A guard had noticed Maureen lagging behind and came to chivvy her with a string of angry Japanese. He pointed his gun menacingly.
‘Alright, alright, keep your hair on!’ Maureen muttered, while Dorothy instinctively bowed low and apologised.
‘A word of warning; the guards here are stricter than the ones at Changi,’ Dorothy whispered as they set off to follow the others. ‘It really doesn’t do to make them angry. I presume you’ve come from Changi, too?’
‘Yes, out of the frying pan and into the bleedin’ fire, by the looks of things!’
Dorothy gave a sad smile. ‘I’m afraid so. But we’ve come this far and hopefully we won’t be here too much longer.’ Her voice brightened as she continued, ‘You heard about the Normandy invasion? “D-Day” they’re calling it.’
Maureen nodded. ‘Yes, we heard about that in the Red Cross messages. How do you get your news here?’ Maureen asked.
‘Some of the chaps have built a radio and have managed to tune in to the BBC. Highly risky if the guards were to find it,obviously, but it hasn’t half boosted morale! The Jerries are on the back foot now, it can’t go on for too much longer.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right!’ Maureen said. ‘I can’t bear the thought of another Christmas dinner of bleedin’ hard rice and watery porridge!’
Dorothy smiled. ‘Maureen, I need to ask you something. I’ve been trying to get in touch with a friend of mine back at Changi, one of the doctors I worked with at the hospital there.’
‘That’s where I’ve seen you before!’ Maureen said. ‘You were in the hospital when I took young Billy in!’
‘Yes, that would be right. I was working there until we moved here in May. Well, I’m anxious to find out about a colleague of mine, Dr Archie,’ she began. ‘I haven’t heard from him and I just want to know that he’s alright.’
‘Dr Archie?’ Maureen nodded slowly. ‘Tall chap, blondish hair?’
Dorothy nodded.
‘Yes, I remember him, he was good with Billy. Nice chap and a good doctor.’ She was quiet for a moment and looked thoughtful. Then she shook her head and continued, ‘Listen love, I’m not sure I can help you. My friend Brenda was in the hospital just last week, her chest was bad. She said the doctor was a young Scottish chap.’
Dorothy nodded at the description. ‘Dr Mackay,’ she confirmed. ‘But no Dr Archie?’
Maureen stopped and turned to look Dorothy straight in the eye. She paused for a moment, as if considering what to say. ‘Well, she didn’t mention him.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe he was just off duty. Or maybe he was moved to another camp, too?’
It made no sense. Dr Archie had said that he was needed at Changi and that he wasn’t going to be moved. So why wasn’the there? She feared the worst. What had they done to him? Her pulse quickened as her mind went into overdrive.
They stopped outside Hut Fourteen and, after shouted instructions from the guard, Maureen put young Billy down on the ground. Then she motioned to take back the bag from Dorothy.
‘Thanks for helping with this, I appreciate it. See you around, I suppose.’
Dorothy watched as Maureen and her children were led into a cell within the hut. Then she made her way back to her own cell at the far end, her hollow stomach a knot of anxiety.
The days passed and life at Sime Road Camp took on the same, monotonous routine that it had at Changi. But routine was important, as was the sense of purpose that Dorothy achieved from her various jobs. Keeping busy helped her make it through the days and helped her sleep at night.
News from the outside was sparse as communications were highly censored. But the radio broadcasts continued to spread hope. And that hope was rewarded in May of the following year, when the news came that they had all been waiting for: the war in Europe was over.
Word spread like wildfire through the camp, whispered conversations passing on the wonderful news. The collective relief and joy was muted though, for it would be dangerous to let the guards know their source of information.
Dorothy breathed a huge sigh of relief and sent up a silent prayer for her brother, Thomas. With every fibre of her being she willed that he had made it through alive. Several times she had tried writing to his Cambridge address, in the hope that he might have returned there on leave, but the lack of reply had left her worried.
She thought, too, of her other loved ones, of Daisy and her family back in London and Clara and her family. She knew that they had booked tickets on a ship to leave Singapore just a couple of days before her own ill-fated evacuation. Had they made it away safely? She had no way of finding out, but prayed that they were now safely back in England.
One sunny morning, Dorothy was on her knees in the paddock, pulling the weeds from the long lines of tapioca. She had now been a prisoner of war for two and a half years and her clothing was threadbare. Her once pretty, pink sun hat was faded and stained and offered little protection from the relentless heat. But, better sun than rain, Dorothy thought. The monsoon-like rain storms turned the gardens into a quagmire and the work became even more muddy and miserable. Given the lack of washing facilities, the mud stuck for days.
Dorothy hummed while she worked. The previous night there had been a musical evening in Hut Twelve which had put everyone in a good mood. Spirits were high after the recent news from Europe and three of the girls from her hut had given a splendid rendition of the Andrews Sisters ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’. It had brought back happy memories as Dorothy remembered the first time she had listened to it with Clara, drinking their own, home-made versions of the Singapore Sling at her friend’s house, just a few months before the island had fallen to the Japanese.
The tune had stuck with her and she smiled as she hummed, pulling the weeds out with ease and dropping them into the bamboo basket at her side. It was hot work and her back ached. She had torn a strip of fabric from around the bottom of her dress and folded it up to make tiny pads to protect her knees from the stony ground.
She heard footsteps approaching and she looked up. A guard was bringing another woman over to weed the line with her.
‘You show her how do weeding!’ he barked.
