The Bird in the Bamboo Cage

by Hazel Gaynor

  Sprout came up with nicknames for some of the other soldiers. She said it made them seem less serious. Home Run was named for being the best baseball player, and Charlie Chaplin because we’d still never heard him speak. Home Run was one of the few soldiers who didn’t stare at us when we walked past, so I wasn’t especially worried when our rounders ball landed at his feet during a game Miss Kent had suggested we play to keep warm. Mouse had hit the ball with a terrific wallop, sending it as far as the Prep School wall. She got past all four bases before Home Run picked the ball up and threw it back to me in a perfectly aimed looping arc.

  ‘Thank you,’ I called as I caught it, and then covered my mouth with my hand, afraid I would get into trouble for speaking to him. Thankfully, nobody had noticed.

  ‘Babe Ruth!’ he called back, smiling. ‘Good catch!’

  I smiled back before I ran over to the others.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Sprout asked as we walked back inside together when the game had finished.

  ‘What was what about?’

  ‘Talking to Home Run. I saw you.’

  I was grateful for the colour in my cheeks that hid my guilty blushes. ‘I only thanked him for throwing the ball back. He called me Babe Ruth!’

  Sprout wasn’t impressed. ‘Don’t be fooled, Plum. They’re all horrid. Every one of them. I saw Trouble kicking his dog yesterday until it howled in pain.’

  ‘Well, he’s a brute,’ I said. ‘They can’t all be that bad.’

  She laughed. ‘Yes, they can. We’re their enemy. It’s their job to be bad.’ She looked at me seriously as we hung up our coats. ‘You trust people too easily. He’d just as quickly throw us all into prison as throw your ball back.’

  Our status as enemy nationals became even clearer when Commander Hayashi issued everyone with an armband to declare our nationality. The letter ‘A’ for American was stamped onto some of the armbands, ‘B’ for British on others.

  ‘You must wear at all time,’ he ordered from the top of the stepladders he used whenever he addressed us as a group.

  Sprout did a marvellous impression of him when we were in the dorm and the teachers and soldiers couldn’t hear. She stood on her bed and borrowed Winnie’s spectacles and had us all in fits of giggles as she mimicked his stern commands, but nobody laughed when the armbands were distributed.

  ‘They might as well put one of their notices on us and declare us the property of the Great Emperor of Japan,’ I said as I pulled mine on with a sigh.

  One of the American girls put hers on upside down by accident.

  ‘Look at that,’ Sprout said, covering the middle bar of the A with her finger. ‘It looks like a V for Victory.’

  When the guards weren’t looking, some of the other American girls turned their armbands upside down so that their ‘A’s also became victory Vs. I thought it was wonderfully rebellious and brave of them, until Miss Kent noticed and scolded them. There was a sharp edge to her voice that I hadn’t heard before.

  ‘You are silly foolish girls,’ she snapped, insisting they turn their armbands the right way up immediately. ‘I do not want to see such insolence from any of you again. Do you understand?’

  We all said, ‘Yes, Miss,’ and stared at the floor because Miss Kent’s cheeks had gone bright red, and that meant she was really very cross.

  While we knew better than to complain to the teachers, in the privacy of the dorm we grumbled to each other about the armbands, and everything else that was changing.

  ‘Did you see the ugly stable block they’re building across the tennis courts?’

  ‘And the way they trample all over Wei Huan’s flower beds.’

  ‘Edward says they’ve absolutely ruined the cricket field with their baseball matches.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s odd that nobody’s mentioned the headmaster?’ I said as I watched the soldiers march past the window. ‘He’s been missing for ages now. Somebody must know where he is.’

  ‘I suspect they do know, but aren’t telling us,’ Mouse replied. ‘I hope they haven’t taken him somewhere awful.’

  ‘Like where?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I just hope they’re not being cruel to him, wherever he is.’

  We were all ever so worried about him. Sprout said she wished she could tell the soldiers what she really thought of their silly orders and poor manners.

  ‘I’d like to point a stick at them and see how they like it.’

  I made her promise not to, on Brownie’s honour. Sprout had a knack for getting herself into trouble, and I couldn’t forget Miss Butterworth being punched in the face. It was too awful to imagine the same thing happening to my best friend.

  ‘It wouldn’t make any difference anyway,’ I said, ‘even if you did tell them what you thought of them. Besides, you’re supposed to be concentrating on getting better, not planning a mutiny. Christmas will be doubly awful if you’re in the San again. It isn’t the same when you’re not around.’

  She dug her elbow playfully into my ribs. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ She nodded toward the window and the guards at the gates. ‘You’re stuck with me now. Like it or not.’

  And, despite the seriousness of the situation, I smiled. If I was going to be stuck anywhere, with anyone other than Mummy, I would choose Sprout every time.

  As the days came and went, I started to lose hope about being rescued. Even Edward didn’t sound quite so confident about the arrival of the British warships.

  ‘They’re not coming, are they?’ I said, as we trudged around the courtyard together. ‘They’re going to leave us here forever.’

  ‘Maybe not forever,’ he said. ‘But it might take them a bit longer to get here than we thought. And if not, we’ll have to rescue ourselves.’

  He gave me a serious look and, although I didn’t know exactly what he meant or how we were ever going to manage that, I trusted him to know the right thing to do.

  The dorm was especially cold that night – whether from the snow, or a lack of wood for the fires, I wasn’t sure – and I dressed for bed quickly, flinching as my frozen fingers brushed against my skin. We slept in dorms of eight, with two older girls – the prefects – sleeping at each end of the room, and the younger children in the middle. Sprout was still coughing quite badly, so I plumped her pillow to make her more comfortable. She complained of being cold, so I gave her my blanket, too.

  When she was comfortable, I took the tea caddy from beneath my bed and pulled out the first letter Mummy had sent after I’d arrived in Chefoo. It still carried a trace of her favourite perfume, English lavender, and as I held the page to my nose, savouring the scent, I pressed the memory of her onto my heart, like the wildflowers I picked from the kaoliang fields and kept between the pages of my Bible.

  Hello darling,

  I’m writing this from the desk in your bedroom at the Mission compound. It is so quiet without you, but we are very proud of you, and know you will have the most wonderful time at Chefoo School. It will be strange at first being so far away from home, but you’ll soon get used to it. I expect you’ll be so busy you’ll hardly have time to miss us at all! I can’t wait to hear all about it when we see you again in the spring. I hope you’ll join the Brownies and learn all the marvellous songs. We can sing them together when I see you. I still remember them! ‘Brownie Bells’ and ‘Taps’ were always my favourites.

  Be a good girl for your teachers, and don’t forget to say your prayers before bed, even when you’re too tired to kneel up straight. Above all, remember the Lord is always listening, and that those who have faith will never be alone.

  With all our love to you, and God’s blessings. Be brave, darling.

  Mummy and Daddy

  xxx

  I knelt beside my bed and said my prayers before climbing beneath the covers. As I lay in silence, I thought about how she’d said the Lord is always listening, and I whispered one more prayer, to keep her safe wherever she was, and to let her know that I was be
ing brave and thinking about her. I imagined her arms tucked around my waist as I leaned my head against her chest. I imagined her until she became as real as the patter of snowflakes at the window, and I curled up under the blankets and covered my sobs with a pretend cough.

  As she did every night, Miss Kent stopped at the dorm to check on us after lights out, but that night, she stepped into the room, rather than just looking in through the door as she usually did. I heard her neat footsteps cross the room, and stop beside my bed.

  ‘It’s perfectly normal to miss people, Nancy,’ she whispered when she saw that I was still awake. ‘But remember, they are with us all the time, watching over us, even when they’re very far away.’

  I peeped out from beneath the covers. ‘Thank you, Miss.’

  She dipped her chin in a brisk nod, patted the bedcovers encouragingly and tugged a crease from the top blanket before she took one final turn around the room and closed the door behind her. Maybe I’d imagined the tears in Miss Kent’s eyes, but the thought of it made me wonder if a grown-up could miss her mother, too. Perhaps we were all missing someone; all waiting for the fighting and wars to end so we could see them again.

  Long after the other girls had settled down, Sprout was still fidgeting in her bed beside mine.

  ‘Can’t sleep?’ I whispered.

  ‘No,’ she replied.

  ‘Me neither.’

  We were both silent for a moment.

  ‘Plum?’ she whispered, eventually.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did your mother ever kiss you goodnight?’

  ‘Every night,’ I replied, smiling at the memory. ‘Did yours?’

  There was a long silence. ‘No.’

  It was one of the saddest things I’d ever heard.

  I lay still for a few minutes before I pushed back the covers, placed my bare feet on the cold boards and tiptoed the few steps toward Sprout’s bed. She was just visible in the moonlight, her hair painted silver against her pillow.

  I leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Goodnight, Sprout,’ I whispered. ‘Sleep tight. See you in the morning.’

  I was about to step back into bed when she said she was still cold.

  I hesitated for just a moment, grabbed my doll, and climbed into Sprout’s bed, tucking in tight beside her and pulling the sheets and blankets right up to our chins.

  ‘Is that better?’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes. Sleep tight, Plum. See you in the morning.’

  Huddled together like sardines, we fell asleep with our arms wrapped around each other and our cotton nightdresses tangled around our legs. It was the best night’s sleep I’d had in ages; the sleep of those who feel safe, and warm.

  I would think about it often in the long months ahead.

  ELSPETH

  With everything changing so quickly, the headmaster still missing, and my mother’s letter an awful constant reminder that Alfie was also missing, I was desperate to do something to feel that I was in control. So, despite the threat of reprisals should we be found out, I mentioned my idea of the food drop to Charlie Harris.

  ‘Even a small amount could make a big difference to the local farmers and their families,’ I said. ‘And we should have enough to see us through until we are rescued, and repatriated.’

  ‘I suppose we can’t expect others to put themselves in danger to help us if we’re not willing to do the same for our neighbours,’ he agreed. ‘The servants were loyal for so many years. It feels only right that we help them now, especially during the season of goodwill.’

  With Charlie’s encouragement, I raised the idea at the staff meeting that evening. The soldiers were used to our get-togethers and didn’t seem overly suspicious of us, although I was still twitchy every time we met, and felt as though we all had a sign on our backs saying ‘UP TO NO GOOD’.

  The food drop was approved by everyone, although it was agreed that we should refer to it as ‘Operation F’ in case the soldiers got wind of what we were planning.

  ‘You can’t be too careful,’ Tom Martin warned. ‘Best not to give anything away.’ Tom was the Latin master in the Boys’ School. Usually a very quiet and unfortunately dour fellow, as ex-military he had rather come into his own since the arrival of the soldiers. ‘I already have an arrangement in place with one of the farmers, as it happens,’ he announced, much to our surprise. ‘We meet at the wall beside the sports pitch so that he can pass on news of any Allied developments. I will do the necessary.’

  Two days later, we met again to finalize the plans.

  ‘Righty-ho then. Let battle commence!’ Tom unrolled a large sheet of A3 paper, onto which he’d drawn a detailed plan of the school buildings and a series of dashed and dotted lines indicating where people were to be positioned. He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. ‘X marks the spot for the rendezvous.’

  I glanced at Minnie, who’d got a fit of the giggles and had to pretend to blow her nose to hide her amusement.

  It had certainly become a far more complex operation than I’d anticipated when I’d first suggested it. Tom was evidently thriving under the challenge. His plan was to lower the food parcels over the wall at the far end of the sports field. This was the boundary furthest from the guards, and led directly into the kaoliang fields, so there was plenty of cover to protect those retrieving the parcels. Whatever punishments the guards might hand out to us if they found us passing food to our Chinese friends, the consequences would be far worse for their hated enemy.

  ‘If we’re careful, we shouldn’t get caught,’ Tom added, apparently reading my thoughts as he rolled up his plan.

  ‘Was anybody thinking that?’ I asked, glancing at my colleagues.

  Charlie leaned forward and smiled encouragingly. ‘I suspect we all were, but fortune favours the brave. Isn’t that right, Miss Kent?’

  I took a sip of anaemic tea. ‘Absolutely, Master Harris.’ My spoon dropped against my saucer with a clatter. ‘And it’s quite all right to call me Elspeth,’ I added.

  Before drawing the meeting to a close, Tom asked if there were any questions.

  ‘Just one,’ I said, putting down my teacup and saucer. ‘I wondered where I’ll be positioned during the manoeuvres. I don’t believe you mentioned me.’

  Tom looked surprised. ‘Well. No. I didn’t mention you. This isn’t a job for a woman, Miss Kent. I’d rather assumed you would be positioned beneath your eiderdown, fast asleep.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Yes. I thought as much. But … well … since this whole thing was my idea, I’d assumed I would be rather more part of the action end of things than the sleeping end of things. Perhaps I could assist with the job of lookout? Two sets of eyes are better than one, after all.’

  I felt the heat rise to my cheeks and wished everyone would stop staring at me, Minnie especially. Her teacup was suspended in mid-air. When nobody said anything to suggest otherwise, it was agreed that I would also report to the music room at midnight. I was instructed to dress in my darkest clothing.

  Minnie was still agog as we walked back to our bedrooms.

  ‘I say, Els. That was quite something. I had no idea you were planning to get involved.’ She looked worried. ‘I rather wish you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I had no idea I was planning to be involved either, but I found it infuriating the way Tom went crashing on with his manoeuvres and taking all the credit. Women need to take a stand sometimes, even if we would rather be fast asleep beneath our eiderdowns.’ I stepped into my room. ‘I’ll give you a full debrief first thing tomorrow. Sleep tight.’

  I doubted very much whether anybody would get any sleep. Espionage and good deeds were all very well, but they didn’t exactly make for a restful night.

  Fortune did indeed favour the brave, and luck was on our side. The moon was hidden behind a curtain of thick cloud that night, leaving the school bathed in perfect darkness. It had been agreed that our best chance to make a dash for it was just after midnight, when the guards changed shi
fts and often dallied over a cigarette or two.

  Bundled up in as many layers as I could comfortably wear while still being able to run if necessary, I crept downstairs and out through the kitchens where Tom and Charlie were already waiting. To my surprise, Eleanor Yarwood was there, too.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ I whispered, urging her to go back inside immediately.

  ‘I’m making a stand, Elspeth. Besides, I couldn’t let you go scampering about in the dark on your own with Tom and Charlie. I’m coming with you. Like it or not.’

  I didn’t like it but, evidently, her mind was made up.

  Between our party of four, we carried the food parcels toward the sports field where Charlie retrieved a length of rope he’d concealed there earlier. He proceeded to tie intermittent reef knots to secure the parcels in stages.

  We huddled against the wall then, waiting for the signal from Tom’s contact. My heart thumped so hard I was certain the guards would hear and send their dogs to investigate.

  After a few minutes, the cry of a pond heron broke the silence. ‘Khaaa. Khaaa.’

  Without speaking, Tom indicated that was our signal. Hoisted up by Charlie, he expertly tossed one end of the rope over the wall where it found its accomplice. All we could do then was sit tight, and wait, and keep watch over the darkness of the sports field as the rope tightened and slackened in turn as the parcels were untied. After a short while, there was a sharp tug on the rope and Tom and Charlie pulled together to haul it back over the wall.

  The deed was done.

  Coiling the rope deftly around his arm, Charlie motioned for us to start walking back, but as we did there was a break in the clouds and one of the dogs set up a ferocious barking. We fell to the ground, keeping as low and still as possible, our faces pressed against the frozen earth as an arc of distant torchlight swept across the darkness in front of us. I held my breath. What was I thinking, coming out here, putting myself, and others, in danger? This wasn’t a game, or a spy novel. It was real life, and we were only schoolteachers who didn’t know the first thing about war.