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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN MARITIME ECONOMICS

Girish Gujar
Adolf K. Y. Ng
Zaili Yang

Contemporary
Container Security
Palgrave Studies in Maritime Economics

Series Editors
Hercules Haralambides
Erasmus School of Economics
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Elias Karakitsos
EN Aviation & Shipping Research Ltd
Athens, Greece

Stig Tenold
Department of Economics
NHH – Norwegian School of Economics
Bergen, Norway
Palgrave Studies in Maritime Economics is a new, original and timely
interdisciplinary series that seeks to be pivotal in nature and improve our
understanding of the role of the maritime sector within port economics
and global supply chain management, shipping finance, and maritime
business and economic history. The maritime industry plays an increas-
ingly important role in the changing world economy, and this new series
offers an outlet for reviewing trends and developments over time as well
as analysing how such changes are affecting trade, transport, the environ-
ment and financial markets. Each title in the series will communicate key
research findings, shaping new approaches to maritime economics. The
core audience will be academic, as well as policymakers, regulators and
international maritime authorities and organisations. Individual titles
will often be theoretically informed but will always be firmly evidence-
based, seeking to link theory to policy outcomes and changing
practices.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15187
Girish Gujar • Adolf K. Y. Ng • Zaili Yang

Contemporary
Container Security
Girish Gujar Adolf K. Y. Ng
Division of Business and Management Department of Supply Chain Management
Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Asper School of Business
Baptist University St. John’s College
United International College University of Manitoba
Zhuhai, China Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Zaili Yang
Department of Maritime & Mechanical
Engineering
Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool, UK

Palgrave Studies in Maritime Economics

ISBN 978-3-319-98133-8    ISBN 978-3-319-98134-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98134-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018955570

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
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are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Hans Berggren/GettyImages/Fatima Jamadar

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Preface

This book addresses the security of the global system of maritime trade,
of which containers form an integral and highly critical component. We
consider container and maritime security as synonymous. Thus, we
address container security from its myriad perspectives, for instance, how
to approach it, how to measure it, and how to better secure transconti-
nental shipping. This book focuses on answering the following
questions:

• What is the responsibility of the carrier for container security?

• What is the responsibility of the port for container security?
• What is the responsibility of the dry port/multimodal transport opera-
tor for container security? Which of these stakeholders owns the insur-
able interest?
• Can liabilities arising out of such risks be limited under the limitation
statutes?
• What are the appropriate approaches and methods to undertake secu-
rity inspections and auditing?

Of course, this is not the first (and surely not the last) collaborative
effort on this topic. There has been considerable research on maritime
transport security, maritime safety, security, and piracy (including some
works done by us). In this regard, we focus on container security as books
v
vi Preface

that are completely dedicated to this topic are scarce. However, our ratio-
nale is much more than just filling up the ‘scarcity’ hole. Nowadays,
global supply chains depend a lot on marine containers originating from
different locations around the world. Very often, they need to get through
complicated logistical networks before reaching final destinations and, in
between, involve multiple participants and points of transfer.
Unsurprisingly, many challenges related to security exist during the pro-
cess. For instance, the Cargo Committee of the International Maritime
Organization (IMO) inspects about 15,000 containers annually and
found that a substantial portion contains misdeclared contents. The US
Customs pegs this figure at around 32% based on annual audits of con-
tainers in seven countries. Such misdeclaration maybe a non-invasive
mismatch due to an inadvertent or deliberate error in packing, stuffing,
and the reporting of container contents by consignors for various reasons.
Furthermore, at the dawn of this century, continuous economic growth
and the rising importance of supply chain management are prominent
trends that are on the lips of every policymaker, scholar, and business
executive. Indeed, they have become almost synonymous. Buzzwords in
security are competitive multi-polarity, rising powers, asymmetric threats,
and increasing uncertainty. However, the incommensurability of these
trend lines, the opportunity and integrated growth, and increasing uncer-
tainty and risks all contribute to a dearth of practical dialogues across
much of the strategic and commercial communities. Thus, one should
not be surprised that the majority of commercial and strategic communi-
ties operate exclusively in their own spheres.
This is not helped by the existence of multiple countries and regions
along global supply chains. The inland carriage of containers is governed
by different legal regimes. As such, there is a lack of clarity with respect to
who is liable for security failure. Another example is that the customs
assumes that if a container’s door handle seal is intact, the cargoes inside
are tampered with, despite considerable empirical evidence to the con-
trary. Unless there is a broken seal, locks, or other manifest damage of the
container, the mismatch of cargoes is not considered by the customs as a
trespass. Non-invasive mismatch is detected by the customs only after a
container is opened. Customs may then levy penalties, allow amendment
of manifest, or confiscate the cargoes. In general, the onus of correct
 Preface vii

­ eclaration is on the shipping line that handles the containers. However,

d
it is widely understood that a shipping line cannot examine the cargoes
and, thus, can only trust the information given by consignors.
Sadly, all too often, the aforementioned problems create a negative
perception among stakeholders that increased security automatically
compromises efficiency and smooth cargo flows, or worse, that econom-
ics and strategy cannot inform one another in any productive ways. This
is not helped by discussions on maritime security that are almost always
tactical, myopic, and fragmented. They are vexing issues that urgently
require the exploration of effective solutions. Understanding this, we
strive to address maritime security from a systemic perspective. Our effort
is not just about securing a port or the container, but comprehensively
examining the ways and tools in which relevant stakeholders can work
together effectively so as to build a highly secure and resilient global sys-
tem of maritime trade, while not compromising the efficiency and free
cargo flows that serve as the oxygen of a healthy supply chain.
Understandably, a systemic view needs contributing perspectives from
different stakeholders along the whole system, and collecting such per-
spectives in a single dialogue about a collaborative strategy is far more
complex than it appears. Hence, this book is a means to initiate an active
dialogue on global supply chain security in an environment in which
seemingly contradictory trend lines are prominent. We therefore embrace
the interdisciplinary contexts, account for and represent stakeholders of
all stripes, and maximize the parameters of the subject matter. By doing
so, we hope to sketch a truly comprehensive global strategy for maritime
security in the contemporary world.
We strongly believe that this book will enhance the relevance of mari-
time security nowadays due to the fast changing political and economic
environments. Academically, it is a valuable companion to scholars,
researchers, and students to build upon additional research from a wider
and different perspective. Professionally, it gives a solid foundation to
policymakers and industrial practitioners to improve the decision-­making
process and strategies in security, and simultaneously adds value to the
works of consultants and lawyers from the transport, logistics, supply
chain, and insurance sectors. After reading this book, we expect that our
readers will start to seriously consider their tasks and responsibilities from
viii Preface

a new approach, and that innovative and efficient operational responses

will become much more evident.
Before ending here, we want to acknowledge our sponsors and sup-
porters. First, some of the content in this book has been published previ-
ously in the form of a postgraduate thesis and two journal papers. Hence,
we thank the City University of Hong Kong (China) and the publishers
Inderscience and Elsevier for allowing us to reuse some of such materials
(in different formats and versions). These previously published works
include Gujar (2016) and Yang et al. (2013, 2014).
Second, we gratefully acknowledge the support and insightful advice
from the publisher Palgrave Macmillan, the series editor of Palgrave
Studies in Maritime Economics (Strand: ‘Port Economics & Global Supply
Chain Management’) Professor Hercules Haralambides, and the anony-
mous reviewers. On a personal level, Adolf K. Y. Ng thanks his family’s
continuous support to his academic career. Last but not least, we thank
our readers for their vote of confidence to our efforts. We hope they enjoy
reading this book and appreciate what we try to achieve.
Winnipeg, MB, Canada Girish C. Gujar

September 2018 Adolf K. Y. Ng
 Zaili Yang

References
Gujar, G. C. (2016). Container Security and Current Legal Regime. LLM thesis,
School of Law, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Yang, Z., Ng, A. K. Y., & Wang, J. (2013). Prioritizing security vulnerabilities
in ports. International Journal of Shipping & Transport Logistics, 5(6), 622–636.
Yang, Z., Ng, A. K. Y., & Wang, J. (2014). A new risk quantification approach
in port facility security assessment. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and
Practice, 59, 72–90.
 Praise for Contemporary Container
Security

“Containerized shipping is key for global value chains. Without ever more inter-
connected maritime transport networks, globalization as we know it could not
have happened. At the same time, the more complex the networks become, the
more important it is to understand and mitigate their security risks. The new
book provides a very timely and comprehensive analysis of key container ship-
ping security issues. It is recommended reading for trade and transport analysts
and practitioners alike.”
—Jan Hoffmann, Chief, Trade Logistics Branch, UNCTAD; President,
International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) (2014–2018)

“Port security and safety have become a focal and challenging issue as the impacts
of containerization on world trade is growing. This book is a ground-breaking
piece of research full of profound analysis and problem-solving methods for the
stakeholders in the issue.”
—Paul Tae-Woo Lee, Director and Professor, Institute of Maritime Logistics;
Zhejiang University; Associate Editor, Transportation Research Part E

“This timely and much needed analysis of Contemporary Container Security

offers a most valuable contribution to maritime studies. Following both concep-
tual and novel modelling paths, the authors succeed in capturing the various
economic and regulatory aspects associated with container security. By includ-
ing in the analysis the associated security issues in hinterland regions, dry ports,

ix
x Praise for Contemporary Container Security

air security, and cybersecurity, this is a highly recommended book that broadens
our perspectives on how best to secure global maritime trade.”
—Thanos Pallis, Professor of Port Economics & Policy, Department of Shipping
and Trade, University of the Aegean; President, IAME (2018-present)
 Contents

1 The Criticality of Container Security   1

2 The Legal Regimes in Container Security  19

3 Container Security at Sea and in Ports  35

4 A Methodology to Prioritize Security Vulnerabilities in

Ports  63

5 Advanced Approach for Rationalizing Port Security

Inspection and Auditing Practice  81

6 Container Security at Dry Ports 121

7 Proposed Alterations in Legal Regimes 139

8 The Issue of Deploying Technology 163

9 Critical Issues in Sea-Air Transport Security 185

xi
xii Contents

10 The Need for a Global Strategy 195

References 203

Index 211
 List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Flowchart of using FuRBaR and AHP to vulnerability analysis

of ports 67
Fig. 4.2 Using the computerized FuRBaR approach to calculate criti-
cality values 74
Fig. 5.1 The methodology of using FER in PFSA 86
Fig. 5.2 The transformation of KSPI grades 92
Fig. 5.3 An example of transforming fuzzy input to output 99
Fig. 5.4 The use of IDS in port security estimation 105
Fig. 5.5 The security level of the CC pair 105
Fig. 5.6 Preference degrees of SMOs 110
Fig. 5.7 Ranking of SMOs110
Fig. 5.8 Influence of the input changes of the associated factors on
preference degrees of SMO#2 at the equal weight ratio of
security against maintenance costs 112
Fig. 5.9 Influence magnitude of two factors with respect to different
weights assigned to them 113
Fig. 5.10 Influence magnitude of two factors with respect to different
input variations assigned to them 113
Fig. 6.1 The automated targeting system (ATS). Remarks: LCL, Less
than Container Load; FCL, Full Container Load 135
Fig. 8.1 The CRAVE framework adapted for container security 175

xiii
 List of Tables

Table 4.1 Linguistic variables of risk parameters and their fuzzy mem-
berships69
Table 4.2 Screening the pairs of vulnerabilities and threats 74
Table 4.3 Performance of the four facilities F11, F12, F15, F28 under T1
with respect to D75
Table 4.4 Evaluation of all the F–T pairs with respect to the four criti-
cality parameters 76
Table 5.1 The hierarchy of KSPIs (S, security level; P, parameter level; I,
indicator level) 87
Table 5.2 Fuzzy membership functions of KSPI grades 91
Table 5.3 Parameter pairwise comparison matrix in terms of CC 102
Table 5.4 KSPIs’ weights and security estimations in the context of CC 103
Table 5.5 The security levels of the three P–T pairs: CC, CP, and CV 107
Table 5.6 The unified security decision-making attribute estimates 109
Table 6.1 The details of survey respondents 131
Table 6.2 The CONSEC scores of the studied dry ports 132
Table 6.3 The breakup of container security failures at dry ports 133

xv
 1
The Criticality of Container Security

1.1 Setting the Scene

This book addresses the security of the global system of maritime-based
trade, with a focus on container security. We consider maritime and con-
tainer security to be synonymous. Hence, the said terms are used inter-
changeably throughout the book, though the focus remains on container
security. We realize that ‘maritime security’ is a wider and an all-­
encompassing term. As such, we find it difficult to speak about container
security without taking into consideration the maritime aspects of the
same. This book discusses maritime security from its myriad perspectives,
for instance, how we should think about it, how we could measure it, and
how we can better manage/control it. Although this work is neither the
first nor the last collaborative effort on this subject, we believe that exist-
ing discussions about maritime security are almost always tactical, myo-
pic, and fragmented. Hence, we strive to overcome such defects by
answering the stated problems from the systemic perspective, rather than
from a singular ground-level one. In this way, we strive to examine the
ways in which stakeholders can work together to build a more secure and
resilient global system of maritime trade.

© The Author(s) 2018 1

G. Gujar et al., Contemporary Container Security, Palgrave Studies in Maritime
Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98134-5_1
2 G. Gujar et al.

At the turn of the century, economic growth and supply chain man-
agement are two prominent global trends for policymakers, scholars, and
industrial practitioners. The seeming incommensurability of these trend
lines—opportunity and integrated growth on the one hand, and increased
uncertainty and risk on the other—has contributed to a dearth of practi-
cal dialogue across much of the strategic and commercial communities.
Too often, it is assumed that increased security equals decreased effi-
ciency, or worse, that economics and strategy cannot inform one another
in any productive way. It is not surprising that the majority of the com-
mercial and strategic communities operate exclusively in their own
spheres of influence. Hence, we attempt to overcome such perceived
watertight silos of operations. We bring together different stakeholders
and communities, as we believe that it helps launch a dialogue on global
supply chain security in an environment that seemingly contradicts trend
lines. Our effort is to embrace an interdisciplinary context, accounting
for and representing stakeholders of all hues. In this context, we try to
sketch a truly comprehensive global strategy for maritime security in the
contemporary world.
The last decade has witnessed an increasing worldwide concern in
terms of the security of trade. The emergence of transnational non-state
actors acting in coordination with global criminal organizations has raised
the stakes for maritime infrastructure protection. In addition, localized
but highly intensified maritime piracy hotspots have increased concern
about the security of seaborne cargoes and crew. Hitherto, policymakers
are far more worried about the capacity of the containers and their con-
tents. However, they conceal their anxieties so as to prevent chaos and
collapse of the already fragile economies. Despite such efforts, it is com-
mon knowledge that the security of the global supply chain is precarious.
Also, it is commonly known across the industry that numerous incidents
of container security failure are detected on a daily basis for which nobody
is or can legally be held responsible. The electronic inspection equipment
available for non-intrusive scanning of containers is far and few between,
and the security personnel available undermanned, overworked, poorly
trained, and lowly paid. Such is the state of the global distribution net-
work that sustains the quality of life of billions and ­underpins the eco-
nomic conditions of our century, and it is widely acknowledged.
 The Criticality of Container Security 3

To confront these stumbling blocks and offer a strategic conversation

about the security of the global distribution system, we answer the que-
ries with a methodology premised on globalism. In this context, global
has at least three meanings. First, it refers to diverse geographic loca-
tions. We bring perspectives from around the world’s busiest container
ports in the USA, the European Union (EU), and Asia. We recognize
that discussions of the structure and functioning of the container secu-
rity system need to consider its evolution, organization, and relation to
the global security structure at several specific points. Inevitably, this
entails a discussion of the various domestic factors that influence the
system’s organization and functioning in key locations. We identify how
maritime security issues are defined, agendas established, decisions made
in various national contexts, and how these domestic environments
relate to the wider container and cargo distribution system and its
smooth functioning. Second, it refers to different disciplinary contexts.
Maritime security has various reference points from discipline to disci-
pline and from stakeholder to stakeholder, which itself is a reason for
continuing dialogue across traditional boundaries. We conduct various
interviews and discussions with representatives from various stakeholder
communities to make explicit their perceptions and understanding
about the object of maritime security and the best ways to accurately
account for it. Through comparative looks at global maritime security
policies, practices, and structures, to conceptual discussions about the
role and treatment of maritime security among key stakeholder organi-
zations including governments, we establish the foundation for a broad-
based global strategy in maritime container security. Third, it indicates
that the discussion uses the container security system as its primary unit
of analysis, rather than the container or the port. We consider maritime
security risks and risk management practices with a methodology that
reflects not only unit-­level but also system-level risks. In this case, we
consider the implications that this method reveals the system-level risk
to the transport operations. By offering a systemic accounting, each
stakeholder can think of and develop better ways to do business and
identify opportunities for joint risk management with other partners
along the supply chain. This will reduce the overall system risk to them-
selves and the system as a whole.
4 G. Gujar et al.

To a large extent, maritime security is a function of the ability of states

within the international system to secure access to vital goods and
resources, not available domestically. It is generally accepted that the pro-
cess of trade functions most efficiently when it is relatively free. Yet the
traditional alternative to a liberal free-trading international economic sys-
tem is a mercantilist one, in which states seek a high degree of economic
self-sufficiency, economic protection, and national control over economic
processes often explicitly pursued in the name of national security. A
common perception in the past decade was that the relative importance
of economic means was rising against military-strategic ones. In this
regard, it is well-documented that military power and maritime security
go hand-in-hand. Such a rationale lies in the assumption that the primary
role of national military or more specifically the navy was defence rather
than commercial gain. However, this assumption is erroneous, as judged
by the fact that, for instance, the UK’s Royal Navy, to a large extent,
assists not only UK’s security but also offers the means for its colonial
economic expansion too.
With the rapid pace growth in ocean technology and exploration,
oceans have changed from venues of transport to being extremely rich
sources of valuable critical resources in their own light. With the signing
of the United Nations Conference on Law of Sea (UNCLOS), countries
and regions today find obvious links between maritime security and
regional/national economic development. Furthermore, with the advent
of the information age, the oceans have become important tools for sus-
tained economic development, and also for seizing strategic advantage.
Another driving force in highlighting the oceans is the ever-growing
demand for the resources, particularly by the world’s most populous and
economically powerful nations such as China, India, and the USA. It is
of notable significance that the stated countries are graced with long
coastlines. Oceans definitely provide a sustainable solution to the prob-
lems being faced by the nations of the world nowadays. In such circum-
stances, it cannot be anybody’s case that maritime security is an
insignificant issue.
As a result, security becomes ubiquitous for policymakers. This has
been a growing trend over the past quarter century, but has increased
markedly in the past decade. As the gradient of traditional military
 The Criticality of Container Security 5

threats, especially war between major powers, a euphemism for the USA
and the erstwhile USSR (and currently China) has receded in the minds
of many analysts and policymakers; the focus shifted from international
strategic matters to domestic mundane issues, particularly those concern-
ing economic growth and employment. Even the reaction to 9/11, per-
haps surprisingly, favours this trend, as the phenomenon of global
terrorism was and continues to be viewed by many governments as law
enforcement rather than a strategic problem.
In both academic and policymaking circles, including international
organizations and informal ‘Track II’ diplomacy forums, considerable
efforts have been spent on developing a conceptual prism through which
one could view and apply a new security agenda to the old idea of collec-
tive security. With the added concepts of common, comprehensive, and
cooperative security, confusion is bound to follow if the term is used to
describe different things or conditions under differing circumstances.
The question is less of what exactly is security? Rather, it is perhaps better
phrased as what are the different ways in which security is conceived?
What are the implications for policy? As most theorizing about security
has not been maritime-focused, it is essential to place the development of
concepts of maritime security within the context of the wider security
debate. This leads to a series of questions. Security for whom? Security for
which values? How much security? From what threats? By what means?
At what cost? And in what time period?

1.2 Container Security

Moving cargoes via container shipping is efficient and economical.
However, it is vulnerable to intrusions and misuse. Containers are used
to smuggle illicit items and even people across national borders. Even
large quantities of biological weapons and/or surface-to-air missiles in a
knockdown condition could be concealed by non-state actors among
legitimate cargoes. Weapons of mass destruction, explosives, radioactive
matter, and other life-threatening products could enter a territory, hid-
den among legitimately traded goods in a container. For instance, up to
30,000 kg of conventional high explosives could be contained in a
6 G. Gujar et al.

Forty-­foot Equivalent Unit (FEU) box. It is technically possible to con-

ceal virtually any partially assembled nuclear weapons inside one con-
tainer, together with shielding materials to make detection difficult.
Nuclear weapon components or special nuclear materials could likewise
be concealed in a container, as could the materials for a radiological
device, or what is colloquially termed as the ‘dirty bomb’. The possibil-
ity of containers being used to bring hazardous radioactive isotopes has
been another concern. The threats of terrorists using a container to
transport or deliver chemical, biological, radiological, and/or nuclear
weapons (CBRN weapons) are not unreal either.
Nowadays, terror threats assume three dimensions: (i) the threats
from supply chains: aircraft used as weapons, or containers used as a
mode of transport for bombs or similar other hazards, (ii) the threats
against the supply chain: attacks against ports or airports causing major
breakdowns in the supply chain, and (iii) the supply chain used to sup-
port other terrorist activities, such as illegal movement of people in
containers or arms smuggling. Terrorist attacks targeting international
trade could cause serious interruption of services, closure of ports and
terminals, and debilitating delays. Allen and Hamilton reported, in
October 2002, that it would cost US$ 100 billion to close all the major
American ports for ten days, which would be the minimum required
period to search for a nuclear explosive device hidden in a single
container.
Rapid movement of containers, combined with incomplete or inaccurate
information regarding cargo stuffed inside, has the potential to greatly com-
promise global security. Currently, the world trade is estimated at US$ 10
trillion per year, or US$ 27.4 billion each day, with more than 80% of the
world’s trade moving in containers. This problem was not so serious earlier
as the global annual container traffic in the 1970s was less than four million
Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit (TEUs) but is projected to cross 700 million
TEUs in 2018. The earlier generation container vessels built in 1968 had a
capacity of just 2000 TEUs. The capacity of such vessels has grown
­substantially since then; vessels of up to 22,000 TEUs each are already in
service, and there is talk in the air of 24,000-TEU ships. At any given time,
more than 50 million containers are on the move between major gateway
ports each year, and subsequently transit across the countries of
 The Criticality of Container Security 7

the world daily on ships, trains, trucks, and barges. Any single one could
pose a deadly threat.
Since 9/11, trade security has mainly been viewed from an economic
and financial perspective, as worldwide annual theft and losses in con-
tainer commerce appear to be in the range of US$ 20 billion, with bil-
lions more lost in uncollected taxes. The focus today is on minimizing
security risks associated with the international flow of goods and services.
Although the security of ports and sea lanes was beefed up worldwide in
the aftermath of 9/11, maritime transport remained a rather weak link
due to the ease of concealment within a ship and the assured freedom of
navigation at sea. The growing containerization of trade has compounded
the problem of illicit transfers. The initiatives for strengthening security
in the international supply chain have multiplied, most of which have
been taken by governments, though many international organizations
have also been involved. The attack against the US World Trade Center
in 1993, another against an American destroyer USS Cole outside Yemen
in 2000, among others elsewhere, gave sufficient warnings of the immen-
sity of the impending threats, which the world almost wilfully ignored.
The 9/11 attacks triggered an overdue wakeup alarm and brought a
heightened focus on security in the transport chain. In response, the US
government launched various programmes that consisted of both legisla-
tion and voluntary cooperation between companies and authorities, pri-
marily its customs authority, namely the Customs and Border Protection
(CBP).
It should be noted that container security starts with the stuffing of
containers whose seals do not evidence or guarantee the legitimacy of the
cargoes loaded in it. The fact is that almost all of them are deliberately
ignored. The containers are vulnerable throughout the transit, beginning
with stuffing operations and before the shippers seal them. Also, vulner-
ability is high at the point of transfer or repacking of the containers.
During transportation by road, and in small harbours, the security risks
are also considerably grave. As such, road transport, where a container is
in the hands of a single person for long periods of time, can and does pose
substantial risks. Furthermore, one should note that container seals (or
so-called one-time locks), though carried out using the associated intel-
ligent technologies, are not difficult to remove, reproduce, and forge;
8 G. Gujar et al.

indeed, they can even be circumvented by lifting off container doors off
their hinges or just the top locking bar handle keeper. Subsequently, con-
tainers can be tampered for holes that are cut and then welded. Despite
such, they are consistently ignored at the cost of our own peril. It is just
a matter of time before this bomb explodes in our faces, as the scale of the
problem grows bigger by every passing day. According to McNicholas
(2007, 32):

Mis-declaration of cargo in manifests filed by carriers with respective cus-

toms is a worrisome problem that offers an illegitimate means to transport
illegal/illicit cargoes.

The International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Cargo Committee

inspects approximately 15,000 containers annually, and found a substan-
tial percentage with misdeclared contents. The US customs has pegged
this figure at 32% after conducting a yearlong audit of containers in
seven countries. The misdeclaration may be a non-invasive mismatch due
to an inadvertent or deliberate error in packing, stuffing, and reporting of
the contents by the consignor to avoid customs duty or freight or smug-
gle prohibited goods, or an invasive mismatch due to theft from a con-
tainer or cargo substitution in a container, having same weight to evade
detection by weighment. Generally speaking, the customs assumes that if
a door handle seal is intact, the cargoes inside the container have not been
tampered with, despite considerable empirical evidence to the contrary.
Hence, unless the container seals are found to be broken or prima facie
appear to have been tampered with, the mismatch of cargo inside the
container, if found, after opening the container, when compared with the
details mentioned in the cargo manifest is not considered by the customs
as a trespass. In such circumstances, the customs holds the carrier who
has filed the manifest liable and may levy penalties for short landing of
cargoes and loss of revenue, or may allow amendment of manifest or may
even confiscate the cargoes as the case maybe. However, the onus of cor-
rect declaration is on the carriers that transport the containers. But due
to commercial and time constraints, the carriers are unable to examine
the contents of the cargo stuffed inside the container and have necessarily
to trust the information provided by the relevant consignors/shippers.
 The Criticality of Container Security 9

Since 9/11, the focus has been on the minimization of security risks
associated with international flows of cargoes and services. The grow-
ing containerization of trade has compounded the problem of illicit
transfers. Hence, several initiatives and regulations such as Container
Security Initiative (CSI), Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism
(C-TPAT), 24-Hour Rule, to name but a few (see Chap. 2), were for-
mulated by the USA for strengthening security in the international
supply chain. These initiatives were subsequently adopted by many
countries and regions, for instance, the EU, Japan, Canada, China,
Australia, to name but a few (Rowbotham 2014). These are coopera-
tive efforts between the various National Customs Services and private
sector firms to deter illegal activities such as drug trafficking, wildlife
and flora smuggling, money laundering, and the illegal import and
export of prohibited items. In this regard, the regime has shifted its
primary focus from preventing the movements of narcotics to counter-
terrorism, although the former remains an important programme
objective. Its objective is to increase supply chain security through an
accreditation process for all private sector stakeholders along the sup-
ply chains, including importers and exporters, brokers, forwarders
independent of transport mode, for example, air, sea, and land, and
terminals (Szyliowicz 2014).

1.3 Defining Container Security

Container security has yet found a universally accepted definition. The
concept is subjective and indirectly defined by the International Container
Standards Organization (ICSO) as (World Shipping Council 2006):

The retention of safety and security of the containerized cargo, as declared

in the cargo manifest (in terms of value, quantity and quality) by maintain-
ing the integrity of the container seal or security device (CSD) and non-­
causal of third party damage.

As pointed out by, this definition signifies the importance of a number

of aspects, as follows:
10 G. Gujar et al.

• Integrity of container seals is paramount to determining the breach of

container security. In other words, if the seals are intact it would be the
onus of the claimant to prove failure of container security.
• The cargo details stated in the cargo manifest are critical in proving
breach of container security. In short, it would not be possible to prove
failure of container security, until and unless the details of cargo stuffed
in the container do not match with those stated in the manifest.
• It would be left to the prudence and judgement of the customs
officer(s) on the site to decide whether or not the container security
has been breached, unless the claimant can provide evidence to prove
otherwise.
• Neither the container nor the cargo has caused third-party damage,
even if the seals are found intact and there is absence of discrepancy
with regards to cargo details declared in the manifest.
• Container security would be considered to have failed on the occur-
rence of any one or all of the three mentioned events, namely, tamper-
ing of seals, discrepancy in cargo stuffed and manifests, and directly
causing third-party damage.

1.4 Developing Effective Legal Regimes

The responsibility of the carriers to ensure container security during the
sea leg is clearly defined by the Hague–Visby Rules. However, the clarity
is lost during the process of land transport due to the involvement of mul-
tiple stakeholders, not least the port authorities and multimodal transport
operators (MTOs) that move the containers to final destinations (Williams
et al. 2008). In this case, attempts to establish a uniform legal regime to
facilitate development of multimodal transport were commenced by the
International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT)
about eight decades ago. To a large extent, this assisted the development
of containerization itself (United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development, or UNCTAD 2009) as it became necessary to establish a
legal regime to cover the movement of containers by multimodal trans-
port. In response to this requirement, the Comité Maritime International
(CMI) and the Convention on Combined Transport—Tokyo Rules (The
 The Criticality of Container Security 11

Tokyo Rules) were subsequently drafted in 1969. The International

Chamber of Commerce (ICC) assisted in the process by drafting the com-
bined transport document. The UNCTAD/ICC rules and the Tokyo
Rules were enforced in 1992 (UNCTAD/ICC 1992). Both these rules
form a foundation for liability laws involving the MTOs in case of loss/
damage sustained by the goods. This is done by providing for a network
system in terms of liability and which has found wide acceptability in the
industry (Hancock 2008). It was not until the late 1980s that the United
Nations Convention on International Multimodal Transport of Goods
was adopted (hereinafter referred to as the MT Convention). However,
the MT Convention has not been enforced as yet.1
To resolve the issue of liability involving multimodal transport, two
different approaches have been developed: the first is the uniform liability
approach, while the second is the network liability approach. Under the
uniform liability approach, a single liability regime is applicable to all
transporters involved irrespective of the leg in which the loss/damage
occurred (Ulfbeck 2008). On the other hand, under the network liability
approach, different rules, depending on the leg, the mode of transport
used, and the applicable law involved, are taken into consideration based
on when the loss or damage occurred. Each system has its pros and cons.
But the former approach has become more popular due to its simplicity.
To resolve this conundrum, the G8 Member States during the G8
Summit in June 2002 agreed on a set of cooperative actions to promote
greater security on land, sea, and air transport, and facilitate cost-effective
and efficient flows of people and cargoes. For container security, they
agreed to develop and implement an improved global container security
regime to identify and examine high-risk containers and ensure in-transit
integrity. Furthermore, they agreed to develop pilot projects that model

1
For a general introduction of historical review, see the UN Document: IMCTRAD/SDTE/TLB/2,
‘Implementation of Multimodal Transport’, report prepared by the UNCTAD secretariat, p. 9.
UNCTAD, The Economic and Commercial Implications of the Entry into Force of the Hamburg
Rules and The Multimodal Transport Convention, p. 27: ‘At the end of the 1980s it became obvi-
ous that the MT Convention would not enter into force in the immediate future. The main reason
cited for this was that as long as the Hamburg Rules were not in force, there was no point in bring-
ing the MT Convention into force since this would create too big a gap between the liability of the
MT operator and that of the subcontracting ocean carrier who would still be liable only under ‘The
Hague Rules or The Hague—Visby Rules’.’
12 G. Gujar et al.

an integrated container security regime apart from adopting common

standards for electronic customs reporting.
Many of the stated security initiatives are essentially certification pro-
grammes based on the principle that customs authorities enter into part-
nership with companies and offer them fewer security controls, in return
for which the companies voluntarily agree to undertake to follow the
prescribed security drills (Xerri 1980). In 2006, the Cross-Border
Research Association (CBRA) presented a framework for analysis of secu-
rity initiatives for the supply chains that all security measures work
towards five main goals, as follows:

• Facility management, securing premises where goods are handled,

stored, and loaded.
• Cargo management, protecting the goods during all stages of their
transportation.
• Human resources management, ensuring that the background of all per-
sonnel is checked and that they are reliable and aware of risks.
• Information and communication management, protecting important
data and using information as a tool for tracing illegal activities and
shortcomings in security.
• Business network and company management systems, including security
in the internal and external structure of the organization and in the
company’s business systems.

1.5 Research Gaps and Questions

Despite the enactment and implementation of various national and
international regulations, it is recognized that there are clear mismatches,
such as between the actual contents found in a container and those that
have been declared in the shipping manifest submitted to the customs by
the carrier. Moreover, the manifest itself is prepared by the carrier based
on the information provided by the shipper in writing. Yet, the customs,
ports, and other authorities supervising the process of stuffing, inland
transport, and loading of the container on a vessel have found it almost
impossible to hold anybody responsible for this mismatch. In addition,
 The Criticality of Container Security 13

the complexity of global supply chains makes it difficult for the authori-
ties to precisely identify the particular shipper who has provided the nec-
essary information in writing in the first place.
To rectify this situation, the IMO has recommended amendments to
the SOLAS regulations relating to declared Verified Gross Mass (VGM)
of the container which came into force on 1 July 2016. It becomes man-
datory for shippers to declare in writing VGM of the contents of contain-
ers. However, it still leaves us with the question as to how the declaration
of VGM submitted by the shipper can be reverified, and if so by whom
and at what stage. Furthermore, what variations in findings of the reveri-
fied gross mass will be considered acceptable, and if found to be incor-
rect, what action should be initiated against the shipper for inaccurate
declaration by whom, and under what law, and which jurisdiction. Also,
it leaves us with the question of liability of the shipper for erroneous dec-
laration. In this context, the question about the identity of the shipper
assumes importance, as in a significant number of cases there are more
than one shipper and several intermediaries such as consolidators, for-
warders, and slot charterers present between the shipper and the final
carrier. Cargoes are often deconsolidated and then reconsolidated before
they reach final destinations, making it difficult to identify the specific
shipper who should be held responsible for any misdeclarations, not
helped by the fact that containers are often stuffed and sealed at the
premises of the shipper without the presence of customs officials.
One of the major cases on this topic involves a major fire and explo-
sion on board the container ship Aconcagua on 30 December 1998,
resulting in extensive damage to the vessel and cargoes onboard. The
source of the explosion was immediately identified to be a container
loaded with 334 kg of calcium hypochlorite (declared to be UN1748).
Justice Clarke found the shipper liable to the carrier under the bill of lad-
ing contract for shipping dangerous goods in breach of Article IV (6) of
the Hague Rules, with an initial judgement amount in the sum of US$
27.75 million, and further extensive quantum issues still to be dealt with.
Justice Clarke found that this suggested poor quality control.2 Thus, it is

2
CSAV v. Sinochem Tianjin Limited [2009] EWHC 1880 (Comm).
14 G. Gujar et al.

obvious that the critical importance of container security has been recog-
nized globally, and several measures have been adopted and implemented
by various national and international organizations, either fully or par-
tially. However, some questions remain unanswered, which are enunci-
ated here:

1. What is the responsibility of the carrier for container security?

2. What is the responsibility of the seaport where the container is loaded
on the vessel?
3. What is the responsibility of the dry port/container freight station
where the container was stuffed?
4. What inputs should be taken into consideration while measuring con-
tainer security? Can they be standardized? What weightage should be
allotted to different inputs?
5. What is the responsibility and liability of the customs authorities for
container security?
6. Can the security of a container be insured, and if so, by whom?

The application of the liability principle varies extensively in different

countries and regions. In some countries, the shipping lines are held
responsible, while in others, the consignee has been held responsible and
penalized. According to anecdotal evidence, the beneficiary of the mis-
declaration is, in principle, considered liable for the misdeclaration and
loss of customs revenue. However, this argument fails to hold water in the
absence of appropriate evidence.
Understanding such, we believe that maritime security cannot be
allowed to become a game of cops and robbers where increasingly rigid
legislation meets increasingly creative evasion and minimalist commercial
response. The strategic need for improved supply chain security is the
practical and scholarly consensus point of a wide variety of stakeholders
in various fields across economics, commerce, law, engineering, and
political science. This book situates itself firmly at that meeting place to
start a strategic discussion about key security issues from a global perspec-
tive. It is our aim to forge a new beginning of conceptualizing maritime
container security. Such a new beginning should be predicated on a con-
versation between those preoccupied with traditionalist maritime security
Another random document with
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blown loose from a turret window and came flying down to strike Flip
on the head. She dropped like a wounded bird to the snow and lay
there, motionless. She did not see the man staring at her limp body
in horror, nor know when he picked her up and went into the chateau
with her and dumped her there in the dark, a small inert bundle on
the stone floor.
 CHAPTER SIX
The Prisoner Freed
FLIP was lying at the bottom of the ocean and all the weight of the
sea was upon her, pressing her down into the white sands, and bells
were ringing down at the bottom of the sea, ringing and ringing, and
the tides came and went above her and the waves were wild in the
wind and the breakers rolled and she lay with all the waters of the
world pushing her down onto the floor of the sea and the bells rang
and rang until finally they were dissolved into icy darkness.
She opened her eyes and she saw Paul's white face. She turned
towards him and whispered weakly, "I didn't get the picture, Paul,"
and then she moaned because the movement of turning her head
seemed to bring the waters of the ocean down on her once more.
She tried to push the weight of the waters away from her but her
fingers closed on a handful of cobwebs. She felt that she was being
lifted and then again she was drowned in darkness.
When the darkness finally raised it was a quiet and almost
imperceptible happening. She felt the bright warmth of winter
sunlight on her eyelids and she thought at first that it was a morning
back at school and in a moment the bell would ring and she would
have to get up. And then she remembered that now it was winter and
it was dark until after breakfast and if she had been in bed at school
the sun would not be warm against her closed eyes.
And then she remembered the night before, the man who said he
was Paul's father, and she remembered the chateau and the picture,
and the waters of darkness suddenly bearing down upon her and
she was afraid to open her eyes. Her lids still shut tight she stirred
faintly upon the pillow.
"You're all right, Flip. You're absolutely all right, darling."
Now she opened her eyes and there was Madame Perceval
standing beside the bed saying, "Everything's all right, Flip.
Everything's all right. Close your eyes and go to sleep, my darling."
So she closed her eyes and this time the waters were gentle and she
felt that she was slowly drifting down a river of sleep and when she
woke up she was no longer afraid to look.
She opened her eyes and she was lying in the big four poster bed in
the room in the gate house that Madame Perceval used; and Mlle.
Duvoisine, not in her uniform but in a tweed skirt and the sweater
she had been knitting the day of Flip's laryngitis, was sitting in a
chair by the window, reading. As Flip moved Mlle. Duvoisine rose
and came quickly over to the bed. She put her fingers lightly against
Flip's wrist and said,
"Well, Philippa, how are you?"
"I guess I'm fine. Where's Paul, please? Is he all right? I couldn't get
the picture!" Flip started to sit up in her anxiety but as she tried to
raise her head it felt as though a crushing weight were holding it
down and a wave of nausea swept over her.
"You'd better lie still," Mlle. Duvoisine warned her. "You'll probably
have that headache for a couple of days."
"Why? What happened?"
"A piece of one of the shutters blew off the chateau and gave you
what your roommate, Gloria Browne, would call a bop on the bean."
Mlle. Duvoisine smiled at her with a warmth Flip had never seen in
her eyes before.
"Is Paul all right?"
"Yes." Mlle. Duvoisine assured her. "You can see him in a few
minutes. You're a foolish little girl, Philippa. Did you know that?" But
she didn't sound as though she thought Flip foolish at all.
"How did you get here, please?" Flip asked her.
"I came to look after you till Madame Perceval gets back from
Montreux. I'm staying at the school chalet in Gstaad and I'm going
back this evening since you're all right and won't need me any
longer. Now if you're a good girl and promise to lie still and not get
excited I'll let Paul come in. He's been waiting at your door all
morning."
"I'll lie still."
Flip lay very still while Mlle. Duvoisine was gone but she could not
keep her heart from thumping with excitement. Paul opened the door
and came in.
"Flip! Are you all right!"
"Paul! Are you all right!"
They spoke simultaneously and then they both laughed and Paul
came over to the bed and kissed Flip and then stood looking down at
her. Flip smiled up at him and strangely her eyes filled with tears.
"I thought he'd killed you," Paul said.
"No, I'm fine, Paul. Are you all right?"
"Yes, Flip. Yes, I'm all right and there's so much to tell you only Mlle.
Duvoisine from your school said that I mustn't excite you and of
course she's right."
"You won't excite me. Please tell me."
Paul climbed up onto the foot of the bed and sat there, leaning his
dark head back against one of the posts. His eyes were ringed with
black and his face looked white and tired and as though he had not
slept.
"Tell me, Paul, please," she asked gently.
"He's not my father." Paul closed his eyes and a look of relief came
into his face. "He's not my father, Flip."
"He couldn't have been your father," Flip said. "Not that man."
Paul opened his eyes and tried to smile at her. "After you locked me
up in your room I shouted and banged and my father—I mean
Monsieur Laurens—never even noticed." Flip opened her eyes wide
because it was the first time Paul had corrected himself when he
called Monsieur Laurens his father. He continued, "He said he heard
something but he thought we were having some kind of a game with
Ariel. He'd forgotten Aunt Colette had Ariel with her. Then Aunt
Colette came home and let me out and I told her everything and we
ran downstairs and roused father and then we went to the chateau.
Father took his gun. Sometimes he can be a very active man, Flip.
It's only when he's writing that he seems to forget the world. We saw
the man who said he was my father coming out of the chateau and
father captured him and the man told us a piece of shutter had struck
you on the head and he thought it had killed you and he had put you
in the chateau to protect you from the wind and he kept crying out
that he did not want to be a murderer. And Aunt Colette and I rushed
into the chateau and found you and—" Paul paused for a long time.
Then he said, "I thought you were dead. But Aunt Colette said you
weren't and then you said something and moaned and we carried
you home and called the doctor and Mlle. Duvoisine from your
school."
"Where's Madame?" Flip asked him.
"She's down in Montreux with the man who said he was my father.
They're at the police office. You see, Flip, that's what he's been
doing. I mean, it's his profession. He went around finding out about
people who didn't know who they were and then he pretended he
was related to them and got money from whoever had become their
new families. Aunt Colette said he was ill and not right in his mind.
He admitted that he wasn't my father but it wouldn't have mattered if
he hadn't because when I saw you lying there all in a little heap
inside the chateau in the dark and I thought you were dead, I
remembered. I remembered who I was, Flip."
Flip lay very quietly on the bed. She didn't dare move, partly
because it hurt her head to move, but mostly because it was another
of those times when she knew it would be best for Paul if she was
very still and very silent.
Paul put his head down so that his cheek pressed against Flip's feet
and a lock of his dark hair fell across his forehead. "I'll try to be clear,
Flip," he said, "but I want to say it as quickly as possible because it's
a hard thing to say. My father was a writer. We lived in an old
chateau—something like our chateau, Flip—that had always been in
our family. During the war my father worked with the maquis. He was
the editor of one of the most important of the underground
newspapers. I had an older sister, she was fifteen, then, and she
helped. So did my mother. Sometimes they let me run errands.
Everybody helped who could possibly be used and sometimes I
could do things without arousing suspicion that an older person
couldn't do." He paused for a moment, and then went on. "One
evening I was coming home after dark. I went in through one of the
French windows. The room was dark and I stumbled over
something. It was my sister. She was lying there just the same way
you were lying in the chateau last night when I thought you were
dead. I saw you lying there and you were my sister and it wasn't last
night at all but the night my sister was shot. It was shortly after that
that all of my father's work was uncovered and we were sent to a
concentration camp.... I think if you don't mind very much I'll have to
let Aunt Colette tell you the rest."
Again Flip wanted to say something that would give Paul comfort,
but she knew that she was unable to. She lay there and felt the
pressure of his cheek against her feet, until he lifted his head and
stared up at her and his eyes were the grey of the lake and seemed
to hold in their depths as much knowledge and suffering as the lake
must have seen. He stared up at her and now Flip knew that she
must say something. She pushed herself up very slowly on one
elbow, raised herself up and beyond the pain that clamped about her
head, and reached down and gently touched Paul's dark hair. She
suddenly felt much older, and unconsciously, she echoed Madame
Perceval's words. "It's all right, Paul. Everything's going to be all
right."
2
After a while Mlle. Duvoisine came back into the room and sent
Paul away and Flip slept again. When she awoke Madame Perceval
was in the room and she took Flip into her arms and held her as her
mother had held her.
"You were very brave, little one," Madame told her.
Flip started to shake her head but stopped as the abrupt movement
sent the pain back again. "I wasn't brave. I was scared. I was—I was
like pulp I was so scared, Madame."
"But you went on for Paul's sake, anyhow. That was brave."
"Can you be brave and scared at the same time?" Flip asked.
"That's the hardest and the biggest kind of braveness there is."
"Oh," Flip said, and then, because the thought of being brave
somehow embarrassed her, she asked, "Madame, will this make me
miss any skiing? I'm all right, aren't I?"
"Yes, dear, you're fine. It's a miracle, but you didn't have a
concussion. You're just a bit bruised and battered. The doctor will
look in on you again later this evening but he says you'll be up and
about in a couple of days and I'll work with you every minute the rest
of the holidays to make up for the time you'll miss. Now. Paul's
asleep. Georges is writing and Mlle. Duvoisine's gone back to
Gstaad. How about eating something? Chicken soup and a poached
egg? Thérèse will be miserable if you don't eat. She blames herself
for last night's episode and she was very upset about losing her new
boy friend."
"I'll eat," Flip promised. "Madame ... Paul told me about himself ...
about having remembered...."
Madame Perceval looked at Flip gravely. "It will be better for him
now, Flip," she said, "in spite of the pain of the memory. Before, he
had lost his parents completely. Now he can never lose them again."
"And Madame ... there was more that Paul said you would tell me."
"All right," Madame Perceval said. "I'll just run down and get your
tray from Thérèse first. I won't be long."
When Madame returned with Flip's tray she sat down beside the bed
and said, "Mlle. Duvoisine thought I should wait till you were up to
tell you about Paul, but he has already told you so much and he's
anxious for you to know everything so that the knowledge won't be
between you. I think you're strong enough to hear. But eat your
supper first."
"Yes, Madame."
When Flip had finished Madame said, very quietly, "Paul's parents
were put into the gas chamber. He saw their bodies dumped with a
pile of others afterwards. The following month his little brother died in
his arms. It happened not only to Paul, you must understand. It
happened to thousands of other children."
After a long silence Flip said, "We don't know, do we, Madame? We
can't know. I mean none of us at school who haven't been through it.
I thought it was awful when my mother was killed and they didn't tell
me for a week and I couldn't understand why she didn't come to me,
but it wasn't like that. And even Gloria losing her teeth in the blitz.
She doesn't know."
"No, Flip. Gloria doesn't know."
"I feel it deep inside, Madame. But I don't know. How can you do
anything to make up, Madame? How can you help?"
"Just never forget," Madame Perceval said. "Never take it for
granted."
"I don't see how anyone could forget."
"It's far too easy," Madame Perceval told her. "But it's important for
us to remember, so that we can try to keep it from happening again.
That's one reason I'm not going back to school after Christmas."
"You're not going back!" Flip cried, and almost upset her tray.
"Steady," Madame Perceval said. "I hadn't meant to tell you so
soon."
"Oh, Madame," Flip wailed. "Why aren't you coming back!"
Madame got up and walked over to the window, looking out at the
fresh white world, swept clean by the wind the night before. "I feel
that I've outlived my usefulness at the school. After the war when my
aunt started it up again she needed me to help her, because she's
not as young or as strong as she once was. But the school's
reëstablished now. Everything's running smoothly. I'm not really
needed any longer. As a matter of fact," Madame Perceval turned
towards Flip with a half smile, "you're partly responsible for my
leaving."
"Me? How! Why!" Flip cried.
"I think if I hadn't seen your father's letters with their drawings of
forlorn and frightened children I might not have been quite so ready
to accept when a friend I worked with during the war wrote and
asked me to come and help her in a hostel for just such children. So
that's where I'm going after the holidays, dear. It's on the border
between Switzerland and Germany, right where I was during most of
the war, so it will be good for me in many ways to make myself go
there. Now, my Flip, I've talked to you far too long already. You're
supposed to be resting. Mlle. Duvoisine will be angry with me if I've
excited you."
"You haven't excited me," Flip said, and her voice was low and
mournful. "Only I don't see how I'll bear it back at school if you aren't
there."
"I'm surprised at you, Philippa." Madame Perceval spoke sharply. "I
didn't expect to hear you talk that way again. I thought that was the
old Philippa we'd left behind. Bear it! Of course you'll bear it! Things
won't be any different without me than they were with me. I've never
shown any favoritism at school and I never would."
"I didn't mean that!" Flip cried. "Madame, you know I didn't mean
that! It just helps me if I know that you're there, and it's because
you're so fair and—and just."
Madame Perceval took her hand quickly. "I apologise, dear. Please
forgive me. I've been very unjust to you. I know you'd never expect
favors of any kind. I should have been accusing myself, not you. I
said that because I've been afraid that I might show how particularly
you interested me—and I've always prided myself on complete
impartiality. But you remind me so much of Denise—my daughter....
She died of pneumonia during the war. You look very much like her
and she had your same intense, difficult nature and artistic talent.... I
said we weren't going to talk any more and I've been going a blue
streak, haven't I? Take your nap and Paul will come in when you
wake up. Mlle. Duvoisine and the doctor both say that security and
happiness are the best medicine he can have, and you can give him
a great deal of both. By the way, his real name was Paul Muret. Its
nice that we can go on calling him Paul. Of course it's a common
name, but Paul says he's always felt right being called 'Paul.' It was
my husband's name."
As Madame Perceval bent over her to put the covers about her, Flip
reached up and caught her hand, whispering, "I can't imagine
anybody who would make a more wonderful mother than you."
3
During the remainder of the holidays Madame Perceval took Flip
and Paul on long skiing expeditions every day. Once they got on the
train in the morning and traveled all day and then took two days to
ski home. Flip was beginning to feel more at ease on her skis than
she was on her own feet. When she put on her skis her clumsiness
seemed to roll off her like water and her stiff knee seemed to have
the spring and strength that it never had when she tried to run in a
relay race or on the basket ball court or on the hockey field. Flip and
Paul grew brown and rosy and the shadows slowly retreated from
Paul's eyes and Flip looked as though she could be no relation to the
unhappy girl who had moped about the school and been unable to
make friends. Now when they met other young people on their skiing
expeditions she could exchange shouts and laugh with them, safe in
her new security of friendship with Paul, confidence in her skiing,
and Madame Perceval's approval and friendship. She tried not to
think that someone new would be taking the art teacher's place at
school.
"By the way, Flip," Madame Perceval said once. "When the question
comes up at school about the ski meet, don't mention my part in the
surprise. Just say that it was Paul who taught you to ski."
"All right, Madame," Flip said, "if you think it would be better that
way."
"I do." Madame Perceval looked after Paul who had skied on ahead
of them. "After all, the credit is really Paul's anyhow."
In the evenings after dinner they sang Christmas carols. Flip had
taught them her favorite, The Twelve Days of Christmas. She had
loved it when she was very small because it was such a long one,
and when she was told that she could choose just one more song
before bedtime, that would be it. So she loved it for its memories and
now for its own charming tune and delicate words, from the first
verse,

On the first day of Christmas

My true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree,

to the twelfth verse when all the twelve gifts are sung with a glad
shout.
On Christmas Eve Georges Laurens stirred himself from his books
and they all went out and climbed up the mountain and brought
home a beautiful Christmas tree. Flip and Paul had been making the
decorations in the evening after dinner, chains of brightly colored
paper, strings of berries and small rolled balls of tinfoil; and Flip had
carefully painted and pasted on cardboard twenty delicate angels
with feathery wings and a stable scene with Mary and Joseph and
the infant Jesus, the kings and shepherds and all the animals who
gathered close to keep the baby warm. When the tree was trimmed
they sang carols, ending up with The Twelve Days. Paul took Flip's
hand and threw back his head and sang,

"On the twelfth day of Christmas

My true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming
Eleven pipers piping
Ten lords a'leaping
Nine ladies dancing
Eight maids a'milking
Seven swans a'swimming
Six geese a'laying
 Five gold rings,
Four calling birds
Three french hens
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree!"

4
On Christmas morning they sat in front of the fire and opened their
presents. Paul saved his gift to Flip till the last and then held out the
small square box shyly. Flip opened it and lifted out of pale blue
cotton a tiny silver pear on a chain.
"I couldn't find any of the gifts from the carol," Paul said, "but this is a
pear from the tree the partridge was in."
Flip looked up at Paul's eager face and her own was radiant. She
wanted to say something to express her happiness but she couldn't,
so she just flung her arms wide as though she wanted to embrace
them all.
"Why Miss Philippa," Georges Laurens said, "I never realized before
what a little beauty you are. We should have Christmas every day!"
"Do you like the pear?" Paul asked.
Flip, her eyes shining, whispered, "More than anything."
5
Towards the end of the holidays Flip persuaded Paul to stop off at
the school chalet one day when they were skiing at Gstaad. She felt
that perhaps it wasn't very nice of her to want to show Paul off, but
she couldn't help wanting it.
"The really nicest ones went home for the holiday which is too bad,"
Flip told him. "Gloria's all right. Oh, and I think Maggie and Liz
Campbell stayed and they're awfully nice. Maggie's in my class and
she's always been polite and everything, not like some of the others,
and Liz is two classes above. Jackie and Erna and Solvei are the
one's you'll like best, though. You'll have to meet them when they
come back."
"Erna's German, isn't she?" Paul asked.
"Yes," Flip answered quickly, "but Jackie Bernstein's father was in a
German prison near Paris for six months until he escaped and Erna
is Jackie's best friend. And you'll like Erna anyhow because she's
going to be a doctor, too."
"Well—" Paul said, "let's get this business at Gstaad over with before
we worry about anything else. The important thing is for you to get
used to the snow conditions at Gstaad before the ski meet."
The trip to Gstaad went off very well. Flip was so preoccupied with
putting Paul at ease that she forgot to be shy and awkward herself
and astounded the girls by making jokes and keeping up a rapid
stream of talk at the dinner table. And she and Paul kept having to
remember that they mustn't talk about skiing, or let on that they
weren't returning by train but had left their skis at the Gstaad station.
On the last night of the holidays Madame Perceval came up to say
good-night to them, and sat beside Paul on the foot of Flip's bed.
"It's good-night and good-bye, my children," she said. "I leave on the
five thirty-two, tomorrow morning, and Georges will take me to the
train and be back before you're awake."
"Couldn't we see you off?" Flip begged.
"No, dear. I don't like leave-takings. And in any case it's best for you
to be fresh and have had a good night's rest before you go back to
school. Work hard on the skiing; Paul will help you on week-ends,
though you don't need much help any more, and I expect to hear
great things of that ski meet. So don't disappoint me. I know you
won't."
"I'll try not to, Madame," Flip promised; and she knew that both she
and Madame Perceval meant more than just the skiing and the ski
meet.
"Paul," Madame said, "take care of your father and take care of Flip.
I'll keep in touch with you both and maybe we can all meet during the
spring holidays. Good-night, my children. God bless you." And she
bent down and kissed them good-night and good-bye.
 6
After the Christmas holidays, the exciting and wonderful holidays,
there seemed to be a great difference in Flip and her feeling towards
the school. As she ran up the marble staircase she no longer felt
new and strange. She realized with a little shock that she was now
an "old girl." Almost every face she saw was familiar and the few
new ones belonged to new girls who had replaced her as the lonely
and the strange one. She stopped at the desk where Miss Tulip was
presiding as she had on the day when Flip first came to the school
with her father and Eunice. Miss Tulip checked her name in the big
register and handed her a letter. It was from her father.
"Oh, thanks, Miss Tulip," she cried, and slit it open.
"My darling Flippet," she read, "I told you not to worry if you didn't
hear from me for a week or so while I was traveling. I did get you off
that one post card while I was in Paris having twenty-four hours of
gayety with Eunice and now I am in Freiburg in Germany and will be
traveling about for a month or so around here and across the border
in Switzerland. It seems a shame that I will be so close to you and
not be able to come to you at once, but I missed so much time while
I was in the hospital with that devilish jaundice that I must work
double time now to try to make up. However, I think I may be able to
manage to be with you for your ski meet. I shall try very hard to
make it. I want to see you ski (but darling don't worry if you don't win
any prizes. The fact that you have really learned to ski is more than
enough) and I want to see your Paul. I don't know where I shall be
during your Easter holidays but wherever it is I promise you that you
will be there too and we'll sandwich in plenty of fun between
sketches. And don't expect much in the way of correspondence from
me for the next few months, my dearest. You'll know that I am
thinking of you and loving you anyhow, but my work often makes me
unhappy and tired and when I stop at night I fall into bed and it is a
great comfort to me to know that you are warm and fed and well
cared for and that you have learned to have fun and be happy. I
know that it was difficult and I am very proud of my Flippet."
With the letter he enclosed several sketches and Flip thought that
Madame Perceval would have liked them—except the ones he had
done of his twenty-four hours in Paris with Eunice. Flip crumpled the
Paris sketches up but put the others carefully in the envelope with
the letter, slipped it in her blazer pocket and started up the marble
stairs just as a new group of girls came into the hall and started
registering with Miss Tulip.
On the landing she bumped into Signorina. "Have good holidays,
Philippa?" the Italian teacher asked her.
"Oh, yes, thank you, Signorina, wonderful! Did you?"
"Lovely. But it is good to get back to our clean Switzerland. So we
have lost our Madame Perceval. I shall miss her."
"Yes," Flip said, "Yes, Signorina."
Erna and Jackie came tearing up the stairs. "Hello, Signorina! Hello,
Flip!"
"Pill, mon choux, it's good to see you!" Jackie cried as Signorina
went on up the stairs. "When did you get here? Isn't it wonderful to
be back?"
"Flip, meine süsse!" Erna shouted.
Perhaps it was not wonderful, but neither was it terrible.
A group of them congregated in the corridor, since Miss Tulip was
downstairs and could not reprimand them. They all talked at once,
laughing, shouting, telling each other about the holidays. Gloria
could not wait to show them the black lace and silk pajamas Emile
had sent her for New Year, nor to tell them about Flip's visit to the
school chalet with Paul.
"You should see Pill's boy friend," she shouted, "you should just see
him!"
"That child? We saw him," Esmée said in a disinterested voice.
"Out the window the day the hols began? Don't be a dreep, Es. He's
no child. You're just jealous. Pill brought him to the chalet for lunch
and he's dreamy, positively dreamy, isn't he Sal?"
Sally grinned and nodded. "He really is. I never thought Pill had it in
her. She must have a whopper of a line after all."
"All I can say is hurrah for Flip," Maggie Campbell said. "I'd hate to
see Esmée get her claws into someone as nice as that."
Esmée turned angrily towards the laughing Maggie but Jackie broke
in, "I went to six plays and two operas. What did you do, Esmée?"
Esmée announced languidly, still with a baleful eye on Maggie, that
she had gone out dancing every night and worn a strapless evening
gown.
"Strapless evening gown my foot," Jackie whispered inelegantly to
Flip. "She'd look gruesome in a strapless evening gown."
Solvei had spent the holidays skiing with her parents. "I bet I could
teach you to ski, Flip," she said.
Oh, horrors, Flip thought. What shall I do if she really wants to try?
Later that evening Erna pulled Jackie and Flip out of the Common
Room and onto the icy balcony, whispering, "I have something to tell
you but it's a secret and you must promise never to tell a soul."
"Cross my heart and hope to die," Flip said, thrilled to be included in
a secret that Erna was sharing with Jackie.
"Jure et crâche," Jackie said, and spat over the balcony, imitating the
tough boys on the city streets.
Erna was satisfied. "Well, it's something I learned during the
holidays," she started. "Maybe you know it already, Flip. It's about
Madame Perceval."
Jackie grabbed Erna's arm. "Don't tell me it's the story of Percy's
past!" She almost shrieked.
Erna nodded. "You're sure you won't tell anybody?"
"I said jure et crâche, didn't I?" And Jackie spat over the balcony
again. Unfortunately in her excitement she had not seen Miss Tulip
walking below, and the matron jumped as a wet spray blew past her
face.
"Who is up on the balcony!" she exclaimed.
"Please, it's only us, Miss Tulip," Jackie called down meekly.
"I might have known it," Miss Tulip said, craning her neck and
looking up at them. "Naturally it would be Jacqueline Bernstein and
Erna Weber. And with Philippa Hunter. I am sorry to see you keeping
such bad company, Philippa. Get back indoors at once, girls, or you'll
catch your deaths of cold, and you may each take a deportment
mark."
They retired indoors, Erna sputtering, "the old hag! On the first day
after the hols, too. No one else would have given us a deportment
mark."
But Jackie was giggling wildly. "I spit on her! I spit on Black and
Midnight." Then she said seriously, "Percy would never have given
us a Deportment Mark for that. I don't know how we'll ever get on
without her. School won't be the same. Go on about what you were
going to tell us about her, Erna."
"I can't in here. They'd see we were having a secret and all come
bouncing about. We'll have to wait till Gloria goes to brush her teeth,"
Erna said, looking around as a girl with beautiful honey-colored hair
curling all over her head opened the glass doors and came into the
Common Room, looking diffidently about her.
"Can you tell me—" she started.
Gloria, anxious to prove that she was an old girl, went dashing
across the room to her. "Hello, are you a new girl? The seniors'
sitting room is on the next floor, just over the Common Room."
"I'm Miss Redford, the new art teacher," the girl said, smiling warmly.
"I was looking for someone by the name of Philippa Hunter."
"Oh. That's me. I mean I." Flip stepped forward and Gloria retired in
confusion.
"Oh, hullo, Philippa. Could I speak to you for a moment?"
Flip followed Miss Redford into the Hall, and the teacher smiled at
her disarmingly. "Madame Perceval wrote me that you were the best
art student in the school and that you'd show me around the studio
and give me a helping hand till I get settled. I feel terribly new and
strange coming into the middle of things like this and this is my first
job. I'm just out of the College of London and I'm afraid I shall make
a terrible muddle of things."
She laughed, and Flip thought,—Well, if someone had to take
Madame's place, this one couldn't be nicer.
"Would you like to see the studio now?" she suggested. "I have
about half an hour before the bell."
"I'd love to," Miss Redford said. "I've been up there, poking around.
It's really a wonderful studio for a school. I looked at some of your
things and I see that Madame Perceval was right." She paused and
panted, "I wonder if I shall ever get used to all these stairs!"
Flip was so used to the five flights of stairs that she never thought of
them, but Miss Redford was quite winded by the time they reached
the top.
"Of course my room is on the second floor so I shall always be
trotting up and down!" she gasped.
Much as Flip liked Miss Redford she was glad the new art teacher
was not to have Madame Perceval's rooms.
"Now, Philippa," Miss Redford said, "if you'll just show me where
things are kept in the cupboards I'll be tremendously grateful. I
thought we might do some modelling this term, and maybe if any of
the things are good enough we'll have them fired. I found the clay
but I would like to know where everything else is kept."
Flip opened the cupboard doors and showed Miss Redford Madame
Perceval's places for everything. She had just finished when the bell
rang, and she said, "There's my bell so I'll have to go downstairs or
Miss Tulip will give me a Tardy Mark. I'm glad Madame Perceval
thought I could help."
"You've been a great help." Miss Redford said warmly, "and if you
don't mind I'll probably call on you again. Good-night, and thanks
awfully."
 7
The others were in the room when Flip got downstairs. "Was I
embarrassed!" Gloria exclaimed. "What did she want?"
"Oh, just to have me show her where Madame kept the things in the
studio. Golly, I'm hungry. We always had something to eat before we
went to bed during the hols."
"Honestly," Gloria said, "I think she might have let us know she was
a teacher and not just come in like a new girl."
"She didn't have a uniform on," Jackie said reasonably.
"Well, lots of girls don't when they come. I think teachers should look
like teachers." Gloria was not ready to be pacified.
"Percy didn't look like a teacher."
"Yes, but she didn't look like a girl, either. What's she like, Pill, this
Redburn or whatever her name is?"
"Redford," Flip said, "And she seemed awfully nice."
"If you think she's nice she must be, you were so crazy about Percy."
"She said we were going to do things in clay," Flip said. "Aren't you
going to go brush your teeth, Gloria?"
"I've brushed them."
"You have not," Erna cried. "You just this minute finished getting
undressed."
"I brushed them before I got undressed."
"Oh, Glo, you fibber!" Jackie jumped up and down on her bed.
"You're just plain dirty," Erna said rudely but without malice.
"I am not!" Gloria started to get excited. "I did brush my teeth before I
got undressed. So there!"
"All right, all right!" Jackie said hastily. "Don't get in a fuss. I'm going
to go brush my teeth, though," and she looked meaningfully at Erna
and Flip, who echoed her and followed her out into the corridor.
"I bet she hasn't brushed her teeth," Erna whispered. "She just
knows I have something to tell you that I'm not going to tell her. My
father said I wasn't to go around telling people, but you're so crazy
about Percy, both of you, I thought it would be all right."
Miss Tulip bore down on them. "Girls! No talking in the corridors!
What are you doing?"
"We're just going to brush our teeth, please, Miss Tulip."
"Go and brush them, then. I don't want to have to give you another
Deportment Mark. Step, now."
"Yes, Miss Tulip."
"We'll meet in the classroom before breakfast," Erna whispered.
As she lay in bed that night, propped up on one elbow so that she
could look down the mountain side to the lake, Flip had a surprising
sense of homecoming. She had missed, without realizing that she
had missed it, being able to see the lake and the mountains of
France from her bed, and they seemed to welcome her back. And
when she lay down, the familiar pattern of light on the ceiling was a
reassuring sight. As she began to get sleepy she sang in her mind,
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in
a pear tree, and reached up to feel the silver pear on its slender
chain about her neck.
8
"At last!" Erna said the next morning as the three of them slipped
into the classroom.
"Go on, quick, before someone comes in." Jackie stepped onto the
teacher's platform and climbed up onto the table, sitting on it cross
legged.
"Yes, do hurry," Flip begged, sitting on her desk.
"Well, I have to begin at the beginning and tell you how I found out."
"Is it tragic?" Jackie asked.
"Yes, it is, and Percy was a heroine."