A Multitude of Sins

by Margaret Pemberton

  Six hours later she went back down to the sickbay and reported for duty to the Repulse Bay’s resident nursing sister. The sister’s face was harrowed as she told Elizabeth that Second Lieutenant Peter Grounds had been killed while leading an attack on the hotel’s garage.

  ‘On the garage?’ Elizabeth had asked, stunned. ‘You mean the Japanese are in the grounds?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ the nursing sister said grimly. ‘And they had prisoners with them. Second Lieutenant Grounds led a very brave attack on the garage to free the men the Japanese were blatantly ill-treating and, though the attack succeeded and the Japanese have been flushed out, Second Lieutenant Grounds died in the confrontation.’

  From then on the hotel was in an atmosphere of siege. Adam helped the staff and guests to sandbag the windows, and when one of the guests, a Dutch engineer, suggested that they use a large drain as an air-raid shelter Adam was in keen agreement with him. The drain was more than big enough, at least eight feet in diameter, and it ran from the rear of the hotel, beneath the road, emptying out on to the beach. All through Saturday, and Saturday night, everyone who was able worked under the Dutchman’s direction, inserting an entrance and ventilation shafts. By the time Raefe and the men from the Middlesex returned from their bloody and abortive attempt to rid the gap of Japanese, women and children from the hotel were sheltering snugly in the drain, equipped with sandwiches and coffee and temporarily safe from the shells which were now landing with terrifying frequency.

  ‘This isn’t like a usual Sunday at the Repulse Bay, is it?’ Adam said drily to Elizabeth the next day as he helped the Dutchman tap a central-heating pipe for water. The hot-water system had been turned off owing to lack of fuel, but as the hotel‘s water-supplies were dwindling fast the water in the boilers and the pipes could not be allowed to go to waste.

  Elizabeth smiled wearily. It certainly wasn’t. She remembered the Sunday pre-lunch drinks they had enjoyed with Ronnie and Julienne, and Helena and Alastair, and Tom, with Ronnie gustily leading them into a rip-roaring rendering of ‘There’ll Always Be an England.’ Now there was no singing. The stink of unflushed lavatories permeated every room; the cocktail bar and the card room and the dining-room were full of weary soldiers, exhausted after their hopeless expedition to the gap.

  Raefe ran towards them. ‘We’re coming under sniper-fire from the rear of the hotel,’ he shouted urgently to Adam. ‘We need your ability as a marksman to try to pick them off.’

  Adam’s face tightened, not because of Raefe’s presence, but with resolution. ‘Just let me have the chance!’ he said fiercely, grabbing the rifle that Raefe thrust at him. ‘Where are the bastards?’

  ‘About fifty yards away, on the west side.’ Raefe gave Elizabeth’s shoulder a quick squeeze and then spun on his heel, breaking into a run after Adam.

  That night, Major Robert Templar of the Royal Artillery was sent by Fortress Headquarters from the Stanley Peninsula to take command of the various units milling beneath the hotel’s roof. The situation was blatantly desperate. A party of Volunteers had fallen back on to the hotel earlier in the day, telling of bitter fighting taking place not only in the centre of the island, but all along the southern coast as well. They had been part of East Brigade’s last desperate attempt to recapture the Gap, and they were all that was left of their party.

  ‘You’ll be pleased to see one of them,’ Raefe had said to Elizabeth as he directed the line of fire from a sandbagged window. ‘It’s Derry.’

  ‘Derry!’ She had run down the candlelit corridors to the main lounge where the newcomers were drinking preciously rationed coffee and taking what rest they could. He looked for all the world as if it were any normal Sunday evening. His tin helmet was crammed on his sun-bleached hair at a rakish angle, giving him the look of a medieval pikeman. His raw-boned handsome face was smeared with dust and smoke, but his grin was wide, his eyes undefeated.

  ‘Derry!’ she cried, squeezing past half a dozen soldiers and a squalling Chinese toddler. ‘Derry! How wonderful!’

  He swung her up in his arms, whirling her around, smacking a large kiss on her cheek. ‘You look as beautiful as ever,’ he said appreciatively, ‘but do you think that grey is really your colour?’

  She had giggled and felt for one brief delirious moment that the world had returned to sanity. And then she remembered Julienne. He saw the expression on her face change, and with dreadful premonition his own smile faded.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded, the hair on the back of his neck rising. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Julienne,’ she said, stepping away from him, her voice thick with pain. ‘She’s been murdered by the Japanese.’

  He had stared at her disbelievingly for a moment, and then with an anguished cry he had turned, forcing his way back through the crowded lounge and out into the darkness.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ Adam said later to her. ‘Where did he go? We need every able-bodied man we have to defend the rear of the hotel.’

  Elizabeth thought of the dark hills outside the hotel, infested with Japanese. ‘I think’, she said slowly, ‘that he’s gone to kill all the Japs that he can.’

  For the next twenty-four hours she hardly saw Adam and Raefe, and Derry did not return. A three-man committee had been formed to try to bring some order to the chaos, but there were some problems that were insurmountable. Food and water were fast running out. By dusk on the 22nd, there were only enough rations left for a further two days. Many of the sick and injured desperately needed the services of a doctor, but despite many agonized requests over the telephone to Fortress Headquarters there was no doctor that could be spared. The sanitation was abominable, and if it hadn’t been for the Dutchman organizing parties of volunteers with pails Elizabeth was sure that an epidemic would have broken out.

  When the order came through from Fortress Headquarters on the Monday night that all troops were to evacuate the hotel and leave the civilians to the mercy of the Japanese, she was horrified. ‘But it’s an invitation to murder,’ she said to Raefe, aghast. ‘How can Headquarters even suggest it?’

  ‘Because it’s the only hope there is of saving lives,’ he said, hoping to God that he was speaking the truth. ‘Our position here is untenable. There is no way that we can fight our way out. The Japs are in the grounds and all around us. When they close in for the kill, it will mean the annihilation of everyone within the hotel’s walls.’

  ‘And if the troops leave?’

  ‘Then, as civilians, the guests and staff will have a slight chance of survival,’ he said tautly, knowing the gamble that was being taken. If the Japs about to storm them were the same troops who had stormed the dressing station, then the chance of anyone surviving was slim.

  She was silent for a moment and then said, her voice so low he could hardly hear her: ‘Will you be going with the troops? Is this goodbye for us again?’

  He took her hands, holding them tightly in his. ‘I’m leaving with the troops and I’m taking you with me.’

  She gasped, staring up at him bewilderedly.

  ‘Not only is the hotel untenable,’ he said grimly, the whole island is untenable. There can be no alternative to an eventual surrender. When that happens, my orders are clear. To evade capture and escape, and I’m certainly not leaving you behind to face the Japanese. Not after what happened to Julienne. From now on, where I go you come as well.’

  The exodus of troops took place at 1 a.m. the following day. All alcohol in the hotel was carefully destroyed so that the Japanese would not be tempted into a drunken orgy of raping and looting. The last telephone message was received from Fortress Headquarters and then the telephone lines were ripped from the walls. The evacuation was to be made via the drain tunnel leading to the beach, and then south across country to Stanley, where the Japanese had not yet penetrated. As the troops assembled, all in stockinged feet so that they would make less noise, Adam took Raefe to one side. ‘Beth’s told me what you plan to do if there’s a s
urrender. I’m coming with you. I want to continue the fight against these murdering bastards, and I won’t be able to do that if I’m stuck in a prison camp somewhere. I will be able to do it from Chungking.’

  Raefe’s hesitation was fractional. Adam’s leg injury was a nuisance, but not gravely incapacitating. And he was a fearless fighter. Two of them would be able to give far greater protection to Elizabeth than one of them could. ‘All right,’ he rasped. ‘If it comes to it, we go together.’

  Slowly and apprehensively, the troops began to file out towards the drain.

  ‘Been nice knowing you, Nurse,’ one of the cockney Middlesex said to Elizabeth, never imagining for a moment that she was going to go with them.

  ‘See you in good old London town,’ another said, giving her an appreciative wink.

  One of the Volunteers, leaving with the rest of the troops, hesitated at the last moment and then changed into a suit of civilian clothes and disappeared upstairs. ‘Put his trousers and jacket on,’ Raefe said tersely to Elizabeth. ‘You’ll be far less conspicuous.’

  They waited until the end of the line and then, wishing the white-faced apprehensive civilians luck, they slipped into the drain, aware that the Japanese were only feet above their heads.

  Emerging in the darkness of the beach, they ran, taking whatever cover they could, to the Lower Beach Road and on past the Lido until they reached the main Island Road. No shots were fired at them. No Japanese were laying in wait.

  ‘We’ve done it!’ Adam whispered exultantly to Raefe. ‘We’ve slipped past them!’

  In the still darkness a familiar voice could be faintly heard. It was the redoubtable Dutchman, and he was shouting out into the darkness from the hotel: ‘Come in… come in… No soldiers here! No soldiers here!’

  They paused for a moment, overcome with fear for those they had left behind, and then the long line of figures once more broke out into a steady run, off the road, into the hills, and over the rough treacherous ground to Stanley.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  They reached Stanley Village at six in the morning, and by the time they did so every one of those who had fled the hotel knew that the battle they were waging was hopeless. The Japanese had control of all the high ground, and they had come under heavy sniper-fire several times. At one point, as they had skirted South Bay, they had stumbled over the bodies of dead Canadians, their hands tied behind their backs, their bayonet wounds hideous witness to the way they had died.

  The brigadier in charge of the troops assembling in Stanley for a last-ditch stand was adamant that he would keep on fighting, even if it meant doing so with his hands and fists.

  ‘And it looks as if he’ll have to,’ Raefe said sombrely to Adam. ‘There are hardly any mortars and no mortar-bombs. All the heavy machine-guns have been knocked out, there are some spare rifles, a small quantity of hand-grenades and bayonets, and that’s all.’

  ‘Then, it will have to do us,’ Adam said, his jaw set hard. ‘I just wish to God we could catch some sleep before we go into action again.’

  ‘You’ve no chance,’ Raefe said with his old grin. ‘The Japs are on Stanley Mound, and that’s where we’re going now, with the Royal Rifles.’

  Adam wiped his hand across his forehead. He was exhausted to the point of collapse. His shoulder hurt and his leg throbbed, but he would have died rather than let the younger man know how beaten he felt. The minute they arrived in Stanley, Beth had offered her services to the overworked dressing station, and seeing her hurry off, uncomplaining about her long days and nights without sleep, and the arduous walk they had just endured, he had wondered if he would ever see her again.

  A barrage of shells exploded uncomfortably near to them. ‘Come on,’ Raefe said, his grin dying. ‘Let’s show the bastards the battle isn’t over yet.’

  Elizabeth swayed with fatigue. There was nowhere for the wounded to be evacuated to. Apart from small isolated pockets of resistance, the Japanese had control of the entire island. Bombing had cut the water-mains, and the water-tanks had been hit by shell-fire. Nearly the only thing that could be done for the hideously maimed men was to pour sulphur into their gaping wounds.

  All through the long bomb-blasted day, she remained at her post, not knowing where Adam and Raefe were, praying that they were still alive.

  ‘My arm!’ a young boy was screaming. ‘Aaaahhh, my arm! Please, please, somebody help me. Oh, my arm!’

  Running across to him, Elizabeth could see that the trooper’s arm had been riddled by shrapnel from an exploding shell and was hanging in shreds, blood pouring out of the terrible wounds.

  ‘Staunch the bleeding, Nurse,’ the medical officer said to her tersely. ‘Let’s see if we can save it or not.’

  By nightfall her hands were slippery with blood. The shell-fire was almost ceaseless, and the Japanese on Stanley Mound had not been forced into a retreat. Instead, they were steadily gaining ground.

  ‘There’s only one way we can go now,’ one of the wounded men said to her bitterly as she dressed his leg, ‘and that’s into the bloody sea!’

  Up on the smoke-blackened slopes of Stanley Mound, Raefe and Adam fought side by side, exhorting each other forward, firing their rifles until their rifles were too hot to hold.

  ‘Watch your fronts, men!’ Raefe yelled suddenly. ‘There’s another wave of them coming!’

  He saw Adam drop to one knee, firing at the chest of the Jap who was leading the charge. The shot went wild, and as Raefe pulled the pin from a grenade, holding it for as long as he dared and then hurling it underarm into their midst, he was aware that the Japanese officer was nearly on top of Adam.

  Adam staggered to his feet, the Jap too near for him to take aim and fire. Desperately he grasped his rifle by the barrel, wielding it club-fashion. The Jap knocked it contemptuously aside, and as Adam fell there was the gleam of a sword raised high above his head. With a blood-curdling toy that put the Japanese shrieks of ‘Banzai! Banzai!’ to shame, Raefe hurled himself at Adam’s attacker, circling his neck with his good arm, wrenching it back until it broke and the Jap fell against him like a rag-doll. He had his back to the enemy for a second too long. The bullet hit him in his right shoulder, spinning him round, and then Adam was giving him covering fire as they ran and leaped to the nearest dip of ground they could find.

  ‘It’s Christmas Day in the morning, Nurse,’ an injured cockney who had trekked with them from the hotel said, incredulity in his voice. ‘It don’t seem possible, do it?’

  Elizabeth stared down at him. The days and nights had long since merged into one. Christmas. She thought of Christmas two years ago; of walking the sun-drenched streets of Perth with Raefe; of Roman Rakowski giving them the painting of the boy David.

  ‘No,’ she said, hardly able to speak for weariness. ‘It doesn’t seem possible at all.’

  Towards dawn she was able to snatch a couple of hours of desperately needed sleep, and when she awoke it was to the news that Stanley Mound had fallen to the Japanese and that a retreat was going to be made to Stanley Fort at the very tip of the Peninsula.

  ‘Did Captain Elliot and Captain Harland return?’ she asked fearfully.

  Her informant gave a hopeless shake of his head. ‘God only knows,’ he said despairingly. ‘It’s a shambles.’ And then, as an afterthought: ‘Merry Christmas. I’ve spent better, haven’t you?’

  It was lunch-time before she knew for certain that they were both still alive.

  ‘I’ve just dug a bullet out of Captain Elliot’s shoulder,’ one of the medical orderlies said. ‘He’s lost a lot of blood but he insisted on returning to the front.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have been hit at all,’ one of the Volunteers who had been fighting with them said, ‘not if he hadn’t broken the neck of the Jap about to decapitate Captain Harland.’

  Elizabeth put out a hand to steady herself. ‘Is Captain Harland safe? Is he hurt?’

  ‘No,’ the Volunteer said cheerfully. ‘He was going like the bloody cla
ppers the last time I saw him. The British bulldog at its best, that’s Captain Harland. He can certainly show some of the youngsters a thing or two!’

  Just after lunch she heard the rumours that there had been a general surrender, but the fighting around them continued. ‘The Brigadier won’t believe it,’ one of the medical orderlies said crisply. ‘Says he’s fighting on until he receives orders in writing that he’s to stop.’

  Two hours later a staff car carrying a British staff officer and flying a white flag crossed the enemy line to Brigadier Wallis’s headquarters. Minutes later the men were listening, stunned, as they were bitterly told that Hong Kong Island had surrendered to the Japanese.

  ‘By order of His Excellency the Governor and General Officer Commanding, His Majesty’s forces in Hong Kong have surrendered,’ a young captain read from the order Wallis had issued to all the units under his command. ‘On no account will firing or destruction of equipment take place as otherwise the lives of British hostages will be endangered. Units will organize themselves centrally forthwith.’

  Elizabeth stood, the tears streaming down her cheeks. It was over. All the fighting and all the suffering had been in vain. Hong Kong had fallen. The Japanese were triumphant.

  When the advancing Japanese had disappeared into the darkness, Ronnie had begun to drag himself forward, inch by inch, aware that blood was coursing freely from the wound at the back of his neck and that, try as he might, he could not raise himself to his knees, let alone to his feet. As dawn broke, he heaved and hauled himself on to the dust-blown road and then, his last reserves of energy expended, lay semi-conscious, face down, praying that the vehicle to discover him would be British.

  ‘We thought you were a goner, mate,’ a voice was saying jovially, and he was aware of excruciating pain in his neck and his head as he was bounced and shaken. ‘Then I recognized that blond thatch of yours and I said: “Cor blimey, if it ain’t Ronnie Ledsham.” We’d still have left you where you were, but Lance-Corporal Davis said he badly wanted a word with you. Something about a horse that he put a week’s money on and that limped home last.’