At one end of the wooden bench, his chest and face bruised by the rifle stocks, was a twenty-nine-year-old Londoner called Mariner. After being discharged from the Shanghai police for robbing a rickshaw coolie he had become a foreman at the Shell terminal, and had scarcely stirred from his bunk since entering the camp. Beside him were the Ralston brothers, stable lads who had come out from England to work at the Shanghai racecourse. They joked nervously with David Hunter, who sat between them with his head lowered, blond hair streaked with blood.

Why David, with his caring parents, should have tried to escape from Lunghua puzzled me, and clearly puzzled Mr. Hyashi.

“You walked … through the … fence?” He pointed at Mariner. “You?”

“We didn’t walk, no. We climbed through the fence,” Mariner explained half-facetiously. “You know, stepped like…”

The older Ralston inclined his head, dripping blood onto my arm, and said in a stage whisper: “I knew I got these cuts somewhere.”

Both Ralstons tittered, and Sergeant Nagata stepped behind them and slapped their heads with his hard fist. They fell forward across the table, dazed but still smiling in a cracked way and unable to hear Mr. Hyashi’s next question, for which they were punched again.

I frowned at David, warning him to keep a straight face, but he was caught up by the Britishers’ horseplay. Without thinking, David began to titter with them, tears streaming across his cheeks. He avoided my eyes, as if he was glad to be caught and was prepared to be punished. Like the Chinese, they laughed because they were frightened, but to Mr. Hyashi and Sergeant Nagata they were being deliberately insolent in a peculiarly British way, never more arrogant than when they had blundered into defeat.

Baffled by them, Mr. Hyashi took up his position at the head of the table, forced to preside over this deranged meeting for which his diplomatic training at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo had not prepared him. He stood a few inches from me, and I could feel him trembling as Sergeant Nagata slapped the laughing Ralstons. I was so frightened that I, too, wanted to laugh, but already I was wondering what would happen when the sergeant discovered my attempt to break into the food store.

Mr. Hyashi gazed down at me, noting my lowered eyes. Relieved to find one small point of sanity, he placed his unsteady palm on my head, as if to reassure himself that I was real.

“You not … trying to escape?”

“No, Mr. Hyashi.”

“Not?”

“Mr. Hyashi, I like Lunghua camp. I don’t want to escape.”

For the first time Mr. Hyashi raised his hand to restrain Sergeant Nagata. “Not escaping. Good.” He seemed immensely relieved.

The older Ralston leaned against me, his eyes dazed by the blows. “Look after yourself, lad. You’re on your own here.”