Zergeyev and Longstaff were still waiting with the men beside the gate. Their escape was blocked by a third mob which gushed across the square and fell on the factory next to theirs. Struan pointed to the wall and they shinned over it. Culum fell, but Struan grabbed him up and together they ran for the boats, Zergeyev and Longstaff close alongside.
The mob let them pass, but once they had started across the square, leaving the path to the factory clear, the leaders charged into the garden. Many had torches. And they fell on The Noble House.
Now flames poured from most of the factories, and a roof fell with a vast sigh and more flames showered the thousands in the square.
Brock was on the main deck of his lorcha, profanely exhorting the crew. They all were armed and their guns pointed landward.
Standing on the poop, Gorth saw the fore and aft hawsers cast off. As the lorcha began to fall away from the wharf, Gorth seized a musket, aimed at the Chinese who were jammed into the doorway of their factory, and pulled the trigger. He saw a man fall and grinned devilishly. He picked up another musket; then noticed Struan and the others charging for their lorcha—milling Chinese ahead of and behind them. He made certain no one was watching him and aimed carefully. Struan was between Culum and Zergeyev, Longstaff alongside. Gorth pulled the trigger.
Zergeyev spun around and smashed into the ground.
Gorth took another musket but Brock rushed up to the poop. “Get for’ard and man the fore cannon!” he shouted. “No firing till I says!” He shoved Gorth along, roaring at his men, “Get thy helm over, by God! Let go the reefs an’ all sail ho!” He glanced shoreward and saw Struan and Longstaff bending over Zergeyev, Culum beside him, the mob surging toward them. He grabbed the musket that Gorth had dropped, aimed and fired. A leader fell and the mob hesitated.
Struan hoisted Zergeyev onto his shoulder. “Fire over their heads!” he ordered. His men spun out protectively and fired a volley at point-blank range. The Chinese in front shrank back and those behind pressed forward. The hysterical melee which ensued gave Struan and his men enough time to make their boat.
Mauss was waiting on the dock beside the lorcha, the strange Chinese convert nearby. Both were armed. Mauss had a Bible in one hand and a cutlass in the other and he was shouting, “Blessed be the Lord, forgive these poor sinners.” He hacked at the air with the blade and the mob avoided him.
When they were all aboard and the lorcha in midstream, they looked back.
The whole Settlement was ablaze. Dancing flames and billowing smoke and fiendish screaming all blended into an inferno.
Longstaff was on his knees beside Zergeyev, who lay on the quarterdeck. Struan hurried toward them.
“Get for’ard!” he roared at Mauss. “Be lookout!”
Zergeyev was white with shock and was holding the right side of his groin. Blood was oozing from under his hand. The servant guards were moaning with terror. Struan pushed them out of the way and ripped open the front flap of Zergeyev’s trousers. He cut away the trouser leg. The musket ball had scored the stomach deeply, low and obliquely, a fraction of an inch above his sex, and then had entered the right thigh. Blood seeped heavily but it was not spurting. Struan thanked God that the ball had not entered the stomach as he had expected. He turned Zergeyev over and the Russian choked back a groan. The back of his thigh was torn and bloody where the ball had* come out. Struan gingerly probed the wound and took out a small piece of shattered bone.
“Get the blankets and brandy and a brazier,” Struan snapped at a seaman. “Your Highness, can you move your right leg?”
Zergeyev shifted it slightly and winced with pain, but his leg moved.
“Your hip’s all right, I think, laddie. Stay still, now.”
When the blankets were brought, he wrapped Zergeyev in them and propped him more comfortably on the seat behind the helmsman, and gave him brandy.
When the brazier came, Struan opened the wound to the air and doused it heavily with the brandy. He heated his knife in the coals of the brazier.
“Hold him, Will! Culum, give us a hand.” They knelt down, Longstaff at his feet, Culum at his head.
Struan put the red-hot knife into the fore wound and the brandy caught and Zergeyev passed out. Struan cauterized the wound in front and probed deeply and quickly, wanting to do it fast now that Zergeyev was unconscious. He turned him over, and probed again. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. Longstaff turned aside and vomited, but Culum held on and helped, and Longstaff turned back once more.
Struan reheated the knife and poured more brandy over the back wound and cauterized it deeply and thoroughly. His head ached from the stench, and sweat was dripping off his chin, but his hands were steady and he knew that if he did not do the burning carefully, the wound would rot and Zergeyev would certainly die.
With such a wound nine men in ten would die.
Then he was finished.
He bandaged Zergeyev, and he rinsed his own mouth with brandy; its fumes cleared away the smell of blood and burning flesh. Then he gulped heavily and studied Zergeyev. The face was gray and bloodless.
“Now he’s in the hands of his own joss,” he said. “You all right, Culum?”
“Yes. Yes, I think so.”
“Get below. Organize hot rum for all hands. Check stores. You’re Number Two aboard now. Get everyone sorted out.”
Culum left the poop.
The two Russian servants were kneeling beside Zergeyev. One of them touched Struan and spoke brokenly, obviously thanking him. Struan motioned them to stay beside their master.
He stretched wearily and put his hand on Longstaff’s shoulder and drew him aside and .bent low to Longstaff’s ear. “Did you see muskets among the Chinese?”
Longstaff shook his head. “None.”
“Nor did I,” Struan said.
“There were guns going off all over the place.” Longstaff was white-faced and greatly concerned. “One of those unlucky accidents.”
Struan said nothing for a moment. “If he dies, there’ll be very large trouble, eh?”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t, Dirk.” Longstaff bit his lip. “I’ll have to advise the Foreign Secretary of the accident at once. I’ll have to hold an inquiry.”
“Aye.”
Longstaff looked across at the gray, corpselike face. Zergeyev’s breathing was shallow. “Damned annoying, what?”
“From the position of the wound, and from where he was standing when he was felled, there’s nae doubt that it was one of our bullets.”
“It was one of those unfortunate accidents.”
“Aye. But the bullet could have been aimed.”
“Impossible. Who’d want to kill him?”
“Who’d want to kill you? Or Culum? Or perhaps me? We were all very close together.”
“Who?”
“I’ve a dozen enemies.”
“Brock wouldn’t murder you in cold blood.”
“I never said he would. Offer a reward for information. Someone may have seen something.”
Together they watched the Settlement. It was far astern now: only flames and smoke over the rooftops of Canton. “Madness to loot like that. Hasn’t happened ever before. Why would they do that? Why?” Longstaff said.
“I dinna ken.”
“As soon as we get to Hong Kong, we go north—this time to the gates of Peking, by God. The emperor’s going to be very sorry he ordered this.”