I tapped Anderson’s arm. “Everyone to the square, quietly, in two’s and three’s. No fuss. We’re riding in ten minutes.”
Good boy, Anderson; he nodded, called a joke to De Normann, passed word to his jemadar, and the Sikhs began to drift off, slow and easy. I left him to bring Bowlby, and went to find another horse from our two remounts; I ride thirteen stone, and if there was one thing I wanted it was a fresh beast.
Anderson had his troop ready in the square by the temple – loafing so as not to attract notice, I was glad to see – and there was nothing to do but wait for Parkes and tell De Normann and Bowlby what had happened. It was roasting hot now, in the dusty square; the beasts stamped and jingled, and the sowars yawned and spat, while Anderson strolled, hands in pockets, whistling; my nerves were stretching. I can tell you, when there was a clatter of hooves, and who should it be but Loch, with two sowars carrying white flags on their lance-points, and young Brabazon, a staff-walloper.
Yes, Loch had seen Grant, and after reporting had felt bound to return for Parkes and me; he said it almost apologetically, blinking and stroking his beard, while I marvelled at human folly. The Imps were in greater force than ever at the camp-site, and in Loch’s opinion, presenting a most threatening appearance, but while Montauban had been all for a frontal attack, Grant was sitting tight, to give us time to get clear. That cheered me up, for if he didn’t advance the Imps would have nothing to shoot at, and all might blow over; but it was still gruelling work waiting for Parkes; I beguiled the time trying to think of fatal errands on which I might despatch Trooper Nolan, who was sitting aside, puffing his pipe, his bright little eyes sliding every so often in my direction.
Suddenly here was Parkes, riding alone, pausing to scribble furiously in his note-book, and in a fine taking. “I am out of all patience with I!” snaps he. “He is a lying scoundrel! Sam Collinson has been at work, stirring up resistance, and what d’you think I had the effrontery to say? That it is all our fault for insisting on Lord Elgin’s entering Pekin!”
“You said that?” says Loch, puzzled.
“What? Of course not! I said it!” cries Parkes, and as God’s my witness, they began to discuss the personal pronoun. One thing rapidly became clear: the Chinks had repudiated the agreement made only yesterday, and were now vowing that unless Elgin withdrew his demand, they were ready to fight. “There can be no peace!” Prince I had shouted at Parkes. “It must be war!”
I gave the word to Anderson, and we were off at the canter, stretching to a gallop as we left the town. With luck, we might pass through before the explosion came, but barely a mile out on the road Parkes’s horse fell, and although he remounted, I could see that his beast, and De Normann’s, would never stay the course. I slowed to a trot, wondering what the devil to do; if it came to the pinch, they could damned well take their chance, but for the moment we must hold together and hope. By God, it was a long ride, with my ears straining for the first crack of gunfire ahead; if only Grant held off a little longer …
We passed through Chang-kia-wan again, in a solid phalanx with the Sikh sowars around us, thrusting by main force through streets choked with jingal-men and Tiger soldiers who sneered and spat but kept their distance from those razor-sharp lance-heads. Then we were out and trotting down the long slope towards the distant camp-site; the plain either side was black with Imps, foot and horse; the huge coloured banners were streaming in the breeze, paper standards were flapping and filling, their horns were blaring and cymbals clashing, every group we passed turned to scream execrations at us; suddenly before us was a troop of Manchoo artillery, absolutely slewing round their great dragon-headed brass pieces to threaten us. I looked back – De Normann and Bowlby had fallen behind on their foundering hacks, and Parkes seized my elbow. “Sir Harry! Sir Harry, we must decide what is best to be done!”
They’re smart in the diplomatic, you know, and in a moment the others had caught fire from his inspiration. Loch said that in such moments decisions should be arrived at quickly, De Normann urged the necessity of calm, and Brabazon cried out that since Parkes was the chief negotiator, he must say how we should proceed.
“Shut your bloody trap!” I roared. “Anderson – wheel right!” If there was a way through – for anyone lucky enough to have a fresh horse, anyway – it was beyond the big nullah, where we might skirt round to the army. We swung off the road, and in that moment there was a thunderous roar of cannon from far ahead, and I knew the masked batteries were in action; a breathless pause, and then as Armstrong shells began to burst among the Imps, pandemonium broke loose. I yelled to Anderson to hold them together as we surged forward through the milling infantry, and here was Bowlby clattering up, brandishing his pistol.
“Now we’ll see how these yellow fellows can fight!” cries he. I roared to him to holster his piece, heard Parkes yelling in front of me, and saw that he and Loch had reined up by a little silk pavilion where a mandarin was sitting a Tartar pony, with officers at his back; it was our acquaintance of yesterday, who had lost his spurs at Sinho. As I rode up to them, Parkes was shouting something about safe-conduct, but now there was a crowd of angry Imps in the way; they’d spotted us as enemy, clever lads, and were crowding in, waving fists and spears; suddenly there seemed to be contorted yellow faces all round us, screaming hate. Above the din I heard the mandarin cry out something about a prince; then Parkes was calling across the crowd to me. “Wait for us, Sir Harry! Prince …” And then he and Loch and one of the sowars were galloping off with the mandarin.
“Come back!” I roared. “Parkes, you idiot!”, for it was plain that our one hope was the mandarin, and we should all stay with him. Roaring to Anderson to hold on, I drove through the press in pursuit; by the time I’d cleared that howling mob my quarry was wheeling into a gully a furlong ahead, and I cursed and thundered after them. I plunged into the gully, and there they were, not twenty paces off, reined up before a group of magnificently-armoured Manchoo horsemen, banners planted in the turf beside them, and Parkes was pointing to the white rag on the sowar’s lance-point. I pulled up, and the leader of the Manchoos was standing in his stirrups, screaming with laughter, which seemed damned odd till I saw who it was: Prince Sang-kol-in-sen. In fine voice he was.
“You ask safe-conduct! Foreign filth! Crawling savages! You who would shame the Son of Heaven, and who come now treacherously to attack us! Barbarian lice! Offal! And now you come whining –”
The rest was lost in howls of hatred as his followers closed in; I saw Parkes struggling with a mounted rider, and thought “McNaghten!”32 Loch was knocked flying from the saddle, and the Sikh was thrashing with his lance as they bore him down. I didn’t linger; I was round and out of that gully like a guilty squirrel – and slap in front of me was a boiling crowd of Imp braves, with Anderson’s party struggling desperately in the middle. A musket barked, and I saw a Sikh reel in the saddle; then the sabres were out, Sikhs and dragoons laying about them, with Anderson yelling to close up; a ragged volley of musketry, a Sikh going down, the answering crash of revolver fire, Bowlby blazing away wild-eyed until he was dragged from the saddle, Nolan bleeding from a sword-cut on the brow as he drove through the press – I heard him shriek as he pitched forward over his horse’s head into the crush. It didn’t matter now; I stared appalled at that hideous mêlée, and turned to flee.
But they were streaming out of the gully, too, Tiger soldiers with drawn swords, and at their head the white-button mandarin and half a dozen mounted monsters in black bamboo armour and helmets, brandishing pennoned spears and screaming blue murder. I put my beast to the bank; he scrambled up, reared, and fell back, and I rolled clear just in time. There was a side-gully and I raced up it, howling as I went, and came down headlong over a pile of stones; I scrambled afoot, mouthing vainly for help, there wasn’t a friendly soul in sight, Loch and Parkes might be dead by now, hacked to pieces – well, by God, thinks I, if it must be, I’ll make a better end than that. I swung to face them, whipping out my sabre and
dropping a hand to my pistol-butt as that devil’s horde bore down on me.
Even for old Flashy, you see, there comes the moment when you realise that, after a lifetime of running, you can’t run any longer, and there’s only one thing for it. I gritted my teeth and ran at them, spun the weapons in my hands, and bawled in my best Chinese:
“Quarter! I surrender! I’m a British staff colonel and you touch me at your peril! My sword, your excellency!”33
* * *
a Rumour.
Chapter 11
For a well-decorated hero I’ve done a deal of surrendering in my time – which is doubtless why I remain a well-decorated hero. Piper’s Fort, Balaclava, Cawnpore, Appomattox – I suppose I can’t count Little Big Horn, because the uncivilised rascals wouldn’t accept it, try as I might – and various minor capitulations. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, which young military men should bear in mind, it’s that the foeman is generally as glad to accept your surrender as you are to give it. Mind you, he may turn spiteful later, when he’s got you snug and helpless (I often do), but that’s a risk you must run, you know. Most of my captors have been decent enough.
The Chinese were not. You’d have thought, the trouble I saved ’em, they might have shown me some consideration, but they didn’t. For two days I was confined in a stinking wooden cage no bigger than a trunk, unable to stand or lie, but only to crouch painfully while I was exhibited in the temple square at Tang-chao to a jeering mob who spat and poked and shovelled ordure through the bars. I was given no food or drink beyond a filthy rag soaked in water, without which I’d have died – but I was in paradise compared with Parkes and Loch, who had survived only to be dragged to the Board of Punishments in Pekin.
The worst of it was not knowing. What would they do to me? Where were the others? What had happened at Five-li Point? The Manchoo thugs who guarded my cage, and egged on the mob to torment me, gloated about the terrible slaughter they’d inflicted on our army – which I knew was lies, for they couldn’t have licked Grant, and why wasn’t Tang-chao choked with prisoners like myself? But I didn’t know that in fact Grant had thrashed their ambush out of sight, with our cavalry driving twenty thousand Tartar horsemen pellmell, and even riding round the walls of Tang-chao before withdrawing to Grant’s new position at Chang-kia-wan. Nor could I guess that Elgin was furiously demanding our release – or that the Manchoos were refusing even to talk.
It beats belief, but those lordly idiots at the Imperial Court still wouldn’t accept the evidence of their senses. No, their army hadn’t been driven like sheep; no, it was impossible that the insolent barbarians could approach Pekin; no, it wasn’t happening at all. So they were telling each other, with Sang-kol-in-sen and Prince I spitting venom into the ear of their imbecilic Emperor, convincing the poor dupe that the sound of our guns twenty miles away was merely our last despairing gasp, and that presently we should be laid in the dust at his feet. They were ready to try to prove it, too, as you shall see.
I knew only from my guards that Pekin had proclaimed that we prisoners would be executed the moment our army advanced; I hadn’t heard, thank God, that Elgin’s reply was a flat defiance: he was coming to Pekin, and if a hair of our heads was hurt, God help the Emperor. Looking back now in safety, I can say he was right; if he’d weakened, those Manchoo idiots would have thought they’d won, and murdered us in sheer gloating exuberance, for that’s their style. But as long as he was coming on, with blood in his eye, they held their hands out of secret fear. And he was coming, the Big Barbarian, at the double and tugging his hair; even while I crouched in that hellish cage, and while they were dying by inches in the Board of Punishments, Grant was throwing aside his map and thrusting his sgian dhu into his boot, and Montauban was haranguing his poilus as they stuffed their cartridge-pouches. It was different, then; touch a Briton, and the lion roared once – and sprang.
They came like a whirlwind on the third day of our captivity, with a thundrous prelude of artillery that had me craning vainly at the thick wooden bars; the townsfolk scattered in panic to get out of the way as Chinese troops came pouring through the square, horse, foot and guns streaming through to the Pekin road. I was croaking with hope, expecting any moment to see the beards and puggarees and lance-heads galloping into view, when I was dragged from my cage and hauled before an armoured horseman. My cramped limbs wouldn’t answer at first, but when they lashed my wrists by a long rein to his crupper, and the swine set off up the street – well, it’s astonishing how you can hobble when you have to. I knew if I fell I’d be dragged and flayed to pieces, so I ran stumbling with my arms being half-torn from their sockets. Fortunately the road was so crowded with troops that he couldn’t go above a trot; we must have been about a mile beyond the town, and more artillery was booming close at hand, when we came in view of an enormous bridge built of great marble blocks; it must have been thirty yards wide by three hundred long, spanning the muddy yellow Peiho. This was the bridge of Pah-li-chao, and here I saw an amazing sight.
On the approaches to the bridge, and for miles to my left, was drawn up the Chinese Imperial Army. I’ve heard there were thirty thousand; I’d say double that number, but no matter. They stood in perfect parade order, regiment on regiment stretching away as far as I could see: Tartar cavalry in their coloured coats and conical fur hats, lances at rest; rank after rank of massive Bannermen in clumsy armour and barred helms; Tiger soldiers like yellow Harlequins, chanting their war-song; robed jingal-men, two to a piece, their fuses smouldering; half-naked Mongol infantry like stone Buddhas with drawn swords; armoured horsemen with long spears and antique firearms, their wide plated coat-skirts giving them the appearance of gigantic beetles; pig-tailed musketeers in pyjama dresses of black silk and yellow pill-box hats; batteries of their ridiculous artillery, long-barrelled ancient cannon with muzzles carved in fantastic dragon mouths, the stone shot piled beside them, crashing out ragged salvoes that shook the ground – and over all fluttered banners of every hue and design, shimmering in the sunrise, great paper tigers and hideously-featured effigies to frighten the enemy. Above the explosion of the guns rose the hellish din of gongs and cymbals and fifes and rattles and fireworks – China hurling defiance at the barbarians. The noise swelled to a deafening crescendo as the guns fell silent; then it too died to a conclusion, and through the ranks of the tremendous host swept a roar of human sound, pealing out into a final great shout – and then silence.
Silence … a dead, eery quiet over the flat fields before the army, stretching off into the eastern haze. Nothing to be heard but the soft flap of a silk banner, the clink of a stirrup-iron, the gentle swirl of a tiny dust-devil on the marble flags of the bridge, until out of the hazy distance came the far-off voice of a bugle, followed by the faintest of whispers down the wind, a piper playing “Highland Laddie”, and the great Imperial army bristled down its length like an angry cat and the horns and cymbals blared again in deafening reply.
My horseman gave an angry shout and spurred up the bridge so suddenly that I was thrown off my feet and dragged across the flags until I managed to stumble up after him. He cast me loose before a knot of mounted officers on the summit; their leader was an ugly, pock-marked mandarin in black plate armour and a pagoda helmet, who flourished a fighting-iron at me.
“Throw this pig in with the rest of the herd!” he bawls, and I saw that behind him, on the parapet, was another of their infernal cages; an iron one this time, as long as an omnibus, containing half a dozen ragged wretches. I was seized and thrust up on to the parapet and through the low iron door; a cry of astonishment met me, and then Brabazon was gripping my hand – a ragged, hollow-eyed Brabazon with his arm in a tattered sling; he was as filthy as I.
“Colonel Flashman! You’re alive! Oh, thank God! Thank God you’re safe, sir!”
“You call this safe, do you?” says I. He stared, and cackled.
“Eh? Oh, my word – not too safe, perhaps! No … oh, but it’s famous to see you, sir! You see, we feared
we were the only …” He gestured at his companions – a couple of Sikhs, trying to sit up to attention, a dragoon half-slumped down against the bars, a frail little stick of a man with long silver hair, in a priest’s robe. “But Mr Parkes, sir? Mr Loch? What of them?”
I said I believed they were dead. He groaned, and then cried: “Well, at least you’re alive, sir!”, and the dragoon chuckled, raising his head.
“Shure, an’ why wouldn’t he be? Ye don’t kill Flash Harry that easy – do ye, colonel?” says Trooper Nolan.
He had a bloody bandage round his brow, and there was dried blood on his cheek, but he was wearing the same slack, calculating grin as he stared at me across the cage. Brabazon gobbled indignantly.
“It’s not for you to say so, my man! How dare you address an officer in that familiar style?” He grimaced admiringly at me. “Mind you, it’s true what he says, sir! They can’t keep you down, can they? I’m sure he meant no harm, sir!”
“None taken, my boy,” says I, and sank down in the straw opposite Nolan. I’d forgotten all about the blackmailing brute – and now my fears came rushing back at the sight of that knowing peasant grin. You may think I should have had more immediate cares, but the very sight of these five other prisoners had sent my spirits soaring. Plainly they were regarding us as hostages, and would keep us alive to the bitter end – and when we were free again, there would still be Nolan. I could see he was already contemplating that happy prospect, for when a renewed cannonade by the Chink guns took Brabazon to the bars for a look-see, he leaned forward towards me and says quietly:
“Shure, an’ mebbe we’ll be havin’ our little talk after all, colonel.”
“Any talking we do can wait until we’re out of this,” says I, equally quiet. “Until then, hold your tongue.”
His grin faded to an ugly look. “We’ll see about dat,” he whispered. “Whether I hold it or not … depends, does it not, sorr?”
Flashman Papers Omnibus Page 356