When You Were Absent

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discipline" was charmingly concealed in a warning that the ship was now Japanese property, and as such any damage done by person or persons would be accountable to ----, etc. It was politely phrased - not like the bald, unmistakable warning that the German hands out: - "Saboteurs will be instantly shot." In hundreds of years Heidelberg, Bonn, Leipsic, and Berlin have produced a few gentlemen. Tokyo has done better. · With Japanese permission I gathered the foreigners and as many Chinese who could understand English to the saloon and explained the position to them. I sent a number of helpers to the crowded decks below to re-assure the Chinese that all was well and to obey, unquestioningly all orders given. The Japanese marines were posted at various strategic points about the vessel. They were orderly, well behaved, and made no attempt to interfere with anyone. To my assembled passengers, both Western and Asiatic, after explaining the situation, I read the 14th Chapter of John. My Japanese captors were in the throng. My people, as I, were temporarily stunned by the sudden change in their status. Last night they were free, - today, captive. There were wives whose husbands were in Hong Kong, men whose wives were in Shanghai, Hong Kong or some other Eastern centre. The was one young U.S. girl who had come out to Canton "on Faith" that God had called her. She had no friends and no money. Someone in Hong Kong had given a blind boy into her charge to take to the School for the Blind in Canton. There were other problems. The women smugglers in the steerage demanded their passage money back - 50 cents in U.S. money. Why? We had fulfilled our part of the contract by taking them to Canton and the Japanese were arranging free transportation between ship and shore. Rich Chinese ladies were besieging me to know if the Japanese would take their jewels. I was thinking in terms of lives, not materials. I was grateful to the Japanese to allow me to be free to mix with the passengers and settle these problems. While doing this I got an opportunity to go to my toilet and destroy a secret safe cover that was on my person. When the Japanese had boarded one of their first orders was to unlock the lavatories and throw the excrement buckets

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