CHAPTER 26 #2
Dorothy nodded at the description. ‘Dr Mackay,’ she confirmed. ‘But no Dr Archie?’
Maureen stopped and turned to look Dorothy straight in the eye. She paused for a moment, as if considering what to say. ‘Well, she didn’t mention him.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe he was just off duty. Or maybe he was moved to another camp, too?’
It made no sense. Dr Archie had said that he was needed at Changi and that he wasn’t going to be moved. So why wasn’t he there? She feared the worst. What had they done to him? Her pulse quickened as her mind went into overdrive.
They stopped outside Hut Fourteen and, after shouted instructions from the guard, Maureen put young Billy down on the ground. Then she motioned to take back the bag from Dorothy.
‘Thanks for helping with this, I appreciate it. See you around, I suppose.’
Dorothy watched as Maureen and her children were led into a cell within the hut. Then she made her way back to her own cell at the far end, her hollow stomach a knot of anxiety.
The days passed and life at Sime Road Camp took on the same, monotonous routine that it had at Changi. But routine was important, as was the sense of purpose that Dorothy achieved from her various jobs. Keeping busy helped her make it through the days and helped her sleep at night.
News from the outside was sparse as communications were highly censored. But the radio broadcasts continued to spread hope. And that hope was rewarded in May of the following year, when the news came that they had all been waiting for: the war in Europe was over.
Word spread like wildfire through the camp, whispered conversations passing on the wonderful news. The collective relief and joy was muted though, for it would be dangerous to let the guards know their source of information.
Dorothy breathed a huge sigh of relief and sent up a silent prayer for her brother, Thomas.
With every fibre of her being she willed that he had made it through alive.
Several times she had tried writing to his Cambridge address, in the hope that he might have returned there on leave, but the lack of reply had left her worried.
She thought, too, of her other loved ones, of Daisy and her family back in London and Clara and her family.
She knew that they had booked tickets on a ship to leave Singapore just a couple of days before her own ill-fated evacuation.
Had they made it away safely? She had no way of finding out, but prayed that they were now safely back in England.
One sunny morning, Dorothy was on her knees in the paddock, pulling the weeds from the long lines of tapioca.
She had now been a prisoner of war for two and a half years and her clothing was threadbare.
Her once pretty, pink sun hat was faded and stained and offered little protection from the relentless heat.
But, better sun than rain, Dorothy thought.
The monsoon-like rain storms turned the gardens into a quagmire and the work became even more muddy and miserable.
Given the lack of washing facilities, the mud stuck for days.
Dorothy hummed while she worked. The previous night there had been a musical evening in Hut Twelve which had put everyone in a good mood.
Spirits were high after the recent news from Europe and three of the girls from her hut had given a splendid rendition of the Andrews Sisters ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’.
It had brought back happy memories as Dorothy remembered the first time she had listened to it with Clara, drinking their own, home-made versions of the Singapore Sling at her friend’s house, just a few months before the island had fallen to the Japanese.
The tune had stuck with her and she smiled as she hummed, pulling the weeds out with ease and dropping them into the bamboo basket at her side.
It was hot work and her back ached. She had torn a strip of fabric from around the bottom of her dress and folded it up to make tiny pads to protect her knees from the stony ground.
She heard footsteps approaching and she looked up. A guard was bringing another woman over to weed the line with her.
‘You show her how do weeding!’ he barked.
Dorothy nodded obediently and looked up at the newcomer.
She was a bit older than Dorothy, her dark hair greying at the temples.
Her collarbones stuck out unnaturally above the neckline of her thin blue cotton dress.
All the prisoners had lost weight to an unhealthy degree during their time in the camps, but this woman looked seriously unwell.
‘I’m not sure there’s much to show.’ Dorothy gave a wry smile after the guard had left. ‘You pull the weeds out like this.’ She demonstrated, holding up a spindly green plant. ‘Then pop them in the basket like this.’ She dropped it into the bamboo basket. ‘And that’s pretty much it!’
‘Alright, thanks.’ The woman coughed, a nasty, hacking cough, then turned away to spit phlegm on the ground.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered, sounding embarrassed. ‘Chest’s bad again. It’s this bleedin’ humidity.’
Dorothy offered her sympathy and indicated for the woman to work opposite her. Then she put the basket between them and got to work. The basket soon started to fill up as they made their way along the row of young plants.
They worked in silence for a few minutes, then Dorothy started humming the song again and smiled when the other woman joined in.
But it was short lived as another coughing fit took hold of her.
Again, she turned away and spat. Dorothy saw the phlegm on the ground and noticed that it contained blood. She tried not to show her alarm.
‘I’m Dorothy, by the way,’ she said with a smile. ‘I haven’t seen you before, what’s your name?’
‘Brenda,’ the other woman said.
Dorothy recognised the name immediately. ‘Oh! Are you Maureen’s friend? With the two little ones, Susie and Billy?’
Brenda nodded. ‘Yes, we shared a cell over in Changi. Haven’t seen much of her since we were moved here, though.
I’m in Hut Eight but I’ve not been out and about much; haven’t been too well.
’ As if on cue, she coughed again, a deep, rattling sound that made Dorothy wince.
‘But now the Japs seem to think I’m well enough to make myself useful, so here I am. ’ She shrugged.
‘Stop talking! Must work!’ A guard came over and shouted at them.
‘I’m sorry,’ Dorothy muttered once the guard was out of earshot. ‘Listen, I know you spent time at the hospital in Changi Jail. Did you see anything of Dr Archie while you were there? I worked with him in the hospital, you see. I just wanted to find out if he was alright.’
‘Oh!’ A look of recognition spread across Brenda’s face. ‘That’s where I’ve seen you before!’
‘Yes.’ Dorothy felt a strange sense of déjà vu. ‘I worked there as a nurse. I knew Dr Archie from before, though. We worked together at the Alexandra Military Hospital.’
Brenda shook her head sadly. ‘Poor chap!’
Dorothy dropped a handful of weeds into the basket and looked at Brenda. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You mean you didn’t hear what happened to him?’
Dorothy shook her head, her pulse quickening.
‘Well, it was all a bit hush-hush.’ Brenda frowned.
‘But a while back, we heard that he was given one hell of a beating by the guards. Then he just disappeared, no sign of him. And that’s it, that’s all.
’ She shrugged. ‘No one really had a clue what became of him. The other hospital staff didn’t know.
But I think everyone feared the worst. Such a shame, he was a good doctor and such a nice man. ’
Tears sprang to Dorothy’s eyes. ‘Oh God!’ she cried, her face creasing in misery.
‘You, stop talking!’ The guard had returned. He shoved Dorothy hard in the back with the butt of his rifle and she tumbled face first into the sticky brown mud.
She tried to regain her composure as she pushed herself back up, bowing low in apology to the guard.
‘I’m sorry.’ Brenda whispered as the guard moved off. Her face was full of concern. ‘Friend of yours, was he? The doctor?’
Dorothy nodded and wiped a mess of mud and tears from her face. She swallowed hard and fought to compose herself. She was to blame. Whatever they had done to Dr Archie, it was all her fault. He had been the kindest and best of men, her rock during the hardest time of her life. And now he was gone.
‘I’m sorry’ Brenda repeated with a long sigh. ‘Too many lives have been lost in this bloody war. I’m glad it’s finished in Europe, but when will it ever end for us?’
The answer to Brenda’s question finally came a couple of months later.
In early August, tiny seeds of hope began to flourish for the starved and exhausted prisoners when news came that the Allied troops had bombed two key Japanese cities.
Dorothy had never heard of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but suddenly those names were on everyone’s lips as the key to ending the war.
Dorothy found herself facing conflicting emotions as she thought of the cities that had been decimated and the innocent lives that had been lost. Thousands of women and children who, like her, had not chosen this war, had had their lives cut short.
As the days passed, there was an increasing mood of optimism around the camp.
Encouraging rumours buzzed around that the Japanese surrender was imminent.
As if to confirm this, the prison guards became distracted, increasingly preoccupied by what was to come.
There were no more physical punishments for prisoners who stepped out of line and their manner was much less hostile, verging on cordial, as if fearful of the retribution that could come.
The tide was on the turn and Dorothy finally let herself dream of a life beyond Sime Road Camp.
Eventually, on the 15th of August, 1945, the news came that everyone had been waiting for. After six long, gruelling years, the war was finally over.