‘He was what?’ Now it was Nellie’s turn to stare. ‘You told me—you told all of us—that he was dead.’
‘I lied to you,’ said Airton flatly. ‘Oh, God,’ he choked, ‘what have I done?’ He banged his head with his hand. ‘It was my hatred of him,’ he said, as Nellie stared at him in horror. ‘My anger. I wanted him dead. I wanted him to suffer for all the crimes I thought he had committed.’
‘Edward,’ Nellie whispered, ‘are you telling me that you deliberately abandoned a wounded man on the train? You left him to be found alive by his enemies?’
‘Yes,’ he said weakly. ‘I betrayed the Hippocratic oath. I left a man to die.’
‘Oh, Edward,’ she whispered. ‘So that’s what made you so withdrawn these months…’ She sat with her back against the wall, gazing at the stars, but she no longer saw them.
‘You see?’ said her husband. ‘I can never be forgiven for this, can I?’
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered, her eyes staring. ‘I don’t know.’
His body began to shake with sobs. He made inarticulate cries as he wept. After a while she put her arm around him, and stroked his brow. He wept in her arms, while she stared rigidly into the darkness.
A shooting star flashed like a knife across the sky.
‘Edward,’ she said, turning to look at him. Her voice was as icy as the night. ‘We must never—ever—breathe a word of this to Helen Frances.’
* * *
Over the next few days there was much fussing over Helen Frances and the infant. It was Nellie who had to take over the household chores because Sarantuya was besotted by the baby, rocking and cooing to her for hours. Helen Frances smiled contentedly from her mattress. She was still very weak. Nellie collected the water, prepared the food and cooked—but she had a helper in her husband. In fact, during those first few days Airton hardly left her side, except occasionally to examine Helen Frances and little Catherine, which was the name Helen Frances had chosen for her. When they were not busy, he and Nellie would go for long walks together in the snow. Sometimes George and Jenny accompanied them.
Orkhon Baatar and Sarantuya welcomed his new participation in the household with their usual warmth. It was as if his months of silence had never been. At first Airton reacted to the respect, if not reverence, they showed him with some confusion. Nobody would have recognised in this shy, humble man the smug, comfortable patriarch who had once presided over the mission at Shishan.
Of course, it had taken him time to adjust to the new circumstances, and to regain a degree of self-confidence. Orkhon Baatar had decided early on to take him in hand. While as a healer he might have shied away from such matters as midwifery, he had an unerring ability to detect a spiritual wound. For him it was as practical a matter as a case of ringworm in his sheep, requiring the same levels of patience and psychology as he would use in training a young colt.
The night after the birth, Orkhon Baatar had poured out the nermel as usual for the doctor, but Airton had tried to push away the bowl. Orkhon Baatar would not have it. He insisted that the doctor drink with him, and again he matched him bowl for bowl. Only this time it was Orkhon Baatar who became happily, deliriously drunk. He rocked to his feet, pulling his arms out of the sleeves of his coat, and sang one of his deep-throated songs. He forgot the words halfway through, and began to giggle. He pulled the doctor to his feet, embraced him and, still holding him, began to dance. Airton was embarrassed, but everyone laughed and clapped, and after a short time he got into the stamping rhythm. Orkhon Baatar picked up the pitcher and replenished the bowls. It did not take long for the doctor to become as drunk and merry as he. Before the evening finished, he had demonstrated a Highland reel and, tears flowing down his face, had serenaded Nellie with ‘My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose.’ She had cuffed him gently, and called him a ‘foolish, foolish man’ before she kissed him. Orkhon Baatar, red-faced, swayed with his arms round Sarantuya’s shoulders, sighing with pleasure.
One morning he insisted that the doctor accompany him and the children on their morning ride. He would not take no for an answer. He pushed the doctor’s arms into the heavy sheepskin, and slapped the fur hat on top of his head, then dragged him, protesting, out of the ger. He heaved Airton into the saddle of the waiting pony and, when he was astride, cracked its rump with his own reins. Side by side, they galloped up the valley. Orkhon Baatar kept a watchful eye as Airton bounced on the bolting beast, sometimes reaching out a steadying hand, but he did not slow the pace. The children followed behind, as comfortable on these Mongolian ponies now as if they themselves had been bred in the grasslands.
There was heavy snow on the pastures. Orkhon Baatar slowed to a trot as they reached the top of the hill. He appeared to be looking for something, shading his eyes with his hand to ward off the sun’s glare. The others peered in the same direction but all they could see was a uniform whiteness that stretched to the horizon, broken only by a rocky outcrop or two, and some clumps of trees on the leeside of a hill. Orkhon Baatar whooped and leaned forward in his saddle. His horse shot forward and, with no idea where he was going, the others followed.
At the bottom of a small hill, Orkhon Baatar jumped off his pony and, leaving it to graze on the tufts of grass that protruded from the snow, he gestured for the others also to dismount. He put his fingers to his lips to indicate silence, and proceeded cautiously to climb the hill. Airton followed nervously, panting with exertion. At the ridge, Orkhon Baatar flapped his hand signalling to them to keep their heads down. Very slowly he peered over the edge. He turned, his eyes shining, his jagged teeth revealed in a delighted smile. He put his finger again to his lips, then crooked it, indicating that the doctor should move up beside him. Not knowing what to expect, Airton lifted his head over the brow.
Below him, hardly twenty feet away, a large herd of reindeer was grazing against the background of the snow. It was the most beautiful sight he had seen in his life.
* * *
A fortnight after that the Russians came.
It was a darkening November evening, and Orkhon Baatar and the children had just finished feeding the sheep in the byre. It had been a dull, overcast day. There had been a heavy fall of snow the night before. They had not gone riding. The children had watched as Orkhon Baatar stretched the hide of the wolf, which George had shot two days before. It had been a glorious hunt and for two nights they had regaled the women with stories of their prowess.
Jenny saw them first, a straggling column of about twenty mounted soldiers who were making their way slowly down the riverbank. When they arrived at the ger, all of them, except Helen Frances and her baby, were waiting outside.
The young lieutenant in command revealed none of the surprise he undoubtedly felt to find a family of foreigners in a Mongol ger. He dismounted elegantly and saluted, then introduced himself as Lieutenant Panin, commanding a company of Don Cossacks. He spoke good English. There was only a trace of an accent.
Even Nellie, however, stepped backwards as he approached. The healthy, well-fed soldiers might have been aliens from another world.
Lieutenant Panin waited patiently, his eyebrows cocked, a kind smile on his round face. ‘You are?’ he asked politely.
‘I’m sorry, I’m forgetting my manners,’ she said, after a while. ‘Your arrival is a bit of a surprise.’
The lieutenant nodded his head, a gleam of humour in his eyes. ‘May I say likewise, madame?’ he murmured engagingly. ‘Your presence here, I mean.’
‘We are the Airton family, from Shishan,’ she said slowly. ‘We are accompanied by another, Miss Helen Frances Delamere—Mrs Cabot, I mean. She’s in the ger. She’s just been delivered of a child. This is—this is Orkhon Baatar’s ger.’
Lieutenant Panin bowed. ‘Mrs Airton,’ he acknowledged. ‘If I may say so, you are a long way from Shishan.’
‘We—we came here when the Boxers…’ She could not finish.
‘I understand,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Of course, it is well known what h
appened in Shishan. I had not realised that there had been any survivors of that atrocity.’ He appeared to consider. ‘Mrs Airton,’ he said, ‘if Mr Orkhon Baatar will allow us, I would like my men to camp here. We will not trespass on his hospitality. We are well provisioned. I would be honoured if you and your family will dine with me tonight. Perhaps I can acquaint you with what has been happening in the world, since your … since your…’ He smiled. ‘I congratulate you all on your miraculous escape. You must have a remarkable story to tell.’
‘Lieutenant Panin,’ Nellie called after him hesitantly, as he turned to give an order to his men, ‘the Boxers? Are they…?’
‘Yes, madame,’ said the lieutenant. ‘They are defeated. An Allied army now occupies Peking.’
* * *
Sarantuya wept and hugged the baby, reluctant to hand her to her waiting mother. Helen Frances’s eyes brimmed with tears and, indeed, there were tears on all their faces.
‘I don’t want to go,’ cried George. ‘I want to stay with Orkhon Baatar.’
He twisted his hand out of his father’s grip and ran to where the Mongolian was standing. Orkhon Baatar picked him up and hugged him. ‘Zhoorj. Zhoorj,’ he said. ‘You are a hunter and must be brave. If you do not go with your father and mother I will be worried for them. They need you to look after them. You will return when you are older, and we will hunt wolves again.’
He lifted the boy on to his pony. ‘This is yours now,’ he said. ‘It is my gift to you. When you ride him you will remember me, perhaps?’
It was true. Orkhon Baatar had refused to take the money, which Lieutenant Panin had offered him for the children’s ponies, though he had reluctantly accepted a generous sum for the other horses, and for the old pony-cart in which Helen Frances would travel with her child.
The Airtons embraced their hosts for the last time. Helen Frances sobbed when she came to hug Orkhon Baatar goodbye. Her body shook in his arms. Airton had to lead her gently away. Nellie was the last to take farewell of Orkhon Baatar. She took his leathery hands in hers. ‘The thanks we owe you are … I don’t know how to begin…’
Orkhon Baatar hugged her gently. ‘It is you who should be named Baatar, Nay-li. The Brave One,’ he said. ‘I will always remember you. And your husband is a good man,’ he continued, ‘worthy of respect. I regret that I was not able completely to heal the wound in his heart. With time…’
‘Yes,’ said Nellie, sniffing away a tear. ‘Goodbye, dear Orkhon Baatar.’
‘Goodbye, Nay-li Baatar.’ He smiled.
Lieutenant Panin, who had been waiting patiently, judged that it was time. He gave the order to move, and the column began its slow progress south.
As they wound through the valleys, they saw, for a long time, a horseman keeping pace with them on the brow of the hills that sloped up from the riverbank they were following. Above them, great black clouds were rolling through the pale winter sky. On the horizon they could see approaching grey curtains of snow. The horseman reared his horse and appeared to wave his hat, then the cloud cover descended and he disappeared. Within moments, wet, silent snowflakes had begun to fall.
Twenty-one
Mother is dead. I have no home. The foreign soldiers hunt and kill us. Uncle says I must hide with Lao Tian and his bandits in the forest.
The Legation was a ruin. After nearly two months of siege its outlying buildings were burned-out shells. Only the residence of Sir Claude and Lady MacDonald at the centre of the compound retained anything of its former appearance. At least it still possessed its walls and roof, though nobody looking at it now would have guessed that this had once been the palace of Manchu nobility.
Its elegant veranda and filigreed windows were hidden under sandbags. The now-deserted machine-gun emplacement above the curling eaves was a reminder that, for fifty-five days, this had been the command post for the defenders of the Legations. The Chancellery on the other side of the courtyard still bore scars of shellfire, revealing through a gaping hole in the wall not a neat array of desks but beds and mattresses from when it had been used as a barracks, dormitory and hospital.
The courtyard was littered with mementoes of the strange days when the diplomatic community, their wives and dependants, had huddled there for safety at the height of battle. They had sweltered in the heat, stinking like animals, revolted by the dwindling diet of mule, and often frightened when the firing from the walls intensified; yet for all that—except on days when the gunfire had been exceptionally heavy—they had conducted themselves as if they had gathered for a picnic, gossiping maliciously over their games of picquet, nibbling luxuries from the embassy larder, organising concert recitals, and jealously guarding their respective status and dignity, ready to snub, if necessary, any second secretary’s wife who sported a prettier sun hat or parasol. It had been that sort of siege. The detritus in the courtyard told the story; on one side, by the remains of the ginkgo tree, were piled ammunition boxes, and a commissary cart leaning on one wheel; on the other side the redoubt was made of the minister’s stacked library books. Empty champagne bottles rolled in the sand among bully-beef tins; the ribbon of a lady’s abandoned bonnet fluttered in the breeze, tangled with a stack of Lee Enfield rifles. On a small stool by the big embassy bell, which had rallied the defenders every morning for roll call, and where Sir Claude MacDonald had made the direst public announcements when it looked as though all was lost, there rested an ancient gramophone and a pile of records, whose labels recalled the world of music hall and opera.
It had been nearly a month now since that glorious mid-August day when an advance guard of Sikhs had penetrated the Water Gate of the old city walls thus signalling the end of the siege, but the Legation had remained as it was. It was as if those rescued were resisting a return to normality, basking still in reflections of their own heroism, relishing the élan and insouciance that they were sure they had each displayed when pitted against the might and terror of the imperial armies. Tidying the courtyard would have been tantamount to sweeping away their now glorious memories, cheapening their new image of themselves as warriors and survivors. Even those diplomats who had put on their old work suits wore them with a swagger these days, retaining pistols in their holsters and covering their heads with enormous bush hats as they chewed rough cheroots. It would be some time to come before Lady MacDonald would be entertaining the representatives of the powers again to a Mikado-esque ball in her once elegant garden.
For all that, the Legation was functioning. First and second secretaries moved purposefully between the tents they had converted to makeshift offices, carrying telegrams and memoranda for the minister to sign. From the direction of the small lawn behind the minister’s residence could occasionally be heard the comforting click of croquet mallets or the murmur of ladies’ conversation. Not even the aftermath of battle could quite take away the overlay of English calm.
The city outside the walls simmered with tension. Any visitor used to the noisy turbulence of a Chinese community would have been startled, first, by the unusual silence, and then by the singular absence of Chinese. The cowed population remained indoors. The few who ventured out scurried about their business with bowed heads and downcast eyes, as if seeking invisibility. They had reason to fear. Few homes had escaped the looting that had followed the lifting of the siege, and the occupying army, having tasted the spoils of victory, was by no means replete. Particularly to be feared were the spike-helmeted Germans and the fur-capped Russians, who had been known to stop and strip a man of his silk gown, leaving him like a naked coolie to crawl his way home. That is, if they did not press-gang him first into a work party, to rebuild a wall or to carry back to their lines the booty they had collected on their patrols. Not a woman dared venture into the street. Daughters and favourite concubines, those who had escaped molestation in the first house searches, hid in cellars or among the rafters.
The streets were left to the conquering armies. The tinny noise of their bands as they marched in their dress uniforms,
hung hollowly in the air before it was swallowed again by the overwhelming silence. Each nation vied to outdo the others in martial pomp, as if by doing so they could lay claim to their own glorious role in the lifting of the siege; as usual, when Europeans contend together, they became caricatures of themselves. The superior British marched in spruce khaki to the growling bark of sergeant majors’ unnecessary commands; the French matelots and Italian bersaglieri promenaded briskly, their elegant show somehow failing to disguise their underlying indiscipline, or to quench the humour that animated their faces; the Russians glowered; the Americans slouched; the Austrians paraded. The Germans—who had failed to arrive before the cessation of hostilities—were the most warlike of all: their caped uhlans clattered purposefully through the hutongs; their grenadiers growled with fixed bayonets at the slope, their heavy boots smashed down in unison as if beating the timing for a Wagnerian aria of revenge. Only the Japanese avoided these displays. Knots of their soldiers would observe these triumphant march-pasts with enigmatic passivity on their watchful faces, as they efficiently went about their tasks.
And in the heart of the Forbidden City where the generals had established their headquarters (the Empress Dowager had fled with all her court, pausing only to drown one of her nephew’s concubines in a convenient well), Allied officers from every nation strolled among the looted palaces, smoking their pipes and wondering at the empty magnificence and the sterile symmetry of a heaven from which the godhead had departed.
It was a relief for the few British diplomats who still possessed any sensitivity or who believed in the essentially benevolent effect of the civilisation they thought they represented to return to their Legation and absorb themselves again in the comforting tedium of their work. For all that their Chancellery was now a tent, in the rattle of the telegraph they could hear the distant order of an imperium that they believed was above the tawdry triumphalism that hid the underlying reality of rapine, exemplary executions and greed which had consumed the city they had come to love, dishonouring the victors as much as it brought degradation to their victims. In their objective replies to the solemn queries from Westminster or Whitehall they could, for a while, sublimate their own sense of shame and failure as their fountain pens moved carefully through the measured phrases and Olympian platitudes of international diplomacy.
The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure Page 77