The Plantation - Di Morrissey [95]
‘I have been told by Chinese friends which of the Malay boatmen on the coast can be most easily bribed. And my friends have given me enough money to be sure that no questions will be asked and that the man they have named will take you safely.’
‘You’re not coming?’ I asked.
‘No, Captain Elliott, there is no further need for me.’
‘I don’t know how we can thank you,’ I replied. ‘I owe you my life. In fact, one way or another, we all do.’
Ah Kit smiled. ‘I hope that after the war is over and we both want different things for Malaya, you will remember that.’
Roger and Bill both shook Ah Kit’s hand and also thanked him.
‘Great chap,’ said Roger, when Ah Kit had gone. ‘Wonder what he’ll do after the war. I don’t suppose he’ll settle down to being a houseservant, again. Good men, those Chinese commies, good fighters, but I think they might cause the British problems when the war finishes.’
That evening there was no moon and the boatman sailed us to the island. While we were sailing across, we made radio contact with HQ and we were told that the submarine would be able to collect us the next night. So we met it and sailed back to Ceylon and from there we made our way to New Delhi and some very mundane war work, since we were judged not fit enough for anything more exciting.
‘Disappointing, but I think we did our bit,’ said Bill.
We were still in New Delhi, when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and the war ended.
When I finally returned to Malaya and Utopia, nothing could prepare me for the devastation of the plantation. The trees had been destroyed and the kampong and the workers’ huts were burned. The big house was in surprisingly good condition because the Japanese had used it as an administration centre, but Margaret’s and my house had not been so well cared for. The furniture had been badly damaged and the garden destroyed.
Several months later I was joined by my wife who had seen out the war in Australia and I was reunited with my son, Philip, who had spent the war in a Japanese internment camp in Sarawak with my sister-in-law, Bette.
Gradually the estate workers and their families came back and I was able to replant the rubber trees. Ho, who had survived the war, showed me where he and Ah Kit had buried my father and I reburied him at our little family churchyard.
‘It will never be the same,’ said Margaret one night, not long after we came home. ‘The parties, the friends, the servants, the lifestyle, the luxuries we enjoyed. That life won’t come back.’
‘Perhaps not. But while it might be different, it could be better. One day it will be,’ I replied.
There the memoir ended. Julie closed her grandfather’s small book and put it to one side. She sat there, quite stunned. She wanted to call her mother immediately and say, ‘Oh my God! Great Aunt Bette and your brother Philip were in a Japanese POW camp during the war and we didn’t know. How could Gran not have mentioned this?’ It seemed inconceivable.
She found her two cousins still up, sitting with bran-dys, watching a football game on the satellite TV.
‘Hey, we thought you’d gone to bed,’ said Shane.
‘Is something wrong?’ said Peter. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Absolutely. Thank you. I’ve read Grandfather’s memoir and I’m in shock.’
‘Turn the sound down, please, Shane,’ said Peter, rising to get Julie a G & T.
‘What’s upset you?’ asked Shane.
‘I finished reading our grandfather’s memoirs and at the end I discovered that your father and Great Aunt Bette were in a POW camp. My mother and I had no idea. How on earth? What happened? I mean, I can’t believe my grandmother never ever mentioned this? Why?’
The two boys stared at her, realising that this disclosure was a huge revelation for their cousin.
‘Do you really mean that you had no idea of what had happened to them?