Horace knew that many of the British had been playing not so much to win, but to draw the timeless Test match out as long as possible in order to suspend the horrors and to give the Allied forces time to gather. Should he, or shouldn’t he, support them? W.E.B. Du Bois said the only way to bring an end to the white man’s rule was to sabotage them from within. But Du Bois also believed Imperial Japan would lead the charge against all things European and raise up the coloured peoples of the world. Imperial Japan was most certainly not doing this in Hong Kong. As long as the cricket game went on, nobody was being beaten or murdered, at least not by the Kempeitai on the Japanese Imperial cricket team. He decided that drawing out the play was the best and most honourable strategy, though he must not make it obvious, lest he himself become the gendarmerie’s next victim.

Bowling for the British team was female impersonator Ferdinand “Sonny” Maria Castro, known across the island for his Carmen Miranda impressions. He had been released for the duration of the match from the Sham Shui Po POW camp, where he was housed with the other Portuguese prisoners who’d participated in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps against the invading Japanese. He wore an elaborate fruit hat for luck, and bowled like a boss. Though the Japanese team was good, the reason they couldn’t get ahead was all Sonny Maria, master and mistress in one of knocking the bails off the wicket regardless of who or what was in front of it. Or that was the case until he faced Horace.