A Choice of Evils Read online

  © 1996 Meira Chand

  First published in 1996 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson

  This new edition published by Marshall Cavendish Editions in 2018 An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

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  National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Name(s): Chand, Meira.

  Title: A choice of evils / Meira Chand.

  Description: Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, [2018]

  Identifier(s): OCN 1046683204 | eISBN 978 981 4828 89 5

  Subject(s): LCSH: Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945--Fiction. | Nanking Massacre, Nanjing, Jiangsu Sheng, China, 1937--Fiction.

  Classification: DDC 823.914--dc23

  Printed in Singapore

  Cover design by Lorraine Aw

  For

  Zubin, Aditya and Natasha

  One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

  C. G. Jung

  If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  Nanking, 1937

  PART ONE

  Beginnings, 1901–1937

  1 Sword of Power

  2 Tokyo

  3 Tokyo

  PART TWO

  East of the Drum Tower, 1937

  4 Meetings in Manchuria

  5 Unreliable Men

  6 A State of Alert

  7 War

  8 Shanghai

  9 Return to Nanking

  PART THREE

  The Rape of Nanking, December 1937

  10 Last Chance

  11 The Panay Incident

  12 The Rape Begins

  13 Caught in the Storm

  14 Second Thoughts

  15 Escape

  16 The River Gate

  17 A Matter of Policy

  18 March of Triumph

  19 A Change of Sides

  20 Christmas Eve

  21 Christmas Day

  22 End of the Day

  PART FOUR

  Aftermath, 1938

  23 Photographs

  24 A Dark Residue

  25 Journey to Hankow

  26 A Dangerous Course

  27 Divisions

  28 An Unavoidable Decision

  29 Return to Hsinking

  30 Front Line

  31 Disgrace

  PART FIVE

  The Voice of the Crane, 1940–1945

  32 Sword of Power 2

  33 A Fiery End

  34 The Radio

  35 Black Rain

  PART SIX

  A Choice of Evils, 1945–1946

  36 Sword of Power 3

  37 The Journey Back

  38 Full Circle

  39 Sugamo

  40 The Distance of Time

  41 New Worlds

  42 A Break with the Past

  43 Shadows

  Principal Fictional and Historical Characters

  Acknowledgements

  I have taken some liberties as a novelist that might seem inappropriate to academics. All Chinese spellings are in accordance with the now outmoded Wade-Giles system. Since this was the method of romanised spelling used in the era this book is set in, it seemed fitting to adhere to it rather than use the modern pinyin. I have also continued to call the old capital by the familiar name of Peking, rather than Peiping as it became known after Chiang Kai-shek established his centre of government in Nanking. Since Chiang Kai-shek is recognised in the West only by the placement of his surname first, as is the custom both in China and Japan, I have set out other Chinese names in this way. However, I have set out Japanese names in the Western manner of surname last, to fit in with other characters.

  PROLOGUE

  Nanking

  1937

  ‘I have seen her, Mama,’ Lily announced. ‘She has bright red hair, like a halo of fire. Is she really from Russia? How long is she going to stay with us?’ She pulled critically at her fringe. She was stuck forever with her dark Chinese hair and eyes black as the pip of a lychee.

  ‘She will stay as long as Bradley thinks best,’ Martha Clayton replied from behind the China Weekly Review. She lowered the newspaper, looking over half-moon glasses at Lily. The child was easily bored, always seeking new diversions. Perhaps their guest, sent to them by Bradley Reed, would stem her restlessness through the school holidays. Martha leaned back in her chair, glad to relax before dinner; it had been one of her operating days at the hospital. She sipped the plum wine she made each year. It had been a particularly difficult day, each operation on her list demanding. It was all so different from her own childhood, when she hasd seen her doctor father struggle not only with local concepts of hygiene, but with the distrust of his Chinese patients in the isolated area where the mission had functioned. He wore Chinese dress, Martha remembered, and his blond hair hung in a pigtail. He also operated in this attire; they all wore Chinese dress in those days to allay suspicion. Her father had been a good doctor and a good preacher; she feared she had failed his high standards.

  She stared over the newspaper at her daughters. Lily stretched out on the floor beside her. Flora was lost in a book, curled up on a rattan chaise. Both girls were back for the school holidays from Shanghai.

  ‘I told Miss Komosky dinner was at seven.’ Flora looked up from her book. ‘Lily, her hair just has to be dyed. Nobody has hair that colour.’ She admonished her sister then turned to her mother. ‘Is she here for the Encyclopaedia?’

  Martha nodded, taking her glasses from her nose and folding up the newspaper. ‘She is Bradley’s chief assistant.’

  She had met Nadya Komosky on her arrival and been surprised. She would have expected Bradley Reed to employ a different type of woman, someone of a quieter nature, more scholarly in appearance. And older. The girl upstairs must be no more than twenty-eight.

  ‘The Encyclopaedia is nearly finished. It is already partly in proof. She needs to stay a while in Nanking, to supervise any last changes,’ Martha explained.

  ‘That book will never be finished. It’s been going on for as long as I remember,’ Lily yawned.

  Soon this impetuousness of Li
ly’s would need proper direction, Martha thought. She was already fourteen and seemed always to slip from Martha’s grasp by mercurial means. There would be no such anxiety surrounding Flora’s future. Martha moved her gaze to her natural daughter and saw safety in her grave face. Flora, with her measured thought, seemed older than eighteen.

  Many doubts had beset Martha at the time of Lily’s adoption. Her husband, Bill, was no longer alive. He had viewed the adoption of a Chinese child as acceptable only if a couple had no other children. If there were natural children, Bill believed the Oriental child would feel inferior and the Occidental usurped; instead of love, hate would grow between them. Chinese orphans should be cared for in a Christian orphanage. Martha had accepted these views without question, until they found Lily. It was Flora, only four years old at the time, who insisted they adopt her. Martha’s father, Dr Keswick, had still been alive, and running the old mission hospital. Martha remembered the dispensary of that hospital, always crowded with patients, each conscious only of their own need, each wanting to see the doctor first. Crying babies with mothers who never followed prescriptions. Patients who refused to divulge symptoms but expected her to take the three pulses of the wrist as did Chinese doctors. Tubercular coughs. Women in protracted labour, smallpox and typhoid cases, one fan to cool a temperature of a hundred degrees. As a child Martha remembered the sight of bandit victims stumbling, minus ears or fingers and sometimes noses, into the dispensary. She had lost her own husband to a bandit uprising. She reached hurriedly for her wine to banish the painful memories.

  Martha’s worry now was not just for the development of her children but for their very future. On her knee the paper was full of the ominous. War hovered upon the horizon, threatening to engulf them. Even Bradley had the wind up him. He had seen no need in the past to hurry the completion of the Encyclopaedia. Like everyone else Martha had hoped the Japanese, after their occupation of Manchuria and the failure five years before to take Shanghai, would be content with their gains in north China. Bradley’s letter had disturbed her more than she wished to admit.

  The Japanese are only waiting for an opportunity to push further South, Bradley Reed had written to Martha.

  And who will stop them when they’re ready? We don’t know what’s ahead, except trouble. I want the Encyclopaedia finished. I am sending Miss Komosky to sit in Nanking, to breathe down their necks and make them see urgency at the university. I have to be here in Shanghai. Miss Komosky is a pleasant young woman, and an efficient worker. If she could stay with you it would be a great help to us all. You will find her no trouble, you have my assurance.

  Martha had known Bradley Reed since childhood. Their families had met aboard a ship while returning to China after home leave in America. After disembarking at Shanghai, they had shared a further ride on a crowded barge up the Grand Canal to their respective missions. It was the middle of winter and Martha wore a padded Chinese coat for warmth. The families huddled together in a small, cold cabin; on deck Chinese passengers chattered. Through the window she and Bradley peered out between a row of feet at market towns, earthen farmhouses, temples and everywhere graves, like large molehills littering the ground. Only the icy draught through a broken pane occasionally drove Martha back from the window. After the break in America she did not wish to miss an inch of China. She knew she was home when the stone walls of the city loomed before her. Over its gates, like rotting gargoyles, were the decapitated heads of criminals. She did not give them a second glance. The Chinese towns she had lived in went by many names, but the sights were always the same. She was excited to be back. She had not felt at home in America; some vital ingredient was missing. The ease was almost uncomfortable. Other children found her conversation outlandish and adults were shocked by her tales of discarded babies in dry riverbeds.

  Bradley Reed was now a famous man. Although from a dynasty of missionaries, he was a Renaissance figure who had branched out as an academic, businessman and publisher. He had also lived many years in Japan. His influence was considerable. A department had been established at the University of Nanking, of which he was head, to deal exclusively with the business of The Encyclopaedia of Chinese Sources and Traditions, or TECSAT as it was called.

  The Encyclopaedia was Bradley’s brainchild, a monumental undertaking, written in both English and Chinese. Work had been proceeding on it for years. Hundreds of students and experts at Nanking University were involved in contributing and compiling the statistics needed to fill its many volumes. The cost was enormous but had been backed by the Rockefeller Foundation and other wealthy institutions. In America the name Bradley Reed carried clout. The Encyclopaedia had also the personal backing of General and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. The book was to be a source volume for all areas of Chinese life, from religion and agriculture to sexual mores. This information was now stacked in bundles about the compilers who worked on the Encyclopaedia in a barn-like building east of the Drum Tower.

  ‘Mama, why is Agnes Smedley not yet here?’ Lily enquired, watching the clock edge towards seven. She admired the notorious Agnes Smedley who, once before, had appeared at their home like a sudden storm, obscuring normal vision, flouting all convention with her outlandish tales. Lily could hardly suppress her excitement at the thought of soon observing at the dinner table, not only the extraordinary Agnes, but also the red-headed Russian.

  ‘Agnes Smedley will arrive when she chooses to arrive, as she always does.’ Martha answered with a sigh. ‘She is coming down from the north. It is a long way. We will not wait for dinner. No doubt our Miss Komosky is hungry.’

  She did not look forward to the difficult Agnes, who was forever in trouble with the authorities. She had agreed to accommodate her for a night at the request of the Bishop, who was returning the following day from a visit to Hankow. Agnes was collecting medical supplies for the Eighth Route Army and Martha, again at the Bishop’s request, was to arrange a part of these supplies. Not long ago the Christian community would have wanted little to do with activists like Agnes Smedley, or the Eighth Route Army. Now, together with other political and religious factions, the community stood behind Chiang Kai-shek and the newly formed coalition of the United Front, working as was necessary to fight off the Japanese.

  Martha turned to watch the last of the setting sun through the open window. Beyond Nanking the land stretched away, flat and green; the rice bowl of China. This year, as always, rain and wind had repeatedly smashed up crops and homes, killing men and animals. She thought of the mud-walled farmhouses beyond the town, and the people to whom she ministered, who endured only hardship. Suffering bent them all. Men or mules with packs strapped to their backs, women with children strapped to their backs, children with smaller siblings tied to them; no one walked without a burden. In China nothing had changed since her childhood; she had known no other home. Now, as she grew older, she wondered if the country would ever digest her. Within herself it seemed she had no landscape to call her own. The desolation she had felt as a child often settled upon her now. She clung to her work. When she was younger there had been religion, upon the order of her father, adhesively binding her to life. But later, after her husband Bill’s death, there was always the feeling that the old demon, God, had disowned her. Many said it was she who had turned her back.

  Upstairs, Nadya Komosky saw by the clock in her room that it was already five minutes to seven. She brushed her hair vigorously, then looked in the mirror, giving the scarf at her neck a last tug. About her the room was plain, but adequate. Although she had been many times to Nanking for Bradley Reed, she had never met Dr Clayton. Bradley had failed to tell her, when he arranged this accommodation, that Martha’s home was in the compound of her hospital. He had not mentioned that the view from her windows was of uniformed nurses in the wards opposite, rows of beds and supine figures. Nadya would have preferred a glimpse of Nanking’s ancient city walls, or the gleaming Yangtze River. The house was separated from the hospital by a patch of lawn bordered by shrubs and a clum
p of trees. Beyond the hospital she could see the curling roof of the vermilion Drum Tower. She would keep her eyes upon this elegant structure, Nadya decided, when the alternative view proved tedious. She was not usually put off by circumstances. She had already learned the strangest opportunities were sometimes found in the most barren of places.

  She made her way downstairs. Dr Clayton sat in a chair with her teenage daughters curled up like young puppies about her. She rose as Nadya entered the room, and offered a glass of wine. Her smile was spontaneous, but her eyes remained cool and left Nadya with a desire to recheck her appearance. She wished now she had not worn earrings. Bradley Reed insisted few people worked as tirelessly for the betterment of the Chinese as Dr Clayton and Nadya regarded her curiously. Martha’s skin was scrubbed smooth and her hair, prematurely grey, was pulled tightly into a knot. If her eyes were less sharp, Nadya would have described her as remote. If the motivation of doctoring did not impel her so strongly, Nadya could visualise Martha as a depressed and troubled woman. She had been told by Bradley that Dr Clayton’s hair had turned grey overnight at the news of her husband’s death.

  ‘I make it myself,’ Dr Clayton announced, pouring the wine from a crystal decanter.

  Nadya sipped the cool, sweet liquid. The girls sat up straight to observe her. Above the rim of the glass Nadya met their discerning eyes. She had heard from Bradley the story of the adopted Chinese daughter, Lily, discarded at birth and found by Flora.

  ‘Your hair is too red. Do you dye it?’ the Chinese child asked. She gave a broad grin of welcome.

  ‘Lily!’ the older girl, Flora, exclaimed. A measured expression shadowed her eyes, echoing her mother’s circumspection.

  ‘She has every right to ask questions,’ Nadya laughed.

  ‘I like the colour of her hair. I want mine to be the same. That’s why I’m asking,’ Lily explained. She turned with a frown upon her sister and then stared again at their new lodger. She was nothing like the masculine Agnes Smedley who, until now, had been pinioned in Lily’s mind, exotic as a fly in amber, as something of another world. Nadya Komosky was much more.