Empire of the Sun - J. G. Ballard [83]
Taking off his shoes, Jim began to buff the toecaps. After three years in clogs and cast-offs, he enjoyed impressing everyone with these expensive leather brogues.
‘Jim, it’s admirable of you to look so smart, but try not to polish them all the time.’ Dr Ransome stared heavily at the wax square. ‘They unsettle Sergeant Nagata.’
‘I like them to look bright.’
‘They’re very bright. Even the American pilots must have seen them. They probably think we have a golf course here and set their compasses to your toecaps.’
‘That means I’m helping the war effort?’
‘In a way…’ Before Jim could put on his shoes Dr Ransome held his ankle. Most of the sores on Jim’s legs were infected, and given the poor diet would never properly heal, but above the right ankle was an ulcer the size of a penny, engorged with pus. Dr Ransome moved the tray of melted wax from the candle-lamp. He boiled a spoonful of water in a metal pail, then drained and cleaned the ulcer with a cotton swab.
Jim submitted without protest. He had formed his only close bond in Lunghua with Dr Ransome, though he knew that in many ways the physician disapproved of him. He resented Jim for revealing an obvious truth about the war, that people were only too able to adapt to it. At times he even suspected that Jim enjoyed Latin for the wrong reasons. The brother of a games master at an English boarding school (one of those repressive institutions, so like Lunghua, for which Jim was apparently destined), he had been working up-country with Protestant missionaries. Dr Ransome was rather like a school prefect and head of rugby, though Jim was unsure how far this manner was calculated. He had noticed that the doctor could be remarkably devious when it suited him.
‘Now, Jim, I’m sure you’ve done your prep…’ Dr Ransome opened the Latin primer. Although distracted by the prisoners who gathered outside the huts and dormitory blocks, he stared hard at the text. Hundreds of men and their wives, many with their children, were crossing the parade ground. He began to question Jim, who continued to polish his shoes under the table.
‘“They were being loved”…?’
‘Amabantur.’
‘“I shall be loved”…?’
‘Amabor.’
‘“You will have been loved”…?’
‘Amatus eris.’
‘Right – I’ll set you an unseen. Mrs Vincent will help you with the vocabulary. She doesn’t mind your asking?’
‘Not now.’ Jim reported her change of heart matter-of-factly. He guessed that Dr Ransome had been useful with some special woman’s problem.
‘Good. People need to be encouraged. She may not be much use with the trig.’
‘I don’t need her to help me.’ Jim enjoyed trigonometry. Unlike Latin or algebra, this branch of geometry was directly involved in a subject close to his heart – aerial warfare. ‘Dr Ransome, the American bombers that flew with the Mustangs were going at 320 miles an hour – I timed their shadows across the camp with my heart-beat. If they want to hit Lunghua Airfield they have to drop their bombs about a thousand yards away.’
‘Jim, you’re a war-child. I imagine the Japanese gunners know that too.’
Jim sat back thinking this over. ‘They might not.’
‘Well, we can’t tell them – or can we? That would be unfair to the American pilots. As it is, the Japanese are shooting too many of them down.’
‘But they’re shooting them down over the airfield,’ Jim explained. ‘Then they’ve already dropped their bombs. If they want to stop them hitting the runway they should shoot them down more than a thousand yards away.’ The prospect excited Jim – applied to the Japanese bases all over the Pacific area this new tactic might turn the war against the Americans and so save Lunghua Camp. He drummed his fingers on the table, imitating the way in which he had played the white piano in the empty house in Amherst Avenue.
‘Yes…’ Dr Ransome reached out and gently pressed Jim’s hands to the table, trying to calm him. He submerged another cotton square in the wax tray. ‘Perhaps we’ll leave the trig, and I’ll mark