Free My Splendid Concubine by Lloyd Lofthouse Page A

girls, was gathered off to one side. They hovered over someone on the ground as if their long dresses offered protection. Robert ran toward them. “Hurry, run!” he shouted in Mandarin, not wanting to see these innocents die.
    Obviously paralyzed by fear, the girls just stare d at him. “Hurry!” He pushed one of them to get her moving. After that, one by one, they started to run.
    Once the young girls were gone, Robert saw what looked like an adole scent boy in baggy clothes holding a long stick with both hands. He stood with his legs straddling the figure of an old man. This boy stood with his back to Robert facing the Taipings. The remaining children, who hadn’t run, huddled at the feet of this defiant boy.
    Three Taiping rebels rushed them with lowered spears. Thin king that this stupid boy was going to get him killed, Robert fired his last shot. One of the Taipings stumbled but managed to regain his balance and kept coming. Robert refused to desert this bunch. He hurried to stand next to the boy and held the cutlass ready.
    The boy ’s face was covered with dirt. He reached behind Robert and tugged at the dagger freeing it from its scabbard. The rebels arrived and with an effort, Robert held them at bay. He knocked aside a spear with the flat of his cutlass. Then he slashed across another man’s chest cutting him open to the bone. A third man jumped on him. They tumbled to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. Robert felt the man’s hands around his throat cutting off the air. Then he saw the boy stick the dagger through that rebel’s neck. Robert butted the man with his forehead. Blood sprayed in Hart’s face from the knife wound to the man’s neck.
    H e pushed the body away and scrambled to his feet to discover that for the moment no more Taipings were close enough to threaten them. The boy had killed the third Taiping. Robert’s face was covered with blood. He used a coat sleeve to clear it from his eyes.
    “ Let’s move!” Robert said, and grabbed the boy. “We have to get out of here!”
    “ No! Not without my father!” The boy tried to free himself from Robert.
    The voice stunned him. It wasn ’t a boy as he’d thought. More Taipings gathered. They shouted. “Death to the foreign devils!”
    Robert knelt beside the old man, lifted him and draped him over his shoulders. His legs stumbled with each step. Unwyn and the others fired at the Taipings entering the stockade. He glanced back and saw that the girl and the other ch ildren were following him. He’d failed Brian. He was not going to fail this family.
    Once he reached Unwyn and the others, he put the old man down. Unwyn turned to Robert in a fury and said, “You are a fool, Hart! I’ve seen a lot of idiots like you die trying to be heroes.”
    “ You’re a coward, Unwyn!” Robert shouted, as blood rushed into his head overwhelming reason. “If you had entered the stockade with me, we could’ve saved more lives.” Robert slapped Unwyn across the face. The officer reeled back and started to lift his pistol. In response, Robert lifted his cutlass to deliver a killing blow.
    “ Save that for later!” One of the others yelled, as he stepped between them. “We have to save ourselves first.”
    The breaking dawn sent blood-red cords of pale, washed-out light over the earth along the eastern horizon. Behind them, orange flames from the cannons still flashed from the smoke filled river. Robert saw bodies and parts of bodies everywhere but there were still hundreds to fight.
    The small group Robert was with ran toward Patridge and his men thirty yards away. Robert pick ed up the old man and followed.
    Patridge ’s merchant troops fired steadily into the Taipings, who were now gathering to attack. What Robert had done to save lives had nothing to do with wanting to be a hero. He still felt responsible for Brian’s death. After all, he told Brian he would look after him. He had failed.
    When they reached Patridge, the boat people