ROBIN HYDE’S ORDEAL

Southland Times, Issue 23948, 14 October 1939, Page 10

ROBIN HYDE’S ORDEAL

Life In China’s War Zone

DRAGON RAMPANT. By Robin Hyde. Hurst & Blackett, London, through Whitcombe & Tombs. Price 8/6 net.

Robin Hyde’s last book, published not long before her tragic death in London, will be read by New Zealanders with an interest deepened by regret. It describes the author’s adventures in the war zone in China, and includes unforgettable pen pictures of events that are the raw material of history. Had it been written a little more carefully it would undoubtedly have achieved greatness. Even in her best work Robin Hyde succumbed at times to a sort of literary impatience, so that her eagerness to put her thoughts and feelings into words led her to ignore the formalities of style which give clarity and an easy continuity of expression. “Dragon Rampant” is not always smooth reading. The changes of tense, the vagaries of syntax and the abrupt transitions of the theme suggest that the book was written in great haste, and perhaps in a weariness of mind and body. Few readers will feel surprise at these symptoms of strain: the amazing thing is that the author should have been able to write so soon and so effectively after experiences that would have crushed an average mind into dullness. The first part of the book is interesting, but not unusual. Robin Hyde was an impressionable traveller, and her reactions to Hong Kong and Shanghai, her encounters with strange and attractive people (for she made friends quickly) allowed her to write some stimulating pages. She made herself at home in China and was receptive to aspects of life that would escape the notice of a superficial observer. But it was not long before she began to grow restless. Her first intention had been to stay briefly at Hong Kong and then to travel via the trans-Siberian railway to London. Perhaps the refugees and the street scenes unsettled her. She went on to Shanghai and began to think about setting out for the war zone. At Hankow she met more interesting people, interviewed Chinese officials, skirmished with some male journalists who obviously did not want to be encumbered with a woman when they left for the front, and finally succeeded in gaining the first pass issued to a foreign woman by the Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek. After that she went on to Hsuchow and had her glimpse of trenches, dug-outs, Japanese soldiers like ants at their distant outposts, and the country which was then the centre of strategic activity.

THE ESCAPE At this point the book enters its best phase. The Japanese troops were drawing near; she arrived back at Hsuchow in time to witness the intensive air bombardment which came a few days before the Japanese occupied the city. There was still time for her to escape; but she waited for various reasons until the roads wen closed. She stayed at the mission hospital, helping with the ■ zounded (five Chinese soldiers whose wounds she dressed were bayoneted the next day when the enemy arrived) and caught up in the tension that kept the population in a state of nervous expectancy. When the Japanese marched in she saw some ugly things and had one or two narrow escapes as the troops hunted through the city. Eventually she made up her mind to walk through the Japanese line's. This was an experience with terrifying possibilities. Three miles up the railway line she passed peasants working ii the fields whih dead soldiers lay nearby. “I c-unted over 100 of these dead, in places stepping across them where they lay huddled by the tracks.” Then she came to a station occupied by Japanese soldiers. “They were extremely jovial

and friendly, and inclined to shower me with food.” Later a Chinese peasant guided her a short distance; but when some soldiers appeared he pushed her out of sight rather too quickly, so that she fell down a steen bank and Jay semi-conscious through most of the night. When she recovered in the morning she found that a thorn had pierced one eye. She struggled gamely on, meeting with good and bad treatment until finally she was thrust on a troop train that carried her, much against her will, back to Hsuchow. But she was determined to get away, and again she began the long, weary pilgrimage up the railway track. This time she came close to disaster. At a railway station a group of Japanese soldiers ill-treated her (one of them kept slapping her face for about 20 minutes), and it was only after she vented a grand rage .against them that they let her go. She walked on through dust and rain, intensely weary. And at last she found a Japanese officer who put her on a troop train that carried her to Tsingtao, and safety. This last part of . the book is written quietly: the secret of its power is in the starkness of a narrative that needed no emphasis beyond the bare recital of events. It is impossible to read to the end without wondering at the strength of will which carried this woman, weak and unprotected, through an ordeal that few men could face successfully. Yet it is easier, now, to understand the tragic sequel in London. The things that Robin Hyde saw in China are recorded in her book; but they remained also in her mind, and there must have been times when the memories were oppressive. At Tsingtao she received kindness from the British Consulate. But the last two sentences are strangely significant. “I didn’t think of much except getting on to Hong Kong. In Hong Kong were some Chinese people I knew.” Those who read the account of Mr W. J. Jordan’s last interview with Robin Hyde in London will remember that she spoke longingly of returning to China. She had lived through so much, it seemed, that her thoughts could not escape from the country and the people to whom she had given sympathy and affection, and more strength than she could spare. The long walk from Hsuchow took her away from the Japanese; but it did not take her from China.