Empire of the Sun

Jim leaves the stadium and, believing it is too dangerous to walk alone to Shanghai given his weakened state, walks back to Lunghua airfield. There, as he searches among the planes, he sees a teenage kamikaze pilot. Jim follows the pilot who gives him a mango before striking Jim and directing him toward the perimeter fence.

Jim sees some B-29 American bombers dropping food supplies around the airfield. Jim recovers one of the packages, finding spam, chocolate, powdered milk, and copies of Reader’s Digest. He sees former British prisoners with rifles chasing two Japanese soldiers, one of whom he recognizes as Private Kimura from the camp. Jim watches Kimura get shot.

Jim decides to return to Lunghua camp. There, he is met by an angry British man, Lieutenant Price, who was part of the group of British men who shot Private Kimura. Price does not want to let Jim into the camp but is distracted by the sight of another American supply drop nearby. As Price and some others head off to collect this, Jim is let in by another man, Mr. Tulloch. Jim goes into the camp guardhouse and is later questioned by an agitated Price about possible supplies at the Nantao stadium. Jim believes that Price was tortured by the Japanese and that he wants to express his anger about this by attacking someone.

Jim wanders around the now half-abandoned camp. He visits his old room and describes how it holds a smell that he had never noticed before, “at once enticing and ambiguous” (256), which he realizes is the scent of Mrs. Vincent’s body. Jim then visits the hospital, wishing Dr. Ransome was still there. He watches as flies devour the corpses on the bunks. Finally, he goes into the garden and wonders whether he should water the plants again, before eating two remaining tomatoes.

Jim reflects on how Shanghai and the surrounding countryside “was locked into a zone where there was neither war nor peace, a vacuum that would soon be filled by every warlord and disaffected general in China” (259). Thus, Jim resolves to stay at Lunghua camp where there is a modicum of safety. He even plans to “reserve” a room there for his parents. However, Mr. Tulloch insists that Jim leave the camp, and he is put on a truck, driven by Price and Tulloch, allegedly heading to Shanghai.

On the way to Shanghai, Price and Tulloch take a detour to Nantao stadium, tempted by Jim’s suggestion that there is plenty of alcohol and ammunition to be looted there. However, on approaching the stadium they see a group of men being chased by Chinese Nationalist soldiers. In the confusion, Tulloch is shot and killed by the Nationalists, and Price runs away. Jim hides in the truck but is later found by the first group of men, who turn out to be bandits. One of them strikes Jim. As Jim recovers from the blow, he notices that one of the bandits is Basie, although at first Basie does not acknowledge him.

Jim is saved by Basie from being killed by the leader of the bandits, Captain Soong, a former officer in the Chinese puppet army for the Japanese. Jim is taken on one of the bandit’s trucks alongside several Chinese men, a French man, and some Australians. Yet he is treated as “no more than a dog” (271) and sent ahead to scout and draw fire when the group raids towns. When they raid a communist controlled village to the south of Lunghua, they witness the nationalist navy shelling the village and its inhabitants. Basie then notices the outline of an American cruiser pulling up in Whangpoo river next to Shanghai, signaling the arrival of the US military in the city.

Crossing the Whangpoo River from Pootung near the Nantao stadium, amidst shelling from the Nationalist armies, Basie and the other surviving five bandits leave Jim in the truck as they search for loot. Assuming that they are not coming back for him, Jim decides to leave them and to try and make it to Shanghai alone. As he relaxes in a field, Jim notices what looks like the corpse of the Japanese pilot who earlier gave him a melon.

Jim considers burying the Japanese pilot, then tries feeding him a piece of spam which Jim suddenly feels disgusted by. The corpse’s mouth appears to move when Jim does this, and this leads Jim to believe that he has acquired the power to raise the dead. Later that day, Jim sees men in US army helmets by the control tower at Lunghua airfield. He then runs to Lunghua camp and the camp hospital where he sees Dr. Ransome in a new US uniform and surgical mask. Ransome hugs Jim and explains that his parents are still alive and waiting for him.

Two months have passed since Jim returned to Amherst Avenue with his parents. As he prepares to get on a ship that will take him to England with his mother, he reflects on that time. After he recovered, Jim repeatedly visited the cinema in Shanghai. He also went to Lunghua camp, which was still inhabited by some British families, but the hospital and cemetery were closed. As Jim boards the ship, he realizes that he is probably leaving Shanghai and China for the last time. However, as he says, “only part of his mind would leave Shanghai” (298); the rest of it would be bound to that city for the rest of his life.