Gods Men (7 page)

At midnight he woke abruptly to hear his wife screaming in his ears.

“Fong-ah!” she was calling. “Fong-ah, wake up.”

He had buried himself so deep in sleep that it was a minute or two before he could grunt a reply.

“Eh—what—” he muttered.

“The city is on fire!” she screamed.

He woke then and shuffled into his slippers lest a centipede sting him and ran into the court and looked up. The sky was red and the night was as light as day.

The children were awake now, and all were crying with fright and he turned on them fiercely when he came back into the house. “Be silent!” he commanded them. “Do you want the neighbors to think you are weeping for the foreigners?”

They fell silent instantly and he crept to his shop and opened the boards to the central door two inches, enough so that he could peer into the street. Twenty fires lit the sky and he knew what they were. The houses and churches of the Christians were burning. He closed the boards again and went back to his family. They were gathered in a small huddle in the gloom of the main room.

“Go back to bed,” he told them. “Fortunately we are not Christians and we will survive.”

Clem had waked his father after a moment of not knowing what to do. The fires were not near the hutung where they lived. They were nearly all in the better part of the city, near the Legation Quarters. He had not gone into the street since Mr. Fong had given him the warning. Even his father had gone out only by night—to beg, he supposed, at some missionary door, for he had come back with three loaves of foreign bread and some tinned stuff. One tin held Australian butter. Clem had never tasted butter. That night they had each eaten a slice of bread spread with the yellow butter and he had savored it curiously.

“We made our own butter on the farm,” his father said suddenly. Clem had been about to ask how when his mother said in a heartbroken voice, “Paul, don't talk about the farm!”

Clem went to bed as soon as evening prayer was done, and had slept until the light from the red sky had wakened him in his corner of the small center room where his bed stood, a couch by day. He had got up and gone out into the court and then fearfully into the narrow street. There was no one in sight but he hurried through the gate again and barred it. Then because he was afraid and lonely he felt compelled to wake his father.

His father opened his eyes at once, silent and aware, and Clem motioned to him to come into the other room.

“Fires in the city!” he whispered.

His father came barefoot and in his underdrawers and they stared at the sky together.

“Don't wake your mother or the girls,” his father whispered. “It's a terrible sight—God's judgment. I must go into the streets, Clem, to see what I can do. People will be suffering. You stay here.”

“Oh Papa,” Clem whispered, “don't go. How shall I find you if something happens to you?”

“Nothing will happen,” his father said. “We will pray together before I go—as soon as I get my clothes on.”

Quickly his father was back again, dressed in his ragged cotton suit. “On your knees, dear boy,” he said in the same ghostly whisper.

For once Clem knelt willingly. He was helpless. They were all helpless. Now if ever God must save them.

“God who hearest all,” his father prayed, “Thou knows what is going on in this city. I feel I ought to be about my business and Thine. Probably there are a good many suffering people out there we ought to be looking after. Fires bring suffering as Thou knows. Protect my dear ones while I am gone and especially give strength to my dear son.”

His father paused and then in his usual firm voice he added, “Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven, for Thy Name's sake. Amen!”

They got up and his father shook Clem's hand strongly and was gone.

It was nearly dawn before Clem, sleepless upon the board of his bed, heard his father's footsteps carefully upon the threshold. He sat up in bed and saw his father at the door drenched with sweat and black with smoke.

“I must clean myself before your mother sees me,” he said. “Get me some water in the basin—some soap if we have any. I'll wash here in the court. Has your mother waked?”

“No,” Clem said and got out of bed. He went to the old well in the little courtyard and let down the wooden bucket. A bit of soap was hidden where he had left it above a beam, his own bit of soap, still left from a yellow bar his mother had managed to give him at Christmas. He stood beside his father while he stripped and began to wash.

“The Boxers are in the city,” his father said in a low voice. “The Old Empress has given us up. We are in the hands of God. The persecution of the Christians has begun.”

“What about the other foreigners?” Clem asked. For the first time he knew that his place must be among those who had rejected him. William Lane, that proud boy—

“I went to Brother Lane's house,” his father was saying. “Of all of them, Brother Lane is the kindest. He gave me the food I have brought back and a little money. A man of tender heart! He is alone in his compound. He has sent his family away to Shanghai. They went before the railroads were broken. He has been sheltering Chinese Christians but now they are leaving him. It is safer for them to be among their own people.”

Now Clem was really afraid. If the railroads were broken Peking was cut off.

His father looked at him tenderly. “Are you fearful, Clem? Don't be so, my son. The Lord is the strength of our lives. Of whom shall we be afraid?”

Clem did not answer. They were alone among enemies. He sent his own angry prayer toward the sky, where sunshine and smoke were in combat. “God, if you fail my father, I will never pray again.”

Then he turned and went into the house and heard his sisters talking softly over their clay doll while their mother still slept.

Mr. Fong knew upon each day what had happened in the palace. His old cousin stole out by night to report the doings of the Empress whom he now called the Old Demon.

“A mighty struggle is going on,” he declared to Mr. Fong in the depths of the night. The two men sat in the shop in darkness. The cousin would not allow a candle to be lit, neither would he allow the presence of Mrs. Fong. His hatred of the Empress had become so violent that he trusted no woman. Yet his family feeling was such that he felt obliged to tell Mr. Fong of all possible dangers in order that the Fong clan might be kept safe.

Mr. Fong dared not tell his cousin of their one real danger, which was Clem. Neighbors had seen the foreign boy coming day after day to the house.

“Proceed,” Mr. Fong said to his cousin.

“Prince Ching has been dismissed. He was the only reasonable one. She has appointed that blockhead Prince Tuan and three others who understand nothing. This is to prepare for her open union with the foolish Boxers.”

On the sixteenth day of this month the cousin reported that the Empress had called a meeting of her clansmen and then of the Manchus to whom she belonged and the Chinese whom she ruled. To these she spoke long of the evils the foreigners had done. She said the Manchus wanted war.

“Then she was confounded,” the cousin whispered, “for even among the Manchus there was Natsung, a man of sense, who told her she could not fight the world. He was upheld by a Chinese, Hsu Ching-cheng. The young Emperor, as her nephew, also begged her not to ruin the country. Upon this the great quarrel burst forth. That fool Prince Tuan spoke for the Boxers, though Prince Su spoke against him, saying that it was madness to believe that these ignorant men could not be shot to strips of flesh.”

On the eighteenth day the cousin told Mr. Fong that the Empress had seen the Boxers prove their powers, and she had decided to join with them.

“When the young Emperor heard the Old Demon declare this,” the cousin said, “he began to weep aloud and he left the room. It is now too late for us to hope. Prepare yourself, Elder Brother, and prepare our family for what must come, for we are lost. The forts at Tientsin have already fallen to the foreign armies but our people do not know it. Neither do the foreigners here in the city know it, since they have no word from the advancing armies sent to rescue them. And the Old Demon puts her faith in these monsters, the Boxers! Tomorrow, before the foreigners can hear of the loss of the forts or of their own coming rescue, she will demand that they leave the city. But how can they go, hundreds of them with women and little children? They will not go. Then the Boxers will try to kill them all. For this our people will be cruelly punished when the foreign armies reach the city. Prepare—prepare, Elder Brother!”

On the twentieth day of that month Clem was waked by his mother in the early morning. He opened his eyes and saw her finger on her lips. He got up and followed her into the court. There were times when between his parents he felt he had no life of his own. Each made him the keeper of secrets from the other, each strove to bear the burden of danger alone, with only Clem's help.

“Clem dear,” his mother said in her pretty coaxing voice. In the dawn she had a pale ghostlike look and he saw what he had seen before but today too clearly, that she was wasting away under this strain of waiting for lonely death.

“Yes, Mama,” he said.

“Clem, we haven't anything left to eat. I'm afraid to tell Papa.”

“Oh Mama,” he cried. “Is all that bread gone?”

“Yes, and all the tins. I have a little flour I can mix with water for this morning. That's all.”

He knew what she wanted and dreaded to ask him and he offered himself before she spoke.

“Then I will go into the streets and try to find something, Mama.”

“Oh Clem, I'm afraid for you to, but if you don't Papa will, and you can slip through the hutungs better than he can. He'll stop maybe to pray.”

“I won't do that,” he said grimly.

“Then put on your Chinese clothes.”

“I'd better not go until after breakfast, Mama, or Papa will notice.”

“Oh yes, that's true. Go after breakfast when he is studying his Bible.”

“Yes.”

His mother's soft eyes were searching his face with anxious sadness. “Oh Clem, forgive me.”

“There isn't anything to forgive, Mama. It's not your fault.” He saw the tears well into her eyes and with love and dreadful impatience he stopped them.

“Don't cry, please, Mama. I've got all I can bear.” He turned away, guilty for his anger, and yet protecting himself with it.

He was silent during the meager breakfast, silent when his father prayed longer than usual. The food was hot. They were out of fuel but he had torn some laths from a plaster wall. Their landlord did not come near them now. They were only grateful that he did not turn them into the streets.

After breakfast Clem waited for his father to go into the inner room and then he got the ragged blue cotton Chinese garments and put them on where the girls could not see him and know that he was going out. Not bidding even his mother good-by, waiting until she was in the small kitchen, he climbed the wall so that he would not leave the gate open and dropped into the alleyway.

Where in all the vast enemy city should he go for food? He dared not go to Mr. Fong. There was nowhere to go indeed except to Mr. Lane, alone in the compound. He had given them food before and he would give again, and Clem did not mind going now that William was not there. So by alleyways and back streets, all empty, he crept through the city toward the compound. None of the compounds were in the Legation Quarter, but this one was nearer than the others.

The gate was locked when he came and he pounded on it softly with his fists. A small square opened above him and the gateman's face looked out. When he saw the foreign boy, he drew back the bar and let him in.

“Is the Teacher at home?” Clem asked safely inside.

“He is always at home now,” the gateman replied. “What is your business?”

“I have something to ask,” Clem said.

In usual times the gateman would have refused him, as Clem well knew, but now he refused no white face. These foreigners were all in piteous danger and he was a fool to stay by his own white master, but still he did. He had no wife or child and there was only his own life, which was worth little. Thus he plodded ahead of Clem to the big square house and knocked at the front door. It was opened by Dr. Lane himself, who was surprised to see a foreign boy.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“I don't think so,” Clem replied. “But I know you, sir. I am Clem Miller.”

“Oh yes,” Dr. Lane said vaguely. “The Millers—I know your father. Come in. You shouldn't be out on the streets.”

“My father doesn't know that I am,” Clem replied. He stepped into the house. It looked bare and cool.

“My family is in Shanghai,” Dr. Lane said. “I'm camping out. Did you know my son William? Sit down.”

“I've seen him,” Clem said with caution. He sat down on the edge of a carved chair.

Dr. Lane continued to look at him with sad dark eyes. He had a kind face except that it looked as though he were not listening.

“What did you come for?” he asked in a gentle voice.

“We have no food,” Clem said simply. The blood rushed into his pale face. “I know you have helped us before, Dr. Lane. I wouldn't have come if I had known where else to go.”

“That is quite all right,” Dr. Lane said. “I'll be glad—”

Clem interrupted him. “One more thing, Dr. Lane. I don't consider that when I ask you for food it's God's providing. I know it isn't. I don't think like my father on that. I wouldn't come just for myself, either. But there's my mother and my two sisters.”

“That's all right,” Dr. Lane said. “I have more food than I need. A good many tins of stuff—we had just got up an order from Tientsin before the railroad was cut.”

The house was dusty, Clem saw, and the kitchen was empty. Dr. Lane seemed helpless. “I don't know just where things are. The cook left yesterday. He was the last one. I can't blame them. It's very dangerous to stay.”