Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [205]
On December 7th the Japanese simultaneously attacked Pearl Harbor and crossed the Shenzen-Hong Kong border. Kai Tak Airport was heavily bombed and the runways put out of action and less than three weeks later, on Christmas Day, 1941, Hong Kong surrendered. Philip Chen quickly removed the secret and important documents from the Lai Tsin headquarters, including those from the Mandarin’s personal safe, to which only he and Francie held a key, and hid them under his kitchen floorboards. It wasn’t the best hiding place in the world, but it was all he could do.
Francie was crazy with fear for Lysandra and the Chen family. Pale and thin and still weak from his illness, Buck held her close while she wept bitter tears at her foolishness in letting Lysandra go.
“It’s my fault,” he said, tight-lipped with the effort of controlling his fear for his beloved daughter. “I took her there and it’s my responsibility to get her back. I’ll get her out of there if it’s the last thing I do.” He’d left for Washington the next day.
For the first time in her life Francie couldn’t bear to be at the ranch, it was full of Lysandra, the walls and tables were filled with her photographs, her clothes brimmed from the closet and her books from the shelves, and her dogs followed at Francie’s feet. All her young life was here, this was where it had begun … and for all she knew it might already have ended. Terrified, Francie fled to Washington and Buck. His name still counted in the nation’s capital, he knew everybody who was anybody. If strings could be pulled to find Lysandra, Buck would find the right ones.
Philip Chen watched the British soldiers being marched off to prisoner of war camps in Kowloon. Like many other Chinese he ran beside them, giving them what food and money he could hastily lay his hands on, helping carry a weary young soldier’s heavy pack until a brutal Japanese guard began to harangue him, beating him and the soldier to the ground with the butt of his rifle. As he pulled himself to his feet and walked away, he glanced back at the young soldier still lying in the road; he had not been so lucky. After that Philip knew what to expect from the Japanese captors.
Notices appeared informing all foreign civilians to report to the Japanese officials, ready to be sent to internment camps near the sea at Stanley; only Chinese were free to remain. Philip spoke urgently with his wife, Irene. They were responsible for the safety of the Mandarin’s appointed heir, Lysandra, whom they loved like their own child, and they decided immediately they must hide her, whatever the risk, until the war ended. Ah Sing, Lysandra’s amah, watched them worriedly. She adored her young charge and now she sensed danger. Her love was as fierce as any mother’s for her Number One daughter.
That afternoon Philip Chen was summoned to Japanese headquarters. The man who interrogated him through an interpreter was arrogant and to the point. He ordered one of the guards to deliver a fierce blow to Philip’s head for failing to bow to the Imperial Japanese invader. His small eyes gleamed in triumph at his own power over the influential comprador of one of Hong Kong’s most important merchant houses.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “at eleven hundred hours, the Imperial Japanese Army will take over the headquarters and assets of the Lai Tsin Corporation. We request that your taipan accompany you to this meeting so that his signature may be obtained for the documents relinquishing all his rights to the Imperial Japanese Government.”
Anger flared in Philip’s eyes, but he controlled it; he guessed their spies knew little about the Lai Tsin Corporation except that it was rich, and they coveted its assets and its ships, many of which thanks to the Japanese bombardment now lay beneath the waters of Hong Kong harbor.