Anything to ease the mounting tension.
For a while, a forty-year-old Australian-born Trappist monk, worried more for the children than for his own safety, used a drainage tunnel as a means of smuggling food into Weihsien—that is, until one of his lookouts became preoccupied by a female internee. A Japanese guard caught Father Patrick Scanlan in the act and sent him to a cell within the Japanese side of the camp.
But the monk was not discouraged. Instead of bemoaning his fate, when night cloaked the prison, he bellowed songs as loudly and as off-key as possible until finally the guards—who had been unable to catch so much as a wink of sleep—told him if he would only stop the noise, they would release him from his sentence early.
He did . . . and they did. And when he returned to the internees, everyone—including Eric—gave him a hero’s welcome.
But at the end of the day, the incomparable Eric Liddell was human. While some of his fellow internees were not even aware that he had a family in Canada (he always seemed more interested in the families of others than in talking about himself), in his most quiet times, he worried about Florence and his girls. He wondered when he would hold them and kiss them again.
And he wondered when he would finally meet his little Maureen.
The Japanese enforced strict rules on the camp, but they did allow the internees to worship freely. Catholic mass was held regularly for the high volume of Catholic priests and nuns in the camp (although they were moved to Peking at summer’s end 1943—a sad day forthe entire camp). Sunday school and Protestant services were held in the Weihsien Union Church building located to the right of the camp’s gates. Evenings brought the opportunity for hymn-sings and concerts. The Salvation Army band performed public meetings on Thursday nights and provided an hour of song in the open square on Sunday mornings.
Eric knew that healthy religion produced healthy citizens—for any society. Daily, he set out in his typically quiet example, authentically demonstrating this point, despite the loudening drumbeat of sentiment to the contrary. Every morning he and dorm mate Joe Cotterill rose long before the sun, lit a peanut-oil lamp, and—using Eric’s book of daily Bible readings—studied the Word together. They discussed what they’d read, prayed together, and then set off for their individual tasks, each day more bonded than the day before. And while these moments of Bible reading and prayer would forever shape Joe’s spiritual life, he was also one of the few to ever see Eric truly angry.
Eric helped organize game nights for the youth to keep their minds off things of a more carnal nature. Both Eric and Joe were among the volunteer chaperones, ensuring that the games played were appropriate—such as checkers or chess.
One evening when Joe failed to show up for his turn at chaperoning, Eric dropped in and found the games without adult supervision. When Eric found Cotterill, he issued an adamant reprimand. “We have to be the adults here, Joe!” he said to his stunned roommate. “These young people are finding life difficult enough right now, and it’s our role to keep them in line.”
In addition to teaching, coaching, and other various duties, Eric had been elected as one of the twenty members of the Weihsien Christian Fellowship General Committee and was given charge of the youth department. Subsequently he seemed always surrounded by children and teens. Eric recognized the vital importance of the responsibility.
Many of the youth flocked to Scotland’s greatest athlete, not for his fame but because of his genuine care and interest in them. Besides helping with their schoolwork, Eric established a rapport and played games with them. Often he came up with clever ways to celebrate life’s events with them, since these events were usually overshadowed by other concerns. In his trademark style, he created greeting cards accentuated with puns or told the children innocent inside jokes. As the children became aware of their circumstances—as they watched grown men and women dwindle down to unlivable weights and attended the funerals of those too sick to survive—Eric’s genuine and persistent assurance of God took effect on their often-damp spirits.
But when they asked Eric to play games on Sundays, the answer was a firm no.
In the late 1960s, a man then in his midforties sent a letter to D. P. Thomson to share his memories of Eric. In it he wrote,
I met Eric for the first time in Weihsien Internment Camp in 1943 when I was 18 years of age. At a special evangelism rally he spoke on the story of the rich young ruler, showing us in a way I shall never forget the cost of Christian discipleship. I was immediately impressed by his humility and directness of speech. This was apparent not only at a religious meeting but also as a coach or referee on the playing field or in the lecture hall.
Together with other young people I had the great privilege of listening to Eric, as a private tutor, lecture on Physics and Chemistry. As I recall his painstaking teaching methods, and his patience with me who was always slow to grasp mathematical formulae, I am amazed and grateful for this example of a superb teacher.[95]
How thrilled many of Eric’s pupils felt when, years after detainment, the schooling they received in the camp was deemed acceptable at top universities.
Eric’s disciplined and methodical approach to life, with his solemn religious routines, soon became apparent not
