China

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Almost the whole of the Legation Quarter’s upper part was taken up by just two large enclosures. On the east side of the canal lay a palace with acres of walled grounds that belonged to a friendly Chinese prince. This enclave was known as the Fu. “We’ve asked the prince to let us put the converts in the Fu,” Henry told him. “In case of trouble, the troops should be able to defend them there.”

  “More space than we need, isn’t it?” asked Trader.

  “Remember, it’s not just the converts that we’ve brought. There are the other Protestant missions, especially the Methodists, and a much larger group over at the Catholic cathedral. If things get rough, we’ll need all of it.”

  Across the canal the big British compound, with its gracious garden acres, took up the whole northwestern corner of the Legation Quarter. Outside the compound’s western wall lay an open square, where a small Mongol market would often appear. North of the compound was an ancient Chinese library, over whose roof one could see the purple wall of the Forbidden City a few hundred yards away.

  * * *

  —

  For about a week the legations were quiet. True, news came of Boxer outrages: More of the rail line had been ripped up; the grandstand at the little racecourse had been burned, which annoyed everyone very much. They heard that the Empress Cixi had arrived in the Forbidden City from the Summer Palace with a large body of Kansu troops. Could this be hopeful? When some of the European envoys called at the Tsungli Yamen, however, they got a shock. “Normally they’re polite enough,” they reported back. “But this time, they wouldn’t even speak to us.”

  “Keep calm,” MacDonald told them. “And wait for more troops.”

  Trader kept Tom occupied, for which his parents were grateful. The boy was so keen that he wandered around with the cricket ball in his pocket all the time. Emily wanted to stop him doing this, but Trader dissuaded her. “I think it’s like a talisman,” he pointed out. “A sort of promise that everything’s going to be all right and that he’ll go to school safely and play cricket when he gets there.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Shouldn’t he be praying about that, rather than relying on a talisman?”

  “Of course he should pray. But let him keep the ball. It can’t do any harm.”

  To provide some variation, as well as rest for himself, Trader rigged up a big piece of netting in a secluded corner of the gardens. On this he had a patch of canvas strongly sewn with twine. And on the canvas, exactly to size, a wicket and bails were painted in white. Above the wicket, also painted white, he placed an old pair of leather gloves, donated by MacDonald, which were more loosely attached with twine. “Those are the wicketkeeper’s gloves, you see,” he explained to Tom, “waiting to receive the ball. So when you’re fielding, your object is always to return the ball into his hands, either directly or after a single bounce. You’ll see the gloves move if you hit them.”

  This was a great success. Tom had a natural throwing arm, and his grandfather taught him technique, so that he wouldn’t damage his elbow; and before long, throwing from five yards to over fifty yards, Tom was hitting the gloves over ninety percent of the time and getting better every day. MacDonald himself came to take a look at him and remarked that at this rate, they’d be needing another pair of gloves before long.

  “Can you spare them?” asked Trader.

  “I thought we might use a pair of my wife’s,” MacDonald replied with a smile.

  Trader also organized a cricket game for all the boys and girls on the tennis court, using a tennis ball—though young Tom didn’t think much of this.

  In the evenings, after eating, he usually had a drink and a cigar with Henry, telling him stories about the Opium War and India in the old days, to take his mind off the present for a little and help him unwind.

  And if it seemed to Trader that the legations’ leading men were being awfully slow to organize their defenses, he kept his thoughts to himself.

  * * *

  —

  On the tenth of June, as Trader and Tom were doing a little net practice, MacDonald came out of the residence and hailed him. “Good news. I’ve just had a telegraph message from Admiral Seymour, the British commander down at the coast. A large relief force will shortly be on the way.”

  They were just finishing their cricket practice when MacDonald came by again. This time he was frowning.

  “Everything all right?” Trader quietly asked him.

  “Not entirely. The telegraph line’s been cut. I’m afraid we may be without news for a bit.”

  Two days later, John Trader had a good idea. The nearest boy in age to Tom was the fifteen-year-old son of one of the American missionaries, a bright, rambunctious young fellow who rejoiced in the name of Fargo. Being so far his junior, Tom had been a little shy of him, and Fargo, though civil enough, wasn’t much interested in Tom. But when Trader approached Fargo and said, “You know, I haven’t got the energy to toss a cricket ball to Tom for as long as he wants; is there a chance you could give me a helping hand?” the young American grinned and replied, “If I can throw a baseball, I guess I could throw a cricket ball.”

  And he came and joined them within the hour. And came again several times in the days ahead.

  * * *

  —

  The shouting began after dark. The people in the legations heard the Boxers shouting as they burst into the Inner City through the eastern gate. They came with torches, many torches, that cast red glows and leaping shadows on the high buildings. It was hard to know how many there were. Hundreds, certainly.

  From the garden of the residence, Trader and Henry watched the glow from the torches moving northward and westward. “They’re going towards our mission, I think,” said Henry. “They won’t find anyone there, thank God. They may be heading for the Catholic cathedral as well.”

  “How many Catholic converts have the French got up there?” Trader asked.

  “More than three thousand, I believe. Mind you, it’s built like a fortress.”

  Then the screams began. They heard someone frantically ringing a bell. They could see bigger flames and billowing smoke in the darkness.

  The flames did not begin to subside until nearly dawn, when the two men went in to sleep.

  It was well into the morning when Trader was awoken by Emily.

  “They attacked all the missions,” she told him. “A lot of people were killed. We’ve had converts straggling into the Legation Quarter all morning. We’re putting them in the Fu. Some of the men were tortured. As for the women…what you’d expect.” She looked at him sadly. “Father, would you do something for me?”

  “If I can.”

  “I want a pistol. Not too heavy. Something I can handle easily. And some ammunition. Just to defend myself, if I have to. Can you get one from somewhere?”

  He looked at her searchingly. “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

  “Don’t tell Henry. There’s no need.”

  During that day, the Boxers were out in the streets, looking for anyone who might be a convert. The day after, they went into the western quarter of the outer city and burned down the houses of rich Chinese merchants who’d done business with the Christians.

  * * *

  —

  MacDonald called a council. Both Henry and Trader went.

  “The court has just ordered every foreign mission to leave Peking at once,” MacDonald announced. “I suspect that, knowing the relief force is on its way, Cixi’s making a last attempt to get us to leave. Whether we should is another matter. Does anyone have any thoughts?”

  “Backhouse came to see me an hour ago,” said Morrison. “His eunuch friend at the palace told him that the British admiral down at the coast has declared war on the entire Chinese empire, and Cixi’s so enraged that she’s vowed to throw all the foreign diplomats out for good.”

  �
�Admiral Seymour declared war?” MacDonald cried. “I don’t believe it.”

  “You’re right. It isn’t true. The eunuch told Backhouse that the report was concocted by some of the nobles and eunuchs who want to see us gone. But Cixi believes it.”

  “God help us. Where’s Backhouse now?”

  “Disappeared again. But the story makes sense.” He paused a moment. “There’s one other thing. He says the relief force may be delayed. Quite a lot of Boxers down at the port. Got to get through them first. I don’t suppose it’ll take long.”

  MacDonald went around to the other heads of legation. Most of them suggested playing for time. Finally he turned to Trader. “You were in the siege of Canton,” he said with a smile. “Any advice?”

  “Just this,” said Trader. “Once you’ve got huge crowds out in the street, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge, they may not be able to control ’em. And whoever leaves the protection of the Legation Quarter will be utterly defenseless. If the Boxers kill us, with or without Cixi’s orders, she can always claim that it wasn’t her fault. Our only hope is to barricade ourselves in here until the relief force arrives.”

  This seemed to strengthen the resolve of the diplomats to wait and see. So that was what they did.

  * * *

  —

  It was the next day that Trader privately intervened in the business of the legations. Not that many people knew it. He asked Henry to gather as many of the missionaries as possible on the tennis court for a prayer meeting. When they were gathered, he discreetly joined them.

  Then, asked by Henry to say a few words before they prayed, he spoke simply and to the point. “If we want to survive this,” he told them, “we may need more than your prayers. We need your skills. For so far as I can see,” he went on frankly, “these diplomats can’t seem to agree with one another about anything much. And they couldn’t organize a beer-fest in a brewery. There’s no central organization in the Legation Quarter, no coordination of medicine, food, supplies, anything. You fellows have all run missions. If you don’t take over this place, we’ll never get anywhere.”

  “The heads of the legations may object,” Henry pointed out.

  “I’d give you ten to one against. Because none of them knows what to do.”

  “What about the defenses, barricades, that sort of thing?” Henry asked, looking around.

  “As it happens,” an American Methodist confessed, “I’m a qualified engineer.”

  From then on it was plain sailing. Within hours, effective barricades were up and emergency accommodations allocated. The missionaries had set up a food committee, a laundry, a sheep pen, a yard for the milking cows, and an infirmary staffed with two doctors and five nurses.

  Which was just as well since, at four o’clock that day, with a single shot from the back of a Chinese store nearby, the siege of the legations began.

  * * *

  —

  Many things surprised John Trader in the weeks that followed. The first was that they were still alive at all.

  They’d prepared their defenses pretty well. The big city wall overlooking them was manned, with barricades at each end of their section. If the wall was lost to the enemy, they were finished.

  The smaller outlying legations—the Austrians, Belgians, and Dutch—were abandoned as too difficult to defend. Even the Americans, nearest to the western barrier on Legation Street, had been brought into the safer British compound. If the American troops were the best marksmen, the Japanese were the most disciplined and reliable, and they were guarding the swollen numbers of converts across the canal in the Fu.

  Besides the sniping, there was bombardment from the small Chinese field guns, every day and most of the nights.

  The converts in the Fu were pressed into service as general laborers and were kept constantly busy repairing the damage and building new barricades.

  The greatest fear was fire. Aside from the fire watch, a chain of fire buckets was kept constantly at the ready, for one never knew when the Boxers would lob another bundle of flaming rags soaked in kerosene over the walls. One terrible night the red-turbaned Boxers set fire to the old Chinese library by the compound’s northern wall. “They’ve just burned some of their own greatest national treasures in the hope of setting fire to us,” Henry remarked in disgust.

  “War and intelligence never march together,” Trader remarked.

  For the family, however, there was one welcome relief. With all the hundreds of extra folk crowding into the British compound, dormitory space was at a premium, and they had been sleeping, with many others, on mattresses in the compound’s chapel, until Lady MacDonald quietly came up to Emily one day.

  “I hate to think of your father having to sleep on the chapel floor at his age,” she said. “We have one spare room in our house. And if my two daughters share, we’ll have two. We wondered if you and your husband would like to use one of them and your father the other. They have beds.”

  “I’m sure…” Emily began, then hesitated. “I’ll ask Henry right away.”

  “Take them,” said Henry when she told him.

  “You don’t feel it’s unfair for us to be getting special treatment?”

  “Take them.”

  Later, when she informed her father, he was delighted. “You and Henry have one room,” he said. “Tom can sleep with me.”

  “I’m sure she only offered because you own Drumlomond,” Emily said.

  Trader smiled. “I knew there must be some reason I bought the place.”

  A less happy surprise came a few days later. Trader and Henry were just out near the tennis court when they suddenly heard a fusillade of shots coming from the west end of Legation Street, and a few moments later a whooping noise as a little cart, piled high with provisions and driven by a fifteen-year-old boy in a cowboy hat, came bouncing into the compound. As it drew up, the body of one of the converts fell off the back of the cart and lay motionless upon the ground.

  Trader recognized the youth in the hat at once. It was young Fargo. Knowing the general store that lay on the Chinese side of the now-vacated American legation was full of good things, he’d secretly commandeered a cart and two Chinese converts, run the gauntlet of sniper fire, and filled up the cart with provisions.

  Fargo had been lucky: He returned without a scratch. The two Chinese had not been so fortunate. One was wounded; the other, whose body had fallen off the cart, was dead. He was given a good funeral, as a mark of respect. But Fargo was taken to task only slightly for risking the fellow’s life, and his mother was told to keep most of the food. After all, she was an excellent cook; and whenever the family had food, they always shared it.

  “What worries me,” Trader remarked to Emily, “is Tom. He already sees Fargo as an older boy to look up to. But now he idolizes him. I’m just afraid that if Fargo starts some other damn fool escapade, Tom might try to join him—or worse, go and do something by himself.”

  “Henry will talk to him, severely,” said Emily. “And perhaps you can talk to Fargo.”

  * * *

  —

  The strange silence began two evenings later. Trader was just watching the sun go down when he noticed that the Boxers’ sniper fire, which normally continued through twilight, was petering out. He waited a few minutes. The firing had stopped. The red sun hung, apparently motionless, over the roof tiles of a nearby Chinese gateway as if it, too, was surprised by the eerie silence below. What could it mean? Had a truce been called? Were the Boxers breaking off their siege because the relief force had arrived from the coast?

  There was a courtyard near the center of the compound where a small Chinese bell tower, protected from sniper fire by the surrounding buildings, was being used as an information point. He strolled over to it and found a gaggle of people already gathered there. But no notice had been posted that might explain the silence.

&nb
sp; An hour later, still without any explanation, the Chinese started shooting again and went on well into the night.

  The next morning Trader, MacDonald, and Morrison set up Henry’s telescope in the garret at the top of the residence. The room was small, but it had two windows, one looking east across the canal to the Fu, the other looking west. They placed the telescope by the eastern window. “You go first,” said MacDonald to Trader.

  The view was excellent. He could see the faces of the converts down in the Fu and the Japanese guards at their barricades. He tilted the telescope up a little, found the Chinese houses beyond, and began to scan their upper windows and roofs. The snipers were concealed, but after a few moments he saw one fire from a window.

  He frowned. That was odd. He scanned the roofline, saw another sniper, and stepped back. “All yours,” he said to MacDonald and the Times man.

  The British envoy searched, glanced at Trader, and motioned Morrison to take his turn.

  “No red turbans,” said the journalist after a moment. “Those are imperial troops, not Boxers.”

  “That’s what we thought,” the other two men confirmed.

  The western window provided a view of the Mongol marketplace. Morrison spent two minutes surveying the buildings around the open space. “Imperial troops,” he stated flatly. “Not a Boxer in sight.”

  “So what do you think it means?” asked the British minister.

  “The Boxers have all been pulled back. Whether to rest them or send them south to block our relief force, I couldn’t say. But the troops around us are now, indisputably, under the direct control of the Dragon Empress in the Forbidden City.” He grimaced. “And it would seem that she wants us dead.”

  * * *