Party in Peking

by Margaret Pemberton

  The narrow grid of streets, usually so deserted apart from night-soil collectors, were now massed with refugees. Dull eyes stared at them as they galloped past. No one tried to apprehend them. Olivia felt exultant. The tearing of her skirt allowed her to ride astride in a manner that was amazingly comfortable and felt not at all strange after the first few minutes. The familiar dark shape of Lewis’s body riding alongside her gave her a feeling of such completeness that she knew she would brave his wrath time and time again, if only she could have the joy of being with him.

  They galloped headlong for the gate that led from the crowded Tartar City on to the outer Chinese City. As they passed beneath the dark silhouette of its upturned eaves, she called across to him, ‘Will the Empress Dowager’s troops stop us or help us?’

  ‘Neither,’ Lewis replied, urging on his horse as they gained the raised causeway of the Chinese City. ‘She is still officially denouncing the Boxers, but is doing nothing to deter them. At the Diplomatique Corps’ request, she sent a small contingent of troops to protect the missionaries west of the city. When we arrived there, the mission was under attack by Boxers and the troops had fled without firing a shot. When the Boxers reach the city gates, she will drop all pretence and the army will fight alongside the Boxers. Until then, it is my guess that she will not irrevocably commit herself. I doubt that we will find the army a hazard tonight.’

  ‘But we will the Boxers?’

  Her pony and his horse were racing neck and neck, the servants hard on their heels. In the darkness, his white teeth flashed in a sudden smile. The same smile that he had given her when they had been alone at the Hoggett-Smythes’.

  ‘Yes,’ he called back as they rode out of the main South Gate and into the dark countryside beyond. ‘But I think they will have more to fear from us than we will have to fear from them!’

  She laughed, her eyes bright, her heart so full that she thought it would burst. There could be no future for them together, but for now she needed no future. There was only the present and it was enough. She felt alive in a way she had never dreamed of before.

  She closed her eyes, wishing with passionate ferocity that she could capture the fleeting moment forever. That it would never end. That never again would she have to return to the sedateness and stultifying boredom of life with her aunt and uncle. To a life without Lewis. Her fingers tightened on the reins. Her aunt had declared her intention of leaving China at the first opportunity and settling in Bath. A shaft of pain so intense it made her cry out seared through her heart. After China and its great open plains, she would not be able to breathe in the polite confines of Bath.

  ‘Are you all right?’ His smile had gone. His eyes were urgent, anxious.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, thrusting away all thoughts of the future, racing with him, neck and neck, as they galloped over the parched earth. In the pale moonlight the long, weary trail of Chinese Christians could be seen making their pathetic way towards the city, their meagre possessions on their backs, their faces gaunt with fatigue.

  They rode past them and then almost immediately struck out across country. Olivia felt a flash of fear and immediately suppressed it. She was a good horsewoman and the pony she was riding was strong and sure-footed. She had known of the dangers ahead of her when she had first determined to help the Belgians. Now she had to confront those dangers as bravely as the redoubtable Madame Chamot.

  Lewis rode unerringly over country that to Olivia seemed bereft of landmarks. In the far distance, where the black density of the hills rose to meet the night sky, she could see fires burning and could smell the faint but unmistakable acrid aroma of smoke.

  ‘Villas,’ Lewis called across to her briefly. She nodded, wondering if one of them was the Hoggett-Smythe villa. The ground underfoot became rocky and hard and soon they were scrambling down the side of a gulley. Lewis wheeled his horse around, at her side constantly as her pony slithered and pebbles tumbled. When at last the pony had safely negotiated the bank of the dried-out river-bed she raised her head to his and at the look of ferocious concern on his face, felt a thrill of pleasure so deep that it nearly robbed her of coherent thought. In that moment, if she had fallen, if he had taken her in his arms, she would have been his without reservation. No wife, no wedding vows, no sense of honour, would have restrained her. She trembled, overwhelmed by her shamelessness, by the depth of her need for him.

  ‘There’s a wood a little way ahead,’ he said suddenly. ‘We’ll need to be careful.’

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Disturbed crows flapped noisily from the trees, cawing raucously. They had to slow their mounts to a canter and then to a walk. They were riding abreast, so near that she had only to reach out her hand to be able to touch him. Beneath the white linen of his shirt she could see the muscles of his back flex and tense as he pushed first one low-hanging branch aside and then another. Even in the darkness she could see where the blue-black hair curled low in the nape of his neck. She wanted to say his name, with love, just once. Behind them the Chinese servants followed stoically, the riderless ponies on leading reins in their wake. There would be no opportunity once they reached Ch’anghsintien and after… After, they would no longer be alone.

  The woods were at an end. He turned in the saddle, white teeth flashing in a smile that made her reckless. She leaned towards him, the love she felt for him flooding through her so that she could hardly bear it.

  ‘Lewis…’ she said, and his name sounded as if it had been torn from her heart.

  He reined in sharply, every muscle and sinew of his body taut. She couldn’t see the expression in his eyes. The moon had scudded behind a bank of cloud and she could only see his broad-shouldered silhouette. The hair tumbling low over his forehead. The whitening of his knuckles on the reins.

  ‘Lewis, I…’ She never did know what she had been going to say. The blood had thundered in her ears, her heart had drummed so painfully against her chest that she could hardly breathe and then had come the shouts and Lewis had immediately slapped her pony’s rump and dug his heels in the flanks of his horse.

  ‘Boxers!’ he had shouted tersely as they broke free of the last of the trees, the servants crying out in terrified alarm behind them.

  In one swift glance over her shoulder Olivia saw horsemen bearing down on them, flaming brands carried high. The frenzied shouts she had heard when her aunt and uncle had been trapped inside their burning villa once more filled the air, but this time she knew their meaning. ‘Sha! Sha! Kill! Kill!’

  She sucked in her breath and spurred on her pony. ‘Faster!’ she urged, bending low over its mane. ‘ Faster!’ She had not known it was possible to ride at such speed and in darkness. At any moment she expected her mount to stumble and fall, but its hooves pounded over the dried earth as sure-footed as if it had been enjoying an afternoon gallop on the English Downs.

  ‘They’ve no gunshot!’ Lewis shouted. ‘ When I rein in, keep on riding! Don’t stop, no matter what you hear. Don’t stop!’

  There was no time to argue with him. To yell back that she had no intention of riding on while he attacked them singly and with his rifle.

  In a flurry of dried earth he reined in, wheeling his horse around, slithering from its back as his servants rode on, the terrified ponies on the leading reins galloping in their wake, their haunches wet with sweat and fear.

  The first shot had rung out before she could even begin to bring her pony under control. She slewed it round, sick with fear. Because no shots had been fired at them did not necessarily mean that the Boxers in pursuit were without arms. They had perhaps only been waiting until they had been nearer. Perhaps even now Lewis was lying dead or wounded.

  There was another shot, and another. The flaming brands weaved in panic-stricken confusion. She saw the gleam of a massive sword wielded high, swirling round and round the head of its possessor, about to lunge down in deadly triumph.

  The revolver, she thought desperately, as she scrambled from the saddle, run
ning, stumbling in the darkness to where Lewis lay prone on the ground taking careful aim. Why had he not given her the revolver? The obscene sword hung high over his body. She saw him roll away, reposition the rifle and fire.

  The noise was deafening. All around her nightmare figures shouted and surged. She was aware that Lewis was once more taking aim. She fell down beside him, half falling over his saddlepack, her fingers scrabbling for the revolver.

  ‘I told you to ride, goddamn it!’ she heard him shout, saw the vicious sword slicing down through the air towards her and then felt his body as it rolled on top of hers. For the next few seconds there was nothing in the world but noise. The firing of the rifle, the throbbing of hooves, the yells of the attacking Boxers. And then, terribly and unmistakably, the hot stickiness of blood as it soaked into her shoulder and trickled down her arm.

  The ground reverberated beneath her and the noise receded. She wondered if it was because she was losing consciousness and then Lewis rolled free of her, grasping her shoulders, and she was dimly aware that the night was as silent and as still as it had been only minutes before.

  ‘Are you injured?’ In the moonlight his face looked as demented as the torchlit faces of the Boxers had done minutes before.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m bleeding, but it doesn’t hurt.’ Tentatively she raised her hand to her blood-soaked shoulder and then halted. The blood was not hers. It was Lewis’s. She could see the gouged flesh of his upper arm, the linen of his shirt hanging loose, the blood flowing freely.

  ‘It isn’t me,’ she said chokingly, ‘ it’s you.’

  He glanced down at his arm and winced. ‘Can you tear off my sleeve and bind it?’

  ‘It won’t be enough.’ The blood was running freely. Even in the darkness the wound looked ugly, wide and deep. ‘Can you take off the rest of your shirt?’

  ‘Not without help,’ he said, and though she could not be sure she thought that the corner of his mouth had crooked into a smile.

  The blood was running down his arm and she wondered how much he had lost already. How much it would take before he started to feel faint.

  ‘Let me,’ she said urgently, tearing off the mutilated sleeve, undoing his shirt and gently freeing his good arm and shoulder from the encasing linen. She had no experience of nursing but common sense told her that a pad was needed to staunch the flow of blood and she made one speedily binding his arm deftly and surely.

  At last she leaned back on her heels. Her hair was no longer pulled securely back away from her face. Short tendrils had escaped and clung damply to her cheeks and temples as she regarded him anxiously. ‘Will that bandage be enough?’

  ‘I couldn’t have made a better one myself.’

  She felt her cheeks flush. Incredibly she had forgotten that he was a doctor. ‘Will you be able to ride?’ she asked, sure that the flippancy in his voice was a mere disguise for pain.

  ‘I will if we can find a horse,’ he said wryly.

  She rose to her feet, looking around in fresh anxiety. There was no sign of the horse and pony or the servants. The revolver that had been in her lap fell to the ground.

  Lewis picked it up and stood beside her, only the barest intake of breath betraying the effort the movement cost him.

  ‘And just what,’ he asked, arching an eyebrow queryingly, ‘were you going to do with this?’

  ‘Shoot,’ she replied, her eyes holding his steadily.

  ‘Then next time,’ he said, an odd expression in his voice, ‘please see to it that you remove the safety catch first.’

  There came the faint sound of hoofbeats and both of them froze and then Lewis let out his breath with a sigh of relief. ‘The servants,’ he said, ‘and the ponies.’

  The moonlight gleamed on the strong muscles of his chest. For the first time she became acutely conscious of his near nakedness. Of the pelt of thickly curling dark hair that his shirt had previously concealed; of his lean waist and the snug fit of his breeches around his narrow hips. She turned away from him quickly, trying to think only of the ponies. Of the fact that, temporarily at least, they were safe.

  ‘We thought you were dead, Tai Pan,’ the servants were saying to Lewis, prostrating themselves in their relief at finding him alive and themselves not deserted.

  ‘I’m alive, but some Boxers are dead,’ Lewis said dryly.

  ‘No!’ they both declared emphatically, ‘No Boxers dead. Boxers cannot be killed, Tai Pan.’

  ‘Those have been,’ Lewis said, nodding his head in the direction of the inert bodies.

  Olivia shuddered and looked away, but the Chinese stared and then shook their heads.

  ‘Those not real Boxers. Tai Pan. Real Boxers not die. Those bandits, not Boxers.’

  Lewis shook his head in despair at their gullibility and mounted his horse with a wince of pain.

  ‘Will it take us long to get back to the city?’ Olivia asked, already seeing an ominous dark stain seeping through the makeshift bandage.

  ‘We’re not going back to the city,’ Lewis said with a swift kick of heel to flank. ‘We’re going to Ch’anghsintien.’

  Olivia opened her mouth to protest but it was too late. He was already cantering away from her, his bandaged arm hanging limply at his side. She stared after him in dismay and then goaded her own pony into movement. His arm urgently needed expert medical attention but she knew that no amount of arguing would deflect him from his purpose. He had set out for Ch’anghsintien and he intended to reach Ch’anghsintien. The slight inconvenience of a sword-slashed arm would not, in Lewis’s eyes, be any reason for turning back.

  As she approached him he looked across at her and suppressed a grin. Her lips were pursed and the disapproval on her face would have done credit to Lady Glencarty.

  They rode on in silence, saying nothing as the flames from far-off fires lit the sky with a lurid glow. Occasionally they could hear the distant clamour of fighting but no Boxers rode down on them. Olivia wondered if the sound of fighting was coming from Ch’anghsintien and her fingers tightened on the reins. Perhaps it was the Chamots’ party that was being attacked. Perhaps even now they were riding into an ambush.

  She glanced covertly across at Lewis, drawing strength from the sight of his hard-boned face and strong, assertive jawline. There was no glimmer of a smile around his mouth now. As the cries and shouts floated down to them from the surrounding hills, his face had become once again grim and forbidding. She felt a surge of despair. Even if they managed to save the Belgians, other Europeans were dying. Dying because no one in Peking was prepared to ride from the safety of its walls and offer assistance. By the light of the ever-nearing flames she could see the dark silhouette of buildings.

  ‘Ch’anghsintien,’ Lewis said briefly.

  Olivia felt her spirits soar. ‘It isn’t burning!’

  ‘No,’ Lewis agreed, his eyes flicking over the surrounding countryside, ‘not yet.’

  Olivia’s heart began to beat fast and light as she saw lanterns and heard the sound of European voices raised in urgency. Within minutes they had ridden into the centre of the small outpost. Men, women and children were crowded into a small square, their faces anxious, their possessions scattered around them. At the centre, a tall, assertive Frenchman was trying to create order out of chaos.

  ‘Vous ne pouvez pas faire celà,’ he shouted, waving his arms emphatically as a woman tried to load a pony with a cot and a collection of cooking utensils.

  At the sound of the approaching hoofbeats there were screams and the Frenchman seized his revolver and then his face split into a wide grin and he stretched his arms wide.

  ‘Welcome, mon brave! You have ponies? We need them. There are over twenty men and nine women and nearly as many children needing transport.’ His eyes widened as Olivia cantered up and reined in at Lewis’s side. ‘Mon dieu!’ he cried, leaping down from the crate that had served as his rostrum. ‘Introduce me at once, my friend.’

  Lewis grinned. The Boxers could be within hailing distanc
e but Auguste Chamot was a Frenchman to his fingertips and a pretty woman would always have first claim on his attention.

  ‘Auguste, Miss Olivia Harland. Olivia, allow me to introduce you to Monsieur Auguste Chamot of the Hôtel de Pekin.’

  Olivia inclined her head and allowed her hand to be taken and kissed as if she were meeting the ebullient Monsieur Chamot at an elegant soirée in the Legation Quarter and not in the middle of an abandoned huddle of houses about, at any moment, to be attacked by Boxers.

  ‘We have seven ponies,’ Lewis said as Auguste reluctantly returned his attention to him. ‘There are fires only one or two miles away. We ourselves were attacked by a small party and I doubt if we have more than minutes in which to save our own lives and those of the Belgians.’

  Auguste Chamot nodded. ‘There are carts for the children. Help me to persuade those women that they cannot take all their worldly goods with them.’

  Lewis swung himself down from his horse and within seconds the two men were bundling the frightened children in the horse-drawn carts, while Olivia helped Madame Chamot to calm the half-hysterical women.

  Madame Chamot did not waste time on introducing herself. She cast a swift look at Lewis’s bandaged arm and asked briefly, ‘He is hurt?’

  Olivia nodded.

  ‘Badly?’

  ‘I think so,’ Olivia replied as she hustled a middle-aged woman into a cart with the children. ‘It was too dark to see clearly.’

  Madame Chamot despatched a party of seven women behind the leadership of the young Australian who had ridden out with them.

  ‘He should not have come,’ she said tersely as the cries of ‘Sha! Sha!’ grew louder and nearer. ‘He has not slept for forty-eight hours.’

  The men were mounted and under Auguste Chamot’s orders were galloping down the street of beaten earth behind their wives and children. ‘He will kill himself and it will still not help his pain.’

  They were both running back to their ponies.

  ‘His pain?’ Olivia asked breathlessly as Madame Chamot swung herself expertly into her saddle.