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narrow street that ran parallel to the town’s crumbling wall. This was the old China, seemingly untouched by progress, its buildings dirty and decaying, its children half naked and clearly malnourished. Stares followed McColl, and one beggar ran after the rickshaw, stretching out a hand until he tripped on the uneven road.
    The coolie crossed a stinking canal, turned through another gate behind a scurrying rat, and emerged onto a slightly more prosperous street. Several artisans were working outside their shops, making the most of the remaining light, and a brazier was burning in front of a small hardware emporium, the hanging copper pots reflecting the fire. The smell of food from a couple of cafésreminded McColl that he’d hardly eaten that day and started his stomach rumbling. Two more coolies ran by with a sedan chair, and he caught a glimpse of an old woman’s face within.
    They skirted a small lake and headed up a long, straight street toward what looked like a railway station. A column of smoke, dyed red by the sinking sun, rose up behind the German roof, confirming the fact. McColl waited until they were a short walk away, then shouted to the coolie to stop. The man did so with obvious reluctance but conjured up a toothless smile when the foreign devil overpaid him.
    McColl walked toward the station, keeping to the rapidly deepening shadows on one side of the street. There was an automobile and at least a dozen rickshaws in the forecourt, all waiting, no doubt, for the train from the north. He ignored the gaslit booking hall, cautiously worked his way around the building, and found an area of shadow from which he could safely scan the platform. The first thing he noticed was a group of uniformed Germans, who seemed to be interrogating his friend the conductor. The train that had brought him from Tsingtau was sitting in the bay platform, lazily oozing steam.
    So he hadn’t been overreacting—they really were after him.
    He took in the rest of the tableau. The platform lamps were glowing in the gloom, and there were several dozen Chinese people waiting for his train, many with several items of luggage. At the other end of the platform, four coolies were waiting with shovels beside a coal wagon, ready to refuel the incoming engine. One of the uniformed officers seemed to be staring straight at McColl, which gave him a moment of acute anxiety. But he soon looked away. The darkness was apparently enough of a cloak.
    There was nothing to do but wait and take whatever chance was offered to get aboard the train. The minutes turned into an hour, and the temperature steadily dropped, but at least the darkness deepened.
    There were several blows on the whistle before the headlightswam into view and the train steamed in alongside the low continental platform. It was more prepossessing than the one from Tsingtau, with five European-built carriages and no open wagons. The moment it clanked to a halt, scrimmages developed at all the vestibule doors as Chinese passengers trying to alight collided with those seeking entry. Above their heads the peaked caps of the German police were turning this way and that, looking for a British spy.
    Up ahead the pipe from the water tank was being slewed across the tender, and beyond it the coolies were presumably shoveling coal. He had at least ten minutes, but there was no way he could cross the wide platform without being seen.
    Two of the policemen were boarding the train, but the others were still keeping watch outside. He should have crossed the tracks out of sight of the platform and waited on the other side, but it was too late for that now.
    He suddenly had an idea. He walked quickly back to the forecourt and up to the last rickshaw in line. “Hat,” he said in Shanghainese, pointing it out for greater clarity and waving a note worth twenty times as much under the man’s eyes. The coolie gave him an
Is this really Christmas?
look and slowly removed his conical headgear. McColl