II()~(~ I,()~(~ I Nlrlll) I~I)! A'97NIGHTMARE The further back you look into the past, the further forward you can see into the future. - The Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill If people do not concern themselves over future problems, they will certainly get into present troubles. - The Analects of Confucius Ilf)~f; I'rf)~ f; . ~, ~ A'97N IGHTMARE Gillian Bickley "'",*-"':±:Ili.;ct. HONG KONG UNIVERSITY PRESS Hong Kong University Press 14/F Hing Wai Centre 7 Tin Wan Praya Road Aberdeen Hong Kong © Hong Kong University Press 2001 Original drawings © Arthur Hacker 2001 Gillian Bickley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. ISBN 962 209 526 7 All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Back Door was first published in 1897 as an anonymous serial in The China Mail, and was reissued the same year by th~ China Mail Office, as a pamphlet. The complete text, as given in Hong Kong Invaded! A '97 Nightmare, is based on both these original texts and has been edited and rekeyed. Cover photograph reproduced by permission of Hong Kong Museum of History, Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. To the best of our knowledge, the rights of all have been respected and acknowledged. If omissions exist, and are brought to our attention, these will be remedied in later editions. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Secure On-line Ordering http://www.hkupress.org Printed in Hong Kong by Kings Time Printing Press Ltd. Contents "'-~ -::!-; ,": '0 8 <', -C~~,.-- Foreword by Arthur E. Gomes vii A New Kind of Fiction by I. F. Clarke ix Acknowledgements xi List of Illustrations xv Introduction 1 Literary I ntroduction 3 The Genre 3 The Narrative Frame 5 Other Literary Techniques 7 The Anonymous Author of The Back Door 8 Date of Composition 10 Links with Early British Spy Stories and Invasion Literature 11 The Text 16 Historical Introduction 19 Comparison between 1897 and 1941 24 vi CONTENTS The Back Door 27 Note by the Editor of The China Mail 28 Note by the Editor of The Star of Uruguay 30 The Invasion Begins 35 The Landing 38 The Defence 43 The Battle of Sulphur Channel 47 Fires and Mob Law - The Battle of Deep Water Bay 56 Counting the Cost 60 Final Defence Preparations - Do or Die 64 The Final Assaults 75 The Final Struggle 81 Correspondence to the Editor of The China Mail The Back Door - A Criticism 87 The Defence of Hong Kong 90 Appendices 93 The Back Door Actors in the Drama 123 Regular and Volunteer Services and Units Taking Part in the Action 137 Barracks, Batteries, Forts, Magazines and Redoubts 141 Weapons, Vessels, Men and Land Transport at the Disposal of Defence and Invaders 143 Hong Kong Pol icemen and Pol ice Stations 146 Vessels 148 Chronology of Events in and Related to the Publication 152 The 1897 Russian-French Landings in the Future New Territories by R. G. Horsnell 165 The Volunteers' Camp, 9-18 October 1897 170 Notes 185 Abbreviations 257 Bibliography 259 Indices 271 Comendador Arthur Gomes, MBE Chairman, Hong Kong Prisoners of War Association Hong Kong Invaded! will rank as one of the leading historical fictions based on the true facts of the feelings of the people of Hong Kong in 1897, in fantastic contrast to the mood prevailing during the period 1938 to the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941. Everyone who has lived here should read this. This gripping narrative of the attack on the Territory has striking parallels with what really occurred in 1941. There were slight improvements in defence tactics. The Navy had laid minefields to protect the southern approaches of Hong Kong. There was effective use of little launches equipped with four pounder guns and wireless to observe the seas and detonate the mines should an enemy approach. The apprehension of the people in 1897, as told in the original text, which Hong Kong Invaded! reintroduces, The Back Door, seems to have been a fact. The people of Hong Kong really did believe in the prospect of attack and were actively alarmed. The people of Hong Kong forty years later took matters in their stride. Hong Kong was not much alarmed when the Japanese landed in Mirs Bay in October 1938 and eventually took Canton, even though Japanese troops came down right to the Fanling-Lo Wu border. Hong Kong continued on in its merry way. We took Japanese espionage humorously. The concentration of Japanese business interests in Wyndham Street, the Japanese masseurs, dentists, and others, we referred to them all as 'Spy Alley'. What is there to espy? We laughed. We learned the answer to our sorrow. viii FOREWORD In 1897 Hong Kong was asking Britain to send reinforcements to Hong Kong. In 1938 and 1939 after Britain declared war, the shipyards in Hong Kong were building the 'empire' ships for the war effort and sending money to Britain for the 'Bomber Fund'. The war was far, far away. We were accustomed to having the Japanese army just across the border by now. They were not bothering us. Thus 1938 and 1939 rolled on. In July 1941 when the Hong Kong government ordered all British Army, Navy and Civilian personnel wives and children to leave Hong Kong, there were clamours of 'Why us? ... and leave our husbands to the Hong Kong women!' Many ladies joined the Nursing Detachment of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. Others joined the Essential Services in order to stay with their loved ones. (They afterwards became inmates of Stanley Internment Camp.) As for the women and children who were evacuated, they were sent either to Australia or the United Kingdom, not to Singapore or Manila, as some people tried to persuade His Majesty's government to do. ... Did the government foresee that these places also would be untenable? Although the people of Hong Kong in 1941 were mostly carefree and preparing for a very merry Christmas, the Christmas they got was sudden, shocking and unexpected: Alas, regardless of their doom, The little victims play! No sense have they of ills to come Nor care beyond today.l On the morning of 8 December 1941, The South China Morning Post printed the following headline: 'The War Comes'. But in a way, in 1941 we were prepared. British Intelligence had deciphered the Japanese code, and when the message 'Climb Mt. ...' went out, the alarm was raised for all mobilized men to report to their battle stations immediately. When the enemy bombed the barracks, they were already empty. Thomas Gray, 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College', lines 51-54. I. F. Clarke Emeritus Professor, University of Strathclyde The convincing projection of a successful Franco-Russian assault on Hong Kong in The Back Door belongs to a new pattern of purposive, supercharged fiction - tales for the taxpayers - that sought to warn nations of the disasters-to-come. Their point of origin was an anonymous short story, The Battle of Dorking, which first appeared in the May 1871 issue of Blackwood's Magazine. The author was a distinguished officer of the Royal Engineers, who ended his days as General Sir George Tomkyns Chesney, Member of Parliament for Oxford. He wrote his warning tale of a successful German invasion of the United Kingdom in response to the revelation of a new kind of warfare in the Franco-German War of 1870 - breech-loading artillery, telegraphic communications, train transportation of troops - and to the emergence of a great military power in Europe. Conscription was the soldier's answer to the new balance of power question; but Colonel Chesney knew that in order to create a vast continental style army he had first to convince the citizen of 'the necessity for a thorough reorganisation'. So, in January 1871 he sent John Blackwood proposals for a short story 'describing a successful invasion of England, and the collapse of our power and commerce in consequence'.l There followed a series of uncontrolled explosions. The May issue of Blackwood's ran through sixteen reprintings and then The Battle of Dorking appeared as a paperback in June, selling fifty thousand copies a week. There were instant translations into German and French. By September translations had appeared in Belgium, Holland, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden plus two editions in the United States and in Canada plus reprints in Australia and New Zealand. At the same time