Men were allowed daily showers. Women could bathe only three times a week. Often the icy water stored in buckets for early-morning face washing had to be broken apart before it could be splashed.
The Weihsien internees were not mandated to perform slave labor. They did not endure the dehumanizing sufferings that would later haunt the world in reports from the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. It became evident soon enough that the internees’ biggest adversary was not the war, the forces of nature, or even their Japanese captors. Their biggest enemy was the slow and painful truth incurvatus in se—each one’s selfish desire to curve inward and live for his or her own exclusive interests. This ugly reality unfolded quite rapidly, especially in a setting where sharing and working together seemed to be the only option and resources were scant. Those who doled out half cups of watered-down stew often took the brunt end of fury from the hungry being served. Exhausted women often threw dirty dishwater on those who worked beside them. And British secretaries who had been housed with older female missionaries found themselves at odds to the point of the freshly formed Camp Housing Committee having to referee their squabbles.
Most of the foreigners had come from white-collar backgrounds—businessmen, educators, lawyers, and engineers—most with their children in tow, as well as a large contingency of Catholic priests and nuns and the large missionary community. Almost everyone in the camp was used to employing the Chinese to perform all the difficult daily physical work for them. Cooking, cleaning, plumbing, maintenance, and the like had not been their practice or their forte.
The finer, nobler pursuits in life had always come at the price of the common man grinding out the raw work of life via blood and sweat. Now a group of people almost completely unprepared for the task was left to fend for themselves. As if the challenge were not complicated enough, eleven nationalities were represented within the large group. Learning by the minute how to coexist became a psychological chess match, calculating each minuscule move to conquer a new small space. But coexist they must. The internees quickly realized the need to work together if they wanted to survive at all. They organized a hospital, formed kitchens, and determined schedules for menial tasks such as potato peeling and latrine scrubbing.
Daily roll call formed at 7:30 a.m. and again in the evening, and each call took enough time for all the prisoners to reach their “roll call district,” followed by strict lineups. Prisoners wore their numbers pinned to their chests, and after they were numbered off, they remained in line until the guards tallied the counts from each of the six districts. Between roll calls, however, the men, women, and children of Weihsien were free to do as they pleased. This meant organized school for the children, but for the adults it meant something even more detailed.
The question of a democratic election process had been debated, but the lack of who’s-who knowledge and communication complicated the endeavor. A management committee for the camp was finally appointed under the direction of the Japanese commandant, a civil officer, and the military police. The established departments were discipline, education, entertainment and athletics, employment, engineering and repairs, finance, general affairs, medical, quarters and accommodation, and supplies.
Individuals who were physically able had assignments during the day with a rotation of responsibilities. Much like the apostle Paul, Eric possessed the rare ability to remain content in all situations. His assignments were half-time teacher of mathematics and half-time director of athletics. He was also considered “warden” of blocks 23 and 24, two large buildings housing some 230 people. Eric served as a tremendous impromptu mediator between the Japanese guards and several of the hotheaded internees, often using humor to defuse tension.
Two weeks after his arrival at Weihsien, Eric sent a twenty-five-word letter to Florence via the Red Cross, which stated, “Simple hardy life under primitive conditions. Living with Josh and Bear in small room. Good fellowship, good games. Teaching in school, food sufficient, boundless love.”[86]
The Catholic clergy quickly became cherished members of the Weihsien camp as they were the only ones brave and willing enough to deal with the overflowing latrine situation. Armed with shovels, mops, and face masks, they went to work. Members of the engineering and repairs department were then able to develop a rigged system of decent plumbing that alleviated the maddening demand.
Unless an individual possessed a clearly specialized and necessary practical skill, creative solutions were employed. Lawyers baked, businessmen cleaned, and missionaries washed. Annie Buchan served with the medical personnel and brought the hospital back into decent shape. Eric and Cullen established a school and a Sunday school, and Eric managed to develop an active athletic community and Bible study groups. Eric naturally sought to establish rapport with the youth in the camp amid a climate of constant irritation, menial tasks, and general insufficiency. When he wasn’t working with the younger children on their math and science or coaching sports, he aided the young men and women who had completed high school and needed to prepare for university.
The persistent wear and tear on the people showed on their quickly soiled and worn-down outerwear. Such was their adjustment to prison-camp life. Years later, a fellow internee stated in a letter to D. P. Thomson that
I was trudging wearily, laden with two heavy suitcases and feeling desperately hungry and tired after two bad days on a Chinese coastal steamer, down the rough path within the Japanese Internment Camp in Weihsien, North China. We were being shown our dormitory, an empty, barn-like room, and were feeling utterly miserable. Suddenly the person who was helping me along whispered, “Don’t stare now, but the man coming towards you is Eric Liddell.”
I was too limp to connect the oncoming stranger with the “well-known” Olympic athlete of some years before, but I glanced aside to note the man on the path. He was not very tall, rather thin, very bronzed with sun and air. He was wearing the most comical shirt I had ever seen, though I was to get quite accustomed to similar garments in that place. It was made, I learned later, from a pair of Mrs. Liddell’s curtains. But what struck me most about him was his very ordinary appearance. He didn’t look like a famous athlete, or rather he didn’t look as if he thought of himself as one. That, I came to know in time, was one of the secrets of his amazing way. He was surely the most modest man who ever breathed.[87]
Langdon Gilkey had a keen eye for observing human behavior. He wrote years later,
In such a situation, the more basic human virtues suddenly claimed their rightful place. A man’s excellence was revealed by his willingness to work, his skill at his job, his fundamental cheerfulness. On a kitchen shift or kneading dough in the bakery, any sane man would rather have next to him an efficient hard worker who could laugh and be warmly tolerant of his fellows, than to have there the most wealthy and sophisticated slacker or grumbler. After working or living beside a man for months, who cared—or even remembered—whether he was Belgian, British, or Parsee? Thus in a very short time people became to us personalities, pleasant or unpleasant, hard working or lazy, rather than the British, Eurasians, or Americans that they were when we first met them.[88]
Disenchanted by the missionary community in the camp, Gilkey also cited Bertolt Brecht, from The Threepenny Opera: “For even saintly folk will act like sinners, unless they have their customary dinners.”[89] It was painfully obvious to Gilkey that even Christian missionaries were sinners. They struggled at times even more glaringly than numerous others in the daily grind of the camp.
Apathy toward religion spread quickly when it was realized that the Christian missionaries were complaining noticeably louder than the nonbelieving community and that they were occasionally more obstinate toward adaptation.
Eric Liddell, however, didn’t fit in with that crowd.
Mary Taylor Previte, the great-granddaughter of J. Hudson Taylor (who founded the China Inland Mission), had been only nine when the Japanese rounded up her siblings, her teachers, and herself from their boarding school in
Chefoo. In her writings about her time in Weihsien, she fondly remembers “Uncle Eric,” saying,
Almost everyone in camp had heard of Eric Liddell. The folklore about him seemed almost bigger than life. . . . But Uncle Eric wasn’t a Big Deal type; he never sought the spotlight. Instead, he made his niche by doing little things other people hardly noticed. You had to do a lot of imagining to think that Liddell had grabbed world headlines almost 20 years earlier, an international star in track and rugby.
When we had a hockey stick that needed mending, Uncle Eric would truss it almost as good as new with strips ripped from his sheets. When the teenagers got bored with the deadening monotony of prison life and turned for relief to the temptations of clandestine sex, he and some missionary teachers organized an evening game room. When the Tientsin boys and girls were struggling with their schoolwork, Uncle Eric coached them in science. And when Kitchen Number One competed in races in the inter-kitchen rivalry, well, who could lose with Eric Liddell on our team?[90]
Eric was gentle above all else. He looked for opportunities to serve others within the camp, often ignoring his own needs for the sake of others. As one of his fellow detainees said of him years later, “He lived a far better life than his preaching.”[91]
Rooming in Weihsien brought its own varied issues. Two men who had not gotten along outside of the camp were placed together—and who knew for how long? They found a quick and courteous solution: they hadn’t spoken to each other before Weihsien; they’d simply continue along that same path inside the camp.
When it came to lights out, Cullen found himself in a new and different place. The men in his dorm—once asleep—snored and issued other loud grunts and groans. He found it difficult to fall asleep until he discovered a new method—he got into bed, closed his eyes, and imagined driving down his favorite roads in England.
Young and inexperienced Langdon Gilkey found himself in another quandary. As a member of the housing committee, he was called one evening to deal with a squabble in one of the ladies’ dorms. There he found older missionary women in a standoff with younger British secretaries.
“What seems to be the problem here?” Gilkey asked, noting the cuts and scrapes the women had inflicted on one another.
“We’re tired of hearing of their prayers,” one of the younger women barked.
“And we’re tired of hearing of your previous sexual escapades,” an older woman responded.
The conflict restarted, with Gilkey unsure how to respond. Finally, he raised his hands and said, “I’ll have the committee examine this issue.”
The looks on the women’s faces indicated he would next wear the results of their fury, so he quickly turned and left the premises.
But not everyone found discontent. Those who had had enough foresight to bring flower and vegetable seeds from home shared with those who had not. Soon enough, prison neighbors dug into the earth alongside each other, planting seeds. Over time, with proper watering and tending, the blooms of flowers and vegetables brought color—and food—to Weihsien.
Queries of what—if any—practical purpose religion served rose in different pockets and corridors of the camp. After the behavior of some of the missionaries, the relevance of faith had been the subject of fervent debate.
Not that this was anything new. The value of religion in the secular world had always been a controversial subject. A growing mass within the camp seemed open to the idea that religion in the arduous environment of the camp should remain an afterthought, especially when life-essential work had to be done.
Eric knew the pressure of the situation was building and that certainly faith in Christ was the essential need in life. Instilling heavenly thinking in an earthly context had always been the trick.
After the Chefoo children arrived, Eric stepped into the ministry that would prove to be his last. Although he could not be with his own children, he now supervised the younger children’s dormitory. This required him to move from the room he shared with Bear and Josh into a larger dorm that housed four missionaries, two missionaries’ sons, and six businessmen altogether.
Eric received two notable letters from Florence after he entered Weihsien. The first was long and detailed. In it, Flo described the living room she sat in with all the well-wishers cheering Eric to come home soon and the fun antics and intricacies of living with extended family.
Toward the end of her correspondence, Florence came to the meat of her missive:
Well honey, I suppose you might be interested in hearing about your own family! They are growing like weeds and it gives me a queer feeling to realize they really belong to me. Patricia is quite the young lady and is so pleased with herself because she has learned to swim—roller-skate and ride a bicycle this summer. Heather still likes to keep her toe on the ground when she swims. Tricia’s hair is still short and curly and she has a lovely little figure and she is as quick as ever on her feet. So is Heather. Her hair is as straight as ever. . . . She is far more inquisitive than Tricia and is most interested in the why and wherefore of everything—on the whole they are angelic and are a great help with Maureen.
Maureen is a wee minx and is a great joy to us all. She carries herself very straight and has such a determined walk. She is as happy as ever. I wish you could see her trying to make herself heard above the babel of the older children. . . . The children miss you so and are always talking about when you come home.[92]
Florence concluded with an endearing personal note for her husband:
Oh Eric, my thoughts and prayers are ever with you and I long for the time when we’ll be able to live as a family again. But as I said before, I’m sure we have both learned a great deal and had a lot of experiences that we would not have missed for anything. We will appreciate our life together all the more and in the meantime, we have some wonderful memories to live on. . . . Yours, forever and a day, Florence.[93]
Eric would read and reread the letter as if it were treasured Scripture. Then he would see the bleak camp, which beset him on all sides. He kept Florence’s letter tucked into his pocket, as close to his heart as possible.
Toward the end of 1943, Eric received a twenty-five-word Red Cross note from his wife. “Daddy died peacefully Nov 13th,” it read. “Failing since pneumonia summer. Margaret, Finlay, Louise here. Overwhelmed kindness friends, relatives. Mother magnificent—continuing here—all well. Dearest Love.”[94]
The pain of Flossie’s words gripped him. She’d lost her father; he’d lost his friend.
Worse still, he had not and could not be there to hold and comfort his dearest love.
[86] “The Story of Eric Liddell: Olympic Champion—Man of Courage,” Day of Discovery, season 32, episode 22, aired December 5, 1999 (Grand Rapids, MI: Day of Discovery, 2008), DVD.
[87] D. P. Thomson, Scotland’s Greatest Athlete: The Eric Liddell Story (Barnoak, Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland: Research Unit, 1970), 192.
[88] Langdon Gilkey, Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women under Pressure (New York: HarperCollins, 1966), 35.
[89] Ibid., 111.
[90] Mary Taylor Previte, “A Song of Salvation at Weihsien Prison Camp,” Weihsien Picture Gallery, August 25, 1985, http://www.weihsien-paintings.org/Mprevite/inquirer/MPrevite.htm.
[91] David McCasland, Eric Liddell: Pure Gold: A New Biography of the Olympic Champion Who Inspired Chariots of Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 2001), 285.
[92] Florence Liddell to Eric Liddell, unpublished letter, August 23, 1943.
[93] Ibid.
[94] David McCasland, Eric Liddell: Pure Gold: A New Biography of the Olympic Champion Who Inspired Chariots of Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 2001), 265.
CHAPTER 23
DISCIPLESHIP
In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.
Titus 2:7
-8, NIV
Early Winter 1943
Eric grinned in spite of the meaning behind the words the children sang—a song he knew they’d composed to help them deal with the facts of their lives.
“We might have been shipped to Timbuktu,” the song repeated into its second round.
“We might have been shipped to Kalamazoo. It’s not repatriation . . . nor is it yet stagnation . . . it’s only concentration . . . in Chefoo!”
They’re so young, he thought. Too young to spend their days of now-lost innocence within the electric fence of an internment camp. To go to bed and wake up hungry. To be forced to wear the threadbare hand-me-downs of the clothes the other students had outgrown.
Running barefoot over the dusty streets of Weihsien during the summer months was one thing, but seeing their feet red and swollen in the bitter chill of winter was another.
“My feet are so cold, Uncle Eric,” Sarah, a pretty girl in her mid-teens, had said to him. “Do you think they’ll ever be warm again?”
He assured her that they would, even as he thanked God he’d put his own children on a ship sailing away from Asia and toward North America. This was precisely the reason why. They were without their father, yes, but they went to bed with full stomachs. Their feet were never cold. Not like this.
Sarah pulled at her blouse. “And look, Uncle Eric. I’m sixteen years old, and I’m wearing an old tablecloth when I should be in a pretty frock,” she said. “How depressing.”
True. Sixteen and wearing a tablecloth could certainly be considered an awful fate. But it didn’t have to be. Eric stretched the hem of his shirt toward her. “My wife’s curtains,” he told her, smiling.
The words brought the relief he’d hoped for. The girl laughed with a merriment that, despite her circumstances, reached her eyes.
The Final Race Page 19