China to Me (73 page)

The cook stayed outside the hospital and bought supplies for the household, and handed them in through the barred gate which was now kept locked. All over town, in the bankers' hotel as well as in my house, in a hundred hovels and tenement rooms, were people holding their breath, terrified for Selwyn's safety and for their own. The Ho girls wept and went about their work for the Japanese with sullen faces.

I was summoned to the Foreign Affairs office by Hattori, the successor to Oda.

Hattori had made a good impression on everyone by his politeness. It was a pleasant change for everyone, to find a man who didn't feel it necessary to remind us all the time that we were in a bad spot and that he was boss. Oda toward the end of his stay had even committed the unforgivable crime, in the eyes of the Ho girls, of losing his temper with Selwyn and shouting at him, and pounding the desk. Though the Ho girls loved Oda, that they could not forgive, and Yvonne that day sat at her typewriter and wept as she worked. She made excuses for him. He was unhappy about the way things were being run; he was overworked; he drank too much and his nerves were suffering. But he should not have been rude to Dr. Selwyn-Clarke, of all people. Yvonne would try to forgive and forget.

When I first met Hattori I too was charmed. He was so civilized, so smiling (and not in a Japanese way, either), so tall! He asked me to come and see him at home and to bring Carola, and I did so just about a week before Selwyn was arrested. He had provided himself with a toy for Carola, and we had drinks, and we had a talk.

“You have been left to me as a legacy, Mickey — I shall call you Mickey,” he began. “Oda was worried about you and this is what has happened. I need not tell you how strenuous life is going to be in the near future. You people in town have seen enough to understand. The gendarmes are in an ugly mood. And Oda had you on his mind, because he is Boxer's old friend and he feels he has a duty to Boxer.”

“Yes. He has been very kind indeed.”

“Yes, this Hong Kong is not an easy job. That's why I held off so long, before I would consent to take it. That's why Oda had to wait for some months instead of going straight to Tokyo last year, as he wished. But I will tell you why I did come at last. I was in Australia for years, in the consular service. I was interned there after Pearl Harbor.”

“Did they treat you well?”

“Oh yes. Diplomatic status, you know … though, strictly speaking, consuls are not diplomats. We have been treated well in England too, I know that. So I said to myself, ‘Wouldn't it be better for those poor people in Stanley to have a man in charge who bears no animus? I know the British a little. Perhaps I can be of use.' ”

I made expected and sincere compliments to his humanity. He liked them.

“And there is another thing,” he said, pouring me a huge drink. “I have a sister-in-law in England. Her husband is British.”

“Do you think she'll be all right?”

“I hope so.” He drank off half his glass. His capacity, I observed, was even better than Oda's. We have underestimated the Japanese in many ways. “Now,” he resumed, “as to you.”

“Yes.”

“Oda told me to watch the barometer. At the first sign of trouble from the gendarmes I am to intern you. Do you see? At least in Stanley you will be my prisoner and not theirs.”

“I see. But that would be terrible, Mr. Hattori; I would never forgive myself. I kept my baby here in spite of everything, and now, if I shall have been responsible for putting her into Stanley after all — ”

“The time has not come yet,” he said soothingly. He stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at Bowen Road Hospital, just opposite us and a mile away. “You love Boxer?” he asked.

It wasn't a bit like the gendarmes: I said yes right away.

“So,” said Hattori. “If you need anything you are to come and ask me immediately. You are my responsibility, my legacy.”

I thanked him a lot more, and then I took Carola home. I was touched and grateful and reassured, but I was also sorry that I had to feel all those things. I do like to be boss.

Well, now he had sent for me. The time, I felt sure, had come. Carola and I were earmarked for Stanley.

“Well,” said Mr. Hattori. His smile was as wide as ever, and I took heart. “There is a sad thing,” he said, “about Selwyn-Clarke. But we cannot discuss that here. The little Ho girls are very much upset about their sister, and I have asked in certain places what can be done to hasten her release. … Now about you.”

“Yes.”

“We know,” he said, “that you are very, very intimate with the Selwyn-Clarkes. You are under observation. Be careful. Do not correspond with Mrs. Selwyn-Clarke, do you understand?”

“Yes.” I thought of the three letters she had already sent me through the cook, telling me to come down to the hospital at five o'clock so that we could call to each other through the iron gate.

“Do not go anywhere near that French Hospital,” said Hattori, looking me in the eye.

“No.”

“That is all. Don't forget what I told you. If you get into trouble over this I may not be able to keep you out of the gendarmerie. So far you are in the clear. Stay that way. You are my responsibility.”

“Yes, Mr. Hattori.”

When I got home I found four more notes from Hilda. She was not in her most coherent mood. She seemed to think that I could get Selwyn out of prison. She told me to see Hattori, to see Noma, to see the Governor, and to tell them to let Selwyn go. She also wanted me to cable Nguchi, now supposed to be in Mukden, though nobody knew for certain. And besides that, she wanted me to come straight down to the hospital and demand entrance.

Naturally I did none of these things. I stayed home. Down in the French Hospital, Constance and Hilda ranted and said that I was a false friend and a traitor. The notes kept pouring in. Maria went down to hospital as deputy for me, and there was a little communication between Hilda and her, but a soldier chased her off. After that, though, Hilda was not so sure I was a traitor.

I was sure I was not. I couldn't see Noma or the Governor, I couldn't do more than I was doing with Hattori, and I couldn't do anything at all about Hilda except for certain practical considerations which I did take care of. Helen Ho told me two weeks afterward, when she had been released and Hilda was in Stanley, that for the first few days Hilda was in a bad state, but that she was all right afterward. Fortunately the gendarmes never questioned her at all.

For that week, however, it was embarrassingly evident that the Hilda who was then uppermost in her character was determined to get me sent to Stanley too.

“Good morning,” Mr. Hattori would say, having sent for me by note. “Is everything all right? You have not received any communications from Mrs. Selwyn-Clarke?”

“Oh, no indeed, Mr. Hattori, how could I?”

“That is true.”

“Is there any news of the doctor?” I asked.

“No, nothing. I trust they're not mistreating him. I saw him only a few times, but he impressed me as being thoroughly sincere.”

“Oh yes, Mr. Hattori, he's sincere.”

I walked home slowly. It seemed to me that everyone I met looked stunned. No one dared stop to speak to me; no one dared stop to speak to anyone. There were no little groups at the street corners. There were only isolated figures, hurrying along.

Chapter 58

Ah king always insisted that Sophie Odell was responsible for making me ill, but I don't think that is the truth. Certainly Sophie had that strong desire you often find in warmhearted people for being the first to bring bad news. When she was in distress herself she couldn't wait to plunge other people into the same bath.

In our little army of parcel-carrying women there was a strong esprit de corps and an equally strong intelligence department. The Japanese officers would have been amazed — in the end, because of me, they were amazed — at the things we managed to find out about the prisoners. It was all done with mirrors, piecing together bits of news that leaked out I don't know how. Some of it was no doubt due to the fact that a lot of the Japs now had Hong Kong girls as mistresses. They had employed the same means themselves, before the war, to get information; yet they too fell into the oldest trap in the history of the world's battles. The commandant of camps, fat Colonel Tokunaga, may have been one of our sources of supply, because he was what the Cantonese call “wet salt,” which means “oversexed.” He ogled women. I never knew what ogling was until I saw the colonel. His whole fat face lit up when he saw a pretty piece, and he rolled his eyes with a simple, honest lubricity that would have been laughable if he hadn't been commandant of the camps where our men were held prisoner. He had installed himself in a good house near Argyle, with a Chinese woman we all knew as his housekeeper.

But the colonel was decidedly not the only one. I never knew where the news trickled out, or how; I just guessed. A lot of it was false but some of it sometimes was true, and what Sophie brought me that morning sounded genuine.

“The men are being taken away, Mickey, this morning. All of them. In Kowloon they're marching through the streets.”

“From Argyle too?”

“From Argyle too.” She was crying. “I suppose they'll take Bowen Road next, and my Harry has just started to walk with his crutch.”

It was not only the prospect of losing Charles, what very small portion I still had of him, that agitated me so much. Once before a large shipment of prisoners had been sent off by ship, the Lisbon Maru, to Japan or Formosa. Wherever it was aiming for, it didn't get there; the Lisbon Maru was sunk, and a lot of our men were drowned. They must have been battened down in the hatches, from the percentage of losses; I haven't yet interviewed the few survivors who made their way to Chungking. Hong Kong when the news came to us was a pit of horrible misery, and the Japanese rubbed it in cruelly in the paper. The Americans had sunk their ship, had they? And drowned their own Allies, hadn't they? That would teach the Americans. That would teach the foolish women of Hong Kong, who were still hoping that the United Nations would win the war.

In time the Japanese must have been scolded so heartily from Geneva for breaking a few major international laws that they quieted down. They discovered that they should have announced it to the world whenever they moved prisoners by sea. They found out that they had made other mistakes. But this new development hit us too soon, while the tragedy was still poignant. All I could think was, “Charles's arm is paralyzed; he won't be able to swim.”

Five minutes after Sophie left I was violently ill.

I should like to agree with Ah King in his attractive idea that I was merely suffering from a broken heart. It is a pretty notion and romantic. To the best of my scientific knowledge, however, broken hearts don't lead directly to high fever and severe cramps. Ah King spoke his mind to Sophie in an outburst which must have been refreshing to all concerned. “Don't tell the mistress these things. Wait. Wait until you're sure. Wait until you don't see the major at Argyle before you scare my mistress like that.”

Then he hurried upstairs to soothe me. He had it on direct authoritative evidence, he said, that the major was not being moved. He, Ah King, knew that. Then he gave me the Chinese equivalent of a tisane and closed the door and left me to sleep.

And after all, he was right and Sophie was wrong. It had been a shipment of prisoners, but of enlisted men, mostly Canadians. Charles was still there. Nobody had left Argyle. Moreover, the Japanese behaved in a chastened manner this time and broadcast their intentions to the world through Geneva, and arranged for safe passage, and told us via the Red Cross the minute the men arrived safely.

It made me think, though. That week was the first and only time I ever missed a parcel day; I was laid up for six days. All the while I lay there I said to myself, “If he is sent away someday, then what have I done to Carola?”

Hattori had sent for me. “There is going to be another repatriation,” he announced. “Two repatriations, one for British and one for Americans!”

“Oh, that's wonderful!”

He fiddled with his pencils. My reply had been a bit perfunctory, because I really didn't believe it. I had heard that story fifty times, usually from Hilda, who always believed it and was always painfully disappointed. Now, with Hilda in Stanley and Selwyn in the gendarmerie, I was free to be skeptical.

“It will really take place, though I don't know when,” Hattori insisted. “I called you to ask you in which boat you prefer to go.”

“Me?”

“Yes. This time,” he said pleasantly, “you will not refuse, will you? As an American you can sail in the American ship, naturally, with your child. As a British child, your Carola can sail in the British ship and you would naturally accompany her as her mother; I think the British would accept you. I don't know the details yet; I don't know how many British civilians they are willing to take, but I think there would be more room, you would be more comfortable, on the American boat. What do you say?”

“But I am still not sure if I want to go at all.”

Mr. Hattori drew a deep breath. “Do you think,” he asked patiently, “that you should take on yourself the responsibility of — ”

“Could you get in to see Charles?” I demanded suddenly.

“Perhaps. Yes, as a friend of the chief of staff I — ”

“Would you? Then you could ask Charles himself what he wants. Last time it was all so sudden, and Oda was so busy, that I didn't think of it. But it is his affair too, isn't it?”

“Certainly,” said Hattori in approval. “I shall try to do that. It will not be easy. This is purely a civilian affair; the military, unfortunately, never exchange prisoners, so there is no chance that your Charles will come home before the end.”

“I know that. Thank you, Mr. Hattori, very much.”