Tenko (TV Series) - First Series

First Series

The first series establishes the pre-war lives of many of the characters before chronicling the fall of Singapore and the evacuation of British nationals from the city. The first two episodes set in Singapore focus on the characters Marion Jefferson, Vicky Armstrong, Rose Millar, Doctor Beatrice Mason, nurse Kate Norris, nurse Nellie Keane, Christina Campbell and Sister Ulrica.

On New Year's Eve, there is a big party at Raffles, where many of the civilians remain wilfully ignorant of the Japanese advance. Colonel Jefferson urges his wife, Marion, to leave the city as he knows the Japanese are just a few days out. Marion reluctantly agrees. Christina Campbell, half-Scots and half-Chinese, attempts to join the evacuation, but is denied passage because she looks partially Chinese and the passage officer demands to see her father's birth certificate before he'll issue her a ticket. Simon Treves, an officer who has been spending more and more time with Christina, 'reasons' with the passage officer by pointing a revolver at him until he issues her a ticket, and Christina is given a ticket. Dr Mason dismisses the nurses and tells them to evacuate, but stays herself to tend to the wounded.

The evacuation ship arrives and is loaded: Marion, Vicky, Christina, Kate, Nellie, Rose, Tom (Kate's Fiance)and Bernard (Rose's Boyfriend) all board the ship for the several-day voyage to Australia. During the voyage, the ship is torpedoed and sinks in the Java sea. Vicky Armstrong, Marion's best friend, drowns after the ship sinks; however, all the other major characters survive and gather on a beach of Kampong Getah and take shelter in an abandoned house. Here they are discovered by a group of Japanese soldiers and are subsequently captured. The women are separated from the men, who are marched elsewhere.

The women are marched through the jungle to a makeshift camp which has appalling living conditions where they meet other women who have also been captured by the Japanese. These include Beatrice Mason who was captured after dismissing her nurses, tarty Cockney Blanche Simmons (Louise Jameson), newlywed Sally Markham (Joanna Hole), mother and daughter Judith (Ann Queensberry) and Debbie Bowen (Karin Foley), and Sylvia Ashburton (Renée Asherson), a haughty general's wife and friend of Marion.

All the women are interned under Commandant Yamauchi (Burt Kwouk), a deeply traditional Japanese soldier, who regards the prisoners as "fourth-class women". His sadistic deputy, Lieutenant Sato (Eiji Kusuhara), is dubbed "Satan" by the inmates. Conditions in the camp are harsh: no clean water, rats, no mosquito nets and little more than rice and water for the inmates to eat and drink. A group of Dutch prisoners are also interned in the camp shortly, notably their leader, Sister Ulrica, and the rich, selfish Mrs. Van Meyer, the Dutch having brought many of their possessions with them.

The first series chronicles the women's first year in captivity, focusing on their efforts to adjust to being interned and to their new Dutch companions, learning to work together as a community while the hope of Allied rescue lingers long in their minds. The degradation and privation of internment is counterpointed by the camaraderie that grows through the enforced intimacy of their situation and the self-esteem achieved through small victories such as the rebuilding of a burnt-out hut to use as a sick bay.

From the onset of being interned in the camp, the women agree they need a spokesperson to represent them all, and Marion Jefferson is nominated as the leader for the British. Initially, several of the women and Marion herself have doubts regarding her ability to lead them due to her only experience being as a wife and a mother. However, over time she proves herself more than capable.

Close bonds of friendship are formed in the camp, namely between Blanche and Rose, and between Sally Markham and Nurse Nellie Keane. Upon arrival at the camp, Sally learns she is pregnant and finds herself increasingly reliant on the support of Nellie as her pregnancy reaches full term. Sally goes into premature labour and gives birth to a still-born baby, which she calls Eleanor. She and Nellie become closer as Nellie tries to console her for the loss of her baby. Nellie subsequently moves into Sally's hut to help her get over her loss. As the two spend more and more time together, Dorothy starts rumours about Nellie and Sally, and the prisoners' opinion run high over whether the friendship is 'unnatural'. Nellie finds herself falling in love with Sally, but this is not reciprocated by Sally who sees Nellie as just a friend. Eventually, Sally learns of the gossip when she discovers graffiti on the latrine wall. Sally and Nellie distance their relationship, Nellie moves back to her own hut and throws herself into the sick bay, eventually forging a close friendship with Beatrice Mason during the end of the series.

Dorothy Bennett is interned in the camp with her newborn baby Violet, after seeing her husband Dennis shot by the Japanese on the beach. As a result she has become despondent and distant from Violet but, when she does turn her attention to her baby, it is clear that she needs milk, as her breast milk has dried up, and she begins to undertake chores for Mrs. Van Meyer,who resents being forced to work by the Japanese, in exchange for money in order to buy food for Violet from the trader coming to the camp selling food. Additionally, she turns to smuggling milk from the trader's wife who also comes to the camp. Sneaking out of camp to get the milk, Dorothy is deeply scratched by barbed wire; Violet develops diarrhoea. When Dorothy's untreated wound becomes infected and then discovered, Dorothy's smuggling becomes known to the other internees. Sister Ulrica wants to tell the commandant so that Dorothy's trespass won't cause punishment for all the prisoners.

The smuggling is discovered by the Japanese and all traders are forbidden to come to the camp any more; night roll calls are started, and meals are available only twice a day. (This causes a schism between the British and Dutch internees, but Marion and Ulrica manage to bring the groups together.) In the blistering heat, the trader's wife is tied to a pole in the compound for punishment; Dorothy does smuggle water to her at night, but she dies. As Dorothy can no longer feed Violet, the baby dies, becoming the first of many deaths in the camp. Subsequently, Dorothy turns away from her fellow internees to prostitution, selling herself to the guards for food and cigarettes.

Early on in the camp, all medicines are collected when Beatrice Mason realises they have very little in the way of medical supplies in relation to the increasing amount of sickness. An increasing number of women become sick and malaria becomes prevalent in the camp with requests for quinine denied. Marion arranges for the women to rebuild one of the burned-down huts into a sickbay in order to separate the sick from the other prisoners.

The other prisoners notice Blanche is smoking a lot of cigarettes; she also supplies a round of tea to the prisoners in her hut. The internees speculate that she may have become too friendly with the guards. Blanche fills in as Debbie's mother while Judith remains sick with Malaria. When one of the malaria patients die, Bea asks Blanche if there is any possibility of her obtaining any quinine, but Blanche has already tried and can't. Blanche sees Dorothy going off with a guard, and asks Dorothy if there's any chance of quinine from the quarter, but Dorothy refuses to ask.

The sick hut is completed, and the internees hold a party to celebrate; the British dress up in their best clothes. One of the guards tells Blanche that Red Cross parcels have arrived. Still in their party clothes, Blanche, Rose and Dorothy slip over to the supply hut to count them. The trio are caught by three guards, who take them into the hut to 'view the parcels'. Blanche and Dorothy are willing to trade themselves for quinine, but Rose balks. The guards attempt to rape them but are stopped by other guards who hear Rose's screams, and all six are caught by Lieutenant Sato. During the ensuing confusion, Blanche palms some quinine .

Captain Yamauchi strongly wants the rape story to be a lie, saying that the women tried to seduce the men. Dorothy agrees; Rose and Blanche deny the story, and are tied to the punishment poles in the compound. Sylvia overhears Dorothy with one of the guards, and Marion reports her to Yamauchi, who warns her to keep the women away from the guards. Rose and Blanche are released from the poles and Dorothy is assigned to extra work details. Blanche is determined to be revenged on Dorothy, but Yamauchi forbids reprisals. The quinine works on the malaria patients, and Judith thanks Blanche.

Judith Bowen, having survived the first bout of malaria, later dies when it returns for a second time and Marion promises Judith she will take care of Debbie. After this, Blanche becomes determined to escape from the camp. Blanche, Rose, and Kate propose the formation of an escape committee, but the idea is rejected as the jungle is too dangerous to live in, and the island and the surrounding area are all Japanese-held. Everyone agrees except for Blanche, who tells Rose she is determined to escape. Rose considers joining her, but decides to remain in camp in case Bernard is still alive.

Blanche forges an escape plan, telling only Rose. Debbie's friendship with Blanche increases, and she tells Blanche that her family name is actually Cohen, and they're Jewish. Blanche advises her to keep it secret. Van Meyer accuses the British children of theft, but Debbie discovers that it's actually Blanche preparing for her escape and tries to blackmail her into allowing her to join in. Blanche refuses, but Debbie gatecrashes the night of the escape. Dorothy finds them making preparations, but promises not to turn them in. When Rose finds out from Dorothy that Blanche is taking Debbie, she tells Marion, who tells Yamauchi in hopes that he will be lenient with Debbie, as Rose fears Blanche will never make it with Debbie and Marion had been asked by Judith to look after her. Blanche and Debbie are re-captured and staked for a period of time.

Blanche blames Rose for her betrayal, whereas Rose was only trying to protect Blanche, knowing she would not survive with Debbie.

Christina Campbell is initially very scared when brought to the camp, having just buried her mother in Singapore, and at the beginning of the series faces racism from Sylvia Ashburton, who displays her prejudices and refuses to sleep next to her. She forges a close friendship with Rose Millar, who sticks up for Christina against Sylvia and contracts malaria early on, but survives. She takes on the role of school teacher and begins to teach the children within the camp, before eventually working for commandant Yamauchi as an interpreter and personal assistant.

At the end of the series the internees are informed they must move to another camp, Mrs. Van Meyer has contracted beri beri, Beatrice Mason is finding it hard to cope with no medical supplies and a list of all male prisoners alive on the island is given to the women. Sally's husband, Peter, is not on the list, indicating that he is dead. The series ends with the women on yet another long march into the jungle.