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  Everyone laughed. Nicholas joined in yet, at the same time, he realized this was no laughing matter. Before him in the ammunition box was sufficient explosive to blow them all sky high.

  Nicholas unwrapped a block of explosive which had the consistency of putty. He inserted a detonator into it and connected the wires up. Then he explained how, on contact with the battery, the detonator – which he now translated as pao cheung, or firecracker – would blow the charge.

  When Nicholas’s lecture was over, Tai Lo Fu proposed they try it out. Cutting off a small piece of explosive the size of a matchbox from the block, he led the partisans to the far end of the beach where there was a tumble of boulders near the mouth of a stream. Here, he selected a crevice, pressing the explosive into it. This done, he pushed a detonator into it and, connecting the wires, ran them back along the beach for fifty metres. When everything was set and all the partisans had either taken cover behind the trees or lain down flat on the beach, Tai Lo Fu took hold of the battery and connected one wire to the negative terminal. After pausing dramatically for a moment, he touched the other wire against the positive terminal.

  There was a sharp report. Splinters of stone sprayed out into the sea. A small cloud of sand rose and fell in the air. The partisans rose to their feet or came out from behind the trees and looked at each other with obvious delight.

  When the wire was rolled up and the battery put away, Tai Lo Fu addressed the partisans and Nicholas.

  ‘We thank you for teaching us,’ Tai Lo Fu announced. ‘You are not only a good soldier like us but also a clever boy. Now we have aich ee, we can go to Kowloon and make plenty of trouble for the Japanese.’ He paused and turned directly to face Nicholas. ‘Now you are one of us. You are an East River Column soldier, a Tai Lo Fu soldier. I ask you to come with us, to see us make trouble for the Japanese.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’ Nicholas replied.

  ‘Big trouble!’ Tai Lo Fu explained. ‘Now we have aich ee, we can strike at a primary target.’

  There was a murmur of anticipation in the ranks of the partisans.

  ‘Now,’ Tai Lo Fu continued, ‘we can hit the Kowloon to Canton railway.’

  For a moment, Nicholas wondered if he had heard correctly. Tai Lo Fu was suggesting he might go with the partisans and actually blow up a train.

  At midday, the men set to cleaning their weapons and studying maps of Hong Kong. A detachment of four men, including Qing-mai’s father, left the camp and made off in the direction of the pass. Nicholas watched them go, amazed at the speed with which they ascended the steep slope.

  ‘When do I return to Sek Wan?’ Nicholas enquired as the last of the party vanished.

  ‘Later,’ Ah Kwan declared. ‘It is not safe for you to go now. The Japanese we saw in the night are still in the mountains. Now,’ he went on, ‘we do not have much to eat here. Will you help us fish?’

  Nicholas agreed and Ah Kwan gave him a weighted line wound on to a carved wooden spindle. He suggested Nicholas should fish from the rocks near the stream as shoals of big garoupa gathered around there.

  ‘What do I use for bait?’ Nicholas asked.

  ‘Come,’ Ah Kwan replied, ‘and I will show you.’

  He went to within a few metres of the water’s edge then, squatting down, frantically dug around a tiny burrow in the damp sand. His hole was just beginning to fill with water when he snatched at the sand and held out a small translucent crab waving its claws indignantly in mid-air, its legs scratching to gain a hold on Ah Kwan’s fingers. Taking the line from Nicholas, he pushed the hook through the crab’s carapace and let it dangle from his hand.

  ‘This is how you throw the line,’ Ah Kwan went on, swinging it round his head, paying a little out at a time. ‘Do not be too quick or the crab falls off.’

  When he had four metres of line circling his head, Ah Kwan let it go. The line stripped off the spindle and the weight dropped into the sea twenty metres out. He reeled the line in and Nicholas attempted a cast, but he could only reach half as far as Ah Kwan had done.

  ‘No need to worry,’ Ah Kwan assured him. ‘The fish come close to the rocks. You can catch them easily. But,’ he cautioned, ‘be careful. Do not swim or fall in the sea. The water is very deep, very fast. If you fall in…’ he made his hand fly through the air ‘… you will not come back.’

  Promising to watch his step and not to swim, Nicholas set off for the rocks. He paused on the way to collect half a dozen crabs which he put in his pocket for safe keeping. He could feel their legs scrabbling against the material. Finding a flat area to stand on, Nicholas baited his hook and cast the line, taking care not to lose his balance. As the weight sank, the current quickly took the line away to his left.

  At first, he had grand visions of returning to Sek Wan with a few huge fish dangling from a pole but the garoupa were wily. Several times, Nicholas saw them as huge silver flickers in the deep water but he could not hook one. By mid-afternoon, he had lost the six crabs without so much as hooking a single fish. The sun was high and he was getting both bored and thirsty. When the last crab was snatched from the hook, he decided he had had enough and began to reel the line in.

  Just as the hook broke the surface, Nicholas happened to glance out to sea. In the distance, a grey shape moved along the horizon, indistinct in the heat haze. A thin plume of smoke smudged the sky.

  A voice shouted from along the beach. Nicholas turned. Ah Kwan was running towards the rocks, his bare feet kicking up sprays of sand.

  ‘Japanese! Run!’ he yelled.

  Nicholas looked back out to sea. The grey shape was suddenly much larger and had taken on the form of a gunboat. Even though it was still some way offshore, Nicholas could clearly define the superstructure and the naval cannon mounted on the foredeck.

  He dropped the fishing line and scrambled down the rocks, barking his shin painfully. The moment he hit the sand, Ah Kwan grabbed his arm and sped with him for the cover of some trees just across a tidal pool at the head of the beach.

  Crouched in the shade, Nicholas glanced at the hamlet. Two of the women were sitting at a tub laundering clothes. Nearby, a man chopped kindling whilst, a little way off by the upturned sampan, three others scraped weed and barnacles off its hull. One man was checking fishing nets drying on a wooden frame. Of the rest of the partisan unit there was not a sign.

  ‘Where is Tai Lo Fu?’ Nicholas asked.

  ‘In a hole,’ Ah Kwan answered enigmatically. ‘Like a rabbit.’

  A hundred metres offshore, the gunboat slowed. The bow dropped and the hull came side on to the beach. Nicholas, lying next to Ah Kwan on the sandy ground, could see sailors moving on the deck. At the stern hung the Japanese flag, the red sun and its rays stark against a white background.

  The men by the sampan put down their tools and waved to the Japanese in a friendly manner. The man at the fishing nets followed their example.

  ‘Why hasn’t everyone gone to the hole?’ Nicholas whispered.

  ‘If the Japanese see no people,’ Ah Kwan replied, ‘they will send an armed patrol ashore to look around. If there are a few people, the Japanese do not worry. They think this is just a small village for fishermen. Now, no more talking.’

  A dinghy was lowered. Four Japanese sailors rowed to the shore and approached the sampan. They had rifles but kept them slung over their shoulders. For a few minutes, there was a brief conversation during which the Japanese raised their voices and the man with the nets was slapped hard in the face. Recovering from the blow, he ran up to the houses to return with a bag of woven grass. He handed it to one of the Japanese, bowing to him as he did so. The Japanese looked in it and shrugged, then slapped the man once more for good measure before ordering his companions into their dinghy. In a few minutes, they had rowed back to the gunboat. Nicholas and Ah Kwan, still keeping their heads down, could hear the winch raise the dinghy aboard. It was followed by the beat of the marine diesels as the vessel slowly turned out to sea, accelerated and sailed out
of sight around the headland beyond the rocks.

  ‘What was in the bag?’ Nicholas asked as he rose to his feet.

  Ah Kwan answered, ‘Dried fish.’

  ‘If you have so little food,’ Nicholas reasoned, ‘why did the men give them fish? Couldn’t they give something else?’

  ‘The Japanese wanted food,’ Ah Kwan replied. He burst out laughing and added, ‘Tonight, the Japanese sailors will be very sick.’ He mimicked vomiting, racking his throat. ‘We have put poisonous herbs in them.’

  As the sun set behind the mountains and Nicholas made ready for his journey back to Sek Wan, Qing-mai’s father and the rest of his detachment returned. Tired and quiet, they went straight to report to Tai Lo Fu who seemed pleased with the account of their patrol. He dismissed them but whereas the others went off to the houses, Qing-mai’s father approached Nicholas. He held out a small square of paper which Nicholas noticed was torn from the lining of the explosives box. Upon it were scrawled some characters in pencil.

  ‘Please,’ Qing-mai’s father said, pressing the paper into Nicholas’s hand, ‘give this to Qing-mai. Tell her her father thinks of her. Every day.’

  As the twilight deepened, Ah Kwan and Nicholas left the hamlet. Tai Lo Fu personally said goodbye to Nicholas and, once again, made a little speech in which he said he hoped Nicholas would join his brave soldiers to fight against the evil enemy.

  At the pass, Nicholas paused to look back at the hamlet below. An oil lamp shone in front of the houses. Out to sea, billowing cumulus clouds showed ghostly white in the last of the daylight. It all looked so peaceful and serene, a timeless panorama in which it was hard for Nicholas to believe there was, hidden in the trees and fields, enough explosives to blow up a train. Or more.

  Following mountain paths, Ah Kwan made no attempt at caution. Even when the moon rose, bathing the hillside in grey light, he showed no regard for prudence. He whistled or hummed, occasionally chatted about the birds and animals of the mountains, made no effort to muffle his steps and even carried his rifle with a certain nonchalance. Compared to the outward journey, he was being positively reckless. This worried Nicholas.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be a little quieter?’ he asked at length.

  ‘There are no Japanese here,’ Ah Kwan rejoined confidently, interrupting his humming to speak.

  They crossed a ridge where the path descended parallel to a rocky gully interspersed with dense bushes.

  ‘What about the patrol we saw last night?’ Nicholas warned.

  Ah Kwan stepped off the path and down into the gully. Nicholas descended after him. It was three or four metres deep and ten wide. From between the boulders came the musical tinkle of a mountain brook. Ah Kwan pushed some bushes aside. Beneath them, by the light of the moon, Nicholas could make out what appeared at first to be several large bundles; then, like someone looking at a trick puzzle, his eyes came to understand what they were looking at. A hand glowed with a pale sheen in the moonlight.

  ‘Qing-mai’s father was busy here,’ Ah Kwan said bluntly.

  He let the bushes go. They sprang back into place. For a few moments, Nicholas heard a low droning sound. It might, he thought, be one of the Japanese still alive and moaning.

  Despite his being the enemy, a pang of pity for the injured man ran through Nicholas. Yet, at the same time, a bolt of fear struck him: the soldier might still be in possession of his rifle and the moonlight was clear enough to shoot by. What was more, the wounded man would be in the shadow and Nicholas was standing above him, a clear target. Yet Ah Kwan seemed quite unconcerned. He had his back to the bushes and was clambering up to the rim of the gully.

  The droning subsided. Nicholas followed Ah Kwan but, as he gained the path, his foot dislodged a large stone which rolled down into the bushes. The noise began again, louder.

  Something heavy hit his arm just above his wrist and stuck there.

  Looking down, Nicholas saw a huge bluebottle sitting on his skin, its polished black thorax shining like leaded metal in the moonlight.

  ‘Flies,’ Ah Kwan said. ‘There are plenty of flies in the bushes. Laying their eggs on dead Japanese.’

  Nicholas swatted it away with his hand, a vision forming in his mind. It was like a short film, the sort he had seen in the cinema before the main picture came on. In it, he watched as the fly left the open eye of a dead Japanese soldier, flew through the air and landed on his own face, moving towards his lips.

  A surge of bile rose to Nicholas’s throat. He thought he was going to vomit and leaned forward. He retched but nothing came. Only a dribble of saliva hung from his mouth. Ah Kwan put a consoling arm around his shoulders.

  ‘The first time I was very sick,’ he said comfortingly as he pulled a water bottle out of his knapsack and handed it to Nicholas. ‘You take a drink. Wash out your mouth, but do not swallow.’

  When Nicholas felt better, they continued down the path. For the next two hours, until they reached Sek Wan, Nicholas did not speak. He kept thinking of how close those men had passed to him only twenty-four hours ago and how, now, they were all dead and food for maggots.

  Nicholas arrived back at Sek Wan not long after dawn. He had travelled the last kilometre or so alone, as Ah Kwan had parted from him near the bridge over the creek. He was heading off in the direction of Kowloon, following orders from Tai Lo Fu to look at the railway line.

  Entering through the gatehouse, the first thing Nicholas did was find Qing-mai. She was in the main house, helping Venerable Grandmother lay a new fire in the stove.

  ‘I have a message for you,’ he said, taking the square of paper out of his pocket. ‘It’s from your father. I met him.’

  Qing-mai took the paper. Her hand shook slightly.

  ‘Thank you, Wing-ming,’ she said. ‘How is my father?’

  ‘He is very well,’ Nicholas reported, ‘and he said for me to tell you he thinks of you every day.’

  ‘And I think of him,’ she replied with a catch in her voice. She sat at the table and read the letter slowly, savouring every word.

  When Tang returned from preparing the sampan for the day’s fishing, Nicholas decided to broach the subject of Tai Lo Fu’s suggestion that he join the partisans. Tang made no immediate response but, from the moment Nicholas finished speaking, Ah Mee was steadfast.

  ‘You no can go,’ she said adamantly. ‘Very danger for you. This no play game.’

  ‘No,’ replied Nicholas, thinking of the crumpled bodies in the gully and hearing again the hum of the flies busy at their awful labour. ‘I know.’

  There was an uneasy silence. Nicholas knew what was on Ah Mee’s mind. She felt a responsibility for him not only because she had taken care of him in the absence of his parents but also because she loved him.

  Tang cleared his throat and said, ‘Yes, war no game. But,’ he looked at Ah Mee, ‘if Tai Lo Fu say he want Wing-ming to fight, then he must go. This war not just English people and Chinese people fighting Japanese people. It is good people fighting bad people. We are good people. It is our job to fight evil.’

  He paused and looked from one member of his family to the other. Laan Doh Mao the cat came in the doorway, miaowed and jumped on to Venerable Grandmother’s lap, snuggling down as the old woman’s gnarled fingers stroked between the purring animal’s shoulders.

  ‘Not all Japanese are bad,’ Tang continued. ‘Some are good people. In Sai Kung, there is a Japanese soldier who is very kind. He does not hit people, does not take fish without paying. But others are bad. And we must fight them. Chinese boy fight, so why not English boy?’ His gaze fixed on Nicholas. ‘If you go with Tai Lo Fu, much danger for you. But if you want go, you go.’ He paused then added, ‘My father and mother think you their Number One Grandson. Ah Mee like your mother. You all same my Number One Son. We love you, Nicholas Wing-ming, and we afraid for you. But we not stop you. You no small boy now. You half-man.’

  Nicholas left the room. Laan Doh Mao followed in his footsteps. By the temple door, Dai Kam the d
og lay on his side, snoozing in the warm sun. The cat glanced lazily around then set off towards the gatehouse to lie upon the roof, dozing and waiting for an unwary bird to land on the ridge.

  An itch started in between Nicholas’s shoulder-blades. It was as if someone was watching him. He turned. From the dark interior of the temple, the white porcelain face of Tin Hau gazed placidly out from beneath her head-dress of red silk.

  Stepping over the raised sill, Nicholas entered the temple. The oil lamp guttered by the pillar. Six joss-sticks, one for each member of the family including Nicholas, curled their smoke into the soot-blackened rafters. Venerable Grandmother made sure they were lit every morning. On a dish in front of the goddess was a dried fish by way of an offering.

  Nicholas stared at the idol. She stared back. Her eyes were emotionless but a faint smile played on her lips. She seemed to offer some blessing in return for the fish which, although he had not placed it there, was the result of his daily work.

  ‘What do you think, Tin Hau?’ Nicholas asked, despite himself. ‘You think I should go?’

  The joss-stick smoke rose and the flame flickered. Then, to Nicholas’s utter astonishment, someone said, ‘Yes.’

  Nicholas started.

  ‘That’s silly,’ he said to himself. ‘Tin Hau can’t talk. She’s a wooden statue.’

  The voice repeated itself. It did not speak in an ordinary voice but lingered on the ending to the word, turning the s into a sort of elongated th.

  Yeth-th-th-th.

  Nicholas was determined to discover the source of the voice. As he stepped to one side of the altar and peered round the back of the idol, he half expected to find Qing-mai behind the statue playing a trick on him. Behind the altar, there was a small space between it and the rear wall in which Venerable Grandmother kept bundles of joss-sticks, a few wooden tablets carved with the names of her ancestors and a pot of red paint to spruce up the temple pillars.

  The only light to reach the space came from a tiny grilled window high up in the wall, through which the joss-stick smoke drifted into the sky. Even that light was softly green from the fronds of bamboo which grew close to the buildings.