China Edward Rutherfurd (essential reading .txt) 📖

“Stay here until nightfall to stow away whatever I can and to deal with any converts who come this way. After that, when everything’s quieter at dusk, I’ll lock up, make my way across the city, and rejoin you.”

So Emily did as asked. After she and Tom had been in the street a few moments, she saw a ruffian try to climb onto the cart. But when her father swung the telescope and pointed it right into his face, the man fell off the cart in terror and disappeared.

Not long afterwards, crossing in front of the huge Tiananmen Gate, she saw her father’s cart again, in the distance this time, like a small sailing ship plowing through the sea of people. She caught her breath when she noticed a party of Boxers with red turbans only a hundred yards away from him. But they kept their distance, seemingly uncertain whether they could rely upon the power of their spirit warriors against the magic weapon of the tall white one-eyed wizard.

—

What troubled Trader most, all that summer, was a simple concern: how to make himself useful. Otherwise, what was he? An old man getting in the way. A mouth to feed when food supplies were dwindling. A danger to others, even. He had to contribute something. But what?

Only a couple of hours after his own arrival, the advance troops from the coast had also reached the legation. They’d all come together in the train, and everyone was happy to see them. But they warned that the Boxers were giving all kinds of trouble down the line, so that it might be a little while before the main military body could clear them away and march up to the capital.

Trader watched the troops with interest. There were between three and four hundred men—British troops, Americans, French, German, Russian, Japanese. The Americans looked the most seasoned. The British boys looked awfully young and raw. But at least their arrival would show that the foreign powers meant business, and he assumed that their arms would be superior to any Chinese weapons.

When, to Emily’s great relief, Henry arrived that evening, Trader asked him about the Chinese arms.

“It’s quite odd, actually,” Henry told him. “The Boxers don’t only rely on their swords and magic spirits. Some of them have guns. The imperial troops quite often have modern rifles, and a few Krupp field guns, too. But then you’ll still suddenly come upon a troop armed with bows and arrows. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondered.”

—

The Legation Quarter was big, nearly half a mile square. From north to south down the middle ran a waterway called the Imperial Jade Canal—though in the dry season it was hardly more than a big ditch—before it disappeared under the city wall through a water gate.

One thoroughfare, Legation Street, crossed the lower part of the enclave from west to east, just a few hundred feet above the southern wall. Between Legation Street and the looming city wall lay the Dutch, American, and German compounds, together with the Hong Kong Bank and the offices of Jardine Matheson. On the northern side of the street were the compounds of the Russians, Japanese, French, and Italians.

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