunity for air and expan-sion: here in my allotted space I found our beds alreadydelivered by Harry. The locating of a claim in a new campwas done by alphabetical arrangement, gambling, or fighting,and as I was late in arriving I would have been out of luckhad not Shihping Cho staked my claim for me, by her side.
In this camp I found we had five long pahn-leaf barracks,but only four were to be used for sleeping in, as the Japa-nese had ordered one kept free. This one, they said proudly,was to be our chapel.
This meant that we were painfully overcrowded still, andagain George and I had only four feet by six feet in which toexist. Again there were no partitions or privacy. The mothersand children settled together in one end of the first barrack.
George continued to be ill all afternoon with a high tem-perature and vomiting. I washed our flat and unpacked the be-longings, and stole some nails out of the beams for shelves,prying them up with a table knife, and knocking them cock-eyed with a stone, and extracting them by wiggling. Therewas little to eat all day as the new kitchen fires wouldn’t bum,the chimneys wouldn’t draw, the water wouldn’t boil; nowonder, as the firewood consisted of the branches of greenrubber trees we had cut down that day.
I was awake all night with George, but towards morninghis fever broke, and he slept. I got up at six o’clock, as I likedto arise early and dress quietly before the pandemonium ofthe children broke loose, to be ready for my morning job.Although I was writing for Suga I was doLag camp work also.It was six by arbitrary prison time, but 4.30 by sun time, andpitch black outside the barrack and in. The stars scarceshowed, the dawn still hung far in the distance, and the only
other people awake in camp were the Sisters, who got up earlyto say their prayers.
I sat on my doorstep in slacks, for I was chilly with the after-math of fever, and brushed my hair, and thought. Thinkingwas sometimes the way to wisdom, when bitter realities couldbe left behind in the foretasting of dreams and ambitions; butsometimes it was the way to destruction, when one was over-whelmed in an agony of despair. This momiug, with me, itwas desp
air.
Daily I saw myself becoming hard, bitter, and mean, dis-gracing the picture I had painted for myself in happier days.My disposition and nerves were becoming unbearable. I wasspeaking to George with a hysterical violence which I hated,but could not control. I did not have the food to give himwhen he asked for it; if I did I was so hungry I could not sitwith him when he ate it; for this he was not to blame — andyet he must suflFer.
I wept in despair for what I could not give to him. Not formaterial things alone, food, playthings, comforts, but for thegentle, loving mother that I could not be to him. I was theonly living thing that stood between George and destruction.I was not a mother, I was the whole force of circumstancesin his world. My body was worn, my nerves tom, my energiesflagging; because of this I could only show him a stem womanstruggling grimly to get his food.
As I sat grinding the teeth of despair I became consciousthat somebody was watching me. Glancing over my shoulderI saw the dim outline of a Japanese soldier in the doorwayon the other side of the barrack.
He shuffled across, stepped through my doorway, de-scended two steps, and stood very close to me, while I con-tinued to bmsh my hair. He mumbled to me in a combinationof Japanese, Malay, and English, and offered me cigarettes.I shook my head, wanting nothing from them that day. Somedays, yes, but this day, damn it, no! He continued to proffer
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the cigarettes, pressing against me on the steps. I shook myhead, but when he persisted, I morosely jerked my head back-ward, meaning that he could toss the cigarettes on the floorbehind me, if he were fool enough to give them. He leaned hisrifle against the door, fumbled with the cigarette pack, bentover me, and put them on the table.
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