GUI XIANG WAS RIGHT ON TRACK about the Americans pulling out.

They made it ofcial; they were ending their occupation, scotching for once and for all the spate of rumors about a new concession coming into being, an American one, complete with garrison, law courts, clubs, schools. For days their decision was all the talk at Tientsin Club, once strictly exclusive, now thrown open with fees waived to all ex-internees. So there was I at the bulletin board, shoulder to shoulder with the elite, reading the latest Reuters and United Press despatches; or at the communal lunch table in the glittering dining room, breaking bread with taipans. It wasnt the happiest of times for legitimate club members. Faces grew bleaker by the day. One lunch I was seated beside Moo-jiang Smitty, Weihsiens jovial carpenter, now no longer jovial, no longer a carpenter, and no longer Smitty. He had reverted to Archibald Alistair Smith, Esq, Managing Director, Snelgrove Smith & Co, Tientsins largest wool packing plant. I dont remember his face being beetroot in Weihsien; it was certainly that now. Purple even. All through lunch he fussed and fumed: Did not the Foreign Ofce specically ask us to stay behind to protect British interests? And what was our reward for staying? Eh? Three years in a lthy prison camp! And little did we realize while we languished there what 10 Downing Street had in store for us . . .
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A fellow taipan, taking his place at the table, interjected: Whats your beef today, Archie? With eyes aame and chaps quivering, Mr Archibald Alistair Smith aimed an accusatory nger at the man. The bloody Anglo-Chinese Agreement of 1943, thats what! The snufng out of our livelihoods by the stroke of a pen. Hold on to your hat, Archie. The agreement can always be renegotiated. Cant you see the deadlier, more immediate problem we face? That came from George Wallis, camp baker in Weihsien, now waiting to be called back to his desk at Tientsins prestigious Fairchild & Co. Youve lost your marbles George. No problem can be deadlier. That infamous agreement of which I speak calls for Britain to relinquish the concessions assets accumulated over the years by municipal taxes paid by you and by me, and not by the bloody Court of St James. And what about the Crown Lessees Fund which everybody and his uncle knows was created by the BMC to compensate us when our sub leases run out in 1964? The powers-that-be have gone and signed it over to the bloody Kuomintang. And now those buggers have declared the leases null and void. Theyve ruined us, Georgie me boy, ruined us utterly! Not me, Archie, not me. Im not one bit affected by that monkey business. I dont own an inch of property. But Im personally ruined all the same. Galloping ination has done me in. He waved a bank note through the air. This here thousand dollar note is nothing but small change. What you could buy for ten thousand yesterday will cost you a lakh by the end of the week. My total savings at Chartered Bank wouldnt cover a rickshaw ride to Morlings Corner! All the more fool, George, for keeping your savings in local currency. How was I to know . . . While the two hammered away, I reected on my own little encounter with runaway ination. It began with a notice appearing on the clubs bulletin board advising Britons of cash grants being handed out at the consulate. All one had to do was show ones passport. Literally, money for the taking. At the consulate, after
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a two hour wait in line, a clerk handed me a form on which I had to ll in name, age, occupation, the names of three references, and the proposed method of repayment. Twenty minutes later, with the princely sum of one hundred thousand dollars bundled under my arm, I hailed a rickshaw. As we progressed past Chase Bank, someone on the front steps called out my name. It was Jimmy Winslow of all people! We were more than passing acquaintances. In Weihsien we were teammates on Kitchen Two softball team. Well, well, if it isnt Des Power, our lefty rst baseman! What you up to these days? Nothing much. Im getting itchy feet. Im skeedaddling myself soon as my replacement arrives. Say, you work for a stock broker dont you? Thats right, Doney & Company, but their doors are locked tight. My boss, Major Ridler, who was interned in Lunghua, is on a ship bound for England. Mr Gilmore, his partner, is too old and inrm to re-start the business. How are you managing to survive? I just got a hundred-thousand-dollar grant from the British Government. Local currency? Yep.

Chicken feed! Play money! Were dishing it out to all comers. You can have as much as you can carry. Follow me. I followed him through the banks marble foyer and into a strong room at the back. It was stacked to the ceiling with crisp ten-thousand-dollar bank notes.
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The Japanese left the stuff. Itll be worthless in no time. Take what you want. You dont have to sign for a penny of it. After loading the rickshaw to the gunnels, I called out: Say, Jimmy, do you know youve made me a millionaire? He threw his head back, laughing. Play money, my friend. Only good for Monopoly. Our home (seen here) on Sydney Road came to life the moment Tai-tai stepped through the front door. It was like old times to hear her voice ringing through the house, supervising the cleaners, painters, plumbers. We certainly needed plumbers. Two of Tientsins ablest took a whole day to clear the pipes clogged with human hair. It took all of a week for the smell of new paint to give way to that old familiar mingling of kitchen odors and furniture polish. And once again, mahjong tiles click-clacked in the drawing room. Who else at the mahjong table but that ebullient foursome: Ilse Von Brunow, Ruby Hawkins, Philo Cox, Gracie Lambert? For days I waited to catch Tai-tai alone; I had to tell her what had to be told. You should be thinking of selling out. Selling out! Have you lost your senses? Why should I sell out? The US Marines will soon be leaving. The Chinese are going to send us packing the minute that happens. Dont you believe a word of it. A captain in the Third Amphibious Corps told Mrs OConnor they are going to leave a regiment behind to protect American and British interests. I heard that at Tientsin Club. I heard also that the American Consul has categorically denied it. Why do you think those families are leaving, the Travers-Smiths, the Cooks, the Marshalls?
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They are going on home leave, thats all. Pierre Travers-Smith told me he has every intention of returning in May to renovate his Peitaiho bungalow. Hongkong Shanghai Bank is open for business. Also Chartered Bank. Grammar School is enrolling students for the spring term. Everything will be back to normal, just you wait and see. Joe Grandon thinks the Chinese will have us out by the end of 1947 the latest. Stuff and nonsense. Joe Grandon doesnt know what hes talking about. Someone should advise him the British army has re-occupied Hong Kong, that theyll soon be sending a battalion up here as theyve always done. Ilse Von Brunow told me the Russians are in Port Arthur and Dairen. Its just like old times. Im going to start looking for linen and furniture. Jim, Pat, Brian, Jocelyn have all, by the grace of God, survived the war. Im going to get the home readied for their return. Are you so sure they want to come back? Of course they want to come back. They belong here. You belong here. Dont you think theyve had enough of war? Why would they want to get mixed up in Chinas war? Chiang Kai Shek and Mao Tse Tung will make peace just as Wu Pei Fu and Chang Tso Lin used to do every Chinese New Year. Chiang and Mao are no warlords. Whoever wins will kick us out. Never on your life! I wont stay. Im going. Go then. You always were a loner, a wanderer. The sooner you get that silly roving bug out of your system the better. Youll be back. I know you will. Ill keep your room ready for you. I rode Slavas bike to the consulate. The pink-cheeked man at the counter, probably fresh out of Hong Kong, listened to my request, scanned my passport, picked up
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the phone, spoke a few words, then wrote out a travel warrant. And as he did so, he mumbled, disinterestedly: Theres an American LST leaving from the Bund tomorrow morning sharp at seven. Itll take you to HMS Alacrity anchored at Taku. The Alacrity is on its way to Shanghai. You can get a berth to the UK from there. Tomorrow! Sharp at seven! The full impact of what I was doing hit me square between the eyes. I never dreamt that one quick phone call could decide something so momentous, so nal. Lightheadedly, I forced out the words: And whereabouts on the Bund will I nd the LST? Behind Astor House Hotel.

I am up at rst light. At the front door Tai-tai shows no emotion. See you in Peitaiho next summer, are her parting words. No rickshaw in sight, I pick up my battered suitcase and start off on foot. The raw Mongolian wind cuts through me like a knife. I spy an unoccupied rickshaw at the curb bordering Empire Theatre, but no sign of the coolie. Treading my way past DArcs Hotel, I take a fond last look at the mellowed brick faade, the pride and joy of my grandparents back at the turn of the century. Along Meadows Road the wind whips up half a gale. I sink my neck into my overcoat collar. And I stay hunched like a tortoise even as I pay my respects to Gordon Hall, to the Tingzi, to the Cenotaph. Three blasts from a ships horn, and I break into a run. No need to panic; the dark-gray LST is as frozen in place
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as the Astor House itself. My teeth are chattering, my ears and cheeks blue by the time I mount the gangplank and show my papers. An ofcer directs me to a mess at the stern where a dozen passengers sit huddled on benches. A fuzzy-faced sailor hands me a doughnut and a steaming mug of coffee. Is there no end to American generosity? A metallic voice from a crackling loudspeaker, then three blasts from a horn, and the vessel casts off, cutting through the surface ice along the rivers edge. Reaching the center channel, she swings her bow and heads downstream for Taku. In no time the brick and concrete skyline gives way to desolate mud ats. I am only vaguely aware of the throbbing engines, the ofcers commands, the crews responses, the chitter-chatter of fellow passengers. My mind is on Tai-tai, Tony, Betty, Gui Xiang, Yi-jie, Charlie, Aliosha, Murat, Achmet. One consolation, I have surmounted what I dread most the onrush of childish tears. Were at Taku, someone says. I go outside to look. Nothing much changed, the same scattering of mud huts, the same derelict wharf; and seawards, the same collection of junks, lighters, tugs, tramps. Theres one of the old forts, a white-haired passenger indicates an earthen mound shaped like an upturned basin. In early days we used to romp freely over those slopes. Later we were chased off by silly Chinese, shout306

ing Foreign Devils out, Foreign Devils out. I gaze at the primitive earthworks. I marvel at the tenacity of the medieval Manchu warriors who confounded the pride of the Royal Navy, who repulsed Lord Elgins Anglo-French storm-troopers, and who, when taken from behind, fought to the last man on that fateful day in history eighty-eight years back when the ancient Ming city of Tientsin fell to the foreign invader. The LST is hardly out of the silted river mouth when she runs head-on into the fresh chop of the Po Hai Gulf. The wind whistles a mournful dirge. Spray stings my face. Hold tight, a sailor calls out. I grab onto the rail with both hands. Smack! Bang! Wallop! We are tossed about like a matchbox in a torrent. Surely we cant take much more. Surely the Yankee skipper will turn back into the estuary. But nothing of the kind. He braves it out, and the farther we head into the gulf the angrier the sea, some waves shooting us so high the propellers clatter in empty air before we come crashing down in a gut-wrenching free fall. Whoop Whoop Whoop goes a ships siren. Its the Alacrity, alongside, doing the dance macabre, leaping and plunging hopelessly out of sync with the LST. Hoarse shouts and ashing lights. Lines coil through the air. In the split second that the two hulls cross, a passenger is hurled from American to English hands. When my turn comes, a brute of an English tar, takes one look at my GI eld jacket and hollers: Blimey, a bloody Yank, toss the bugger back! I claw frantically at his duffel coat. I cry out: British! Im British! His steel-blue eyes penetrate mine. Then he barks: Orl right, tyke the blighter below! A nauseating amalgam of diesel fumes, engine grease, and wet paint turns my stomach. Sickly green-tinged light plays on the constant comings and goings of crew members worming their way through the clutter of mess tables, lockers, hammocks, stanchions. I am cramped in a tiny space with four Jack Tars sipping lip-scalding unsweetened tea. The pitching and yawing, the sudden weightlessness followed by irresistible pulls of gravity send alarming spasms of queasiness through me. My mouth lls with watery saliva. The tars eyes are on me, waiting for my comedy act the helpless convulsing spewing up of my breakfast. Purposely I
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let the enamel mug scald the tips of my ngers. I take enormous breaths. I grit my teeth. The sternest of the four keeps his eyes peeled on me while he addresses a messmate: ookey, as you was syeing, them putrid bodies you found in the old, was they six dyes or seven dyes dead? Didnt you sye the stench myde the old man puke over the side . . . ? I do the sailors out of their fun. When do we get some grub? I ask. Youve bin a matelot before, the one called ookey snorts hufly. I shrug my shoulders. When do we weigh anchor? Weve already done so. Were moving. Cant you feel the motion? I think Ill go up and take one last look. Careful of your step, me ole China. I grab onto a rail on the sheltered side of the deck. A signal light is blinking in the darkness. A sailor on watch turns to me. Its a Yank wishing us happy new year and best of luck for 1946. My eyes sweep towards the land, my land, my motherland, my zu guo, as the Chinese say. One by one the orangey lights on the shoreline fade into the black void. I think I see a glimmer, faint and solitary. I strain my eyes to hold it. But it too is gone. The dark and brooding night has consumed it, just as it has consumed some vital essence deep down in the innermost part of me, and I am left to draw solace from that ancient saying: "Ou duan si lian the lotus root snaps, but the bres remain intact . . ."

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