It was good that we stayed, because toward midnight, who should appear at the gates but Emily’s brother- and sister-in-law, Tak-Tam and Ting-Yan. The sentry alerted us and we let them in. We took them into the staff kitchen.

“Is there a guy called Courchene with you?”

I went to his room to get him.

“This is for you,” Tak-Tam said. He handed Courchene an envelope, the kind messengers used. Courchene took it, looked at us nervously.

“Should we leave?” I said.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. I trust you.” He cut the envelope open with a dinner knife.

The paper was covered in tiny writing, but it wasn’t any language I recognized. There were little triangles, some upside down, some right side up, some on their sides. Little Vs, Us, Ps, Qs, Js, Ls, and Zs—at least that was what they looked like to me—ran along the page, also in various orientations. Some kind of code? After the war Emily told me that Courchene was trained as a Cree code talker, but he’d missed the call-up to go to the Western Front. She couldn’t explain that little note, though, or others like it that we found later among the things he’d left behind.

“The Kempeitai are going to raid the clinic,” said Courchene. “They are after Selwyn-Clarke, but they know you associate with him. If they catch you, you could suffer the same fate as him.” We didn’t know at the time what his fate was. We hadn’t seen him since that afternoon. If the Kempeitai were looking for him, he might already be dead. Or he could be held at the Supreme Court, suffering indignities we didn’t want to envision, yet couldn’t stop guessing at.

“Why don’t you come to Chek Keng, where you’ll be safe,” Ting-Yan said. “Emily, you can have your baby there.”

“I don’t want to get involved with the East River Column,” she said. We knew that Tak-Tam and Ting-Yan were members of the communist guerrilla group based in the Sai Kung hills because Cheung had whispered the news to us. It had once been called the Hong Kong and Kowloon Independent Brigade, but in recent days it had been verified by Communist leadership in China as part of its army. “And I don’t want Violet involved. I have a baby coming. I need to stay neutral.”

“We came all this way to rescue you,” said Tak-Tam. “The raid could happen anytime.”

“You shouldn’t have risked your lives,” said Emily.

“We’ve become good at safe passage,” said Ting-Yan. Her face was brown from the sun and her eyes were bright. “But the Japanese are getting wiser to us every day. This is your chance. You should take it.”

“If Selwyn-Clarke is taken, the medical people will need us more than ever,” Courchene said.

“Do you want some supper?” I asked everyone.