Page 103 of Sisters Under The Rising Sun

‘It’s a day for celebrating – see what you can get.’

Betty returns and excitedly displays the results of her bartering: four small moon cakes, each the size of a golf ball, and two biscuits. She and Nesta take the sweets, along with a knife, and join the others outside.

It is just as the nurses are placing the last delicious crumbs into their mouths that Mrs Hinch appears in the garden.

‘Oh, dear, I’m so sorry …’ she begins.

‘What’s going on?’ Nesta asks, swallowing her final morsel.

‘Bad news, I’m afraid; the traders have been banned again.’

Nesta sighs inwardly.

‘Well, ladies,’ she says to her nurses, ‘at least we got our moon cakes.’

‘And they were weevil-free,’ Jean adds.

Chapter 20

Camp III

October 1944

‘Half of you will be leaving the camp tomorrow!’ Ah Fat announces. Just minutes earlier, Seki had called a camp meeting. ‘And, nurses, half of you will go tomorrow, be ready.’

Hearing the news, Nesta approaches Seki and Ah Fat as they turn to leave. Guards immediately brandish their rifles. Undaunted, Nesta walks up to the captain, glaring at him.

‘We will not be split up,’ she tells him. ‘Either we all go, or we all stay.’

Seki walks away, but as Ah Fat attempts to follow him, Nesta takes his arm.

‘Please, tell him not to separate us,’ she pleads.

‘Captain Seki has decided. Half of the nurses go tomorrow.’ And then Ah Fat, bows his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

That night, the nurses talk until the small hours. They had felt close to rescue and now they worry they will never be found.

But they make a contingency plan should they be split up, deciding who should go in each group. It is obvious that Nesta and Jean will each take a group.

The following afternoon, sixty women, including half of the nurses, Norah, Ena, Audrey and June, are loaded onto a small truck and driven away, their meagre possessions clutched in their arms.

The sun has set when they arrive at the mouth of the river. They are ordered onto the waiting river boat. As they begin to settle down, the soldiers point out six women who are to disembark, Betty amongst them. Another larger truck has pulled up to the jetty and they are ordered to remove its cargo and take it back to the river boat. There are sacks of food, boxes of fine china, books, silverware, chairs; obviously the fine possessions of a wealthy homeowner. Amongst the wares are dozens of coffins.

‘We have to find a way to help them,’ Norah whispers to Audrey. ‘It’s not right that the six of them have to do all the work.’

‘What do you suggest?’

‘Here comes Betty with a box. I’m going to sidle up beside her and when she’s about to load it on, I’ll push her aside and take over.’

‘But what if they see you?’ Audrey says, unsure of this brilliant plan of Norah’s.

‘I have to try at least. If it works, you can do it for someone else. Not Sister Catherina obviously, but, surely, we all look the same to them, apart from her.’

Norah hurries over just as Betty is approaching the storage areas with a heavy box. As she bends to lower it, Norah catches her eye and signals her over. As Betty bends her knees to drop the box, Norah whispers, ‘Stay down.’

When Norah rises and heads for the gangplank, she comes face to face with an apoplectic soldier, screaming at her to stay where she is. He turns to Betty, still crouched amongst the boxes and waves his rifle at her to get up and back to work. She ducks under the soldier’s swinging rifle.

The commotion is heard on the pier and as the soldier turns away to tell the others what has just happened, Norah takes this moment of distraction to jump up and race back to the safety of the crowd of women on board, where she joins Ena and June.