by Hazel Gaynor
There was, however, one last part of the Weihsien compound that still held me captive.
I made myself go there, to the shed beside the guards’ house. I knew I had to confront it before I could leave it behind.
The door was slightly ajar. I took a deep breath and pushed it open.
Sunlight fell in shafts through the window as I pulled the shutters open. I made myself breathe in, long and deep. The smell was still there, that particular stench of sweat and arrogance and disregard. I swallowed hard, pushing back the waves of nausea and fear that threatened to overwhelm me. He’s not here, Elspeth, I told myself. He can’t hurt you. Whatever had caused his sudden illness and led him back to Nagasaki shortly before the atom bomb fell, Trouble had got what he deserved, and yet death was an escape for him; a way out. I would forever carry the memory of what he had subjected me to. What had happened in this room had forever changed me, but I refused to let it define me. I had a choice. I could let it consume me, or I could leave it here, in this room, and walk away.
I took a deep breath, walked back out into the sunshine, closed the door behind me and turned the key in the lock. I walked to the compound wall, closed my eyes, pulled my arm back and threw the key as far and as high as I could. I watched it sail over the wall and disappear from view, lost forever among the fields beyond.
I pushed my shoulders back, turned to the west, and began to make my way back to the others. As I walked, I pulled out the pins securing my bun and let my hair tumble to my shoulders, a tangle of auburn curls, loose and wild and free.
NANCY
October 1945
People left Weihsien in dribs and drabs in the weeks that followed liberation so that tearful farewells became an almost daily event. Envoys from different embassies made arrangements for the repatriation of their citizens and, gradually, the lines for meals became shorter. Winnie, Connie, and our headmaster were the first to leave from the Chefoo group. Everyone from Kingfisher Patrol signed their names on a page in my log book. We promised to never forget each other.
One of the hardest goodbyes was Home Run.
‘I go home,’ he said, although there was a sadness in his eyes. ‘I do not know what is waiting there, but I hope. You go home soon?’
‘We leave next week. We will go to a hotel in Tsingtao first, and then make the long trip back to England.’
‘Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding?’
‘Yes!’ I smiled. ‘And jam roly-poly and custard.’
He saluted, and I gave my best Guide salute in return. I knew I would never see him again, nor ever forget his kindness.
When it was finally our turn to leave, me and Mouse went to the cemetery together to say goodbye to dear Uncle Eric, and Sprout, and the many others who had died here. The freshly turned earth was a reminder that some had lost their fight just a few days too soon.
‘It doesn’t seem right to leave Sprout here, alone,’ I said as we stood beside the spot where Sprout was buried.
‘She isn’t here though,’ Mouse said. ‘She’s in Heaven. With God.’
I wasn’t entirely sure Sprout would have made it all the way to Heaven, but the thought of her asking God lots of difficult questions made me smile.
A bird settled on a branch above us. His cheerful song made it a little easier to leave.
The same trucks that had delivered us to Weihsien two years earlier, took us away again on a bright October morning. We’d arrived as boys and girls, and left as young men and women, our childhood toys and memories packed away in our cases and trunks. Some of the children cheered as we rumbled through the large gates, but I quietly stuck my arm through a gap in the tarp and let the breeze drift between my fingers. I watched the landscape slip by and made a silent promise to return one day, to see China properly and not just from behind dormitory windows or through barbed-wire fences.
In Tsingtao, we said goodbye to dear Mrs T, who invited me to visit her in Devon for a proper cream tea. She gave Mouse a rather prolonged hug, and told us we must keep in touch with each other.
‘You’ve both made a friend for life,’ she said. ‘Nobody will ever understand all this, apart from those who were here. Don’t forget each other.’
She dabbed a tear from her cheek as she waved goodbye, and drifted away in a muddle of colour, like a rainbow fading after a rain shower.
From Tsingtao, we travelled on to Shanghai, where Larry was being met by his parents.
He wished me the best of British as he said his farewells.
‘Yes. And you,’ I replied. ‘Have a safe trip home.’
We stared awkwardly at each other for what felt like an age, before I leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek.
‘Goodbye, Larry Crofton.’
He was too surprised to say anything, but his smile said enough. I didn’t even mind Edward teasing me about it during the long sail back to England.
‘I’m fourteen now, Edward,’ I said. ‘I can kiss who I like.’
Those of us who were left didn’t really talk about what had happened. It was as if we all knew it was better to forget. Even Edward was much quieter than normal.
We slept and ate as much as we could. To be warm and clean, to have flushing toilets and warm running water was sheer luxury. Even the ship’s food rations were far nicer than anything we were used to. I took my time with the simplest of tasks: brushing my teeth, washing my face, peeling an orange and bursting each segment between my teeth. There was so much joy in the everyday things I’d once taken for granted, and I promised I would never take anything for granted again.
I was glad that Miss Kent and Miss Butterworth travelled the final part of the journey with us. They, too, were quiet and reflective, no doubt thinking about what had been, and what was to come at the other end of the journey, like the rest of us.
Miss Kent joined me at the railings as we sailed into port at Southampton.
‘It seems like an awfully long time since we stood together on the boat from Shanghai to Chefoo, doesn’t it,’ she said.
‘A very long time,’ I agreed. ‘Do you think we’ll ever forget what happened, Miss?’
She thought for a moment as she sniffed in a deep breath and closed her eyes. ‘No. I don’t. And I’m not sure we should. It’s part of who we are now.’
I held my hat against the breeze as a light rain began to fall. There was so much I wanted to say to this woman who had kept me safe and taught me so many things, but I couldn’t find the words, so I just said, ‘Thank you, Miss. Ever so much.’
She buttoned her coat and pulled wrinkles from her gloves as she stared at the coastline ahead, and smiled. ‘You won’t understand this until you’re older, Nancy, but really it is me who should be thanking you. Ever so much.’
They were the last words we exchanged.
I didn’t see her again after we docked. Just as unexpectedly as she’d walked into my life on the wharf in Shanghai and promised to keep an eye on me, Miss Elspeth Kent walked right back out again. Miss Butterworth too, and Mouse.
‘Look after yourself, Mouse,’ I said, as we hugged among the crowded harbourside. ‘I’ll never forget you.’
‘And I’ll never forget you, or any of it. I’m going to write it all down in a book one day. I’ll send you a copy.’
I smiled, and laughed through my tears. ‘Will you put Sprout in it?’
‘Of course. It would only be half a story without her.’
I watched as she walked toward a well-dressed man. She wasn’t even halfway toward him when he pulled his hat from his head and rushed toward her, his face beaming as he scooped her into his arms, and I knew she would be all right.
There was a great deal of noise and confusion as dozens of children searched the faces in the gathered crowds, looking for their parents, hoping they would recognize them after all these years. Edward and I stood together, peering into the crowds.
‘I don’t see her,’ I said, my gaze intent on finding my mother. ‘I don’t see them, Edward.’
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Suddenly, he grabbed my hand. ‘There! There’s the old man! Come on!’
He led me in the direction of a tall man who weaved his way through the crowds, stepping to the left and then to the right, until he broke through the melee and ran the rest of the way toward us.
I hardly recognized my father. He was much taller than I remembered, and not at all as stern-looking. He had a moustache which I couldn’t remember seeing before, and was dressed in a smart three-piece tweed suit and a navy-blue hat with a brown ribbon trim. He looked very much like Edward.
His hands flew to his mouth as he reached us. I stood to one side as he shook Edward’s hand and then gripped Edward’s elbow and then pulled him into an embrace and held him for several minutes. I thought, perhaps, he’d forgotten that he also had a daughter, and had mistaken me for a schoolfriend of Edward’s, but then he released Edward from his grip and turned to me.
‘Nancy. My dear dear little Nancy.’ His voice cracked as he said my name.
He threw his arms around me and held me so tight against him I could hardly breathe. His arms were warm and strong, and he smelled of tobacco and hair tonic, and family. Like a flood, my memories of him returned. I remembered the little scar above his left eye, and that he took two sugars in his tea, and wrote with his left hand – like me – and that he always said White Rabbits for luck on the first day of a new month. The stern and distant stranger I’d imagined in my head was none of those things at all. He was my father, my daddy, and by some invisible bond that had connected us through all these missing years, I knew that I loved him, and that he loved me.
‘I can’t believe it,’ he said, over and over again. ‘I can’t believe you’re here.’ He released me from his embrace and touched his hands to my face. ‘Look at you! So tall and grown up!’
I peered over his shoulder, searching for Mummy in the crowd.
‘Where’s Mummy?’ I asked. ‘I can’t see her.’
There was a moment, a pause.
‘Where is she?’ I asked again. ‘Daddy? Where’s Mummy? Where is she?’
When he pulled me close to him again, I could hear his heart thumping beneath his shirt. I felt the lurch and heave of his shoulders, and I froze.
‘I’m so sorry, darling,’ he sobbed. ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep her safe.’
I hung like a ragdoll, suspended in my father’s arms as I stared numbly into the crowd behind him, into the space where my mother should have been.
I couldn’t keep her safe.
His words swam around and around in my mind, so that I couldn’t quite grasp them; couldn’t understand how Mummy wasn’t there. She wasn’t waiting for me in her blue dress. The air wasn’t scented with English lavender.
My arms hung limply at my sides, as I felt the shudder and shake of my father’s sobs.
‘Don’t cry, Daddy,’ I whispered. ‘Please don’t cry.’
I sat quietly in the back of the car, my tea caddy clutched in my hands as we began the long drive home. Mile after mile, I watched the landscape slip past the window, and yet I saw nothing at all.
‘What’s that?’ Edward asked as I took a small square of cotton from my coat pocket.
‘A sunflower seed,’ I said. ‘Miss Kent gave it to me.’
‘Why don’t you plant it in the garden when we get home?’ he suggested. ‘Mother liked sunflowers. She thought it was very clever the way their faces followed the sun.’
‘I didn’t know she liked sunflowers.’
‘I bet you didn’t know she liked cricket, either,’ Daddy added from the front. ‘And the occasional glass of stout.’
We talked about her all the way home, where nothing had changed and everything was different, and the scent of English lavender laced the air along the garden path. As I stepped inside the house, I caught my reflection in the mirror and gasped, shocked by how much I’d grown, and how like my mother I’d become. She had, and would, always be with me. She was there in the shape of my eyes, and the colour of my hair, and the way my nose crinkled when I smiled, and she would always sit in a special place in the very centre of my heart, reminding me to be strong; encouraging me to be brave.
ELSPETH
Nobody knew I was coming home. I hadn’t written ahead, partly because I couldn’t quite trust that I would ever arrive, and partly because I didn’t want Mother to make a fuss or arrange any sort of welcome home party. It didn’t seem appropriate with Alfie missing, and so many people unable to welcome their loved ones home. I just wanted to slip quietly in by the back door, hang up my coat, and put the kettle on.
From Southampton, I took a series of buses and trains, each one propelling me further away from China, and closer to home. I kept my head down, avoiding the glances and whispers. My skin was the colour of the conkers that decorated the horse chestnut trees, my gaunt cheeks and lightened hair offering more than a hint of the story I tried to conceal beneath my many layers of clothes. I’d been away, that much was clear, and, unlike so many others, I’d returned. There was more than a degree of guilt and shame in that.
I walked the last mile, up the hill and along the lane. The sun broke through the clouds now and again, as if it was afraid to shine too brightly. Birds sang from telegraph wires and chimney pots. A perfect patchwork blanket of fields stretched out to the horizon with their dry-stone wall hems and hedgerow seams. It was all so vibrant and alive. The smell of cut grass and malt from the brewery beckoned me home.
The back gate still squeaked when I lifted the latch and pushed it open, the gravel stones still crunched underfoot. Late-blooming pink geraniums danced in pots on the step, and sweet peas clung to their canes, decorating the grey walls with shades of powder-blue, rose and lavender. I stopped to inhale their sweet fragrance. More than anything else, the familiar scent of the flowers I’d known since I was an infant, told me I was home.
I was glad to find the house empty. Mother was no doubt collecting eggs from the farm, or visiting a friend. I savoured the silence of the kitchen, the gentle hum of the refrigerator, the steady tick of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece in the front room. Like a ghost, I wandered through the downstairs rooms, before climbing the stairs to my bedroom.
It was just as I’d left it. My blanket was still folded on the foot of the bed from when I’d taken it out of my trunk at the last minute to make space for more books. It was as if I’d only just left, as if the many years in between were merely minutes.
I washed and changed, and walked the short distance to the church. There were many more graves than when I’d left. Too many. A stark reminder that the war had left its mark on this quiet corner of Yorkshire, just as it had left its mark around the world. I took a moment to read the headstones, the years between the dates of birth and death too few by far. I bowed my head in silent respect, and walked on, toward the small headstone beneath the lilac bush, where I set down my posy of sweet peas on the freshly cut grass.
‘I came back, Harry.’ I brushed my fingertips across the lettering on his headstone. ‘I came all the way back to say goodbye.’
It had taken a trip halfway around the world and back again, and the hardest years I would ever know, to finally accept that he was gone, and that I had to let him go.
I felt in my pocket and pulled out the last sunflower seed. I pushed it deep into the earth beside Harry’s headstone, drew a can of water from the pump beside the churchyard wall, and gave the seed its first drink as I thought of Wei Huan’s words. We grow anywhere with strong roots.
I stood for a long time. Thinking, remembering, listening to the whispers of my past, and the gentle call of my future.
The afternoon sun was high in the sky when I returned to the house. The gate stood open; the kitchen window ajar. Mother was home. She must have seen my trunk in the hall, and wondered so many things.
‘Hello!’ I stepped inside. The cat rushed past on the doorstep as if she’d never even noticed I was missing. ‘Mother? Hello?’
But it wasn’t my mother I
found sitting at the kitchen table.
It was Alfie.
I couldn’t speak; could hardly breathe.
‘You’re here!’ I said, laughing through my tears. ‘You’re here!’
A broad grin spread across his face. ‘And so are you!’ The arms that had carried me home when I’d sprained my ankle, and had carried Harry’s coffin into the church, wrapped themselves around me, and all the years of anguish and fear, despair and hope, lifted from me so that I felt light-headed. ‘And so are you.’
Like a pendulum reset, everything clicked back into place and time began again.
We didn’t ask questions or offer answers. There would be time enough for that. We shared a pot of tea on the back step, just as we’d done as teenagers and young adults finding our way in life, and it was the most natural thing in the world. Family was what held us all together in the end.
That afternoon, after Mother had recovered from the shock of my return, and I’d told her as much as I could, I took my letter to Lady Baden-Powell from inside the pages of my Girl Guide Handbook, took a pen from the writing desk, and added a postscript, detailing our liberation and the journey home, and my final thoughts.
Without the children, I don’t think I would have coped as well, I wrote. Their innocence brought moments of lightness to the most serious situations. Their willingness to try decorated the bare walls. Their squabbles and giggles brightened the dim electric lights and fading lanterns. Their natural curiosity and unstoppable instinct to play and learn gave me the determination to keep going. They were my food and my fuel, my light in the darkest moments.