Hiroshima Joe (25 page)

They had just been dismissed from
tenko
and were making their way towards the kitchens, both picked for that duty roster. There was no differentiation between one cook team and the next, and there was no demand for even the simplest of culinary expertise. There is only one way to cook rice and scanty vegetables when the only equipment is a series of Chinese cooking vats and water.

‘He’s not our first, of course,’ continued Pedrick. ‘Allen died of it last week and there are two others down with it. Another possible four. By the end of the month, it’ll have reached epidemic proportions.’

‘Why don’t the Nips act? They’ll catch it as readily as we do. Isn’t there a cure?’

‘Not a certain cure. I’ve heard rumour that boils can be cleared up by eating mouldy bread, but I’m not so sure. Maybe that would do the trick. That piece of information came in with a message passed from another camp. God knows which one. It seems there are more camps than we at first realised.’

‘There must be something, though.’

‘There is, Joe.’ Pedrick’s short laugh announced the breaking out of his ironical wittiness. ‘It’s called a decent diet and preventative medicine. Rump steak could do as either, in my case.’

Sandingham arched his eyebrows in a show of resignation, before adding, ‘With tomatoes, fried mushrooms and croquette potatoes.’

‘At least the tomatoes. Grilled.’

Like a schoolboy keeping cave at a classroom door, Tom looked around him to ensure no one was within easy earshot.

‘I’ve heard that there is food about, too. And drugs. It’s just that we don’t get it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve been told of a bloke who worked for the China Light and Power Company before the war. Electrical installations – mostly factories and the like. Apparently, he was called in with a former member of his Chinese staff to look at the wiring in Tokunaga’s quarters. When they got…’

‘Morning, youse guys!’

Panama Pete had come marching briskly around the corner of the barrack hut ahead of them. He had in tow two Japanese privates in fatigues, their torsos bare and their pantaloon trousers tied under their knees with draw-tapes. On their heads were the regulation-issue sun helmets.

The prisoners stood to attention, then bowed as low as they could from the waist as Panama Pete walked by. The bending hurt Sandingham’s stomach muscles. He had been getting the cramps in them of late. When they assessed that the interpreter was out of sight, they straightened up and walked on, talking more quietly.

‘… got into the place, they found White Pig had a Chinese tart installed, running the servants and no doubt serving the master’s desires. They inspected the wiring and were asked to make repairs to a big American refrigerator that ‘no longer he mek ice’. Ice! Jesus! – what I’d give for a block of that.’

The sun was over the hills and the heat of the day was rising into the eighties.

‘Trouble is, I’ve nothing to give.’

They mockingly laughed at each other.

‘And?’

‘The Chinese tart seemed to get guilty thoughts, seeing her fellow locals slaving for the Japs alongside the European. They’re still sure out there that the English’ll return one day and thrash the shit out of the Nips. That’ll also mean them getting those who turn collaborator and side with the enemy. So, to make amends – an insurance for the day of victory – she gave them each an ounce of coffee in a twist of paper.’

The two men entered the kitchens. Already, some other ranks were lighting the fires under the cauldrons. Three officers were coming in and out with buckets of water while another cleaned dishes with the wettened ashes of the extinguished fires. The morning bread ration had been given out before
tenko.

‘Coffee!’

‘The CLP man asked her how she got it. The guard was out having a leak or something. She took them into a former servant’s quarters room at the back of the pantry. Piled high with Red Cross parcels. Unopened, for the best part. Some breached, hence the coffee.’

A huge woven basket was carried in. Sandingham peered inside it to see what the contents were, though it was plain they would not have changed since the day before. Assorted greenery. Outer leaves from cabbages, turnip tops, nondescript leaves of a glossy, almost evergreen hue, peelings from other vegetables, particularly carrots. An onion.

The onion was unique. He knew that. There was only ever the one and it was always shoved down the side of the basket, about a foot in. He took the vegetable out, split it apart along the cut with his fingers and extracted the tight curl of paper. Then he tossed the two halves of the onion back into the basket.

‘Coffee!’ he repeated. ‘Bugger me!’

‘No thanks, my ole son,’ answered Pedrick, grinning.

Sandingham guffawed and left with the message, saying over his shoulder, ‘I’ll be back in a tick to wash the aubergines and shell the peas.’

His remarks produced a groaning laugh from all: they rarely saw even pea pods.

*   *   *

The aviation fuel barrels had been piled into a circle in such a way that, in the centre, there was a space just big enough for two men to stand in. As the barrels were empty and piled high, awaiting refilling from a fuel lighter that came in to the beach every day, they were not well guarded.

The stink of the kerosene was overpowering in the afternoon sun, but it was better than the stench of death that hung over the other end of Kai Tak. The Indian PoWs in Ma Tau Chung were dropping like flies to diphtheria and cholera, the latter now running rife through the civilian population as well. The Japanese were trying hard to cope with the matter, but it was getting on top of them.

‘Indian troops not very good,’ explained Francis 177 in a hushed voice. ‘They got no officers and they lose face over capture. They not wash, they lavatory in open gutters, they get much sickness. Some of them more senior try to stop this but many no care if he die or not.’

Sandingham said nothing. What could he say? He knew what it was like to be demoralised, to have the bottom kicked or slapped or punched or prised out of one’s life. It was only nationalistic pride, he supposed, and a degree of stubborn determination that kept him alive and comparatively civilised.

‘How do you keep going, Francis?’

‘I am Communist. For now.’ He smiled. ‘Not all time though, Joe. Later, when war over, I go back. I be rich man then.’

There was, just for a fleeting second, a distant look in his narrow, almondy-coloured eyes and Sandingham saw that what kept him going was the desire to be wealthy and to hold the power that went with it.

‘All Japanese dead. I get watches, rings, teeth. Japanese soldier go on patrol in New Territories. Go far into woods, up in hills behind Fei Ngo Shan, Ma On Shan, Kai Kwun Shan. Out where you’ friend Stewart captured. We ambush them. Ambush?’

Sandingham nodded. ‘Your English is improving.’

‘Get bigger vocabulary.’ Another smile. ‘When we ambush, I get things and buy sell them to me for cheap money. Then I pay the money to the Communists. They buy foods, friends. Bribe Japanese soldiers. Get information on patrols. Go out and ambush patrols. And it go on and on. Like business. Buy, sell, create demand.’

It was Sandingham’s turn to smile. He wanted to laugh, but the sound would have reverberated in the space inside the barrels and a guard might have grown suspicious. To Francis 177, war was business. He was more than an underground agent – he was a company agent, too.

‘You got anything for me?’

‘Only this,’ replied Sandingham as he took from a fold in his loincloth a fountain pen.

‘Not worth much,’ said the temporary Communist. He unscrewed the cap. ‘But nib is gold.’ He studied it closely. ‘Nine carat. I get you something for this? What you want?’

‘Chocolate. Or a block of ice.’

‘I see. Maybe can do, maybe not.’

An aircraft came into land, its piston engines throbbing in the sky overheard and its shadow flitting over the hiding place.

‘You my friend,’ said the Chinese. ‘You no cheat me and, one day, I help you big time. One day, you want somet’ing, you call on Francis Le … Number 177. Lucky number.’

There was a ‘psst’ from the shadows.

‘I go. You watch vegetables. See you, Joe.’

He was gone, disappearing with the rapidity and magic a gekko would have been proud of displaying.

The following day, right in the centre of the vegetable basket, wrapped in straw and newspaper, was a nine-inch square block of ice and a bar of chocolate, as rock solid and as cold.

*   *   *

In the mid-morning of 15 September, Sandingham was called to the guardhouse at a moment’s notice. He went there at the double, for any order had to be carried out at speed for fear of reprisal.

In the room was a desk behind which sat Panama Pete. Sandingham stood to attention before him. He was not spoken to until Tom Pedrick entered.

‘Right!’ Panama Pete began, looking up from an army memo pad upon which was an obvious list of names in Japanese characters. Sandingham, who knew what his name looked like in its phonetic translation, tried to see it on the sheet.

‘You two officers are to return to Sham Shui Po prisoner-of-war camp. At two o’clock, a lorry will come for you. You got that? You get your belongings together. You do not take food. You got that?’

‘Yes, sir,’ they replied in chorus.

Taking the risk, Tom asked, ‘Can we be told why we are moving and no other officers are, sir?’

The ‘sir’ stuck in his craw but it beguiled the Japanese.

‘You go to command some soldiers there. Dismiss!’

‘Well, it would seem that at least we aren’t going there for the chop,’ commenting Pedrick as they made their way briskly through the camp.

‘No.’ Sandingham was apprehensive. ‘But they must have a reason. I wonder…’

‘Don’t wonder. It’ll happen if it’s to happen. As for 177, which is what is on your mind: I’m sure they’ve not sussed him or you out.’

It did not take Sandingham long to pack his few belongings. It took him much longer, however, to say his goodbyes. Everyone accepted his farewells with a mixture of blessing, curiosity and fear, all emotions which he himself churned over in his mind.

‘Suzie’ da Souza gave him his usual piece of advice: ‘Remember, Joe. Laugh. Laugh at the awful and the terrible comes easier.’

Rob Bingham gave him six tooth-cleaning sticks: how he maintained his supply puzzled Sandingham.

From the senior officer, he received three messages to be passed to his opposite number in Sham Shui Po. Sandingham hid these in a slit in the sole of his rubber-tyre sandal.

On the dot of two, he and Tom Pedrick climbed into the lorry with their escort and were driven out of the camp.

*   *   *

‘What’s it all about?’ Tom said.

‘It’s like this. At least, I think this is their reasoning.’ Sandingham had been talking to those officers in Sham Shui Po who had not been moved to Argyle Street. ‘A week or so ago, a draft of prisoners was cobbled together and shipped off to Japan. It seems they want to use PoWs in factories and the like in the Nip homeland: so much for the Geneva Convention. But this is rather encouraging, as it suggests that things are getting tight for them at home. Anyway, this lot went off. That left an under-staffing ratio of officers to ORs, in their eyes. So we’ve been brought in. Suppose because we’re of the comparatively healthy few.’

‘Do you think we are heading for the Land of the Rising Sun?’ was Tom’s next sentence.

Ten days later, on 25 September, their speculation was satisfied.

*   *   *

‘Attention!’

The ranks came to some semblance of order.

‘This officah,’ Cardiff Joe shouted out, indicating the man at his side on the platform, ‘is Lieutenant Hideo Wada of the Imperial Japanese Army. He has a message for you all. Pay attention to his words and listen. It ve’y good news.’

They listened. The lieutenant talked of Japan, how it was an ancient land, a beautiful land of calm where ‘all is green and prisoners will be cared for by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces who look after their prisoners very well and treat them as worthy and honourable opponents.’ He told them how he was to be in command of a draft of one thousand eight hundred prisoners who were to go to Japan in a few days upon a ship called the
Lisbon Maru.
By going to Japan, he assured them, they would escape the diphtheria outbreak. In Japan, it appeared, disease was all but unknown.

The following day, Sandingham and Pedrick spent some hours in a queue for inoculations, the first they had had since the fall of Hong Kong. They had no idea against what they were being immunised. Evidently only healthy foreigners would be allowed to enter the homeland. After the inoculation, every prisoner was forced to bend over while a glass tube was inserted up his anus and a Japanese doctor studied his rectum. It was quick but thorough, impersonal and painful. Some prisoners were weeded out, but the majority passed. As Pedrick said, the Japanese standard of health must be considerably lower than that of the British; few of the men were really well enough to make the trip by sea. Some even had diphtheria and not one was anywhere near fair health.

From the radio in Argyle Street, Sandingham knew that American naval activity against the Japanese in the South China Sea and western Pacific area was on the increase, and this worried him. He voiced this concern to the senior officers who debated the issue and managed as a result to get a message out of the camp through partisans, with instructions to tell the British consul in the neighbouring neutral Portuguese colony of Macau that a Japanese ship was about to leave loaded with a human cargo of prisoners-of-war. He, in turn, could pass this on by radio to the American naval authorities.

Perhaps the agent was delayed: perhaps he was stopped and searched and had to clear himself. Maybe the ferry was held up with a breakdown and did not sail. Whatever the reason, the message was never to arrive.

P
ART
F
IVE

Po Lin Monastery, Lantau Island (Hong Kong): Summer, 1952

H
E LOOKED UPWARDS.
The looming mountain peaks, suddenly appearing then vanishing into the clouds, reminded him of those others he had known in similar weather, the skies thick and gun-grey and the wind gradually rising by the hour. A tropical storm was on the way and the air carried its threatening message in a close and humid anger. The ferry crossing from Castle Peak had been choppy and he was still unsteady on his feet, even after walking half a mile along the promontory from the jetty and across the stout wooden bridge to the village, through the little streets and over the paddyfields behind.