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The fisherman proved to be a good old soul. He brought us alongside a comparatively big junk and here we waited in quiet suspense till the break of the curfew at 7 a.m. We stepped ashore at Lai-Chi-Kok *ifteen minutes later and breathed free air once again.
45 DAYS IN A JAPANESE DUNGEON
Torture isn't only an institution of the Middle Ages. Not only did men, in the days of the dim past, come out of unjust political confinement, half crazed. A similar instance took place not so long ago shortly after the occupation of ilong Kong by the Japanese.
In the Volunteer Defence Corps of Hong Kong were many young Chinese students, and some of these managed to escape from their intern- ment camp. One of them, named Jackie Lim, was lucky enough to make his escape undetected and during the first few days of his freedom he hid in the flat of an accomodating Chinese friend. When things had quieted down he came out into the open, found his relatives and nobody seemed any the wiser about him. One day, however, he met an old schoolmate to whom, in the course of their conversation, he unwittingly revealed the fact of his escape and his future plan of coming into Pres China. The friend was very sympathetic, and in a burst of confidence Lim even told him the address of his uncle to whom any intending escapes from long Kong could apply for advice as to route to be taken and all the necessary information. The friend promised to introduce to Lim some compatriots and an appoint- ment was made for the next day. Punctual to the minute the friend turned up with an escort of Japanese gendarmes, and Lim was taken into custody without even a chance to protest.
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The second act in this brutal drama was the sudden arrest of Lim's uncle. He was accused of being a spy in the employ of the Chinese
■ Chungking spy, the Japanese called him, trying to insinuate that the Central Government in Chungking is not representative of the nation - and he and his whole family were imprisoned.
Next came the turn of the accomodating friend who had put Lia up for a few days. dis home was abruptly broken into and he and his wife and four overseas students who happened to be staying with him as his guests were all taken away. No chance was given them to collect any belongings. As soon as they had gone the house was ransacked from top to bottom and completely looted - but that was nothing remarkable since loot- ing has always followed in the wake of the Japanese.
These unlucky prisoners were cast into the unused basement of an empty house and were left more or less to "rot" at their leisure. They were given two lumps of rice the size of a golf ball - and two cups of water a day. For forty-five days they lived on this meagre fare în total darkness. They were all faint and tottering with weakness and ill-treatment. very day it was the turn of one of them to go out into the light to clean the toilet bucket and he was unceremoniously kicked all the way out and in.
After a month and a half it was announced that they were to be released through the active influence of some of their outside friends. But it so happened that the officer reading the list of prisoners to be released left out the name of one of the students by mistake. The fellow went right out of his mind for several days and even now, in comparative freedom, he still complains of a fogginess of the brain and partial loss of memory.
And Lim? Report says that he has gone the way the Japanese always treat their active enemies that of slow starvation.
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Mr.
Mr. Mac
Mr.
18.
Mac Dougall 22. Pastin sex fr
Mr. Bottomley.
Sir E. Harding.
Sir J. Shuckburgh.
Sir G. Grindle.
Sir C. Davis.
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Sir S. Wilson.
Mr. Ormsby-Gore.
Lord Lovat.
Mr. Amery.
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