The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (56 page)

‘Stout fellow. I'll make you a promise. Word of a British army officer, and you know how dependable that is. You'll never have to go back to that place. Do you hear me? That's a promise. My promise, which means it's as solid as a tablet set in stone. Never, ever, ever. And neither will you.' He nodded over his shoulder at Fan Yimei.

‘I do not understand the words you say when you speak in your own language,' she answered, ‘but after what you did today I am for ever in your debt. I am your slave.'

‘Nobody's anybody's slave, Fan Yimei. We had a bargain, remember? And, besides, slavery's not allowed where I come from. Abolished by Act of Parliament in 1833!'

He sensed that a more serious response was needed and pulled the horse to a stop. He felt for her cold hands and cupped them in his own. ‘Listen. You, no less than Hiram, have been living in a nightmare, but now it's over. It may take time for you to realise that, but you're free. You'll never have to go back, not to Major Lin, or Ren Ren, or Mother Liu. And you don't owe anyone anything either. Certainly not me. Anyway, what did I do?' He laughed, kicking the horse on again. ‘I said I wanted a diversion and I got one, out of the blue, but it was all thanks to this boy's father here. Never dreamed it would be so easy. I don't think anyone even noticed us. All those naked people in the yard so intent on preserving their dignity! The porter was so distracted by all that flesh on view that we just walked past him. He wouldn't have recognised us anyway under our cloaks. Probably thought we were honest burghers of the town creeping out before our wives found out … I haven't had so much fun for years! And I didn't even have to break any heads! Mind you,' he said ruefully, ‘I would have liked to give Ren Ren a thrashing. That would have been a duty to society.'

‘Please do not joke, Ma Na Si Xiansheng. I still fear Ren Ren. Even now when I am out of his power. And Major Lin, he too will be angry. You say you can make me disappear, but it is for you I fear when they come to seek their revenge.'

‘Nobody will even suspect me. When I next go back to the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure, Major Lin can have my shoulder to cry on. I'll be all sympathy for his loss, his bosom friend as ever before. Anyway, he's still got business to do with me on the Mandarin's orders. He can't touch me—even if he did suspect.

‘And don't worry for yourself. You'll be perfectly safe at the railway camp until the train comes to take you to Tientsin. Once you're there, I'll set you up with some people I know, and you can begin a new life as a respectable matron. Well, not too respectable, I hope. You're too pretty for that fate!'

‘It is a dream, Ma Na Si Xiansheng. Like this ride. I had forgotten what the stars looked like in the open sky, and the smell of the countryside.'

‘You're smelling night soil at the moment, my darling. It stinks.'

‘No, it is fragrant. You cannot appreciate how beautiful are all sights and sounds and smells to one who has been released from a prison. This morning I was dead, a lump of earth, nothing in a void of nothing. Now it is as if the goddess Nu Wa has come again to breathe life into dead clay, creating stars and sun and moon again as she did at the beginning of the world. And for this new life I have you to thank, Ma Na Si Xiansheng. Even if I wake up tomorrow, and I find myself back in my prison, I have you to thank forever for giving me this dream.'

‘It's not a dream, my dear. And you're not going back there. Not ever again.'

‘Mr Manners?'

‘Yes, Hiram.'

‘Will I have to go back to my parents?'

‘I wouldn't recommend it in the short term. I imagine, after your father's escapade today, he'll be something of a marked man with the authorities. You'd be better to stay with me for a while at the railway camp until the heat dies down. I can get a message to him, though.'

‘I don't ever want to see my parents again,' said Hiram, in a small voice.

‘I suppose that being free means you don't have to,' said Henry, after they had ridden some time in silence. ‘Look,' he said, pointing to some lights that winked on a hill to their right. ‘That's the Airtons' place. The mission and hospital. I'll take you there one day if you like. Airton's got children. They're a bit younger than you, but they've horses and animals, and books. You've a whole life to catch up on, young man.'

‘Is that where the doctor with the whiskers lives, Ma Na Si Xiansheng?'

‘Of course, you knew him, didn't you? You told me that he was once kind to you.'

Fan Yimei looked up at the lights. She did not reply. She was thinking that there was another person who also lived up there among those lights. Ma Na Si had told her that the red-haired girl worked in the hospital. She thought that she might have been jealous—if she had only believed in her heart that she really was free.

*   *   *

Airton looked exhausted and there was a spot of blood on his cuff. Gratefully he accepted the cup of tea from his wife. Frank Delamere was sitting uncomfortably on the sofa, still in his travelling clothes; his usually florid complexion was white with dust, which had also greyed his black moustaches. The little porcelain cup in his big hands looked singularly out of place, as was his rough presence altogether in the neat sitting room. His round eyes blinked in anticipation of the worst.

‘Well, he'll live,' said the doctor. ‘You did a good job bandaging him up. He didn't lose as much blood as might have been expected. And he's got a tough constitution. Luckily the bullets didn't cut any arteries although his left arm is shattered and one of his legs broken. I was more worried about the wound in his groin. What did it by the way? It was a nasty, ragged cut.'

‘Some sort of pike,' muttered Frank.

‘Well, again, he was lucky—but only by half an inch or so, or he wouldn't have survived the journey.'

‘That boy's a damned hero,' said Frank. ‘A damned hero.'

‘He's not over it yet. There was some infection, but I believe I've cauterised it in time. He'll be fevered for a couple of days—I'm afraid he's raving a bit now. But he's a strong lad. He'll get through.'

‘Thank God for that.' Frank's eyes had moistened. ‘I really thought…'

‘It was a close call,' said Airton. He noticed the shaking teacup in Frank's paw. ‘Here, man, what are you doing with that? Nellie, give him some whisky.'

‘Do you know? I wouldn't mind…' said Frank.

‘Give him the bottle, and pour a tot for me while you're about it. Now, Delamere, are you in a fit state yourself? Can you tell us what happened, man?'

‘We were ambushed,' said Frank. ‘By Boxers.'

‘Boxers? Are you sure of that? They weren't just bandits? Like before?'

‘Boxers. Bandits. What's the difference?' said Frank. ‘There were hundreds of them, lining the trees where the northern road skirts the forest under the Black Hills. They knew we were coming. I'm damned sure of that. Lu's gone into town already, determined this time to find out who the informer really is.'

‘So Lu's all right? I was wondering when I didn't see him with you.'

‘He got a sword slash on the shins. Nothing serious. Not like Tom. Or Lao Pang, one of the muleteers. He was killed, poor fellow, in the first volley.'

‘I saw from Tom's wound that they had guns. A rifle bullet at that, not a musket ball. That's new, surely?'

‘They had a few guns. Luckily they didn't know how to fire them effectively or we'd all be dead. The whole thing was very rum. A lot of them were wearing uniforms. Yellow tunics and orange headgear. That's why I called them Boxers.'

‘You'd better start at the beginning. Pour yourself another glass.'

‘Nothing much to tell. Trip went well. Old Ding did his stuff for us in Tsitsihar. Bought all we brought and more, and paid us over the odds when we got the processes going for him. Good little cove, that Ding. So, of course, we travelled carefully, off the road when we could. Can't be too careful when you've got a strongbox full of silver pieces on your wagon. It all seemed to be going well. There were a couple of weeks when we didn't see anybody—just endless miles of salt flats and plain. Very dreary, though Tom got in a bit of hunting. He's a hero, that boy, a damned hero.'

‘So you said. Go on.'

‘Lu insisted we go at a slow pace, off the road. He wasn't taking any chances—but we knew we'd have to go by the Black Forest at some point. There's no other way into Shishan. Lu wanted us to take an even longer way round, halfway to Mukden and back again so we could come in through the southern pass, but it wasn't really on. Supplies were running low, and with six mounted muleteers we thought we had the firepower to withstand any surprise attack from Iron Man Wang and his thugs. We were wrong.

‘We did take precautions. Tom and Lao Zhao scouted ahead when we reached the narrow pass through the forest. Saw nothing suspicious, not a sight, not a sound. They must have been hiding deep in the trees. That was rum, too. You don't expect such organisation from bandits.

‘We rode in just before noon, when the sun was at its highest and there was at least some visibility. Couldn't go too fast because of the wagons but we made the quickest pace we could. We got through the worst bit, and I thought we were scot-free. Then, suddenly, all hell broke loose. Never seen anything like it. Smoke from the bushes, bangs of muskets and cracks of rifle-fire. Bullets hissing over our heads like geese and arrows whistling like pigeons. That's when Lao Pang got it, right in the neck. Gurgled for a bit then rolled off his mule. Lots of blood. Pretty nasty shock.

‘And then they were all around us. Boys mostly, or so it seemed. Young fellows dressed in carnival costumes—but they were dangerous enough: white rolling eyes in brown faces, thrusting with their spears and pikes and swords. We were firing back by that time with our repeaters, and they were being bowled over like coconuts, but on they came with horrible yells, slashing and thrusting. “This won't do,” I shout to Tom, who's clubbing and firing at the devils around him like some latter-day Lancelot in a mêlée. “Let's ride for it,” I say. “What about the silver?” says he. “Damn that,” says I. “There are too many of them.” So we set our spurs into our horses and gallop through the throng, Lao Zhao and the other muleteers following behind. We ride into the mass of them as if we're the Charge of the Light Brigade taking the guns. And then, would you believe it? we're through, and there's quiet all around us except for some chirping birds among the trees, and butterflies fluttering over the wild flowers.

‘“Where's Lu Jincai?” asks Tom, looking very worried. And sure enough Lu's not there. I remember with a pang of guilt that Lu had been driving the wagon with the silver. “They must have got him,” I say. “I'm going back for him,” says Tom. Before I know what's happening he's snatched my repeater from my hand, rammed in a new clip of cartridges. He's already reloaded his own, and with a rifle in each hand he's off and away, galloping back the way we've come. Lao Zhao follows him, as irrepressible as Tom. But that's the effect Tom has on people, born leader. God bear witness, I'm proud that he's to be my son-in-law.

‘I got the full story later from Lu, who by this time has been surrounded and overwhelmed on the wagon, struggling under a mass of filthy peasants all reaching to untie the box of silver, which Lu is holding on to for dear life. He told me that if they were going to snatch it it would be over his dead body, and he meant it too. But it doesn't come to that, because Tom and Lao Zhao are suddenly riding out of nowhere, guns blazing in either hand, and the Boxers are rolling off the wagon like shot rabbits. Tom's caught them unawares, you see. They think the battle's over and they've got the loot in hand. So they've relaxed and some have put down their weapons.

‘Tom leaps off his horse on to the cart and takes the reins. Lu's got the presence of mind to snatch up a repeater and start blazing away, and Lao Zhao grabs the lead horse by the bit and belabours it about the head with his gun-butt till it starts galloping and the other mules in the yoke follow the lead.

‘And somehow the Boxers are all so stunned that they let the heavy wagon build up speed and get away. Some bravos come up thrusting with their pikes and get crushed under the wheels, and the marksmen with the rifles are still blazing away from the bushes. That's when Tom is wounded, although you wouldn't know it. He keeps his hands firmly on the reins until they're out of danger. I told you he's a hero.

‘By this time I and the other muleteers have got our wits together again and we too are riding back to the rescue, and that's when I saw them, bowling through the pine trees. What's that picture from the South African war? It's been in all the illustrated papers lately. Saving the guns at the Modder river. Well, I'll tell you, if there'd been an artist who could have pictured Tom and Lao Zhao and Lu on that careering wagon, saving my silver with all the banshees from hell behind them, well, that's a picture which would have sold … You
bet
it would.'

Frank, beaming with pride, sentimental tears pouring down his cheeks and turning the caked dust to mud, drained his glass and poured more whisky.

‘How did you get away?' breathed Nellie, amazed and a little thrilled to be listening to such a story in her living room.

‘Well, it wasn't difficult after that. There was a bit of a chase but the advantage was on our side by then, you see. We were out of the ambush, and it was us doing the volleying, with better rifles and a damned sight better marksmanship. Don't know how many we killed. After a while they found it all a bit too hot for them and they sort of faded away. It was only then that we realised what had happened to poor old Tom. Do you know? He kept firing right to the end, with one useless arm. It was only when he knew we were safe that he allowed himself to pass out. What a fellow!'