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

“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.

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.”

—

The last days of June were terrible. The sniping had taken its toll on the defending troops. Every evening a few more bodies, wrapped only in sacking for a winding sheet, were given a makeshift burial. But worse were the bodies of the Chinese attackers, who often fell in places where they could not be safely recovered. As the daily temperatures rose to tropical highs, the smell of death pervaded the place.

Then came the rain, in tropical torrents; then thunder and lightning, banging and crashing over the legation as if the Dragon Empress herself had commanded the lightning to destroy the impious intruders and all their works. Henry went over into the Fu to be with the converts for an hour and came back drenched.

“This is harder for them than for us,” he explained to Trader. “When Cixi’s troops hear the thunder, they think the gods are signaling their approval. And the converts may wonder, too.” He smiled wryly. “Not every conversion is perfect.”

That evening, though the thunderstorm was still raging, the attack on the Legation Quarter began to rise to a new crescendo. From east, west, and north, with rifles and cannon, the Chinese troops were pouring in their fire at a tremendous rate. With bullets tearing into the roof and smacking against the walls, the Whiteparishes and Trader came downstairs to the hallway. The MacDonalds were in the drawing room with their girls. Emily and Henry decided not to intrude, but to stay discreetly in the hall.

They’d been there only a few minutes when, despite the great thunderclaps and the accompanying barrage, they became aware of another sound. It was coming from a storeroom behind the hall into which the residence’s piano had been put for safety. One had to clamber over packing cases to reach this piano, but it was a formidable instrument, a Bösendorfer, no less, with a big, rich tone. When a young fellow at the German legation had asked MacDonald if he might practice on it, the British envoy, not wanting to be churlish at such a time, told him that he might play it whenever he pleased. And if, in this steaming hot weather, the instrument was a little out of tune, the young German didn’t seem to mind.

He had just started to play it now.

Could he have been sleeping in there? Was he unaware of the attack? Was he trying to give himself courage? Or maybe, in all the heat and noise and fear, he was a little out of his mind. Whatever the reason, he was playing “Ride of the Valkyries.” He thumped it out on the piano, as loudly as he could. In the drawing room, the MacDonalds must have heard it, too. When he was done, he paused, and Trader wondered what he would play next. The answer soon came. He was playing “Ride of the Valkyries” again.

Just then, a young officer burst in through the front door. “Where is the minister?” he called.

Before Henry could even