The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (89 page)

‘It is a plan fraught with danger.'

‘Yes, and uncertainty, but regrettably these are dangerous times. The doctor once taught me your English expression. “Nothing ventured…”'

‘“… nothing gained.” All right, Da Ren, I am content with this plan.'

‘Then you will tell us where the guns are?'

Henry smiled. ‘The guns are hidden about one and a half days' journey from here, on the plain that lies on the other side of the Black Hills. There is a junction where the track forks, north to Mukden, south to Tientsin. The guns are located in a cave in a gully, about half a day's ride west of that junction. It is a place well known to both Colonel Taro and me from our hunting expeditions. I will be able to lead you there very easily.'

‘You will lead us there, Ma Na Si? I had rather hoped that you might be confident enough to tell us the exact location.'

‘The exact location is difficult to describe in words, Da Ren.' Henry smiled back. ‘You might become lost looking for it on your own.'

The Mandarin laughed, and was about to make a rejoinder, when they heard a burst of gunfire outside. While the women at the far end of the compartment squealed in alarm, and Chamberlain Jin clutched the arms of his chair, the Mandarin and Henry ran to the window.

Up by the tent lines they spotted five or six of the troopers Major Lin had left on guard, galloping down the hill, firing their carbines as they rode. Against the tree line above them red and yellow banners were waving and hundreds of Boxers were streaming out of the woods. Mounted on a horse, signalling them on, was a squat, bearded man brandishing an enormous axe.

Henry, pressing his hands on the sill, pushed the front half of his body out of the window, looking to right and left along the length of the train. To his right, he saw troops jumping down from their compartments ready to face the threat. To his left the last horses were being pulled up the ramp of a freight wagon. Beyond them stood the engine. The wood and coal had already been loaded, but he saw that water from the tower was still being pumped into the back of the tender.

The Mandarin observed Henry's anguished expression. ‘I take it that the train is not ready to depart?' he asked calmly. ‘This will be a test, then, for Major Lin. It will be interesting to see how effective those laborious efforts of his in the past year to train his men in the methods of modern warfare have been.'

‘I'd better go to the engine to see if I can speed things along,' said Henry.

‘I wish you luck,' said the Mandarin. ‘I need not remind you that our lives depend on your success.'

The Mandarin himself remained composedly by the window, observing Major Lin, who was lining his small force of riflemen into a firing formation, readying them for the onslaught of the Boxers that was about to envelop them.

Nineteen

Killing. Such killing. I am alone. Master Zhang might tell me why this happened, but he is dead.

 

Henry jumped down on to the wooden platform and began to run. As he passed the doctor's carriage he heard his name called. Nellie was leaning out of the window. ‘Mr Manners.'

‘Mrs Airton, I have to see to the engine.' He halted impatiently. ‘There'll be an attack soon. You must keep your heads down.'

‘It's Helen Frances,' said Nellie. ‘She has woken and is asking for you.'

Conflicting emotions—anxiety, fear, hope—flickered briefly over his expression. ‘Is she—is she…?'

‘All right? Certainly not, Mr Manners, but she seems to have come back to her senses. Well, some of them. She plainly desires to see you. She's being coherent enough about that.'

Henry stood unresolved, but only for a second. Two soldiers carrying an ammunition box jostled past him unceremoniously. He shook his head. ‘I—I can't, Mrs Airton. Not now. I must get the engine started. Give her—give her my love,' he muttered, and began to run again. ‘Keep your heads well down,' he called, over his shoulder.

*   *   *

‘Give her your love?' Nellie repeated to herself, as she withdrew her head back into the compartment. ‘If only you had it in you to give.'

*   *   *

As he passed the two freight wagons he could hear the neighing of frightened horses and the drumming of their hoofs inside. The soldiers who had been responsible for loading them were running to join the rest of Major Lin's men. One figure had remained behind, checking the bolts on the doors. Henry recognised the shabby sheepskin and the filthy fur hat, even before the familiar gnarled face turned towards him, and he saw the slit eyes and the jagged grin of his old
mafu
. ‘Lao Zhao!' he exclaimed delightedly, embracing him. ‘I thought you'd joined the Boxers.'

Lao Zhao laughed. ‘Those
wangbadans,
Xiansheng? Think I'd get a decent wage from any of those scum? Anyway, they stole my mules.'

‘Follow me,' said Henry. ‘I'll teach you to drive a train instead.'

They ran together past the tender. Quickly Henry pulled himself up the iron ladder to the footplates of the engine.

He sized up the situation at a glance. It was dire.

Two soldiers were standing on top of the piled coal manipulating the hose from the watertower into the hole at the back of the tender. They were having difficulty keeping the canvas funnel in place, and water was gushing everywhere. Being the boys they were, despite their uniforms, they were laughing about it and splashing each other—and this while the Boxers were rushing down the hill! At least the glass gauge at the front of the engine showed that the tank was over half full. He was more concerned about the boiler. A puzzled corporal was peering anxiously into the open firebox, out of which protruded logs of wood. There was a flame of sorts in there, and pale fumes of smoke were even coiling out of the stack, but this was no way to start an engine. With a sinking heart, Henry realised that it would take hours at this rate for the firebox to gain enough heat.

If he had had time, he might have commented caustically on Chinese priorities. Obviously great care and attention had been given to the decking out of the Mandarin's carriage to achieve a suitable state of luxury. Effort might have been better spent getting up steam, if the intention was to get out of there alive. He looked savagely at the pressure gauge. The needle on the dial had hardly moved.

There was no point in venting the rage he felt inside him. The soldiers on the tender and the footplate had realised his presence and were gazing at him hopefully, waiting instruction.

He leaned out of the cab to get a clear view of the action taking place beyond the platform. Boxers in incalculable numbers were pouring out of the tree line and down the hill. They would pass through the tent area and reach the tracks within minutes. He examined Lin's troop dispositions with a military eye.

At least the southern side of the railway yard, their rear in military terms, was relatively well protected. A high brick wall enclosed the loop of track that encircled a space about two hundred yards across. Here there were three sheds and a big pile of coal, and the tall watertower that abutted the western end of the platform. The brick walls made a strong perimeter and the iron gates at either end were firmly chained. The western gate would have to be opened for the train to leave, but Henry would think about that problem when he came to it. For now he was satisfied that the first attacks would not come from that quarter. Major Lin had made a similar calculation and left only a handful of men as lookouts there.

The danger came from the northern side. There was no wall separating the tent lines from the hill and it was here that the Boxers were massing. The only obstacles between them and the station platform were the three grey-brick buildings in which Fischer had kept his stores and offices. To get to the platform and the train the Boxers would have to rush through the fifteen-feet gaps between the buildings. It was facing these gaps that Lin had formed his companies of riflemen. He had them positioned in two lines, one standing, one kneeling. A wall of concentrated fire would meet any Boxers who attempted to come through. Henry saw that Major Lin was directing other men up ladders to the tiled roofs of the buildings, presumably to provide enfilading fire once the attack began. What puzzled him for a moment were the activities of a small company under the direction of a sergeant who appeared to be trailing lengths of wire from the buildings back to the platform. He guessed that the wires must lead to dynamite charges inside. Major Lin was already preparing for his retreat.

The numbers, of course, were overwhelmingly disparate, but he was satisfied. Lin had assembled his hundred men as sensibly in the circumstances as Henry himself would have done. ‘They might hold. They just might hold,' he muttered. ‘It'll all depend whether they can survive the first assault.'

‘What did you say, Xiansheng?' Lao Zhao was looking at him blankly.

‘Nothing,' said Henry. ‘We're in good shape—but we have work to do.'

He began to give orders. He addressed the corporal: ‘You there. I want you to go to Major Lin with a message. Tell him that he has to hold off the Boxers for two hours. Do you understand? Two hours.' The corporal saluted, and leaped off the train in his hurry to be away.

‘Two hours, Xiansheng?' queried Lao Zhao. ‘Does it take so long to start this animal? That's longer than it takes my old mare to warm herself up in the morning.'

‘Two hours if we're lucky,' said Henry grimly. ‘It may take longer. The engine's been lying here cold and untended for at least six weeks. We're about to wake a corpse, my friend. Let's hope we don't end up as cold as she is. Come on, we'd better do something about this firebox.'

*   *   *

Against their mother's orders—she was at the other end of the carriage talking to Helen Frances—the children were peering out of the window, and so it was that they saw the first attack.

Major Lin stood in a gap between his companies, pistol in one hand and sabre upraised in the other. The two lines of troopers aimed their carbines steadily at the empty space between the buildings. Motionless, they waited. The sun was high in a cloudless sky, and diamonds of reflected light flashed from their bayonets and cap badges. The leather of the soldiers' belts shone in a stark clarity of detail. A puff of breeze stirred a little dust devil on the open ground and magpies paused briefly on the roof of one of the buildings, ignoring the troopers lying flat on the tiles. Two hawks were circling high over their heads.

‘Sha-aa-aa-aa!'
It was a long drawn-out yell from a thousand voices, which rose to a sighing crescendo and, as suddenly, died. Still nobody could be seen.

A single voice shouted that now so familiar chant: ‘Exterminate the foreigners and save the Ch'ing!' There was another loud scream of ‘
Sha-aa-aa!
Ki-i-ll!' And silence again.

The shimmering space between the buildings waited. The world waited. Major Lin turned a cold face to check that his troops were ready. Jenny heard a buzzing sound and started away as a hornet flew into their carriage. She saw the striped yellow and black body and the blur of its wings. She flapped her hand to wave it away, and when she looked out again, she thought for a moment that she was seeing hundreds of similarly striped yellow and black hornets pouring through the gaps of the buildings. A brigade of Boxers with orange and blue markings on their tunics, and yellow turbans, had filled the empty spaces, appearing as if from nowhere and moving fast, but these were no hornets. Their stings were swords and spears and axes. They were young men rushing on their enemy with their mouths open in a soundless yell, the whites of their eyes in their brown faces flashing hatred and a wild excitement, the sunlight glinting on their weapons and bare arms raised up to strike and kill. The dust swirled around their padding, cloth-shod feet as they hurled themselves forward.

Major Lin sliced his sword down to give the signal and, with a thunderous clap, the two lines of troopers disappeared in a cloud of spitting fire and smoke. They fired again and again, until their magazines were exhausted. The smoke began to clear when they were reloading, and through the haze the children could see the gaps between the buildings. Each alley was carpeted with dead and dying, and there were pools of blood in the sand.

‘George! Jenny! Get away from that window!' They heard their mother cry out shrilly, and in a moment they were enveloped in her strong arms with their heads pressed down on the carpeted floor.

Outside there was another yell of
‘Shaa-aa-aa!'
and another explosion of rifle fire. Jenny whimpered, but George peered through the gap in his mother's arms with wide-open eyes. He saw Helen Frances rocking on the bed on the other side of the carriage, her hands pressed to her ears. Fan Yimei and Mary were kneeling on the floor with their arms around each other. His father was standing by the table in the centre. He had cleared it of the bowls of compressed fruits and sweetmeats, teapots and cups, vases of flowers, and was carefully laying out his scalpels in their place.

There were more cries, followed by more firing, as the fanatical attacks continued. The huddled figures on the floor found themselves counting the minutes between the volleys. Each burst of firing was a relief because it meant that the lines were still holding, and when the minutes of silence stretched into longer and longer intervals their fear increased proportionately. The doctor finished laying out his instruments, his splints and his bandages, and cautiously moved to the window.

‘Oh, Edward, be careful,' Nellie called. Then, ‘Can you tell us what's happening?'

Her words were drowned in the crash of Lin's rifle fire.

‘They're still in formation,' Airton said, in the silence after, ‘but there are bodies lying right up to their feet. It's a slaughter,' he said, shaking his head. ‘Oh, mercy, they're coming again.'