Cheung was left in charge of the cricket club. He felt a duty to be there, but he sent Yim-Fong back to Tai Hang to stay with her parents as a precaution. It was only a twenty-minute tram ride away, or an hour’s walk. He could visit any time. But it was better that she wasn’t actually living at the club. Tak-Tam and Ting-Yan were up in Chek Keng. Tak-Wing and Emily were at the old Tai Hang house. It was so hard to know whether any one place was safer than the other. Nowhere seemed safe, but concrete information about what was actually going on was scarce. The only news Cheung had access to was through rumour. In the meantime, gas lines had been cut and sewage mains destroyed. The Japanese army had taken control of the reservoir at Shing Mun, which up ’til then had provided most of the city’s drinkable water. There was no building in the city that did not reek of shit, piss, and sweat, including the battered HKCC. Cheung, like every other inhabitant of the city, choked daily on the vile stink of despair.

Footsteps sounded on the tile floor upstairs. They didn’t sound military. They were the footsteps of just one person, a familiar shuffle, but out of place. Cheung rushed upstairs.

“Lee!”

The old fisher stood gawping in the foyer, a pole balanced across his narrow back. On either end hung a rattan basket of blue-black crabs, still dripping sea water onto the polished black and white tile floor.

“What are you doing here? Don’t you know the city is under siege?”

“It’s Tuesday,” said Lee. “Stuffed crab night. You taught my lazy nephew how to cook it just right. Where is that pea brain?”

“How on earth did you get across the harbour? How did you get across the city? No one made it to work today, except young Yan, who sleeps in the kitchen.” Cheung himself was only present because he lived there.

“You owe me forty dollars.”

“Your mind’s deranged!” said the head steward, reaching into his pockets. “Those Japanese demons could have killed you. Don’t you know that under the circumstances, the order is cancelled? There are no ghost devils left in this pathetic cricket club to eat them.”

“I tried to come around back, but the door was locked. Why did you leave the front door open?”

“Put the load down, fool,” said Cheung, handing the money to the fisher. “Haven’t you carried it far enough?”

Lee shifted the load on his back in order to reach out and take the crumpled bills. “On this nice clean floor that the English step on in their white shoes? Why did you lock the back?”

“Because I don’t want stupid eggs like you sneaking up on me in my private domain! Put your load down.”

At last Lee did. “Why did you leave the front open?”