“Sarah?” Jonnie’s voice quavered in wonder. “Sarah, you? Is it you?”
“Jonnie!” she cried. “Jonnie! I knew.… They said no, but I knew … knew you were alive. I knew you’d come to me.”
“So I have,” he grinned happily.
“Jonnie! Jonnie!”
She laughed through her tears, and only then did they embrace.
“I knew I’d find you,” he whispered. “But … sometimes … I couldn’t quite believe it.”
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” Sarah retreated from nearly hysterical relief into brisk efficiency. “You’re a mess.”
That night they drank warm champagne and lay together in a cubicle on a grass mat where the school’s amah had formerly slept. Their passion was quickly spent, for they were both exhausted, almost too exhausted to sleep. They talked quietly until, toward morning, they slept fitfully. After a breakfast of burnt toast and black tea, Jonnie kissed Sarah gently.
“Now, Captain Sekloong goes back to the war.” His humor was forced. “After a night of luxurious pleasure between scented silk sheets with his lady. We’re a spoiled lot, aren’t we?”
“Jonnie, we’re both alive. We’ve survived thus far—and we will survive, whatever happens.”
“I have every intention of surviving,” he said, turning to leave her. “Subject, of course, to the exigencies of the service.”
Christmas Day was a fearful turmoil of attacks and counterattacks. Rifle and machine-gun barrels glowed too hot to touch, and the Japanese dead piled up before the last defenders of British Hong Kong. But they were forced back implacably. The cordon around the hospital in St. Stephen’s School broke, and Jonnie was borne along by the pell-mell retreat toward the last redoubt in Stanley Fort. He struggled to break away and find Sarah again, but the Japanese had already surrounded the school.
A Japanese detachment entered the hospital while the front line troops pursued the retreating British. Taking their vengeance for the insolent British resistance, Japanese infantrymen plunged their bayonets into wounded men, stabbing and sawing. The two medical officers who had chosen to remain with the wounded were shot and their bodies viciously mutilated. Seeking to shelter a helpless Volunteer with her body, Sarah was beaten with rifle butts and hurled into the cubicle where she and Jonnie had spent the night. Six British and four Chinese women were crammed into the narrow space. At intervals, a Japanese soldier beckoned to a woman, and, shortly thereafter, her screams shrilled through the corridors.
Sarah was last. She was dragged past the mutilated corpses of three nurses. Covered only by tatters, the bodies lay on the slimy floor before an adjoining cubicle. Conscious perception had mercifully retreated into the recesses of her mind when a drunken Japanese officer tore her dress from neckline to hem. Spread-eagled on the wooden bed, she endured the penetration of seven men before she fainted. Finally, two soldiers pulled her by the heels into the corridor, her head thudding against the floor each time they tugged. They left her beside the slaughtered nurses, not caring whether she was alive or dead.
In Stanley Fort, the last effective unit prepared its feeble defenses. Jonnie Sekloong swore at himself for not having forced Sarah to accompany him. Finally, he despaired, convinced that she was dead.
At 8:15 A.M., the telephone rang. By some miracle still operating, the line carried Christmas greetings from Governor Sir Mark Young, and concluded: “… Fight on. Hold on for King and Empire. God bless you all in this our finest hour.”
“Let this day be historical in the grand annals of our Empire,” Major General Maltby’s message declared. “The order of the day is: Hold Fast!”
“We’ll hold, but what about them other buggers?” an irreverent private of the Middlesex Regiment, rightly called the Die Hards, shouted. “Have the Japs got the word that we’re invincible?”
The telephone did not ring again, and the small group awaiting the final assault felt itself wholly isolated. At Defense Headquarters, General Maltby was still receiving sporadic reports. The improvised unit called Z Force reported at 2:15 P.M. that the Japanese had broken through the last emplacements guarding The Peak. After conferring with his staff officers, the General advised the Governor that they must surrender. The last order went out by telephone and runner at 3:15 P.M. on Thursday, Christmas Day of 1941. A vengeful Lieutenant General Sakai instructed the Governor and the Commanding General to cross the Harbor in a leaking walla-walla taxi-launch to offer their formal surrender to him in the Peninsula Hotel.
At St. Stephen’s School, a Japanese officer told his prisoners of their good fortune: “My orders were to shoot you if Maltby had not surrendered by four.”
The Brigadier commanding Stanley Fort refused to accept instructions to surrender as a legitimate order, and his men fought until the next evening.
It was futile.
A white flag already flew from Government House, over the halls that had once bustled with gay parties, formal receptions, and viceregal ceremony. Other white flags blossomed throughout Victoria. By 6:00 P.M. on December 26, 1941, no Union Jack fluttered over the Crown Colony, where British power had been supreme for more than a century.
The long night of Japanese occupation had fallen. The darkness was not to lift for three years and eight months.
October 20, 1944–December 9, 1944
“Randall Martin’s in-laws, are they?” The big Newsweek correspondent whistled. “You’re kidding, Archie. Is there anybody they don’t know?”
“Dewey,” replied the diminutive Scotsman who was the Chungking representative of The Times, the august thunderer of Printing House Square. “They are the Sekloongs. There are few anybodies who are somebodies they don’t know. And they’re related to half the money and power in the world. By blood, by marriage, or by wealth.”
“How about Uncle Joe Stalin?”
“Not to my knowledge. But they might have a remote cousin on the Soviet Politburo. You know, I assume, that Major General Shih … Shih Ai-kuo who tags along behind Chou En-lai … is their son, don’t you?”
“I’ll make a note. I suppose the Gimo’s chief aide is also family.”
“Actually, he is. Major General Sek Lai-kwok, chief of the Generalissimo’s Military Secretariat, is another son.”
“I’ll never figure out these Chinese names,” the American complained, “much less their connections.”
“Just a matter of time, old chap,” the Scot assured him. “Then you’ll be more confused than ever.”
“I can hardly wait. You’re an encouraging son of a bitch, Archie.”
“I try to contribute to the general enlightenment.”
The hoarfrost in the courtyard of the mansion crackled under their feet, and the candles in oiled-paper lanterns guttered on the walls in the October breeze. The Japanese bombed Chungking only by day, and a night fog enveloped the city on the cliffs above the meeting of the Chialing and Yangtze Rivers. The compound on Tang Hill was just above the fog line, and the half-moon’s diffused rays mingled with the lanterns’ erratic gleams.
The two newspapermen’s shadows flickered in incongruous partnership on the white-rimed cobbles. The heavy-bodied American, Dewey Miller, habitually stooped from his six-foot-five-inch height to catch the words of lesser mortals. His tea-brown eyes were pouched, and his cheeks were sagging dewlaps. Miller shambled like an amiable bloodhound, while the Scotsman Archie MacDonald, red-bearded and shaggy-haired, capered like a sharp-witted Lhasa Apso beside him.
“What’s this clambake for?” Miller asked.
“Eh?” asked MacDonald. “Oh, I get you, pardner. You mean: What’s this bunfight in aid of?”
“Have it your way. But fill me in before we get there.”
“Just a dinner for Randall Martin, the eminent cinema star who’s abandoned his career to serve his country. You know the Chinese can’t let any occasion pass without consuming vast quantities of food and alcohol.”
“Don’t worry about Martin’s sacrifice, Archie. The Navy made him a full
commander and told him to shoot and narrate a movie on the war in the Pacific. Pretty good duty, and it won’t hurt his career any. Besides, he makes damned sure he doesn’t get shot at.”
“Dewey, you Americans’re like the Chinese—only it’s not food. You’re mad for publicity, can’t do anything without it.”
“If you say so, Archie. But what’s the real purpose tonight?”
“Not much,” the Scotsman replied. “Just another intimate family banquet for a few score that gives everybody much face. Martin leaves tomorrow, you know. He’s covered the Chinese war effort in five days—all from the rear.”
“Considering the Nationalist war effort, he could have saved himself some time. Done it in two days.”
“No, Dewey, I’d allow three. Fair’s fair. Therefore, the farewell banquet with us present as recording angels.”
“But, these Sekloongs, Colonel and Mrs. Charles Sekloong, what about them?” the American persisted. “And didn’t I see a Monsignor Charles Sekloong on the guest list?”
“I told you the Sekloongs were everywhere, even the Vatican. Actually, they might make a piece for you. The old couple’s been here since the spring of ’42. Made a daring escape from Hong Kong and a hellish journey overland. The old boy’s some vague kind of British liaison officer to the Chinese.”
“And the Monsignor?” Miller persisted.
“Attached to the Papal Nuncio’s office. He’s one of the Curia’s very bright boys.”
“What about Brigadier General and Mrs. George Chapman Parker? Who’re they?”
“Dr. Parker’s chief of the American public health mission. His wife Guinevere, née Sekloong, is officially on a Red Cross assignment, but really here to look after him. You should know that much.”
“I do, as a matter of fact. Also know they won’t be here tonight. They’re fogged in at Kunming. But he’s married to the old couple’s daughter?”
“That’s right, Dewey. I told you they were well represented.”
“One more question, Archie, since we’ve got to make our entrance. Who’s our host?”
“That’s a tale in itself. Third Uncle Kang, they call him. No blood connection of the Sekloongs, as far as I know. But there’s some vague business connection—on the legitimate side. Not the other side, where the Kang money and power really come from.”
“What’s the ‘other’ side?”
“Opium, gold-smuggling, black-marketing—take your choice. The Kangs practically run Chungking. Even the Gimo’s here on their sufferance. Third Uncle Kang’s the youngest of three brothers who’ve made ten shady fortunes. He was actually sentenced to be shot for opium-smuggling in Shanghai. But he was reprieved. Otherwise, the Nationalists couldn’t have made Chungking their wartime capital. He’s also got excellent Communist connections. Chou En-lai’s been known to stay with Third Uncle Kang when he’s here talking with the Nationalists!”
“Thanks, Archie,” Miller said. “That’s enough to start with. Should be an interesting party.”
“One can hope,” MacDonald replied, stepping through the moon-gate into a garish crimson reception hall warmed by charcoal braziers.
“Her French, they tell me,” MacDonald whispered to Miller, “is even better than her English.”
“She’d do me, do me fine—in any language or even tongue-tied,” the American answered. “What a dame!”
To the right of their aggressively affable host, who was plump in a padded-silk long-gown, sat the most striking Chinese girl the impressionable Newsweek correspondent had ever seen. Third Uncle Kang’s daughter by his second concubine, she was effortlessly interpreting for her father and assiduously ignoring the rest of the company. Even Randall Martin’s professional blond handsomeness, set off by his blue uniform with three gold stripes on each sleeve, did not visibly impress her. Playing on his ineptitude with chopsticks, Martin tried hard to charm the slender girl in the scarlet cheongsam. She was, however, coolly aloof, apparently immune to his renowned charm.
Even the actor’s hardened self-confidence finally wilted beneath her cool gaze. He turned to the profusion of courses, each hailed by toasts in fiery, medicated maotai spirits, as well as Scotch whiskey and French brandy, provided by the black market at $75 a bottle.
Dewey Miller counted thirty-six dishes, though he could remember no more than half as the tou-pan yü, fish in a peppery sauce, signaled the banquet’s approaching end. The array of delicacies, which would have been remarkable in a prosperous China at peace, was overwhelming in the remote provisional capital of a poverty-stricken nation fighting for its existence.
The leng-pan, cold appetizers, had covered the table when the guests entered the dining hall. Surrounding the centerpiece of minced shrimp balls were the subsidiary appetizers: duck-webs in a mustard and coriander sauce; preserved duck’s tongues; thinly sliced cold chicken breasts in a sesame-paste and chili sauce; and pickled cucumbers with crisp jellyfish strips. They were the vanguard for crisp-fried ducks accompanied by steamed buns; huge fresh-water prawns in a garlic-pungent red sauce; braised pork and chestnuts; shoots of young Chinese cabbage garnished with slivers of pungent Yunnan ham; crisp shredded beef; chicken tidbits braised with black chilis; diced bean curd with a pork-and-pepper dressing; sharks’ fins with a rare, spongelike mushroom; pork and green peppers with a faintly fishlike flavor; mushrooms cupping a subtle meat filling; beef steamed in a paste of spiced rice flour; and freshwater eels lightly fried in batter. There had been much more that Miller could not recall. Soup tureens of pork and cha-tsai, Szechwan’s preserved mustard root, preceded the noodles, rice, and steamed buns that concluded the feast. Still, sweet pastries, melons, grapes, and apples tempted those who might still be hungry.
“People are dying down in the old city.” Archie MacDonald expressed Dewey Miller’s thoughts. “Dying slowly of malnutrition. The troops are hungry, except those getting American rations. And we’ve just eaten enough to feed a company.”
Dewey Miller looked quizzically at the normally reticent Scotsman. The whiskey and the maotai had inflamed his usual cool irony. Miller’s glance intersected that of Mary Sekloong, who had eaten sparingly while chatting indifferently with her blond son-in-law. Inured to such banquets, she and Charles had paced themselves accordingly, ignoring their host’s obligatory urging: “Ching tsai chih yi-dien, hao peng-yu—Eat more, my friends. Eat more, my good friends. I have little enough to offer you. But my humble abode is honored by your partaking of my poor fare.”
Having formed her own views of Chungking and the Nationalist war effort, Mary was more interested in the newspapermen than the banquet. She had already dismissed her son-in-law as an amiable narcissist, although she was grateful that he had apparently made the restless Charlotte happy—or, at least, content. The short Scotsman from The Times was growing heated, and she wondered whether a small spark might not ignite him. She had no high opinion of the small, incestuous foreign press corps which had been herded into a cramped Press Hostel for easier surveillance by the wary Nationalist Information Ministry. Most of the correspondents she had met at diplomatic receptions, or at Communist Delegate Chou En-lai’s Wednesday afternoon tea parties, were astonishingly naive beneath their carapaces of professional cynicism. The big American, who grew more silent and alert as he drank, appeared stolid, but the volatile Scotsman might provide an interesting diversion.
“We’ve eaten enough for a company,” MacDonald repeated loudly. “Though, of course, it wouldn’t fight.”
“Wouldn’t fight, Mr. MacDonald?” Mary sprinkled kerosene on the fire of the Scotsman’s indignation. “How can you say that about our allies?”
“Madame, with respect, you must be joking, taking the mickey out of me.” Archie MacDonald duly exploded. “You know as well as I, better than I, exactly what I mean. A toast, I propose a toast!”
The Scotsman rose unsteadily, leaning on the table for support. He enunciated each word with the wary precision of the practiced drinker, his red beard bobbing an accompaniment.<
br />
“A toast, Ladies and Gentlemen, a toast to the brave Chinese armies and their brilliant leader.”
The guests automatically raised porcelain cups of maotai to their lips to repeat the toast they had drunk so often over the years.
“Kan-pei!” The host responded with automatic courtesy. “Drain the cup dry!”
Though his host sipped only a few drops, Archie MacDonald tossed down his tumbler of whiskey and replenished it. Ignoring Dewey Miller’s cautionary pressure on his arm, he waved to demand attention.
“Pray silence, Ladies and Gentlemen! I’m no’ finished yet. Let us drink to the Generalissimo’s four wars. Only a truly great commander could fight on four fronts at once.”
Although he was puzzled by his daughter’s whispered translation of the anomalous words, Third Uncle Kang again raised his cup. Perceiving that the red-bearded barbarian was still in full spate, he set it down amid the moraine of scraps, bones, and sauce stains.
“The Generalissimo is fighting one war against the Japanese and another against the Communists,” MacDonald declaimed. “That’s two fronts. He’s fighting a separate war against his Allies, mainly the Americans, and a fourth against the Chinese people. Not counting his constant struggle with the cliques in the Nationalist camp, that’s four wars. Truly a masterly performance!”
The Scotsman again drained his tumbler and absently extended it for another refill. He did not protest when Miller took the tumbler from his hand, but continued to speak with the excessive precision of the heavy drinker who has drunk himself half-sober again.
“And how’s he doing, the great strategist? Against the Japanese, not so well … not well at all. The Japs’ve just swept through Central China and the Southeast … captured all the airfields the Americans built with so much effort. Another hope gone glimmering. Bad for that other great strategist, General Chennault, the talking-flying tiger. He doesn’t get to prove he can defeat the Japanese in China by airpower alone, without ground forces. Why? Because the ground troops he undercut so brilliantly couldn’t defend his airfields.”
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