They soldiers had looted and sacked, but really they had been looking for guerrillas. They had lined all the men up against the village wall and examined their hands for calluses. Tak-Tam had many, but they were as much from the work of farming as from handling guns. He had said as much to them in a few words of rudimentary Japanese picked up a hundred years ago, it seemed, in his studies. Those eleven dead cousins hadn’t been so lucky.

“We’ll avenge them,” Tak-Tam said, his throat phlegmy with determination and grief. “And we will get back everything that’s been taken.”

Some of the men were going up into the hills to search abandoned British pillboxes for weapons caches. Tak-Tam said he was going to go with them. Ting-Yan wanted to go too, but Siu-Wai said she had to take care of the baby. Macy began to cry. Ting-Yan took her into the bedroom she shared with Tak-Tam to feed her, though her nipples were sore from all the feeding she’d offered through the night. Now she had no milk. She was dried out and exhausted. Macy’s whimper gave way to a whine, and the whine gave way to a wail. She bawled and howled the way everyone in the house felt like doing.

When she quieted a bit, Ting-Yan could hear her parents and Tak-Tam in the main room making a plan.

“Food is more important than weapons,” said Lee. “If Ting-Yan doesn’t eat, Macy doesn’t eat.”

“Cousin Ka-Wan says there’s money to be made ferrying people from Sai Kung town to Kat O and Tung Ping Chau,” said Tak-Tam. “There’s tons of people fleeing the city, now that it’s under Japanese control. The Japanese are driving them out because they don’t have the resources to keep order. And there’s not enough food. He says you could even stay here in Chek Keng. The people are so desperate they would eventually find you. But there’s immediate work in Sai Kung.”

Macy just whimpered now. Ting-Yan went out to join them in the main room.

“You go, husband,” said Siu-Wai. “Mrs Tan and two of her daughters were … you know … I don’t need to say. I’m going to go see if I can help them. Ting-Yan, you come with me. Sum-Sum has been your friend since you were little, and she really needs you now. I know you love your father but the kind of work he has to do now is no good for a woman with a baby.”

Unlike her mother, Ting-Yan loved working on the boat. She gave Captain Lee a wistful look. The prospect of adventure was infinitely more attractive than having to confront what had happened to her friend. But she knew Sum-Sum needed her, and that she had a duty.