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Miss Florence Wang, a government nurse, also came with a doctor and was admitted on account of her uniform. She brought some precious tomatoes. It worried me-these gifts, because these friends could not afford the things with prices soaring. Each time I climbed the steep ascent of three flights of stairs, my eyes were full of tears of happiness to think of having friends who risked lives to come and give what they could so little spare. Ma Si Fu got us some soy sauce which helped down the rice, and Mrs. Clift had some coffee which she made in a thermos flask, so we were comparatively well off. We had morning and evening prayers and one of the wardresses heard us singing and came and told us she too was a Christian. After that there was nothing within her power she did not do to make us happy. All my life I shall remember her. Family persecution had purged her Christianity of anything not true. She was a daughter of the Master, through and through. Later in camp, I did not see her so frequently as she was not in our section and not in camp for long. Even an agnostic could see that the light and joy in her eyes were not of this world. She was radiant Christianity. One day when I had queued up for a bowl of rice, I was addressed by a red-haired and bearded gnome. "Aren't you Mrs. Cook?" the creature asked, and bless me if it wasn't dear old George Boulton, once an engineer on my husband's ship. We thereupon took hold of hands and danced "Here we go round the mulberry bush" in a fairy circle. His shock of red beard made him unrecognizable. George had had a tough time driving trucks of gasoline and gangs of coolies with it. They had gotten callous to air raids, had eaten and slept where and how they could, and helped themselves to clothing when necessary, and George himself had grown cannier by practice than the canny Scot he was by nature. Mrs. Boulton had been interned in a hospital where she had been working. George thereupon adopted us, fixed our bathroom for us so that it worked and did a hundred odd
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