A month before we must have stood at attention, saluted,bowed at a fifteen-degree angle, while all the Nipponesesoldiers in sight would have shouted, grunted, banged theirguns, and acted in correct Nipponese style.
Suga wove his way to the forefront of the crowd nearEastick and Jennings. Here he hesitated, stood and waitedpatiently, finally pressed apologetically forward, waitedagain, and in due time received a nod from them, and thena careless word of dismissal. Then he turned and trotted backagain in our direction.
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I hoped he wouldn’t pass near ns. I wanted to turn my backand not see him. For three and a half years I had been sorryfor us, and now I didn’t want to have to be sorry for him,I didn’t want to speak to him, the favor of Colonel Sugawas not to be sought after. And I knew Harry would hatespeaking to him. But I was sick of hatred in any form, turnedeither upon me or on somebody else.
Suga came towards us and, as he drew near, he lookedstraight at us. Harry and I both said, “Good evening. ColonelSuga.”
He stopped, took o£F his hat and said, “Good evening.Have you met the American naval captain, Mrs. Keith?”
“Yes, thank you. Colonel Suga.”
“I hope that you and Mr. Keith are both well?”
“I am well, thank you. My husband is not.”
“Ah-ah. Very sorry. Good evening.”
He disappeared into the crowd, and ceased again to exist.
I said to Harry, “I didn’t think you’d want to speak to him.”
“I didn’t. But I felt sorry for him. He was so alone.”
We saw him just once after that. The next day the UnionJack was formally raised over Suga’s head office at the topof the hill. I watched him stand at salute while our colorswent up. He stood alone, a little small man, the only Japa-nese amongst us. After the salute his sword was taken in sur-render.
The next day he was flown to Labuan, Borneo, head-quarters of the 9th Australian Division, to be questioned inregard to the mistreatment of prisoners in Borneo.
It was getting late now and photographers, correspondents,generals and captains, rescuers and rescued, were exhausted.George and I said good-bye to Harry at the entrance to hiscamp. George was tired, and I lifted him to my back and westarted down the road pickaback. Everybody was draggingalong to his camp now, completely exhausted. We hadn’t theemotional strength even to be rescued.
The camp was quieter than usual, even the children’sbarrack was quiet. We had supper and the children fell intobed. I wanted to make some notes about the day, but it wasdark, I could no longer see — and there was no further needfor secrecy.
I went across to the English Sisters’ barracks. There I foundMother. Aubon and said, “Could you possibly let me have alitde piece of candle to write by?” Canffies were priceless, butdie Sisters always had them for mass.
“It was a great day,” sighed Mother Aubon, producinga bit of candle from under many petticoats. “A very great day.Now you must go back and write something wonderftilabout it.”
I went home and lit the candle, and sat down and triedto write. I wanted inspired words, but I couldn’t find them.1 wanted some way of explaining to others what had hap-pened to us diat day. I wanted to tell them what it meant tobe captive, and then to be free.
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What it meant to be free! I saw again in my mind thefigure of Colonel Suga, who didn’t now even exist.
I put down the pencil and blew out the candle withouthaving written a word. I was tired in every part of me, mind,body, and soul. I lay down by George. His legs swarmedall over my side of the bed. I pushed and prodded my way inbeside him. He turned over in his sleep and started grindinghis teeth. Worms again, I thought.
I put my hand on his checks, which were cool, and felthis feet, which were warm; I touched his hair, which wassoft. There is nothing I can say as wonderful as George, Ithought, and went to sleep.
There was just one good thing about the road that led tothe women’s camp: you could see the blue-green hills ofKuching in the distance, hills that meant freedom to me.Today I look at those lulls and walk up that road to theprison square, a free woman.
This square has been the core of our prison. Here has takenplace the worst and the best of our time. In all my life tocome I must remember it as I have seen it, day by day, monthby month, year by year, with broken, starving, beaten menin it, half-naked, thin, and grim. With the Japanese sentrystaring blankly ahead, with Colonel Suga’s car racing past,with Japanese guards laughing in the road, with the sun beat-ing down. With George and myself hurrying past, eyesaverted from suffering, to Colonel Suga’s tea parties.
Into this square today we come to give thanks to God forfreedom. Both those who believe and those who do not be-lieve; we have aU learned to say our prayers.
All the prisoners who are able to walk are present, perhapsfifteen hundred, and there are many Australian soldiers andAmerican naval men. Three Padres who came with the Lib-erating Forces officiate. The service is to be nonsectarian;they distribute printed thanksgiving texts to us.
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The service begins. I have a text. I try at jSrst to followwith my lips and voice, as I do with my heart. Soon I can-not go on; I stand silent and shaken while the service pro-ceeds.
For years now I have been langhing, in order to hide mytears. Today laughter stops, and I cry.
I put my smoke-stained handkerchief over my eyes. Georgeholds my hand, he knows that something too great, too beau-tiful, too happy, too wonderful for words is happening to us.He knows there is more than the chocolate and milk, thebread and butter, the tins and the chewing gum, that hascome into Kuching with these soldiers. He knows thereis friendliness, love. He holds my hand, he squeezes it, heunderstands.
Not since the first week on Berhala Island has he seen mebreak. Then there were terror and strangeness and fright. To-day all about us is kindness, kind faces, protection, and love.Today in Kuching I weep tears of thanksgiving to God forHis blessing. Today my son is bom again into freedom andlove.
George and I leave the square and go hand in hand acrossto the men’s camp, where Harry is lying on his bed.
Here I meet an American naval captain whose home is inHollywood, close to where my home has been, near now tothat of my aunt. He gives me news of my world.
I learn now, by official communication, that my motherdied in 1943, without hearing that we were still alive. That atthe time of her death it was not believed that George and Icould survive the violence of war and the long period ofcaptivity. Harry hears that his father died in 1943. There isword that my brother is married.
Captain Hawkins insists now that I must send a letter hometo my aunt in Hollywood. This letter he will enclose in anair-mail letter to his wife.
He even puts the paper and pencil in my hands, saying:
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“Write it now. Go on, write it and send it home now. Pleasedo — Go on. My wife will see that your aimt gets it imme-diately.”
They are so kind, I think to myself, these young men areso kind and strong and sure of what to do. I hope my Georgewill be like that.
So I write out lethargically my first message from freedom.
We are all alive. George thin, but well. The day we have livedfor has come at last. There are no words to tell you what thismeans to us. I have no words to say what I feel. Peace and freedomat last. Thank God.
Twelve days afterward, this letter is received by my aunt inHollywood. I learn later that it is the first news of any sort totell our relatives we are alive and free. My aunt tells me thatwhen Mrs. Hawkins brought her the letter, she wept fromjoy.
It was George she thought of first, she said. “He is the fu-ture, he carries on the spark.” That went to my heart — it wasmy feehng throughout captivity: our children were the fu-ture, their lives at least had been worth fighting for.
The sick people were evacuated first from Kuching, and thefamilies with
children next. As Harry and I were walkingmalaria cases, and we had George, we qualified twice over fora quick release.
Early one morning Harry arrived at camp and we preparedfor immediate departure. We couldn’t take much luggage, sofirst we removed my notes from their hiding places and con-densed them. We ripped open George’s stuffed toys and sleep-ing mats, and broke open his false-bottomed stool. I crawledunder the barrack and unearthed rusty tins, and went to thelats and fished two bottles out of the drains. For the first timeI assembled what for three and a half years I had beendispersing.
These notes went back to the second night of imprisonmenton Berhala Island, when I had written by candlelight, “Wecannot live through many months of this!” These first entrieswere full of emotions, mostly unpleasant. As tune went on,they became less passionate and more disconsolate, then theybecame mere records. “Rice v-short, 5 tblsp. per day. Nosugar now. Salt ration discontinued. Traded Harry’s whitejersey for twelve eggs.” And at the end, to commemorate ourday of liberation, there is one sentence; “I have lived longenough, having seen this day.”
We unpacked these notes, and wrapped them in an Aus-
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tralian newspaper. They made a bundle about twelve inchesby twelve inches square, and six inches tall.
“Well, there it all is,” said Harry gloomily. “But I don’tthink you can take it in the plane.” Harry was always gloomyabout my luggage, whether it was twenty-three pieces on myfirst journey to Borneo, or a bundle of notes in prison camp.It is a principle with him to act as if I have too much luggageand too little sense. This old gloom about the luggage quiterejuvenated me. It reminded me of every trip we had evertaken together, even our honeymoon.
One thing that I had sworn to through imprisonment wasthat I would get my notes out, or die in the attempt. WhenHarry left for his camp, he picked up my bundle of notes,and said to my surprise, “I’U just put these in my own bag,to take on the plane as my luggage. You have enough to man-age with George.” Perhaps he was afraid I’d leave George,and take the diaries.
As soon as Harry left, an order arrived saying we were toleave immediately. “Leave everything,” it said, “especiallybedding.” (With bugs in mind.) “You are going to a RestCamp in Labuan, where everything is provided.” I couldn’tbelieve, after prison experience, that there was any place inthis world where living conditions would not be improvedby having George’s pot, an enamel mug, my wooden clogs, ablanket, a bottle of drinking water, and a pinch of salt, withme. But I left them.
We left camp by bus, and drove through Kuching, wherethe local natives and inhabitants cheered us on the way, andthe children almost fell off the truck waving. We arrived atthe landing field and saw in its bomb-torn condition an ex-planation of delayed air communications, for landings werestill perilous.
We were loaded into a C-47 Transport, which had beenstripped to its essentials. It was overloaded and slow, and ittook us three hours to get to Labuan. We were all very cheer-ful and ate Australian milk chocolate and smoked Australian
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cigarettes. I said that I longed for something fresh and green,and the pilot produced a half head of lettuce, and we dividedit out leaf by leaf. Then somebody said he would like to have
an apple again, and three apples appeared, and were dividedamongst us. The children all had turns with the pilot. I re-ceived the general impression that the kids flew the planemost of the way.
Mid-aftemoon we landed at Labuan.
Here at Labuan the fates of our ex-guards pursued us. Theyin their turn were now confined behind barbed wire, weremustered in labor squads and turned out to work, were putin the guardhouse and cells, for discipline.
Poker Face, the sergeant major, met with a fatal accident;Fish Face was beaten to death. The Wife Beater, Pimples,Little Pig, Swatow BiU, met with accidents. TB was placedin the cells, where he benefited by his Japanese lessons to usas to how the victor deals with the vanquished. The Fish-wife, who had always been athletic, was persuaded to run aninterminable race around the perimeter of the camp. Otherguards —Dopey Dick, Big Annie, the Yokel, Comic Cut,
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Stammering Stephen, Piano Legs, Mad Harry, the Weasel,and Benjo (latrine) Bill — were also given opportunities to ex-perience the punishments which fitted the crimes.
The fate of Tasty, the Japanese ration master, was an un-known one, but we hoped he was doing well. He had donemore to save us than many an AlHed bomb; he was our Num-ber One smuggler.
What happened to the young Formosan guard who hadtold me good-bye with tears I was unable to learn.
In general, the stories of the fate of our guards were toldand received with relish. A favorite internee theme in the olddays had been the description of how we were going to treatour captors when we were free. I had heard women say,“Wait until our turn comes! Then we’ll make them suffer asthey have made us. I should like to get hold of their Japanesewomen and children and make them live as we five!”
The ofiicers of the Kuching camp were taken for question-ing. Lieutenant Nekata attempted suicide, cut his throat, wasnursed back to life to await his trial. Dr. Yamamoto attemptedsuicide, was frustrated, repeated the attempt, and the finaloutcome I did not know. The other officers followed suit butdetermined efforts were made to defeat their suicides in orderto bring them to war crime trials.
Now in Labuan the last chapter was written of ColonelSuga. The last chapter of a little Japanese man, onetimegraduate from the University of Washington, patron of thearts, recipient of World War I Allied decorations; a mili-tary man with shaven head; a sick man with diabetes whoeats no sugar; a soldier who likes children; a little man witha big sword; a religious dilettante, born Shintoist and turningCatholic; a hero and a figure of ridicule; a Japanese patriot.Commander of All Prisoners of War and Internees in Bor-neo . . . and a human being. Now in Labuan is written theend of Colonel Suga. He cut his throat and bled to death in
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an Allied cell, on the day that Harry, George, and I leftKuching for freedom.
The end of his life, but not the answer to the query of hisbeing was he good, or was he bad? AVere we better off, orworse, under a W^estem-educated Japanese who knew West-ern ideas? Did he have more prejudice against us, knowingour racial prejudices? Could he have helped us? Did he try?
I shaU say first the good things that I know of him. He wascotirteous to all in the women’s camp, and kind personally tomany. He bowed when he might have beaten us, he smiledwhen he might have kicked. Courtesy does not fill emptystomachs, but it soothes worn nerves, and most Japanese offi-cers I met neither soothed nerves nor filled stomachs.
Colonel Suga’s picture of himself was as the cultured andbeneficent administrator of the ideal internment camp ofKuching. He was always kind to the children, often broughtthem biscuits and sweets, supplied means for their teaching,gave them what liberty he coHd. They all liked him
He had good and kindly impulses, and a real desire for in-terracial understanding. He was kind to me personally. I be-lieve that he saved my husband from death.
Against this, I place the fact that all the prisoners in Borneowere inexorably moving towards starvation. Prisoners of warand civilians were beaten, abused, and tortured. Daily livingconditions of prison camps were almost unbearable.
At Sandakan and Ranau and Brunei, North Borneo, batchesof prisoners in fifties and sixties were marched out to digtheir own graves, then shot or bayoneted and pushed into thegraves, many before they were dead. All over Borneo hun-dreds and thousands of sick, weak, weary prisoners weremarched on roads and paths until they fell from exhaustion,when their heads were beaten in with rifle butts and shovels,and split open with swords, and they were left to rot un-buned. On one march 2970 POW^s started, and three survived.
The Kuching prison camps were scheduled to march on
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September 15, 1945, had peace not intervened. It was
thisabandoned order which Colonel Suga had read to me on theday peace pamphlets were dropped.
I have since heard reports of other Japanese prison campsoutside of Borneo: in most of them conditions were betterthan ours, in few were they worse.
For these black chapters in captivity Colonel Suga, com-mander in Borneo, must be held responsible.
What his orders were I do not know. No doubt he mustobey them, or risk himself. Whether he attempted to save usI do not know, but I do know that it takes more even thanphysical courage to stand up for human values against patri-otic zeal, in wartime. Until the gun is held at your own head,until the whisper comes of “Traitor,” you caimot know whatyou will do.
Colonel Suga was accused by the Japanese of being preju-diced in our favor, and accused by us of unnecessary brutal-ity. We knew that he vanished on the eve of particularlycruel orders, given or carried out, as he had vanished whenhe knew Nekata was after me. In the cause of humanity, hemight have helped us, but in wartime the cause of humanityis lost.
In this weighing of a Japanese military man I consider twothings. First, that all these horrors which I have described arewar, which itself is a matter of life and death. War is theacceptance of suffering and atrocity, and the sacrifice of de-cency and good thinking. War itself is the crime against hu-manity. When we accept war we accept war crime; we thenhave no grounds to complain.
Second: We in Kuching suffered under Colonel Suga andthe Japanese. The entire family of Colonel Suga was wipedout by the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Colonel Suga himselfcut his throat in the AUied cells, in Labuan.
Honors in suffering and atrocities seem even.
When details of Colonel Suga’s death were made known inLabuan to the liberated prisoners of Kuching, the comments
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