Empire of the Sun - J. G. Ballard [43]
A new group of prisoners had arrived. Invariably this meant that others would leave. Jim was sure that he would be on his way within minutes, probably to the new camps at Hungjao or Lunghua. In the store-room he and the old men still able to stand waited by their mats, mess-tins in hand. He listened to the new arrivals being herded from the truck. Annoyingly, there were several small children, who would cry continuously and distract the Japanese from the serious task of deciding where Jim should be sent.
Followed by two armed soldiers, the Japanese sergeant stood in the doorway. All three men wore cotton masks over their faces – there was a foul smell from the young Belgian asleep on the floor – but the sergeant’s eyes inspected each of them in turn and counted the exact number of mess-tins. The daily radon of rice or sweet potatoes was allocated to the mess-tin and not to the person attached to it. Often, when Mr Partridge was tired after feeding his wife, Jim would collect the old man’s ration for him. Once, without realizing it, he had found himself eating the watery gruel. Jim had felt uneasy, and stared at his guilty hands. Parts of his mind and body frequently separated themselves from each other.
Masking the tic in his cheek, he smiled brightly at the Japanese sergeant, and tried to look strong and healthy. Only the healthier people tended to leave the detention centre. But as usual the sergeant seemed depressed by Jim’s cheerful gaze. He stepped aside as the new arrivals reached the store-room. Two Chinese prison orderlies bore a stretcher carrying an unconscious Englishwoman in a stained cotton dress. She lay with her damp hair in her mouth, while her two sons, boys of Jim’s age, held the sides of the stretcher. A trio of elderly women hobbled past, unsure of the smell and the grey light. Behind them came a tall soldier wearing lumpy boots and British army shorts. He was bare-chested, and his emaciated ribs were like a birdcage in which Jim could almost see his heart fluttering.
‘Well done, lad…’ He gave Jim a rictus of a smile and patted his head. Quickly he sat down against the wall, his cadaverous face turned to the damp cement. A second team of orderlies lowered a stretcher on to the floor beside him. From the cradle of roped straw they lifted a small, middle-aged man in a bloodstained sailor’s jacket. Strips of Japanese rice-paper bandages were stuck to the wounds on his swollen hands, face and forehead.
Jim stared at this derelict figure, and raised his forearm to his mouth to shut out the unpleasant smell. Several of the Eurasian women were leaving the detention centre with their children. Looking round at the sick and dying men in the store-room, and at the orderlies and Japanese soldiers with their cotton face-masks, Jim began for the first time to grasp the real purpose of the detention centre.
Mr Partridge and the old men stood by their mats, shaking their mess-tins at the guards, rattling for their evening meal. The wounded sailor beckoned to Jim with his bandaged hands, beating his empty tin with the same rhythm that the dying beggar had used outside the gates of Amherst Avenue. Even the emaciated soldier had found the lid of a mess-tin. With his face pressed to the wall, he banged the lid on the stone floor.
Jim began to rattle at the Japanese watching behind then-white masks. Yet, at that moment when he was about to despair of ever finding his parents, he felt a surge of hope. He knelt on the floor and took the mess-tin from the injured sailor, aware of a faint scent of cologne and certain now that together they could leave the detention centre and make their way to the safety of the prison camps.
‘Basie!’ he cried. ‘Everything’s