Bastion

by Anthony Esler

Vintage paperback

335 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Harry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novelization of the brutal attack by the Japanese on Hong Kong, the Bastion of the British Empire in the Far East, during December, 1941. In it, Harker, an American adventurer/smuggler plies the opium trade with unsavory characters and beds the wife of British Major Richard Kirkland. The wife, Hillary, is now pregnant, and it is anybody’s guess who the father is. Yet her condition proves no barrier to constant smoking and drinking. The Anglos of different stripes and some Chinese band together in the face of relentless pursuit by the Japanese.

Esler turns the attack into a thrilling adventure novel. He has a good ear for the language and the culture of the times with good character development, we find that there are no good or bad guys who are just trying to survive. As Shakespeare wrote, “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

The plot is loosely reminiscent of the movie, The African Queen. I can just imagine Harker as Humphry Bogart and Hillary as Katherine Hepburn sailing on Harker’s 50 foot schooner, Marlene (named after Marlene Dietrich).