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a pool of blood.
    He bent down. ‘Oh my God.’ Suddenly, Alice was by his side. ‘Are we too late?’
    Simon gently turned the missionary over. His left shoulder bore a deep gash and his right arm had been almost completely severed at the biceps, although the fingers of the hand still clutched his Bible. Blood oozed from a sword thrust to the breast and another to the stomach. A half-smile remained fixed on the old man’s face, as though something in that vicious outburst of violence had amused him. Or perhaps he was pleased at the end to be exchanging one world for another, for he was quite dead.
    ‘Don’t let Mrs Griffith …’ began Fonthill. But he realised that he was too late. The missionary’s wife was looking down at her husband, her hands clasped before her, one tear threading its way down her cheek.
    Alice rose and gathered her aunt into her arms. But she was gently pushed away. Mrs Griffith gestured over her shoulder to where the Chinese lay in the road.
    ‘Some of these poor people are wounded,’ she said. ‘We cannot help Edward now, but we may be able to reduce the suffering of those whom we have injured. Alice, in my main case, there is a little leather first-aid box. Please bring it and you and I will do what we can. Now, Simon,’ she looked up at him, ‘perhaps you would be kind enough to leave me for a moment with my husband, so that I can say goodbye. Thank you.’
    Fonthill bent his head and walked towards where Jenkins was picking his way back across the field. ‘A bit bloody late with your covering fire, 352,’ he said. ‘What happened? Did you doze off?’
    ‘Doze off be buggered, beggin’ your pardon, bach sir.’ He gestured to his Colt. ‘This bloody thing jammed, just as the firin’ started, see. That’s why, once I ’ad it cleared, like, I started blazin’ away in case they ’adn’t noticed me. Sorry about that, but it wasn’t my fault, see.’
    He gestured towards where Mrs Griffith was kneeling beside her husband. ‘’As the Reverend copped it, then?’
    ‘I’m afraid so. Come on. I want a word with young Mr Gerald.’
    They found the young man rather too frantically helping Alice to find his mother’s first-aid box. Chang was kneeling by the front wheel of the wagon, quietly sobbing.
    When the box had been found and Alice ran with it to her aunt, Fonthill addressed Gerald Griffith. ‘Why the hell did you fire your piece,’ he demanded, ‘when I told you not to fire until I did?’
    ‘I didn’t fire it. It sort of went off on its own.’ Gerald’s eyes were staring and his mouth set hard under its thin moustache. ‘It’s all your fault. If you hadn’t told us to show our weapons – for all the good that did – the thing wouldn’t have gone off. I wouldn’t have had to wave it about.’
    Jenkins clenched his fist and took a pace forward. ‘Don’t you talk to the captain like that,’ he growled. ‘You’re not fit to clean ’is boots.’
    ‘That will do, 352.’ Fonthill’s voice was low with disgust. He addressed Griffith again. ‘Now, I am afraid that you have lost your father and your mother will need all the help you can give her. I suggest you go to her now and help her in what she is doing – and I suggest you take your brother with you.’
    ‘He’s not my bro—’ He broke off when he saw the light in Fonthill’s eye. ‘Oh, very well.’
    Simon and Jenkins watched the two walk slowly to where Mrs Griffith and Alice were now tending two Boxers, who were sitting up in the road. ‘As far as I can see,’ said Fonthill, ‘not one of the people who attacked us was hit by buckshot from that lad’s piece. He must be a particularly bad shot. It would have been almost impossible to have missed at this range.’
    ‘Ah.’ Jenkins sucked in his moustache. ‘And do you think ’e let off that thing deliberately early?’
    ‘What?’ Fonthill looked at his old comrade sharply. ‘And deliberately cause the death of his father?’
    ‘Hmm.