Part 26 (1/2)

'Why are you doing that?' he asked in a worried voice.

'Now I know that the war is over. We'll be going home,' sang out Bette.

Evelyn was studying the contents of one of the parcels. 'You know what? I bet this is old stuff. I think this food has been sitting in that shed for d.a.m.ned years while we starved and died.'

There was a stunned silence. 'Do you think so? The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,' said Norma.

'Now, ladies. Let's have some order to this,' shouted June. 'Let's sort through systematically, what we have and take it to the kitchen.'

'Let's have a party,' called out Norma.

After that, it was happy chaos as children ran off with chocolate bars and women sat drinking proper coffee with tinned milk. The soldiers left them to it. After a slap-up meal, a sing-song and a prayer of thanks led by one of the nuns they fell into bed.

Philip went to sleep immediately. Bette stroked his hair.

'I don't think he's gone to sleep with a full tummy for years. You know, wonderful as it will be to go home, it's all going to be a big adjustment,' said Bette, cradling the sleeping boy beside her.

'When do you think that will happen?' said Evelyn. 'My mind can't take that in.'

'Oh, I do hope it's soon,' said Marjorie, her eyes s.h.i.+ning 'It's so exciting. What are you going to do first, Mother?'

'Hot bath. Clean clothes. Kiss your father.'

'And you, Bette?'

'I can't wait to get back to Brisbane and see my parents, and Margaret, and my home again. I've so missed them all. But I do wonder what sort of world we'll find after all this heartache. I suspect that it will be awhile before life settles down again. But I am so looking forward to it.'

'We've all changed, haven't we,' said Marjorie.

'You certainly have, you've grown up,' said Bette. 'And we must believe that this terrible time in our lives has given us strengths and knowledge about ourselves that we can use in the future.'

Uncharacteristically, the j.a.panese soldiers didn't appear first thing the next morning, though the sentries were still at the entrance to the camp. After the uninhibited and rather hysterical previous evening, everyone was drained, tired and still disbelieving that the end could be near. That was until there was a drone from above and everybody stopped what they were doing and looked to the sky.

'Is it one of ours?'

Once the women recognised the Allied plane, they started jumping up and down and waving to it. The plane flew low and a snowstorm of white paper fluttered to the ground, which everybody ran to pick up.

Philip scooped some up and ran to Bette. 'Letters, they're letters. What's it say, what's it say?' He jumped up and down excitedly.

Bette and Evelyn looked at the leaflet. 'It's from the Australian 9th Division. The j.a.panese have surrendered. It's official!' Bette leaned down and hugged Philip as Marjorie dashed towards them.

Wiping tears from her eyes, Bette read on. 'Due to your location it will be difficult to get aid to you immediately ...' She smiled at them. 'Not to worry, they're going to help us. We're going to be okay.'

The final days were a blur but eventually the 9th Division arrived to liberate the women. For Bette, to see the cheerful open-faced Australian soldiers, to hear their familiar accents, to suddenly have strong, kind men to look after them, to play with the children, to give them rides in their vehicles and to have enough to eat was all overwhelming.

'It's wonderful how most of the women have managed to save one reasonably good outfit for this day,' said Evelyn.

'Yes,' replied Bette. 'But it hardly disguises the terrible physical state of their bodies. You can see by the look on the faces of the Australian soldiers that they think we look pretty awful. There is such a yawning gulf between their world and the three-and-a-half years we've been here. I wonder how we will manage when we get out.'

Despite Bette's fears, Philip and the other children were beside themselves with joy, and the sense of new-found freedom and opportunity. The reality of home and family, barely recalled, was of little consequence in the excitement of the moment.

Finally the day came when the women went home. Evelyn and Marjorie, arms about each other's waists, walked beside Bette and Philip. The little boy skipped as Bette firmly held his hand and walked to the smiling Australians and Americans waiting to drive them away.

Evelyn saw Bette glance over her shoulder at the emptying compound, the huts and the wire that had enclosed their world for so long. Evelyn gave a quick prayer of thanks that they had all come safely through this ordeal. She did not look back. She squeezed Marjorie's hand and led her away.

10.

JULIE HAD TEARS IN her eyes. She took Marjorie's hand. her eyes. She took Marjorie's hand.

'What an incredible story. What an experience for a young girl. What happened after you got back home to the UK?'

Marjorie sighed. 'It was as wonderful as I had antic.i.p.ated, and although Mother was still frail, she recovered surprisingly well. My father refused to go back to Sarawak and got a job managing a printing company. I have to say, though, that the cold weather was hard for all of us, at first. It was also difficult to be parted from so many friends. They all went their different ways naturally, but we left some of them behind, too. One of Mother's closest friends, Babs, died not long before we were freed. Her death was a great shock to us.'

'Oh, she sounded such a jolly person. What happened?' asked Julie.

'I suppose she just wasted away. A lot of people died in camp from malnutrition and various deficiency diseases. When I think back, Mother and I were very lucky to have survived.'

'Philip and Bette? What happened to them?'

'We were so focused on our lives and wanting to put the war behind us that we pressed on. Bette went back to Australia. Mother and she wrote to each other for a while, but being separated by twelve thousand miles and having nothing in common except the POW camp, the letters gradually ceased, but, as you know, Philip came back into our lives. He was at boarding school in England and he wrote a letter to Mother and me, and so my mother insisted that he come and stay with us when he had holidays. So we saw a lot of him during his school years.'

'You must have enjoyed having him around in much easier circ.u.mstances,' said Julie.

'Yes. And then years later Philip persuaded me to return to Malaysia, and I've just kept coming. The memories of the war have faded and you can't blame this country for what happened during those years. And Malaysia really is a lovely place.'

'I can see why Shane and Peter are so attached to you,' said Julie.

'Yes, and I'm very fond of them. I'm sorry that I can't tell you much more about your aunt. Looking back now, it's a shame that she dropped out of our lives. But perhaps from what I've been able to tell you, you can get a sense of how strong she was. She was also very creative. She told me that when she was in solitary confinement that time, she drew in her head as a way of staying sane. And of course there was the card she gave me for my birthday.'

'Do you know what happened to the diary that was kept in the camp?'

'I didn't know about the diary at all until after we were liberated, but I found out later that one of the women rewrote it and it was published.'

'My aunt wrote a book about the Iban, but I don't know if she continued her art. She obviously loved to draw,' mused Julie. 'Marjorie, I can't thank you enough for sharing your story. It's certainly given me an insight into my Great Aunt Bette. It's amazing what she did for Philip. You would think that when Bette returned him to his mother, she would have been grateful to have her son back alive. I find it very hard to understand why Margaret ended up hating Bette.'

They sat and chatted a while longer, then Julie hugged Marjorie goodbye, and walked from the villa along the beach, past the coconut palms and freshly raked sand. She continued along the beach to the point, deep in thought. A shout caused her to look up and she saw Aidi jumping from his boat.

'Hi, where are you off to?' she called.

'I'm collecting a couple of guests for the mangrove tour. What're you doing?'

'I've been visiting a friend here, a lovely lady, who knew my aunt when they were in a prison camp together near Kuching.'

'They were hard times. What are you doing now?'

'Just walking.'