Voices from the Second World War by Candlewick Press

Author:Candlewick Press
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780763697730
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2017-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

By the time we reached Saigon, my mother was running out of money, we were all ill, and we were all living on my Cow & Gate baby food — we had no other food. My mother managed to find a ship’s captain who agreed to take her to Hong Kong, but a local came up to her and said, “If you get on that boat, you’ll never be seen again.” So we didn’t get on. My mother went on walking the docks for another two weeks, and finally she saw a little white boat coming over the horizon. The captain was English, but he said, “I can’t take you — I’m full.” She begged and begged, and he said, “Come back tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.” But my mother asked around and found out that the boat was leaving at midnight — he was trying to trick us. So we fetched our luggage and came back to the port, and boarded the ship while the ship’s crew were all in the pubs. We hid on the boat, and at midnight the captain and crew came back to the ship, drunk, and set sail. The next morning we appeared from behind the funnel and the captain had no choice but to take us on to Hong Kong.

But when we got to Hong Kong, we discovered that my father had been sent back to Singapore. My mother finally secured passage for herself and me to Britain on a Dutch boat, leaving my amah behind. Saying good-bye to my amah and the distress of leaving her is one of my earliest memories. She remained in Hong Kong, and we never heard from her again. My parents and I sailed on the Athlone Castle from Singapore, arriving in Southampton, England, on June 24, 1940.

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