The husband, Gus Borgeest, had been a production expediter in a Shanghai textile mill for twenty years. His background was almost as international as the U.N.; a British subject, he was born in Shanghai of mixed British, Danish, Portuguese, Italian and German ancestry. Mona, his Christian-Chinese wife, was born of Cantonese parents in the Hong Kong fishing town of Aberdeen. During the Japanese invasion, Gus was interned for two years. He spent his time in prison reading about the Quakers and became converted to their ideal of helping others. When the war ended, he returned to his Shanghai job until Mona contracted tuberculosis. To aid her recovery, the couple moved to the more favorable climate of Hangchow. It was only a stopover, for the political climate that developed after the Reds took control made the survival of Christian welfare workers an impossibility. Arriving in Hong Kong, Gus found a job in the Fish and Vegetable Marketing Organization of the colony government. Mona had regained her health, and the two of them spent their spare hours doing refugee welfare work in the squatter settlements. It was thoroughly discouraging; living conditions were deplorable and the refugees, subsisting on handouts, were losing their pride and initiative. “We aren’t accomplishing anything,” Gus told Mona. “It’s a waste of time—unless we can do something, find some way to help people earn their way out of these miserable firetraps.” After a long series of discussions in which they considered and discarded a variety of self-help schemes, Gus and Mona agreed to stake all their resources on one hopeful but wholly untried plan. They put aside every spare penny until they had saved $700. Now Gus was ready to present their plan to the appropriate officials of the colony government. He went to K. M. A. Barnett, District Commissioner and the colony’s top authority on the Chinese people and their customs. Mr. Barnett listened in some wonderment while Gus outlined a proposal to build a refugee rehabilitation center on a desolate island seven miles west of Hong Kong Island. He would teach people how to make a living by farming marginal land—and there was plenty of such land lying idle in the colony. The Commissioner was friendly, but he needed the answers to certain questions. What was Gus’s farming experience? Twenty years in a textile plant. Why did Gus think he could grow anything on that island? Hadn’t the Chinese farmers abandoned it?—and they could grow almost anything, anywhere! Gus was positive he could make it go. Did he have any money? Gus mentioned the $700 and said he was sure it would be enough for a starter. On the face of it, the plan looked highly unfeasible to Mr. Barnett, but he sensed something out of the ordinary in Gus’s determination. Besides, the Commissioner reflected, his office was never crowded with people who intended to do something simply for the benefit of their fellow men.