by Hazel Gaynor
I scrubbed the ground long after the mess had gone, washing away the injustice of what was happening to us, sweeping my frustration and fears into the weeds that choked the neglected flower beds. My tears weren’t just for the kitten. They were for all of us, for the fact that life had brought us to this miserable abandoned compound, and left us to suffer at the hands of those whose cruelty knew no end. In the year since the soldiers had marched into the school and Trouble had punched Minnie in the face, I’d often wondered what terrible thing would follow; what would break the veneer of optimism we’d created to protect the children. I knew we couldn’t keep on smiling and singing forever. Nobody could, no matter how deeply rooted their faith, or how brave they were. And now, here we were, facing the aftermath of another act of needless cruelty.
The awful task done, I went back inside and slumped into a chair beside Minnie. For a long time, neither of us spoke. The cups of weak tea Minnie had made for us sat idle on their cracked saucers.
“Did you . . . ?”
I nodded. “Under the tree.”
“Thank you, Els. I couldn’t . . .”
I placed my hand on her arm. “It’s done, Minnie. Let’s not think about it any longer.”
“It’s just . . . it reminded me of something that happened a long time ago.” She took a deep breath and picked at a thread on the cuff of her nightie. “I’ve never told you why I came to China, have I?”
I shook my head. For all that we’d become good friends, we didn’t talk about the past. We instinctively understood that whatever had happened before Chefoo wasn’t something we wished to share.
“You can tell me if you’d feel better for doing so,” I prompted, too exhausted to keep up the usual facade.
“I was treated rather cruelly by my husband, you see,” she continued.
“Husband? I didn’t know you were married!” I’d checked Minnie’s ring finger the first time we’d met. It was something we all did, from habit. A quick glance to see if this woman or that woman had managed to snag herself a husband when there were so few to go around after the Great War. With Minnie’s ring finger empty, like mine, it had never occurred to me that she might once have been married. She seemed so perfectly suited to life as a spinster, but then, didn’t we all when there wasn’t much choice in the matter?
“I’m not married,” she said. “Not anymore. He’s dead now.”
“Oh dear. I’m very sorry,” I offered.
“Don’t be. I’m not. He drank a lot and was . . . rather rough, shall we say.” I let the words settle between us as I waited for her to continue. “I should never have married him. Everyone warned me not to.”
“What happened?” I asked, but my question was met with silence as Minnie stared at the floor. “You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “Some things are best left in the past.”
But, like a canal lock gate slowly opening, once she’d started, the words flowed out of her.
“The final straw came when I told him we were going to have a baby. I was several months along when I found out. It took me another month to pluck up the courage to tell him.” She took another deep breath. “He’d made it very clear he didn’t want children so I was afraid of how he’d react.”
“What did he say?”
“Not a great deal. He did all his talking with his fists.”
“Oh, Minnie.”
“He didn’t want a child, so he made sure we didn’t have one.”
I couldn’t speak, unable to marry the things Minnie was telling me with the kind, gentle woman I knew. I put my cup and saucer down and took her hands in mine.
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“I lost the baby a few days later. On the bathroom floor.” She gulped in a great mouthful of air. “Thankfully, he was out. I had to . . . deal with it.” Her grip tightened on my hand so that my nails pressed painfully into my skin. “I wrapped everything up in a towel and buried it in the field behind the garden.” A hollow silence filled the room as Minnie’s awful revelation settled over us. “I didn’t know what else to do.” She looked at me, her face etched with anguish. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Of course you didn’t. You poor, poor thing. You must have been so frightened.”
“I hardly had time to think. All I knew was that I had to leave. Had to get away. I packed a small case and took the bus to Liverpool docks that evening. I bought a ticket for the next steamer, which happened to be bound for Shanghai. I didn’t care where I went. It didn’t matter. I met Amelia Prescott on that steamer, and, well, here I am.” She dabbed at her tears. “My mother sent word several years ago that he’d been killed in a bombing raid.”
“Good riddance,” I muttered, “and may God forgive me.”
“I think of that child every day, Els. I don’t even know if it was a little boy, or a little girl. Isn’t that the most dreadful thing? I call the child Georgie, because that could be a boy’s name, or a girl’s. The poor little thing deserved so much better.”
“And so did you.” I squeezed her hands tight. “So did you.”
We sat in silence as the sky slowly lightened through the windows and the horror of the night faded a little. Minnie seemed a little lighter, too, as if the burden of shame and guilt and secrecy she’d carried all these years had lifted from her.
Sounds of movement upstairs made us both stir.
I pressed my hands to Minnie’s as I stood up. “Take a few minutes to yourself. I’ll see to the girls. I’ll tell them about Tinkerbell after breakfast and prayers.”
They were all absolutely heartbroken. Nobody could understand how the kitten had got out in the first place.
“We were all so careful about keeping the doors and windows closed, and there were no obvious holes she could have squeezed through,” Nancy said as she wept inconsolably.
I was in no doubt that Major Kosaka had sent one of the guards into the house while we were in the school building, to let the kitten out on purpose. I understood the message loud and clear. We were all disposable. We were all entirely at their mercy.
There were many tears and lots of questions, which I indulged for a few minutes before I encouraged the children to dry their eyes and put on their coats and follow me out to the garden where we performed a little funeral ceremony for Tinkerbell, and said our goodbyes.
We sang “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” which brought tears to my eyes, especially when Minnie made a funny little gasping sound behind me, and I thought of everything she’d told me and what she must be thinking as she looked at the small mound of disturbed earth. We said the Lord’s Prayer, held a moment’s silence, and that was that.
“It isn’t fair, is it, Miss,” Dorothy said as we walked back to the house. “Why does God let innocent creatures die? Why would He let Tinkerbell die when she’s never done any harm to anyone, and yet the guards kick their dogs and do all sorts of horrid things. Why is the world so cruel and unfair sometimes?”
Not for the first time in recent months, I struggled to provide an answer. Instead, I reverted to what I knew best.
“Let’s do something to cheer everyone up, shall we. How about a session of self-defense at Girl Guides later? You can apprehend Miss Butterworth with your best knots.”
To the best of my faltering ability, and summoning all my former years of unquestioning belief, I prayed for Minnie’s lost child that evening, and for my missing brother, and for everyone facing the agony of another Christmas without their loved ones. I meant my Amen more than ever; felt it in every pulse and beat of my tired and shattered heart.
Chapter 18
Nancy
Christmas Day was as merry as could be expected, and our Christmas wishes were exchanged without any real sense of merriment at all until a surprise delivery of Red Cross food parcels gave us something to celebrate. The parcels didn’t come nearly as often as they should, or half as often as we hoped, and we gasped with delight as we inspected the contents of the little cardboard boxes: p
owdered Carnation milk, Spam, chocolate, jam, sugar, margarine, apple pudding, and a whole bar of Lifebuoy soap.
“We wouldn’t have looked twice at it a year ago, would we,” Sprout said as we marveled at the treasures inside. “I’ll never complain about soggy cabbage again.”
“Me neither.” I felt ashamed when I thought of all the times in the school dining room when we’d grumbled about “horridge” (as Sprout called Cook’s porridge) and lumpy custard.
Those little parcels gave us such joy, and although Sprout insisted it was a coincidence that they’d reached us on Christmas Day, I desperately wanted to believe that our captors had saved the parcels especially for today; that the spirit of Christmas really could make enemies become friends, even if only for an hour or two.
Over lunch, Miss Kent told us all about Agnes Baden-Powell, our founder, and Lady Olave Baden-Powell, World Chief Guide.
“They both sound marvelous,” I said. “Do you think we might meet them one day? Perhaps at a jamboree, when we’re back home.”
An awkward silence followed, as it always did whenever someone mentioned home.
“You should write a letter, Miss,” Sprout suggested, “to tell Lady Baden-Powell all about the Chefoo Brownies and Kingfisher Patrol and everything we’re doing here. I bet she’ll be surprised to discover there are Brownies and Girl Guides all the way out here in China, stuck in the middle of a war!”
Miss Kent agreed that it was a very good idea, and she would do precisely that.
“It doesn’t feel like Christmas, does it?” Sprout said later, when we were sent outside to play a game of Cat and Mouse. “It feels like we’re all pretending.”
Even the annual Chefoo carol concert couldn’t cheer us up. We’d all assembled in the school building, and we sang our hearts out, but it wasn’t the same with the soldiers at the doors. Home Run smiled and whispered “Happy Christmas” as we all trudged wearily back to our house. I noticed that he stopped Miss Kent, and took her aside to talk to her. I wondered if he sometimes gave her peppermints, too.
We went to bed earlier than usual that Christmas night. Nobody complained.
It was dark when Miss Kent woke me with a gentle shake of the shoulders.
“Wake up, Nancy. We have a surprise for you all.”
“What time is it, Miss?”
“Nearly eleven o’clock. Come along. Quickly now.”
When everyone was awake, we were instructed to go quietly downstairs. The lights were kept switched off because it was after curfew. We tiptoed and whispered and bumped into each other as we sat in a circle around a table, upon which stood a wireless.
“We’re going to listen to the king’s Christmas message, children,” Miss Kent whispered. “We can’t listen for long, and the line will be very faint, so not a sound from anyone.”
She seemed rather twitchy and kept glancing toward Miss Butterworth, who stood beside the door. Although I couldn’t be certain because of the darkness, I thought I saw Home Run through the glass, standing guard on the other side of the front door.
There was no time for questions, about where the wireless had come from, or who was standing where. However it had happened, we all sat absolutely rigid as the voice of our sovereign came faintly through the crackly line.
“The Queen and I feel most deeply for all of you who have lost or been parted from your dear ones, and our hearts go out to you with sorrow, with comfort, but also with pride. We send a special message of remembrance to the wounded and the sick in the hospitals wherever they may be, and to the prisoners of war, who are enduring their long exile with dignity and fortitude. Suffering and hardship shared together have given us a new understanding of each other’s problems.”
It was like magic. I’d always looked forward to the Christmas message, always felt that even though he was many thousands of miles away in Sandringham House, the king was speaking to each and every one of us; that he was talking directly to me, and to Edward, and Sprout, and Mouse, and each of our teachers. We sat in perfect silence as we listened to our marvelous king, to every pause and stuttering breath. As he spoke, we held hands in the dark, and I’d never felt more certain of victory in the coming year.
The wireless had disappeared by the time we woke up the next morning, but I clung tight to the memory of those few precious moments in the dark, when our king had briefly come to China, and brought with him a sense of home, and a reminder that we weren’t alone, or forgotten, and that if we were very good and brave, we would see home, and our loved ones, again.
* * *
We’d been at the Temple Hill compound for two months when the new year arrived on a bright January day. We’d found our way back into the familiar school routine, despite having to sometimes use the larger trunks and cases as makeshift desks, and sitting cross-legged on the floor when there weren’t enough chairs to go around. We’d learned to use the paper in our exercise books very sparingly, often reusing the pages over and over again, rubbing out old calculations and past lessons to make way for new. We learned not to press too hard with our pencils so they would last longer, and we kept the shavings from our pencils to help light the fires. Our chores were always used as an opportunity to learn, and Miss Kent insisted that we kept the house, and ourselves, clean and tidy. With the fresh sea breezes that blew in across the ocean, we fell onto our mattresses at night exhausted.
Despite being enemy nationals, we were permitted to observe important dates, and our Guide leaders were especially keen for us to celebrate World Thinking Day that February.
“Thinking Day is a special day on which we remember all the Brownies and Guides and Scouts around the world,” Miss Kent announced as she opened our little parade. “It is a day when we show our gratitude for being part of the international Guiding movement.”
We were all turned out so neatly in our Guide uniforms. I always felt terribly grown-up when I put on my smart blue shirt and skirt, and I was ever so proud of the kingfisher emblem sewn onto our pockets. I thought about how seriously we’d prepared for our flying-up ceremony and the excitement of our investiture. Miss Kent had said we would soon be ready to take the tests to become Second Class Girl Guides.
It was a bright cold day, but some of the guards brought out chairs to watch. They seemed quite fascinated by the whole thing. Home Run and Charlie Chaplin were especially interested, clapping enthusiastically when we did our semaphore and gymnastics displays. It wasn’t that they were friendly with us as such, but there was something different about the way they treated us. They smiled when we ran past them, giggling at something or other, and they turned a blind eye when we strayed too close to the compound wall, or caught us climbing trees to get a glimpse of the ocean. They gave us as much freedom, and showed as much kindness, as they could, without getting us, or themselves, into trouble with Major Kosaka. Freedom and kindness were the things we craved as much as bars of chocolate and syrup pudding, and it was comforting to know that even in a world full of war, kindness was never too far away.
* * *
As the months and the seasons moved on, our bodies began to change, and with so many of us living together, there was never any privacy in which to try to make any sense of it all. It was hard not to stare as the older girls pranced around in their knickers and brassieres. I was in awe of their long legs and curvy hips and proper breasts. When they were off doing something else, Sprout stuffed rolled-up socks under her vest, and pretended to be her sister, Connie. We sometimes smoked imaginary cigarettes and talked about boys, copying the things we heard Connie and her friends whispering about after lights-out. Sprout pretended to be kissing a boy, which made us all giggle and go red. Still, I wondered what it would be like to really kiss a boy, and with Sprout going on about Larry Crofton all the time, I couldn’t even look at him without staring at his lips.
There was also the rather excruciating business of our monthlies. Winnie had got hers just before Christmas, and Mouse was next. She thought she was dying when she came running
to me to tell me she’d found blood between her legs.
I calmed her down and told her she wasn’t dying. “It’s just . . . you know.”
“What?”
“Your monthlies. The thing girls get, so we can have babies. I’ll fetch Miss Kent.”
Miss Kent handled it all in her usual efficient way. She gave Mouse a supply of rags to use and explained how she should change and wash them.
“It’s all perfectly normal and nothing to worry about,” she said. “You can expect the same thing every month until you’re in your fifties.”
“Fifty!” Mouse was horrified. “But that’s forever away.”
“Indeed it is.” Miss Kent laughed. “Welcome to the joys of being a woman.”
My monthlies still hadn’t arrived and I was worried there was something wrong with me. I asked Miss Kent about it that evening after supper.
“Your turn will come, Nancy,” she said. “And trust me, when it does, you’ll wish you could be eleven again and not have to deal with it at all.”
“It’s not fair, is it?” Mouse said that night, reassured by her chat with Miss Kent, and sure she wasn’t dying. “Boys don’t have to worry about things like this. They just get taller and their voices go deeper.”
“They have to shave though,” I said. “Imagine having all horrid prickly whiskers on your face.”
“What, like Miss Prescott?”
We laughed so much tears streamed down our faces.
I’d spent more time with Mouse since we’d moved to Temple Hill, and I’d discovered that I enjoyed her company. Sprout was in and out of the San more than ever, so it was nice to have Mouse to talk to when Sprout wasn’t around, although I worried terribly about her and wished she could get better once and for all.
She’d improved a little during the warmer months of spring and summer, but as autumn arrived and the leaves began to turn on the plane trees, she began to complain of a sore throat, and then a headache, and eventually she’d stopped coming to lessons. I was especially worried about her as she lay on her mattress beside me one September night, tossing and turning and coughing horribly.