Captain Siki Quotes in The Shoe-Horn Sonata
SHEILA: […] Just after Bridie got back on her feet, Captain Siki called a line up. He said: ‘I have good news for Australian womens. Your Emperor, Mr Curtin, sends his greetings. And orders you all to keep smiling.’ At first there was... absolute silence. And then the nurses—[Slightly puzzled]—well I thought they must be crying—because they started to wipe their eyes. But it was from laughter. They were laughing.
M. VOICE: Why? What was so funny?
SHEILA: They were skin and bone and covered in boils—and they’d just been told to ‘keep smiling’! Well they smiled all right. Then they laughed so much they couldn’t control it.
Siki slapped a few faces and they managed to stop. But all that day you could hear these giggles as the joke went right round the camp. There was even laughter after bed time—instead of the usual sobbing and quarrels. The guards would bark and shine their torches—and all would be quiet till some wit muttered ‘Keep smiling, girls!’—and we’d all crack up. We paid dearly for our fun though. The next day Siki lined us up. He made us stand in the sun for hours—and ordered us never to smile again...
Captain Siki Quotes in The Shoe-Horn Sonata
SHEILA: […] Just after Bridie got back on her feet, Captain Siki called a line up. He said: ‘I have good news for Australian womens. Your Emperor, Mr Curtin, sends his greetings. And orders you all to keep smiling.’ At first there was... absolute silence. And then the nurses—[Slightly puzzled]—well I thought they must be crying—because they started to wipe their eyes. But it was from laughter. They were laughing.
M. VOICE: Why? What was so funny?
SHEILA: They were skin and bone and covered in boils—and they’d just been told to ‘keep smiling’! Well they smiled all right. Then they laughed so much they couldn’t control it.
Siki slapped a few faces and they managed to stop. But all that day you could hear these giggles as the joke went right round the camp. There was even laughter after bed time—instead of the usual sobbing and quarrels. The guards would bark and shine their torches—and all would be quiet till some wit muttered ‘Keep smiling, girls!’—and we’d all crack up. We paid dearly for our fun though. The next day Siki lined us up. He made us stand in the sun for hours—and ordered us never to smile again...
