God Save the King!

It was a swelteringly hot day one summer during the second world war. On a dry, dusty, shadeless field in Weihsien, North China, fifteen hundred Allied civilian internees were lined up for the monthly roll call of the whole camp. (For daily roll calls they were sub-divided into six smaller groups.) They were a mixed lot - adults and children - tired, ill-fed. ill-clad and bored. The sun and glare were pitiless - so were the sullen Japanese guards who marched up and down the ranks, counting and re-counting. Between counts - it invariably took several before they reached the correct total - the internees sat or lay down, some reading or chatting, school children playing, parents trying to amuse fractious toddlers . . . anything to relieve the boredom. There were several Salvation Army officers among them, who played band music to help pass the time. So it went on for a couple of hours in the intense heat, and still the numbers we not right. At last the guards realised they hadn’t counted the internee official who was accompanying them around! So, to the great relief of all, the order to dismiss was finally given.

Everyone stood up, turned, and carrying their varied belongings, or children, surged forward, eager to leave the field and the sun. All, that is, except the Salvation Army bandsmen, who stayed to play their fellows off with cheerful music. Suddenly, with great daring, they played the National Anthem - the fifteen hundred moving internees stopped as one man, dead in their tracks. Gone was boredom, forgotten the heat and the guards, backs were straightened, heads held high, not a muscle moved as they remembered King and country. Standing to attention they affirmed their loyalty to all that was dear, although hundreds of miles away.

The Japanese guards were furious; this was something completely unexpected. They shouted orders to move, no-one even noticed. They jumped up and down with rage - everyone else stayed immobile until the last note of “God save the King” had died away. The internees then dispersed, but with far lighter hearts and jauntier steps than before. The guards seized the officer who was conducting the band and took him to the guard house. He protested that he wasn’t responsible for reaction to national tunes! Mercifully he was released. I know; I was there, a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl. That was my moment of most intense patriotic feeling - “God save the King”

Entered by Petersfield Library

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