The story begins with the Japanese army's defeat of the China forces occupying Hong Kong on 25 December 1941.

Nicholas makes a dangerous journey back to Kowloon to get quinine cure to the malaria Tang has contracted.

He also helps the Communist partisan army – The East River Column Fighters – to translate instructions for using heavy explosives.

Yet his most dangerous job would have been to deliver a medicine into the POW camps.Taking news or items to prison camps is known as "playing music on the bamboo radio".

Exhausted and worried, Nicholas narrowly escapes the clutches of the Japanese with the help of the prisoners and finally reaches the safety of Sek Wan village.