The First to Land (1984)

by Reeman, Douglas

  When a recruiting party had visited Exeter Adams had pleaded with his parents and they had reluctantly agreed to his going, and to keeping quiet about his age. He had been just sixteen on that day. The recruiting sergeant had been a jovial fellow, with a big yellow moustache and a breast full of medals.

  Adams had never mentioned that his father was also a lay-preacher. That would have got some of the old sweats going, he thought. As it was he still found it difficult not to blush when he heard some of their jokes and stories of past exploits.

  Now Private John Adams of the RMLI was here in the middle of danger, fighting his country’s enemies just as the recruiting sergeant in his red sash had described in such gory detail.

  He was glad to be with the second lieutenant. He too was young, a year or so older than himself, and a Blackwood. It was hard not to hear that family name in Forton Barracks.

  He had heard the others saying terrible things about him, but he had ignored it. From his own experience he knew that they always used their brutal humour on new faces, officers and privates alike.

  Oblivious to Adams’s admiration Ralf glanced at the strengthening moonlight and then paused to listen to the sound of wheels. It was unnerving. As if an enormous underground monster was about to burst from its lair at any moment and devour them.

  He gave a thin smile. Goliath.

  It was very bright. He looked back at the wall. They had come a long way. His stomach rebelled against the stench of corpses. Why the hell didn’t they bury them?

  He heard Adams behind him. I must have been mad to bring him. He’d stand no chance at all if things went wrong.

  Sergeant Davis would have run to David by now, he thought. All hell would break loose when he found out.

  He should go back now. Let the others finish what he alone had begun. He looked at his young companion. ‘We shall stroll over and take a look. What d’you say?’

  Adams’s eyes were like saucers. ‘Gosh, sir. Just us two!’

  Ralf sighed. If Adams had not been here he knew he would probably have gone back with the others.

  ‘If we see anyone, stand absolutely still.’ Ralf eyed him bleakly. ‘D’you understand?’

  Adams bobbed his head, ‘Yessir. We’ll show ’em, eh, sir?’

  Ralf turned and walked slowly towards the noise. It was strangely menacing. He thought only briefly of Adams. For once it seemed he had found someone who looked up to him.

  16

  Never the Right Words

  Second Lieutenant Ralf Blackwood raised himself on his elbows and stared fixedly at the pile of rocks at the end of the gully. The ground was very hard and uncomfortable and he could feel small spiky stones jabbing through his shirt as he tried to discover what was happening.

  Once when he looked back over his shoulder he was amazed how far they had come. When they had burst from this same gully for that wild charge towards the old city wall it had seemed to pass in a flash. Now he was very conscious of the gap between him and safety. Safety. Even the word was a mockery. He felt his lips twist into a smile.

  Private Adams, who was lying nearby, saw the smile in the moonlight and drew comfort from it.

  The noise of the wheels had ceased. Maybe they were merely wagons of food or ammunition, Ralf thought. He dismissed it instantly. There would be little need for secrecy with the city surrounded. It had to be something worthwhile, worth this risk of stripping the camp of every available man.

  He said quietly, ‘You stay here, Adams, and watch the rear. If anyone looks like cutting us off from the main defences tell me.’

  ‘What about you, sir?’

  ‘I’m going a bit closer. Have to.’ He had a mental picture of their sneers if he failed what he had started out to do. Show them you’ve got the gut for it. He twisted his head to the right. It was a solitary figure crossing the camp fires again. Even in the strange glacier light he saw the red head-dress and felt his stomach muscles tighten.

  He began to crawl forward, rolling from side to side on his elbows as he had been trained to do.

  God they were making a din. The wheels had stopped but there were other sounds now. His brain examined them and he realized it was like a ship under sail, the creak of ropes and tackles.

  He held his breath as some figures clambered over the gully’s lip and scuttled away into the shadows. They appeared to be hauling ropes behind them, and soon he heard the thud of hammers as the Chinese prepared to fasten their blocks and shouted for the others to help them.

  Within a couple of minutes there were hundreds of them, ducking and groping through the shadows to take their places along the taut ropes. It was unnerving to see so many. The nearest was about fifty yards away. One, a tall figure with a long halberd, called out an order and the whole column of men threw its weight on the tackles. Ralf wanted to leave but felt mesmerized and unable to move as a gun-muzzle, very slowly at first and then with gathering momentum, lurched out of the gully.

  It was a sizeable cannon. Old perhaps but breech-loading. Probably one of the Krupp guns from the forts. It would be able to smash the defenders into oblivion even as they lined the flimsy barricades for the dawn stand-to.

  He wriggled backwards, his eyes still fixed on the long human rope.

  ‘I was right, Adams. Time to get out of here.’ He almost grinned. ‘Not a bloody sentry anywhere.’ He rested his hand on the youth’s shoulder. ‘No chances, all the same. I could be wrong, so take it nice and slowly.’

  Adams nodded jerkily and tried to hold his rifle clear of the rough stones. How did the officer behave so calmly? He would never forget it.

  Ralf said, ‘We’ll head for the break in the wall.’ Again he fixed a picture in his mind. His cousin flying through the same gap, his sword in the air as the horse lifted him clear.

  They reached the wall. The corpses were still where they had fallen. Ralf swallowed hard. He could smell them. Could feel their eyes on him.

  He pulled out the little telescope and tried to focus it on the camp, and the edge of the gully. But all of it was lost in shadows, or distorted by silver shafts of moonlight. He could not see the cannon at all. But he heard the tackles squeaking. There must be a second cannon. Not that it mattered. One was all they needed. He closed the telescope and thought of his dead father, how he must have used the telescope in the Crimea.

  ‘Right, Adams, over you go –’ He seized his arm. ‘Still!’ Even a whisper sounded too loud.

  Adams stared at him but did not move.

  Ralf watched the sentry. He must have been resting somewhere, hidden from view.

  Now he was walking very slowly towards them, his chin on his chest, asleep on his feet.

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Ralf knew there was no chance of not being seen. There were hundreds of armed men near the gully. Neither he nor Adams would make the crossing in time.

  ‘Give me your bayonet.’ He kept his hand on Adams’s shoulder. Holding him, calming him like a frightened mount.

  ‘Easy now.’

  He watched the sentry moving nearer. He was probably grateful to be spared the harder work with the cannon.

  ‘When I drop my hand, Adams.’ He spoke very evenly even though every nerve in his body was screaming. ‘Stand up. Keep your hands to your sides. All right?’

  Adams bobbed his head. ‘I think so, sir.’

  ‘You’ll do better than that, man.’ Ralf gripped the bayonet and tested its weight. Where had he heard those words before?

  Then he pressed himself amongst the stones which had been blasted from the wall and as the sentry’s shadow flowed across the ground like some black serpent he dropped his hand.

  Adams scrambled to his feet, his mind reeling with sudden fear as he saw the sentry stare at him with utter astonishment, then with understanding as he began to unsling his rifle from his shoulder.

  Adams did not really know what happened next. The second lieutenant just seemed to appear from the ground a pace behind the Boxer with the levelled rifle.

&nbs
p; Ralf wrapped his forearm around the man’s throat, tugging him backwards even though he knew the Boxer was taller and far stronger. It had to be quick. With all his strength he drove the bayonet inwards and upwards, the point catching only momentarily on his bandolier before thrusting into his body. Ralf dragged with his forearm and felt the man’s strangled cry change to a horrible rattle as he slipped from his grasp and lay between them.

  Ralf held his breath. ‘Better make certain.’ But the corpse did not move as the bayonet found its mark once again.

  Ralf handed the blade back to Adams and hoped he had not seen how near he had been to vomiting.

  ‘Right, Adams, off we go. You first.’ He drew his revolver and wiped his face with his sleeve. God Almighty.

  Adams vaulted over the gap and Ralf heard a sharp metallic snap. He clambered into the gap and saw the young marine holding his leg and writhing on the ground in terrible agony. He had trodden on a pile of straw. But beneath it had been a steel-jawed man-trap which he had sprung like a mouse after cheese.

  Ralf knelt beside him. It was bad. He felt blood on his fingers as he tested the strength of the trap. But for his boot, it would have taken his foot off.

  He groped in his pocket and pulled out a cigar case. ‘Here, bite on this.’ At any moment Adams would scream. You could hardly blame him.

  Ralf tried again, but each time Adams rocked about in agony, his teeth already half through the case in his jaws.

  Ralf wedged a stone into the trap. That would prevent it from closing even tighter. He felt his way to the left and found where the trap was fastened. He could sense Adams terrified eyes watching him. He was almost choking on the gag.

  It was no good. The chain was fixed beneath several large stones. It would take a squad to lift them clear.

  Ralf peered through the gap to give himself time to think.

  Christ in Heaven. There were five figures moving unhurriedly towards the wall. Probably to relieve the other sentries.

  One of them called to his companions and Adams must have heard him. He spat out the case and gasped, ‘Please, sir! Don’t leave me to them!’ He was sobbing uncontrollably like a child. ‘Kill me, sir, for God’s sake, kill me first!’

  Ralf thumbed back the hammer on his revolver and listened to the distant voices.

  ‘Keep still.’ He realized with a start that Adams had closed his eyes. He really expected him to shoot him. One shot. There was no margin for error. He held the muzzle as close as he dared to a link by Adams’s foot.

  Now or never. He squeezed the trigger and heard Adams cry out as the chain was blasted from the trap.

  ‘Hang on to your rifle!’ He did not know why he had said it. Maybe to give Adams something to keep his mind occupied. Thank God he was only a youth. Even so with his rifle and ammunition he was heavy enough.

  He hauled him up and over his shoulder, holding him in position with one arm, leaving the other free for his revolver. If he fell he would make sure that neither of them was taken.

  Voices yelled, strengthened and faded as the Boxers ran to discover what was happening. A few shots whined dangerously close overhead, and one spat sand against his leg. He felt more blood running from Adams’s leg and thought one of the bullets had hit him, that he was carrying a dead man.

  He gasped between breaths. ‘Hold on, Adams!’ His heart must surely burst. ‘You must, you’re my trophy!’

  Adams’s voice seemed to come from miles away. ‘I – I’m all right, sir.’

  They’re gaining on me. Ralf tried to blink the sweat from his eyes. Any second now. He saw the gateway where they had built the barricade. So near, so far.

  A voice shattered the silence. ‘Platoon, steady! Take aim, fire!’

  The bullets tore past Ralf and his sobbing burden like a swarm of hornets. Out of the shadows pale figures ran to lift Adams from his back, others fired into the shadows. At nothing. It was as if the Boxers had never been.

  He heard Sergeant Davis exclaim, ‘Carry this boy to the Surgeon.’

  Adams reached out, his arm flailing about with the pain.

  Ralf ran beside him, and seized his hand.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘John, sir.’

  ‘Right, John, when you’re up and about I’ll want you in my platoon.’

  The boy nodded, unable to speak as they hustled him away.

  Sergeant Davis stared at him, as if he could not believe what he saw.

  Ralf said, ‘I must see the commanding officer. At once.’

  Blackwood walked to meet him. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘I saw the guns. One, more likely two.’

  ‘And I saw you, Ralf, just now with that lad.’

  Ralf took his tunic and helmet from Davis.

  Blackwood said, ‘I take back what I said.’

  Ralf regarded him calmly. ‘Measure up, do I? Good enough at last?’

  Blackwood smiled. ‘Well let’s go and see the Colonel. Together.’

  Gravatt said, ‘Bloody marvellous.’

  Ralf shrugged. ‘It won’t matter anyway. They’ll blow us all to hell. If not today, then tomorrow.’

  They found Colonel Sir John Hay wide awake in his small headquarters, roused from his brief rest by the platoon’s covering fire. He was wearing his breeches and highly polished boots, doubtless the ones Blackwood had seen being cared for by his servant. But above that he wore only his shirt. It looked almost indecent, Blackwood thought.

  Hay listened to his report impassively. Nodding every so often with a grunt. ‘Go on then.’

  Gravatt said, ‘The marine should be all right, sir. He’ll not lose a foot, thanks to young Mr Blackwood here.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I daresay,’ Hay said impatiently. ‘I heard much the same report from the American sector. A withdrawal of Boxers and Imperial troops at dusk. We had no real idea why, of course, but we can’t afford to waste chances. An English officer and an escort of two or three Cossacks from the Russian detachment have been sent through the enemy lines. The Chinese will be around us again at dawn. It was a chance which had to be taken. The telegraph has been cut again. We have to let them know at Taku just how serious our position has become.’

  Blackwood thought of the English horseman. Another Twiss perhaps? They would need all the luck to reach the Taku forts with their heads on their shoulders. In this strangely mixed assortment of soldiers and sailors from several nations there had already been incredible acts of courage and co-operation, which a few weeks ago would have been thought impossible.

  Hay said, ‘Even if they get through it will take time. We shall have to withdraw to the second line of barricades. We must.’ For the first time he shot Ralf a fierce grin. ‘But for you, young fellow, all your people and some of mine would have been on the receiving end of those guns without knowing what had hit them.’

  The grin vanished just as quickly. ‘We shall evacuate the hotel immediately. Women, children, and wounded unable to walk will be moved to the Catholic Mission. I do not believe in miracles, gentlemen, but I happen to know that the mission’s walls are the thickest in the city.’

  Blackwood watched fascinated. After Blair’s quiet confidence and occasional uncertainties, Hay was like a tiger. It was incredible but either he was really looking forward to the last battle, or he was a damned good actor.

  ‘My men and some of the Germans are evacuating the hotel and adjoining buildings. I suggest you move your machine-gun, Captain Blackwood. It’s the only one we have, and I think it will be a prime target where it stands at present.’ His mind veered away. ‘I see that you are back in your white uniforms again.’ He allowed his servant to ease his arms into his perfectly fitting tunic. ‘At least they appear cleaner.’

  That was probably the nearest he ever got to praise, Blackwood thought.

  ‘See you all at first light, gentlemen.’

  His hard voice held them in the doorway. ‘I thought you might like to know, China has officially declared war on us.’ He smiled at their e
xpressions. ‘I know. I thought much the same!’

  Blackwood strode into the shadows and bridges of moonlight.

  ‘I want the gateway mined right away, Toby. We’ve no more fuses, so make sure we have two good marksmen ready to mark down the charges.’ He turned to Ralf. ‘Have the First Platoon relieved and see they’re properly fed and have full canteens. It may be a while before we get another chance.’

  Ralf walked away without even a word or a glance.

  Gravatt hurried back, ‘Mr de Courcy’s dealing with that, sir.’

  They fell in step, Gravatt remaining silent as Blackwood’s mind jumped and sidestepped past obstacles he could only guess at. Somewhere he could hear a baby crying, and a muffled bang as a Boxer sentry fired his musket towards the city in the hope of a lucky shot. They walked along the deserted barricade which would be their new, and last, line of defence. It was shorter, but that was all you could say for it.

  He thought of Ralf. He had certainly shown what he could do. But what had induced him to make such a gesture? But for him the defences would be running with blood when the dawn found them.

  He heard someone whistling a cheerful jig and knew it was O’Neil as he supervised the re-siting of his Nordenfeldt.

  He said, ‘Swan, stay with the adjutant. If I’m needed come at once.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Swan ignored Gravatt’s curious stare. He never needed to be told.

  Blackwood closed one of the heavy mission doors behind him and looked at the scene of crowded disorder. Along one wall many children who had arrived earlier were already mercifully asleep, while others clung to their mothers and stared around with obvious anxiety. At the opposite side there were small desks and bench seats, occupied now by weary women and some of the wounded servicemen. In stark contrast along the wall behind them were children’s drawings, Chinese characters, and beside a large picture of the Virgin Mary one of a fearsome green dragon.

  The nuns who served the mission moved sedately amongst the new arrivals, ready to share their sparse rations or to answer the many questions which were fired at them.