 
A British expedition to Outer Mongolia has gone missing while investigating the reasons behind a Russian plan to build a railway all the way to China. Li Bic and her travelling companion Amelia Harper are sent from Shanghai to find out what has happened to the missing men. On the way, they encounter the fabled Book Bandits of Saynshand, and discover that the city on the edge of the Gobi desert holds other, more dangerous, secrets.

The Secret of Saynshand

by

Lesley Arrowsmith

42,100 words

with additional material

by

Mark Britton

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 Lesley Arrowsmith

Smashwords edition, Licence Notes

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*****

Sources

I got the original idea for this story from the blog Beyond Victoriana, which talks about Steampunk around the world - there are more settings for stories, and potential for characters, than London, the British Empire, and the Wierd Wild West. She was talking about Mongolian book bandits, which were a real thing - Chinese novels translated into Mongolian were big business, and the pack trains taking them to Mongolia were often raided by bandits, who would then sell the books themselves. I just made a few minor adjustments to the story....

For the Chinese Grand Canal, the National Geographic for June 2001 was very helpful, in an article on Marco Polo. The National Geographics for March 1962, and November 1932 were also very useful.

For Shanghai, there's a fascinating book about the Shanghai Police called Empire Made Me, by Robert Bickers, following the career of Maurice Tinkler, who wrote a series of letters home talking about his life there. The Shanghai Club, by the way, was built in 1910, a few years after the time that this story is set - but this is an alternative history, so in my Shanghai, they built it a few years early.

I also dipped into Land of Swift-Running Horses: a summer of adventures in Mongolia, by Mabel Waln Smith, The Yangtse Valley and Beyond by Isabella Bird and Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China 1844 - 1846 by Evariste-Regis Huc and Joseph Gabet. A more modern look at life in Mongolia is Hearing Birds Fly, by Louisa Waugh, who spent a year in a remote village as a teacher.

The Art of Travel, by Francis Galton (1872) is a wonderful practical guide to putting an expedition together.

Li Bic is named after the little girl who used to walk my dog (now all grown up and gone to college) and Amelia Harper is named after my great-grandmother.

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### The Secret of Saynshand

Chapter One: Shanghai and the Grand Canal

The Bund stretched out before them, a long promenade alongside the Huangpo River. The rickshaw man trotted briskly along the wide avenue, nimbly making his way through a throng of people - there were porters carrying heavy loads on long bamboo poles, street traders, men pushing wheelbarrows, other rickshaws, and plenty of pedestrians wandering in and out of the traffic with no regard, it seemed, to their own safety.

Over in the Public Gardens, an Indian woman in a blue sari was walking along a path between low flower beds with a trio of small European girls in frilly dresses, while a policeman wearing a turban patrolled a little way behind her. There were European adults too, riding on rickshaws and going in and out of the big banks that rose up, in monumental European style, on the other side of the road. Just here, it hardly seemed that one was in China at all.

The river was as thickly thronged with ships as the Bund was with people. A steamer was moving slowly upriver to the Quai de France, where Li Bic and Amelia Harper had disembarked just the day before, and around it were Chinese junks and sampans, gunboats from several different European nations and merchantmen powered by both sail and steam. The noise was confusing for a newcomer - engines and whistles from the river, the bustle of people on the Bund talking in half a dozen different languages. Bic was glad that Lt Waring, at least, knew where they were supposed to be going.

Lt Waring was taking Li Bic and her companion, Amelia Harper, to the Shanghai Club. Bic was wearing the pale yellow bustle dress that had been the latest fashion in San Francisco, with what she considered to be a rather fetching hat. Certainly, Lt. Waring, very correct in his naval whites, seemed to be more than casually interested in her. She fluttered her fan, and smiled at him, which made him go quite pink.

Amelia, squashed up on the other end of the rickshaw's seat, was dressed in a loose and fairly shapeless blue cotton dress, topped with a solar topee. Away from the sea breezes of their recent steamer trip, she had not managed to acclimatise herself yet to the humid heat of Shanghai. The pinkness of her cheeks owed more to the heat than to any sense of embarrassment.

Lt. Waring brought them to the door of the Club, and enquired after the whereabouts of Major Evans. As they stepped into the entrance hall, the noise and bustle fell away behind them, and they entered the tobacco scented gloom of dark, wood panelled walls which could have been an English gentleman's club anywhere in the world.

In due course, a woman wearing a dark uniform jacket with a red military style stripe up the side of her skirts came out of the Billiard Room and joined them in the lobby.

Amelia extended one white gloved hand to greet her.

"Miss Harper. Your reputation precedes you," the Major said. "Can't take you into the bar, I'm afraid - members only and," here she looked slightly embarrassed and failed to meet Bic's eye, "no Chinese, I'm afraid - foreigners only. Besides, I think we need to find somewhere a little more private to talk, don't you, Miss Harper?"

"What a pity," Amelia commented drily. "I was so looking forward to seeing the long bar. I understand it's quite impressive."

"You may go and wait in the long bar, Lt Waring," Major Evans said, dismissing him. "I'll send a servant when we need you again."

Bic and Amelia followed Major Evans up the nearest darkly panelled staircase. At the top a corridor stretched towards the rear of the building, and a little way along it was a door into a cramped little office. Major Evans took the chair behind the desk, and Bic stood awkwardly beside Amelia behind the only other chair.

Amelia leaned on the back of the chair to face Major Evans. "So what, exactly, is the problem?" she asked.

Major Evans pulled a manila folder towards her and squared the corners on the blotter. "I appreciate that you needed to leave San Fransisco in something of a hurry," she began, "but you have to admit that your methods during your stay there were unorthodox."

"Well, I'm sorry I didn't follow protocol while being pursued by members of a tong with murderous intent," Amelia said, not sounding sorry at all.

"And it was unfortunate that you were forced to involve Miss Lee." Major Evans still hadn't looked directly at Bic, and she didn't now.

"Miss Li proved to be most resourceful, and I couldn't have achieved what I did without her," Amelia said. "It was therefore imperative that I should take her with me when I left, as she had put her life in danger in the service of the Empire, and the tong know who she is. I'm pretty sure her family are in no danger - I did inform Mr Conway of the situation...."

"You know the policy on involving freelancers," Major Evans said frostily.

"And I wouldn't have done it if there were any other members of the Service in San Fransisco," Amelia said. "I'm sure you'll agree that we are somewhat thinly spread across the globe!"

"Yes, well." Major Evans looked down at the folder again. "The information you retrieved has been forwarded to where it will do most good - and now we have to decide what to do about Miss Lee."

"I thought that was obvious," Amelia said. "She'll be an asset to the Service."

"She is also, unfortunately, an American citizen," Major Evans said.

"Ah." Amelia took a moment to consider. "But we can't just abandon her here in Shanghai, and she can't go home."

"As you say, it is a difficult situation."

"Is anybody going to ask me what I want to do?" Bic asked. She was tired of them both talking about her as if she wasn't there, and the thought of just being abandoned in a strange city horrified her.

Major Evans was so surprised she looked Bic directly in the face. "What do you want to do, Miss Lee?" she asked.

"Look, when I decided to help Amelia, I knew it would get me in hot water," Bic said. "Like she says, I can't go home now. And I don't know what I'd do in Shanghai. I was - waiting for Papa to organise a marriage contract for me, I guess, but that's not going to happen now. So I'm a free agent, and surely it's not impossible for Americans to join your Service?"

"There is the small matter of the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen," Major Evans said.

"Great. I love Queen Victoria. I'm happy to take your oath. After all, the United States and the British Empire are on the same side these days, aren't they?"

"Um, by and large," Major Evans said.

"So fine. Sign me up, Major."

"I'm happy to be her sponsor, Major," Amelia added.

"Then you can be responsible for her during her probation period," Major Evans said. "And I shall expect a report on her progress when you return from your next mission."

"So you have something interesting for us to do here?" Amelia asked.

"Oh, yes, but first there are the formalities to be observed." There was a speaking tube in the corner of the room. Major Evans reached over and spoke down it. "If you would be so kind as to send Mr Smith up from the long bar?"

Then she opened a drawer of the desk and brought out a form. It seemed to Bic that it was very convenient that she should have it there to hand, almost as if she had been expecting Bic to join the Service all along.

"Before we go any further, it might be a good idea for you to see this." Major Evans slid a piece of paper across the desk. Bic settled herself in the chair, with Amelia still leaning on the back over her shoulder, to study it. "As you can see, starting pay is £200 a year, plus expenses, rising in increments depending on experience and skills."

Bic made a quick calculation to convert the amount to dollars. "That's not bad," she said.

"It's the same wages as an Army Cornet," Major Evans said.

"Plus expenses," Amelia added, behind her. "Now you know why I always keep receipts, and I have a little pocket book for the more - unusual - items."

"Okay, then," Bic said. It sounded a lot better deal than looking for a situation in Shanghai. Papa had told some hair-raising stories about the depravity of Shanghai, when he thought she wasn't listening, and she really didn't want to end up in some night club or opium den.

The door of the office opened, and an unremarkable gentleman in a linen suit slipped into the room. He stood in the corner by the filing cabinet, sipping from the tumbler he had obviously just carried up from the bar. Major Evans nodded acknowledgement but made no effort to introduce him.

"Actually, it's a relief to me that you've made this decision, Miss Lee," she went on, avoiding looking at Bic by taking the top off a fountain pen instead. "If I could have your full name, and the name of your next of kin?"

Major Evans wrote down a few more particulars, and then turned the form around. She handed Bic the pen. "If you could just sign here on the dotted line, please," she said.

Bic scrawled her English signature on the line, and followed it up, for completeness' sake, with the Chinese characters for her name.

"And if you could sign as witness, Miss Harper? Good. And now I must administer the Oath."

Major Evans took a piece of stiff card the size of a postcard out of her drawer, and laid it in front of Bic. "And I need a Bible," she began. "Ah - unless you are not of the Christian faith?"

"My family is Buddhist," Bic said. "But I'm quite happy to affirm."

"That will be acceptable," the Major said reluctantly.

_I'm so glad,_ Bic thought, keeping her sarcasm to herself.

"I, Li Bic, do affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors, according to law." She turned the card over. "Is that it? I thought it would be - more flowery, somehow."

"That is, indeed, all that is required," Major Evans said. She held out her hand across the desk. "Welcome to the Service, Miss Lee," she said.

Bic shook her hand, and Amelia gave her a quick hug.

When Bic looked round, the silent gentleman had left the room. She couldn't help thinking that she had seen him before somewhere - but what would he have been doing in San Fransisco?

"Well, then," Amelia said. "What do you have for us to do, Major?"

"It's quite providential that you have arrived here when you did, Miss Harper," Major Evans said, "because we do need to send you out again almost immediately - both of you." She glanced at Bic. "Normally, a new recruit such as yourself would be sent for training initially - target shooting, hand to hand combat, code breaking, that sort of thing - but we really don't have the facilities here. So I'm afraid I'm going to send you out in the field straight away, with Miss Harper as your supervisor. I need you to travel right the way across China, Miss Harper, where a European woman alone is a rare sight indeed. To tell you the truth," she added with the merest suggestion of a twinkly smile, "I don't think the Mandarins know how to cope with us."

"I understand that Chinese is quite difficult to learn," Amelia began.

"That's why it's so convenient that you have brought Miss Lee with you," the Major said, without giving Amelia time to finish. "Not sure I'd want to send a Memsahib off across China with only a phrase book to help!" A look of some discomfort passed across Major Evans' face. "Not sure I want to send both of you anyway, but you find us, I'm afraid, rather short staffed. We were expecting some new recruits from Blighty, but the last I heard, their airship was delayed in Lahore. Problems with 'lift', I gather. So it was quite fortuitous that you should have been on the last steamer from San Fransisco. Thing is, Miss Harper, that we need you to go right the way across the country - to a town called Saynshand in Mongolia, in fact. We had a man out there, chap called Singh. Mining engineer from the Punjab - the fluorspar mine at Saynshand is famous, it seems. The last dispatch we had from him indicated he was on to something interesting - the Russians are building a Trans-Mongolian railway and Saynshand is going to be the Eastern terminus, so there's quite a Russian presence at the moment."

"And the Great Game is not only played around the borders with India," Amelia said.

"Quite so," Major Evans agreed. "The Ruskies are up to something - but before Singh could tell us what it was, chap went and disappeared." She smiled and patted Amelia's hand. "Be a good gel and find out what;s going on for us, would you?"

They managed to persuade Lt. Waring that they didn't need an escort all the way back to their hotel. He looked as if he'd been availing himself of the pleasures of the long bar while he waited for them, and they didn't want a tipsy young naval lieutenant on their hands when they had more important things to do. He hailed a rickshaw for them, and as soon as they were on their way, Bic leaned forward in the seat and told the rickshaw man to take them to Nanking Road.

"I suppose you noticed that I spoke to the rickshaw man in English?" Bic said.

"Yes, why?"

"I speak Cantonese, not Mandarin," Bic said, with some exasperation, "and I may be able to give directions to the rickshaw man, but I can't understand a word when Shanghai Chinese are speaking to each other! If Major Evans thinks she's found you a translator for this journey, she's very much mistaken!"

"I suppose, then, we'd better buy a phrase book," Amelia said, smiling. "Don't worry, old girl - I'm sure we'll manage to make ourselves understood somehow."

_She's English,_ Bic thought, resignedly. _What can you do against that invincible self-confidence?_

Along the road, large European-style department stores advertised themselves with long Chinese banners. Bic told the rickshaw man to stop outside one of them. "Papa says this is a good place," she said, "and if we're to go to Mongolia, we shall need something suitable to wear."

"And now you have an expense account, we can both charge it to the Service," Amelia said cheerfully. "Essential supplies and all that. Make sure you keep the reciepts!"

By the time they emerged from the store, they were accompanied by four porters, each carrying one end of a steamer trunk which was full of what Amelia had assured Bic were 'essential supplies'. One of them hailed a street porter who was in charge of a hand cart, and he followed them along the Nanking Road to the side street where their hotel stood.

Once the trunks were safely stowed, ready for their departure in the morning, Amelia headed for the front door again. "I saw a rather jolly little tea room on the way here," she said, "and I think tea is exactly what we need after all that shopping."

The English Tea Rooms wasn't the only thing Amelia had spotted as they walked through the crowded streets. She stopped first outside a small post office.

"So, are you actually going to post that letter in your handbag?" Amelia asked. "Don't think I haven't noticed - you've written and re-written it all the way across the Pacific."

Bic sighed. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "I was trying to find the best way to word it - you see, this isn't what Papa had planned for me at all. I don't want to upset him."

"It'll upset him more if he doesn't hear anything from you," Amelia said, with some sympathy. "Come on, post the letter. I'm sure his reaction won't be as bad as you imagine."

"Mama's will," Bic muttered, but she went into the post office anyway. Once the slightly crumpled envelope had passed across the counter, it was too late to worry about what her father would say when he read it.

Amelia linked arms with Bic and steered her through the door of the nearby tea rooms. The contrast to the bustling street outside - full of Chinese porters, more of those turbanned policemen directing traffic, and what seemed to be every nationality under the sun walking up and down, with rickshaws weaving in and out - was startling. This was an oasis of calm, with white table cloths on the small, round tables, and menu cards in English. They might almost have been in London.

"Tea!" Amelia said, gratefully, as the waitress, a Chinese girl in the black dress and white apron of an English servant, brought the tray over to their table. "The cup that cheers but does not inebriate, as the teetotallers say."

Bic waited until the tea was poured before she spoke. "I had thought we were going to stay in Shanghai," she said. "I was looking forward to promenading up and down the Bund with that young Lieutenant on my arm."

Amelia giggled. "Cradle snatcher," she accused. "The poor lamb can't be much more than eighteen."

"Or some more suitable gentleman," Bic mused, "a German businessman, perhaps, or a French banker. But no. I will not get the chance. And did you notice? That Major hardly looked at me once - she can't even say my name properly. I thought for a minute she was just going to throw me out to make my own way here - and when she did sign me up, she just assumed that I could translate for you on the journey. Doesn't she know how many different dialects there are? How long has she been in China, anyway?"

"I suspect," Amelia said, "that she very rarely moves beyond the international settlement. I think she lives at the Club."

"Where Chinese are not allowed," Bic said pointedly.

There was a pause for iced buns and more tea.

"I wasn't about to let her throw you out, you know," Amelia said. "I couldn't bring you all this way and then abandon you."

Bic sipped her tea, and said nothing. She knew Amelia would have argued in her defence, but it was the Major who had the final authority.

"Still," Amelia said brightly, "we'll get to see something of the country while we're here."

"Mongolia," Bic said, dourly. "A desolate land of steppes and deserts, primitive tribes and peasants. I do not want to go there."

"Sounds delightful," Amelia said dubiously, sipping tea. "But really, you have no choice, now you're on the Service payroll. We have to follow orders - and Major Evans was right, you know. How on Earth could I get all the way across China on my own, with only about three words of Mandarin to my name? At least we have a phrase book now, and we're bound to meet someone on the way who can speak Cantonese. I need you, Li Bic - and - buck up, old girl! It'll be an adventure!"

The Major may have lived at her Club and rarely moved beyond the international settlement, but she moved impressively fast when she had to. The carriage that was to take them on the next stage of their journey arrived at an uncomfortably early hour the following morning. The driver took them to the town of Soochow, a little way inland from Shanghai, to board a passenger barge on the Grand Canal. Four porters carried their luggage, which included a camera and tripod - as well as all the glass plates necessary for a photographer's art \- which had been delivered to their hotel the night before as Amelia's cover story. No-one was going to believe for a moment that Amelia was a mining engineer.

Bic had put aside her San Fransisco corset and bustle for a simple cheongsam, and had changed her hairstyle to a Chinese bun with two long pins thrust through it. Her cover was that she was Amelia's servant - and she was still feeling pretty sour about it. She waved her hand at the unwieldy tripod and camera that one of the coolies was carrying. "Do you know how to use that?" she asked.

"I've had my portrait taken, of course," Amelia said, with breezy confidence. "I'm told it's quite simple, though. All I have to do is slot the glass plates into the camera and open the lens cap. And when it's done I slip the cover back on the glass plate and put it back in the box. I must say, it's a great relief that I don't have to carry all those chemicals around to develop the plates - thank Heaven for Mr Eastman's new process!"

They arrived at the bottom of the gangplank and looked up at the converted grain barge they would be travelling on. There was a chimney at the rear, indicating the presence of a modern engine, though they had retained a stubby mast.

"It's a lot bigger than I was expecting," Amelia said. "Everything's a lot bigger. I saw a canal once, in Warwickshire, and it was really narrow compared to this - and all the boats were really long and narrow too, to fit into it. This looks quite spacious."

Bic snorted, but made no further comment - yet.

Near the bow of the barge, there was another gang plank, with a line of coolies carrying crates into the hold. By the hatch stood a Chinese gentleman in a long silk robe and a little round hat, supervising the workers. Amelia waved to him cheerily.

He did not wave back.

Bic rolled her eyes, and directed the porters up the gangplank after them. At the top stood a rascally looking man with a drooping moustache, who introduced himself as Captain Gong. He led them to the cabin they would be sharing, near the rear of the barge, round the back of the wheelhouse.

"At least we've got a view," Amelia said, going to the little window at the end while the porters stowed the trunks. She turned to the bed, which was little more than a wooden shelf. "Oh, is this supposed to be a pillow?" She prodded it. "It's a bit - solid - isn't it?"

"Now you see why I took you to the Sincere department store," Bic said. She was already opening her trunk to bring out the bedding, and the soft European pillows. "Major Evans is military. I suspected she wouldn't think about comfortable travelling."

"She was interested in speed," Amelia said, "and this was the first boat available. There doesn't seem to be a quicker way to get from the south of the country to the north."

"Hmm." Bic shook out a blanket and handed it to Amelia. "I suspect, also, that we are over the engine room. We'll soon know when the barge starts moving."

"There's a bit of a funny smell, too," Amelia said, trying and failing to open the little window.

"Probably the crew quarters," Bic said grimly.

She left Amelia to put the finishing touches to the comfort of their cabin and went out into the corridor. She could hear shouting nearby, just background noise to Amelia, but some of the words she could hear made her want to investigate further.

The Captain was arguing, loudly, with one of his crew in the doorway of the barge kitchen. Bic stood to one side until one of them noticed her. From the way the crewman was waving a ladle about, Bic surmised that he was the cook. He looked distressed - even more so when he saw Bic. In the long diatribe he directed towards her, Bic could only work out that there was some problem with the food.

She turned to the Captain. "Please - what is he saying about the food?"

"It is the white lady," said the Captain, in perfectly intelligible Cantonese. "Big Xu does not know what white ladies eat. He has never cooked for one."

"The English lady will eat what I eat," Bic said firmly. "She has eaten rice. She has eaten noodles - and she is not afraid of spicy foods like some white women. In San Francisco I saw her eat egg foo yung and prawn wontons." The cook was still looking dubious. "Chicken," Bic said firmly. "She likes chicken."

"You see?" the Captain said to Big Xu. "I told you not to worry."

"Chicken," Xu muttered. It seemed he could follow Cantonese conversation after all. "I'll think about it."

At length, the loading of the crates was completed, and the barge pushed off from the quay.

As Bic had suspected, the engine room was directly underneath their cabin. They could not only hear the regular thump-thump-thump of the engine, but some of the louder conversation of the engineers as well.

Amelia was out on deck, watching the buildings of Soochow slide by them. She exclaimed delightedly when they went underneath a gracefully arched bridge. "But however do the ones with sails manage it?" she wondered. "Do you think they have masts that drop down, like Norfolk wherries?"

Bic had no idea what a Norfolk wherry looked like, so she just shrugged. "Maybe we will see it happen," she said. "There must be many bridges between here and Peking."

"I wonder where the Chinese gentleman went?" Amelia said, as they left the outskirts of Soochow and began to pass through flat farmland. "And what do you suppose is in those boxes?"

"Pottery," Bic said. She had asked the Captain, after they had managed to mollify the cook. "Mr Chang is taking French pottery to Pizhou. He is a regular passenger - which is probably why they didn't put him over the engine room."

"I dare say we'll get used to it," Amelia said. "And it's only for a couple of weeks. After that, it'll be a sleeper car on the train from Peking to Erenhot, which seems to be where the railway tracks stop on the Chinese side. After that - well, we'll think of something."

They met the Chinese gentleman again at dinner. The dining room had a long, low table, surrounded by big cushions on the floor. Bic lowered herself gracefully to her knees - the skirt of her cheongsam was quite narrow - while Amelia cheerfully bounced down onto a cushion, crossed her legs and tucked her skirts around them. "Good evening," she said, in Mr Chang's general direction. "Hasn't it been a lovely day?" Mr Chang was already sitting on a low cushion at the far end of the table from Amelia and Bic. He looked up when Amelia spoke, made the smallest bow he could while still remaining polite, and said nothing.

They were spared from any further attempt at communication by the arrival of the dinner tray, brought in by Big Xu himself, who glanced sidelong at Amelia and scuttled out again as soon as he could.

Mr Chang reached for the serving spoon. He seemed to take it for granted that he would serve himself first.

Big Xu had taken Bic's suggestion to heart, and cooked stirfry chicken and vegetables with rice, which were served in separate bowls. When Mr Chang had finished shovelling food into his bowl, Bic served Amelia and then herself, eating elegantly with the chopsticks, with the bowl held up close to her mouth. Amelia refused the offer of chopsticks for herself, and gleefully brandished the spoon she had brought with her. "If I tried to eat with those," she said, "I'd still be sitting here tomorrow lunch time."

Breakfast the next morning was much easier for Amelia to manage. "Porridge?" she asked, shining her spoon on her handkerchief.

" _Congee,_ " Bic said, and made her repeat it until she got the intonation right. "Rice porridge - with some of last night's chicken in it, I think."

"And what's this long fried bread thingy?" Amelia asked.

" _You tiao_." Again, Bic made her repeat it until she got it right. "You dip it in the congee."

Amelia tried it, and smiled. "It's actually rather nice," she said.

Bic took one of the cushions from the dining room out onto the deck. She had picked up a novel in Shanghai, The Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, and she was looking forward to a relaxing morning sitting in the sun while the world floated by.

Amelia stood with her elbows on the rail, looking out along the canal. A long line of barges passed them, going south, towed behind a sturdy little tug boat. "What do you suppose they're carrying?" she asked, after a while.

Bic looked up from her book. "Those ones? Maybe grain. The one behind us that can't go so fast as we can - maybe coal, or bricks. People have been trading up and down this canal for a thousand years, you know."

Amelia smiled. "Everything's bigger, and everything's older. It's hard to get used to after seeing the United States, where everything is so new. I suppose a lot of stuff goes down to Shanghai to be sold in Europe, too."

"Silk, tea, porcelain, that sort of thing," Bic agreed. "Lots of Chinese live overseas, too, of course, not just in San Francisco like my family."

"Like Limehouse, in London," Amelia said. "Do you think this is how the opium gets there?"

Bic shrugged, and went back to her book.

After a while, Amelia disappeared, and came back with her sketchpad and another cushion from the dining room.

"Some of these villages really are quite picturesque," she said after a while. Bic shifted round to see a rough sketch of an old house right on the side of the canal, with its own little jetty and a rowing boat tied up. Further down the page was one of the semi-circular bridges which Amelia thought so pretty.

"If you ignore the rubbish heaps," Bic pointed out.

"Rubbish heaps are never picturesque," Amelia said. "Oh, look, though - there's a barge with all the family washing on a washing line. I must try to draw that!"

She had plenty of time to do it - the other barge was keeping pace with them, a little behind. Every now and then, Amelia moved up and down the rail to find a better angle for her picture.

When she'd finished that, the barges were passing through more flat and un-interesting farmland, and she put her pencils away.

"I can't sit about all the way to Peking," she said at last. "I'm going to get the Indian clubs out. Care to join me?"

The Dream of the Red Chamber was not the light and relaxing read that Bic had anticipated, being rather too philosophical for her tastes, and with far too many characters. She wished that she had picked up the book of short stories by Lu Xun instead. She put it down without hesitation, and went down to the cabin with Amelia to get changed.

They had packed for every eventuality, and it didn't take long to find the loose knickerbockers, black stockings and plimsolls to go with their white blouses. It was, in fact, a very similar outfit to the gym clothes Bic had worn at the rather expensive private school near Boston that her father had sent her to. She had always enjoyed gymnastics.

Amelia took her hair out of its bun and tied it in a loose ponytail down her back, but Bic kept her bun. Once she put her hair up in the morning, nothing seemed to move it, unlike Amelia's, which came down in distracting wisps at every opportunity.

Back on deck, they stood amidships and started to go through a routine together.

They were hardly warmed up when the Captain approached, waving his hands in a quite agitated fashion. He stayed well out of range.

Amelia stopped swinging her clubs. "What's he saying, Bic? All I can understand is 'Ladies!'"

Bic sighed, and pointed back to the wheelhouse with one of her clubs. Mr Chang was standing there, and even at that distance, they could see that he was stiff with outrage. "I suppose I'd better sort this out," Bic said. She tossed her clubs to Amelia and turned to the Captain.

"Ladies! Please!" Captain Gong said again. "Mr Chang is very angry - very angry indeed."

Bic headed straight for the very angry Mr Chang, wearing her most bland and amiable smile. She bowed low, but had no chance to say anything at first.

"Have you no shame?" Mr Chang demanded. "You must stop this - this disgusting spectacle - at once! Waving your - limbs - around like that - it's disgusting!"

He was speaking in Mandarin, but the gist of what he was saying was quite clear.

"Honourable Chang, my mistress is an ignorant barbarian," Bic said, "from a land where such things are positively encouraged."

"She has no manners! None at all! First, she waves at me - and her behaviour in the dining room!" He shuddered, and Bic struggled to keep a straight face at the thought of Amelia bouncing down on the cushions and showing not only a bit of ankle but a fair length of calf as well. "And now this! I will get off this barge at the next port of call. I will not be subject to this - display - any longer."

"Please, stop the foreign woman from distressing my most regular passenger," Captain Gong pleaded. "I do not wish to lose his custom. I will be forced to put you off my barge instead of Mr Chang."

So this was no laughing matter, after all. Bic had no wish to be stranded half way up the Grand Canal until they could persuade another captain to take them. "Honourable Chang, honourable Captain, I am truly sorry. This will not happen again, I assure you."

"What's going on, Bic?" Amelia, still clutching the Indian clubs, had come up behind Bic.

"We're in trouble," Bic said, in English. "We are waving our limbs around in a most unbecoming fashion and we must stop it at once, or Mr Chang will take all his cargo off the boat at the next port. Please don't smile - they're serious. The Captain will throw us off rather than see Mr Chang leave. And he doesn't like the way you sit down to dinner, either."

Amelia instantly became more serious. Encumbered by the Indian clubs as she was, she attempted a bow to Mr Chang in imitation of Bic. "How do I say 'very sorry'?" she asked.

Bic told her, and was relieved when Amelia managed not to mangle the phrase too much.

"Tell him we're going to change now, and we'll try not to offend his eyes for the rest of the trip," Amelia said. "Annoying little man," she added quietly.

"Honourable Captain, please do not make us leave your barge," Bic said. "And I will do my best to teach my mistress good manners while we are here, honourable Chang. We will go now, and change into more modest clothing."

Mr Chang sniffed, though he seemed a little mollified. "Be sure that you do," he said, "though I would not expect a peasant from Canton to understand good manners."

_How dare he!_ Bic thought. She bowed again. "I think you will have no cause to complain in future," she murmured.

She followed Amelia back to the cabin, fuming.

Amelia was already down to her underwear, and shaking out a pretty blue morning dress with a sash from her trunk.

"He called me a peasant from Canton!" Bic complained as she unbuttoned her blouse. "Jumped up little pottery salesman!"

"I take it the ideal woman, from his point of view, is meek and mild, seen and not heard," Amelia said. "I'll just have to pretend he's my grandmama, and tiptoe around him."

"He liked the bowing," Bic said. "I don't suppose a European woman has ever deferred to him before."

"I see - we're to cater to his inflated ego." Amelia sighed. "I take it that neither of us are going to leave the boat, though," she went on. "And I suppose we'd better keep our outrageously unbecoming limbs covered up from now on. How very irritating of Mr Chang." She continued to talk as they changed their clothes. "Nobody on the steamer from San Francisco was bothered when we exercised," she said.

"Mr Chang, I suspect, has never been further from Pizhou than Shanghai in his life," Bic said darkly, "and I think he does not like the decadent Europeans there at all."

"Though he'll buy their pottery," Amelia commented. She tied her sash neatly and straightened her collar. "Ah, well - I suppose we don't want to go frightening the natives too much."

Amelia was distracted from her annoyance by a change in the rhythm of the engine - the barge was stopping. She looked out of the little window. "What's going on?" she asked.

Bic peered out too, but couldn't see why they were stopping. She shimmied into her cheongsam, and this time her bun did collapse down her back in a silken tangle. " _Pi_!" she muttered. "You'd better go and see - I can't let Mr Chang see me with my hair in a mess."

Amelia went up on deck - and stared out over dozens of barges, all jammed up together. Their own barge was right at the back of the traffic jam. She stood on tiptoe, hoping to see further up the canal to whatever the hold up was, but she couldn't tell what it might be.

She stood with her elbows resting on the rail until Bic, her hair back in a smoothly glossy bun with the two decorative pins, came up to join her.

"I'll ask the Captain," Bic said.

The Captain, lounging against the door frame of the wheelhouse, did not seem unduly worried. "It is a canal lock," he said. He moved his hands so that one flat palm went down to the same level as the other hand. "The barges will go through a few at a time. There are many such between here and Peking."

Bic reported back. "He told me what it was, but I'm not sure how to translate it," she said, "but he did this." She made the same movement with her hands.

"Oh! A lock!" Amelia said. "I saw this in Warwickshire, too - there are two stretches of canal at different water levels, and the lock is like a step from one to the next. The water has to be equal, you see - or I suppose it would all drain out of one end. This is bigger, of course - and I bet it's hundreds of years old, too."

She was looking out over the decks of the nearest barges now, with interest. Some were merely cargo carriers, but nearby she could see the one with the washing line slung between the wheelhouse and the bow, with all the family washing on it, and there were children scampering from one barge to another, playing.

"You know, this would be a good opportunity to get the camera out," Amelia said. "If I'm supposed to be doing this trip for photography, this is a wonderful scene to capture! I suppose Grandmama Chang can't object too strongly to ladies taking photographs?"

"As long as we don't take a photograph of him," Bic said, doubtfully.

"Come on, then - it'll be good practice for later. I only need to use a couple of glass plates."

They lugged the camera up on deck between them, with the camera already fixed to the tripod. It was like shifting a stiff and unyielding body. Amelia set up the tripod while Bic went back to get the box of glass slides.

When she came back, a small boy was balancing on the rail of a neighbouring barge, staring at Amelia. Amelia waved at him.

Shyly, he waved back.

"Oh, ask him what his name is, will you?" Amelia said.

He looked at his bare toes for a moment, and then said; "I'm Tang."

Amelia smiled. She pointed at him. "Tang," she said. Then she pointed at herself. "A-mee-li -a," she said.

The boy howled with laughter.

"What's he say?" Amelia asked.

"He says it is far too long to be a real name," Bic said.

"Well, ask him if he'd like to have his picture taken by the lady with the very long name," Amelia said.

But by the time she had sorted out the glass plate, the boy had run back to the family barge nearby.

"Never mind," Amelia said. "I'll just get a general view." With the glass plate in place, she took off the lens cap, counted to three, and then replaced it. "I hope that worked," she said. "It could be months before we find out." She slid the glass plate carefully out of the camera and back into its sleeve, under the black cloth, where the light couldn't spoil it. "I'll have to remember to keep a pen with me," she said, as she emerged. "Could you?"

Bic went down to the cabin and brought back Amelia's fountain pen.

"There - '1. Barges on Grand Canal'," Amelia said. "That should do it."

And then the engine coughed back into life, and they were moving forward, into the lock, where they sank to the new level of the canal with all the other barges that had crammed in with them.

Bic and Amelia spent the rest of the day sitting around the deck of the barge, decorously drinking tea from china bowls - it seemed that there was always hot water for tea - but Mr Chang did not make a further appearance on deck. Nor did he join them for dinner that evening, having his meal served in his cabin.

"I'm getting so good at sitting down in an elegant fashion, too," Amelia complained, "and he's not here to see it."

The following day, the barge stopped at an even bigger lock than they had seen the day before. Captain Gong gestured expansively to Bic. "Over there, the Yangtse River," he said. "Here, tell your mistress, we drop almost the height of two men to the next level."

"This should be worth getting the camera out again for," Amelia said, scrambling to her feet from her cushion.

With more barges, there were more children running around from deck to deck. As she was setting up the camera, Amelia saw little Tang from the family barge that was going in the same direction as them. They had taken down the washing, so she hadn't recognised it straight away. " _Ni_ _hao_ \- hello," she shouted. The little boy laughed and scampered away to a cluster of other family barges. There, Amelia could see a fat toddler with a rope round her waist, tied to the wheel house so she didn't fall off the barge. Cats prowled across the decks, and at several windows bunches of joss sticks were burning. There were women, too, dressed in trousers like the men, drinking tea together and gossiping. Down at the stern of their own barge, the engineers were out on deck, also drinking tea and gossiping with men from other barges. "This is a grand view!" Amelia said, and set up her shot to take in the women drinking tea and the vista of green and red painted barges behind them. "What a pity photographs are only in shades of grey or sepia," she said. "This would look so more impressive if all the colours were there."

"You should keep a record, so the plate can be hand tinted," Bic suggested, and Amelia got out her sketch pad and started to make notes.

When she looked up again, there were half a dozen small boys watching her from the deck of the next barge over. It was a coal barge, being towed with half a dozen others behind a tug boat, so there was no crew there to shoo them away. "Ni hao," Amelia said. The boys giggled.

Amelia fitted a new plate into the camera. "Ask them to pose for me, will you?" she asked Bic.

The boys instantly started waving their arms and jumping around like a troop of monkeys. "Still! Still, if you want the English lady to take your picture," Bic shouted.

They froze in place, just long enough for Amelia to take off the lens cap, count to three and cover up the aperture again. Then they went back to their capering.

"Watch those bigger two," Bic said. "I think they're planning to steal something."

While the smaller boys were coming closer to ask questions, the bigger boys were hanging back, and Bic could see them eye-ing up a route that would take them round the back of the camera and close to Amelia's sketch pad and the solar topee she had discarded while she ducked under the camera's black cloth. If they got their hands on that, Bic could see they'd never get it back.

"How does it work?"

"Can we see the picture?"

"Where are you going?"

The questions came thick and fast, and Bic translated as well as she could - while still keeping an eye on the hat. As soon as one of the bigger boys put a foot on the rail, she launched herself into a forward roll across the deck - and came up holding the hat. "Now run away before the ghost woman eats you!" she warned.

At that, all of them scattered, laughing and screaming, and went to chase a passing cat on another barge.

Amelia took her solar topee and put it on. "Good job Mr Chang didn't see you doing that," she commented, grinning.

The disapproving Mr Chang left the barge the next day. They stopped at the quayside at Pizhou long enough for Bic and Amelia to leave the barge and explore some of the town. It took a good couple of hours for all the crates of pottery to be unloaded. They bought eggs boiled in tea from a street trader, and snacked as they walked.

"This is the real China, isn't it?" Amelia said, dodging a porter with two heavy loads slung on a bamboo pole while they ducked under a bright red flag emblazoned with Chinese writing that hung from a shop front. "Shanghai's got the noise and the bustle - but it's got all the European buildings and wide streets as well." She stopped to look around properly. "I'm the only white woman here, aren't I? Maybe for hundreds of miles?" she said, looking suddenly just a little bit worried. "Don't lose me on the way back to the boat, will you, Bic?"

They got back to the barge in plenty of time to wave Mr Chang off. At the head of the gangplank, his trunk already being carried down by the porters, Amelia bowed politely to him in the Chinese fashion.

Mr Chang bowed stiffly in return.

Amelia smiled pleasantly. "Good riddance," she said.

They had the barge to themselves, as passengers, for the next hundred miles or so. They made the most of their opportunity to do gymnastics and swing the Indian clubs, to the great amusement of the engineers, who came out to drink tea and make comments about their performance that Bic preferred not to translate.

At the log jams of boats that built up at the canal locks, they became known as the "crazy ladies with clubs", and the little gang of small boys had started to imitate them, with whoops of laughter - but at a safe distance on another barge.

Another thing that provoked mirth from the small boys and the engineers was the day when Amelia and Bic decided to wash their hair. Big Xu provided a kettle of hot water, and they took turns kneeling on deck over a bucket with a bar of toilet soap.

At Nanyang, they picked up a cargo of bolts of cotton, this time with no merchant to accompany them.

At Jining, there were more passengers.

Bic heard them before she saw them. She had retired to her bunk after a lunch of beef dumplings. It was stickily hot on deck, and she thought she might make a bit more progress with her novel. She had, instead, dozed off, until she was wakened by what sounded like a herd of elephants thundering by just above her head.

Going out on deck to see, she found two little girls, dressed in traditional skirts and tunics, running up and down the deck in great excitement.

A man in a European suit with a Homburg hat stood at the top of the gangplank. His back was to Bic, so she only knew he was Chinese by the long pigtail down his back. A woman in an old-fashioned, loose cheongsam stood beside him, holding onto his arm while he supervised the loading of the family's luggage. They had brought a servant with them, a middle aged woman who was trying to round up the children, with little success. Bic sighed. It was time for her to start pretending to be Amelia's servant again - and it was probably the end of their gymnastics for a while, too.

Amelia had been in the dining room, writing her diary. She appeared on deck just a little behind Bic, having obviously heard the stampeding little girls too. "Do you suppose this is another Mr Chang?" Amelia murmured in Bic's ear.

The Chinese gentleman and his wife turned as the porters brought up the last trunk, a vintage wooden one carved with Chinese designs, in contrast to the modern European trunks that the rest of the luggage was packed in. He turned his surprise at seeing Amelia into a graceful bow. " _Guten_ _tag, fraulein_ ," he said.

"Guten tag, _mein Herr_ ," Amelia replied, "though I'm afraid I'm English, not German. How wonderful to meet a linguist!"

He beamed. "I teach German at the University of Peking," he said. "But I also studied English. This is a good opportunity to practice the language! I am Bai Chunli, and this is my wife, Mai Zhen." He turned and waved to the children, who were up at the bow of the barge, and shouted to them in Mandarin. "Peng-Peng, Jing Wei, come here and pay your respects to the English lady."

"Ni hao," Amelia said, bowing to the lady, who had looked quite blank during the exchange in English.

Now she smiled, and bowed back.

The two little girls ran over, bobbed a brief bow each, and then stared at Amelia, wide eyed.

Amelia pointed to herself. "A-mee-lee-a," she said.

The girls giggled. Then the smallest one, no more than about five years old, bobbed a little bow again and identified herself as Peng-Peng.

"We are on our way back to Peking," Bai Chunli said. "Are you going far?"

"All the way to Peking," Amelia said cheerfully. "And I'm so glad to have someone new to talk to!"

Bic changed into her plainest cheongsam and set herself the task of being pleasant to Bai Chunli's servant woman. She found her in the children's cabin, making the beds. "Want any help?" she asked.

The other woman passed her a blanket. There wasn't need for much bedding - the days had grown quite swelteringly hot, and the nights were not cold.

"I am Li Bic," Bic said.

"Niu," the other woman said.

Bic waited, but she gave no other name beyond "girl".

"Have you worked for the family for long?"

Niu gave her a look, as if she was stupid. "Always," she said.

Bic was starting to feel slightly desperate. "And do you like Peking?"

Niu shrugged. "Jining, Peking - the work is the same," she said.

"We came from Shanghai," Bic said. "The English lady wants to take photographs...." and she realised that Niu was showing no curiosity whatsoever, and stopped. Maybe Niu was more talkative with the children, though Bic was starting to doubt it.

There was nothing else to do in the cabin, anyway. "I need to watch the children," Niu said, and ushered Bic out.

Bic thought about following her on deck, and thought about the novel in her cabin, and decided that the novel would be far more interesting.

In the dining room, Amelia was having a much more enlightening conversation. Big Xu had served tea, and she, Bai Chunli and Mai Zhen were sitting on the cushions sipping from bowls. Outside the windows, the buildings of Jining slipped by as the barge chugged along the canal. It would have been interesting to see them, but politeness (and a thirst for information) dictated that she should be here, chatting with the aimiable university lecturer.

"We have been to a family wedding," Mr Bai said. "Very happy occasion. My wife is the bride's aunt."

"How wonderful!" Amelia wondered how Chinese people got married. "What do brides wear in China? In England, it has been fashionable to wear white, since Queen Victoria married in a white dress."

Mr Bai looked shocked, and conferred quickly with his wife. She replied quickly and with some eloquence, and Amelia wished she had been able to learn more than three words of Mandarin before she made this trip.

"Bride wore red silk," said Mr Bai. "White is very bad luck - means death. Mai Zhen is very sorry for Queen Victoria."

"Hm, I suppose she has been a widow longer than she was married," Amelia mused, "but she did have many children."

There was another quick Mandarin conversation. "Many children is a good thing," said Mr Bai.

"I'm sorry I can't stop longer in places like this," Amelia said,. "It's so beautiful along the Canal - but I'm actually heading for Mongolia, to take photographs there."

"How strange," said Mr Bai. "Two years ago, I visited Mongolia. I was the interpreter for a party of German scientists who were visiting."

Amelia beamed at him. "How wonderful! Then perhaps you can tell me something about the area."

Mr Bai looked doubtful. "It was -" He searched for a word. "Not a pretty place," he said at last. "Much sand."

"Oh, but I was told there were interesting tribes people there," Amelia said. "I was rather hoping for picturesque costumes. You see, when I was in the United States, I passed over the Great Plains in an airship, so I didn't manage to see any of the picturesque tribes people there."

"There are bandits in the hills," Mr Bai said. "Miss Harper, it is not a safe place for a lady to go. Take photographs of the Imperial Palace. Much better."

"Oh, but anyone can go to Peking," Amelia said. She searched her mind frantically for an excuse that meant she had to go to Mongolia. "You see, I will be selling my photographs to an Encyclopaedia, and no-one has photographed Mongolia yet."

He shook his head sorrowfully. "Very dangerous place," he said. "My apologies, but you are a very foolish lady."

"Let's talk about something else," Amelia said brightly. "I did enjoy my stay in San Francisco, though there were days when it was very foggy."

"Ah, many Chinese live there, they say," said Mr Bai. "In English, they call it the Golden Mountain." They chatted about San Francisco for some time. Mr Bai had never been there, and was fascinated by her descriptions of the cable cars.

Bic looked up from her novel as Amelia came back from the dining room and plumped herself down on the bed. "Golly, but polite conversation can be hard work," she said. "How did you get on with the servant?"

"Hard work, too," said Bic, "especially if you want more than single word answers. The poor woman's so down-trodden she hasn't even got a proper name. She answers to 'Girl'."

"They make such a show of being a modern family," Amelia said, "until it comes to the servants."

"Oh, they're modern, all right," Bic said. "The little girls can still run about."

Amelia looked at her in a questioning way.

"If they were traditional, the children would have bound feet by now," Bic said.

"Like Mrs Bai," Amelia said. "Poor woman, she was hardly able to join in the conversation at all - Mr Bai didn't take much time to translate for her. But she has the prettiest embroidered slippers, you know, and the tiniest feet I've ever seen."

"There's nothing pretty about it," Bic said, shuddering. "I should know - my mother has bound feet. Do you know how it's done?"

Amelia shook her head. "I supposed that they bandage the feet up tight and they just sort of stop growing," she said. "But that can't be right, can it?"

Bic slung her book to one side. "They say 'If you love your daughter, you must hate her feet'," she said. "When a child is still very young, younger than Peng-Peng...." Bic made the motion of snapping a twig with both hands. "They break the toes, and bend them back, under the foot, and bandage it up. It is very painful, and they have to keep bandaging the feet, always. My mother is always in a bad mood because of her feet. Lucky for me I was taken to San Francisco when I was three, or my grandmother would have done it to me as well. Lucky for me Papa wanted to be modern."

Amelia was looking at her in horror. "I had no idea," she said. "I just imagined - baby feet that had stopped growing - not that!" She shuddered. "Poor Mrs Bai."

"It was the nobility first," Bic said, "and then the fashion spread. If a family wanted to marry their daughters to other families of high class, they needed to have tiny feet. The 'three inch lotus', they called it. And all because some Emperor a thousand years ago had a foot fetish! Easy for the _men_ to copy him!"

"Oh, my," Amelia murmured. "Do you know the story of Cinderella? Prince Charming searching throughout the land for the girl with the smallest feet? And in some versions of the story, the ugly step-sisters cut off their toes to fit into the glass slipper.... I'll never look at that story the same way again."

*****

Chapter Two: Up the Grand Canal to Peking

It was far too hot to be below decks. Amelia and Bic had dragged cushions up from the dining room and were lounging against the side of the boat. Amelia was holding her parasol up, and Bic languidly waved her fan.

Even the little girls had quietened down. They were flying kites from the stern of the boat, an occupation which was only possible because the boat was moving independently of the breeze, which was almost non-existant. Even so, there were occasional cries of anguish as one of the kites went crashing down into the water. Mr Bai and his wife were sitting near the girls, while Niu held a large paper umbrella over them. With the whole length of the deck between them, and the wheelhouse, it was as private as Bic and Amelia were likely to get.

"Don't you think it's convenient," Bic began, "that Mr Bai and his family decided to travel on this barge in particular?"

"Mmm, I was thinking that," Amelia said, lazily. "What do you suppose that bird is, up there?"

Bic squinted at the dark speck in the sky, and shrugged. "Some sort of seagull?"

"A German professor," Amelia went on, thoughtfully, "who has interpreted for a group of German scientists exactly where we are going."

"Major Evans said that the Russians were interested," Bic said.

"Mmm, and I would have thought that it would be quite easy for the Chinese to find a Russian interpreter if they needed one - they do share a border, after all, and they've been sending caravans to and fro for centuries. Have you ever had Russian Caravan tea?" she asked.

Bic shook her head.

"Smoky taste to it \- supposed to be from the smoke from the camp fires when they camp at night." She sighed. "Green tea is all very well, but I do miss good English tea."

"Which comes from India," Bic pointed out, "unless I missed the geography lesson that mentioned the tea plantations of Yorkshire?"

Amelia giggled. "Oh, yes - the fabled tea plantations of the North York Moors - stout matrons from Bradford picking the tea while their menfolk weave flannel." After a moment, she added; "More seriously, though, why would German scientists be interested in fluorspar? I can imagine them collaborating with the Russians - but what would interest both parties? Whatever it is, the British Empire needs to be informed of it."

"And the Americans," Bic said. "Whatever happens between the Great Powers in Europe affects the United States sooner or later."

Dinner that evening was chicken noodle soup. Bic sat at one end of the table with Niu and the children, who had surprisingly good manners at the dinner table. Or maybe they were just too tired to be naughty. Niu sat between them to give assistance where it was needed, and to quieten them down if Madame Mai Zhen glanced in their direction. Bic was reminded vividly of the time her grandmother had visited the family home, and everything had to be extremely formal and very Chinese to satisfy her. She had been glad when her grandmother went home again, and she could relax and be more American again.

Amelia plumped herself down (having forgotten the need to be elegant) beside Mr Bai. She was wearing her most innocent face. "Do you know anything about railways, Mr Bai?" she asked. "You see, we're taking the train from Peking just as far as it will go, but I understand that the track doesn't run as far as Saynshand yet."

"You want to go to Saynshand?" Mr Bai asked. "Bad place, full of rough miners and unsavoury characters. A lady such as yourself should not go there."

"I wouldn't be there for long," Amelia said. "As I told you, I want to go further into Mongolia to look for picturesque tribes people to photograph."

"You should have brought servants with you, to set up camp and to protect you from the bandits," Mr Bai said.

Amelia smiled brightly. "I'm hoping to hire some, when we reach the end of the train line - or maybe join a tea caravan? That would be very jolly, and good for my photography. We English like tea almost as much as the Chinese do."

"My dear lady - this is not an English picnic," Mr Bai said. "I fear you will be abandoned by the servants you hire, or have your throat cut by bandits. Or both! Is there nothing I can say that would dissuade you from this foolhardy journey?"

"Nothing at all, I'm afraid," Amelia said cheerfully. "After all, Mongolia may be remote, but I'm sure I won't be the first English person to go there. Your Germans managed it, after all."

"The German gentlemen were very well prepared," Mr Bai said stiffly. "And well armed. I fear you are neither."

"I've been meaning to ask you," Amelia said. "What sort of scientists were they? I can't imagine there would be anything to interest a scientist in such an uncouth place."

"Geologists," Mr Bai said, after a pause that was only noticable because Bic had been listening for it. "They were interested in the rocks - and they also amused themselves with some hunting. You must understand, Miss Harper, that there are dangerous animals in the wilderness there, as well as dangerous men."

"Mr Bai," Amelia smiled, "there are dangerous men everywhere."

After dinner, Niu took the little girls off to bed, but Mr Bai brought out a laquered box and laid it on the table. "Perhaps you would join us for a game of Mah-jong?" he asked, taking out the little tiles and spreading them across the table.

"I'm very much afraid that I don't play," Amelia said. "But I'm sure Bic does, if you want a third hand."

Mr Bai relayed this comment to his wife, who made a sour face. "I don't see why I should lower myself to play with servants, _"_ she said, looking straight at Bic as she said it.

Bic shook her head slightly at Amelia. "Bad idea," she murmured.

"I'm sorry to refuse, then," Amelia said, "but I really feel it's time for me to turn in. Goodnight, Mr Bai, Madame Mai Zhen."

She rose before Mr Bai could say anything else, and left the dining room. "Sorry about that," she said, as soon as she and Bic were in the corridor. "I thought it might be a chance to pump Mrs Bai for information."

"She wouldn't talk to me," Bic said, "not as long as she thinks I'm a servant. I'm not sure she knows anything anyway - she wouldn't have gone to Mongolia with Mr Bai and the scientists...."

They stopped outside the door of their cabin. Amelia held up a hand to stop Bic talking, and pointed to the thin line of light that was showing under the door. "Someone in there," she mouthed.

And then she burst through the door, and launched herself at the sillhouette of a man who was bending over her open trunk by the dim light of a small lantern.

By the time Bic got through the door, and had smothered the fallen lantern under her pillow, Amelia was kneeling on her bed with the struggling man half under her. "Get his legs, would you?" Amelia said. Bic sat down across his thighs and grabbed his flailing ankles. Amelia twisted one of his arms across his back and snapped a handcuff around his wrist. Bic hadn't seen where she had got the handcuffs from - she had thought they were packed away somewhere.

By the time Captain Gong and Mr Bai arrived in the corridor, with one of the boat's engineers behind them, holding a spanner, the intruder was securely handcuffed, and his ankles tied with a silk scarf.

"Can we have some light?" Amelia asked, slightly breathlessly. "Let's see what he was stealing."

Bic retrieved the lantern the intruder had been carrying, but it had gone out - the pillow was only a little singed. Captain Gong unhooked the larger lantern from the corridor and held it up in the doorway. By this time, Niu had poked her head around the door of the children's room. Shrill little girls' voices could be heard behind her, excited and frightened in about equal measure. Mai Zhen had hobbled out of the dining room, and stood leaning against the corridor wall, unable to get any closer past the men in the corridor.

The intruder was a skinny little Chinese man in a shabby jacket and worn trousers. "Don't let the ghost woman near me," he said, attempting to wriggle away from her down the bed. "Please - I haven't taken anything!"

Captain Gong grabbed him by the front of his jacket and lifted him bodily off the bed. "I don't like thieves on my boat," he growled. "I should just throw you overboard like the rubbish you are."

"I don't think there's any harm done," Amelia said. "He doesn't seem to have taken anything."

"Captain," Bic said, "is there somewhere secure you could put the man? Miss Harper says he hasn't taken anything."

"There must be someone in authority we can hand him over to?" Amelia asked. "I suppose the Chinese do have policemen?"

"There will be a magistrate at Tientsin," Mr Bai said, in English.

"Tientsin, yes," Captain Gong said, grasping on the one word he recognised. "I will hand him over to the authorities there." He dragged the squealing little man away.

Amelia smiled. "Tell the Captain I want my handcuffs back, won't you?" she said. She gave a little bow to Mr Bai, who was still hovering in the corridor. "Thank you for coming so promptly, but as you see, we managed quite well on our own. And now, I think we've had quite enough excitement for one night, so I'll bid you goodnight."

The door closed. Bic lit a match and held it to the wick of the cabin lantern, which had been swinging overhead unlit all this time.

Amelia sat down with a bump on her bunk. "Well, wasn't that interesting?" she said.

"He wasn't just a thief, was he?" Bic said. She picked up one of Amelia's blouses and started to re-fold it.

Amelia came to join her. "Just as well he didn't find the Webley," she said, "or the stash of Mexican silver dollars I've got down there." She looked at the mess the man had made of her clothes, and groaned. "Never mind being tidy now," she said. "It'll do in the morning." She closed up the trunk and shoved it back under her bunk. "And I think we can safely assume that somebody doesn't want us poking our noses in to whatever this business in Mongolia is. Actually, my money's on dear Mr Bai, who has been doing his best to put us off going ever since he stepped on board. And maybe his German scientists, who may or may not be geologists. You'll notice that he wanted us to stay in the dining room after dinner, which would have given our little thief plenty of time to rummage. It's a good job his wife was so rude to you, wasn't it?"

*****

Chapter Three: Peking to Pangkiang by Train

The quayside at Tientsin would make a good photograph, Bic thought - just the sort of thing that would be thought of as typically Chinese back home. Chinese porters were carrying sacks and bundles to and fro, with a backdrop of old buildings. The tiled roofs with those curly pagoda corners were just the sort of Chinese architecture that had been made popular in the West. Even in San Fransisco, where the buildings were all new, several of the bigger Chinese restaurants had made a point of having a facade which looked almost exactly like the buildings behind the docks - only with more silk lanterns and red paint.

It was a pity, therefore, that the foreground of such a photograph would feature Captain Gong and two of his engineers half carrying the pathetic little thief along the dock, with the little man wailing and begging for mercy all the way.

Amelia had left the camera in the cabin. It was not the sort of scene either of them wanted to be reminded of.

"What's going to happen to him?" Amelia asked.

"Nothing good, I think," Bic said. "Honestly, I don't know, but Chinese justice does have a certain reputation for harshness."

"Law and order must be maintained," Mr Bai said. He had come to lean on the rail a little way from them. "And China is a vast country, with few law makers, so harshness is necessary."

Bic gave a little, involuntary shiver. If Amelia's hunch was correct, Mr Bai was being ruthless in abandoning his cats' paw to the authorities and was showing no sign of remorse.

There was no sign of Madame Mai Zhen this morning, either. She and Mr Bai had argued last night. Though they were clearly trying to be discreet, both Amelia and Bic had still been able to hear them hissing at each other through the thin wooden walls of the cabin.

The little girls watched the thief being taken away with interest, then went back to flying their kites from the stern.

As soon as Captain Gong and his men returned, they could be on their way again. It wasn't far from Tientsin to Peking - on the scale of the Grand Canal, anyway.

Peking - the terminus of the Grand Canal. Bic and Amelia leaned on the rail of the barge as it came in to the dock and watched swarms of coolies carrying bales and boxes and baskets to and fro. It looked chaotic, but there had to be some system to it.

Mr Bai and his family left the barge first, and Bic watched as they quickly found porters to carry their luggage.

"Look, there," she said, pointing to a spot beside one of the warehouses. "I'll go and get the man with the hand cart to come and take our trunks."

It was more straightforward than she had feared, and they were soon away from the docks and heading through narrow streets to the railway station. Or at least, Bic hoped they were heading for the railway station. It was hard to be sure in this maze of courtyard houses.

"It's a sort of grid system, isn't it?" Amelia said. "Like New York. I think we're heading into the centre." She consulted a small folding map. "Gosh \- we're almost going to the Forbidden City - do you think we'll be able to see any of it?"

"There's a reason it's called 'Forbidden'," Bic pointed out. "I don't think we'll be able to call on the Emperor today." She fell into step beside the porter. "Is it far? Zhengyangmen Station - are we nearly there yet?"

He grinned at her. "Not far, not far."

Bic suspected he'd say that if it was miles to go - but soon they found themselves on wider streets, with grander buildings, and temples, and up ahead was a square before a building which looked very much like an American, or a European, railway station.

It was there that a Chinese man carrying a long, narrow box walked straight into Amelia.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she began - but then he bowed deeply.

"Miss Harper?" he asked.

"Yes - but...."

"Imperious Lion sends this gift to you," he said, in English, and thrust the box into her arms.

Then he was gone, lost in the crowd, leaving Amelia holding the long box awkwardly.

"What was all that about?" Bic asked.

"It seems to be a present," Amelia said, hefting the box into a more comfortable position. "I think I know who it's from. I have an acquaintance whose nickname is Imperious Lion when he's in China. You'll remember Mr Conway?"

Bic couldn't imagine Mr Conway being an Imperious anything, but she nodded.

At the entrance to the railway station, they paid off the porter who had brought them from the docks, and found a railway porter to take their luggage further - including the mysterious box. Amelia had the tickets, and after some discussion at the ticket office it seemed there was a train for Erenhot that afternoon, and their tickets would gain them space in a sleeper carriage.

"Oh, surely there's a refreshment room," Amelia said, looking around the crowded concourse.

The porter took them to one. Amelia gratefully ordered tea and sank into a chair. "Oh, I've missed proper chairs," she said, "and my feet are aching, and - oh, bliss, proper tea!"

They had a good view of the station clock from where they were sitting, and gave themselves plenty of time to get to the platform for the Erenhot train. There they were ushered to their sleeper cabin, while the trunks were put in the luggage van.

Amelia kept the long box with her. Wood shavings overflowed onto the narrow bed as she prised open the lid, to uncover the shape of a long and heavy gun. "Heavens," she said, "it's practically a piece of field artillery! It's even got a stand - look!"

There was an envelope lying on top of the gun, addressed to 'Miss Harper' in neat handwriting. Amelia opened it, and began to read:

"To Miss A Harper,

Miss Harper,

What in the Blue blazes are you doing! Have you had a leave of what little sense you have?

Not only have you taken this task on, (one which I refused to do by the way) but your now doing it for the Empire, Good Gods woman getting paid the bare minimum by a bunch of blue blooded idiots sending you and one "other" into the arse end of the Orient. When these fools have lost one agent already and now send a woman to get him back.

Anyway you are their now, and so I sent you a little something to help.

I know of your distain of putting the hurt on people and getting messy doing this, but Missy you're in the wilds now and this bit of ordinance should help with this.

In the box/crate with this letter there is a modified rifle for your odd way of shooting - it's a lever action and not the bolt that you are use to and has a far greater range (about a mile by my reckoning) than that daft .38 that you will have been issued.

The ammo is designed for you with most of it used for a concussive effect rather than a direct kill, there are some of those too just in case.

There is a steel box with a gauge on it, DO NOT LET THE GAUGE GO IN THE RED. This is a bullet of my own making it has nitro glycerine inside the head of the bullet. KEEP THIS COLD AT ALL COSTS. You will see that there is a small hand pump with this box. This will help in keeping the contents cold by taking the air out , its a science thing that the smart chaps at the institute made for me, bless 'em.

If the box is damaged cannot be kept cold and the gauge goes in the red GET RID OF IT AS FAR AWAY FROM YOU AS POSSIBLE.

Well if you make it back I guess tea is on me.

Cutter

PS. I know how you like working things out, so here is a booklet explaining all the calculations needed for a clean shot."

"What's so funny?" Bic asked.

Amelia managed to stop giggling for a moment. "I do believe I've been invited to tea!" she said. "Some men send flowers - Mr Conway has sent me a sniper rifle and some very dangerous ammunition! Look, here it is, at the bottom, with the hand pump - and thank goodness the gauge seems to be well away from the red." She giggled again. "I think this will be the perfect opportunity to order a half bottle of champagne. It'll be the last time for a while that we'll have access to such a luxury - and we can use the ice from the bucket to keep this chilled."

Bic had seen Mr Conway briefly in San Francisco, a shabby creature in an old seaman's jacket and bowler hat who she wouldn't trust as far as she could throw him. He had appeared to be the very worst class of cut-throat. Yet he and Amelia seemed to be on very good terms, so there must be something trustworthy under that gruff exterior, and Amelia had spoken to him about protecting Bic's family when they made a run for the steamer. She remembered him tapping the rim of his battered bowler hat with one finger in salute, and telling Bic that she'd have nothing to worry about - he'd take care of everything.

Underneath the two-legged stand that seemed to be designed to steady the barrel of the rifle, Bic caught a glimpse of black silk. She thrust her hand into the sawdust to pull it out. It was a long, narrow bag, quite heavy for the size, and tied to the bag was a letter.

Bic froze. She recognised her father's handwriting immediately.

"What's the matter, old girl? Don't say Mr Conway's put something in there for you as well?"

"It's from Papa," Bic said, faintly.

"Oh, dear - should I order some brandy as well as the champagne?" Amelia asked. "You've gone very pale, you know."

Bic put down the silk bag and opened the envelope. "This is silly," she said. "I shouldn't be so worried."

"Daughter,

I am disappointed at the choice you have made. Your mother is also unhappy. It was not necessary for you to leave San Francisco with the English lady. We could have arranged something. But, you are an adult now, and you must make your own decisions. The English gentleman who is sending this box to you told me a little to put our minds at rest. I know you are a sensible girl, and will stay out of trouble if you can possibly avoid it. But please write to tell us yourself.

In case you cannot avoid it, I have sent this gift. Use it wisely.

Visit us, when you return to the United States.

Your Papa."

Bic let out a deep breath she hadn't noticed she'd been holding. "No need for brandy," she said. "You were right, back in Shanghai. It isn't as bad as I was expecting." She sighed. "It would be different if I were still the only child."

Amelia gave her a questioning look.

"Mama has always been frail, you see, so for many years Mama and Papa didn't expect to have any children apart from me. And Papa has modern ideas, so he wanted me to follow him into the business, just as a son would do. So he sent me to a very good school, and made sure I learned - certain Chinese things - while I was at home. And then Henry arrived."

"Who's Henry?"

"I told you Papa was modern - he wanted his son to have an American name, to fit in better. If I'd been born in the States, I'd probably be called Elizabeth, or Grace or something, instead of being called after my grandmother. So, Henry's five years old now, and Papa dropped all those ideas of having me join him in the business, which is why I was sitting at home reading a novel instead of down at the tea warehouse when you - arrived. So you see," she went on, "I'm free to do what I like. I don't have to carry on the family traditions as the heir should do."

She looked over the letter again. "Mr Conway must have visited Papa before he recieved the letter I sent - he asks me to write to him. And Papa has sent me...."

She opened the black silk bag, and out slid a black silk fan. Bic snapped it open with a flick of her wrist, and nodded quietly to herself when she saw the phoenix shimmering across the black silk.

"It's very beautiful," Amelia said. "Is is a family heirloom?"

"In a way," Bic said. She was smiling now. "This is one of the Chinese things that Papa made sure I learned. It's not just a fan. It's also deadly." She turned the fan to show Amelia the steel ribs, and the sharp point at the end of each rib. "With this, I can be armed without seeming to be armed. Papa has accepted that I may be going into dangerous situations, and he has done what he can to help me."

"That's a relief," Amelia said. "Champagne it is, then!"

They sat in a corner of the dining car for the rest of the evening, drinking champagne in small sips to make the treat last, before tucking into a meal of beef dumplings and rice. Above them swayed a tinsel ornament, almost like a Christmas decoration, and the wood of the table and bench seats was elaborately carved, where it wasn't covered in bright red leather. Outside the window, the countryside was getting more hilly, in a rolling, barren sort of way. Amelia went back to their sleeping compartment to fetch a shawl after dinner - and to make sure that they hadn't been visited by another thief.

All was quiet, though. The only other passengers on this part of the train seemed to be a group of four Chinese men who spent the evening smoking and talking at the other end of the dining car.

"I'd say merchants, but they don't quite look the part," Amelia said, after studying them for a while. "More outdoorsy, I think. What do you think they're going to Erenhot for?"

Bic shrugged. "I don't know anything about Erenhot, except that the train stops there," she said. "We could try asking them?" She eased herself out of her seat and walked down the aisle.

"Honoured Sirs," Bic said, as she bowed politely, "may we ask why you are travelling? My companion is English, and very curious."

One of the men moved up to make space for them on the long seat. "I am Gu Yanwu," he said. "My companions and I are booksellers." He indicated the two older men; "This is Dai De and Zheng Chi-yun, and the young man is Mr Zheng's nephew Zheng Jen-Hu. We have a business in Peking together."

"I am Li Bic, and this is Miss Amelia Harper. She takes photographs." Bic leaned close to Amelia, who had followed her up the aisle, and said in English: "He says they're booksellers!"

"They're like no booksellers I've ever seen," Amelia replied. "Ask them what they're doing way out here."

"Miss Harper asks what booksellers are doing here?" Bic said.

They all laughed.

"The Mongols," Dai De said, "love our romantic novels, so we have them translated into Mongolian and bring them by train and pack camel. We are going to Saynshand, with eighteen camel loads of books!"

"Saynshand?" Amelia murmured, without any need for translation. "Ask them if we can tag along, will you?"

"You're sure?" Gu Yanwu asked. "It can be dangerous. We need to go armed, to defend our books from the bandits in the hills."

When Mr Bai had warned them of bandits and danger, it had all seemed very far away and unreal. These men actually knew the road - and the threat of danger seemed much more realistic coming from them.

"Safety in numbers," Amelia pointed out. "We'll have to go anyway - best to attach ourselves to a well-armed caravan, don't you think?"

"Tell the lady that she is mad," Gu Yanwu said, "but we could not leave you to attempt the journey on your own. You are welcome to join us - but you must provide your own transport, you know."

"Tell him we've heard that Mongolian horses are famous, and we intend to buy some when we get to Erenhot," Amelia said. "Don't look so worried, Bic - I have been on this sort of expedition before, you know. I know what we need to have with us."

"Then, you must go to Nerguii the horse trader," Dai De said. "Good horses, and all the harness to go with them as well. When we get to Erenhot, I will show you."

Sleeping on a train was quite different from sleeping on a barge. At first, Bic thought the sound of the carriages on the tracks would be impossible to blot out - until she woke up in the middle of the night, and found that the rhythmic sound had lulled her to sleep after all.

In the morning, the train attendant brought them tea in their cabin, and they ate congee and you taio in the dining car. Bic had put away her cheongsam, at Amelia's suggestion, and they were both wearing the divided skirts and sensible boots that they had bought at the Sincere department store, with linen jackets over their blouses. Amelia had her solar topee ready on the bed. Bic, who thought solar topees rather English and affected, had chosen a straw hat for herself. After all, she wasn't flying the flag for the British Empire, and what suited Amelia perfectly just looked silly on her.

And in the afternoon, they drew in to Erenhot Station, with a hiss of steam, and stopped.

"All change!" Amelia said cheerfully.

Bic secured her straw hat with a long pin thrust through her bun, and went to find a porter who wasn't already engaged in unloading the crates of books from the luggage van. Gu Yanwu had told them already about the caravanserai they would be staying in that night. They had men there waiting with the camels. It seemed sensible to drop the trunks at the caravanserai, and then go in search of Nerguii the horse trader.

The caravanserai itself was a dismally primitive affair, with a large courtyard of bare earth - for the camels and horses - and a square mud brick building in the middle for the people. There was a store room where the innkeeper was persuaded to let them leave their trunks - Bic's Cantonese was entirely inadequate for communication, and even Mandarin was only sketchily understood. Silver, however, in the form of a Mexican dollar, was an entirely acceptable form of communication.

Mr Dai, it turned out, was far too busy organising his books and shouting at the porters to actually show them where the horse trader was, as he had promised. Instead, he waved a hand vaguely off to the right, told them not to cross the train tracks, and left them to it.

It took a while, but Bic eventually found the right place. It wasn't far from the caravanserai where the book dealers were spending the night, but they'd trekked round half the town to find it.

She knew very little about horses - she had taken enough riding lessons at school to ensure that she wouldn't make a fool of herself, but she had never given much thought to the horses themselves. As far as she was concerned, they had arrived in the courtyard of her school ready saddled, and were taken away when the lesson was over, and all she had to do was try not to fall off in a lady-like manner.

Amelia, though, hitched herself up to sit on the top rail of the corral, and pointed authoritatively into the milling mass of horses. "Tell the man we want that one, the bay with the off fore white sock, and - that one, the chestnut with the blaze."

"The - what with the what?" Bic asked blankly.

"Sorry - that brown one with the white foot, and that other brown one with the white mark down her nose."

Bic pointed. The horse trader shook his head, and pointed out two other horses. "Much more suitable for the ladies," he said.

"He says those," Bic said, pointing to two other brown horses off to the side.

Amelia laughed. "Ask him if he thinks I'm blind - he's not palming off his rejects on us! We're going over a hundred miles over rough terrain, not a sedate jog round the park, and those two, I suspect, are only fit for the knacker's yard."

"The lady says no," Bic said to the horse trader, slowly, in Cantonese. "She wants the two that she has chosen. She asks if you think that she is blind, to offer us the other two."

Grumbling under his breath, Nerguii waved to the middle aged woman in a ragged head scarf who seemed to be his wife - he called her Gerel - and between them they cut the two horses Amelia had chosen out of the herd and tied them up to the rail. Bic had vaguely expected lassos like the cowboys used, but these people had the loop of the lasso dangling from the end of a long stick.

"Now I want to see their teeth," Amelia said, jumping down to look, "and their feet." She moved around the horses - and Bic thought she looked as if she knew what she was doing. The horse trader looked as if he thought the same. The thought didn't seem to please him.

"Hmm, this one, the bay, is good. Not sure about this one - might be too old." She cast her eye over the horses again. "How about that sandy coloured one?"

The sandy coloured one was deemed to be acceptable, and Amelia decided to have the chestnut as a pack horse, and "that piebald looks as if it won't expire on the way."

The horse trader named what Bic was sure was an extortionate price.

Amelia reached into her pouch and brought out the Mexican silver dollars. The man's eyes widened. "Tell him yes," she said, "but the price must include all the tack, including the pack saddles, and a tent."

"You will bankrupt me!" wailed the horse trader - but Amelia remained unmoved, and he took the money.

He led them to his shed, where he and his wife pulled out a variety of harness which Amelia scrutinised carefully, pulling at straps and poking around under the saddles. When she had the most servicable tack she could find, he delved into another part of the shed and re-appeared with a bundle of canvas and some poles.

Bic helped Amelia spread out the canvas on the ground. "Well, it's not mildewed, at least," Amelia said. "Tell him this will do - and ask him where he got it."

"Why?" Bic asked.

"Because, old girl, this is a British Army tent, and I want to know how it got here."

Amelia saddled up the horses, quickly and efficiently, while Bic attempted to explain to the horse trader what they wanted to know. It seemed that he was only interested in talking about horses, though. Now he had the money safe in his hands, he shook his head and muttered in Mongolian when she tried to talk to him. It was the woman, Gerel, who shrugged, and pointed off into town. "Go to the tea house," she said, miming the drinking of tea in case she couldn't understand him. "Wang Lung the camel trader is there. He brought the tent." She ducked a blow from Nerguii. "Hey, why not tell her?" she asked. "What does it matter anyway?"

They led the horses down the street together, but halfway to the caravanserai Amelia turned off the main street, where the horse trader's wife had indicated, and stopped outside a seedy looking tea house. Three or four men were sitting cross legged at the low tables, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes, beneath a shabby banner announcing that they served the best green tea in Erenhot. One of the men was reading a much folded Chinese newspaper.

"This is the place the woman said, isn't it?" Amelia asked, "where the man who sold the tent can be found?"

Bic nodded. "I think so," she said.

Amelia tied up the horses to the verandah, and strode up the ricketty wooden steps, clearly expecting Bic to follow her. The men on the verandah stopped what they were doing to stare at her.

"But you're not just going to....go in there, are you?" she asked - as Amelia pushed open the door.

Sighing, Bic slipped her fan out of its silk bag, and followed.

Everyone in the room had turned round to look at Amelia. Even the girl playing the _erhu_ stopped moving her bow across the two strings, mid-tune.

Amelia smiled her widest and most innocent smile. "Wang Lung?" she asked.

A couple of the clientele glanced in the direction of a big man, sitting at a table near the back with a couple of other men. The table was covered with mah jong tiles, with small piles of coins before each of the men beside their bowls of tea.

Still smiling, Amelia crossed the room and plumped herself down on the floor beside the big man. Bic followed, and remained standing, watching the room. Someone had to watch out for Amelia now that she seemed to have gone quite mad.

Now she was at a table, though, the other people in the tea house started to look away and go back to their conversations, and the girl with the erhu began to play again.

"Bic, would you ask this gentleman where he got the tent he sold to the horse trader?" Amelia asked.

Bic asked the question in Cantonese, hoping that he would understand at least some of it. As she'd found with the horse trader, Cantonese was not easily understood this far into the hills.

The big man, it seemed, was well travelled enough to understand her perfectly. "What's it to you?" he asked.

Amelia sighed. "Tell him it belonged to a friend of mine. He's not in any trouble. I just want to know how he found it."

"Tell the mad lady that her friend must be dead," the big man said. "The tent was deserted. It was near a pool where I water my camels. Everyone was gone. Just a few small things left - a camp stool, blankets, things like that. I kept the camp stool," he added.

Amelia pulled out a map from her pouch and spread it on the table. "Tell him I'm delighted he likes the stool," she said, "and ask him where the tent was set up."

He squinted at the map, frowning, then took out a little stub of pencil from his pocket and marked a cross, very deliberately, about half way between Erenhot and Saynshand.

Amelia folded the map away, and put out her hand to shake his. She was holding a silver coin, something smaller than a silver dollar. "Thank you. You've been very helpful," she said.

Bic only started to breathe normally again when they were outside and walking the horses down the street again. "Are you quite mad?" she asked. "That must be one of the roughest joints in town - they could have killed us for the horses which, just to remind you, we have only just bought at extortionate cost!"

"They could have tried," Amelia said, "but the best thing about marching in there as if you own the place is that the people who really do own the place are usually too surprised to do anything about it." She grinned. "I think our camel driving friend was being honest, anyway - and the spot he marked is more or less on our route anyway, which is handy."

"But he thinks the owner of the tent must be dead," Bic said, doubtfully.

"Doubt it," Amelia said. "Or at least, whoever kidnapped him didn't kill him straight away, or there'd have been a body at the camp. It gives us a trail to follow, anyway - I hope." She smiled. "We're going into country where everybody knows about horses," she said. "I bet someone will have seen Captain Singh's horse if we ask around when we get to Saynshand."

Back at the caravanserai, the first thing Amelia insisted on doing was organising the packs with all the luggage they would be taking with them the next day.

Bic sighed as she put her pretty dresses to one side. There would be no need for them out in the wilds. On the other hand, nobody would be complaining about their gym clothes. She kept one cheongsam, just in case she needed to look respectable, and the pair of slippers that went with it were light and easy to slip into the pack.

Amelia had been camping before. That was why she'd been carrying a primus stove around with her since their visit to the Sincere department store (where you really could buy just about anything). Now they were out in the wilds, she was wearing her Webley pistol in a holster on her belt.

"You should put yours on, too," Amelia said. "It doesn't matter if you can't hit a barn door with it - just look as if you mean business, and you probably won't be put to the test!" She found the leather roll containing her gun cleaning equipment, and stowed it safely away, together with the carbolic soap and the small flat iron "because by the time we get to Saynshand we will need to do laundry," she said.

This was not something that Bic had ever had to think about. There had been an older girl at school who had used remarks about Chinese laundries as an insult when she was within hearing range, but Bic had never really understood what was supposed to be so insulting about it. It was a common business for Chinese people to get into when they got to the United States, and there was nothing dishonourable about that. She'd still wanted to smack Lizzie Peabody across the face when she was being rude, though, Boston Brahmin or not.

But still, laundry was something she had never had to concern herself with personally. Her clothes went away dirty, and came back clean and ironed. Somewhere in between those two states, the clothes got wet, but that was as far as her knowledge went. She hoped Amelia wouldn't think her too stupid when she had to confess her ignorance.

Amelia was making small sounds of annoyance. "Botheration," she said at last. "I forgot to ask for hobbles for the horses - so they don't wander off in the night," she added, seeing Bic's blank expression. "We need to ask for some rope - something long enough to tether them - and extra tent pegs - and a wooden mallet. We need a wooden mallet anyway, for the tent. Do you think the man in charge here might help?"

Bic went looking for him. She found him shovelling coal onto a fire underneath the raised platform that ran across half the main hall of the mud brick building in the middle of the compound. It took a while to explain what she wanted, and longer for him to amble away to find what they needed, but eventually she returned in triumph to Amelia, with a wooden mallet, a length of good hemp rope slung over her shoulder and four extra long tent pegs.

By this time, Amelia had added a sewing kit to her luggage, and was holding her pillow like an old and well-loved rag doll. "It takes up so much extra room," she sighed, "and we can use the saddles instead...." Reluctantly, she put it back in the trunk, and took out the mackintosh groundsheets and the blankets instead. "We won't have to rough it for too long," she said, "but what a pity they couldn't provide proper sleeping bags in Shanghai - I suppose it's because the climate is so different. They were ever so useful in the Alps."

"I never heard of them in the States," Bic said, thinking forlornly of proper beds, with proper sheets, and pillows. She wondered when she'd be able to get back to a civilised place where such things were unremarkable.

Amelia added a couple of water bottles (empty) and a kettle to the pack, and slid a bottle of Camp Coffee in beside them. "I dare say there will be tea provided by Mr Dai," she said. "I wonder what their cooking will be like."

Dinner that evening was a mutton stew with rice, provided by the owner of the caravanserai, which was eaten while sitting cross legged on the platform within the mud brick building. The booksellers brought out a flask of rice wine, which Mr Gu offered in Amelia and Bic's direction. Amelia refused with a smile and a shake of her head, and Mr Gu shrugged.

Mr Dai had made it plain that Bic and Amelia should sleep on the _kang_ with them, but Amelia had insisted on setting the tent up in one corner of the courtyard. Partly it had been for practice - Amelia knew how to put an Army tent up, but it was something Bic had never attempted before. Also, Amelia declared her intention of sleeping there, rather than in the caravanserai building itself. Bic sighed. The kang was wonderfully warm, and although the day had been hot, the evening was decidedly chilly. She was not looking forward to a night of sleeping on the cold, hard ground. Surely there wouldn't be a problem if she and Amelia slept at one end of the platform, and the four men and their camelteers slept at the other. But then she noticed how Jen-Hu was sitting altogether too close to her, and leering at her every time she turned her head even slightly in his direction - and she decided that maybe Amelia was right about sleeping outside.

Mr Gu and his companions were in no hurry to go to bed, and when they brought out a second flask of rice wine Amelia caught Bic's eye, and nodded towards the door.

Mr Gu offered Amelia the flask again. "I don't think so," she said. "Bic, tell him we want an early night - an _undisturbed_ early night."

"Honoured Gu," Bic said, "you are most generous, but Miss Harper and I wish to go to bed early."

"Just one little drink won't hurt," Gu Yanwu said, inviting her to come closer with a wave of his arm. "Stay here in the warm with us."

Bic glanced at Jen-Hu, who was leering again. "I'd like to keep you warm," he said.

"No, thank you," Bic said firmly. "We will see you in the morning - and not before."

She turned for the door, and hurried after Amelia, but she still heard Jen-Hu muttering _"Chang fu."_

Outside, they skirted the kneeling camels and headed for the tent.

"What was that they said?" Amelia asked.

"That little toad Jen-Hu called me a bitch," Bic said. "And I didn't like the way they said they'd keep us warm."

"I thought it must be something like that," Amelia said. She lit the lantern - then changed her mind and blew it out again. "Perhaps best just to go to bed fully clothed," she said. "And keep your pistol beside your pillow. I know I shall be - honestly, the lengths a lady traveller has to go to, to preserve her virtue!"

Bic rolled the blanket around her and lay down. The ground was very hard, and the saddle she was using as a pillow creaked under her head. "I thought we were travelling with these people for safety," she said.

"Oh, I don't seriously think they'll try anything," Amelia said. "It's just best to be prepared in case something happens. The camels should give us warning if anyone tries coming across here in the night, and Mr Zheng may not say much, but he was looking at his nephew in a very disapproving way. And we will be safer from bandits on the road with them than if we were travelling alone, even if we do have to deal with a few cases of wandering hands."

*****

Chapter Four: Book Bandits

They passed an uneventful night, and were up early to dismantle the tent. Bic hurried to use the latrine before anyone else was about - it stank, and there was no lock on the door. In fact, it was designed for three people to use it at once, and she had no wish to be squatting there when any of the booksellers came in, even the inoffensive Mr Zheng. One thing she had not expected, when setting off on this journey, was to actually be looking forward to peeing behind a bush.

Breakfast was served on the kang, and Gu Yanwu was perfectly friendly to them. Bic almost thought she had been imagining any improprieties in their behaviour the previous night. Even Jen-Hu in daylight managed a pleasant smile rather than a leer.

While the booksellers and their servants loaded their crates onto the camels, Amelia showed Bic how to sort out the pack saddles on their own horses. The personal belongings went on the chestnut, and the piebald was used to load the camera and all its accoutrements on one side and the tent on the other. Amelia had taken the long rifle out of its crate and wrapped it in a blanket so that it looked like an extra part of the camera tripod. The box of ammunition went in a bag on top of the tent, and Bic spent some time using the hand pump, making sure the needle on the gauge stayed well away from the red portion, while Amelia saddled the horses.

All that remained was for them to mount up, and follow the eighteen camels carrying the books, and the other camels carrying the tents and luggage, and the four booksellers and half a dozen servants on their horses, up the trail that led north through the hills.

It was a bleak, treeless landscape, of narrow rocky defiles that opened out onto wide vistas. Somewhere off to the north and west was the vast expanse of the Gobi Desert, and somewhere much further north were the rich grasslands where the horse herds were raised by nomadic tribes. For the moment, though, the terrain reminded Bic of pictures she had seen of Arizona - rocky, and dry and dusty, with eagles wheeling far overhead against an eggshell blue sky.

By the end of the day, it was a struggle to pitch the tent.

"I'm horribly out of practice," Amelia said. "You forget about all the muscles you use while riding that don't seem to get used for anything else."

Bic said nothing. Her bottom was aching, and so were her thighs, and her lower back, and her shoulders, and the thought of lying down on the hard earth to sleep was not appealing. She had not slept well at the caravanserai. The ground had been hard and lumpy and the air had been cold.

On the other hand, despite the aches and pains, she was ravenous.

"Fresh mountain air will do that," Amelia said. "I could eat a horse!" She laughed then at Bic's expression of disapproval. She looked across to where two of the camel drivers were working around the campfire. "Don't worry - I'm pretty sure that meat they're cutting up is mutton."

Sitting on the cold, hard ground was not the most comfortable end to the day, and Bic rolled her eyes when she realised she would have to spend the evening sitting next to Zheng Jen-Hu again. He had been bothersome during the day, but while they were both mounted he had been easier to ignore. Now he decided to sit too close to her as he shovelled his mutton and rice into his mouth. He was too young to have more than a wispy approximation of a moustache - his uncle's moustache was both long and luxuriant - and a day's riding did not seem to have tired him out one bit.

"I wasn't expecting to have girls along on this trip," he said. "Even a peasant is better than nothing...."

Bic glared at him until he subsided. She was no longer pretending to be Amelia's servant. "My father grew rich importing tea to San Francisco," she said stiffly. "Do not insult me."

"So you're from a merchant family, like me?" he asked. "I don't believe you!"

"Suit yourself," Bic muttered, "but don't suppose for one moment that you can treat me like a peasant." She picked up her bowl of mutton and rice, and moved to sit on the other side of Amelia. "He's still being a toad," she growled, in English.

"He's been hanging around you with a lustful expression all day," Amelia observed, sipping her tea. She smiled across the campfire, with great insincerity, at Mr Dai, who had been more attentive to her than was strictly necessary during the day as well.

As soon as dinner was over, and before any more rice wine came out, Bic and Amelia made their excuses and retired to the relative safety of their tent.

Bic awoke at first light, and lay for a while listening to the camels moving about. She felt, if anything, even more stiff and aching than when she had lain down.

Amelia woke up, seemingly much refreshed, some time later. Her cheerfulness was certainly undimmed. Bic scowled at her as she dragged her comb through the tangles in her hair.

"If I had known," she said darkly, "on that day when you climbed through the parlour window, what hardship you would bring me to - I think I would have thrown you back out again and let the tong catch up with you!"

"Oh, Bic - you don't really mean that, do you?" For a moment, Amelia looked genuinely shocked.

"Just don't tell me this is a great adventure," Bic snapped. "It is not. It is uncomfortable, and cold, and dirty, and men leer at me - and I am not enjoying it."

"There'll be decent beds when we get to Saynshand, I'm sure," Amelia said. "And look on the bright side - we've already got one clue to follow."

Bic sniffed. "I should have stayed in Shanghai," she muttered. She shuffled out of the tent to find a bush to pee behind, well away from the camp. When she got back, Amelia was over by the campfire, eating breakfast with her spoon. Still scowling, Bic went to get her own bowl of congee. Mr Zheng was also collecting his breakfast from the camp cook, and she could just about bring herself to be civil to Mr Zheng.

She was still sulking when the caravan stopped for the noon rest, though by then much of the stiffness had left her. Even young Jen-Hu had enough sense to leave her alone as they rode.

But she couldn't keep it up. Amelia had been sleeping on the same cold, hard ground, and riding the same distance - and she had also saddled the horses and sorted out the pack horses single handed that morning, and checked on Mr Conway's box, and she'd done it all without a word of complaint. And now she held the sandy horse's head while Bic mounted, and Bic muttered; "I'm sorry I snapped."

"Just think of champagne in the dining car of the train on the way back to Peking," Amelia said, smiling. "And a soft bed. I know it's hard when you're not used to it, but it won't be for long."

That evening, Mr Zheng brought out an erhu, and played while the others sang and clapped, and it was all rather jolly - but the ground was still cold and hard in the tent, and Bic still ached horribly.

She woke to a confused sound of camels bellowing, horses' hooves clattering on the hard ground, and shouting. Amelia was already pushing back her blankets, with her Webley in her hand. Groggily, Bic groped for her own pistol and slid it out of the holster.

Amelia knelt by the tent flap and looked out. Then she stepped outside, looking around.

Bic pulled the tent flap to one side to follow her, and flinched back as a huge bird flew straight at Amelia.

Amelia threw herself onto the ground - the eagle's talons missed her by inches. She rolled to one side and looked up.

A Mongolian woman looked down at them both from her horse, and then held up her arm. The eagle wheeled round over the tents and came to settle on her glove.

All around them, more Mongolian women were looking down at them from their saddles. Some were armed with bows and arrows, and others with rifles. Dai De, still tangled up in his sleeping blanket, was standing outside the larger tent that he had been sharing with the other booksellers, one hand clutching the blanket and the other up in the air in surrender. He was swearing in Mandarin. Behind him, Gu Yanwu was sitting on the ground with his head in his hands. Zheng Chi-yun and his nephew emerged groggily from the big tent, in their undershirts, herded along by another Mongolian woman carrying a Winchester.

Amelia sat up carefully, leaving her Webley on the ground. Bic quietly backed away from the tent flap and slid her Webley back into the holster. It was obviously too late to attempt any defence of the camp.

The woman with the eagle walked her horse forward until she stood over Amelia, and said something in Mandarin.

Amelia stood up slowly and carefully, keeping her hands in view. "Good morning!" she said brightly. "I'm Amelia Harper, and this is my companion, Li Bic."

The Mongolian woman grinned. "But - you are English! How jolly wonderful!"

Amelia grinned back. "I must say, I didn't expect to hear English out here," she said. "May I ask how you came to learn it?"

"The BBC World Service, of course!" the woman said. "'Here is the news,'" she recited in mock solomn tones, "'and this is Freddie Grisewood reading it.' But you are not a bookseller?" she continued.

"We joined the booksellers," Amelia said, "for safety from bandits." She grinned, and the woman on the horse grinned back, and bowed slightly. "I'm here to look for someone," Amelia admitted. "A mining engineer called Captain Vijay Singh."

The Mongolian woman shook her head. "But you are too late," she said. "He has gone back to Peking."

"I'm afraid not," Amelia said. She delved in her belt pouch and brought out her map. "A camel trader called Wang Lung said that he found Captain Singh's tent, but there was no trace of the Captain."

"Or his servant? He had a Chinese servant called Shi Jin." The Mongolian woman dismounted, leaving her eagle perched on the saddlebow, and moved round to look at the map. "That is not far from here," she said, pointing at the pencilled cross. "There is a pool where travellers water their horses and camels. Maybe these booksellers do not know the place, and that is why they camped here." Then she took a good look at Amelia and Bic's tent. "That is Captain Singh's tent," she said.

"I bought it from Nerguii the horse trader, in Erenhot," Amelia said. "He got it from Wang Lung the camel trader."

"This is a bad thing," the Mongolian woman said. "I thought he would be safe, going south, or I would have escorted him to Erenhot myself."

"You know something of his mission, then?" Amelia asked.

"I know he said he had found the information he was looking for," the Mongolian woman said, "but he did not tell me what it was." Abruptly, she held out her hand in the English fashion. Amelia shook hands with her gravely.

"I am Otryadyn Gundegmaa," she said, "and I promise I will help you find Captain Vijay Singh."

They rode out soon after that, Amelia and Otryadyn Gundegmaa together, leaving the rest of the Mongolian women loading up the camels, and Bic struggling to pack the tent and the rest of the luggage on the pack horses. She was too relieved to be left behind - Amelia set off after the Mongolian bandit at a wild pace - to feel any resentment at having been taken for Amelia's servant again.

A couple of the Mongolian women took pity on her, and came over to help her roll up the canvas. Then they looked over the packing she'd done so far, shook their heads, and re-packed everything. When they did it, the luggage took up far less room. Bic sighed, accepted her incompetence, and kept out of their way.

By the time everything was packed, Amelia and the bandit leader were back.

"Nothing to be learned by the lake, I'm afraid," she said, "but Gundegmaa knows Captain Singh's horse, and she's happy to take us north to look for him." She looked across at the little huddle of booksellers and their servants. "I feel quite guilty," she murmured. "Will you tell them how sorry I am, Bic?"

Bic had been doing her best to ignore the unfortunate booksellers. She felt quite guilty too. After all, they had just lost all their books and camels, and would have to walk back to Erenhot, while she and Amelia had instantly been taken under the bandits' wings and seemed to have landed on their feet. She walked across and bowed to Mr Gu. "Honoured Gu, we are sorry for your misfortune," she said. "We honestly had no idea this would happen."

"You were in league with them all along!" Mr Gu accused her. "I should never have befriended you on the train! Fuck your ancestors to the eighteenth generation - and that foreign devil bitch!"

Bic backed away. There was no point trying to argue with him.

"He's not happy, is he?" Amelia said. She'd dismounted, and was leading the horse.

"He thinks we've been in league with the bandits all along," Bic said.

Amelia sighed. "Best not to dwell on it," she said. "Come along, Gundegmaa's ready to go."

They left the trail, heading up into the hills to the east, up a valley with a tiny stream trickling through the rocks and across grassy meadows. There were no landmarks that Bic could recognise - very soon she was completely lost - but the bandits seemed to know exactly where they were, and a couple of hours later, they were approaching a small village of round tents by the banks of a stream, sheltered by the first proper trees she'd seen since they arrived in Mongolia.

There were more women at the camp, and dogs, and more horses, even a two-humped camel or two. There was a lot of chatter that Bic couldn't follow, and then the two women who had loaded the pack horses started to unload for them and put up their tent.

It was all very efficiently done - the horses were led to water, and tethered to graze; the camels were unloaded, fed and watered, and Bic noticed an old lady in a bright headscarf smiling at her from the door of the biggest tent.

Gundegmaa strolled by with her eagle sitting on her forearm. She nodded to the old lady, and chatted to her in rapid Mongolian while she settled the eagle onto a frame beside the wooden door. Pulling her leather gauntlet off, she beckoned to Bic and Amelia. "Please, come and take tea with us," she said.

Before they ducked to go inside, Gundegmaa paused. "There are three questions you must ask when you go inside the _ger_ ," she said. "Is your family well? Are the cattle fat? and Is the grass good this year?"

Bic ducked inside behind Amelia and brushed past a large goatskin container hanging from the roof poles. The smell from it was almost like buttermilk. Overlapping rugs covered the floor and in the centre of the ger, under the circular hole at the top of the roof, stood a square stove. An old woman was stirring the contents of a large round bottomed pan on top of it. Strong smells of mutton were coming from the pan, and beside the pan was another, smaller pot containing a brown liquid. Around the walls were chests and boxes. The whole was lit through the round hole in the roof above the stove. There was a wooden circle, like a wagon wheel, up there, but the spokes were all on the outside of the rim, and went down to rest on the trellis that ran around the ger walls.

Gundegmaa gestured for them to sit on cushions by the stove. "This is my aunt Deegii, who keeps the ger for me," she said. "She also speaks a little English." The old lady gave a little bow and went over to one of the chests by the ger wall. She came back with several small bowls, which she handed around.

Amelia automatically took the lead, and bowed to the old lady. "Greetings, Auntie Deegii," she said. "Is your family well?"

The old lady smiled and nodded. "Very well," she said, in English.

"Good - and are the cattle fat?" Amelia went on.

"Very fat."

"I am glad - and is the grass good this year?"

"The grass is good." Auntie Deegii smiled. " _Tsai oh_ \- please to take tea." She took the ladle, scooped up some tea, and held it high before tipping the tea back into the pot. Then she filled the bowls.

"Well, this is all very civilised," Amelia remarked, smiling. She sipped at the tea, and turned slightly so that Auntie Deegii wouldn't see her make a face. "Oh, my," she whispered. "This has got salt in it."

Bic sipped too. It wasn't so bad if you were expecting it, and she knew it would be very bad manners to refuse to drink it.

More women came into the ger to collect bowls of tea and sit by the fire.

Off to one side, some of the women had settled in a circle, cross-legged on the rugs and cushions, while one of them began to read from one of the books they had just stolen. There was a great deal of giggling going on.

One woman was carrying a Mongolian two string fiddle, with a horse's head carved on the end of the fingerboard. Gundegmaa started to make introductions - the one with the instrument was Delgree, who was some sort of cousin to Zayaa, and Khulan, who was related in some obscure way to Gundegmaa.

"Short song, or long song?" Delgree asked, tuning up her _morin khour_.

Oh, long song's too sad," Zayaa said. "Let's have Uncle Namsan."

"And we do it in English, for our guests," Khulan suggested.

"You can be Uncle Namsan, then," Zayaa said.

Khulan made a face. "Only if you are his bride," she said.

Delgree grinned. "You want it in English," she said. "It's only fair you do the singing."

The women who had been reading the novel together shifted over to sit down around them as Delgree began the tune. They started clapping in time to the music as Delgree sang the first verse:

"Riding on his bay horse,

Leaving her kinsmen weeping,

Here comes Uncle Namsan

With a young girl he has taken from her home"

Khulan stood up and flung her arm wide.

"Wearing my lambskin robe," she sang,

"Do you feel like shivering?

With 80,000 sheep in my flocks,

Are you worried about enough to eat?"

Zayaa put her hands on her hips, facing Khulan.

"In the gown of heavy lambskin I feel shivery,

The Chinese brocade rubs my skin,

The silken fabric is too soft."

Khulan pulled at her long plait. "My triple braided pigtail - do you reject it as too wispy?"

"In the morning when I get up and look at you," Zayaa replied,

"Uncle Namsan, you are all drained of colour,

When I sit leaning against your knee,

Uncle Namsan, I know you have had your day."

The women keeping time were laughing now as Khulan mimed being old and doddery.

"True it is that I've grown old," she sang,

"But I'm rich in goods and cash,

True it is my complexion is only so-so,

But I'll take you and make you my own," and she sprang across the open space between them, and chased Zayaa round the stove. Auntie Deegii batted them away with the ladle as they ran past.

"Why should the wild duck lay its eggs

In the lone tree by the northern slope?" Zayaa sang, turning to face the pursuing Khulan.

"Eighteen years old, that's all I am,

You'll find me hard to take and hold!"

And she was off again, out of the door and running across the campsite, with Khulan and several of the other women running after her. Amelia clapped enthusiastically. A few moments later, the girls re-appeared, laughing, and with their arms round each others' shoulders.

"Will you sing?" Delgree asked Amelia.

"Oh, my - Bic, do you know Aunt Nancy?" Amelia asked.

Bic nodded cautiously. She had never been much of a singer.

"Come on then - 'Go and tell Aunt Nancy

Go and tell Aunt Nancy,

Go and tell Aunt Nancy,

The old grey goose is dead.'"

By the time they got to the end of the song, it was as if they had always been the best of friends.

By this time, Bic had got to that rather querulous stage of hunger which the milky tea had only taken the edge off. She hadn't had any breakfast, and it had been a long day. The mutton stew in the pan was looking more desirable all the time.

First, though, the tea bowls were taken away, and Auntie Deegii started to fill a new stack of bowls from the goatskin by the door. She soon had plenty of helpers to pass them round.

Bic sipped the new drink, cautiously. The taste was like buttermilk, but sparkling with bubbles, almost like champagne.

"This is _airag,_ " Gundegmaa said. "Do you like it?"

"It's jolly good," Amelia said, "and it's alcoholic, isn't it?"

"Of course," Gundegmaa said. "You are honoured guests, and we have had a successful raid."

There were other guests arriving now, sitting with their own bowls of airag around the stove and the low table in front of the stove. Zayaa and Khulan sat a little behind Bic and Amelia, sharing a cushion with their arms wrapped around each other's shoulders, sipping from one bowl of airag between them _._ Another woman came to sit beside them, and Gundegmaa introduced her cousin Idree.

Finally, Auntie Deegii bent over the pan on the stove again, and scooped out what had been boiling there. It was a sheep's head. "When we come home from a raid," Gundegmaa said, "the older women who stay in the camp slaughter sheep for a feast to welcome us back."

Bic had noticed the flock of sheep, much smaller than Uncle Namsan's in the song, grazing close to the gers when they had ridden in.

The old lady set out the head on a plate and laid it on the low table they were sitting round. Gundegmaa handed Amelia a knife and carving fork. "You cut here, just so, from the chin back along the jaw. Then you eat the first slice, and give the second slice to me."

Amelia followed the instructions, making a decent job of it, and then handed the knife back to Gundegmaa who served everyone else in turn, starting with Auntie Deegii. By now, Bic's stomach was growling, and she was relieved to find that the meat from the sheep's head tasted quite palatable.

After that, Auntie Deegii brought forth a saddle of mutton. The knife was handed back to Amelia, who cut slices, handing them in turn to everyone around the table. There was rice to go with the meat, and also some fried bread - and more bowls of airag _._ Bic was starting to feel just a little bit tipsy.

After the meal, the dirty bowls were tidied away into a corner, and more women started coming into the ger. They took their places sitting crosslegged on the rugs, or sitting on the low chests around the walls. More airag was served. Now that the meal had been cleared away, Gundegmaa went outside and returned with the eagle, now wearing a leather hood over its head. She settled it on a frame like the one outside, in a dark part of the ger, away from where all the women were sitting. She smiled at Amelia and Bic as she stroked the shoulders of the eagle. "Ha! The Kazakhs think they are the only ones to tame eagles," she said. "The Kazakhs know nothing!"

She came back to sit on a cushion beside Amelia. "This is our time for enjoyment," she said. "We call it the short golden season. In summer, we work hard, out with the herds. We make cheese, and _tsagaan idee_ to last through the winter. Airag, too, and we," she made cutting motions with her fingers, "cut the sheep's wool and make felt, and sew clothes - many things. Winter is long, and cold, and difficult - but now, we enjoy life, and make money for our families - and make new friends."

The ger was filling up quickly now. "Almost time for the BBC," Gundegmaa said. The World Service was obviously a popular evening entertainment for the camp.

Bic had never heard it. On special occasions there had been a radiogram at school, for such things as the Presidential Fireside Chat, which had always seemed deeply boring (though better than an evening darning one's stockings).

Gundegmaa moved to a large cushion, and pulled a silk cloth off a tall box, which stood revealed as the radiogram. She bent over the dials, tuning it in.

Bic recognised a piano piece by Chopin. As the chatter of the women quietened down, the music came to an end and was followed by clock chimes. Amelia chuckled with delight. "Big Ben!" she whispered. "Oh, how I've missed that!"

"Here is the news, and here is Freddie Grisewood reading it." He sounded terribly English, and terribly upper class, and hearing him, Bic could well believe the rumours that he read the news in full evening dress.

"The Queen greeted her nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, today at Windsor as he arrived by airship from Berlin," Freddie Grisewood said. "Cheering crowds greeted the landing airship on the edge of Windsor Great Park. In his speech, given as he stood beside the gondola of the airship, he entreated the Queen Empress to join him in his crusade against what he calls the Yellow Peril, and intimated that an agreement about this potential catastrophe in international relations was the chief reason for his visit to his aunt.

"Prince Edward could not be present at Windsor, as he is visiting the Maharajah of Jaipur, Sir Madho Singh II. The Maharajah's private army paraded before the Prince, and demonstrated their skills with the lance in a display of tent-pegging. Later, a game of polo was played, with the Maharajah's home team narrowly beating the Prince of Wales Own Royal Hussars team.

"In Parliament, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst made her maiden speech in the House of Commons as MP for Manchester...."

"Hurrah! She did it! .... _sorry!"_ Amelia ducked down and put her hand over her mouth.

"And now, a report from Wembley, where it's been fine weather for one of the first football matches of the season...."

"Yellow Peril?" Bic hissed furiously. "Stupid man!"

Over at the radiogram, Gundegmaa turned down the sound. "Please, could my English guest explain the news to us? There is much we do not understand in these reports. First of all, what is tent-pegging?"

"Oh, that's rather fun to watch," Amelia said. "It's a game of skill - a rider with a lance gallops at a tent peg in the ground to spear it. I could show you tomorrow if you like, though I'm not very good at it."

"And what about the Kaiser?" Gundegmaa asked.

"Gosh, this is jolly embarrassing," Amelia said. "I do hope you're not going to pay any attention to him," she began. "He has something of a reputation for wild talk."

"He has been speaking of this 'Yellow Peril' for some time," Gundegmaa said. "And what is this 'catastrophe in international relations' he is talking about now?" she asked.

"Oh, dear," Amelia said. "I'm afraid he's saying that the Chinese are not welcome in Europe. He thinks they'll cause trouble, or try to take over, or something."

Gundegmaa was smiling grimly. "Is this just the Chinese, or does he mean anyone from this part of the world? Does he include us in this 'Yellow Peril'?"

Amelia nodded. "I'm very much afraid that he wouldn't see any difference between you and the Chinese," she said.

"Maybe we should go to visit him," Idree said, "and show him there is a difference. It might be a good idea to frighten him a little. We have a saying," she went on, turning towards Amelia, "'while your horse is alive, see as many lands as you can'. What is Germany like?"

"There are mountains at the south end, and a big river called the Rhine running north. I believe the countryside is fertile - they're famous for growing grapes for wine, for instance - and there's a huge forest, the Black Forest. There are also several universities in various cities. The Germans are noted for enjoying music and learning of all kinds."

"They should learn more about us, before they start saying stupid things," Idree said, grimly.

Gundegmaa nodded. "I agree." There was, in fact, general agreement around the room. Bic almost felt sorry for the Kaiser. She could quite easily imagine Gundegmaa and her bandits riding into the middle of Berlin to look for him.

"I say, there were Germans in Saynshand recently, weren't there?" Amelia said.

"They went to the mine," said Khulan, behind Bic. "I heard they were scientists."

"Geologists?" Amelia asked, twisting round to face her.

"Mining engineers \- and phys-something?" Idree frowned, trying to remember.

"Physicists?" Amelia asked.

Idree nodded.

"What would physicists be interested in, at a fluorspar mine?" Amelia wondered.

"Bowls," said Zayaa. "They want to take the biggest bowl that's ever been made back to Russia with them."

"What do they want a big bowl for?" Amelia said.

There was general shrugging. "Maybe the Czar has a very big appitite!" said Delgree. Everybody laughed. But Amelia looked very thoughtful.

*****

Chapter Five: Going Undercover

They slept in Gundegmaa's ger that evening - it was far too late after they'd listened to the BBC, and they had drunk far too much airag, to stagger out of the ger to find their tent. Whether it was the strong drink, or whether the floor of the ger really was more comfortable than a blanket on the ground in the tent, Bic didn't know - but she did sleep very well.

She woke fairly early, but Auntie Deegii had already re-lit the stove, and Gundegmaa was getting dressed in a shabby tunic and pants to go outside. She was carrying the eagle on her big gauntlet. Amelia pushed her way up from her nest of blankets to watch Gundegmaa go out. She yawned widely. "That's the trouble with birds of prey," she said quietly. "They take a lot of looking after - one of my cousins had a kestrel for a while. I suppose she's going out to fly it to the lure."

Bic gave her a questioning look, but instead of waiting for her to explain, she pushed her blankets back and headed for the door. She needed to find a bush to squat behind. She was pleasantly surprised to find that she didn't seem to have a hangover, considering the amount of airag she'd drunk the night before. On a broad meadow beyond the gers, Gundegmaa had, indeed, let the eagle fly free, and she was beginning to swing a long leather strap around her head. It had something tied to the end of it, and as Bic watched, the eagle swooped down for it, missed, and climbed to swoop again. She was so interested, she almost forgot what she had come out of the ger for.

Back inside, Auntie Deegii had the tea cauldron going.

Bic joined Amelia in folding up the blankets they had been sleeping in. "She's swinging something round on a long rope," she said, "with something tied on the end of it. Would that be a lure?"

Amelia nodded. "Making the eagle work for her breakfast," she said. "They need a lot of exercise."

Before anything else, though, there was tea. Amelia took the bowl from Auntie Deegii and saluted her gravely before turning to Bic with a twinkle in her eye. "This could be worse," she whispered, while Auntie Deegii was turned away to give tea to Delgree on the other side of the stove. "I believe in Tibet they put butter in their tea!"

Bic watched critically as Amelia turned in a circle to show off the Mongolian coat she had borrowed from Gundegmaa. The top layer of the _del_ was a burgundy silk brocade, with a wool lining, and a bright red belt to contrast with the rather more sober brocade. She was also wearing a fur hat like the Mongolian women - but the effect on her was quite different.

"I don't know," Bic said slowly. "I think you stand differently. I can tell it's you even with the hat pulled down over your eyes. And your hair is too light."

"But you know me," Amelia pointed out. "Someone who didn't know me probably wouldn't notice."

Bic frowned and said nothing for a moment. "They'll be expecting someone English," she said at last. "It's obvious that somebody would be sent here to look for Captain Singh."

"Well, I'll just have to chance it," Amelia said. "After all, it's my job - I've got to at least try."

"No you haven't!" Bic surprised herself with the vehemence of her anger. "It's my job too - remember? And I am not being paid to follow you around like a lost dog! I should go into town. I can pass as one of the Mongolian women, and I'm not stupid! I know what I should be looking for. Unless you don't trust me to do the job right?"

Amelia stared at her, and chewed her lip.

"You're completely right, of course," she said at last. "I'll stay here, and you go into town." She held out her hand, and they shook on it solemnly.

The rest of the day was taken up with little jobs around the _ail_ , as Bic found the little village of gers was called. With nothing better to do, she volunteered to help some of the women collect dried dung from the grass lands around the tents - the main fuel for their fires. She had also borrowed a del, and a fur hat, and the tunic and pants that most of the women wore. A few of the women, especially the older ones who stayed at the camp, wore wide skirts, but Bic wanted to blend in with the girls who would be riding out the next day, and she wanted to practice. She'd never worn a pair of pants before, apart from her gym clothes and the loose silk trousers she wore for fan dancing practice.

In the afternoon, Amelia set up a few tent pegs in the ground away from the gers, and mounted her horse with a long pole in one hand. She'd lashed a knife to one end of it, in the absence of a proper lance, and spent half an hour cantering up and down, to the great amusement of the women of the camp, only occasionally managing to nudge a tent peg out of the ground. Delgree and Idree, and a few of the others, had a go, too - and were instantly better at it than Amelia. Bic kept well out of the way. She had no desire to be laughed at and she had no intention of even attempting to control a horse and a long stick at the same time.

For Bic, riding was not getting any more enjoyable with practice. The sooner the Russians built this new railroad, the better she would like it.

They set off early, and as they rode, keeping to the pace of the laden camels, the land grew sandier and the hills grew smaller. The sun was high in the sky and Bic was beginning to wish she hadn't been so keen to come when they came to the top of a low rise and the town of Saynshand spread out across the desert plain before them.

The houses looked as if they had been dumped there at random, with two or three broad streets between them, and off towards the horizon beyond the town were small hills which looked artificial. Spoilheaps, Bic supposed, squinting at what might have been mine buildings far in the distance.

Gundegmaa led the camel train down into town, heading for an open space between the buildings. As they got closer, Bic could see other traders with their camels and horses, with their goods laid out for sale. The market looked as if it had been going on for hours - but there was a space at one edge for the Mongolian women to set out their stall and room for their camels and horses.

Bic had other things to do, though. She leaned across and touched Idree on the arm. Gundegmaa had been insistant that Bic shouldn't go wandering off on her own, and Idree spoke good English, as well as Russian, and could act as a guide.

"We need to find the house where Captain Singh was staying first, I think," Bic said.

Idree turned her horse, and Bic followed. "Gundegmaa went there several times when the Captain was there," she said. She smiled. "And I thought Shi Jin was...." she struggled to find the right word in English.

"Cute?" Bic guessed. "Good looking?"

"Oh, yes, very good looking." And her smile faded. "If he has been hurt, I will kill the ones who did it."

They stopped outside a low, rambling wooden building, but the man who rented out the rooms knew nothing, and was busy cooking for the tea merchants who were renting the rooms from him this week.

"Let's find those Russians," Bic suggested.

The man at the rooming house pointed them across town to another, similar wooden building. Somewhere at the back of her mind, Bic was wondering where all the wood had come from. All brought in on camel back, she supposed, because there were no trees around that she could see.

Bic and Idree were leading their horses now - once Bic had got down to talk to the man at the rooming house, there was no way she was going to re-mount. Her backside hurt.

An old woman sat on the kitchen step of the house, peeling potatoes into a big wooden tub.

It was frustrating not to be able to speak to the old woman directly. Bic knew now how Amelia must have felt all the way from Shanghai. Idree squatted down close to the old woman, though, her reins draped casually over her shoulder so that the horse's nose was almost snuffling the top of her hat, and spoke seriously to her for some time. The old woman laughed.

Bic knelt down beside Idree, trying to make sure that her horse was not quite so chummy as Idree's was.

"This is Jashigner. She says the Russians speak freely in front of her," Idree said. "After all, she is only an old peasant woman. But she speaks fluent Russian - the caravans come here all the time, so of course she knows the language."

"Have they mentioned Captain Singh?" Bic asked.

"They spoke of him, yes. She says they took him west and north, across the plain. Shi Jin, also."

"What's west of here? Wait - it's the railroad, isn't it? Do you think they've sent them all the way back to Moscow?" Bic asked.

Idree looked grim. "If they have, I will follow them."

"Where are the Russians now?" Bic asked.

"They are at the workshop, where the bowls are being carved."

"Does she know what the bowls are for?" Bic asked.

Jashigner cackled, and Idree smiled too. "She says: 'Maybe the Czar has a very big appitite'," Idree said.

"Can we go to the workshops?" Bic asked. She was fumbling in her pocket for one of the romantic novels to give to the old woman. She had been given it back at camp, which would have been a thoughtful gesture if she'd had any idea about how to read the Mongolian script it was in. She bowed to Jashigner as she would have bowed to her own grandmother. Jashigner bowed back deeply, an expression of delight on her face as she tucked the book away in the deep pocket of her gown.

They got to the market square before they reached the workshops, threading their way between kneeling camels and tethered horses, racks displaying brightly coloured rugs, and bales of tea. There were groups of Russians in fur hats which were smaller and less impressive than the Mongolian fur hats, and Chinese merchants in little round silk hats and long robes, and Mongolians in sheepskin coats, or dels like the one Bic was wearing. Some were drinking tea together, others were smoking pipes, and all of them were talking, in at least three languages. Bic caught the odd word of Mandarin here and there, but that was all she could recognise.

Bic and Idree picked their way round a pile of tea bales, and reached the place where Gundegmaa and the other women had set out the books. Gundegmaa was haggling with a Mongolian merchant who looked as though he wanted to buy in bulk - they were over by the chests that hadn't been unpacked yet - but they were doing a brisk trade in single volumes too, mainly to local women.

Bic and Idree left their horses there with Zayaa, who was making sure the horses and camels were properly watered. Then they headed for the workshops.

The workshops were also busy with Russian and Chinese merchants. They all had big windows opening onto the road, where tables were laid out with stock, and some had skylights as well, giving extra light to the craftsmen as they worked. Bic got her first good look at the fluorspar vases that the craftsmen carved, over the shoulders of a group of Russians who were holding up various vases to the light. The one the Russian was examining was a translucent green, almost glowing in the sunlight. Further along, they could get in closer to the displays, and Idree picked up a bowl. Like the vases, these were mostly green, with bands of white through them, polished as smooth as glass.

"Small bowls," Idree said. "See? Big ones -" She gestured as if snapping a bowl in half, and put it down again as the man in charge of that workshop came to see what they were doing to his stock.

"They must want them really badly if they're willing to build an entire railroad just to take them back," Bic murmured. There was a narrow alleyway between that workshop and the next, and Bic side-stepped a Chinese merchant and his servants, who emerged from it carrying a crate between them suspended from a long pole.

"Which one of these is the one with the big bowls, do you think?" Bic asked.

A couple of Russians were sitting on the porch outside one workshop. Here there were no tables laden with bowls and vases, though the windows were open, and Bic could see men working inside, though she couldn't see what they were doing exactly.

The men outside were armed, and they didn't look very friendly, so Bic and Idree walked straight past without slowing down.

At the first opportunity, Bic turned down a side alley.

"What do we do now?" Idree asked.

"I'm not going back without finding out what's going on in there," Bic said. "There must be a back way."

The alley that ran behind the workshops was narrow, and deserted, apart from a dog who looked up from sniffing round a pile of rubbish to watch them.

Bic looked up at the roof. It wasn't very high. If she got up there and looked in through the skylight.... "I can't believe I'm doing this," she said quietly. "Will you give me a leg up?"

Idree gave Bic a boost up onto the roof, and she crawled up to the skylight. The thrill of excitement she felt was something like the time she'd sneaked out of the dorm at school after lights out when she was fourteen - but if she was caught this time, she knew the consequences would be a lot more serious than a stern telling off in the headmistress's office.

Peering over the edge of the skylight, Bic watched the two Europeans. They were wearing Western suits, and one of them was using some sort of measuring equipment. It reminded Bic of the compasses that she'd used at school. When they spoke together, she was certain they were not speaking Russian. Maybe these were the German physicists, working for the Russians.

Waiting off to one side were the local craftsmen. Like the craftsmen she had seen in the other workshops, they were holding cloths and there were bowls of some sort of powder on the table which she supposed they rubbed on the stone to get it smooth.

But the piece of fluorspar they were leaning over wasn't in the shape of a bowl.

"They're lenses," Bic murmured. "Really big lenses."

Raw slabs of fluorspar were stacked up to one side. The biggest was about five feet square, though only about half that in depth, and this fluorspar was clear right through, not coloured. They looked like slabs of slightly powdery ice. Three lenses, their surfaces polished to a satin smooth finish, lay on a rack at the side of the room. The one that was being worked on was directly below her on the table that caught the best of the light. Bic had no idea what sort of instruments the scientists were using, but they seemed to be measuring angles and curves with them. She'd done enough science at school to know that a lens needed to have a very precise curve for the light to pass through it in the right way.

She slid slowly down the shallow slope of the roof, and jumped down into the alleyway. Then she and Idree took the next side alley back to the market place, checking over their shoulders to see if they were being followed all the way.

"What is 'lenses'?" Idree asked. "I do not know this word."

"Well, have you ever seen anyone with spectacles?" Bic asked.

"Of course!"

"Well, the glass in the spectacles has to be ground in a curve, so they can be seen through. Magnifying glasses do the same sort of thing - you know, to make small things look larger?"

"Ah!" Idree nodded. "So they are making a big magnifying glass?"

"Looks like it," Bic said. But she had no idea what the lenses were for.

They camped that night on the edge of town. Bic helped where she could, but the Mongolian women were so much more competent at putting the gers up than she was that all she was really doing was getting in the way.

The horses and camels were fed, there was mutton stew and salty tea by the camp fire, and away from the glow of lamp light from the town, the stars were the brightest that Bic had ever seen. She was sitting on the edge of the camp, looking up and marvelling at the broad ribbon of light that she thought must be the Milky Way, when Gundegmaa came to sit next to her.

"Look, there is the Golden Nail where the horses are tied," she said, pointing up to the North Star. "Was your day successful?"

"They took Captain Singh and Shi Jin west," Bic said, "to where they're building the railroad. I don't know if they're still there or not."

"We will go and see, then," Gundegmaa said. "We will follow, wherever they have been taken."

Bic imagined Gundegmaa and the rest of the women riding right up to the Czar's Palace in St. Petersburg, demanding to be let in. She was quite sure they would do it if they had to. "What about you?" she asked. "Are the books selling well?"

Gundegmaa grinned. "The books always sell well. Tomorrow, we will sell the rest of the camels. We will ride back to camp much faster than we came!"

"Great," Bic said, forcing a smile.

Unencumbered by books or camels, they rode back to camp much faster than they came. By the time the yurts by the stream came into view, all Bic wanted to do was sleep for a week, in a featherbed - preferably after a long steamy bath.

She knew she wasn't going to get the chance for any of that.

Amelia, back in her divided skirts, paired with the burgundy silk del and her solar topee, held the reins for Bic to slide gratefully back onto solid ground. She groaned.

"You're back in one piece, anyway, old girl," Amelia said.

"Argh," Bic said.

She leaned on Amelia's arm and allowed herself to be led to a spot near the camp fire, where she sang down, groaning, on the ground. Some of the Mongolian women laughed.

"We went slowly," Delgree said. "Poor Chinese girl!"

"Everyone knows the Chinese can't ride!" said Jaran. "It's not her fault!"

But at the same time, one of the women was bringing Bic tea, and another was rubbing her back where it really hurt, and after a while, she'd revived enough to make coherent sounds.

The first of which was: "We have to do more riding," with an added groan.

The Mongolian women laughed.

"Riding where?" Amelia asked.

"West - to where the Russians are building the railroad," Bic said. "That's where the Russian scientists took Captain Singh and Shi Jin. I don't know if they're still there. And those things the Russians are making out of the fluorspar? They're not bowls. They're really big lenses. There were German scientists in the workshop and they were measuring them with some sort of scientific instruments - like compasses or calipers maybe?"

"How big?" Amelia asked.

"The biggest finished one was about -" She stretched her arms wide. "About four feet? And there's a slab of that fluorspar in the workshop that's even bigger than that."

Amelia looked around for Gundegmaa. "Do you know how far it is to where the railway is being built?" she asked.

"From here, we can get there in - about two days, I think." She turned to the women and gave a long speech in Mongolian.

"What's she saying?" Bic asked.

"Calling for volunteers, I think," Amelia said. "Look, if you really feel bad, you could stay here this time...."

"No way," Bic said. "I want to be part of this. I've come this far."

"That's the spirit, old girl! And by the look of things, just about everybody in camp wants to come as well."

There was a small amount of packing to be done - Amelia wrapped her sniper rifle carefully in a blanket and made sure the box of ammunition was safely stowed in a saddle bag. Bic borrowed Amelia's gun cleaning kit to make sure her Webley was ready for use. The Mongolian women brought spare mounts up from the horse herd that was grazing nearby, and put together cooking supplies, and food that could be eaten on the move.

Then they ate the evening meal that had been cooking ready for their return, and Bic crawled away into the tent to curl up under her blanket, still fully clothed.

When she was shaken awake, it was still dark. Still, she buckled on her holster and rolled up her sleeping blanket, and stumbled out after Amelia to mount a horse that someone else had saddled for her. Her legs felt like jelly, but the horse was happy enough to keep up with the rest of the riders, and all she had to do was try not to fall off.

Easy for them to laugh at her, she thought, as the sun rose behind them and sent hugely long shadows cantering ahead of them. They'd all been riding since they learned to walk. Even Amelia had grown up around horses back in England. Bic was the only novice rider there, but she was determined not to be left behind.

She couldn't stop herself from complaining, under her breath at least, though - she found she knew quite an impressive list of swear words once she put her mind to it, and putting her mind to it distracted her from the very real aches and pains she was feeling.

And on the second day, in the late afternoon, Zayaa rode back from where she was scouting ahead and reported that she could see the smoke of a steam train.

They made camp in the lea of a small thicket on the edge of one of the few streams Bic had seen during their long ride, but no fires were lit. Leading her mare to drink with the others, it took Bic a moment to realise that she was only a little bit stiff after the latest leg of their long ride, and her back hardly ached at all.

"You all right?" Amelia asked, leaning against the flank of the bay mare as it drank.

Bic stretched cautiously, and tried a couple of basic fan fighting moves. "Surprisingly, yes," she said. "I think my muscles are getting used to what I'm asking them to do."

Amelia gave her a quick hug. "Good. I'm glad you're starting to enjoy it."

Bic frowned at her. "I wouldn't go that far, exactly," she said.

She swung up into the saddle quite easily when the advance scouting party was chosen to get closer to the railway construction camp. Nobody was going to tell her she wasn't going with them.

The rest of the horses were left to graze and Zayaa led Gundegmaa, Amelia, Bic and Idree back to where she had first seen the smoke from the steam engine.

They tethered their horses at the bottom of a low ridge, walking the rest of the way, and crawling when they got close to the skyline, keeping their heads low.

Across the plain, in a dead straight line, lay the railway line, a glint of silver against the green as far as Bic could see. Closer to hand was the steam train, standing near the end of the line, with goods wagons being unloaded behind it. There was no smoke coming from the smoke stack now. There were tents a little way off, and people moving around the train like ants in a disturbed nest.

Amelia handed her binoculars to Gundegmaa. "Can you see him?" she asked.

Gundegmaa shaded the lenses with one hand so they didn't catch the sun, and slowly swept them to and fro across the camp. "Ah!" She pointed to a group of workmen laying rails in front of the train. "See? He's got a rag tied round his head."

Amelia took back the binoculars for a moment. "I see him - looks like he's the only Indian there. The rest all seem to be Russian - pale skinned, anyway."

Idree gestured frantically for the binoculars to be handed over. "What about Shi Jin?" she asked. She gazed intently at the group around Captain Singh, and then breathed a sigh of relief. "He's there - shorter than those others, in a blue shirt."

She lowered the binoculars, and Bic tapped her on the arm to get them passed over to her.

There was a tall, muscular man swinging a big hammer. He was shirtless, and a much darker brown than the sunburned white men around him. His long black hair was bound up in a long rag which reminded Bic of the Indian policemen she had seen in Shanghai. She was too far away to see his face clearly, but she suspected that he would be good looking, judging by Gundegmaa's interest in him. Close by was a shorter man, his long black hair bound back in a ponytail. He wore a blue shirt and was carrying a couple of containers balanced on a long pole over one shoulder. As Bic watched, one of the workmen went to him, and bent over one of the containers - water, she supposed. It was hot in the sun, and there was no shelter.

"That's a lot of open countryside," Amelia said to Gundegmaa, as Bic passed the binoculars back. "Night attack? And we'll need a diversion of some sort."

"Day attack," Gundegmaa said firmly. "We need Vijay to recognise me." She sighed. "We're travelling too light. If we had more with us, we could ride right into the camp and offer to trade with them."

Idree grinned. "We are looking for our sheep," she said. "That will get us close enough. We can say we are from the tents of the Dariganga. They will not know the difference."

Gundegmaa raised the binoculars again, and studied the camp carefully. "Most of those men are not armed," she said. "There - the one with the hat - he has a pistol. He is the leader. And the two men over there, watching the workers, they have rifles. And only a few horses, beyond the tents. They are not expecting anyone to attack them out here."

They wriggled back from the brow of the hill and went back to their camp. Khulan had opened up the trail rations, and handed Gundegmaa and the others a twist of fried dough, not unlike the you tiao that they had eaten for breakfast along with the rice porridge on the way up the Grand Canal. It was, at least, filling, and made the _khuruud_.more palatable. All the women had a leather bag hanging from their saddles, and Bic had been shown how to mix a hard grey substance with water each morning. By the time they stopped in the evening, the grey stuff had turned into thin porridge which was only just edible.

Amelia was looking thoughtful. "You know, we don't just need to rescue Captain Singh and Shi Jin," she said. "Whatever the Russians are planning may be very dangerous to the European powers, and the Empire. And they need this railway to carry out those plans."

"What are you saying, Amelia?" Gundegmaa asked.

"I'm saying that I think we need to blow the railway up."

*****

Chapter Six: Rescue

Amelia set up her sniper rifle on the ridge. She was sitting just a little below it, scribbling calculations in her notebook with a stub of pencil. Bic, meanwhile, was lying on her belly in the long grass, watching the construction camp.

She couldn't see Zayaa at all.

As the best scout of the party, Zayaa had volunteered to cross the open ground between the hill and the construction camp. It was, in fact, not quite so flat and level as it had first appeared from the hill, and the grass was long. Zayaa had disappeared into that long grass very quickly. She was carrying with her a satchel containing the metal box of ammunition which Mr Conway had sent to Amelia.

Out on the plain, a small herd of horses was grazing.

That is, Bic could see they were horses when she trained the binoculars on them, but to the naked eye they appeared to be small brown blobs, moving slowly. So Gundegmaa's cover story had changed accordingly - now that it would be early evening when they were ready to move, she was going to say that those were her clan's horses, strayed away, and would ask to stay the night at the camp so that they could go out and round the horses up in the morning.

Bic turned to watch the construction camp again. The track now extended a bit further from the train, which had been unloaded. Nobody seemed to be taking any notice of it. Next to the engine, she caught a flicker of movement - something grey and black. The next moment, it had gone, back into the long grass - but there was something reflecting the light just behind the second wheel of the locomotive, where nothing had been before.

"Amelia, I think she's done it."

Amelia wriggled up beside Bic and took the binoculars from her.

"That's the box," she confirmed. "I just hope I've got these calculations right." She put her eye to the rifle sight, moved the barrel just slightly to the right. "Good," she said. "Now, give a wave to Gundegmaa, will you? I think it's almost show time."

Gundegmaa, Idree and three of the other women rode their horses slowly round the edge of the hill, into the view of the camp. They were all armed, but that was quite normal on the plains, and they were carrying lasso ropes on long poles they had cut earlier. Just average nomadic herders, out looking for their stray animals, their tired horses walking because they'd been travelling all day. Gundegmaa's eagle sat on her saddlebow, glowering.

As they got closer, one of the men with a rifle came to stand between them and the workers. Bic heard him shout something in Russian, and Gundegmaa shouted back. Behind the man with the rifle, she saw Captain Singh straighten up from where he had been bending over a rail and stand quite still, watching. After a moment, Shi Jin's blue shirt appeared from behind one of the tents, and he came to stand close to the Captain.

"They need to get just a little closer," Amelia murmured.

The man with the rifle was joined by the man in the hat, who had taken his pistol out of his holster. It looked as if he was telling them to go away. Gundegmaa dismounted, and started to lead her horse towards them. Bic could hear fragments of Russian on the breeze - she still sounded friendly, and she was moving round closer to Captain Singh all the time. The other women dismounted too, and led their mounts closer. It was all very friendly and unthreatening.

"Close enough, I think," Amelia said. She settled herself behind the sniper rifle, took a long, deep breath, and gently squeezed the trigger.

The explosion was gratifyingly loud, even from right across the valley. Bic had half expected something like a Fourth of July fireworks display - but she hadn't expected the entire locomotive to lift right off the tracks in a thick cloud of dust. Behind the locomotive, the first goods wagon had leapt off the rails as well, dragging the second and third wagons with it. The locomotive twisted in the air, dragged round by the wagons behind it, to fall sideways, towards the tents, almost like a toy train. The first wagon crumpled and fell apart as it hit the ground, scattering shattered wooden planking.

Gundegmaa's horse reared and screamed in terror. She hung onto the reins, and dragged its head down. The eagle was flung into the air, and flew low towards the railroad camp. The other three women had pulled their horses to the ground, unslung their rifles and were giving covering fire over the horses' haunches. They'd blindfolded the horses with scarves.

There was a second explosion, and the locomotive vanished behind a cloud of water, shale and brick dust - the boiler had exploded, sending shrapnel flying everywhere, glittering in the low sunlight.

The railway workers were running, away from the explosion and away from the rifle fire. The eagle swooped down on them, scattering them again. Around the side of the ridge, the second group of bandits came galloping towards the camp, screaming and yelling. There were railway workers running in every direction now, trying to escape the explosion and the bandits and the eagle, in utter confusion.

Captain Singh and Shi Jin ran towards the horses. The man with the rifle and the man with the hat had split up, but there was no cover. The man in the hat got off a couple of wild shots that didn't seem to go near anything. Bic wasn't sure if he'd been aiming at the eagle or Captain Singh.

As Gundegmaa got her mount under control, she swung into the saddle and circled around Captain Singh at a canter. He stood ready, then swung smoothly up behind her on the saddle as the horse turned and headed back towards the hill. Behind Gundegmaa, Idree was doing the same thing with Shi Jin. The smoke from the explosions was clearing now, and Bic could see a broad, shallow crater and twisted broken rail tracks, and the steaming wreckage of the locomotive scattered across the grass.

Amelia swung her sniper rifle round, but there was no way she was going to get a clear shot. The man with the hat had fallen - Bic wasn't sure if Delgree had shot him or not. The man with the rifle was running after the railway workers back to the tents, the eagle screaming overhead. As Gundegmaa and Idree got clear, the other women let their horses scramble to their feet and galloped after them. The bandit women whooped and let off a few shots towards the tents and wheeled their horses back to the ridge. Then Delgree veered off, to where Zayaa had emerged from the long grass, running, and swung her up onto the saddle behind her, too.

Amelia rolled the sniper rifle in a blanket and ran down the hill to where the rest of the women were mounted up. She and Bic ran for their horses, carrying the gun between them. There was no time to break it down and put it away - Bic passed it up to Amelia as soon as she had mounted, and she held it awkwardly across her knees. As soon as the rescue party rounded the end of the hill, the rest of the party fell in behind them and galloped east.

Nobody followed them.

The horses slowed to a canter, then a trot, and finally a walk. The eagle caught up with them, and Gundegmaa held up her gauntletted hand for it to land on. Bic looked around - everybody seemed to be grinning. She was, herself. Though she hadn't had much to do, it had all been very exciting.

Captain Singh leaned forwards over Gundegmaa's shoulder. "How did you know where I was?" he asked. "I thought nobody knew except the Russians! And - how did you make the train blow up?"

"That would be me," Amelia said.

"It was a jolly excellent shot," Gundegmaa said. "None of my clan could have done better!" She giggled. "Boom! It was terrific!"

Captain Singh leaned across to shake Amelia's hand - but she was still holding the sniper rifle like a particularly unwieldy baby across the saddle, and needed her other hand for the reins, so he saluted instead. "An English lady!" he said. "I never expected to see an English lady out here! I presume you're with the Service?"

"You presume correctly, Captain - and this is my associate, Miss Li Bic."

Captain Singh bowed in Bic's direction. "Honoured, madam," he said, in Mandarin.

"Oh, you can speak English to me," Bic assured him. "I'm American."

They arrived back at the place where they'd made camp just as the twilight was beginning to shade into darker night. There was no moon, and only the light from the camp fire to guide them. Tea was being brewed - they may have been travelling light, but there always seemed to be room for tea making equipment - and pieces of Mongolian flat bread were passed around, with sheep's cheese.

Captain Singh sat close to the fire, wrapped in a blanket now it was getting colder, and devoured his bread and cheese with great concentration. Gundegmaa, sitting next to him, gave him a second helping without needing to be asked. "Thank you," he said. "The food at the railway camp was slop - I don't know why the Russians put up with it." He looked across the fire at Amelia. "You do know that blowing up the train will only have slowed them down?" he asked.

"Of course," Amelia said. "But worth doing, I thought."

"Definitely worth doing," Captain Singh said. "But I need to get to Peking as soon as possible. You see, I know why the Russians are building this railway."

"We worked that out too," Amelia said. "It's the fluorspar lenses - they need to be transported very carefully, but we didn't manage to find out what they are going to be used for."

"The Russians have been experimenting with - I won't be technical about it - beams of light," Captain Singh said. "And for this, they need lenses to concentrate the beams."

"You mean, like a lighthouse?" Amelia asked.

"A lighthouse that can kill," Captain Singh said. "If you concentrate the beam enough, it becomes hot as well as light - and could pass straight through a human body. And the size of the lenses they are making indicates they want to use such a weapon on the battlefield. That is why we need to inform the Foreign Office - once they know, they can deal with this through diplomatic channels...."

"...and it won't be a secret weapon any more, so the Empire can take steps to defend against it," Amelia added.

"We could delay them even more," Bic said.

They both looked at her curiously.

"Well, we've slowed down the railroad. I bet it takes a long time to make one of those lenses. If we could smash the ones that have already been made...."

"We are going back that way anyway," Amelia agreed.

They all grinned.

"There is an easier way to ruin them than to smash them up," Captain Singh said. "While I was in Saynshand, there were merchants coming through trading indigo. Dyeing with indigo requires oil of vitriol, which will react with the polished surface of the fluorspar and ruin it. All we need to do is get into the workshop and splash some of that around...."

"You are not going back to Saynshand," Gundegmaa protested. "We went to a lot of trouble to rescue you. You are not to put yourself in danger again. You will stay with me, and we will escort you to the railway station at Erenhot and put you on the train to Peking."

"So, this time I am going into Saynshand," Amelia said. "The Russians can't know that I had anything to do with the rescue, so I can be an innocent photographer again, with my assistant. There's no need to put our Mongolian friends in danger for this. You've already done more than enough to help us, Gundegmaa, and we are very grateful."

"Then, if you ladies are determined upon this," Captain Singh said, "you should be aware that oil of vitriol is very dangerous to handle. Wear heavy gloves - it will burn the skin. And when it reacts with the fluorspar, it gives off poisonous fumes, so you need to be quick, quick, in and out."

******

Chapter Seven: Sabotage

They could do nothing immediately. It took three days to get back to Gundegmaa's main camp, since they weren't riding at quite the speed it took to get to the railway, and the first priority when they got there was not to go on towards China, but to get Captain Singh some fresh clothes. He hadn't complained, but he had clearly been suffering, especially at night, since he was only wearing his trousers and a blanket. He was also a head taller than most of the women there, and broad of shoulder, so none of their coats fitted him.

Shi Jin had fared rather better, being about the same height as the women, and of slim build - he was soon kitted out in a spare blouse and trousers when they got to camp, and a blue silk del.

Captain Singh was, however, a problem.

"I think I might be able to help," Amelia said.

"Good." Gundegmaa turned from the group of older women she had been giving instructions to, and they hurried off towards the stream, picking up buckets on the way.

Amelia giggled. "I don't need a translation to understand what's going on here," she murmured to Bic. "If she didn't say: 'Have him washed and sent to my tent,' I'll eat my hat!"

Sure enough, a big cauldron of water was soon heating up over the stove in Gundegmaa's ger. It wasn't so much a case of Captain Singh being washed and taken to Gundegmaa's ger - he was already in there, and so was a big tub. That was where he was going to have his bath.

Amelia went through her saddlebags, and came out with her Artistically loose blue dress, and a petticoat.

"I guess that'll do," Bic said - and then Amelia got out the scissors and started cutting the petticoat into one long strip of material, round and round.

"He needs a turban," she said. "He can't go about in what passes for polite society here with that rag in his hair, and he has to have something, poor lamb - it's his religion. By the way, if I give him my comb, can I borrow yours?"

"Sure," Bic said. "But why...?"

"He's a Sikh," Amelia said. "He needs the long hair, so they always wear turbans, and a comb, and a knife, and an iron bangle - at least the Russians left him that - and some sort of underwear which I presume he's still wearing, since they left him his trousers, too."

She handed the dress to Auntie Deegii at the door of the ger, but the comb and the length of petticoat fabric were refused. Gundegmaa, it seemed, had already attended to those needs.

When Captain Singh finally emerged from Gundegmaa's tent, he was wearing Amelia's blue dress over his trousers, with a blue sash at the waist which actually made him look rather dashing, and a silk scarf wrapped around his head as a turban. A Mongolian dagger was stuck into the folds of the sash, and the overall effect was like something out of the Arabian Nights. He had also trimmed his beard - and Bic had to admit, he looked devilishly handsome!

Bic and Amelia were invited to dinner that evening in Gundegmaa's ger, along with Idree. They, Captain Singh and Shi Jin, were the only guests, with Auntie Deegii presiding at the stove. This time it was Captain Singh who carved the first slices from the sheep's head and the saddle of mutton, as they toasted each other with bowls of airag.

And after dinner, Bic and Amelia were the only ones to leave the ger.

In the morning, all the camp were up and about before anybody emerged from Gundegmaa's ger. Bic and Amelia sat to breakfast with Delgree.

"It looks like someone had a good time last night," Amelia remarked, nodding towards Gundegmaa's ger.

Delgree smiled. "Vijay Singh is part of the family now," she said. "And Shi Jin, also. It is a great honour for them," she explained. "We Mongols are few, and widely scattered. It has always been the custom for the women of the clan to take favoured strangers to their beds. All children are precious to us, and children with a foreign father strengthen the tribe. We are all hoping that there will be children after this night."

"Mama would die of shame if I were to do that," Bic said. "They're not even married!"

Delgree laughed. "Marriage is not important! Only the child is important! And you Chinese are many, so of course your customs are different."

Bic blushed - she had enough embarassment for both of them. "You got that right," she muttered.

"I was meaning to ask about that," Amelia said. "I mean - there are no children in this camp, and no men. I was wondering where they were."

Delgree nodded. "My children are with their father, and with our herds. You did not think that those few sheep are all the wealth of the clan, did you? No, while we are busy here, the men and the small children follow the herds and when the season for raiding is over, we will join them. By then, we will know if Gundegmaa and Idree are pregnant."

They packed up their gear and left the camp without seeing Captain Singh and Shi Jin again.

It was strange to be on their own again. Bic led her horse along the broad sandy trail that led into Saynshand from the East, following Amelia, who was back in her solar topee. They got into town mid-afternoon, left the horses and luggage at the caravanserai at the edge of town, and headed for the market place.

The indigo merchant was easy to find. Amelia squatted down next to a wooden tub full of irregularly shaped blocks of the blue dye. The merchant waved a blue stained hand at her and said something incomprehensible.

"What's he saying?" Amelia asked.

Bic shrugged. "Something in - I don't know - there are lots of languages spoken between here and India. I think he said India."

Amelia rocked back on her heels. "How on earth are we supposed to ask him for the oil of vitriol?" she asked.

Bic squatted down too, and pointed questioningly to the bundles behind the stall.

The merchant leaned back, and showed her more cakes of indigo powder. She shook her head. Amelia tried making pouring motions.

"He thinks we want tea," Bic said, shaking her head at him. She spread out her linen skirt, pointed to the indigo, and mimed scrubbing it into the fabric.

The merchant frowned. She pointed to the blue scarf he was wearing, draped turban-style round his head. "How do you...?" she asked in Cantonese.

"Ah!" The merchant began to speak, miming as he went, going through the motions of dyeing the cloth - and as he did so, he pointed to a tub of water, and a dark glass bottle that was half hidden at the back of his stall. It looked as if it held around a quart of liquid. Amelia went to pick it up, and he waved her away. "Bad! Hurts!" he said, in Mandarin.

"I think that's the stuff," Bic said.

Amelia took out her purse. "How much?" she asked.

He hesitated, then pulled the bottle carefully towards him.

"Can you open it?" Amelia asked, with a bit more mime.

Very reluctantly, he pulled on a pair of leather gloves, and unstoppered the bottle.

Amelia sniffed it carefully, and wrinkled her nose. "That's the stuff we want," she said. "It certainly smells like vitriol." She started counting out coins into her hand. "Yes, all of it!" she said. She put on the thick gloves she had borrowed from Gundegmaa, and pulled a sack out of her satchel to wrap around the bottle. He scooped up the small pile of silver dollars, and the deal was done.

"Let's find a tea house," Amelia said. "I'm hungry, and thirsty, and we need to wait until it goes dark."

After tea, which was green tea and not the salty Mongolian variety, and a meal of a mystery meat with noodles, they went back to the caravanserai. Most people were still at the market, and the main courtyard of the caravanserai was full of horses and camels and mules. They found a quiet corner to put on the Mongolian coats they had been given, and to take off their hats. Amelia checked her Webley and Bic, reluctantly, checked hers. She hoped that she wouldn't have to use it.

As dusk became full dark, they made their way around the edge of the emptying market square, and Bic led the way up the side street to where the workshop was. It was getting quiet. The workshops along the road had shut up for the night, and even the dogs that rooted in the rubbish seemed to be heading off somewhere else to sleep.

Outside the workshop where the lenses were being made, two Russian men sat on chairs on the porch. Rifles leaned on the wall behind them, and there was a bottle of vodka on the floor between them. A couple of lanterns hung from the porch roof.

Amelia and Bic walked straight past, over on the darker side of the street.

"That's torn it," Amelia said, as they rounded the corner of the next alleyway. "They must have been warned."

"There were guards when I was here before," Bic pointed out. "So, what do we do now?"

"Always have a Plan B," Amelia said. "Lets go round the other side, and see about getting on the roof. There's a sky light, isn't there?"

On the way round to the back of the workshop, they picked up an old crate and carried it between them. The walls of the workshop were not high, and it was fairly easy to get onto the roof with the help of the box.

Amelia started to work at the catch of the skylight with her knife.

Bic looked down into the alley - and saw lantern light, and the dark head of the Russian man below her. He was carrying his rifle casually in one hand. She touched Amelia's arm, and they both flattened themselves against the roof.

The Russian walked slowly round the building. He stopped when he saw the crate, and Bic thought that he must be able to hear her heart thumping, it felt so loud. But he just slung the crate further down the alley, and went back to the front of the workshop.

Bic looked up at the Milky Way and the crescent moon that was rising above the hills now, and waited for her heart to slow down again.

Amelia was already back to picking the lock with her knife. There was a clicking noise, and a small sigh of satisfaction, and Amelia swung the skylight to one side and laid the frame very carefully against the roof. Then she sat up, dangled her legs through the hole, and lowered herself carefully inside.

It was darker inside the workshop, but Bic could still see enough to know where Amelia was. Two hands reached up, pale in the moonlight, and Bic handed over the bottle in the sacking wrapping. Straining her ears, she could just make out the sounds of Amelia climbing down off the table she was standing on, right under the skylight. When she was sure Amelia was out of the way, she sat up herself and lowered herself down through the skylight and onto the table.

One of the lenses, still unfinished, lay at one end of the table, and three more completed ones were on a rack at the side of the room.

Before they did anything else, though, Amelia crept to the door, and slowly, carefully, slid the bolt home. It wasn't a very big bolt, but it would slow down anyone who wanted to come in. Then she felt her way back to the rack by the wall. Bic took hold of the top lens with her. It was very smooth, and slippery, and heavier than she had expected, but they got it onto the floor without making much of a noise. The second one was easier - they could gauge the weight better, and were prepared for the slippiness of the stone. The third one just needed to be pulled out a little way.

And the floor creaked.

Bic froze, holding her breath.

One of the Russian men outside spoke, but he didn't sound alarmed. The other one answered. Bic stared at the door, waiting.

Amelia groped towards the table, where she'd left the bottle. Very carefully, she took the stopper out. Very carefully, she tipped the bottle over the lens they had put nearest to the door.

It was hard to see if anything was coming out of the bottle, but then Bic heard a hissing noise, and she could see pale vapour rising from the lens. Amelia grinned widely. She sloshed some more oil of vitriol over the second lens. More hissing, and a foul chemical stink. Amelia touched Bic's arm and pointed upwards. Bic climbed up onto the table, and reached up for the edges of the skylight. It was fairly easy to swing herself up through the hole - but she wasn't silent. Cursing under her breath, she crouched on the roof, but she could hear the scraping of chairlegs on the porch floor as the Russians got up. She could hear them jiggling the door handle, trying to open the door. There was a loud thud as one of them put his shoulder to the door.

Amelia's hands appeared through the skylight, and Bic pulled her up beside her on the roof. They slid down the shallow slope and jumped down into the alley, just as the bolt came away from the frame of the door with a crash of splintering wood.

Bic and Amelia ran.

Behind them, they could hear shouting in Russian - and then a loud bang. Amelia dragged Bic sideways down an alley before the Russian could fire his rifle again - and then she doubled over, coughing. Bic pulled her into the shelter of a lean-to and held on to Amelia's shoulders as she gasped for breath. She pulled her coat up to muffle her coughing, and they huddled there, in the shadows. A dog was barking frantically now, and the Russian men were shouting. Doors slammed further down the street, and someone shouted in Mongolian. Bic looked up, and watched one of the Russians walk straight past the entrance to the alley way.

"Are you all right?" Bic murmured, close to Amelia's ear. She could feel Amelia gasping for breath, and after a moment, it seemed she wasn't going to cough again, and she murmured back; "I'm fine. Breathed in some of the gas, that's all."

"Come on then," Bic said, and they groped their way to the other end of the alley.

And then they walked, innocently, across the market place and down to the caravanserai, like the other evening strollers who were making their way back from the tea shops.

The horses were waiting, already saddled and with the packs loaded up. Amelia had tied them up on the outside wall of the caravanserai, on the far side from the town. The crescent moon gave them enough light to see by, though it seemed they were walking into deeper and deeper darkness the further they went. When they looked back at the town, they could see the light of lanterns, but where they were standing was velvety black, despite the moon and those glorious stars. Still, Amelia had warned against riding in the dark - the trail was rutted and potholed and they didn't want to risk having a lame horse on their hands. So they walked, as fast as they could, leading the horses, and listening for any sounds of pursuit.

They'd been walking for about an hour when a rock beside the trail changed shape and moved towards them. Bic could just see the moonlight glinting on the barrel of Amelia's pistol when the shadow laughed. "It's all right - it's me, Zayaa. We are camped up ahead, and Gundegmaa sent me to watch for you."

She retrieved her horse, who had been dozing on the other side of the rocks, and walked with them up the trail. "We are on the way to the railway," she said. "Gundegmaa thought we would meet you on the way."

Bic was aware that they had reached the camp only by the dim glow of a very small campfire, and the dim shapes of the horses they passed. Then, she was careful about where she trod, because she knew that there would be sleeping people wrapped up in blankets all around her.

One of the sleepers sat up, and Bic heard Gundegmaa's voice asking a question in Mongolian. Zayaa answered quietly, and led Amelia and Bic to one side, where she helped them unload their pack horses. Bic only got a glimpse before turning away, but she was sure that Gundegmaa was not sleeping alone.

They left the packs and saddles piled in a heap, found their own blankets, and settled down for what was left of the night. Bic was certain she wouldn't be able to sleep - but the next thing she knew was daylight in her eyes, and a crick in her neck, and an ache in her hip where she had been curled up. Everyone else was already up and about, so she got up, folded her blanket, and went over to where Idree was handing out bread and cheese. Shi Jin was squatting on the ground next to her, licking crumbs of cheese from his fingers. Nearby, Amelia was sitting beside Captain Singh, and telling him how their sabotage had gone.

It took them another day and a half to reach Erenhot - and when they did, they found the Russians were there before them.

*****

Chapter Eight: Catching the Train from Erenhot

They stopped well before they reached the edge of the town. The land around Erenhot was flat and dusty, but there was a collection of Mongolian gers pitched by the trail on the edge of town. Gundegmaa led them there. "These are cousins," she explained to Amelia and Bic, as three men came out of the nearest ger to greet them.

Gundegmaa called out to them, and Shi Jin grinned. "She says: 'What is there that is strange and beautiful?'" he said, "and the man replies: 'Nothing at all, fair and peaceful.'"

They dismounted, and were ushered into the biggest ger, where they were offered salty tea while Gundegmaa and the three men talked earnestly together in the corner.

"She's asking them about the railway station," Shi Jin said quietly. "And they are saying that there are three Russian men in town, watching the station and the caravanserai."

"Botheration," Amelia said. "I suspected as much. It would be too much to ask to just turn up at the railway station and get on a train."

"They will be watching especially for me," Captain Singh said. "And probably for you - after all, you've been suspected long before you even got to Mongolia."

"On the way up the Grand Canal," Amelia agreed. "Dear Mr Bai and his charming family."

"So what are we going to do now?" Bic asked. "And what about our trunks? We can't pick them up if someone's watching for us, can we?" She thought, dismally, of her pretty yellow dress and the matching hat that had come all the way from San Francisco. More practically, she thought longingly of the change of underwear in her trunk - they had not, after all, had any time to do laundry while trekking around the Mongolian wilderness.

"May I use your sketchbook?" Captain Singh asked.

Amelia, with a little nod to her hosts on the other side of the central stove, ducked out of the ger to get it.

Captain Singh was looking thoughtfully at Bic and Shi Jin. "Nobody's looking for you," he said.

"I suppose you mean you think all Chinese people look alike," Bic said tartly.

"The Russians have that tendency," Captain Singh said, "and we can use that to our advantage."

He paused as Amelia came back with her sketch pad. "We should divide our forces," he said. "The information I have is too important for us to risk failure, so we must try to get it to the British Embassy by several different routes, in the hope that one will succeed. Our friend Chingis there may have only seen three Russians, but I'm prepared to bet next year's pay that they are working with the Chinese authorities here - who can arrest us and make us all conveniently disappear very easily."

Bic sat quietly and digested that thought for a moment. Back in Saynshand, she had been too excited to be really afraid, but the matter of fact way Captain Singh spoke made her very afraid indeed. She didn't want to 'conveniently disappear' - and she remembered vividly just how frightened that little thief had been when he was hauled off to the magistrate in Tientsin.

Captain Singh flipped the sketchbook open and turned to the back, where he started to draw something Bic couldn't quite see, and make notes.

Gundegmaa came to sit next to Captain Singh. "This is going to be difficult," she said. "The next train for Peking arrives tomorrow morning. Then it will unload - there is a camel caravan waiting to take tea north - and then in the afternoon it will start back."

"So, we need to buy tickets without the Russians seeing us - and it would be terribly handy if we could get our trunks out of storage at the caravanserai," Amelia said. "At the moment, I don't see any way of doing that, so I think we're going to have to abandon them."

Gundegmaa smiled. "I can send them on to you later. That's easy," she said. She looked fondly at Captain Singh. "You are the chief difficulty," she said.

"Too tall," he agreed. "Too brown."

Bic smiled. She couldn't see him blending in with a crowd even in San Francisco, where people of all nations mixed together. Here, even if he took his turban off, he stood a good head above all the Mongolians and Chinese around him, and had that great beak of a nose.

"Let's decide the easy stuff first," Amelia said. She looked at Bic and Shi Jin. "You two can blend in really easily - what's two more Mongolians in a crowd?"

"Two more Mongolian girls," Captain Singh corrected her, "who are going to Peking to try their luck at becoming servant girls, and are spending their savings on third class tickets."

"Girls?!" Shi Jin asked.

"You will make a good girl, I think," Idree said, cupping his cheek with one hand. "You just need to plait your hair in two braids, and Otreyadyn Chingis can give us skirts. And Zayaa and Khulan can go with you, to see you off - why would the Russians look at four poor Mongolian girls?"

"All right, I'm a girl," Shi Jin said, grinning.

"And while you're in town," Captain Singh said, "you can check the telegraph office. I expect that will be watched too, but if you think you can send a telegram safely, get them to send this."

He passed over a piece of paper torn out of Amelia's sketchbook. Bic looked over his shoulder as he read the message: " TO BRITISH EMBASSY, PEKING FLUORSPAR LENSES CONFIRMED STOP CODE SOLAR BEAR STOP TATTOOED DRAGON STOP.

"Well I get the first bit," Bic said, "but 'solar bear'? 'Tattooed dragon'?"

Shi Jin looked up at her. "That's me, of course," he said.

She laughed. "I thought your name sounded familiar!" she said. "You're named after one of the heroes of Liang Shan Po! Of course!"

"But you haven't got a tattoo," Idree said. She sounded disappointed.

"The important thing is that the staff at the British Embassy will know the telegram really is from us," Captain Singh said. "And Solar Bear is the code we agreed for the Russian Death Ray project." He grinned, and shrugged. "Everyone was going to call it that anyway, so we thought we may as well make it the official title."

"You mean you already knew about it?" Bic asked.

"There were rumours only," Captain Singh said. "That's why they sent me - as an engineer, I was most likely to recognise what they are doing." He tore a couple of sheets out of the back of the sketchbook and handed them to Shi Jin. "This is for you to hand in to the Embassy in person," he said. "More detailed notes about what they are doing."

Bic leaned across to look, and saw pencil drawings of lenses positioned in the centre of large bowls, with dotted lines representing the beams that were coming out of them, and arrows showing the dimensions. There were several neat notes around the edge, in English and an unfamiliar script she supposed to be Punjabi. Shi Jin tucked the papers away in his coat pocket.

"So, how are you going to get to Peking?" Bic asked.

"No idea, yet," Amelia said, "but I think it's best I stay with Captain Singh."

After a dinner of mutton and rice, with bowls of airag, one of the little boys in the ger sidled up to Shi Jin and tugged at his sleeve. Shi Jin looked across at Captain Singh, slightly apologetically. "They want a story," he said. "They want to hear about Liang Shan Po."

"The floor is yours," Captain Singh said. "We'll just sit over to the side here."

So Shi Jin got up and stood next to the stove, facing the family, while all the non-Mongolian speakers moved to the side.

"So come on, spill the beans," Amelia said quietly. "Tell us about this hero that Shi Jin is named after."

Bic smiled. "There were many heros," she began. "They lived as bandits in the water margins of Liang Shan Po, fighting tyranny in the person of the Unspeakable Kao Chu."

Amelia clapped her hands together. "What a wonderful title!" she said. "Would he be like the Sheriff of Nottingham?"

"A corrupt official with the ear of the emperor," Captain Singh said. "I suppose there are similarities. There are Punjabi stories like this also."

"So this is a sort of Chinese version of Robin Hood? How wonderful!"

"Older," Bic said.

Amelia made a wry face. "Of course it would be older - everything is in China!"

Bic looked across to where Shi Jin was acting out his story, striking a martial arts pose. "The hero Shi Jin was very good at unarmed combat - he had practiced all through his youth. He was also famous for having a tattoo of a dragon all across his back and over his shoulder, which gave him his nickname. Whenever he was in a situation when he would have to fight, he tore off his shirt, to show the tattoo, and the soldiers of Kao Chu were afraid."

"He must have had a huge tailor's bill!" Amelia giggled.

"At first," Bic went on, "he would not join the other heroes, and lived with other, wicked bandits, until at last heroes from Liang Shan Po found him and persuaded him to go with them."

In the centre of the ger, Shi Jin was looming over the little boy who had asked for the story, as if to try to frighten him. The little boy was giggling.

"Kao Chu sent armies against Liang Shan Po, but they all failed, and the heroes started a revolution which overthrew Kao Chu, who had been keeping the young Emperor prisoner in the Forbidden City, and telling him wicked lies. 'One wrong can move a people, and a wronged people can move the world,' is the saying. 'So may one just man become an army.'"

"And Shi Jin was the one just man?" Amelia asked.

"Oh, no - that was Lin Chung - he was a Captain in the Imperial Guard who was framed by Kao Chu and sent to a terrible prison - but he escaped and became one of the leaders of Liang Shan Po, along with the Good Judge - there are many stories," Bic said.

Shi Jin's story seemed to be coming to an end - he seemed to be recruiting new bandit heroes for Liang Shan Po among the children of the ger, and swung the little boy who had asked for the story up on his shoulders. All the Mongolians applauded, and he was offered more airag as soon as he put the little boy down again.

In the morning, not too early, Bic and Shi Jin, in skirts under their dels, and with their hair braided in two plaits like Mongolian girls, walked into town with Khulan and Zayaa. They carried small bundles, which contained all the luggage they had left - including some of Amelia's store of silver dollars. Bic was beginning to realise that the "and expenses" component of her salary was the most important part, and that it was better not to get too fond of possessions. Which was a surprisingly Buddhist thought for such a staunchly Church of England organisation.

The wife of Otreyadyn Chingis - Bic never did discover her name - even packed a bamboo container with food for the journey, small mutton pasties and some fried bread sticks. Amelia retained the pack horses with the tent and camera equipment - and her huge gun.

Behind the station building, there was a wide flat area which did duty as a platform. As they came to the ticket office window, Bic could see thirty or forty camels crowded into the space near the goods wagons, some kneeling and some already loaded and standing, while porters and caravan servants hurried to and fro with tea bales and other bundles.

And lounging in a chair in the ticket office, with his feet up on the nearest table, was a Russian man with a full beard, idly watching the scene.

Bic almost flinched back when she saw him. She glanced at Shi Jin, who was also trying not to look in the Russian's direction. She ducked her head down and fumbled in her bundle, and handed some money to Khulan. "Would you go up to the window for us, please?" she asked quietly. Khulan took the coins, smiled casually, and bought the tickets without the Russian taking any interest in her at all. He was looking out of the window at the first class carriages now.

As soon as they were out of sight of the Russian, with the train tickets safely in their hands, Bic and Shi Jin looked around for the telegraph office.

There was a window similar to the one at the ticket office further along the station building, but it was shuttered, and there was a notice pinned to it.

"Out of order," said Shi Jin. "Convenient, isn't it?"

He and Khulan went back to the ticket office to ask about it.

"They're waiting for the engineers to trace the fault in the line," Shi Jin said, as he got back to where Bic was squatting against the wall and sat down in the dust beside her. "Strange to tell - the line went down just about the same time as the Russians came into town. I expect they cut the wire somewhere."

"So no telegram," Bic said.

"No telegram," Shi Jin agreed, "but our friend in there hasn't given us a second glance yet, so I think we should get on the train all right. After that -" He shrugged. "We'll see."

They went across the road to a tea house to wait until they were allowed to board the train. "We will stay until you are safe on the train," Khulan said. "We will know to go back into the station, when all the camels come out."

After a while, they saw a second Russian man come up the road and go into the station, and shortly after that, the first Russian came out. Neither of them spared a glance for the tea house, where Khulan and Zayaa were sitting nearest the window, sipping their bowls of tea.

Then the camels appeared, in a long and stately line, with the merchants and servants around them. When they had passed, Bic and the others left the tea house and went back into the station.

It seemed awfully empty now the camels had gone, but the train was waiting. The engine had been moved to the end pointing towards Peking, and was steaming quietly to itself.

They were going back mostly empty this time - just a few crates and boxes being loaded into the goods wagons - but quite a lot of Mongolian and Chinese passengers were cramming themselves into the third class compartments.

Bic hugged Khulan and Zayaa in turn. "Goodbye, and thanks for everything!" Shi Jin also hugged them enthusiastically, and then they joined the crowd, keeping close together. Once they had climbed into the compartment, Bic risked a glance over her shoulder. She could see Khulan and Zayaa waving, so she waved back. Behind them, she could just see the Russian, still watching the first class compartments at the other end of the train, and paying no attention to them.

She squeezed onto a wooden bench next to Shi Jin. The compartment was full of people stowing their luggage, taking off their coats, and generally making themselves comfortable. Bic sighed. There would be no plush red leather in the dining car on this journey.

*****

Chapter Nine: The Train

As the train started to move, Bic craned her neck to look out of the window. It occurred to her, now that she was squashed into a corner with Shi Jin's leg pressed close against hers, that she had never spoken more that half a dozen words to him since she first met him. She moved her bundle into a more comfortable position on her knee. "So," she began brightly, "what's a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?"

"How did I get involved in all this, you mean?" he asked, and smiled. He really did have an attractive smile - a kind smile. "I studied Mongolian at Peking University," he said, "but I decided I wanted to try a European language as well. There was a spare place in the English class - and I found that I was pretty good at Mongolian, but I was very good at English. Which led to me being taken on as a translator at the British Embassy. So I was just in the right place at the right time when Vijay came looking for someone to go to Mongolia with him."

"It sounds slightly more planned than the way I got involved," Bic said. "Amelia climbed through the drawing room window at home one day, and the next thing I knew I was on the run from the local tong with her!"

"Any regrets?" Shi Jin asked.

Bic laughed. "Well, I've discovered I hate camping! You?"

"I've discovered I don't like Russians very much." And now he wasn't smiling at all. "Still, this is good work that we're doing, I think."

Bic nodded. "I think so too," she said.

Several hours later, the train slowed down. "Is there a station?" Bic asked.

Shi Jin looked out of the window. "I can't see anything," he said.

Bic looked, too. "Oh - it's a water tower," she said. "And look, there are some people waiting by it."

Shi Jin looked, and laughed. "It's Vijay!" he said, "and your Miss Harper! No - don't wave. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves. We should stay separate just in case the Russians have anyone on the train."

"I guess," Bic said unhappily. For a moment she had thought hopefully of the first class bunk beds, but of course, she would have to stay in third class with Shi Jin. Delivering the information to the British Embassy was more important than her personal comfort, and any Russian agent would be looking squarely at Amelia and Captain Singh, and not at a couple of Mongolian girls in the third class compartment. Even Mongolian girls who had been talking to each other in English all the way from Erenhot.

Nobody around them had seemed to pay any attention, or shown them any interest, apart from the man who brought tea round at regular intervals (Chinese tea, not the salty Mongolian kind - Bic had drunk two bowls of it so far) and a small boy who had watched them hungrily when they opened the bamboo container which held their mutton pasties and fried bread. Shi Jin had given the child half a mutton pasty, instantly making a friend of the child's mother, further up the carriage.

Captain Singh and Amelia, Bic could see now, were standing beside the water tower with Gundegmaa and Idree and a couple of the other bandit women. She watched as they approached the driver of the train, and talked for some time. Then the conductor joined them, while the fireman busied himself with putting water into the steam engine's tank. Finally, money changed hands, and Captain Singh and Amelia mounted the steps to the first class cabins.

"They must have ridden hard to get here ahead of us," Shi Jin said. He was watching Idree as she mounted up. Even Bic could see that the horses all looked weary.

"They never told us about this," she complained.

"Of course not," Shi Jin said. "If we'd been caught at Erenhot, one of us would have told the Russians eventually, and the only way to avoid that is to make sure we didn't know in the first place."

"I guess," Bic said, and thought of how easily Amelia had lied to her about their plans.

There were bunks in the third class carriage, but Bic and Shi Jin had not got on the train early enough to grab one. In any case, Bic would have felt most uncomfortable sharing a narrow bed with a young man, however nice his smile, even if they were both fully clothed and surrounded by other people. Instead, they had to sleep sitting on the hard wooden bench, with Bic squashed into the corner and Shi Jin resting his head on her shoulder.

By morning, the landscape outside the window looked quite different. The rolling grasslands were gone, and the countryside was divided up into little squares of fields, with wooden shacks here and there. Bic slid out from beside Shi Jin and made her way to the incredibly disgusting toilet at the end of the carriage (the one in first class, she thought nostalgically, had been much cleaner). She held her breath for as long as she could while she was using it, and got out as fast as she could.

Amelia waved at her from the door at the end of the next carriage, which was the luggage compartment. Bic stepped across the gap to join her.

"I hope it's not too awful in third class," Amelia said, sympathetically. "Anyway, listen - we have a plan. Vijay wants to leave the train before we get to Zhengyangmen Station, and he wants Shi Jin to go with him, so we'll be pulling the communication cord when we get closer. They'll make their way to the Embassy through the city, while we stay on the train here. If there's anyone watching the station, they'll be looking out for me, so you slip away as soon as you get off the train. Oh, and it might be an idea to give Shi Jin your Webley, just in case."

"Okay, but what about you?" Bic asked.

"Never mind me - you just do your part. Get to the Embassy as fast as you can."

When the train screeched to a halt in a shabby part of Peking, Shi Jin was waiting near the carriage door with the Webley strapped round his waist under his del. He was wearing trousers under his wide skirts, so all he had to do was step out of the skirts and jump down onto the track as the train slowed down. Captain Singh was already on the track beside the first class carriage, and Bic watched them run across the tracks and disappear into a side alley.

She bundled up the skirt and added it to her bundle of belongings, and went back to sit down. Everyone else in the carriage was craning to see out of the windows, or shouting at the man who brought the tea to find out what was going on. Nobody was taking any notice of Bic, even the conductor who came into the carriage to threaten violence on whoever had pulled the communication cord. Bic was willing to bet that he hadn't been so rude to the first class passengers, or even the ones in the second class carriage. Eventually, the train started to move again, and everyone calmed down - but only for a few minutes. As the buildings by the side of the tracks got grander, and the roads she could see got wider, people started getting up, and pulling their luggage from wherever it was stowed, and putting their coats on, while nobody even tried to stop the smaller children from climbing on the seats.

And then they were in Zhengyangmen Station, and the doors to the carriage were flung open.

They were at the back of the train, of course, with the furthest to walk to the main concourse of the station. Up ahead, Bic could see Amelia, with her phrasebook in her hand, accost a porter and tug him by the sleeve towards the luggage compartment. She was even wearing her solar topee. Bic kept her head down and pretended not to recognise her.

She paused just outside the ticket barrier to get her bearings. She wouldn't be able to hail a rickshaw in the clothes she was wearing, so she'd have to find somebody to ask if she was going to find the British Embassy.

The concourse was crowded with people, as it had been on the day they had caught the train to Erenhot. Most of them were Chinese, of course, but - there was one bearded European lounging against a pillar with a coat over his arm. He was watching the platform where the Erenhot train had pulled in. It seemed odd that he should need a coat on such a warm day, unless he was hiding something. Bic looked around, but as far as she could tell, he was alone. And as she looked back at him, she noticed the glint of gunmetal where the coat was not quite concealing a pistol.

Amelia had managed to commandeer two porters, who were carrying her bags and her camera towards the exit. She marched ahead of them, flourishing her phrasebook.

Bic knew that this was the moment to make herself scarce. Amelia was deliberately making a fuss so that everyone would be looking at her. All the same, the European man was carrying a pistol under that coat....

And then Amelia waved to him. "I say! Are you English?" she called. "I don't suppose you could help me find a rickshaw, could you? I'm not sure this phrase book is working very well!"

The man came close enough to take Amelia's arm - and as he did so his other arm, under the coat, was angled towards her. "I would be delighted to find you a rickshaw, mademoiselle," he said, speaking in French with an odd, gutteral accent. "Just come with me, and make no sudden moves."

Amelia smiled at him. "Merci, monsieur," she said, adding in French, "how kind of you to give assistance."

They began to walk towards the exit together, the two porters trailing along behind.

Instead of making good her own escape, Bic followed them.

Outside the station was the wide square, with rickshaws and men with handcarts drawn up outside. The bearded man steered Amelia towards the rickshaw men.

Bic hadn't really thought of what she was going to do until she realised that she had already pulled her fan out of the black silk bag. The man was standing to one side so that Amelia could get into the rickshaw, and the porters were loading the bags on the back.

Bic tapped the Russian on the back. "Hey! Excuse me! Is this taxicab taken?" she said, in the broadest American drawl she could manage. The Russian turned round, and looked straight past Bic, looking for the American woman who had spoken to him. The pistol was now pointing away from Amelia - and Bic slashed at his arm with the fan with one hand, and yanked at his coat with the other.

The pistol went off - into the ground. Bits of paving stone flew up into the air.

Bic dived past the man, who was still off balance, and into the rickshaw. She pushed Amelia out the other side. "Run!"

Amelia ran, holding onto her solar topee with one hand for a moment, and then throwing it aside. Most of the people in the square close to the rickshaw had turned towards the gunshot, and were either going closer to see what had happened, or were running away. In all the confusion, it was easy for Bic and Amelia to disappear into the crowd.

They rounded a corner, swung in beside a lion statue on a tall plinth, and looked back down the wide avenue.

"What on earth do you think you were doing?" Amelia asked. "I thought I told you to get straight to the Embassy!"

"But he had a gun!" Bic said, "and I thought...."

"Oh, Bic - you had your orders. I was decoying him away. I have done this sort of thing before, you know!"

Bic sat down suddenly on the lowest step to the temple. "I'm sorry. I thought I was helping...." She looked at the fan in her hand, suddenly fascinated by the blood on the blades. "Oh, my," she whispered. "I hadn't thought there would be that much blood..."

Amelia plumped down next to her. "Come on, let's get a hanky and clean this up," she said. She peered round the plinth towards the station as Bic cleaned the blades. "I think it's all clear," she said. "All right," she said. "Come on."

Bic followed her for a few steps. "But, you're going back towards the station," she said.

"Don't worry," Amelia said. She came to the corner of the road and looked across the square. There was no sign of the Russian man. "Now, stay here and I'll pick you up in a minute," she said. "No arguments, now - if you show your face back in the square right now, you'll be in trouble. Everybody saw you slash that man's arm. But all I did was run away, so I should be in the clear."

Bic stayed by the corner, glumly, and watched Amelia go back to the rickshaws, have an animated discussion with one of the rickshaw men with the aid of her phrase book, and then get into the rickshaw. As the rickshaw drew level, Amelia leaned out and pulled her inside.

"My faith in human nature has just gone up several notches," Amelia said. "Imagine, all the luggage was still there. I thought it would have been stolen by now!"

"What about the Russian?" Bic asked.

"I think they took him back into the station to have his arm bandaged," Amelia said. "And I think he's been arrested." She grinned. "Actually, it's all worked out rather well," she said. "I had planned to get rid of him a little more discreetly than your method, but the Chinese really don't like foreigners wandering around the capital with guns, so I suspect he's in a lot of trouble right now. He'll get out of it, of course - diplomatic immunity - but it's certainly put the Russians' noses out of joint!" She glanced up at the street they were in. "I say, would you ask the man if this is Guanghua Road?"

Bic leaned forward. "Guanghua Road?" she asked. "Is it far to the British Embassy?"

The man slowed down a little and turned his head. "On the corner just past the park," he said. "Not far." He paused. "Higher fare for two passengers," he added.

"He says it's on the corner just past the park," Bic said. "And he wants more money."

They pulled up at the side entrance. "I don't want to attract too much attention to our arrival," Amelia said. She gave the rickshaw man the fare, and added a few extra dollars. "That's for looking after our luggage," she said. "Tell him I'm very pleased he's so honest."

The side door was opened by a Chinese man in a dark European suit with a wing collar. "May I help you?" he asked cautiously, in English.

"Thank you," Amelia said. "If you would be so good as to tell the Ambassador that Miss Harper and her associate Miss Li have arrived?"

"Indeed, miss." The Chinese man bowed slightly. "I shall send someone directly to help with the luggage." He held the door open for them. "The Ambassador is not available at the moment, miss. Two gentlemen arrived unexpectedly a little while ago - over the garden wall from the park, in fact - and they are at present taking tea together."

Bic and Amelia grinned at each other. "Of course they'd arrive like that," Amelia said. "I'd expect nothing less dramatic."

*****

Chapter Ten: The Embassy - and Time for Tea

They were shown into an elegant room at the front of the building, overlooking the driveway and the main entrance to the Embassy.

Captain Singh, still looking like something out of the Arabian Nights, was sitting on a sofa with his elbows on his knees. A young Englishman in a smart formal suit sat beside him, and their heads were bowed over several sheets of paper scattered across the surface of the occasional table in front of them. The Englishman was making notes in a small notebook. Beside them, Shi Jin leaned back against the cushions. Neither of them looked too worried about making the pale satin fabric of the sofa dirty, though they both looked incredibly disreputable in these polite surroundings.

Bic supposed she looked pretty disreputable, too. She certainly smelt disreputable, after a day and a night in a third class railway carriage. She longed for a bath.

A thin, older man with impressive mutton chop whiskers stood up from a chair that had been pulled up close to the sofa, and held out his hand to them. "Ah, Miss Harper, Miss Li, do come and sit down," he said. "I'm Sir Nicholas O'Conor, the ambassador here."

The Chinese butler who had met them at the side entrance brought more chairs and positioned them around the sofa.

"I must say I'm glad to be here," Amelia said, shaking Sir Nicholas's hand. "I'm afraid we had a spot of bother with a Russian gentleman on the way...."

Bic winced, but Amelia didn't seem to be about to say anything more about the way she had disobeyed her orders.

"I'm sure we can resolve any - little difficulties," Sir Nicholas said. "And the information Captain Singh has brought is quite fascinating - well worth a spot of bother, I'd say."

"I'm so glad you're here to explain all the technical details," Amelia said to Captain Singh.

"We were just finishing up," Captain Singh said. "I'm sorry to have made you the decoy...."

"Oh, we coped quite well, thank you," Amelia said cheerfully. "The important thing is that the Czar's secret weapon won't be a secret for much longer. I take it that the Foreign Office will soon be aware of what's going on?"

Sir Nicholas nodded gravely. "I am sending all of Captain Singh's sketches and technical information via diplomatic bag," he said. "I don't think the Czar will be able to deny the existance of this - ahem, 'Death Ray' - when the evidence is put to him. And, until you get your orders from London," he continued, "of course, the Embassy is at your disposal. The staff are making rooms ready for you as we speak \- and I'm sure we can find some more - suitable - clothing for you."

"As far as suitable clothing is concerned," Amelia said, "I'm hoping that our trunks will be sent down from Erenhot shortly - but we would both be most grateful for whatever you can provide in the meantime. I'm not sure what can be done for Captain Singh, though."

"I set off from here, remember," he said. "I left some spare clothes behind, fortunately, and Shi Jin lives here - he just has to go home to change."

"In that case," Amelia said, "would you mind dreadfully if we went for a bath now and gave you our reports later?"

_"Dearest Papa and Mama,"_ Bic wrote. _"Here I am in Peking - I enclose a postcard of the gate to the Forbidden City. I am staying at the British Embassy as the guest of Sir Nicholas O'Conor, the Ambassador here. He has been most kind, and has dealt with everything official for us. So you see, I am moving in very respectable circles. Everything worked out very satisfactorily, though of course I am not able to tell you anything about it in a letter._

Amelia has turned out to be quite a good photographer, somewhat to her surprise. Here is a picture of the Grand Canal, when we were waiting for one of the locks to open. And the other one is the Mongolian camp where we stayed for a while. Amelia took many photographs of the ladies we were staying with, and she has sent them copies...."

It was more difficult than she had thought, to write to her parents. There was so much she couldn't say.

Sir Nicholas had been completely unflappable, in that very English way (though Amelia had told her that he was, in fact, Irish). On the day after they arrived, for instance, an angry representative of the Czar turned up on the doorstep. Bic didn't know what the ambassador had said to him, but he seemed to have calmed everything down. At any rate, the Russian didn't look quite so furious when he left the Embassy.

Over dinner that evening, Sir Nicholas mentioned casually that the Russians were somewhat upset about the assault on one of their diplomats. "He had the cheek to suggest that we should give up the - ahem, 'mad Mongolian girl' - into their custody, so I was quite happy to tell them that there are no Mongolian girls, mad or otherwise, on the premises," he said, helping himself to another slice of roast beef.

Bic looked across the table at the Ambassador's daughter Eileen. She was wearing one of Eileen's dresses this evening, and had her hair up in a simple but elegant style which looked nothing like Mongolian plaits. She was fairly confident that anyone who had seen her wearing a del would never recognise her now.

"He did a fair bit of ranting about the activities of various persons unknown in Mongolia, too," Sir Nicholas went on, "and I was quite happy to tell him that we have no jurisdiction over anything that happens outside the borders of China. If he's unhappy about that, he really should contact his own Embassy in the Mongolian capital at Ikh Khuree and see what they can do for him."

He smiled around the dinner table. "After all, everyone here is under the diplomatic protection of the Embassy, and I really can't say what they were doing before they arrived here."

A mandarin from the Forbidden City had also made an official visit. Bic had no idea what the Ambassador had said to him, either, but the representative of Chinese authority had also gone away, after which Bic and Amelia were told they were safe to leave the Embassy grounds if they wished without any fear of being arrested. Arrangements were already being made to send Captain Singh back to his regiment, and Shi Jin was back at work in the translation office of the Embassy, almost unrecognisable in his sober European suit.

And then a message arrived for Amelia.

"Tea," it said, "is on me. Bring your 'plus one' and follow the boy I have sent. Cutter."

Amelia showed the note to Bic. "Do you fancy putting that pretty yellow dress on?" she asked. "See, he's inviting you as well."

Bic frowned at the note. "'Plus one'?" she muttered. It seemed a very off hand way of describing her, but she went to get changed anyway.

A small boy was waiting by the side entrance of the Embassy when they came out. He took Amelia by the hand, and led them, at some speed, towards the commercial quarter of the city.

By the time the small boy had led them into a rat's warren of narrow lanes and passages, Bic was starting to feel quite ill at ease. Anyone could have sent him with that note - but Amelia strode on regardless, until they came to a side entrance to a large tea warehouse.

The little boy grinned, gave a little bow, and left them.

"How intriguing," Amelia said. She tried the handle, and the door opened.

"Are you really sure you want to.... go in there?" Bic asked, as Amelia stepped through the door.

The interior of the warehouse was gloomy, stacked high with crates and bales, and smelt like the inside of a teapot. Off to one side, a light was burning - a surprisingly elaborate Chinese lantern with long red tassels.

They headed towards it.

One corner of the warehouse had been screened off with tall black lacquer screens, ornamented with mother of pearl. Behind the screens, there was a rug on the floor, a round table covered with a white damask table cloth, and three chairs.

A solidly built man in a crumpled long linen jacket was lounging in one of the chairs, a wide brimmed felt hat over his eyes. "Got here at last, then," he said. "Took your time, didn't you?"

Amelia beamed. "Mr Conway! Cutter! How delightful to see you again." As he pushed back his hat with one finger, she leaned over him and kissed him lightly on both cheeks. "We had to change into something suitable, of course."

Bic extended one gloved hand for him to shake. She wasn't sure she would have recognised Cutter Conway on her own. For one thing, he was far - cleaner, not to put too fine a point on it. But she could tell straight away that he wasn't just any European in the tropics. There was the bright scarlet waistcoat embroidered with dragons under the linen jacket, and the darker red sash around his middle. Most Europeans, even in the heat, persisted in wearing a tie, but his shirt neck was open, and he had a jade amulet showing, on a chain. And now she looked closer, she could see the blue tattoo on one side of his face.

As the ladies seated themselves, Mr Conway clapped his hands, and a Chinese man emerged from the shadows beyond the screens. He was carrying a tray loaded with cups and a teapot, a sugar bowl, milk jug and a plate of assorted biscuits. Mr Conway said something to him in rapid Mandarin, and he nodded and grinned as he set out the tea things on the white cloth.

"I think you'll like this," Mr Conway said, taking charge of the teapot. "Your old dad trades in this tea, Miss Li."

She had to concede \- it did smell familiar, though San Francisco seemed very far away now. She sipped. "This is Fuchow Monkey King!" she said. "It's one of the finest teas Papa imports!"

Mr Conway looked smug. "Brewed for exactly six minutes, just as it should be," he said. "We was watching for you, so it was ready at just the right moment."

"Your attention to detail never fails to impress," Amelia said. She took a sip. "Oh, this is splendid," she said. "Well done, Mr Conway!"

"I did promise you, didn't I?" he said. "That gun I sent, any good?"

"Oh, really, I'm sure you've seen the reports by now," Amelia said. "Those bullets of yours made a most satisfactory explosion!"

He grinned. "Added a bit of chaos to the situation, didn't it?" he said. "And what about you, missy?" he went on, turning to Bic. "Got the taste for a life under the yoke of the Empire, serving the Queen for a pittance? Suits you, does it?"

Bic took another sip of the aromatic black tea. "It isn't quite what I was expecting," she said slowly. She looked up at Amelia, and then at Mr Conway, and decided to lay all her cards on the table. "I knew it wasn't going to be glamour and excitement all the time," she said, "though that's part of the attraction, sure. And the travel. Idree was right with that proverb of hers: 'While your horse is alive, travel as far as you can' or whatever it was. I think that's a good thing, even when the travelling is dirty and smelly and uncomfortable...."

"There's a great big 'but' coming, isn't there?" Amelia said.

"Sure there is. But. There are things I hadn't expected - like the need to keep secrets even from people you trust. I think that's going to change my character, and I'm not sure it'll be in a good way. I hadn't thought about the diplomatic stuff, either, the way Sir Nicholas baled us out when we arrived. Without that sort of protection, we would have been in trouble - and next time I'll be a lot more careful about what I do in public. I hadn't thought about the trouble I was causing for everyone. And - the travel is interesting, but there's nowhere to call home, no base to go back to, and we had to be prepared to leave everything behind, back at Erenhot - I'm not sure I like that part of it, either."

"So, you going back to your old dad, then?" Mr Conway asked. "Probably for the best. Take my advice, and stay out of trouble."

Bic sighed. "And sit at home waiting for him to find me a nice young man to marry?" she asked. "I don't think so."

"You know the Service wants to send you to headquarters in England, don't you?" Amelia said. "Normally, agents get their basic training first, and then go out in the field. You'd be doing it all backwards. But if you don't want to go any further...?"

"They'd teach me to use the Webley properly, right?" Bic said.

"That's one of the things," Amelia said. "I'm afraid it's all rather aimed at young army officers," she went on, "so there's a lot of running around muddy fields and doing obstacle courses. And a bit of ciphering, and so on, as well."

Bic made a face. "Muddy obstacle courses," she muttered. "And - would I learn to put handcuffs on as fast as you can?" she asked, thinking back to the little thief on the Grand Canal.

"Oh, yes," Amelia said, "and various types of unarmed combat - you've got a head start there, with the fan fighting."

"A muddy field in England, and £200 a year," Bic mused. She was watching Mr Conway, who was saying nothing and sipping his tea - but his features were very eloquently expressing distaste at the very idea of this training course.

"Plus expenses," Amelia said.

"And always keep reciepts," Bic said. She shrugged. She knew that Mr Conway was trying to put her off the idea, but as far as she could see, there were only two ways forward. She could go back to San Francisco and a comfortable life, as if none of this had ever happened - but she didn't think that would last for very long, and the skills that the Service could offer her would probably be very useful. Formal training sounded like a really good idea right now; she wanted to be able to know what she was doing, like Amelia always seemed to. "Sounds like a good enough deal to me," she said at last.

"Another daft Mary," Mr Conway muttered. He turned to Amelia. "This is your influence," he said darkly.

"Splendid!" Amelia said, with a sweet little smile at Mr Conway. "Actually," she went on, turning back to Bic, "I've been writing my report on your performance so far," she admitted. "I was meaning to have a little chat with you before I handed it in - so I'm glad you've been so honest now. At least I know you've thought about the drawbacks of the job."

"You have to write a report?" Bic asked, appalled. "You mean, like a school report card?"

"Miss Li has applied herself well this term," Amelia said, in a school mistress voice, "and has shown great aptitude for the work that she has carried out." She grinned. "I think the only subject I'd have to put "must try harder" for is Camping!" She leaned across and hugged Bic. "I've recommended you wholeheartedly, of course I have," she said, "and what you did at the station - well, it all worked out all right in the end. So - you're sure you want to go on, now you've got a better idea of what's involved?"

"You're kidding, right?" Bic said. "Of course I'm sure. I'll get to travel, and meet all kinds of interesting people and - we actually made the world a safer place, by what we did in Mongolia, didn't we? I think that's something worthwhile to aim for."

"If you make it through the training," Mr Conway said, as if he doubted she would be able to manage it, "you remember me, all right?" He tapped his finger against his nose. "Word to the wise," he went on, "you could come and work for me for a lot more money."

"I'll bear it in mind," Bic said, thinking that she probably wouldn't. She wasn't too concerned about money, anyway. She had checked the account that Major Evans had set up for her as soon as she could get to the bank in Peking, and she had also checked her own private account. Papa, she was a little surprised to find, was still paying her allowance.

"And now," Amelia said, "do you think that man of yours could make some more of this splendid tea?"

The tickets for England arrived just a few days later.

Amelia traced the route on the big globe in Sir Nicholas's office. "So, Peking to Vancouver," she said, "and that's where I leave you, I'm afraid."

"Oh? You're not coming back to England with me, then?" Bic asked.

"I have other orders," Amelia said. "The Governor General has plans to build a dam somewhere in the Canadian wilderness, and apparently some of the local tribes have objected. Can't say I blame them, actually, if this thing is going to drown part of their hunting grounds. However, I'm supposed to go and find out what exactly is going on and whether the Governor General can work something out with them." She smiled. "There will be Camping," she said, "and I'm taking the camera. More photographs of picturesque natives are called for, I think, while I find out who I need to talk to."

She turned back to the globe. "So you'll be going on, right the way across Canada," she said, "to Quebec, and from there across the Atlantic to London. Nice, comfortable airships all the way."

"I'll be met from the airship, apparently," Bic said. "They're sending someone to take me to the country house where they do the training."

"No need for me to wish you good luck," Amelia grinned. "You'll do splendidly, I'm sure."

"And as soon as you go," Sir Nicholas said, "and I'll wish you good luck, Miss Li - I shall be packing up as well. I've been given my marching orders, too," he went on. "I've been promoted, as a matter of fact. Since I've been involved in this little affair from the beginning, I'm to be the new ambassador to the Imperial Court of St Petersburg - so I'll be the one to tell the Czar we know all about his little game in Mongolia. I must say, I'm rather looking forward to that!"

THE END

N.B. Sir Nicholas Roderick O'Conor was, in fact, the Charge d'Affaires in Peking in 1895, when he was promoted to become Ambassador to the Imperial Court of St Petersburg. It can't have been a coincidence, can it?

And here's a description which gives a general impression of Captain Vijay Singh's appearance:

_"... grand-looking men, generally tall and brawny, with high cheek-bones and gold rings in their ears. They are more of a walnut than a mahogany brown and many of them are not much darker that a dark Englishman; they are the most masculine looking creatures I have ever seen and, oddly enough, their earrings and the straight petticoat they wear reaching their ankles makes them look more masculine still, as they accentuate their bold faces and their stride. For looks they beat any race of men I have ever seen, especially when they are clean shaved. I really must stop this rigmarole now..."_  
~ rapturous letter from Violet Jacob, a Scotswoman married to an Irish officer in the 20th Hussars, writing from Mhow 1895, impressed with the Punjabi soldiers.

