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PART III THE DISTURBANCES
to go to the aid of the emergency unit car No. 8 near Soy Street. Mr. RINGER took some of his men and with difficulty reached the car and its crew, both of which he brought back to his company having removed several buses in order to get the vehicle out.
163. Meanwhile Mr. McNUTT had debussed one platoon in Shantung Street and marched to the junction of Soy Street and Nathan Road where the Police vehicle had already been extricated. On the way back to his vehicles, he and his party were stoned by a crowd in Soy Street. Near the junction of Soy Street and Sai Yeung Choi Street, a baton charge was launched and the pattern which repeated itself so often that evening emerged, viz: a crowd of 50 to 100 people would suddenly collect, attack the police with stones and then disperse just as quickly when charged. Mr. McNUTT's two platoons were engaged at this time in dispersing the crowds as they formed. He said, however, that the crowds, whilst stoning the police fairly heavily, were not particularly hostile and no missiles were being thrown from buildings in that area. Towards one o'clock the crowds in this vicinity were more or less dispersed and the area was quiet, but news had come through that the alarm in the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank at the junction of Argyle Street and Nathan Road had sounded at 12.20 a.m. Half a platoon was sent to investigate and information came back that vehicles were burning outside the bank but the interior was safe. At one o'clock instructions were received from Headquarters to go to the Fire Services Mainland Headquarters at the junction of Fife Street and Nathan Road which was under attack. Mr. McNUTT took two platoons with him to this scene, the other platoon being still in Shanghai Street. He stopped his vehicles in Mong Kok Road and found a crowd of about 500 to 1,000 people milling around at the junction of Mong Kok Road and Nathan Road; this group attacked the police with stones, bottles, and other missiles. A second group of a similar size was milling around the junction of Sai Yeung Choi Street and Argyle Street, and a very serious fire was burning in the Shui Hing premises on the ground floor of Shaw's Building. The front door of the neighbouring Fire Services Mainland Headquarters was also on fire and a large pile of wooden boxes was burning outside the Headquarters. A fire appliance was already at the scene, parked inside Sai Yeung Choi Street near the junction of Fife Street. A Fire Services Officer pointed out that if the fire in Shaw's Building was not put out quickly, the whole building was in danger and that his firemen were unable to dismount from the vehicles and deal with the fire because of stones and other missiles coming from the crowd. Shaw's Building is one of the large multi-storey buildings common in Hong Kong, with shops on the lower floors and offices and residential accommodation above. Mr. McNUTT formed the impression that looters had gone into the Shui Hing Company and the watch company next door and had started a fire inside. He sent one platoon to the front of Shaw's building to deal with the situation there and two columns of the other to the Fife Street/Sai Yeung Choi Street junction, where he also proceeded with his runner. He decided that