February 1942 to June 1944

CHAPTER II

CONCENTRATION CAMP

Outside the station four Japanese military trucks awaited us, and with knapsacks and small hand-baggage we climbed in; there were no seats and we had to stand. The road from the station led through the southern suburb, the streets of which were lined with curious Chinese. Reaching the south gate of the walled city of Weihsien, we turned to the east. The Japanese drivers seemed to take a delight in careering along at a terrific speed over the rough road, throwing us off our feet and bouncing us on the floor of the truck, amidst clouds of dust.

The camp, formerly a large American mission hospital and school, lay some two miles east of Weihsien. In the distance the red-tiled roofs of the campus buildings showed here and there between the trees, the whole surrounded by a high grey brick wall. Cheered by crowds, the trucks drew up before a porticoed entrance in the Chinese style, and above the large black folding doors was a legend in Chinese, reading, "The Courtyard of the Happy Way", the name by which the mission had been known. We were met by a friend from Peking whom we followed up the slope leading to a large open space alongside the church, later to be known as the "Athletic Field" ; here all lined up and were assigned to billets.

While these arrangements were being made, we had an opportunity to look over those who were so interested in our arrival. A motley crowd, most of them were unshaven and their clothes were already dirty and worn. Now and again one would recognise an old friend from Tientsin or some other North China town. Two weeks had made a big change in their appearance. Amongst the internees were a large number of Catholic priests, many with beards and whiskers of the most magnificent proportions and the most varied hues, the product of years of careful pruning and clipping ; some were dressed in black Chinese gowns and puffed long Chinese pipes. There were a number of children, some with their mothers, the latter looking tired and drawn.

We were fortunate in being allocated the last row of students' quarters, six small rooms ten by twelve feet, each of which was to accommodate three people. I arranged to share a room with Leslie Ramage of the Canton Union Insurance, and Arthur Porter of "Marco Polo", one of Peking's better-known Chinese art galleries. Having taken possession of our new home, bare with the exception of a crude wall-cupboard and a small table, we chalked our names on the door and set out to find what the next move was to be. This, we soon learned, was to locate our beds and bedding. Passing through a maze of alleys and rows of minute rooms, we came to a large open space in the middle of which was a mountain of crates, wooden boxes, trunks and bedding. Arthur was the first to find his bedding roll; Ram and I took more than an hour to locate ours. The rest of the evening was spent in carrying our own and other people's baggage, and by nine o'clock we were all very tired. After a supper consisting of left-overs from the train journey, and a bottle of vodka, we rolled up in a couple of blankets and turned in for the night on the floor.

Next morning we found that the residents of a week or ten days' standing had comparatively well-furnished "homes", so we too set about furnishing our small apartment.

The whole compound could be divided into three sections. The numerous alleys consisting of rows of students' rooms housed the married people, the women and a few of the more fortunate bachelors, and scattered amongst the students quarters were the class-rooms which had been turned into dormitories for the single men. On the east section of the compound was the hospital, surrounded by open ground on which had once been a tennis court and a basketball pitch. Divided by a wall from these two sections were seven or eight large western-style houses which in former days had been occupied by the mission faculty and were now housing the Japanese camp staff and guards. A few were unoccupied and it was from these that flowed the endless assortment of knickknacks which gave a homelike appearance to our bare cabins. Before lunch we had succeeded in scrounging two cupboards and a table, and by supper-time that night we were comparatively well-furnished, having found two wooden chairs, a kettle, an enamel boiler, a bucket and a fine selection of glass preserving jars. By the end of the first week we had put up the beds, and nailed a few shelves to the walls, but by the end of a month we had a double-decker sleeping-berth, which left room for a couple of chairs and a collapsible writing-desk. We spread a rug on the floor, hung curtains at the windows and built an outside cooking stove against the next row of tenements.

The camp was in an appalling state: many of the buildings, including the hospital, were littered with filth to a depth of several feet; sanitary arrangements had not been completed ; there was rubbish everywhere. No preparations had been made for the first arrivals, a group of British and Americans from Tsingtao. The American party from Peking had arrived before their beds and bedding, and had spent the first two nights on the floor with nothing more, for the most part, than overcoats and one blanket each. It had snowed and had rained, and the compound became a perfect quagmire. Hot water was scarce and food supplies negligible, the most unappetising mess being served twice a day, under the alias of “stew", by the Tsingtao pioneers. There were three centres for the preparation of food, known as the Tsingtao, Tientsin and Peking kitchens. By the time the Peking British arrived the Americans had brought some semblance of order to the Peking kitchen.

Within a few weeks the camp began to organise itself, and committees were formed which took the responsibility of seeing that the necessary jobs were done. Soon life had settled down to a well-organised routine.

The Japanese supplied coal and wood for cooking, flour from which we made our own bread, vegetables of the cheaper sort (such as carrots, turnips, sweet potatoes, cabbage and leeks), meat and sometimes fish, usually squids or an assortment of small odds and ends, hardly worth the trouble it gave the fish-squad to clean them, and salt, pepper, soya-bean sauce and oils for cooking. Occasionally we received a ration of sugar and eggs. Everything in the camp was done by the internees themselves, and the greater part of the work was concerned with the feeding of the 1800 people. Coal had to be brought from the coal dump, wood carried and chopped, meat washed and minced or cut into cubes, vegetables washed, peeled and cut up, and supplies carried from the store-house to the kitchens. Relays of stokers were required to keep the huge cauldrons boiling, also dish-washers and cauldron-cleaners, cooks, assistant cooks and their helpers.

For the first few weeks it was exhausting work but one gradually got used to it. I first worked in the Peking kitchen as general help and then graduated to the butchery, where the maggot-ridden carcases and the myriads of flies which laid eggs on the meat faster than one could wipe them off were rather more than I could stomach, and I went back to the kitchen as a helper on Father J―'s cooking team. Remaining in the kitchen for the rest of the time, I gradually worked my way up from helper to chief cook. Arthur Porter cooked in the winter and worked in the community garden in the summer, and Ram divided his time between the kitchen and the camp canteen, and so, by skilful planning and a little scrounging, we contrived between us to look after our own interests with considerable success.

As the summer approached, people relaxed, realising that they would in all probability he interned for some time to come. Camp work was put on to a regular basis, the majority of the men doing one twelve-hour day on their assigned duty and two days off. Amongst the Catholic Fathers, the educationalists from the Peking universities and the language students, we had some of the finest intellects in North China, and lectures and talks were given on every imaginable subject. A children's school was organised; a Dramatic Society had been formed and had produced some very creditable shows; concerts were arranged and pianoforte recitals were given by Curtis Grimes or Shireen Talati, equal to anything of that nature one could hear in the Far East. The various religious denominations worked out their arrangements for church services. A baseball league was started with matches played almost every evening.

Camp politics were soon well under way. Elections were held and committees formed, but the predominating figures continued to be Billy Christian and Ted McLaren of Butterfield and Swire. It was a thankless task, and members of the Committee soon became targets of much criticism. Their decisions were questioned; they were accused of favouritism; blamed for the shortage of food, denounced for not taking a strong enough line against the Japanese; seldom was their work appreciated by the internees.

The average internee saw little of the Japanese Camp Commandant or his staff, who left the running of the camp almost entirely in the hands of the Committee, to whom he issued orders and from whom he received requests and complaints. An office building was shared by the Committee and the Commandant and his staff.

Secretary to the Committee was the efficient Shell Oil Company's Ethel Blake. Smooth, efficient and never flurried, she did a great job. To her much credit is due for the way in which she kept Egger, the Swiss Consul from Tsingtao (who was in charge of Allied interests), posted on matters concerning the welfare of the internees. Egger paid visits to the camp almost every fortnight during the first few months, but as time went on the intervals between his visits became longer. The Japanese, always suspicious, rarely gave him the opportunity of seeing a member of the Committee alone, much less an internee. In order to keep him informed, reports on the camp and any special requests were prepared in advance of Egger's visits. Upon his arrival a Japanese would escort him from the main gate to the office and en route he would be met " casually " by one or two of the Committee members, who, in passing through a gateway or going up the office stairs, would do a little pre-arranged hustling, during which messages were exchanged. If this method failed, later, during the meeting that followed between the Commandant, Egger and certain members of the Committee, Ethel, who was present to take notes (usually sitting next to Egger), always managed to slip a note into his coat pocket or his attaché-case, which she sometimes used as a support for her shorthand pad.

Egger was the only official contact that the camp had with the outside world. He worked under tremendous difficulties: both he and his staff were watched very closely by the Japanese in Tsingtao and any move he made was regarded with the utmost suspicion. On each trip to the camp he endeavoured to bring much-needed supplies. We depended upon him to purchase the medicines and drugs for the hospital, and some-times he would be able to bring in parcels for the internees from their friends in Tsingtao. In the beginning this was not too difficult, but gradually the Japs enforced a multitude of restrictions, and special passes and permits had to be obtained. Any official orders handed to Egger through the Committee were always carefully examined by the Japanese, who delighted in crossing off various items, particularly extra food for the hospital patients. Sometimes he went so far as to alter and occasionally forge these permits. Transportation by train from Tsingtao to Weihsien was always difficult and pilfering was rife.

On arrival at the camp we were instructed to deposit in the camp bank any money we had brought with us. Some handed over all, others only a token payment. After a month or two we began to receive "Comfort Money", being relief payments from our respective governments, for which we had to sign promissory notes known as " Comfort A ". Internees also signed promissory notes designated as "Comfort B” which paid for the upkeep of the hospital and bought medicines and drugs, etc. Any personal arrangements that an internee cared to make with his girl friend eventually became known as "Comfort C" ; promissory notes in these cases being usually waived in favour of a tin of jam, a bar of chocolate or a cake of soap!

There were, of course, people who were never short of funds, and again others who were always broke. The poker school, which held a twenty-four hour session immediately after pay-day, produced a few of the latter. The blackmarketeers were amongst those who usually had enough to keep body and soul together. Then there were the fortunate few who had ways and means of getting money into camp, and others, with three or four children to feed, who were perpetually without a cent. The canteen provided a few essentials such as matches, cigarettes, oil for cooking, peanut-butter and occasionally eggs and those in funds were able to buy up the rations of the bankrupt or the cigarettes of the non-smokers.

We had not been in camp for more than a few days before the black market began to operate: the first essential that people demanded and most easily obtained was eggs. Peasants loitered outside the walls with baskets of eggs, and it was merely a matter of finding a convenient spot out of the sentry's view, a few words of hasty bargaining, throwing over a rope and hauling up a basket of fresh country eggs. Even the amateurs managed with the greatest of ease. But in a few weeks the guards made some effort to put a stop to it, and as they became more alert, so black-marketing became a matter for the professionals, needing skill and careful planning.

The Catholic Fathers were the first to operate on a large and well-organised scale. The ringleader for some months was Father Scanlan, an Australian Trappist monk from a monastery north of Peking. Preference was given to women with large families to provide for, and during the day Father Scanlan would make his rounds, taking orders. At night thousands of dollars' worth of goods would pass over the wall: eggs, sugar, preserved fruits, jam, oil, tobacco, cigarettes, canned milk; we even got our promised strawberries, though not from the Japanese, but from Father Scanlan.

On the outside, regular bootlegging gangs were organised, the Hans, the Chaos and the Wangs. In the dead of night or at dawn they would send a representative over. Greased and clad only in a G-string, he would slip in, take the orders, "shroff" over the accounts, receive payment and quietly disappear. The guards had a suspicion that something was afoot, but apart from an occasional amateur with perhaps a dozen eggs or so, they failed to make any arrests. The Fathers had gone about it in a thorough manner. They made them-selves familiar with the habits of the guards and placed scouts in strategic positions to give ample warning, so that by the time the guards arrived, the Fathers concerned were either "sleeping" in a bed full of eggs and sugar, with contraband piled high beneath, or, if in the daylight hours, doing their washing or perhaps reading the Bible.

For some weeks they worked through a drainage hole at the base of the wall, and one morning, the coast apparently clear, Father Scanlan thought he would get a few eggs through. The guard had just been changed; he was not likely to be disturbed. He collected a wooden box on which he stood to make the necessary signals over the wall, and in a few moments the eggs were rolling through. The box was nearly half full when the warning was given. He had just time to move it in front of the drain and, spreading out his gown, sit down. Not having a Bible to read, he started immediately to sing as a truculent and suspicious guard appeared round the corner. The eggs continued to roll through the pipe and to break against the box. As the guard drew near, the Trappist Father sang more and more loudly in the hope that he would drown the noise of the continual stream of breaking eggs. The guard shouted the usual unintelligible string of Japanese at him and pointed over the wall; Scanlan continued to sing in Latin, calling on his brothers to come to his rescue. He had noticed a damp patch oozing round the side of the box: soon he would be engulfed in a river of broken eggs unless help came. Fortunately it did, and the placated guard left, looking somewhat puzzled and disappointed.

The camp was by no means ready for occupation by such a large group of people, and even the Japanese themselves realised that there was yet much to be done. Reluctantly, therefore, they allowed specially selected gangs in to complete the necessary repairs: cesspool coolies to whom they had sold the sole rights on this popular form of fertiliser, a tin-smith to make pots, pans and buckets for the use of the kitchens, and a group of carpenters. At first these workmen were not searched very closely and several of the carpenters used to fill their tool-boxes with eggs. In order to keep in close touch with these men, I made a regular contract for a couple of dozen eggs a day in an effort to gather what information I could regarding conditions outside the camp, but either they knew little about them, or refused to talk.

Having eventually gained the confidence of my egg man, I decided to have some Chinese clothes made, realising that it would be far too conspicuous to wear foreign clothes if one wanted to try and escape. Cloth was very expensive, and feeling that I should conserve my funds, I gave him a pair of sheets, which he agreed to dye black and have made into a Chinese jacket and trousers by his wife. In due course he came into the camp wearing the jacket over his own, which aroused no suspicions, as the Chinese wear from one to six layers, depending upon the temperature. The trousers, he promised, would be forthcoming in a day or so. As his work took him to various sections of the camp, and since at that time I was working in the butchery every morning, it was arranged that he should throw them through the back window of our room which overlooked one of the much-used footpaths of the camp.

One morning our neighbour, the Bishop of the Anglican Mission was lying on his bed reading when, suddenly, a pair of black trousers came flying through the window and landed on his chest. The Bishop's immediate reaction was one of righteous indignation. "Evidently," he thought "someone has stolen these trousers from a washing-line and, being caught in the act, has thrown them through the nearest window" In a moment he was stirred to action and, dashing up the alley, made record time to the path behind our row, waving the offending trousers in the air and shouting "Thief ! Thief !" A crowd soon gathered. The theft seemed difficult to explain, as there was no clothes-line in the vicinity. Much speculation ensued, but no one claimed the trousers and in due course the Bishop returned, having decided that the correct procedure was to hand them in to the lost property office. When I returned from work that afternoon, I was told the story of the mysterious Chinese trousers and, reluctantly, I decided that if I wanted my trousers the only thing to do was to own up. So I explained to the Bishop that I had ordered them as my own clothes got so greasy and dirty in the butchery. I felt very sure that he did not really appreciate my explanation, and from that time onwards he always looked a little surprised to see me amongst those present at the morning roll-call. The trousers having had so much publicity, I had no alternative but to wear them, and from then on they became known as "the Bishop's Jaegers".

There were of course several groups who from time to time interested themselves in the possibility of making a break from camp. For the first month or so C― of the China Soap Company, Arthur Hummel and myself worked on the idea. Through Chinese working in the camp, letters were dispatched to friends outside in an endeavour to make contacts; messages were sent to Tientsin and Tsingtao, and we even sent a messenger up to Peking, but all to no avail. We got into touch with some of the Catholic priests who, up to the time of concentration, had been working in Shantung, and received from them a lot of helpful information and sound advice, but nothing practical materialised.

Later I worked with D― who always swore that he had infallible connections. We held long uninterrupted conversations with the black- marketeers as to the possibility of being guided to the nearest Chungking troops, but with these people such matters always revolved around the question of money. Invariably they asked for a great deal more than we could possibly raise and we never got very far with them, as their main interest was the black market. Some months later our efforts were revived by one of the Catholic Fathers concerned in the black market. He had been in touch with someone who he was sure would help us. Many letters were exchanged over the wall, and a certain amount of money, but once again the plan fell through. By now it was well into the autumn and we realised that if we were going, we should have to get out before the winter set in, and as there seemed to be little hope of that, gradually the matter was dropped. Nevertheless I continued to keep up my contacts with the Chinese workers, and when they were changed, which was frequently, they would either recommend me to their successor or to someone else who was remaining, with the result that I had outside contacts the whole time.

It was not long before trading started amongst the internees — tinned food for cigarettes, a pair of shoes for three tins of jam, French lessons given for so many coal-balls a week, a stove built for a pair of trousers, a tin of coffee offered as a substitute for lavatory clean-up duty. Practical Helen Burton saw- the need for an " exchange emporium " and, scarce as housing space was, she managed to convince the Committee that her project was a camp necessity and wheedled out of them the rights to a small tumble-down but in an out-of-the-way corner of the grounds. It had a roof which leaked four rough brick walls, a mud floor, and two gaping holes where the windows should have been. Helen had a wonderful way of getting people to do things for her, and soon persuaded her friends to collect tiles for the roof and bricks for the floor; others put in window-frames and a door, paint was "acquired" and the woodwork given a coat of green and the walls whitewashed. On July 4th, clad in a startling "Stars and Stripes" creation, she held an opening party for those who had helped her. It poured with rain for most of the day, culminating in a veritable cloudburst which demolished the camp wall for about fifty yards alongside the athletic field, an appropriate omen for Independence Day. Within a few days the "Camel Bell Exchange" was piled high with goods for exchange and sale, from Paris models to empty bottles. Soon there were queues of people waiting to rummage through the piles of clothing — a pair of shoes for Junior, pants for the old man in exchange for a dress, or maybe a lipstick for an old sweater of John's. It was not long before the "Camel Bell Exchange" received official recognition and became one of the camp institutions.

Alcohol was always one of the most pressing problems amongst a certain section. In the early stages locally-made Chinese wine known as "pai ka'erh" could be obtained if one knew how. Some of the black-marketeers brought it in over the wall, and the Chinese servants working for the Japanese used to bring in a small amount. A quantity in bottles tied under the carts which brought in the supplies or came to collect the sewage, passed through the front gate under the eyes of the guards. One Chinese had a specially constructed tin container, flat and curved to fit next to his stomach, and secured with a sash. Unfortunately there were always one or two inebriates who, taking advantage of the situation, proceeded to get extremely drunk, and as was to be expected, this came to the notice of the Japanese. To ease the situation it was agreed between the Committee and the black-marketeers that no more would be brought in over the wall and with the added precautions the Japanese were taking, it became almost impossible to obtain, resulting in a much-increased demand on the hospital supply of medicinal alcohol. But this was soon detected, and when this source dried up the Japanese stepped into the breach by putting "hay rum" hair tonic on sale in the canteen, which was quickly bought up and consumed. After this, however, apart from an odd bottle of "eau-de-Cologne", there was practically nothing to be had. People then started to brew their own, and date wine became very popular, but a few of the more hard-pressed distilled alcohol, drop by drop, from sweet potatoes.

Returning to my quarters one night I passed P― in his pyjamas, standing outside his room throwing stones at one of the street lights. "How the devil do they expect one to sleep with this light shining through the window all night? Here, have a shot," and he handed me a stone. We were unsuccessfully engaged in this schoolboy occupation when P―'s room-mate B―, a very precise professor, put his head out of the window. "My dear P―,you will never do it that way. By the application of an elementary scientific principle, we can achieve our end with the minimum of exertion. The bulb is hot; if we expose it to a sudden change of temperature, it will explode." In a moment he came out, clad in a long flannel nightgown, and carrying a large tin mug full of water. Before we realised what was happening, he threw the water at the offending bulb and, as he had predicted, it exploded. Too late, P— suddenly recognised his own mug in which he had just placed his false teeth for the night. When I left, the pair of them were still grovelling in the dust around the base of the now extinct lamp, searching for P―'s dentures.

Among the high-lights of the camp were undoubtedly the four hundred or more Catholic Fathers and the Sisters. They were magnificent. There was no work to which they were not willing to turn their hands. The cheerful manner and the thoroughness with which they did the most menial jobs, their eagerness to assist anyone at any time, their unchanging disposition, their aptitude in mixing with every sort of nationality, and, last but not least, their ability to play as hard as they worked, not only endeared them to the whole community but were not important factors in maintaining the morale of the camp.

There were seven Catholic Bishops, and their appearance at the Sunday Mass in their gorgeous robes, and the whole-some singing of the Fathers, made this the most popular service. Another sect to which a lot of credit is due for their unstinting labours was the Salvation Army. Theirs was a small group but they more than pulled their weight. As was only to be expected amongst such a diversified gathering there were always the few who tried to avoid work and did little to co-operate, but on the whole the majority did their share.

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