Music on the Bamboo Radio Read online

  His hand hit the door, his fingers grasped the handle and turned. It opened inwards. Nicholas fell into the room, pushing the door closed behind him. Panting hard, he took stock of his surroundings.

  The barrack hut was suffocatingly hot, the sun cutting shafts of brilliant light through holes in the roof. The windows were shuttered, leaving the interior gloomy and close. Either side of the long building was lined with three tiers of wooden bunks upon which he could see rush mats, small piles of clothing or blankets, a few tin bowls and other oddments of basic personal property. In the centre were three long tables, some chairs and, halfway down, a cast-iron stove with a chimney pipe going up through the roof. The place smelt of stale sweat and the hot tar melting on the roof.

  He sat on the edge of one of the bunks and felt under his jacket. The packet had slipped a little lower in his waistband but it was still there.

  The door was abruptly flung open, flooding a beam of late, orange sunlight the length of the barrack. Nicholas ducked under the bunk and held his breath.

  Slow, measured footsteps advanced along the wooden boards of the floor, every sound redolent with threat. They came nearer and Nicholas could hear the squeak of polished leather, the soft rub of material.

  Into view came a pair of legs encased in black boots reaching to the knee. The leather shone like polished ebony. Into the tops were pressed crisply laundered khaki trousers. Down the flank of the left leg hung a Japanese officer’s sword.

  The legs halted, not a metre from Nicholas’s face, and stood motionless. Out of sight above him, Nicholas could imagine the man listening, surveying the barrack for something amiss.

  In the near stillness, Nicholas’s hearing became acute. He could clearly pick out the distant shouting of orders, the shuffle of feet on dusty soil, the revving of a vehicle engine, even the far-off yapping of a dog. Yet, above them all, like a leading instrument in a strange, muted orchestra, he could hear the Japanese officer breathing.

  At last, the legs moved and strolled away. Hollow footfalls sounded as the officer descended the steps. Nicholas took a huge breath. Had he been underwater, he would have been on the brink of drowning.

  No sooner had Nicholas sucked in a lungful of air than another noise came to him. It was a scrabbling, snuffling, huffing sound. Bizarrely, he thought of a miniature steam train. Then something shot under the bunk, collided with him and started to slap his face with what he thought in his panic was a warm, damp rag.

  Nicholas was so startled, he let out a yelp which was answered. Under the bunk with him was a Jack Russell terrier, its ribs showing and a patch of mange on its rump.

  ‘What’ve you unearthed, Sally?’ a deep voice demanded.

  ‘Not benighted rats again,’ said another.

  ‘All the poor little bleeder gets to eat,’ commented a third. ‘At least it’s better than what we get.’

  Now, around the bunk, there was a forest of bare legs, some in boots, some barefoot.

  ‘Chalky! Get a broom ’andle,’ suggested a fourth voice. ‘We’ll break th’ little booger’s back when it runs.’

  The terrier retreated, sat on the floor and looked under the bunk at Nicholas. It wagged its stumpy tail hard against a booted foot.

  Gradually, Nicholas hauled himself forward and out from under the bunk. The prisoners ogled.

  ‘Bloody ’ell!’ said one.

  ‘Some rat!’ exclaimed a bare-chested man with a sallow complexion and prominent ribs.

  ‘We’ve got us a Chinese nipper,’ declared a third man.

  ‘What – you – wantee?’ Sally’s owner slowly enquired. He was a thickset prisoner with a tattoo of a semi-naked lady just visible through the coating of dust on his forearm.

  Nicholas got to his feet, looked around the ragged band in front of him and said, quite clearly but not too loudly, ‘I am English. My Chinese name is Wing-ming but my English name is Nicholas. I have brought you some music on my bamboo radio.’

  Silence fell. The prisoners gawped at him and each other. Then the tattooed prisoner turned to his comrades.

  ‘Jock! Watch the door! Chalky! Sticko! Windows! Nobby! Get weaving! Find out when the Nips’re having their nosh tonight.’

  The prisoners were galvanized into action, looking through the shutters of the windows and minding the door which was closed after Nobby had departed.

  ‘Now,’ the tattooed prisoner began, ‘I’m Colour Sergeant Parker. You sit yourself down and tell all, lad.’

  ‘I am Nicholas Holford. I’m…’ he paused and realized he was not sure how old he was: birthdays had not been a part of life at Sek Wan. He hazarded a guess. ‘… fourteen and I live in the New Territories with Chinese people. I have a friend,’ he was cautious not to name names, ‘who works for BAAG. And he has asked me to bring this into the camp.’ He tugged the packet from under his belt. ‘I was to pass it to Flight Lieutenant Drake as you marched in but I couldn’t.’

  ‘Frankie’s got the fever,’ observed a prisoner.

  ‘Fine,’ said Colour Sergeant Parker, ‘but how the hell did you get in here?’

  Nicholas recounted how he had hidden in the column, slipped through the gate, run for the barrack and how the Japanese officer had come in.

  ‘That was Donkey Face,’ Parker remarked. ‘Nasty piece of work. We wondered what he was after. Must have seen the door go.’

  Nobby returned and said tersely, ‘Twenty hundred hours.’

  Parker nodded and said to Nicholas, ‘Right! At eight o’clock, there’ll be fewer Japs wandering about. They’ll be busying chowing down to their suppers. That’s when we’ll get you over to Jubilee Buildings, the big billet on the waterfront. You can hand your package over, then we’ll get you out of the camp.’

  For an hour and a half, as night came on, Nicholas remained in the barrack. The prisoners’ food detail arrived. He was appalled to see that all they were given to eat was boiled rice floating in hot water with a few fish heads bobbing on the surface. The prisoners offered him a bowlful but he declined it: partly, he felt guilty at being so well fed himself and partly he could not bear seeing the fish eyes staring at him from the stew-pot.

  At the appointed time, Nobby and Parker guided Nicholas through the camp to Jubilee Buildings where he was taken to the second floor and into a small room in which an austere-looking man was seated at a table. He wore the remains of a battlefield blouse with pips on his shoulders.

  ‘So you’re a musician,’ the officer greeted Nicholas, standing up and shaking his hand firmly. ‘A brave chappie and no mistake.’

  ‘How do you do, sir,’ Nicholas replied.

  ‘We’ve got to get a move on,’ the officer went on. ‘The Nips’ll only be in their mess for at most fifteen minutes. Let’s get down to business. What’s the music you’re playing?’

  Nicholas handed over the package and the officer unwrapped it immediately. He tore the envelope open, quickly read the message, removed the block of gold and picked up the bottle, scanning the label.

  ‘You know what this is?’ the officer enquired, looking at the two soldiers.

  ‘It’s something to stop diphtheria,’ Nicholas said, thinking the question was aimed at him.

  ‘Too right, it is,’ the officer declared. ‘You’re more than a little musician, lad. You’re a bloody guardian angel. It’s a pity we haven’t got time to introduce you to our camp medic, Dr Coombes. I’m sure he’d want to thank you personally. You’ll have saved a lot of lives with this.’

  There was a gentle double knock on the door. A head appeared round it, murmured, ‘Nips beginning to come on the move, sir!’ then vanished.

  ‘We’ve got to get you out of here,’ the officer announced urgently. ‘PDQ. Pretty damn quick! The guards’ve had their dinner and we’ve…’ He glanced at the other prisoners. ‘Well, put it this way, not all of us inmates are entirely trustworthy and we don’t want the wrong element to hear about your visit. At least, not while you’re still here.’ He unbuttoned the flap of one of th
e chest pockets of his blouse. ‘Will you take a message back for me? Give it to whoever sent you, or to someone you can trust implicitly to pass it on down the line. This has to get through to Chungking.’ At that, the officer handed Nicholas a length of bamboo about the size of a fountain pen. The hollow ends were sealed with candle wax. ‘Don’t lose it,’ he went on, ‘but, if you get in a tight spot, drop it. If possible, burn it.’

  The door opened again and the head appeared briefly once more to mutter, ‘Nips away, sir!’

  ‘Time to go,’ declared Colour Sergeant Parker.

  The officer shook Nicholas’s hand again. ‘I pray we meet after the war, son,’ he said gravely. ‘I won’t forget your courage.’

  ‘I hope you can swim,’ Parker said as he and Nobby hurried Nicholas along a corridor and out on to a veranda which ran the length of the building, ‘because the only way out is with the fishes.’

  Halfway along the veranda, a rope had been tied around a pillar and thrown out over the barbed-wire fence to dangle into the sea.

  ‘You’ve got to be snappy,’ the Colour Sergeant warned, pointing along the sea wall. ‘Take a decko at that.’ Nicholas glanced to his right. Two hundred metres away was a tall watch-tower. ‘In a few minutes, that’ll have a couple of eagle-eyed bastards back up it with a searchlight so bright you could spot it from the moon.’

  Nicholas looked down at the black sea below. He could hear the waves lapping the sea wall.

  ‘When you reach the water,’ Nobby told him, ‘head away from the tower. Keep close to the wall until you come to the second set of steps. You’ll be safe then.’

  ‘Can’t you escape this way?’ Nicholas asked.

  ‘No chance,’ Nobby replied, helping him on to the parapet of the veranda. ‘We’re too weak to swim it. Besides, we can’t make it into China. The Nips’d hunt us down in no time. Nope, we’re stuck here for the duration.’ He glanced in the direction of the tower. ‘Better get yourself off. Double-quick, lad!’

  Nicholas wrapped his legs round the rope and, checking the bamboo message holder was safely in his pocket, started to lower himself. Where the rope reached the perimeter fence, Nicholas had to carefully negotiate the roll of tangled barbed concertina wire on top. He tore his trousers and gashed his arm but he made it to the sea. The salt water made the cut sting.

  Swimming as close to the sea wall as he could, Nicholas reached the steps and cautiously climbed them to discover he was facing the tenement buildings. Getting his bearings, he ran to the alleyway and, after ripping off the torn leg of his trousers to bind round his wound, he headed for the hills. His sopping wet clothing clung to him but in no way dampened his feelings of intense elation.

  When he finally clambered up to the boulder-strewn ledge, he found Ah Kwan anxiously waiting for him in the night.

  ‘You’ve taken longer to come,’ Ah Kwan whispered. ‘I was thinking bad thoughts.’

  ‘I had to go into the camp,’ Nicholas replied.

  ‘You went in!’ Ah Kwan retorted incredulously.

  Nicholas smiled and, producing the sealed bamboo tube from his pocket, he handed it to Ah Kwan. ‘I went in,’ he said proudly. ‘I played music on the bamboo radio.’

  PART FIVE

  1945

  Nicholas, standing in the prow of the sampan, leapt on to the quay and ran the mooring rope through an iron ring. Once the craft was secure, he and Tang unloaded their two baskets of dried fish then placed a large wooden tub on the quay which Nicholas filled with sea-water. Tang tipped in that morning’s catch and the fish swam frantically round the sides of the tub.

  Since he had been helping Tang with the fishing, Nicholas had learnt a lot more than how to repair nets. He could bait lines, fish on a moonless night with a lantern to attract the catch, set crab baskets, tell where prawns could be found and understand why Tang sold his fish alive in tubs – no Chinese would consider his food fresh unless he saw it moving.

  Within minutes of setting out their catch, people came to buy. Some customers offered Japanese five-yen notes, over-printed in red to denote occupation currency: Tang accepted them with reluctance. A few proffered old-fashioned silver dollars or Imperial cash with square holes in the middle of the coins. Most bartered, the haggling intense with each party determined to get the best bargain possible. Tang never refused an item: a square of fraying silk, a tatty garment, a piece of jade, a chipped rice bowl, a tiny fragment of gold, a pair of blunt scissors, a bundle of firewood – whatever it was it ended up in the sampan. On the way back to Sek Wan, Tang would throw the useless or broken items overboard. The first time Nicholas saw him do this, he was amazed.

  ‘That means you’ve just given the fish away!’ he exclaimed as a cracked teapot hit the surface and sank.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tang, ‘but the people want eat. If I give fish, they feel shame because they poor. So I let them buy. But,’ he held up a broken tin-plated alarm clock, ‘why I want clock no work?’ and he tossed it into the sea.

  When the fish were sold, Nicholas and Tang set off through the village towards the tea-house. In the main street, they came upon a large crowd of chattering, laughing people. It was so unusual to see not only a large gathering but also a jolly one that Tang and Nicholas, who would normally have avoided such a throng, joined it to see the cause of the merriment.

  Working their way to the front, they came upon an itinerant showman squatting on the ground with a rosewood xylophone. He was in a mid-flow, talking fast, his voice rising and falling, the people laughing and chortling at his words. Next to him was a wooden box with holes drilled in it.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Nicholas whispered to Tang. ‘I can’t understand him.’

  ‘He travelling story-teller, come from north China, talk different accent from Cantonese, not all same like Hong Kong people.’

  ‘But what’s he saying?’ Nicholas reiterated.

  ‘He tell funny story,’ Tang said, his face split with a smile at the latest joke.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I no can say in English,’ Tang replied.

  Nicholas, the humour lost on him, was all for leaving. He was not only unable to share in the laughter but he was also thirsty and looking forward to his bowl of tea.

  ‘No go yet,’ Tang said. ‘Two minute, you laugh.’

  The showman picked up two little round-headed hammers with flexible bamboo handles and started to play the xylophone, striking the keys rapidly yet lightly. A delicate tune rose from the instrument, wafting into the air. It was wistful yet strident, a strange kind of music such as Nicholas had never heard before. When the tune ended, the crowd applauded and the showman, after a few more quick and obviously funny words – for the crowd were in stitches – opened the box next to him.

  Out jumped a small grey monkey dressed in a miniature Japanese officer’s khaki uniform with a forage cap on his head and a little cross strap and belt from which hung a tiny sword. He also held a little carved wooden rifle and bayonet, with the blade painted silver.

  The crowd hooted and howled with laughter. Nicholas joined in. He got the joke this time.

  The showman played a little tune to which the monkey danced a clumsy jig, swinging his rifle in the air. The moment the music stopped, the monkey stood to attention, the rifle against his shoulder, but upside down. At this, the crowd positively exploded with mirth.

  Holding up his little hammers, the showman said something and the crowd fell silent. He then brought the hammers down lightly upon the keys and, to Nicholas’s amazement, played ‘Rule Britannia!’ The monkey remained at attention until the fourth bar of the tune when he slowly and solemnly set off marching forwards, the inverted rifle at the slope.

  The crowd was beside itself with laughter. Nicholas’s ribs ached. Tang was red in the face and gasping for his breath. A woman standing next to him had tears of merriment running down her cheeks.

  The music stopped. The monkey stood to attention. The showman rattled the hammers against the frame of the xylophon
e in mimicry of a machine-gun. The monkey dropped its toy gun, staggered forwards, clutching its chest and squeaking in a high-pitched voice. When it reached the xylophone, it looked up at the crowd with piteous eyes and rolled over, feigning dead.

  Everyone applauded and laughed uproariously. Several people stepped forwards and dropped a coin on the monkey’s box. Someone gave him half of one of Nicholas’s dried fish in lieu of payment. The showman stood up and bowed. The monkey revived and also bowed, the forage cap falling off its head.

  ‘Very funny monkey!’ Tang exclaimed as the crowd dispersed. ‘All same like Japanese…’

  His words faded. The people around had fallen silent, too.

  From the direction of the mountains came a steady, distant drone of aircraft engines. The people who, only a few minutes earlier, had been laughing fit to burst were now serious-faced, looking about for places in which to take cover.

  ‘Run sampan!’ Tang shouted to Nicholas in English, abandoning all sense of propriety.

  They turned and sprinted for the quayside. In the boat, close against the dock wall, they would be comparatively safe.

  They were too late. The aircraft sound swelled to an air-shivering crescendo and burst forth about them. Nicholas glanced upwards as he ran, to see if he could judge where the bombs might fall.

  Yet no bombs dropped. Instead, a blizzard of sheets of paper fluttered down on the houses. Through it, Nicholas could see the marking on the aircraft’s wings. It was a white bar through a blue circle containing a white five-pointed star.

  A man ran by, shouting, ‘Mei gwok! Mei gwok!’

  Tang stopped running.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Nicholas asked. ‘What does mei gwok mean?’

  Tang smiled and said, ‘Mei gwok mean America.’

  Reaching up, he caught one of the sheets of paper which were drifting down all round them. Upon it was printed a message in Chinese.

  ‘What does it say?’ Nicholas asked impatiently.