7 Dec 1941, A. H. Potts' wartime diary

On Sunday morning I had to go over to Kowloon railway station to move all the heavy camp equipment, which had come in by rail from Fanling, out of the railway trucks onto lorries and take it to the store;  the lorries were loaded and just about to move off when I received an urgent phone message from the Adjutant to the effect that I was to put the stores back in the railway trucks and return to Hongkong with my lorries immediately.  This looked like the real thing, as they were not going to waste time and money on unloading and loading stores unless there was some real urgency.

I therefore immediately rang up Percy Cox, at his bungalow at Fanling and was lucky in finding him still home – it was 10 a.m. and he was usually on the links by that time.  I asked him to please take a message to Uncle Pat, who had no phone, to come back to Hongkong immediately and stay with me;  I explained my reason to Cox and advised him to return to Hongkong also.  Cox went across to the bungalow and he and Uncle Pat discussed the situation.  They decided that if there was any real urgency a warning would have been issued by the police and elected to stay on and enjoy their Sunday at Fanling, one on the links and the other in his garden, and to return to Hongkong on Monday morning.