Chapter 10

TRAGEDY

Tragedy touched us all in August 1944 with the death of one of the finest lads in camp. Brian Thompson, 16 years of age, was the son of a CIM director, Mr. R. E. Thompson, who had been separated from his family by the war and was at the time residing at CIM's provisional headquarters in Chungking. This meant his wife, Ella Thompson, was alone in camp with their children who had been part of the Chefoo school student body. Brian, a tall, robust young man, had a faith mature beyond his years and witnessed boldly to his classmates and other camp teens of his love for Christ.

On that morning of August 7, the Thompsons joined the 400 other internees of group six for roll call at the old tennis court situated beside the camp hospital. While waiting for the "warden" who habitually showed up late, the youngsters looked for a diversion. Running diagonally above the court was an uninsulated powerline leading from the camp transformer to the sentry tower. Originally, it had stretched a full 20 feet above the ground, but with the passing months it sagged lower and lower. Three times Japanese authorities had been appealed to, to remedy this situation, but nothing had been done. On this morning, the ground was damp due to the rain during the night.

"Bet you can't touch that wire," one of the teenagers challenged. A smaller high school student leaped high in the air barely touching the wire with the tips of his fingers.

"Wow," he exclaimed, "I got a shock!"

Now Brian, his curiosity piqued, attempted the same. Taller than the others at six feet one, he not only touched the wire, but seized it. The full charge of electricity convulsed every muscle in his body. Unable to let go, he fell to the ground with an awful cry, narrowly missing several of the internees standing nearby.

Mrs. Thompson, seeing her stricken son, instinctively rushed to his aid, but was providently restrained ― her life probably saved ― by alert neighbors.

While a collective cry of alarm rose, several men using wooden deck chairs slashed at the wire, finally, but belatedly, freeing Brian. He was taken to the hospital, and while our camp doctors worked over his body, his classmates waited and prayed outside. Three hours later a doctor emerged to announce that all attempts to revive the lad had proven futile. Brian Thompson was dead.

A moving funeral service led by Chefoo's headmaster, Mr. P. A. Bruce, was a powerful reminder to all of us of the brevity and uncertainty of human life, and the importance of being ready to meet one's maker at a moment's notice.

"Brian missed the roll call," the speaker said, "but he is answering another eternal call, the only one in the end that really matters." Then we tearfully sang the old gospel song, "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder."

Exposed power lines were not the only hazard for youth in Weihsien camp. Situated throughout the compound were unspeakably foul, open cesspools, dug to receive the waste produced by our camp's 1800 residents. As we have mentioned, periodically these pools were emptied by Chinese coolies with their "honey buckets." Why a child would choose the vicinity of a cesspool for a playground is a mystery beyond the ken of any adult. Yet, it is the nature of children to be oblivious to many things that their elders find impossibly distasteful. And so it was that John and Mary Kelly had chosen to play on the low, stone rim of the cesspool situated not far from kitchen number one.

Johnny's father was a British missionary who worked in Mongolia. There he met and married a Chinese woman. The whole family lived "native style," wearing Chinese clothes, eating Chinese food and speaking very little other than Chinese. In camp they kept aloof from most of the missionary community.

How it happened no one seemed to know for sure, but the fact is, Johnny fell head first into the loathsome pool. The frantic cries of his sister, Mary, brought men working in the area to investigate. One of these was our dear friend, John Hayes. Kelly had gone under and bobbed up the fourth time when Hayes plunged into the pool to rescue him, thus averting another camp tragedy. It was inevitable that little Johnny, thereafter, was always referred to as "Cesspool Kelly." And thankfully, neither Johnny nor our friend, John, seemed any the worse for their cesspool "baptism."

That more did not die in camp is a tribute to the heroic doctors who, under nearly impossible conditions and with only the barest minimum of medical supplies, cared for the sick and dying. During the two-and-one-half prison years the camp was devastated by succeeding epidemics of dysentery and hepatitis. Others suffered from severe mental disorders. Despite the handicaps, doctors performed many major operations, among them a good number of deliveries. There were 32 children born during our years in camp, and in that same time 28 people died. Many of these were elderly, who without sufficient nourishment grew weaker and weaker. The father of our friend, John Hayes, was one of the elderly who died early in camp. But all the victims were not the elderly and fragile. Clarice Lawless was a young, uncommonly robust woman who lived three doors down from us. She led the Chefoo girls in calisthenics every morning on the softball field. Yet Clarice was taken down by typhoid, surviving only eight days after she was stricken. Christine, stuck down by the same dreaded disease, would be more fortunate.