Free My Splendid Concubine by Lloyd Lofthouse Page B

started to load opium into the boats that lined the shore. The first time the boats returned to the ships, they went with full loads of opium. There wasn ’t enough room to carry the children to safety. Robert thought such logic insane. He didn’t like it.
    With the old man off his back beside the piles of opium, Robert stepped away and fumbled at his belt for his empty pistols. His fingers trembled and it took an effort for him to load them one at a time. Once loaded, he fired rapidly into the gathering mass of Taipings then started to reload again. The girl in the baggy clothing came up beside him with his bloody dagger clutched in her hand.
    “ Get to a safer place!” Robert yelled.
    Her eyes begge d for an opportunity to fight. She didn’t want to leave.
    Robert watched a man, who must have been the leader of the Taipings, wave a double bladed ax over his head. In his other hand, he held a spear. He pointed it at Patridge’s men and yelled something, which sent hundreds of howling, crazed Taipings toward them.
    Robert knew they were doomed. He firmly pointed a finger beyond the firing line. “Leave the opium and get your family in a boat. Do it now! If I am to die, I want to know that you and your family escaped. Do not let this end in vain.”
    A fire lit inside her eyes. She stared at him as if she were memorizing his features. She gently caressed the back of his hand with her fingertips. Then she nodded. She must have sensed that she couldn’t fight his will for she retreated.
    Robert knew that he might not survi ve long. He decided to save the last shot for himself. He’d stick the barrel of the pistol in his mouth and blow his head off. If the Taipings caught him, they would give him a chi-lin , which meant death from a thousand cuts. They’d work him over for days. It was a sure fate for any foreigner who fell into their hands. He’d cheat the crazy bastards of that pleasure, but first he would kill as many as possible.
    He regretted the decision he ’d made to volunteer. Now he would never marry and have a family. He would miss all the laughter and pain of watching his children, who would never be born, grow. He heard himself try to laugh, but the sound he made was raspy. His throat was so dry it hurt. A glass of cool water would have been refreshing before death.
    He hadn ’t realized how much he wanted children and to watch them grow. He had never given it a thought before. He shook his head. His body felt heavier. Something worse occurred to him. He would never get a chance to redeem himself in his family’s thoughts for the sins of lust committed in Ireland. His father and mother would go to their graves remembering the worst about him. His oldest sister, Mary, would forgive him. He was sure of that. He held that thought as if it were precious.
    Robert loaded his pistols and looked out over the battlefield. It appeared like a scene out of Dante’s Inferno. The howling Taipings backlit by their fires were a dark forest of demons right out of hell and behind Robert was Dante’s infernal river, the Acheron. Could it be that, like Dante, this was another step in Robert’s journey toward redemption? If so, if he survived, what other tests would he have to face?
    Then, without warning, a solid body of men numbering in the hundreds poured across the shallow trenches at the south end of the camp. A short man with thick raven hair hanging to his shoulders urged these men along. He wore a Prince Albert frock coat and held a walking stick in one hand. Robert recognized him. It was the same man from Hong Kong that used the infant corpses in the water for target practice. It was Ward. His men were dressed in green turbines and knickerbockers. Robert beheld an impressive sight—every man was armed with a rifle or a Colt revolver. The firepower they put out was enormous.
    The remaining Taipings retreated northeast out of the camp. The strength went out of Robert’s legs. He sat on a bale of opium gasping for