Flashman And The Dragon

"Ye nigger-faced Scotch sot!" roars the Murphy. "Will ye come to order, now? I'm warnin' ye, Moyes—I'm warnin' ye!

It'll be the triangle and a bloody back for ye if ye don't surrinder that bottle, what's left of it, ye guzzlin' pig, ye! Give over!"

The Scot left off singing long enough to knock him down, and lurched against the cart. "See you, Nolan," cries he. "See your grandmither? She wiz a hoor! Nor she couldnae read nor write! So she had your mither, by a Jesuit! Aye, an' your mither had you, by a b'ilerman! Christ, Nolan, Ah'm ashamed o' ye! Ye want a drink?"

The Irishman came up roaring, and flew at him, and since brawling rankers ain't my touch I was about to ride on, when there was a pounding of hooves behind me, a chorus of yells, and over the lip came a section of Tartar cavalry, bent on villainy. After which much happened in a very short space.

I was off the Waler and shooting under its neck with my Colt in quick time, and down goes the lead Tartar. His mates hauled up, unslinging their bows, and I barely had time to leap aside before my Waler was down and thrashing, feathered with shafts. I turned, ran, and fell, rolling over and blowing shots at the red coats which seemed to be swarming everywhere; out of the tail of my eye I saw the Irishman grabbing a Tartar's leg and heaving him from the saddle; the Scotchman, whom I'd have thought too screwed for anything, was on top of the grog cart, crashing his bottle on the head of another Tartar and then diving on to him, stabbing with the shards. I took an almighty crack on the head, which didn't stun me, but caused me to lose the use of my limbs entirely; then I was being hauled up between two red coats, with evil yellow faces yelling at me from under conical fur hats, and the stink was fit to knock you down—the fact is, they never wash; even the Chinese complain. The scene was swimming round me; I remember seeing the Irishman being frog-marched and bound, and the Scot lying on the ground, apparently dead, and that's all.

Now, I say I don't believe I lost consciousness, but I must have done, for piecing events together later, there's a day missing. So they tell me, anyway, but it don't matter. I know what I remember—and can never forget.

There was terrible pain in my wrists and ankles: when the Chinese tie a man up, they do it as tight as possible, so that his hands are quickly useless, and in time will mortify. There was darkness, too, and an agonising jolting: plainly I was carried on one of their ponies. But my first clear recollection is of a foul cell, a foot deep in mud, and no feeling in my hands or feet, which were still bound. I couldn't speak for raging thirst that had dried my tongue and lips bone hard; all I could do was lie in pain, with my senses dulled almost to idiocy—I could hear, though, and I remember that coarse Scotch voice yelling obscenities, and the Irish voice hoarse and begging him to lay off, and the wailing of coolies somewhere near me in the dark.

And then there was blinding light in the cell, and Tartar swine yelling and dragging us to a low doorway, kicking and beating us as we went. I remember recalling that the Manchoos treated all prisoners alike—as vermin—so being an officer meant nothing, not that I could have proclaimed myself, with my tongue like a board. I half-fell out into the light, and was hauled to my feet, and after a moment my vision cleared, and the first thing I saw was a face.

No doubt I'm biased, but it was the most cruel, evil human visage I ever set eyes on, and I've seen some beauties. This one was as flat and yellow as a guinea, grinning in sheer pleasure at our pain, turning to laugh bestially to someone nearby; it had a drooping moustache and a little chin-beard, and was crowned with a polished steel helmet. The figure that went with the face was all in steel and leather armour, even to mailed gauntlets, with a splendid robe of red silk round the shoulders. He was seated on a gilded chair of state, with a great sword across his knees, and beside him stood a nondescript Chink official and a burly Tartar, bare to the waist, with an axe on his shoulder.

We were in a courtyard with high walls, lined by fur-capped Tartars; to my right were half-a-dozen cringing coolies, and to my left, barely recognisable for the mud that plastered them, stood the Paddy and the Scot from the grog-cart; the Irishman had his eyes closed, muttering Hail-Mary; the Scot was staring ahead. His tunic was half-torn off, but I noted dully that it bore the ochre facing of the Buffs, and that he had old cat-scars on his shoulder. My eyes went back to the huge Tartar with the axe, and with a thrill of sheer horror I knew that we were going to die.

Suddenly the brute in the chair spoke, or rather shrieked in Chinese, flinging out a pointing hand of which two fingers were sheathed in nail-cases.

"Filth! Lice! White offal! You dare to show your dog-faces in the Celestial Kingdom, and defile the sacred soil! You dare to defy the Complete Abundance! But the day of your humiliation is coming! Like curs, you have fed your pride for twenty years! Now, like curs, you will hang your heads, lay back your ears, wag your tails, and beg for mercy!" There was foam at his thin lips, and he jerked and glared like a maniac. "Kneel! Kneel down, vermin! Kow-tow! Kow-tow!"

There were squeals and whimpers on my right; the coolies were down and knocking head for dear life. The two Britons on my left, not understanding a word, didn't move, and as the mailed tyrant screamed with rage the little official hurried for-ward, snarling in a fearful parody of English:

"Down! Down to legs! Down to Prince Sang! Makes kill! See! Makes kill!"

He was gesticulating at the big Tartar, who stumped forward grinning, flourishing that awful axe above his head with both hands. There was no doubt what was demanded—and the alternative. It was enough for me: I was down and butting my way to the Antipodes before the little bastard had done speaking. I still thought we were doomed, but if a timely grovel would help, he could have it from me and welcome; you don't catch Flashy standing proud and unflinching at the gates of doom. There was one who did, though.

"Down! Down to Prince Sang! Not—makes kill! Not kow-tow, makes kill! Kow-tow! Kow-tow!" The official was screaming again, and with my head on the earth I stole a sideways glance. This is what I saw.

The Paddy was a brave man—he absolutely hesitated. His face was crimson, and he glared and gulped horribly, and then he fell to his knees and put his face in the dust like the rest of us. Beyond him the Sawney was standing, frowning at the Prince as though he couldn't credit what he'd heard; his mouth was hanging slack, and I wondered was he still drunk. But he wasn't.

"Ye what?" says he, in that rasping gutter voice, and as the Prince glared and the little official jabbered, I heard the Irish-man, hoarse and urgent:

"Fer God's sake, Moyes, get down! Ye bloody idiot, he'll kill ye, else! Get down, man!"

Moyes turned his head, and his eyes were wide in disbelief. By God, so were my ears. For clear as a bell, says he: "Tae a in' Chink? Away, you!"

And he stood straight as he could, stared at Prince Sang, and stuck out his dirty, unshaven chin.

For a full ten seconds there wasn't a sound, and then Sang screamed like an animal, and leaped from his chair. The Tartar, square in front of Moyes, brought the glittering axe- blade round slowly, within inches of the Scot's face, and then whirled it up, poised to strike. The official repeated the order to kow-tow—and Moyes lifted his chin just a trifle, looked straight at Sang, and spat gently out of the corner of his mouth.

Sang quivered as though he'd been struck, and for a moment I thought he'd spring at the bound man. But all he did was glare and hiss an order to the Tartar, who raised the axe s till higher, his huge shoulders bunched to strike. The Irish=an's voice sounded in a pleading croak:

"Jaysus, man—will ye do as he bids ye, for the love o' Mary? Ye'll be kilt, ye fool! He'll murther ye!"

"That'll mak' him a man afore his mither," says Moyes quietly, and for flat, careless contempt I never heard its equal. He stood like a rock—and suddenly the axe flashed down, wi tin a hideous thud, his body was sent hurtling back, and I was f ace down in the dirt, gasping bile and sobbing with horror.

That was how it happened—the stories that he laughed in defiance, or made a speech about not bowing his head to any heathen, or recited a prayer, or even the tale that h, died drunk—they're false. I'd say he was taken flat aback at the mere notion of kow-towing, and when it sank in, he wasn't having it, not if it cost him his life. You may ask, was he a hero or just a fool, and I'll not answer—for I know this much, that each man has his price, and his was higher than yours or mine. That's all. I know one other thing—whenever I hear someone say "Proud as Lucifer", I think, no, proud as Private Moyes.²²

But I'd no time for philosophy just then; I was numb with shock and a blinding pain in my wounded head as they dragged us back to our cell, still in mortal fear of our lives; someone, I believe it was a coolie, loosed my bonds and poured water over my face and down my throat, and I remember the excruciating pain as the blood flowed back to my hands and fee t. Gradually it eased, and I must have slept in that bed of stinking mud, for suddenly I was awake, and it was freezing cold, and though my skull was still aching dully, I was clear-headed—and I was alone in the cell and the door was open.

By the cold, and the dim light, it could only be dawn, and there was a cannonading shaking the ground, from not far away. It stopped of a sudden, with much Chinese yelling, and then came the crash of exploding Armstrongs, followed by a distant rattle of musketry, growing closer, and culminating in a babble of voices cheering. More shots, and steps pounding outside, and a voice bellowing excitedly: "En avant! En avant! Chat huant! Chat huant!", and as I scrambled up, soaked in mud, I was thinking: "Frogs, and Bretons, at that!"²³ and I stumbled from the cell into the arms of a big cove in a blue overcoat and kepi, who gave back roaring in disgust from this muddy spectre pawing at him.

This was how it was. I'd been taken prisoner by the Tartars on the afternoon of August 12, and carried by them to the village of Tang-ku, the last Chink outpost before Taku Forts. I'd been groggy with the clout on my head until next day, when we'd been dragged out to the yard where Moyes was murdered. I must have lain in the cell through the next night, and when our people attacked Tang-ku at dawn on the 14th, and the Chinese fired a few salvoes and abandoned the place, leaving us unheeded—why, there I was. Where the Irishman and the coolies had gone, I'd no notion, but I gave it some thought while a Frog rifleman helped me back to a field dressing-station—and decided to be French for the moment. I mort-de-ma-vied and sacred-blued like anything while an orderly flung water over me to disperse my filth and then clapped a cold compress on my battered scalp. I gave him a torrent of garlic gratitude and withdrew from the bedlam of the station, muttering like an Apache, and considering, now that the peril was past, how to preserve my precious credit.

You see, I'd grovelled, and been seen to grovel, to that infernal Chink warlord—but only by a Paddy sergeant who didn't know me from Adam; besides, I'd been in khaki mufti and so plastered with dung as to be unrecognisable. I doubted if the Mick had even seen me at the grog-cart, it had all happened so quickly—so now, if I minded my step for a while, and covered my tracks, there was no earthly reason why the inconvenient Fenian (wherever he was) or anyone else, should ever identify the spruce and heroic Flashy, who would shortly appear at head-quarters, with the craven scarecrow who'd been first to knock head before the heathen's feet. Ve-ry good; all we needed was a razor and somebody's clean shirt and trousers …

It's a crying shame, as I keep telling Royal Commissions, that among all the military manuals there ain't a line about foraging and decorating, those essential arts whereby the soldier keeps body and soul together in adversity. Offered to write 'em one, but they wouldn't have it, more fool them, for I've lifted every-thing from chickens to Crown Jewels, and could have set generations of young fellows right, if they'd let me. It was child's play to kit myself out after Tang-ku; the two miles back to Sinho was a carnival of support troops and baggage following the advance, setting up tents and quarters, and a great confusion through which I ambled, airing my French when I had to, and being taken, no doubt, for a rather unkempt commissariat-wallah, or a correspondent, or a Nonconformist missionary. Within ten minutes I'd replaced my soiled garments with a fine tussore coat, coolie pants, solar helmet, and umbrella, with a handsome morocco toilet case in my back pocket—and if you think that outlandish, let me tell you that armies were a deal more informally attired in my day. Campbell at Lucknow looked like a bus conductor, and old Raglan in the Crimea appeared to have robbed a jumble sale.

So when I'd shaved in a quiet corner, got rid of my bandages, and covered my cracked sconce with the topi, I was in pretty good fig, though feeling like a stretcher case. I hopped aboard an empty Frog ammunition cart going back to Sinho, spied Grant's marker by a covered wagon, and strolled up to report, swinging my gamp. Two staff infants were within, Addiscombe all over 'em.

"Hollo, my sons!" cries I cheerily, with my head splitting. "I'm Flashman. Not a bit of it, sit down, sit down! Don't tell me you haven't learned the great headquarters rule yet!"

They looked at each other, blushing and respectful in the presence of the celebrated beau sabreur. "No, sir," says one, nervously. `What's that?"

"Hark'ee, my boy. If bread is the staff of life, what is the life of the staff?"

"Dunno, sir," says he, grinning.

"One long loaf," says I, winking. "So take your ease, and tell me where's Sir Hope Grant?"

They said he was with the 60th, and when I inquired for Elgin, they looked astonished and told me he was back at Pehtang.

"You mean I've trekked all across those confounded mud-flats for nothing? Now, that's too bad! Ah, well, Pehtang it must be. My compliments to Sir Hope, and tell Wolseley that if I hear he's been fleecing you young chaps at piquet, I'll call him out. So long, my sons!"

Alibi nicely established, you see, with two gratified young gallopers reporting that Flashy had just tooled in from the coast (which was true, give or take a couple of days). I could now depart for Pehtang in the certainty that no one would ever imagine I'd been near Tang-ku, and the scene of my shame. It's just a question of taking thought and pains, and well worth it.

I was feeling decidedly flimsy by now, and wondering if I'd last as far as Pehtang, but by good luck the first man I ran into outside Grant's wagon was Nuxban Khan, who'd been second to my blood-brother, Ilderim Khan, in the irregular horse at Jhansi. He hailed me with a great whoop and roarings in Pushtu, a huge Afghan thug in a sashed coat and enormous top-boots, grinning all over his dreadful face as he demanded how I did, and recalling those happy days when the Thugs all but had me outside the Rani's pavilion until he and Ilderim and the rest of the Khyber Co-operative Society arrived to carve them up so artistically. He was a great man now, rissaldar in Fane's Horse, and when he heard where I was bound nothing would do but I must travel in style in the regimental gig.

"Shall Bloody Lance walk, or ride like a common sowar? No, by God! Thou'lt ride like a rajah, old friend—ah, the Colonel husoor's pardon!—for the honour of Ilderim's band! Aye, Ilderim! He ate his last salt at Cawnpore, peace be with him!" Suddenly there were tears running down his evil face. "Bismilah! Where are such friends as Ilderim today? Or such foes? I lave ye seen these Tartars, Bloody Lance? Mice! Aye, but we'll go mouse-hunting anon, thou and I!" Then he was shouting. "Hey, Probyn Sahib! Probyn Sahib! See who is here!"

And now he was making me known to Probyn, whom I'd never met—tall, handsome, soft-spoken Probyn, whom some called the best irregular cavalryman since Skinner (though I'd have rated Grant above both). He was only a subaltern in his regular regiment, yet here he was, with an independent command of his own, and a V.C. to boot. He in turn presented a few of his officers, Afghans to a man, and as ugly a crowd as ever crossed the border, and it made me feel downright odd, when he indicated me as "Flashman bahadur", to see how they straightened and beamed and clicked their heels.

D'you know, it was like coming home? Suddenly, among those wicked friendly faces, with Nuxban exclaiming and Probyn smiling and eyeing me respectfully, the terror of the past two days melted away, and even my head didn't ache so fierce. I realised what it was—for the first time, in China, I wasn't alone: I had the best army on earth with me, the bravest of the brave, terrible men who hailed me as a comrade, and an admired comrade, at that—unless your belly's as yellow as mine, you can't imagine what it means. I felt downright proud, and safe at last.

Probyn rode along with me when I rolled off in Nuxban's gig, and for the first time I had a proper look at the great British and French army camped outside Sinho. On either side of the causeway road stretched the long lines of tents, white and khaki and green, with the guidons fluttering and the troops at exercise or loafing: here was a company of Frogs with their overcoats and great packs counter-marching on the right of the road to "Marche Lorraine", in competition with a Punjabi battalion, very trim in beards and tight puggarees, drilling to "John Peel" on the left; there was a Spahi squadron practising wheels at the gallop, the long cloaks flying, and a line of Probyn's riders, Sikhs and Afghans in shirt-sleeves, taking turns to ride full tilt past an officer who was tossing oranges in the air—they were taking 'em with their sabres on the fly, roars of applause greeting each successful cut.

"Fane's boys will be doing it with grapes tomorrow, I expect," says Probyn.

I said it was a pity the Chinese Emperor couldn't see 'em, and be brought to his senses—the neat artillery parks and rocket batteries, the endless lines of supply carts and ordnance wagons, manned by the milling Coolie Corps, whiskered Madrassis wrestling in their loin-cloths, brawny Gunners playing cricket on a mat wicket, bearded Sikhs grinding their lance-points on the emery wheel, green-jacketed 60th riflemen close-order-drilling like clockwork, a squadron of Dragoon Guards trotting by, each pith helmet and sloped sabre at an identical angle, Royals in their shirt-sleeves mingling with the Tirailleurs to swap baccy and gossip (it's damned sinister, if you ask me, how the Jocks and Frogs always drift together), and something that would have made his Celestial Majesty's eyes start from his princely head—two soWars of Fane's in full fig being carried carefully to their horses by their mates for guard-mounting, so that no speck of dust should blemish the perfection of tunic and long boots, or the polish of lance, sword, pistols, and carbine. Probyn eyed them jaundiced-like, stroking his fair moustache.

"If they take the stick²⁴ again, Fane'll be insufferable," says he. "What, you'd like the Manchoo Emperor to see all this? Don't fret, old fellah—he will."

He left me at the causeway, and I drove on alone to Pehtang, a moth-eaten village on the river boasting one decent house, where Elgin and his staff were quartered. I tiffined first with Temple of the military train, who deafened me with complaints about the condition of our transport—poor forage for the beasts, useless coolies, officers overworked ("for a miserly nine and sixpence a day buckshee, let me tell you!"), the native ponies were hopeless, the notion of issuing a three-day cooked ration in this climate was lunacy, and it was a rotten, piddling war, anyway, which no one at home would mind a bit. It sounded like every military train I'd seen.

"Frogs just a damned nuisance, of course—no proper pro-vision, an' three days late," says he with satisfaction. "How the blazes Bonaparte ever got 'em on parade beats me. We should go without 'em."

Everyone says that about the French, and it's gospel true—until it's Rosalie's breakfast time*(* Time for action. Rosalie was the long French sword-bayonet.), and then Froggy'll be first into the breach ahead of us, just out of spite.

Elgin was in the backyard of his house, stamping about in his shirt-sleeves, snapping dictation at Loch, his secretary, while my Canton inquisitor, Parkes, sat by. I heard Elgin's sharp, busy voice before I saw him; as I halted in the gateway he turned, glaring like a belligerent Pickwick, and hailed me in mid-sentence with a bark and a wave.

.. and I have the honour to refer your excellency to the Superintendent's letter of whenever-it-was … Ha, Flashman! At last! … and to repeat the assertion … wait, Loch, make that warning … aye, the warning conveyed in my notes of so-and-so and so-and-so … that unless we have your assurance … solemn assurance … that our ultimatum will be complied with directly …"

Still dictating, he rummaged in a letter-case and shoved a packet at me; to my astonishment it was addressed in my wife's simpleton scrawl, and I'd have pocketed it, but Elgin waved me peremptorily to read it, so I did, while he went on dictating full spate.

"Oh, my Darlingest Dear One, how I long to see you!" it began, and plunged straight into an account of how Mrs Potter was positive that the laundry were pinching our Best Linen sheets and sending back rubbish, so she had approved Mrs Potter's purchase of one of Williamson's new patent washing-machines and did I think it a Great Extravagance? "I am sure it must prove Useful, and a Great Saving. Shirts require no hand-rubbing! Qualified Engineers are prompt to carry out repairs, tho' such are seldom necessary Mrs Potter says." She (Elspeth, not Mrs Potter) loved me Excessively and had noticed in the press an Item which she was sure I must find droll—a Bishop's daughter had married the Rev. Edward Cheese! Such a comical name! She had been to Hanover Square to hear Mr Ryder read "MacBeth"—most moving altho' Shakespeare's notions of Scottish speech were outlandish and silly, and she and Jane Speedicut had been twice to "The Pilgrim of Love" at the Haymarket, and Jane had wept in a most Affected way "just to attract Attention, which she needn't have bothered in that unfortunate lilac gown, so out of style!!" She missed me, and please, I must not mind about the washing-machine for if she hadn't Mrs P. might have Given Notice! Little Havvy hoped his Papa would kill a Chinaman, and enclosed a picture of Jesus which he had drawn at school. "Oh, come to us soon, soon, dear Hero, to the fond arms of your Loving, Adoring Elspeth. xxxxx!!!"

I ain't given to sentimental tears, but it was a close thing, standing in that hot, dusty yard with the smell of China in my nostrils, holding that letter which I could picture her writing, sighing and frowning and nibbling her pen, rumpling her golden curls for inspiration, burrowing in her dictionary to see how many s's in "necessary", smiling fondly as she kissed young Havvy's execrable drawing—eleven years old the little brute was, and apparently thought Christ had a green face and feathers in his hair. If she'd written pages of Undying Devotion and slop, as she had in our young days, I'd have yawned at it—but all the nonsense about washing-machines and "MacBeth" and Jane's dress and the man Cheese was so … so like Elspeth, if you know what I mean, and I felt such a longing for her, just to sit by her, and have her hand in mind, and look into those beautiful wide blue eyes, and tear off her corset, and -

"Flashman!" Elgin was grasping my hand, demanding my news. "Ha! I'm glad to see you! You were despaired of at Shanghai!" The sharp eyes twinkled for an instant. "So you'll write directly to reassure that bonny little wife whose letter I brought, hey? She's in blooming health. Well, sit down, sit down! Tell me of Nanking."

So I did, and he listened with his bare forearms set on the table, John Bull to the life; he'd be fifty then, the Big Barbarian, as the Chinese called him, bald as an egg save for a few little white wisps, with his bulldog lip and sudden barks of anger or laughter. A peppery old buffer, and a deal kinder than he looked how many ambassadors would call on a colonel's wife to carry a letter to her man?—and the shrewdest diplomatic of his day, hard as a hammer and subtle as a Spaniard. Best of all, he had common sense.

He'd made a name in the West Indies and Canada, negotiated the China treaty which we were now going to enforce, and had saved India, no question, by diverting troops from China at the outbreak of the Mutiny, without waiting orders from home. As to his diplomatic style—when the Yankees still had their eye on Canada, and looked like trying annexation, Elgin went through Washington's drawing-rooms like a devouring flame, wining and dining every Southern Democrat he could find, dazzling 'em with his blue blood, telling 'em racy stories, carrying on like `heeryble—and hinting, ever so delicate, that if Canada joined the Great Republic, it would give the Northern Yankees a fine majority in Congress, with all those long-nosed Scotch Calvinists (to say nothing of French Papists) becoming American voters overnight. That set the fire-bells ringing from Charleston to the Gulf, and with the South suddenly dead set against annexation—why Canada never did join the U.S.A., did she? Wily birds, these earls—this one's father had pinched all the best marbles in Greece, so you could see they were a family to be watched.²⁵

"An unsavoury crew of fanatics," was his comment when I'd told him of the Taipings. "Well, thanks to you, we should be able to keep them from Shanghai, and once the treaty's signed, their bolt's shot. The Imperial Chinese Government can set about 'em in earnest—with our tacit support, but not our participation. Eh, Parkes?"

"Yes … the trouble is, my lord," says Parkes, "that those two terms have a deplorable habit of becoming synonymous."

"Synonymous be damned!" snaps Elgin. "H.M.G. will not be drawn into war against the Taipings. We'd find ourselves with a new empire in China before we knew it." He heaved up from the table and poured coffee from a spirit kettle. "And I have no intention, Parkes, of presiding over any extension of the area in which we exhibit the hollowness of our Christianity and our civilisation. Coffee, Flashman? Yes, you can light one of your damned cheroots if you want to—but blow the smoke the other way. Poisoning mankind!"

There you have three of Elgin's fads all together—he hated tobacco, was soft on Asiatics, and didn't care for empire-building. I recall him on this very campaign saying he'd do anything "to prevent England calling down God's curse on herself for brutalities committed on yet another feeble Oriental race." Yet he did more to fix and maintain the course of British empire than any man of his day, and is remembered for the supreme atrocity. Ironic, ain't it?

The letter he'd been dictating had been yet another demand to the local Manchoo governor for free passage to Pekin, which the Chinks had previously agreed to—and were now hindering for all they were worth, as at Sinho and Tang-ku.

"Perhaps when we've stormed the forts they may realise the folly of resistance," says Loch. He was a tall, grave young file with a great beard, who looked a muff until you learned he'd been a Navy middy at 13, aide to Gough at 17, adjutant of Skinner's Horse at 23, and come through Sutlej and Crimea. Parkes laughed.

"Why should they? The Emperor's not there; he won't suffer. Nor his ministers, Prince Sang and the like, who feed him vain lies about sweeping us into the sea. The Emperor believes them, the decree goes forth, the local commanders put up a futile fight, and send wild accounts to Pekin of how they've licked us. So the fool's encouraged in his folly, and all his concubines clap their little hands and tell him he's lord of creation."

"He's bound to learn the truth eventually, though."

"In the Imperial Palace? My dear Loch, it's another world! Suppose they do learn they've lost Sinho, for example—it won't have happened before their eyes, at Pekin, so … it simply didn't happen, you see? That's Chinese Imperial logic."

"Who's Prince Sang?" I asked, remembering the swine who'd had Moyes butchered—and to whom I'd kow-towed.

"A brute and a firebrand," grunts Elgin. "Prince Sang-kol-in-sen—our fellows call him Sam Collinson. Mongol general commanding the Emperor's forces; he's in the Taku Forts this minute, which is why we'll certainly have to fight for them." 'Nuff said; I'd met Prince Sang.

I asked when we'd advance on the forts, and he glowered and said, in a week, twiddling his scanty wing of hair, a sure sign of irritation.

"We're too damned cumbersome by half!" says he. "I told Palmerston five thousand men would do; but no, Parliament thinks we're still fighting the damned Bengal sepoys, so we must have three times that number." He champed and snorted, tugging away. "A confounded waste of men, material, and time! Wait till the Commons get the bill, though! And to be sure, the fools of public will ask what it was for—they'll expect victories, a dozen V.C.s, and enough blood and massacre to make their flesh creep. Well, they'll not get 'em if I can help it! This is not a war, but an embassy. And this is not an expeditionary force, it's an escort!"

He'd gone quite pink, and by the way Parkes was pulling his nose and Loch studying the distance, I could guess it was a well-played air. After a moment he left off trying to pull his hair loose.

"Our assault on Taku will take a week to prepare because the field command changes daily, to keep the French happy—Grant handed over to Montauban during our attack on Sinho, if you please! Oh, 'twas safe enough, and Montauban's a sensible man—but it's not a system that makes for expedition. We'd have been better with a small, mobile force—and no French.²⁶ Ah, well!" He gave his hair a final wrench and suddenly grinned. "We shall have to see. Eh, Loch? As our old nurses would have said, `a sair fecht'. For your benefit, Parkes, that means a long, weary struggle."

How long, I asked Parkes when he showed me to my billet, and he pursed his lips officially.

"To Pekin? Oh, a month, perhaps … six weeks?" "God save us—you ain't serious?"

"I try to be. Elgin's perfectly correct—we're too many, and Sir Hope, with his many fine qualities is … methodical. What with the French, and the Manchoos lying and procrastinating at every step … well, as his lordship's interpreter, I expect to be chin-chinning to Chinamen quite excessively." He paused in my doorway and gave a resigned sigh. "Ah, well … at least it should be a quiet little war. We dine at six, by the way; a coat is sufficient."

The great Taku Forts went down on the 21st, as advertised, to the astonishment of the Manchoos, who thought them impregnable, and the chagrin of the Frogs, who had violently opposed Grant's plan of attack. They wanted to assail the forts on both sides of the river; Grant said no, settle the Great North Fort and the job's done. Montauban squawked and hooted, saying it was an affront to military science, but Grant just shook his head: "North fort goes, rest'll submit. You'll see. Bonjour," and carried on, humming bull-fiddle tunes. His force might be unwieldy, as Elgin said, but it was damned expert: he built two miles of road to the approaches, had volunteers swimming the river by night to mine the defences, hammered the place with siege guns and a naval bombardment, and sent in the infantry with pontoons and ladders to carry the walls—and sure enough, the infuriated Crapauds made sure they got in first.

Your correspondent bore no part beyond loafing up, when the Chinese guns had been safely silenced, to offer cheer and comfort to Major Temple before the final assault. A week ago he'd been damning his coolies for useless, but now he was in a desperate fret for their welfare—they were to carry in the scaling ladders in the teeth of cannon, jingal-fire, spears, stinkpots and whatever else the Manchoos were hurling from the walls, and Temple, the ass, was determined to go in with them. I found him croaking under his brolly, waiting for the word, but for once his complaint wasn't a military one.

"These bloody magistrates!" cries he. "Have you seen the China Mail? Heenan's been held to bail at Derby, an' he an' Sayers are to be charged with assault! Damned nonsense! Why can't they leave sport alone?²⁷ Ahah!" he roars, waving to the Frog colonel. "Ready, are we? Sortons, is that it? Come on, you chaps! China forever!" And he was away, bounding over the ditches, with his yellow mob at his heels and the Frog infantry in full cry, bursting with la gloire. They had warm work crossing the moats and canals, but they and our own 44th and 67th carried the walls with the bayonet—and as Grant had said, out came the white silk flags on the other forts. Four hundred Manchoos were killed out of five hundred; we lost about 30, and ten times as many wounded. The coolies behaved famously, Temple said.

Parkes and Loch and I were in the party sent across the river to arrange terms with Hang-Fu, the local mandarin, a leery ancient with the opium shakes who received us in a garden, sitting on a chair of state with a mighty block of ice underneath to keep him cool, and his minions carrying his spectacles and chopsticks and silver watch in embroidered cases. He served us champagne, but when Parkes demanded a signed surrender the old fox said he daren't, not being military, and Prince Sang had already left up-river.

Parkes then came all over diplomatic, promising to blow the forts to kingdom come, at which Hang-Fu said, well, the Emperor would be graciously pleased to give us temporary occupation of them (which we already had) and we could take our gunboats up to Tientsin. Parkes almost had to take him by the throat to get it in writing, and then we ploughed back to the boat in the dark, past the huge gloomy fort-buildings, with slow-fuse mines which the Chinks had thoughtfully left behind exploding here and there. (Another trick was to bury cocked gun-locks with bags. of powder, for the unwary to tread on; subtle, eh?—and yet some of their fort guns were wooden dummies.) I was never so glad to get back to a boat in my life.

So now the way was clear, and with the gunboats leading the way up the twisty moonlit river, it began: the famous march on Pekin, the last great stronghold on earth that had never seen a white soldier, the Forbidden City of the oldest of civilisations, the capital of the world, to the Chinese, having dominion over all mankind. And now the foreign devils were coming, the whining pipes echoing out across the sodden plain, the jaunty little poilus with their kepis tilted, stepping it out, the jingling troopers of Fane's and Probyn's with the sun a-twinkle on their lance-heads, the Buffs swinging by to the odd little march that Handel wrote for them (so Grant told me)²⁸ , the artillery limbers churning up the mud, the Hampshire yokels and Lothian ploughboys, the Sikhs and Mahrattas and Punjabis, McCleverty hare to the waist in the prow of his gunboat, Wolseley halting his pony to sketch a group of coolies, Napier riding silent, shading his eyes ahead, Elgin sitting under the awning of Coromandel fanning himself with his hat and reading The Origin of Species, Montauban careering up and down the columns with great dash, chattering to his staff, Grant standing by the road-side, tugging his grizzled whiskers and touching his cap to the troops who cheered him as they marched by. Fifteen thousand horse, foot and guns rolling up the Peiho, not to fight or to hold or to conquer, but just so that the Big Barbarian could stand before the Son of Heaven and watch him put his mark on paper. "And when he does," says Elgin, "the ends of the earth will have met at last, and there will be no more savage kings for our people to subdue. We've come a long way from our northern forests; I wonder if we were wise."

The Chinese evidently thought not, for having given us fawning assurance of free passage and no resistance, they hampered us every yard to Tientsin. Transport and beasts had vanished from the country, the local officials used every excuse to delay us, and to make things worse the weather was at extremes of broiling heat and choking dust or deluges of rain and axle-deep mud²⁹ . Fortunately the Manchoos hadn't had the wit to break bridges or block channels, and the peasantry, with a fine disregard for Imperial policy, were perfectly ready to repair our road and sell us beef and mutton, fruit, vegetables and ice at twenty times their proper price. Snug on Coromandel, I could endure our leisurely progress, but Parkes was plumb in the path of all the Manchoos' growing insolence and deceit, and I could see his official smile getting tighter by the hour.

"At this rate we may reach Pekin by Christmas. The more we submit to their lies and hindrance, the less they respect us." He was at the rail, glaring coldly at the glittering salt-heaps that lined the banks below Tientsin. "In '58, after we shelled Canton, the river banks were black with Chinese—kow-towing. You will observe, Sir Harry, that they do not kow-tow today. Much as I admire our chief, I cannot share his recently-expressed satisfaction that in these enlightened times we no longer require every Chinaman to take off his hat to us."

But even Elgin's patience was beginning to wear thin. Some-how he preserved a placid politeness through every meeting with Manchoo officials who barely concealed their satisfaction in wasting time and frustrating our progress, but afterwards he'd be in a fever to get on, snapping at us, tugging his fringe, urging Grant and Montauban with an energy that stopped just short of rudeness; Montauban would bridle and Grant would nod, and then we staff-men would get pepper again. He was bedevilled, trying to keep the Chinks sweet and the advance moving, fearful of provoking downright hostility, but knowing that every hour lost was time for the war party in Pekin to get their nerve back after Taku; we knew Sang-kol-in-sen was back in the capital, urging resistance, and Elgin in his impatience was being tempted by a new Manchoo ploy—speedy passage to Pekin in return for a promise of active British help against the Taipings, which he daren't concede or bluntly refuse.³⁰

It took us ten crawling days to cover sixty miles to Tientsin, a stink-hole of salt-heaps and pi-dogs—and smiling Manchoo mandarins sent by Pekin to "negotiate" our further progress. They talked for a full week, while Parkes risked apoplexy—and Elgin nodded gravely, with his lip stuck out. Finally, after interminable discussion, they agreed that we might advance to Tang-chao, eleven miles from Pekin—provided we didn't take artillery or too many gunboats to alarm the people—and from there Elgin and Baron Gros might go into Pekin with a thousand cavalry for escort, and sign the damned treaty. It seemed too good to be true—although Grant looked grim at the smallness of the escort—but Elgin accepted, hiding his satisfaction. And then the mandarins, smiling more politely than ever, said of course they couldn't confirm these arrangements, but doubtless Pekin would do so if we were patient a little longer …

If Bismarck or D'Israeli or Metternich had had to sit through those interminable hours, listening to those bland, lying old dotards, and then received that slap in the face, I swear they'd have started to scream and smash the furniture. Elgin didn't even blink. He listened to Parkes's near-choked translation of that astounding insolence, thanked the mandarins for their courtesy, stood up, bowed—and told Parkes, almost offhand, to pass 'em the word that they now owed Britain four million quid for delays and damage to our expedition. Oh, aye, and the treaty would now contain a clause opening Tientsin to European trade.

Back on Coromandel he was grimly satisfied. "Their bad faith affords the perfect excuse for proceeding to Pekin forthwith. Sir Hope, the army will no-longer halt when discussions take place; if they want to talk we'll do it on the march. And if they don't like it, and want a fight, they can have it."

Suddenly everyone was grinning; even Parkes was delighted, although he confided to me later that Elgin should have taken a high hand sooner. Elgin himself looked ten years younger, now that he'd cast the die, but I thought exuberance had got the better of him when he strode into the saloon later, threw The Origin of Species on the table, and announced:

"It's very original, no doubt, but not for a hot evening. What I need is some trollop."

I couldn't believe my ears, and him a church-goer, too. "Well, my lord, I dunno," says I. "Tientsin ain't much of a place, but I'll see what I can drum up —"

"Michel's been reading Dr Thorne since Taku," cries he. "He must have finished it by now, surely! Ask him, Flashman, will you?" So I did, and had my ignorance enlightened.³¹

It was bundle and go now. We left 2nd Division at Tientsin, shed all surplus gear, and cracked away at twice our previous pace, while the Manchoos plagued Elgin with appeals to stop the advance—they would appoint new commissioners, they had further proposals, there must be a pause for discussion—and Elgin replied agreeably that he'd talk to 'em at Tang-chao, as agreed. The Manchoos were frantic, and now we saw something new—great numbers of refugees, ordinary folk, streaming towards us from Pekin, in evident fear of what would happen when we arrived. They flooded past us, men, women, and children, with their possessions piled on rickety carts—I remember one enormous Mongol wheeling four women in a barrow. But no sign of armed opposition, and when our local guides and drivers decamped one night, spirits were so high that no one minded, and Admiral Hope and Bowlby, the Times correspondent, took over as mule-skinners, whooping and hawing like Deadwood Dick. We swung on up-river, the gun-boats keeping pace and the Frog band thumping "Madelon", for now Pekin was barely thirty miles ahead, and we were going to see the elephant at last, seven thousand cavalry and infantry ready for anything, not that it mattered for the Manchoo protests had subsided to whines of resignation, and we were coming home on a tight rein, hurrah, boys, hurrah!

And the dragon … waited.

It happened the day after we held divine service in a big temple, and afterwards there was much fun while we looked over a book of pictures which Beato, who'd been photographing the march, presented to Elgin. Word came that new Manchoo commissioners, including the famous Prince I, were waiting just up ahead, at Tang-chao, and they hoped the army would camp on the near side of the town while we negotiated the details of Elgin's entry to Pekin.

"Go and see him," says Elgin to Parkes, so on the Monday, in the cool of a beautiful dawn, about thirty of us set out to ride ahead. There was Parkes, Loch, De Normann from Bruce's office, Bowlby of The Times, and myself, with six Dragoon Guards and twenty of Fane's sowars under young Anderson, as escort. Walker, the Q.M.G., and Thompson of the commissariat rode along to inspect the camp site.

We trotted up the dusty road, myself in the lead as senior officer, with Parkes (who rode like an ill-tied sack of logs, by the way). To our right was the river, half a mile off, and on our left empty plain and millet fields to the horizon. Beyond a little village we were met by a mandarin with a small troop of Tartar cavalry, who said he would show us our camp-site; it proved to be to the right of the road, where the river took a great loop, near a village called Five-li Point. Walker and I thought it would do, although he'd have preferred to be closer to the river, for water; the mandarin assured us that water would be brought to us, and as we rode on he chatted amiably to Parkes and me, telling us he'd been in command of the garrison we'd defeated at Sinho.

"As you can see." He touched the button on his hat; it was white, not red. "I was also degraded by losing my peacock feather," he added, grinning like a corpse, and Parkes and I made sounds of commiseration. "Oh, it is no matter!" cries he. "Lost honours can be regained. As Confucius says: Be patient, and at last the mulberry leaf will become a silk robe."

I remember the proverb, because it was just then that I chanced to look round. The six Dragoons had been riding immediately behind Parkes and me since we set out, in double file, but I'd paid 'em no special heed, and it was only as I glanced idly back that I saw one of them was watching me—staring at me, dammit, with the oddest fixed grin. He was a typical burly Heavy with a face as red as his coat under the pith helmet, and I was just about to ask what the devil he meant by it when his grin broadened—and in that moment I knew him, and knew that he knew me. It was the Irishman who'd been beside me when Moyes was killed.

I must have gaped like an idiot … and then I was facing front again, chilled with horror. This was the man who'd seen me grovelling to Sam Collinson, my abject companion in shame—and here he was, riding at my shoulder like bloody Nemesis, no doubt on the point of denouncing me to the world as a poltroon—it's a great thing to have a conscience as guilty as mine, I can tell you; it always makes you fear far more than the worst. My God! And yet—it couldn't be! the Irishman had been a sergeant of the 44th; this was a trooper of Dragoon Guards. I must be mistaken; he hadn't been staring at me at all—he must have been grinning at some joke of his mate's, when I'd caught his eye, and my terrified imagination was doing the rest -

"Where the hell d'you think you're goin', Nolan?" It was the Dragoon corporal, just behind. "Keep in file!"

Nolan! That had been the name Moyes had spoken—oh, God, it was him, right enough.

I daren't look round; I'd give myself away for certain. I must just ride on, chatting to Parkes as though nothing had happened, and God knows what I said, or how much farther we rode, for I was aware of nothing except that my cowardly sins had found me out at last. You may think I was in a great stew over nothing—what had the great Flashy to fear from the memory of a mere lout of a trooper, after all? A hell of a deal, says I, as you'll see.

But if I was in a state of nervous funk for the rest of the day, I remember the business we did well enough. At Tang-chao, we met the great Prince I, the Emperor's cousin, a tall, skinny crow of a Manchoo in gorgeous green robes, with all his nails cased; he looked at us as if we were dirt, and when Parkes said we hoped the arrangements agreed for Elgin's entry to Pekin were still satisfactory to their side, he hissed like an angry cat.

"Nothing can be discussed until the barbarian leader has withdrawn his presumptuous request for an audience with the Son of Heaven, and begged our pardon! He does not come to Pekin!"

Parkes, to my surprise, just smiled at him as though he were a child and said they must really talk about something important. Elgin was going to Pekin, and the Emperor would receive him. Now, then …

At this Prince I went wild, spitting curses, calling Parkes a foreign cur and reptile and I don't know what, and Parkes just smiled away and said Elgin would be there, and that was that. And in this way the time passed until (it's a fact) six o'clock, when Prince I had cursed himself hoarse. Then Parkes got up, repeated for the four hundredth time that Elgin was going to Pekin—and suddenly Prince I said, very well, with a thousand cavalry, as agreed. Then in double time he and Parkes settled the wording of a proclamation informing the public that peace and harmony were the order of the day, and we retired to the quarters that had been prepared for us, and had dinner.

"Who said the Chinese were negotiators!" scoffs Parkes. "The man's a fool and a fraud."

"He caved in very suddenly," says Loch. "D'you trust him?"

"No, but I don't need to. Their goose is cooked, Loch, and they know it, and because they can't abide it, they squeal like children in a tantrum. And if he goes back on his word tomorrow, it doesn't matter—because the Big Barbarian is going to Pekin, anyway."

It was arranged that in the morning, while De Normann and Bowlby (who wanted some copy for his rag) would stay in Tang-chao with Anderson and the sowars, the rest of us would return to the army, Parkes and Loch to report to Elgin, Walker and Ito guide them to the camp site. The others turned in early, except for Parkes, who had invited one of the lesser mandarins over for a chat, so I retired to the verandah to rehearse my anxieties for the umpteenth time, able to sweat and curse in private at last.

Nolan knew me. What would he say—what could he say? Suppose he told the shameful truth, would anyone believe him? Never. But why should he say anything—dammit, he'd grovelled, too … I went all through my horrid fears again and again, pacing in the dark little garden away from the house, chewing my cheroot fiercely. What would he say -

"A foine evenin', colonel," was what, in fact, he said, and I spun round with an oath. There he was, by the low wall at the garden foot—standing respectfully to attention, rot him, the trooper out for an evening stroll, greeting his superior with all decorum. I choked back a raging question, and forced myself to say nonchalantly:

"Why, I didn't see you there, my man. Yes, a fine evening." I hoped to God it was too shadowy for him to see me trembling. I lit another cheroot, and he moved forward a step. "Beg pardon, sorr … don't ye remember me?"

I had myself in hand now. "What? You're one of the dragoons, aren't you?"

"Yes, sorr. I mean afore that, sorr." He had one of those soft, whiny, nut-at-ahl Irish brogues which I find especially detestable. "Whin I wuz in the 44th—afore dey posted me to the Heavies. Shure, an' it's just a month since—I think ye mind foine."

"Sorry, my boy," says I pleasantly, my heart hammering. "I don't know much of the 44th, and I certainly don't know you." I gave him a nod. "Good-night."

I was turning away when his voice stopped me, suddenly soft and hard together. "Oh, but ye do, sorr. An' I know you. An' we both know where it wuz. At Tang-ku, when Moyes got kilt."

What should an innocent man say to that? I'll tell you: he turns sharp, frowning, bewildered. "When who was killed? What the devil are you talking about? Are you drunk, man?"

"No, sorr, I'm not drunk! Nor I wuzn't drunk then! You wuz in the yard at Tang-ku whin they made us bow down to yon Chink bastard —"

"Silence! You're drunker than David's sow! You're raving! Now, look here, my lad—you cut along to your billet and I'll say no more —"

"Oh, but ye will! Ye will dat!" He was shaking with excitement. "But first ye'll listen! For I know, ye see, an' I can say plenty more —"

"How dare you!" I forced myself to bark. "You insolent rascal! I don't know what you're talking about, or what your game is, but another word from you and I'll get you a bloody back for your damned insolence, d'ye hear?" I towered, outraged, glaring like a colonel. "I'm a patient man, Nolan, but …"

It was out before I knew it, and he saw the blunder as soon as I did. The eyes bulged with triumph in his crimson face.

"Whut's dat? Nolan, d'ye say? An' if ye don't know me, how the hell d'ye know me name, den?"

In fact, I'd heard his corporal use it that day, but in my panic I remembered only Moyes at the grog-cart. I was speechless, and he rattled on excitedly:

"It wuz you! By the Virgin, it wuz you in that yard, crawlin' wid the rest on us, me an' the coolies—iveryone but Moyes! I didn't know yez from Rafferty's pig—till I seed ye in the lines, two days since, an' rec'nised ye! I did that! An' I asked the boys: `Who's dat?' They sez: `Shure, an' dat's Flash Harry, the famous Afghan hero, him that wan the Cross at Lucknow, an' kilt all the Ruskis, an' that. Shure, 'tis the bravest man in th'Army, so it is.' Dal's whut they said." He paused, getting his breath back in his excitement, and for the life of me I could only mouth at him. He stepped closer, breathing whisky at me. "An' I sez nuthin', but I thinks, is that a fact, now? 'Cos I seen him when he wuzn't bein' so bloody heroical, lickin' a Chinese nigger's boots an' whinin' fer his life!"

If I'd been heeled, I'd have shot him then and there, and damn the consequences. For there was no doubt he had me, or where he was going. He nodded, bright-eyed, and licked his coarse lips.

"Aye, so I got to studyin'. An' whut d'ye think? Sez I to meself, `Shure, whut a hell of a pity it'd be, if this wuz to get about, like.' In the Army, ye know? I mean—even if iveryone said, och, it's just Paddy Nolan lyin' again—d'ye not think there's some might believe the shave*(* Rumour.), eh? There'd be questions, mebbe; there might even be wan hell of a scandal." He shook his head, leering. "Talk, colonel. Ugly talk. Ye know what I mean? Bad for the credit o' th'Army. Aye, a bloody back's a sore thing, so it is—but it heals faster'n a blown reppitation." He paused a moment. "I'd think, meself, it'd be worth keepin' quiet. Wouldn't you, colonel?"

I could bluster still—or not. Better not; it would be a waste of time. This was a cunning swine; if he spread his story as well as he'd summed it up, I was done for, disgraced, ruined. I knew my Army, you see, and the jealousies and hatreds under the hearty grins. Oh, I didn't lack for enemies who'd delight in sniffing it all out, prying till they found Carnac, compared dates, put two and two together—where had I been on August 13, eh? Even if I could bluff it away, the mud would stick. And this sly peasant could see clear through; he knew he didn't have to prove a thing, that being guilty I'd be ready to fork out to prevent any breath of rumour -

"Sir Harry! Are you there?" It was Parkes's voice, calling sharply from the verandah twenty yards away; his figure was silhouetted against the glow from the house. "Sir Harry?"

Nolan took a swift step back into the shadows. " 'Tis another word we'll be havin' tomorrow, colonel—eh?" he whispered. "Until den." I heard his soft chuckle as I turned to the house, still stricken dumb, with Parkes crying: "Ah, there you are! Care for a nightcap?"

How much sleep I got you may imagine. I couldn't defy the brute—the question was whether it was safer to pay squeeze and risk his blabbing another day, or kill him and try to make it look accidental. That was how desperate I was, and it was still unresolved when we saddled up at dawn to ride back to the army. As the party fell in under the trees, a sudden reckless devil took hold of me, and I told the dragoon corporal I'd inspect the escort; Parkes cocked an amused eyebrow at this military zeal, while the corporal bawled his troopers into mounted line. I rode slowly along, surveying each man carefully while they sweated in the sun; I checked one for a loose girth, asked the youngest how long he'd been in China, and came to Nolan on the end, staring red-faced to his front. A fly settled on his cheek, and his lip twitched.

"`Let it be, my boy," says I, jocular-like. "If a fly can sit still, so can you. Name and service?"

"Nolan, sorr. Twelve years." His brow was running wet, but he sat like a statue, wondering what the hell I was about.

"Trahnsferred las' month, sir, when 44th went dahn to Shang'ai," says the corporal. "Cavalry trained, tho'; in the Skins, I b'lieve."

"Why'd you transfer, Nolan?" I asked idly, and he couldn't keep his voice steady.

"If ye please, sorr … I … I tuk a fancy to see Pee-kin, sorr."

"Looking for excitement, eh?" I smiled. "Capital! Very good, corporal—form up."

If you ask what I was up to … why, I was taking a closer look by daylight—and unsettling the bastard; it never hurts. But it was a wasted effort, for in the next hour everything changed, and even disgrace and reputation ceased to matter … almost.

The road had been empty coming up, but from the moment we left Tang-chao we were aware of a steady movement of Imperial troops—a few odd platoons and half-sections at first, and then larger numbers, not only on the road but in the paddy and millet-fields either side. What seemed most odd, they were moving in the same direction as ourselves—towards our army. I didn't like the look of 'em above half, but there was nothing to do but forge ahead. We rode at a steady canter for about an hour, past increasing numbers, and when we came to Changkia-wan, about half-way home, the town was thick with them, and there was no doubt of it: we were in the middle of a thumping big Imperial army. Parkes wanted to stop to make inquiries, the ass, but as senior officer I wouldn't allow it, and we cantered out of the place—and had to skirt the road to pass a full regiment of Bannermen, great ugly devils in bamboo armour who scowled and shouted abuse at us as we thundered by.

"What can this mean?" cries Parkes, as we drew clear. "They cannot intend to put themselves in Sir Hope's way, surely?"

"They ain't going to a field day!" says I. "Colonel Walker, how many d'you reckon we've come through?"

"Ten thousand, easily," says he. "But God knows how many there are in the millet-fields—those stalks are fifteen feet high." "Take the rear, and keep 'em closed up!" says I. "Forward!" "My dear Sir Harry!" cries Parkes. "Surely we should stop and consider what is to be done!"

"What's to be done is get to the Army. Close up, there!" "But, my dear sir! They cannot mean any treachery, I —" "Mr Parkes," says I, "when you've ridden through as many armies as I have, you learn how to smell mischief—and it's breast-high here, I can tell you."

"But we must not exhibit any signs of distrust!"

"Right you are," says I. "Anyone who pukes or soils himself will answer to me!" Which had the troopers haw-hawing, while Parkes looked furious. "Really, sir—if they intended any harm, would they advance in full view? Why, the country to our right is quite clear!"

So it was, and the millet was so high to the left that for a moment we seemed all alone. I glanced right—and Walker was doing the same thing. Our eyes met, and I grabbed Parkes's bridle as we rode, heading him out to the right, while he demanded to know what I was about.

"You'll see," I told him. What Walker and I had noticed was a big nullah away on the right, and now we went for it full lick, turning down its lip as we reached it, and Parkes gave a great cry of astonishment, and would have reined in, but I kept him going.

"In full view, eh?" says I. "That settles it!"

There were three thousand Tartar horsemen in that nullah if there was one, dismounted, with drawn sabres, and they gave a great roar at the sight of us. But now I had us heading left again, towards the road and the little village beyond which lay the camp-site to which our army would presently be advancing. As we thundered past it a little group of horsemen broke cover, led by a mandarin who yelled at us to keep away. Beyond him I could see the guns in the trees.

"Masked battery!" cries Walker. "Jesus—look at that!"

As we came through the fringe of trees to the camp-site, the whole eastern horizon seemed to be moving. Immediately to our left, a long bund stretched away, and it was lined with heavy guns, covering the camp-site; in the millet behind the bund the country was alive with Tiger soldiers, the black and yellow stripes clear to be seen, but on the eastern flank of the plain was the sight that had brought Walker up in his stirrups—long lines of Tartar cavalry, advancing at the walk, thousands upons thousands of them. We raced out into the unoccupied camp-site, and suddenly Parkes reined in, white-faced.

"Sir Harry! Stop, if you please!" I reined up, and the whole troop followed. "Sir Harry, I am returning to Tang-chao! I must inform Prince I of this … this extraordinary proceeding!"

I couldn't believe it—and then I realised his pallor wasn't fear, but anger. He was in a positive fury, so help me.

"Good God!" I cried. "D'you think he doesn't know?"

"It is impossible that he should! Mr Loch, will you return to Lord Elgin at once, and inform him of what is happening? Sir Harry, I must ask for a small escort, if you please. One trooper will be sufficient."

I'm a true-blue craven, as you know, but I'm also too old a soldier to waste time raving. "You'll never come out alive," says I.

"No, you are mistaken. I shall be perfectly safe. My person is inviolate."

D'ye know, it was on the tip of my tongue to holler "It may be in bloody lilac stripes for all the good it'll do you!" but I kept a grip, thinking in the saddle. It must be a good ten miles to the army, with God knew how many Chinese along the road; if there was trouble it would be here, and the risk of cutting and running was appalling. The prospect of returning to Tang-choa was even worse—except for one thing. Parkes was right: he was inviolate. Whoever the Chinks cut up, it wouldn't be Her Majesty's biggest diplomatic gun bar Elgin himself; they wouldn't dare that. It came home to me with blinding clarity that the one safe place in the whole ugly mess was alongside H. Parkes, Esq.

"Very good, Mr Parkes," says I. "I'll ride with you. Corporal, detail two dragoons as escort. Mr Loch, take one trooper, ride to the army, inform Sir Hope and Lord Elgin. Colonel Walker, remain here with the rest of the party to observe; retire at discretion. Corporal," I drew him aside; he was a rangy lantern-jawed roughneck with a tight chin-strap. "If it gets ugly, scatter and ride through, d'ye hear? Get to Grant—whatever anyone else says, tell him—Flashy says `Close up.' Mind that. I'm counting on you … Mr Loch, what the dooce are you waiting for? Be off—at a steady canter! Don't run! Mr Parkes, I suggest we lose no time!"

Doing my duty by the army, you see, before bolting to what I hoped to God was safety. I glanced round: Tartar cavalry two miles to the left, closing slowly; masked batteries on the bund—and now the concealed Tartars emerging from the nullah to the right, streaming down in a great mass. The camp-site was a death-trap … but Grant would steer clear of it. I slapped Parkes's screw, and we raced away, the two dragoons at our heels, back through the trees and on to the Tang-choa road.

Before we'd gone a mile I was breathing easy; whether all the troops we'd seen coming down had now reached the camp-site, I don't know, but the way was clear, and when we met Chinese they didn't attempt to stay us: We were in Tang-choa under the hour, and while Parkes hurried off to find Prince I, I set the dragoons searching for Anderson and the others. It was only then that I realised one of my dragoons was Nolan. Hollo, thinks I, we may find advantage in this yet.

Tang-choa ain't a big place, and I found two Sikh troopers near the bazaar. Bowlby Sahib was buying silk, says they, grinning, and sure enough he was festooned in the stuff, with his money on the table while the vendor shook his sticks to determine the price, with Anderson and De Normann chaffing and half a dozen sowars chortling round the stall.

"I can't gamble with Times money!" Bowlby was laughing, pink in the face. "Delane will go through my accounts himself, I tell you! I say, Anderson, tell him to name a price and I'll cough it up, hang it!"

I tapped Anderson's arm. "Everyone to the square, quietly, in two's and three's. No fuss. We're riding in ten minutes."

Good boy, Anderson; he nodded, called a joke to De Normann, passed word to his jemadar and the Sikhs began to drift off, slow and easy. I left him to bring Bowlby, and went to find another horse from our two remounts; I ride thirteen stone, and if there was one thing I wanted it was a fresh beast.

Anderson had his troop ready in the square by the temple—loafing so as not to attract notice, I was glad to see—and there was nothing to do but wait for Parkes and tell De Normann and Bowlby what had happened. It was roasting hot now, in the dusty square; the beasts stamped and jingled, and the sowars yawned and spat, while Anderson strolled, hands in pockets, whistling; my nerves were stretching, I can tell you, when there was a clatter of hooves, and who should it be but Loch, with two sowars carrying white flags on their lance-points, and young Brabazon, a staff-walloper.

Yes, Loch had seen Grant, and after reporting had felt bound to return for Parkes and me; he said it almost apologetically, blinking and stroking his beard, while I marvelled at human folly. The Imps were in greater force than ever at the camp-site, and in Loch's opinion, presenting a most threatening appearance, but while Montauban had been all for a frontal attack, Grant was sitting tight, to give us time to get clear. That cheered me up, for if he didn't advance the Imps would have nothing to shoot at, and all might blow over; but it was still gruelling work waiting for Parkes; I beguiled the time trying to think of fatal errands on which I might despatch Trooper Nolan, who was sitting aside, puffing his pipe, his bright little eyes sliding every so often in my direction.

Suddenly here was Parkes, riding alone, pausing to scribble furiously in his note-book, and in a fine taking. "I am out of all patience with I!" snaps he. "He is a lying scoundrel! Sam Collinson has been at work, stirring up resistance, and what d'you think I had the effrontery to say? That it is all our fault for insisting on Lord Elgin's entering Pekin!"

"You said that?" says Loch, puzzled.

"What? Of course not! I said it!" cries Parkes, and as God's my witness, they began to discuss the personal pronoun. One thing rapidly became clear: the Chinks had repudiated the agreement made only yesterday, and were now vowing that unless Elgin withdrew his demand, they were ready to fight. "There can be no peace!" Prince I had shouted at Parkes. "It must be war!"

I gave the word to Anderson, and we were off at the canter, stretching to a gallop as we left the town. With luck, we might pass through before the explosion came, but barely a mile out on the road Parkes's horse fell, and although he remounted, I could see that his beast, and De Normann's, would never stay the course. I slowed to a trot, wondering what the devil to do; if it came to the pinch, they could damned well take their chance, but for the moment we must hold together and hope. By God, it was a long ride, with my ears straining for the first crack of gunfire ahead; if only Grant held off a little longer …

We passed through Chang-kia-wan again, in a solid phalanx with the Sikh sowars around us, thrusting by main force through streets choked with jingal-men and Tiger soldiers who sneered and spat but kept their distance from those razor-sharp lance-heads. Then we were out and trotting down the long slope towards the distant camp-site; the plain either side was black with Imps, foot and horse; the huge coloured banners were streaming in the breeze, paper standards were flapping and filling, their horns were blaring and cymbals clashing, every group we passed turned to scream execrations at us; suddenly before us was a troop of Manchoo artillery, absolutely slewing round their great dragon-headed brass pieces to threaten us. I looked back—De Normann and Bowlby had fallen behind on their foundering hacks, and Parkes seized my elbow. "Sir Harry! Sir Harry, we must decide what is best to be done!"

They're smart in the diplomatic, you know, and in a moment the others had caught fire from his inspiration. Loch said that in such moments decisions should be arrived at quickly, De Normann urged the necessity of calm, and Brabazon cried out that since Parkes was the chief negotiator, he must say how we should proceed.

"Shut your bloody trap!" I roared. "Anderson—wheel right!" If there was a way through—for anyone lucky enough to have a fresh horse, anyway—it was beyond the big nullah, where we might skirt round to the army. We swung off the road, and in that moment there was a thunderous roar of cannon from far ahead, and I knew the masked batteries were in action; a breathless pause, and then as Armstrong shells began to burst among the Imps, pandemonium broke loose. I yelled to Anderson to hold them together as we surged forward through the milling infantry, and here was Bowlby clattering up, brandishing his pistol.

"Now we'll see how these yellow fellows can fight!" cries he. I roared to him to holster his piece, heard Parkes yelling in front of me, and saw that he and Loch had reined up by a little silk pavilion where a mandarin was sitting a Tartar pony, with officers at his back; it was our acquaintance of yesterday, who had lost his spurs at Sinho. As I rode up to them, Parkes was shouting something about safe-conduct, but now there was a crowd of angry Imps in the way; they'd spotted us as enemy, clever lads, and were crowding in, waving fists and spears; suddenly there seemed to be contorted yellow faces all round us, screaming hate. Above the din I heard the mandarin cry out something about a prince; then Parkes was calling across the crowd to me. "Wait for us, Sir Harry! Prince …" And then he and Loch and one of the sowars were galloping off with the mandarin.

"Come back!" I roared. "Parkes, you idiot!", for it was plain that our one hope was the mandarin, and we should all stay with him. Roaring to Anderson to hold on, I drove through the press in pursuit; by the time I'd cleared that howling mob my quarry was wheeling into a gully a furlong ahead, and I cursed and thundered after them. I plunged into the gully, and there they were, not twenty paces off, reined up before a group of magnificently-armoured Manchoo horsemen, banners planted in the turf beside them, and Parkes was pointing to the white rag on the sowar's lance-point. I pulled up, and the leader of the Manchoos was standing in his stirrups, screaming with laughter, which seemed damned odd till I saw who it was: Prince Sang-kol-in-sen. In fine voice he was.

"You ask safe-conduct! Foreign filth! Crawling savages! You who would shame the Son of Heaven, and who come now treacherously to attack us! Barbarian lice! Offal! And now you come whining —"

The rest was lost in howls of hatred as his followers closed in; I saw Parkes struggling with a mounted rider, and thought "McNaghten!"³² Loch was knocked flying from the saddle, and the Sikh was thrashing with his lance as they bore him down. I didn't linger; I was round and out of that gully like a guilty squirrel—and slap in front of me was a boiling crowd of Imp braves, with Anderson's party struggling desperately in the middle. A musket barked, and I saw a Sikh reel in the saddle; then the sabres were out, Sikhs and dragoons laying about them, with Anderson yelling to close up; a ragged volley of musketry, a Sikh going down, the answering crash of revolver fire, Bowlby blazing away wild-eyed until he was dragged from the saddle, Nolan bleeding from a sword-cut on the brow as he drove through the press—I heard him shriek as he pitched forward over his horse's head into the crush. It didn't matter now; I stared appalled at that hideous mêlée, and turned to flee.

But they were streaming out of the gully, too, Tiger soldiers with drawn swords, and at their head the white-button mandarin and half a dozen mounted monsters in black bamboo armour and helmets, brandishing pennoned spears and screaming blue murder. I put my beast to the bank; he scrambled up, reared, and fell back, and I rolled clear just in time. There was a side-gully and I raced up it, howling as I went, and came down headlong over a pile of stones; I scrambled afoot, mouthing vainly for help, there wasn't a friendly soul in sight, Loch and Parkes might be dead by now, hacked to pieces—well, by God, thinks I, if it must be, I'll make a better end than that. I swung to face them, whipping out my sabre and dropping a hand to my pistol-butt as that devil's horde bore down on me.

Even for old Flashy, you see, there comes the moment when you realise that, after a lifetime of running, you can't run any longer, and there's only one thing for it. I gritted my teeth and ran at them, spun the weapons in my hands, and bawled in my best Chinese:

"Quarter! I surrender! I'm a British staff colonel and you touch me at your peril! My sword, your excellency!"³³

For a well-decorated hero I've done a deal of surrendering in my time—which is doubtless why I remain a well-decorated hero. Piper's Fort, Balaclava, Cawnpore, Appomattox—I suppose I can't count Little Big Horn, because the uncivilised rascals wouldn't accept it, try as I might—and various minor capitulations. And if there's one thing I've learned, which young military men should bear in mind, it's that the foeman is generally as glad to accept your surrender as you are to give it. Mind you, he may turn spiteful later, when he's got you snug and helpless (I often do), but that's a risk you must run, you know. Most of my captors have been decent enough.

The Chinese were not. You'd have thought, the trouble I saved 'em, they might have shown me some consideration, but they didn't. For two days I was confined in a stinking wooden cage no bigger than a trunk, unable to stand or lie, but only to crouch painfully while I was exhibited in the temple square at Tang-chao to a jeering mob who spat and poked and shovelled ordure through the bars. I was given no food or drink beyond a filthy rag soaked in water, without which I'd have died—but I was in paradise compared with Parkes and Loch, who had survived only to be dragged to the Board of Punishments in Pekin.

The worst of it was not knowing. What would they do to me? Where were the others? What had happened at Five-li Point? The Manchoo thugs who guarded my cage, and egged on the mob to torment me, gloated about the terrible slaughter they'd inflicted on our army—which I knew was lies, for they couldn't have licked Grant, and why wasn't Tang-choa choked with prisoners like myself? But I didn't know that in fact Grant had thrashed their ambush out of sight, with our cavalry driving twenty thousand Tartar horsemen pell-mell, and even riding round the walls of Tang-choa before withdrawing to Grant's new position at Chang-kia-wan. Nor could I guess that Elgin was furiously demanding our release—or that the Manchoos were refusing even to talk.

It beats belief, but those lordly idiots at the Imperial Court still wouldn't accept the evidence of their senses. No, their army hadn't been driven like sheep; no, it was impossible that the insolent barbarians could approach Pekin; no, it wasn't happening at all. So they were telling each other, with Sang-kol-in-sen and Prince I spitting venom into the ear of their imbecilic Emperor, convincing the poor dupe that the sound of our guns twenty miles away was merely our last despairing gasp, and that presently we should be laid in the dust at his feet. They were ready to try to prove it, too, as you shall see.

I knew only from my guards that Pekin had proclaimed that we prisoners would be executed the moment our army advanced; I hadn't heard, thank God, that Elgin's reply was a flat defiance: he was coming to Pekin, and if a hair of our heads was hurt, God help the Emperor. Looking back now in safety, I can say he was right; if he'd weakened, those Manchoo idiots would have thought they'd won, and murdered us in sheer gloating exuberance, for that's their style. But as long as he was coming on, with blood in his eye, they held their hands out of secret fear. And he was coming, the Big Barbarian, at the double and tugging his hair; even while I crouched in that hellish cage, and while they were, dying by inches in the Board of Punishments, Grant was throwing aside his map and thrusting his sgian dhu into his boot, and Montauban was haranguing his poilus as they stuffed their cartridge-pouches. It was different, then; touch a Briton, and the lion roared once—and sprang.

They came like a whirlwind on the third day of our captivity, with a thundrous prelude of artillery that had me craning vainly at the thick wooden bars; the townsfolk scattered in panic to get out of the way as Chinese troops came pouring through the square, horse, foot and guns streaming through to the Pekin road. I was croaking with hope, expecting any moment to see the beards and puggarees and lance-heads galloping into view, when I was dragged from my cage and hauled before an armoured horseman. My cramped limbs wouldn't answer at first, but when they lashed my wrists by a long rein to his crupper, and the swine set off up the street—well, it's astonishing how you can hobble when you have to. I knew if I fell I'd be dragged and flayed to pieces, so I ran stumbling with my arms being half-torn from their sockets. Fortunately the road was so crowded with troops that he couldn't go above a trot; we must have been about a mile beyond the town, and more artillery was booming close at hand, when we came in view of an enormous bridge built of great marble blocks; it must have been thirty yards wide by three hundred long, spanning the muddy yellow Peiho. This was the bridge of Pah-li-chao, and here I saw an amazing sight.

On the approaches to the bridge, and for miles to my left, was drawn up the Chinese Imperial Army. I've heard there were thirty thousand; I'd say double that number, but no matter. They stood in perfect parade order, regiment on regiment stretching away as far as I could see: Tartar cavalry in their coloured coats and conical fur hats, lances at rest; rank after rank of massive Bannermen in clumsy armour and barred helms; Tiger soldiers like yellow Harlequins, chanting their war-song; robed jingalmen, two to a piece, their fuses smouldering; half-naked Mongol infantry like stone Buddhas with drawn swords; armoured horse-men with long spears and antique firearms, their wide plated coat-skirts giving them the appearance of gigantic beetles; pig-tailed musketeers in pyjama dresses of black silk and yellow pill-box hats; batteries of their ridiculous artillery, long-barrelled ancient cannon with muzzles carved in fantastic dragon mouths, the stone shot piled beside them, crashing out ragged salvoes that shook the ground—and over all fluttered banners of every hue and design, shimmering in the sunrise, great paper tigers and hideously-featured effigies to frighten the enemy. Above the explosion of the guns rose the hellish din of gongs and cymbals and fifes and rattles and fireworks—China hurling defiance at the barbarians. The noise swelled to a deafening crescendo as the guns fell silent; then it too died to a conclusion, and through the ranks of the tremendous host swept a roar of human sound, pealing out into a final great shout—and then silence.

Silence … a dead, eery quiet over the flat fields before the army, stretching off into the eastern haze. Nothing to be heard but the soft flap of a silk banner, the clink of a stirrup-iron, the gentle swirl of a tiny dust-devil on the marble flags of the bridge, until out of the hazy distance came the far-off voice of a bugle, followed by the faintest of whispers down the wind, a piper playing "Highland Laddie", and the great Imperial army bristled down its length like an angry cat and the horns and cymbals blared again in deafening reply.

My horseman gave an angry shout and spurred up the bridge so suddenly that I was thrown off my feet and dragged across the flags until I managed to stumble up after him. He cast me loose before a knot of mounted officers on the summit; their leader was an ugly, pock-marked mandarin in black plate armour and a pagoda helmet, who flourished a fighting-iron at me.

"Throw this pig in with the rest of the herd!" he bawls, and I saw that behind him, on the parapet, was another of their infernal cages; an iron one this time, as long as an omnibus, containing half a dozen ragged wretches. I was seized and thrust up on to the parapet and through the low iron door; a cry of astonishment met me, and then Brabazon was gripping my hand—a ragged, hollow-eyed Brabazon with his arm in a tattered sling; he was as filthy as I.

"Colonel Flashman! You're alive! Oh, thank God! Thank God you're safe, sir!"

"You call this safe, do you?" says I. He stared, and cackled.

"Eh? Oh, my word—not too safe, perhaps! No … oh, but it's famous to see you, sir! You see, we feared we were the only …" He gestured at his companions—a couple of Sikhs, trying to sit up to attention, a dragoon half-slumped down against the bars, a frail little stick of a man with long silver hair, in a priest's robe. "But Mr Parkes, sir? Mr Loch? What of them?"

I said I believed they were dead. He groaned, and then cried: "Well, at least you're alive, sir!", and the dragoon chuckled, raising his head.

"Shure, an' why wouldn't he be? Ye don't kill Flash Harry that easy—do ye, colonel?" says Trooper Nolan.

He had a bloody bandage round his brow, and there was dried blood on his cheek, but he was wearing the same slack, calculating grin as he stared at me across the cage. Brabazon gobbled indignantly.

"It's not for you to say so, my man! How dare you address an officer in that familiar style?" He grimaced admiringly at me. "Mind you, it's true what he says, sir! They can't keep you down, can they? I'm sure he meant no harm, sir!"

"None taken, my boy," says I, and sank down in the straw opposite Nolan. I'd forgotten all about the blackmailing brute—and now my fears came rushing back at the sight of that knowing peasant grin. You may think I should have had more immediate cares, but the very sight of these five other prisoners had sent my spirits soaring. Plainly they were regarding us as hostages, and would keep us alive to the bitter end—and when we were free again, there would still be Nolan. I could see he was already contemplating that happy prospect, for when a renewed cannonade by the Chink guns took Brabazon to the bars for a look-see, he leaned forward towards me and says quietly:

"Shure, an' mebbe we'll be havin' our little talk after all, colonel."

"Any talking we do can wait until we're out of this," says I, equally quiet. "Until then, hold your tongue."

His grin faded to an ugly look. "We'll see about dat," he whispered. "Whether I hold it or not … depends, does it not, sorr?"

He sat back against the bars, glowering truculently, and just then there was a sudden uproar on the bridge, and Brabazon was shouting to me to come and look. Smoke was swirling over the bridge from the nearest battery, but when it cleared I saw that the mandarin and his staff were at the parapet just beneath us, pointing and yelling excitedly, and there, far out on the plain, where visibility ended in a bright haze flecked gold by the morning sun, little figures were moving—hundreds of them, advancing out of the mist towards the Imperial army. They couldn't be more than a mile away, French infantry in open order, rifles at the trail; their trumpets were sounding through the thunder of the Chinese guns, and as the stone shot kicked up fountains of dust among them they held on steadily, moving directly towards us, the Tricolour standards waving before them.

"Oh, vive la France!" mutters Brabazon. "Strange little buggers. See 'em strut, though! Stick it, you Frogs!"

The Chinese horns and gongs were going full blast now, and there was more hullaballoo and racing about on the bridge as lines of British and Indian infantry came into view on the French left flank; in between there was a little line of dust, thrown up by hooves, and above it the twinkling lance-points and the thin slivers of the sabres: Fane's Horse and the Dragoon Guards, knee to knee. Down beyond the parapet the Chinese gunners were labouring like billy-be-damned; their shot was churning the ground all along the allied line, but still it came on, unhurried and unbroken, and the Chinks were yelling exultantly in their ranks, their banners waving in triumph, for out on the plain could be seen how small was our army, advancing on that mighty mass of Imperials, who outflanked it half a mile on either side. Brabazon was muttering excitedly, speaking my own thought:

"Oh, run away, you silly Chinamen! You ain't got a hope!"

There was a great stir to the Imperial right, and we saw the Tartar horse were advancing, a great mass swinging out to turn the British flank; the Armstrong shells were bursting above them, little flashes of flame and smoke, but they held together well, weathering it as their stride lengthened to a canter, and Brabazon was beating his fist on the bars.

"My God, do they think Grant's asleep? He's been up for hours, you foolish fellows—look! Look there!"

For suddenly a trumpet was shrilling from the allied line, and like a gate swinging on its hinge our cavalry came drumming out of the centre, sweeping round in a deadly arc, the lances going down and the sabres twinkling as they were advanced; like a great fist they tore into the Tartar flank, scattering them, riding them down; as the enemy cavalry wavered and gave back, with Fane's and the Dragoons tearing into their heart, there was another blast of trumpets, and Probyn's riders came charging in to complete the rout. Brabazon was bellowing like a madman, and the two Sikhs were dancing at the bars: "Yah sowar! Sat-sree-akal! Shabash!"

Suddenly one of the Sikhs yelled and fell back, blood welling from a gash in his thigh. Nolan caught him, swearing in amazement, and then we saw the Bannerman on the bridge beneath us, screaming curses and brandishing a bloody spear. The mandarin's staff were shaking their fists at the cage, until the crash of an Armstrong shell on the bridge end sent them headlong for cover; another burst on the far parapet, splinters whining everywhere; the Armstrongs had ranged on the Chinese guns' positions, and through the thunder of the Imperial salvoes we could hear the thumping strains of the "Marseillaise"; there were the dear little Crapauds storming into the Chinese forward positions, with the Armstrong bursts creeping ahead of them; behind the Chink front line it was like an antheap kicked over, and then another shell burst plumb on the summit of the bridge and we were dashed to the floor of the cage.

When I raised my head Brabazon was back at the bars, staring down in disgust at a bloody palpitating mass on the flags which had been a Bannerman, or possibly two. The ugly mandarin was standing beside it, staring at a bloody gash on his hand, and Brabazon, the eternal oaf, had to sing out:

"Take that, you villain! That'll teach you to attack a prisoner!"

The mandarin looked up. He couldn't understand the words, but he didn't need to. I never saw such livid hate in a human face, and I thought we were goners there and then. Then he strode to the cage, gibbering with fury.

"Fan-qui scum! You see this?" He flourished his bloody hand. "For every wound I take, one of you dies! I'll send his head back to your gunners, you spawn of the White Whore!" He turned to scream orders to his men, and I thought, oh Jesus, here goes one of us, but it was evidently a promise for the future, for all their response was to line the parapet and blaze away with their jingals at the Frogs, who were still engaged in the forward entrenchments three hundred yards away.

"What did he say?" Brabazon was demanding. "Sir—what was he shouting at us?"

None of them understood Chinese, of course. The unwounded Sikh and the little priest were bandaging the wounded man's leg; Nolan was a yard off, slightly behind me; Brabazon at my side, questioning. And in that moment I had what I still maintain was one of the most brilliant inspirations of my life—and I've had one or two.

Hoaxing Bismarck into a prize-fight, convincing Jefferson Davis that I'd come to fix the lightning-rod, hitting Rudi Starnberg with a bottle of Cherry Heering, hurling Valentina out of the sledge into a snow-drift—all are fragrant leaves to press in the book of memory. But I'm inclined to think Pah-li-chao was my finest hour.

"What did he say, sir?" cried Brabazon again. I shook my head, shrugging, and spoke just loud enough for Nolan to overhear.

"Well, someone's in luck. He's going to send one of us under a white flag to the Frogs. Try to make terms, I suppose. Well, he can see it's all up."

"Good heavens!" cries Brabazon. "Then we're saved!"

"I doubt that," says I. "Oh, the chap who goes will be all right. But the Frogs won't parley—I wouldn't, if I commanded 'em. What, trust these yellow scoundrels? When the game's all but won? No, the French ain't such fools. They'll refuse … and we know what our-captors will do then …" I looked him in the eye. "Don't we?"

Now, if we'd been a directors' meeting, no doubt there'd have been questions, and eleventeen holes shot in my specious statement—but prisoners in a cage surrounded by blood-thirsty Chinks don't reason straight (well, I do, but most don't). Any-way, I was the bloody colonel, so he swallowed it whole.

"My God!" says he, and went grey. "But if the French commander knows that five lives are —"

"He'll do his duty, my boy. As you or I would."

His head came up. "Yes, sir … of course. Who shall go, sir? It ought to be … you."

I gave him my wryest Flashy grin and clapped him on the shoulder. "Thanks, my son. But it won't do. No … I think we'll leave it to chance, what? Let the Chinks pick the lucky one."

He nodded—and behind me I could almost hear Nolan's ears waving as he took it all in. Brabazon stepped resolutely away from the cage door. I stayed at the bars, studying the mandarin's health.

There had been a brief lull in the Armstrong barrage, but now they began again; the Frogs were trying to carry the second line of works, and making heavy weather of it. The jingal-men were firing volleys from the bridge, the ugly mandarin rushing about in the smoke, exhorting 'em to aim low for the honour of old Pekin High School, no doubt. He even jumped on the parapet, waving his sword; you won't last long, you silly sod, thinks I—sure enough, came a blinding flash that rocked the ,cage, and when the smoke had cleared, there were half a dozen Manchoos splattered on the marble, and the mandarin leaning on the parapet, clutching his leg and bawling for the ambulance.

My one fear was that he'd have Brabazon marked down as his victim, but he hadn't. He was a man of his word, though; he screamed an order, there was a rush of armoured feet, the cage door was flung open, a Manchoo officer poked his head in, shrieking—and Trooper Nolan, glaring desperately about him, had made good and sure he was closest to the door. The Manchoo officer shouted again, gesturing; Nolan, wearing what I can best describe as a grin of gloating guilt, took a step towards him; Brabazon was standing back, ramrod-straight, while I did my damnedest not to catch the chairman's eye.

"Take him!" yells the officer, and two of his minions p-lunged in and flung Nolan from the cage. The door slammed shut, I sighed and loafed across to it, looking down through the_: bars at him as he stood gripped by two Bannermen.

"Be sure and tell 'em about Tang-ku Fort," says I sotfly, and he goggled in bewilderment. Then, as they ran him to the parapet, he must have realised what was happening for he began to struggle and yell, and I staggered back from the door, crying to Brabazon in stricken accents:

"My God! What are they doing? Why, that lying hound of a mandarin—ah, no, it cannot be!"

They had forced Nolan to his knees before the wounded mandarin, who left off bellowing long enough to spit in his face; then they hauled him up on to the parapet, and while two gripped his arms and bent him double, a third seized his hair and dragged his head forward. The officer drew his sword shook back his sleeve, and braced himself.

"Mother o' mercy! Oh, Christ, don't -!"

The scream ended abruptly—cut off, as you might say, and I sank my face into my hands with a hollow groan, reflecting that who steals my purse may get away with it, but he who filches from me my good name will surely find his tits in the wringer.

"The filthy butchers!" roars Brabazon. "Oh, the poor fellow! But why, in heaven's name, when they'd said —"

"Because that's the kind of swine John Chinaman is!" I growled. "They lie for the pleasure of it, Brabazon!"

He gritted his teeth and drew a shuddering breath. " And my last words to him were a rebuke! Did you … did you know him well, sir?"

"Well enough," I said. "A rough diamond, but … Here, how are the Frogs getting along?"

In fact, they were making capital progress, bayonetting away with élan in the second entrenchment, and while the Chinese positions to the right were hidden by smoke, from th sounds of things the British attack was going well. The Imps seemed to be giving back all along the line; hundreds of them were streaming over the bridge, with officers trying to rally then, riding about and howling, but there was only one way the battle could go—the question was, would they slaughter us before could be rescued? Torn between terror and hope, I reckoned it was odds on our preservation, unless that reckless fool of a mandarin stopped another splinter—in which case we'd better chivvy up the priest, he being well stricken in years and presumably in a state of grace. I looked anxiously for the mandarin, and saw he was being held up by two of his pals while directing operations; but the Armstrongs seemed to have given over for the moment, and clattering up the bridge came a cavalcade of gorgeously-armoured nobles, accompanied by standard-bearers; my heart rose in my throat as I saw that their leader was Sang-kol-in-sen.

He was reining up, addressing the mandarin, and now the whole gang turned towards the cage, the mandarin pointing and yelling orders. My knees gave under me—hell, were they going to serve us as they'd served Nolan? The Bannermen swarmed in and three of us were hauled out—they left the Sikhs, and in a moment I understood why. For they flung us down on the flags before Sang's horse, and that ghoulish face was turned on us, pale eyes glaring under the wizard's helmet, as he demanded to know if any of us spoke Chinese.

Now, he wasn't asking that for the purpose of execution, so I hauled myself upright and said I did. He considered me, frowning malevolently, and then snarled:

"Your name, reptile?"

"Flashman, colonel on the staff of Lord Elgin. I demand the immediate release of myself and my four companions, as well as —"

"Silence, foulness!" he screamed, on such a note that his pony reared, and he hammered its head with his mailed glove to quiet it. "Snake! Pig!" He leaned down from the saddle, mouthing like a madman, and struck me across the face. "Open your mouth again and it will be sewn up! Bring him!" He wheeled his mount and clattered away, and I was seized, my wrists bound, and I was flung bodily on to a cart. As it rolled away I had one glimpse of Brabazon looking after me, and the little priest, head bowed, telling his beads. I never saw them again. No one did.³⁴

This may seem an odd time to mention it, but my entry to Pekin recalls a conversation which I had a couple of years ago with the eminent wiseacre and playwright, George B. Shaw (as I call him, to his intense annoyance, though it don't rile him as much as "Bloomsbury Bernie"). I was advising him on pistol-play for a frightful pantomime he was writing about a lynching in a Kansas cow-town³⁵ ; discussing hangings set him off on the subject of pain in general, and he advanced the fatuous opinion that mental anguish was worse than physical. When I could get a word in, I asked him if spiritual torment had ever made him vomit; he allowed it hadn't, so I told him what my Apache wife had done to Ilario the scalp-hunter, and had the satisfaction of watching our leading dramatist bolting for the lavatory with his handkerchief to his mouth. (Of course, I didn't get the better of him; as he said later, it was the thought that had made him spew, not pain itself. The hell with him.)

I reflect on this only because the most prolonged pain I ever endured—and I've been shot, stabbed, hung by the heels, flogged, half-drowned, and even stretched on the rack—was on the road into Pekin. All they did was tie my hands and feet—and pour water on my bonds; then they hauled my wrists up behind me and tied 'em to a spar above the cart, and set off at a slow trot. The blazing sun and the bouncing cart did the rest; I'll not describe it, because I can't, save to say that the fiery agony in wrists and ankles spreads through every nerve of your body until you're a living mass of pain, which will eventually drive you mad. Luckily, Pekin is only eleven miles from Tangchoa.

I don't remember much except the pain—long rows of suburbs, yellow faces jeering and spitting into the cart, a towering redoubt of purple stone topped by crenellated turrets (the Anting Gate), foul narrow streets, a blue-covered carriage with the driver sitting on the shaft—he called to his passengers to look, and I was aware of two cold, lovely female faces regarding me without expression as I half-hung, whimpering, in my bonds. They weren't shocked, or pitying, or amused, or even curious; merely indifferent, and in my agony I felt such a blazing rage of hatred that I was almost exalted by it—and now I can say, arrant coward that I am, that at least I understand how martyrs bear their tortures: they may have faith, and hope, and all the rest of it, but greater than these is blind, unquenchable red anger. It sustained me, I know—the will to endure and survive and make those ice-faced bitches howl for mercy.

It must have cleared my mind, for I remember distinctly coloured pagoda roofs bigger than I'd ever seen, and a teahouse with dragons' heads above its eaves, and the great scarlet Gate of Valour into the Imperial City—for Pekin, you must know, is many cities within each other, and innermost of all is the Forbid-den City, the Paradise, the Great Within, girded by gleaming yellow walls and entered by the Gate of Supreme Harmony.

There are palaces for seven hundred princes within the Imperial City, but they pale before the Great Within. It is simply not of this world. Like the Summer Palace, outside Pekin, it's entirely cut off from reality, a dreamland, if you like, where the Emperor and his creatures live out a great play in their stately halls and gorgeous gardens, and all that matters is formality and linger-nails and fornication. Nothing is seen or heard of the rest of mankind, except what his ministers think fit. There he dwells, remote as a god, sublime not in omniscience but in ignorance, lost to the world. He might as well be in the Athenaeum.

I saw most of it, later—the Palace of Earthly Repose, for the Emperor's consort; the Temple of Imperial Ancestors, for sacrifices; the Gate of Extensive Peace, a hundred and ten feet high, for kow-towing; the Hall of Intense Mental Exercise, for studying Confucius; the Temple of the Civic Deity—don't know what that's for, paying rates, I dare say—and the library, the portrait hall, and even the office of the local rag, the Imperial Gazette, which circulates every day to all the nobles and officials in China. That's the unreality of the country—they nail thieves' hands together, and have a daily paper.

For the moment all I saw was the great gilt copper tower in which incense is kept perpetually burning, filling the city with its sweet, musky odour; and beyond it the holy of holies, the Palace of Heavenly Tranquillity (which it ain't). I was dragged in through a round doorway, and flung into a great room utterly bare of furniture, where I lay for several hours on a cold marble floor, too sick and sore and parched even to move, or to do anything except groan. I must have slept, for suddenly I was aware of tramping feet, and a door crashing open, and the glare of torches, and the revolting face of Sang-kol-in-sen glaring down at me.

He was still in full martial fig, brazen breastplate, mailed gloves, spurred greaves, and all, but with a fur-lined robe of green silk over his shoulders. He was bare-headed, so I had the benefit of his bald Mongol skull as well as the obscene little beard on the brutal moon-features. He fetched me a shattering kick and shouted:

"Get on your knees, louse!"

I tried to obey, but my limbs were so painful that I pitched over, and received several more kicks before I managed to kneel, croaking for a drink of water. "Silence!" he bawled, and cuffed me left and right, cracking the skin with his brass fingers. I crouched, sobbing, and he laughed at me spitefully. "A soldier, you!" He kicked me again. He didn't seem to remember me from Tang-ku Fort, not that that was any comfort.

There were two Manchoo Bannermen flanking the door, and now came two others, bearing an open sedan in which sat Prince I, the skull-faced monster who had raved and shrieked at Parkes at Tang-chao. He looked even more of a spectre in the glare of torchlight, sitting lean and motionless in his shimmering yellow robe, hands on knees—the silver cases on his nails came half-way down his shins. Only his eyes moved, gleaming balefully on me. To complete the comedy trio there was a burly, thick-lipped Manchoo in dragon robes, his fingers heavy with rings, a ruby button in his hat. This, I was to learn, was Sushun, the Assistant Grand Secretary of the Imperial Government, a vulture for corruption and the Emperor's tutor in vice and debauchery, on which, to judge by his pupil's condition, he must have been the greatest authority since Caligula. To me, for the moment, he was only another very nasty-looking Manchoo.

"Is this the creature?" growls Sang, and Prince I nodded imperceptibly, and piped in his thin voice: "He was with Pa-hsia-li when that lying dog deceived us at Tang-chao."

"Then he may go the way of Pa-hsia-li," snarls Sang. "It is enough for the moment that he is what the barbarian scum call an officer. An officer!" He stooped to scream in my face:

"Who is your commander, pig-dung?"

"General Sir Hope —" I was beginning, and he knocked me flying with his boot.

"You lie! You have no generals! Who commands your ships?" "Admiral Ho —"

He screamed and stamped on my arm, agonisingly. "Another lie! You have no admirals! You are barbarian swine—you have no nobles, no officers, no generals or colonels or admirals! You have animals who grunt louder than the rest, you offal! That is all!" He was bent over me, raving, spraying me with his spittle, glaring like a maniac. Then he straightened up, snarling, and snapped an order to the Bannermen.

I was huddled, babbling to be let alone, terrified as much by the brute's frenzied ranting as by what he might do to me. And what happened now reduced me to the final depth of fear.

The Bannermen were carrying in a stool, on which was seated a naked Chinese, a white, shuddering figure who seemed to have no arms—until I realised that they were clamped tight against his body by a horrible coat of meshed wire, bound so tight that his flesh protruded through the spaces in obscene lumps about the size of finger-tips. It covered him from neck to knee, and I've seen nothing more disgusting than that trembling, rippled skin in its hideous wire casing.

They plumped the stool down in front of me, the poor wretch slobbering with terror.

"The wire jacket," says Sang, grinning. "Even a benighted worm of a fan-qui must have heard of it." Without taking his eyes from me he beckoned, and one of the Bannermen came forward, carrying an open razor. He laid the shining blade on the victim's shoulder, and the fellow jerked and squealed at the touch of the steel. Sang watched me, and then nodded, the Bannerman flicked his wrist, the trembling mouth before me gaped in a dreadful scream, and one of the flesh-lumps had vanished, replaced by a tiny disc of blood which coursed down the naked arm.

Sang bellowed with laughter, absolutely slapping his sides, and the burly Sushun came forward, chuckling, to peer at the wound. I turned my head aside, gagging, and received a stinging slap across the face.

"Watch, coward!" roars Sang, and slapped me again. "Now," says he, "a wearer of the wire jacket has been known to receive as many as ten thousand cuts … and still live. Indeed, he may live for months, if the executioner is patient, and eventually he will have no skin at all." He laughed again, enjoying my terror. "But if a quicker despatch is desired …" He nodded again, and the Bannerman's razor streaked down the full length of the victim's arm.

I didn't faint. I could wish I had, for I'd have been spared the tortured screaming, and the diabolical laughter, if not the bloody pool which remained on the marble after they'd carried that babbling wretch out of the room. I wonder I didn't go crazy; I fairly grovelled to these fiends, begging them to let me be, not to cut me, anything so they spared me that unthinkable cruelty. Oh, I've faced some horrors in my time—Narreeman and her knife, Mimbreno squaws out for an evening's amusement, Malagassy inquisitors, and Ignatieff with his knout, but nothing more ghastly than the gloating enjoyment of those two devils, Sang and Sushun. Prince I sat in the background, immobile, his face expressionless.

"You have seen, dog-dirt," snarls Sang. "Now hear. You will wear the wire jacket, I swear, and when your foul carcase has been flayed, an inch at a time, it will be thrown to the maggots—and still you will be living. Unless you obey to the uttermost the orders we give you. Do you hear me, kite?"

I'd do anything, I whined, anything he asked, and he seemed satisfied and kicked me again for luck. He thrust his face into mine, dropping his voice to a mere rasp:

"You are to be honoured beyond your bestial imagining. You are going into the Divine Presence, and you will go like the crawling animal you are, on your knees, and you will speak. This is what you will say." He gestured to Sushun, and the burly brute swaggered forward, towering over me, and shouted:

"I am a Banner chief in the Red-haired Army, a trusted creature of the Big Barbarian. See, I lay at your Divine Feet the unworthy sword which, misbegotten foreign slave that I am, I dared to raise in revolt against the authority of the Complete Abundance. I was misled by evil counsellors, my master the Big Barbarian and the arch-liar Pa-hsia-li, who tempted me from my allegiance to the glorious Kwa-Kuin, the Tien-tze, the Son of Heaven. I marched in their army, which prevailed by lies and treachery against the trusting and unwary generals of the Divine Emperor. At Sinho, for example, we succeeded only by despicable fraud, for our leaders bade us perform the kow-tow before the Imperial soldiers,³⁶ and when they approached in good faith we fired on them treacherously and so overcame them for the moment. Thus we continued, in stealth and trickery, lying shamelessly to the Imperial ambassadors when they besought us gently to repent our rebellion and return to our duty to you, the Son of Heaven who rules All Under the Skies. Pa-hsia-li lied, the Big Barbarian lied, we all lied, but now we see our error; we tremble under the just wrath of your servant, Prince Sang, who has chastised us; dismay and fear spread through our ranks, our soldiers run crying away, our evil leaders cannot control them. The Big Barbarian bites his nails and weeps in his tent; all our soldiers and sailors weep. We beg your Divine Forgiveness, kneeling, and acknowledge your supremacy, oh Son of Heaven. Be merciful, accept our homage, for we were misled by evil people."

Well, I've talked greater rubbish in my time; he could have it signed and witnessed if he wanted. But even in my abject terror, kneeling almost in the blood of the wire jacket victim, with those madmen screaming at me, I couldn't help wondering what mortal use they thought it would be. Within a week their precious Son of Heaven was going to be brought face to face with the Big Barbarian, who'd make him eat crow and like it; the despised Red-headed soldiers would march the sacred streets of the Forbidden City, and get drunk, and piss against his temple walls, and accost his women, and kick his mandarins' backsides if they didn't stir themselves. And since nothing in Heaven or earth could prevent that—and Sang and Sushun and Prince I knew it—what was the point of stuffing the Emperor's ears with nonsense at the eleventh hour, when he'd learn the dreadful truth at the twelfth?

I still didn't understand, you see, the blind arrogant stupidity of the Manchoo mind—that even if Elgin stood in the Emperor's presence, his ministers would still pretend he wasn't there at all; that they'd be whispering him just to wait, this foreign pig would be brought to book presently, and his army thrashed; that none of it was happening, because it couldn't happen, Q.E.D. And in the meantime, here was a high-ranking British Officer to tell him the same tale, what more proof could His Majesty want?

They had me rehearsing it now, and you may be sure I howled it with a will, even throwing in corroborative detail of my own about how my family (including little golden-headed Amelia, of blessed memory) were held hostage by Elgin's villains, to coerce me into rebellion against my better judgment. D'you know, they were delighted—I ain't sure they didn't believe it. Sang bellowed and kicked me with enthusiasm, and Prince I said coldly they had chosen well. Sushun spat on me to show his approval. Then:

"Strip the swine!" cried Sang, and the Bannermen cut my cords, tore off my clothes, gave me a rag of loin-cloth such as coolies wear, and replaced my bonds with ponderous steel fetters whose links must have been two inches thick. I now looked abject enough to satisfy them, but they kept my lancer tunic, belt, boots and spurs, to show their lord and master, and produced a ridiculous Oriental sword which would be laid at his Divine Feet during my speech to the throne. Then they left me for about an hour, half-dead with pain and fear and icy cold, mumbling over the farrago of drivel that I knew I would be repeating for my very life. But after that …

Suddenly it was on-stage with a vengeance, with the Banner-men hauling me out and along passages and up stairways, beating me with their spear-shafts while I laboured with the dead-weight of my chains. We passed through chambers where Chinese officials stared curiously, and uniformed Bannermen guarded the round crimson doorways; I remember a carpeted gallery crammed with porcelain statues of grotesque figures with enormous teeth and staring eyes; then they were driving me out across a polished marble floor like a frozen lake, reflecting a great hall as long and high as a church, with a bass gong booming hollowly in its emptiness. Huge vases, three times the height of a man, stood on either side of that cavernous apartment, which was lit by great lanterns with candles of perfumed wax; three-quarters of its length was only dimly-lighted, but at the far end, above three tiers of broad marble steps, was a dais on which was seated a golden figure, shining in the flames of the great candlebranches flanking his throne, a massive ebony contraption inlaid all over with mother-of-pearl. Robed figures, about a dozen of them, stood on the steps, to either side; there was Sang, and Prince I, and Sushun, but I had little chance to take 'em in, for my Bannermen flung me headlong, and I had to crawl the whole damned way, dragging those beastly irons, and staring at the reflection of the naked, bearded wretch in the glassy floor beneath me. Hollo, Flashy, old son, I thought, bellows to mend again, my boy, but you keep going and speak civil to the gentleman and you'll get a sugar-plum at tea.

The gong had stopped, and the only sounds in that joss-laden silence were clanks and laboured breathing; I reached the steps, and under the Bannermen's proddings dragged my way upwards, kow-towing all the way; thirty-three of them were there, and then I stopped, sprawled stark, with a pair of yellow velvet boots just ahead, and the hem of a robe that seemed to be made of solid gold inlaid with emeralds.

"He doesn't look like a soldier," said a drowsy voice. "Where is his armour? Why is he not wearing it?"

"Your slave, kneeling, begs Your Imperial Majesty to look on these rags of garments which the Red-headed savages wear." This was Sang, and it was the first time I'd heard him speak at anything but the top of his voice. "They have no armour."

"No armour?" says the other. "They must be very brave."

That's foxed you, you bastard, thinks I, but after a minute Sushun explained that we were so bloody backward we hadn't thought of armour yet, and Sang cried aye, that was it.

"No armour," says the drowsy voice, "yet they have great guns. That is not consistent. You—how is it that you have guns, but no armour?"

"Address the Son of Heaven, pig!" yells Sang, and the Bannermen bashed me with their spear-shafts. I scrambled to my knees, looked up—and blinked. For if the fellow on the throne wasn't Basset, my orderly from the 11th Hussars, he was dooced like him, except that he was Chinese, you understand. It was just one of those odd resemblances—the same puffy, pasty, weak young face and little mouth, with a pathetic scrap of hair on the upper lip; but where Basset's eyes had been weasel-sharp, this fellow's were watery and dull. He looked as though he'd spent the last ten years in a brothel—which wasn't far wrong.³⁷ All this I took in at a glance, and then hastened to answer his question.

"Our guns, majesty," says I, "were stolen from your imperial army." At least that ought to please Sang, but with a face like his you couldn't be sure.

"And your ships?" says the drowsy voice. "Your iron ships. How do you make such things?"

By George, this wasn't going according to Sushun's scenario at all. Here was I, all ready with a prepared statement, and this inquisitive oaf of an Emperor asking questions which I daren't answer truthfully, or Sang would have my innards all over the yard.

"I know of no iron ships, majesty," says I earnestly. "I think they are a lie. I have never seen them."

"I have seen pictures," says he sulkily, and thought for a moment, an unhappy frown on his soft yellow face. "You must have come to the Middle Kingdom in a ship—was it not of iron?" He looked ready to cry.

"It was a very old wooden ship, majesty," says I. "Full of rats and leaked like a sieve. I didn't want to come," I cried on a sudden inspiration, "but I was seduced from my allegiance to your Divine Person by evil people like Pa-hsia-li and the Big Barbarian, you see, and they made me a Banner chief in the Red-headed Army and a trusted creature of the Big Barbarian himself, and …"

It was the only way I could get into Sushun's speech and forestall further embarrassment; I poured it out, keeping my eyes lowered and knocking head obsequiously at intervals, and putting a heart-rending pathos into my final appeal for his Divine Forgiveness. If he'd then said, what about all these railways and telegraphs and the Crystal Palace, hey, I'd have been stumped, but he didn't. Silence reigned, and when I stole a glance up at the Imperial Throne, damned if he hadn't gone to sleep! Bored stiff, no doubt, but highly disconcerting when you've been pleading for your life, and Sang and Sushun glaring like Baptists at a Mass. None of 'em seemed to know what to do; the Son of Heaven smacked his lips, broke wind gently, and began to snore. There were whispered consultations, and finally one of them went off and returned with a stout little pug in a plain robe, who approached the throne, knocked head, and began to tickle the royal ankle.

The Emperor grunted, woke, stared around, and asked sleepily which tortoiseshell was turned over tonight.

"The Fragrant Almond Leopardess, oh Kwa-Kuin Ruling the World," squeaks the stout party, and the Emperor pulled a face.

"No!" says he petulantly. "She is large and clumsy and without culture. She sings like a crow." He sniggered, and Sang and the others, who'd been mirroring his disapproval, chuckled heartily. "Let it be the Orchid," says the Emperor, sighing happily, and everyone beamed; I may even have nodded approbation myself, for he looked at me again, and frowned.

"I saw a picture of an iron ship with three great chimneys," says he sadly, and then he got up unsteadily, and everyone dropped to their knees, crying: "There cannot be two suns in the heaven!" and knocked head vigorously. I watched him shuffle off, attended by the stout fellow; he walked like an old, sick man, for all he couldn't have been thirty. The Solitary Prince, Son of Heaven, the most absolute monarch on earth, yearning for a trip on a steamship.

The fact remained that he hadn't told 'em to give Flashy a pound from the till and a ticket to Tooting; I doubted if Sang would either, for-while I'd done my damnedest to carry out his orders, I knew I hadn't made much of a hit, and if he was displeased … my fears were realised as I was abruptly jerked to my feet, and that hateful voice was snarling at the Bannermen:

"Put him below! Tomorrow he can join the other barbarian curs in the Board of Punishments."

My blood froze at the words, and as they seized my fetters I was foolish enough to protest. "But you swore to let me off! I said what you wanted, didn't I? You said you'd spare me, you lying beast!"

He was on me like a tiger, striking viciously at my face while I cowered and yammered. "I said I would spare you the wire jacket!" he shouted, and fetched me a final clip that knocked me down. "So, I will spare you … the wire jacket! You may yet come to beg for it as a blessed release! Away with him!"

They hauled me off, and since I was in such fear that I woke the echoes with my roaring, they gagged me brutally before rushing me down a spiral stairway. It wasn't the way we'd come, and I was expecting stone cells and dripping walls, but evidently they didn't have such amenities in the Emperor's private apartments, for the room they thrust me into seemed to be a furniture store, dry and musty, but clean enough, with chairs and tables piled against the walls. The swine made me as comfortable as possible, though, throwing me back down on a narrow wooden bench and shackling my wrists so tightly beneath it that I couldn't budge an inch and must lie there supine with my legs trailing on the floor either side. Then they left me, a prey to the most horrid imaginings, and unable even to whine and curse by reason of my gag.

The Board of Punishments … I'd heard of it, and horrid rumours of what happened there—if I'd known what Parkes and Loch and the others were already suffering, I'd have gone off my head. Mercifully, I didn't know, and strove to drive the awful fears out of my mind, telling myself that the army was only a few miles away, that even mad monsters like Sang must realise the vengeance that Elgin would take if we were ill-treated, and hold his hand … and then I remembered Moyes and Nolan, and the vicious, mindless spite with which they'd been murdered, and I knew that my only hope was that rescue would get here in time. They were so close! Grant and the Frogs and Probyn and Nuxban Khan and Wolseley and Temple, those splendid Sikhs and Afghans and Royals; I could weep to think of them in their safe, strong, familiar world, loafing under the canvas, sitting about on Payne & Co's boxes, reading the Daily Press, chewing the rag about … what had it been, that evening a century ago, before we rode to Tang-chao! … oh, aye, the military steeplechase at Northampton, won by a Dragoon over twenty fences and three ploughs, and spectators riding alongside had spoiled sport … "Goin' to ride next year, Flash?" "Garn, he's top-heavy!" "They say the Navy are enterin' in '61—sailors on horseback, haw-haw!" That's how they'd be gassing and boozing and idling away precious time, the selfish bastards, while I was bound shivering and naked and near-demented with fear of what lay ahead …

I must have dozed, for I came awake freezing cold, racked by pain where the sharp edges of the bench were cutting into the back of my shoulders and thighs. It was still night, for the window was dark, but through the lattice door light was streaming, light that moved—someone was quietly descending the stairway to my prison. There was a murmur of Chinese voices just outside: one a falsetto squeak that I seemed to have heard before, and the other … even to my battered senses it was one of the loveliest human sounds I'd ever listened to, soft and tinkling as a silver bell, the kind of voice a happy angel might have had—a slightly excited, tipsy angel.

"Is this the room, Little An?" it was whispering. "You're sure? Well, take me in, then! Hurry, I want to see!"

"But, Orchid Lady, it is madness!" whimpers Squeaker. "If we were seen! Please, let us go back—I'm frightened!"

"Stop trembling or you'll drop me! Oh, come on, fat, foolish, frightened Little An—be a man!"

"How can I? I'm a eunuch! And it's cruel and mean and unworthy to taunt me—aiee! Oh! You pinched me! Oh, vicious, when you know I bruise at the least nip —"

"Yes, so think how you'll bruise when the Mongols take their flails to you, little jelly ..

"You wouldn't!"

"I would. I will, unless you take me in and let me see—now." "Oh, this is wilful! It's wicked! And dangerous! Please, dear Imperial Concubine Yi, why can't we just go upstairs and —" "Because I've never seen a barbarian. And I'm going to, dear Little An." The lovely voice chuckled, and began to sing softly: "Oh, I'm going to see a barbarian, I'm going to see a barbarian …"

"Oh, please, please, Orchid Lady, quietly! Oh, very well —" The door opened, and light flooded into the room.

Dazzled, all I could make out at first was a short, stout figure carrying someone—a child, by the look of it. Then the lantern was placed on a cupboard, so that it shone down on me, and as they advanced into the room I saw that the bearer was the portly cove who'd scratched the Emperor's foot in the Hall of Audience; his burden was wrapped in a scarlet silk cloak with a hood keeping the face in shadow.

"Well!" hisses the eunuch. "There it is—I hope you're satisfied! Risking our lives just to gape at that monster—to say nothing of the scandal if it were known that the Empress of the Western Palace was sneaking about —"

"Oh, shut up, pudding," says she in that silvery chuckle. "And put me down."

"No! We're going—we must, before —"

"Put me down! And close the door."

He gave a hysterical whimper and obeyed, and she circled the bench none too steadily, giggling and clutching the cloak tightly under her chin. She craned foward to look at me, and the light fell on the most beautiful face I've ever seen in my life.

I've said that of three women, and still do—Elspeth, Lola Montez … and Yehonala Tzu-hsi, the Orchid, the incomparable Yi Concubine. And it's true of each in her own way: fair Elspeth, dark Lola … and Yehonala was the Orient, in all its pearly delicacy of flower-like skin, lustrous black eyes, slender little nose, cherry mouth with the full lower lip, tiny even teeth, all in a perfect oval face; add that her hair was blue-black, coiled in the Manchoo style—and you ain't much wiser, for there are no words to describe that pure loveliness. Who could have guessed that it masked a nature compounded of all the seven deadly sins except envy and sloth? But even when you knew it, it didn't matter one damned bit, with that breath-taking beauty. She said it herself: "I can make people hate me—or love me with blind worship. I have that power."

All I knew then, as she surveyed me, swaying and tittering excitedly, was that I'd never seen the like, and I can pay the little heart-stopper no-higher tribute than to say that my first wish was that I had my uniform and a shave—being flat on your hack, gagged and bound in a filthy loin-cloth, cramps the style no end. My second thought was that whoever had painted her mouth purple and her eyelids silver, with devil's streaks slanting up the brows, had done her no service—and then I noticed that the black pupils were shrunk to pin-points, and the perfect lips were loosely open. She was rollicking drunk on opium. Her first words confirmed it, I'd say.

"Ughh! He's … disgusting. Not human! Look at the hair on his chest—like an ape!" She shivered deliciously. "Are they all like this?"

"What did you expect?" pipes An fearfully. "I told you, but you wouldn't listen! Yes, they're all like that—some are even worse. Revolting. Now, please, come away —"

"They can't be uglier than this! See his dreadful great nose—like a vulture's beak! And his ears! And his hair!" She gurgled hysterically, and the lovely face came closer, wrinkling delicately. "He smells, too—ugh!"

"They all smell! Like sour pork! Oh, Orchid Lady, why do you wait, staring at the beastly thing! He's a barbarian! Very well, you've seen him! And unless we make haste —"

"Be quiet! I want to look at him … he's grotesque! Those huge shoulders … and his skin!" She put out a slim white hand, whose silver nails were two-inch talons, and brushed my chest with her finger-tips. "It's like ox-hide—feel!" She squeaked with delight.

"I'll do no such thing! And neither will you—stop it, I say! Eegh! To touch that foulness—how can you bear it? Oh, Orchid, mistress, I beg you, come before anyone finds us!"

"But his arms and legs, An—they're enormous! Like an elephant. He must," says she, all tipsy solemnity, "be terribly strong … strong as a bull, wouldn't you think?"

"Yes, as a bull—and quite as interesting! Imperial Concubine Yi, this is not fitting! Please, I implore you—let us go quickly!"

"In a moment, stupid! I'm still looking at him …" She took an unsteady pace back, head on one side. "He's an absolute monster …" She giggled again, her knuckles to her lips. "I wonder …

"What! What do you wonder? Eh? Aha! I know what you wonder! Oh, vile! Shameless! Come away this instant! No, no —"

"I just want to look, fool! You wouldn't care if it was a horse, or … or a monkey, would you? Well, he's just a barbarian …" And before he could stop her she had swayed forward, laughing, and yanked at my loin-cloth; there was a rending sound, Little An screamed, averted his eyes, tried to drag her away, succeeded in pulling the cloak from her shoulders—and while her ladyship, oblivious, blinked in drunken contemplation, I returned the scrutiny with interest; in fact, I near swallowed my gag.

I should explain that she had looked in while returning from duty in the Emperor's bed, and consequently was still in uniform. Or rather, out of it—and his majesty's tastes were curious. She was dressed in enormous wings of peacock feathers, attached from shoulder to wrist, and high-soled Manchoo slippers from which silver cross-garters wound up to above her knees. The effect was striking; she was one of your slim, perfectly-shaped, high-breasted figures, with skin like alabaster—as I said, I never saw the like. She would have made a stone idol squeal.

"Put it back! Stop it! Don't look!" Little An was in a frenzy, dropping to his knees beside her, pawing distraught. "For pity's sake, Orchid Lady! Please, come away quickly, before … oh, Gods! What are you doing?"

It was a question which, had I not been gagged, I might well have echoed—rhetorically, since there was no doubt what she was doing, the wicked, insolent little flirt. She had detached a plume from her peacock wing and was tickling lasciviously, humming what I took to be an old Chinese lullaby and going into delighted peals at the visible result of her handiwork.

"Oh, buffalo!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands, while Little An stared in horror and absolutely beat his forehead with his fists, and the hapless victim struggled helplessly, distracted and outraged—for I have my dignity, dammit, and I bar being unbreeched and assailed by opium-sodden houris, however be-witching, without even a by-your-leave.

"Oh, horrible! Impossible!" Little An fairly gibbered. "Oh, lady—dear Orchid, please come away! See, I lie at your feet, I beg, I beseech—stop, stop! If someone should find us —"

"That would be unlucky—for them." She stopped tickling, and laid hold. "Oh-h! Little An," says she breathlessly, "go outside … and guard the door."

He gave a frenzied neigh. "What will you do?" he squealed, which was as foolish a question as ever I heard, considering my condition and her behaviour. "No! I forbid it! You cannot! It is sacrilege, blasphemy—awful! It is improper —"

"Do you want to be alive tomorrow, Little An?" The voice was as musically soft as ever, but there was a note in it to bristle your hair. "Go out, keep watch … and wait till I call. Now."

He gave a last despairing wail and fled, and she teased fondly for a moment, breathing hard, and then leaned over to look into my face, possibly to make sure I wasn't going to sleep. Dear God, but she was lovely; the purple mouth was wide, panting violet-scented breaths, the black eyes were glittering as she laughed and called softly:

"Oh, An—he is so ugly! I can't bear to look at him!"

"Then don't!" His piping came faintly through the door. "Don't look! Don't do anything! Don't touch it—him! Remember who you are, you bad, lascivious wretch—you're the Imperial Concubine Yi, beloved of the Complete Abundance, mother of his only child, Moon to the Heavenly Sun! Here—are you listening?"

"What did you say about complete abundance?" chuckled the drunken hussy, and dropped her silk cloak over my face, to cut off her view, no doubt, damn her impudence. Her hands gripped my chest as she swung nimbly astride, her knees either side of my hips; for a moment she was upright, playing and fondling while I lay fit to burst, and then with a long shuddering sigh she sank slowly down, impaling herself, gliding up and down with maddening deliberation, and what could I do but close my eyes and think of England?

An said afterwards that it was incredible, and but for the gag I'd have cried "Hear, hear!", supposing I'd had breath to do it. But while I wouldn't have missed it for the world, it was deuced unnerving—being ravished is all very well, especially by the most accomplished wanton in China, if not all Asia, but when you're utterly helpless, and she has finally worked her wicked will and lain sated and moaning drunkenly on your manly chest, only to draw away suddenly with a cry of "Ugh, how he stinks!", and then plucks away the cloak for another look and shudder at you … well, you're bound to wonder about the future, if you follow me.

Little An had it all settled, rot him. When she called, he waddled in, sulking furiously, and said that if she'd quite finished behaving like a rutting sow he would carry her to bed, and then slit the barbarian's tongue so that the disgusting brute couldn't blab when they took him to the Board of Punishments. I listened in cold horror, but she reclined gracefully in a chair and says yawning:

"Blood-thirsty little pig, you'll leave his tongue alone—and the rest of him …" She stretched luxuriously. "Oh, An! Do you know what it's like when your whole body melts in such ecstasy that you feel you'll die of bliss? No, of course you don't. But I do … now. I thought Jung was wonderful, but … oh, Jung was just a boy! This was like … who was that ancient god who used to rape everyone? It doesn't matter." She waved a languid wing in my direction. "Carry me upstairs … and have him taken to the Wang-shaw-ewen. Put him in —"

"Are you mad? Has lechery disordered your wits? What the devil is he to do in the Wang-shaw-ewen?"

"Die a happy barbarian," purrs madam. "Eventually. Unless I tire of him first … which is unimaginable." She sighed happily. "Of course, all that horrid hair must be shaved from his body, and he must be bathed in musk for that awful odour, and dressed decently —"

"You are mad! Take that … that thing to your own pavilion!" He gargled and waved his arms. "And when the Emperor hears of it, or Prince Kung—or your enemies, Sang and Sushun and the Tsai Yuan —"

"Oh, don't be silly! Who would be so brave—or foolish—as to tell on the Concubine Yi? Even you aren't so stupid … are you, Little An?" Just for a second the silvery voice hardened on that chilly note, and then she had risen, staggered, giggled, and broken into a little-girl sing-song: "I'm hungry, An! Yes, I am, An! And I want some pickles, An, and roast pork, and cherries, and lots of crackling, and sugared lotus seeds, and a cup of honeysuckle tea. And then sleep, sleep, sleep …" She leaned against him, murmuring.

"But … but … oh, it's the infernal black smoke! It makes you mad, and irresponsible … and … and naughty! You don't know what you're saying or doing! Please, dear Orchid Lady, little Empress, listen to reason! You've enjoyed the beastly fellow—ugh!—isn't it enough? You say no one would tell—but how if the Emperor came to your pavilion and found that … that creature —"

"The Emperor," says she drowsily, "will never get out of his bed again. Why should he, when I'm always in it? But if he did, and caught me with twenty barbarians … d'you know what? He'd forgive me." She brushed a wing playfully across his face. "If you were a man, Little An, you'd know why. My barbarian knows why!" She pushed away from him, laughing, and skipped unsteadily to my bench, beating her wings. "Oh, yes, he knows why! Don't you, my ugly, hairy barbarian—so ugly, except for the happy part … See? Oh, An, I'm so happy!"

"Stop it! Stop it at once, I say!" He pulled her away; he was nearly in tears. "I won't have it, d'you hear! It's not decent—you, a great Manchoo lady—how can you think of that animal —"

"Oh, leave me alone—look, you've torn my wing!" The lovely mouth pouted as she smoothed her feathers. "You'll make me angry in a minute, Little An—I should have you beaten for that—yes, I will, you blubbery little ape —"

"Have me beaten, then!" he squealed, in sudden passion. "Beat me for a torn wing—and what of your torn honour? You, Yehonala, daughter of a knight of the Banner Corps, mother of Tungchi, the seed of Heaven, to forget your loyalty to the Emperor! You indulge your wicked lust with this peasant savage—you, whose life's duty is the solace and comfort of the Solitary Prince! Shame on you! I'll have no part in it, and you can beat or kill me if you like!" He finished on a fine fearful flourish. "It's not good enough!"

I've taken part in some damned odd scenes in my time, but I imagine a visitor to that room just then would have agreed that the present spectacle was unique. There we were among the furniture and dust-sheets: on my left, in brown robe and pill-box hat, twenty diminutive stone of blubber shrilling like a steam whistle; on my right, topping him by a head in her pearl-fringed block shoes, that incredible ivory beauty, her nudity only enhanced by the ridiculous trailing peacock wings and silver garters; they faced each other across the supine form of the pride of the 17th Lancers, trussed, gagged, and stark as a picked bone, but following the debate with rapt attention. My admiration, if not my sympathy, was all with Little An, as I looked at that lovely, silver-painted mask of a face beneath the coiled raven hair: suddenly it was wiped clean of drugged laughter, and the cold implacability that looked out of it was frightening. I even left off staring at those excellent jutting tits, which goes to show. I'd not have faced her for a fortune, but when she spoke it was in the same soft, bell-like tone.

"Eunuch An-te-hai," says she, and negligently indicated her feet—and the poor little tub came waddling and sank down like a burst bladder. She touched his cheek gently with a silver talon, and he turned up his trembling pug face.

"Poor Little An, you know I always get my way, don't you?" It was like a caress. "And you always obey, because I am your little orchid whom you have loved since I came here long ago, a frightened little girl to whom you were kind. Remember the watermelon seeds and walnuts, and how you consoled me when my heart was breaking for the boy I loved, and how you shielded me from the anger of the Dowager when I broke her best gold cup and you took the blame, and how you whispered comfort when first you wrapped me in the scarlet cloak and took me to the Emperor's bed, trembling and in tears? `Be brave, little empress—you will be a real empress some day'. Have you forgotten, Little An? I never shall."

He was leaking like the Drinking Fountain Movement by now, and no wonder. I was starting to feel horny for her again myself.

"Now, because I love you, too, and need you, Little An, I shall be honest with you—as I always am." The silvery voice was sober as a judge's now. "I want this barbarian, for what you call my wicked lust … no, no, it's true. And why not, if it pleases me? You talk of honour, loyalty to the Emperor—what loyalty do I owe to that debauched pervert? You know I'm not a woman to him, but a pretty painted toy trained to pander to his filthy vices—what honour is there in that? You know, and pity me—and used to arrange those secret trysts with Jung, the man I loved. Where was my honour then?"