Empire of the Sun

Jim describes his living arrangements in the camp. He shares a room with a British couple, Mr. and Mrs. Vincent, and their six-year-old son, whom they partition off from Jim so that he is living in a cubicle. Despite Mrs. Vincent’s hostility toward him, “like all the men and older boys in G Block, Jim was attracted to Mrs Vincent” (144). Jim also notes how the Japanese had “celebrated” VE day, the day of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender to the allies, by cutting the already inadequate rations in half.

Jim discusses his relationship to Mr. Maxted, who had once been a wealthy architect and friend of his parents. Out of nostalgia, Jim helps Mr. Maxted collect and distribute the prisoner’s rations by pushing around a wooden cart. However, “the Studebaker and the afternoon girls in the gambling casinos had prepared Mr. Maxted poorly for the world of the camp” (146). Mr. Maxted’s physical condition has severely deteriorated through starvation, and he is close to death. Related to this, Jim discusses the worsening food situation in the camp, as he eats the weevils on his cracked corn ration and thinks about the starving Chinese peasants who try to break into the camp.

Jim reflects on the airfield at Lunghua that he helped build for the Japanese alongside Basie and the Chinese prisoners. As he says, “his commitment to the Japanese Air Force stemmed from the still fearful knowledge that he had nearly given his life to build the runway” (156). Jim also thinks about the kamikaze pilots he recently saw departing from the base, and how they were ignored by the other Japanese soldiers. While on the balcony of the camp assembly hall, Jim witnesses a huge American air raid on the airfield in which three American planes are shot down by anti-aircraft fire. He sees two American pilots parachuting to safety, only to be shot by Japanese soldiers when they land.

Jim is taken to assist at the makeshift camp hospital after the air raid by Dr. Ransome, a British doctor and friend of Jim’s. Most of the patients there are suffering from malaria, malnutrition, dysentery, and beriberi. However, the hospital has no medicine, and prisoners who go there have their rations cut in half by the guards who correctly assume that they will shortly die. Jim views these deaths positively, as they afford him the opportunity to take clothes and other items from the dead which he can then barter for food.

After a roll call held by the Japanese sergeant in the hospital, Jim visits the garden behind the hospital where he is responsible for tending to the vegetables. He then rests by one of the graves in the cemetery, watching two of the other prisoners bury a man, Mr. Radik, who recently died in the hospital. Mr. Radik had given some interesting lectures in the camp, and to repay him Jim helps bury him properly. Jim also steals two tomatoes from the garden to barter with Basie for books and magazines. However, on noticing Jim with the tomatoes, Dr. Ransome insists that Jim eat them himself.

Jim watches the “Lunghua players,” the camp’s amateur dramatics group, rehearse on the parade ground. Jim remembers enjoying being cast as a page in their production of Henry V. However, he has been overlooked for a part in The Importance of Being Earnest. Jim then goes to visit Basie in the U.S. dormitory in E-Block and exchanges a pack of condoms Dr. Ransome had given him, the unofficial currency of the camp, for a sweet potato. Basie tells Jim that rumors of their rations being cut in half are false. As Jim finishes eating his potato, he sees the truck from Shanghai with the prisoner’s rations arriving at the camp.

Jim sees from the truck that, contrary to Basie’s reassurances, the rations for the prisoners have been halved. Standing on the steps of E-block, Jim sees the Japanese guards assaulting a Chinese rickshaw driver who brought a Japanese officer to the camp on the parade ground. The guards beat the man to death with sticks. This, says Jim, is “to show the British prisoners that the Japanese despised them […] for not daring to move an inch to save this Chinese” (191).

Jim and the other prisoners notice that the Japanese guards are leaving the camp. This sparks rumors among the prisoners that the war has ended. These rumors prove to be false, but in the coming days food supplies to the camp are stopped altogether, and within another week, by the start of August, the detainees have exhausted their last reserves of food. Just as the prisoners are getting restless, more Japanese soldiers appear and inform them that they are being moved to a camp near the town of Nantao.

The prisoners are led on an exhausting march to the dockyards at Nantao, with Jim so tired that he is continually falling behind. He believes that they are being taken to Nantao so that they can be killed where the American planes which fly over Lunghua cannot see them. In his delirious, food-deprived state Jim starts to believe that he and the other prisoners are already dead.

As he drinks water from a polluted river near Nantao, Jim decides to give up the wooden case with all his remaining possessions, as it is becoming too much of a burden to carry. The prisoners then reach a repurposed Olympic football stadium a few miles west of Nantao. It was originally built by the Chinese government in a bid to host the 1940 Olympic games. The remaining 1200 prisoners who have not died on the march are herded into stadium in the dark and rain. The stadium reminds Jim of the detention center in Shanghai except with “all its dangers magnified a hundredfold” (218).

The following morning Jim attends to a prostrate and nearly dead Mr. Maxted, while columns of the prisoners who are still able to stand are marched off. Using his hands, Jim takes water from a pool that has gathered nearby to give to Mr. Maxted. He also gives the water to the badly ill Mrs. Vincent. As he realizes that the last of the prisoners are being walked to death, he sees a strange, intensely bright flash of light in the distance before passing out on the grass of the football field.