For the first time Li Pi’s suffering showed in his eyes. The thought of Elizabeth’s brilliant talent being snuffed out by the blast of a Japanese bomb was almost more than he could bear. ‘I do not know,’ he said fearfully. ‘The local ARP men told me that one body was found. A girl’s body. But they said that she was Chinese.’
They looked at each other, both knowing the mistakes that were so easily made when bodies were hastily removed from blasted buildings. ‘We must pray,’ Li Pi said, sensing how deep her concern for Elizabeth was. ‘It is all that we can do now.’
For the next four days Lamoon had prayed. She had prayed for Tom, and for Helena and for Elizabeth. And she had prayed for herself and Li Pi and the children. On the day after Boxing Day, when the Japanese had stormed into the hotel, the children had clung to her fearfully.
‘We’re not going to be taken away from you, are we?’ Jeremy had whispered, and Jennifer had begun to whimper, holding on to Lamoon’s skirt, her eyes big and wide as bandy-legged Japanese had swarmed through the rooms with fervent shouts of ‘Long live the Emperor!’
‘No,’ Lamoon had said to him reassuringly, her heart hammering painfully as she wondered what she would do if such an attempt was made.
‘All American, all British, all Dutch together,’ the Japanese officer in charge ordered.
‘What is to happen to us?’ a young American woman asked bravely. ‘Where are our husbands?’
The Jap found her last question beneath contempt and did not deign to reply to it. ‘You are going to Japanese internment camp,’ he said magnanimously. ‘All things there will be good. Food will be plentiful and conditions will be pleasant. I hope that you appreciate this kindness from the Imperial Japanese Army. As you know, the soldiers of Nippon are always kind to women.’
No one listening to him believed him. As the Europeans were pushed and jostled together, the Chinese refugees who had taken shelter with them were driven at bayonet point out into the street.
‘I must go,’ Li Pi said to Lamoon unsteadily, releasing his hold of the children’s hands. ‘They may allow you to stay with them, but they will never allow me. I cannot cause an incident. Not in front of the little ones. Joi Gin.’ Goodbye.
‘No!’ She tried to catch hold of his arm, but he had gone, and as she took a step after him a Jap bore down on her, a bayonet in his hand.
‘All Chinese out!’ he shouted, seizing her shoulder.
Jennifer tightened her hold on Lamoon’s skirts, beginning to cry. Jeremy stood white-faced. ‘Let go of her!’ he said bravely to the savage-looking Jap. ‘Don’t you dare to hurt her!’
Lamoon, terrified that he would be hurt, began tearfully to try to disentangle Jennifer from her skirt, and the young American, who had asked what was to happen to them, stepped forward. ‘That young woman is not Chinese,’ she said authoritatively, not knowing if Lamoon was or not. ‘She is Eurasian, and those children are hers. She must be allowed to remain with them.’
The Jap paused, uncertain.
‘That is correct,’ the nurse who had been anxious at Li Pi’s guardianship of them said with equal certainty. ‘If we go into internment, she must be allowed to come with us. And the children also.’
The Jap hesitated for a moment and then nodded. ‘You go with others,’ he said to Lamoon. ‘But you bow to Japanese officer. Everyone must bow to Japanese officer!’
Lamoon bowed, tears stinging her eyes as the children huddled at either side of her. For the moment she and the children would remain together, but what would happen to Li Pi? How would he survive the harsh brutality that the Japanese were meting out to the Chinese?
The American woman crossed the room towards her, defying the Japanese order that she remain subserviently stationary. ‘Come along,’ she said forcefully. ‘Stay with me. We don’t want you being separated from the rest of us again, do we?’
Lamoon smiled gallantly through her tears. She had found a friend. She was determined that she would also find Helena. And one day, if God was willing, she would also find Tom and Li Piagain. ‘Thank you,’ she said, with a hint of her habitual shyness. ‘I would like that very much.’ And with the children’s hands clasped tightly in her own she crossed the room to where the European women were waiting for instructions as to where they were to go.
Only the thought of the children, the absolute necessity of surviving in order that she might be reunited with them, enabled Helena to endure the days and nights after the Japanese ransacked the hospital. At one point she had been forced to lie on the bodies of the dead while the Japanese had abused her again and again and again. When news had come that she was being taken across to Hong Kong Island to be interned in a civilian camp at Stanley, she had sobbed with relief.
The ferries had been crowded with numbed dazed civilians, the women’s eyes black-shadowed at the experiences they had undergone. Helena barely recognized the harbour. The water was green and dirty, full of the wreckage of junks and sampans, and thick with floating distended corpses. She averted her eyes, lifting them upwards towards the towering grandeur of the Peak, taking comfort in its enduring beauty.
Trucks ferried them down towards Stanley, the scenes of devastation so dreadful that many of the women began to weep. Bodies still lay unrecovered on the hillside, burned-out remains of jeeps and trucks bearing silent witness to the ferocity of the fighting that had taken place.
At the gates of what had once been a large rambling gaol, they halted. There was a great mass of civilians already there, suitcases by their sides, pathetic bundles of personal belongings tucked beneath their arms.
‘Where are they from?’ Helena asked urgently, feverishly searching the bewildered defeated faces for a glimpse of Elizabeth. For a glimpse of Jeremy and Jennifer.
‘Heaven only knows,’ the elderly lady crammed next to her said. ‘Victoria probably or Repulse Bay. I heard there were a lot of civilians trapped at Repulse Bay.’
She couldn’t see the distinctive gleam of Elizabeth’s pale gold hair, but suddenly she saw a lone Oriental face. A very beautiful face. ‘Lamoon!’ she shouted, leaning over the side of the truck and waving furiously. ‘Lamoon!’
Lamoon’s head turned swiftly in Helena’s direction, and then as Helena continued to call her name and wave furiously, and as Lamoon saw who it was calling out to her, her face lit up with unalloyed joy and she began pushing and shoving through the milling crowd, towards the stationary truck.
‘Lamoon!’ Helena shouted again, and then she saw the tiny figure in Lamoon’s arms and the slightly bigger one running at her side, and tears of joy began to flood down her cheeks. ‘Oh God!’ she gasped, leaning out over the side of the truck, her arms outstretched. ‘Oh God! Thank you! Thank you!’
A guard was racing towards them, but by the time he roughly pushed Lamoon and Jeremy away from the truck Lamoon had thrust Jennifer up into her arms. She could see that Jeremy was undisturbed at the Jap’s action, too overcome by relief at seeing her again to care that he would have to wait a little longer before he could throw himself into her arms.
‘Let’s go in there defiantly,’ she shouted down to him as the gates opened and the trucks began to move forward. ‘Let’s go in there singing!’ And, pressing Jennifer’s cheek closely against hers, she began to sing in a clear lovely contralto: ‘There’ll always be an England.’
The motley assortment of civilians in the accompanying trucks and the civilians on foot took up the strain. ‘And England will be free!’ they sang out, their heads high, their hearts filled with determination to survive as they entered Stanley Gaol. ‘As long as England means to you what England means to me!’
Chapter Thirty
In the hours immediately following the surrender the men on the Stanley Peninsula were dazed and bewildered, exhausted beyond belief. Elizabeth continued to care for the wounded, crippled by guilt at the knowledge that she would soon be leaving them. Raefe made a final report to Brigadier Wallis, informing him of the instructions he had been given. Adam
hurriedly collected provisions for their long march.
‘The Brigadier wants us to take two men with us,’ Raefe said as they met together at dusk. ‘Captains Henry Bassett and Lawrence Fisher. Bassett speaks fluent Cantonese and Fisher is a doctor. Bassett, especially, will be useful if we should become split into two groups or if anything should happen to me.’ Elizabeth took a sharp intake of breath, but he ignored it, saying to Adam: ‘Are you sure you want to come? It’s going to be quite a trek.’
Adam knew that Raefe was obliquely referring to his lame leg. ‘I’m coming,’ he said staunchly. ‘I’ve lived with my lameness for years, and it’s never hindered me. It isn’t going to do so now just because it’s been peppered with shrapnel.’
Raefe didn’t argue. If Adam had been anyone else, he would have adamantly refused to have him as a member of the party. As it was, a strange bonding had been forged between them as they had fought and risked their lives for each other. And he couldn’t order Adam to stay behind. Not when he was going to take Elizabeth with him. ‘All right,’ he said tersely, knowing at least that Adam would give his life for Elizabeth if it became necessary. ‘What provisions have we got?’
They had tins of bully beef and sardines and condensed milk and, strangely, Quaker Oats. ‘It was all I could scrounge,’ Adam said apologetically.
Knowing how long it was since any of the hundreds of dispirited troops around them had eaten, no one argued with him.
‘When do we leave?’ Elizabeth asked quietly.
‘In an hour. When it’s dark. Bassett and Fisher are to meet up with us down on the beach.’
‘And where do we go first?’ Adam asked as Raefe spread a Crown Lands and Surveys Office map out on the ground before them.
‘We’re requisitioning the motor-boat that the Chinese have been trying to ferry provisions across the bay in. It’s old and it’s leaky, and it’s too great a risk to try to make for the mainland in it, but if we can reach Lamina Island there will be a motor torpedo-boat waiting for us off the west coast.’
Adam had long ago realized that Raefe had connections with military intelligence. If Raefe said there would be a motor torpedo-boat waiting for them, then he believed him.
‘With luck, the motor torpedo-boat will be able to land us at Mirs Bay, to the north-east of the New Territories. There are Chinese guerrilla forces in action there, and we should be able to rely on them for help.’
‘And then we walk?’ Adam asked, tracking the coastline on the map with his forefinger and halting when he reached the broad expanse of Mirs Bay.
Raefe nodded. ‘Sixty miles to Waichow. That will be the most difficult part of the journey. The ground is mountainous and it will be infested with Japs. From Waichow things should become easier. We’ll then be within the territory of the Chinese Regular Forces, and we’ll also be able to travel by boat The East River runs from Waichow to Leung Chuen, about two hundred miles further north. From there we will be on foot again until we reach Kukong, and from Kukong we should be able to travel to Chungking by rail.’
‘What will you do then?’ Adam asked him, squatting on his haunches and looking across at Raefe curiously.
‘My orders are to stay there and help the Chinese form British-led guerrilla units. There’s also going to have to be an organization established to arrange the escape of prisoners of war and internees from Hong Kong. If there is, I’d like to be a part of it.’
Adam remained silent. There was a British embassy in Chungking, and no doubt he would also find himself under orders, but he had no intimate knowledge of China and could not speak Cantonese. His orders certainly wouldn’t be the same as Raefe’s. He would probably be sent to India or Burma, somewhere where he would have to take a back seat until the war was over. It occurred to him that he would, in all likelihood, have Elizabeth with him. They were still husband and wife. He wondered if the same thought had also occurred to Raefe, but if it had he gave no sign of it.
His sleek black hair fell low across his brow, and his high-cheekboned face was weary. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, and Adam noticed that as he rose to his feet he did so without his usual pantherlike speed. The sling he had discarded so contemptuously shortly after leaving the Repulse Bay Hotel was still discarded but his bandaged arm and shoulder were obviously giving him pain. Adam felt a wave of apprehension flood through him. It was twelve hundred miles to Chungking, and without Raefe their chances of ever reaching it were virtually nonexistent. As they hoisted their haversacks on to their shoulders and began to walk down towards the beach, he took comfort from the fact that Raefe would not be attempting it if he wasn’t confident of success. He would put his own life at risk without so much as a second thought but he wouldn’t put Beth’s life at risk also.
From the darkened beach they could see fires raging intermittently all along the coastline. ‘The Japs are probably putting private houses to the torch,’ Captain Bassett said to them, and Elizabeth shivered, thinking of the home she and Raefe had shared and which she was now sure she would never see again.
Captain Bassett was a short, chunkily built young man with fair straight hair and a ready smile. If he had been stunned at Elizabeth’s presence on the beach and the realization that she was to accompany them across China, he had hidden it magnificently. As they walked across the pebbled beach and into the shallows to the waiting motor-boat, he told her that he spoke not only Cantonese but French, Italian, Urdu and Pushtu as well. He asked her if she was Scandinavian, with an eye to learning another language as they trekked, and was disappointed when she disillusioned him.
Captain Fisher was far more taciturn and reserved. He had taken Raefe to one side, objecting strongly to the presence of a woman on such an arduous undertaking, and his objections had been curtly overridden. Mrs Harland, he was told, was coming with them. As they scrambled across the beach he looked across at Adam Harland curiously. He didn’t look a very influential figure. Fisher wondered what pull he had that ensured a man like Elliot giving way to him over the question of his wife.
The Chinese, who had been ferrying provisions to the troops cut off on the peninsula, risking heavy enemy fire each time that they did so, had remained with their boat.
‘We go now,’ they said anxiously as Raefe helped Elizabeth aboard. ‘The Japanese coastal batteries quiet now. We go now, while it’s safe.’
As they squatted down in the damp smelly boat, Elizabeth saw the dark shape of a child huddled in the bow. She smiled reassuringly, but the pale little face, barely visible in the darkness, did not smile back.
‘Is this your little boy?’ she whispered to one of the boatmen as the boat’s engine throbbed into life and they began to chug steadily out from shore.
The Chinese shook his head, answering her question in Cantonese.
‘It’s a girl, not a boy, and he says he doesn’t know who she is.’ Raefe interpreted for her, his eyes scanning the shoreline behind them for signs of activity from any of the Japanese coastal batteries. ‘He says their village was bombed and that after the bombing he found her crouched in the bottom of his boat. She’s been here ever since, living on whatever scraps they can give her. Her parents are dead.’
The child continued to stare at Elizabeth, her eyes wide and dark. ‘But she looks as if she’s starving!’ Elizabeth protested, horrified.
Raefe glanced across at the child. The bewilderment in her eyes and the dumb acceptance of her fate he had seen all too often before.
When Elizabeth began fumbling in her rucksack he didn’t deter her, even though Fisher said coldly: ‘We haven’t enough rations to hand out willy-nilly.’
Elizabeth ignored him, pressing a tin of sardines into the child’s hand. She was huddled up and so thin and scrawny that it was impossible to judge how old she might be. She was possibly seven or eight, though her eyes were ages old.
The tin was seized eagerly and pressed close against her chest, as though defying anyone to remove if from her.
‘It’s all right,’ Adam said rea
ssuringly to her. ‘It’s yours.’ And then a brilliant arc light blazed out from the shore and shells slammed into the water around them.
Elizabeth threw herself down on the waterlogged floor of the boat, pulling the child with her. Adam heard Raefe give a low harsh cry as machine-gun and rifle fire opened up on them; and then, just when Adam thought all hope was lost, the blazing light swung sharply away from them to the east as another target, more worthwhile than a village motor-boat, came into their sights.
Adam began to ease his way towards Raefe, saying urgently: ‘What is it? Have you been hit?’
‘No!’ Raefe snapped harshly, hunched in the stern, peering out in the darkness as he tried to see what vessel had attracted the Japs’attention.
Adam sat back, knowing better than to persist with his questioning. He stretched out a hand to Elizabeth, pulling her back into a sitting position, and the child crawled upright with her, huddling against her for comfort as every minute took them further and further away from the coastal guns.
Eventually all sound of gunfire faded. The night wind was bitterly cold, and Elizabeth hugged the thinly clad child, trying to warm her as best she could.
‘It seems ironic that when we pick up the motor torpedo-boat we’re going to have to backtrack on ourselves, rounding the Stanley Peninsula in order to reach Mirs Bay,’ Captain Fisher said as Lamma Island appeared in the darkness, a low black hump.
‘It can’t be helped,’ Raefe said brusquely. ‘No motor torpedo-boat could have come ashore to take us off. This one is lying out of sight of the Jap guns on the west side of the island. Once we’re aboard her, she can keep well away from land as she rounds the peninsula and travels up the New Territories coastline.’
‘If she’s there,’ Fisher said drily. ‘What happens if she’s not?’
‘The motor-boat will stay anchored for four hours on the east side of the island. If we don’t pick up the motor torpedo-boat, then we return to it and tomorrow night we try to cross to the west side of Kowloon and strike out for the Chinese border from there.’
A Multitude of Sins Page 54