Empire of the Sun - J. G. Ballard [56]
Somehow Jim had to catch the eyes of the soldiers in the guardhouse. He knew that far from being concerned for their unwanted prisoners, the Japanese would leave them there all night. In the morning they would be too ill to move on to the next camp and would have to return to the detention centre in Shanghai.
The evening air settled over the burnt-out stockyards. The Chinese coolies finished their meal and sat under the bamboo shelter, drinking rice wine and playing cards. The Japanese drank beer in the guardhouse. Hundreds of stars were coming out over the Yangtze, and with them the navigation lights of the military aircraft. Two miles to the north, beyond the lines of burial mounds, Jim saw the rigging lights of a Japanese freighter heading for the open sea, its white superstructure sailing like a castle across the ghostly fields.
A foul smell rose from one of the missionary women. Her husband sat beside her on the floor, leaning against Dr Ransome’s legs. Eager to catch sight of the freighter, Jim lifted himself on to the roof of the driving cabin. Sitting there, he watched the freighter slip away into the night, and then turned to the stars over his head. Since the previous summer, he had been teaching himself the main constellations.
‘Basie…’ Jim felt giddy; the night sky was sliding towards him. Losing his balance, he rolled across the cabin roof, then sat up to see the driver and the Japanese soldier stride from the guardhouse. They carried wooden staves in their hands, and Jim assumed that they were coming to beat him for sitting on the cabin. Quickly he slipped on to the floor and lay beside the Dutch woman.
The driver unshackled the tail-gate. As it fell with a clatter he rattled his stave against the swinging chains. He shouted at the prisoners and waved them from the truck. Helped by Dr Ransome, Mrs Hug and the old men lowered themselves into the nettles. Joined by Basie and the English boys, they followed the soldier towards the timber yard. The two missionary women lay on the soiled floor. They were still alive, but the driver waved his stave at Dr Ransome and beckoned him away from them.
Jim stepped across the damp floor and jumped on to the ground. He was about to run after Dr Ransome when the driver held his shoulder and pointed to the sergeant in the guardhouse porch. He stood in the kerosene light, a small sack like a weighted cosh in his hand.
Cautiously, Jim walked up to the sergeant, who threw the sack on to the ground at his feet. Jim knelt in the deep ruts left by the truck’s tyres, and treated the sergeant to his keenest smile. Inside the sack were nine sweet potatoes.
For the next hour Jim moved busily around the yard. While the prisoners rested in the timber store he relit the charcoal stove. Under the bored eyes of the Chinese coolies he fanned the embers into a flame, then fed the blaze with shavings of waste timber. Dr Ransome and the English boys brought him a bucket of water from the butt behind the guardhouse. Although Mrs Hug had been drinking from the bucket, Jim decided to wait until the potato water had cooled. Dr Ransome tried to help him with the iron cong, but Jim pushed him aside. The Eurasian women at the detention centre had taught him that potatoes cooked most quickly in shallow water under the tightest lid.
Later, before he carried the boiled potatoes to the timber store, Jim kept the largest one for himself. He sat next to Dr Ransome on the pine planks, while the missionary husbands lay in the sawdust, unable to eat. Jim regretted that they had been given even the smallest potato. At the same time, he needed these old people to survive, if they were to move on to the next camp. The Dutch woman seemed well, even if she had given her potato to the English boys. But Basie was already scanning the timber store, making an inventory of its possibilities inside his head, and if they stayed