The Bird in the Bamboo Cage

The songs distracted us for a while and, when we’d finished, the Latin master from the Boys’ School led us all in a rendition of ‘Jerusalem’. I thought it rather brave to sing something so patriotic, but the guards at the door hardly seemed to care and didn’t stop us. Like a perfectly hemmed seam, our voices fit neatly together, boys and girls, teachers and children, all stitched together as one. When we sang, it felt as if nothing could harm us, so we kept singing, one song after another, until we were nearly hoarse and the younger children grew fidgety and tired.

‘Are you frightened?’ Sprout whispered as we played a game of Cat’s Cradle with a piece of wool she’d found in her pocket.

‘A bit,’ I admitted. ‘Are you?’

She nodded as we moved our fingers to make the intricate patterns from the wool. ‘A bit.’

Despite the teachers assuring us there was nothing to worry about, it was impossible not to be wary with stern-looking soldiers guarding the door and others marching about outside and shouting commands and instructions at each other. It was all so different from the usual calm routine.

Sprout lowered her voice and grabbed my hand. ‘But imagine what a story we’ll have to tell when we’re rescued. We’ll be famous Chefusians, like the children who were captured by Chinese pirates on their way to school a few years ago.’

‘I’d rather not be a famous Chefusian,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I’d much rather be spending Christmas in the Western Hills with my parents.’

I wondered what my father would say when he heard the school had been overrun by ‘the Japs’ as he called them. He certainly didn’t have anything nice to say about them whenever I’d heard him discussing the Sino-Japanese war with Edward.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that we shouldn’t even have been at the school when war and the soldiers arrived. We should have been with our parents, wrapping Christmas gifts and singing carols. It made it all seem so much worse.

The morning dragged on. We waited for hours in the cold assembly hall and still the headmaster didn’t come to tell us it had all been a mistake and we could return to our classrooms and carry on as normal. Several of us needed to use the toilet. Miss Kent told those of us who couldn’t hold it any longer to follow her.

‘The children need to use the conveniences,’ she announced to the taller of the two guards. Miss Kent looked especially short beside him. I noticed how she held her head high to add an inch or two. ‘The. Toilet.’ She pointed at us, enunciating her words slowly and clearly, as grown-ups do when they’re not sure the other person understands.

The soldier looked at us without moving a muscle. We stared back, jiggling about like tadpoles, all of us bursting. He eventually seemed to comprehend the situation and waved us along.

‘Hurry,’ he said, as Miss Kent shepherded us past, making sure to stand between him and us. ‘Quick, quick.’

I stared at his sword as we marched past.

In the girls’ toilets, notices in Japanese writing had been stuck to the sinks, the mirrors, the doors, even to the bar of soap. We all spent a penny as quickly as we could and followed Miss Kent back to the assembly hall. We passed a soldier who was sticking more notices to the classroom doors and to trophy cabinets along the corridor.

‘What is he doing, Miss?’ I whispered.

‘They’re taking what is not rightfully theirs, Nancy,’ Miss Kent replied, stiffly. ‘But we won’t stand in their way. They are, after all, only things. They can’t put a notice on us, can they?’

As we passed Miss Butterworth’s classroom, Miss Kent stopped suddenly. The door was broken at the hinge and I could hear a soldier shouting orders inside.

‘You can jolly well shout all you like, young man, but you will not place one of your notices on my desk.’

I recognized Miss Butterworth’s voice, although it sounded strained, and much louder than usual.

I knew I shouldn’t look. Like the blind beggar who’d died at the end of our street in Shanghai, I knew that if Mummy were there she would tell me to cover my eyes and look away. There are some things little girls aren’t meant to see, darling. Best not to look. But the temptation to peer into the classroom was too great. I looked, and immediately wished I hadn’t. I saw the soldier raise his arm. I saw him punch Miss Butterworth in the face. I heard the clatter of books and chairs as she stumbled backwards and hit her head against the edge of the desk. And I heard the panic and fear in Miss Kent’s voice as she ran forward, screaming at the soldier. ‘Stop! Stop it! Leave her alone, you brute!’

Despite the many things I couldn’t understand that morning, I knew, with absolute certainty, that in those few horrible minutes, everything had changed. It didn’t matter that we were a Christian missionary school, or that our fathers were well respected and our mothers well dressed. In the end, our parents’ occupations, our nice homes and clothes, the language we spoke and the colour of our skin, didn’t make any difference. We were at war now. Chinese, British, American, Dutch – we were all the same.

We were the enemy.

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