5
A House but not a Home
March 1942
We had been at the camp for less than three weeks when we were woken at three o’clock in the morning and ordered to assemble. Everyone, except for the most gravely ill and some of the nurses, was given a handful of rice wrapped in a banana skin, and we set off in a crocodile to walk back through the jungle to the jetty. There, after walking its interminable length carrying our personal goods, we were packed onto an ancient rusting freight boat to depart for the main island of Sumatra.
I was sitting, on the deck, knees bent, Mum beside me, when someone tapped my shoulder.
‘Look,’ Veronica said, her voice uncharacteristically soft. ‘Have you ever seen such a beautiful sunrise?’
I turned to look eastward. It was breathtaking, suffused with pink, turni
