(http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c178/Elvi123/300px-MDafoeBob20s.jpg)<br/><br/>At the age of 23, Harriet Pilkington-Smythe had seen and done much, far too much.<br/>Her shelterd life, in the English upper middle classes, had been wrenched away from her, her innocence lost in the recent history of Europe.<br/><br/>The Great War, the war to end all wars, had broken out when she had just turned 17.<br/>Harriet had waved the flags and watched the parades as her brothers, cousins and friends had paraded through the streets.<br/>They looked so handsome and proud in their uniforms, they brought tears to her eyes. They were fighting for King and Country, for freedom and they would be back home before Christmas, victorious Officers of a Nation who would welcome them home with open arms and a cheer upon their lips.<br/><br/>Christmas came and went, they did not return and the tears continued to flow, this time not with pride and joy, but with regret and sorrow. Each knock at the door, each slip of paper, a hastily written note in the tired hand of a commanding officer, each telegram typed in neat curtness upon yellow paper, took a little piece of her.<br/>By the summer of 1915, Harriet had lost two of her three brothers, five cousins and eleven of her friend's. One for each year of her life lost, never to return, countless others with horendous injuries or simply just 'missing in action'.<br/><br/>The newspapers were full of the horror of War, the trenches, the suffering of their soldiers, the inadequate treatment of their wounds. She read them each day, unable to believe or comprehend the magnitude of it all before turning again to the obiturary columns to mark off yet more of those she and her family knew.<br/>Her parent's dinner guests spoke of nothing else, some for, some against, others still too shocked to comment.<br/>Harriet listened intently to the conversations, trying her best to work out why, what and how until the words crowded her mind jostling for a place, attempting to order themselves into lines, like the very soldiers they spoke of.<br/><br/>Pouring herself into the war effort, Harriet volunteered for everything and anything that her parents would allow her to do. No munitions factories for her, no working on the land to make up for the lack of manpower, that was not the type of thing that a young lady, of her status, should do.<br/>So she packed food packages, made bandages, wrote letters to wounded soldiers and those entrenched in the mud and filth and tried to convince herself that she was being as useful as she could.<br/>She wasn't and Harriet knew it, there was far more that she could be doing, there was a greater need elsewhere. Leaving home in the early hours of a bitter winter morning, a small suitcase in hand, Harriet headed for France and the field hospitals.<br/><br/>Nothing was ever the same after that, even though her parents had thrown her a belated 'coming out ball', (she came of age and celebrated her 21st birthday while assisting the surgeon with seven amputations and a head injury, which involved picking lumps of shrapnel from a poor soul's shattered skull), in an attempt to get her 'back into society', failed terribly.<br/>It just wasn't the same, nothing would ever be the same again.<br/>The people she had known before she had left, were like strangers to her. Those who she had left behind could not comprehend the nightmare she had lived over the last three years.<br/>Harriet felt alone, lost and isolated and even though the scars and the pain of loss and suffering faded, they still remained. She kept herself to herself, more a recluse than the Gay young thing she should have been, always searching for a way out of her depression, a way to rid herself of the demons that haunted her, but never managing.<br/>The only thing that kept her sane was her older brother. Shell shocked and unstable, only they knew what each other had seen and done. He had been 'lucky', he had survived his head injuries and physically only needed a stick to walk, the loss of a knee cap and a few of his toes, was nothing compared to others.<br/>Harriet and Bertie were constant companions, she accompanied him everywhere and he came with her on the few occasions when she left the house.<br/><br/><br/><strong>New Years Eve 1919.</strong><br/>Her mother had died the previous year, her last remaining brother had finally succumbed to the terrors that haunted him and shot himself with his Army issue revolver. Mother had never forgiven herself, she felt that she could have saved Bertie, Harriet knew differently, but it was hard to put it all into words.<br/>The romatics among their friends and family said that she had died of a broken heart, the doctors said influenza.<br/><br/>Harriet had made an effort, for her father's sake. She could see him watching her, trying to judge how she felt, his last precious remnant of his family, sat at a now empty dinner table, the two of them rattling around a house made for six, now with more servants than owners.<br/>They had, in an attempt to lighten their moods, taken up the offer of attending a New Year's celebration at the Fitzpatric's. It was a new decade, an oppertunity to begin again, put the past behind them, not that it was possible, but at least the two of them could try and be optimistic.<br/>They hadn't had such a bad time, the Fitzpatric family had known theirs for many years and of all their friends they were the most discrete and least judgemental. Dinner and company had been fine, Mr's Fitzpatric, (Aunt Agatha, as she insisted upon being called), had carefully invited some youngsters for her company and Harriot had managed to break into a smile on several occasions, even allowing one Tuppy McGregor, to steal a kiss as the grandfather clock struck twelve.<br/><br/>Back home, Harriet climbed into bed, tired it would not take long for her to fall asleep. Perhaps it would be a new start, perhaps the year 1920 would be a new beginning for her.<br/><br/><strong>February 3rd 1920</strong><br/><br/>Harriet had been woken at ten, by her maid.<br/>She had been told that her Father had received a package and he would like to see her in the libruary as soon as possible.<br/><br/>Pulling on her silk robe, over satin pyjamas, Harriet had hurried down. She didn't like surprises, they always meant bad news now, so much for a fresh start to a new year.<br/>Father was sitting in his usual place, the huigh backed chair next to the open fire. He looked saddened, though somehow, he also looked as though the piece of paper he held out to her, held news that he had been expecting.<br/>Without word, she took the letter and sat on the foot stool in front of him, tilting the page slightly, so that she could read the neatly typed words, on a letter from a Solicitor.<br/>Her Uncle Charles was dead.<br/>Glancing up at her Father, she gave him a sympathetic smile, then turned her attention back to the doccument.<br/><br/>Uncle Charles, the rogue of the family, her Father's second oldest brother, appeared to have died in his sleep at his home in Hong Kong.<br/>Harriet frowned, the letter wasn't really clear. It went on to say that he had been involved in some kind of accident, then to tell of a mysterious fever. Rubbing her brow, she glanced up at her father once more to see him shrug. Obviously he too was a little confused by it all, the only thing that was certain was that he was indeed dead.<br/>Sighing, Harriet handed the letter back to her Father. Uncle Charles had not really been a great part of their lives, she could only count a handful of occasions when she had seen him. Chewing her bottom lip, she tried to remember when she had last seen him. It had been Christmas....yes Christmas 1915....Her younger brother Robert had managed to get home from the war, but her other two brothers had not been so lucky and Uncle Charles had just appeared for a few days and then left just as suddenly.<br/>As usual, he had filled the house with gifts from his travels, silks and trinkets for herself and her mother, elephant tusk figure, large hard wood boxes, teak and ebony. The list was endless, sometimes Harriet wondered if her Uncle used their house for storage, because they always had these things almost thrust upon them.<br/>Infact, she realised, the very dressing gown, one of her favourites, had been given to her, by him, that Christmas.<br/><br/>Her Father broke into her thoughts, there was more, much more.<br/>He held out a copy of Uncle Charle's will.<br/>Uncle Charles had no family, he had never married and there were no chilcdren, that they knew of. All of his estate came to his younger brother, Harriet's father, his wife and his children.<br/>Harriet, as only surviving child, was now a lady of substance, so much so, that she could hardly comprehend the figures that were laid out in the will, not to mention the fact that she now owned an estate in HongKong.<br/>But it wasn't the money, or the land and mansion built upon it, that intrigued her.<br/>Included within the package of papers, deeds and solicitor's letters, was a small envelope, her name neatly hand written upon it, in what she assumed was her Uncle's writing.<br/>Opening it carefully, she tipped it's contents out onto her hand. It was a triangle, a red stone triangle, holding it by the silken cord, threaded through a hole in one of it's points, Harriet inspected it. She could see nothing of great note, nothing that would warrant it to have been sent to her in such a way and there was nothing else in the envelope with it, to say why.<br/>Harriet smiled and shrugged her shoulders, both she and her Father agreed, her Uncle, his brother, had been a strange one, but...if it was important enough for him to send it, then she would hang onto it. Still, with a small chuckle on her lips, Harriet got her Father to tie the small piece on jade around her neck.<br/><br/><strong>March 3rd 1920</strong><br/><br/>It had been one awful of a rush to get everything sorted, book a passage and get to Hong Kong in time.<br/>Harriet had been lucky, she had found passage on the steamer at the last minute, otherwise it would have been a series of long train journies, followed by jumping from one ship to another.<br/>It had been a strange month, she'd had little sleep, strange dreams, sometimes nightmares, woke her as soon as she closed her eyes, or so it seemed and they all referred to her Uncle in some way.<br/>Harriet hadn't time to take much notice of them while planning her journey, but she had spent the first week, of her voyage, trying to work them out and understand them. Eventually, she had given up, putting it down to the excitement of the recent happenings, being a little fearful about the long trip alone, concerned about how she would cope with all the paperwork and protocols of an entirely different country. In the end, she didn't even notice that they had gone, slipping happily back into a reasonibly healthy pattern of sleep, a sleep she hadn't had for many years.<br/><br/>Looking out, from the first class passenger deck, Harriet leaned on the rail and watched the junks and small fishing vessels around the huge bulk of the steamer, then up towards the land itself.<br/>It was a scene she had never viewed before, even the air seemed to smell different and the climate was certainly not the one she had left behind.<br/>It was hot and humid, she was sure she could see the steam coming from off the sea, filling the air with moisture.<br/>So glad that she was wearing a simple white silk blouse and wide legged trousers, the young woman pushed herself back up from the rail and walked the short distance to her cabin, just to make sure she had packed everything.<br/><br/>After all, in less than an hour, the ship would have docked and Harriet would be back onshore, hopefully meeting the person that the firm of Solicitors had sent to meet her......<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>