Page 108 of Sisters Under The Rising Sun

‘We’ll start with “Silent Night”,’ Margaret tells the women of the choir.

The first notes spring forth as she slowly lowers her raised arm. One by one, the audience join the choir in a sweet rendition of the most beloved carol. The voices of the beaten, half-starved, sick and exhausted ring out through the camp: they are not yet broken.

As they move onto ‘Oh Come, All Ye Faithful’, patients from the hospital stagger towards them, supported by Nesta and her nurses. They add their weak and croaky voices to the music.

They sing a rousing chorus of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ one more time as the food is finally served.

As they begin to sing, Captain Seki appears and stands just outside the gathering, a small gesture of respect for the song Captain Miachi had once requested as an encore.

Eating their Christmas dinner, Audrey watches Ena placing morsels of her food onto June’s plate. Using wisdom and ingenuity beyond her years, June distracts Ena by pointing something or someone out, and sneaks the food back onto Ena’s plate.

‘What did you think of Seki turning up tonight?’ Audrey asks Ena and Norah.

‘I wasn’t surprised,’ Norah says. ‘Just like Miachi, he seems to love that song, which is strange, to say the least.’

‘I was talking to Mother Laurentia, and she asked me if the voice orchestra was ever going to perform again,’ Ena replies.

‘What did you say?’ Norah asks.

‘I didn’t know what to say. I mumbled about how difficult it was to rehearse, how no one has the energy. I hope we can, but realistically I don’t think so.’

‘I would love us to re-form, but I think that time has come and gone. Still, let’s not let that thought spoil tonight and how special this day has been,’ Norah tells them both.

‘I think we’ll sing again one day; I have to believe we haven’t heard the last of Ravel,’ Audrey says, smiling at her two best friends.

The start of 1945 arrives without being marked, the women now burying many of their friends every day. Almost all of the nurses have malaria, now relying on the others to nurse them. Ena is stricken with Banka fever; Norah and Audrey carry her to the hospital, June hanging on tightly to her favourite aunt’s hand.

‘We’ll look after her,’ Nesta, thankfully free of malaria, assures them.

‘What can we do?’ Norah pleads. ‘I’ll do anything.’

‘If you can bring us cool water from the stream, that will help lower her fever, and, of course, a three-course meal would go a long way to speeding up her recovery,’ Nesta says, trying for a moment of humour.

‘She can have my ration,’ Audrey says.

‘Mine too,’ June pipes up.

‘I know you want to give her your food, little one. But you’re a growing girl and you need all the food we can get for you,’ Norah says.

‘I’m a big girl now, I’m eight.’

Norah looks away suddenly, choking back a sob.

‘Yes, my darling girl, you are big now, but big girls also need to eat. OK?’

‘June, what good will you be to Aunty Ena if she has to look after you when she’s all better?’ Nesta asks her. ‘We’ll get as much food into her as we can. You can stay and change her wet towels, that will be a great help.’

‘I have somewhere to go, can you two look after her?’ Norah asks Audrey and June.

‘Where do you have to be that’s more important than being here?’ Audrey asks.

But Norah has already left, the door to the hospital swinging shut behind her.

Hurrying to the barbed-wire fence, she takes a quick look around and, seeing no soldiers nearby, she slips under the wire and runs in crouch towards the huts on the hill. Towards the homes of the women here to entertain the Japanese officers.

She knocks on the door of the first hut she comes to. When there is no answer, she nudges the door open.

‘Hello, is there anybody here?’ Norah calls.