The Kindness of Women by J. G. Ballard Read Free Book Online Page A

Sergeant Nagata strolled behind us, slapping our heads at random. My ears rang, as they had done after the bomb in the Avenue Edward VII. I was sure we would soon be too deaf to understand Mr. Hyashi’s halting questions.
    At one end of the wooden bench, his chest and face bruised by the rifle stocks, was a twenty-nine-year-old Londoner called Mariner. After being discharged from the Shanghai police for robbing a rickshaw coolie he had become a foreman at the Shell terminal, and had scarcely stirred from his bunk since entering the camp. Beside him were the Ralston brothers, stable lads who had come out from England to work at the Shanghai racecourse. They joked nervously with David Hunter, who sat between them with his head lowered, blond hair streaked with blood.
    Why David, with his caring parents, should have tried to escape from Lunghua puzzled me, and clearly puzzled Mr. Hyashi.
    â€œYou walked … through the … fence?” He pointed at Mariner. “You?”
    â€œWe didn’t walk, no. We climbed through the fence,” Mariner explained half-facetiously. “You know, stepped like…”
    The older Ralston inclined his head, dripping blood onto my arm, and said in a stage whisper: “I knew I got these cuts somewhere.”
    Both Ralstons tittered, and Sergeant Nagata stepped behind them and slapped their heads with his hard fist. They fell forward across the table, dazed but still smiling in a cracked way and unable to hear Mr. Hyashi’s next question, for which they were punched again.
    I frowned at David, warning him to keep a straight face, but he was caught up by the Britishers’ horseplay. Without thinking, David began to titter with them, tears streaming across his cheeks. He avoided my eyes, as if he was glad to be caught and was prepared to be punished. Like the Chinese, they laughed because they were frightened, but to Mr. Hyashi and Sergeant Nagata they were being deliberately insolent in a peculiarly British way, never more arrogant than when they had blundered into defeat.
    Baffled by them, Mr. Hyashi took up his position at the head of the table, forced to preside over this deranged meeting for which his diplomatic training at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo had not prepared him. He stood a few inches from me, and I could feel him trembling as Sergeant Nagata slapped the laughing Ralstons. I was so frightened that I, too, wanted to laugh, but already I was wondering what would happen when the sergeant discovered my attempt to break into the food store.
    Mr. Hyashi gazed down at me, noting my lowered eyes. Relieved to find one small point of sanity, he placed his unsteady palm on my head, as if to reassure himself that I was real.
    â€œYou not … trying to escape?”
    â€œNo, Mr. Hyashi.”
    â€œNot?”
    â€œMr. Hyashi, I like Lunghua camp. I don’t want to escape.”
    For the first time Mr. Hyashi raised his hand to restrain Sergeant Nagata. “Not escaping. Good.” He seemed immensely relieved.
    The older Ralston leaned against me, his eyes dazed by the blows. “Look after yourself, lad. You’re on your own here.”
    â€œEveryone in Lunghua…” Mr. Hyashi began, as if addressing the assembled camp. He searched for a phrase, and then let the air leak from his lungs, visibly resigned that he would never master this strange language and its stranger people. Covered in blood, Mariner was lying across the table, but the Ralstons were still uncowed, ready to provoke the Japanese and force them to do their worst. I admired them for their courage, as much as I admired the Japanese. I never understood why the only brave Britishers were the ones I was never allowed to meet, while the officers my mother and her friends danced with at the country club had surrendered without a shot at Singapore.
    Mr. Hyashi pointed to me and turned a wavering forefinger towards the door. Five minutes later I was back in the