My Splendid Concubine (8 page)

“
Brian,” he replied.

Robert nodded and slipped an arm across the boy
’s shoulders. “Brian, I’m afraid too,” he said. “Let me share something with you that will help bolster your courage. Have you ever heard of the Battle of Agincourt, which took place on October twenty-fifth in 1415?”

Brian shook his head.
“But I know that October twenty-fifth is St. Crispin’s Day. My dad was a cobbler.” He paused, and then asked, “What happened at Agincourt?”

“
Well, King Henry the V, the British King, gave a speech to his troops. He only had six thousand and the French numbered twenty-five thousand. Do you want to hear what King Henry said to his army?”

The boy nodded. He
swallowed and Robert watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down. Brian was thin as a tadpole.

“
Shakespeare wrote this but it’s still the King’s words. Listen close. ‘If we are marked to die, we are enow to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men the greater share of honor. O do not wish one more? But he, which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart. His passport shall be made and crowns for convoy put into his purse. We would not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us.’ “ Robert paused and gave the boy a chance to think and saw that he didn’t understand what King Henry meant.

“
Look, Brian,” he said. “In that speech King Henry said he forgave any man afraid to fight because the odds were so overwhelming against the English army. The king even paid for passage back to England for any man who did not want to fight.

“
If you want to leave, I’ll speak up for you. If a king can offer a way out, I don’t see why you can’t have the same choice.”

Brian shook hi
s head. “No sir,” he said in a heavy cockney accent. “I’m going to stay with my mates. They’d think I was a coward if I left now. Besides, I am not in this for the honor like that king talked about. You heard. There is going to be a bonus. That means more money I can send home to my mum. You see my dad died before I learned the trade.”

“
That’s my boy,” Robert said, and gave Brian’s arm a squeeze. “Look, Aristotle, a famous Greek philosopher, thought that a courageous person is not one who has no fear, and not one who is overcome by fear, but one who can control fear and act according to a sense of duty. I can see that you know your duty to your mum and your family and are determined not to disappoint. I feel the same way. Stay near me when we get into this fight. I’ll watch out for you.”

“
I have seven brothers and three sisters,” Brian said. “This will be one tale I’ll be telling in front of the fire when I get home.” He smiled showing that he had some missing teeth and a few half-rotten ones.

“
Who’s talking?” Unwyn said. He stood in the bow of the boat and Robert sat in the stern, wedged in so tightly that he had no room to move. Unwyn’s eyes darted from man to man and stopped on Robert the longest. When his gaze shifted to Brian, Robert felt the boy tremble.

“
If anyone gives us away so we lose our surprise, I’ll shoot the bastard between the eyes myself. Keep silent!”

Robert squeezed the boy to reassure him that all was well
. There must have been twenty men crammed in that boat. His heart pounded in panic when he couldn’t free the four double-barreled pistols tucked under his belt. Even the twenty-seven-inch cutlass was pinned against a leg. The only weapon he could free was a twelve-inch double-edged dagger in a leather scabbard between his shoulder blades.

Brian
’s weapon was a pike. He had no pistol or cutlass.

Looking over his shoulder, Robert saw the masts of the ships ou
tlined by the half-moon and a sky full of stars. If he saw them, so could the Taipings. That was a chilling thought. The sky had cleared, and there was twice as much light compared to when they left the ships. If they were discovered before reaching shore, they would sink to the bottom of the river and drowned. It would be a slaughter. If the Taiping campfires indicated the numbers waiting onshore, the odds were horrible. It looked as if the rebels numbered more than a thousand.

His thoughts were interrupted when the boats swung t
oward the far side of the river away from the rebel camp. When they reached a position opposite the designated landing place, the boats turned. The banks of oars rose and dipped and the boats shot forward one behind the other.

The orange glow of campfires revealed the moving figures of men. Most wore red jackets and blue trousers. Someone laughed sounding like a hyena. Luck was with them at least for the moment. It looked like Patridge had been correct. Most of the Taiping defenses faced away from the river. Their sentries stood watching for Imperials or Ward
’s army expecting an attack from land.

Unwyn gestured to the man at the tiller to guide the boat away from the others. Robert stared at a shore li
ttered with empty sampans. He saw the outline of the prison stockade where the boat people were supposed to be. Inside that area, it was dark like spilled ink. What if they had been moved or what if they were already dead? He shivered at the thought, and Brian looked at him. Robert forced himself to smile to reassure the boy that all was well. He ran his fingers like a comb through the boy’s shaggy brown hair. Brian smiled but his eyes were filled with fear.

Campfires flickered around the stockade. Someone among the boat people in that darkness cried out in misery, and Robert ached for them in their predicament. He thought that at least one was alive to save.

Before the boat ran aground, the men with Patridge let off a ragged volley. Shortly after that, the
Maryann
and the
Sampson
fired their cannons. The combined blasts deafened Robert, and the bright flash of light left dancing spots in his blinded vision. Then the boat jerked as it slid into land. When his vision cleared, he saw that the chain and grape had hit this side of the Taiping camp turning men into pieces of raw, bloody meat-missing arms, legs and sometimes heads.

The men in the bow piled out and ran toward the stockade, where Robert heard voices screa
ming in panic. He followed, but before jumping out of the boat, he fired a pistol at shadowy figures wearing the Taiping red and blue. As he crawled over the side and into the water, Robert sunk up to his knees in sticky mud and lost sight of Brian.

The ships fired another ragged and pitiful salvo into the camp b
elow the stockade. A rattle of pistols and rifles roared again from the men with Captain Patridge. The guns from the ships began a constant barrage—their muzzles sporadically spitting jagged orange death flames.

A figure appeared before Robert with what looked like red eyes and a black gash for a mouth. The w
ild creature, looking like a demon from hell, jabbed a spear at him. Robert’s cutlass knocked the spear aside while his pistol fired a bullet into the man.

It was as if Hart
’s weapons had taken charge, and his body was taking commands from them. He had just killed someone. The thought numbed him for a moment.

His boots made sucking sounds as he freed himself from the sticky mud. Just as he reached shore, he slipped and fell. When he looked up, his eye
s met a man’s leg. The rest of the man was nowhere to be seen. The leg was naked. The muscles were twitching. Swallowing the bile that rushed into his throat, Robert regained his feet and staggered away in a daze.

He stumbled again but this time when he looked down he saw Brian, the eleven-year-old boy from the ship—the one that sat beside him in the boat.
The boy was on his knees with both of his hands gripping the shaft of a spear embedded in his stomach. His discarded pike was beside him. He vomited blood and folded forward over the spear—his body going limp.

Oh, dear God, Robert tho
ught. He saw the Taiping that speared Brian attempting to pull his weapon free. It appeared stuck in the boy’s guts, and Brian’s body was flopping like a fish on a hook.

“
Bastard!” Robert yelled. His fear fled as anger raged through him. He fired the other barrel of his first pistol into the rebel who had impaled Brian and yanked another pistol free. The rebel he shot dropped to the ground holding his hands over the hole in his abdomen. Robert stepped forward, put his boot on the wound and ran the rebel through the heart with the cutlass.

Robert spotted Unwyn, who stood
with a furious expression at an open gate in the stockade. Unwyn lifted one of his pistols, aimed and shot a man running toward him. The other sailors took up kneeling positions beside Unwyn and fired into the panicked rebels.

Three older sailors knelt behind the small knot of firing men and quickly loaded empty pistols and rifles as fast as they were handed back.

“Hart,” Unwyn yelled, “use your Chinese and get those wretches moving this way so we can join Patridge.” He lifted a pistol and fired at a Taiping with a sword swirling above his head. That Taiping’s chest exploded, and the man toppled in a mist of blood.

“
You’d better move fast!” Unwyn roared. “They’re swarming like hornets. It won’t take long before they get organized.”

“
We should all go in,” Robert said, as he joined the group. “Why stay here?”

“
I’m not getting any closer to the Taipings,” Unwyn replied. “Going inside that stockade could turn into a trap. I did not come here to die saving these people. I came to get my share of the reward by regaining the company’s cargo.”

His words angered Robert and he glared at Unwyn.

“Get moving, Hart, so we can get this over. This fool’s errand was your idea so the risk is yours.”

Robert stared at the man, then turned and forced his legs to take one step after another.
Once inside the stockade, he yelled in Mandarin as best he could. “
Ni men huo jiu. Zou kuai
. You to be rescued. Run fast.” He pointed.

Startled people stared at him. Some of them were whimpe
ring but most were mute with shock. Robert managed to get those closest to pay attention and thirty or forty started to move. One old grandma, stooped and bent, hobbled by Hart holding the hand of a naked toddler.

One of the boat people, a young man, ran past just as Unwyn
’s group fired a volley. The boatman came between Unwyn’s people and Robert. He jerked as if hit and stumbled sideways knocking Robert down. Hart pushed the man off and discovered he was covered in blood. He saw more than one bullet wound. Unwyn’s men had shot him. If that boat person hadn’t been there, the bullets would’ve hit him and he’d be dead.

Part of the stockade on the far side opened. Taipings poured in. A pre
gnant woman tried to escape, but a Taiping sword slashed into her back. It happened so fast that she had not seen the man who’d stabbed her. Robert watched in horror as she tumbled forward with a stunned expression to pitch face down in the dirt, twitched, then stopped moving.

Robert turned and stared at Unwyn and the others. He waved to get their attention.
“Here,” he yelled. “I need you here to help save these people. You can’t help them from there.”

Unwyn saw Robert and shook his head. He made an insul
ting gesture with one of his hands and said something Robert couldn’t hear. His mouth looked as if he’d told Hart to go to hell.

Twisting around to face the Taipings, Robert emptied the pistol in his hand and pulled another free after tucking the empty one under hi
s belt. Any fear or doubts he harbored when this battle started were gone. He couldn’t stop thinking of Brian dying and now this innocent pregnant woman.

Their deaths filled Robert with a level of anger and revulsion he
’d never felt before. His eyes searched for the rebel who killed the pregnant woman. When he recognized the man, he ran forward and shot him in the stomach. A gut wound was a horrible way to die, and Robert wanted this man to die slowly with much pain.

More boat people ran past Robert toward Unwyn and
the others.

The second barrel o
f his third pistol emptied. Robert threw it at the nearest Taiping. It bounced off the man’s head and knocked him flat. Robert hacked at the man’s neck opening it to the spine.

With his last pistol held against his side, he watche
d a screaming man charging toward him. The man swung a sword at his head. Robert’s cutlass blocked it. The force of the blow numbed his hand. He barely held onto the blade. His other hand, the one holding the last pistol, thrust it into the rebel’s face and Robert pulled the trigger. The man’s lower jaw vanished in a pink mist. The rebel staggered back with his arms flailing. Robert swung the cutlass at what was left.

Robert had one shot left and there was no time to reload.

The stockade looked almost empty. A last knot of boat people, mostly young girls, was gathered off to one side. They hovered over someone on the ground as if their long dresses offered protection. Robert ran toward them. “Hurry, run!” he shouted in Mandarin, not wanting to see these innocents die.

Obviously paralyzed by fear, the girls just stare
d at him. “Hurry!” He pushed one of them to get her moving. After that, one by one, they started to run.