CO129-590-25 Accounts of events leading up to surrender and subsequent treatment of prisoners- etc 23-4-1942 - 28-9-1943 — Page 186

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of your own, you couldn't go five yards without being stopped and

getting a full complement of passengers.

Everyone, including

coolies, indulged in this pleasant practice. With half the

comradeship shown in these few weeks of war in this and other

ways, we would have made a very different H.K. in peace.

The bombardment from land and from the air was more or less

continuous but sometimes it died away to an eerie stillness and

sometimes (as in the periods immediately preceding the two

Japanese peace missions) it boiled up to an insensate hate.

Surprisingly few civilians were killed and those that I saw die

did so with an unexpected quietness. The fewness of the

casualties was due I think to the H.K. system of "arcading" the

pavements. On the sheltered side of the streets under the

arcades one seemed to be safe from anything except a direct hit.

Incidentally (as a guide to civilian morale) it was interesting

to observe one's own reactions under fire. I was a good deal

more frightened on the first day than on any subsequent day when

things were worse. To the end, however, I had a certain

reluctance to go out into the street, and never did so except

-

for good cause either on official business or to buy some

Bombs and shells nevertheless worried me less

necessary article.

and less as the siege progressed: I think most people found this.

Certainly they acted as if they did.

I noticed too that my

stock of courage varied from day to day. On certain days I had

an absolute conviction that I could not be hit: on others,

every/