Only Serpent’s unexpected arrival on the scene had prevented the coaster’s crew from being seized, the truth tortured out of them, so that no more cargoes would be possible.
Charles Yeung, who lived like a mandarin on the Peak with his lovely daughter, would be quick to reward him for his silence. With all the other money he had managed to put aside he would be ready for the next step up the ladder, no matter whose flag flew over Government House.
He started off along the rough road again, barely out of breath in spite of the miles he had walked. He had always been careful to study sport and take exercise. He had even played tennis with some of the naval officers at Tamar.
Even if he was stopped now he carried nothing which might incriminate him. The bank had given him leave because of the bombing. The navy no longer needed his services. Even that made him smile. They would probably not even miss him.
At the top of the ridge he would see the old monastery. He had been frightened by it as a small child. A brooding, secret place. The village lay just beyond it, and he would see the great reaches of Deep Bay on the territory’s western coastline, where his father had once helped to build fishing boats when he could get no other work.
He faltered, his nostrils dilating to the smell of burning. A dying column of smoke was being brushed away by the hot hilltop breeze and sudden caution made him crouch beside the low wall of one of the new monsoon drains. It would prevent the road from flooding, or worse, being washed away, for there was no other here.
Then he saw it: an army car on its side, the interior still smouldering, a blackened corpse pinned beneath the roof when it had turned over.
There were a lot of deep scars on the road. Heavy bullets. John Chau considered more calmly. It must have been raked by some Japanese aircraft. The pilots did not have very far to fly.
He spun round as something moved in the thick scrub by the sloping hillside.
A soldier. He felt his heart pumping painfully as the khaki-clad figure dragged itself on to the road.
Very young. An officer with a single pip on his shoulder, his teeth bared as he stared up at him. He had one of those ridiculous little moustaches which some British officers affected. It only made them look younger.
Mesmerised, Chau watched as he raised one hand towards him. It was obvious that the soldier was badly injured, perhaps dying. There was really nothing anyone could do.
The young lieutenant managed to croak, ‘Help me! Don’t leave me!’
He had been lying here for hours. Chau began to step forward but shook himself angrily.
It is too late for him. There is nothing I could do.
He said, ‘No, I cannot . . .’
The officer’s face ground against the stones and his cap fell in the dust. He was very fair. A boy.
‘My driver is badly hurt . . .’ He was pleading. Afraid of being left, of being alone.
Chau forced himself to glance at the charred thing under the car.
‘Too late for him!’ He felt a wild urgency to break away. ‘I go now!’
‘Oh God!’ The soldier was trying to pull himself back under cover but the agony held him like a steel trap.
Chau broke into a run. It was the only way.
Then he stopped dead, unable to move.
There were five Japanese soldiers in the road, watching him in total silence.
One, an officer of some sort, moved his hand curtly as a man might brush away a fly.
Then he pointed at the burned car, his voice low and incisive. Chau tried to smile, then bowed to the officer to show his respect.
A Japanese soldier slung his rifle and fixed bayonet over his shoulder and touched Chau on the shoulder, turning him around towards the monsoon drain.
He stood quite still as the soldier ran his hands over his body and pockets, dropping his wallet and some cigarettes on to the road. The dying officer was being dragged over to the low wall, crying out at every move.
When he was propped against the wall two of the soldiers searched him also. His papers, wrist-watch, and some letters, then lastly they removed his revolver.
The Japanese officer, his unfamiliar helmet festooned with twigs and leaves in a netting cover, walked to the wall. Then he stooped down and spoke to the second lieutenant in hesitant English.
Chau could not hear what he said, but saw his annoyance. Maybe the injured man was too badly hurt to understand what was happening.
Then he snapped an order and Chau felt his stomach contract as the one with the slung rifle went across and lowered the bayonet until it rested above the soldier’s webbing belt.
Then he drove the bayonet into him, holding his body erect against the wall with his foot while he dragged out the blade and thrust it into him again.
They all watched as the corpse rolled on to its side, the eyes still bulging with terror.
The Japanese officer said, ‘You! Where are you going?’
Chau swallowed hard, then cried out as a rifle butt smashed into his ribs. There was another agonising blow on the opposite side and he knew his ribs had been fractured. He was bleeding, unable to stand or even speak. His wrists were pinioned behind his back and someone was hitting him about the head and back. He had to speak. To explain, but nothing would come. His mouth seemed to be filled with fluid, scalding him, and he heard his voice cry out as they dragged him on to the monsoon drain wall so that his glasses fell off, and he was peering dazedly into some trapped water in the bottom of the ditch. It was bright blue, as if part of the sky was down there.
He gasped when another blow smashed into his spine, and he felt something dangled against his face. Even through the pain and the fear he realised it was his identity disc. He had forgotten to throw it away.
He was losing consciousness slowly, too slowly. He stared at the sky’s clean reflection. They would kill him. A bayonet like the man who had cried for help.
He tried to keep his eyes from closing; he could taste blood on his lips. He was going.
Another reflection had appeared in the blue water. But all time was gone. There was just one blink of sunlight as the heavy blade came down.
Two soldiers raised his ankles and tipped the headless corpse into the drain.
Then the file of soldiers was gone, and the deserted road left only to the dead.
Brooke stood on the upper bridge and watched several great columns of smoke twisting slowly across the copper sunset. Serpent was alongside, taking on more fuel and ammunition and any sort of food supplies which could be stowed away.
There had been several quick air-raids on the island during the day. There had been thousands of leaflets too, calling for an immediate surrender. STOP USELESS RESISTANCE. Remember, the Japanese forces will guarantee the lives and livings of those who will surrender.
Kerr came up to the bridge. ‘Nearly finished, sir.’
‘Very well. We shall move out to the buoy when the last gear is brought aboard.’ He looked at the first lieutenant, his features very clear in the copper light. ‘Something else?’
‘Our interpreter, John Chau. I think he’s done a runner.’
‘I see. Well, I don’t think we’ll be needing him anyway.’
Kerr could sense the disappointment nevertheless. Probably blaming himself as usual.
‘How do you think Toby Calvert is getting on, sir?’
‘I’ve told him that he’s to report back as soon as Charles Yeung’s damned pilot gets here.’
What was Lian doing now? She was in a small hotel near the base with Captain Granville’s haughty wife and several other women. It did not bear thinking about.
‘Officer coming aboard, sir!’
It was the Senior Operations Officer, Commander Ian Gould. He was just about running the dockyard single-handed while the sailors were strengthening the defences and digging shelters.
Brooke glanced across at Kowloon. It was eerie not to see the thousands of glittering lights. When it was really quiet you could sometimes hear the music from all
the bars and dives around the docks there. Now it was like a grave, and there was no gunfire at the moment either.
He greeted the Operations Officer at the bridge gate.
‘Sorry about not meeting you at the brow, sir.’ He looked over the glass screen, and down to the crouching outlines of the high-angled anti-aircraft guns. ‘I need to be here until we’re out at the buoy again.’
Commander Gould was a plump and usually jolly man, and had always been helpful after Serpent’s arrival.
He said shortly, ‘Bad news, Esmond. Bloody bad news, I’m afraid. Just heard from Singapore. Admiral Phillips sailed with his Force Z to support the army. He had no air cover – it seems that an airfield was evacuated by accident or something. It was a brave gesture, I suppose . . .’
Brooke asked, ‘Did they engage the enemy, sir?’
Gould barely heard. ‘Just dive-bombers, no heavy units at all. Prince of Wales and Repulse were both sunk.’ It was as if he still dare not believe it. ‘Within the space of an hour! Both gone, all those men, those fine ships!’
Brooke pulled out his pipe. ‘D’you mind this, sir?’
So that was it. He filled his pipe, while the others watched him and waited to read their own fate.
In the space of an hour, Gould had said. It went far deeper than that. In the space of two days, at Pearl Harbour and off the coast of Malaya, the whole balance of naval power had been turned upside down.
Force Z was gone. There would be no support for Singapore or for them in Hong Kong.
The pipe smoke floated up past the gunnery control position, a tiny moment of peace. Like a flower surviving in Flanders in his father’s war.
Brooke asked quietly, ‘What does Captain Granville say?’
‘He is consulting with the Governor. The Japanese have demanded that we surrender. The B.B.C. has already broadcast that we will do no such thing. Fight them on the beaches all over again.’
Brooke looked at the dying light on the water. ‘No white cliffs of Dover this time, sir.’
Gould seemed to shake himself. ‘Tell your people, Esmond. We shall begin evacuation of Kowloon tomorrow night. After that . . .’ He did not finish it.
‘After that, this dockyard will be under fire. What then, sir?’
‘All in hand, old chap.’ Gould turned towards the dark landmass. ‘I retired out here. They recalled me when the balloon went up.’ Only Brooke could see the tears in his eyes in the strange, hot glow. ‘Love the old place. Can’t believe it’s happening.’
They watched him leave, then Kerr said harshly, ‘Well, he’d better start believing it and bloody soon!’
Brooke reached for the handset which would connect him to all of his men throughout the ship. Working the loading tackles, stripping the guns again in case they were attacked at first light. In the crowded, stuffy messdecks with their naked pin-ups and letters home. In the boiler and engine rooms and the W/T office. His men. Kerr’s sudden outburst had spoken for all of them. When their time came they must not be snared by all the folly and incompetence which had allowed this disaster to happen. Men had died for much less, but they had given so much already.
He snapped down the button. ‘This is the Captain speaking . . .’
It was all he could do.
18
Sunset
Esmond Brooke walked slowly along the Serpent’s darkened iron-deck, seeing the three funnels and upperworks lit up by the bright flashes of gunfire from across the harbour.
Beneath his shoes he could feel the nervous tremble of machinery, as if the ship could sense the danger like an animal catching the scent of blood.
There was little noise from the harbour itself although Brooke knew there were hundreds of small craft going back and forth, picking their way through the cemetery of wrecks, any one of which could tear out a boat’s keel and spew its human cargo into the fast-moving water.
But his seamen could still joke about it, even in the face of disaster.
You couldn’t drown in this harbour, you’d die of poisoning first! he had heard one wag say.
The evacuation of the last mainland troops was under way. Separated from their units, some without supervision or proper leadership, they had flooded down to the Kowloon docks in fear and in desperation.
Brooke had heard how some of the soldiers had lurched from bar to bar, beyond caring for discipline or purpose. Dunkirk had been an orderly disaster. This was a rout.
‘We goin’ to be all right, sir?’
Brooke paused and looked at some men by the motor-boat’s davits. They would not need the skimming-dish now – Serpent was linked to the buoy, the land, only by her slip-wire. Raring to go, as the Chief had said.
‘We’ll do our best, lads.’ He had explained it to them as well as he could. Why they must leave the harbour and head around to the south-west, to the other dockyard at Aberdeen. In all this confusion it was hard to know if it sank in.
The finality of it had been marked by the old wooden depotship H.M.S. Tamar. Lying at her buoy, she had been stripped of her equipment and confidential files and prepared for scuttling. The Ark, so familiar to servicemen and civilians alike. It would seem like part of a betrayal.
Before dusk he had been to see Captain Granville again, this time in a damp, airless cellar that stank of the harbour just yards beyond the walls. Occasionally the building had quaked to bombs in the city, and dust and plaster had filtered over Granville’s maps and signals.
He had told Brooke that the destroyer Islip would be arriving at Aberdeen in a day or so. She was using her radar to make a more secretive approach and avoid enemy patrols. All those who were to be evacuated would be put aboard her. Eventually they would leave in the dark, again using the incredible eyes of Islip’s radar.
Lian was already at Aberdeen with several officers’ wives. Brooke would make certain she left with the others. It was her only chance.
When he had seen her at the hotel her determination to be brave in front of the other women had moved him deeply. Now, as he climbed to the bridge, he paused to touch the little gold dragon medallion which she had put around his neck. ‘It is mine, my dearest love. I will take it off you when we are together again. It will keep you safe.’
He glanced into the darkened wheelhouse where Pike and his telegraphsmen and a boatswain’s mate were standing together, waiting for the order to move.
‘All right, Swain?’
Pike nodded his massive head. ‘Good as gold, sir.’
His eyes flashed in a burst of firing from across the water. The boats were still going back and forth, feeling their way. Exhausted soldiers, and many wounded – what would become of them?
Pike looked at him. ‘Don’t worry, sir.’ He touched the motionless wheel. ‘She won’t let us down!’
Up and on to the open bridge. After the cellar and between decks, it felt surprisingly clean and cool.
Kerr was careful to stay in the forepart of the bridge, away from Kipling and Barrington-Purvis. The latter was in white shirt and shorts whilst Kipling had changed into his shabby khaki. A mixed pair. Brooke had hated having to ask them. But there was nobody else.
‘I can’t order you two to stay behind.’ He looked at their faces as they lit up in the distant gunfire. ‘You will rejoin the ship at Aberdeen when you have finished here, right?’
Kipling said, ‘Won’t take long, sir. I knew those bastards would be here sooner than we were told.’
There was no need to contradict him. They had been assured that the army would be able to hold a line of sorts for a week, maybe two. The Japanese would be over there tomorrow, three days after invading the New Territories. It was incredible.
Barrington-Purvis said, ‘I’m to take charge of the base party who will assist us, sir?’ Like a new pupil repeating a lesson. Very calm, perhaps dangerously so, but equally determined.
Kipling must have been smiling under the sudden curtain of darkness.
‘Tell you one thing, sir, old Tamar won’t sink.
The demolition boys haven’t taken those extra deck-houses into account. They’ll keep her afloat like buoyancy bags!’ He held up his luminous watch. ‘Never mind. I’ve got a bit of gear that’ll do the trick.’
Surprisingly, he held out his hand. ‘In case we don’t make it, sir. Been nice knowing you.’
Barrington-Purvis said quietly, ‘I’m glad I stayed in the ship, sir.’
Voices murmured after them as they went to the side where a pilot boat was waiting to carry them ashore. Another pilot was floating nearby, ready to lead them out.
Calvert remarked, ‘In some funny way they’re good for each other.’
Brooke glanced at him. Calvert would be doing just the opposite. He would be leaving the ship at Aberdeen. If possible he was to make certain that the seaplane was ready to fly as soon as the pilot arrived, and take Charles Yeung out of it. Or so Captain Granville had said.
Brooke had asked angrily, ‘Have you told Lieutenant Calvert?’
‘That is your job!’
It had been then, and only then, that Brooke had realised that the urbane captain was losing his nerve, and he wondered if Commander Gould realised it too.
Now, as he climbed on to the gratings beside his tall chair, it felt like every other time. It had to be. Gladstone Dock in Liverpool, St John’s in Newfoundland, or Malta in the middle of an air attack.
‘Ring down stand-by.’
Kerr joined him. ‘Good luck, sir.’ He had his big torch in one hand so that he could watch the slip-wire once it was fixed to whip back through the buoy-ring.
‘Skill will come in handy too!’
Always the joke. Smile, damn you! But it was never a game. If you thought it was, you were dead.
Calvert was bending over his chart, hidden by the table’s hood. Thinking of his girl. Worried about her safety, as I am for Lian’s.
He heard the telegraph jangle faintly below his feet, and imagined the lounging figures he had seen and spoken with at their stations, probably glad to be doing something.
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