Page 321 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 321
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
Gongsong had already hired a ‘huagan’ to take us to Yang Xian. So after a cup of tea, Dorothy and I
set off in the huagan to travel the seventeen miles to Yang Xian. We had to cross the river about six
times, so it was very slow. At some places there was a ferry, but at some places there was none and
we had to be carried on men’s backs as they waited there for that purpose. Dorothy found it very
funny to see her Mummy being carried by any other man except her Daddy! I think it was the first time
I had ever crossed the river in this way. The man put his arms behind his back and kneeled while I
kneeled with my knees on his hands and my arms round his head. I was high on his back and well
above the water which, at the deepest, was only about up to his waist. It was quite wide though, and I
was glad I did not have to wade across.
We got to Yang Xian about four in the afternoon. Next day we started in early at the work and, with
Helen sorting and me packing, we got along fairly quickly. On the next day (Wednesday) boatmen
came in to see if we wanted to send boxes up river by boat to Chenggu, and offered to start off with it
early next morning if we were ready. We were not, but we stayed up till midnight, and at last it was all
ready. The men came very early and took it all off, and Helen and I had the day free to tidy up the
house and yard. I was asked to speak at the Women’s Meeting that afternoon. I could not help
thinking of my early attempts to speak in Chinese at the Yang Xian Women’s Meetings fourteen years
earlier when I was a very young and inexperienced missionary! We were invited out to a meal that
night and on Friday morning hired rickshaws to take us back to Hanzhong. I enjoyed that trip. The
Hanzhong plain is such a fertile one, where everything seems to grow in abundance. The autumn
crops were all being reaped and there seemed to be a bumper crop of everything. I saw rice of
course, but also cotton, hemp, soya beans, a small green bean we called liu dou, sesame, millet and
sorghum, peanuts and walnuts, persimmons, tangerine oranges and other fruits as well. It was a
wonderful place to live and I loved it.
The next visitors to stay with me while Percy was still up north, were rather unusual ones, though we
were quite used to all kinds of people turning up on our doorstep. These were three American men
who were called the Graves Digging Commission. Their job was to look for American planes which
had been shot down or had crashed in the mountains in our area during the war. They had to try and
find and identify the bodies of any men, and if possible take them home for burial. They were Major
Wight, Lieutenant Parker and Corporal Hurst. Corporal Hurst had gone to a Roman Catholic school,
but his people were Methodists and he was very interested in all we did and in our family prayers.
Parker was not so pleasant, inclined to be rather grumpy, but that may have been because he had
been married just four days before being sent on this job and he was not happy about the separation
from his wife. He seemed quite young, but was a parachutist with 161 jumps to his credit and ever so
many medals.
They made their base with us, but were sometimes away for days at a time looking for lost planes.
Then they would come home with a great bag of bones which they might empty on to our dining room
table. Often they found it hard to identify them as human bones, but the whole lot would be sent off to
Shanghai for more expert identification. If they found any medals around the site to let them know
who the dead men were, they sent these with the bones, and coffins would be sent home to the
parents or wives for burial, but the Commission could never be sure that the bones put in any coffin
were actually those of the man whose name was labelled on the outside. Parents of course, knew
nothing of this, and I felt that at least it was a comfort to them to have some proof their loved one was
actually dead and they could mourn for him. I knew there were mothers who found it hard to accept
that their son was dead, and Percy, as Base Chaplain, for years after the war ended, received letters
asking if we were quite sure their son was not still alive somewhere in our mountains, as his body had
never been sent home (or found). I was rather glad that Frank was not home while all this was going
on. His curious mind and vivid imagination would have asked too many awkward questions.
321
Amy Moore
Gongsong had already hired a ‘huagan’ to take us to Yang Xian. So after a cup of tea, Dorothy and I
set off in the huagan to travel the seventeen miles to Yang Xian. We had to cross the river about six
times, so it was very slow. At some places there was a ferry, but at some places there was none and
we had to be carried on men’s backs as they waited there for that purpose. Dorothy found it very
funny to see her Mummy being carried by any other man except her Daddy! I think it was the first time
I had ever crossed the river in this way. The man put his arms behind his back and kneeled while I
kneeled with my knees on his hands and my arms round his head. I was high on his back and well
above the water which, at the deepest, was only about up to his waist. It was quite wide though, and I
was glad I did not have to wade across.
We got to Yang Xian about four in the afternoon. Next day we started in early at the work and, with
Helen sorting and me packing, we got along fairly quickly. On the next day (Wednesday) boatmen
came in to see if we wanted to send boxes up river by boat to Chenggu, and offered to start off with it
early next morning if we were ready. We were not, but we stayed up till midnight, and at last it was all
ready. The men came very early and took it all off, and Helen and I had the day free to tidy up the
house and yard. I was asked to speak at the Women’s Meeting that afternoon. I could not help
thinking of my early attempts to speak in Chinese at the Yang Xian Women’s Meetings fourteen years
earlier when I was a very young and inexperienced missionary! We were invited out to a meal that
night and on Friday morning hired rickshaws to take us back to Hanzhong. I enjoyed that trip. The
Hanzhong plain is such a fertile one, where everything seems to grow in abundance. The autumn
crops were all being reaped and there seemed to be a bumper crop of everything. I saw rice of
course, but also cotton, hemp, soya beans, a small green bean we called liu dou, sesame, millet and
sorghum, peanuts and walnuts, persimmons, tangerine oranges and other fruits as well. It was a
wonderful place to live and I loved it.
The next visitors to stay with me while Percy was still up north, were rather unusual ones, though we
were quite used to all kinds of people turning up on our doorstep. These were three American men
who were called the Graves Digging Commission. Their job was to look for American planes which
had been shot down or had crashed in the mountains in our area during the war. They had to try and
find and identify the bodies of any men, and if possible take them home for burial. They were Major
Wight, Lieutenant Parker and Corporal Hurst. Corporal Hurst had gone to a Roman Catholic school,
but his people were Methodists and he was very interested in all we did and in our family prayers.
Parker was not so pleasant, inclined to be rather grumpy, but that may have been because he had
been married just four days before being sent on this job and he was not happy about the separation
from his wife. He seemed quite young, but was a parachutist with 161 jumps to his credit and ever so
many medals.
They made their base with us, but were sometimes away for days at a time looking for lost planes.
Then they would come home with a great bag of bones which they might empty on to our dining room
table. Often they found it hard to identify them as human bones, but the whole lot would be sent off to
Shanghai for more expert identification. If they found any medals around the site to let them know
who the dead men were, they sent these with the bones, and coffins would be sent home to the
parents or wives for burial, but the Commission could never be sure that the bones put in any coffin
were actually those of the man whose name was labelled on the outside. Parents of course, knew
nothing of this, and I felt that at least it was a comfort to them to have some proof their loved one was
actually dead and they could mourn for him. I knew there were mothers who found it hard to accept
that their son was dead, and Percy, as Base Chaplain, for years after the war ended, received letters
asking if we were quite sure their son was not still alive somewhere in our mountains, as his body had
never been sent home (or found). I was rather glad that Frank was not home while all this was going
on. His curious mind and vivid imagination would have asked too many awkward questions.
321
