"Can't draw that," grumbles Joe. "Hang it all, Turner himself couldn't catch that colour! Odd, ain't it—that's quite lovely, too."
We watched another gang, British, French, and Sikhs, man-handling an enormous vase, twenty feet if it was an inch, all inlaid with dazzling mosaic work, to the top of a flight of steps, poising it with a "One-two-three-and-AWAY!" and hurrahing like mad as it smashed with an explosion like artillery, scattering gleaming shards everywhere. And at the same time there were quiet coves going about methodically examining a jade bowl here and an enamel tablet there, consulting and appraising and dropping 'em in their knapsacks—you know that porcelain statuette on the mantel, or the pretty screen with dragons on it that Aunt Sophie's so proud of? That's what they were picking up, while alongside 'em Patsy Hooligan was kicking a door in because he couldn't be bothered to try the handle, and Pierre Maquereau was grimacing at himself in a Sèvres mirror and taking the butt to his own reflection, and Yussef Beg was carving up an oil painting with his bayonet, and Joe Tomkins was painting a moustache on an ivory Venus, haw-hawing while Jock MacHaggis used it as an Aunt Sally, and the little Chinaman from down the road—oh, don't forget him—was squealing with glee as he ripped up cloth-of-gold cushions and capered among the feathers.
And through it all went the quiet strollers, like Joe and me, and the tall fair fellow in the Sapper coat whom we found in a room that had once contained hundreds of jewelled timepieces and mechanical toys, and was now ankle-deep in glittering rubble. He had found an item undamaged, and was grinning delightedly over it.
"I really must have this!" cries he. "She will be delighted with it, don't you think? Such exquisite craftsmanship!" He sighed fondly. "What pleasure to look at a gift for a dear one at home, and think of the joy with which it will be received."
It was one of the little chiming watches, enamelled and inlaid with diamonds; he held it up for Joe and me to look at, exclaiming at the clear tone of the bell.
"See, mama—it rings!" thinks Ito myself—dear God, had that been only yesterday? She would be safe in Jehol now, with her dying Emperor and the little son through whom she hoped to rule China. What would she think, when she came back to her beloved Summer Palace?
We complimented the fair chap on his good taste. I'd never seen him before, but I knew him well later on. He was Chinese Gordon.
The three of us took a turn in the gardens, and watched a group of enthusiasts digging up shrubs and flowers and sticking them in jade vases filched from the rooms. "I can see these taking splendidly in Suffolk!" cries one. "I say, Jim, if only we can keep 'em alive, what a capital rockery we shall have!" Give him the transport, he'd have had the blasted trees up.
Suddenly I stopped short at the sight of a round doorway in the third palace; it was the one, scarred now with shot-holes. We went in, and the ante-room that had been hung with the Son of Heaven's quilted dragon robes was bare as a cupboard, and not a trace of the musk with which Little An had sprayed me; no wonder, since the soldiery had been pissing on the floor. But here was the little corridor to the Chamber of Divine Repose; the great golden door hung half off its hinges, its precious mouldings stripped away and the handle hacked off. The tortoiseshell plaques of the concubines were scattered about, some of them broken; Gordon turned one over. "What can these be—tokens in some sort of game, d'you suppose?" I said I was fairly sure he was right.
My heart was beating faster as I followed the others into the room; I didn't really want to see it, but I looked about anyway. The filthy pictures and implements of perversion had gone (trust the French), the mattress of the great bed had been dragged from the alcove and hacked to shreds, its purple silks torn, the gold pillows ripped open. But it was the shattered hole in the dressing-table mirror that made me wince; that was where her lovely reflection had looked out at me, while she painted care-fully at her lower lip; that broken stool had supported the wonderful body, with one perfect leg thrust out to the side, the silver toes brushing the carpet. Yet even amid that wreckage, while the others gaped and speculated foolishly about whose room it had been, there was a fierce secret joy about remembering. How the others would have stared if they'd known; Gordon would probably have burst into tears.
I didn't know which was her tortoiseshell plaque, but I took one anyway, slipping it into my pocket with the jewellery and gold I'd picked up on our walk—though none of it compared with the black jade chessmen I collared in the Birthday Garden a couple of days later; no one else would even look at 'em, which showed judgment, since the experts will tell you that black jade doesn't exist. I don't mind; all I know is that while Lucknow paid for Gandamack Lodge, those chessmen bought me the place on Berkeley Square. But I still have the tortoiseshell plaque; Elspeth stands her bedside teapot on it.42
"The prisoners are safe!" someone had hollered when I first rode into Elgin's headquarters, supposing that my appearance heralded the return of the others. They weren't, and it didn't, although hopes ran high when Loch and Parkes turned up a day later; they'd been released fifteen minutes before their vermilion death warrant arrived at the Board of Punishments. Whether Yehonala or the mandarin who had special charge of them, Hang-ki, had held it back, or whether they were just plain lucky, we never discovered. They'd had a bad time: Parkes had escaped with binding and hammering, but Loch had been dungeoned and shackled and put to the iron collar, and from what he'd seen he suspected that some of the others had been tortured to death. Whether Elgin had any earlier suspicion of this I can't say; I think he may have, from the way he questioned me about my treatment. In any event, his one thought now was to get them out.
Grant had already positioned his guns against the Anting Gate, and the word went to Prince Kung, the Emperor's brother and regent, that unless Pekin surrendered and the prisoners were released, the bombardment would begin. And still the Chinese put off the inevitable, with futile messages and maddening delays, while Elgin aged ten years under the mortal fear that if he did start shooting, the prisoners would be goners for certain … so he must wait, and hope, and question Parkes and Loch and me again and again about our treatment, and what we thought might be happening to the others.
I'd escaped on the Sunday; Parkes and Loch arrived on the Monday; it was Friday before eight Sikhs and three Frenchmen were set free, and when Elgin had talked to them he came out grey-faced and told Grant that he was to open fire the following noon. At the eleventh hour Kung surrendered—and the following night the first bodies came out.
They came on carts after dark, four of them, two British, two Sikh, and had to be examined by torchlight; when the lids came off the coffins there were cries of horror and disbelief, and one or two of the younger fellows turned away, physically sick; after that no one said a word, except to whisper: "Christ … that's Anderson!" or "That's Mahomed Bux—my daffadar!" or "That's De Normann … is it?" Elgin stopped at each coffin in turn, with a face like stone; then he said harshly to replace the lids, and stood turning his hat in his hands, staring before him, and I saw him biting his lips and the tears shining in the torch-light. Then he walked quickly away, without a word.