The Blue Dress Girl
Page 42
A British-led Chinese force contributed to the ultimate defeat of the Taipings. Commanding this irregular force was Major Charles Gordon, the Engineer officer who had supervised the burning of the Summer palace at Peking. He would one day take his own place in history as the martyred ‘Gordon of Khartoum’.
More than a century later a savage war was waged against ‘imperialism’ in the land known as Viet Nam. One casualty of twentieth-century warfare was a once-magnificent palace that still wore a mantle of mystery and forgotten romance. Legend tells that this was once the home of a mysterious Fan Qui War Lord and his Hakka wife, who ruled the mountain kingdom for very many years.
The modern regime scorns such stories, yet once a year the arrival of spring is celebrated beside the ruined palace. On this day, following tradition, men and boys wear a red sash over one shoulder, and the women and girls don blue dresses.
By the Same Author
THE MUSIC MAKERS
CRY ONCE ALONE
BECKY
CASSIE
WYCHWOOD
TOLPUDDLE WOMAN
LEWIN’S MEAD
MOONTIDE
CAST NO SHADOWS
SOMEWHERE A BIRD IS SINGING
WINDS OF FORTUNE
SEEK A NEW DAWN
THE LOST YEARS
PATHS OF DESTINY
TOMORROW IS FOR EVER
THE VAGRANT KING
THOUGH THE HEAVENS MAY FALL
NO LESS THAN THE JOURNEY
CHURCHYARD AND HAWKE
THE DREAM TRADERS
BEYOND THE STORM
GOD’S HIGHLANDER
The Retallick Saga
BEN RETALLICK
CHASE THE WIND
HARVEST OF THE SUN
SINGING SPEARS
THE STRICKEN LAND
LOTTIE TRAGO
RUDDLEMOOR
FIRES OF EVENING
BROTHERS IN WAR
The Jagos of Cornwall
THE RESTLESS SEA
POLRUDDEN
MISTRESS OF POLRUDDEN
As James Munro
HOMELAND
Copyright
© E.V. Thompson 2012
First published in Great Britain 2012
This edition 2012
ISBN 978 0 7198 0803 6 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0804 3 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0805 0 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7090 9846 1 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of E.V. Thompson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988