Author’s note from the first edition:

The Refuge is a work of fiction. All the characters, except those mentioned by their given or assumed names—Neville Chamberlain, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, General D. MacArthur, H. E. L. Townsend, Jesus, et alia—are fictional characters. Thus there need be none of the misunderstanding which prevented the publication in Australia of Dead Men Rising. I trust that even the oldest-established legal firms in my own country are in no doubt about this matter.

K. S. M.

Sydney, 1953