The Plantation - Di Morrissey [115]
‘I’d rather take my chances with the wild animals than in here,’ said another woman in a low voice.
‘It’s Marjorie’s birthday and it’s cheered us all up,’ said Bette in a loud voice. ‘Let’s have a bit of a sing-song.’
As usual, the women found that singing their favourite songs lifted their spirits and because it was Marjorie’s birthday, they sang even louder.
Later that night, Marjorie and Evelyn thanked Bette again.
‘I need a hiding place for my card you made and my little things,’ said Marjorie.
‘Why don’t you sew it into your pillow? The Japs won’t look for it there. Here, I’ll do it for you,’ said Bette. So Bette carefully sewed the card into the little pillow and when she returned it to Marjorie, she whispered, ‘Our little secret.’
Bette lay on her bed, Philip’s warm form curled against her, sleeping soundly, his cheek resting on his elephant. She looked across to Evelyn, lying only inches away.
‘I can feel his tiny frame, every single fragile bone, like a bird. His breathing seems shallow and he’s so pale. He just doesn’t have the energy he used to. I know he’s mal-nourished. I just don’t know how to help him.’
‘But Bette, you’re wonderful with Philip. His own mother couldn’t have done more for him.’
‘Evelyn, I feel so helpless. I can’t believe how everything went so wrong and we ended up here. The surprise Jap attack, the hopeless British defence, the terrible muddle in Singapore. I couldn’t even bring the most basic things into camp. At least you and Marjorie brought some things in. I only had my handbag with a bit of money and a few cosmetics. It was all so little. I’ve got nothing to sell and I’m almost out of money.’
‘Yes, this has been very hard for you. And there are some women who seem to have a lot of valuables and influence. Life for them does not seem as difficult as it does for you. That horrible Hannah Lampton, for instance. Just because her husband was a wealthy planter, she expects deference in this camp. I know she buys a lot from the traders, but you never see her actually doing the buying. She gets other people to do it for her.’
‘I know. For all the talk in this camp of pulling together, that Hannah Lampton certainly believes that it’s every woman for herself.’
The next day, before heading to the cookhouse, Bette told Evelyn that their talk last night had given her an idea, and with that she walked over to the hut where Hannah Lampton lived. Hannah was a big woman who looked to be well fed. She was fashionably dressed and her shoes looked almost new. She was sitting outside the hut, in the shade, on a handmade wooden chair, obviously procured from a trader.
‘It’s my veins. My legs and ankles are too swollen to work,’ she said as Bette approached.
Bette nodded. ‘We all have something wrong,’ she said. ‘But we must soldier on, right?’
Hannah frowned, sensing some implied criticism in Bette’s bright remark. But she sat and listened to what Bette had to say and when Bette said she had to leave to go to the cookhouse, Hannah folded her arms and said, ‘I’ll talk to you this afternoon.’
The worst part about the job in the cookhouse, Bette told Evelyn, was not cooking for large numbers of women with terrible rice and the few nourishing ingredients that were their rations, although that was difficult enough, it was maintaining the fires to do the job. The rice vats required a lot of wood to keep them boiling, but obtaining the wood was always difficult. Often the wood that was delivered to the camp each day by truck was green or sometimes an entire tree trunk might arrive and then there would be the problem of chopping it up. The tools for this job consisted of two very blunt hatchets, so that by the end of the day Bette’s hands would be covered in blisters.
When she returned from the cookhouse that day after battling with the firewood, Philip scampered over and hugged her, exclaiming over what he and Marjorie had been doing.
‘What a clever boy you are. Now, I have to see one of the women. I’ll be back shortly.’
He refused to let go of her hand. ‘I want to come.’ He lifted her