也许有一天，即使是这些事情，回忆起来也是一种快乐。

 1967年8月22日，经过几天的不祥，一群红卫兵冲进了英国大使馆，他们对香港的 "爱国 "中国记者被拘留以及殖民地的暴乱中三家亲共报纸被关闭感到愤怒。

在代办唐纳德-霍普森和他们的工作人员的陪同下，柯利達爵士退到了登记处，而攻击者则在 "杀！杀！杀！"的喊声中敲打着使馆的铁门。

大楼被烧毁，迫使他们踉跄着走到人群中。

柯利達爵士被殴打，肚子上挨了一拳，被拖到肥皂盒上，他的头在屈辱中被迫低下，期待着随时会有致命的一击，并一直感到一种'奇怪的感觉'，即投降带来了一种解脱感，就像跨过了一艘沉没的船舷。

当英国男人和女人被一个接一个地扔进门房时，他想起了维吉尔（Virgil）的一些句子，"以古典文学大师向我们保证的方式飘回了过去的岁月"：forsan et haec olim meminisse iubavit，"也许有一天，即使是这些事情，回忆起来也是一种快乐。

 

On 22 August 1967, after several ominous days, a mob of Red Guards stormed the British embassy, incensed by the detention of ‘patriotic’ Chinese journalists in Hong Kong and the closure of three pro-Communist newspapers during riots in the colony. Accompanied by the chargé, Donald Hopson, and their staff, Cradock retreated to the registry, while the attackers battered at its steel door amid shouts of ‘Sha! Sha!’ (Kill! Kill!) The building was set ablaze, forcing them to stagger out into the hands of the crowd. Cradock was beaten, punched in the stomach and dragged up on a soapbox, his head forced down in humiliation, expecting a fatal blow at any moment and all the time feeling a ‘strange sensation’ that surrender had brought a sense of relief, like stepping over the side of a sinking ship. As the British men and women were flung one by one into a gatehouse, he remembered some lines of Virgil ‘floating back over the years in the way the Classics masters assure us they do’: forsan et haec olim meminisse iubavit, ‘perhaps even these things it will one day be a joy to recall.’

他们被派去恢复秩序的士兵救了出来，并被勇敢的荷兰代办Douwe Fokkema和他们的法国同事所救。

代办的办公室被烧毁，住所被洗劫。

然后，外交官们实际上被扣为人质，直到伦敦和北京就对方人员的安全撤离进行谈判。

柯利達爵士意识到这是一场戏剧，但表演留下了痕迹。

一些与他共事并为本书接受采访的人认为，这是一个精心策划的残酷教训，他永远无法忘记。

 

They were rescued by soldiers sent to restore order and succoured by the courageous Dutch chargé d’affaires, Douwe Fokkema, and by their French colleagues. The chargé’s office had been burnt out and the residence sacked. Then the diplomats were, in effect, held hostage until London and Beijing negotiated the safe exit of each other’s personnel. It was theatre, Cradock realised, but the performance left its mark. Several of those who worked with him, and interviewed for this book, felt that it was a lesson in calculated cruelty which he was never able to forget.