Eric did not return to teaching. The school year at the Anglo-Chinese college was already under way, and the school did not need any extra teachers. For the first time in a long while, Eric had nothing in particular to do, so he decided to pursue a dream he’d had for a long time. There was little written material available to instruct Chinese pastors in how to effectively lead their churches, and Eric wanted to write a simple manual that would provide such instruction. He began his Manual of Christian Discipleship and worked hard on it every day. He also spoke at many church services and meetings.
Eric was still working on the manual in September when he received a telegram from Flo, who had given birth to a baby girl. Eric longed to see Flo and hold Maureen Liddell, his newest daughter, but he knew it was not yet the right time. Things were getting worse in China, and as a missionary, he had a vital message of hope and encouragement that needed to be shared with people during such a dark time.
December 1941 was not a good month for foreigners in China. On December 7, three hundred fifty Japanese aircraft bombed Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where the American Pacific Fleet was anchored. Two battleships were sunk, and six others were severely damaged. Nearly 2,900 American soldiers and sailors were killed. The same day, the Japanese also attacked the Philippines and British-controlled Malaya and Hong Kong. The following day, December 8, 1941, the United States and Great Britain declared war on Japan.
The world was shocked at the way Japan had launched such vicious attacks. All but the Chinese, who were already well acquainted with the full wrath of Japan’s vicious determination to control them. But the rest of the world had largely ignored the fighting in China. Indeed, the Sino-Japanese War was often referred to as the “Forgotten War” because so few outsiders took any interest in it.
After the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese troops in China became much more hostile towards foreigners, especially the British and Americans, who were now officially “the enemy.” Because of the changed attitude towards foreigners, the London Missionary Society wanted all its missionaries together in one place. It asked Eric and six other men to leave the French concession and relocate into the English concession. Eric was invited to live with the Howard-Smith family. He made the move to their home none too soon. Within days, electrified barricades were erected around the concessions, and Japanese soldiers manned all the gates in and out of them. The Japanese ordered all foreigners to remain inside the concession they were living in. There was to be no more moving about from concession to concession or into the city of Tientsin itself. Nor were there to be any more large meetings held. Any gathering of over ten people was banned.
This ban on meetings posed a challenge for Eric, who had been holding regular church services in the British concession. People from all walks of life, diplomats and textile mill owners, sea captains, teachers, and missionaries, were living there. As the situation in China deteriorated, these people were beginning to worry about what the future might hold for them. They needed comfort and reassurance, and Eric held his regular church service as a way to provide them. And now, when these people needed even more comfort and reassurance in the face of increased Japanese hostility, Eric was being told that he could no longer hold his church services, at least not with more than ten people present.
Eric thought about the problem for a long time and finally came up with a solution. He decided to continue preparing a sermon each week, but instead of preaching the sermon from the pulpit, he wrote it out. Then he enlisted the help of another missionary’s wife, who invited nine people over for afternoon tea. While her guests sipped their tea, the missionary’s wife handed out copies of Eric’s sermon, and together they read and discussed it. Then each of those nine people invited another nine people to their home for afternoon tea and handed out copies of the sermon, which they read and discussed. Then each of those nine did the same for another nine people, and so it went on. In this way, it did not take long before everyone in the concession had heard the week’s sermon, and all without breaking the Japanese order not to hold large public meetings. Eric’s solution became known as the “Afternoon-Tea Church.”
Meanwhile, the Reverend and Mrs. Howard-Smith loved having Eric stay with them. In 100-degree heat, Eric taught their daughters how to play tennis. He also played cricket with them and made up the fourth player if they wanted to play bridge. He showed the girls his stamp collection, and when they got excited about starting one of their own, he spent hours ruling up stamp albums for them. Nothing seemed too much trouble for him. When food supplies in the concession ran low and Mrs. Howard-Smith had difficulty buying bread, Eric volunteered to get in line at the bakery at five o’clock every morning to make sure the family got some.
In a letter to a friend, the Reverend Howard-Smith wrote, “I never saw Eric angry. I never heard him say a cross or unkind word. He just went about doing good.”
By August 1942, Eric was beginning to think that his time in China was nearly over. He had finished the manual he’d been writing, and since he could not leave the British concession, he couldn’t see much point in staying in China. The Japanese had promised that before 1942 had ended, they would grant permission to leave the concessions to anyone who wanted to return to his or her home country. Eric wrote to Flo and explained the situation. He wondered what she thought about the idea of his continuing his pastoral work in Canada. There was plenty of hard work to be done there spreading the gospel message. Flo wrote back to tell him she thought it was a wonderful idea for him to come to Canada. She also told him that Patricia and Heather had both started school and that ten-month-old Maureen was growing and thriving. The letter lifted Eric’s spirits. He could hardly wait to get to Canada and see his family again and begin a new life with them there.
August dragged into September, and September into October. There were many rumors, but no firm word, as to when the Japanese would allow foreigners to leave the concessions to return home. New Year’s Day 1943 came and went, and still no news. There was no news until lunchtime March 12, 1943. But it was not the news Eric or anyone else had been expecting. All British and American “enemies” were to report to Weihsien Internment Camp in the center of Shantung Province, four hundred miles southeast of Tientsin. No “enemies” would be allowed to leave China to return to their home country.
The foreign enemies were given two weeks to prepare for their internment. Each person was allowed to send three trunks and a bed and bedding ahead to the camp. As he loaded his bed onto a waiting Japanese truck, Eric wondered whether he would ever see it again or whether it was just a Japanese ploy to steal beds for their troops. Those to be interned were also to be allowed to carry two pieces of luggage with them to the camp. The Japanese divided the people in the British concession into three groups and made Eric captain of one of the groups. The groups would be transported to the internment camp one at a time over three consecutive days. Eric’s group was scheduled to leave on March 30.
As the day approached, Eric looked at his belongings and wondered what were the best things to take to an internment camp. What would it be like there? Should he prepare for a short stay or a long one? Which was more important, an extra set of clothes or a supply of canned meat, a kettle or a set of encyclopedias? Would he be housed in a dormitory or a cell? The more Eric considered it all, the more questions he had about what lay ahead for him and the other enemies of the Japanese.
Chapter 15
The Courtyard of the Happy Way
At 7:30 p.m. on March 30, 1943, the last group of people left in the British concession gathered near the guard house. There were about three hundred of them, and they looked like a group of rich tourists going on an outing. Many of the women wore heavy mink coats and fashionable high heels. Under their coats they wore beautifully tailored woolen suits. Pearl necklaces and diamond earrings completed their outfits. The men wore suits with starched-collared shirts and striped ties. They all seemed to have far too much luggage with them. There were piles of beach chairs, hat boxes, canteens of silver cutlery, even a set of golf clubs!
Eric couldn’t help but smile to himself as he viewed the sight. They all seemed to have such different ideas of what they would find at the end of their journey, and these ideas were reflected in how the people dressed and what they brought with them.
A few small children wove in and out of the group as they waited. Some of the timid children clutched well-worn teddy bears or held their mothers’ hands tightly. The more adventurous ones clambered over the piles of belongings. They all waited for an hour before the Japanese commander finally arrived and began barking orders. “Everyone, pick up belongings and proceed to railway station. Follow that guard,” he yelled.
A gasp went up from the group. Did the Japanese really expect them to carry all of their luggage themselves? It was three miles to the railway station.
“How dare they?” whispered one well-dressed woman to her husband. “Tell him we want to hire a Chinese servant to carry our luggage for us.”
Eric watched as her husband shook his head. “We’ll just have to leave what we cannot manage, Ethel,” he replied glumly.
“Now!” bellowed the Japanese commander above the noise of the crowd. “Go now. Hurry, hurry.”
Eric picked up his two bags and began the trek to the train station. He felt grateful in a way. He had lived out on the Great Plain and had experienced the hardship of war firsthand. He had gone hungry, been shot at, and slept on dirt floors. Most of the people around him had never experienced anything like it. Most of them had led pampered colonial lives. They’d had servants to do their washing, servants to run their baths, servants to make their beds and cook their meals. They’d had chauffeurs to run their wives to bridge parties and chauffeurs to pick up their children from exclusive private schools. For every task they had found unpleasant, boring, or time-consuming, there had been a Chinese servant pleased to earn a few pennies doing it. But that lifestyle had come to an abrupt end, and Eric wondered how these people were going to adjust to the new life that lay ahead of them.
The group trudged through the gates of the British concession for the last time. Eric glanced behind him. A pile of belongings sat by the side of the road; virtually everything that Eric or anyone else in the group owned, if it had not been sent ahead to the camp, had been abandoned. Hand-carved mahogany dining tables, glistening chandeliers, collections of hunting rifles, and libraries filled with first-edition leather-bound books had all been left behind. Within days, it would all be looted from their houses and sold on the black market.
Eric walked in silence. Many of the women around him wept quietly as they marched in two lines down the street. Chinese people stood on both sides of the road. Many of them bowed slightly as the foreigners straggled by. The Chinese people were in a difficult position. Most of them resented the concessions and the way foreigners made so much money off their country. But at the same time, the British were their allies against the Japanese. In this war at least, the two were on the same side.
It took an hour for the group to reach the station. Once there, they were told to wait for the train that would take them on the four hundred-mile journey to Weihsien Internment Camp.
No one said much as the train puffed into view pulling a row of third-class carriages. When the train came to a halt, the British prisoners were herded inside. Too many people were crammed into the filthy carriages for anyone to get comfortable. Some people sat on suitcases while others perched on straight-backed wooden benches. Babies cried, and toddlers whined for their beds and their dinners.
