Shireen’s lips were trembling now, and she had to take a deep breath to regain control of herself. ‘Well, Dinyar,’ she said, ‘if you really know what loneliness is then maybe you will understand what I am going to tell you.’
‘Yes?’
‘Dinyar — Zadig Bey has asked me to marry him. I have accepted.’
Dinyar’s mouth fell open and his voice dropped to a disbelieving whisper. ‘What are you saying, Shireen-auntie? You can’t do that! It’s impossible. You will be cut off by all of us. None of us will ever speak to you again.’
Shireen shook her head. ‘No, Dinyar,’ she said with a smile. ‘You’re wrong. You will accept it. And not only that, you will persuade all the others to accept it too. You will tell them that you will all be better off if I marry Zadig Bey and stay on in Hong Kong.’
Shireen paused to take a breath. ‘For there’s one thing you should know, Dinyar: if you and the other sethjis make a great fuss and create a scandal; if I am driven away from here and forced to go back to Bombay — then you can be sure that many Parsi families are going to find out that they have unknown relatives in China. And yours will be the first.’
*
The shelling of the four fortresses continued through the night, not as a steady barrage but in fits and starts, which was worse because it preyed on the nerves. But even without the shelling it would have been difficult to sleep in that stifling heat, with hundreds of dust-caked, sweat-soaked men crammed into a small space.
The enclosure had no windows and the stench inside was overpowering. Dysentery spread very rapidly through the ranks that night; many men were in a state where they soiled themselves before they could get to the latrines. The sour, acrid stink of their almost liquid, blood-spotted excretions hung upon the hall like a miasma.
The Cameronians were especially badly affected by the ‘bloody flux’ — but it was the sepoys who had to put up with volleys of abuse about ‘nigger-stink’ and ‘darkie-dung’. Had they been in India fights would have broken out and the Madras and Bengal sepoys might even have joined forces against the Cameronians. But here, caught between the Chinese on the one hand and the British on the other, they were helpless; they had to bear the insults in silence. And men like Colour-Sarjeant Orr understood this very well, and it made the insults and curses flow still more freely from their tongues.
Around dawn Kesri and Captain Mee went up to the fortress’s turret to take another look at the city. Kesri saw that the trickle of refuge-seekers had turned overnight into a flood. The roadways around the city were jammed with people, carts, sedan chairs and carriages; they were pouring out of the gates, fleeing in every direction. The roads were so crowded that people had spilt over into the rice-fields.
‘I suppose they want to get out of the city before it’s attacked,’ said Captain Mee.
Ji, Kaptán-sah’b.
Now that all the preparations were in place Kesri was anxious for the attack to begin. No matter what the dangers, it would be better to fight than to spend another night in this hell-hole of a fortress.
But it was not to be. A white flag appeared above the city’s northern gate just as the brigade was mustering.
‘The devil take me!’ cried Captain Mee. ‘I’ll be damned if it isn’t talkee-time again.’
The troops were told to stand down and the officers spent the rest of the morning shuttling back and forth between the fortress and headquarters.
Later Captain Mee told Kesri that the mandarins had sued for peace and the Plenipot had agreed to an armistice on condition that an indemnity of six million silver dollars was handed over immediately and all Chinese troops were withdawn from the city.
As so often before the mandarins had agreed — but the officers were to a man convinced that nothing would come of it and the sweat and blood they had spent in seizing the fortresses would be wasted. General Gough for one was eager to press on with the attack but his hands were tied: Captain Elliot had insisted that the Chinese authorities be given time to meet the conditions of the armistice. The force would probably have to remain in the fortresses for a while yet, possibly several days.
As the hours passed the heat continued to mount and vast swarms of flies, midges and stinging gnats invaded the fortresses, drawn by the smell of rancid sweat and overfilled latrines. Soon supplies dwindled to a point where water and food had to be strictly rationed. The only spot of good news was that a few clouds had at last appeared in the sky, scudding in from the south.
In the afternoon, Captain Mee was summoned to headquarters for yet another meeting: it had been called, he explained later, to address the shortages of food and water. The high command had authorized the four brigades to send out foraging parties. They were to operate under a strict set of rules: nothing was to be taken by force; they were to go from house to house asking for donations of rice, vegetables and livestock. Every household that made a contribution was to be given a placard to put over their doorway so that no further contributions would be asked of them. Under no circumstances were civilians — men, women or children — to be molested or harmed. Infractions of these rules would be severely punished.
‘Do you understand, havildar?’
Ji, Kaptán-sah’b.
Captain Mee took out a chart and pointed to a road that led to a village called San Yuan Li. Kesri was to put together a foraging party and head in that direction. As for the captain, he was planning to join a group of fellow officers who were on their way to explore some of the nearby pagodas and temples.
‘And listen, havildar,’ said the captain, directing a stern glance at Kesri. ‘I don’t want anyone making any trouble. No looting, no pinching, no monkeying about with the local woman. Do you understand?’
Kesri snapped off a salute: Ji, Kaptán-sah’b.
*
Assembling a foraging party was no easy task: to make sepoys carry loads was difficult at the best of times for they baulked at anything that hinted of manual labour. Nor were there many camp-followers left to choose from — their numbers had now dwindled to fewer than twenty. In the end Kesri had no option but to include the fifers and drummers — they too hated to serve as porters but their protests were not hard to override.
Once all the available mussucks, chagals, sacks and other recap-tacles had been gathered up, the party set off with the sepoys guarding the flanks and Kesri in the lead.
The path to San Yuan Li ran down a steep slope. On reaching the plain the path joined a road that led northwards. Marching up this road they passed a good number of people who were fleeing the city. They were families for the most part and took fright easily; the mere sight of the sepoys sent them running into the fields.
The heat was so unrelenting that the party soon began to tire: Kesri was glad to spot a group of Madras sepoys at the entrance of a pagoda: they were lounging in the shade of a sweeping, red-tiled roof. Kesri decided that it was time for a rest-break; he sent the men to sit under a tree and went over to talk to the Madras sepoys. They told him that they had come to the pagoda with Captain Mee and some of their own officers. There was a graveyard at the back and the officers had gone to inspect it, leaving them on guard outside.
What are they doing in a graveyard? said Kesri.
At this the sepoys shot sidelong glances at each other. One of them inclined his head at the gate: Go in and see.
Kesri stepped inside and after making his way through a succession of courtyards and incense-scented hallways he came to a corridor that led outside. He could see the officers through a doorway; they were in the adjoining graveyard, issuing orders to a squad of sepoys. Kesri went a little closer and saw that a pink-cheeked young lieutenant was directing the sepoys in digging up a tomb. Several graves had already been broken open; the lieutenant was examining their contents and scribbling in a notepad.