Sisters under the rising.., p.1
Sisters under the Rising Sun, page 1
To nurses everywhere – past, present and future
You make the world a better place
To Sally and Seán Conway
Thank you for sharing your mother/grandmother’s story –
Norah Chambers
To Kathleen Davies, Brenda Pegrum and Debra Davies
Thank you for sharing your cousin’s story –
Nesta (James) Noy
CONTENTS
Prologue
Part 1: The Fall of Singapore
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part 2: Deep in the Jungle
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part 3: The Last Days of War
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Afterword from Kathleen Davies and Brenda Pegrum, Nesta’s Relatives
Afterword from Seán Conway, Norah’s Grandson
Acknowledgements
Heather Morris Readers’ Club
Letter from Author
Reading Group Questions
About the Author
Copyright
In 1942, the Japanese Army entered World War II, conquering the islands of the Pacific, reaching Malaya and the then British colony of Singapore, which fell to the Japanese on 15th February, 1942.
The Vyner Brooke, a merchant ship carrying desperate evacuees away from Singapore, was bombarded from the air by the Japanese Air Force. Within a few hours, she lay broken on the seabed.
Many survivors made it to a remote island in Sumatra, Indonesia. They were soon captured by the Japanese, the men and women and children separated and sent to prisoner-of-war camps deep in the jungle, along with hundreds of others rounded up by the invading army. The camps were places of starvation and brutality, where disease ran rampant.
They would remain there, moved from camp to camp, fighting for survival, for over three and a half years.
This is their story . . .
PROLOGUE
Singapore
February 1942
N
orah Chambers sits on Sally’s bed, waiting for her daughter to wake up. The conversation that follows is the most painful of her life. Telling her of the decision she and her husband, John, have made to send Sally away with her aunt Barbara and cousins is received just as she expected. She holds on tight to her distraught little girl, desperate to stay with her mum and dad, crying that she will not leave them, not now, not ever. Even when her two cousins burst into the room full of the news that they are about to embark on an adventure, and sail the seas no less, Sally barely registers their presence.
‘Sally, we’re going to Australia!’ they chant. ‘On a big ship!’
Singapore is falling; what choice does Norah have? John is in hospital with typhus. As soon as he is better, they will follow, she promises Sally.
On the car journey to the wharf Sally doesn’t stop crying, her face turned away from her mother to the window. Norah’s attempts to comfort her are shrugged off. As they walk to the boat, Sally wraps her small arms tight around her mother’s waist. It’s going to be hard to let go, for either of them.
An explosion nearby only compounds their fear, their terror of what lies ahead, and Sally’s cries erupt into petrified screams. Norah is frozen, numbed by the horror of what she is witnessing, the distress she is causing to the most precious person in her life. As the world explodes around them, Barbara swiftly lifts Sally into her arms and runs to the waiting gangplank.
‘Daddy and I will be right behind you. Be a good girl, my darling, we’ll be with you in a few days, I promise,’ Norah screams after her daughter.
Sally continues to sob, her arms reaching for her mother. Norah takes an involuntary step forwards, only to have her younger sister, Ena, grab her arm and pull her away. They watch as Barbara and Sally disappear onto the deck and out of sight. There will be no happy waving from the boat or the dockside, from either mother or daughter.
‘Will I ever see her again?’ Norah cries.
Part 1
The Fall of Singapore
CHAPTER 1
Singapore
February 1942
‘I
don’t want to go! Please. Please don’t make us go, Norah.’
Ena Murray’s cries are swallowed up by the screams of women and children, by explosions erupting around them and the screeching of Japanese warplanes overhead.
‘Run! Run!’ parents implore their sons and daughters, but it’s too late. Another missile hits its target and the allied ship harboured in the Singapore wharf flies apart.
As the shrapnel rains down, Norah’s husband, John, and Ena’s husband, Ken Murray, crouch beside their wives, shielding them from the flying debris. But no good will come of staying put. Ken helps the sisters to their feet, while John, gasping for breath, tries to stand.
‘Ena, we have to get on, we have to go now!’ Norah is still imploring her sister to board HMS Vyner Brooke. There is may-hem all around, a terrible urgency to get as far away as possible from this chaos, to find sanctuary. Norah takes a brief moment to wrap her arms around her husband. John should still be in hospital; he is so weak, and can barely catch his breath, but he would use the last ounce of his strength to protect these women.
‘Ena, please listen to your sister,’ says Ken. ‘You have to leave, my darling. I’m going back to your parents, I promise I will take care of them.’
‘They’re our parents,’ Norah replies. ‘It’s us who should be looking after them.’
‘You have a daughter somewhere out there, Norah,’ says Ken. ‘You and John have to find Sally. And you must look after Ena for me too.’ Ken knows he is the only one who can stay in Singapore to take care of his parents-in-law. John is desperately sick and so is the women’s father, James – too sick to attempt to leave. Margaret, their mother, has refused to abandon him.
Another bomb erupts close by and everyone ducks. Behind them, Singapore is on fire; ahead, the sea is littered with the burning wrecks of ships, boats, big and small.
‘Go! Go while you still can. If the ship doesn’t leave now, it won’t get out of the harbour, and you need to be on board.’ Ken yells to be heard. He kisses Norah, squeezes John’s arm and pulls Ena into a tight embrace, kissing his wife one last time before he pushes her towards the ship.
‘I love you,’ Ena calls out, her voice breaking.
‘Get out of this hellhole. Find Sally. Find Barbara and the boys. I won’t be far behind you,’ Ken shouts to their retreating figures.
Norah, John and Ena are amidst the crowd of passengers now, forced to move along the wharf towards the ship.
‘Sally, we have to find Sally,’ John mumbles, his legs giving way beneath him. Norah and Ena each take an arm and hurry him along.
Norah has no more words. The cries of her daughter fill her head as she stumbles towards her destiny. ‘I don’t want to go. Please let me stay with you, please, Mummy.’ Just a few days earlier, she had put eight-year-old Sally on a different ship and sent her away.
‘I know you don’t, darling,’ she had cajoled. ‘If there was any way we could stay together, we would. I need you to be a strong little girl for me and go with Aunty Barbara and your cousins. Daddy and I will be with you before you know it. Just as soon as he’s better.’
‘But you promised you wouldn’t send me away, you promised.’ Sally had been beside herself, the tears flowing freely, her cheeks blotchy.
‘I know I did, but sometimes mummies and daddies have to break their promises to keep their little girls safe. I promise—’
‘Don’t say it – don’t say you promise when I know you can’t.’
‘Come on, Sally, can you hold Jimmy’s hand?’ Barbara had said. She was Norah and Ena’s older sister. She spoke softly to her niece. There was some comfort here for Norah; Sally would be safe with her family.
‘She didn’t look back once,’ Norah whispers to herself as she trudges along. ‘She just boarded the ship and was gone.’
Entering the cordoned-off area of the wharf, passengers with the approved paperwork gather. Amongst them are terrified adults and wailing children, each of them struggling under the weight of their most essential possessions.
A group of Australian Army nurses wave their paperwork at the officials and are hurried through the fenced-off area. They stand to one side as civilians file past before another group of women in the same uniform burst through the gates. The reunited nurses embrace, greeting each other like long-lost friends. Amongst the newcomers, a petite woman pushes her way through.
‘Vivian, Betty, over here,’ she calls.
‘Hey, Betty, it’s Nesta!’
The three women huddle in a hug. Sisters Nesta James, Betty Jeffrey and Vivian Bullwinkel became firm friends in Malaya, where they were posted to nurse Allied soldiers before it was overrun by the Japanese army. Like everyone else here, they had been forced to flee to Singapore.
‘It’s so good to see you again,’ says Nesta, overjoyed to see h er friends. ‘I didn’t know if you’d left with the others yesterday.’
‘Betty was meant to leave yesterday but managed to go AWOL when they were leaving for the ship. We both hoped we wouldn’t be sent home, there’s just so much to do here,’ Vivian says.
‘Matron’s gone to plead our case one last time. We’re not on the ship yet, so maybe High Command will see the benefit of letting us stay here in Singapore with those who are too ill to leave,’ Nesta tells them.
‘They’re boarding the launches now, she’d better hurry,’ Betty says, looking at the line of men, women and children climbing into the wildly bobbing boats that will deliver them to the HMS Vyner Brooke. Bombs continue to hit their targets, churning the sea into waves and crashing them against the wharf.
Nesta is staring at the launches where the passengers are embarking.
‘It looks like someone could do with a hand; I’ll be right back.’
‘Do you need some help?’ Nesta asks Norah and Ena, who are trying to work out how to help John down the steep steps and onto one of the boats. It is now half full of distraught passengers, some weeping, others paralysed with fear. Norah feels a hand on her shoulder.
Norah turns to see the smiling face of a pint-sized woman in a nurse’s white uniform. She looks so tiny that Norah wonders how she could possibly help them, given that she, her husband and her sister are taller than the average man or woman.
‘I’m Sister Nesta James, a nurse with the Australian Army. I’m stronger than I look, and I’ve been trained to help patients much bigger than me, so don’t worry.’
‘I think we’ll be fine,’ Norah tells her. ‘But thank you.’
‘Why don’t one of you get into the launch while two of us help the gentleman down and you can take over from there?’ Nesta is politely insistent. ‘Have you been in hospital?’ she asks John, taking his arm as Norah lets go.
‘Yes,’ he says, allowing her to guide him towards the boat. ‘Typhus.’
As soon as Norah is safely in the launch, Ena and Nesta help John into her waiting arms.
‘Aren’t you coming with us?’ Ena asks the young nurse.
‘I’m with my friends. We’ll get the next launch.’
Ena looks around and sees a large group of women dressed in the same uniform.
As the launch pulls away with Norah, John and Ena on board, they hear singing from the wharf. The nurses, arms around each other’s shoulders, stand proudly, singing with all their might, loud enough to drown out a nearby petrol tank detonating into a ball of flames.
‘Now is the hour when we must say goodbye
Soon you’ll be sailing far across the sea
While you’re away, oh then remember me
When you return, you’ll find me waiting here’
Another bomb goes off on the wharf.
*
Matron Olive Paschke catches Nesta’s eye. ‘Matron Drummond made one final plea to the authorities to let us stay here and care for our men, but the lieutenant told her that our request is denied.’
‘It was worth one more try, wasn’t it? It just doesn’t seem right to be abandoning them when they will most likely need us. How did Matron take it?’
‘The only way she could, by simply raising her eyebrows at him,’ replies Matron Paschke. ‘If she’d said what she was think-ing, she’d have been in trouble.’
‘Which means she doesn’t accept it but will begrudgingly go along with it. I wouldn’t have expected anything less from her.’ Nesta shakes her head.
‘Come on, let’s get the others. I think we’re the last to leave.’
Once on board the HMS Vyner Brooke, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel entertains them with her knowledge of the ship.
‘She is named after the third rajah of Sarawak and now has HMS in front of her name because the Royal Navy requisitioned her. She’s only meant to carry twelve passengers but has a crew of forty-seven.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Betty asks.
‘I had dinner with the rajah, didn’t I? Yeah, I know, me – little old Sister Vivian Bullwinkel from Broken Hill – had dinner with a rajah. Not alone, mind you, there were others there.’
‘Oh, Bully, only you would add the last bit, the rest of us would leave it at I had dinner with the rajah,’ Betty says, laughing at her friend.
When the last nurse is on board, the captain gives the order to slip anchor and proceed with caution. He knows British minefields lie ahead and will be as big a threat as the enemy dominating the skies above.
As the sun sets, the passengers watch as Singapore burns, the bombing, shelling and gunfire relentless. Above the noise of the death of a city, Norah, John and Ena turn away from the cacophony to the sweet singing of the Australian nurses on deck. And, just for a moment, that’s all they can hear.
CHAPTER 2
HMS Vyner Brooke, Banka Strait
February 1942
‘Y
ou’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me . . .’
‘What a cheery bunch those nurses are. We’re lucky to have them on board, given everything.’ Norah is struggling to keep her voice light and airy.
The final words of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ are accompanied by the piercing shriek of air-raid sirens echoing across the harbour towards the slowly departing ship. An oil storage tank explodes, throwing debris into the air. Around them, burning vessels are sucked into seething waves. Only the skills of an accomplished captain will get them through the harbour, past the mines laid by the British Navy to thwart the Japanese Navy, and out to sea.
Norah turns away from the apocalyptic scenes.
‘Do you want to see if there’s a place downstairs to rest?’ John asks as he stares out to sea, but it’s obvious to Norah he’s trying to conceal his discomfort at needing her help.
‘I’m happy to stay on deck; there are mothers with children here and lots of old people. I think they should take the cabins,’ Ena suggests.
John looks at Norah. Her response will decide if they venture below deck or not.
‘Quite right, Ena, let’s find some space up here where we can lie down. We all need a minute.’
Norah can see the relief wash over his face. She knows her husband so well; now they won’t have to help him stagger up and down the stairs.
As they shuffle along the deck looking for a space to settle down, they stop for a moment to watch the nurses, gathered around an older nurse as she issues instructions.
‘Must be their matron,’ Norah offers.
‘We’ll head down to the saloon where the captain has given us permission to set ourselves up. We have a lot of planning to do, and we must be prepared for anything,’ the woman in a matron’s uniform tells her nurses. Another matron stands amongst them, beaming, her pride in her nurses evident. She is clearly happy for her younger colleague to take charge.
As the nurses file towards the hatch, Norah, Ena and John claim some space on the upper deck for the first night of their escape. The fires burning along the shore compete with the brilliance of the setting sun over what was once a tropical paradise. Now, it resembles Armageddon.
John slides down the ship’s bulkhead, coming to rest on the wooden floor planks. He indicates for Norah and Ena to join him, and they take a seat either side of the sick man, huddling close to him to keep him upright. John wraps an arm around each woman and they watch their world disappear, in silence.
The nurses file into the saloon, chattering amongst themselves. They are excited, terrified and, right now, they need the comfort of their friends and colleagues.
‘Quiet, girls! We have a lot to do.’ Matron Olive Paschke calls them to order. ‘We are going to split into four teams. Some of you will be responsible for those below deck and others for those above. I will assign each a senior who will be responsible for the appointed area, along with the discipline and morale of their group. But first I want to make it clear that should the worst happen, and we must abandon ship, you are to assist with the evacuation, and we will be the last to leave.’
Matron watches her nurses take this in. The girls glance at one another, nodding; fully understood.
Nesta, second in command to Matron Paschke, is the first nurse appointed to lead a team. Quickly, efficiently, the nurses divide the medications and bandages between them.
