Empire of the Sun - J. G. Ballard [91]
The soldiers began to saunter around the upended rickshaw. Private Kimura kicked its wheels, shattering the spokes. The others stamped on the wooden handles and snapped the shafts. Together they threw the vehicle on to its back, scattering the cushions.
The coolie knelt on the ground, laughing to himself. In the silence Jim could hear the strange sing-song that the Chinese made when they knew they were about to be killed. Around the parade ground the hundreds of prisoners watched without moving. Men and women sat in makeshift deck-chairs outside the barrack huts, or stood on the steps of the dormitory blocks. The Lunghua Players paused in their rehearsal. None of them spoke as the Japanese soldiers strolled around the rickshaw, kicking its seats and framework into matchwood. From the locker below the seat fell a bundle of rags, a tin pail, a cotton bag filled with rice, and a Chinese newspaper, the enure worldly possessions of this illiterate coolie. He sat among the grains of rice scattered on the ground, and began to sing at a higher note, raising his face to the sky.
Jim smoothed the pages of the Reader’s Digest, wondering whether to read an article about Winston Churchill. He would have liked to leave, but all around him the prisoners were motionless as they watched the parade ground. The Japanese turned their attention to the coolie. Raising their staves, they each struck him a blow on the head, then strolled away as if deep in thought. Breathlessly now, the coolie sang to himself as the blood ran from his back and formed a pool around his knees.
The Japanese soldiers, Jim knew, would take ten minutes to kill the coolie. Although they had been confused by the bombing, and the prospect of the imminent end of the war, they were now calm. The whole display, like their lack of weapons, was intended to show the British prisoners that the Japanese despised them, first for being prisoners, and then for not daring to move an inch to save this Chinese coolie.
Jim realized that the Japanese were right. None of the British internees would raise a finger, even if every coolie in China was beaten to death in front of them. Jim listened to the blows from the staves, and to the muffled cries as the coolie choked on his blood. Dr Ransome would probably have tried to stop the Japanese. But the physician was careful never to go near the parade ground.
Jim thought about his algebra prep, part of which he had already done inside his head. Ten minutes later, when the Japanese returned to the guardhouse, the hundreds of prisoners moved away from the parade ground. The Lunghua Players continued their rehearsal. Slipping the Reader’s Digest inside his shirt, Jim returned to G Block by another route.
Later that evening, when he had finished Basie’s potato skin, Jim lay on his bunk and at last opened the magazine. There were no advertisements in the Reader’s Digest, which was a shame, but Jim looked at the reassuring picture of the Packard limousine pinned to the wall of his cubicle. He listened to the Vincents talking in their low voices, and to the faint whoops of their son’s cough. On Jim’s return from E Block he had found the boy playing on the floor with the turtle. There had been a brief confrontation between Jim and Mr Vincent, who had tried to stop him replacing the turtle in the wooden case under his bunk. But Jim had stood his ground, confident that Mr Vincent would not try to wrestle with him. Mrs Vincent watched without expression as her husband sat on his bed, staring in his desperate way at Jim’s raised fists.
28
An Escape
‘Is the war over again, Mr Maxted?’
All around Jim, as he waited by the kitchen doors, the prisoners were pushing aside the food carts, shouting and pointing to the gates. The all-clear siren sounded across the camp, the wail of a broken bird trying to hide from the American bombing. Arms on each other’s shoulders, the prisoners watched the Japanese