93
the British community to celebrate the event. H.M.S. "Cornwall", one of the 10,000 ton County class cruisers came up for the occasion. On Coronation morning, May 12th, a service was held on board. I had not previously seen those "Chicago pianos" which were supposed to be so effective an answer to the dive bomber. With their eight evil looking spouts, they looked formidable enough; but five years later they proved insufficient to save this fine ship from Japanese air attack off Ceylon.
In the evening there was to be a ball at the British Embassy. We went a bit of a splash for the occasion and gave a dinner party before going on to the ball. I remember in addition to some of our Chinese friends there were a couple from the American Embassy, a German officer and his wife, two officers from the British cruiser, the local manager of the Standard Oil Company, an Englishman with a Russian wife, and some visitors from Shanghai. Our cook, unknown to us, had decided he too would go a bit of a splash. For the fish course he produced a samli. In China the samli is considered the best of all fish, an opinion with which I disagree as it is too bony for my lazy nature. The cook's samli was a large fish, I suppose it must have weighed every bit of ten pounds. He served it whole and had excelled himself by inserting in each eye-socket a small electric bulb, connected to a battery concealed somewhere in the fish. To my wife's astonishment, as the chief guest helped herself, one eye gave a most suggestive wink, and the performance was repeated each time a portion was removed; a postmortem revealed that the winking was due to a short in the circuit and not to any humorous intention on the part of the cook.
The ball given by Sir Hughe and Lady Knatchbull-Hugessen at the Embassy was a brilliant affair. For weeks, of course, all the women had been talking clothes, Gay toilettes set off sparkling eyes; diplomatic, naval and military uniforms shone with gold lace, and the Ambassador's excellent champagne animated the conviviality. We did not know that within a few weeks he would be lying at death's door with a Japanese bullet through his back. In August when motoring from Nanking to Shanghai, the Ambassador's car, over which a large Union Jack was stretched, was attacked by Japanese aircraft and pierced by many machine-gun bullets. The Ambassador was shot through the back near the spine.
In the old days you could walk along the great wall of Nanking