Page 87 of Sisters Under The Rising Sun

‘Well, that’s not going to happen,’ Mrs Hinch says.

‘Inchi, it is. The men must live here, with the nurses, while we train them.’

Mrs Hinch draws herself up straight. ‘Train them for what?’

‘To be guards, to guard prisoners like you.’

‘And what if we don’t let them in?’ Nesta asks.

‘Then you will be put outside. You share or live outside.’ Ah Fat looks genuinely upset at the news he is imparting. He sighs. ‘Sorry, I don’t like them either.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t like them?’ Mrs Hinch asks, aghast.

‘Local men. I prefer you ladies.’

‘But what if they attack us? What’s to stop them if we’re living in the same house?’ Nesta objects.

‘They won’t, we will slap them.’

‘How will you know?’

‘We will slap them anyway; they won’t hurt you.’

‘I’m sorry, Nesta, what can we do to help? Do you want to spread around the other huts?’ Mrs Hinch asks.

‘We’ll have a meeting, maybe there’s a way we can share, give them room or something,’ Nesta says, trying to come up with a solution for this problem. ‘Do you know how many are coming?’

‘Twenty-five men,’ Ah Fat says, averting his eyes. He can no longer look at either Nesta or Mrs Hinch.

‘I’m worried about the so-called training these men are getting,’ Jean says to Nesta and several of the other nurses; they are sitting outside one evening trying to enjoy the gentle breeze, and a brief respite from their hot, sticky, overcrowded hut.

‘Their training?’ Nesta comments. ‘What about the fact we have to live with them?’ The local guards had been given timber, which they used to put up a wall dividing the small living space in the nurses’ hut into two.

‘I don’t want to live with them either, Nesta. But I don’t like the way the soldiers are treating them. Slapping them, poking them with their bayonets. It’s not right.’

‘I know what you mean – are they learning that this is the way to treat prisoners once they’re in charge?’ Nesta says.

‘I guess we’ll find out soon enough if they start hitting us,’ Betty comments. ‘Does anyone know how long they’re staying with us?’

‘Mrs Hinch spoke to the captain and was told three to four weeks,’ says Nesta, shrugging.

The next morning, the sound of the soldiers yelling in the street startles everyone. The nurses run out of their hut to see several women and children being chased and hit by the Indonesian guards.

‘Stop it! Stop it, you brute! Leave her alone!’ Nesta screams at the guard kicking a woman on the ground. She hits him square in the back and sends him sprawling. Nesta helps the woman to her feet before placing herself in front of her. The guard takes a swing at Nesta, who ducks easily under his arm. There is chaos all around. Women and children cry out, the soldiers are laughing, the Indonesian men are yelling.

‘Come on, ladies!’ screams Vivian. ‘There’s way more of us, let’s get them.’

As the man threatening Nesta turns around to see what’s going on, Nesta raises both her arms, and, growling like a bear, she charges him. The guards are being herded together by hundreds of angry women. Deciding they need to break things up, the soldiers move in and shepherd the men away. They do not return to the camp.

Word of Mary Anderson’s death spreads through the camp.

‘She’s the first of us to die,’ Mrs Hinch tells Norah, as the women gather outside Mary’s house in vigil. ‘Poor thing never had a chance with all the infection, the hunger.’

‘Well, we should bury her immediately. This heat …’ Norah says.

‘I’d like to see her first,’ says Mrs Hinch. ‘Then we can talk.’

Norah and Mrs Hinch enter Mary’s house and head for the crowded room in which the residents sit around her body, covered with a tatty sheet. Kneeling, Mrs Hinch closes her eyes in prayer.