13 Sep 1944, John Charter's wartime journal

Yesterday afternoon, Walter Pryde, senior inspector of works in the Building Ordinance Office of the PWD died of beri-beri heart. His collapse was very sudden at the end. The day before he had walked to the hospital to undergo treatment and rest and the following day he died. The state of his health has been deteriorating steadily since he was interned, the cause being nothing more than undernourishment or starvation; he had lost an enormous amount of weight. So too has his wife and she too is in hospital at present. Poor soul, she worried and worked herself ill over her husband and all to no avail. One wonders if the arrival of the parcels would have saved him. I went to the funeral and afterwards called at block 10 to pick up Y who was visiting Maudie.

Deane-Smith was very pleased with the results of Maudie’s two weeks rest, I am glad to say. She had put on a couple of pounds in weight and her blood pressure, which had jumped up from the low region of 98 over 150 had fallen again to about 126. So Yvonne and I were much relieved. We are also relieved that she has decided to do less, in future, and take things more easily in here. She used to rush about far too much – and it was no use telling her not to! She told us, in the strictest confidence, a piece of bad news.  Elma, who is now a member of the block 10 Committee, had told Maudie the news after their committee had met in camera  (that is usually how these strict secrets are spread around! But Maudie, Y and I often exchange news which we do keep strictly to ourselves). Apparently Gimson had been summoned up the hill and had there been told by an agitated Nimurii that a mishap had befallen our parcels (“I told you so” I thought grimly!) They had been left loaded in the lighter in HK harbour and the lighter (evidently under inefficient guard) had been raided by Chinese in sampans, one night (starving wretches I expect) and a number of the parcels were stolen. Nimurii said they were very sorry this had happened and that the value of the stolen goods would be made up, but in the meantime he wanted to know if Gimson thought it would be better to inform the internees or keep silence on the matter. Gimson said he would first like to consult the District Chairmen first. Apparently the Chairmen thought the camp should be informed – which is in line with our usual British policy. The Chairman of Block 10 passed on this information to his block committee. So far, no statement has been issued on the subject. I suppose Gimson has to consider the effect on the morale of the camp. They do not yet know the extent of the losses sustained. I wonder what form (if any) the Japanese compensation will take. They must be feeling very hot under the collar for they had been asked repeatedly to expedite the delivery of the parcels and had it not been for their dilatoriness this would not have happened. If they replace the lost parcels with other kinds of food they are sure to be asked either why they have not improved our rations if there is food available or why they cannot continue to do so! The whole business is infuriating and I feel like breaking something. So near and yet so far – always the same!

This morning we heard that the parcels were definitely arriving in camp today and everyone has been talking about them. I have heard so many people say, “I won’t believe it till mine are in my own possession,” and Elsie said “Well, they haven’t arrived yet and I shouldn’t be surprised if they were finished on the way here”!

Prophetic words! It has been difficult to keep my mouth tightly shut, but those who do know have certainly kept it to themselves, for no mention of it has spread about camp and any news of our precious parcels spreads like wild fire. The Japanese must be cursing themselves for allowing the list of parcels due for this camp to be issued to us. Otherwise they could just keep quiet and say nothing. It will be very interesting to see what happens.

Now to return to the former theme, ‘food’. I have written about the medical report. Rations continued to deteriorate: instead of fish of reasonable quality arriving, the Japanese began to send us sprats – they vary in size and sometimes are the size of small pilchards and at other times are no bigger than whitebait. When they are small it is quite impossible to clean them and when they are cooked and served they are so bitter that they are almost uneatable. There is a squad of women in our MQ blocks who clean the sprats, when size permits, and for which they are rewarded with a worker’s biscuit. Now that the HK refrigeration has broken down, these fish stunk to high heaven when they came in and cleaning them must be a most unenviable job. On several occasions they have been condemned as unfit for consumption. When this happens of course, we simply lose that part of our rations and that is all there is to be said about it. These days the Japanese try and get them in straight away from the junks and they arrive during the afternoon. This is too late for the evening meal and they are cooked and served all by themselves at about 7.30pm!

About a fortnight ago, over 200 of the 700 residents of the Indian Quarters succumbed to fish poisoning! Some had to go to hospital. Some time ago the Japanese also sent us some squid (or ink fish) and once they sent us shell fish. No one ate the latter because it is known that in HK the Chinese catch shellfish in the vicinity of the sewers that debouch into the harbour and it is therefore very dangerous to eat them.

Amongst the more unusual vegetables we have received are bamboo shoots and lily roots. Bamboo shoots are considered a great delicacy amongst the Chinese, but again, their food value is very small. According to the latest scale of rations, we are supposed to receive, in addition to our rice, oil, sugar and salt quota, 11 ozs of fish and vegetables (together) per person per day. Sometimes, on good days, this amount is actually delivered, but it is often short of the specified figure.