China Edward Rutherfurd (essential reading .txt) 📖

So Tom described the scraping sound underground, and MacDonald nodded and said it probably meant the Chinese were mining again, and Trader said he’d thought so, too.

“Well done,” said MacDonald to Tom. “By the way, the reason I came to your quarters was because a certain item has just been thrown over the legation wall from the Mongol market. I had a feeling it might be yours.” And to the boy’s delight, the minister handed him his cricket ball. “Very sporting of those Mongols, I must say,” MacDonald remarked. “Perhaps we should teach them to play cricket.”

—

The next morning MacDonald met Trader by the front door. “I’ve got three men up by the old Chinese library. Also one of the infirmary doctors laid a sounding board on the ground and is listening with a stethoscope. Rather ingenious, I thought.

“I’ve a favor to ask now,” the minister went on briskly. “I need to borrow Henry’s telescope. Something’s come up.”

He returned at noon, looking serious. “You were right. They’re mining under the old library. Now we’re trying to find out where else they may be burrowing. But there’s another piece of news. Not good. I’ve been up on the wall with Henry’s telescope. Troops with new banners have arrived in Peking. I could see them clearly. So it seems that one of the governors, at least, has answered Cixi’s call for extra troops. But there’s more. The Boxers are back as well. A lot of them.”

“That’s why that damned fellow showed up in the Mongol market then,” said Trader.

“Evidently. The latest report is that our own relief force is about five days away. But frankly, I’ve given up placing any reliance on these messages. I suppose Cixi must know where they are, but I don’t. So the question is, will the moderates in the Forbidden City or the militants prevail? If the latter, we have to expect another big attack any day.”

—

What irony, Trader thought. If all the efforts that had been made, the fighting, the hunger, the sickness and sacrifice—his own poor attempts to bolster Henry’s faith, young Tom’s saving his own life—if all these things had been for nothing. The relief force would arrive only to find that every soul in the legations—soldiers, women, children, and converts alike—had all been slaughtered, every one, perhaps only hours before they got there.

He didn’t share his thought, of course. No point in doing that. He hobbled about trying to look cheerful and thought he’d succeeded pretty well until Emily came up to him one day, put her arm through his, and said, “Poor Father. You look so sad.”

“No,” he assured her. “Just this damned leg giving me a bit of gyp, that’s all.”

She squeezed his arm, though whether she believed him was another matter.

A week passed. People didn’t want to discuss the threat from the Chinese bannermen and the Boxers. They preferred to share whatever news came through about the approach of the relief force. And one might indeed draw comfort from the fact that each day that passed without a major assault meant that there was less and less time in which it could be attempted.

But the mining continued. The sniping grew more insistent each day so that the truce, for all practical purposes, no longer existed.

As for Trader, he counted each night and each day, just like everyone else, but with this one difference: his promise to Emily about Tom.

If only Emily hadn’t been right. That was the trouble. He could imagine those Boxers with their jian swords and the imperial troops with their bayonets. He knew what they’d do to Tom. Of course the boy should be saved from that.

But he couldn’t do it. The thought haunted him. The boy’s even saved my life, he thought, yet I haven’t the guts to grant him a merciful death. He told himself he must. But he feared in his heart that he might fail him. He prayed to God that the relief column would come quickly.

Once when he was reading an adventure story to Tom in the afternoon, his voice almost broke and he couldn’t go on. And Tom was concerned and puzzled until he explained that it was just his leg playing up again.

And though he did not do so, of course, he almost wept with relief when MacDonald finally told him: “This time we know for certain. Our troops will be here tomorrow.”

—

It was pitch-black that night. There was a strange silence and electricity in the air, as if a thunderstorm was brewing. And sure enough it came—a deep roll that spread into a growl all along the horizon. Somewhere there was a flash of lightning.

And then, as if they had only been waiting for this heavenly sign, the thousands of bannermen and Boxers surrounding the legations erupted together in the terrible cry, which drowned out even the thunder.

“Sha! Sha!” Kill. “Sha!” Kill.

MacDonald was at the door of the residence in seconds. Soldiers were running in from every defense post reporting that they were under attack. “Sound the alarm!” MacDonald cried, and moments later the bell in its little tower could be heard jangling wildly.

—

So it had come to this. Trader stood with his pistol in his hand as the rain poured down in front of him. An hour had passed since the alarm had sounded and a drenching rainstorm had burst over the legations. MacDonald had gone out long ago and not returned. Every other able-bodied man was out on the barricades, including Henry; and if it wasn’t for his leg, Trader would have been there, too. Instead, he was mounting guard in the porch by the front door of the residence, inside which Lady MacDonald and her girls were in the back parlor, while Emily and Tom huddled together in a protected corner of the hall.

Thunderstorm or not, this was the last chance for the Chinese. One night left to destroy the foreigners and their traitor-converts. One night left to seal the capital off