by John Wilcox
The general, now beaming, interrupted Chang, who listened with growing disbelief and then translated with as much of a smile as his closed eye would allow. ‘He say, because of this, he will release us and let us through the lines to settlements. But, he wants you to know that this is not because of minister’s attempt at bribery, which he treats with scorn, but because he admires bravery. Cousin, we are not going to be whipped to death. God be praised!’
‘’Ere, ’ere,’ muttered Jenkins. ‘Tell the old bastard that I’ll vote for ’im, see, when he stands for emperor, so I will.’
Fonthill maintained a straight face and nodded sagely. ‘Thank the general. We admire him as a man of courage also.’
Their bonds were cut and their ill-fitting coats restored to them. Simon gave the general a half-bow, which the others emulated, and followed the officer out of the tent, amidst a hum of – what, derision, approval, disappointment? – from the assembled soldiers.
‘Have you noticed something?’ asked Simon. ‘The firing has stopped.’
‘I think I know why,’ beamed Chang. ‘It all bally interesting, cousin. I tell you why when we get through lines.’
They followed the officer who picked his way through the shallow trench works that constituted the Chinese forward lines. They passed hundreds of Imperial soldiers, rifles at the slope, who were marching away from the settlements. Then the officer pointed towards a low mud wall which fronted the Chinese lines some two hundred yards away. It was studded with rifles at its crest and broken occasionally by the snout of a cannon. But all firing had stopped.
‘He say, there are French lines,’ interpreted Chang. ‘We free to go towards them.’
With a half-smile, the officer gave them a ceremonial bow and marched quickly away, to catch up with the departing infantry.
Simon turned to Chang. ‘What was so bally interesting back there, cousin?’
‘Ah.’ The Chinaman gave a lopsided smile. ‘Just as we being tied to posts a man came in and gave general a message.’
‘Yes, I noticed that. Did you hear what he said?’
‘Not completely. But I hear distinctly words “thousands of Russian troops” and “retreat”.’
Fonthill returned the smile, slowly nodding his head. ‘I thought this “comrades-in-arms and fellow sufferers” stuff was all too good to be true. The old rascal freed us because reinforcements had arrived for the settlements and he wanted to get some credit with the Allies for releasing us. The old fraud.’
‘Well,’ said Jenkins, ‘I don’t really care what ’e thought as long as ’e let us go. Now let’s get moving towards the Frenchies, shall we?’ And he began to stride forward.
‘No!’ Fonthill held up his hand. ‘If we march across this no man’s land wearing these coats, we are just asking to be shot by the French. Take ’em off and we will saunter across in our underpants, waving the coats. That should amuse the French and also stop ’em shooting at us. Come on – and try and smile. We could be having French onion soup for lunch …’
And so, barefooted, wearing fixed grins and nothing but their filthy and still-wet and virtually transparent underpants, the three comrades strode towards the defenders of the Tientsin settlements.
CHAPTER NINE
Alice Fonthill sat down outside the hospital, wiped her brow with a less-than-clean handkerchief and cursed her husband. The words came from a fruity vocabulary, built up originally in her Swiss finishing school and then honed and extended during her years of reporting for the Morning Post from various boundaries of the Empire on Queen Victoria’s wars and also from campaigning with Simon. Alice had never lived a sheltered life and, although being shelled through most of the day and living on quarter rations of dusty rice and horse meat did not exactly represent tranquillity, she resented being cooped up in Peking and, most of all, being without Simon.
As a soldier’s daughter, a war correspondent operating in a masculine world and as the active partner of an army scout and ‘irregular’ agent, she was used to hardship and danger. What she resented now, however, was being forced to play the role of the woman waiting anxiously for news of her man. She had done it before, of course, but rarely since their marriage. And certainly not when he had set off on any mission that so justified the term ‘hopeless cause’ as this one.
She jerked the brim of her canvas hat down over her eyes in a vicious movement to avoid the glare of the sun. How could he be asked to track eighty miles through enemy territory – an obvious Occidental in Oriental country – with not a single word of the language, no transport and no real idea of where he was going? And how could he accept such a task, without taking her with him? She picked up a handful of dust and threw it away again, immediately regretting it as it blew back in her face.
Alice loved Fonthill with a passion that had grown stronger with each year they had been together. They had made a false start when, impressed by his bearing and courage, she had married Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Covington, Simon’s erstwhile commanding officer. Shortly after her engagement, she had realised her mistake but, when Covington had lost an eye and a hand in action, she had honoured her pledge to him. The arid years of her marriage had ended with her husband’s death at the Battle of Tel el-Kebir and she had hurried into Fonthill’s arms. But she bitterly regretted those lost years and the thought now of losing Simon filled her with despair. Where was he, what was he doing and why couldn’t she be by his side, instead of sweating away here, changing dressings?
In the early days of the siege, before Simon had set off, morale within the legations had been kept alive by rumour of imminent relief: of distant bugles and bagpipes heard and of strange lights in the sky to the south-east. Now, these had receded and been replaced by a grim realisation that things would get worse within Peking before they got better. The fighting was static but it was relentless and casualties were mounting, usually among the most efficient and courageous of the defenders.
Practicality was the order of the day. Sir Claude was proving to be a surprisingly energetic leader, with a fine eye for detail. Typical of his range of concern was the notice he posted at the Bell Tower, written in his tiny, civil service hand. It ran: ‘LOOPHOLES. Loopholes should never be left open except when being used for looking through or firing through. A brick placed at the narrowest part is quite sufficient to prevent the enemy from firing through and hitting people passing.’ The ex-subaltern was proving his worth as a military commander.
The previous day had probably been the worst since the siege began. The Japanese had been dislodged from their only recently installed fallback position in the Fu and had to erect, once again, a new defensive barricade; the Germans, in their sector, had been reduced to a desperate bayonet charge to save their positions; and, as ever, the Americans were under fierce attack on the wall.
Then, just before dusk, Alice, working in the hospital, had been almost thrown to the ground by two explosions from the direction of the French Legation. Two mines had been detonated under what was left of the legation there and a howling mob of Chinese had poured through the ruins, jumping between the flames caused by the explosions.
Alice had seized her revolver and rushed to the scene. She found that the French were conducting a strenuous defence amidst the debris, kneeling in the smoke and repeatedly firing into the mass of attackers, who had now halted, daunted by the French shooting. She herself joined the French but was thrust aside by a member of what was left of Fonthill’s mobile reserve, who rushed to the aid of the French, alternately firing and throwing up rubble to form a new barricade. Eventually, a bridgehead was created and held but two French sailors were buried in the debris and several others were wounded, including the Austrian chargé d’affaires.
Wearily, Alice made her way back to the hospital, where the day had been the busiest yet, five men having died there and ten others brought in for treatment.
Every day, however, the work in the little hospital was hard and becoming increasingly demanding. Set up in the chancery
of the British Legation, it was small and inadequately resourced. It had only four small iron bedsteads and seven camp beds and most of the patients were forced to lie on mattresses on the floor, stuffed with straw in which wine bottles had been packed. The windows were sandbagged and the heat and the flies were intolerable for patients and staff alike. There were few anaesthetics, fewer antiseptics and only one thermometer.
The place was run by two physicians: Dr Velde, a German surgeon, and Dr Poole, the British Legation’s resident doctor. They were given support by an overworked sickbay attendant from a British warship and an amateur nursing staff, of whom Alice and Mrs Griffith were among the earliest and most dedicated members. Latterly, Lady MacDonald, the respected wife of the British minister, had organised the ladies of the Legation to provide a deeper nursing source to assist the doctors. Dr Morrison, the Times correspondent, was a trained backup for the doctors but he had proved to be as brave and active a member of the defenders as any of the regular sailors and soldiers and was to be seen on the line now more than in the hospital.
He, in fact, was a factor in deciding Alice that she need not be as scrupulous a helper in the hospital as in the early days of the defence. She realised that, although he could not send any despatches back to the London Times, Morrison was almost certainly preparing for the day when the cable services could be reached and was making extensive notes of the incidents in the siege. She must do the same and so, given the increasing numbers of ladies to strengthen the nursing roster, she had now taken to reducing her shifts in the hospital and visiting each sector of the defences in turn.
She did so, wearing her riding breeches and boots, wide-brimmed hat and with the pearl-handled Colt revolver tucked into her belt. She had become known, in fact, as ‘The Lady with the Gun’ and, ignoring the protests of the officers in the line, she had several times taken part in helping to fight off attacks on her sector.
Now, squatting in the sun at the door of the hospital, Alice decided that it was pointless worrying about Simon. She rose to her feet and brushed the dust from her skirt. It was time to visit the Fu, the most hard-pressed sector of the line.
She made her way back to the tiny room – previously a store cupboard – that she shared now with Mrs Griffith, splashed a little water onto her face, changed into her breeches, thrust her revolver into her belt and picked up her pencil and notebook. As usual, she was warned not to go further as she scurried out of the Legation and across the narrow bridge spanning the central canal. And, as usual, she smiled at the sentry and continued on her way, ducking her head instinctively as the noise of the firing increased as she neared the barricade up ahead.
Alice was full of admiration for the Japanese contingent who defended the park-like space immediately to the east, across the canal from the British Legation. Of all the contingents, these little men – no more than twenty-five of them – fought the hardest and complained the least. They presented the amazing statistic of sustaining a hundred per cent casualties, in that every single man had been hit and had to leave the line at one time or another and returned, including their commander, Colonel Shiba, the Japanese military attaché. He had become a particular favourite of Alice, for he made no fuss about her helping to man the barricade.
He greeted her now with a smile and a full, ceremonial bow.
‘Quieter today, Colonel?’ she asked.
‘Not quiet, madam. These Muslims facing us fire all the time but they usually fire too high.’
Alice knew that the defending line here had been forced to contract regularly since the Kansus had first broken through the walls of the park. Now it zigzagged across the open space, winding its way between the various small buildings and shrines, now reduced to rubble, most of them.
‘Have you had to fall back today, Colonel?’
‘No, Madam. And we retreat no more. If they make frontal attack, we kill them. But we stay here.’
Alice scribbled in her pad, noting that the Colonel had a bullet tear across the right shoulder of his uniform. She drew her revolver and made her way to an open loophole in the rubble that formed the barricade. She removed her hat and peered through. The Chinese barricade, similarly made of broken bricks, gravestones and the like, seemed amazingly near. They had left open a small gap, through which, presumably, they made their now increasingly rare frontal attacks, and, through it, she could see dun-coloured figures moving. They were close enough for her to make out some facial characteristics, although most of the Kansus were dressed exactly alike. She levelled the Colt. She now had no compunction at all in killing any of the Chinese troops. One less might somehow ease the danger on Simon.
She sighted down the long barrel and then froze. Into view came a white-suited figure, disconcertingly familiar, with his Occidental features, yet wearing his hair drawn back into a pigtail and affecting a long Mandarin moustache. Her jaw dropped and her finger slackened on the trigger. Then the figure had gone.
Alice pulled back away from the loophole, her eyes wide. Could it be? Could it be Gerald Griffith, mingling with the Muslim Kansus opposite this, the most tightly pressed sector of the Legation defences?
She took another look but sharply withdrew as a bullet pinged to the left of the loophole. She scurried back to find the colonel.
‘Has a man – a European-looking man – in a white suit been seen on the Chinese barricades?’ she asked.
The little man immediately walked along the line and barked a series of questions to his men. He came back. ‘No, madam,’ he said. ‘All Muslims opposite us. Very sorry.’
Alice thanked him and walked away, her head down, thinking hard. The colonel had told her previously that the Kansus seemed to know which part of the defences were the most vulnerable and on which to concentrate their fire. Could it be that Gerald – her cousin – was relaying this kind of information to the enemy? Although he made no secret of his admiration for the Boxers and his approval of their cause, he surely would not take that attitude to the point of betraying his fellow countrymen? Or would he?
It was true that he had taken to disappearing again during the day but Alice had given up questioning him, or even of talking to the young man, for fear of encouraging his obvious admiration for her.
In fairness, this had been restricted to glances and the odd brush of the hand. No flowers now – they would be difficult to find, anyhow. Could she face him now and charge him with betrayal? It would be a heinous crime of which to accuse him. No. She would probe gently with Aunt Lizzie, although she would have to step warily there.
She found the missionary’s widow sitting outside the Legation main building, sewing a piece of cotton onto an old, torn skirt.
Alice smiled at her. She had become very fond of her aunt, despite – or perhaps because of – them being thrown together in the crowded conditions of the Legation. The old lady was a strange mixture: a diffident, modest woman whose faith and love of her husband had sustained her throughout her arduous life in China; and yet also a tough, resilient pragmatist who was not above scolding a servant with the sharpest of tongues. She had taken the death of her husband with remarkable equanimity, although she visited his plot of earth in the Legation cemetery – there had been no chance of putting up a proper headstone – every evening.
‘Be careful, Aunt, sitting there,’ she said. ‘You are not out of range of a stray bullet, you know.’
The old lady held up her handiwork in a gesture of disgust. ‘If a bullet finds me,’ she said, in mock resignation, ‘then it will be the Lord’s will. I just can’t sit inside our stuffy room any longer. And, anyway, I can’t see in there.’
Alice discreetly slipped her revolver along her belt to the small of her back out of sight and squatted in the dust beside her aunt. ‘Here,’ she offered, ‘let me do that for you.’
‘No, my dear, but thank you. I can see clearly out here. Where have you been?’
‘Well I finished my shift at the hospital and went for a bit of a walk.’ She made a show of looking
around.. ‘Where’s Gerald?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know where he gets off to.’ She looked up quickly. ‘No news of Simon and Chang, I suppose?’
‘No, dear. And I don’t expect to hear anything.’ She paused. ‘I am sorry we had to mislead you rather about their departure.’
Mrs Griffith came near to a sniff. ‘Yes, well, I didn’t feel that was absolutely necessary, although I would have tried to persuade Chang not to go, you know.’ She looked at her niece with stern eyes. ‘He is only a boy. Hardly sixteen. I worry about him all the time.’
‘I am sure you do, Aunt, and I am so sorry. But he was ideal for the purpose and so anxious to take part. We had to dissemble to you about him because of the security risk. Sir Claude and Simon could not risk news of their journey leaking out …’
‘You mean Gerald?’
Alice started. She had never thought for a moment that Mrs Griffith ever doubted her son’s allegiance to the defenders of the legations and it was startling to see her refer to the possibility now so matter-of-factly.
‘Well … er … yes. But not just him, you know. It is common knowledge that this place is riddled with spies and Boxer sympathisers.’
‘Gerald would never do anything like that.’ The words came out like bullets from a gun.
Alice’s mind slipped back quickly to the attack of the Boxers on the cart and the discharge of Gerald’s fowling piece which prompted the murder of his father. ‘No, Aunt,’ she said. ‘Of course not.’ This was not treading warily. The subject had to be changed. ‘Is Gerald still wrapped up in his medieval texts?’ she asked brightly. ‘I never seem to see him now.’
A smile came at last to Mrs Griffith’s careworn face. ‘Oh yes. He takes such an interest in the history of this country, you know. He was waiting to take a postgraduate degree at the university when all this trouble started. He has such an original mind.’ She paused for a moment, her needle poised. ‘I suppose he is what you would call a freethinker. He has always supported the cause of Chinese nationalism against foreign intervention in this country.’