Free Forgiveness by Mark Sakamoto Page A

fields, their best guess was Singapore.
    Throughout Asia, the British Empire was in atrophy. When presented with a proposal to add a contingent of British forces to Hong Kong, Sir Winston Churchill studied the map. He knew Hong Kong was indefensible. After a long and imposing silence, he simply said: “This is no good.”
    But Canada was eager to prove itself. Australian and New Zealand troops were helping in North Africa. With the Hong Kong decision, hubris carried the day. Mackenzie King gathered his cabinet. They pledged two battalions. Churchill accepted the Canadian troops. Both parties agreed they’d provide moral support to the beleaguered islanders. Passing political opportunism swept military logic out the door. Nearly two thousand Canadian souls were committed to reinforce a garrison the British had already substantially depleted. In so doing, the fate of 819 men was sealed. They would never return home. The remaining 1,155 survivors would be forgiven if they sometimes felt they were the unlucky ones.
    When they finally got off the train in Vancouver, the boys knew they were headed to Asia. On the deck of the New Zealand steamship
Awatea
, with Vancouver’s harbour in the distance, the officer in charge finally addressed the troops. Standing beside Ralph, Deighton asked what almost every other man on that deck was asking himself:
where the hell is Hong Kong?
    But concerns about finding Hong Kong on their issued map werequickly forgotten when the dinner bell rang out. The New Zealand cooks served a mountain of mutton. This led to near mutiny before the
Awatea
left Canadian waters. As the men stood and threw their plates to the ground in disgust, Ralph stayed seated with his head down. He ate what was placed in front of him without complaint. He ate extra that night. This trait would serve him very, very well in the coming days.
    The
Awatea
steamed into Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The men hung off the edge of the boat, gawking at the beautiful, exotic women dancing the hula. They were itching to get off the boat and into some trouble, but were soundly refused. Instead, for the next hour Canadian bills rained off the side of the
Awatea
as Hawaiian women danced farewell. Ralph’s hands stayed firmly in his pockets.
    Ralph stayed on deck long after the women were out of sight. Later, as they steamed away from Pearl Harbor, he witnessed the most beautiful sunset he had ever seen. The sky and coast was awash in reds, pinks, and a golden yellow. It seemed as if the harbour had been set ablaze.
    After nineteen days at sea, the
Awatea
arrived in Hong Kong Harbor. It was greeted by six decrepit planes and a few naval patrol boats. Unbeknownst to the men, the British had already evacuated their largest ships to Singapore. The
Awatea
sailed up to Holt’s Wharf at Kowloon.
    Kowloon is a city in mainland China, across the harbour from Victoria on the island of Hong Kong. It was then—and still is—referred to as the New Territories, and consists of a small crescent of land some twenty miles wide.
    The men disembarked the
Awatea
like a bunch of tourists, not one of them with any sense of the place or of the danger they were in. They were intoxicated by the beautiful women and the tropical heat. They thought they had won the lottery, and anticipated nothing but good from their exotic destination.
    The men were greeted on the wharf by the Governor of HongKong and throngs of local inhabitants. Everyone was smiling and waving. Deighton and Ralph made formation and commenced the four-mile march down Nathan Road to the Shamshuipo barracks. Along the way, the exotic scents of the East enveloped the men, inviting them in. The warm, humid air put them at ease. The smiles gave them a false sense of security.
    The progression down Nathan Road was a march unlike any the men had experienced. Everywhere they looked, they saw people. In every shop and restaurant, and down every little alleyway, there was someone doing something.
    For the boys