集中营记（四）

越营奔向自由

戴爱美　著
曲拯民　译

 

　　一天，早晨集合点名，大家互相悄声传告了一件惊人的消息，说是名叫狄蓝和恒安石的两人相偕逃离了俘虏营。我听了，便止不住地心跳。我扶着一同伴的手臂，止不住的跳上跳下。试忆他们的面孔，竟记不起来。据说两人剃发光头，中国人打扮。可是牆头上高架着电网，怎能越牆而不触电身亡呢？
　　老师和年长的孩子们对此皆噤若寒蝉。逃亡的后果必然招致日本人的报复。
　　点名的时刻拖得特別长。照单查问，定要找出这两人是谁来。岔子一发生，军犬全部放了出来。日军找出来逃亡的两名是何人以后，同房间的九名单身汉被执，关在教堂中，严加拷问，被拘禁了好多天。亡羊补牢，已走的決找不回了。
　　此后，集合点名时的气氛与以前大不相同。从前点一次就得，现在点两次才散队。日本兵既喊叫又肆骂，在营牆前挖掘了一条深十尺宽五尺的壕沟，中间加立一道电网，休想再会有人越牆而逃。
　　狄蓝在战前任职一家英国煙草进口公司，恒安石任北平天主教立的辅仁大学教授，1981至1985年曾担任美国驻华（中共）大使。（据恒大使电话相示：大使任內约六年，於1985自国务院退休，现居马利兰洲，担任一些学术界的谘询或顾问的工作。狄蓝战后奉派印度，任职大英煙草公司，目前居住孟买。据山东抗战史：潍县俘虏营成立后，山东挺进军第十五纵队，派出一名精通英语的王绍文用入营传道当掩护，作初次联络。因被日军发觉，第二次由其夫人杨瑞兰前往。第十五纵队初为王尚志任司令，自他被俘后，始由王豫民继任。王豫民初拟修筑一条飞机跑道，计划解放俘虏营，然终因人数太众妇孺尤多的缘故而罢论。狄蓝与恒安石两人冒险逃奔自由之日是在1944年六月间，此后即留在第十五纵队驻军区域担任与盟国的联络工作直到胜利。─译者）

　　多年以后，我才得闻他们逃走的真相。原来那晚日本兵在換岗后，在人不知鬼不觉的剎那间，他两人爬上监视台，依外面预定的接迎时间自台上越牆而逃。和外面的联络进行久，抗日部队就在五十英里的邻近出沒，时常有被征僱的苦力，修理匠或挑粪便的工人，利用工作出入之便，双方秘密传递着暗码或信号。
　　这种联络方式，他们圈內人戏称之为“竹制的电台”，一切消息和行动是密不外宣的。某次，日岗兵在一名苦力身上搜出信件来，他们就拖之进入营房将他打个半死，后来这人就不见了。又一次，营外的同盟分子私运食品入內，因越牆而失足。及至岗兵发现，他迅惊逃，躲避不及，触电而死。死者屍身悬留电网上大半日，旨在示众，令人惊心动魄。
　　在双方通讯艰困的环境下，他们更加小心。通常的办法是，取薄绸上写密语，搓成小丸，包以避孕用橡胶套，塞在攜带人的鼻腔或含之於口，入营工作时吐於指定地点，圈內人拾取后交付译员译出。

　　说来算是件讽刺也属可笑的事。凡来自外面的消息逐一被一份旨在宣传，经日本当局细心窜改北京出版的英文报纸所证实，真是不打自招。就凭他们夸耀的战果，在某某地区或海域，打沉了盟国船只几艘和打落多少飞机，便知战事的中心已经逼近日本土：吉尔伯，马绍尔群岛，以至关岛，菲岛，琉璜岛，大琉球等。我们所得的消息全部正确，日本正继续吃着败仗中。
　　对某些人来说，盟国步步取胜反尔增添了他们的愁肠。问题是，日本人若预知自己必败已成定局，对所有俘虏是否将施行姦杀的手段来洩忿怒呢？他们会不会以盟国俘虏的安危为质，对盟国停止轰炸日本土地提出要挟呢？好多人在沉默无言中的忧苦是不言而喻的。

　　我们这些孩子卻在想另一方面。和我们混熟了，一向态度友好的日本兵，在日本战败后倘若效法武士道的精神真的自杀，那才是件可悲的事。一些熟悉日本古风的煙台孩子摆出姿势来，表演怎样刀入腹部，开膛作三角形，把最后一刀刺向要害心脏。或许日本兵会将我们这些女孩子带上监视台，巧妙，而细心地坠下牆外，使我们重获自由，然后举行自戳的仪式。想到这些，我不禁心惊胆寒。
　　老师对我们说明，种种臆测皆不足以阻碍我们课程方面的进行。芝罘学校向有“苏彝士运河以东最好的英文学校”之声誉，目前任何发展都不足以令学校的标准減低。往年，六年级（等於美国高中最高班）读毕，即举行“牛津考试”，及格后可逕投入英本土任何大学，不必再经考试。若不入大学，证书有助於就业。

　　老师重申政策：所有学生每天必须上课不辍，定须经过牛津考试，务求及格。
　　在热不可当的溽暑下，我们坐在蓆子上学拉丁文同根源的动词，学习犹太宗教史与弗尔集勒（公元前一世纪罗马皇帝奧古斯督时代的文豪，著有田园诗集和历史十二冊。─译者）在戶外树荫下读法文课。六年级的学生每天除了集合点名，洗涤，洗厕所，清除垃圾，加上司廚房炉灶工作外，还要忙着应付考试。
　　1943年的暑季八月，十一名学生应考，全部合格列榜。1944年，大姊凯琳和其他十三名也通过了考试。1945年十一名学生应试，仅九名及格。战终，牛津大学认可所有的考试，核发了证书。（芝罘学校自1881年─光绪七年创设迄今，肄业生估计万人以上，毕业生逾两千五百，由於第二次大战，正如本文所述，学校自煙台迁潍县集中营。战后，继有中国內战及大变动初在上海复校，后迁姑岭，再迁上海以至九龙。此后因形势所迫，分在日本，菲岛，泰国，台湾，马来，星岛先后设校。除於后来将台湾和泰国两地结束外，今日尚存四处，即日，菲，星，马。芝罘校友会设於第一次世界大战之前，今日有四个会，即北美，设於1908年会址在多伦多，英，澳，纽各地。校友间的联谊和团结是罕见的，北美应为总会，继续出版半年刊问世。─译者）

　　战前，在华北各地基督教这个圈子里，第一流的教育师资可说是人才济济。他们除了参与正式授课外，更设成人教育班：会计，木工等，语言学如中文，日文，蒙古文和俄文。又举行讲习会：航海，美术，历史等。还有人人都可参加晚上举行的讨论会，气氛活跃，节目生动，科学与宗教议题最属热门，一般惟理智是赖，非加证实即不相信的人与司天主教，基督教职的神学家对创造神蹟复活等问题开舌战。
　　星期日即礼拜天清晨有天主教的弥撒圣礼，十一时有圣公会和联合会堂的崇拜。晚祷的节目则着重歌诗。每屆复活节，於晨曦微露时即开始崇拜和纪念节目。
　　潍县集中营的社会是热闹而复杂的。有医院，小化验室，为老人，病人专设的小锅廚房。垒球（球比棒球软而大）协会下有天津虎队，北平黑豹队，神甫队等。在暖季时，每天有人下场练习。还有那肮脏的一面是孩子们不晓得的：妓女，酒徒，吸毒的，遊手好閒的不良青年，小偷，扒手，专偷廚房的饭食，将別人搓好正在暴晒中的煤球给偷走。
　　一个现代化都市所具恥辱和光辉的两面：在我们这围牆之內，一百五十与二百码长宽之间，已经表现无遗。
　　有人在教堂的地下室，找到一架陈旧不堪的钢琴，经过修理，成了营內用十二具乐器组成交响乐团的装饰和支柱，铜管乐由基督教救世军的队员担任，木管乐器由天津歌舞团的团员包办，大小提琴则有来自各地不同年龄和行业的人，至终组成一支很具规模的管絃乐队，常常奏出令人振奋的音乐来。

营中的“救世军”管乐队

　　还有一歌詠队，经常演唱村谣，小曲，情歌，甚至古典派作曲：韩德尔的弥赛亚，孟德尔逊的以利亚，司泰奈的十字苦架。更有由经验宏富的老手组成的话剧社。萧伯纳剧本安德鲁克莱与狮子之演出是他们的拿手好戏。社员将红十字会赠与罐头食品的空盒子收集起来，为剧中的十名罗马士兵做好了甲冑。
　　假座教堂里的演出节目终年不辍。欢娛中的观众可以暂忘卻那些警犬，铁刺电网，臭厕所，和飢肠辘辘的熬煎。（下期续）

 

 

A Song of Salvation at Weihsien Prison Camp

Mary Taylor Previte

 

　　We listened wide-eyed to the whisper that passed from mouth to mouth one day at roll call: “Hummel and Tipton have escaped!”
　　 My heart pounded against my ribs as I grabbed Podgey Edwards and started jumping up and down. I tried to recall what Hummel and Tipton looked like. Shaved bald and tanned brown like Chinese, someone said. Chinese clothes. But how in the world, I wondered, did they get over the electrified wire atop the camp wall without getting killed?
　　 Our teachers and the older boys were more subdued. Escape would mean instant reprisals.
　　 Roll call that day dragged on and on. With Hummel and Tipton missing, the guards’ count failed to tally, and when the Japanese realized what was wrong the commandant unleashed the police dogs. And Japanese soldiers promptly arrested the nine remaining roommates from the bachelor dormitory and locked them up in the church for days of ugly interrogation. But nothing worked. Hummel and Tipton were gone.
　　 Roll call was never the same after that. Instead of one, we now had two roll calls a day. Japanese guards cursed and shouted. They counted and recounted us each time. They also dug a monstrous trench beyond the wall, 10 feet deep and five feet wide, and beyond that they strung a tangle of electrified wire. No one would ever escape again.
　　 Laurance Tipton had been an executive with a British tobacco importing firm. Arthur Hummel Jr. had been a professor of English at Peking’s Catholic University; years later, he would serve the U.S. ambassador to China, from 1981-1985.
　　 Not until years later did I learn the story of their escape. Shortly after the nightly changing of the guards, in a prearranged plan with Chinese guerrillas, they had gone over the wall at a guard tower. For the rest of the war, maneuvering in the hills within 50 miles of Weihsien, they employed Chinese coolies—either repairmen or “honey-pot men” who carried out the nightsoil from our latrines and cesspools—to smuggle coded messages in and out of the camp.
　　 This was our “bamboo radio,” known only to the camp’s inner circle. It was a deathly dangerous business. The Japanese had once found a concealed letter on a Chinese coolie as they were checking him before entrance into the camp; they dragged him into the guardhouse and beat him until he was unconscious. He was never seen again. Another Chinese confederate who was passing black-market supplies over the wall to hungry prisoners slipped, in his hurry to get away as the guards approached, and was electrocuted on the wire that crisscrossed the wall. The Japanese left his body hanging there most of the day, as a grim warning.
　　 News from the “bamboo radio” was delivered, therefore, with extreme care. A message would be written on the sheerest silk, wadded into a pellet, placed inside a contraceptive rubber and then stuffed up the nose or inside the mouth of a Chinese workman. Once inside the camp, at a prearranged spot, the coolie would clear his sinuses and spit out the news. Insiders then pounced on the spit wad and took it to the translator.
　　 Ironically, the Japanese themselves helped confirm the accuracy of some of the smuggled information. They distributed English editions of the Peking Chronicle, a carefully doctored propaganda rag filled with hideous lists of sunken Allied ships and downed American plances. In our Current Events class, we followed the names of the places battles were in progress: the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, Guadalcanal, Kwajalein, Guam, Manila, Iwo Jima, Okinawa. It was obvious where the battles were raging: closer and closer to Japan! Our bamboo radio was right. Japan was on the run.
　　 For some of the adults, the prospect of Allied victory was tinged with terror. If the Japanese knew they faced defeat, what would they do to us? Does a defeated army rape and kill its prisoners? Would it hold us hostage to prevent more bombings of Japan? Those were some of the unvoiced agonies of the adults.
　　 We children ached, instead, for the Japanese guards who had become our friends. Hara-kiri, someone told us, was the honorable way for a Japanese soldier to face defeat. Ceremonial suicide. The Chefoo boys who knew about these things demonstrated on their bellies where the cuts of the samurai sword would be made—a triangle of self-inflicted wounds, followed by a final thrust to the heart. I shuddered. The Japanese guard who lifted us girls up so gently into his guard tower and dropped us for delicious moments of freedom into the field beyond the wall—would he commit hara-kiri?
　　 None of these considerations, our teachers said, was to interfere with school. The Chefoo School had been called “the beat English-speaking school east of the Suez,” and our teachers had no intention of dropping the standards now. In times of peace, the Sixth Form (roughly equivalent to the senior year in an American high school) boys and girls crammed each year for their Oxford matriculation exams. From these, a passing grade would open the doors to universities in England. And jobs.
　　 Nothing will change, our teachers said. You will go to school each day. You will study. You will take your Oxfords. You will pass.
　　 Sitting on mattresses in the dormitory, we conjugated Latin verbs with Mr. Martin. In summer heat, we studied Virgil and Bible history and French under the trees. Between roll calls, scrubbing laundry, scouring latrines, hauling garbage and stoking kitchen fires, the Sixth Form boys and girls crammed for their Oxford exams.
　　 In the blistering August heat of 1943, 11 students sweltered through the test, and 11 passed. The next year, Kathleen and her 13 classmates took the exams. They all passed. The year after that, 11 more sat for the exam. Nine passes. And when the war was over, Oxford University confirmed the results.
　　 The missionary and education community of northern China in those days was a remarkable collection of talent. Besides teaching the young, the internees organized adult education classes on topics that ranged from bookkeeping to woodworking to the study of such languages as Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian and Russian. They could also hear lectures on art or sailing or history, and they could attend lively evening discussions on science and religion, where agnostics debated Roman Catholics and Protestants about creation, miracles and the Resurrection.
　　 On Sundays there were early-morning Catholic masses, then Anglican services at 11 a.m., then holiness groups, Union Church, and Sunday-night singspiration. We also worshiped in glorious Easter sunrise service.
　　 Weihsien was a society of extraordinary complexity. It had a hospital, a lab and a diet kitchen. It had its own softball league, with the Tientsin Tigers, the Peking Panthers and the Priests’ Padres playing almost every summer evening. Though we young ones never knew it, Weihsien also had its prostitutes, alcoholics, drug addicts, roving bands of bored adolescents, and scroungers and thieves who filched extra food from the kitchens and stole coal balls left to bake in the sun.
　　 Compressed into that 150-by-200-yard compound were all the shames and glories of a modern city.
　　 Including music. Someone found a battered piano moldering in the church basement and made it the centerpiece of a 22-piece symphonette. It was a glorious combination—brass by the Salvation Army band, woodwinds by the Tientsin Dance Band, and violins and cellos by assorted private citizens.
　　 There was also a choral society that sang classical songs and madrigals—Handel's Messiah, Mendelssohn's Elijah and Stainer's The Crucifixion. And yet another group of prisoners organized a sophisticated drama society, whose ultimate triumph was its production of George Bernard Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion. To costume 10 Roman guards with armor and helmets, stage hands soldered together tin cans from the Red Cross food parcels.
　　 The church was always jammed for these performances. It was our escape from the police dogs, barbed-wire barriers, stinking latrines and gnawing hunger.(to be continued...)

 

（英文原文经原作者同意在本报发表）