Forgotten Life (14 page)

‘On Jean's plantation, I suppose? I wouldn't know a rubber tree if it came up and bit me.'

‘Oh, you are so comical. Maybe here in a bank, in the big Dutch bank in the Kesawan. You are Englishman – the Indonesians would not harm you.'

‘I couldn't work in a bank. I wouldn't be any good. I've had no training.' Her suggestion threw me into a panic. I liked Medan: but the thought of being stuck in it on my own in the chaos that would undoubtedly follow as the Indonesians and Dutch fought it out was extremely alarming.

I fell back on my old line of defence.

‘You don't understand the army.'

‘Oh, this damn army! Do they own you lock, stock and barrel, yes? Listen, can't you speak to your officer? The Polish person. Ask him. Ask him if I can come to Singapore with you. I can pay to come on your troopship. Or go in disguise, who knows?'

‘Forget it, my darling. These are all fantasies.'

But a few days later came the words I had already anticipated, lying awake late into the night.

‘Sadly, Joe, you don't love me any more.'

Sulkily, ‘You know I do.'

She threw herself naked on top of me and seized my shoulders. ‘Then why not marry me and get me out of this place? Then I will love you for ever, I swear!'

 

A kind of depression seized me. I went and lay on my bed on the roof of the Rex and wallowed in gloom. It was not Mandy who depressed me, but rather the tissue of circumstance in which she and
the Merciers were caught. To whom did Sumatra belong? To those who lived here? But some of the Dutch in the RAPWI camp, awaiting a ship to take them to Europe, had farmed here for four generations. Much of the prosperity of Sumatra was owed to Dutch enterprise.

And Chinese enterprise had also contributed to the prosperity. I thought again of the first days in Padang, when British, Indian, Dutch, Japanese and Indonesian forces had sat armed together in the Chinese café. The memory clung like a parable. There seemed to be a kind of pleasant neutrality in the Chinese temperament, a moderation in general, which made the Chinese ill targets for retribution. Of course, this was long before Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution; but even that bout of madness was over comparatively quickly, to be followed by a prevailing Chinese wish for law and decency.

Everyone seemed convinced that a bloodbath would follow the withdrawal of British troops. Yet the same was said of India, and the Indians could scarcely wait to see us gone.

In my naivety, I had imagined that, following the end of the terrible war, everyone would rejoice in peace, and insist that there was no more fighting. Couldn't laws be passed to that effect? Weren't fifty-five million dead enough?

As for dear Mandy, I would have been happy – proud – to marry her. How exciting it would be to set up house somewhere with her and two Chinese children, provided she could get a divorce. I was vague about Chinese divorce. Where would we live? What would my father do if I returned home with a Chinese wife and two kids? The house would fall down …

I longed to be assimilated by her Chinese-ness, to learn Cantonese, to be in a real Chinese city. Perhaps we could go to Amoy, once the fighting there died down … But how would I go about all that?

The world's unsatisfactoriness was bad enough; there was also my own unsatisfactoriness to cope with.

I was twenty years of age. Gloom at that age was a passing thing, just one colour in the dramatic spectrum of emotions. The phone rang.

It was Army Ciné, to announce that a delivery of films was arriving
at the port of Belawan, from Singapore. I recognized the drawling voice of the chain-smoking officer, Captain Morrison. He ordered me to go down in the Jeep to collect it. A convoy would be leaving the city for Belawan the following morning at 1030 hours, and I was to join it.

‘Sir.'

That evening, Charlie and I went round to the Merciers as usual. I told them my news.

‘New films, hurrah!' said Jean. ‘You must give us all free seats, Joe. I want most to see
Hollywood Canteen
with the Andrews sisters.'

‘
Bataan
,' said Charlie. ‘I missed it in Calcutta.'

‘Oh,
Gilda
, please,' said Mandy. ‘It stars Rita Hayworth and I'm just mad about her.'

‘
Devotion
for me,' I said. ‘It stars Ida Lupino and I'm mad about her. How about you, Ginny?'

Ginny, still lying on her sofa, said, ‘I think that best would be
Brief Encounter
– a tragic love story …'

I gave her a glance. She returned an innocent smile.

When I said that I was going down to Belawan with a convoy the following morning, there were exclamations of alarm. Several vehicles had been shot up on the coast road.

‘The good old SWOBS will see that nothing happens,' Charlie said. ‘The extremists have only got pluck enough to pick off single vehicles. It'll be okay.'

‘I have the morning off,' Wang said. ‘Can Mandy and I come along with you, Joe, for the ride?'

‘It isn't exactly safe …'

‘Oh, do let us come,' said Mandy, adding her mite. ‘It would be so lovely to have a sight of the sea.'

So it was agreed, with concealed reluctance on my part. I much liked the easy-going Wang, but there seemed a good chance that if he discovered how I was carrying on with his wife he might stick a knife into me. I had heard tales about the Chinese.

It rained the following morning, the downpour sounding thunderous on my flimsy bedroom roof. Shivering, pulling on a shirt, I
looked out and saw everywhere leaking roofs and streaming gutters. Poor Medan – for over three years it had had no maintenance, no repair. Under the assaults of a tropical climate, it was falling slowly apart.

In an hour, the rain was over and the sun shone forth with its usual vigour. In ten minutes, everything was bone dry.

The convoy for Belawan assembled from the RAPWI camp. Some more lucky Dutch, mainly women, were off to catch the boat home. I was late arriving with Mandy and Wang. Ginny had taken a turn for the worse, and I drove her back to the field hospital.

She looked so pale. ‘You need a milder climate,' I said.

‘Hong Kong would be nice now,' she said, ‘with maybe the first typhoon of the season blowing in from the Pacific … Even Lake Toba would do. The air's fresh by the lake.'

I kissed her and left. I feared for her. She would be a wonderful sister-in-law.

The convoy started off only a few minutes late. The South Wales Borderers were there in strength, with Bren carriers leading and tailing the procession of three five-ton lorries, a private car, and several Jeeps, all loaded with civilians. Dispatch riders patrolled the convoy, seeing to it that the vehicles remained close together.

Once there had been fields and cultivation on either side of the Medan–Belawan road. Now it was wilderness, with the jungle drawing nearer. Several
Merdeka
flags flew on wayside huts; only the odd kid or dog ran out to greet us as we went by in our cloud of dust. Mandy and Wang were wildly excited by the ride. I had a conviction that we were going to be shot at, but the journey passed without incident, and we arrived safely at Belawan.

In some respects Belawan was the very opposite to Emmahaaven. The hills sloped jungle-clad down to the water's edge in Emmahaaven, and there was a deep-water anchorage. The Belawan coastline was more ambiguous, being of shallow descent from land to water, and that margin concealed by low-lying mangrove swamps, through which water and mud trickled. No one could say where Sumatra really began or ended. So shallow was the sea for some miles out that a
channel to the docks had to be regularly dredged through treacherous sandbanks. This of course had not been undertaken since the outbreak of war; ships of any draught had in consequence to moor two or three miles out to sea, with shallow-bottomed landing craft to transport passengers or cargoes between shore and ship.

There, two miles out on the listless flood, the celebrated
Van Heutz
lay at anchor. It had arrived from Singapore the previous day. Seeing it, the Dutch raised a gallant cheer.

The military ranged themselves protectively round the lorries as the latter were unloaded. A few buildings and go-downs stood forlornly on the dock, their windows broken or missing. Someone had raised a Union Jack over the RTO's office for the occasion; it was an encouraging sight, limply though it lay against its mast in the still heat. Leaving Mandy and her husband by the Jeep, I made my way towards, the office through the mêlée of women shrieking as they tugged at their respective bundles of luggage.

My name was called. I looked round and there was Eedie, a blue scarf tied round her head, carrying an enormous wicker trunk.

‘I'm going, Joe, leaving this fucking place at last,' she said. She put down the trunk and embraced me mightily. She was still an inch taller than I was. I looked into her broad honest face, beaded with sweat, with the tiniest blonde down on her upper lip; all differences between us were forgotten in this moment of reunion and parting. I thanked God that her mad Irishman was not there to see her off.

‘Oh, he buggered off last night,' she said, when I asked about him. ‘He's on duty today. Now it's a new life, God be thanked. Three years and seven months in this stinking part of the world – and I only came for a month's holiday with my uncle. Now – no uncle, youth gone, and just this trunk full of all that I possess in the world, just! Oh, but what's that? Soon I'll see snow again, wonderful snow, and pancakes and flowers and Tampax. And no yellow or brown people.'

She kissed me again vigorously.

‘You'll be going home soon, Joe. Write to me. I give you my address. Maybe you can come and see me in Maastricht. Listen, I know you
have a Chinese girl friend now, isn't it? Take my advice, don't get too entangled. Just have fun, old boy, okay?'

‘I am having fun,' I said, a little unsteadily. She was writing down her address on a damp piece of paper.

‘The Orientals are Orientals – okay in their place, that's all. Remember what your Kipling said, eh? “East is East and West is West, and never the two shall meet.” He was right, you know.'

‘Things are different these days, Eedie.'

She prepared to hump her trunk again. ‘Okay, I'm a racist. After all the Nips did, anyone would be. I still have nightmares of being raped. When I get back to Holland, I hope never to see another Oriental again.'

We gave each other a farewell kiss and a hug. Someone was shouting for everyone to get a move on. ‘Whatever you do, take care of your darling self, Eedie.'

‘Goodbye, fucking Sumatra!' she shouted, joining the crowd.

I stood there rather misty-eyed.

British and Indian MPs and soldiers were directing the excited crowd. I could see that it would take a while, allowing for the usual army bullshit, before they were all embarked in the landing craft and the craft got away safely towards the distant ship. I went over to the RTO to collect the crate of films. Eedie's parting words were still very much in my mind.

When I had signed for it, two sepoys helped me carry the crate back to the Jeep.

‘How I wish we were getting on that boat too,' said Mandy. Wang said nothing. He sat where he was in the back of the vehicle, shading his eyes with his hand, gazing out over the leaden water.

The crate of film was dumped in the foyer of the Rex, where two Indian carpenters were working on building a counter and shelves for the beer bar. They were using old wood ripped from a commandeered building down the street, and complaining of its hardness. The whole foyer was strewn with tools and wood.

I had specifically been given orders by the chain-smoking Captain Morrison not to open the crate on my own account. That was his business. Accordingly, I left it where it was and went to do something else.

The Rex was pleasant during the day, when it was empty. It had its own smell, an aroma of cigars and cigarette smoke, but also a slightly exotic flavour, lent it by a disinfectant we bought locally with Japanese guilders and used in the lavatories; frangipani, perhaps. I liked it in this peaceful state, with the screen blank – the curtains having long since disappeared, probably appropriated for bedding in the days when the Indonesians ran the place.

It was enjoyable to wander about the aisles, thinking of all the fantasy lives which had briefly endured here. One of my orderlies had found an old local Indian lady who came every day and patched the worst worn seats in exchange for a few cigarettes. British Players were her preference; Indian Players were not at all to her taste. She was at work now, and I exchanged
namastes
with her. She was a
portly lady, grey-haired and wrapped in a grey sari, who suffered some difficulties with her stomach when she bowed to me. I took those bows as my right, without thought. But no doubt she had done a lot of bowing in her humble life.

Sometimes, I would take a stroll down the road to see the friendly Rajputana Rifles. They lived in an old temple which had in its courtyard a slimy green swimming pool, full of enormous green frogs. In the pool the Rajputs would disport themselves or do their
dhobi
. Despite their coaxing invitations, I would never join them. I took tea with them. They brewed up a particularly thick delicious tea, the leaves boiled up in a black dixie together with a pound of sugar and condensed milk. It was like soup. I was thinking of going down there when Captain Zajac arrived.

He surveyed the muddle in the foyer, irritably smoothing the end of his moustache, and then said, in mild tones, ‘Why have you not opened this crate of film, sergeant? It's your job, isn't it?'

‘Sir, strict orders from Captain Morrison, sir.'

‘Why's there all this mess here?'

‘Men having trouble with the wood, sir. All tidy for this evening's performance.
The Bank Dick
, again, sir. Very popular.'

‘What's the matter with the wood?'

‘Too hard, sir.'

‘Well, get this crate opened.'

‘Would you like me to phone Captain Morrison about it, sir?'

I stood rigid as I spoke. He fixed me with a hard cold Polish eye, despite his command of English unsure as to whether I was being impolite. Gradually he relaxed, and his manner became less waspish.

‘I don't like slackness, sergeant.'

‘Sir.'

He turned away, perhaps in disgust. The two carpenters resumed their singing, which they had stopped in order to listen to the exchange. The Rajput guard had followed Zajac in, perhaps under the same sort of impulse that moves dogs to follow strangers.

I was looking out through the new glass doors into the street. A big black civilian car stopped. A corporal in a bush hat jumped out
and stood cradling a sten gun, staring into the cinema. With a start I recognized him. It was Corporal Jones, the deserter.

‘Down, everybody!' I flung myself to the floor, seeing from the corner of my eye that Zajac immediately did the same, turning to face the danger as he did so. The carpenters dived behind their half-built bar.

Jones hesitated. It crossed my mind as I scrabbled for my revolver that he could hardly see in; the foyer being rather dark and the street full of light, the glass doors would present him only with a reflection of the street. But he must have glimpsed a movement. As he fired, the panes of glass splintered and bullets went ricocheting about the place.

I got my revolver up. One shot rang out, then a second. Jones dropped his gun. The look on his face suggested he had heard something that shocked him deeply. He turned and fell to his knees. Someone fired some wild shots from the black car, then it accelerated forward and was lost from my line of sight. A battered truck followed. Men were firing from it at random. Another fusillade of shots rang out, but those I scarcely heeded; the Rajputs were firing at the fugitives. I was running forward after Zajac, who had fired before I could do so.

Jones was on the pavement, head touching the stone, making some kind of a cry.

Zajac stood over him, arms akimbo, still nursing his revolver and smiling grimly.

‘Well, I don't suppose the Borderers will thank me for finishing their task for them.'

‘They'll be glad to see him on his knees, sir. Good shooting.'

‘Go and get Colonel Glyn Williams of the Borderers on the phone. Tell him – ask him – if he would care to come round here. Then get the Ambulance Unit, fast.'

‘Sir.' I stood staring down at the mighty Jones, at his sweat-stained bush shirt. His blood was trickling out under him, gathering in a rivulet and running into the gutter. He paddled at it with one hand, as if in wonderment. I went inside to the phone, my legs a trifle
shaky. A shrill noise was coming from the inside of the cinema. The old patching lady was having hysterics, and the two carpenters were splashing water in her face.

‘You'd better get back on bloody duty,' I said to the Rajput guard, who was trembling privately to himself. ‘You were meant to be out there.'

He clutched my arm. ‘Very bad man – kill us all.'

‘I don't think he'll kill anyone else now. It's okay.
Thikhai
. Thank God Zajac was here – I've had no target practice since Madras …'

I wound the crank of my field phone vigorously, and eventually a lazy afternoon operator replied. I heard myself yelling at him.

A few minutes later, we found that the Rajputs had managed to wound the driver of the Jones truck, which had run into a tree. It contained cans of petrol and grenades. Jones had intended to pick a quiet time of day and burn down his old HQ.

He died in hospital two days later. The Borderers threw a party in celebration for Captain Zajac. Sportingly, he took me along and we both got agreeably drunk.

 

August came, bringing thunderstorms. The hot days dragged by. And still I met with my love in the ambushed afternoon, and still the future drew nearer to destroy us.

It was impossible to decide why I hung back from thinking about marrying her, supposing she should get a divorce from Wang – which she said would not be difficult. The years of war had made me feel old; it would be a relief to settle down and be domestic. I had no great desire to return to England.

The obstacles in my way I have already mentioned. I dreaded the opposition and opprobrium the army would bring to any request of mine to get married. I had never heard of such a thing happening, although I guessed I should immediately find myself posted to some inaccessible spot, with never a chance of seeing her again.

There was another more intangible objection which always eluded me. But one day, rooting about a secondhand stall in the native quarter, I came across a worn anthology of English poetry, and bought
it. Almost the first poem at which I opened the book was a poem by William Blake:

I could not get the lines out of my mind. Doth the winged life destroy. Yes, we had the winged life and, despite ourselves, we were destroying it. I explained it to Mandy, but she would hear nothing of the matter.

‘Blake is dead,' she said. ‘Why listen to him? What does this Blake know of our circumstances? Did he ever kiss me? Was he fucked by me? It's simple – we love each other and should be married together. I know you hate the pretence. We should be free.'

‘I know, I know. Don't talk about it.'

‘I must. I lie awake at night thinking about it. There's only one tragedy waiting in the future otherwise, my God. Why does Ginny not recover? Isn't it because she sickens with worry for Sammi and herself and all of us? And at least she has a European husband. Well, that's all I want, this pretty one with the pretty prick here.'

‘Please, Mandy. I can't talk. I think – I think – Oh, you must blame me, but I am just too immature to deal with it all.'

She kissed me and rubbed her nose against my cheek. ‘I am such an old nag. Now you see how I nag Wang, my God. No wonder no one wants me. You better get back to England before this whole great place goes up in smoke –
Merdeka
smoke!'

Oh, the love we made. Oh, the way we had of torturing each other. And all the time I hadn't even the sense to take Charlie into my confidence. It would not have been possible to have explained my tangled feelings to anyone. Only Blake would have understood.

She was offering me a whole fascinating, foreign way of life and I was too palsied to take it. Why my thousand hesitations?

Back came the answer: Doth the winged life destroy …

The hot days dragged by. Despite the rumours that had been flying,
the order to quit Sumatra, when it came from ALFSEA, was something of a surprise. By now, all the Dutch who wished to be repatriated had gone, and the Japanese Army had been sent packing back to Tokyo. In three weeks, we also must be gone.

Various troopships would take off various units. All war material would be sold to the Dutch forces remaining in the islands. Various categories of immovable equipment were to be destroyed. Discipline must be maintained throughout the remainder of the Occupation. It was estimated that all British forces would be cleared from the Medan-Belawan area by 1200 hours on 15th September, 1946.

Indonesian intelligence was, as usual, excellent. Scarcely had the orders been posted on the various unit notice-boards than a procession of extremists was organized. It marched down the Kesawan and round the centre of town, with banners waving saying MERDEKA and BRITISH QUIT, and large portraits of President Soekarno. The British did nothing to quell the procession. They were already starting to pack and to celebrate, each according to his lights.

Rumours flew that we should get a special medal for the Sumatra campaign – ‘A thumb downturned on a field of shit brown,' someone suggested. Other rumours said that we should get no medals since the whole campaign had been a disgrace to the British flag, and we could expect to go on jankers when we got to transit camps in Singapore.

Suddenly there was too much to do and too much to talk about. When Captain Morrison came round again, I asked him if the Rex was to be regarded as in the immovable equipment category, to be destroyed.

‘Certainly not, Sergeant Winter. What do you take us for? The Rex and the Deli will be handed over in perfect working order.'

‘I see, sir. Who to, sir? The Dutch or the Indonesians?'

‘To the proper authorities. I'm not sure who.'

The orders of course brought to a head my most pressing problem. If I was to act, then I had to act immediately, or the chance would be gone. And it seemed to me that there was someone who could help me if he would – the peevish Captain Zajac, who had been more
friendly since our triumphant encounter with Corporal Jones. After I had thought out my approach, I went to talk to him.

‘I suppose you will be thinking of returning to England, Sergeant Winter?' he said, when I reported to him in his office. He had a map of Sumatra on one wall and a map of a part of Poland on the other.

‘No, sir. I still have time to serve, sir. It's something else I came about.'

‘Sit down, then. By the look of you it is something serious.'

‘Yes, sir. This is confidential. I have a romantic involvement with a lady.' Even to me the phrase sounded absurd, but it did not pay to speak ordinary English to an officer.

‘I see.' The moustache stirred. ‘Locally, you mean?'

‘Yes.'

‘In Medan?'

‘Yes.'

‘You've got three weeks to enjoy yourself, then.'

‘This is a more permanent sort of affair, sir. She's Chinese. I wondered if you would book a passage for her on the
Van Heutz
. I mean, I'd pay, of course, but it does need a special arrangement, which you as an officer could manage. If you felt able …'

‘You want to meet her in Singapore. Is that the case?'

‘Well, we may be kicking about in Singapore for some time, sir, don't you think?'

‘You're not thinking of marrying this Chinese lady, are you?'

‘Sir, the Chinese are going to have a bad time under Indonesian rule. Everyone says so. She would be safer in Singapore, a British colony. Besides, she has just had news that cousins of hers have arrived there, to avoid the fighting in Amoy or thereabouts.'

‘All Chinese have endless cousins. You shouldn't get involved, Winter.'

‘However that may be, sir, it happens that I
am
involved, and so I've come to you as my senior officer to ask if you'd do this thing for me. There's nothing illegal in it. It's just a question of priorities.'

‘“A question of priorities”… We have commitments here only
to the Dutch. Not to any other races. Oh, maybe to Europeans. Perhaps the odd Indian, in certain cases. No one else.'

‘The Chinese fought with us in Burma, sir.'

‘No other commitments,' he said, firmly.

‘Well, I have a commitment, sir.'

‘Is she pregnant, do you mean?'

‘No. Not pregnant.'

He stared down at his blotting paper. Then he looked up with a sardonic grin. ‘Is this slant-eyed hussy pretty?'

‘I find the lady very pretty, yes. There's a sailing of the
Van Heutz
from Belawan on 13th September, sir, just before we all pull out. The authorities might not let her go after that – the island's going to be a prison, as far as I can make out. If you could see your way to booking her a single passage …'