Olivia thought wryly of the vast cornucopia ransacked from Imbeck’s and Kierrulff’s; of the champagne and tinned salmon, and reflected that the siege at the Cathedral was going to be far different from the siege at the Legation.
‘Where is Rory?’ she asked, picking-up a crying toddler and soothing it.
‘In the dispensary, helping the Sisters.’ He hesitated for a moment and then said, ‘ Poor child. You know, of course, that he lost his mother some months ago? It was a terrible tragedy. His father’s life and his own have been very bleak since she died.’
A nun hurried towards him, seeking his advice, and Olivia turned and made her way quickly to the chapel. Lewis’s life had indeed been bleak when she had first met him, but when the siege they were living under was over, she was determined that it would be bleak no more. A man who had loved once steadfastly and truly was capable of loving just as deeply again. And of having that love returned in full measure.
She entered the crowded dispensary and did not have to ask for Rory. His curly black hair was as distinctive as his father’s. He was rolling bandages with great zest and when he saw her, his eyes widened in surprise and pleasure.
‘What are you dong here?’ he asked in a tone much like his father’s.
Olivia smiled. It seemed as if she was going to be answerable in the future to not just one forceful male, but two.
‘I came here to see you. Your father is here as well.’
Rory pushed the bandages to one side and scrambled to his feet. ‘Where is he? Can I see him?’
‘Not just now,’ Olivia replied, picking up one of the linen strips he had discarded, and rolling it neatly. ‘ The Empress Dowager has sent her soldiers to help the Boxers and they are attacking both the Legation Quarter and the Cathedral. Your father is going to be very busy until the siege ends.’
‘I wish I could fight!’ the small figure at her side said passionately. ‘It’s boring staying here rolling bandages.’
‘Then come with me,’ Olivia said, holding out her hand. ‘ I’m going to help the sisters nurse the sick and I could do with a good assistant.’
‘There’ll be injured people too,’ Rory said, his hand slipping easily into hers. ‘ I don’t mind the sight of blood…’ He faltered and then said a little tremulously, ‘As long as it isn’t Papa’s blood, that is.’
‘It won’t be,’ Olivia said fiercely. ‘We won’t let it be.’
His hand squeezed hers. ‘You’re awfully nice,’ he said warmly. ‘I’m glad that you’ve come.’
Olivia’s throat tightened as she gazed down at the head of rumpled curls. ‘So am I, Rory,’ she said, aware that he had captured her heart just as surely and irrevocably as his father had done.
From that point on the days and nights merged into one. The firing from outside was incessant, a constant barrage that set the nerves on edge and made all but the most exhausted sleep impossible.
‘If only it would rain,’ a Sister of Mercy said to her at the end of the first, long week. ‘ It’s so hot. Perhaps rain would calm the Boxers.’
‘And calm us,’ Olivia agreed wholeheartedly, her blouse and skirt damp with sweat as she helped bind up a deep sword slash that one of the Italian sailors had sustained.
The previous night he had been a member of a sortie led by Paul Henry, the young French officer, and Lewis, which had successfully and very daringly captured one of the enemy’s cannons. Now she could hear it blasting in retaliation against the artillery fire raining down on them.
The soldier groaned, his brow hot, and Olivia prayed that he would not develop a fever.
There had been no news from outside. It was impossible to tell what was happening at the legations. A messenger that had been sent out had been decapitated and his head displayed triumphantly before the main gate. Since then there; had been no further attempts to make contact with the outside world.
Everyone worked: the sisters, the Chinese converts, the children. Ammunition was limited and carefully rationed, and the Chinese converts had been armed with pikes and trained as lookouts. The only time she saw Lewis was when he snatched a few hours’ sleep, throwing himself on to a pallet on the floor, his face grim, the smell of cordite on his hands and clothes.
The lack of food was causing almost as much concern as the savage and combined onslaughts of Manchu Bannermen and Boxers. The daily food ration for each adult was a pound of rice, beans or millet, and it was obvious that as the siege continued it would have to be reduced drastically.
Rory refused to be separated from her. He acted as her auxiliary, at her side constantly in the hospital and the children’s crèche. At night his pallet was next to hers and he would pray solemnly for his father and wish again and again that he was old enough to fight.
Bishop Favier’s serenity was unassailable and Olivia drew deep strength from it as one hideous day followed another. Occasionally, when tiredness and hunger and revulsion at the sight of the injuries she had to tend nearly overcame her, she would close her eyes and remember the sight of the hoopoe swooping down low over the serried ranks of pines. It was possible, if she kept very still, to recapture the feel of the sun on her face and the pleasure she had felt at being in China. She wondered if that pleasure would ever be recaptured or if it would be tainted for good by the sights she was now witnessing.
‘What are you thinking of?’ Rory asked her curiously one day as she closed her eyes in search of inner strength.
She smiled. ‘ Of a hoopoe. It’s the last thing I can remember of peace and tranquillity. I thought it very beautiful, and China beautiful as well.’
Rory’s face was wistful. ‘China is beautiful. In Shansi there are great high mountains and huge sweeping rivers, and wild ponies and crested pheasants.’
‘Then we must remember those things and not begin thinking that this is all there is of China,’ Olivia said as cannon fire battered the Peitang’s stone walls.
‘I keep thinking of my father,’ Rory said unhappily. ‘I’m sure he isn’t careful. I heard him discussing the possibility of capturing another cannon.’
Olivia felt her blood chill. She, too, was certain that Lewis was far from careful. She looked wearily around her at the sick. They lay on mattresses packed close together on the floor. The windows had been sandbagged and the heat was unbearable. They had no anaesthetic, very little antiseptic, and had been reduced to using sawdust as a dressing for the wounds. Three or four shells burst deafeningly overhead but there was no answering fire. Ammunition was so short that not a round was fired unless it was certain to find a mark.
She wondered what would happen when the last of their ammunition was gone. How would they hold off the Boxers then? With pikes and with their bare hands? The children’s faces had become sad and wizened, waxen through lack of food. One of the converts had shown her how to make a soup out of the roots of dahlias and lilies and she dug in the compound grounds for them daily, braving rifle and shellfire to do so.
Her glimpses of Lewis were precious and fleeting. His face had become leaner, the strong-boned nose even more hawklike. The fearlessness and daring she had first sensed in him was now given full rein.
Together with the courageous Paul Henry, he fought tirelessly, scorning to remain behind the barricades when recklessness would inflict punishment on their attackers. When she could be spared from the sick-beds she would dart across the open compound between the outbuildings, the dispensary, the chapel the stores and stables, and take him his precious rations. Too often she was beaten back by the intensity of the firing and she would know that somewhere in the smoke and dust he was striving to knock out one of the cannons that were trained on the Peitang. That he was doing so hungry and tired and without water. Occasionally, when he slithered down from the walls, his eyes would meet hers, burning with fury at the helplessness of their position and with concern for her as her cheekbones became more hollow, the shadows beneath her eyes darker.
Once, when she had handed him his precious allowance of w
ater, their hands had touched and she had gasped aloud. He had sucked in his breath, the air between them throbbing with tension as he said her name thickly, and then a shell burst terrifyingly close and he had yelled at her to take cover.
She had not seen him again for forty-eight hours. Now, as she thought of him leading a sortie to capture another of the enemy’s cannons, she knew that she had to speak to him.
‘I’m going to take some rations to the wall,’ she said to a nearby Sister of Mercy. ‘The young sailor in the far corner needs a new dressing on his leg. Bishop Favier suggested we use powdered peat this time instead of sawdust.’
As she turned to leave the stifling, flyfilled room, one of the Italians charged in on them, sweat pouring down his face. ‘The Boxers have blasted a way through the perimeter wall! They’re pouring over in hundreds! Get sticks, knives, anything!’
The gentle-faced Sister of Mercy to whom Olivia had been talking, seized a cane and began to run. Olivia raced behind her, a hastily snatched knife in her hand.
‘The children!’ she prayed aloud. ‘Please, Lord, don’t let them kill the children!’
The tumult and confusion in the compound was deafening. The Chinese converts armed only with their rudely made pikes, were charging in their hundreds to halt the swarming, red-robed figures leaping over the breached wall. She could see the distinctive figure of Paul Henry fighting furiously against the invading mob, and as a cloud of cannon smoke cleared, she could see Lewis too.
Bullets rained over her head, spitting into the ground. With every able-bodied man defending the breach the rest of the perimeter walls were dangerously open to attack and to her horror she saw a crazed Boxer leap down on to the roof of the stable, a burning brand in his hand. She cried out, calling to the sailors who were feverishly rolling the captured cannon into a firing position. As she did so, a small, dark figure ran furiously forward, running and bounding across the compound and its fury of bullets, charging head-first towards the stable.
‘Rory!’ she shrieked, her voice drowned by the pandemonium around her.
He didn’t halt. Didn’t waver. The burning brand was thrust deep in the roof of the stable, and then the Boxer prepared to leap and Rory raced onwards, fists clenched face set.
She didn’t know that she could move so fast. She streaked towards the stable, the blood pounding in her ears, her heartbeat slamming high in her throat. The Boxer leapt from the roof with a triumphant howl, knocking Rory flat on his back, rolling over and over with him amid clouds of choking dust. She could see the tiny hands pummelling the red-garbed shoulders, see the curved blade of the Boxer’s knife as he drew it from his sash and raised it high over Rory’s throat. She knew she was shouting, screaming dementedly, and then her own knife plunged deep between the Boxer’s shoulders and Rory was scrambling free. She snatched up his hand, pulling him from under the ghastly weight, and then a bullet whined through the air, hitting her shoulder, spinning her backwards. She saw Rory’s mouth widen in horror, felt the dark, sticky heat of her own blood, and then colour and sounds zigzagged hideously and she spiralled down into darkness, unable even to say Lewis’s name.
Chapter Eleven
Someone was holding her, carrying her in strong arms. Consciousness fluttered near and fled in a sea of pain. She could hear his voice, raw with urgency. She fought her way up through clinging darkness and her eyelids flickered open.
‘Olivia! Olivia, can you hear me?’
She tried to smile reassuringly and his hand tightened on hers, filling her with warmth.
‘Thank God,’ he said, his voice cracking with relief.
She was lying on a mattress on the floor of the chapel. There was a dull roar in her ears and over and above it the sound of shouting and rifle fire.
‘The wall,’ she whispered, her eyes widening in alarm.
‘It’s safe. We fought them back and the wall has been barricaded.’ He leaned towards her. ‘Olivia, listen to me. You have a bullet deep in your shoulder.’ His eyes held hers steadily. ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood, Olivia. It has to come out.’
She nodded. She knew what he was saying. That he had no anaesthetic, no antiseptic. She could feel the darkness rolling over her in waves, and this time she welcomed it. She was so tired. So very tired.
There was a moment of vivid, searing pain that tore her cruelly into consciousness. Her back arched and she cried aloud, aware of restraining hands holding her down; of Sisters’ white coifs as they stood over her; of Lewis’s dark hair and of his fingers working swiftly and deftly. Pain zigzagged through her and she clenched her teeth, fixing her eyes on the ceiling, concentrating with fierce intensity on a hoopoe swooping low into a distant valley.
She knew that he had finished, that he was talking to her and she knew the words that she wanted to say but they would not come. There was only the merciful darkness and she floated down into it, her mind and her heart whispering his name, her lips silent.
Sometimes, when she woke, he was not there. There was noise and gunfire and stifling heat, and Rory, his small hand holding hers tightly. She would sink back into oblivion, believing that she was high in the hills, riding her horse through the pine woods, Lewis beside her, his dark eyes alight with laughter and love.
‘Lewis…’ she whispered longingly, ‘Lewis…’
‘I’m here.’ His voice was gentle. He was sponging her forehead and as she looked up into his face, so dearly familiar, so strong and so kind, she knew that she might be dying and that she had still not told him that she loved him.
Weakly she raised her hand and touched his arm. ‘Lewis, I want to talk to you.’
‘Later Olivia. You are very weak. Try and drink some water.’
She sipped at the warm, unpalatable liquid that he held to her mouth and then motioned for him to take it away. The darkness would come back and then it would be too late.
He was kneeling beside her on one knee and she covered his hand with both of hers.
‘Do you remember when you visited me at my uncle’s and Aunt Letitia would not let you see me? She told you that I was out with Phillippe.’
A shadow crossed his eyes and his jaw tightened imperceptibly. He nodded.
A smile touched the corners of her mouth. ‘You wanted to ask me a question,’ she said softly, all the love she felt for him in her voice and in her eyes.
In the distance she could hear the incessant rattle of gunfire and the explosion of shells but it seemed very quiet in the chapel. It was as if there were no one else in the world. Only herself and Lewis.
‘The answer would have been yes,’ she said, joy flooding through her as she saw his face change. Saw it become brilliant with an expression of such fierce love that it was transfigured.
He groaned, bending his head to hers, his lips touching her temples, her eyelids, her mouth. ‘ I love you,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘You are my heart, my body, my soul.’ He pressed her hand to his mouth and she could feel the dizzying blackness surging up to claim her. But only for a little while. Only until her body had recovered its strength. For when it did, she was marrying Lewis.
‘I love you,’ she whispered, her eyes closing. ‘ I shall always love you, Lewis.’
The bombardment of the Cathedral continued. The meagre daily food ration was reduced by a third and leaves from the trees were added to the dahlia and lily soup. On the eighteenth of July, a week after she had been shot, the Boxers exploded a mine under one of the compound buildings, killing over fifty, and injuring hundreds more. She barely saw Lewis. She doubted if he slept at all; there were limbs to amputate. Dead to be buried. Rory remained steadfastly at her side, swatting away the tormenting flies, his small face lean from hunger and fatigue.
Three weeks later the buoyant Paul Henry was killed, a bullet through his throat. Olivia was no longer in the chapel. Despite Lewis’s protests, she had dragged herself to her feet and was once more in the crèche, helping nurse the children.
She had known the instant that he entered t
he crèche that something terrible had happened. ‘Paul is dead,’ he had said, his voice hard and bitter, perspiration soaking the tattered remnants of his shirt. She had held him close, sharing his grief. Paul Henry had been a heroic figure. His zest had sustained them. His contempt for danger had communicated itself to his men and it was unthinkable that he would no longer be harrying them to not only defend the Peitang but to attack fearlessly at every possible opportunity.
When he was buried she had wept, and it was that night that Lewis spoke to her for the first time about Pearl Moon.
‘My parents found her abandoned outside the walls of the village they were proselytizing,’ he said, his arm around her shoulders as the fighting lulled and they sat on the ground in the darkness, their backs resting against the hard heat of the dispensary wall. ‘She was brought up as my sister and I suppose, when I was a child, that was how I loved her.’ He paused, saying gently, ‘Later that changed. I loved her and I married her, and despite the narrow-minded attitude of my fellow Europeans, we were very happy.’ He turned slightly, tilting her chin with his fingers so that he could see the pale oval of her face. ‘It was a happiness that I shall never forget and shall never want to forget. I thought when she died that I would never be happy again.’
He was silent for a little while and then he said quietly, ‘ It was Pearl Moon who taught me how to love and she taught me well. She taught me to cherish it and care for it and she taught me to recognize it. Our life together will be richer for what she bequeathed to me, Olivia.’ He kissed her and her eyes were wet with tears. Pearl Moon’s gift to them was one without price and one she would cherish always.
The siege dragged horrendously on into its seventh week. Funerals now took place every day and Bishop Favier was emaciated and hollow-eyed. As Olivia prepared yet another body for burial, she wondered if her aunt and uncle were still alive. If Sister Angelique had survived and Lan Kuei and her baby. She pressed a hand into her aching back. The not knowing was the worst part. They could hear artillery fire taking place in other parts of the city, but could see nothing. The world outside the compounds walls had ceased to exist. Somewhere, presumably, were governments anxious for their safety. Troops who could relieve them. But where they were and what they were doing, no one had even the strength to conjecture.
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