Sisters under the rising.., p.24
Sisters under the Rising Sun, page 24
‘So much beauty,’ Norah says to Nesta.
‘And all we want is water,’ Nesta responds. ‘I’d trade all of these wildflowers for a tap.’
Down in a small gully, they find a babbling stream. Norah and Nesta exchange a glance and follow the other women, who are throwing off their clothes and plunging into the cool water. After they feel refreshed, they sit on nearby rocks, using the sand gathered from the streambed to wash their hair.
‘It is so good to still be alive,’ Nesta says.
‘And not thirsty!’
On their way back to camp, clean, and bearing containers full of water, Nesta pauses to pick a bunch of the wildflowers.
‘Ladies.’ Mrs Hinch has called a camp meeting to relay Seki’s latest edict. ‘I’ve been told we need to form work details to carry out the jobs around the camp.’
‘We have jobs!’ exclaims a voice. ‘Cleaning the toilets, the street, the huts.’
‘Well, now we will have more jobs. They want us to build a barbed-wire fence around the hospital. There is also wood to be collected and stacked near the kitchens, and rice to be taken to the supply sheds. Do I have any volunteers?’
No one speaks, until, finally, Norah raises her hand.
‘I’ll help,’ she says.
‘Me too,’ chime in Audrey and Ena at the same time.
Norah wonders at the wisdom of helping make the barbed-wire fence. With no gloves to protect their hands, the work is slow as they learn how to string the wire without slicing off their fingers.
‘I guess there is an upside,’ Ena says, sucking the blood from a cut on her finger. ‘We’re getting more rations.’
‘True,’ Audrey says. ‘I heard shark was on the menu.’
‘And Seki has even given us more oil,’ Norah adds.
Deep-fried shark, mixed vegetables and rice washed down with copious cups of tea brings the women together. For the first time in her life, Nesta opens her mouth to lead the nurses in song. Within a few lines, every woman in the camp is singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’, as their voices carry up and down the street.
*
Nesta is working in the hospital when the front door bursts open. She looks up to see Vivian and Jean push inside, carrying a lifeless body.
‘It’s Betty! She’s unconscious,’ Vivian exclaims.
‘Bring her over here,’ Nesta says, pointing to a quiet corner of the room. ‘Lie her on the floor and we’ll get her onto a bed when we can.’
Dr McDowell joins the nurses to examine Betty. ‘We need water and cloths: we have to cool her down quickly.’
Vivian and Jean run off to fetch what’s needed while Nesta and Dr McDowell undress the poorly Betty.
‘This bloody water is hot; she needs cold water,’ Vivian groans when they return with water from the well.
‘Yes, but we don’t have any,’ Dr McDowell says. ‘This is what we have and we will make the most of it. Now, soak the rags and hand them to me.’
‘Can you do it, Nesta?’ Vivian says before turning to Jean. ‘You grab a bucket and come with me.’
Before Nesta can object, Vivian has thrust a bucket into Jean’s hands, grabbed one for herself and together they run from the room and head for the stream.
‘Please tell Captain Seki that there is a fever raging through the camp. To get better, the women have to eat better. Why have you cut our rations again?’ Mrs Hinch can barely get the words out. No sooner had the shark arrived than it disappeared, along with the vegetables. They are back to the weevil rice. Nesta has joined her for this audience with Captain Seki; standing by her side, she can no longer hold her tongue.
‘We have to face facts,’ she says. ‘Women are about to start dying and we need to prepare. Just tell us how.’
‘Everything you get is a gift from the Japanese. Be grateful for the food, Inchi,’ Ah Fat says, before turning to Seki to deliver their messages.
After a terse response, Ah Fat clears his throat. ‘Captain Seki is aware many women are very sick and will die. He said he wants you to bury them just outside the camp – there is a small place there, we have boxes to put them in, but you must do it.’
‘Of course we must. Can we please have the tools to dig the graves and we will need timber to make crosses?’ Mrs Hinch presses.
‘Captain Seki will give you a machete to dig with and will find some wood for you to make crosses.’
‘A machete? That’s not much use. If we were clearing our way through the jungle it would come in handy, but how can we dig into the rock-hard soil with a large knife?’
‘We will give you two machetes. That’s all, now leave, Inchi.’
Without paying the captain the respect of a small bow, Mrs Hinch and Nesta hurry from Seki’s office.
‘Mrs Hinch, what’s going on?’ Audrey intercepts the two women on the street.
‘We’ve just had the hardest conversation I’ve ever had with anyone. Poor Nesta had to say out loud that some of us are going to die, and die soon, and that we need to prepare.’
‘That must have been awful,’ Norah sympathises. ‘But you’re right. We’ve just been at the hospital and Jean told us there are several women there who they fear they can no longer save.’
‘Inchi, Inchi, wait!’ Ah Fat calls, hurrying towards them.
‘Oh, no. I really do not need him right now,’ Mrs Hinch says, before turning to Ah Fat and yelling, ‘Unless you have good news for me, please go away.’
‘Inchi, I have these for you,’ he blurts, handing her two long machete-like knives.
Mrs Hinch snatches them from him, turning her back and walking away. Norah and Audrey hurry after her.
‘I can’t say what I am tempted to do with these two weapons in my hands, but I am thinking it,’ Mrs Hinch says, a small smile crossing her face.
‘We would do it for you, Mrs Hinch, you just have to say the word,’ Audrey assures her.
‘Well, thank you. However, we’ve been given them for another use.’
‘What are they for?’ Norah asks.
‘These are what we have been given to dig graves,’ Nesta replies. ‘You don’t have to say it, they are totally impractical, but they are all Seki will give us. We’ve also asked for some timber to make crosses.’
Audrey and Norah exchange a look.
‘Why don’t you give them to us and we’ll look after the cemetery preparation. We will get others to help, but it will be our responsibility. Is that all right with you?’ Norah says.
Mrs Hinch stops in her tracks, looking from one woman to the other. ‘Are you sure? I don’t know if this is a short- or long-term thing. It’s a lot to offer and a lot for me to ask.’
‘Let us make it one less thing for you to worry about,’ Audrey says.
For a moment, Mrs Hinch’s legendary demeanour falters, her voice quivering as she hands each of the women a machete. ‘Thank you. You both have given so much to the women in this camp with your voices and now, now you are doing this.’
Within days, three women are dead and Audrey and Norah have dug shallow graves in an area just outside the camp where wildflowers flourish. Seki has been true to his word and provided some wood for the women to carve small crosses.
Norah and Audrey are perched on small wooden stools in front of a raging firepit. They suffer the heat of the flames as they each hold a rusted screwdriver in the fire, before they burn the names of the dead women into the crosses. While time-consuming and exhausting, they nevertheless cherish this last act they can perform for the unfortunate women who have succumbed to disease. At the gravesite, Mother Laurentia and Sister Catherina conduct the services, and flowers are placed lovingly on the graves.
Mrs Hinch calls a meeting with Margaret, Mother Laurentia and Nesta.
‘It is Christmas Day tomorrow; I have been told there will be some pork to go with our rice. By pork, I am to understand that two baby piglets will be given to us to prepare and cook.’
‘Please . . . please don’t tell me we have to k-kill them first?’ Mother Laurentia stammers.
‘I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. However, if they come to us alive, I will have no problem dealing with them. Too many of us are too ill and too hungry to be squeamish right now. Am I right, Sister James?’
‘You are, and I’ll help you if needed,’ Nesta answers.
‘What we need is for the strongest amongst us to spend the morning getting the fires ready, plenty of firewood, as I expect it will take some time to roast a whole animal.’
Once all three kitchens have been stocked with firewood, the cooking pits are lit and soon are blazing. It is well into the morning before three soldiers arrive – two with the piglets (thankfully already dead) and the other a sack of rice. Placing the carcasses on the table, they draw their bayonets and remove the legs from the animals, before taking them away.
‘Oh, well, we’ll just have to make do with legless pigs,’ Mrs Hinch says as she rolls her sleeves up to help prepare the meat for cooking.
The sun has set when the women and children leave their huts to eat. The mood is subdued, as yet more internees are dying, and Christmas isn’t celebrated this year with handmade gifts. The women have brought their own chairs from the living blocks and now sit in the clearing in the middle of the camp, as they eagerly await the arrival of food. The smell of roast pork is the only topic of conversation.
Margaret calls on a few members of her original choir, who move with her to the centre of the gathering.
‘I know we all think there is nothing to sing about, nothing joyous about this day for any of us. I am certainly not going to preach, the time for that has long past. However, if no one objects, might we sing a carol or two while we wait for our food?’
No one objects; in fact, small smiles appear around the table, but it’s the children who look most excited.
‘We’ll start with “Silent Night”,’ Margaret tells the women of the choir.
The first notes spring forth as she slowly lowers her raised arm. One by one, the audience join the choir in a sweet rendition of the most beloved carol. The voices of the beaten, half-starved, sick and exhausted ring out through the camp: they are not yet broken.
As they move onto ‘Oh Come, All Ye Faithful’, patients from the hospital stagger towards them, supported by Nesta and her nurses. They add their weak and croaky voices to the music.
They sing a rousing chorus of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ one more time as the food is finally served.
As they begin to sing, Captain Seki appears and stands just outside the gathering, a small gesture of respect for the song Captain Miachi had once requested as an encore.
Eating their Christmas dinner, Audrey watches Ena placing morsels of her food onto June’s plate. Using wisdom and ingenuity beyond her years, June distracts Ena by pointing something or someone out, and sneaks the food back onto Ena’s plate.
‘What did you think of Seki turning up tonight?’ Audrey asks Ena and Norah.
‘I wasn’t surprised,’ Norah says. ‘Just like Miachi, he seems to love that song, which is strange, to say the least.’
‘I was talking to Mother Laurentia, and she asked me if the voice orchestra was ever going to perform again,’ Ena replies.
‘What did you say?’ Norah asks.
‘I didn’t know what to say. I mumbled about how difficult it was to rehearse, how no one has the energy. I hope we can, but realistically I don’t think so.’
‘I would love us to re-form, but I think that time has come and gone. Still, let’s not let that thought spoil tonight and how special this day has been,’ Norah tells them both.
‘I think we’ll sing again one day; I have to believe we haven’t heard the last of Ravel,’ Audrey says, smiling at her two best friends.
The start of 1945 arrives without being marked, the women now burying many of their friends every day. Almost all of the nurses have malaria, now relying on the others to nurse them. Ena is stricken with Banka fever; Norah and Audrey carry her to the hospital, June hanging on tightly to her favourite aunt’s hand.
‘We’ll look after her,’ Nesta, thankfully free of malaria, assures them.
‘What can we do?’ Norah pleads. ‘I’ll do anything.’
‘If you can bring us cool water from the stream, that will help lower her fever, and, of course, a three-course meal would go a long way to speeding up her recovery,’ Nesta says, trying for a moment of humour.
‘She can have my ration,’ Audrey says.
‘Mine too,’ June pipes up.
‘I know you want to give her your food, little one. But you’re a growing girl and you need all the food we can get for you,’ Norah says.
‘I’m a big girl now, I’m eight.’
Norah looks away suddenly, choking back a sob.
‘Yes, my darling girl, you are big now, but big girls also need to eat. OK?’
‘June, what good will you be to Aunty Ena if she has to look after you when she’s all better?’ Nesta asks her. ‘We’ll get as much food into her as we can. You can stay and change her wet towels, that will be a great help.’
‘I have somewhere to go, can you two look after her?’ Norah asks Audrey and June.
‘Where do you have to be that’s more important than being here?’ Audrey asks.
But Norah has already left, the door to the hospital swinging shut behind her.
Hurrying to the barbed-wire fence, she takes a quick look around and, seeing no soldiers nearby, she slips under the wire and runs in crouch towards the huts on the hill. Towards the homes of the women here to entertain the Japanese officers.
She knocks on the door of the first hut she comes to. When there is no answer, she nudges the door open.
‘Hello, is there anybody here?’ Norah calls.
As she steps inside, a woman appears from the kitchen.
‘Can I help you?’ she asks.
Norah begins to babble. ‘It’s my sister, she’s so sick, you see. She needs food, and they don’t give us enough, but I have to help her. She’s my sister, the best sister you could hope for . . . and . . .’ Norah drifts off when she sees the puzzled expression on the woman’s face.
‘Your sister is sick, I understand, but how can I help? I am not a doctor. I’m a—’
‘No, no! I’m not asking you to see her.’
‘Then what do you want from me?’
‘Food. You all get extra food, so much of it. We’ve seen it being delivered. I want just a little. For my sister. I beg you.’
‘What is your name? I am Tante Peuk.’ Tante is smiling and Norah is immediately hopeful.
‘I’m Norah, Norah Chambers, and my sister is Ena.’
‘A pleasure to meet you, Norah.’
‘I apologise again for my rudeness, but I’m desperate. If I could get some food for her, she might have a chance.’
‘How long have you been a prisoner of the Japanese?’
‘Since February 1942.’
‘Oh. I’m so sorry, that’s so long. Yes, I have extra food – have you got something to pay for it?’
‘What? Pay? I . . . I don’t have any money. I wouldn’t be here if I had money. I have the clothes I’m standing in, that’s all. Are you really not going to give me life-saving food for my sister because I can’t pay you?’
Tante Peuk looks down at Norah’s left hand. ‘What about that?’
Norah raises her hand to catch sight of her wedding ring. She sighs; it’s the only thing she has to remind her of John. It hangs halfway down her skinny finger, threatening to fall off.
‘My wedding ring?’
‘Do you want food for your sister or not?’
Norah plays with the ring before sliding it off. Kissing it, she hands it to Tante Peuk.
Over the next week, Norah feeds Ena with small quantities of vegetables and dried fish along with her rice ration. When her fever finally breaks, Ena’s strength slowly returns. Audrey has asked repeatedly where she got the food from, but Norah can’t bring herself to tell her she sold her wedding ring. Watching her sister improve, Norah has no regrets for having parted with it. She knows John will understand and applaud her for doing the right thing – the only thing. A ring can be replaced, a sister can’t.
In the first month of 1945, seventy-seven women die. More foliage around the cemetery has to be cleared to make room for the growing number of coffins. A human chain of twenty of the strongest women ferry the dead from the camp to their graves.
‘How long is this going to go on?’ Norah says. She and Audrey are perched in front of the firepit most days, burning names and dates of death into small, misshapen crosses before forcing them into the hard earth.
‘Please God, not much longer,’ Audrey says. ‘I know these crosses are to honour the dead, but it’s a terribly sad and awful job.’
‘The nurses have the worst job, though,’ Norah observes. ‘Those that aren’t sick are taking care of everyone else.’
‘And they’ve just lost Sister Ray. The first nurse to die.’
‘It’s horrible, isn’t it? After standing in the sun that day; I’m sure that didn’t help her fight off whatever she died of in the end.’
‘Her uniform’s ready.’ Nesta had prepared Ray’s outfit herself, giving it a good airing, dousing dirty smudges with a little water and scrubbing.
With no time to grieve, the nurses begin to dress Ray in her uniform.
‘It’s the first time we’re wearing ours since we were captured,’ says Betty. The uniform hangs off their emaciated frames. ‘I’m just glad we’ve managed to hang on to them.’
‘Ray will get the full honours,’ Nesta says. ‘The coffin’s not up to much, but she has the respect of the Royal Australian Army.’ Nesta’s voice breaks as six nurses step forwards to carry Ray to her resting place in the cemetery. ‘One last thing.’ Nesta lays a small bunch of wildflowers on her chest.
The nurses line up behind the coffin-bearers and begin their slow march to the burial site.
‘Look,’ Vivian says, unable to hold back her tears. The street is lined with internees, standing as guards of honour as the procession heads towards the gates of the camp. Even the soldiers remove their caps as the women approach. Both Mother Laurentia and Margaret wait with Bibles in their hands. Dozens of women join them at the graveside.
