by John Wilcox
The first question was answered when, at last, they broke out of the Chinese City to emerge facing the Tartar Wall, beyond which lay the Legation Quarter. And there, to everyone’s blessed relief, the American Stars and Stripes was flying proudly from the top of the wall to show that the Foreign Powers at least still held this most southerly of the Quarter’s defences. ‘Thank God for that,’ murmured Fonthill, as he looked up.
To their left stood the stunted tower of Chien Men, from which Fonthill had toppled the Chinese cannon, and beneath it the firmly bolted gate leading to the inner city. ‘Do we attack that gate?’ demanded the perspiring captain commanding the leading company of Rajputs.
‘No,’ said Simon. ‘There’s an easier way through. Here to the right. Come on, but we must watch our backs, for we could be fired on from these houses.’
He ran across the road to the foot of the wall, moving to the right until he found the sluice gates through which he had led the sortie to attack the guns. They were closed, of course, but, as before, there remained enough space for men singly to slip through the space between the grill and curved wall of the opening, avoiding most, at least, of the putrid effluent underfoot by hugging the wall on either side.
Fonthill rolled up his cotton pantaloons and led the way, followed by Jenkins and Chang and then the first of the Rajputs, their boots slipping and sliding in the mud that banked the noxious stream. Above them, as they emerged from the archway, they heard cheering as the Americans on their sector of the wall welcomed their liberators now pouring into the streets below them.
For the Rajputs, it was a momentous victory to have beaten their great rivals the Sikhs to the sluice gates and therefore the Legation Quarter by a few yards. This would be recorded in their histories.
Once clear of the archway, Jenkins seized Simon’s hand and shook it. ‘My God, we’ve made it,’ he gasped. ‘Well done, bach sir.’
Chang joined in the celebrations. ‘Splendid effort, my dear cousin,’ he said, characteristically. ‘Very fine indeed.’
But Fonthill showed no sign of elation. ‘But are we in time?’ he asked. ‘Are we in time? Come on. Come on.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Alice had decided that she would not tell Sir Claude about seeing Gerald with the rifle, fighting for the Chinese at the Fu, nor about the attempted rape. Time enough to face up to that problem when the relief column arrived and she could confide in Simon. He would be with them. Of course he would.
Nevertheless, she could not but be depressed by the increase in the rifle fire that now rained down on the Quarter, not merely that which crashed along the wall and the barricades but also in the activities of the snipers, whose firing from the high points of buildings outside the perimeter made walking within the grounds of even the British Legation dangerous.
To this was added the fact that she knew that she had made a mortal enemy of Gerald Griffith. She had no doubt that her humiliation of him in the tunnel meant that he would have no hesitation in killing her, should he have the opportunity. And if the Chinese broke through …! She took to wearing the long-barrelled Colt revolver everywhere, except when working in the hospital.
The Quarter had always been a hotbed of rumour but now the place seethed with story and counter-story. The relief force had been defeated right under the walls of the Chinese City and then, no, it had been forced to turn back again deep in the countryside. The distant rattle of machine gun fire that could be heard, it was stated authoritatively by someone who knew, undoubtedly came from the Chinese, who had recently bought fifty British Maxims. The rumours, it seemed, were always pessimistic.
Part of the problem for the civilians crowded in the British Legation was that, after nearly two months of the siege, everyone within its confines was now suffering from some form or another of claustrophobia. Unlike for the defenders of, say, Lucknow, during the Indian Mutiny, there were no high battlements from which to scan the surrounding countryside for a glimpse of the banners of the relieving force, no positions of advantage from which to listen for the sound of distant trumpets or bagpipes. Even from the part of the Tartar Wall held by the Americans and Germans, the view was only of hostile dwellings, almost, it seemed, only an arm’s length away. And for everyone else, it was of ruined buildings and barricades of rubble and furniture, pressing in, always pressing in.
Those who suffered the most within the Quarter were the Chinese converts to Christianity, who far outnumbered the foreigners and who now lived in appalling poverty. At the bottom of the pecking order, they lacked decent food and, often, a roof over their heads. They suffered from the sudden downpours that were a feature of recent weeks and also from the appalling heat and humidity that were even worse than the rain. Pitiful Chinese mothers crouched against piles of masonry desperately seeking shade and shelter and constantly flicking the flies away from their babies.
The number of casualties recorded by Sir Claude had now risen to sixty-eight of the besieged foreigners killed and more than one hundred and fifty wounded. His figures, however, made no mention of Chinese deaths or casualties from within the Quarter. Alice had taken to gathering whatever scraps of food she could beg from the white families and doling them out to the Chinese Christians. She lost count of the number of pathetic little forms she saw, wrapped in fragments of cloth and lying near to their sobbing mothers, awaiting burial.
When she was not working in the hospital Alice took to spending much of her time with Colonel Shiba, still manning his barricades in the Fu. Her admiration for the Japanese soldiers had grown the more she saw of them. As far as she could see, they always remained cheerful, they never complained and they were completely resolute in their defence of this most attacked and vulnerable section of the Quarter’s perimeter. She reflected this in the diary she kept every day and in the series of features that she was writing for eventual publication – she hoped and expected – in the Morning Post. In his spare moments, the colonel spoke to her of his home and of his yearning to return there and this had turned Alice to thinking of the future.
She had married Simon Fonthill in 1885 and their only child had died at birth. Her time with Fonthill and their beloved servant and comrade, Jenkins, had been a strange mixture of tranquillity in Norfolk and the excitement of travelling and campaigning abroad. She had followed Simon and Jenkins in their many adventures, not only from love and faithful duty, but also because of the access it provided her in reporting on these wars for the Morning Post. She knew that the attention of the great capitals of the world would be on the siege of Peking and she was determined to be the first to report on it and on its relief as soon as cabling facilities became available again. And this work had to be done despite the fact that at the back of her mind increasingly now was the cry ‘Has Simon survived?’
Alice prayed night and morning that her husband would be spared and she resolved, as do all lovers in such circumstances, that, if he was, then she would be a better, more supportive, less harping wife, worthy of such a hero. If only … if only …! Then she sharpened her pencil and returned to her despatch for the Morning Post.
So it was that, a little after midday, on 14th August, on the fifty-fifth day of the siege, Alice was scribbling away. Mrs Griffith had been on night duty at the hospital and was fast asleep, so, to avoid disturbing her, Alice had taken her writing pad and found a corner in a vastly overcrowded office of the British Legation. Although deep in concentration, she suddenly became aware of a deal of hustle and bustle around her. Sir Claude strode through, cutting a gangling, elegant figure in his cream-coloured cotton suit and wearing a startlingly white shirt topped by a polished, starched collar under his best wide-brimmed Manila hat. Outside, she glimpsed women she had hardly noticed before now wearing the most tightly waisted of dresses and smart garden-party hats. What was happening?
‘They’re coming, they’re coming!’ shouted a young clerk. ‘Some have got through the sluice gate already.’
There was no need to ask who ‘they’ were. Alic
e felt the colour drain from her face. What if he … what if he was not among them? She banished the thought and looked down at herself. She was wearing patched jodhpurs without the riding boots, broken sandals and an unwashed cotton shirt. This would never do. No way to welcome back … Putting away her notepad, she hurried to the room she shared with her aunt, who was still sleeping peacefully. Quickly but quietly, Alice shook out the creases from her best dress and slipped smart and high-heeled sandals on her feet. She brushed her hair feverishly, applied a little rouge to lips and cheeks and stole a look at herself in the one mirror the two women shared. Ah, how she had lost weight! The dress positively drooped around her midriff. She found her red bandana and tied it round her waist as a cummerbund. A hat. She must wear a hat! She found her old straw boater and looped a scarf of matching colour to the bandana over its top and under her chin and then ran outside.
The lawn and tennis courts in front of the Residency were thronged with men wearing unfamiliar best suits and women dressed as though for Ascot. But no soldiers were to be seen. Alice saw Dr Morrison and seized his elbow. ‘Is it true?’ she cried.
‘Absolutely, my dear Alice. They’re on the way up now. Don’t know who they are, though.’
Suddenly a shot rang out and a Belgian woman of Alice’s acquaintance screamed and fell to the ground, blood streaming from her blouse.
‘Take cover.’ Sir Claude was waving his arms unhurriedly, as though quelling excited schoolchildren. ‘Snipers are still active. You all know the lines of fire. Stay away from them, but there is no need to panic.’
Indeed, there was no panic. After weeks of being under fire, most of the occupants knew exactly where the danger points of the Legation were and no one was going to miss seeing the relieving troops arrive. The wounded lady was helped inside and given treatment. Alice, however, frowned, thought for a moment, and then retreated to her room, where Aunt Lizzie was still sleeping, and retrieved the Colt from the box under her bed and slipped it into her cummerbund behind her back. Then, biting her lip with anxiety, she rushed out again onto the crowded lawn.
At last they came. Not the tanned British, or American or German soldiers they all expected – not even the little nut-brown men of Japan – but bashful Indian troops, wearing exotic turbans and with their boots and calves covered in black, foul-smelling mud. Someone had broken open several cases of champagne and these grinning men of the subcontinent were being offered and sheepishly declining the sparkling wine served from long-stemmed glasses. Thirsty as they were, alcohol was not for them.
In growing agony, Alice scanned the crowd. He was not there. And then she heard a shout. ‘Alice!’
At first she did not recognise any of them: three men – a broken-nosed young Chinaman, a squat, broad man with an unkempt moustache and a slim, taller man. All wore strange cotton trousers, splashed with mud, and filthy khaki jackets. The slim man was beaming at her from underneath a peculiar hat at the base of which three acorns rested on its broad brim and his arms were spread wide.
‘Oh, thank you, God!’ she shouted and ran into her husband’s arms, knocking his hat off and kissing him desperately. They stayed locked in each other’s arms until Alice broke free and caused extreme embarrassment to Jenkins by kissing him on the lips and then embracing Chang.
‘I have been so worried,’ she said, tears coursing down her cheeks. Then she kissed Simon again. ‘My God,’ she exclaimed, trying to grin through the tears, ‘you smell foul.’
‘Ah well,’ said Jenkins, ‘that’s because the captain would insist on comin’ in ’ere up the back passage.’ He then realised that he had delivered a scatological double entendre and added lamely, ‘so to speak, that is.’
Everybody laughed. ‘May I enquire how my mother is?’ asked Chang with his customary gravity.
‘Oh, she is well, Chang.’ Alice smiled at him. ‘I hope she approves of your new nose. I think it rather becomes you. Look, she is asleep but I will run and warn her. She will want to look her best when she sees you. So excuse me just for a moment.’ She looked at them all in turn. ‘Don’t you dare run away again, any of you.’
She ran to the Residency and gently woke Mrs Griffith who smiled with relief and immediately knelt in prayer. ‘I will be out in a moment,’ she said. ‘I must say thanks.’
Alice ran out into the heat and sunshine again and then her eye caught a movement to her right, a flash of white, where the rubble wall of the Legation met the old battlefield of the Mongol Market. She stopped, frozen. Along the top of the wall a man in a white suit was lying and about to level a rifle at the crowd on the lawn. She turned her head. Nearest to him on the edge of the crowd, and offering a perfect target, was the broad back of Simon, who was talking to Sir Claude. Away from them, Jenkins had found a lady with a silver tray of glasses filled with champagne and was offering one to Chang.
Focusing on the figure on the wall, Alice immediately recognised her cousin Gerald. She stood transfixed as she saw him slowly draw back the bolt on his rifle and aim at Simon.
‘No, no!’ Alice screamed. But there was still desultory rifle fire from outside the Legation and people were still cheering somewhere. Her voice was lost. Reflexively, she whipped out the Colt revolver from the cummerbund, held it with both hands in front of her, held her breath, took careful aim and then squeezed the trigger.
The sound of the shot, away from the crowd, was lost in the background noise but Simon and Sir Claude heard it and whirled round. They saw Gerald start, turn his head towards Alice, drop his jaw in surprise and then slump over his rifle, a red stain growing under his left armpit before he fell away, out of sight behind the wall.
Fonthill ran towards Alice, who was staring white-faced at him.
‘Alice,’ he shouted as he ran, ‘what have you done?’
She could not answer for a moment, then she dropped the Colt onto the grass, stared at her husband and said, ‘I think I’ve killed Gerald.’
‘For God’s sake, why?’
‘Because he was trying to shoot you. I knew he would try to kill either you or me. But it was you he was aiming at.’
MacDonald had now joined them. ‘Your wife is right, Fonthill,’ he said. ‘I suddenly became aware that I was staring right at his rifle when the bullet hit him. He could only have been aiming at either you or me.’ He turned to Alice. ‘Damn fine shooting, madam. Now, go inside and sit down. You are understandably shaken. I will get a couple of chaps and go and see if the man has been finished or merely wounded. Frankly, I hope it is the former, from what you have told me. Excuse me.’
Alice had now begun to shake. ‘What can I tell Aunt Lizzie?’ she asked, white-faced.
Simon put his arm around her and walked her away to a bench under the wrought iron balcony. ‘Here. Sit down, darling. I think you had better tell me what has been going on.’
Slowly, and then with increasing urgency, Alice relayed the story of Gerald’s treachery, his twice-repeated proposal and his attempted rape. Then, at the end, she put her hand to her mouth and asked, once again, ‘What am I going to tell his mother? How am I going to explain that I’ve killed her son. She’s lost her husband and now her son. Oh, Simon.’ She buried her face in his tunic.
He patted her head. ‘Look, we don’t know yet that he is dead, my love. But if he is, I know exactly what we are going to say to her. Gerald died a hero’s death, right at the moment of relief. He saw a sniper aiming into the crowd from a house beyond the Austrian ruins over there. There are still plenty of them about. He rushed to get his rifle but before he could fire, he was hit. He died well. That is what she must remember. Now, Sir Claude is coming back. If the man is dead, let me see if he will concur. I’m sure he will. It’s a harmless subterfuge and solves all the problems. Just stay here a moment.’
He was back within minutes. Alice had dried her tears and was staring sightlessly at the ground. Simon took her hand. ‘I’m afraid Gerald is dead, my dear. Shot through the heart. Sir Claude knew of the little swine’s treache
ry and it was confirmed when he saw him aim at me. He agrees completely with the subterfuge. By far the best way out. It seems no one noticed the incident in all the excitement.’ He released her hand. ‘Now wipe your face, my love. Here comes Jenkins with a glass of champagne for you.’ He grinned. ‘Rescuing us all, once again.’
Jenkins handed her the glass. ‘Cheer up, Miss Alice. I know we all smell a bit, but you shouldn’t turn your nose up at us, you know. We’re all you’ve got, see.’
Alice accepted the glass and a sad smile crept across her face. ‘Oh yes, my dear 352,’ she said. ‘And I couldn’t wish for better. I am very, very lucky.’
EPILOGUE
Mrs Griffith accepted the death of her son with the typical stoicism and faith of a missionary’s wife. She always knew, she said, that he was engaged in dangerous work somewhere – ‘intelligence work for Sir Claude, you know.’ Too secret to be admitted even now, but it did explain his absences. She was sure that her husband would have been proud of him and so it was fitting that he should be buried next to him in the Legation’s little cemetery.
Even so, Alice realised that she could not face her aunt on an everyday basis for long and she urged Simon to make haste to get them away. First, however, she had to complete her despatches and send them off as soon as cable facilities were re-established in the Quarter. This was done and accepted with enthusiastic alacrity by the Morning Post in London’s Fleet Street. She had filed a separate story on Simon’s adventures in getting to Tientsin and on his part in the attack on the city there, as well as the relief of Peking. This was, of course, her scoop on Dr Morrison’s despatch for The Times and it made Fonthill a celebrity in the war-torn capital, much to his embarrassment.