集中营记(一)
陷入战爭中
1941年十二月,日本偷袭珍珠港后,在中国的佔领军将盟国人民拘禁,集中在山东潍县(今潍坊市),上海和香港三地。
本文是作者本人畅述当年入营前后以及在营中亲历的事跡,並非一般创作供消遣追的小说可比。
读后我们得以了解西方人精神优越的一面──饥饿下不忘教育了子弟和追求学问,服务不计报酬之有无,患难中保持合作和友爱──
信心乃是人类前进和向上的原动力。
战前,內陆各省有“中日內地会”创设的学校(神学院在內,共约二百间)诊所,教会,宅院等,其教士的足跡远及內,外蒙,新疆,西藏,青海等地。该会创办人是戴德生牧师。本文作者为戴德生当年仅八岁的重孙女,今是作家,讲师,现任美国纽泽西州坎埔顿青年中心的主管。
抗战末期,译者一度身为日军的囚徒,几乎被遣北海道去充当奴工,幸蒙友好及时相救,始免於难,因此读本文时,感怀倍增,而获益至深。本文於1985年八月间在费城首次发表,今经作者同意,译成中文,使英,汉合併付印,介绍给中文读者。原作的文字优美而深邃,译文难期表达原韻,故盼读者先读原作,拙译仅可当作参考。由於直译与译意兼取而外添语句俾利表达,未尽符合原作或欠通顺之处在所难免,敬希涵谅。
英文原作的版权仍由作者自己保留。
-译者 曲拯民 谨识
飞机掠过低空,机腹裂处,白罂粟花似的降落伞搖晃着徐徐下降,相继落在俘虏营外的田地上。美国的空降兵到了!
这是1945年八月间的事,地点在山东潍县的“平民集合所”日本人叫它做“集中营”。那年我正十二岁,自入营迄解放之日,我和姐,哥,弟一共四人,在日军的拘禁之下,度过三年犯人的生活。算来,我和父母亲由於中日两军战线对峙,双方相隔的日子是五年半。
平时,大门是绝对禁止出入的,今见美国士兵空降,大家便不顾一切,潮水一般涌向门外,此时禁锢我们的围牆已失去作用。我夹杂在呼喊,或喜极而泣,看来个个瘦弱,衣服缀着补钉的男,女,孩子们所集成的人群里,爭先恐后地冲出了大门。其中有英国人,美国人…一同对自空降下的士兵发出了狂热式的欢迎。此时日本岗兵已将武器放下,任凭我们,因为战爭已经结束了。
凯琳,雅各,约翰和我,是美以美会传教士的儿女。日军将我们全体同学和老师们从中国东部的煙台強迫集中,终运此地拘禁之。中日战爭发生不久,我的父母,戴永冕牧师夫妇,逃过日军防线,进入中国的大后方在西北工作,直到战终,因此和我们分离了。
战前,我曾在一个富传奇,人们相信古老佛教之区域渡过童年生活,所听的是庙堂簷下风中的铃声,所见的是朴实农夫们扶着犁在田间耕种。不料在中国海的彼岸,兴起一伙野心勃勃,图谋向中国土地伸展的军人,他们高唱“亚洲地土应属於亚洲人”的口号,在中日提攜的原则下,满洲全部应由日本管理。
1931年,他们在满洲发动了“事变”。不到六个月,就佔领了全境,並成立一个傀儡政权供其驱策。此后逐步侵略着中国的国土,正如邱吉尔所说“逐叶而食”之喻。可惜列強中无一国家肯挺身而出,用军事行动来制止侵略。
日军刚佔河南省时,我父母即感到势难在高傲的日本佔领军下继续工作。每天出入城门的过路人必须下车向他们鞠躬为礼,这是日军的命令。有两次,我母亲从腳踏车下来迟了一点,卫兵就用手中的小棒棍打了她的头。
本文作者入读
“芝罘学校”之前
值此局面下,父母便带着我和弟弟约翰一同到煙台去入学,借作暂时的休息,換換环境。此时姐姐凯琳,哥哥雅各已是该校学生。
中国內地会在煙台设立的中小学,简称“芝罘学校”,(芝罘又名煙台,市之北有半岛芝罘,古时写作之罘,名见史记。昔日秦始皇三次东巡,曾刻石於此,並在附近射鲛鱼。明代防倭寇时,设千戶所及烽火台於此,故煙台之名称始於明代。─译者)是一道地英国式学校,设立的目的在方便所有在中国传教士的子女,不必返回自己的国家去受教育。学校初创时仅有课室十间,外加厕所,及至我们入学,早已大加扩建,俨然一现代化校园。它还有一特点:地临海滨,这原是教职员梦想中的至佳环境。
记得,当日军进佔学校的那天,我们的老师正在教我们拉丁文名物字的第四格式,课还沒完,他就低声说:“我们的新统治者来了!”
头戴铁盔,胸佩勳章,腳穿高皮靴,枪上装着刺刀的日本兵在校外的马路上把岗,走起路来腰间的佩刀一搖搖地。
自海上一艘航空母舰起飞的一架飞机正在撒下“东亚新秩序”的传单。
日本军即将登陆保护日侨民。日本军的纪律严明,必定保护所有良民。各在职的公务人员务须谨守秩序,人民和平相处。日本商人不久将恢复营业,带来商业繁荣。各民家须悬日本国旗,以示欢迎。
日本军大本营
亚洲的新秩序进入煙台並未遇到強烈的抵抗。
我母亲原具教师的素质,她坚信那用心強记的教育原则。纵处於战爭,飢饿,焦躁,疑虑的逆境下,她总教导我们去依靠上主和祂的应许。她认为抵销这一切最好的方法就是将圣经上的“诗篇”配上音乐每天唱出。因此,当日本战舰停泊港口,离我们住处不速,在学校背后通乡区的大路上抗日的游击队常常出沒於夜阑人靜展开攻击之际,母亲就教导我们学习她将诗篇第九十一篇配好的音乐,一家人就在每日晨祷中唱出:
上主是我的避难所,我的山寨,
依靠祂,
不必为恐佈之夜所惊骇…
纵有千人仆倒於左,万人仆倒在右,
祂必遣使各方护佑…
每次唱至末句:“你不必惊而忧”,歌声更加昂扬。
在星期日的圣经班上,我们孩子们倾听老师讲述先锋传道人那些英勇开拓事蹟。李文斯顿去非洲,帕顿进澳洲东北诸海岛,戴德生入中国。
中国內地会及芝罘学校创办人
戴德生(本文作者曾祖父)画像
戴德生(1832至1905,享年七十有三,逝世,並葬於中国。他生前有明言,传诵一时,译意:倘有英币千磅,都交中国使用;若有千人,可聘,全为中国服务。壮志由此可见。─译者)是我曾祖父,二十一岁时決意放棄了他的医学教育,欲亲到中国来实现一个梦想,将基督教传佈至各省份。1853年(咸丰三年)他启程来华工作,1881年(光绪七年)创设“芝罘学校”。
他不主张公开集资兴募捐,他相信上主会将神蹟奇事带到人间。
戴德生说:“我並不希望上主派遣三百万传教士前来中国工作,可是,不论多或少,祂总会充分资助的!”后来,中国內地会由他组成(1865年),传教士多至千人,在供应上並无缺乏。
戴德生的家人就在这种坚定信仰气氛下长成的。我父亲是继曾祖父之后第三代服务中国的传教士。我们这些孩子们认为父母送我们到芝罘学校当寄宿生然后回到工作岗位上是当然的发展。況且,这场战爭,中日两国为敌,英美两国原是守中立的,(原文作者之父为英国人,母为美国人。─译者)本不直接干系我们的事,是年我七岁,弟弟约翰仅六岁。
1941年十二月八日清晨,我们起床后,惊见日军佈岗於学校通校园外面所有的大门,又在门旁张贴告示:“大日本海军管理”。日本神社的僧侶随后在球场上行了一次祝福仪式。此后学校一变而成日本天皇的财产。
校园里所有的人都起了恐慌不无原因。早饭时间,我们收听广播报导,说:美国舰队在珍珠港被袭起火,继续焚烧中,英舰两艘已沉沒於马来亚海域。这时,我们开了校门看,日军已把守了每一道门,枪上装着刺刀,如临大敌。他们更将我们的校长拘捕,禁止他和任何人接触。
最近一个月来,我们的拉丁文老师马丁先生正积极筹备圣诞节庆祝会中一个傀儡戏的节目。马丁是一位乐观的人,我们有同一想法:战爭決阻止不了我们过节的庆祝。他手持牵动傀儡的细绳索,在校园的空场上大踏步伐,傀儡便随他的动作跳动起来,当着学生和日本兵表演一番。他们见了也不免大笑,和学生笑成一起。人总是一样,都是有感情的。这一着,我们和日本士兵的关系松弛了。真的,有谁还对着那些见了傀儡跳动也会欢笑的武装士兵害怕呢?
由於战爭的混乱,附近的中国人民正在忍受飢饿中,窃贼时常在晚上光顾我们的校园。最令我们老师惊恐的事是一天晨起发现女生们的大衣皆不翼而飞。此后,各级任老师轮班守夜,小学部的女教员在就寝前先将曲棍球棒子在床边放好,以防不测。
话分两头。在离我们约七百英里西北方的凤翔县(地处陕西,在宝鸡市东北约五十华里,系一古城,唐玄宗末期安史之乱平定后,至德二年即公元757年。诗人杜甫在此,朝见肃宗皇帝,官拜左拾遗。─译者)一名圣经学院的学生在开教职员会时将一份中文报纸交给我母亲,那报纸上印着令人震惊的大字标题:
珍珠港被袭!美国参战!
母亲读毕,吓得目瞪口呆,真料不到美国也会介入战爭。她惦念着四个心爱的孩子,会不会有一天被日军所吞噬。又鉴於凶暴的日军於攻入南京前后对中国妇女的強姦兽行,她便不寒而慄,终至木然地倒在臥室中的床上啜泣了。
想起往事来,似乎一场旧梦。幼年,在美国宾州威克拜城的一间教堂里,费贵森牧师曾对她说过这句话:“爱丽斯!如果你对上主所喜悅的人或事尽心做出当做的工作来,那么上主也会对你所喜爱的事或人加以保护。”
后来我母亲将这句话真不晓得重念过多少次呢!按照母亲所说,那时她想到费牧师的那话,以及对上主立下的约。即已坚信上主的应许和护佑,生活中当即恢复了宁靜。
此后,虽有日本飞机多次到陕西来投弹,军队的调动往来频繁,邮件也渐断绝了,但她相信上主的慈手必会遮盖保护。(下期续)
A Song of Salvation at Weihsien Prison Camp
Mary Taylor Previte
They were spilling from the guts of the low-flying plane, dangling from parachutes that looked like giant silk poppies, dropping into the fields outside the concentration camp. The Americans had come.
It was August 1945. “ Weihsien Civilian Assembly Center ,” the Japanese called our concentration camp in China . I was 12 years old. For the past three years, my sister, two brothers and I had been captives of the Japanese. For 5 1/2 years we had been separated from our parents by warring armies.
But now the Americans were spilling from the skies.
I raced for the forbidden gates, which were now awash with cheering, weeping, disbelieving prisoners, surging beyond those barrier walls into the open fields. Americans, British, men, women, children—dressed in proud patches and emaciated by hunger—we made a mad welcoming committee. Our Japanese guards put down their guns and let us go. The war was over.
Kathleen, Jamie, Johnny and I were the children of Free Methodist missionaries. We and all our classmates and teachers had been taken prisoner in the early years of World War II when Japanese soldiers commandeered our boarding school in Chefoo, on the east coast of China . As the Japanese army advanced, my parents, James and Alice Taylor, escaped to China's vast Northwest, where, for the remainder of the war, they continued their missionary work.
Before the war came, the fabled land of my childhood was a country of acient Buddhas, gentle temple bells and simple peasants harnessed to their plows. But across the China Sea , a clique of militarists was rising to power in Japan and pushing for expansion. They wanted “ Asia for the Asians,” with China , Manchuria and Japan cooperating under Japan's leadership.
They struck first in 1931 with an “incident” in Manchuria , and within six months they controlled it under a puppet government. Next, Japan started nibbling at China , eating her, as Churchill said, “like an artichoke, leaf by leaf.” No Allied power was willing to use military force to stop the takeover.
As the Japanese continued to eat away at China , Dad and Mother were finding it increasingly difficult to continue their work in the Henan province in central China . The Japanese soldiers were cocky. When you pass through the city gate, you dismount and bow to us—that was the order. Twice, when Mother hadn't dismounted fast enough from her bicycle, soldiers struck her across the head with a stick.
So Dad and Mother took Johnny and me and headed for a breather in Chefoo, where the two older children, Kathleen and Jamie, were already enroller in school.
The Chefoo School was, more than anything else, a British school. Its purpose was to serve the many children of Protestant missionaries in a vast, foreign continent—to be a tiny outpost where we could learn English and get a Western-style education. The original school had been 10 rooms and an outhouse, but by our time it had grown into a modern campus, a schoolmaster's dream, just a few steps off the beach.
When the Japanese army arrived in Chefoo, Latin master Gordon Martin was teaching a Latin noun to the Forth Form. “So,” he said softly, “here are our new rulers.”
Wearing steel helmets, bemedaled khaki uniforms, highly polished knee-high boots, and carrying bayonets, Japanese soldiers took up duty on the road in front of the school. Swords swaggered at their waists.
From an aircraft carrier in the harbor, a plane dropped leaflets in Chinese explaining “The New Order in East Asia .”
The Japanese Army is coming soon to protect Japanese civilians living in China . The Japanese Army is an army of strict discipline, protecting good citizens. Civil servants must seek to maintain peace and order. Members of the community must live together peacefully and happily. With the return of Japanese businessmen to China , the business will proper once more. Every house must fly a Japanese flag to welcome the Japanese.
--Japanese Army Headquarters
There was no effective resistance. The New Order in Asia had arrived.
It was the schoolteacher in her, I think, but Mother believed in learning things “by heart.” And with so much turmoil around us—war, starvation, anxiety, distrust—she was determined to fill us with faith and trust in God's promises. The best way to do this, she decided, was to put the Psalms to music and sing them with us every day. So with Japanese gunboats in the harbor in front of our house, and with guerrillas limping along Mule Road behind us, bloodied from their nighttime skirmishes with the invaders, we sang Mother's music from Psalm 91 at our family worship each morning:
“I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him will I trust…
“Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror bu night…
“A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand, but…He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways…”
Our little choir soared with the music—“to keep thee in all thy ways…Thou shalt not be afraid…”
We children had also sat wide-eyed in Sunday school, listening to spine-tingling stories of such pioneer missionaries as David Livingston in Africa , John G. Paton in the New Hebrides , and J. Hudson Taylor in China .
Hudson Taylor was my great-grandfather. At 21, he decided to give up his medical studies in England to pursue a dream—to take the Christian faith to every province of China . He sailed to China in 1853, and it was he who founded the Chefoo School in 1881.
He did not believe in public pleas for money or elaborate recruiting drives. He believed in God—and miraculous results.
“We do not expect God to send three million missionaries to China ,” Hudson Taylor had said, “but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all.” Hudson Taylor founder the China Inland Mission, and God sent a thousand missionaries—and money to support them.
We Taylor children grew up on that kind of faith. Our father was the third generation of tailors preaching in China . It seemed only natural to us when, in early 1940, Mother and Dad left us at the Chefoo School and returned far into China to continue their work. After all, it was China's war, Japan's war. England and America were neutral.
I was 7 years old at the time. My brother Johnny was 6.
On the morning of Dec. 8, 1941 , we awoke to find Japanese soldiers stationed at every gate of our school. They had posted notices on the entrances: Under the control of the Naval Forces of Great Japan . Their Shinto priests took over our ballfield and performed some kind of rite and—just like that!—the whole school belonged to the Emperor.
There was reason enough for panic. The breakfast-time radio reported the American fleet in flames at Pearl Harbor and two British battleships sunk off the coast of Malaya . When we opened the school doors, Japanese soldiers with fixed bayonets blocked the entrance. Our headmaster was locked in solitary confinement.
Throughout the month, Mr. Martin, the Latin master, had been preparing a puppet show for the school's Christmas program, and as far as he was concerned the war was not going to stop Christmas. Mr. Martin was like that. With his puppet dancing from its strings, he went walking about the compound, in and out among the children and Japanese sentries.
And the Japanese laughed. They were human! The tension among the children eased after that, for who could be truly terrified of a sentry who could laugh at a puppet?
But with the anarchy of war, the Chinese beyond our gates were starving. Thieves often invaded the school compound at night, and, to our teachers' horror, one morning we came downstairs to find that all the girls' best overcoats had been stolen. After that, the schoolmasters took turns patrolling the grounds after dark, and our prep school principal, Miss Ailsa Carr, and another teacher, Miss Beatrice Stark started sleeping with hockey sticks next to their beds.
* * *
Meanwhile, in Fenghsiang, 700 miles away in northwest China , a Bible school student interrupted a faculty meeting and pushed a newspaper into my mother's hands. Giant Chinese characters screamed the headlines: Pearl Harbor attacked! U.S. enters war!
Mother was stunned. America at war! She had visions of the Japanese war machine gobbling her children—of Kathleen, Jamie, Mary and Johnny in the clutches of the advancing armies. She knew the stories of Japanese soldiers ravishing the women and girls during the Japanese march on Nanking . Numb with shock, she stumbled to the bedroom next door and fell across the bed. Wave after wave of her sobs shock the bed.
Then—it might have been a dream—she heard the voice of Pat Ferguson, her minister back in Wilkes-Barre , Pa. , speaking to her as he had when she was a teenager, saying. “ Alice , if you look after the things that are dear to God, He will look after the things that are dear to you.”
In later years, she told the story a hundred times.
“Peace settled around me,” she said. “The terror was gone. We had an agreement, God and I: I would look after the things that were dear to God, and He would look after the things that were dear to me. I could rest on that promise.”
In the years to come, she said, as Japanese bombs fell around them and as armies marched and mail trickled almost to nothing, “I knew that God had children sheltered in His hand.”(to be continued...)
(英文原文经原作者同意在本报刊出)