“Trudy. It’s not good for women to be out these days. You should be tucked away, safe, at home. Now, mend my trousers and make us some lunch.”

She throws the paper at his head.

“What’s the news?” Will asks.

“Not good for England,” Dominick says easily. “They’re outnumbered and outclassed. There are just so many Japanese and they’ve been properly trained. They’re on the island already, swarming around everywhere. They landed the night of the eighteenth. The English are depending on soldiers who haven’t been trained on the terrain and don’t know what to do. The chain of command is not being well executed. And malaria’s running rampant.”

Will notices Dominick is careful not to say “we” or “our.”

“So we’re not doing well, it sounds.”

“No,” Dominick says evenly. “You are not doing well at all. I think it’s only a matter of time. The governor’s a fool, rejected an offer of cease-fire with some absurd British proclamation of superiority. Has his head in the sand. I’ve been getting news from our cousin Victor, who always knows what’s going on with these things. He’s still at home.”

“Do you want pancakes? ” Trudy interrupts.

“No, thanks,” Dominick says. “I can’t stay long.”

“What are you doing with your time these days?” Angeline asks. “Besides taking care of us, I mean.”

“You cannot believe what is going on,” he says. “You’re in a cozy little bunker here. It’s horrific out there. I’m just trying to keep on top of the situation.” His face is bland and smooth, eyes like black coals. Will wonders if it would be right to call a man beautiful.

“If we hear of a surrender, we’ll leave, since I assume they’ll be looting up here in the Peak first thing,” Will says.

“And if you see any uniforms at all, you should be out of here like a shot.”

“Is there anything else we should be doing? ” Angeline asks.

“No, not really. You have money, I assume. If it gets really bad, I suppose a hospital is the safest place. You know where they are. They’ve turned the Britannic Mineral Water Works factory over in Kowloon into a temporary shelter as well. But then you’d have to get over the harbor. Stay on this side, actually. There’s some Japanese custom that when they win a battle, the soldiers get three days to run wild and do whatever they wish, so that’s the most dangerous time, obviously. Try to be indoors at all times.” Dominick pauses, and looks at Will. “By the way, I’ve got a Christmas present for you.”

He goes back to the car and comes back with a cane, a beautiful one, made of polished walnut, with a brass tip.

“I’m afraid I didn’t have time to wrap it. But I thought you might find it useful.” He smiles crookedly and hands it to Will. “There you go, old chap.”

“Thank you,” Will says. He takes it and hangs it on the arm of the chair he’s sitting on.

“What about me? ” Trudy says. “Nothing for me? ”

“This just fell into my lap.” Dominick says. “I saw it on the black market and I had just enough money for it. Didn’t ask for much. I guess the market for canes is not so good in wartime.”

“Funny, that. I would have thought they would be popular, what with the war creating all those cripples and everything,” Will says.

“One might think, yes.”

Trudy stops the exchange. “But the doctor says that Will is going to be as good as new, so he won’t need it in a few weeks, will you, Will? We’ll use it as a poker for the fire, then.”

After Dominick leaves, they sit, the air somehow gone from the room. It feels colder, the evening approaching.

“Turn on the phonograph,” Angeline says. “I want to hear music and dance, and feel normal.”

“And drinks!” Trudy cries. “It’s Christmas and we should be having drinks.”

She fetches new glasses, lights candles, and puts the duck and bread and jam out on the table, and it tastes marvelous, their Christmas supper, with the liquor warming their cheeks and stomachs.

They carry on in this way, Trudy and Angeline dancing, carols playing, Will applauding, pouring more drinks. They drink and dance in the chilly drawing room of Angeline’s grand old house, the twilight encroaching, glasses in hand, tippling until they are all quite drunk and they stumble up to their rooms and collapse. Trudy is sweet to Will in bed, her hands and mouth moving over him until he forgets the dull throb of his knee and the spinning of the ceiling. That is the Christmas of 1941, a wistful, melancholy, waiting kind of day he will remember forever.

In the morning, Angeline knocks on their door. Will opens it, groggy, his mouth feeling like cloth. For some reason, she leaves her hand suspended in the air, frozen in midknock.

“Morning,” he says. She looks at him, her face pale and hung over.

“Happy Boxing Day,” she says. “It’s finished. I just heard on the radio. We’ve surrendered.”

December 26, 1941

TRUDY IS FRANTIC to find Dominick. “He will know what to do,” she says over and over.

“We will just stay here until we can’t anymore,” Will says, trying to calm her. “It will be fine in the long run. The Japanese cannot win against England, and America, and Holland and China. It’s just going to take a little while.”

“Would you mind if I went into town and tried to find him? Or maybe I should try to find Victor,” she says, ignoring him. “I don’t think you should go.”

“I would slow you down, I know.” He cannot calm her. “How are you going to find them? It will be impossible. Just stay and see. It will all be fine, you will see.”

She whirls on him, her face unrecognizable.

“And in the meantime?” She almost spits it out. “What do you suggest we do in the meantime while the Japs are swarming over the town, doing whatever they like, to whomever they like? They’re going to be all over the place, like filthy little ants. What do you think America and Holland and jolly old England are going to do then? Are you going to help me? With your leg the way it is? We have to.”

He hesitates, then takes her shoulder with one hand and slaps her face with the other. “You need to settle down,” he says. “You are hysterical.”

She sinks to the floor, weeping.

“Will,” she says through her hands. “Oh, Will. What are we going to do?”

He gets up with difficulty and kneels down on the floor with her.

“Darling Trudy,” he says. “I will take care of you, even with my terrible, gimpy leg. I swear.”

Later, after he has put her in a bath, and gotten her a drink, there is a knock at the door. With the women upstairs, he goes to answer it, first looking outside to see who it is. A sandy-haired man in uniform is standing by the door.

“Who is it?” he shouts.

“Please, sir, it’s Ned Young, from Canada. With the Winnipeg Grenadiers.”

He opens the door.

“Come in. Are you all right? Are you alone? What the devil are you doing all the way out here? ”

“Yes, sir. I was on a van being transported with the others, as POWs, you know, and I managed to jump off and just walked and knocked on doors that looked safe.”

Inside, the man is revealed to be a boy, so young acne still pocks his skin. His trousers are soiled and he smells to high heaven.

“Have you had anything to eat? ”

“Not in the past few days, sir.” He looks ravenous and polite at the same time.

“Here, sit down here in the dining room. I’ll get you some things to eat.” He gets a plate and puts out some bread and the remaining duck from last night. There’s a beer and he opens it, pours a glass of water as well. The boy falls upon it, shoving the food in his mouth.

“There’s more. Don’t worry,” Will says. “You’ll get your fill.”

“It was awful out there,” the boy says. His mouth is full and he begins to weep. “It was awful. We were in the mountains, in trenches.”