The Reinvention Of Rudd Carter. A Western Action Adventure Novel (14 page)

“Yes, it’s a very dangerous situation against almost impossible odds, but I know we can make a difference. That’s why I can’t wait to get on the ship to Peking with my men on Saturday morning. I was born for this kind of life. Right now, I feel more alive than I ever have. I have no idea what’s going to happen in Peking. I do know that I will have the opportunity to help shape events there, no matter what the results.” Speaking with strong conviction, Rudd continued, “I want to live the rest of my life as a mercenary soldier.”

Roger hung his head for a moment and then rose from behind his desk and offered his hand. “I’ll miss you. I’ve gotten spoiled having you around, but I want you to feel good about your decision to leave the bank. You have my full backing. Actually, I’ve seen this coming for some time. I just didn’t want to face it any sooner than I had to. The problem now is going to be in how to break the news to your father. I imagine he is going to be very upset.”

Rudd shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time, and I’m sure it won’t be last.”

“Rudd.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Drop in once in a while… let me know how you’re doing, will you?”

“I will, sir, thank you.”

Roger turned away and gazed out the window as Rudd exited into the hall where Sui Yen was waiting.

“You’re smiling. It must have gone all right,” Sui Yen commented.

“It went fine. It was kind of sad, though. It was like saying goodbye to a dear old friend, but I’m free.”

That afternoon, Rudd left work early. He wanted to share the good news with Ming Li about leaving the bank and embarking on his newfound independence.

When he got home, she greeted him with a cup of tea. He told her about all that had happened in the last two days, explaining the meeting with Colonel Jeffers and the mission to Peking, and about his promotion and raise. While he talked about his decision to resign from the bank, Ming Li sat and listened with an approving smile. “Do you know how good it makes me feel to be finally free of the bank and my father’s hold over me?”

Without answering, she rushed to him, threw her arms around him, and broke into tears. “I love you, Rudd.” She held him close and began to cry on his shoulder.

“What’s wrong? Why are you so sad?” He caressed her cheek and neck. “I thought I brought you good news.”

“You have, my love. If it is this news that makes you happy, then it is good news for me, also.”

“I have been gone for longer periods of time than this voyage. I’ve never seen you act this way.”

“My love, my deepest desire is to see you happy.” Her smile returned. “The smile you see on my face is always because of you. It brings me great joy to know that at last you are free to pursue your true destiny.”

Reassured, the next few days were spent on Rudd preparing for his excursion north.

Saturday morning, Rudd and his men boarded their ship and sailed away from Hong Kong. Their destination was Weihaiwei, the only port available to the British to land their troops in the north. It was more than 300 miles from Weihaiwei to Peking.

The Germans controlled most of the Shantung Peninsula except the territory immediately around the port of Weihaiwei. Once landed, Rudd’s group would have to pass through 200 miles of German-occupied territory under cover of darkness in order to keep their presence in the area unknown. Although the Germans were allies, for this brief moment in history, the British didn’t want anyone to know about their paramilitary operations in China. Secrecy was their first priority. They had less than two weeks to reach their target, a gargantuan undertaking.

Rudd divided his fifty men into ten squads and waited until darkness before disembarking the ship to infiltrate the German area. They moved at night. Any resistance encountered was easily dispatched with knives or piano wire. Bodies discovered the next morning by the locals were blamed on the Germans or the Chinese. It took six days to get through the German area and another four to reach the outskirts of Peking.

Their destination was an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Peking, where they were to be billeted. All fifty men got to the warehouse within 24 hours of each other, as planned.

Reporting in, Günter was greeted by Rudd. “I’m glad you got through in one piece. After you get cleaned up and have something to eat, I’d like to talk with you. I’m setting up an office over in the corner.”

“Yes, sir!” he said with a sarcastic tone and a sneer. “I understand that it’s Major Carter now. Congratulations, Major. Do we salute and call you ‘sir’, Major?”

Rudd laughed. “Of course not.” Then in a more serious tone, he said, “Just remember who’s in charge, and we’ll get along fine.”

An hour later, Günter stood in front of Rudd’s makeshift desk in a corner of the warehouse.

“I called you to come along on this assignment to be my right hand man,” Rudd said. “You’re the best I have.”

Günter nodded and registered a grin.

“We should be having a meeting with an officer from the British legation tomorrow to apprise us of the situation here. Once we have an idea of what’s going on, we can make plans to be effective in easing the pressure on the foreign compounds.”

Each of Rudd’s men had brought along his own bottle of spirits, and for the rest of the evening, they shared drinks and stories of the Shantung Peninsula crossing before retiring to their cots before midnight.

Early the next morning, Rudd sent one of his Asian operatives, dressed as a peasant, to contact the British compound and make them aware of his group’s presence in the area and arrange for a meeting at the warehouse later in the afternoon.

The operative returned to the warehouse in the early afternoon with news. “The foreign legations have been under siege for several days, and any meeting with British officers will have to take place under cover of darkness. Colonel Atkins, with two aides, will meet with you here tonight, sir.”

Later that night, Colonel Atkins and his aides arrived at the warehouse. Looking tired and dressed in crumpled uniforms that appeared to have been slept in for days, the three British officers told a tale of terror that had gripped the foreign legations. “After weeks of indecision,” Colonel Atkins said, “the Empress Dowager has decided to back the Boxers with the Chinese Army in an attempt to throw all the foreigners out of China. The Chinese Army and the Boxers have laid siege to the foreign legations, which are comprised of less than fifteen hundred people. The legations have appealed for help from their respective countries but have been told that they will have to hold on for at least a month until reinforcements get here.”

Rudd listened patiently as Colonel Atkins and his aides described the dark situation the foreign legations found themselves in.

“Could you tell me a little about the Empress Dowager and her forces, Colonel, and why only recently she decided to back the Boxers?” Rudd asked.

“She’s a real character,” explained the colonel, “who enjoys power and at the same time is very cognizant of which way public opinion is swinging. Two years ago when the Boxer Movement emerged in the provinces, she thought that only trouble could come from harassing the foreigners in China. She issued statements that the foreigners would be protected by the Chinese government. But the Boxer Movement got stronger and more popular. When it reached Peking, she started to doubt her decision. Finally, her advisers, who didn’t favor bucking a trend as strong as the Boxers, convinced her that the smart thing to do would be to throw-in with them.”

“All right, Colonel, that tells me a lot about the situation here. How many Chinese troops are in the area?”

“We believe there are at least twenty thousand Chinese soldiers that she could use against us. They could overrun us in twenty minutes. We wouldn’t have a chance.”

“No, you wouldn’t, but you’ve been under siege for almost two weeks and they have made no major moves against you. What do you think the reason for that is, Colonel?”

“It’s the reason the Empress Dowager has been so tentative all along. If the Chinese Army aids the Boxers in overrunning and wiping out all of the foreign legations, she knows that in time—weeks or months—the foreign powers will send in a combined military force that will remove her from power as well as deliver an overwhelming defeat to the Chinese Army.”

“So, what is this, a bluff, hoping to frighten the foreigners into leaving China?”

“In my opinion, Major, that is exactly what it is.”

“Thank you, Colonel Atkins, for your insight about the situation here. I think I have a good idea as to what we can do to ease the pressure on you until reinforcements arrive.”

“Really, Major?” A look of astonishment filled the colonel’s face. “You and fifty mercenaries are going to hold off twenty thousand Chinese soldiers for a month or more? How, may I ask, are you going to do that?” he asked with an indignant attitude.

Rudd smiled. “We’re going to do it very carefully, Colonel, very carefully. If you think it’s not working in ten days’ time, send me a message. Better yet, I’ll come to you, and we’ll have another meeting. In the meantime, no one is to know about our presence in Peking. Is that agreed, gentlemen?”

All three British officers nodded in agreement, and Colonel Atkins flashed an insincere upper-class British smile. “For a young officer, you exhibit a lot of confidence, Major.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” The reference to his age riled Rudd. “I like to think that I have a lot of confidence for someone of any age, sir. Confidence in these experienced fighting men that have come to your aid.”

“Major, you come dangerously close to being impertinent,” Colonel Atkins said, sounding displeased.

“It is not my intention to give that impression, sir. It is simply that I know what these fifty men are capable of, if properly directed. The Boxers have never experienced anything like what is about to befall them in the next ten days.” He paused, regaining his composure. “Would you like an escort back to your compound, Colonel? It is getting late, and it might be a little dangerous for three uniformed British officers to be found alone on the streets of Peking at night. Let me send five men with you. They’ll get you through.”

He turned to Günter. “Put together an escort and make sure these three officers get back to the British compound safely.”

“Yes, Major,” Günter said, mugging playfully.

Rudd turned back to the colonel and saluted. “Good night, gentlemen. Thank you for your information… you’ve been very helpful.”

Before dawn the next morning, twenty of Rudd’s Asian mercenaries fanned out into the city to locate where the Boxers’met, demonstrated, ate, and slept.

Two nights later, silent executions occurred all over the city. The victims’ throats were slit quietly as they cooked their evening meals on the street. Six decapitated bodies of Boxer sympathizers were found just after sunrise. The victims bore notes pinned to their clothes written on red paper: “Leave Peking while there is still time.”

Every morning for the next four days, five or six more decapitated bodies were found with the same notes pinned to their clothes. On the fifth day, in a courtyard where a meeting was taking place, two grenades rolled into a crowd of fifty, killing seventeen and injuring twenty or more.

Daily, the gruesome finds of decapitated bodies continued. By the end of the week, public demonstrations by the Boxers ceased.

On the ninth day after the first bodies were discovered, Colonel Atkins received a report at the British compound detailing what had been happening on the streets of Peking. After reading the report, the colonel said aloud, “Very good, Major, you have every reason to be confident.” The colonel turned to his secretary. “Miss Ross, did you hear what I just said?”

“Yes, Colonel, I did,” she answered.

“Please write it down verbatim and have it ready to send to Major Carter in five minutes.”

* * *

In the Forbidden City, just as her ministers were pressing for a full-scale attack to wipe out the foreigners, the Empress Dowager received reports of the violence that had been taking place in the streets of Peking for the last nine days.

“Who is responsible for these deaths?” she asked.

“We have no idea, Your Highness,” answered the First Minister. “We believe that it is a rival group of religious fanatics who do not want to see the Boxers in such a favored position with the Empress.”

“Explosions in public places and decapitations every morning? Do you not see why I hesitate to order the annihilation of these foreigners just when my subjects are so divided? This looks like the beginning of a civil war with me caught in the middle. Is it not clear that we’ll have to play a waiting game to see if these stubborn foreigners will leave of their own accord? Let them get a little hungrier. Give them another thirty days.”

The Chinese Army and the Boxers continued to harass the legations with sniper fire, and mortar shells lobbed into the compounds, causing death and injury inside the individual legations. The stench of decaying corpses was everywhere. Still, no all-out attack by the Chinese Army came.

Evening raids on Boxer gatherings and morning body counts of mutilated victims continued.

Then in the middle of July, word reached the foreign legations and the Empress Dowager that an international army was in Chinese waters and only days away from coming to the rescue of the legations.

After weeks of battling their way to Peking, the allies, led by the Russians, blasted their way through the Tungpienmen Gate and took possession of it on August 14. The allies were seen approaching Peking on all sides and the Chinese Army vanished.

The siege lasted for 55 days, and on August 14, 1900, it was lifted, leaving the survivors of the foreign legations safe at last.

***

The day after the siege ended, Rudd visited the British compound for the first time. What he found shocked him. The odor of decomposition permeated the air as the military staff hurriedly buried the many bodies lying around the grounds. Earlier attempts to tend to the dead were met with deadly sniper fire from Chinese soldiers perched high on the city walls overlooking the legations. Many of the buildings in the compound were badly damaged from mortar shells indiscriminately fired.