A pack of dirty yellow goblins. Private Fawkes, 77th East Middlesex regiment, had thought little more of the Chinese enemy before he shipped out, though the sergeants had roared a lot more about foot binding and the thousand cuts. He hadn't thought anything of what pikes and ancient cannons could do to a British soldier with his Sinder-Enfield. The flat-faced little fellows had hardly shown any fight at all, as redcoats had taken and burnt their city. The damp and heat were more tenacious foes.

So Harry Fawkes, on a routine patrol of a busy Canton street, pushed back his pith helmet and wiped the sweat from his messy hair. As the proverbial half-brick sailed out of the quietly gathering mob and knocked him down.

He barely perceived the shouts, or the rush of grim, staring faces. He felt the foot crush his ankle–it could have been his own squadmate's boot–and Kipling hammered his head into the dark.

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier, soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!

-0-

A woman was smiling at him, when he half-woke with a pounding head. A girl, really–she looked younger than his seventeen–with a pigtail she could sit on. Dark eyes like a jewel cave. She was wearing a ragged white tunic and a yellow scarf. She had no flaying knife he could see.

Despite his head feeling like a foundry at the bottom of the sea, Harry realised quite sharpish that he was lying on rags and bamboo in a junkroom or shed. The noise from outside, all around, was of the city–the Chinese city. The girl pushed him down before he could even begin to get up.

"Tsai gwai! Foreign devil." She pointed at him, then gestured at the city past the door, "They people, much much angry. They–"

Frenzied stabbing motions at her own chest. Once Harry had woozily noticed it was a very shapely chest, he finally awoke to his situation–as the missionaries say–and flopped back with a groan.

The girl gently pushed some water between his lips. With thirst seizing his throat again, a moment later, Harry talked to take his mind off his ankle and ribs and everything else that hurt.

"Bloody mess. Sergeant's going to kill me. Friends should've bloody pulled me out, argh…! You must've saved my life, Miss. Thank you."

"Mm?"

"You SA–VED me! THA–NK YOU!"

The girl cocked her head. Harry settled for smiling at her. Her smile in return was the warmest and clearest he could imagine.

"WHY...YOU…why would you save me? Foreign devil? Burn your city, push all that opium. I could use some of that bloody opium right now." His ankle hurt so much, he could barely think. He stared up helplessly at the girl's face, silent as the moon, tried once more.

"Why…what makes you smile, like that? It's…beautiful..."

Shuang Lei couldn't have answered him in words if she'd understood. Through the years she'd lived in the city since her parents' death, surviving by whatever reckless adventure could be found, there had been more to bring a grimace than a grin. Still, she watched the noisy, ignorant foreign devil close his big eyes in restless sleep.

She had saved him, but it was she who felt safety and peace at his side. She didn't know why, she did not know how in heaven and earth she could keep him, safe–but this man from a strange world of devils and magic had fallen before her. All she knew was that she could not let him go.

-0-

Harry realised quickly that the girl was very strong, for a female, as she shifted him round his sickbed over the following days, and coolly assisted him with embarrassing necessities. From outside the shed, he often heard the yowls and slaps of the funny Chinese boxing he'd naturally heard of, through never desired or expected to meet with. He wondered in his many idle hours if she was a student–some kind of warrior woman from a secret order, sworn to protect the weak. A thief or a street tough seemed more likely, however. She often returned to the shed with bruises and skinned knuckles, as well as the day's dry rice to spoon down his throat. She always did a little blessing with her hand over the food, and Harry chipped in with what little prayer he could make up.

Harry knew the ways friendless children survived in Whitechapel and Lambeth; he couldn't fail to see that the girl had been through great hardship. She smiled at him every morning, though, except for when he remembered to dig out the few coins he'd had on him.

"Tsai! No money." She looked away. Harry signed; he had begun to suspect that 'Tsai' was 'idiot'"

"If there's anything I can do for you? On my honour, as a soldier?" No reaction. He shook his head. "Alright, love. Just glad you're not slicing me up, or sticking red-hot needles in funny places!"

"Idiot. I've done nothing for you worth payment, I don't feel that way…I was worried for you, idiot! I couldn't even bring a doctor for you with his needles, and I know nothing of acupuncture. I could only sit while your fever broke, pace with you, as your leg healed...but it did, in the end. You certainly are a strong devil. Even if your nose looks so silly."

Harry naturally couldn't understand a word, but his grin was from the heart. He thought of her Cantonese as sharp, strong music, and he could tell when she was worried for him–though he might never understand why. At least he had finally seen in her smile...to her, this was more than a duty.

"You can walk with a crutch. Your people ended the riots over a week ago. You must go back to them. To your friends, your white women…though they look too frail to ever split wood, or lift water, with their soft hands. You know, I fought with three robbers once? In the south market. I didn't win...but I fought. I survived.

"Hey, love, what's wrong? I don't...I'll...whatever it is..." Harry touched her shoulder. Churning with frustration to see the pain in her eyes, beyond him. He could only rest his hand near her face.

"Why did your people, you devils, come to fight? Why throw our world into chaos? You have so much, but you left your home-and still, you still seem so lonely. Never at peace. Hey…do you even want to go back? I don't want you to ever go back..."

He didn't even know her name, or how she lived. How any of the Chinese millions lived, beyond this hidden cage. What they thought–why their children smiled. He didn't even know why Parkes and Palmerston had sent him over the black ocean to a vast, voiceless country that had to burn. The Chinese his friends had shot died crying out like humans. The sergeants had screamed he had to throw the torches, burn the houses, never check for families still inside…

Dreams of fire racked his sleep that night. When he cried and woke, she was gripping his soaking hand, at his side.

"Why? Why, love?" He whispered, "Why me? Why you, so…?"

Shuang could have told him, if he could have understood, about the wheel of life in the demon's hands. In another life, long ago and far away, they might have found each other. Lost. Gone through unknowable space, uncounted empty years, to the moment he kissed her hand and she fell upon his lips.

She laughed as he surged up against her, from the sickbed, her flesh awakening his. Threw her tunic away, gripped his slim body with her legs. She smiled, held his head on her breasts, called him her child. Cried out as he pushed her down and took her, called him her devil. Wept for joy and clung to his back, after they had finished. Called him her lover and her best friend, the husband of her soul.

She wasn't Harry's first girl, but it felt like his first breath. As if they had escaped the shipwreck of a world, as if they had fought for their lives, and souls and innocence.

"Love. You…"

She didn't understand. It was a small mercy, because he couldn't stay. Sleeping with a few natives was quite cricket, but you followed your regiment in the army, and the ones that deserted got a wall and a blindfold at dawn. They would be shipping out in less than a month, for some other colonial contretemps in a distant land, and he couldn't stay or he would never go.

-0-

Dr Ilsa Tresckow had done what she could for the bleeding, dull-eyed Chinese girl who had stumbled into Canton's little Lutheran mission, three months ago now. Shuang had been silent about what had happened, but there was violence of every sort abroad. Girls tortured in the brothels. Escaping, to be beaten and cast out by their own families. Opium addicts killing for their next fix. Persecution of converts, and any luckless associate of foreign devils, whenever the shame of defeat proved too much to bear.

The girl worked hard enough to earn her keep; she simply had no spirit or interest in anything. The missionaries had taught her about the Grace of God, and she had accepted all they'd said…but Ilsa knew from personal experience that acceptance was not faith. Shuang was as lost and damned as a medical missionary who'd lied for her ticket to China, burning to gain exotic knowledge, rather than to preach to the sick before they could have their medicine. Sometimes she seemed in hell already; sometimes China seemed a place of entire darkness.

Shuang had been bright enough the day before; sometimes a glimmer of natural joy flared up in her gloom, to die out. When Ilsa found her gone from her bed, the river was the place that she ran to–it was far from the first time.

Five minutes past midnight. Shuang stood on the wooden bridge above the black Pearl River. When a young man with brown eyes and no red coat walked out of the darkness. Saw her.

"…Love. I looked for you, the embassies, the missions…I found you. This is a miracle–!"

Shuang turned to look at Harry; he stepped back. She put her hands on her stomach, in a gesture he could never have mistaken.

"Devil-baby. Inside. You leave us!"

Harry stared at her, stared at the river. It hit him like an avalanche, drove him to his knees. When Dr Tresckow found them, he was clinging to Shuang's waist. Begging her again, again, never, never throw her life away–though she seemed quite occupied for now with beating him over the head.

"Shuang! Get away from that odd man."

"You…you speak Chinese!?" 'That odd man' sounded as if she could summon chariots of fire.

"Ja, of course! Enough to live in China."

"Miss…Frau…please, tell her I love her. I've deserted the army. Done a bloody runner. I should've never gone back, never left her, but my friends, bloody England...I thought two little people couldn't fight the world. But they were going to ship us to India last month, the Mutiny. They told us we'd wipe out the black rapists, exterminate them. Nogood rebel but a dead rebel, but it's all lies! I know they're human beings, like her! I still have nightmares, about the burning. I told them and they flogged me. My mates called me a darkie lover. Now, it's the noose for Harry Fawkes, if they ever find me again.

"Tell her I love her. I'm sorry. I'm a fool, but I'll make this all right. The whole world might want us dead, but we can fight them...heck, if she saved me she can do bloody well anything, she beats the whole world! I won't leave her alone, never again."

Ilsa relayed every word she could. Shuang reached out, hit him once more, lightly. Stroked his hair.

"Sorry, love." He smiled against her hand, like a bad puppy, "I just rushed off, rushed back. Don't know how we'll live, or where. But it's a big country, bloody big! I heard of runners in India, they set up as warlords for some prince or sultan, ended up richer than kings! Ah, we can dream, but this is real, right here. Together, love, right where we belong."

Shuang pulled Harry up from his knees, pressed her face to his chest. Held his hand over their child in her womb. The dawn came up like thunder in her smile.

Ilsa knew the right thing to do. Sent the deserter back to his fate, the child to an orphanage, the harlot back to the streets. But she saw Shuang clinging to her lover with all her considerable strength. Gazing on him as if they'd been raised from the dead.

She rubbed her spectacles, realised she was smiling for silly joy. The mercy of God could be very strange. Perhaps it had taken a voyage as far as China, and a miracle, for the missionary to believe.

Perhaps they would break up brothels and opium dens together, as many as they could. Perhaps military advisers to some warlord, with Harry another Rajah Brooke or Pahari Wilson. Perhaps missionaries themselves; they had enough to thank God for. Perhaps an ordinary couple, somewhere in China, just as long as their luck held. They knew they were crazy but their world was insane, and they were ready to strike out for another adventure.