Cheung nodded.

“And thanks for putting me on the Japanese team.”

Cheung quipped an English expression he remembered from before the occupation: “All in a good day’s work.”

CHAPTER 32BURN THIS LETTER

Undisclosed Location

New Territories

August 28, 1942

Dear Morgan,

I haven’t heard from you in all these months. I’m so worried. Did you get the letter I sent you last Christmas? I sure hope so, and I hope you’re not lying dead in a ditch somewhere. I hope you haven’t been rounded up by the Kempeitai. I cannot repeat the stories of what they do to people in their prisons. Maybe my letter just got lost. I know the messenger would have had the good sense to destroy it if he got caught in a tight spot.

It broke my heart to leave without you, as I wrote before. As you know, I have Jane and the kids to think about. Better for you and better for me if you don’t know where I am.

Since those early days of the occupation, things have calmed down a little. How safe the situation is for a guy like you, I can’t say. It can’t possibly be that you still think Brother Du Bois’s ideas could still play out in the real world, can it? He is a smart man surrounded by propagandists. Surely you know that now? I bet you he’s changed his mind himself, or he would if he could see how things are here.

The Japanese governor is encouraging everyone who can to leave. You must be feeling the food shortages. Me and my cousins up here, we been helping a lot of people escape to Free China. Lots of refugees. Maybe a couple of escapees from the concentration camps too, who’s to say? Why don’t you come up and put your oar in here. Or if you wanted to go to Free China yourself, we could help you.

Jane and the kids miss you, as do I. Please send me word by the messenger who gave this to you. Even if it’s just a scrawl. I’d really like to know what you intend to do.

Though you’ll receive it encoded, I know you’ll have the good sense to burn this letter once you’ve read it.

Love from your cousin,

Izzy

CHAPTER 33VERY PREGNANT

August 30, 1942

Emily was all belly, and sweating in the muggy August heat. I felt positive that the pregnancy was a result of the rape at St Stephen’s last Christmas, although she insisted it wasn’t. “I was pregnant before that, Vi,” she said again. “It’s Tak-Wing’s kid. Why won’t you believe me?”