“He’s busy thinking.” Artlessly, with a knowing eye in my direction, Peggy added: “Mrs. Dwight, Jamie’s planning to escape.”

“Really? I thought he’d escaped long ago. I’ve got something new for him to think about. Jamie, tomorrow you’re moving to G Block. It’s time for you to leave the children’s hut.”

I emerged from one of the hunger reveries into which I often slipped. The apartment houses of the French Concession were visible along the horizon, reminding me of the old Shanghai before the war and the Christmas parties when my father hired a troupe of Chinese actors to perform a nativity play. I remembered the games of two-handed bridge on my mother’s bed, my carefree cycle rides around the International Settlement, and the Great World Amusement Park with its jugglers and acrobats and singsong girls. All of them seemed as remote as the films I had seen in the Grand Theatre, sitting beside Olga while she stared in her bored way through Snow White and Pinocchio.

“Why, Mrs. Dwight? I need to stay with Peggy until the war’s over.”

“No.” Mrs. Dwight frowned at the prospect, as if there was something improper about it. “You’ll be happier with boys of your own age.”

“Mrs. Dwight, I’m never happy with boys of my own age. They play games all the time.”

“That may be. You’re going to live with Mr. and Mrs. Vincent.”

Mrs. Dwight expanded on the attractions of the Vincents’ small room, which I would share with this chilly couple and their sick son. Peggy was looking sympathetically at me, the bucket clasped to her chest, well aware of the new challenge I faced.

But for once I was thinking in the most practical terms. I knew that I would be easily dominated by the Vincents, the morose amateur jockey and his glacial wife, who would resent my presence in their small domain. I might try to bribe Mrs. Vincent with the promise of a reward for being kind to me, which my father would pay after the war. Unhappily, this choice carrot failed to energise the Lunghua adults, so sunk were they in their torpor.

If I was going to bribe the Vincents I needed something more down-to-earth. Ignoring Mrs. Dwight, I seized my cinder tin from beneath my bunk, shouted a goodbye to Peggy, and set off at a run for the kitchens.

*   *   *