by Hazel Gaynor
I heard the whispers before I saw the three men, helping themselves to our food.
Heart in my mouth, I ducked behind a cupboard, covered the lamp with my housecoat, and crouched down low. I couldn’t see their faces, but I could tell from their clothing that they weren’t Japanese guards. My first instinct was to shout at them and scare them off, but I held my tongue and kept as quiet as I could, afraid of what they might do if they discovered a woman alone in her night attire. I pushed the thought from my mind, gripped the collar of my nightdress, and pulled the belt of my housecoat tight around my waist.
I hardly dared breathe as I watched them fill two straw baskets with our provisions. I thought about the children asleep upstairs, already going to bed hungry each night. My fear quickly turned to anger. This was wrong. It was all wrong.
I was about to scream for help when they turned to leave, and I saw a face I recognized. Wei Huan. Except, it wasn’t the Wei Huan I knew, the man who had so carefully tended the school gardens and always had a smile for the children. This man’s face was hard and anxious. This man was afraid and hungry, prepared to do anything to help his family. I stayed where I was and let the three of them pass as I tried to steady my trembling hands.
When I was sure they’d gone, I hurried back to my room and climbed beneath the covers. I lay awake for hours, wrestling with my conscience. Had I done the right thing in letting Wei Huan go? To my shame, I knew only what little Shu Lan had told me about how Japan’s occupation of China had affected the population, but I knew that while our struggles were only just beginning, theirs had been ongoing for years. Were their needs greater than ours? Our older boys, especially, had started to complain of being hungry, and I’d noticed they were becoming listless, lacking the energy and calories their growing limbs needed. Not for the first time since the soldiers had marched into the school, I realized how shortsighted we’d been to believe we were somehow immune from the reality of war. For a group of adults whose roles as Guide and Scout leaders often led us to talk about the need to Be Prepared, we found ourselves severely lacking.
As night turned to dawn, my torment over the stolen food led me back to other decisions and indecisions in my life; moments when I’d hesitated instead of acted. Like a chain connecting my past to my present, it all linked together, leading me to this exact moment in a sparse little bedroom in China, lit by a blue December dawn. I closed my eyes and thought about Alfie, willing us both to find the courage to endure the circumstances we found ourselves in.
* * *
The thieves returned the next night, relieving us of more of our meager supplies, and also taking some of the girls’ winter coats from their hooks in the corridor. When it was discussed at the staff meeting, the consensus was that it must be the local farmers.
“There’s no other reasonable explanation,” Minnie said. “The soldiers are kept so well fed by their superiors I don’t see why they’d need to steal from us. It must be the farmers. It might even be some of the school servants, in which case I can’t be angry. I’m sure they’re starving out there.”
I almost admitted what I’d seen, but I couldn’t bear to betray Wei Huan, so I kept the secret to myself, my guilt a little assuaged by Minnie’s refusal to condemn the thieves.
“And what about the coats?” Eleanor Yarwood asked. “How will the children keep warm without them?”
“The Ministry in Britain issued instructions to parents for keeping their children warm last winter,” I offered. “My mother wrote about it in a letter. She has a couple of evacuee children staying with her. She was advised to wrap a layer of newspaper next to their skin, and to dress them with two extra layers beneath their pinafores. A woolen vest, preferably. We could repurpose wool from any spare gloves and socks.”
“Ah yes. Make Do and Mend,” Amelia Prescott added. “Housewives can turn their hand to anything these days. Darn, alter, unpick, restitch, cover holes with patches, turn men’s clothes into women’s and vice versa. It’s a terrific idea, Miss Kent.”
“Mending and repurposing isn’t the difficult part,” I said, rather more curtly than I’d intended. I found Amelia’s relentless vigor and good cheer increasingly overbearing. “It’s the making do we have no comprehension of. I have a horrible feeling our hardships are only just beginning.”
“Either way, it looks like Christmas dinner will be a rather frugal affair.” Minnie sighed. “More trimmings, than goose.”
She looked tired and drawn and her hair had lost some of its shine.
I leaned my head wearily against her shoulder. “Trimmings it is then, Mister Scrooge.”
We both laughed, quietly at first and then louder, until we were both bent double, tears streaming down our cheeks, and then the others, infected by our laughter, started to laugh, too. There was nothing amusing about the situation at all, but it felt good to laugh. Who could tell if our tears were from mirth or despair? Nobody knew. And nobody asked.
* * *
On Christmas Eve, the temperature continued to plummet, along with any hope of being rescued in time to spend Christmas with our families. The final acknowledgment that our prayers hadn’t been answered, and that the children wouldn’t be reunited with their parents, was too much for some of them to bear. Their resilience and fortitude had been thoroughly tested over the past few weeks, and despite all the optimism and certainty that we wouldn’t be left under Japanese guard for more than a few inconvenient days, we had been proven wrong. Worse still, we had let the children down.
I felt completely helpless as I stopped at the dormitory door that night to check on the girls, most of whom were still wide awake. Whispering after lights-out was tolerated a little longer on special occasions. There was, after all, a lot for the children to discuss.
“Nancy Plummer! Dorothy Hinshaw!” I whispered. “That’s enough talking now. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep, Miss,” Nancy whispered back. “I can never sleep on Christmas Eve.”
I walked over to her bed, my footsteps making the boards creak as restless bodies sent bedsprings pinging all around the room. As I tucked the stiff blankets around Nancy’s body, it struck me how the girls always looked so much smaller in their beds. Too small to be spending Christmas away from their parents.
“Shall we say ‘Taps’?” I whispered. “Would that help?”
Nancy wriggled beneath the starched sheets and blankets, delighted to have my attention to herself as we sang together, our voices feather-like whispers in the dark. As we sang, the others joined in.
“Day is done / Gone the sun, / From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky! / All is well / Safely rest, / God is nigh.”
As the final note faded into the darkness, I stood up straight and tugged a final crease from Nancy’s blanket.
“Goodnight, Brown Owl,” she whispered.
Like a breeze on the surface of a pond, that one whisper set off a ripple as the others echoed Nancy’s words, and a gentle chorus of “Goodnight, Brown Owl” filled the room.
Even I couldn’t deny the surge of compassion that swelled in my heart.
“Goodnight, Brownies,” I whispered. “Happy Christmas.”
As I closed the door and walked to my bedroom, it dawned on me that perhaps this was why I’d come to China; why life had led me here, at this time of war and great uncertainty. I was here to step into the shoes of all the absent parents. I was here to watch over these temporary orphans of war. I was here to become the mother I’d always hoped to be. Only now that the opportunity presented itself, I found myself full of fear and doubt.
* * *
A low winter sun settled above the distant mountains that Christmas morning, painting the sky in shades of violet and pink as we led the children across the snow-covered pathways to the chapel for the Christmas service. I’d never seen a sky more peaceful, or beautiful, and never wished more that I were somewhere else, and hadn’t seen it at all.
“Merry Christmas” greetings were exchanged with a mixture o
f hope and despair, our good wishes caught on frosty breaths that drifted skyward before being carried away, across the rice fields and the ocean. How easily our words found freedom.
As the bright melody of the children’s voices sent the carols soaring up into the rafters, I noticed a number of the guards standing quietly at the back of the chapel. I wondered if they heard the hope and innocence in the children’s voices; if they understood the sentiments of peace and goodwill to all men.
As we led the children back to the school for a morning of games, the guards stood aside to make room for us to pass. Only one stepped forward, blocking my way as I made to walk through the chapel door.
Trouble.
He stared at me, his dark eyes intense and yet expressionless; the now familiar sneering smile at his lips.
“It is Christmas, Elspeth Kent,” he whispered. “The British give presents. Do you have one for me?”
I was deeply uncomfortable beneath his scrutiny. “I don’t understand?”
He laughed. “All women have a gift for men.” He flicked the end of my skirt with his stick.
I swallowed hard, desperately trying not to show any sign of intimidation or fear.
“Is everything quite all right, Miss Kent?”
I turned, relieved to see Charlie over my shoulder.
“Go,” Trouble hissed, clearly annoyed by the interruption. “I will take my gift another day.”
As he stalked away, I stood, rooted to the spot.
“What was all that about?” Charlie asked. “Was he making a nuisance of himself?”
I fussed with my gloves and the buttons on my coat because Charlie’s eyes were so gentle and kind compared to Trouble’s, and every bone in my body wanted to tell him everything—about the sinister threats, and how desperately afraid of him I was.
“Just passing on Christmas wishes. Isn’t it marvelous how the Christmas spirit touches everyone?”
He smiled, although there was a hint of concern in his eyes.
“Indeed,” he conceded. “And a very merry Christmas to you, Elspeth.”
“And to you,” I replied. “God bless us, every one!” We looked at each other for a hopeless moment, full of what-ifs and maybes. “We’d better get back,” I said. “I’m in charge of pin the tail on the donkey, and, so far, I have neither donkey nor tail.”
We made the day as happy as we could for the children, and somehow provided a reasonable Christmas dinner. Minnie even unearthed some Christmas puddings that had been made months earlier and were absolutely delicious. But no matter how jolly we tried to make things, or how staunchly the children ignored their stomachs’ growls of hunger, it was hard to ignore the fact that there was more plate than food. Still, the children were easily distracted by a few games, and went to bed as happy as could be expected.
I thought about Christmases at home in England, and how we’d gathered around the wireless to listen to the king’s Christmas message. It had always struck me as remarkable that our sovereign’s faltering words could find their way into our sitting room in Yorkshire. We’d listened to the Christmas speech every year since George V first addressed the Empire across the wireless on Christmas Day, 1932. One year, when our wireless wasn’t working, we were invited to the Evanses’ home, the new family who’d moved in at the end of the street. I hardly heard any of the speech that Christmas Day, distracted by Harry’s knee occasionally knocking against mine. He asked me to the local dance that New Year’s Eve, and asked me to marry him exactly a year later, on the stroke of midnight. I said yes, and yes, and yes! I loved him then, and I loved him still, just the same. I missed him no less than when I’d only just lost him, but I also heard him gently reminding me that I had a different life now, new responsibilities, and that I had to pull my socks up and get on with it.
I wished, more than ever, that I could sit beside Harry once more and listen to the king’s words of comfort and reassurance. I closed my eyes, permitting myself a quiet moment to remember loved ones far away. Wherever Alfie was, I hoped he’d heard the king’s Christmas message, and that he saw how brightly the stars shone that Christmas night. It was as if they shone for us all; bright beacons of hope in the dark.
I would often look at the stars in the long months ahead, remembering our first uncertain Christmas under occupation, and wondering when we would ever see our last.
The Guide Law: A Guide Smiles and Sings under All Difficulties
It has been scientifically proved that if you deliberately make your voice and face cheerful and bright you immediately begin to feel that way . . . “as cheerful as a Girl Scout” ought to become a proverb.
Chapter 11
Elspeth
1942
Our first year under Japanese guard felt like many more. As the first disruptive weeks had turned to months, and months began to reach toward a year of occupation, my greatest fear was no longer the soldiers at the school gates, but the awful possibility that we’d been forgotten.
We shared our concerns at our nightly staff meeting, ever more conscious of our remote location and the thousands of miles between us and Churchill’s War Cabinet. Our initial confidence in being rescued had gradually diminished until the possibility was barely mentioned at all. Sketchy reports of Allied and enemy progress in Europe and the Pacific reached us in unreliable fragments relayed through Charlie’s increasingly temperamental radio, and while our hopes were lifted by news of Allied successes in the South Pacific during the Battle of Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway, which had inflicted significant damage on the Imperial Japanese Navy fleet, still we waited for a liberation that didn’t come. War raged on, and as it did, we each fought a very private battle of our own courage and faith.
Thankfully, our resilience and optimism fluctuated in turns, so we never all lost hope together. No matter how helpless things seemed, there was always someone around to offer a bolstering word or two. Charlie was a rock of immense practicality and sense, and as ever, Minnie was my trusty stalwart. She’d also become my roommate after we’d settled on an arrangement to top and tail in my bed.
“I was wondering if, perhaps, it wouldn’t be awfully strange if we were to, well, bunk up together,” she’d said out of the blue one day as we folded bedsheets. “I know we have to put on a brave face for the children, but I can’t settle at night. Even with my hockey stick, every time I hear a noise, I think it’s one of them coming to . . . you know.”
All the women in the school feared the unspeakable. The ghosts of Nanking hung heavy around Chefoo’s walls, and while Trouble hadn’t spoken directly to me again since his sinister talk of Christmas gifts, I was always on high alert whenever he was around. I agreed to the idea instantly. Minnie snored like a walrus, and her cold toes pressed into my elbow, but it was oddly comforting all the same.
In early February, a couple of months into our occupation, our flagging optimism had been rewarded with the return of our headmaster, Mr. Collins. While he wouldn’t (or couldn’t) say where he’d been, it had clearly affected him profoundly. He was worryingly thin and gray-faced when he addressed us at assembly.
“While many of our privileges and liberties have been curtailed, our captors cannot prevent us from learning, or improving our minds. School exams will continue as planned in the months ahead,” he announced. We all listened in awe, admiring his gentle strength and humility. “I know I can rely on you all to study hard, and I am confident that you will carry the good name of Chefoo School with you as you go forth into adulthood.”
Some of the older girls and several teachers began sniffling into handkerchiefs pulled hastily from cardigan sleeves and skirt pockets. The headmaster’s return provided a welcome boost to morale, not to mention enormous personal relief to those of us who’d been so desperately worried about him.
“I hear we have a new Girl Guides patrol, Miss Kent,” he said as we walked back to our classrooms.
“Yes. We now have eight proud members of Kingfisher Patrol,” I replied. “It’s been
a welcome distraction for them.”
“I’m sure it has. And I believe the girls have been quite industrious in their efforts to help around the school.”
“They’ve been marvelous. I’m not sure what I would have done without them.”
He smiled. “I’m quite sure it is the other way around. Keep going, Miss Kent. They’re relying on you.”
* * *
Winter made way for a fragrant spring, when the plum trees burst into flower and brought a much-needed sense of renewal and hope. But spring, in turn, melted away beneath the fierce heat of a summer sun that saw us wither and wilt like the flowers in Wei Huan’s neglected gardens.
As I turned over the parched soil, Minnie came running from the direction of the Boys’ School, her arms flapping madly.
“Elspeth. Quickly! Come and see!” She was out of breath when she reached me.
Before I had time to respond, she grabbed my arm and dragged me along behind her.
“What is it? Have the Navy arrived?” I asked the question out of habit rather than any real hope that it was true.
“Pish. Don’t be silly. Just come and see will you!”
Too hot and weary to resist, I let her drag me along until she came to a sudden stop beside the south-facing wall of the Boys’ School.
“Look!” She pointed at a small green shoot in the ground.
“Is that it?”
“Look closer!” She folded her arms, evidently delighted with herself.
I bent down to take a closer look. Two healthy green leaves spread out from the top of the shoot, like hands ready to catch a ball. On the ground beneath, lay the husk of a small gray seed. I picked it up.
“A sunflower seed. It can’t be possible.”
Minnie crouched down beside me as we peered at the tiny little seed husk in the palm of my hand. “It grew, Els,” she whispered. “It found a way. Isn’t it marvelous!”
The sunflower seed Trouble had cruelly stamped into the ground had grown in the very spot where it had fallen. I brushed my fingertips across the fragile green leaves. The sight of that tiny shoot gave me more strength and hope than any prayer ever had. I thought of the words on the scrap of paper from Shu Lan. Rise from the mud, and bloom.