Page 89 of Sisters Under The Rising Sun

Norah watches as he takes a seat behind a small table in the school shed and awaits her turn to be called.

‘Norah Chambers,’ Ah Fat calls finally.

Norah steps up to the table, bows and immediately wants to laugh. It’s as if she’s being presented to the King of England.

‘Norah Cham … Chambers,’ Seki says, nodding. She can hear her campmates laughing as he struggles to pronounce her name.

Afterwards, Seki stands and delivers a long-winded, rambling speech, which Ah Fat stutteringly translates.

‘Oh, no,’ Norah whispers to Ena. ‘Not again.’

‘Cutting our rations?’ Ena exclaims while Ah Fat still rambles on. ‘And we have to work for the little they’re going to give us?’

‘Well, at least they’re giving us a bit of land back to grow some food,’ Norah says.

‘Will we grow bananas, Aunty Norah?’ asks June, taking her hand.

‘I’m afraid not, my sweetheart, but you do love spinach, don’t you?’

‘A bit,’ says June.

Having threatened a cut in their food allocation, it becomes clear that Seki did not know how much food the women had been receiving up to that point. Or its quality. Immediately, the women notice that the rice features far fewer insects. They are now given sugar, salt, tea, curry powder and maize. Betty meets Norah at the distribution point.

‘I can’t believe they’re giving us sugar!’ Betty whispers.

‘I know! And look at your rice,’ Norah urges.

Betty peers into her banana leaf. ‘It’s not moving!’

‘Well, that’s going to put Margaret out of a job: no weevils to pick out. A real treat!’

‘Another way of looking at it is that we’ve just lost our source of protein. But I’ll live without it.’

‘I think we have to tell everyone to keep quiet about the extra food. We don’t want Seki to know he is giving us something we weren’t getting before.’

But while there might be more rice and sugar, it is the drop in the vegetable rations that worries the nurses most. They are what is needed for growing bones.

Norah and Ena stand at the entrance to the camp to watch the trucks rumble through the gates.

‘It’s lovely to see friends reunited, isn’t it?’ Norah says. Women climb out of the vehicles, and stand dazed, looking around them. Some of the camp inmates rush forwards, recognising survivors from theVyner Brooke.

‘Poor nurses,’ says Ena, watching the sisters troop dejectedly back to their hut. ‘They were hoping to see some friends.’

Norah stares after the nurses.

‘There’s no reunion for us either,’ she says. ‘The only person we know who might be possibly on the island is John, and he was so sick.’

‘Oh, Norah, he’s strong. I know he’s here somewhere, just waiting, and so is Sally.’

‘And we don’t know where she is, or if they made it.’

‘Of course they made it, Norah. Like we discussed, you’d know if something happened to either one of them. You’d know it here,’ Ena says, tapping her own heart.

‘What does your heart tell you about Ken?’

‘That he’s safe with our mother and father, waiting for our turn to be reunited, and in the meantime …’

‘In the meantime, we keep doing what we’re doing here: caring for June and staying alive.’