Under arrest! I used to have a recurring nightmare about being at the wheel of a car careering out of control downhill with its accelerator jammed full on. No matter how hard I struggled to disengage the clutch with one foot and ram the brake down hard with the other, I could do nothing to stop the vehicle. It wasn’t the fear of crashing that made me wake up in a sweat, it was the terrifying powerlessness to stop the forward motion, the deeply unnerving experience of sheer relentlessness.
The nightmare had now come true. I looked up and saw the khaki drill, the dark leather of the Sam Browne cross belt, the black shiny peaked cap and the drawn pistol. Just behind, the flashing light on top of the Land Rover seemed to gyrate crazily like an out-of-control lighthouse beacon. I was about to start the B-movie dialogue of, for want of something more original, ‘You’ve got the wrong man,’ when Clint beat me to it. Waving his police warrant card to try to emphasize his authority, he shouted urgently, ‘There’s people in the bar who should be held for questioning.’
Even as he spoke, Peres and the bottle boys, the real culprits, were slinking out of the bar. As soon as they were at a safe distance they broke into a run down the street and away into the night. The hyped-up inspector, who by this time, having confiscated the knuckleduster, was cautioning me and hustling me into the rear of the Land Rover, completely ignored Clint’s warnings. He was young, inexperienced and totally out of his depth.
The next thing I knew I was being driven to Tsim-Sha-Tsui police station, with Clint and Buffalo in hot pursuit in their own car. At the station I was processed through the system, searched, cautioned and interviewed and my statement taken down by a clumsy typist. It was written in uncultured English, heavy with police terminology, which tends to reduce an infinite variety of real-life happenings to a limited series of categorized events. After reading the statement I was told to initial in the margin the errors and crossings out and to sign and date it at the bottom.
Since the knuckleduster was classified as an illegal weapon and the possession of the weapon constituted an offence contrary to the Public Order Act, my case was transferred to the CID. I could not escape the charge of possession of an offensive weapon – POOW as it was referred to – since I’d admitted in my statement to having it in the first place. I’d had no choice, I had been caught with it literally red-handed. To my dismay, I learned that self-defence was no defence. As for the fight, I felt that the charge would be the relatively minor offence of causing an affray. No such luck. I was to be prosecuted under the Public Order Act for the much more serious offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm – AOABH for short. Around 4.30am, with my spirits ebbing away, it was decided that I should be taken into mess arrest. I was driven in a police Land Rover to Gunclub Barracks – the resident Hong Kong battalion headquarters – where I was to remain for the next two weeks until the case came up in court.
Clint and Buffalo had arrived at the station a few minutes after me. Ken Jones, a friend of Clint’s, happened to be the inspector on duty. He’d recognized me from the rugby club, so when Clint came dashing in to see what was going on, Ken said to him, ‘We’ve got one of your mates. I think you should look at the report book.’
Clint flipped the pages and found the relevant entry. It read: ‘0200 hours: Red Mill Inn, Ashley Road. A European male attacked a Chinese male with an offensive weapon, namely a knuckleduster.’ Clint was incensed when he read this, and insisted on changing the book. He later got a severe reprimand for this, but he was determined to see the truth come out even if it meant putting his job on the line.
Clint and Buffalo decided right at the outset to take the unusual step of appearing for the defence. A policeman is only ever expected to appear for the prosecution – even more particularly in instances such as this, when the case for POOW was cut and dried. Buffalo was sticking his neck out even more than Clint. He had crossed swords with the police establishment in the past and was already considered something of a renegade. What made them dig their heels in even further was when they were called into the office one day and told bluntly, ‘You are strongly advised not to appear for the defence.’ Without their support my case would have been severely weakened. To ensure the co-operation of the police authorities, my solicitor sent a subpoena requesting the presence in court of Clint and Buffalo simply because they had facts material to the case. The police couldn’t legally refuse the request.
Clint came to visit me in Gunclub Barracks. ‘They’re determined to nail you,’ he said. ‘They are pressing ahead with the AOABH despite what Buffalo and I have told them. With a half-decent judge you might get off, but there is still the charge for the POOW. Do you realize what you are looking at? You are going down for six months, more if they make the AOABH stick. You’re convicted even before the trial.’
‘But I didn’t start anything. It was self-defence. Surely the judge will see that.’
‘Makes no difference. It’s mandatory. No matter what the reason, POOW is an automatic six-monther. No appeal.’
I didn’t know what was the greater blow: the contemplation of a minimum six-month stretch locked up inside some humid rat-hole in Hong Kong, or the prospect of a certain end to my career in the SAS and the Army following a jail sentence. ‘Is there nothing we can do?’ I asked.
Clint looked at me. He seemed hesitant, reluctant to continue. ‘Well there is something. A mate of mine in the CID has been doing some research for me on the quiet. There’s a procedure for requesting corporal punishment as an alternative. What do you think?’
‘What does it entail?’
‘Bamboo across the backside. A short sharp shock, then you’re back in business.’ I was too relieved by the thought of escaping prison to notice the shadow of a frown that flitted across Clint’s face.
‘Sounds OK to me. Anything’s got to be better than being cooped up in prison. I’d die of boredom. Yeah! Let’s go for it.’
‘OK, but don’t count on it. It’s entirely at the discretion of the judge.’
The judge was about to return after considering his verdict, and I’d been called back into the dock. While awaiting the reappearance of the judge, the policeman sitting to my left unconcernedly brought a newspaper out of his pocket and began to read it. This informal motion contrasted starkly with the gravity of the surroundings. But then to him it was just another case in a long line of such cases. As far as he was concerned, familiarity bred irreverence. I shifted nervously in my seat and looked round as the court began to reconvene. My gaze finally came to rest for no particular reason on the dull brass bars surrounding the dock, and just for a moment or two I had time for my own thoughts.
I’d spent two weeks at Gunclub Barracks before the trial came up. Then, on the appointed day, the police Land Rover had come to pick me up at dawn to bring me to court. As we drove in, I scanned every detail of the city scene, things I would not normally cast a second glance at, knowing it could be my last visual stimulus for six months: a van parked up unloading boxes, a hotel worker emptying the leftovers from the morning’s breakfast into the refuse bins. As we drew closer to the centre, the sheer compactness of so many buildings in such a small space began to press on me. And once inside South Kowloon Court, the institutional solidity, the implacable process of the law gripped me even tighter.