CHAPTER 11
ORDINARY TIME, EXTRAORDINARY DAYS
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:7
Early Summer 1929
“How about a game of billiards?”
Eric glanced up from the evening meal he’d been enjoying with his three flatmates, surgeon Dr. George Dorling, grass widower Gerald Luxon, and newcomer David McGavin, a handsome bloke by anyone’s estimation.
Eric glanced from George to Gerald, then to David. “Are you speaking to me?” he asked.
“To all of you!” David exclaimed. “The evening is still young. What do you say?”
“Well . . .” Eric hemmed and hawed. “I’ve often enjoyed the order and geometrical precision of the game . . .”
David cocked his head. “The what?”
Eric threw his napkin next to his plate, as though dismissing his own words. “Sure, why not?” He pushed himself up from the chair. “Gentlemen? Shall we have a go at it?”
He raised his brow casually toward George and Gerald, who bit their lips to keep from laughing.
A short while later, after standing by idly while Eric won three out of three games, David turned to Gerald. “I may as well have asked if I could watch him sink ball after ball into the pockets.”
The laughter Gerald and George had managed to withhold for too long now erupted from their chests. “We learned a long time ago,” one of them quipped, “that playing billiards with Eric is not playing billiards with Eric.”
David looked from them to the observant Eric, who now leaned his hip against the billiard table. One hand rested near the top of his upright pool stick.
An easy smile broke across his face, one he hoped wouldn’t anger his new flatmate.
David slid his stick across the surface of the table with a grimace. “I see now, Liddell, where you misspent your youth.”
LIKE MANY CHRISTIANS, Eric pursued the irresistible lure of God’s law and its precision. One day, during their time as flatmates, Eric entered the room of the young Dr. George Dorling. He carried a copy of the New Testament in one hand, and his blue eyes held a deeper twinkle than usual. “Look at this, George,” he said, opening the book and pointing to Matthew 5:48. “‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.’” Eric straightened. “He said it, and he means it. You and I can and should be no less than that —perfect, even as our heavenly Father is perfect.”
When he left the room, George pondered the way Eric lived, how he sought God earnestly, and how he weighed out his own actions when he fell short of that perfection he felt so called to achieve. Eric, George surmised, never spoke unkindly of anyone, always seeking to find the good in them, even if only the tiniest ember. “We three,” Dr. Dorling said years later, “were miles below the standard Eric set for himself.”[38]
Life continued at its usual nonstop pace.
Eric and his flatmates rose each morning to breakfast, served at 7:30 by Kwei Lin, their cook. After finishing the first meal of the day, each man returned to his own private quarters for quiet time, then left for work.
Eric taught from nine to four o’clock, followed by afternoon tea. Later the men enjoyed their dinner meal, typically an English one. And each day, Eric managed to sneak a peek at the young Miss MacKenzie and to note that she grew more and more beautiful. Because Jenny had gone to Scotland, Florence no longer took piano lessons in his old home, which meant Eric could no longer “happen by” for tea, or just “happen” to need a book from the room adjacent to the piano room.
Eric needed a plan B.
Keissling and Boder, a Tientsin German restaurant, was famous for its cakes and chocolates and ice creams. Of course Eric, a teacher, could not ask Florence, a student, to go for dessert alone, so instead of asking her only, he asked if her siblings might like to come along as well. “My treat,” he said.
Before long, not only did Florence and “four or five of the younger MacKs” enjoy the fruit of Eric’s pocket change, but their invited friends did as well.
At the opening of summer 1929, with another year behind him, Eric went to Pei Tai Ho for his annual vacation to spend time relaxing in the summer sunshine, to bathe in the warm beach water, to catch up on his reading and his napping . . . and to continue his pursuit of getting to know better the object of his growing affection. The MacKenzie family was also vacationing in Pei Tai Ho. Seeing Florence on the beach or during group activities was easy enough, but he now knew for certain that if he was going to keep the younger men from attempting to court her, he’d have to monopolize her time a bit more creatively.
As he’d done in Tientsin, he managed to arrive on the front porch of the MacKenzies’ cottage for afternoon tea. Then, as the sun sank toward the horizon, he’d ask Florence if she’d like to take a stroll along the beach. She’d accept, and while the world grew pink and brilliantly orange around them, they’d talk leisurely about anything and everything.
Florence’s physical loveliness aside, Eric found in her a young woman of great Christian character, energy, and wit. And as with everyone who knew Eric, Florence found his gentleness and kindness, his mischievousness, his way with children, and his love of God to be exceptionally charming and drawing.
During this time, Eric continued his strong friendship with “the other Eric,” teacher Eric Scarlett.
In a letter to friends, Eric wrote,
Mr. Scarlett, one of the other foreign teachers, and I have been having our mid-day meal with the students lately, instead of going home. This is something that foreigners have not done in recent years and it certainly was a bit of an eye opener. . . .
There is a good deal of talk about there being no need for foreigners out here etc. that I cannot agree with. We certainly have something to give to China just as China has something to give to us. The standards always seem to decrease unless there is a foreigner at the head. (Ch’a bu dou) is a great expression with them, it means, good enough or near enough and it is an indication of the character of a great number of the people. Exactness they do not worry about.[39]
In August, before school started and while Eric was still on “vacation,” the two Erics, known as Liddell and Scarlett, led a camp in Pei Tai Ho for over thirty poor boys (all but two of them Russian) from Tientsin. For two weeks, the two Erics engaged the boys in activities designed for both body and soul.
When their time together came to a close, Scarlett said, “They’re not only more fit, they weigh more leaving than coming in.” He suggested that they do it again in the future.
In the fall of 1929, with classes at TACC well under way again, Eric caught the news that Dr. Otto Peltzer, the reigning world record holder in the 500 meters, the 800 meters, and the 1,500 meters, planned to visit China. While he was there, someone suggested organizing a race between the two champions.
Eric had hardly been in training —and said as much —but acquiesced because of the fun the event would bring. He won the 400 with a time of 49.1 seconds; Otto —a lanky twenty-nine-year-old German with a dimpled chin —took the win in the 800.
When the races were done and hands had been clasped in congratulations, Otto turned to Eric and said, “You know, with training, you could be the world’s greatest at the 800.”
“Oh, no,” Eric said. “I don’t think so.”
“You should do it. Train and then enter the 800 meters in the next Olympic Games. They’re being held in Los Angeles in America.”
“America? Won’t that cost the Olympics in competitors?” Remembering how financially skinned he’d been during the 1924 Games, he added, “Most European athletes won’t be able to afford the trip.”
“Could be, but the Games are worldwide, you know, not just European.”
Eric nodded in agreement.
“So, you’ll do it?” Otto teased.
“No,” Eric answered, his head dipping shyly. “I’m much too old now.”
Otto laughed. “Oh, but I’m older than you,” he said, “and I’m entering!”
On November 25, 1929, Florence celebrated her eighteenth birthday.
Shortly after, she and Eric took another of the long walks they’d both come to look forward to, this one because Eric sensed a burgeoning anxiety growing in her.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“I’m not sure of what’s ahead,” she told him. “I have always wanted to go into nursing —that much I know —but the entrance to the school I want to attend in Canada is extremely competitive.” She sighed. “In only a few weeks I’ll have to take my exams, and I’m worried I won’t do so well.”
He took a deep breath and held it. He would pray for her, of course, but what if his prayer for her meant losing her? What if she went to Canada and never came back? With a sudden exhale, he said, “What I’ve really been hoping for quite some time is that you’ll come back here and marry me.”
Florence stopped and turned to him, her eyes wide. “What?” She blinked. “What did you say?”
Eric chuckled deep in his throat. “I’ve hoped —for quite some time —that you would marry me.”
Florence’s lips broke into a generous smile. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said. “What about you?”
“I —I —gracious, Eric. I’ve nearly worshiped the ground you’ve walked upon but you are ten years older and I didn’t want anyone to think badly of you . . . because you shouldn’t have to endure that and —oh, Eric. I do love you . . . and if you’re sure . . .”
“Is that a yes?”
Florence nodded. “That’s a yes!”
For the first time, Eric gave his new bride-to-be a chaste kiss, then said, “We’ll have to keep this to ourselves. I must speak to your father first.”
“Of course,” she agreed. “Yes, of course.”
Eric contacted Jenny in Scotland, asking her to send an engagement ring via a missionary friend headed to Tientsin. As he waited for its arrival, he spoke with Mr. MacKenzie, who gave his blessing but insisted that Florence complete her training to be a nurse first.
Eric agreed.
When it arrived, Eric placed the five-diamond token of his love on Florence’s ring finger. Their engagement became official. They had a long, arduous wait before them, but at least they could openly declare their love for each other.
Florence, along with her sister Margaret, made arrangements to leave for Canada the following summer.
In March 1930, Eric asked the LMS for a two-year furlough to Scotland that would begin the same month Florence departed for school in Canada. His plan was to spend his time furthering his studies at the Scottish Congregational College. He would then return to China to teach at TACC and wait for Florence’s return.
In early April, A. P. Cullen and Eric Scarlett left Tientsin for Pei Tai Ho to make certain the LMS cottages were ready for the summer’s vacationing missionaries and their families. After arriving by train, they climbed on top of donkeys to ride the five miles from the station to the cottages. Cullen and Scarlett had barely gotten on their way when three men stepped out from behind bushes and demanded that the missionaries hand over their money.
Cullen, slightly ahead of Scarlett on the road and speaking in Chinese, demanded that they be allowed to pass.
The men pulled pistols from their waistbands and commanded that Cullen and Scarlett give them what they wanted.
“Now wait a minute,” Cullen said, hoping to reason with them.
One of the bandits fired his gun. A sudden thud behind Cullen caused him to turn. Scarlett lay on the ground, face up.
The three men panicked. One grabbed Cullen, pulled him from the donkey, and stripped him of his wallet and gold watch while the other two opened the suitcases Cullen and Scarlett had brought with them, riffling through them in search of valuables.
“Hurry, hurry!” one of the Chinese men called out. They turned to go, but not before firing another shot, this one barely missing Cullen.
As soon as he was able, Cullen hurried over to Scarlett. “Stay with me,” he urged as he ripped the shirt of his friend open to find blood pouring from a bullet wound just above the heart. Cullen felt for a pulse and attempted to apply pressure to the hole in Scarlett’s chest. The pulse was weak, but at least it was still there. “Stay with me, Scarlett.”
Cullen jerked his head up at the sound of footsteps. Townspeople, curious at the echoing of gunshots, now gathered around him. “Go get help!” Cullen called to some of the boys.
Again he felt for a pulse in search of a sign that Scarlett held on to life.
But there was none.
Two days later, Eric and his future father-in-law met the train carrying Scarlett’s body at the Tientsin station. On Saturday, Eric helped carry the casket from the funeral service held at Taku Road Church to the Canton Road Cemetery. There A. P. Cullen led the graveside service.
Five days later, Eric Liddell sat at his desk and wrote another letter to the LMS foreign secretary:
Since I last wrote you a good deal has happened so that my plans have had to be altered. The death of Mr. Scarlett means that it would place the College in a very difficult place were I to go home this year. . . . Would you please cancel any arrangement for deputation that you have made for me. I am sorry to do this, especially as Dad is none too well, but I am sure I am right.[40]
On April 12, the annual Easter baptismal service included nine students from Scarlett’s class. In a letter to friends, Eric wrote, “This Easter Service, and the seeing of all these students taking their allegiance to our Saviour, was like a ray of light penetrating the darkness of the days we had passed through.”[41]
In May, Mr. and Mrs. Hugh MacKenzie officially announced the engagement of their daughter to Mr. Eric Liddell. Shortly after, Florence and Eric said a painful good-bye as she and Margaret left China with another missionary family, heading first to Great Britain, where they would visit with Eric’s family in Scotland, and then on to Canada.
Eric could and would write to her, of course, and she to him. But it would be a good, long time before they saw each other again or held each other in their arms.
Another separation, which Eric had become all too familiar with . . . but this time —even more than all the times before —drove a deeper sense of distance into his heart.