The Passion and the Glory Page 4

  Betty turned and went inside. Joan held her husband close. ‘We’ll see each other again,’ she said, and smiled at him. ‘Heck, this island isn’t big enough to get lost in.’

  ‘If we’re taken prisoner, they’ll separate us.’

  ‘Okay, so we wait until they surrender and we’re free. Don’t give up, Johnnie. Promise me that. Swear it. No matter what happens, we’ll survive, until it’s over. Swear it.’

  He kissed her. ‘I’ll swear it. But you must too.’

  ‘I do. I swear it. When Johnnie comes marching home, I’ll be there, Johnnie.’

  *

  It seemed so unreal. But it was real. When Joan re-entered the ward, John’s taste still on her lips, she knew it was real. A corner of the British Empire was about to die, taking with it those servants of the crown who happened to be on the spot. It would become part of history, the fall of Hong Kong. The second British territory to fall to the enemy — the other had been the Channel Islands, eighteen months before. Individuals would not matter against those overwhelming facts.

  But individuals had to matter. It was what would make the history worthwhile. She worked harder than before. They all did, because the fighting was now nearer at hand, and the casualty list grew with every minute.

  The following night the Japanese crossed the harbour and landed on the island. The wounded were evacuated up the hill to a private house belonging to a wealthy Chinese which had been already prepared. Here there was more light and even some fresh air after the stifling misery of Victoria, and eager, terrified Chinese girls scurrying about anxious to do what they could, still believing that the British could win, as they had always won before. Day followed night with almost kaleidoscopic perpetuity. Joan was unaware when it was one or the other, mostly. She worked, and ate perfunctorily, and slept even more perfunctorily, and then worked again. And listened to the firing, coming closer. She no longer bothered about the planes bombing and strafing the hillside, about the bullets which would occasionally even rake through the ward. If a man was hit and died, the orderlies took him outside to join the other corpses. There was hardly time to bury the dead before the numbers had grown again.

  ‘Guess what,’ Betty said, during one of their brief smoking breaks — they had run out of coffee long ago. ‘Tomorrow is Christmas Day.’

  ‘Is it really? I wonder what we’ll have for lunch?’

  They were down to tinned meat and biscuits.

  ‘There’s a plum pudding at my house,’ Betty said. ‘I might just sneak across and get it.’

  She did go, but she didn’t come back. Joan had no idea what had happened to her, but as darkness fell she also realised that something was happening. An army major appeared in the ward. ‘I have to tell you,’ he said, ‘that General Maltby has determined that further resistance is impossible. We have suffered impossible casualties, we are nearly out of ammunition, there is no food, and to cap it, the Japanese have now captured the reservoir. The general wishes me to thank you all for your splendid behaviour this last fortnight, and to assure you that our struggle has gained invaluable time for the Empire, and our American allies, to muster the forces which will wipe the Japanese armies from the face of the earth. I am sure we will all meet again in the hour of victory. Thank you.’

  He saluted, and left. The nurses stared at each other, and at the patients, who stared back. ‘I wonder if they’ll send us home,’ Harriet Caldwell said. She flushed as the others looked at her. ‘Well … we’re non-combatants. Just extra mouths for them to feed.’

  *

  There was no cessation of the firing that night, but at dawn the guns fell silent. Christmas Day, Joan thought. Silent Night, Holy Night. Oh, pray that it is going to be a Holy Day.

  She wanted to go home; there she could have a bath and change her clothes, see what had survived the battle and perhaps lock some private treasures away, to be reclaimed if she ever came back. Most of the other women felt the same way. But Dr Bretton would not let them. ‘I think in these circumstances there is more safety to be found in staying together. A lone woman … ‘ he allowed them to use some of the little remaining water to wash themselves, and to make themselves as presentable as possible to greet their conquerors. Joan found some lipstick in her handbag and shared it around. Then the four nurses in C ward, and Surgeon Wong, together with the three Chinese helpers, stood to attention at one end of the room, looking down the ward in which the twenty-four beds were crammed together — the room would have been considered big enough for six in ordinary circumstances — and waited. Dr Bretton had also warned them not to go outside.

  They listened to noise again, but a different noise now, and somehow this was more terrifying than the firing and the explosions. It was of men shouting and screaming … and laughing. The laughter was the most terrifying thing of all. Joan felt fingers touching hers, and held Harriet’s hand. What had happened to Betty? But perhaps Betty had found a hiding place. Oh, lucky Betty. Because suddenly Joan knew that there was going to be no safety in sticking together after all. That sticking together was going to be more horrible than being by oneself. The laughter told her that.

  The door of the ward was thrown open, and men rushed in. Little men in green uniforms and round steel helmets. Many wore moustaches, and to Joan’s surprise, quite a number also wore spectacles. Combat troops? But they were armed with rifles with fixed bayonets.

  They uttered shrill cries as they entered, and one of the Indian soldiers, a havildar, sat up straight in bed, and attempted a salute with his left arm — his right arm and shoulder were both heavily bandaged. The Japanese soldier nearest to him gave a shout and thrust his bayonet through the wounded man’s chest.

  For a moment what had happened did not penetrate Joan’s mind, or anyone else’s, it seemed. They stared at the discoloured steel as it was withdrawn, and at the blood spurting from the Indian’s stomach. Then he fell over, and all hell broke loose. Still yelling and shouting the battle-crazed soldiers charged at the beds, shooting and bayoneting their helpless, screaming occupants. Blood flew and Dr Wong ran forward to attempt to stop the murders, was struck on the jaw by a rifle butt, and bayoneted as he lay on the floor. Joan threw her arm round Harriet and moved forward. She had some idea of reaching the door, but was seized around the waist from behind by one of the soldiers. The idea of a man half her size manhandling her was impossible, and she swept her arms left and right. The man tumbled across one of the beds containing a dead Indian, but Joan had lost touch with Harriet. When she turned to find her, she looked at a bayonet within inches of her breast.

  She stood still, knowing that she was within seconds of death. But the soldier had perhaps never seen a woman quite so statuesque before, or perhaps, quite so blonde. He gave a shout, and she was surrounded by other men, not one of whom reached her ears. Then she knew she was going to live, but at a price.

  Even faced with bayonets, she was apparently still regarded as a menace. Two of the men seized her arms and pulled them behind her back, secured them there with a strip of torn cloth. Then, still holding her arms, they forced her to the floor. She gazed past them at Harriet, lying across a bed, stockinged legs kicking in the air. One shoe had come off, but far more horrifying, above the stockings there was white flesh as one of the soldiers tore at her underclothes. I am going to look like that in a few seconds, Joan thought, and wondered how anyone could want to, when none of them had bathed for a fortnight. She knew she had to fight them. But she was already on her knees, and a push knocked her over. She fell on her face, and bruised it, but before she was really aware of the pain they had rolled her on her back, and her bound hands were hurting as they were crushed by her weight.

  She gazed at the faces above her. They might not have been human, or she might not have been human. They had laid down their rifles, and laughed and chattered as they played with their new toy. Her skirt was torn off and her military drawers. Her legs were pulled apart and a man knelt between them, dropping his trousers. ‘No,’ she shoute
d, and tried to sit up, but two men held her shoulders and forced her flat again. A third busied himself with releasing her tie and unbuttoning her blouse, searching for those white breasts. He found them by the simple process of pulling her brassier so hard the straps snapped. He gazed at them as a little boy might have looked at a bag of sweets, and then seized them, seeming to lift them from her chest as if he could tear them loose.

  By then the first man was inside her. He was kneeling and thrusting, while two of his comrades held her legs, pulling them so far apart she thought they might tear them off. But she hardly felt the man himself, she was so preoccupied with what was happening to the upper half of her body. She strained and tried to twist, and the man holding her breasts laughed and squeezed. She moaned in pain and was aware of heat. She saw the man between her legs being pulled off her and replaced by another, already trouserless. She turned her head right and left, her hair scraping on the floor, looking at Harriet’s twisted features, listened to one of the Chinese girls screaming, a high, thin noise. They had all been stripped, were all being raped. She inhaled every revolting smell she had ever known, at the same time, heard every bestial sound too. And knew that she was a part of it.

  She never knew how many men entered her that Christmas morning, how many men pinched her nipples and squeezed her flesh, fumbled at her buttocks, pulled her body hair, even that beneath her arms. The day became a kaleidoscope of horror, which seemed unending. But at last an officer came in, and the soldiers stood to attention, hastily dragging on their clothing before bowing to their superior.

  Joan gave a gasp of relief. This man would put a stop to their torture, would discipline his men. Would have them shot, perhaps, for so violating the laws of war.

  The man spoke in a quick, staccato tone. The soldiers ran at the women, shouting and kicking. Joan found herself dragged to her feet, naked from the waist down save for her suspender belt and stockings — when had her shoes come off? — and virtually naked from the waist up: her torn shirt and tunic did no more than hang from her shoulders; at that she had more clothes on than several of the women — Harriet had nothing at all, save a single stocking rolled around her knee. A soldier stood in front of Joan, shouting at her, spitting in her face. She had no idea what he meant, so he hit her in the belly. She gasped and bent, and he seized her head and forced her lower; she gathered that she was supposed to bow. All the other girls were bowing, in various stages of undress. Harriet bowed so far she fell over. Immediately the soldiers started kicking her, and she screamed and moaned, unable to get up because her hands were also tied behind her back.

  Instinctively Joan stepped forward to help her, and jostled one of the soldiers. Immediately she was seized and thrown across a bed. Across a dead body. She screamed for the first time and tried to rise, but was held by her shoulders, on her face across the bed, while someone whipped her, she wasn’t sure what with, but she thought a leather belt. Such an indignity was worse than being raped. She shrieked at them and tried to roll away, but her shoulders were still held by two men, and when she kicked they only laughed. When they stopped she was weeping, and slowly subsided to the floor.

  A boot kicked her in the side, and she rose to her knees. She could not fight them any more. She struggled to her feet, and stood facing the officer. He smiled at her and gave an order. Someone grasped her shoulder and thrust her forward. She staggered and bumped into Harriet. They glanced at each other and then looked away again. Neither wanted to look at the other, or any human being with whom they were remotely acquainted, ever again.

  They were marched out of the hospital and on to the road, into the brightest of sunlight. They blinked, and shuddered. Joan’s buttocks were a mass of pain and she could still feel semen trickling down her legs; her stockinged feet were jarred by the pebbles. They stared at other Japanese troops, who grinned at them and shouted remarks. They looked past them, terrified that they might see husbands or lovers. The thought of facing Johnnie at this moment, or at any moment in the future … but they had mutually sworn to survive, and be together again.

  They were driven down the hill, naked as they were, joined by other women, no less distressed. They looked at a scene of devastation, burning houses, scattered corpses, already smelling and being attacked by flies as the day grew warmer, shell craters, and Japanese soldiers everywhere, whooping their victory cry of ‘Banzai!’. They were herded into the compound of one of the warehouses in Victoria, choking on the smoke which drifted across the stricken city. By then Joan was more aware of thirst than any other discomfort. Thirst and exhaustion and bleeding, paining feet. She wanted a drink of water and then she wanted to lie down and sleep, until the memory of this morning had faded. But she was not going to be allowed to do that. She found herself before a desk. A man sat there with a large sheet of paper, on which he was making notes. He looked her up and down, but she no longer even felt ashamed, much less embarrassed. ‘Name,’ he said in English. ‘Name.’

  She stared at him.

  ‘Name!’ he shouted. ‘You are insubordinate. I will have you flogged. Name!’

  Joan gasped. The thought of being beaten again was not acceptable. ‘Joan,’ she panted. ‘Joan Grimmett.’

  The man wrote. ‘Your husband is here?’ he asked.

  Joan nodded.

  ‘Speak!’ The man shouted.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. My husband is Commander John Grimmett, of the Royal Navy.’

  ‘You have a child? Speak!’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I have no child.’

  The man made a note, then jerked his head. Joan realised she was dismissed, and stumbled across the bright sunshine to stand beside Harriet. Some of the women had fallen or were sitting — not all had their wrists tied — but exhausted as she was, Joan could not reconcile herself to the thought of sitting naked in the dust. She had always been a terribly clean person, obsessively protective of her person — but what was there left to protect?

  It was late morning now, and even in December the sun was excessively hot. Her throat felt like a desert, and her stomach was rolling as well, partly from the rape and the memory and partly from hunger. But also from anxiety, about what might have happened to John. The man had noted his name, and they would surely be united, if John was still alive. But that brought on another rash of anxiety.

  The other women were clearly suffering as much as she. Harriet gave a little groan and sank to her knees. Joan decided to follow her example. But within seconds her knees were aching on the rough ground, and the sun was burning her exposed breasts. She tried to turn and fell over. Then she simply could not get up again without the use of her hands, and despite everything that had happened to her it was too humiliating to kick and work her legs. Instead she pressed them together and rolled away from the men. That left them able to look at her whipped backside, but she preferred that to letting them look at her front — and having to look at them. She lay there, and burst into tears for a second time. Before they had been tears of anger and outrage, now they were tears of despair, an explosion of the misery which clouded her mind and threatened to overwhelm her. Only a month ago she had been the most secure person on earth. She came from a wealthy and famous background, was married to a loving and caring man, and was a member of the most powerful race and nation on earth. Now … she did not know if her father was alive or dead — but she did know that his Navy had been defeated, for the first time ever. She did not know if her elder brother was alive or dead — but she did know that his Navy had been defeated, for the first time in more than a hundred years. She did not know if her husband was alive or dead, but if he was alive he was a prisoner like herself. And she had been raped by at least a dozen men, and stripped, and humiliated, and beaten, and was now lying on the earth like a broken coolie woman. Because, to this new master race, she was a broken coolie woman.

  There was only Walt left. Little Walt, the baby of the family. He would have to avenge her. Avenge them all.

  She heard screams, and tw
isted her head, inhaling dust as she did so. One of the women must have asked for water, because she was being kicked and beaten. Tears flowed from Joan’s eyes and soaked the dust. She attempted to lick them back up, and nearly choked. Joan McGann Grimmett, she thought. There were several hundred thousand dollars on deposit in her name in a New York bank. And she would give all of it for a drink of water.

  *

  She had no idea how long she lay there. The sun grew hotter, and then cooled slightly as it settled towards the mountains of China. Joan lay in the dust, and even, she thought, dozed from time to time. All manner of unthinkable thoughts roamed through her mind, about the various usually concealed parts of her body that were now being sunburned, about whether or not she was pregnant, or diseased. About whether she was ever going to be given a drink of water or if she was going to be left lying in the dust to die. When men started shouting again, and the other women began to get to their feet, she was taken by surprise.

  Boots thudded into her ribs, and she moaned and rolled. Now it was necessary to get up, no matter how humiliating. She struggled to her knees and staggered to her feet, and was pushed towards the others, who were forming a line. They were being taken to the docks, alongside which a variety of boats were waiting. Joan moved with them, and then tried to stop herself as she saw white men, also being herded towards the docks. The thought of facing a white man was impossible. But there were no impossible thoughts any longer. When she stopped she was hit by a rifle butt which she thought had ruptured a kidney. She shrieked, and stumbled, and fell, and was kicked and dragged back to her feet.

  She followed the women — she had no idea where even Harriet was, now — down the road, and listened to a voice snapping an order. The other women kept on moving, but one of the soldiers grasped her shoulder and yanked her out of the line. ‘No,’ she begged. ‘No,’ she screamed. They were going to beat her or rape her again. Then she would go mad. ‘No,’ she begged, as she found herself facing another officer. This man wore blue instead of green, and was frowning at her; vaguely she realised, from the broad stripe on his cuff, that he was a very senior officer, a rear admiral. Who had singled her out? She wanted to scream again.