China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

Tom and his grandfather went out into the yard with bat and ball after breakfast, the sky overhead was clear.

She hadn’t told Tom he was leaving yet. Now he was out of the house, she was busy packing his trunk. By midmorning she closed the lid. That’s it then, she thought. From now on, Tom’s childhood would be closed to her. Closed like the padlocked trunk. He’d wave goodbye, and quite possibly, they’d never see each other again. She mightn’t even be alive herself by the time he reached England.

She sat down on the trunk. Faint sounds came from the yard outside. She suddenly wanted to open the trunk again, put something inside for Tom to remember her by. But what? People used to have miniature portraits painted for their loved ones to carry. Those miniatures were mostly photographs now. Such an easy thing to do.

Yet she never had. Not in all these years. Somehow there always seemed to be too much of God’s work each day for her to attend to such a thing. And now she had nothing to give her son. She searched her mind. A little prayer book perhaps, except that he had one already. There must be something. Her mind was a blank. She felt so helpless, such a failure. She started to cry. And she was still sitting in a state of desolation on the trunk when she heard the door of the house open.

A moment later Henry hurried in. “The Boxers have started tearing up railway lines. They’ve set a station on fire. Everyone’s summoning troops from the coastal garrisons. The French and Russians already have. The Americans, too.”

“Is the line to Peking open? Will the troops be able to get to us?”

“We’ll have to wait and see. Either way, your father and Tom can’t travel today.”

“Oh,” she said. And against all common sense and concern for Tom’s safety, she felt glad. Perhaps in that time she’d at least find a keepsake to give him.

All the next day they waited. The Boxers paraded in the streets. Was the court controlling them? Would they suddenly strike and burn the mission down? That night she and Henry heard the Boxers singing war songs by their campfires.

—

The messenger arrived at the mission soon after dawn. He brought a note from MacDonald. They were to evacuate, discreetly, and make their way to the legation. They could bring their converts. But they must be out of the mission that day, the British minister urged, because he could not guarantee their safety.

Henry called the family together. “The converts are all Chinese. Tell them to remove any crucifixes,” he instructed, “any sign that they might be Christian. Then they should filter out a few at a time, vanish into the crowds, and make their way by different routes across to the Legation Quarter. Tell them to take their time. It’s only a mile or so. We must get them out first.”

There were plenty of people about in the street. Fortunately the Boxers, who were all openly wearing their red turbans and sashes, didn’t seem to be hanging around the mission just then. They were too busy parading about elsewhere. So it was easy enough for the converts to slip out in small groups. By late morning they were all gone.

“What can we do about you?” Henry asked Emily. “I don’t think you can try to pass as a Han Chinese townswoman, because your feet aren’t bound.”

“Do you remember when Dr. Smith’s wife and I went as Manchu women to that fancy dress party at the legation?” said Emily. “I’ve still got the costumes. They were real Manchu dresses, actually.”

“Perfect. You and Tom can use them. The Boxers insist they’re supporting the regime, so they shouldn’t give you any trouble.”

Tom started to protest at putting on women’s clothes, but his grandfather told him firmly to do as he was asked. “And you’d better make a decent job of it,” he added. “You don’t want to put your mother’s life in danger.”

While Emily and Tom were busy getting dressed indoors, Henry and the three most trusted mission servants started loading an open donkey cart with clothes, blankets, and provisions—everything that they thought could be of use in the legation.

“You’re far too tall to disguise as any kind of Chinese man,” Henry said. “I suppose the best thing might be for you to lie down in the cart and we’ll cover you with blankets.” Trader didn’t much like the idea, but he didn’t say anything.

The last item they loaded was Henry’s telescope and tripod. “I suppose it might come in useful if we’re under attack,” Henry said. “The truth is, I don’t want to part with it.” But by the time both the telescope and tripod were installed, there was no room to conceal his father-in-law.

“I’ve got it,” Trader said suddenly. “Set the tripod up in the cart and mount the telescope on it. That’s it. Emily,” he called, “I need a white sheet and a few minutes of your time with a needle and thread.”

And sure enough, ten minutes later, his tall figure appeared in the yard again, completely draped in a long white cloak that reached down to his feet. When he got up and stood in the cart beside the tripod, holding the telescope in his hand and swiveling it to point this way and that, he looked like a figure of death or a magician at a ghost festival, to which his tall, thin frame and his black eye patch lent an effect that was truly terrifying. “That should frighten ’em off,” he remarked with satisfaction.

“You certainly frighten me,” said Henry.

It was agreed that first the cart, driven by a servant and guarded by Trader and his magic telescope, should drive out into the street and make its way eastwards, past the Tiananmen Gate. While all eyes were on the cart, the two Manchu women could slip out with two servants and cross the city towards Legation Street.

“But