EPILOGUE: Kuching Airport, 1982.
Jenny sat in the departure lounge at Kuching airport and watched her mother anxiously. The years had been kind to Roxie, in her early sixties she was a very attractive woman. She was stood by the window, gazing out across the runways and taxiways, completely lost in her own thoughts and memories.
Jenny was annoyed that they’d had to fly to and from this airport instead of Kota Kinabalu; they were now facing no fewer than three connections to get home to Ohio, and the next two days of her life to be spent on planes and in airports was all time that she’d not get back. She sighed, and pushed such thoughts to the back of her mind. This trip was for Roxie, and during it she’d learned so much more about her mother. Finally Roxie had opened up, and shared with Jenny the stories of her time here, forty years ago, during the war. Of all the thousands of people in the airport, Jenny and Roxie were among the select few that knew of the dark secrets buried beneath all that concrete.
A Malaysian 737 had just landed and was taxying up to the terminal. Roxie came and sat next to her daughter. “I think that plane is about to taxy over the place where they crucified Barb, Siss, Yupar, and Messa! For all I know their bodies are still under the ground there!”
Jenny hugged her Mom. There were no words that she could say. She looked over her mother’s shoulder at the arriving plane. A hundred tourists and business people, coming to soak up the sun or do deals, completely unconscious of the suffering that had taken place on that very spot within living memory. No wonder her Mom was upset.
Four days. Four days her mother had spent, tied to a tree, having been left there by an Australian soldier, Phlebas, as some kind of a joke or punishment. She could have starved to death there, or have been found in her turn by the Japanese. But, incredibly, she had survived, and had been rescued by no less a personage than a Lieutenant-Colonel of the British Special Operations Executive, who had parachuted in at great personal risk to look for his lost men.
He had come in under cover of an air raid. He hadn’t trusted anyone else’s skills as a sniper, but by the time he was surveying the airfield through a gunsight he had been able to see that he was far, far too late. He’d grimaced when he saw the crosses. Crucifixion. The japs were already notorious for it even by 1942. But the victims had not been his men, but women. His men were tied, dead, to the crosses. Including Wragg . Christ. Wragg, you pillock, you’ve brought those girls to a grisly end!
He’d just been about to put the gun away when he’d seen movement from one cross – the dark haired girl was still alive! But not for long, two japs were heading for her, ignoring the continuing air raid. Kill the japs, or kill the girl? He’d come to a snap decision, and settled the cross hairs on the girl.
Roxie he’d come across entirely by accident as he’d slipped away from the scene. A couple of dozen yards to left or right and he’d have missed her.
The Colonel had taken Roxie back up to look at the airfield, and passed her his field glasses. The scene, described by Roxie, was vivid in Jenny’s mind, and she would remember it herself forever. Maybe she would one day tell her own children, maybe one day she would write it down. But not yet.
Four women, dead on their crosses; not hanging – they were tied so firmly that only their heads lolled forwards. Wragg, tied to Barbara’s cross, between her legs, with a spear sticking out of his guts. The bodies of Phlebas, Paul, and Bull, tied in similar fashion to Siss, Roxie, and Yupar’s crosses. Blaire’s body had been tied, one wrist to Barb’s cross, one to Siss’ cross.
Roxie had described how she’d heard everything, but seen nothing. She had heard the gunfire, and the sound of a plane crashing. Then a massive firefight. The ensuing silence had been terminated by a scream from Blaire that, even at that distance, had put the birds up in panic flight. Roxie had described a deep, full throated, roar of agony; she had needed an hour to recover her composure and continue her story.
The sounds of them crucifying the girls. Screams of terror and of fury that went on for hours, right into and through the night. And as Roxie had stood, frustrated by the impotence of her position, she had caught the words of a song drifting across the airfield:
Alouette, gentille alouette
Alouette, je te plumerai.
Jenny remembered learning that song in French lessons at school. She’d come home that teatime, ten years old, and started singing it, expecting Roxie to be impressed. She recalled how hurt she’d felt when Roxie had flown into a rage. “Jenny, you must NEVER, ever, sing that song in my hearing again! I cannot tell you why not, but mummy really, really, does not like that song! It’s a song that makes mummy very sad.” Jenny had cried at the time, but now, at last, she understood.
Roxie stood up again, and returned to her vantage point by the window.
Five men and six women. Roxie the only survivor. The fact that she’d been so incredibly lucky when the other women had died so horribly still haunted Roxie to this day. Jenny had heard of ‘survivor guilt’, but only now did she begin to grasp the full, horrifying meaning of the phrase.
The departure board began its characteristic clatter as it was updated. Jenny looked up at it hopefully, but against their flight it still said ‘Wait in lounge.’ It was a flight to Tokyo that had been called, and Jenny watched as a group of Japanese businessmen rose and began to head towards their gate. Roxie had seen them too, for they were going to pass between her and Jenny, and she tried to get back to Jenny, her loathing of Japanese still written all over her face.
But in the process she collided with an elderly, balding, bespectacled man. She apologized, as did he, and she had no choice but to step back and let him pass.
“YOU!”
Jenny jumped like a frightened cat as her mother screamed out the word. The whole terminal fell silent as the sound echoed back down from the ceiling.
“YOU BASTARD!!! ARREST THIS MAN!!! HE IS A WAR CRIMINAL!!!”
The man had turned a deep shade of red. If there’s one thing a Japanese hates it is being embarrassed or losing face in front of his peers.
“Madam, please, you are mistaken, I do not know what you mean. Please, let me pass!”
“You know fucking well what i mean! You crucified four innocent women!!! You tortured them on their crosses! Christ alone knows what you did to a fifth, but I’ll never forget her scream! Admit it, damn you – I’ll never forget your ugly face, either!”
You could have heard a pin drop in that terminal. Thousands of travellers, standing with mouths agape, truly astonished at the scene being played out in front of them, unable to believe the words they were hearing.
Jenny wanted the ground to swallow her.
Four-eyes fell into the trap. “They were NOT innocent! They had just killed our most senior general! They deserved all they got!
“And where in the Geneva Convention does it describe crucifixion?” asked Roxie, dangerously.
“The Emperor of Japan did not lower himself to acknowledge the Geneva Convention!”
“That’s because the whole lot of you are evil, sadistic, bastards!” Jenny winced, and Four-eyes’ fellow travellers cried out in rage. Two of them grabbed Roxie. “How dare you, Madam! May we remind you that the war has been over for nearly forty years!”
“Only ‘cos we nuked you!!”
Four-eyes glared at her. “My wife and baby daughter died at Nagasaki!”
“Good!” shouted Roxie.
“STOP!!! THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH!!” Jenny fought her way into the melee. “This is getting nobody anywhere! It is not ‘good’ that anyone died!” Roxie looked ashamed. She had gone too far there.
Four airport policemen arrived. “What is the problem?” asked one, “What is the cause of this disturbance?”
Jenny took command. “This man,” she pointed at four eyes, “has just admitted carrying out the torture and crucifixion of young women during the war.”
Four-eyes bristled. “This woman,” he pointed at Roxie, “ has just insulted myself, my country, my emperor, and my dead family!”
“Your passports, please,” requested the policeman. “All of you!”
They all handed over their passports, some with very bad grace, and one of the policemen departed with them.
“Please to sit down,” said the head policemen. “Please to be quiet.”
“We do have a plane to catch!” said one of the Japanese.
“Please to sit down. We will not take long.”
They sat in an uneasy silence. The terminal returned to normal. The departure board rattled again with Roxie and Jenny’s flight now boarding.
The policeman returned, and conferred with his boss.
“Your passports! Please to take them. You are all free to go!”
The passports were returned to their rightful owners. Roxie began to protest, but Jenny laid a hand on her arm.
“C’mon Mom. We have a plane to catch. He’s not worth missing our flight for.” Roxie looked reluctant, but they turned and headed towards the departure gates.
“NOOOOOOOO! STOP!!!!”
Jenny and Roxie swiveled in alarm. Their jaws dropped in dismay. Four-eyes was sitting on the ground, a large and bloody penknife in his hand, and his guts had spilled out all over the terminal floor, along with all the grief and the guilt of an honorable man forced, by war, to do dishonorable things.
His eyes met Roxie’s. “Goodbye, madam, I’m sorry for your friends,” he said, and he rolled onto his side, and died.
