HOWEVER, LIFE BEGAN to settle down. We were supposed to manage our own "internal affairs". The head of the Camp had been selected for us by the British Residents' Association in Shanghai; and a most excellent choice they made. Mr. Grant was a man far from young. He had been in command of important positions in the business and shipping world in Shanghai, and was accustomed to command. He was very capable, courageous and always courteous and cheerful. As far as I could judge there was no other man in the Camp capable of doing what he did for two years and seven months, and doing it always with a smile.
Mr. Grant was Chairman of a Camp Committee of eight members, which really managed the affairs of the Camp; and incidentally provided endless amusement to everybody, as they criticized its doings, held a "general election" every three months, and so expressed their praise or blame of what was done. The Camp was divided into "Sections" with "Section Leaders", who were responsible for those in their section, and so we were in a way made responsible for the conduct of the Camp. We had to parade every morning after breakfast, and this could be made a rather trying ordeal. It was a very common thing for one or another to be carried off the parade ground fainting. The various "Leaders" had to take roll call of their particular group at night, in their rooms.
In the early days of Camp life it fell to my lot to take roll call each evening in our part of the Camp, and this gave me an opportunity to get to know our neighbors. One who specially attracted my attention was a young widow with her only child, a lovely boy, of perhaps twelve or thirteen. He wore the Cathedral School colors, and so I supposed he belonged to the Anglican Church. He was not very strong, and on one or two occasions was kept in bed with some ailment or other. His mother was very busy in the Camp kitchen, so the child was left alone. I used, at times to go in and read "Martinko" aloud to him. I expect you know the book, but if not you should read it. It is a sweet story of a little herd boy in Central Europe, who found the Savior. We had not been in Camp many months when this dear child was again taken ill, and died very suddenly. He and his mother proved to be Roman Catholics, and the old priest held a special service after his death, in which he quoted the boy's last words, which proved to be a bright and ringing testimony to his faith in Christ as his Savior. This was the first death in our midst, and was peculiarly sad: it reminded us of the keen sympathy of our Savior, as the Spirit of God records especially of such a case, he was "the only begotten son of his mother, and she was a widow." (Luke 7:1212Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. (Luke 7:12)).
A tiny field, closed in by four high brick walls, with a locked door to it, was transformed into a little cemetery, and as the months wore on, grave after grave appeared there. With the exception of the last grave, of which I must speak later, I suppose none was more sad than this, the first one; and it left behind a desolate and broken-hearted young mother, who never again in Camp had heart or strength to take up its duties and cares.
But I have wandered far from my description of those early days of Camp life.
Innumerable Committees and Sub-committees were formed to manage every conceivable thing, until it was a wonder we got anything accomplished at all. Everybody was given a slip of paper with a series of questions as to one's education, training, experience, etc., and from these we were appointed to various jobs about the Camp. To my sister fell the lot of teaching in the Girls' School. This suited her well, as she was qualified for the work, and accustomed to it. The Headmistress of the school, Miss Penfold, was a charming and capable young lady from the Cathedral Girls' School in Shanghai, who was with her old parents in the Camp. The school was well managed, and had an excellent and very congenial staff of teachers. Miss Penfold's older sister was Headmistress of another Girls' School in another camp at Shanghai.
To my wife fell the lot of peeling and preparing vegetables three times a week, for the morning. It was a very trying and tiring job for one who was not young, and had not the strength for standing so long, and being deaf made it still more difficult; but many showed her kindness and would hunt a box or stool for her, so that I think she still has no unpleasant memories of those long mornings in the dreary, dingy Camp kitchen. My work was pouring tea and water for the morning breakfast queue. My co-worker on this job was an ex-policeman from the Shanghai Police Force. When turned out of that job by the Japanese he had got work with an undertaking firm, and so kept soul and body together. He was a splendid worker; not a lazy bone in his body, and we count both himself, and his fine American wife, as two good friends: and indeed since coming out of Camp he has given full proof of the reality of this friendship. We each stood behind a table, and boys brought us kettles of boiling water or "tea" (the campers claimed it was made of willow leaves), from the kitchen, and with a kettle in each hand, we would fill the thermos flasks, teapots or whatever receptacle the people might bring. They lined up in a long queue, sometimes a very long queue, and then the water would fail, and people's patience would give out. Of course it was a bit trying to have to stand for an hour, or an hour and a half, in order to get a pint of boiled water,— I dare not write "boiling", by the time it reached the public. And you must remember, nobody dared drink a drop of water unless it was boiled.
The water was heated in six or eight large Chinese iron pots. These pots are made of cast iron, very thin, and look as if they had been sliced off a great hollow iron globe. Some of the larger ones might have been two and a half, or even three feet in diameter. These were built over brick stoves, which were connected with brick flues to a chimney. The chimney at first was not nearly high enough, and it was impossible to get the stoves to draw. The stokers would have a wild time trying to get these great pots of water to boil. You would see them down on their knees amongst the ashes, fanning the fires with all their might: but it was a rather heartbreaking business, both for the queue and for the workers. Many an hour have I spent on my knees trying to help with those miserable stoves, and glad to be away from the comments and jibes of the long, impatient queue at the water tables. By the end of our Internment, two or three very ingenious engineers amongst our own people had worked out a much more satisfactory solution of this vexed problem of hot water.
But there was another duty besides this: I had to stand by the people who served the meals and see that no extra-hungry person slipped in and got a second helping. We were allowed by the Japanese six rather small and rather thin slices of dry bread a day, and twice a day a ladle of "stew"—"S.O.S." it was familiarly called, "Same Old Stew". As I look back, it seems strange that anyone should have been needed to hinder a person wanting a second helping of that stew, but of course some days it was worse than others, and on the days when it was not as bad as usual, and when one was always hungry, there was undoubtedly an urge for even a second helping. It was meant to be pork stew, but if anyone got a piece of pork as large as the end of his thumb, he did well. And several days a week were meatless, with only vegetable stew, and that was even worse than the other. But I have to confess that in all the months I had that particularly nasty job, I never caught anybody making the effort. But the Committee could hardly have chosen a worse man for the task, as I loathe being a detective, and find it almost impossible to remember faces. So it is quite possible that many a hungry lad had an extra portion without being reported. My job did not include the bread, where a very efficient lady was in charge. I recall overhearing one boy remark to another, "I snitched a whole loaf, and she never saw me." So it is more than likely somebody "snitched" a ladle or two of "S.O.S." and nobody saw him either.
During the first part of the internment the bread was cut in slices, and two slices each were served three times a day. Towards the end a small loaf of bread a day was served to each person, and the cutting was avoided. Cutting the twelve hundred slices for breakfast was another of my jobs, and meant an early start, but the early morning, before the Camp got up, was the only time when one had a chance for a little quiet. For the first year, or year and a half, the Japanese kept a rather strong electric light burning all night on a small verandah off the kitchen. This was about the only place in the early morning one could get light enough for a read, and many a morning have I had a delightful time, perched on an old table under that light.
For some time we had quite a stock of cracked wheat with us, supplied originally by the American Red Cross for the Chinese; but they did not care for it (so the story went), and so it was given to us. Even before coming into Camp we had been able to buy a few pounds a month for each person at a very low rate. For quite a time this cracked wheat was used to give us each a little portion of something hot for breakfast. There was, of course, neither milk nor sugar to eat with it, unless one had it privately; and I fancy very few had such luxuries to spare for their "morning cereal". The wheat was rather old, and full of "livestock", which we skimmed off the top of the great cauldron in which it was cooked. But nobody minded that. We also were given a small bowl of rice each day by the Japanese. Each person had a granite bowl or plate, and three times a day we lined up with these to get our portion of food, and twice a day we lined up again for some water. Of course, one person could get the ration for a family; so we had an arrangement whereby I collected the food, and my sister washed up. This was a peculiarly disgusting job. Buckets of water, that once were clean, and sometimes had been hot, stood on the ledge of the verandah where I used to read. Here again a queue would form, and the six hundred plates and bowls of the camp would go through these buckets, and were called "washed".
But these queues were really not as bad as they sound. It was here you met your friends, and it was here you got the news of the day. It was here you heard the deadly secret news of "The Bamboo Wireless", news of the outside world that found its way in by one means or another; news that generally nobody believed, but often we hoped it might be true. The Japanese provided English newspapers for us, printed by themselves, and with these they kept us well supplied with all the bad news you can imagine. Many campers were hopelessly depressed, as they read of constant Japanese victories, and the continual sinking of the whole allied navy. But even these newspapers were a help, for we had two or three people in camp who read these papers with the minutest care, making notes of names and places captured or bombed. There were two or three good maps in camp, and with the help of these, day by day a certain amount of real news was pieced together. But we were never quite sure how correct our guesses might be.
I left us enjoying the luxury of a light, airy room, crowded it is true, but not unbearable. We managed to swing shelves from our ropes, and got quite comfortably settled down, when one afternoon we received word from the Billeting Committee that we were to move immediately to another room in another building. The Chairman of the Committee enlarged on the excellencies of the new room, and the very select neighbors we would have, all of which made me rather suspicious. However, in an Internment Camp it is best to meekly do what you are told, as far as in you lies. I bargained, however, that my sister should have a place in the new room, and rather unwillingly this was granted. So we quickly gathered our possessions together, dismantled our shelves; and, to the grief of our neighbors took down our ropes, and moved over to the new room.
The room was about ten feet, or ten feet six inches wide, and a little over twenty feet long. It had a door in the center of the north end, and one window in the center of the south end, and one very small electric light in the middle of the room. The window looked out on a court, which was chiefly occupied with the lavatories of the men's and women's dormitories. But mercifully over the roof of these we could see a juniper tree, and beyond that a bit of the playing field, and some trees beyond.
My sister moved in also, and we being first comers, took the front part of the room, near the window. We quite realized we would not be alone in such a spacious room, and that we would almost surely have to give up half the front portion of it, so we did not settle in too securely. But even with this, the question that made us most anxious was, who were the new neighbors to be? There was every conceivable variety in our camp, and some.... Well, perhaps you can guess our thoughts.
Our new neighbors arrived next day. To our relief we found they were Mr. and Mrs. W. Mr. W. was an old friend, having come to China as a missionary some fifty years before. Later he had left missionary work, and joined the Post Office, and many an interesting story he had to tell of those early days, and his travels as Postal Inspector. Later he joined the Shanghai Municipal Council, but for some years had been retired on a pension, and had been acting as secretary of the Cathedral. Mrs. W. was Portuguese. We lived together for about two and a half years, and I believe I can truthfully say it would have been hard to find more congenial roommates.
The move we had dreaded from the window never took place, for our new neighbors mercifully disliked fresh air and sunshine as much as we loved them; and so they thankfully settled into the dark end of the room and put up a good substantial curtain all around their part, which kept out what they called "drafts" (but we called "fresh air"), and gave us a measure of privacy. It would have been hard to find tastes that were more suited to each other than theirs and ours. The window was in two leaves, on hinges. As the weather began to grow cooler, Mr. W. would remark, "As there are two parts to the window, we have a right to one of them, and we want our part shut. You can do what you like with your part." That was fair enough and suited us well, and our part generally stayed open.
That window became quite a landmark in the camp, for the tiny slip of red geranium in the wee pot grew until it filled the largest pot that could be found, and at one time had as many as six large blooms on it. My wife tended it like a dear child, and it responded marvelously. Mr. W. was a great gardener himself, and old Dr. Kew of the British Nurseries, the most famous in Shanghai, was also in camp. They would hold consultations together as to how it was best to treat it, and it certainly did them credit. It nearly always had some bloom, and many came to look at it. It was the only geranium in camp, I think; and somehow a red geranium always makes one think of "home".
I almost wish you could have seen our new room. We had two long shelves at each side of the window that took our dishes and odds and ends, and we had a little folding bookcase with three shelves that my brother Somerville had given me when I was a boy, hung at one side of the wall. Near it was another we had manufactured from a board we had brought with us, also with three shelves, all full of books, and we had photographs on the walls, and a few pictures, including "Little Miss Mischief", a sweet child whose likeness has always hung in our living room. Our table stood under the window, and with the plants on the window sill, it had quite a touch of home.
The bugs were great enemies. In some rooms it was terrible, and even in our own room it was one long fight. Our friends in the other end of the room were old, and found it a great labor to take their beds and bedding out to be sunned on a fine day, the way most did. The big curtains round their beds were also very rarely sunned or washed, and all this induced the bugs to take up residence with them. They went to bed very early, before seven, and then began a hunt through their mosquito net. We would hear the result: "That was a big one!" "I missed this one," and so forth. They had their net anchored to ours with a cord, and the bugs used that cord as a bridge to come to our net, so every morning we had also to have a hunt. But I am thankful to say they never got into our beds or bedding, and never were really bad in our part of the room. Rats and mice also abounded, and it was incredible the way they would make their way into trunks or suitcases.
Although we had about six hundred in our camp, we had very few able-bodied men. We had a great many old people. Mr. M. of the Scottish Bible Society was, I think, about eighty, and a number of others were not far behind. Then we had a large number of children. I think the Girls' and Boys' Schools together had well over a hundred children. We also had many single women; and last, but not least, we had quite a number who were not in love with labor. One of these remarked, when pressed by a hard-worker, to try and do more towards his share: "I admit I don't do any work if I can help it. But suppose I was to do half your work for you, what would be the result? You love work and you would immediately find some other work to occupy your time, so you would be no further ahead; and I who hate work would be miserable." The result of it all was that by far the heaviest end of the work fell to a comparatively few who were willing to do it; but this was, I believe, a mistake, and being underfed and overworked, some of the best in the camp, have found it hard, or impossible, to "come back" now that they are set free.