The Yellow Papers (22 page)

Edward paced the perimeter of the camp, looking out into the night, willing Chong Lueng and his detail to return. They had been gone for twenty-eight hours. Had Chong Lueng found Ming Li? Had he even looked for her? Though Chong Lueng had tried not to show his surprise, Edward knew he hadn't expected the woman to be Chinese. Did he disapprove? But what if he did find her, and Ming Li refused to leave? What if Xueliang stood in her way? He knew she'd stay if Xueliang refused to leave. No, surely not. She'd have to realise how much better off they'd be. She'd convince Xueliang. Edward shivered; he knew now he had a temperature and should be in sickbay, but he felt responsible for Ming Li. For Chong Lueng and his men. Would Chong Lueng have gone to Shanghai if it weren't for him? Possibly – medical supplies were a priority.

‘Yī bēi kāfēi
, Billings
dū wèi?'

Edward took the tin cup the young recruit had brought him. The coffee was bitter but hot, and might stop his shivering. But though it burnt his mouth it didn't warm him. His head pounded and he felt as if he was about to throw up. He fought through the nausea. He had to keep a lookout for Chong Lueng.

‘Help him up. Bloody idiot! Come on, Billings. Get up!'

Edward looked around. It was still dark and he was lying on the ground – he didn't even remember sitting down. He was cold – so cold that his teeth chattered. He tried to raise his head but it was too heavy. The medic stood over him, and two of his Chinese orderlies were trying to pull him up.

‘Chong Lueng?'

‘Not back yet. Are you trying to kill yourself, man? You're ill. Get him to sickbay,' he ordered the men.

Dawn was barely breaking when Edward was pulled from his sleep by voices near his bed. He felt no better, but now instead of shivering he was hot. Covered in sweat. He raised himself onto his elbow. On the bed across from his the medic was working on someone. A Chinese private held a lamp over the man, and another assisted. At their feet was a basin, already half-full of bloody rags. When the medic moved to his trolley of instruments, Edward was able to see the soldier lying on the bed – it was one of Chong Lueng's men.

‘Chong Lueng?' he called out.

‘Sĭ. Suŏyŏu sĭ.'
Dead. All dead.

‘Not now, Billings,' the medic cut in.

‘
Fun
– the woman?'

‘I said not now, Billings!'

‘Méi yŏu fun
. “There is no woman.

Edward fell back onto his pillow. Chong Lueng was dead. Because of him. They had lived side by side for months now, had become friends – as close as men could become in such an abnormal situation – and now Chong Lueng was dead. How would they explain that to his family – his wife? Did Chong Lueng even have a wife? Children? They'd never discussed this. If only he could turn back the clock! And if he could, would he do anything differently? Or was he simply trying to ease his guilt? Guilt and memories – all that was left to those who survived … He mustn't think that way right now. Another little box. Close it tight and push it down deep.

But what about LiLi? Was she dead too, or did they simply not find her? No, he refused to think she could be dead. He had to find out for sure – not knowing would drive him insane. He had to go to Shanghai. Find her. Drag her out of there by force, if need be …

He threw off the sheet and sat up. His head swam and his vision blurred but he fought through it. He stood up but his legs would not support him and he crashed to the floor.

‘Bloody hell, Captain! As if I don't have enough on my plate.' The medic and his assistant pulled him roughly back onto the bed. He felt the prick of a needle in his leg. ‘That should keep you quiet for a while.'

When he woke Edward was too ill to go anywhere. He drifted in and out of a semi-conscious daze, barely aware of whether it was night or day, his temperature dangerously high for more than a week. By the time his temperature started to drop word had come through that Tulip Force was being withdrawn. Some of the men – those well enough to go on fighting – had already been sent to Thailand, Burma and Assam, others to India. Edward and those too ill to fight were being sent home.

17

The American B-29s droned overhead and the air-raid signal screamed but Ming Li didn't react – it had become all too common these past few months; since Pearl Harbour nearly three years ago the Americans were out to settle a score. She carefully stepped over the bodies littering the stairs of the building; like many in Shanghai, she too had resoled her shoes with old tyre rubber, but even this had lost what little grip it once had. Her foot slipped and she grabbed the handrail but couldn't stop her fall, landing on a lower step. A woman curled there abused her. Ming Li ignored her, rising. The back of her coat was wet and when she brushed her hand over it she realised she'd landed in milky white, watery diarrhoea. Cholera. Shanghai was decaying even further. How she hated this building, this street! She'd never get used to the filth and the stench.

Outside the apartment building the air was just as putrid. With nowhere to go, no money and no work, the people of Shanghai lived, shat and died wherever they could find an unoccupied piece of pavement. Cholera had infested the city and the death rate had risen even further, so that cadavers now lay amongst the living; there was no one to collect the bodies, nowhere to bury them. Many were thrown into the Huangpu where they would join the bodies of those bayoneted by the Japanese, floating amongst the boats, their bellies swelling with gas, slowly decomposing.

Ming Li rubbed the back of her coat with one of the pieces of rag she kept in her bag for such occasions, then threw the soiled material to the ground. A small girl reached out from a doorway and grabbed the soiled piece of cloth, averting Ming Li's gaze.
I shouldn't complain
, Ming Li thought, looking at the child, then just as quickly recalled her thoughts. Yes, she should complain. No one should put up with what was happening here. She wanted to scream, to rant. She wanted to cry. She was sick of living as she was – as they all were. But she knew she had no choice.

Since that evening when the Japanese had plastered posters on the walls of her house proclaiming it
di chan
– enemy property – they'd been living in Xueliang's third cousin Chihfu's two-roomed apartment on the fifth floor of this building. The whole building smelt of cabbage and urine, despair and misery, and was begrimed from the soot of endless cooking fires. The water supply was often cut off with no warning, power rations were slashed again and again, and basics such as soap were no longer procurable. In Cousin Chih-fu's two-roomed apartment there were now eleven people: a family of seven – some distant relations of the landlord – lived with them, as well of course as Cousin Chih-fu. P'i Gao, their major-domo, was no longer with them.

Ming Li wished P'i Gao were here now. She needed his help; Xueliang had not returned home last night. Though this had sometimes happened prior to the Japanese invasion, she'd made him promise always to come home since – she needed to know he was safe.

She wanted to believe there was some simple explanation, that he hadn't made it back in time for curfew and so had stayed somewhere safe, but every instinct told her this was something more serious. She wondered if P'i Gao was still alive somewhere. She hoped so; they owed him so much. It was thanks to him that Xueliang had been allowed to leave the house unharmed – P'i Gao had bribed the Japanese soldiers handsomely. When Ming Li, waiting in the street, had seen him and Xueliang but not MeiMei, she'd fought and scratched and bitten both men as they tried to restrain her from returning to the house.

‘She's not there, Mistress, she wasn't in the house. I swear it. She's a smart girl, she probably ran off when she saw them coming.' But Ming Li hadn't believed him. ‘I'll go look for her. I
will
find her – I swear I'll find her for you. Before nightfall you'll have your daughter back.' And he'd kept his promise.

Since that day, Ming Li trusted P'i Gao completely. She knew he would never let any harm come to her, or to those she loved. She'd trust him with any of their lives.