“If anyone gives us away so we lose our surprise, I’ll shoot the bastard between the eyes myself. Keep silent!”
Robert squeezed the boy to reassure him that all was well. There must have been twenty men crammed in that boat. His heart pounded in panic when he couldn’t free the four double-barreled pistols tucked under his belt. Even the twenty-seven-inch cutlass was pinned against a leg. The only weapon he could free was a twelve-inch double-edged dagger in a leather scabbard between his shoulder blades.
Brian’s weapon was a pike. He had no pistol or cutlass.
Looking over his shoulder, Robert saw the masts of the ships outlined by the half-moon and a sky full of stars. If he saw them, so could the Taipings. That was a chilling thought. The sky had cleared, and there was twice as much light compared to when they left the ships. If they were discovered before reaching shore, they would sink to the bottom of the river and drowned. It would be a slaughter. If the Taiping campfires indicated the numbers waiting onshore, the odds were horrible. It looked as if the rebels numbered more than a thousand.
His thoughts were interrupted when the boats swung toward the far side of the river away from the rebel camp. When they reached a position opposite the designated landing place, the boats turned. The banks of oars rose and dipped and the boats shot forward one behind the other.
The orange glow of campfires revealed the moving figures of men. Most wore red jackets and blue trousers. Someone laughed sounding like a hyena. Luck was with them at least for the moment. It looked like Patridge had been correct. Most of the Taiping defenses faced away from the river. Their sentries stood watching for Imperials or Ward’s army expecting an attack from land.
Unwyn gestured to the man at the tiller to guide the boat away from the others. Robert stared at a shore littered with empty sampans. He saw the outline of the prison stockade where the boat people were supposed to be. Inside that area, it was dark like spilled ink. What if they had been moved or what if they were already dead? He shivered at the thought, and Brian looked at him. Robert forced himself to smile to reassure the boy that all was well. He ran his fingers like a comb through the boy’s shaggy brown hair. Brian smiled but his eyes were filled with fear.
Campfires flickered around the stockade. Someone among the boat people in that darkness cried out in misery, and Robert ached for them in their predicament. He thought that at least one was alive to save.
Before the boat ran aground, the men with Patridge let off a ragged volley. Shortly after that, the Maryann and the Sampson fired their cannons. The combined blasts deafened Robert, and the bright flash of light left dancing spots in his blinded vision. Then the boat jerked as it slid into land. When his vision cleared, he saw that the chain and grape had hit this side of the Taiping camp turning men into pieces of raw, bloody meat-missing arms, legs and sometimes heads.
The men in the bow piled out and ran toward the stockade, where Robert heard voices screaming in panic. He followed, but before jumping out of the boat, he fired a pistol at shadowy figures wearing the Taiping red and blue. As he crawled over the side and into the water, Robert sunk up to his knees in sticky mud and lost sight of Brian.
The ships fired another ragged and pitiful salvo into the camp below the stockade. A rattle of pistols and rifles roared again from the men with Captain Patridge. The guns from the ships began a constant barrage—their muzzles sporadically spitting jagged orange death flames.
A figure appeared before Robert with what looked like red eyes and a black gash for a mouth. The wild creature, looking like a demon from hell, jabbed a spear at him. Robert’s cutlass knocked the spear aside while his pistol fired a bullet into the man.
It was as if Hart’s weapons had taken charge, and his body was taking commands from them. He had just killed someone. The thought numbed him for a moment.
His boots made sucking sounds as he freed himself from the sticky mud. Just as he reached shore, he slipped and fell. When he looked up, his eyes met a man’s leg. The rest of the man was nowhere to be seen. The leg was naked. The muscles were twitching. Swallowing the bile that rushed into his throat, Robert regained his feet and staggered away in a daze.
He stumbled again but this time when he looked down he saw Brian, the eleven-year-old boy from the ship—the one that sat beside him in the boat. The boy was on his knees with both of his hands gripping the shaft of a spear embedded in his stomach. His discarded pike was beside him. He vomited blood and folded forward over the spear—his body going limp.
Oh, dear God, Robert thought. He saw the Taiping that speared Brian attempting to pull his weapon free. It appeared stuck in the boy’s guts, and Brian’s body was flopping like a fish on a hook.
“Bastard!” Robert yelled. His fear fled as anger raged through him. He fired the other barrel of his first pistol into the rebel who had impaled Brian and yanked another pistol free. The rebel he shot dropped to the ground holding his hands over the hole in his abdomen. Robert stepped forward, put his boot on the wound and ran the rebel through the heart with the cutlass.
Robert spotted Unwyn, who stood with a furious expression at an open gate in the stockade. Unwyn lifted one of his pistols, aimed and shot a man running toward him. The other sailors took up kneeling positions beside Unwyn and fired into the panicked rebels.
Three older sailors knelt behind the small knot of firing men and quickly loaded empty pistols and rifles as fast as they were handed back.
“Hart,” Unwyn yelled, “use your Chinese and get those wretches moving this way so we can join Patridge.” He lifted a pistol and fired at a Taiping with a sword swirling above his head. That Taiping’s chest exploded, and the man toppled in a mist of blood.
“You’d better move fast!” Unwyn roared. “They’re swarming like hornets. It won’t take long before they get organized.”
“We should all go in,” Robert said, as he joined the group. “Why stay here?”
“I’m not getting any closer to the Taipings,” Unwyn replied. “Going inside that stockade could turn into a trap. I did not come here to die saving these people. I came to get my share of the reward by regaining the company’s cargo.”
His words angered Robert and he glared at Unwyn.
“Get moving, Hart, so we can get this over. This fool’s errand was your idea so the risk is yours.”
Robert stared at the man, then turned and forced his legs to take one step after another. Once inside the stockade, he yelled in Mandarin as best he could. “Ni men huo jiu. Zou kuai. You to be rescued. Run fast.” He pointed.
Startled people stared at him. Some of them were whimpering but most were mute with shock. Robert managed to get those closest to pay attention and thirty or forty started to move. One old grandma, stooped and bent, hobbled by Hart holding the hand of a naked toddler.
One of the boat people, a young man, ran past just as Unwyn’s group fired a volley. The boatman came between Unwyn’s people and Robert. He jerked as if hit and stumbled sideways knocking Robert down. Hart pushed the man off and discovered he was covered in blood. He saw more than one bullet wound. Unwyn’s men had shot him. If that boat person hadn’t been there, the bullets would’ve hit him and he’d be dead.
Part of the stockade on the far side opened. Taipings poured in. A pregnant woman tried to escape, but a Taiping sword slashed into her back. It happened so fast that she had not seen the man who’d stabbed her. Robert watched in horror as she tumbled forward with a stunned expression to pitch face down in the dirt, twitched, then stopped moving.
Robert turned and stared at Unwyn and the others. He waved to get their attention. “Here,” he yelled. “I need you here to help save these people. You can’t help them from there.”
Unwyn saw Robert and shook his head. He made an insulting gesture with one of his hands and said something Robert couldn’t hear. His mouth looked as if he’d told Hart to go to hell.
Twisting around to face the Taipings, Robert emptied the pistol in his hand and pulled another free af
ter tucking the empty one under his belt. Any fear or doubts he harbored when this battle started were gone. He couldn’t stop thinking of Brian dying and now this innocent pregnant woman.
Their deaths filled Robert with a level of anger and revulsion he’d never felt before. His eyes searched for the rebel who killed the pregnant woman. When he recognized the man, he ran forward and shot him in the stomach. A gut wound was a horrible way to die, and Robert wanted this man to die slowly with much pain.
More boat people ran past Robert toward Unwyn and the others.
The second barrel of his third pistol emptied. Robert threw it at the nearest Taiping. It bounced off the man’s head and knocked him flat. Robert hacked at the man’s neck opening it to the spine.
With his last pistol held against his side, he watched a screaming man charging toward him. The man swung a sword at his head. Robert’s cutlass blocked it. The force of the blow numbed his hand. He barely held onto the blade. His other hand, the one holding the last pistol, thrust it into the rebel’s face and Robert pulled the trigger. The man’s lower jaw vanished in a pink mist. The rebel staggered back with his arms flailing. Robert swung the cutlass at what was left.
Robert had one shot left and there was no time to reload.
The stockade looked almost empty. A last knot of boat people, mostly young girls, was gathered off to one side. They hovered over someone on the ground as if their long dresses offered protection. Robert ran toward them. “Hurry, run!” he shouted in Mandarin, not wanting to see these innocents die.
Obviously paralyzed by fear, the girls just stared at him. “Hurry!” He pushed one of them to get her moving. After that, one by one, they started to run.
Once the young girls were gone, Robert saw what looked like an adolescent boy in baggy clothes holding a long stick with both hands. He stood with his legs straddling the figure of an old man. This boy stood with his back to Robert facing the Taipings. The remaining children, who hadn’t run, huddled at the feet of this defiant boy.
Three Taiping rebels rushed them with lowered spears. Thinking that this stupid boy was going to get him killed, Robert fired his last shot. One of the Taipings stumbled but managed to regain his balance and kept coming. Robert refused to desert this bunch. He hurried to stand next to the boy and held the cutlass ready.
The boy’s face was covered with dirt. He reached behind Robert and tugged at the dagger freeing it from its scabbard. The rebels arrived and with an effort, Robert held them at bay. He knocked aside a spear with the flat of his cutlass. Then he slashed across another man’s chest cutting him open to the bone. A third man jumped on him. They tumbled to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. Robert felt the man’s hands around his throat cutting off the air. Then he saw the boy stick the dagger through that rebel’s neck. Robert butted the man with his forehead. Blood sprayed in Hart’s face from the knife wound to the man’s neck.
He pushed the body away and scrambled to his feet to discover that for the moment no more Taipings were close enough to threaten them. The boy had killed the third Taiping. Robert’s face was covered with blood. He used a coat sleeve to clear it from his eyes.
“Let’s move!” Robert said, and grabbed the boy. “We have to get out of here!”
“No! Not without my father!” The boy tried to free himself from Robert.
The voice stunned him. It wasn’t a boy as he’d thought. More Taipings gathered. They shouted. “Death to the foreign devils!”
Robert knelt beside the old man, lifted him and draped him over his shoulders. His legs stumbled with each step. Unwyn and the others fired at the Taipings entering the stockade. He glanced back and saw that the girl and the other children were following him. He’d failed Brian. He was not going to fail this family.
Once he reached Unwyn and the others, he put the old man down. Unwyn turned to Robert in a fury and said, “You are a fool, Hart! I’ve seen a lot of idiots like you die trying to be heroes.”
“You’re a coward, Unwyn!” Robert shouted, as blood rushed into his head overwhelming reason. “If you had entered the stockade with me, we could’ve saved more lives.” Robert slapped Unwyn across the face. The officer reeled back and started to lift his pistol. In response, Robert lifted his cutlass to deliver a killing blow.
“Save that for later!” One of the others yelled, as he stepped between them. “We have to save ourselves first.”
The breaking dawn sent blood-red cords of pale, washed-out light over the earth along the eastern horizon. Behind them, orange flames from the cannons still flashed from the smoke filled river. Robert saw bodies and parts of bodies everywhere but there were still hundreds to fight.
The small group Robert was with ran toward Patridge and his men thirty yards away. Robert picked up the old man and followed.
Patridge’s merchant troops fired steadily into the Taipings, who were now gathering to attack. What Robert had done to save lives had nothing to do with wanting to be a hero. He still felt responsible for Brian’s death. After all, he told Brian he would look after him. He had failed.
When they reached Patridge, the boat people started to load opium into the boats that lined the shore. The first time the boats returned to the ships, they went with full loads of opium. There wasn’t enough room to carry the children to safety. Robert thought such logic insane. He didn’t like it.
With the old man off his back beside the piles of opium, Robert stepped away and fumbled at his belt for his empty pistols. His fingers trembled and it took an effort for him to load them one at a time. Once loaded, he fired rapidly into the gathering mass of Taipings then started to reload again. The girl in the baggy clothing came up beside him with his bloody dagger clutched in her hand.
“Get to a safer place!” Robert yelled.
Her eyes begged for an opportunity to fight. She didn’t want to leave.
Robert watched a man, who must have been the leader of the Taipings, wave a double bladed ax over his head. In his other hand, he held a spear. He pointed it at Patridge’s men and yelled something, which sent hundreds of howling, crazed Taipings toward them.
Robert knew they were doomed. He firmly pointed a finger beyond the firing line. “Leave the opium and get your family in a boat. Do it now! If I am to die, I want to know that you and your family escaped. Do not let this end in vain.”
A fire lit inside her eyes. She stared at him as if she were memorizing his features. She gently caressed the back of his hand with her fingertips. Then she nodded. She must have sensed that she couldn’t fight his will for she retreated.
Robert knew that he might not survive long. He decided to save the last shot for himself. He’d stick the barrel of the pistol in his mouth and blow his head off. If the Taipings caught him, they would give him a chi-lin, which meant death from a thousand cuts. They’d work him over for days. It was a sure fate for any foreigner who fell into their hands. He’d cheat the crazy bastards of that pleasure, but first he would kill as many as possible.
He regretted the decision he’d made to volunteer. Now he would never marry and have a family. He would miss all the laughter and pain of watching his children, who would never be born, grow. He heard himself try to laugh, but the sound he made was raspy. His throat was so dry it hurt. A glass of cool water would have been refreshing before death.
He hadn’t realized how much he wanted children and to watch them grow. He had never given it a thought before. He shook his head. His body felt heavier. Something worse occurred to him. He would never get a chance to redeem himself in his family’s thoughts for the sins of lust committed in Ireland. His father and mother would go to their graves remembering the worst about him. His oldest sister, Mary, would forgive him. He was sure of that. He held that thought as if it were precious.
Robert loaded his pistols and looked out over the battlefield. It appeared like a scene out of Dante’s Inferno. The howling Taipings backlit by their fires were a dark forest of demons right out of hell and behind Robert was Dante�
��s infernal river, the Acheron. Could it be that, like Dante, this was another step in Robert’s journey toward redemption? If so, if he survived, what other tests would he have to face?
Then, without warning, a solid body of men numbering in the hundreds poured across the shallow trenches at the south end of the camp. A short man with thick raven hair hanging to his shoulders urged these men along. He wore a Prince Albert frock coat and held a walking stick in one hand. Robert recognized him. It was the same man from Hong Kong that used the infant corpses in the water for target practice. It was Ward. His men were dressed in green turbines and knickerbockers. Robert beheld an impressive sight—every man was armed with a rifle or a Colt revolver. The firepower they put out was enormous.
The remaining Taipings retreated northeast out of the camp. The strength went out of Robert’s legs. He sat on a bale of opium gasping for breath. He couldn’t believe he was going to live to see another day.
Ward’s force quickly secured the place. Robert joined the line of boat people and sailors loading opium. Thick clouds of dark gunpowder drifted west with the sluggish breeze.
Ward came into their lines while his soldiers looted the camp and slit the throats of the dead and wounded. Robert shuddered when he watched one of Ward’s men pry a dead man’s mouth open and cut out the gold teeth.
“Captain Patridge.” Ward boomed with a deep, resonant voice that sounded as if it belonged to the devil. He had a smooth, pale complexion with a crooked nose like the beak of an owl. There was a thick, shaggy mustache under his nose and a square patch of hair centered under his lower lip. His nose looked like it had been broken several times. “Where’s that promised opium?” he asked. A crooked smile creased his thin lips.
Captain Patridge bowed courteously and pointed at the pile remaining on the beach. “That’s the half I promised if you arrived in time to join the fight.”
My Splendid Concubine Page 6