‘Please take him to the Safety Zone,’ said Fabio.
‘The Japs go to the Safety Zone dozens of times every day to pick up Chinese soldiers and the wounded! Please, I beg you!’
‘I’m very sorry. It’s quite impossible. Please don’t force me to compromise the neutrality of this church.’
Gunshots were heard from somewhere nearby.
The gravedigger refused to give up. ‘Merciful priests, I beg you!’ Then his footsteps were heard receding into the distance. He had clearly left the wounded soldier behind.
Fabio did not know what to do. He could not let the Chinese soldier outside bleed to death, but neither could he put the nearly forty souls inside at risk.
At that moment, Father Engelmann suddenly emerged out of the darkness, still wearing his funeral cassock.
‘What’s happening?’ he asked Fabio and Ah Gu.
‘There’s a seriously wounded soldier outside,’ said Fabio. ‘Should we bring him in?’
For the first time since he had met Father Engelmann, Fabio sensed that the priest had no idea what to do.
‘Please, I beg you!’ The wounded man outside spoke through clenched teeth.
‘We have to open up,’ said Fabio in English. ‘If he dies outside our door, we’ll be compromised.’
Engelmann looked at his junior. He knew Fabio was right, but he dared not contemplate the prospect of losing the church’s neutrality, and thus losing their ability to protect the schoolgirls. ‘We can’t,’ he said. ‘But we could get Ah Gu to take him away and leave him in some other place.’
‘That would be sending him to his death!’ exclaimed Ah Gu.
Outside the door, the wounded man gave a groan which sounded scarcely human.
From where Shujuan stood at the window the two clergymen in their black robes and Ah Gu looked like three figures on a chessboard. She watched Father Engelmann take the key from Ah Gu and undo the sturdy German- made lock. He pushed the bolts to one side and pulled the chain free. The door opened heavily and the girls gave a sigh of relief.
But then, even faster and more firmly than he had opened it, Father Engelmann shut the door again before anyone outside could get in. He attempted to lock up again, but his movements were clumsy. Fabio asked him what was going on. Engelmann said nothing and concentrated instead on locking and bolting the door.
‘There’s not one but two outside. Two wounded Chinese soldiers!’ he said in aggrieved tones.
There was another shout from the gravedigger. ‘The Japs are coming! On horses!’
It was clear that he had only pretended to go away. He had correctly gambled on the assumption that the foreign monks would not leave a lone wounded man to bleed to death. Father Engelmann had fallen into the trap, and opened the door. The gravedigger had said there was only one casualty because he feared that the church would not take in more than one.
‘I really can hear horses!’ said Ah Gu.
Even Shujuan knew that if a Japanese soldier on horseback were to turn into the alleyway outside the church, then that would be the end of them all, both inside and outside.
‘Why did you lie to me? There’s clearly more than one casualty!’ shouted Father Engelmann. ‘You Chinese do nothing but tell lies, even at a time like this!’
‘Father, we’re saving lives. What does it matter if it’s one or one hundred?’ said Fabio. This was the first time he had directly confronted his mentor.
‘You shut up,’ said Father Engelmann.
The men outside did not understand the foreigners’ conversation but they knew it had to do with whether they lived or died. The gravedigger became frantic and shouted, ‘The horses are coming this way!’
Father Engelmann walked back the way he had come, the key in his hand. He had only gone half a dozen paces when a dark figure swiftly blocked his way. It appeared to be that of a soldier.
Sophie, who was standing next to Shujuan, gave a yelp like a puppy. The war had arrived here and their compound was going to be a battlefield.
The intruder closed in on Father Engelmann. ‘Open up!’ he ordered. The conflagration from a distant building seemed to have set the sky on fire, and the light from it flickered across the courtyard. The girls could see that the soldier was holding a pistol to Father Engelmann’s chest, no doubt making the priest’s heart thump under his black cassock. If the soldier were even a little sensitive, Shujuan thought, he must surely be aware of that thudding heart.
Fabio took the key from Father Engelmann’s hand and opened the door. In came a little group of people, one of whom lay covered in blood in a wheelbarrow. The one who had been talking through the door was using a roughly cut tree branch as a crutch. The wheelbarrow was being pushed by a middle-aged man wearing a black waistcoat.
Not long after the door was shut again, some Japanese cavalry rode down the street, laughing and singing cheerfully.
Everyone inside stood motionless as statues until the Japanese had passed. The soldier in uniform still held the pistol in both hands, the bullets ready to fly if the door should be opened again. Not until the echoes of the horses’ hooves had faded into the distance did they relax.
‘Let’s go down and have a look,’ Shujuan whispered to Xiaoyu.
‘You can’t!’ exclaimed Xiaoyu.
‘Come on, it’s easy.’
Xiaoyu’s face suddenly became hard. ‘You go alone, Shujuan. And don’t count on me to save your skin.’
Shujuan opened the trapdoor, the ladder extended beneath her and she set off on her own.
‘Look at Shujuan!’ she heard Xiaoyu say to the other girls. ‘She’s always looking for trouble!’
Shujuan was furious with Xiaoyu. She had intended to sneak away with her friend behind the backs of the others, and now Xiaoyu had betrayed her to them.
She crept down to the entrance to the workshop building and pushed open the door a crack so that she could see what was happening outside. She was not a girl who liked the wool pulled over her eyes. She knew it was just a way of protecting her but she did not appreciate it at all.
Through the crack in the door, she could see that the struggle in the courtyard was still unresolved. The wheelbarrow had taken on the role of the tank, creaking over the ground as the soldier wielding the pistol led their advance. Shujuan could see that the man wearing the strange black waistcoat had white cloth circles stuck to the front and back; she supposed this was the normal garb for gravediggers.
‘Ah Gu, go and get the first-aid box,’ ordered Father Engelmann. ‘Give them a supply of swabs and dressings and get rid of them.’ He was making it very clear he would not receive guests like this at the church.
The pistol-wielding soldier did not strike an aggressive posture but he still pointed the pistol at the priest as he said: ‘Where do you want them to go to?’
‘Please put your weapon down when you talk to me, Major,’ Father Engelmann responded with dignity.
He had seen the man’s rank. He had also seen that his jacket had a dark patch at the hem on the left-hand side where the blood had soaked through.
‘Pardon me, Father,’ said the soldier still pointing his gun.
‘Are you trying to force me at gunpoint to take you all in?’
‘People only listen when you’ve got a gun in your hand.’
‘Why didn’t you use your gun to make the Japanese listen to you?’
The soldier was silent.
‘You see, Officer, I don’t talk to people who are armed. Please put your gun down.’
The officer lowered his gun.
‘Would you mind telling me who you are and how you got in?’ Fabio asked him.
‘It was easy. I’ve been here for days,’ answered the soldier. ‘I’m Major Dai Tao, second in command, Second Regiment, 73rd Division.’
At that point, a slight sound reached their ears.
Shujuan peered out and saw half a dozen women emerging from the kitchen with Hongling at their head. They certainly could not complain that they were ‘bored to death’ any more: before their eyes a blood-soaked bundle lay in a wheelbarrow. They stopped and began to whisper among themselves. They appeared to realise for
