The Harbour

by Francesca Brill

  Hahn whose own reporting is, as she hoped it would be, a spectacular ‘social document’. Also to other adventurous newspapermen and women such as Tilman and Peggy Durdin from the New York Times, Corin Bernfelt, who was British Vogue’s knitting pattern editor before she travelled broken-hearted to China, Teddy White, the Time correspondent, Betty Graham, an independent journalist in Chungking, Dorothy Jenner, an Australian reporter, and the American writer Gwen Dew.

  The characters in the book are figments of my imagination,

  apart from the Soong sisters whose real lives were more incredible than any fiction, as is often the case. I have taken great liberties with my imagined version of Madame Kung. The Peak was exclusively white in this period of Hong Kong’s history and I’ve pushed the boundaries by locating Madame Kung’s villa there, but Sir Robert Ho-tung was allowed to build on the Peak so there were exceptions. The historical Head of Medical Services was Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke, and he and his wife Hilda were definitively not like the fictional couple the Clarke-Russells. A fascinating fact is that Hilda Selwyn-Clarke was Madame Sun Yat-sen’s secretary for years and a dedicated communist

  sympathiser. The character of Harry Field and his experiences as a prisoner of war and the resulting trauma bear no relation to those of the brilliant soldier and academic Charles Boxer, Emily Hahn’s partner and later husband.

  I quote directly from the governor of Hong Kong’s rallying cry to the people of the island as the war was upon them.

  I’ve used eye-witness reports where it seemed fatuous to invent: Stevie seeing the Japanese from the hospital window, the first set of questions in her interrogation and the Chinese woman being dragged on a rope come from Emily Hahn’s experiences, as does the structural skeleton of the story. The war diaries of James O’Toole were invaluable in helping me understand the day-to-day workings of the Hong Kong prisoner-of-war camps. Gwen Dew’s account of her treatment at the hands of the Japanese was extremely useful and the harrowing description of the young Chinese girl’s death as related to Stevie by Chen is taken from

  an eye-witness account of the fall of Nanjing. The debriefing of Paul Tsui was an important source in relation to the heroic work of the BAAG (British Army Aid Group) and also for the description of Declan’s escape route from Hong Kong.

  I have made every effort to create an accurate historical context for my fictional characters to inhabit and any mistakes are entirely my own.

  Bibliography

  This list represents a few of the books that I found useful while writing the book.

  Not the Slightest Chance: Defence of Hong Kong, 1941 by Tony Banham (Hong Kong University Press, 2005)

  Escape Through China by David Bosanquet (Robert Hale, 1983)

  Madam Sun Yat-sen by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

  Prisoner of the Japs by Gwen Dew (Knopf, 1943)

  Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire by Jean Gittins (Hong Kong University Press, 1982)

  China to Me by Emily Hahn (Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1944)

  The Soong Sisters by Emily Hahn (Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1941)

  All About Shanghai: A Standard Guidebook by H.J. Lethbridge (Oxford University Press, 1934)

  I Escaped From Hong Kong by Jan Marsman (Reynal & Hitchcock, 1942)

  Quiet Heroines: Nurses of the Second World War by Brenda McBryde (Chatto & Windus, 1985)

  Hong Kong by Jan Morris (Vintage, 1997)

  British Army Aid Group, Hong Kong Resistance 1942–1945 by Edwin Ride (Oxford University Press, 1981)

  Shanghai by Harriet Sergeant (John Murray, 1991)

  Hong Kong: Recollections of a British POW by Bill Wiseman (Veterans Publications, 2001)

  A Note on the Author

  Francesca Brill started her professional life as an actress, training at RADA and working in theatre, film and television before becoming a screenwriter and film maker. She has lived and worked in France, Italy, India and America and currently lives in London. The Harbour is her first book.

  www.francescabrill.com

  First published in Great Britain 2012

  This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © 2012 by Francesca Brill

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved

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  overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

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  50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781408828441

  www.bloomsbury.com/francescabrill

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