OUR SECOND SUMMER was an unusually hot one. The Senior Cambridge Examination had been set, and held, in the midst of the heat, and then came the work of correcting the papers. We were most anxious that the standard should be such that if the papers were sent to Cambridge there might be nothing with which they could find fault. This made the correcting much more difficult than it might otherwise have been, and we were very weary when at last the results were complete.
I think the teachers felt the strain and anxiety of the Examination results as much as the students. My girls had begged me not to give up their Geometry until they had written their exams, and indeed I had the pleasure of coaching them in other Maths as well as Geometry; so I was keenly interested in their results. As far as I remember all of them passed their Mathematics, but one of them fell down in French. The Education Committee rejected her, and the list of successful candidates did not contain her name. She was one of the hardest working students in Camp, with an excellent record, so it was a great blow to us all. The Headmistress was not the sort to accept such decisions very meekly, unless she was sure they were correct: so she got a set of Cambridge rules, and went through them much more carefully than the Committee had done, with the result that, to the joy of the whole Camp, especially to her teachers and her own family, a special notice was posted saying B. had passed.
An unusually cold winter followed the hot summer, and there was great suffering in the Camp. In most rooms there was no heat whatever. The temperature went as low at times as 18 degrees, or fourteen degrees of frost, and the snow lay on the ground for weeks at a time, and then would turn to slush that was even worse. By this time the footwear in Camp was in a most deplorable condition, especially amongst the children, whose feet would insist on growing out of everything they possessed. There was hardly a person in Camp without chilblains on both hands and feet. The hands and feet of many were terribly swollen, the great chilblains often broken and bleeding, and some became infected. At times the children's hands were too sore to hold a pencil; and their feet on the cold, damp brick floors of the school rooms only made the chilblains worse.
The School had by this time been moved from the church building to the old Chinese Gate-house of the main entrance. The Sixth Form had a rather pleasant room, with a wood floor, and windows facing south and west, that often enjoyed the sun. The old Sixth Form had been disbanded, and the boys from it sent to help in Camp Labor. The new Sixth Form was further advanced in their work than the old class had been, so it took more time preparing for them.
I have not mentioned my good friend Mr. H. who took over a lot of the Senior Maths, or it would have been impossible to carry on at all. Mr. H. was head of the largest firm of Chartered Accountants in Shanghai, and peculiarly gifted, and well trained in Mathematics, especially those that touched business principles. It was a wonderful thing for the boys to have such a teacher, and was a great compensation for the loss of their liberty in the Camp. His classes were an education to me. We will never forget his short-cuts in arithmetic, though I fear many of us will forget "how it was done." His problems, too, most of which he prepared himself, brought the boys face to face with the working problems of life they would later meet in the Shanghai business world.
Mr. H. took the keenest interest in his pupils, and every one of them knew that he was genuinely their friend. I met him the other day, and he was as pleased and proud as could be to tell me of the remarkable successes of nearly all our students who have gone abroad to schools. One marvels more that he should have been able to do so much, as he had a cataract on both eyes, and could only see with the greatest difficulty. The School was only a sideline with him, for he carried on his Camp duties as well. Very often he was the mainstay of the Camp Committee, and for a long time had charge of Camp Accounts.
The Fifth Form was now largely composed of the old Fourth: all of them grown older, and many of them wiser. They were now housed in "Room Number Seven". Perhaps I must turn aside from the more pleasant labor of recounting school interests, to try and describe "Room No. Seven". All the houses and rooms were numbered, and this particular room, once a large bedroom housing a number of families, at the urgent request of a certain influential section of the Camp, had been cleared out for a "Recreation Room". A stove was kept in this room, and so, apart from the hospital and one or two favored spots, it was almost the only warm room in the Camp. Very, very grudgingly had consent at last been given to use this room for the Fifth and First Forms.
It had a cement floor, faced north, and on the east looked over a court by the kitchen. It was quite large, and had a single beam running in the wrong direction supporting the bedrooms above it. I am sure that by every "Theory of Structures" that beam ought to have collapsed, but I am thankful to say it never did. The room itself was the most difficult I have ever known for speaking. The Fifth was a large form, and it seemed almost impossible to make the back row hear without drowning out the first. But I must tell you a little about the "Recreation". We finished school, as far as I recall, at three-thirty. By that time a queue had formed outside the door, and the moment school was over, without even giving the boys time to leave, in they would rush, grab the little tables the boys used as desks, and in less time than it takes to tell, there would be card parties set up all over the room. If you happened to open the door and put your head in to look for someone, an hour or two later, you would find the room densely packed, and such a cloud of cigarette smoke hanging like a pall over all, that you would hurriedly retreat. Most exciting were the gains and losses in those card games. One dear little lad disappeared on a certain afternoon. His parents lived opposite Room No. Seven, and often warned their laddie of its evils. The father, mother and friends feverishly searched every corner of the camp and grounds, but no sign of their boy. At last someone casually remarked, "Oh, he's in Room No. Seven." After that when he said his prayers he used to add a special petition that he might be kept from "Room No. Seven".
I have mentioned that the First Form was also housed in this famous room. I only taught this form once a week in Science. That was once too often. The smaller boys attended the Girls' School, which was held in the Dining Room, but when they grew to be ten or twelve it was thought they should go into the Boys' School. For some strange reason no corporal punishment was allowed in the school, and there was little paper on which lines could be written; so punishments were really almost unknown, and the result for the teachers was, in this form at least, appalling. I wish I could describe some of those boys. Near the back sat a rather large, gentle-looking boy, with a kind of baby face. He was very chubby, had large blue eyes, and plenty of fair hair, and on the whole looked the very picture of innocence. He was clever, and if he wished could do well, but rarely, very, very rarely did he "wish". I have watched with one corner of my eye as I taught the Fifth, the poor teacher almost in desperation, scolding this particular boy: while he gazed in well-feigned amazement and pity at his teacher's excitement, assuming, if things got too serious, a most pathetic air of injured innocence. I believe this boy was truly converted before we left Camp, and there was a great change in him. Next to him sat one of the prettiest boys I have ever seen in my life. He was the only son of his mother and she was a widow. He was rather small, but held himself well. He had the most beautiful fair curly hair, and eyes that sparkled and danced all the time. He had dimples, and a mouth that could not keep from the most bewitching smile. Everybody loved him, one just could not help it, for his disposition was as bright and sunny as his face. But combined with all this beauty, I suppose I never met anyone who could contrive and carry out mischief quite as fast as this child. I might continue with the rest of the class, but these are samples. It did not seem strange that the Girls' School had concluded that the time had come when these boys should go into the Boys' School.
The last time I remember seeing that lovely child was the day before we were to leave Camp. I was garbage-man by this time, and was making an evening round of the garbage pails to see that all was tidy. Suddenly, from out of one of the great fifty-gallon drums that acted as garbage pails, popped Peter's curly head: his eyes were shining even more than they usually shone, his whole face was filled with animation, as he said to me: "O Sir, there's the dearest little mouse in this garbage pail; I'm just trying to catch it for my mother!" His mother was a proper mother, and I have pot the least doubt would have given Peter's mouse a welcome, but I was thankful for her sake, and the sake of all the other people in the room, that just as Peter finally succeeded in catching it, the mouse slipped through his fingers and jumped out of the drum.
The Fourth Form had a room to themselves. True, it was dark, and had a mud floor, but it was a great blessing to get them by themselves. This Form had become a collection of boys who would not, or could not, learn. It was a most wearying class. Three big boys dominated it, and saw that none of the others should work. The extraordinary system that ruled out punishments greatly wronged this class, and those three boys in particular; and most of all, their teacher. A thorough good caning would have saved the necessity of these boys later being withdrawn from the School, not to speak of the difference it would have made to the staff.
The Second Form was rather large. It had a fair sized room to itself, but it faced north, and never had any sun. It had a damp brick floor, and during that last winter was bitterly cold. Many times the children's hands were too numb to hold a pencil, not to speak of the chilblains which I have already tried to describe. Often we would send them out for a run in the middle of a class to try and get their blood circulating, but they suffered more than any of the other boys. It was a very keen class of nice boys, and was a pleasure to teach. Not all were clever, but all were keen, and I believe every one did his very best. There were several real Christian boys in this Form. I had them for Science and a few classes in Maths, and look back to the hours spent with them with real joy.
That was a long hard winter, and we were all worn out with the unusually hot summer. As I have said, there was no he-at in our rooms, and night after night we went to bed, chilled to the very bone, our feet like blocks of ice, and no friendly hot-water bottle to warm us. Often it would be almost morning before we thawed out, and then came getting up in the dark and facing the cold once more.
The pipes froze and burst. The pumps froze and burst. The queues were longer, more ragged, and more impatient than before; and worse still, we were all feeling more hopeless. True, the Americans were making headway in the Pacific, and even we knew this, but could they force Japan to surrender? The Japanese themselves were so certain that I suppose it was apt to infect us. At one time several campers were discussing the question that was on everybody's lips: "How long?" They spoke rather optimistically, thinking that a guard who was standing near, would not understand. At last he broke in: "Japan is mighty strong. You do not know. Japan can fight ten years more. Japan is mighty strong.”
We watched Germany brought to her knees, and that news was fairly truthfully given us. We supposed it was to help "save face" for Japan, in case she should decide to surrender along with her ally. And then came the German capitulation: would Japan surrender also? How we hoped! How we feared! How we wondered! But, no, the surrender did not come, and life turned back into the same old rut. With most of us, the physical resistance we had when we came into Camp was gone. Those carrying the burden of the Camp were, for the most part, unspeakably tired. Tempers were more frayed, and life altogether had become very hard. We had the Senior Cambridge Exams coming on: the papers had to be prepared: the examinations supervised, and then, worst of all, there was the correcting. And again it was decided to hold these exams in the hottest part of the summer. I had been ill a number of times, and now (as with many in Camp) dizzy spells became more and more frequent. My hands and feet became numb, and I wondered how it would be possible to face another term of school under prevailing conditions. One and another of the teachers dropped classes, and these had been added, at times without even consulting me, to the work already on hand; until the load was almost unsupportable.
However, we got through the exams, and in course of time the papers were corrected, and results, some much disputed, were made public. But it left some of us unutterably weary: only the hope of holidays kept us going at all.
But now a darker shadow than any we had known since coming into Camp began to make itself felt. Our dear Tien Chei had been training in the Chinese Red Cross Hospital, and had done very well indeed, and also had been a real witness to the Lord. Now we got word that she was unwell. At first she made light of it; nothing to worry over, but gradually it proved to be a spot on her lung, and we had seen this terrible disease too often do its deadly work amongst the Chinese not to be very anxious. How we longed to get her away to Kuling, but that was impossible. We were helpless, apart from prayer.
Holidays came at last, and how thankfully did we turn from the strain of school, to work that was more like recreation. I was trying to transfer Mr. Wigram's Greek Concordance to Index Cards, leaving sufficient room against each word to insert the Chinese characters that might seem best to translate it. It was rather a heavy job, but it had not the nervous strain of teaching, and we hoped that it might prove invaluable when we went back to our work on the New Testament, and tried to begin and prepare our dictionary. Sad to say the trunk in which this Card Index was packed, disappeared later on the return journey to Shanghai.
There had only been a very few days of holidays, when the request came: "Would you kindly take over the garbage collecting for the Camp?" There were some six men already employed on this job; but they did not seem very much in love with it. I knew very well that the moment an outsider was put over the work these six men would walk off: but I also reckoned that my young friend Jimmie T. would not see me stuck, and I knew that he had his drains all in good shape, so that he would have time to give me a hand.
Not only did it mean collecting the garbage, but it meant disposing of it as well. Almost all the time we had been in Camp, an elderly man had taken charge of the incinerator where the garbage was burned; but for some reason he had given up this job; so it meant both collecting and disposing. And not only was it the garbage, but the whole Camp had to be kept clean. Perhaps the cause for this request was a plague of flies that we had about this time: great, huge bluebottles that seemed to be everywhere. We had almost no supplies in camp, and I was warned there was no way to fight them.
Thus it was I became garbage-man. The first morning my six men went off in a rage at being so insulted, and Jimmie and I took over the work. We found a bag of lime in the dark, tiny room behind the Library that was set apart to keep our tools; and daily we sprinkled the lime where the flies were worst. In about a week they had disappeared.
And now I had what I had never had before in Camp, a tiny spot where I could go alone and undisturbed for prayer. Perhaps the hardest thing in Camp life was the fact that never could one be alone for prayer and reading the Word in quiet. Each of us so needs this for our own soul. As we gaze in wonder at our Lord, and see Him going alone to the mountain-side for prayer (seven times in Luke do we find our Lord praying), how much more do we need it, especially in the face of such a bitter enemy?
I was peculiarly cheered in this work by 1 Cor. 4:1313Being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day. (1 Corinthians 4:13), where the Apostle Paul tells us that the Apostles were made the refuse and the garbage; for that is the meaning of the Greek words. It seemed to give a little share with them to be even garbage-man, but how much further did they go, to be the garbage?