Snowflakes in the Wind Read online

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘Wh-what are they going to do to us?’

  The fifteen-year-old Chinese girl Abby was cradling in her arms lifted up her head, tears streaming down her dirty face. Abby tried to think of something reassuring to say and failed. The killing rampage by the Japanese soldiers that they had all witnessed had robbed the women of any hope that they would be spared simply because of their sex or profession. Now she just hugged the girl tighter, and glanced at Delia over the teenager’s head. Delia looked as terrified as Abby felt.

  They had watched as the CO and John had gone out to meet the Japanese and were dragged away, to who knew where, seconds before the dirty and dishevelled soldiers had flooded the building. What had followed had been pure carnage. The Japanese had begun bayoneting and shooting patients in their beds and stretchers, tearing the bandages off the wounded men and stabbing them repeatedly as they shrieked and lunged, laughing and shouting. Herding doctors and male members of the St John Ambulance Brigade into a room they had slaughtered them all in an orgy of killing, before marching any patients who could walk and the rest of the male medical staff away up the stairs, along with Abby and the twelve other women and girls at the hospital, eight of whom were nurses. On reaching the first floor, the soldiers separated the women from the men, forcing the male patients and staff into what had once been a lecture room, and the women into a storage facility that was little more than a large cupboard with a window.

  Every so often the women heard blood-curdling screams coming from the corridor outside. It seemed the guards were torturing unarmed prisoners of war for sport.

  It was hot in their small room and the thirst that had been a torment for days increased as the hours ticked by. Abby’s scars were irritating her, especially on her face as her skin dried out, and although she tried not to scratch them she couldn’t help herself now and again, only stopping when she saw blood on her fingers. They had no idea what time it was; the Japanese soldiers had robbed them of their watches and also taken the wedding rings of five of the VADs and two of the Chinese women who were married to British soldiers. The soldier who had taken Abby’s watch had looked with disgust at her cheap wedding ring, spitting on the ground as he had knocked her hand away in contempt. Abby didn’t mind; it meant she still had Nicholas’s ring.

  By midday a couple of the women had been reduced to relieving themselves in a corner of the room. They didn’t dare to knock on the door and ask their captors if they could use the bathroom, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. One of the Chinese women had described what the Japanese had done to women and young girls in her country and it had been chilling. Abby had tried to reassure a couple of the younger unmarried girls that the rape and murder the woman had described wouldn’t happen here, but she hadn’t believed it herself and her words had carried no conviction.

  It was early afternoon when the door to their tiny prison was suddenly flung open. A group of grubby, sweaty Japanese soldiers stood there looking at the women with toothy grins. Screaming at the women and girls to stand up, the spokesman of the motley bunch told them they had to bow whenever a soldier of the Imperial Army was in front of them, his broken English making him hard to understand.

  It wasn’t worth antagonizing their captors unnecessarily and they all did as they were told as the guards jabbered amongst themselves. Then the soldier who had spoken before pointed at Saffron, the Chinese girl whom Abby had been comforting. ‘Come now.’ He pointed to two of the younger women, both Chinese, and repeated the order. ‘Come now or kill all.’

  Fearing the worst, Abby thrust Saffron behind her and stepped forward. ‘These women are nurses, leave them alone.’

  The little man didn’t hesitate as he lifted his arm and slapped Abby so hard across the face that she fell backwards, hitting her head against the wall and landing on the floor as she blacked out. When she came round, her head was in Delia’s lap and her friend was sobbing. Forcing her eyes open, Abby murmured weakly, ‘Where’s Saffron?’

  ‘They took them. No, don’t try and sit up, lie still. You’ve been unconscious for ages.’

  A little while later Saffron and the others were returned to the room. All were crying; Saffron could barely walk and her legs were bloody. After thrusting them forwards the soldiers banged the door and locked it, but it was only a few minutes before it was opened once again. Four different soldiers stood there, and this time, as the women stood up and bowed, one of them slowly came forward and scrutinized each of them, stopping at Abby who was virtually holding Saffron up such was the state of the young girl. ‘You come.’ As he spoke, Abby turned fully to face him and it was then he saw the left side of her face where a couple of the scars were bleeding and the whole area was red and raw looking. Stepping back with a look of distaste, he said, ‘You stay. You’ – he pointed at Delia and then another European, the very attractive young wife of a British officer – ‘you come now or kill all.’

  ‘Abby . . .’ Delia clutched at her but the guards drew their bayonets and the soldier who had spoken grabbed Delia by her hair forcing her from the room, along with Geraldine Henderson, the officer’s wife. Still dazed from her head injury Abby could do nothing but watch as the women were manhandled away.

  One of the Chinese women, her face still streaked with tears, came and sat by Abby when the door had closed. ‘You can do nothing for your friend,’ she said softly, ‘and if you resist them they will kill you. They have us in their power and they enjoy torture and sadism as my country knows only too well.’

  This woman was married to a British soldier and when they had first been imprisoned in the room, she had told the women that when he had brought her out of China and married her some years ago, she had told him stories about the Japanese that he hadn’t believed at first.

  ‘He thought I was ex-exa . . .’

  ‘Exaggerating?’ someone had said.

  ‘Yes, exaggerating.’ The woman had nodded her head. ‘But I did not exaggerate. Expect no mercy because they will give none. They do not understand the concept. Nor that of surrender. From infants the Japanese are conditioned to believe it is better to die with honour than surrender to their enemy, and they do not understand the European ways. Courage means fighting to the death and that is that. A white prisoner has chosen humiliation and disgrace by not killing himself and therefore is to be utterly despised, that is the way they think. Therefore torture and atrocities are what they deserve, they are less than nothing. Less than an insect.’ She had shrugged. ‘It is the Japanese way.’

  And now Delia had been dragged away to endure the torments of hell. Abby looked at the Chinese woman. ‘What did they do to you, to Saffron?’ She had to know, to prepare herself for when Delia came back.

  Even in her distress the Chinese woman was very beautiful with a fragile purity about her that her brutalization hadn’t dimmed. Now she spoke almost dispassionately. ‘They took us to a room where other soldiers were waiting. They made us take off all our clothes and lie down, and then each soldier removed his trousers before raping us. I asked them to spare Saffron because she hadn’t known a man but that only made her more attractive to them. Each of them, ten in all, had her first, and then several moved on to us. They wanted to hurt us. When Saffron cried out it made them laugh and be even more rough with her.’

  And Delia was in the hands of these fiends. Abby felt nausea rise in her throat and swallowed hard. ‘But if they care so much about honour as you say, where is the honour in raping and murdering women and children?’ She glanced across at Saffron who had curled herself into a ball since her return and would accept no comfort from anyone, crying constantly in pain and badly injured as her bloodstained clothes bore evidence to.

  The woman looked at her almost pityingly. ‘We are the spoils of war. Playthings, that is all. My sister was at a Bible training school and thirty soldiers raped her to death in the seminary compound.’

  Words failed Abby. She, like many white Europeans, had had no idea of th
e savagery of Japan’s war against China. Now they were all paying the price for ignoring the gathering stormclouds of war that appeasement towards the Japanese had, in part, encouraged. ‘But we’re nurses,’ she whispered. ‘Surely that means something, even to them?’

  The woman didn’t answer but her silence did.

  Delia and Geraldine Henderson were returned to the room as darkness fell, but even in the dim light from the small window it was clear the two women were in a terrible state. Their clothes were badly torn, their hair in disarray and their eyes were blank and staring. Both were in evident pain, and when Abby went to Delia it was almost as if her friend didn’t recognize her at first. And when she did, she became hysterical for some minutes.

  Geraldine was in a similar condition and it was clear they had been repeatedly raped.

  The thirteen women and girls sat huddled together for warmth and comfort as the sky outside the window became black. Saffron was calmer, falling asleep with her head on the shoulder of one of the women who had been taken out with her earlier.

  Spine-chilling screams still echoed from outside the room now and again, and every time they heard footsteps in the corridor everyone tensed. At some time in the early hours of Christmas morning the door was opened again. As the women struggled to their feet, Saffron and the two Chinese women and Delia and Geraldine were pushed to the back of the group by the others who knew all five were in a state of collapse and would find it devastating to endure another gang rape.

  This time a Japanese officer stood with two guards in the doorway and he looked at the prisoners dispassionately. ‘Come with me, please.’ His English was nigh-on perfect.

  Again it was Abby who spoke as the other women shrank back. ‘What are you going to do with us?’

  As they had been forced to use a corner of the small space as a toilet, the smell in the room was now pungent, and the officer wrinkled his nose when he said, ‘You are being taken downstairs and then to a room where blankets will be provided. You will follow me now.’

  They had no other choice but to do as he said, although each of them suspected the worst as they filed out into the corridor. Saffron was in a bad way and was being half-carried by the young VAD who had burst into Abby’s ward earlier and her mother. Abby’s head was aching and she felt dizzy and sick and knew she had concussion, but she tried to show no weakness as they followed the officer, the two guards making up the rear.

  True to his word, the officer led the women down the stairs and into a classroom on the ground floor of the building that had been a ward for the badly injured. Not one soldier remained in the room and Abby didn’t like to think what had gone on in there. The floor and walls were stained with blood and strewn with feathers from the destruction of scores of pillows. Some mattresses were left on the narrow iron beds; others were lying haphazardly here and there and all of them were bloodstained.

  The officer pointed to a table where a few tins of bully beef stood already open and several pitchers of milk. ‘You will eat and drink. I will return in one hour and inform you of your duties.’ He motioned to one of the guards to step inside the room before he and the other guard left. The soldier who remained was short and bandy legged and he regarded them impassively, his gun held across his chest.

  Abby and the others had to persuade their five companions who had been attacked to eat and drink. ‘Come on, Delia,’ Abby whispered as Delia sank down onto one of the beds with a mattress still on it and put her head in her hands. ‘You need to eat.’ It was the first food and drink they’d had since the Japanese had stormed the hospital.

  ‘Why?’ Delia looked at her with desperate eyes. ‘They are going to rape and kill us anyway.’

  ‘They won’t kill us.’ Abby fetched some of the beef and a glass of milk, standing over Delia while she ate and drank and then pouring herself a glass of milk. ‘I think that officer has restored some sort of order to his men. Why would they bother to feed us if they were going to kill us, and look, there are a heap of blankets over there. And this guard is behaving himself.’

  Delia looked over to the soldier and shuddered convulsively. ‘I hate them,’ she whispered.

  ‘We all do.’ Abby was glad Delia was speaking at last. For some time after she had returned to the room following the rapes she had said nothing coherent.

  Some time later the officer returned. He had four guards with him carrying buckets of water and scrubbing brushes which they placed in front of the women. ‘You will clean this ground floor, each room and the corridors,’ he said shortly. ‘Begin here now.’

  Abby looked into the hard bullet eyes and then turned and pointed at Saffron who was sitting swaying backwards and forwards on the edge of one of the beds, her eyes closed. ‘Your soldiers have hurt her so badly she cannot work.’

  The man’s jaw clenched. ‘All will work. Now.’

  By the evening the ground floor was clean. Any orderlies who had survived had carried the bodies of the dead out of the hospital onto the lawn outside and the Japanese had set fire to them with kerosene. The stench of burning flesh was horrific.

  Inside, the thirteen women had worked all day under the merciless eyes of the guards. At one point a soldier had roughly grabbed one of the VADs and tried to drag her into a classroom but an officer had appeared in answer to the girl’s screams and the women’s shouts and the guard had immediately let the girl go.

  That night more food and drink was brought into the room where the women were held, and Abby asked the officer who again accompanied the guards for medicine for Saffron. She was running a temperature and was very unwell. He refused point blank and the women were left to comfort the young girl as best they could. The guard who remained in the room all night sitting on a chair near the door made no attempt to talk to them or molest them which was something.

  Early on the morning of Boxing Day the colony at last surrendered to an enemy who had total control of the air and seas, and more officers appeared to impose discipline on their troops. That day the women were marched out to attend to the wounded who had survived the massacre, and there they learned the fate of the CO and John, who had both been beheaded. Abby was able to get some medicine and ointment for Saffron through the course of the day, but by now the young girl was vomiting and unable to keep anything down. It was only on further questioning of one of the women who had been taken with the girl that Abby learned Saffron had been dragged into another room at one point during the attack, and piercing screams had ensued. It appeared the men abusing her had thought it highly amusing to force all kinds of objects into her childish body through her vagina.

  Delia forgot her own troubles and stayed awake with Saffron during that night, only catching some sleep herself when Abby relieved her at four in the morning. By the time the guards came with their breakfast of more tins of beef and milk, it was clear Saffron was dying, and Abby, aware that Delia was still weak and ill from her own ordeal, asked if her friend could stay and sit with the little Chinese girl that day and be spared having to work. After a moment’s deliberation the officer agreed.

  Of the patients who had already been in the hospital when the Japanese stormed it, only half remained alive. A good number of the medical staff had been murdered, including all the doctors and the male members of the St John Ambulance Brigade. It made the job of Abby and the other women impossible at times as they fought to save patients who needed surgery. All that day as Abby toiled on only one thought sustained her – Nicholas hadn’t had to endure being tortured and killed. If his submarine was torpedoed or if he died en route to England, at least he wouldn’t have tasted the horrors that had been enacted on the island. She tried to picture him in her mind as she worked but his face wouldn’t materialize; nevertheless the ring on the third finger of her left hand was a solid link that was infinitely precious. If they survived this war she knew she would never want another to replace it, despite the fact that it constantly left a green stain on her skin.

  When the nurses and other women retu
rned to their quarters that evening Saffron had sunk into a coma and a terrible odour emanated from between her legs, accompanied by a sickening trickle of pus and other bodily fluids. It was some comfort to them that the girl was unconscious and out of pain as the twelve women stood round the bed crying and praying, but they were heartbroken that her life was ending in such a way. Saffron was little more than a child and small and underdeveloped for her years; it was monstrous she had been used in such a way.

  Abby summed up what they were all thinking when later that night as the women settled down, she prayed, ‘God, take her to be with You quickly out of this horrible world. Let her enter into heaven whole and restored and happy, where she will know only peace and love and joy.’

  At one o’clock in the morning, as Abby and Delia sat either side of Saffron’s bed holding her limp little hands, Abby’s prayer was answered.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  During the month of January, life at the hospital settled into a kind of routine for a while. Abby and the other nurses were allowed to tend to their patients with relatively little interference from their captors, although Delia and the other women who had been raped found the constant bowing to the guards especially hard. None of them could recognize the individual soldiers who had hurt them but they knew they were among the guards, and having to bow to their attackers was humiliating and degrading.

  Water supplies had been re-established, but there was no fresh food of any kind, only tins of beef and stew and vegetables. The Japanese supplied sacks of rice when they felt like it, which wasn’t often, and no one knew how long each sack was expected to last. Inevitably as the days progressed the store of tins began to dwindle, along with any medical supplies that had been salvaged.

  Abby found her role as a nurse was changing as time went on. All of the women nursed their patients to the best of their ability, but whereas in the past they would have been expected to keep a professional detachment to some extent, now their relationship with the men had become much more pastoral. Abby and the others spent a lot of their time listening to the problems and anxieties and fears of the men they were caring for, things the men found too embarrassing or ‘unmanly’ to share with their own sex. Some of them were suffering badly from shell shock and could be unhinged at the slightest loud noise, and these patients Abby spent the longest with. She thought about her father often, with a deep and aching regret that she’d been too young to help him, but every fevered brow she wiped and every tortured soul she comforted brought him nearer.