CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG
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wall would have been breached and a huge volume of water would have swept down hill. The theatres and X-ray department would have been flooded and put out of action as would have been the emergency kitchen in the sergeants' mess, while the approach roads to the hospital would have been further damaged. Fortunately the shell did not explode and after hostilities our sappers successfully removed it to a place where it could do less harm if it exploded. Even so a crack leak was caused in the reservoir wall which caused us much trouble subsequently.
There was a surprising laxity about the early Japanese arrangements for guarding the hospital, contrasting with their later stringency. I remember climbing to Magazine Gap for exercise and curiosity's sake with a companion after the surrender and then following the road to the Peak for a considerable distance. A few Japanese patrols and sentries did not try to check us provided they were saluted as befitted the representatives of the Imperial Army. Soon however the hospital was wired in, the barrier at first allowing us access to the Barrack and N.A.A.F.I. Blocks as well as to the tennis court, the minor buildings and the ground round the reservoir. The guard post was in Bowen Road immediately below the hospital while the guard barracks were in our former married quarters in "H" Block. The Japanese administrators of the hospital lived in the former sisters' mess. The area allowed to us was therefore generous at the beginning, but was drastically reduced later on. Movement outside the wire was prohibited except when on working parties under guard.
The A.D.M.S., Colonel John Simson, had joined us in the hospital after surrender. He was a short, powerfully built man who had played rugby football for Scotland and had spent a number of years in the Sudan where he was a noted big game shot. In the hospital we were ordered to salute all Japanese officers, N.C.O.'s and sentries. John Simson's salute was a joy to see; with his cap on the back of his head and tilted to one side he would bring a forefinger up to eye level in much the same manner as a countryman at home might have acknowledged the local squire days gone by, except that the gesture was full of what used to be called dumb insolence in our army. The only way in which the salutation could have been more expressive would have been for him to have applied his thumb to his nose at the same time. While in Bowen Road he helped in a number of communal enterprises but sought no part in