“Don’t talk. Just eat and try to relax.”

The boy goes on, as if Will hadn’t spoken. “I saw my buddy’s guts come out. He was alive. He was talking to me, and his guts were outside. Then I smelled him, he was cooking, his guts were cooking and it smelled like food. I saw a woman with her head blown off and her child sitting next to her, naked, with shit running down his backside, with flies buzzing. We had to leave him. They wouldn’t let us take the child. I’ve never seen such things. We were in Jamaica just a month ago, training, eating bananas. They told us we wouldn’t see any action here.” He weeps and weeps but keeps eating. “And I didn’t have water for days, it seems. I just wanted to die, but I jumped off that truck ’cause I seen what those Japs do. They’re not human, what they do to other people. They’re not human. I saw them rip a baby out of a pregnant woman. I saw them chop off heads and put them on fence posts.”

Angeline walks into the room.

“What on earth?”

The boy stands up, still crying, still eating.

“Hello, ma’am. I’m Ned, Ned Young, from Winnipeg.”

“I see,” Angeline says, and sits down. Will appreciates for once her cut-and-dried sophistication, so needling in peacetime. “Ned Young, where were you? Did you see any of the Volunteers?”

“We’ve lost. We’ve surrendered. I haven’t seen anyone but Japs. They’re so well equipped. They have mountain shoes, and belts with food concentrate, and maps. We didn’t have any of that. They gave us rum for breakfast. They just dropped us here weeks ago and told us we’d have time to train.”

“What did you see in town? ” They want information. He wants balm.

“There’re riots, and dead people. Everything smells so bad, you want to die too. It’s thick out there, the smell, and people are scared, but the scoundrels are out, stealing, burning. They’re taking advantage, before the Japs get everything.”

“Why don’t you rest, Ned,” Will says, realizing he is not able to give them anything. “You bathe and rest. There’s a bed upstairs and we’ll wake you if anything happens.”

Angeline brings him up. When she comes back down, Will feels the need to be outside and get some air. The young boy has brought a tantalizing glimpse of the outside world with him.

“I’m going out,” he says. “My leg feels better and I need to know what’s going on. It’s driving me mad being cooped up in here all this time.”

“Fine,” Angeline says. “Just don’t go too far. When Trudy wakes up, she’ll be wanting you.”

Outside, the sky is still blue, and there are birds singing faintly. Save the occasional plume of smoke, it is quiet and lovely up here on the wide, well-paved roads and green manicured hedges of the Peak. From a cliff-side fence, he can see Hong Kong spread out before him, the harbor glistening, the sky gleaming. It is so still outside, he can hear himself breathing.

“One of those moments,” he says, before realizing he has said it out loud.

He comes back to Trudy and Angeline in the kitchen pouring all the bottles of scotch down the sink.

“Don’t worry,” Angeline says. “We got blotto first. And we saved some for you, and our new friend, young Ned Young.”

“Only thing worse than a Jap is a drunk Jap, right? ” he says. “Keep the empty bottles. They might come in useful.”

“We’ve been thinking, Will,” Trudy says, “and we think the best thing to do now is stay here since we don’t know that anywhere else will be any better, but we think that you and Ned should stay hidden. Since it’s so very obvious you are not Chinese, you know. Unless, of course, you are needed to rescue us, but Angeline and I could pretend to be the servants in the house and they might leave us alone.”

Will cocks his head.

“Really? That has rich comic possibility, certainly, but I don’t know if that’s the thing to do.”

“I know it sounds mad, but where would we go? What do you think we should do? ”

“We could go into town and see what other people are doing.”

“But we might not have a place to sleep or anything to eat.”

“Well,” Will says. “Let’s do this. Let’s take the car early tomorrow morning and we’ll go down to Central and see what’s going on there and we can come back up.”

“All of us?”

“Ned should stay, since he’s had a rough time, but you and Angeline can come if you want.”

The next morning, they pile into the car, Ned as well, as he had not wanted to be left alone. He is freshly bathed and absurdly attired in some of Frederick ’s clothes, the sumptuous weave of the shirt cloth glowing up underneath his childish face, his torso swimming in tropical-weight wool trousers cut to house Frederick ’s not inconsiderable girth, cinched inefficiently by an alligator belt.

The road winds down the mountain, and as they round this curve or that, they catch a glimpse of the harbor and Central, looking eerily similar, just without cars. As they enter town, they quiet, looking at the empty buildings, the barren streets.

“Let’s go to the Gloucester,” Trudy says. “There should be people there.”

They park and walk down Connaught Road. Ned touches Will’s hand and motions to the side. Between two buildings, a man’s body lies, crumpled, blood streaked over his clothes. They pass silently.

“It’s so quiet,” Trudy whispers.

“No cars or people anywhere,” Will says.

But inside the Gloucester, it is bustling, with more people than they’ve ever seen in the lobby of that elegant hotel. They are sleeping on sofas, on the marble floor, the potted plants all moved tidily to one side, forming a verdant fringe to this strange refugee camp. Uniformed hotel boys are scurrying around with cups of coffee on silver trays, trying to serve the unorthodox guests as best as they are able.

“There’s Delia Ho!” Trudy cries. “I thought she had gone to China. And there’s Anson and Carol. And Edwina Storch with Mary. The whole world’s here!”

People throng around the new arrivals, asking where they’ve been, what they’ve seen.

“Can’t help you,” Angeline says. “We’ve been hiding out at home.”

“Undisturbed?” asks an American.

“Quite,” says Trudy. “But eating like dogs. Is there any food here?”

There isn’t much, unfortunately, the hotel trying their best to supply their guests with what remains in their cellar. Trudy sits down to share a rice pudding with Delia, spooning some into Will’s mouth, and then, seeing Ned off in a corner, gesturing him over to have some as well.

“The coffee is atrocious,” she says. “They’ve gone to well water.”

“What’s going on?” Will asks Dick Gubbins, an American businessman who, even before all this, always knew what was going on.

“I’ve been at the American Club, came here to see if I could find out anything. They’re starting to rampage through town, celebrating their victory. Mitzy, that old bird with the antiques store on Carnavon Road, was stabbed by a drunk soldier for nothing at all, for not handing over her purse fast enough, or something.” His voice drops. “And you know what happened at the hospital.”

“I don’t.”

“Awful stuff. They’re just animals, sometimes. The nuns were violated, the other nurses too, doctors bayoneted while trying to defend them. They’re not supposed to touch hospital workers, obviously, but tell that to a bloodthirsty mob. Drew McNamara’s over there trying to clean the whole mess up and see that those responsible are apprehended but everything’s so chaotic now. Under the Hague Convention, police are supposed to be able to keep order, the old Hong Kong police, but I haven’t seen much of them. It’s complete madness out there, I tell you. The Japanese are using some of the British constables to stand guard outside their consulate. I don’t think they understand the concept of irony.

“The Chinese and Indians should be able to move freely. Trudy’s cousin, that Victor Chen, is doing a good job acting as a go-between, trying to lessen the violence and looting. The neutral Europeans should be all right, but it’s touchy there. The Japs have asked for prostitutes, in addition to swarming all over the Wanchai brothels. Hopefully that’ll get some of their energy out. If you get a drunk or crazy one, they’ll swing at your head with a sword and not care if they’ve cut your head off. They’re demanding money and watches and jewelry from anyone they meet on the street. There’s supposed to be a victory parade on the twenty-ninth.”