Enemy Camp (7 page)

Another shock after school. Barry and I were heading home when a bunch of high-school kids biked past in a hurry. One yelled: ‘There's Japs down at the railway station!'

For a moment, I had this weird idea that we should rush back to school and dive into the air-raid shelters. Instead, we tore off after them.

About twenty people were already at the railway yards, watching: adults and high-school kids, and a few from Featherston Primary.

There were ten … twelve Japs in their blue uniforms, unloading sacks of something from a railway wagon and
carrying them to a couple of lorries. Half a dozen guards with rifles and bayonets stood around. A few prisoners glanced at the crowd watching them, but most kept their eyes on the ground. I couldn't see any I recognised.

At first, nobody spoke. Then some of the high-school boys started whispering and nudging one another. Next minute, one called out: ‘Work faster, Tojo!' Another yelled: ‘You Japs are weak!'

The prisoners kept their heads down. Two of the guards turned towards the boys. A man next to Barry and me went, ‘That's enough from you kids. If you want to be big and brave, there's better ways to do it.' And a woman called, ‘Peter Clark, you go home this minute, or I'll tell your mother and she'll whack your backside!'

Some of us laughed, including a couple of the guards. The high-school boys looked a bit stupid, then wandered off. I don't know if the prisoners thought we were laughing at them; they just kept unloading the sacks.

When we got to the Morrises' Clarry was standing on the doorstep. His leg braces were off again. As we came up the path, he took a wobbly step onto the verandah, then another, and grabbed the railing.

‘I'm going to walk without my braces every day.' He glanced behind him. ‘Don't tell Mum.'

‘You want a hand?' I asked, as he turned himself around.

Clarry glared. ‘No!
I'm
going to do it!'

He tottered back towards the doorway. His braces were against the hall wall. He folded himself down on his backside, and started putting them on. If his polio ever comes back, it will be the most unfair thing in the world.

THURSDAY, 10 DECEMBER There's been a big fire in a mental hospital down near Dunedin. More than thirty women have died. They were all locked in their wards or their rooms, and they couldn't escape when the fire started. The windows had metal bars over them. It must have been awful.

If there's ever a fire or an earthquake in a place where Clarry is, could he get out? He was talking yesterday afternoon about how when the doctors tested him for polio they kept sticking a big needle in his back, taking some of the fluid in his spine. It really hurt, but he said he wouldn't mind it hurting like that all the time, if only he could ride a bike and play cricket again.

They're still working flat-out to finish the second compound at camp, Dad told Mum and me. ‘At least we've got a proper water supply now. Some of the military prisoners wouldn't touch it until Major Parsons drank a couple of glasses in front of them. Must have thought we were trying to poison them.'

Dad blew a smoke ring. ‘He's been a good CO, the
major. The Jap officers are starting to listen to him. He finishes up tomorrow, though. The new camp commandant is an ex-regular army bloke. Fought in the Great War. Hope he's OK.'

I'm reading a book from the library. It's about an American Indian called Deerfoot who is a terrific hunter and warrior. We could use him against the Nips.

FRIDAY, 11 DECEMBER A week until the holidays. A fortnight until Christmas. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed about our going away. Dunno whether I'll keep my journal going next year.

Air-raid practice at school. ‘Sheltersh!' Miss Mutter kept yelling. ‘Move fasht!'

‘How does she eat Christmas dinner with no teeth?' Terry muttered as we filed into the trenches.

‘What did you shay, shon?' demanded Miss Mutter. Terry looked terrified.

Concert rehearsal this afternoon — and Snobby Susan is going to be Britannia! I'll have to salute her!

Barry and I were passing the town hall on the way home when my friend went ‘L-Listen!' I heard it a second later. A rumbling and clanking sound, like a bulldozer or something, coming from the next street.

We hurried up to the corner. Then we stopped and
stared again. A tank was grinding towards us.

Not a tank. A tractor, with big steel plates bolted along its sides and over its front and back. There was a slit in front with a gun barrel poking through it. A Home Guard bloke was driving; another one sat behind the gun. Rifles stuck out through other slits in the sides.

I couldn't wait to tell Dad. ‘Secret weapon, son.' He grinned. ‘They're hoping if the Nips invade and see it, they'll die laughing.'

SATURDAY, 12 DECEMBER Dad was home today. He's back at camp tomorrow: some of the civilian prisoners are being put to work making concrete chimneys for houses, and he'll show them how to do it. He said we can bike out there with him.

Barry and Clarry came around. Dad spent a while teaching us how to salute properly, so we can do it in the concert. ‘Fingers and thumb in straight line. Right hand shortest way up to just above the right eyebrow, then longest way down in a half-circle, until you're properly at attention again.' He showed us how, with his good arm. ‘None of these silly little flicks like the Yanks do.'

Afterwards, we three kids kept saluting one another. ‘I'm a general,' Clarry told us.

Barry nodded. ‘Yeah. A g-general n-nuisance.'

SUNDAY, 13 DECEMBER Don't know what I'm going to get Mum and Dad for Christmas. There's hardly any new things in the shops. Maybe I'll try to make something, or do extra jobs. Mum reckons her best Christmas present last year was Dad coming home safe.

We all rode out to the camp after lunch: Dad and me, and Barry towing Clarry in his trolley. Dad was wearing his uniform and lemon-squeezer; we must have looked like an army convoy.

A couple more buildings have been finished since we were out there last. Through the wire, we could see blue uniforms sweeping, shaking mats, washing big pots near some new taps. Two of them had arms in slings; another was on crutches. Nobody was wrestling today. Outside the wire, the gardens of flowers and vegetables glowed bright. A few prisoners bent over them, while two guards smoked and watched.

We three kids breezed up to the barrier with Dad. ‘Hello, Jack,' went the guard there. ‘Brought the family?'

‘Brought
two
families, Hec,' Dad replied. ‘No problems if we take a few flowers? There's an old lady in town who'd appreciate them.'

The guard nodded. ‘Help yourself. Blowed if I can get used to the way these Nips have them.'

We pushed our bikes along a hard dirt path to the flower beds. The prisoners glanced up as we approached,
looked at us kids, looked longer at Clarry on his trolley. One of them — the little older bloke, the carver — sneaked a glance towards the military prisoners' area, then gave Dad a small bow.

‘Just getting some flowers for old Mrs Laurie in town, Bill,' my father told the closest guard, an older, almost bald man.

The guard grinned. ‘Fine, Jack.' He turned to the prisoners. ‘Hey, you blokes? Some flowers here, eh? Chop-chop!'

The prisoners began carefully breaking off red, yellow, white flowers (don't ask me their names — they were flowers!) with their fingers. They didn't have any knives or scissors, and I could guess why. When they had a decent bunch, the little guy gave them to Dad.

‘Here, Ewen.' Dad passed them to me. Me, a bloke, holding flowers! I handed them quickly to Barry, who handed them quickly to Clarry, who put them down quickly on the trolley beside him. Dad and the guard burst out laughing, and even the prisoners smiled.

‘Can we stay and watch, Dad?' I asked. ‘We won't get in the way.'

My father hesitated. The guard went, ‘It's OK, Jack. They're no problem.'

Dad nodded. ‘Thanks, Bill. You lads move when you're told to, eh?'

As he began wheeling his bike away, the other guard
called after him. ‘Better make sure your hat's on straight, Jack. The new commandant arrives today or tomorrow, and he's a terror for doing things by the book, they say.'

Another group of prisoners was working on a patch of ground closer to the fence. ‘Let's l-look there,' Barry said. ‘I'll wheel you, Cl-Clarry.'

‘No, you won't,' his brother went. ‘Wait.' He'd taken off his leg braces again. Swinging himself off the trolley, he grabbed the back of Barry's bike and levered himself up. He began to walk slowly, step by step, along the dirt path. His whole body was stiff with the effort. We left our bikes and followed him.

The prisoners ahead watched us. Others gazed from behind the double barbed-wire fences. I didn't really notice them; I was concentrating on Clarry, ready to grab him.

Clarry kept panting. ‘I'm — doing it! I'm — doing it!' He had nearly reached the next patch of garden.

‘Boy.' The voice wasn't loud, but we all stopped.

He stood on the far side of the second fence. The short black hair; the burn mark on his face. His eyes were fixed on Clarry, who stood swaying and gazing back at him.

‘
K-Konnichiwa
,' Barry went. The officer — Iti? — glanced at my friend, then back at Clarry.

‘You are hurt?' His English was clear, with a funny soft sort of accent.

‘I've got polio. It ruins your muscles. But I'm going to walk. See?' Clarry took another two steps, stopped, and swayed again. Nobody else spoke. Nobody else moved. Then Clarry asked, ‘Did you get wounded in the battle?' He touched his own face where the Jap's — Ito: that was his name — was scarred.

The figure beyond the wire didn't reply, but someone else began calling out. A guard, also inside the wire, moving towards Ito. ‘Hey, you! Get away from there. Move!' The enemy officer took no notice; kept gazing at Barry's younger brother.

He spoke again. ‘Hold.' I glanced sideways. Clarry's legs were starting to crumple. Barry and I grabbed him, held him upright. When we looked across at the barbed wire again, Ito had turned, still ignoring the guard, and was moving silently away.

We were halfway back to Featherston and I was towing the trolley, when Barry murmured, ‘L-Look.'

I glanced back. His jersey draped over the flowers so nobody could see them, Clarry was fast asleep.

MONDAY, 14 DECEMBER Last week of school! Next year, 1943, I'll be in Standard Six. In 1944, I'll be at secondary school. I hope the war finishes long before then.

‘I'm writing about the Japs in my journal,' I told Barry on the way to school, and felt surprised at my words.

He nodded. ‘You're good at writing.'

I felt pleased, and a bit embarrassed.

‘I'm writing about Cl-Clarry,' Barry went on. He kicked a stone along the footpath. ‘It's st-stupid, but if I write about his p-polio, I sometimes think he w-won't g-g-get any worse.'

A lady on a bike went past. Dad says that when the Nips invaded Malaya last year a lot of them rode bikes. They could move along jungle tracks; they were silent. Still seems strange: an army biking to war!

We rehearsed for the concert this morning
and
this afternoon. Some kids are reciting poems; some are doing Scottish dances. The whole school is singing Christmas carols, and we finish by marching past snobby Susan Britannia.

This afternoon, Anzac and Terry both went ‘Howdy, ma'am' in fake American voices as we went past. Susan started giggling, and Miss Mutter snapped, ‘Shushan Proctor! Shtop being shilly!'

Mum took the flowers across to Mrs Laurie today, and the old lady nearly burst into tears. She hasn't heard from her grandson, the coast-watcher, and she's frightened for him.

Oh, and I might as well mention it:
WE'RE GOING ON A HOLIDAY
!

TUESDAY, 15 DECEMBER We're going to Castlepoint for three days. A lady from the committee told Mum yesterday. We've got a bach. It's tiny, and we have to take our own food and bedding, but there's a truck to drive us out and back, and we're going next week! There are fishing lines in the bach we can use. After Mum told me, I took down the little carved fish from the mantelpiece. ‘We're going to see your cousins,' I told it.

Big dress rehearsal at school today. Dad had got Barry and me battledress tunics and army caps — the sort that sit at an angle on your head. So we looked like soldiers, even though we had to wear our ordinary shorts and shoes. Some blokes had blue shirts and shorts so they could be air force or navy. There were girls dressed like nurses, or WAAFs and WRENs and WAACs. (That's women in the air force, navy and army.) Susan Proctor was in a white frock, with a Union Jack pinned around her to show she was Britannia.

But Anzac looked best. Remember I said his sister Moana is going out with a Yank? Well, the bloke had lent Anzac some American uniform brown trousers, light-green shirt and tie, and a proper uniform cap. Primer kids kept asking, ‘Is that a real American?'

I still can't think what to do about Christmas presents. I looked in my pocket-money tin, and I've only got a shilling and sixpence. That is … nine ice-creams.
Wonder if Mum and Dad would like those!

I was heading to the kitchen when Mum's voice stopped me. ‘Is it dangerous, Jack? Tell me.'

What was going on?

Dad sounded thoughtful. ‘Not dangerous, Molly. But ever since the new camp commandant arrived on Sunday, the place has felt different. His name is Wallace. He's a lieutenant colonel, so he can change what Major Parsons did whenever he feels like it.'

I stood still and listened. A match scratched. ‘He's started talking about putting up pictures of King George in every hut, so the Nips can see who's in charge now. And he wants the Union Jack flying in both compounds all the time. Don't know how they'll react to that.'