Chapter Eighty-Nine: Breaking Out of Beijing City

Yang Xiaolin sprang straight out of the window, hunching low as he sprinted with all the speed he could muster toward Nyerere’s car. Bullets cracked and snapped all around him; shards of stone burst up and struck his body from time to time, but he could not spare a thought for any of it now. He ran for his life.

Nyerere wrenched the wheel and swung the car toward him. Yang Xiaolin did not wait for the door to open. He leapt and vaulted straight through the window into the car.

Outside, he heard the British officer roar, “Fire! Don’t let them get away!”

Bullets kept hammering against the car. In that instant, the difference between the Qing soldiers and the foreign troops became clear. The foreign soldiers mostly aimed at the tires, while the Qing men were plainly amateurish; almost all of their shots struck the body of the car.

In this age, rifles did not have enough penetration to make such efforts very effective. Yang Xiaolin lay back in the rear seat and suddenly felt dampness at his abdomen. He reached down and came away with a hand full of blood.

He lifted his shirt and saw that, at some point, a bullet had punched a hole clean through his belly, grazing the area beside his navel, entering from the left and exiting on the right. Yang Xiaolin did not know whether his intestines had been hit. He tore a strip of cloth from his undershirt and bound the wound as best he could.

Nyerere’s driving was clearly superb. He sent the car weaving in an S-shape, doing everything he could to protect the tires from damage. He also noticed Yang Xiaolin’s condition and, finding a spare moment, asked, “How is it? You all right?”

Yang Xiaolin finished bandaging himself. At a time like this, even if he was not, there was nothing to be done about it. “I’m fine. I won’t die.”

A heavy machine gun was mounted at the rear of the car as well. Before anyone could say anything, Yang Xiaolin crawled from the back seat to the gun position. Seeing that the ammunition belts were properly loaded, he squeezed the trigger and swept the gun across the pursuers behind them.

Nyerere slammed the accelerator to the floor. “Rhegg, increase the firepower. We’re going for the city gate!”

In order not to arouse Yang Xiaolin’s suspicion, the Qing troops had left the gate open. Now that matters had suddenly changed, the soldiers lying in ambush at the gate tried to close it again while firing at the car. But Rhegg was plainly an excellent machine-gunner. Even though Nyerere’s car lurched wildly from side to side, nearly all the rounds from his weapon slammed into the ground beneath the gate.

The Qing soldiers who had tried to close the gate were cut down in an instant. Those who remained alive scattered in panic. Qing soldiers had no resolve to die for their cause. They would not throw away their lives for the court, and naturally they would not do so for foreign masters either.

The distance from here to the gate was scarcely more than a hundred meters. Taking advantage of the confusion among the Qing troops, Nyerere accelerated. Though the British officer behind them roared furiously, he could not stop the car as it shot straight through the gate.

The officer ran after the car, choking on its exhaust, until he reached the gate and could go no farther. In vain, he raised his pistol and fired several shots at the car.

On the screen, films often showed lone heroes facing an onrushing car with calm nerves, raising their guns to aim steadily, then bringing the car to an explosion or forcing it to halt before their very eyes. But that was the movies.

This British officer clearly possessed none of that lone-hero talent. After emptying his magazine, he saw Yang Xiaolin wave at him and, enraged, hurled his pistol to the ground. “Damn it! Even then he got away!”

Zai Feng also came running up at this point. He clearly lacked the physical stamina of the British officer; after only a few hundred meters of mad sprinting, he was already gasping for breath. He lifted a hand as if he wanted to say something to the officer, but found himself too winded to speak.

The Englishman did not comfort him either. Instead, he turned back to the Qing soldiers, grabbed the man in charge by the collar, and shouted, “Is this what passes for the elite of your Qing Empire?”

Zai Feng offered no explanation. A nearby American officer patted the British man on the shoulder. “Don’t be angry. If the Qing army were really elite, we wouldn’t be standing here now.”

It was not an excuse, but it was enough to explain everything. The British officer knew perfectly well that he should never have placed his hopes on these Qing soldiers. It had also been his own carelessness. He had never imagined that anyone would come to rescue Yang Xiaolin, much less that they would bring a car. So the guards at the gate had not treated the matter seriously at all.

He thrust out his arm in fury. “What were those two black men? How did they get a car?”

The American shrugged. “There are only three cars in Peking. That one certainly does not belong to the old Empress Dowager, and it is not from the British legation either.”

The British officer let out a long breath. After a long while, he finally said, “The lovely Italians!”

At this point, Rhegg was sitting in the front passenger seat, smoking one of the cigarettes Yang Xiaolin had handed him. “Yang, how does it feel? Never thought we’d come back to save you, did you? Nyerere guessed long ago you wouldn’t be able to get away.”

Yang Xiaolin was truly moved. It was not simply because they had rescued him, but because they were willing to come back at a time like this. That alone made him deeply grateful. He punched Nyerere’s arm with his fist. “Only now do I realize God is black.”

In the rearview mirror, Nyerere smiled, flashing a row of white teeth. “Don’t say that. I’ve been a mercenary for ten years, and I’ve never abandoned my brothers. Yang, the moment you told us to leave first, I already thought of you as a brother.”

Yang Xiaolin did not say any more words of thanks. Some people, after helping you, must be thanked again and again until they are embarrassed by it. But with someone like Nyerere, to say more would only seem petty.

“We’re not safe yet. At the very least, we need to get out of Zhili Province. What are you planning to do after this?”

Rhegg answered at once, “I’m going back to Ethiopia. That’s my home. Now that I’ve got money, I’ll go back, change my name, and take my parents to Europe to live well.”

Yang Xiaolin extended a hand toward him. “Congratulations.”

Rhegg shook it. “Right, Yang Ghost-Buster, what are you planning to do? Go back to Wheel Mountain and keep being a bandit?”

Yang Xiaolin smiled. “I don’t want to, but there’s no choice. When I go back, I’ll have to fight the Russians and the Qing court. They’ve already gathered sixty or seventy thousand men, maybe even more.”

Nyerere glanced at him through the rearview mirror. “How many do you have?”

“Not even two thousand.”

Nyerere was plainly astonished. “Then you’re in deep trouble.”

Yang Xiaolin slapped him lightly. “What about you? Got somewhere to go?”

Nyerere was silent for a while, then said with some sadness, “I never wanted to be a mercenary. But my family is all gone now. The brothers have really gone their separate ways, and I’m not quite used to it. I don’t even know what I should do.”

Yang Xiaolin said, “Then come with me to Wheel Mountain.”

Nyerere smiled. “Fine. I’d like to see how you fight a war with two thousand men against tens of thousands.”

Rhegg seemed somewhat surprised by Nyerere’s decision. “Nyerere, you can come with me. My home is your home. My parents will treat you the way they treat me.”

Nyerere took a thick wad of banknotes from inside his coat and pressed it into Rhegg’s hand. “Forget it. Take the money and go. I’m already used to gunfire. I’ll remember you, brother.”

When he had said that, Nyerere stopped the car and nodded at Rhegg. “Get out. We don’t need your help anymore.”

Rhegg froze for a moment, then opened the door and stepped out. “Take care, Nyerere.”

Nyerere nodded back at him. Rhegg then turned to Yang Xiaolin. “Yang Ghost-Buster, it was a pleasure meeting you. Remember, you owe me one life. Maybe someday I’ll come looking to collect.”

Yang Xiaolin waved a hand. “As long as I’m still alive, you can come find me anytime. I’ll help you with anything.”

He said that rather grandly, because he felt that after this, he probably would never see Rhegg again. Rhegg had only meant it as a joke as well. Neither of them could have imagined that more than ten years later, when Rhegg came to China as a representative of an African resistance organization seeking support, Yang Xiaolin would have to pay for the promise made today.