The Plantation - Di Morrissey [120]
‘How are you going to get them out?’ asked Evelyn nervously. ‘They both look pretty wild.’
‘They certainly do. Can you see if there are any embers in the fire from last night?’
‘Yes, we can get it started again, but you’re not going to roast them alive? What about the trap? We’ll never be able to make another,’ said Evelyn.
‘Smoke. Find something green or wet. We’ll smoke ’em out.’
Evelyn dunked a pile of the green bamboo that was kept to sweep the floor into some water and then onto the fire. As the smoke billowed out, Bette put the trap and its occupants close to it until the animals were stunned by the acrid smoke. Quickly Bette and Evelyn pulled them from the cage and Bette killed them with the knife and swiftly proceeded to butcher the meat. Evelyn watched, with a hand over her mouth.
‘Let’s not tell the kids. Have you any ideas on how to cook them?’
Evelyn and Bette smiled to each other as Marjorie and Philip licked their fingers after they sucked on the tiny bones that had been chopped up and roasted and added to their rice. Bette had described the treat as baby chicken. Evelyn cleaned up and collected all the bones that could be used as bait in the trap when it was set once again. Both women realised that this was only a small taste of meat, but it was better than nothing and would help the children survive a bit longer.
No one trusted the soldiers. The women knew that the Japanese did not want to be there, guarding a lot of women, when they would prefer to be fighting for their Emperor. To relieve their resentment, the men seemed to take great delight in tormenting their captives and making life for the women as difficult as possible.
Philip had caught malaria once before, but Bette became alarmed when another attack seemed to be very serious. Clearly his resistance was weakened by his terrible diet and he became very feverish and too weak to get up. There was no point in taking him to the clinic. There wasn’t any medicine there and Bette could look after him just as well in the hut. But she had no money for quinine either. Then she thought about the English-speaking guard, Corporal Hashimoto, and she remembered his kindness to her when she had been released from solitary confinement. So, with nothing to lose, she found him in the yard by himself, and bowing very low and humbly, she asked if she might speak to him.
‘It’s my little boy. He’s very sick. Malaria. I need medicine. Quinine. Can you help me?’
Corporal Hashimoto just looked at her and shrugged his shoulders and then walked away. How Bette hated the Japanese. It was bad enough that they should make war on women, but to callously let little children die was beyond comprehension.
‘I just don’t understand them,’ she said to Evelyn. ‘You often see the guards looking at pictures of their families, but they don’t want to acknowledge that we love our children as well.’
Later that day, as Bette walked back from the cook-house, with a bowl of rice which she knew Philip wouldn’t eat, Corporal Hashimoto called to her.
‘Hateful man,’ she murmured under her breath. ‘What does he want now?’
Corporal Hashimoto didn’t say anything to Bette as she bowed before him, but he dropped a paper packet on the ground in front of her.
‘You pick up. You not leave rubbish in camp. You will be punished,’ he shouted at her.
Bette was about to protest that the packet wasn’t hers when she suddenly realised what was going on. She picked up the paper and apologised to Corporal Hashimoto for dirtying the camp. Then she fled back to her hut. She opened the packet carefully, and inside lay a few quinine tablets and two boiled lollies.
Within a week, Philip was on the mend but Bette wondered for how much longer they could survive like this.
The camp had become their world. June, their leader, had rosters and committees and support groups and life was