PART II--THE SIEGE

I

CHAOS

21st June, 1900.

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I passed the night in half a dozen different places, assimilating all there was to assimilate; gazing and noting the thousand things there were to be seen and heard, and sleeping exactly three hours. Few people would believe the extraordinary condition to which twelve hours of chaos can reduce a large number of civilised people who have been forced into an unnatural life. It is indeed extraordinary. Half the Legations are abandoned, excepting for a few sailors; others are being evacuated, and most people have even none of the necessities of life with them. For instance, at eight o'clock I discovered that I had had no breakfast, and on finding that it would be impossible for me to get any for some hours, I forthwith became so ravenously hungry that I determined I would steal some if necessary. What a position for a budding diplomatist!

Fortunately I thought of the Hotel de Pekin before I had done anything startling, and soon C----, the genial and energetic Swiss, who is the master of this wonderful hostelry, had given me coffee. He told me then to go into his private rooms, ransack the place and take what I liked. I found I was not alone in his private apartments. Baron R----, the Russian commandant, had just come in before me, and had fallen asleep from sheer fatigue as he was in the act of eating something. He looked so ridiculous lying in a chair with his mouth wide open and his sword and revolver mixed up with the things he had been eating, that I began laughing loudly, and, aroused by this sound, two more men appeared suddenly--Marquis P----, the cousin of the Italian _charge_, and K----, the Dutch Minister. What they were doing there I did not inquire. The Dutch Minister was in a frightful rage at everything and everybody, and began talking so loudly that R---- woke up, and commenced eating again in the most natural way in the world, without saying a single word. As soon as he had finished he went to sleep again. He was plainly a man of some character; the whole position was so ridiculous and yet he paid no attention.

I soon got tired of this, as plenty of other people now came in, all calling for food, and I was really so weary from lack of sleep and proper rest that I could not remember what they were talking about two seconds after they had finished speaking. Most of the men were angry at the "muddle," as they called it, and said it was hopeless going on this way. One of the Austrian midshipmen told me that there had been altogether very little firing, and not more than a few dozen Chinese skirmishers engaged, but that the whole northern and eastern fronts of our square were so imperfectly garrisoned that they could be rushed in a few minutes. Everybody agreed with him, but nobody appeared to know who was in supreme command, or who was responsible for a distribution of our defending forces, which would total at least six hundred or seven hundred men if every able-bodied man was forced into the fighting-line. Fortunately the Chinese Government appears to be hesitating again; we have been all driven into our square and can be safely left there for the time being--that seems to be the point of view.

I now became anxious about a trunk containing a few valuables, which I had sent into the British Legation, and I determined to go in person and see how things were looking there. What confusion! I soon learned that it had been very gay at the British Legation during the night. At four o'clock of the previous afternoon, when the first shots had already been dropping in at the northern and eastern defences, not a thing had been done in the way of barricading and sandbagging--that everybody admitted. The flood of people coming in from the other Legations, almost weeping and wailing, had driven them half insane. At the Main Gate, a majestic structure of stone and brick, a few sandbags had actually been got together, as if suggesting that later on something might be done. But for the time being this Legation, where all the women and children have rushed for safety, is quite defenceless. Yet it has long been an understood thing that it was to become the general base. It was not surprising, then, that at six in the evening yesterday a tragedy had occurred within eyesight of everybody at the Main Gate. A European, who afterwards turned out to be Professor J----, of the Imperial University, an eccentric of pronounced type, had attempted to cross the north bridge, which connects the extreme north of Prince Su's palace walls with a road passing just one hundred yards from the British Legation northern wall, and perhaps three hundred yards from the Main Gate itself. It was seen that the European was running, onlookers told me, and that after him came a Chinese brave in full war-paint, with his rifle at the trail. Instead of charging his men down the street to save this wretched man, the British officer, Captain W----, ordered the Main Gate to be closed, and everybody to go inside except himself and his file of marines. He then commanded volley-firing, apparently at the pink walls of the Imperial city, which form a background to the bridge, although he might as well have ordered musical drill. Meanwhile the unfortunate J---- was caught half way across the stone bridge by some other Chinese snipers, who had been lying concealed there all the time behind some piles of stones. He was hit several times, though not killed, as several people swear they saw him crawling down into the canal bed on his hands and knees. Volley-firing continued at the Main Gate, and the aforesaid British officer cursed himself into a fever of rage over his men. Even when J---- had finally disappeared, no steps were taken to see what had become of him; he was calmly reported lost. This was the opening of the ball at the British Legation.

No sooner was it dark than M----, the chief, appeared on the scenes, smoking a cigarette reminiscent of his Egyptian campaign, and clad in orthodox evening dress. This completed everyone's anger, but the end was not yet. At ten in the evening a scare developed among the women, and it was decided to begin fortifying some of the more exposed points. Everybody who could be found was turned on to this work, but in the dark little progress could be made excepting in removing all possibility of any one going to sleep.

But the sublimely ridiculous was reached in an out-of-the-way building facing the canal, an incident displaying even more than anything else the attitude of some of the _personnel_ of our missions to China. Sleeping peacefully in his nice pyjamas under a mosquito net was found a sleek official of the London Board of Works, who wanted to know what was meant by waking him up in the middle of the night. Investigations elsewhere found other members of this Legation asleep in their beds; everybody said the young men were all right, but those above a certain age...!

The night thus spent itself very uneasily. They were only learning what should have been known days before.

When day broke in the British Legation things had seemed more impossible than ever. Orders and counter-orders came from every side; the place was choked with women, missionaries, puling children, and whole hosts of lamb-faced converts, whose presence in such close proximity was intolerable. Heaven only knew how the matter would end. The night before people had been only too glad to rush frantically to a place of safety; with daylight they remembered that they were terribly uncomfortable--that this might have to go on for days or for weeks. It is very hard to die uncomfortably. I thought then that things would never be shaken into proper shape.

In this wise has our siege commenced; with all the men angry and discontented; with no responsible head; with the one man among those high-placed dead; with hundreds of converts crowding us at every turn--in a word, with everything just the natural outcome of the vacillation and ignorance displayed during the past weeks by those who should have been the leaders. Fortunately, as I have already said, so far there has been no fighting or no firing worth speaking of. Only along the French and Italian barricades, facing east and north, a dropping fire has continued since yesterday, and one Frenchman has been shot through the head and one Austrian wounded. It is worth while noting, now that I think of it, that the French, the Italians, the Germans, and, of course, the Austrians, have accepted Captain T----, the cruiser captain, as their commander-in-chief, and that the Japanese have signified their willingness to do so, too, as soon as the British and Americans do likewise. Thus already there are signs that a pretty storm is brewing over this question of a responsible commander; and, of course, so long as things remain as they are at present, there can be no question of an adequate defence. Each detachment is acting independently and swearing at all the others, excepting the French and Austrians, for the good reason that as the Austrians have taken refuge in the French lines they must remain polite. Half the officers are also at loggerheads; volunteers have been roaming about at will and sniping at anything they have happened to see moving in the distance; ammunition is being wasted; there are great gaps in our defences, which any resolute foe could rush in five minutes were they so inclined; there is not a single accurate map of the area we have to defend!

All this I discovered in the course of the morning, and by afternoon I had nothing better to do than go over to the great Su wang-fu, or Prince Su's palace grounds, now filled with Chinese refugees, both Catholic and Protestant, and there watch the Japanese at work. The Japanese Legation is squashed in between Prince Su's palace grounds and buildings and the French Legation lines, and, consequently, to be on the outer rim of our defences the little Japanese have been shifted north and now hold the northeast side of our quadrilateral. Prince Su, together with his various wives and concubines and their eunuchs, has days ago fled inside the Imperial city, abandoning this palace with its valuables to the tender mercies of the first comers; and thus the Japanese sailor detachment, reinforced by a couple of dozen Japanese and other volunteers, has made itself free with everything, and is holding an immense line of high walls, requiring at least five hundred men to be made tolerably safe. But they have an extraordinary little fellow in command, Colonel S----, the military attache. He is awkward and stiff-legged, as are most Japanese, but he is very much in earnest, and already understands exactly what he can do and what he cannot. After a search of many hours, I found here the first evidences of system. This little man, working quietly, is reducing things to order, and in the few hours which have gone by since the dreadful occurrences of yesterday he has succeeded in attending to the thousand small details which demanded his attention. He is organising his dependents into a little self-contained camp; he is making the hordes of converts come to his aid and strengthen his lines; in fact, he is doing everything that he should do. Already I honour this little man; soon I feel I shall be his slave.

But not only is there order within these Japanese lines; attempts are being made to find out what is going on beyond--that is, to discover what is being done in this deserted corner of the city, which is abandoned to the European. Although all is quiet without, it is not possible that everyone has fled, because some rifle-firing is going on.... When I arrived the Japanese had already discovered that a Chinese camp had been quietly established less than a quarter of a mile away. Half an hour afterwards a breathless Japanese sailor brought in a report that snipers had been seen stealthily approaching. I was just in the nick of time, as Colonel S---- immediately decided on a reconnaissance in force; any one who liked could go. Would I go?

We slipped out under command of the colonel himself and worked through tortuous lanes down towards the abandoned Customs Inspectorate and the Austrian Legation. We reached the rear of the Customs compounds without a sound being heard or a living thing seen. All along hundreds of yards of twisting alleyways the native houses stood empty and silent, abandoned by their owners just as they are. Even the Peking dog, a cur of great ferocity, who in peaceful times abounds everywhere and is the terror of our riding-parties, had fled, as if driven away by the fear of the coming storm. In the distance, as we stealthily moved, we could hear an occasional rattle of musketry, probably directed against the French Legation and the Italian barricade, where it has been going on for twenty-four hours; but so isolated is one street in Peking from the rest by the high walls of the numberless compounds and the thick trees which intercept all sounds that we could be certain of nothing. Perhaps the firing was not even the enemy at work, whoever he may be; it might be our men....

But directly in front of us all was still, and just as we thought of stealing on, a Japanese whispered "Hush," and pointed a warning finger. We flattened ourselves against houses and scurried into open doors. Suddenly it was getting exciting. Down another lane then came a noisy sound of feet, incautiously pattering on the hard ground to the accompaniment of some raucous talk. It is the very devil in this network of lanes and blind alleys which twist round the Legations, and no force could properly patrol them....

Without any warning two men came round the corner, peering everywhere with sharp eyes and bobbing up and down. Simultaneously with the sob of surprise they gave our rifles crashed off. And this time, owing to the short range and the Japanese warning, we got them fair and square, and both of them rolled over. But no, one fellow jumped to his feet again, and before we could stop him was down another lane like a flash of lighting. We promptly gave chase, yelling blue murder in an incautious manner, which might have brought hundreds of the enemy on our heels. But we did not care. Round a corner, as we followed the man up, a high wall rose sheer, but nothing daunted, the fellow took a tremendous leap, and by the aid of the lattice-work on a window, climbed to a roof. Then bang, bang, bang, seven shots went at him rapidly, one after another. In spite of the volley the man still crawled upwards, but as he reached the top of the low house and passed his legs over he gave a feeble moan and then.... _flopper-ti flop, flopper-ti flop_, he crashed down the other side and ended with a dull thud on the ground. On the other side there he was dead as a door-nail and all covered with blood. It was our first proper work. But he was not a soldier, he was a Boxer; and in place of the former incomplete attire of red sashes and strings, this true patriot wore a long red tunic edged with blue, and had his head tied up in the regulation _bonnet rouge_ of the French Revolution. Round his waist he had also girded on a blue cartridge-belt of cloth, with great thick Martini bullets jammed into the thumb holes. This we thought very curious at the time, as the Boxers were supposed to laugh at firearms. Elated by this little affair, we pushed on, and came upon other men working round our lines in small bands, and exchanged shots with them. All were Boxers in this new uniform; but although we tried to entice them on and corner them in houses, they were too cunning for us, and broke back each time. In the end we had so stirred up this hornet's nest that the scattered firing became more and more persistent, and stern orders came for us to fall back.

We came in feeling elated, but Colonel S---- was looking serious, for he had discovered that the extent of Prince Su's outer walls, which have to be held in their entirety, is so much greater than was expected, and every part can be so easily attacked from the outside, that the task is desperate. There are less than fifty men in all for these long Japanese lines, and if we take more from elsewhere it will be merely creating fresh gaps.... Decidedly it is not enticing. The whole line from the north right round to the south, where the Japanese, French, Austrians, Italians and Germans are distributed, ending on the Tartar Wall itself, is terribly weak. And as I began to understand this, an hour after this afternoon adventure I became quite gloomy at the outlook.

Everything, indeed, was upside down. Matters in the British Legation were not improving, and the fighting air which exists elsewhere is not to be found here. Men, women and children; ponies, mules and packing-cases; sandbags and Ministers Plenipotentiary--are still all engaged in attempting to sort themselves out and keep distinct from one another. Already the British Legation has surrendered itself, not to the enemy, but to committees. There are general committees, food committees, fortifications committees, and what other committees I do not know, except that American missionaries, who appear at least to have more energy than any one else, are practically ruling them. This is all very well in its way, but it is curious to see that dozens of able bodied men, armed with rifles, are hiding away in corners so that they shall not be drafted away to the outer defences. Everywhere a contemptible spirit is being displayed, because a feeling prevails that there are no responsible chiefs in whom absolute trust can be placed. A pleasant mess in all truth. It is now everyone for himself and nobody looking after the others....

Some of the people, however, have begun dividing themselves up, and now are billeted, nationality by nationality, in separate quarters. But many persons seem lost and distraught. H----, the great director of Chinese affairs, was siting on an old mattress looking quite paralysed; P----, his counterpart in the Russian bank, was striding about excitedly and muttering to himself. The Belgian Legation has disappeared entirely; whether they have run away or been lost in the confusion I could not for the life of me tell. What a position, what a condition! Already it is a great feat to be on speaking terms with a dozen people, and if we could only instill some of the savageness we all feel towards one another into our defence, it would become so vigorous and unconquerable that not all the legions of the Boxer Empire, massed in serried ranks, could break in on us. But this very defence, which should be so determined, is the most half-hearted thing imaginable. It has no real leader, and merely resolves itself into the old policy of each Legation holding its own in an irregular half-circle round the British Legation, which itself is a mass of disorder. I feel certain that if we have a night attack at once the Chinese will break in with the greatest ease, and then.... _Tant pis!_

The last thing I saw in the British Legation was M----, the great correspondent, sitting on a great stack of his books, looking wearily around him. His former energy and resolution have all departed, sapped by the spectacle of extraordinary incompetence around him. Of what good has all that rescuing of native Christians been--all that energy in dragging them more dead than alive into our lines in the face of Ministerial opposition, when we cannot even protect ourselves? But just when I began this moralising, the hundred and fifty mules and ponies that have been collected together all broke loose, frightened by some stray shots, and went careering madly around us. It was pitch dark and most gloomy before they had been all tied up again, and although firing became heavier and heavier as Chinese snipers found they could approach our outer lines in safety, I finally sought out a spot for myself and fell asleep with my rifle on my chest--cursing everybody. It is a sign of the times--my nerves are becoming Ministerial!

II

THE RETREAT AND THE RETURN

23rd June, 1900.

* * * * *

Yesterday the inevitable happened, and only Heaven and the foolishness of the attacking forces, who are only playing with us, and do not seem to have settled down to their work, saved us from complete annihilation. Without a word of explanation, Captain T----, the Austrian commander, suddenly ordered all the French, Italians and Austrians to fall back on the British Legation, sending word meanwhile to the Japanese and the Germans to follow his example. This meant that the whole vast semicircle to the northeast and the southeast was being thrown up. The result was that for ten minutes armed men of all nationalities poured into the British Legation, until every rifle-bearing effective was standing there, all jabbering in a mass, and not knowing what it was all about. The Americans, who had established themselves on the Tartar Wall as the main point in the western defence, guessed they were not going to be left there cut off from salvation by a failure to remember their existence; and presently they, too, ran in, openly swearing at their officers. These American marines have never quite liked this idea of being planted on the Tartar Wall; for with that smartness for which their race is distinguished, they see it is quite on the cards that they are forgotten up there if a rush occurs while the others are sitting safe in the main base. And the Americans are not going to be forgotten--we soon found that out. They are the people of the future.

Depict to yourself, if you can, the blind fear of all the Plenipotentiaries, of all the missionaries and their lamb-faced converts, on seeing the gallant defenders of the outer lines rushing in on them at a fast trot, and then falling into line and standing very much at ease awaiting the next move. I may be brutal, but I relished that scene a little; it was a lesson that was sadly needed. It was the British Minister who remained the most calm; perhaps he immediately understood that the game was now in his hands. But the other Ministers, I wish you could have but seen them! They crowded round his British Excellency in an adoring and trembling ring, and without subterfuge offered him the supreme command; that was exactly what we had been expecting. Underneath their manner you could easily see they meant to say that they knew it was the British Legation in which they had taken refuge; that they had had enough of all these alarums and excursions; and that so long as they were left in peace they did not care about the rest. What mean little people we are in this world! The French, the Russian, the Italian and the Japanese Ministers were the first to act thus, and as they represented a majority of the detachments, the others who had Legation Guards had pretty well to follow suit, whether they liked it or not, and some did not like it, as I shall show hereafter. M---- had been hinting very plainly that he had been in a kilted regiment, and that the British Legation was the hub of the defence--the asylum for all; and so with a satisfied smile, he was pleased to accept the proffered appointment. Yet it was one only in name. For just as he was writing out his first _ordre du jour_ the various Plenipotentiaries showed their appreciation of the office they had conferred on him by ordering, each one of them separately, their respective detachments to return to their respective Legations so hurriedly abandoned. So the sailors and the marines, and the fighting volunteers who bear them company, bundled back to the outer lines and barricades again, finding all just as it had been before, except that the Italian Legation was in flames and the Italian barricades therefore useless. The snipers had found that they could suddenly work in peace, and had thrown blazing torches. Four Legations are now destroyed and abandoned, for the Belgian, the Austrian and the Dutch have all gone up in flames at different times during the last days. Seven Legations remain and ten Ministers.

The defence is thus getting into reasonable limits and so long as our attacks are confined to what they have been up till now, we may really pull through. Incendiary fires round the outer lines, lighted by means of torches stuck on long poles, a heavy rifle-fire poured into the most exposed barricades by an unseen enemy, and very occasionally a faint-hearted rush forward, which a fusillade on our part turns into a rout--these have so far been the dangers with which we have had to contend. But the very worst feature of the defence is that no one trusts the neighbouring detachment sufficiently to believe that it will stand firm under all circumstances and not abandon its ground; consequently this fear that a sudden breakdown along some barricades will allow of an inrush of Chinese troops and Boxers makes men fight all the time with their eyes over their shoulders, which is the very worst way of fighting I can possibly imagine. And another hardly less important point is that the burden is not evenly apportioned, and that the men know it. For instance, the British Legation, which is as yet not in the slightest exposed, is full of able-bodied men doing nothing--whereas on the outer lines of the other Legations many men are so dead with sleep that they can hardly sit awake two hours. It can easily be seen from the rude sketches I have made and re-made, what I mean. I have been over every inch on my own legs; there can be no mistake.

From the main sketch you will see that the holding of the Tartar Wall, together with the American and Russian Legations, protects the British Legation effectively from the south and partially, from the west; that the Franco-German-Austrian lines, and the Su wang-fu, with the Japanese, mask the east; and that of the other two sides on which the British Legation walls and outbuildings really constitute the actual defence line directly in touch with the enemy, the Imperial Carriage Park, a vast grass-grown area with but half a dozen yellow-roofed buildings in it, makes the western approaches very difficult to attack, since they are easily swept by our rifle-fire; and that the northern side is so filled with buildings belonging to the Chinese Government (which it now seems cannot be destroyed), that I do not apprehend attacks here. The only real dangers to the British Legation in any case are these two corners to the north and the southwest....

Passing over to the Su wang-fu, you realise the extraordinary difference between the danger points along the British Legation northern and western barricades, and little Colonel S----'s command. Here you are in direct touch with the enemy, for the snipers of forty-eight hours ago have been strongly reinforced, doubtless attracted by the possibility of loot.

Soldiers and all sorts of banditti must have joined hands with the Boxers, for it is clear that every hour is mysteriously adding more and more men round our lines. You can hear the men talking, and you can see bricks moving but fifty or sixty yards from where you are squinting through a loophole as fresh barricades, that are gradually surrounding us in a vise which may yet crush us to death, are silently built. The forty or fifty Japanese, and the few volunteers who are with them, have now been reinforced by all the Italians, who have been given a big strip of outer wall and a fortified hillock in Prince Su's ornamental garden--a hillock which commands a great stretch of territory, as territory goes in our wall split area. For here in the Su wang-fu the number of walls and buildings is terrible, and Heaven only knows how seventy or eighty men can even make a pretence of holding such positions. First there is the great outer wall eighteen feet high and three feet thick. Then from this outer wall, other thick walls run inwards at right angles, splitting up the place into little squares, in which as likely as not there will be a group of houses with great dragon-adorned roofs. Further towards the centre of the Fu is Prince Su's own palace and his retainers' quarters; to the south of this is an ornamental garden full of trees, a vast and mournful enclosure, standing in which the crack of outpost rifles can only be distantly heard. Moving across to the southern side--that is, the side near the French Legation and the protected Legation Street--the Christian refugees are found gathered here in huge droves. In one building there are alone four hundred native schoolgirls, rows upon rows of them that never seem to come to an end, sitting on the ground in their sober blue coats and trousers, peacefully combing each other's hair, or working on sandbags with the imperturbability of the Easterner who is placid under death. Farther on, again, you come on families, sometimes three generations huddling together on a six-foot straw mat. A mother trying to feed a child from her half-dry breasts tells you quietly that it is no use, since the meagre fare she is already getting does not make sustenance enough for her, let alone her child. Yet everything possible is being done to feed them. All the able-bodied converts have long ago been drafted off for barricade-building and loophole-making in the endless walls, and here the curious Japanese passion for order and detail is shown on the coats of the older men. The boss-shifts, each responsible for so many men who have to accomplish a given amount of work in a specified time, have big white labels with characters written squarely across them, telling everyone clearly what they are. At a little table near by writers, who have been carefully sorted out from this incongruous gathering, are provided with brush and ink, and have been set to work making up reports and lists of all the people. These are handed to a Japanese Secretary of Legation, who has been evolved into an engineer-in-chief and overseer of native labour, and thus at every hour of the day the distribution of the barricaders is known. Amid these crowds of native refugees, who number at least a couple of thousand people, two or three Japanese occasionally wander to see that all's well, and give the babies little things they have looted from Prince Su's palace to play with. Content to be where they are and assured that the European will not abandon them, these natives exhibit in a strange manner that inexplicable thing--Faith. Poor people--they little know! Is it always thus with faith?

So the Su wang-fu, which is but the northwestern part of our lines, is now a city in itself, inhabited by the most unlikely people in the world. Three days have sufficed to give it an entity of its own. The nature of the defence and the fighting value of the Japanese as compared to the Italians, are fitly illustrated by the distribution of forces which little Colonel S---- has already made. The Italians hold perhaps a hundred feet of the outer wall and one hillock of some importance. The Japanese have at least a thousand feet of loopholed and unloop-holed wall, and are quite ready to take another thousand if some one would be kind enough to give it to them. In posts of three and four men, distant sometimes hundreds of feet apart, the little Japanese takes his two hours on and his four hours off night and day without a murmur or without ever a break. Only at one place are there more than three or four little men together. At the eastern end of the Fu there is a big post grouped round the fortified Main Gate, where there are actually eight or nine men under the command of a Japanese naval lieutenant.

But the genius who has organised all this system, the little Japanese colonel, does not waste time walking around. He is at work at an eternal map decorated with green, blue and red spots, which show the distribution of his forces and their respective strength and fighting value. Somehow I could not tear myself away from this quarter. It was so orderly....

Behind the commanding hillock in the Italian centre I found Lieutenant P----, the Italian naval officer, dining off bread and Bologna sausage, which he was stripping after the Italian fashion, inelegantly using his knife both to punctuate his sentences and to assist the passage of his food. "Look out," he cried, as soon as I had appeared, "it is very warm here; the bullets are flying low." The leaves of the trees under which he was sitting were indeed falling thickly, cut down by snipers' fire. But still I wish he would walk down to a Japanese post not more than five hundred feet away and watch a little Jap and a half dozen Chinese snipers at work against each other. That is where I had just been--convoying some supplies. The little Japanese had ostentatiously placed his sailor cap just in front of an empty loophole twenty feet from where he actually squatted, and where he had probably been a few seconds before I had arrived. The snipers saw this and promptly fired, bang, bang, bang, a long line of shots following one after the other in quick succession. Hum! they must be reloading now, said the little Jap plainly by the expression on his face; and jumping straight on top of the wall in front of him he hastily snapped at one of his enemies. Then down he came again, but hardly quick enough, for bricks were dislodged all around him, and once he received one on the head. The little man rubbed his cranium ruefully, shook himself like a dog to get rid of the sting, and then with a little more caution began his strange performance again. This is what is going on all round the Japanese posts--men bobbing up and firing rapidly, in some cases only fifty feet away from one another. The Italians are lying comfortably on their stomachs completely out of sight, and wildly volleying far too often. Already their ammunition is running low, although there is hardly any need really to reply at all to our enemies. They have crept closer, it is true, and without surprising any one, or even causing notice, their numbers of riflemen have grown from hour to hour. Now I come to think of it, there must be many hundreds of men lying all round us and firing just as they please. But they are hidden behind walls and ruined houses; they belong to our curious state; they are the essential things after all. How foolish one becomes!

Threading your way due south you come suddenly on a French picquet, four Frenchmen and two Austrians behind a heavy barricade. This precious Su wang-fu is merely linked to the French Legation by a system of such posts audaciously feeble when you consider the duty they have to undertake--to keep up a connection hundreds of yards long which any moment may be broken in a dozen places by a determined rush of the enemy. This first French post is the extreme left of the French defence, and it is only after some long alleyways that you come on the centre itself. Here on roofs, squatting behind loopholes, and even on tree-tops, though these are very dangerous, French and Austrian sailors exchange shots with the enemy. Half a dozen men have been already hit here, but in spite of the strictest orders men are fearlessly exposing themselves and reaping the inevitable result. It is only at the beginning that one is so unwise. One giant Austrian had spread himself across the top of a roof near which I passed, with two sandbags to protect his head, and looked in his blue-black sailors clothes like an enormous fly squashed flat up there by the anger of the gods. Now leaning this way, now that, he flashed off a Mannlicher there towards the Italian Legation, where only one hundred hours ago no one ever dreamed that Chinese desperadoes would have made our normal life such a distant memory.

As I came up the French commander allowed the remark to drop that the position did not please him--_ca ne me dit rien_ is the exact expression he used--and that his defence was too thin to be capable of resisting a single determined rush. The abandoned Italian barricade, with the Italian Legation still smouldering behind it, is indeed now filling up with more and more Chinese sharpshooters, who continually pour in a hot fire only fifty feet from the French lines. Occasionally a reckless Chinese brave dashes across from the hiding-place he has selected to cover his advance into the nest of Chinese houses which are only separated by a twenty-foot lane from the French Legation wall, and coolly applies the torch. Then puff; first there is a small cloud of smoke, then a volley of crackling wood, and finally flames leaping skyward. You can see this here at all hours. Aided by fire and rifle-shots the Chinese are pushing nearer and nearer the French. It is clear that they will have a worse time than the Japanese if the situation develops as quietly but as rapidly as it has been doing....

Across Legation Street connection with the Germans is now had by means of more loopholed barricades; for the Germans link hands with the French and Austrians, just as they on their part link up with the little colonel of the Su wang-fu. But the Germans are not in force at their own Legation; they are merely using it as their base, for it is only by means of the Peking Club, whose grounds run sheer back, that they touch the priceless Tartar Wall. Spread-eagled along a very indifferently barricaded line, the marines of the German Sea Battalion now lie in an angry frame of mind dangerous for everyone. They have felt hurt ever since the loss of their Minister, and the men are recklessly desperate. On the Tartar Wall itself they are exposed to a dusting fire from the great Ha-ta Towers that loom up half a mile from them, and men are already falling. A three-inch gun commenced firing in the morning--nobody but the Wall posts noticed it at first--and now overhead whiz with that odd shaking of the air so hard to explain these light but dangerous projectiles. Happily it is rather a modern gun, and the Chinese, unaccustomed to the flat trajectory, are firing far too high. I noticed as I crept along that the shells fell screaming into the Imperial city a mile or two away. If they only get the range!

Far along the Tartar Wall, towards the Ch'ien Men Gate, yellow dots could be indistinctly seen. These were the Americans, in their slouch hats and khaki suits, lying on the ground and facing the enemy's fire in the other direction. Held in check by the Germans and Americans in two feeble posts of a few men each, the Chinese commanders cannot get their men along the Tartar Wall, and command the Legations that crouch below. Perhaps that is why playing is only going on and no assaults. Now sobbing, now gurgling, the bullets pass thickly enough overhead here, sometimes in dense flights like angry wild-fowl, sometimes speeding in quick succession after one another as if they were all late and were frantically endeavouring to make up for lost time.... I am certain now that this fusillade is increasing from hour to hour--almost from minute to minute. I do not think playing will soon be the right expression....

To get to the Russo-American side of the defence, there is no help for it, you have to make a long voyage; to climb down off the Wall, pass through the German Legation, cross Legation Street into the French lines, and work your way slowly through acres of compounds and deserted houses. Yesterday I would have made a dash, but after watching the four hundred yards of wall between the German and American posts, you are easily convinced that even to sneak along, hugging the protecting parapet, would be an undertaking of utter foolishness. For as I stood looking, the rank undergrowth, which Chinese sloth has allowed in past years to grow up along the top of the Tartar Wall, was apparently alive, now swinging this way, now swaying that, and sometimes even jumping into the air in pieces as if galvanised into madness by the rush of bullets. The number of riflemen is growing fast. So passing into the French Legation, great holes let you into the next compound, which happens to be that of my friend C----, the Peking hotel-keeper. Here there is a new sight; everybody is at work quite peacefully, milling wheat, washing rice, slaughtering animals, barricading windows--doing everything, in fact at once. This fellow C---- is an original, who knows how to make his Chinese slave with the greatest industry and sets them an admirable example himself. A rather desperate lot are these servants, although most of them are professed Roman Catholics, and can gabble French learned years ago at Monseigneur F----'s. And that reminds me: no one has thought of the gallant bishop during the past few days. That shows how indifferent the abnormal makes one; the French Legation has attempted once to get into communication with the distant cathedral and failed. Since then nobody I have seen has even mentioned the great Catholic mission.

These lonely and deserted compounds, merely connected with our bases and the outlying works by great holes rudely picked through their massive walls, are curiously mournful and passing strange. The houses are absolutely empty and silent; everything has been left exactly as it stood, when the occupants rushed off feverishly to the British Legation, where they now sit in idleness relying for protection on the thin outer lines I have described. In these abandoned Legations and residences you can scarcely hear more than a distant rattle of musketry, and when you think how great the distances are it is very easy to understand why the panic occurred yesterday morning among the men on the outer lines, at which those smugly safe in the British Legation were so indignant. Occupying widely separated positions, imperfectly linked together, and with no responsible commander to watch them with a keen and discerning eye, the defenders of the eastern, southern and western lines could well suppose that the incompetence of the Ministers and the disorders which have reigned during the past few weeks would culminate in their being abandoned without a word of warning being sent them. It is so silly to say that because men are soldiers and sailors they must be prepared to do their duty everywhere. There must have been times when even the Roman soldier at Pompeii felt like revolting.

Pushing on, I crossed the southern bridge of stone, in order to reach the Russo-American lines and the rear of the British Legation, and marvelled more and more at our good luck. As yet nothing has been done to protect this very exposed connecting link; and so bending low you have once more to sneak rapidly along, using the stone parapet as a traverse to save you from the enfilading fire, which is coming from heavens know where. The bullets were singing in all manner of tones here as I ran, the iron ones of old-fashioned make muttering a deep bass; the nickel-headed modern devils spitting the thinnest kind of treble as they hastened along. It was almost amusing to gauge their speed. Some had already travelled so far that with a flop which raises a little cloud of dust they dropped exhausted at your feet. The ricochets are in the majority, for with the vast number of intervening walls and trees and the sloping Chinese roofs which pen us in on all sides, the nickel, iron and lead of Mannlicher and Mauser rifles and Tower muskets are soon converted into mere discordant humming-birds, whose greatest inconvenience is their sound. Never have I heard such a humming as these spent ricochets make.

Fifty feet past this southern stone bridge you meet the first Russian barricade, with half a dozen tired Russian sailors sleeping on the ground and a sleepy-eyed lookout man leaning on his rifle. This barricade faces in both directions in the shape of a V, and under its protection this part of Legation Street is supposed to be safe from a rush, if the men stand firm. In the Russian and American Legations it is everywhere the same story--barricades and loopholed houses and outworks, now mostly crowned with sandbags, succeed one another with a regularity which becomes monotonous. But on this western side the bullets are few and far between as yet, and sometimes for a few seconds a curious quiet reigns, only broken by the distant and muffled hum of sound and crackling towards the east. Decidedly up to date it is the Japanese and the French and their companions who have all the honours in the matter of cannonading and fusillading, and the Germans are soon going to be not far behind them. Right up on the Tartar Wall I found the American marines once again lying mutinously silent. They, too, do not like it, frankly and unreservedly; and as I lay up there and told them what I had seen elsewhere, an old fellow with a beard said it was S----, the first secretary, who had insisted on their stopping, and had almost had a fight with everyone about it. The old marine told me that the other men would be damned--he used the word in a wistful sort of way which had nothing profane about it--if they stopped much longer. They wanted other people to share the honours; they did not see why every man should not have a turn at the same duty.... I was glad these Americans were making this fuss, for everything is just as unbalanced as it was at the beginning, and there is no sort of confidence anywhere. After three days of siege the only clear thing I can see is that there are a lot of bad tempers, and that the few good men are saving the situation by acting independently to the best of their ability and are not trying to understand anything else.

Much depressed, I at last slipped down through the back of the Russian Legation into the British Legation. Yes! the others are right, for on reaching the English grounds you feel unconsciously that you have passed from the fighting line to the hospital and commissariat base. Here, mixed impartially with the women, crowds of vigorous men, belonging to the junior ranks of the Legations' staffs and to numbers of other institutions, are skulking, or getting themselves placed on committees so as to escape duty. I suppose you could beat up a hundred, or even a hundred and fifty, rifle-bearing effectives in an hour. Many of the younger men were furious, and said they were quite willing to do anything, but that everybody should be turned out.... In the afternoon some of them fell in with my idea--volunteering under independent command on the outer lines--and now the Japanese, the French and the Germans have got more men. But what I wish to show you in this rambling account is the unbalanced condition. Except in two or three places we can be rushed in ten minutes.

III

FIRES AND FOOD

24th June, 1900.

* * * * *

I am convinced that not only does everything come to him who knows how to wait, but that sooner or later everybody meets with their deserts.

The British Legation, allowed to sink into a somewhat somnolent condition owing to its immunity from direct attack, has been now rudely awakened. Fires commencing in earnest yesterday, after a few half-hearted attempts made previously, have been raging in half a dozen different places in this huge compound; and one incendiary, creeping in with the stealthiness of a cat, threw his torches so skilfully that for at least an hour the fate of the Ministerial residences hung in the balance, and Ministerial fears assumed alarming proportions. Again I was satisfied; everybody should sooner or later meet with their deserts.

I have already said how the British Legation is situated. Protected on the east and south entirely by the other Legations and linked defences, it can run no risk from these quarters until the defenders of these lines are beaten back by superior weight of numbers. Partially protected on the west, owing to the fact that an immense grass-grown park renders approach from this quarter without carefully entrenching and barricading simple suicide, there remain but two points of meagre dimensions at which the Chinese attack can be successfully developed without much preliminary preparation; the narrow northern end and a southwestern point formed by a regular rabbit-warren of Chinese houses that push right up to the Legation walls. It is precisely at these two points that the Chinese, with their peculiar methods of attack, directed their best efforts.

Beginning in earnest at the northern end, after some inconsiderable efforts on the southwestern corner, they set fire to the sacro-sanct Hanlin Yuan, which is at once the Oxford and Cambridge, the Heidelberg and the Sorbonne of the eighteen provinces of China rolled into one, and is revered above all other earthly things by the Chinese scholar. In the spacious halls of the Hanlin Academy, which back against the flanking wall of the British Legation, are gathered in mighty piles the literature and labours of the premier scholars of the Celestial Empire. Here complete editions of Gargantuan compass; vast cyclopaedia copied by hand and running into thousands of volumes; essays dating from the time of dynasties now almost forgotten; woodblocks black with age crowded the endless unvarnished shelves. In an empire where scholarship has attained an untrammelled pedantry never dreamed of in the remote West, in a country where a perfect knowledge of the classics is respected by beggar and prince to such an extent that to attempt to convey an idea would cause laughter in Europe, all of us thought--even the pessimists--that it could never happen that this holy of holies would be desecrated by fire. Listen to what happened.

To the sound of a heavy rifle-fire, designed to frustrate all efforts at extinguishing the dread fire-demon, the flaming torch was applied by Chinese soldiery to half a dozen different places, and almost before anybody knew it, the holy of holies was lustily ablaze. As the flames shot skywards, advertising the danger to the most purblind, everybody at last became energetic and sank their feuds. British marines and volunteers were formed up and independent commands rushed over from the other lines; a hole was smashed through a wall, and the mixed force poured raggedly into the enclosures beyond. They had to clamber over obstacles, through tightly jammed doors, under falling beams, occasionally halting to volley heavily until they had cleared all the ground around the Hanlin, and found perhaps half a ton of empty brass cartridge cases left by the enemy, who had discreetly flown. From a safe distance snipers, hidden from view an untraceable, kept on firing steadily; but they were careful not to advance.

Meanwhile the flames were spreading rapidly, the century-old beams and rafters crackling with a most alarming fierceness which threatened to engulf the adjacent buildings of the Legation. What huge flames they were! The priceless literature was also catching fire, so the dragon-adorned pools and wells in the peaceful Hanlin courtyards were soon choked with the tens of thousands of books that were heaved in by many willing hands. At all costs this fire must be checked. Dozens of men from the British Legation, hastily whipped into action by sharp words, were now pushed into the burning Hanlin College, abandoning their tranquil occupation of committee meetings and commissariat work, which had been engaging their attention since the first shots had been fired on the 20th, and thus reinforced the marines and the volunteers soon made short work of twenty centuries of literature. Beautiful silk-covered volumes, illumined by hand and written by masters of the Chinese brush, were pitched unceremoniously here and there by the thousand with utter disregard. Sometimes a sinologue, of whom there are plenty in the Legations, unable to restrain himself at the sight of these literary riches which in any other times would be utterly beyond his reach, would select an armful of volumes and attempt to fight his way back through the flames to where he might deposit his burden in safety; but soon the way was barred by marines with stern orders to stop such literary looting. Some of these books were worth their weight in gold. A few managed to get through with their spoils, and it is possible that missing copies of China's literature may be some day resurrected in strange lands.

With such curious scenes proceeding these fires were checked in one direction only to break out in another. For later on, sneaking in under the cover of trees and the many massive buildings which pushed up so close, Chinese marauders finding that they could escape, threw torch after torch soaked in petroleum on the neighbouring roofs and rafters. In some cases they forced our posts to seek cover by firing on them very heavily, and then with a sudden dash they could accomplish their deadly work at ease. At one time, thanks to this policy, the outbuildings of the British Legation actually caught fire, and the flames, urged on by a sharp north wind, lolled out their tongues longingly towards the main buildings. Lines of men, women, and children were hastily formed to our wells and hundreds of utensils of the most incongruous character were brought into play. I came back to find ladies of the Legations handing even _pots de chambre_ full of water to the next person in the long chain which had been formed; and among all these people who were at length willing to work because of the imminent danger of their being smoked out, I found long-lost faces, including that of my own chief. Where they had all sprung from I could not make out. But to see Madame So-and-so, a Ministerial wife, handing these delectable utensils, and forced to labour hard, was worth a good many privations. There are so many elements of the tragic-absurd now to be seen.

That work on the British Legation lines confined me for some time to this area, and determined to profit by it, I sought out Viscount T----, who loves delicacies, and offered to exchange champagne for a few tins of preserves. We have mules, we have ponies, and we have even donkeys, it is true, and a great mass of grain and rice which will last for weeks. But it is dry and sorrowful food, and I long for a few delicacies. To-day my midday tiffin consisted of a rude curry made of pony meat; and in the evening, because I was busy and had no time to search out other things, I ate once again of pony--this time cold! 'I will frankly confess that I was not enchanted, and had it not been for the Monopole, of which there are great stores in the hotel and the club--thousand cases in all, I believe--I should have collapsed. For as Monsieur la Fontaine has informed us, even the most willing of stomachs has certain rights, and there are times when a good deal of zeal is necessary. It is true we have now a narcotic to feed on which supports us at all times almost without the aid of anything else--the never-ending roll of rifle-fire now blazing forth with grim violence and sending a storm of bullets overhead, now muttering slowly and cautiously with merely a falling leaf or a snipped branch to show that it is directed at our devoted heads. You can live on that for many hours, but it is a bad thing to feed on, of course, for it must leave after-effects more hard to overcome than those of opium. Little d'A----, of the French Legation, swears he never feels hungry at all so long as the firing continues....

To perform this work of feeding so many mouths, there are committees--committees far too big, since everyone is anxious to join their safe ranks--committees which, although they number men of all nationalities, are simply standing examples, I opine, of the organising capacity of the Yankee and his masterfulness over other people. For it is the Yankee missionary who has invaded and taken charge of the British Legation; it is the Yankee missionary who is doing all the work there and getting all the credit. Beginning with the fortifications committee, there is an extraordinary man named G----, who is doing everything--absolutely everything. I believe there are actually other members of this committee--at least, there are some people who assist--but G---- is the man of the hour, and will brook no interference. Already the British Legation, which at the commencement of the siege was utterly undefended by any entrenchments or sandbags, is rapidly being hustled into order by the masterful hand of this missionary. Coolies are evolved from the converts of all classes, who, although they protest that they are unaccustomed to manual work, are merely given shovels and picks, sandbags and bricks, and resolutely told to commence and learn. Already the discontented in the outer lines are sending for him and asking him to do this and that, and the hard-worked man always finds time for everything. It is a wonder.

And behind this one man fortifications committee there are many other committees now. There is a general committee which no one has yet fathomed; a fuel committee; a sanitary committee; nothing but committees, all noisily talking and quite safe in the British Legation. Out of the noise and chatter the American missionary emerges, sometimes odorous and unpleasant to look upon, but whose excuse for not shouldering a rifle and volunteering for the front is written on his tired face. It is the selfsame Yankee missionary who is grinding the wheat and seeing that it is not stolen; it is the American missionary who is surveying the butcher at work and seeing that not even the hoofs are wasted. And I am sad to confess that it is he who is feeding those thousands of Roman Catholics in the Su wang-fu, while the French and Italian priests and fathers, divorced from the dull routine of their ordinary life, sit helplessly with their hands folded, willingly abandoning their charges to these more energetic Anglo-Saxons. This Protestantism is not my religion, but for masculine energy there is none other like it. I would not have you think by this and my constant irritation that there are no Englishmen doing well; it is merely that the ponderous atmosphere of the British Legation is such that very few men who live habitually there can shake themselves free from it even in such times as these. I know that half of them are much upset at the _role_ they are being forced to play, but who can help them?

We are progressing more quietly now that the big fires are out; but still there is scant reason for any congratulations. S----, for instance, is quite forgotten, I assure you, for I mentioned his name to P----, the French Minister, only an hour ago, and the only reply he made was to spread out his hands in front of him and give vent to an immense sigh. Then he muttered as he went away, "_II a disparu completement--entierement; c'est la fin_."...

All relief is now felt to be out of the question. Men are also beginning to fall with regularity, and are carried in bloodstained, as evidence that this is really a serious business. The British Chancery is now the hospital; despatch tables have been washed and covered with surgical cloth; cases are dropping in (seventeen up to date, I hear), and doctors are busy. Already in the night smothered cries burst from the walls of these torture-rooms, and make one conscious that it may be one's turn next. I have always felt that it is all right up in the firing line, but it is that dreadful afterwards on the operating-table.... But nurses and doctors are doing valiantly. There is a German army doctor who knows his business very well, they say; and his reputation has already spread so far among the men of our all-nation sailors and marines that they all ask for him. I have heard that request in four languages already.

To me it seems that by incontestable laws each actor is taking his proper place, and that each nationality is pushing out its best to the proper perspective. Ah! a siege is evidently the testing-room of the gods. If we could only in ordinary life apply the great siege test, what mistakes would be avoided, what reputations would be saved from being shattered! Because no weak man would ever be given advancement.

IV

THE BONDS TIGHTEN

25th June, 1900.

* * * * *

On all sides our position has become less secure, less enviable, and the enemy more menacing, more daring and more intent in breaking in on us. The few dropping shots which opened the ball on the 20th have now duly blossomed into a rich harvest of bullets that sometimes continues for hours without intermission or break. The Japanese, unable to hold their huge line, consisting of Prince Su's outer wall, have already been forced to give way at several points, but in doing so they have each time managed to bite hard at the enemy's attacking head. The day before yesterday the little Japanese colonel decided he would have to give up a block of courts on the northeast--some of those courts I have already described, which, hemmed in by walls almost as high as the outer monster, itself eighteen or twenty feet high and three feet thick, form veritable death-traps if you can entice any one inside and hammer them to pieces by loophole fire. This is precisely the policy adopted by Colonel S----.

The battalion of the Peking Field Force which faces the northern front had been industriously pushing forward massive barricades until they almost touched Prince Su's outer wall. Secure behind these sharpshooter fortifications a distressing fire was concentrated on the half a dozen fortified Japanese posts that lined the outer wall. Here on high stagings, crudely made of timber and bamboo poles and protected by thick wedges of sandbags, Japanese sailors and some miscellaneous volunteers, grouped in posts of four and five men, lay hour after hour unable to show a finger or move a hand. Hundreds of Chinese rifles at the closest possible range poured in a never-ending fire on these facile targets, and the sandbagged positions, literally eaten away by old-fashioned iron bullets in company with the most modern nickel-headed variety, crumbled down to practically nothing. Lying on your back at these advanced posts and looking at the sloping roofs of Prince Su's ornamental pavilions a few hundred feet within our lines was a droll sight. The Chinese riflemen, being on a slightly lower level and forced to fire upwards at the Japanese positions, caused many of their bullets to skim the sandbagged crest and strike the line of roofs behind. Many, I say; I should have said thousands and tens of thousands, for the roofs seemed alive and palpitating with strange feelings; and extraordinary as it may sound, big holes were soon eaten into the heavily tiled roofs by this simple rifle fusillade. It seemed as if the Chinese hoped to destroy us and our defences by this novel method. But there was a more ominous sign than this. A Japanese sailor perched high up aloft on a roof five hundred feet inside these advance positions and armed with a telescope, had seen two guns being dragged forward. In a few hours at the most, even allowing for Chinese sloth and indifference as to time, the guns would be in position, and then the outer wall would be demolished, and possibly a disordered retirement would be the result. So the little Japanese colonel took the bull by the horns. Setting all the coolies he could muster from among the converts, he quickly formed a second line of defence by loopholing and sandbagging all the chess-board squares that flank the northern wall. When night came the advanced positions were quietly abandoned, and as soon as the Chinese scouts, who always creep forward at daybreak, discovered that our men had flown, their leaders ordered a charge. A confused mass rushed forward, penetrated one of the courtyards, and finding it apparently deserted, incautiously pushed into the next square. Before they could fly, a murderous fire caught them on three sides and wiped out several dozens of them, the rifles and ammunition being taken by our men and the corpses thrown outside. This has apparently had a chilling effect on the policy of open charges in this quarter, and now the Chinese commanders are advancing their lines by means of ingenious parallels and zig-zag barricades, which will take some time to construct.

Meanwhile, the Japanese main-gate fort, at the extreme Japanese east, with its outlying barricades, is being slowly reached for by the same means. Two or three times the French, who make connection with the Japanese lines a hundred feet to the south, have had to send as many men as they could spare to hold back a sudden rush. Each time the threatened Chinese charge has not come off, and the incipient attack has fizzled out to the accompaniment of a diminishing fusillade.

The commanding Italian knoll on the northwest corner of the Su wang-fu remains firm, but somehow no one has very much confidence in the Italians, and secondary lines are being formed behind them, towards which the Italians look with longing eyes. And yet next to the British Legation posts the Italians are having the easiest time of all. Lieutenant P----, their commander, is a brave fellow; but he is brave because he is educated. The uneducated Italian, unlike the uneducated Frenchman, has little stomach for fighting, and it is easy to understand in the light of our present experiences why the Austrians so long dominated Northern Italy, and why unlucky Baratieri and his men were seized with panic and overwhelmed at Adowa.

Opposite the French and German Legations, Chinese activity is not so intense as it has been heretofore. Everything in this quarter for thousands of yards is practically flat with the ground, for incendiaries have destroyed hundreds and hundreds of houses, and the Chinese commanders are favouring low-lying barricades, which are hard to pick out from the enormous mass of partially burned ruins which encumber the ground. Just as in South Africa we were reading only the other day, before this plight overtook us, that the hardest thing to see is a live Boer on the battlefield, so here it is the merest chance to make out the soldiery that is attacking us. Sometimes dozens of men scuttle across from position to position, and for a moment a vision of dark, sunburned faces and brightly coloured uniforms waves in front of us; but in the main, so well has the enemy learned the art of taking cover, and of utilising every fold in the ground, that many, have not even seen a Boxer or a soldier or know what they look like, although their fire has been so assiduously pelting us. But some sharp-eyed men of the Legations have learned two things--that the Manchu Banners and Tung Fu-hsiang's Kansu soldiery now divide the honour of the attack. Tung Fu-hsiang fortunately has mostly cavalry, and a strong force of his dismounted men armed with Mannlicher carbines are on the northeast of the Japanese position, for two have been shot and dragged into our lines. These cavalrymen are not much to be feared.

Farther to the south the German position has become exceedingly curious. While from the American marines on the Tartar Wall round in a vast sweep on to the French Legation, each hour sees more defences go up, the Germans have to content themselves with what practically amounts to fighting in the open. There has been no time to give them enough coolies, and so they have only lookout men, with the main body entrenched in the centre of their position. But yesterday they surprised some Boxers, who had daringly pushed their way into a Chinese house a few yards from one outwork, and who were about to set fire to it, preparatory to calling forward their regular troops. The Germans charged with a tremendous rush, killed everyone of the marauders, and flung the dead bodies far out so that the enemy might see the reward for daring. Being certain that the Chinese commanders would attempt to revenge this blow, what driblets of men could be spared have been lent to make the German chain more continuous. It is almost impossible now to follow the ebb and flow of reinforcements from one point to another; but it may be roughly said that the southeastern, eastern, northern and northwestern part of our square--that is, the Germans, French, Austrians, Japanese and Italians--feed one another with men whenever the rifle fire in any given direction along their lines and the flitting movements of the enemy make post commanders suppose a mass attack is coming; and that the British Legation and the western Russo-American front, together with the American posts on the Tartar Wall, work together. It is, of course, self-evident from what I have written that the first, or Continental and Japanese lines, are having by far the worst time. For, apart from the American posts on the Tartar Wall, no outposts in the second section are as yet in direct touch with the enemy. The strain on those who are within a few yards of Chinese commands is at times terrible. At night many men can only be held in place by a system of patrols designed to give them confidence....

I have just said that no part of the second half of our irregular system was in direct touch with the enemy, but this, although true enough to-day, was not so yesterday. The Chinese pushed up a gun somewhere near the dangerous southwestern corner of the British Legation, and the fire became so annoying that it was decided to make a sortie and effect a capture if possible. Captain H----, the second captain of the British detachment, was selected to command the sortie, and with a small force of British marines who have been pining at their enforced inaction and dull sentry-go, and are jealous of the greater glory the others have already earned by their successful butchery of the enemy, a wall was breached and our men rushed out. Being off duty, I witnessed most of the affair. Of course, the sortie ended in failure, as every such movement is foredoomed to, when the nature of the ground which surrounds us is considered. There are nothing but small Chinese houses and walls on every side, making it impossible to move beyond our lines without demolishing and breaking through heavy brickwork. The marines went forward as gallantly as they could, and surprised some of the nests of sharpshooters protecting the gun; but the Chinese, as they retreated, set fire to the houses on all sides, and in the thick flames and smoke it was impossible to move save back by the way they had come. Under cover of the smoke the Chinese soldiery opened a tremendous fire on the sortie party, who were picking up some of the rifles and swords with which the ground was strewn, and seeing that our men could not possibly advance, the enemy pushed forward boldly, rapidly firing more and more energetically. The British captain received a terrible wound, but refused to retire; a marine was shot through the groin and died in a few minutes; bullets cut the men's tunics to pieces; and in a hailstorm of fire, poured on them a few yards away, they retreated. H---- covered the retreat all the way, wounded as he was, and shot three men with his revolver, who were heading a last desperate rush at his men as they made for the hole in the wall. Dripping with blood, this brave man staggered all the way to the hospital alone, refusing all support, and gripping his smoking revolver to the last. His battered appearance so frightened all the miserables who swarm in the British Legation that everyone was very gloomy until the next meal had been eaten, and they had restored themselves by garrulous talk. The German doctor says that H---- will probably die.

Meanwhile the Americans on the Wall are behaving more erratically than ever. They have retired and reoccupied their position three or four times since the siege began, and the men are now more than mutinous. Yesterday they came down twice--no one could quite make out why--and after a lapse of an hour or two in each case, they returned. Matters reached a crisis this morning, and a council of war was called by the British Minister, composed of all the officers commanding detachments. The meeting took place under the American barricade on the Tartar Wall itself, apparently to give confidence to the men and to make them ashamed of themselves. But the most curious part of it all was that our commander-in-chief excused himself on the diplomatic ground that he was sick, and amid the smiles of all, Captain T----, the Austrian, presided and laid down the law. This clearly shows how absurd is our whole system. Everyone says the Americans were quite ashamed of themselves when the meeting was over, for the general vote of all the detachment officers was that the position was well fortified, easy to retain, and absolutely essential to hold. They say the whole reason is that there is internal trouble in the American contingent, and that one of the officers is hated. Whether this is really so or not, I do not know; we never know anything certain now. But although the American has but little discipline, as a sharpshooter on the defensive he is quite unrivalled by reason of his superior intelligence and the interest he takes in devoting himself to the matter in hand. You only have to see these mutinous marines at work for five minutes as snipers to be convinced of that. I saw a case in point only a few hours ago. Men were wanted to drive back, or at least intimidate, a whole nest of Chinese riflemen, who had cautiously established themselves in a big block of Chinese houses across the dry canal, which separates the British Legation from the Su wang-fu. This block of houses is so placed that an enfilading fire can reach a number of points which are hidden from the Japanese lines; and this enfilading fire was badly needed, as the Chinese riflemen were becoming more and more daring, and had already made several hits. Half a dozen of the best American shots were requisitioned.

The six men who came over went deliberately to work in a very characteristic way. They split into pairs, and each pair got, by some means binoculars. After a quarter of an hour they settled down to work, lying on their stomachs. First they stripped off their slouch hats and hung them up elsewhere, but instead of putting them a few feet to the right or left as everybody else, with a vague idea of Red Indian warfare, within our lines had been doing, they placed them in such a way as to attract the enemy's fire and make the enemy disclose himself, which is quite a different matter. This they did by adding their coats and decorating adjacent trees with them so far away from where they lay that there could be no chance of the enemy's bad shooting hitting them by mistake--as had been the case elsewhere where this device had been tried.

All this by-play took some time, but at last they were ready--one man armed with a pair of binoculars and the other with the American naval rifle--the Lee straight-pull, which fires the thinnest pin of a cartridge I have seen and has but a two-pound trigger pull. Even then nothing was done for perhaps another ten minutes, and in some cases for half an hour; it varied according to individual requirements. Then when the quarry was located by the man with the binoculars, and the man with the rifle had finished asking a lot of playful questions so as to gain time, the first shots were fired. The marines armed with binoculars were not unduly elated by any one shot, but merely reported progress in a characteristic American fashion--that is, by a system of chaffing. This provided tonic, and presently the bullets crept in so close to the marks that all chaff was forgotten. Sometimes it took an hour, or even two, to bring down a single man; but no matter how long the time necessary might be, the Americans stayed patiently with their man until the sniper's life's blood was drilled out of him by these thin pencils of Lee straight-pull bullets. Once, and once only, did excitement overtake a linked pair I was watching. They had already knocked over two of the enemy aloft in trees, and were attacking a third, who only showed his head occasionally above a roof-line when he fired, and who bobbed up and down with lightning speed. The sole thing to do under the circumstances was to calculate when the head would reappear. So the man with the binoculars calculated aloud for the benefit of the man with the rifle, and soon, in safety below the wall-line, a curious group had collected to see the end. But it was a hard shot and a disappointing one, since it was essential not to scare the quarry thoroughly by smashing the roof-line instead of the head. So the bullets flew high, and although the sharpshooter was comforted by the remarks of the other man, no progress was made. Then suddenly the rifleman fired, on an inspiration, he said afterwards, and lo! and behold, the head and shoulders of a Chinese brave rose clear in the air and then tumbled backwards. "Killed, by G----; killed, by G----!" swore the man with the binoculars irreverently; and well content with their morning's work, the two climbed down and went away.

You will realise from all these things that everything is still very erratic, and that the men remain badly distributed. Nor is this all. The general command over the whole of the Legation area is now plainly modelled on the Chinese plan--that is, the officer commanding does not interfere with the others, excepting when he can do so with impunity to himself. As I have shown, orders which are distasteful are simply ignored. There is a spirit of rebellion which can only spring from one cause. People who have read a lot say that every siege in history has been like this--with everything incomplete and in disorder. If this is so, I wonder how history has been made! Certainly in this age there is very little of real valour and bravery. Perhaps there has been a little in the past, and it is only the glozing-over of time which makes it seem otherwise.

V

THE MYSTERIOUS BOARD OF TRUCE

25th June, 1900 (night-time).

* * * * *

It is always true that the unexpected affords relief when least awaited. In our case it has been amply proved.

The sun, which had been shining fiercely all day long until we felt fairly baked and very disconsolate, was heaving down slowly towards the west, flooding the pink walls of the Imperial city with a golden light and sinking the black outline of the sombre Tartar Wall that towers so high above us, when all round our battered lines the dropping rifle-fire drooped more and more until single shots alone punctuated the silence. Our outposts, grouping together, leaned on their rifles and gave vent to sighs of relief. Perhaps something had at last really happened, for though five days only have passed since the beginning of the real siege, they seemed to everyone more like five weeks, or even five months, so clearly do startling events separate one by huge gaps from the dull routine of every-day life. All of us listened attentively, and presently on all sides the fierce music of the long Chinese trumpets blared out uproariously--blare, blare, sobbing on a high note tremulously, and then, boom, boom, suddenly dropping to a thrilling basso profondissimo. Even the children know that sound now. Louder and louder the trumpet-calls rang out to one another in answering voice, imperatively calling off the attacking forces. Impelled to retire by this constant clamour, all the Chinese soldiery must have retreated, except a few straggling snipers, who remained for a few minutes longer, dully and methodically loosing off their rifles at our barricades. Ten or fifteen minutes passed, and then, as if the growing solitude were oppressing them, these last snipers desisted, and, coolly rising and disclosing their brightly coloured tunics and sombre turbans, they sauntered off in full view. I saw half a dozen go off in this way. Clearly something remarkable was happening and our astonishment deepened.

Presently the word ran round our half-mile of barricades that a board, with big Chinese characters written across it, had been placed by a Chinese soldier bearing the conventional white flag of truce on the parapet of the north bridge, where J----, the first man killed, had fallen, and that the curious board was exciting everyone's astonishment. Getting leave to absent myself, I ran into the British Legation, and from a scaffolding not a hundred yards from the bridge I saw the mysterious placard with my own eyes. Already binoculars and telescopes had been busily adjusted, and all the sinologues mustered in the British Legation had roughly written copies of the message in their hands and were disputing as to the exact meaning. It was only then that I realised what a strange medley of nationalities had been collected together in this siege. Frenchmen, Russians, Germans, Japanese, English, Americans, and many others were all arguing together, until finally H----, the great administrator, was called upon to decide. The legend ran:

"In accordance with the Imperial commands to protect the Ministers, firing will cease immediately and a despatch will be delivered at the Imperial canal-bridge."

A vast commotion was created, as you may judge, when this news circulated among the refugee Ministers and all the heterogeneous crowd who have been behaving so strangely since the serious business began. Not one of us had relished the idea of being massacred after the manner of the Indian Mutiny, but there are different ways of behaving under such perils; some of those we had witnessed would not bear relating.

In a very short time, indeed, a suitable reply had been written briefly in Chinese on another board, but the finding of a messenger was more difficult. We must send a proper man. A chinaman was at length discovered, who, after having been invested with the customary official hat and the long official coat, was persuaded to advance towards the bridge bearing our message and piteously waving a white flag to show that he likewise was a harbinger of peace. The man progressed but slowly towards the Imperial bridge, and twice he gave unmistakable signs of wishing to bolt; but urged on by cries and a frantic waving, he at last reached the parapet on which leaned our enemy's placard. Then depositing our own reply, his courage left him completely, and he incontinently bolted for our lines as hard as he could run, casting his dignity to the winds. In his haste he had set his board all askew, and the enemy could not possibly have understood it. But no arguments could induce our messenger to return. He swore, indeed, that he had just escaped in time, as the enemy's rifles were all pointed towards him from a number of positions just beneath the Imperial city wall, which we could not see from our lines. So nothing more was done by our headquarters, and an hour passed away with all the world waiting, but with no Imperial despatch brought to us.

The sun was now down only six inches above the pink walls--in another hour it would be dark and our position would be exactly the same as before. On all sides our fighting line had clambered over their barricades and were examining the enemy's silent ones with curiosity. Beyond the fortified Hanlin courtyards, to the north of the British Legation courtyards, which had been occupied and heavily sandbagged after the big fires there, so as to keep the enemy at a safe distance--the mass of ruins were indeed as silent and as deserted as a graveyard. Cautiously escalading walls and pushing down narrow alleyways, some of us advanced several hundred yards to see what was happening beyond; and presently, standing on the top of an unbroken wall line, there were the Palace gates and the mysterious pink walls almost within a stone's throw of us. The sun had moved still farther west, and its slanting rays now struck the Imperial city, under whose orders we had been so lustily bombarded, with a wonderful light. Just outside the Palace gates were crowds of Manchu and Chinese soldiery--infantry, cavalry, and gunners grouped all together in one vast mass of colour. Never in my life have I seen such a wonderful panorama--such a brilliant blaze in such rude and barbaric surroundings. There were jackets and tunics of every colour; trouserings of blood red embroidered with black dragons; great two-handed swords in some hands; men armed with bows and arrows mixing with Tung Fu-hsian's Kansu horsemen, who had the most modern carbines slung across their backs. There were blue banners, yellow banners embroidered with black, white and red flags, both triangular and square, all presented in a jumble to our wondering eyes. The Kansu soldiery of Tung Fu-hsiang's command were easy to pick out from among the milder looking Peking Banner troops. Tanned almost to a colour of chocolate by years of campaigning in the sun, of sturdy and muscular physique, these men who desired to be our butchers showed by their aspect what little pity we should meet with if they were allowed to break in on us. Men from all the Peking Banners seemed to be there with their plain and bordered jackets showing their divisions; but of Boxers there was not a sign. Where had the famed Boxers vanished to?

Thus we stood for some time, the enemy gazing as eagerly at us as we at them. Strict orders must have come from the Palace, for not a hostile sign was made. It was almost worth five days of siege just to see that unique sight, which took one back to times when savage hordes were overrunning the world. Peking is still so barbaric!

We sent back word that it might be possible to parley with the enemy, and to learn, perhaps, the reason for this sudden truce; and soon several members of the so-called general committee, whose organisation and duties I confess I do not clearly understand, came out from our lines and stood waving their handkerchiefs. But it was some time before the gaudy-coated enemy would pay any attention to these advances, and finally one of our committeemen, to show that he was a man of peace and really wished to speak with them, went slowly forward with his hands held high above his head. Then a thin, sallow Chinese, throwing a sword to the ground, advanced from the Palace walls, and finally these two were standing thirty or forty yards apart and within hail of one another. Then a parley began which led to nothing, but gave us some news. The board ordering firing to cease had been carried out under instructions from Jung Lu--Jung Lu being the Generalissimo of the Peking field forces. A despatch would certainly follow, because even now a Palace meeting was being held. The Empress Dowager, the man continued, was much distressed, and had given orders to stop the fighting; the Boxers were fools....

Then the soldier waved a farewell, and retreated cautiously, picking his way back through the ruins and masses of _debris_. Several times he stopped and raised the head of some dead man that lay there, victim to our rifles, and peered at the face to see whether it was recognisable. In five days we have accounted for very many killed and wounded, and numbers still lie in the exposed positions where they fell.

The disappearing figure of that man was the end to the last clue we came across regarding the meaning of this sudden quiet. The shadows gradually lengthened and night suddenly fell, and around us were nothing but these strangely silent ruins. There was barricade for barricade, loophole for loophole, and sandbag for sandbag. What has been levelled to the ground by fire has been heaped up once more so that the ruins themselves may bring more ruin!

But although we exhausted ourselves with questions, and many of us hoped against hope, the hours sped slowly by and no message came. The Palace, enclosed in its pink walls, had slunk to sleep, or forgotten us--or, perhaps, had even found that there could be no truce. Then midnight came, and as we were preparing, half incredulously, to go to sleep, we truly knew. Crack, crack, went the first shots from some distant barricade, and bang went an answering rifle on our side. Awakened by these echoes, the firing grew naturally and mechanically to the storm of sound we have become so accustomed to, and the short truce was forgotten. It is no use; we must go through to the end....

VI

SHELLS AND SORTIES

3rd July, 1900.

* * * * *

For a week I have written nothing, absolutely nothing, and have not even taken a note, nor cared what happened to me or to anybody else. How could I when I have been so crushed by unending sentry-go, by such an unending roar of rifles and crash of shells, that I merely mechanically wake at the appointed hour, mechanically perform my duty and as mechanically fall asleep again. My _ego_ has been crushed out of me, and I have become, doubtless, quite rightly so, an insignificant atom in a curious thing called a siege. No mortal under such circumstances, no matter how faithful to an appointed task, can put pencil to paper, and attempt to sketch the confusion and smoke around him. You may try, perhaps, as I have tried, and then, suddenly, before you can realise it, you fall half asleep and pencil and paper are thrice damned.

For we have been worked so hard, those of us who do not care and are young, and the enemy is pushing in so close and so persistently, that we have not much farther to run if the signs that I see about me go for anything. Artillery, to the number of some eight or ten pieces, is now grinding our barricades to pieces and making our outworks more and more untenable. Rifle bullets float overhead in such swarms that by a comparison of notes I now estimate that there must be from five to six thousand infantry and dismounted cavalry ranged against us. Mines are being already run under so many parts of our advanced lines, and their dangers are so near that on the outworks we fall asleep ready to be blown up....

... Nor are the dangers merely prospective.' They are actual and grimly disgusting. During the past week the casualty list has gone on rapidly increasing, and to-day our total is close on one hundred killed and wounded in less than two weeks' intermittent fighting out of a force of four hundred and fifty rifles. The shells occasionally fly low and take you on the head; the bullets flick through loopholes or as often take you in the back from some enfilading barricades, and thus through two agencies you can be hastened towards the Unknown. As far as I am personally concerned, it is largely a matter of food whether this affects one acutely or not. If you have a full stomach you do not mind so much, and even shrug your shoulders should the man next to you be hit; but at four or five in the morning, when everything is pale and damp, and you are stomach-sick, it is nerve-shaking to see a man brutally struck and gasping under the blow. I have seen this happen three times; once it was truly horrible, for I was so splashed with blood....

It is also largely a matter of days. On some days, you think, in a curious sort of a way, that your turn has come, and that it will be all over in a few minutes. You try to convince yourself by silent arguing that such thoughts are the merest foolishness, that you are at heart a real coward; but in spite of every device the feeling remains, and in place of your former unconcern a nervousness takes possession of you. This nervousness is not exactly the nervousness of yourself, for your outer self surveys your inner depths with some contempt, but the slight fear remains. You do not know what it is--it is inexplicable. Yet it is there.

Yesterday I had the experience in full force, just as a line of us in extended order were galloping up to a threatened position. My boots untied and twice nearly tripped me. I had to stop, perhaps two seconds, perhaps five, dropping on my knee with my head low beside it. For some reason I did not finish tying the laces. I sprang up, threw my right leg forward preparatory to doubling, and then _ping_--I was spinning on the ground, laughing at my own clumsiness in falling down. Then I glanced to see why my right knee-cap stung me so much. I stopped laughing. A bullet had split across the skin--_rafle_, the French call it--and a shred of my trousers, mixed with some shreds of skin, was hanging down covered with blood. Half a second before my head had been exactly where my knee was, and had I not moved, spurred by some curious intuition, I would have been dead on the ground. Perhaps one's inner consciousness knows more than one thinks....

But such personal experiences are trivial compared with what is going on around us generally. I should not speak of them. For if the Chinese commands are closing in on us on every side, our fighting line is biting back as savagely as it can, and is giving them better than they give us when we get to grips. But in spite of this our position is less enviable than ever, and it requires no genius to see that if the Chinese commanders persist in their present policy the Legations must fall unless relief comes in another two weeks.

Look at the Su wang-fu and the plucky little Japanese colonel! You will, perhaps, remember that I said that the great flanking wall of the Su wang-fu was far too big a task for the Japanese command, and that sooner or later they would have to give way. It has been proved days ago that what I said was correct, for slowly but surely the fire of two Chinese guns has demolished successively the outer wall, the enclosed courtyards behind it, and then a line of houses linked together by field-works hastily constructed from the rubble lying around. It was my duty to be one of a post six men hastily sent here and entrenched on the fringe of our defence in one of these Chinese houses. It was a curious experience. It lasted for hours.

Inside the partly demolished wall of one house we were forced to squat on a staging, peeping at the enemy, who was not more than twenty yards off, lying _perdu_ just behind a confused mass of low-lying barricades. These riflemen, flung far forward of the main Chinese positions in this quarter, lay very silent, hardly moving hour after hour. A couple of hundred yards or so behind them, the main body of the enemy, secure behind massive earthen and brick works, poured in an unending fire on our devoted heads with a vigour which never seemed to flag. Our loopholes, which we had carefully blocked up with loose bricks so that the merest cracks remained, spat dust at us as the enemy's bullets persistently pecked at the outside, but could gain no entrance. Sometimes a single missile would slue its way in through everything and end with a sob against the inside wall. Once one came crash through and struck the Japanese who was next to me full in the face. It knocked out two teeth, cut his mouth and his cheek so that they bled red blood hour after hour, making him hideous to look on; but the Japanese, calmly untying the clout which encased his head, bound it instead across the wound, merely cursing the enemy and not stirring an inch. The rest of us had not time to note much even of that which was taking place right alongside of us; for we had orders to be ready at any moment for a forward rush. If it had come we should have been caught in a trap and lost. That I knew and understood.

We had stood this storm for a couple of hours, and were beginning to revenge ourselves on the advanced line of skirmishers by winging them whenever an incautious movement disclosed an arm or a leg, although we had the strictest orders not to fire except to check a rush, when a new danger presented itself, and was added to our already uncomfortable position. An antiquated gun that had been sending screeching shells over our heads, had evidently been given orders to drive us from where we lay, for the shells which had been flying high moved lower and lower, and buzzed more and more fiercely, until at last one struck the roof. The aim, however, was still too high, for the _debris_ of tiles, timber and mortar clattered down the other side of the house and did us no harm.

It may have been five or ten minutes when a tremendous blow shook our staging, and a vast shower of falling tiles and bricks drowned all other sound. A shell, aimed well and low, had taken the roof full and fair, and brought a big piece in on top of us. For some time we could see nothing, nor realise the extent of the damage done, for clouds of choking dust filled our improvised fort, and made us oblivious to everything except a supreme desire for fresh air. Pushing our loopholes open, regardless of the enemy's fire, we gasped for breath; never have I been so choked and so distressed, and presently, the air clearing a little, a huge rent in the roof was disclosed. On the ground behind lay piles upon piles of rubbish and broken tiles, and perilously near our heads a huge rafter sagged downwards, half split in two. We were debating how long we could stand under such circumstances, when a second shock shook the building, and once more we were deluged with dust and dirt. This time the hanging rafter was dislodged and fell sullenly with a heavy crash to the ground; and now, in addition to the gap in the roof, a long rent appeared in the rear wall. Our top line of loopholes was obviously, worse than useless, and as it seemed more than likely that with the accurate range they had got the Chinese gunners would soon be pitching their shells right into our faces, we decided to climb down off the staging and man a lower line of loopholes pierced two feet above the ground line. Here we could see very little in front on account of the ruins. We were not a minute too soon, for the very next missile struck our front wall fairly and squarely, and showered bricks and ragged bits of segment on to the platform above us. Luckily the planks and timber with which this edifice was stoutly constructed saved our heads, and the loosened bricks, piling up on the improvised flooring above us, made our position below even more secure. Seizing the breathing time the clumsy reloading of the gun attacking us gave, we pulled spare rafters and bricks around us in the shape of a blockhouse, and thus apparently buried in the ruins of the house, we-were soon in reality quite comfortably and securely ensconced. Slowly and methodically the artillerymen demolished the upper part of our fort, and brought tons and tons of bricks and slates rattling about our ears; but with the exception of many bruises impartially distributed among all of us, no one was further hurt. After two hours' bombardment and throwing forty or fifty shells right on top of us, the enemy apparently tired of the amusement, and we, on our part, seeing no good in remaining where we were, sallied out of the side of the building and suddenly faced the skirmishers, who were still lying on the sunburned bricks. The Chinese soldiery, alarmed at this sudden appearance when they must have thought us dead, took precipitously to flight, and in their haste to escape so exposed themselves that we had no difficulty in rolling over a couple. As soon as they had retreated we reoccupied a little position slightly in advance of the house, and lay there contentedly munching biscuit and having a pull at the water bottles. It is extraordinary how callous you become.

It was not until four or five o'clock in the afternoon that we were relieved, and then in a fashion that highly flattered our vanity. The little Japanese colonel appeared in person with a small force of riflemen and some stretcher bearers, and he fell back in astonishment when he saw our occupation. We had pushed forward a lookout a few yards in advance, and the rest of us were playing noughts and crosses on some broken tiles. In front of us the barricades were silent, and the Japanese sailor so curiously wounded in the earlier part of the day was fiercely wrangling with an English volunteer, who had taught him the game and had just insulted him by saying he was cheating. The colonel declared he had thought us all dead, but that although he had sent twice to find out how we were faring, the tremendous storm of shells and bullets raging round our entire lines had made it impossible to reinforce us. The French, he said, had been so heavily beaten that he had had to prepare for a general retreat into the British Legation; the Germans had been swept off the Tartar Wall; the Americans had been shaken and almost driven back; and had not the Chinese themselves tired of the game, another hour would have seen a general retreat sounded. We were much commended for not having fallen back, but we pointed out that it had been really nothing, since we had only had one man slightly wounded. Still, it was an experience hard to beat to be left in a house practically levelled to the ground by shell-fire, and as I got eighteen hours off duty granted me, during which time I slept solidly without waking once, the whole affair remains most firmly impressed on the tablets of my memory. It is only when you have been through it that you understand what you can endure.

All this was some days ago, and was really nothing to what we had the day before yesterday, which happened to be the 1st of July.

The Chinese artillery practice, although poor, the guns and shells being hopelessly ancient, had become so annoying and so distressing that it was determined to adopt a policy of reprisals, taking the form of sorties, and by bayonetting the gunners and damaging the guns if we could not drag them off, to induce the enemy to make his offensive less galling. The ball was opened by an attack which was miserably conducted on the selfsame gun that had so harshly treated that little post I have described a few days before. On the 1st of the month, Lieutenant P----, the commander of the Italian hillock, laid a plan of sortie before headquarters to which consent was given. Supported by British marines and volunteers, the Italians were to make a sortie in force from their position and seize the gun. The Japanese were to co-operate from their barricades and trenches by opening a heavy fire, and moving slowly forward in extended order as soon as the Italian charge had commenced. All the morning the Italians were noisily preparing, and as soon as their attack was delivered, it justified all we had already thought about them. They issued from their lines with a wild rush, but no sooner did the Chinese fire strike them than they broke and fled, losing several killed and wounded, and fighting like madmen to escape through a passageway which led back. P---- was very severely wounded in the arm, and had to give up his command, and the bodies of the Italians killed were never recovered. A section of the British Legation students, who had gone forward with the Italians, had a man badly wounded, and the sight of this young fellow staggering back with his clothes literally dripping with blood gave the British Legation inmates a start it took some time to recover from. Later, it turned out that P----'s sortie plan was based on a faulty map; that the whole command found itself being fired on from a dozen quarters before fifty yards had been covered; and that there were nothing but impossible walls and barricades. But still this does not excuse the fact that while the Italians were behaving like madmen the young students stood stock-still and awaited orders to retire. In truth, we are being educated by events.

The loss of the Italian commander has made the Italian posts more useless than ever. These men are now nervous, and have hardly a round of ammunition left, although they were given some of the captured Chinese Mausers and a fresh stock of cartridges three days ago. Every shadow is fired at by them at night, and the vague uneasiness which overcomes everyone when dozens of the enemy are moving in the inkly black only a few feet off seems more than they can stand.

Meanwhile the French Legation, thanks to this gun-fire, is now but a ruined mass of buildings, a portion of which has fallen into Chinese hands. Alarmed at the progress which has been made everywhere, M----, the British Minister, who is still the nominal commander-in-chief, has for days been pestering the French commandant to send him men to reinforce other points. The same stubborn answer has been sent back, that not a sailor can be spared, and that none will be sent. This curious contest between the commander of the French lines and the British Minister has ended in a species of deadlock, which bodes ill for us all. The Frenchman believes that the remains of the French lines form a vital part in the defence; the British Minister, invested with military rank by his colleagues, instead of examining the entire area of the defence carefully with his own eyes and seeing exactly whether this is so or not, never ventures beyond the limits of the British Legation. At least, no one has ever seen him. Even the so-called chief of the staff, who is the commander of the British marines, does not regularly visit the French lines. Practically, it may be said that while there is death and murder outside there is only armed neutrality within. It is an extraordinary position.

In spite of the way they have been treated up to the 1st Of July, the French and Austrians still sullenly cling to the ruins of the French barricades. But on the 1st the Chinese, elated at their success in capturing the eastern half of the French Legation, pushed their barricades nearer and nearer, and only one hundred yards behind their advanced lines they brought two guns into action, firing segment and shrapnel alternately. Under this devastating bombardment, almost _a bout portant_, as the French say, the last line of French trenches and their main-gate blockhouse became untenable. Pieces of shell tore through everything; men were wounded more and more quickly, and in the most sheltered part a French volunteer, Wagner, had his entire face blown off him, dying a horrible death. The French commander, disheartened by the treatment he had received from the commander-in-chief, and convinced that all his men would be blown to pieces if they remained where they were, ordered his bugler to sound the retire. The clarion's notes rose shrilly above this storm of fire, and dragging their dead with them, the Franco-American survivors retreated into the fortified line behind them--the Peking hotel. Here they manned the windows and barricades of the intrepid Swiss' hostelry, which had already been heavily damaged by the Chinese guns. A determination was arrived at not to be driven out of this hotel until the last man had been killed; it was necessary at all costs to prevent the enemy from breaking in so far. More volunteers were brought to reinforce this line, and the sinking spirits of the French were restored; for within half an hour of their retreat the bugler had sounded the advance again, and with a rush the abandoned positions were reoccupied and the Chinese driven back. Then the guns stopped their cannonade, and a breathing space was given which was sufficient to repair some of the damage done.

While these stirring events had been following each other in quick succession down on level ground, the grim Tartar Wall has been at once our salvation and destroyer of men. The Germans have been having a terrible time, and although they have borne themselves with soldiery composure, they have been at last driven clean down with heart-breaking losses. The guns, which the Chinese had been firing from the great Ha-ta Gate half a mile off, were advanced during the night of the 30th June to within a hundred yards of the imperfect German defences, and on the 1st of July four marines were killed and six wounded out of a post of fifteen men with nerve-shaking rapidity. The Chinese soldiers, then swarming forward under the Tartar Wall itself, threatened the little blockhouse at the base, which kept up connection with the Club and the German Legation line of barricades, and soon there was no help for it, the eastern Tartar Wall posts had to be abandoned. With the German retirement the Americans abandoned their positions facing west and rushed down to safety below. It cannot be said that the Americans are afraid; they have merely realised from the beginning what a few of us have understood. The motley crowd gathered in the British Legation, as well as our commander-in-chief, were much stirred by the American retirement, for they already saw themselves directly bombarded from the menacing height of the city walls--a prospect which can enchant no one, as the confusion already reigning would have been worse confounded had all the elderly persons been given a taste of what the outworks are experiencing. So a council of war was hastily convened very much after the style of the Boer commandoes, with everybody talking at once, and it was at once decided that the blessed Tartar Wall must be at once reoccupied at any cost. A mixed force, under the command of the American captain, stormed back again, and with a rush found themselves back in their old quarters with everything intact. The representation of the American marines had at last made themselves felt, for British marines took the places of half the Americans, who were given duty elsewhere. We thought that that had solved the question.

But this was on the 1st of the month. To-day, the 3rd of the month, the position became once more untenable, for the Chinese now being able to attack the wall defences from both sides, were pushing their barricades rapidly closer and closer until only a few feet separated them from their prey. So more men were called for, and this morning, after a short harangue, a storming-party, numbering sixty bayonets and composed of British, Americans and Russians, dashed over into the Chinese lines killing thirty of the enemy and driving the rest back in great confusion. It was a brilliant little affair and well conducted, but unfortunately Captain M----, who commanded, was wounded in the foot, and the Americans have no officer now fit to lead them. It is a curious fact worth recording that owing to wounds and staff work, neither the British nor Americans have any good officers left. It is only many days of this close-quarter fighting that shows you that without good officers no men care for moving out of shelter. Unless there are men who will sacrifice themselves, the ordinary rank and file feel under no obligation to do anything more arduous than to lie comfortably firing at the enemy. You can have no idea how hard it is to get men to make sorties; on the slightest provocation, once they have left their own barricades, they rush back to safety....

Fortunately with all these events, we have been given something else to think about, and it is a thing of this sort which re-establishes confidence more than any warlike deeds. I mention it because it is the simple truth. It is also a pretty commentary on _la bete humaine_.

You remember the V-shaped barricade garrisoned by Russian sailors, I spoke about a few days ago? Well, if you do not happen to remember, I merely need say again, that it is a barricade facing both ways on Legation Street, which now in the fulness of time has blossomed into a whole network of barricades which protect our inner lines and the British Legation base from any rush of the enemy which might succeed momentarily in getting past our outworks. The Russian sailors who furnish these posts have been having a very easy time with nothing to do but to eat and to sleep, and to mount guard, turn and turn about. Of course, this comparative idleness in all the storm and stress around us gave them time to look around and to loot the vacant houses near them. Not content with this, some of them discovered that a large number of buxom Chinese schoolgirls from the American missions were lodged but a stone's throw from their barricades. The missionaries, fearing that some scandal might occur, had placed some elderly native Christians in charge of the schoolgirls, with the strictest orders to prevent any one from entering their retreat. This was effective for some time. One dark night, however, when the usual fusillade along the outer lines began, the sailors made tremendous preparations for an attack which they said was bound to reach them. At eleven o'clock they developed the threatened attack by emptying a warning rifle or two in the air. Then warming to their work, and with their dramatic Slav imaginations charmed with the _mise en scene_, they emptied all their rifles into the air. Then they started firing volley after volley that crashed horribly in the narrow lanes, retreating the while into the forbidden area. Fiercely fighting their imaginary foe they fell back slowly; and as soon as the elderly native converts had sufficiently realised the perils to which they were exposed, these cowardly males fled hurriedly through the passageways which have been cut into the British Legation. The sailors then placed their rifles against a wall and disappeared. Unfortunately for them a strong guard sent to investigate this unexpected firing almost immediately appeared, and presently the sailors were rescued, some with much scratched faces. The girls, catlike, had known how to protect themselves!

The next day there was a terrible scene, which everybody soon heard about. Baron von R----, the Russian commander, on being acquainted with the facts of the affair, swore that his honour and the honour of Russia demanded that the culprits be shot. I shall never forget that absurd scene when R----, who speaks the vilest English, demanded with terrible gestures that the ring-leaders be identified by the victims. It was pointed out to him that the affair had occurred when all was dark--that the whole post was implicated--that it was impossible to name any one man. Then R---- swore he would shoot the whole lot of them as a lesson; he would not tolerate such things. But the very next day, when a notice was posted on the bell-tower of the British Legation forbidding everyone under severe penalties to approach this delectable building, R---- had his _revanche a la Russe_, as he called it. Taking off his cap, and assuming a very polite air of doubt and perplexity, he inquired of the lady missionary committee which over-sees the welfare of these girls, "_Pardon, mesdames_," he said purposely in French, "_cette affiche est-ce seulement pour les civiles ou aussi pour les militaires!_"

VII

THE HOSPITAL AND THE GRAVEYARD

5th July, 1900.

* * * * *

It depends very much on moments as to whether one has time to laugh or to cry. The last time I wrote, we were nearly all laughing--when we had the time; to-day most of us are doing the reverse. Be one ever so hardened, it is impossible to go to the humble hospital and the little graveyard of our battered lines without tender feelings welling up, and perhaps even a silent tear dropping. We have all been to either one or the other place to-day; our losses are mounting up. In the hospital alone there are now fifty sorely wounded and tortured men, groaning and moving this way and that. The bullet and shell wounds have so far been distinguished for their deadliness, probably because of the close ranges at which we are fighting. It is a strange assembly, in all truth, to be mustered within the precincts of a diplomatic Chancery, wherein were prepared only a few short weeks ago dry-as-dust documents, which so hastened the storm by not promptly arresting it. For the Chancery of the British Legation is now the hospital, and on despatch tables, lately littered with diplomatic documents, operations are now almost hourly performed and muttered groans wrung from maimed men. It is a curious thought this--to think that the vengeance of foolish despatches overtakes innocent men and lays them groaning and bleeding on the very spot where the ink which framed them flowed. It does not often happen that cause and effect meet like this.

It is a wretched hospital, too, even though it is the best which can be made. Every window has to be bricked in partially; every entrance where bullets might flick in must be closed; and in the heat and dust of a Peking summer the stench is terrible. Worse still are the flies, which, attracted by the newly spilt blood of strong men, swarm so thickly that another torture is added. Half the nationalities of Europe lie groaning together, each calling in his native tongue for water, or for help to loosen a bandage which in the shimmering heat has become unbearable. And as the rifle cracking rises to the storm it always does every few hours, more men will be brought in and laid on that gruesome operating table. The very passageways have been already invaded by men lying on long chairs, because there are no more beds. Even they are happy; they have crept to a place where they can gasp in quiet; that is all they ask for.

In a hideous little room at the back the dead are prepared for their last resting place--prepared in a manner which is shocking, but is the best that can be done. I cannot describe it. In the cool of the evening, when perhaps the enemy's fire has slackened a little, and the bullets only sob very faintly overhead, and the shells have ceased their brutal attentions, stretcher parties come quietly and carry out the corpses. That is the worst sight of all.

There are no coffins, and the dead, shrouded in white cloth, have sometimes their booted feet pushing through the coarse fabric in which they are sewn. Never shall I forget the sight of one man, a great, long fellow, who seemed immense in his white shroud. A movement of the bearers struggling under his unaccustomed weight burst his winding sheet and his feet shot out as if he were making a last effort to escape from the pitiless grasp of Mother Earth extending her arms towards him in the form of a narrow trench. There was something hideous and terrible in these booted feet. One man, unnerved at the sight, gave a short cry, as if he had been struck. That is the brutal side of life--death.

There is also no room and not time to give each one a separate grave, these our dead; and so, strapped to a plank, they are lowered into the ground, a few shovelfuls of earth are hastily dropped in on top, and then another corpse is laid down. Sometimes there are three or four in a single grave, and when the grave is filled up the dead men's order is written on rough crosses. That is all.

At such burials you may see the real truth which is hidden by the mask of every-day life. Men you thought were good fellows turn out to be hearts of stone; the true hearts of gold are generally those who are devil-may-care and indifferently regarded when there is no _Sturm und Drang._ I, who have never been religious, begin to understand what such phrases mean--"that many are called, but few are chosen." It is not possible that the final valuation can be that of the every-day world. Then when I think of these things, I long to get away from this imprisonment; to revalue things in a new light; to see and to understand.

But as you pass away from this torture room and this execution ground a sullen anger seizes you. Why should so many be called--why should we die thus in a hole?...

VIII

THE FAILURE

6th July, 1900.

* * * * *

I have always found that there is a corrective for everything in this world. Action is the best one of all, people say. It is not always so.

The little Japanese colonel stood this morning pulling his thin moustaches very thoughtfully and looking earnestly ahead of him when I came on duty with a dozen others. In front was a great mass of ruins, concealing a couple of entrenched posts of our own men, where I was going, and farther on, half masked by the ruins, some of the enemy's advanced barricades lay.

"I think," said the colonel finally, pronouncing on the situation with inherited Japanese caution, "that it will be very difficult, but we must try."

He referred to the wretched Chinese gun belonging to the redoubtable Tung Fu-hsiang, as we had discovered from big banners pitched near by, which had been steadily and methodically smashing in the northern front of our defence, and was fast rendering our lines untenable here. We always went on duty at these posts with little enthusiasm. We could not hit back. Another gun, a newcomer, had also been posted somewhere near the ruins of the Chinese Customs, as if encouraged by the success of the other one, and was now playing on the main-gate posts of the Su wang-fu, and rendering even these more and more dangerous for us to hold permanently.

The newcomer was, however, still, comparatively speaking, far away; it was our old friend we most dreaded. Well hidden, it pelted us with rusty but effective shells night and day. To make another sortie was highly dangerous for the ill-success of the first one in this quarter had certainly encouraged the Chinese, and this time we would have to be prepared for a very vigorous defence, which might bring on a series of counter-attacks. Then, too, the wall-split and barricaded grounds beyond our own feeble defences meant that a single false step would lead us into an _impasse_ from which we could not lightly escape. Rifle-fire would pelt us at close quarters, shells would burst right in our midst; it was not a pleasant prospect even for the biggest fire-eaters of our lines. We had, however, to remember that so long as we held firm on the outer rim of our ruins would the enormous piles of brickwork which lie around, either in the form of ruined houses or wrecked compound walls, act as traverses and make the heavy rifle and cannon fire being poured in nothing very terrible. But as soon as we are forced to abandon our advanced lines the enemy speedily will swarm in, and then no sortie, however well planned, can dislodge him. He will make our best defences his parallels--and in a week he will be able to split us in half. These things made immediate action really advisable, and soon the word was passed round that a big sortie was to be made at once.

Once more all the morning was spent in making preparations. Marines and volunteer reserves were brought over from the British Legation to line the trenches and barricades, and cover the advance with a heavy rifle fire; the Italians, who were to co-operate by jumping down off their northwestern hillock and rushing forward, were warned for duty, and had fresh ammunition served out to them; and finally volunteers were called for, and the command of the sortie handed over to a Japanese officer, Captain A----.

When everything was ready, we stood for a minute massed together while some parting instructions were given. We presented a curious and unique spectacle. There were fifteen Japanese sailors in the dirty remains of their blue uniforms, without caps or jumpers, with broken boots and begrimed faces; and alongside of them were twenty-five miscellaneous volunteers, some with bayonets to their rifles, some with none--but all determined to get home on the enemy at all costs this time. There had been sixteen days' incessant work at the trenches and barricades with next to no sleep. Mud and brickwork clung to us all with an insistence which no amount of rough dusting would remove. We were a tattered and disreputable crowd.

There was little time to reflect or to cast one's eyes around, however, for no sooner had Captain A---- received his last instructions than his bugler sounded the charge, and from the Italian lines, eight hundred feet away, which were hidden from us by walls and trees, came an answering blast. The Italians were ready. I gripped my rifle and took the flank of my detachment.

We tumbled forward in silence, forty effectives in all, with a couple dozen native converts behind us, who had been provided with some of the captured rifles and swords. As soon as we were clear, Captain A----, who was a tiny man, even among a tiny race, drew a little sword, and pointing to the enemy's barricades now looming up very close, ordered his bugler to sound the charge once more. The notes ripped out, and giving a mixed attempt at a European cheer, we quickened our pace, running as rapidly as we could over the rubbish which covered the ground and taking advantage of every piece of cover. A few stray shots pecked at us, but in this quarter, so strange that it appeared unreal, the enemy gave hardly a sign of life. Behind us, on our left, a tremendous fusillade was in progress, and the cracking of the rifles came back to us in one high-pitched roar. But the intervening trees and the ruins did not allow us to see or understand what was the cause. We had completely lost touch with the others.

Rushing round a corner, we suddenly came on the gun we had been sent to capture; it was perched high on a long, loopholed barricade, and stood quite silent and alone. We gave a shout and pitched forward in a momentary ecstasy of delight, but like a flash the scene around us changed. Dozens of soldiers jumped up around us, looking every bit like startled pheasants in their bright uniforms, and retired, firing rapidly. This, as if a preconcerted plan, was the signal for a tremendous fire on all sides, which absolutely surprised us. From every adjacent ruin and roof the enemy appeared by magic, and fired at us with ever-increasing vigour. Now just above us the selfsame gun which had demolished my outpost house a few days before loomed invitingly, and determined to have our revenge and stick the gunners like pigs if we could only get to grips, a knot of us ran on. The bugler blew a few sharp notes to rally some of those who were hanging back in confusion, and finally, riflemen in advance and the converts herded tremblingly behind by a brave Japanese Secretary of Legation in spectacles, we succeeded in climbing up on to the gun platform. The gunners, who had been lying beside their weapon, fled precipitately as soon as they saw our heads come over the barricade, but to our right and left the enemy was now swarming forward with frantic yells. The converts, who were to drag off the gun while we covered them with our rifles and bayonets, could not be made to advance, but clung to the wall screaming piteously. We beat some of them over the head with our rifle-butts and kicked them savagely in a fever of anxiety to put some spirit in them, but nothing could move them forward. It must be always so; the Christian Chinaman face to face with his fierce, heathen countrymen is as a lamb; he cannot fight. Then before we knew it the little Japanese captain was on the ground, two or three Japanese sailors fell too, a _sauve qui peut_ began, and everything was in inextricable disorder. The Chinese commanders, seeing our plight, urged their men forward, and soon hundreds of rifles were crashing at us, and savage-looking men in brightly coloured tunics and their red trouser-covers swinging in the breeze leaped forward on us. It was a terrible sight. There was nothing to do but to retire, which we did, dragging in our wounded with brutal energy. At a ruined wall, half a dozen of us made a stand, covering the retreat, which had degenerated into a rout, and, firing steadily at a close range, we dropped man after man. Some of the Kansu soldiers rushed right up to us, and only fell a few feet from our rifles, yelling, "Sha, Sha,"--kill, kill, to the last moment; and one fellow, as he was beaten down, threw a sword, which stabbed one of our men in the thigh and terribly wounded him.

It must have been all over in a very few minutes, for the next thing I remember is that we were all inside our lines again, and that my knees were bleeding profusely from the scrambling over barricades and ruins. We were completely out of breath from the excitement and the running, and most of us were crimson with rage at our ill-success when we had practically had everything in our own hands. Everyone was for shooting a convert or two as an example for the rest, but in the end it came to nothing. Meanwhile the fusillade against us grew enormously in vigour. From every side bullets flicked in huge droves. The Chinese, as if incensed at our enterprise, strove to repay us by pelting us unmercifully, and awakened into action by this persistent firing, the roar of musketry and cannon soon extended to every side until it crashed with unexampled fury. Messages came from half a dozen quarters for the reserves to be sent back, and in the hurry and general confusion we could not learn what had happened to the Italians or the rest of the enterprise.

Meanwhile our wounded were lying on the ground, and the news soon spread that the Japanese surgeon had pronounced the little captain's case hopeless. I went to see him as soon as I could, and seldom have I seen a more pitiful sight. Lying on a coat thrown one the ground, with his side torn open by an iron bullet, the stricken man looked like a child who had met with a terrible accident. He could not have been more than five feet high, and his sword, which was a tiny blade, about thirty inches long, was strapped to his wrist by a cord, which he refused to have released. Beating his arms up and down in the air with that tiny sword bobbing with them, he struggled to master the pain, but the effort was too great for him, and he kept moaning in spite of himself. A few feet from him sat a wounded Japanese sailor, who had been struck in the knee by a soft-nosed bullet. His trousers had been ripped up to put on a field dressing, and never have I before seen a more ghastly wound. The bullet had drilled into his knee-cap in a neat little hole, but the soft metal, striking the bony substance within, had splashed as it progressed through, with the result that the hole made on coming out was as big as the knee-cap itself. The sailor bore his wound with a stoicism which seemed to me superhuman. The sweat was pouring off his face in his agony, but he had stuffed a cap into his mouth so that he might not disgrace himself by crying out, and even in his agony he lay perfectly still, with staring eyes, as he waited to be carried to the operating table.

Presently the captain died with a sudden stiffening, and news came in from a number of other posts that men were falling, and we must detach some of ours to reinforce threatened points. In utter gloom the day ended, and miserably tired, we got hardly any sleep until the small hours.

IX

AN INTERLUDE

8th July, 1900.

* * * * *

And yet in spite of such things there are plenty of interludes. For of the nine hundred and more European men, women and children besieged in the Legation lines, many are playing no part at all. There are, of course, some four hundred marines and sailors, and more than two hundred women and children. The first are naturally ranged in the fighting line; the second can be but non-combatants. But of the remainder, two hundred and more of whom are able-bodied, most are shirking. There are less than eighty taking an active part in the defence--the eighty being all young men. The others have claimed the right of sanctuary, and will do nothing. At most they have been induced to form themselves into a last reserve, which, I hope, may never be employed. If it is.... The duties of this reserve consist in mustering round the clanging bell of the Jubilee Tower in the British Legation when a general alarm is rung. When the firing becomes very heavy that bell begins clanging.

There was a general alarm the other night when I happened to be off duty, and I stopped in front of the bell-tower to see it all. The last reserve tumbled from their sleeping-places in various stages of deshabille, all talking excitedly. The women had too much sense to move a great deal, although the alarm might be a signal for anything. A few of them got up, too, and came out into the open; but the majority stayed where they were. Presently the commander-in chief appeared in person in his pyjamas, twirling his moustaches, and listened to the increasing fusillade and cannonade directed against the outposts. The din and roar, judged by the din and roar of every-day life, may have been nerve-breaking, but to any one who had been so close to it for eighteen days it was nothing exceptional. The night attack, which had been heralded after the usual manner by a fierce blowing of trumpets, simply meant thousands of rifles crashing off together, and as far as the British Legation was concerned, you might stand just as safely there as on the Boulevard des Italiens or in Piccadilly. There was a tremendous noise, and swarms of bullets passing overhead, but that was all. The time had not arrived for actual assaults to be delivered; there was too much open ground to be covered.

The groups of reserves stood and listened in awe, the commander-in-chief twirled his moustaches with composure, and two or three other refugee Plenipotentiaries slipped out and nervously waited the upshot of it all. It was a very curious scene. Well, the fusillade soon reached the limit of its _crescendo_, and then with delighted sighs, the _diminuendo_ could plainly be divined. The Chinese riflemen, having blazed off many rounds of ammunition, and finding their rifle barrels uncomfortably warm, were plainly pulling them out of their loopholes and leaning them up against the barricades. The _diminuendo_ became more and more marked, and finally, except for the usual snipers' shots, all was over. So the reserves were dismissed and went contentedly off to bed. As far as the actual defence was concerned, this comedy might have been left unplayed. In the dense gloom those men could never have been moved anywhere. Such a manoeuvre would have brought about a panic at once, for there is little mutual confidence, and nothing has been done to promote it.

At first, in the hurry and scurry and confusion of the initial attacks, when everything and everybody was unprepared and upset, this state of things escaped attention. Now all the fighting line is becoming openly discontented. There is favouritism and incompetency in everything that is being done. Two days ago a young Scotch volunteer got killed almost on purpose, because he was sick and tired of the cowardice and indecision. And now, not content with all this, there is a new folly. An alleged searchlight has been seen flickering on the skies at night, and M----, the British Minister, has in a burst of optimism declared that it is the relief under S---- signalling to us. Yet there are men who know exactly what it is--the opening of the doors of a blast-furnace in the Chinese city, which sends up a ruddy light in certain weather.

Discipline is becoming bad, too, and sailors and volunteers off duty are looting the few foreign stores enclosed in our lines. Everything is being taken, and the native Christians, finding this out, have been pouring in bands when the firing ceases and wrecking everything which they cannot carry away.

A German marine killed one, and several have been dangerously wounded. In our present condition anything is possible. Still, the fortification work is proceeding steadily, and the appearance of the base, the British Legation, has been miraculously changed. Enormous quantities of sandbags have been turned out and placed in position, and all the walls are now loopholed. With all this access of strength, we are much more secure, and yet our best contingents are being very slowly but very continuously shot to pieces. Our casualty list is now well into the second hundred, and as the line of defenders thins, the men are becoming more savage. In addition to looting, there have been a number of attempts on the native girl converts, which have been hushed up.... Ugly signs are everywhere, and the position becomes from day to day less enviable.

X

THE GUNS

10th July, 1900.

* * * * *

Had we a single gun how different it would be! We could parade it boldly under the enemy's nose; sweep his barricades and his advanced lines away in a cloud of dust and brick-chips; bombard his camps which we have located; make him sorry and ashamed ... as it is we can do nothing; we have not a single piece which can be called serious artillery; and we must suffer the segment which the enemy affects in almost complete silence. Listen to our list of weapons.

First, there is the Italian one-pounder firing ballistite. It is absolutely useless. Its snapping shells are so small that you can thrust them in your pocket without noticing them. This gun is merely a plaything. And yet being the best we have, it is wheeled unendingly around and fired at the enemy from a dozen different points. It may give confidence, but that is all it can give. The other day I watched it at work on a heavy barricade being constructed by night and day by the methodical enemy. By night the Chinese soldiery work as openly as they please, for no outpost may waste its ammunition by indiscriminate shooting. But during the day, orders or no orders, it has become rash for the enemy to expose himself to our view; and even the fleeting glimpse of a moving hand is made the excuse for a hailstorm of fire. This has made excessive caution the order of the day, and you can almost believe, when no rifles are firing to disturb such a conviction, that there are only dead men round us. Yet with nothing to be seen, countless hands are at work; in spite of the greatest vigilance barricades and barriers grow up nearer and nearer to us both night and day; we are being tied in tighter. These mysterious barricades, built in parallels, are so cunningly constructed that our fiercest sorties must in the end beat themselves to pieces against brick and stone; if the enemy can complete his plans we shall be choked silently. That is why the Italian gun is so often requisitioned.

I was saying that I watched the one-pounder at work against the enemy's brick-bound lines. Each time, as ammunition is becoming precious, the gun was more carefully sighted and fired, and each time, with a little crash, the baby shell shot through the barricades, boring a ragged hole six or eight inches in diameter. Two or three times this might always be accomplished with everything on the Chinese side silent as death. The cunning enemy! Then suddenly, as the gun was shifted a bit to continue the work of ripping up that barricade, attention would be distracted, and before you could explain it the ragged holes would be no more. Unseen hands had repaired the damage by pushing up dozens of bricks and sandbags, and before the game could be opened again, unseen rifles were rolling off in their dozens and tearing the crests of our outworks. In that storm of brick-chips, split sandbags and dented nickel, you could not move or reply. That is the Italian gun.

The next most useful weapon should be the Austrian machine-gun, which is a very modern weapon, and throws Mannlicher bullets at the rate of six hundred to the minute. Yet it, too, is practically useless. It has been tried everywhere and found to be defective. When it rattles at full speed, it has been seen that its sighting is illusory--that it throws erratically high in the air, and that ammunition is simply wasted. It cannot help us in the slightest. The value of machine-guns has been always overrated.

Then there is a Nordenfeldt belonging to the British marines, and a very small Colt, which was brought up by the Americans. The Nordenfeldt is absolutely useless and now refuses to work; the Colt is so small, being single-barrelled, that it can only do boy's work. Yet this Colt is the most satisfactory of all, and when we have dragged it out with us and played it on the enemy, it has shot true and straight. They say it has killed more men than all the rest put together....

There should be a Russian gun, too--a good Russian gun of respectable calibre. But although the shells were brought, a thousand of them, too, the gun was forgotten at the Tientsin Station! Such a thing could only happen to Russians, everybody says. But some people say it was forgotten on purpose, because De G---- had received absolute assurance from the Chinese Government that the Russian Legation would not be attacked under any circumstances, and that sailors were only brought up to keep faith with the other Powers....

This miserable list, as you will see, means that we have nothing with which to reply to the enemy's fire. We are not so proud and foolish as to wish to silence the guns ranged against us, but, at least, we should be able to make some reply. In desperation, the sailor-gunners tried to manufacture a crude piece of ordnance by lashing iron and steel together, and encasing it in wood. Fortunately it was never fired, for in the nick of time an old rusty muzzle-loader has been discovered in a blacksmith's shop within our lines, and has been made to fire the Russian ammunition by the exercise of much ingenuity. It belches forth mainly flames, and smokes and makes a terrific report. Some say this is as useful as a modern twelve-pounder....

About the Chinese guns we can find out very little, excepting that none, or very few, of the modern weapons which are in stock at Peking have been used against us. There are at most only nine or ten in constant use; perhaps the others have been dragged away down the long Tientsin road. But even these nine or ten, if they were worked together, would nearly wreck us. Our sorties have pushed some of them back.

Two of these guns are being fired at us from a staging on the Palace wall--sometimes regularly and persistently, sometimes as if they had fallen under the influence of the conflicting factors which are struggling to win the day in the Palace. If they bombarded us without intermission for twenty-four hours, they would render the British Legation almost untenable. Two or three more guns are on the Tartar Wall; three or four are ranged against the Su wang-fu and French lines; some are kept travelling round us searching for a weak spot. They have no system or fire-discipline. Some use shrapnel and segment; others fire solid round shot all covered with rust. Silent sometimes with a mysterious silence for days at a time, they come to life again suddenly in a blaze of activity, and wreak more ruin in a few minutes than weeks of rifle fusillade and days of firing on the fringe of outer buildings. And yet we cannot complain. We have so many walls, so many houses, so many trees, so many obstructions of every kind, that they cannot get a clear view of anything. These singing shells, which might breach any one part, were the guns massed and their fire continuous, are sneered at by most of us already. Provided you can lie low, shell-fire soon loses even its moral effect.

XI

SNIPING

* * * * *

The siege has now become such a regular business with everyone that there are almost rules and regulations, which, if not promulgated among besieged and besiegers, are, at least, more or less understood things. Thus, for instance, after one or two in the morning the crashing of rifles around us is always quite stilled; the gunners have long ceased paying us their attentions, and a certain placid calmness comes over all. The moon may then be aloft in the skies; and if it is, the Tartar Wall stands out clear and black, while the ruined entrenchments about us are flooded in a silver light which makes the sordidness of our surroundings instantly disappear in the enchantment of night. Our little world is tired; we have all had enough; and even though they may run the risk of being court-martialled, it is always fairly certain that by three or four in the morning half the outposts and the picquets will be dead asleep. It was not like that in the beginning, for then nobody slept much night or day; and if one did, it was only to awake with a moan, the result of some weird nightmare.

Now with the weeks which have gone by since we broke off relations with the rest of the world it is quite different, and we pander to our little weakness of forty winks before a loophole, although orderly officers may stumble by all night on their rounds and curse and swear at this state of affairs. By training yourself, however, I have found that you can practically sleep like a dog, with one eye open and both ears on the alert--that light slumber which the faintest stirring immediately breaks; when you are like this you can do your duty at a loophole.

It is such dull work, too, in front of the eternal loopholes, with nothing but darkness and thick shadows around you, and the rest of a post of four or five men vigorously snoring. The first half hour goes fairly quickly, and, perhaps even the second; but the last hour is dreary, tiresome work. And when your two hours are up, and contentedly you kick your relief on the ground beside you, he only moans faintly, but does not stir. Dead with sleep is he. Then you kick him again with all that zest which comes from a sense of your own lost slumbers, and once more he moans in his fatigue, more loudly this time, but still he does not move.

Finally, in angry despair you land the butt of your rifle brutally on his chest, and he will start up with a cry or an oath.

"Time," you mutter. The relief grumblingly rises to his feet, rubbing his glued eyes violently, and asks you if there is anything. "Nothing," you answer curtly. It is always nothing, for although the enemy's barricades rear themselves perhaps not more than twenty or thirty feet from where you stand, you know that it takes a lusty stomach to rush that distance and climb your fortifications and ditches in the dark in the face of the furious fire which sooner or later would burst out. For we understand our work now. Experience is the only schoolmaster.

So with your two hours on and your four hours off the night spends itself and dawn blushes in the skies. It is in all truth weary work, those long watches of the night.... Sometimes even your four hours' sleeping time is rudely broken into by half a dozen alarms; for separated sometimes by hundreds of feet from your comrades of the next post, the instinct of self-preservation makes you line your loopholes and peer anxiously into the gloom beyond, when any one of the enemy shows that he is afoot. A single rifle-shot spitting off near by is as often as not the cause of the alarm; for that rifle-shot cracking out discordantly and awakening the echoes may be the signal for the dread rush which would spell the beginning of the end. Once one line is broken into we know instinctively that the confusion which would follow would engulf us all. There is no confidence....

When you have time you may relieve his monotony by sniping.

In the early morning, the very early morning, is the time for this work--say, roughly, between the hours of four and six, when the soldier Chinaman beyond our lines is yawningly arousing himself from his slumbers and squats blinking and inattentive before his morning tea. Then if you are a natural hunter, are inclined to risk a good deal, and something of a quick shot, you may have splendid chances which teach you more than you could ever learn by months in front of targets. Baron von R----, the cynical commander of the Russian detachment, is the crack sniper of us all, because he has not a great deal to do in the daytime, and, also, because beyond his lines of the Russian Legation all is generally quiet with a curious and suggestive quietness. At four in the morning R----, with his sailor's habits, generally rises, shakes himself like a dog, lights his eternal Russian cigarette, takes a few whiffs, and then sallies forth with a Mannlicher carbine and a clip of five cartridges. His sailors are duly warned to cover him if he has to retire in disorder, but so far he has met with no mishap. Cautiously pushing out beyond his barricades, he climbs a ruined wall, reaches the top and buries himself in the dust in pleasant anticipation of what will follow.

Presently he is rewarded. A Chinese brave comes out into the open, selects a corner, and sits down to smoke under cover of a barricade. The Baron pushes his clip of cartridges deliberately into the magazine, shoots one into the rifle barrel through the feed, and then very cautiously and very slowly draws a steady bead on the man. I have seen him at work. Five seconds may go by, perhaps even ten, for the Baron allows himself only one shot in each case, and then bang! the bullet speeds on its way, and the Chinaman rolls over bored through and through. On a good day the bag may be two or three; on a bad day the Russian commander returns with his five cartridges intact and a persistent Russian shrug, for he never fires in vain, and there are certain canons in this sport which he does not care to violate lightly.

Myself, enamoured with this game, after I had watched the Russian commander two mornings, I, too, determined that I would embark on it, although I have no such leisure in the early hours. Eleven or twelve o'clock in the bright sunlight has become my hour, when the sun beats down hotly on our heads, and everyone is drowsy with the noon-heat. Then you may also catch the Chinaman smoking and drinking his tea once again, and if you are quick a dead man is your reward. Every dead man puts another drop of caution into the attackers. It is therefore good and useful.

Yesterday I had great luck, for I got three men within very few minutes of one another; and then when I was fondly imagining that I might pick off dozens more from my coign of vantage, I was swept back into our lines under such a storm of fire as I have never experienced before. I should tell you that there are practically only two shooting-grounds where this curious sport may be had; there are only two areas of brick and ruins where by judicious manoeuvring you may steal out and get the enemy on his exposed flank where no barricades protect him from an enfilading fire. These two areas lie opposite the Russian front, and beyond the extreme Japanese western posts of the Su wang-fu. Since the Russian front is the Russian commander's own preserve, it is from the Japanese posts that I work.

On the day when I made my record bag, half-past eleven found everybody drowsy and the time propitious. Our northern Peking sun beats down pitilessly from the cloudless skies at such a time, and so I had the field completely to myself. Firing had ceased absolutely on all sides, and the Chinese had begun to sleep. Crouching low down I scurried across from the Japanese post to some ruins fifty feet off, and remained quietly squatting there, panting in the heat, to get myself bearings. Around me all was silent, and thirty or forty yards from where I lay I could see the brown face of the Japanese sailor laughing at me through a loophole. Presently bringing my glasses into play I swept the huge pile of ruined houses and streets lying huddled on all sides.

There was not a twig stirring or a shadow moving. All was dead quiet. The main Chinese camp on this side was placed in H----'s abandoned compounds--that we had discovered long ago--but the battalions there were now apparently asleep with not so much as a sentry out. So, gaining confidence, I pushed on, working parallel to Prince Su's outer walls and about fifty feet beyond them. Suddenly I stopped and dropped, quite by instinct, for although my mind had telegraphed the danger to my knees, I did not fully realise what it was until I was on the ground. Just round the corner there was a glimpse of three men stripped to the waist to be seen. Had they seen me? I waited in some suspense for a few seconds pressed my glasses back into their case, and gripped my rifle. My anxiety was soon set at rest, for with a clatter, which seemed ten times greater than it really was, the men set quickly to work on a structure. They were building something, and now was my chance. Getting to the corner again I peered cautiously around, and there but seventy or eighty feet from where I lay three strapping fellows were raising a heavy log. They had pulled off their red and black tunics, and were only in their baggy breeches and the curious little stomach apron the Northern Chinaman affects to keep himself from catching cold.

Their brown backs glistened with sweat in the bright sunshine, and between their belts and the loose black turbans, under which their pigtails were gathered up, an ideal two-feet target presented itself. Carefully I fired.

In a flash one broad brown back was suddenly splashed with red, a fellow sank on his knees with outstretched arms, and at last rolled over without a moan, apparently as dead as dead could be. It was brutalising.

The log the men were carrying crashed down heavily on the ground and the two remaining soldiers started back in surprise. From whence came that shot? In front of where they were working lay their advanced posts, which, facing our own, two or three hundred feet away, should completely cover them. They peered around for a few minutes, anxiously searching their front and not looking behind them. At last they apparently decided that it must have been a stray shot, for, bending down, they once more raised the log, paying no more attention to their dead companion than they would to a dead dog.

This time I let them advance towards their outposts until they were a hundred feet farther away. Then I fired again. The log came down once more with a dull thud, and both the men fell as well. But imagine my disgust when they both rose to their feet, one man merely showing the other a snipped shoulder which must be bleeding, but was evidently nothing as a wound. I cursed my government rifle, which always throws to the right. At less than a hundred yards such practice was disgraceful. This time both the men were aroused, and, abandoning their log, they disappeared round some ruins, only to reappear with their tunics on, their bandoliers strapped round them, and their Mausers in their hands. They meant to have some revenge. I lost sight of them for quite ten minutes, only to have them both out again almost halfway between myself and the Japanese posts from which I had sallied forth. I was cut off! I would have to wipe those two men out or else they would do that to me.

They were in no hurry, however, for they began by beating the ground carefully and taking advantage of every piece of cover. They evidently suspected that some of our men had come out in skirmishing order and were still lying hidden; at last one saw something. He had caught sight of the Japanese sentry who was looking out anxiously to see what had become of me. So rising hurriedly, the soldier fired at the brown Japanese face. Before he had sunk on his knees again I had drilled him fair with a snapshot--in the head it must have been, because he went over with a piercing yell and with his hands plucking at his cap. The other man did not wait to see what would happen, but fled as fast as he could down a small lane that ran only twenty feet past me. Seeing the game was played out, I rose and fired rapidly from under the crook of my arm and missed. Reloading as I scrambled after him, I drove another bullet at him, and he staggered wildly but did not fall. My blood was now up, and I was determined to get him, even if I had to follow into the Chinese camp, so I sped along too. The fellow was now yelling lustily, calling his comrades to his aid, and I seemed to be going mad in my excitement. I fired again as I ran, and must have hit him again, for he reeled still more; then he turned totteringly into a ruined doorway....

Just as I determined that I must give it up the scene changed like the flash of a lamp. My quarry stumbled and fell flat; dozens of half-stripped men came charging towards me, loading as they ran, and almost before I knew it, the ground around me was ripped with bullets.

Then in turn how I raced!

Such was the storm of fire around me that I nearly dropped my rifle so as to improve my pace, and all the moisture left my mouth. Holding grimly on I at last cleared the exposed ground, and jumped through into the Japanese barricades. In their rage the Chinese soldiery rushed into the open after me, firing angrily all along the line, and before the loopholes could be properly manned and the fusillade returned they were almost up to us. Then, as always happens, they suddenly became irresolute, and trickled away, and from behind safe cover they poured in the same long-range rifle-fire....

This, however, is only an incident--one which I provoked. Generally we are not so enterprising, but are inclined to accept events as they unroll. But this escapade proved to me that attacks are thrown against us only after special orders have been issued by the government, and that the camps of soldiery established round our lines are as much to imprison us as to slay us. They have bound us in with brickworks, and they bombard us intermittently with nine or ten guns; but each bombardment and each attack seems to be conducted quite without any relation to the general situation.... Fortunately, then, although we are ill organised and badly commanded as a whole, our units are well led, and we meet the situation as it actually is on the best plan possible for the time being. But will this last? Will not something happen which will fling our enemy against us animated by one desire --a desire to slay us one and all? It requires now but one rush of the thousands of armed men encamped about us to sweep our defence off the face of the earth like so many dried and worthless leaves.

XII

THE GALLANT FRENCH

14th July, 1900.

* * * * *

The post fighting is becoming more desperate, and the French are steadily losing ground. Is it true that they are losing courage? Of course, everyone knows that they are a gallant race, and that although the Germans, by their relentless science and unending attention to detail, are rated superior in machine-like warfare, they can never be quite like the brilliant conquerors of Jena, Austerlitz, and a hundred other battles; and yet no one expected the French were going to cling to the ruins of their Legation with the bulldog desperation of which they complained in the English at Waterloo; a desperation making each house a siege in itself, and only ending with the total destruction of that house by shells or fire; were going to treat all idea of retirement with contempt, although their shabby treatment caused them two weeks ago to temporarily evacuate their lines in a fit of moroseness.... This is what has happened until now, for the French have set their teeth, and now everyone almost believes that nothing--not even mines, shells, myriads of bullets, and foolish order after order from headquarters ordering men to be sent elsewhere --will beat them back. And yet they cannot keep on this way for ever. All round them the connecting posts and blockhouses are losing more and more men, and matters are reaching a dangerous point.

It is now nearly four weeks since the first bullet flicked out the brains of the first French sailor ten minutes after the opening of hostilities at barricades far away down Customs Street, and in these twenty-five days which have elapsed the French positions have been beaten into such shapeless masses that they are quite past recognition. I had not been there for a week, and was shocked when I saw how little remains. The Chinese have, foot by foot, gained more than half of the Legation, and all that is practically left to the defenders is their main-gate blockhouse, a long barricaded trench and the remains of a few houses. These they have sworn to retain until they are too feeble to hold. Then, and then only, will they retreat into the next line behind them, the fortified Hotel de Pekin, which has already four hundred shell holes in it.

Yesterday's losses at the French lines were five men wounded, four blown up by a mine, of whom two never have been seen again, and two men killed outright by rifle-fire. Then the last houses were set fire to by Chinese soldiers, who, able to push forward in the excitement and confusion of the mine explosions, attempted to seize and hold these strategic points, and were only driven out by repeated counter-attacks. Such events show that for some occult reason the Chinese commands are trying to carry the French lines by every possible device.... It has been like this for a week now.

For, from the 7th of July, the Chinese commands having prepared the ground for their attacks by a heavy cannonade lasting for sixty hours, which riddled everything above the ground level with gaping holes, started pushing forward through the breaches, and setting fire, by means of torches attached to long bamboo poles, to everything which would burn. No living men, no matter how brave, can hold a glowing mass of ruins and ashes, and the Chinese were showing devilish cunning. Isolated combats took place along the whole French line--in a vain effort to drive off the incendiaries, little sorties of two or three men furiously attacking the persistent enemy, and each time driving him back with loss, only to find him dribbling in again like muddy water through every hole and cranny in the imperfect defences. But even this did not do much good. No one could keep an accurate record of these curious encounters during the first few days, for they have succeeded one another with such rapidity that men have become too tired, too sleepy to wish to talk. They try to act, and some of their adventures have been astonishing.

Thus a young Breton sailor, not more than seventeen years old, seeing men armed with swords collecting one night for a rush, jumped down among them from the top of an earthwork, and shot and bayonetted three or four of them before they had time to defend themselves. Then it took him half an hour to get back to safety by creeping from one hole in the ground to another and avoiding the rifle-fire....

Self-preservation makes it necessary to rush out thus single handed and ease your front. Every man killed is a discouragement, which holds the enemy back a bit.

Exploits of this nature must at length have shown the Chinese soldiery that they have to face men endowed with the courage of despair in this quarter; and fearing cold steel more than anything else, they have decided that the only way of reaching their prey is by blowing them up piecemeal. That is why they have taken to mining--most audacious mining, carried on under the noses of the French defenders. If you come here at night, and remain until one of those curious lulls in the rifle-fire suddenly begins, you will distinctly hear this curious tapping of picks and shovels, which means the preparation of a gallery.

So as to save time, such mining is not begun from behind the enemy's trenches; it is audaciously commenced in the ruins which litter some of the neutral territory, which neither side holds and into which Chinese desperadoes creep as soon as it is dusk. For a few days the French did not dare to make sorties against such enterprises, but some of the younger volunteers, discovering that these sappers were only armed with their tools, have taken to creeping out and butchering in the bowels of the earth.... This is terribly but absolutely true. Thus a young volunteer, named D----, found, after watching for two days, that a number of men crept into a tunnel mouth every night only twenty feet from his post, and began working on a mine right under his feet. He decided to go out himself and kill them all.... He told me the story. He crept out two days ago as soon as he had seen them go in, and, posting himself at the entrance, called on the men to come out, else he would block them in and kill them in the most miserable way he could think of. They came out, crawling on their hands and knees, and as each man slipped up to the level he was bayonetted.... in the end thirteen were killed like this. Three remained, but D----'s strength was not equal to it, and he had to drive them in as captives. Then they were despatched and beheaded. They say the French sailors slung back those heads far over into the advanced Chinese barricades with taunts and shouts. That stopped all work for a few hours. But it was not for long enough.

Yesterday, the 13th, the Chinese had their revenge for the loss of the hundred odd men who have been shot or bayonetted along this front during the past week. At six in the evening, when the rifle-fire all along the line had become stilled, a tremendous explosion shook every quarter of our besieged area and made everyone tremble with apprehension. Even in the most northerly part of our defences--the Hanlin posts beyond the British Legation, which are probably three or four thousand feet away--the men said it was like an earthquake. In the French lines it seemed as if the end of the world had come. The Chinese, having successfully sapped right under one of the remaining fortified houses, had blown it up with a huge charge of black gunpowder. D----, the French commander, R----, the Austrian _Charge d'Affaires,_ the same indomitable volunteer D----, and a picket of four French sailors were in the house, and were buried in the ruins. Hardly had the echoes of the first explosion died away, when a second one blew up another house, and out of the ruins were lifted, as if the powers of darkness had taken pity on them all, the defenders who had been buried alive, excepting two. Never has such a thing been heard of before. Providence is plainly helping us. The wretched men thus cruelly treated were all the colour of death and bleeding badly when they were dragged out. The two missing French sailors must have been crushed into fragments. Only a foot has been found....

That was afterwards; for the mine explosions were the signals for a terrible bombardment and rifle-fire all along the line, from which we have not yet recovered. The French, more than a little shaken, were driven into their last trench--the _tranche Bartholin_, which has just been completed. They held this to this morning and then counter-attacked. That is why I have found myself here. Reinforcements were rushed in by us at daybreak, and after a sleepless forty hours the Chinese advance has been fairly held. But for how long? If they act as earnestly during the next week we are finished!

XIII

THE BRITISH LEGATION BASE

15th July, 1900.

* * * * *

Fortunately, startling events of the sort I have just described are confined to the outposts, and the half a dozen closely threatened points. Our main base, the British Legation, is little affected, and many in it do not appear to realise or to know anything of these frantic encounters along the outer lines. They can tell from the stretcher-parties that come in at all hours of the day and night, and pass down to the hospital, what success the Chinese fire is having, but beyond this they know nothing. They secretly hope, most of them, that it will remain like this to the end; that bullets and shells may scream overhead, but that they may be left attending to minor affairs. As I look around me, it appears more and more evident that self-preservation is the dominant, mean characteristic of modern mankind. The universal attitude is: spare me and take all my less worthy neighbours. In gaining in skin-deep civilisation we have lost in the animal-fighting capacity. We are truly mainly grotesque when our lives are in danger.

In the British Legation time has even been found to establish a model laundry, and several able-bodied men actually fought for the privilege of supervising it, they say, when the idea was mooted.

Neither have our Ministers improved by the seasoning process of the siege. Most of them have become so ridiculous, that they shun the public eye, and listen to the roar of the rifles from safe places which cannot be discovered. And yet fully half of them are able-bodied men, who might do valuable work; who might even take rifles and shoot. But it is they who give a ridiculous side, and for that, at least, one should be thankful. It is something to see P----, the French Minister, starting out with his whole staff, all armed with _fusils de chasse_, and looking _tres sportsman_ on a tour of inspection when everything is quiet. Each one is well told by his tearful wife to look out for the Boxers, to be on the alert--as if Chinese banditti were lurking just outside the Legation base to swallow up these brave creatures!--and in a compact body they sally forth. These are the married men: marriage excuses everything when the guns begin to play. Thus the Secretary of Legation, whose name I will not divulge even with an initial, amused me immensely yesterday by calculating how much more valuable he was to the State as a father of a family than an unmarried youngster like myself. He tried to prove to me that if he died the economic value of his children would suffer--what a fool he was!--and that my own value capitalised after the manner of mathematicians was very small. I listened to him carefully, and then asked if the difference between a brave man and a coward had any economic significance. He became suddenly angry and left me. Some of the besieged are becoming truly revolting.

Even P----, who some people think ought to stay in the remains of his own Legation, is rather disgusted, and as he marches out in an embroidered nightshirt, with little birds picked out in red thread on it, he is not as absurd as I first thought. Poor man, he is attempting to do his duty after his own lights, and excepting two or three others, he has been the most creditable of all the elderly men, who think that position excuses everything.

Labouring at the making of sandbags, the women sit under shelter, and keep company with those men who have not the stomach to go out. And as shells have been falling more and more frequently in and around this safe base, and rumour has told them that the outer lines may give way, bomb-proof shelters have been dug in many quarters ready to receive all those who are willing to crouch for hours to avoid the possibility of being hit....

Otherwise, there is nothing much to note in the British Legation, for here the storm and stress of the outer lines come back oddly enough quite faintly, excepting during a general attack. The dozens of walls account for that. In the evenings the missionaries now gather and sing hymns ... sometimes Madame P----, the wife of the great Russian Bank Director, takes compassion, and gives an _aria_ from some opera. She used to be a diva in the St. Petersburg Opera House, they say, years ago, and her voice comes like a sweet dream in such surroundings. A week ago a strange thing happened when she was giving an impromptu concert. She was singing the Jewel song from _Faust_ so ringingly that the Chinese snipers must have heard it, for immediately they opened a heavy "fire," which grew to a perfect tornado, and sent the listeners flying in terror. Perhaps the enemy thought it was a new war-cry, which meant their sudden damnation!

Yet we have had so much time to rectify all our mistakes that things are in much better working order. Public opinion has made the commander-in-chief distribute the British marines in many of the exposed positions and thus allow inferior fighting forces to garrison the interior lines. Twice last week, before this redistribution had been completed, there was trouble with both the Italian and the Austrian sailors and some volunteers. Posts of them retreated during the night.... They gave as their excuse that they knew that the loose organisation would cause them to be sacrificed if the enemy began rushing. There is much to be said for them; the general command had been disgraceful, especially during the night, when only good fortune saves us from annihilation. One single determined rush is all that is needed to end this farce....

These retreats, which have not been confined to the sailors, have ended by causing great commotion and alarm among the non-combatants, and reserve trenches and barricades are being improved and manned in growing numbers. Still, the distribution is unequal. There is a force of nearly sixty rifles in what is the northern front of the British Legation--the sole front exposed to direct attack on this side of the square. With difficulty can the command be induced to withdraw a single man from here. They say it is so close to all those who have sought the shelter of the British Legation, so close to the women and children and those who are afraid, that it would be a crime to weaken this front. And yet there has been hardly a casualty among those sixty men during four weeks' siege, while elsewhere about one hundred and twenty have been killed and wounded....

The fear that fire-balls will be flung far in from here, or fire-arrows shot from the adjacent trenches, has made them institute patrols, which make a weary round all through the night to see that all's well. In the thick darkness these men can act as they please, and already the are several _sales histoires_ being sold. One is very funny. The patrol in question was composed entirely of Russian students, who are not rated as effectives. Beginning at nine o'clock the day before yesterday, the patrol had got as far as the Japanese women's quarters at this northern front of the British Legation, when they were halted for a few minutes to communicate some orders. One of the volunteers, of an amorous disposition, noticed a buxom little Japanese servant at work on a wash-tub in the gloom. An appointment was made for the morrow....

The next night duly came. Once more the patrol halted, and once more the young Russian told his companions to go on. The patrol moved away, and the adventurous Russian tiptoed into the Japanese quarters. Cautiously feeling his way down a corridor, he opened a door, which he thought the right one; then the tragedy occurred. Suddenly a quiet voice said to him in French out of the gloom:

"_Monsieur desire quelque chose? Je serai charmee de donner a Monsieur ce qu'il voudra s'il veut bien rester a la porte_." The wretched Russian student imagined he was lost; it was the wife of a Minister! He hesitated a minute; then, gripping his rifle and with the perfect Russian imperturbability coming to his rescue, he replied, with a deep bow: "_Merci, Madame, Merci mille fois! Je cherchais seulement de la vaseline pour mon fusil_!"

This phrase has become immortal among the besieged.

XIV

THE EVER-GROWING CASUALTY LIST

16th July, 1900.

* * * * *

And yet one is lucky if one can laugh at all. The rifle and cannon fire continues; barricades are pushing closer and closer, more of our men are falling--it is always the same monotonous chronicle. A few days ago poor T----, the Austrian cruiser captain, who aspired to be our commander-in-chief with such disastrous results, was killed in the Su wan-fu while he was encouraging his men to stand firm and not repeat some of their former performances. To-day little S----, the British Minister's chief of the staff, has been mortally hit, and has just died. It was a sad affair. In the morning a party from headquarters was making a tour of inspection of the Su wang-fu posts, in order to see exactly how much battering they could stand, and how soon the Italian contention that already the hillock works were untenable would become an undeniable fact. The Italian defences had been inspected and the little party was crossing the ornamental gardens, which are always swept by a storm of fire, when suddenly S---- fell mortally wounded, M----, the correspondent, was badly hit in the leg, the Japanese colonel alone escaping with a bullet-cut tunic. They had drawn the enemy's fire. Great was the dismay when the news became generally known; it meant that the authority of headquarters had received a cruel blow. There is no officer left who can really perform the duties of the chief of the staff, and all the outer lines will feel this loosening of a control which has really only been complimentary and nominal. Casualties among the officers of the other detachments had allowed the British marine commanders to increase their influence. Now it is finished. The only two good ones have now been struck off the list.

All day long men looked gloomily about them, and felt that gradually but surely things were progressing from bad to worse. Six of the best officers have either been killed or so badly wounded that they cannot possibly take the field again; about fifty of our most daring regulars and volunteers have been killed outright; the number of admittances to the hospital up to date is one hundred and ten; and thus of the four hundred and fifty rifles defending our lines, nearly a third have been placed out of action in less than four weeks. Excepting for a small gap across the Northern Imperial canal bridge, a continuous double, or even treble, line of the enemy's barricades now stretch unbroken from a point opposite the American positions on the Tartar Wall round in a vast irregular curve to the city wall overlooking the German Legation.

These barricades are becoming more and more powerful, and are being pushed so close to us by a system of parallels and traverses that at the Su wang-fu and the French lines only a few feet separate some of our own defences from the enemy's. Already it had twice happened that a fierce and unique deed had taken place at the same loophole between one of our men and a Chinese brave, ending in the shooting of one or the other, forcing a retirement on our part to the next line of barricades. Thus, by sheer weight of brickwork they are crushing us in, and if they have only two weeks' more uninterrupted work, it can only end in one way. Colonel S---- has made two more frantic sorties, in both of which I took part at daybreak, with a few men, which succeeded each time in pushing back the enemy for a few days in one particular corner at the cost of casualties we cannot afford. But the work and the strain are becoming exhausting, and even the Japanese, who are being driven by little S---- like mules, are showing the effects in their lack-lustre eyes and dragging legs. The men are half drunk from lack of sleep and from bad, overheated blood, caused by a perpetual peering through loopholes and a continual alertness even when they are asleep. The strain is intolerable, I say, and pony meat is becoming nauseating, and fills me with disgust.

On top of it all the trenches are now sometimes half full of water, for the summer rains, which have held back for so long, are beginning to fall. The stenches are so bad from rotting carcases and obscene droppings that an already weakened stomach becomes so rebellious that it is hard to swallow any food at all.

In the morning it is sometimes revolting. For four days I was at a line of loopholes, with Chinese corpses swelling in the sun under my nose.... At the risk of being shot, I covered them partially by throwing handfuls of mud. Otherwise not I myself, but my rebellious stomach, could not have stood it.

Scorched by the sun by day, unable to sleep except in short snatches at night, with a never-ending rifle and cannon fire around us, we have had almost as much as we can stand, and no one wants any more. I wonder now sometimes why we have been abandoned by our own people. Reliefs and S---- are only seen in ghastly dreams....

And yet there are others near who must be faring worse than we. Far away in the north of the city, where are Monseigneur F----'s cathedral, his thousands of converts, and the forty or fifty men he so ardently desired, we hear on the quieter days a distant rumble of cannon. Sometimes when the wind bears down on us we think we can hear a confused sound of rifle-firing, far, far away. They say that Jung Lu, the Manchu Generalissimo of Peking, whose friendship has been assiduously cultivated by the French Bishop, is seeing to it that the Chinese attacks are not pushed home, and that a waiting policy is adopted similar to that which the Chinese have used towards us. But no matter what be the actual facts of the case, the besieged fathers must be having a terrible time....

Ponies and mules are also getting scarcer, and the original mobs, numbering at least one hundred and fifty or two hundred head, have disappeared at the rate of two or three a day as meat. Our remaining animals are now quartered in a portion of the Su wang-fu, where they are feeding on what scant grass and green vegetation they can still find in those gloomy gardens. Sometimes a humming bullet flies low and maims one of the poor animals in a vital spot. Then the butcher need not use his knife, for meat is precious, and even the sick horses that die, and whose bodies are ordered to be buried quickly, are not safe from the clutches of our half-starving Chinese refugees....

A few days ago a number of ponies, frightened at some sudden roar of battle, broke loose and escaped by jumping over in a marvellous way some low barricades fronting the canal banks. Caught between our own fire and that of the enemy, and unable to do anything but gallop up and down frantically in a frightened mob, the poor animals excited our pity for days without our being able to do a single thing towards rescuing them. Gradually one by one they were hit, and soon their festering carcases, lying swollen in the sun, added a little more to the awful stenches which now surround us. Some men volunteered to go out and bury them, and cautiously creeping out, shovel in hand, just as night fell, once more our Peking dust was requisitioned, and a coverlet of earth spread over them.

The droves of ownerless Peking dogs wandering about and creeping in and out of every hole and gap are also annoying us terribly. These pariahs, abandoned by their masters, who have fled from this ruined quarter of the city, are ravenous with hunger, and fight over the bodies of the Chinese dead, and dig up the half-buried horses; nothing will drive them away. In furious bands they rush down on us at night, sometimes alarming the outposts so much that they open a heavy fire. An order given to shoot everyone of them, so as to stop these night rushes, has been carried out, but no matter how many we kill, more push forward, frantic with hunger, and tear their dead comrades to pieces in front of our eyes. It is becoming a horrible warfare in this bricked-in battle-ground.

Inside our lines there are a number of half-starving natives, who were caught by the storm and are unable to escape. They are poor people of the coolie classes, and it is no one's business to care for them. Several times parties of them have attempted to sneak out and get away, but each time they have been seized with panic, and have fled back, willing to die with starvation sooner than be riddled by the enemy's bullets. The native troops beyond our lines shoot at everything that moves. A few days ago an old rag-picker was seen outside the Tartar Wall shambling along half dazed towards the Water-Gate, which runs in under the Great Wall into the dry canal in our centre. The Chinese sharpshooters saw him and must have thought him a messenger. Soon their rifles crashed at him, and the old man fell hit, but remained alive. After a while he raised himself on his hands and knees and began crawling towards his countrymen like a poor, stricken dog, in the hope that they would spare him when they saw his condition. But pitilessly once more the rifles crashed out, and this time their bullets found a billet in his vital parts, for the beggar rolled over and remained motionless. There he now lies where he was shot down in the dust and dirt, and his white beard and his rotting rags seem to raise a silent and eloquent protest to high Heaven against the devilish complots which are racking Peking.

The feeding of our native Christians, an army of nearly two thousand, is still progressing, but babies are dying rapidly, and nothing further can be done.

There is only just so much rice, and the men who are doing the heavy coolie work on the fortifications must be fed better than the rest or else no food at all would be needed....

The native children, with hunger gnawing savagely at their stomachs, wander about stripping the trees of their leaves until half Prince Su's grounds have leafless branches. Some of the mothers have taken all the clothes off their children on account of the heat, and their terrible water-swollen stomachs and the pitiful sticks of legs eloquently tell their own tale. Unable to find food, all are drinking enormous quantities of water to stave off the pangs of hunger. A man who has been in India says that all drink like this in famine time, which inflates the stomach to a dangerous extent, and is the forerunner of certain death.

To the babies we give all the scraps of food we can gather up after our own rough food is eaten, and to see the little disappointed faces when there is nothing is sadder than to watch the wounded being carried in. If we ever get out we have some heavy scores to settle, and some of our rifles will speak very bitterly.

Thus enclosed in our brick-bound lines, each of us is spinning out his fate. The Europeans still have as much food as they need; the Chinese are half starving; shot and shell continue; stinks abound; rotting carcases lie festering in the sun; our command is looser than ever. It is the merest luck we are still holding out. Perhaps to-morrow it will be over. In any case, the glory has long since departed, and we have nothing but brutal realities.

XV

THE ARMISTICE

17th July, 1900.

* * * * *

The impossible has happened at the eleventh hour. Around us those hoarse-throated trumpets have been ringing out stentoriously all day. How blood-curdling they sounded! Calling fiercely and insistently to one another, this barbaric cease-fire of brass trumpets has grown to such a blood-curdling roar that attention had to be paid, and gradually but surely the rifles have been all stilled until complete and absolute silence surrounds us. At last diplomacy in the far-away outer world has made itself heard, and we who are placed in the very centre of this Middle Kingdom of China, being parleyed with by the responsible Chinese Government. It has been a long and heart-breaking wait, but it is always better late than never.

This is exactly what has happened, although I have only just learned the full details. On the 14th--that is, three days ago--a native messenger, bearing our tidings, was sent out in fear and trembling, induced to attempt to reach Tientsin by lavish promises, and by the urgency of missionary entreaties. But instead of even getting out of the city, the messenger was captured, beaten, and detained for several days at the headquarters of the Manchu commander-in-chief, Jung Lu, in the Imperial city. Then, finally, when he thought that he was being led out to be put to death, he was brought back to our barricades, presenting a very sorrowful appearance, but bearing a fateful despatch from Prince Ching and all the members of the Tsung-li Yamen. This despatch had nothing very sensational in it, but it marked the beginning. It merely stated that soldiers and bandits had been fighting during the last few days; that the accuracy and vigour of our fire had created alarm and suspicion; and that, in consequence, our Ministers and their staffs were invited to repair at once to the Tsung-li Yamen, where they would be properly cared for. As for the rest of the thousand living and dead Europeans and the two thousand native Christians within our lines, they were not even dignified by being mentioned. Most people inferred from this that by some means even the extremists of the Chinese Government had realised that if all the foreign Ministers were killed, it would be necessary for Europe to sacrifice some members of the Imperial family.

But the despatch, although its terms were trivial and even childish, had a vast importance for us. It showed that something had happened somewhere in the vague world beyond Peking--perhaps that armies were arriving. We were reminded that we were still alive. A dignified reply was sent, and the very next day came an astonishing Washington cipher message, which has been puzzling us ever since. It was only three words: "Communicate to bearer." No one can explain what these words mean; even the American Minister has cudgelled his brains in vain, and asked everybody's opinion. But about one thing there is no doubt--that it comes straight from Washington untampered with, for these three words are in a secret cipher, which only half a dozen of the highest American officials in Washington understand, and in Peking there is no one excepting the Minister himself who has the key.

This is absolutely the first authentic sign we have had. If the reply message ever gets through, public opinion may force our rescue....

Finding that they could trust us, our own messenger has been followed by Chinese Government messengers, who, tremblingly waving white flags, march up to our barricades hand in their messages, and crouch down, waiting to be given a safe-conduct back.

There have been several such messages delivered at one point along our long front while the rifle duel was continuing elsewhere with the same monotony. Now those trumpets, gaining confidence, have brought absolute silence.

At first there was only this absolute silence. It seemed so odd and curious after weeks of rifle-fire and booming of old-fashioned cannon, that that alone was like a holiday. Then, as everyone seemed to realise that it was a truce, men began standing up on their barricades and waving white cloths to one another.

Both sides did this for some time, and as no one fired, a mutual inquisitiveness prompted men to climb over their entrenched positions and walk out boldly into the open. Still the same friendliness.

By midday friendliness and confidence had reached such a point, that half our men were over the barricades, and had met the Chinese soldiery on the neutral zone of ruins and rubbish extending between our lines. All of us left our rifles behind, and stowed revolvers into our shirts lest treachery suddenly surprised us and found us defenceless. I placed an army revolver in my trousers pocket, with a vague idea that I would attempt the prairie trick of shooting through my clothing if there was any need to resort to force. I soon found that this was unnecessary.

Boldly walking forward, we pushed right up to the Chinese barricades. Nothing surprised us so much as to see the great access of strength to the Chinese positions since the early days of the siege. Not only were we now securely hedged in by frontal trenches and barricades, but flanking such Chinese positions were great numbers of parallel defences, designed solely with the object of battering our sortie parties to pieces should we attempt to take the offensive again. Lining these barricades and improvised forts were hundreds of men, all with their faces bronzed by the sun, and with their heads encased in black cloth fighting caps. Relieving the sombre aspect of this headgear were numbers of brightly coloured tunics, betokening the various corps to which this soldiery belonged. What a wonderful sight they made! There were Tung Fu-hsiang's artillerymen, with violet embroidered coats and blue trousers; dismounted cavalry detachments belonging to the same commander in red and black tunics and red "tiger skirts"; Jung Lu's Peking Field Force; Manchu Bannermen; provincial levies and many others. All these men, standing up on the top of their fortifications, made a most brilliant picture, and we looked long and eagerly. I wish some painter of genius could have been there and caught that message. For there were skulls and bones littering the ground, and representing all that remained of the dead enemy after the pariah dogs had finished with them. Broken rifles and thousands of empty brass cartridge cases added to the battered look of this fiercely contested area, and down the streets the remains of every native house had been heaped together in rude imitation of a fort, with jagged loopholes placed at intervals of eight or ten inches, allowing any number of rifles to be brought into play against us under secure cover. The men who had manned these defences had left their rifles where they were, and by peering over we could see that the majority of these fire-pieces were tied into position by means of wooden forks so as to bear a converging fire on the exposed points of our defences. Only then did I realise how much a protracted resistance places an attacking force on the defensive. We were afraid of one another. Sauntering about, some of the enemy were willing to enter into conversation. A number of things they told filled us with surprise, and made us begin to understand the complexity of the situation around us. The Shansi levies and Tung Fu-hsiang's men--that is, all the soldiery from the provinces--had but little idea of why they were attacking us; they had been sent, they said, to prevent us from breaking into the Palace and killing their Emperor.

If the foreigners had not brought so many foreign soldiers into Peking, there would have been no fighting. They did not want to fight.... They did not want to be killed....

Somebody tried to explain to them that the Boxers had brought it all on. But to this they answered that the Boxers were finished, driven away, discredited; there were none left in Peking, and why did we not send our own soldiers away, who had been killing so many of them. Such things they repeated time without number; it was their only point of view.

The morning passed away in this wise, but there were several _contretemps_ which nearly led to the spilling of blood. In one case, an English marine tried to take a watermelon from a soldier, who was very anxious to sell it; but as the latter would not give it up without immediate payment, the marine thumped his head and then knocked him over. Everyone rushed for their rifles, but some of us shouted for silence, and going over to the marine, whispered to him to keep quiet while we tied up his hands. We told him to march back into our lines, and informed our audience that he would be beaten, and that the man who had been knocked over would get a dollar. We managed by this crude acting to save an open rupture, but it was plain that the rank and file must not be allowed to mix. We managed eventually to restore a semblance of good-fellowship by purchasing at very heavy prices a great number of eggs. The women, the children, and the wounded have been long in want of eggs and fresh food, and we knew that these would do a great many people good.

Late in the afternoon, as a result of this extraordinary fraternising, a very singular thing occurred along the French front, where the bitter fighting has rebounded into a hot friendship. A French volunteer, who is as dare-devil as many of his friends, suddenly climbed over the Chinese barricades and shouted back that he was going away on a visit. They tried to make him return, but in spite of a little hesitation, he went on climbing and getting farther and farther away. Then he suddenly disappeared for good. Nobody expected to see him alive again, and everybody put it down to a manifestation of the incipient madness which is affecting a number of men....

But two hours afterwards a letter came from the French volunteer. It merely said that he was in Jung Lu's camp, having an excellent time. Very late in the evening he came back himself. In spite of the foolhardiness of the whole thing his news was the most valuable we had received.

It shows us plainly that not only has something happened elsewhere, but that the Boxer plan is miscarrying in Peking itself.

The young Frenchman had been really well treated, fed with Chinese cakes and fruit, and given excellent tea to drink. Then he had been led direct to Jung Lu's headquarters, and closely questioned by the generalissimo himself as to our condition, our provisions, and the number of men we had lost. He had replied, he said, that we were having a charming time, and that we only needed some ice and some fruit to make us perfectly happy, even in the great summer heat. Thereupon Jung Lu had filled his pockets with peaches and ordered his servants to tie up watermelons in a piece of cloth for him to carry back. Jung Lu finally bade him good-bye, with the significant words that his own personal troops on whom he could rely would attempt to protect the Legations, but added that it was very difficult to do so as everyone was fearful for their own heads, and dare not show too much concern for the foreigner. This makes it absolutely plain that this extraordinary armistice is the result of a whole series of events which we cannot even imagine. It is like that curious affair of the Board of Truce, but much more definite. It means ... what the devil does it mean? After S----'s mysterious disappearance, when he was only a day's march from Peking--month ago--it is useless to attempt any speculations. How long will this last?... In the evening, when we had exhausted the discussion of every possible theory, somebody remarked on the silence. I will always remember how, for some inexplicable reason, that remark annoyed me immensely--made me nervous and angry. Perhaps it was that after weeks of rifle-fire and cannon booming, the colourless monotone of complete silence was nerve-destroying. Yes, it must have been that; a perpetual, aggravating, insolent silence is worse than noise.... But this will mean nothing to you; experience alone teaches.

XVI

THE RESUMPTION OF A SEMI-DIPLOMATIC LIFE

20th July, 1900.

* * * * *

The third phase continues unabated, with nothing even to enliven it. Despatches in Chinese from nowhere in particular continue to drop in from the Tsung-li Yamen; pen had been put to paper, and the despatches have been duly answered, leaving the position unchanged. I have been even requisitioned, rebelliously, I will confess, to turn my hand to despatch writing; but my fingers, so long accustomed only to rifle-bolts and triggers, and a clumsy wielding of entrenching tools, produce such a hideous caligraphic result, that I have been coldly excused from further attempts. It is incredible that one should so easily forget how to write properly, but it is nevertheless true--eight weeks in the trenches will break the best hand in the world. An ordinary man would think that what I write now is in a secret cipher!

But of diplomatic life. All these despatches which come in are in the same monotonous tone; they are entreaties and appeals to evacuate the Legations and place ourselves under the benevolent care of the Tsung-li Yamen, to come speedily before it is too late. Of course, not even our Ministers will go.

But there is more news, although it is not quite cheering or definite. On the 18th the Japanese received a message direct from Tientsin, giving information to the effect that thirty thousand troops were assembling there for a general advance on Peking. They say that ten days or a fortnight may see us relieved, but somehow the Japanese are not very hopeful.

On this same date came a secretary from the Tsung-li Yamen in person, accompanied by a trembling _t'ingoh'ai,_ or card-bearer, frantically waving the white flag of truce. They must been very frightened, for never have I seen such convulsiveness. The secretary, walking quickly with spasmodic steps, held tight to the arm of his official servant, and made him wave, wave, wave that white flag of truce until it became pitiful.

Thus preceded, the Tsung-li Yamen secretary advanced to the main-gate blockhouse of the British Legation, where he was curtly stopped, given a chair, and told to await the arrival of the Ministers, or such as proposed to see him. Seated just outside this evil-smelling dungeon--for the blockhouse, encased in huge sandbags, is full of dirt and ruins and has many smells--the feelings of this representative of the Chinese Government must have been charmingly mixed. Near by were grimy and work-worn men, in all manner of attire, with their rifles; in the dry canal alongside were rude structures of brick and overturned. Peking carts, line upon line, thrown down and heaped up to block the enemy's long-expected charges; and on all sides were such stenches and refuse--all the flotsam and jetsam cast up by our sea of troubles. Until then I did not realise how many carcases, fragments of broken weapons, empty cartridge cases, broken bottles, torn clothing, and a hundred other things were lying about. It was a sordid picture. Presently the British Minister, in his capacity of commander-in-chief and protector of the other Ministers, came out and took his seat by the side of his guest, an interpreter standing beside him to help the interview. Then the French Minister approached and insinuated himself into the droll council of peace; the Spanish Minister, as _doyen_, also appeared, and one or two others. But those Ministers who are without Legations, who so uncomfortably resemble their colleagues at home--those without portfolios--formed a group in the middle distance, humble as men only are who have to rely upon bounty. I saw the Belgian Minister and the Italian Charge for the first time for several weeks. My own chief was also there, rubbing his hands, trying to seem natural. The interview proceeded apace, and as far as we could judge there were no noticeable results.

There were assurances on both sides, regrets, the crocodile tears of diplomacy, and vague threats. All our Ministers seemed comforted to feel that diplomacy still existed--that there was still a world in which protocols were binding. And yet nothing definite could be learned from this Yamen secretary. He said that everyone would be protected, but that the "bandits" were still very strong. After this official interview, other private interviews took place. Buglers and orderlies from the Chinese generals around us trooped in on us for unknown reasons. Three came over the German barricades, and were led blindfolded to the British Legation to be cross-questioned and examined. One trumpeter said that his general wished for an interview with one of our generals at the great Ha-ta Gate, where were his headquarters. He wished to discuss military matters. Other men came in a big deputation to the little Japanese colonel, and said they wanted an interview too. It means the temporary resumption of a species of diplomatic life. I suppose it is in the air, and everybody likes the change. Yesterday, too, came another despatch from Prince Ching and others--as these letters are now always curiously signed, the lesser men hiding their identity in this way--asking the Ministers once more to do something impossible; and once more a despatch has gone back, saying that we are perfectly happy to remain where we are, only we would like some vegetables and fruit.... And so, to-day, four cartloads of melons and cabbages have actually come with the Empress Dowager's own compliments. The melons looked beautifully red and ripe, and the cabbages of perfect green after this drab-coloured life. But many people would not eat of this Imperial gift; they feared being poisoned. More despatches from Europe have also been transmitted--notably a cipher one to the French Minister, saying that fifteen thousand French troops have left France. Evidently a change has taken place somewhere.

But while these _pourparlers_ are proceeding, some of us are not at all quieted. Fortification of the inner lines is going on harder than ever. The entire British Legation has now walls of immense strength, with miniature blockhouses at regular intervals, and a system of trenches. If our advanced posts have to fall back they may be able to hold this Legation for a few days in spite of the artillery fire. French digging, in the form of very narrow and very deep cuts designed to stop the enemy's possible mining, is being planned and carried out everywhere, and soon the general asylum will be even more secure than it has been since the beginning. Undoubtedly we are just marking time--stamping audibly with our diplomatic feet to reassure ourselves, and to show that we are still alive. For in spite of all this apparent friendliness, which was heralded with such an outburst of shaking hands and smiling faces, there have already been a number of little acts of treachery along the lines, showing that the old spirit lurks underneath just as strong.

In the Northern Hanlin posts which skirt the British Legation, a black-faced Bannerman held up a green melon in one hand, and signalled with the other to one of our men to advance and receive this gift. Our man dropped his rifle, and was sliding a leg over his barricade, when with a swish a bullet went through the folds of his shirt--the nearest shave he had ever had. The volunteer dropped back to his side, and then, after, a while, waved an empty tin in his hand as a notice that he desired a resumption of friendly relations. The Chinese brave cautiously put his head up, and once again, with a crack, the compliment was returned, and the soldier was slightly wounded, and now we only peer through our loopholes and are careful of our heads. The novelty of the armistice is wearing off, and we feel that we are only gaining time.

Still, we are improving our position. There is a more friendly feeling among the commands in our lines, and the various contingents are being redistributed. By bribing the Yamen messenger, copies of the _Peking Gazette_ have been obtained, and from these it is evident that something has happened. For all the decreeing and counter-decreeing of the early Boxer days have begun again, and the all-powerful Boxers with their boasted powers are being rudely treated. It is evident that they are no longer believed in; that the situation in and around Peking is changing from day to day. The Boxers, having shown themselves incompetent, are reaping the whirlwind. They must soon entirely disappear.

It is even two weeks since the last one was shot outside the Japanese lines at night, and now there is nothing but regular soldiery encamped around us. This last Boxer was a mere boy of fifteen, who had stripped stark naked and smeared himself all over with oil after the manner of Chinese thieves, so that if he came into our clutches no hands would be able to hold him tight. The most daring ones have always been boys. He had crept fearlessly right up to the Japanese posts armed only with matches and a stone bottle of kerosene, with which he purposed to set buildings on fire and thus destroy a link in our defences. This is always the Boxer policy. But the Japanese, as usual, were on the alert. They let the youthful Boxer approach to within a few feet of their rifles--a thin shadow of a boy faintly stirring in the thick gloom. Then flames of fire spurted out, and a thud told the sentries that their bullets had gone home.

When morning came we went out and inspected the corpse, and marvelled at the terrible muzzle velocity of the modern rifle. One bullet had gone through the chest, and tiny pin-heads of blood near the breast-bone and between the shoulders was all the trace that had been left. But the second pencil of nickel-plated lead had struck the fanatic on the forearm, and instead of boring through, had knocked out a clean wedge of flesh, half an inch thick and three inches deep, just as you would chip out a piece of wood from a plank. There was nothing unseemly in it all, death had come so suddenly. The blows had been so tremendous, and death so instantaneous, that there had been no bleeding.

It was extraordinary.

Meanwhile, from the Pei-t'ang we can still plainly hear a distant cannonade sullenly booming in the hot air. We have breathing space, but they, poor devils are still being thundered at. No one can understand how they have held out so long.

Our losses, now that we have time to go round and find out accurately, seem appalling. The French have lost forty-two killed and wounded out of a force of fifty sailors and sixteen volunteers; the Japanese, forty-five out of a band of sixty sailors and Japanese and miscellaneous volunteers; the Germans have thirty killed and wounded out of fifty-four; and in all there have been one hundred and seventy casualties of all classes. Many of the slightly wounded have returned already to their posts, but these men have nothing like the spirit they had before they were shot.

The shell holes and number of shells fired are also being counted up. The little Hotel de Pekin, standing high up just behind the French lines, has been the most struck. It is simply torn to pieces and has hundreds of holes in it. Altogether some three thousand shells have been thrown at us and found a lodgment. The wreckage round the outer fringe is appalling, and in this present calm scarcely believable. Another three thousand shells will bring everything flat to the ground.

XVII

DIPLOMACY CONTINUES

24th July, 1900.

* * * * *

The situation is practically unchanged, and there is devilish little to write about. During the last two or three days no Chinese soldiers have been coming in to parley with us, except in one or two isolated instances. Cautious reconnaissances of two or three men creeping out at a time, pushing out as far as possible, have discovered that the enemy is nothing like as numerous as he was at the beginning of this armistice.

Some of his barricades seem even abandoned, and stand lonely and quite silent without any of the gaudily clothed soldiery to enliven them by occasionally standing up and waving us their doubtful greetings. But, curious contradiction, although some barricades have been practically abandoned, others are being erected very cautiously, very quietly, and without any ostentation, as if the enemy were preparing for eventualities which he knows must inevitably occur. Sometimes, too, there is even a little crackle of musketry in some remote corner, which remains quite unexplained. A secret traffic in eggs and ammunition is still going on with renegade soldiery from Tung Fu-hsiang's camp; but no longer can these things be purchased openly, for a Chinese commander has beheaded several men for this treachery, and threatens to resume fighting if his soldiers are tampered with.

But there is another piece of curious news. A spy has come in and offered to report the movements of the European army of relief, which he alleges has already left Tientsin and is pushing back dense bodies of Chinese troops. This offer has been accepted, and the man has been given a sackful of dollars from Prince Su's treasure-rooms. He is to report every day, and to be paid as richly as he cares if he gives us the truth. Some people say he can only be a liar, who will trim his sails to whatever breezes he meets. But the Japanese, who have arranged with him, are not so sceptical; they think that something of importance may be learned.

Down near the Water-Gate, which runs under the Tartar Wall, the miserable natives imprisoned by our warfare are in a terrible state of starvation. Their bones are cracking through their skin; their eyes have an insane look; yet nothing is being done for them. They are afraid to attempt escape even in this quiet, as the Water-Gate is watched on the outside night and day by Chinese sharpshooters. It is the last gap leading to the outer world which is still left open. Tortured by the sight of these starving wretches, who moan and mutter night and day, the posts near by shoot down dogs and cows and drag them there. They say everything is devoured raw with cannibal-like cries....

The position is therefore unchanged. We have had a week's quiet, and some letters from the Tsung-li Yamen, which assures us of their distinguished consideration, yet we are just as isolated and as uneasy as we were before. This solitude is becoming killing.

XVIII

THE UNREST GROWS AND DIPLOMACY CONTINUES

27th July, 1900.

* * * * *

It is not so peaceful as it was. Trumpet calls have been blaring outside; troops have been seen moving in big bodies with great banners in their van; the Imperial world of Peking is in great tumult; the soldier-spy alleges new storms must be brewing.

In spite of this, however, the Tsung-li Yamen messengers now come and go with a certain regularity. This curious diplomatic correspondence must be piling up. Even the messengers, who at first suffered such agonies of doubt as they approached our lines, frantically waving their flags of truce and fearing our rifles, are now quite accustomed to their work, and are becoming communicative in a cautious, curious Chinese way which hints at rather than boldly states. They tell us that our barricades can only be approached with some sense of safety from the eastern side--that is, the Franco-German quarter; in other quarters they may be fired on and killed by their own people. The Peking troops, who can be still controlled by Prince Ching and the Tsung-li Yamen, are on the eastern side of the enclosing squares of barricades; elsewhere there are field forces from other provinces--men who cannot be trusted, and who would massacre the messengers as soon as they would us, although they are clad in official dress and represent the highest authority in the Empire. This position is very strange.

But more ominous than all the trumpet calls and the large movements of troops which have been spied from the top of the lofty Tartar Wall, are the tappings and curious little noises underground. Everywhere these little noises are being heard, always along the outskirts of our defence. It must be that the mining of the French Legation is looked upon as so successful, that the Chinese feel that could they but reach every point of our outworks with black powder placed in narrow subterranean passages, they would speedily blow us into an ever narrower ring, until there was only that left of us which could be calmly destroyed by shells. We now occupy such an extended area, and are so well entrenched, that shelling, although nerve-wracking, has lost almost all its power and terror. Were Chinese commanders united in their purpose and their men faithful to them, a few determined rushes would pierce our loose formation. As it is, it is our salvation. In the quiet of the night all the outposts hear this curious tapping. It is heard along the French lines, along the German lines, along the Japanese lines, and all round the north of the British Legation. Were we to remain quiescent the armistice might be suddenly broken some day by all our fighting men being hoisted into the air. Our counter-action has, however, already commenced.

For while the enemy is pushing his lines cunningly and rapidly under our walls and outworks, we are running out counter-mines under his--at least, we are attempting this by plunging a great depth into the earth, and only beginning to drive horizontally many feet below the surface line. Hundreds of men are on this work, but the Peking soil is not generous; it is, indeed, a cursed soil. On top there are thick layers of dust--that terrible Peking dust which is so rapidly converted into such clinging slush by a few minutes' rain. Then immediately below, for eight feet or so, there is a curious soil full of stones and _debris_, which must mean something geologically, but which no one can explain. Finally, at about a fathom and a half there is a sea of despond--the real and solid substratum, thick, tightly bound clay, which has to be pared off in thin slices just as you would do with very old cheese. This is work which breaks your hands and your back. Somebody must do it, however; the same men who do everything help this along as well....

With all this mining going on many curious finds are being made, which give something to talk about. In one place, ten feet below the surface, hundreds and hundreds of ancient stone cannon-balls have been found which must go back very many centuries. Some say they are six hundred years and more old, because the Mongol conqueror, Kublai Khan, who built the Tartar City of Peking, lived in the thirteenth century, and these cannon-balls lie beneath where tilled fields must then have been. Are they traces of a forgotten siege? In other places splendid drains have been bared--drains four feet high and three broad, which run everywhere. Once, when Marco Polo was young, Peking must have been a fit and proper place, and the magnificent streets magnificently clean. Now ...!

To-day the soldier-spy has brought in news that the Court is preparing to flee, because of the approach of our avenging armies, and that the moving troops and the hundreds of carts which can be seen picking their way through the burned and ruined Ch'ien Men great street in the Chinese city will all be engaged in this flight. Our troops are advancing steadily, he says, driving everything before them. Still no one believes these stories very much. We have had six weeks of it now and several distinct phases. Somehow it seems impossible that the whole tragedy should end in this unfinished way--that thousands of European troops should march in unmolested and find us as we are.... There is practically no day duty now and very easy work at night. One can have a good sleep now, but even this seems strange and out of place.

XIX

THE FIRST REAL NEWS

28th July, 1900.

* * * * *

Something has again happened, something of the highest importance. A courier from Tientsin has arrived at last--a courier who slipped into our lines, delivered his quill of a message which had been rolled up and plaited into his hair for many days, and is now sitting and fanning himself--a thin slip of a native boy, who has travelled all the way down that long Tientsin road and all the way back again for a very small earthly reward. A curious figure this messenger bringing news from the outside world made as he sat calmly fanning himself with the stoicism of his race. Nobody hurried him or questioned him much after he had delivered his paper; he was left to rest himself, and when he was cool he began to speak. I wish you could have heard him; it seemed to me at once a message and a sermon--a sermon for those who are so afraid. The little pictures this boy dropped out in jerks showed us that there were worse terrors than being sealed in by brickwork. He had been twenty-four days travelling up and down the eighty miles of the Tientsin road, and four times he had been caught, beaten, and threatened with death. Everywhere there were marauding bands of Boxers; every village was hung with red cloth and pasted with Boxer legends; and each time he had been captured he had been cruelly beaten, because he had no excuse. Once he was tied up and made to work for days at a village inn. Then he escaped at night, and went on quickly, travelling by night across the fields. Somehow, by stealing food, he finally reached Tientsin. The native city was full of Chinese troops and armed Boxers; beyond were the Europeans. There was nothing but fighting and disorder and a firing of big guns. By moving slowly he had broken into the country again, and gained an outpost of European troops, who captured him and took him into the camps. Then he had delivered his message, and received the one he had brought back. That is all; it had taken twenty-four days. This he repeated many times, for everybody came and wished to hear. It was plain that many felt secretly ashamed, and wished that there would be time to redeem their reputations. There would be that!

For about then some one came out from headquarters and posted the translation of that quill of a cipher message, and a dense crowd gathered to see when the relief would march in. March in! The message from an English Consul ran:

"Your letter of the 4th July received. Twenty-four thousand troops landed and 19,000 at Tientsin. General Gaselee expected at Taku to-morrow; Russians at Pei-tsang. Tientsin city under foreign government. Boxer power exploded here. Plenty of troops on the way if you can keep yourselves in food. Almost all the ladies have left Tientsin."

I suppose it was cruel to laugh, but laugh I did with a few others. Never has a man been so abused as was that luckless English Consul who penned such a fatuous message. The spy had already marched our troops half way and more; even the pessimistic allowed that they must have started; an authentic message showed clearly that it was folly and imagination. We would have to have weeks more of it, perhaps even a whole month. The people wept and stormed, and soon lost all enthusiasm for the poor messenger boy who had been so brave.

Two hours afterwards I found him still fanning himself and cooling himself. He was quite alone; most people had rather he had never come. Yet the message has been heeded. The significant phrase is that we must keep ourselves in food. Ponies are running short; there is only sufficient grain for three weeks' rations; so if there is another month, it will be a fair chance that a great many die for lack of food. Lists are therefore being made of everything eatable there is, and all private supplies are to be commandeered in a few days. People are, of course, making false lists and hiding away a few things. If there is another month of it there will be some very unpleasant scenes--yes, some very unpleasant scenes.

XX

THE THIRD PHASE CONTINUES

30th July, 1900.

* * * * *

From the north that dull booming of guns ever continues. The Pei-t'ang is still closely besieged, and no news comes as to how long Monseigneur F----, with his few sailors and his many converts, can hold out, or why they are exempted from this strange armistice, which protects us temporarily. Nothing can be learned about them.

And yet our own armistice, in spite of Tsung-li Yamen despatches and the mutual diplomatic assurances, cannot continue for ever. Barricade building and mining prove that. To-day the last openings have been closed in on us for some curious reason, and the stretch of street which runs along under the pink Palace walls and across the Northern canal bridge has been securely fortified with a very powerful barricade. Outside the Water-Gate the Chinese sharpshooters have dug also a trench....

This last barricade was not built without some attempt on our part to stop such a menacing step, for we tried with all our might, by directing a heavy rifle-fire, and at last dragging the Italian gun and a machine-gun into position, to make the barricade-builders' task impossible. But it was all in vain, and now we are neatly encased in a vast circle of bricks and timber; we are absolutely enclosed and shut in, and we can never break through.

Of course this has been a violation of the armistice, for it was mutually agreed that neither side should continue offensive fortification work, or push closer, and that violation would entail a reopening of rifle and gun fire. We reopened our fire for a short interval, but little good that did us. We lost two men in the operation, for an Italian gunner was shot through the hand and made useless for weeks, and a volunteer was pinked in both shoulders, and may have to lose one arm. After that we stopped firing, for those bleeding men showed us how soon our defence would have melted away had we not even this questionable armistice.

Very soon there was a partial explanation of why this immense barricade had been built. Late in the afternoon Chinese troops began to stream past at a trot under cover of the structure. First there were only infantrymen, whose rifles and banners could just be seen from some of our lookout posts on the highest roofs. But presently came artillery and cavalry. Everybody could see those, although the men bent low. Unendingly they streamed past, until the alarm became general. Even in Peking, quite close to us, there were thousands of soldiery. When the others were driven in off the Tientsin road it would be our doom.

From the top of the Tartar Wall came the same reports. Our outposts saw nothing but moving troops picking their way through the ruins of the Ch'ien Men great street--troops moving both in and out, and accompanied by long tails of carts bearing their impedimenta. Yet it was impossible to trace the movements of the corps streaming past under cover of the newly built barricade. The flitting glimpses we got of them as they swarmed past were not sufficient to allow any identification. Perhaps they were passing out of the city; perhaps they were being massed in the Palace; perhaps.... Anything was possible, and, as one thought, imperceptibly the atmosphere seemed to become more stifled, as if a storm was about to break on us, and we knew our feebleness. Yet we are strong as we can ever be. The fortification work has gone on without a break. It has become unending....

XXI

MORE DIPLOMACY

31st July, 1900.

* * * * *

More despatches have been sent by our diplomats to the Tsung-li Yamen, complaining about all the ominous signs we see around us, and asking for explanations. Explanations--they are so easy to give! Every question has been promptly answered, even though the Yamen itself is probably only just managing to keep its head above the muddy waters of revolution which surge around. Listen to the replies. The sound of heavy guns we hear in the north of the city are due to the government's orders to exterminate the Boxers and rebels, who have been attacking the Pei-t'ang Cathedral and harassing the converts. The great barricade across the Northern canal bridge was built solely to protect the Chinese soldiery from the accuracy of our fire, which is greatly feared. As for the mining, our ears must have played us false. None is going on.

Such was the gist of the answers which have been promptly sent in. These answers and this correspondence give our diplomats satisfaction, I suppose, but most people think that they are making themselves more undignified than they have been ever since this storm broke on us. The Yamen can in any case do nothing; it is merely a consultative or deliberative body of no importance. Probably exactly the same type of despatches are being sent to the commanders of the relieving columns at Tientsin.

There being so little for the rank and file to do or talk about at the present moment, there is endless gossip and scandal going on. The subject of eggs is one of the most burning ones! Great numbers of eggs are being obtained by the payment of heavy sums to some of the more friendly soldiery around us, who steal in with baskets and sacks, and receive in return rolls of dollars, and these eggs are being distributed by a committee. Some people are getting more than others. Everybody professes tremendous rage because a certain lady with blue-black hair is supposed to have used a whole dozen in the washing of her hair! She is one of those who have not been seen or heard of since the rifles began to speak. There are lots of that sort, all well nourished and timorous, while dozens of poor missionary women are suffering great hardships. Several people who had relations in Paris thirty years ago tell me it was the same thing then, and that it will always be the same thing. This story of the eggs, however, has had one immediate result. People are hiding away more provisions and marking them off on their lists as eaten. What is the use of depriving one's self for the common good later on under such circumstances? What, indeed!

There is another sign which is not pleasing any one. An official diary is being now written up under orders of the headquarters. It will be full of our Peking diplomatic half-truths. But, worst of all, our only correspondent, M----, who was shot the other day and is getting convalescent, has been taken under the wing of our commander-in-chief, and his lips will be sealed by the time we get out--if ever we get out. With an official history and a discreet independent version, no one will ever understand what bungling there has been, and what culpability. It is our chicken-hearted chiefs, and they alone, who should be discredited. With a few exceptions, they are more afraid than the women, and never venture beyond the British Legation. Everything is left to the younger men, whose economic value is smaller! I hope I may live to see the official accounts....

XXII

THE WORLD BEYOND OUR BRICKS

2nd August, 1900.

* * * * *

A new month has dawned, and with it have come shoals of letters bringing us exact tidings from the outer world. Yesterday one messenger slipped in bearing three letters. To-day another has arrived with six missives--making nine letters in all for those who have had nothing at all except a couple of cipher messages for two entire months. Those nine letters meant as much to us as a winter's mail by the overland route in the old days....

For as each one confirms and adds to the news of the others, we can now form a complete and well-connected story of almost everything that has taken place. We even begin to understand why S---- and his two thousand sailors never reached us. There have been so many things doing.

But all minor details are forgotten in the fact that there is absolute and definite news of the relief columns--news which is repeated and confirmed nine times over and cannot be false this time. The columns were forming for a general advance as the letters were sent off. The advance guard was leaving immediately, the main body following two days later; and the whole of the international forces would arrive before the middle of the month of August. That is what the letters said. Also, the American Minister's cipher message had got through, and was now known to the entire world. Everybody's eyes were fixed on Peking. There was nothing else spoken of. That made us stronger than anything else. Poor human nature--we are so egotistical!

But there were other items of news. For the first time we learned that Tientsin has had a siege and bombardment of its own; that all Manchuria is in flames; that the Yangtse Valley has been trembling on the brink of rebellion; that Tientsin city has at last been captured by European troops and a provisional government firmly established; and that many of the high Chinese officials have committed suicide in many parts of China. It is curious what a shock all this news gave, and how many people behaved almost as if their minds had become unhinged. But then we have had two months of it, and in two months you can travel far. In the hospital it was noticed, too, that all the wounded became more sick.... It has been decided that any further news must be only gradually divulged, and that despatches which give absolute details can no longer be posted on the Bell-tower....

A network of ruined houses around the old Mongol market have just been seized and occupied by a volunteer force. This is the last weak spot there is--a half-closed gap, which could be rushed by bodies of men coming in from the Ch'ien Men Gate and ordered to attack us. This new angle of native houses are being sandbagged and loopholed. Both sides, defenders and attacking forces, are now as ready as possible. What is going to happen? I am mightily tired of speculating and of writing.

XXIII

TRIFLES

4th August, 1900.

* * * * *

There is now, and has been for the best part of the last forty-eight hours, outpost shooting on all sides, which remains quite unexplained. Listen how it happens.

You are sitting at a loophole, half asleep, perhaps, during the daytime, when crack! a bullet sends a shower of brick chips and a powder-puff of dust over your head. You swear, maybe, and quietly continue dozing. Then come two or three rifle reports and more dust. This time the thing seems more serious, it may mean something; so you reach for your glasses and carefully survey the scene beyond through your loophole. To remain absolutely hidden is the order of the day. So there is nothing much to be seen. Far away, and very near, lie the enemy's barricades, some running almost up to your own, but quite peaceful and silent, others standing up frowningly hundreds of yards off, monuments erected weeks ago. These latter are so distant that they are unknown quantities. Then just as you are about to give it up as a bad job, you see the top of a rifle barrel glistening in the sun. You ... bang! perilously near your glasses another bullet has struck. So you pull up your rifle by the strap, open out your loophole a little by removing some of the bricks, and carefully and slowly you send the answering message at the enemy's head. If you have great luck a faint groan or a distant shout of pain may reward your efforts; but you can never be quite sure whether you have got home on your rival or not. Loophole shooting is very tricky, and the very best shots fire by the hour in vain. I have seen that often....

Yesterday I directly disobeyed orders by opening the ball myself. I had been posted in the early morning very close to one of the enemy's banners--perhaps not more than forty feet away--and this gaudy flag, defiantly flapping so near the end of my nose, must have incensed me; for almost before I had realised what I was doing I was very slowly and very carefully aiming at the bamboo staff so as to split it in two and bring down the banner with a run. I fired three shots in ten minutes and missed in an exasperating fashion. It is the devil's own job to do really accurate work with an untested government rifle. But my fourth shot was more successful; it snapped the staff neatly enough, and the banner floated to the ground just outside the barricade.

This Chinese outpost must have been but feebly manned, as, indeed, all the outposts have been since the armistice, for it was fully ten minutes before anything occurred. Then an arm came suddenly over and pecked vainly at the banner. I snapped rapidly, missed, and the arm flicked back. Another five minutes passed, and then a piece of curved bamboo moved over the barricade and hunted about. It was no use, however, the arm had to come, too. I waited until the brown hand clasping the bamboo was low and then pumped a quick shot at it. A yell of pain answered me; the bamboo was dropped, the arm disappeared. I had drawn blood.

Nothing now occurred for a quarter of an hour, and I heard not a sound. Then suddenly half a dozen arms clasping bamboos appeared at different points, and as soon as I had fired six heads swooped out and directed this bamboo fishing. In a trice they had harpooned the flag, and before I could fire again it was back in their camp. I had been beaten! Then, as a revenge, I was steadily pelted with lead for more than half an hour and had to lie very low. They searched for me with their missiles with devilish ingenuity. This firing became so persistent that one of our patrols at last appeared and crept forward to me from the line of main works behind. Only by ingenious lying did I escape from being reported....

Probably incidents like this account for the outpost duels which are hourly proceeding, in spite of all the Tsung-li Yamen despatches and the unending mutual assurances. Many of our men shoot immediately they see a Chinese rifle or a Chinese head in the hopes of adding another scalp to their tale. In any case, this does no harm. It seems to me that only the resolution of the outposts, acting independently, and sometimes even in defiance to orders from headquarters, has kept the enemy so long at bay. The rifle distrusts diplomacy.

This diplomatic correspondence with the Yamen is rapidly accumulating. Many documents are now coming through from European Foreign Offices in the form of cipher telegrams, that are copied out by the native telegraphists in the usual way. No one is being told what is in these documents; we can only guess. The Yamen covers each message with a formal despatch in Chinese, generally begging the Ministers to commit themselves to the care of the government. They now even propose that everyone should be escorted to Tientsin--at once. And yet we have learned from copies of the _Peking Gazette_ that two members of the Yamen were executed exactly seven days ago for recommending a mild policy and making an immediate end of the Boxer _regime_. It is thus impossible to see how it will end. Our fate must ultimately be decided by a number of factors, concerning which we know nothing.

This breathing space is giving time, however, which is not being entirely wasted on our part. At several points we have managed to enter into secret relations with some of the Chinese commands, and to induce traitors to begin a secret traffic in ammunition and food supplies....

It is curious how it is done. By tunnelling through walls and houses in neglected corners, protected ways have been made into some of the nests of half-ruined native houses. And by spending many bags of dollars, friendship has first been bought and then supplies.

The Japanese have been the most successful. Instead of killing the soldier-spy, who had been selling them false news, they pardoned him and enlisted him in this new cause. He has been very useful, and arranged matters with the enemy....

The other night I crept out through the secret way to the Japanese supply house to see how it was done. There were only two little Japanese in there squatting on the ground, with several revolvers lying ready. A shaded candle just allowed you to distinguish the torn roof, the wrecked wooden furniture. Nobody spoke a word, and we all listened intently.

A full hour must have passed before a very faint noise was heard, and then I caught a discreet scratching. It was the signal. One of the little men got up and crawled forward to the door like a dog on his hands and knees. Then I heard a revolver click--a short pause, and the noise of a door being opened. Then there was a tap--tap--tap, like the Morse code being quietly played, and the revolver clicked down again. It was the right man. He, too, crawled in like a dog; got up painfully, as if he were very stiff, and silently began unloading. Then I understood why he was so stiff; he was loaded from top to bottom with cartridges.

It took a quarter of an hour for everything to be taken out and stacked on the floor. He had carried in close on six hundred rounds of Mauser ammunition, and for every hundred he received the same weight in silver. This man was a military cook, who crept round and robbed his comrades as they lay asleep, not a hundred yards from here. Of course, he will be discovered one day and torn to pieces, but I have just learned that by marvellous ingenuity and with the aid of a few of his fellows thousands of eggs have been brought in by him. It is a curious business, and adds yet another strange element to this strangest of lives.

XXIV

DIPLOMATIC CONFIDENCES

6th August, 1900.

* * * * *

Firing has been more persistent and more general during the last two days, although the armistice ostensibly still continues in the same way as before. A number of our men have been wounded, and two or three even killed during the past week. It is an extraordinary state of affairs, but better than a general attack all along the line. We have no right to complain. The day before yesterday several Russians were badly wounded; yesterday a Frenchman was killed outright and a couple of other men wounded; to-day three more have been hit. In spite of the discharges from the hospitals, the numbers _hors de combat_ remain the same.

To-day, too, trumpets are again blaring fiercely, and more and more troops can be seen moving if one looks down from the Tartar Wall. Up on the wall itself, however, all is dead quiet. It has been like that for weeks. No men have been lost there.

Neither is there any news of the thick relief columns which should be advancing from Tientsin. In spite of the shoals of letters I have duly recorded, assuring us of their immediate departure, the majority of us have again become rather incredulous about our approaching relief. It has become such a regular thing, this siege life, and all other kinds of life are somehow so far away and so impossible after what we have gone through, that we look upon the outer world as something mythical.... Some men have their minds a little unhinged; two are absolutely mad. One, a poor devil of a Norwegian missionary, who has been living in misery for years in a vain effort to make converts, became so dangerous long ago that he had to be locked up, and even bound. But one night he managed to escape, climb our defences and deliver himself up to the Chinese soldiery. They led him also to the Manchu Generalissimo, Jung Lu, half suspecting that he was crazy. Jung Lu questioned him closely as to our condition, and the Norwegian divulged everything he knew. He said the Chinese fire had been too high to do us very much harm; that they should drive low at us, and remember the flat trajectory of modern weapons. After keeping him for some hours and learning all he could, Jung Lu sent him back. The poor devil, when he lurched in again, vacantly told the people in the British Legation what he had said, and a number demanded that he be shot for treason. If they once began doing that an end would never be reached....

Some go mad, too, during the fighting. It is always those who have too much imagination. Thus, during a lull in the attacks against the French lines, a Russian volunteer, with rifle and bandolier across his back and a bottle of spirits in his hand, charged furiously at the Chinese barriers with insane cries. No effort could be made to save him, because hundreds of Chinese riflemen were merely waiting for an opportunity to pick off our men. So the doomed Russian reached the first Chinese barricade unmolested, put a leg over, and then fell back with a terrible cry as a dozen rifles were emptied into his body. By a miracle he picked himself up even in his dying condition, and made another frantic effort to climb the obstacle. But more rifles were then discharged, and finally the wretched man fell back quite lifeless. Then over his body a fierce duel took place. Chinese commanders having placed a price on European heads, these riflemen were determined not to lose their reward. Man after man attempted to drag in that dead body; but each time our men were too quick for them, and a Chinese brave rolled over. In the end they hooked the corpse in with long poles and it was seen no more.

A yet more blood-curdling case is that of a British marine, who has been hopelessly mad for weeks now. He shot and bayonetted a man in the early part of the siege, and the details must have horrified him. They say he first drove his bayonet in right up to the hilt through a soldier's chest; and then, without withdrawing, emptied the whole of the contents of his magazine into his victim, muttering all the time. Now he lies repeating hour after hour, "How it splashes! how it splashes!" and at night he shrieks and cries.... In that miserable Chancery hospital, swept by rifle-fire and full of such cries and groans, the nights have become dreaded, until it is a wonder the wounded still live....

Still, with all this, the Yamen messengers continue to come and go with clockwork regularity. Yesterday the Chinese Government excelled itself, and made some who have still a sense of humour left laugh cynically. In an original official despatch--that is, not a mere covering despatch--it politely informed the Italian _Charge d'Affaires_ that King Humbert had been assassinated by a lunatic, and it begged to convey the news with its most profound condolences! Perhaps, however, there was a wish to point a moral--a subtle moral such as Chinese scholars love. Yes, on second thoughts that was rather a clever despatch; in diplomacy the Chinese have nothing to learn....

XXV

THE PLOT AGAIN THICKENS

8th August, 1900.

* * * * *

Some strange deity is helping the Chinese Government. There is always something appropriate to write about. Yesterday the Duke of Edinburgh died. We were officially informed to that effect, after the King Humbert manner, and the condolences were great. Yesterday, also, during the evening, shelling suddenly commenced and the cannon-mouths that have been leering at us from a distance in dull curiosity at their inactivity have barked themselves hoarsely to life again. Thus, while diplomacy still continues, shrapnel and segment are plunging about. At times it really seems as if the Chinese Government had succeeded in dividing us up into two distinct categories. It has tried to save the diplomats from shells and bullets; since they remain with the others they must share their fate.

We listened to this cannonade with tightly pressed lips last night for an hour and more, and, lying low, watched the splinters fly; and then, just as the clamour appeared to be growing, it ceased as suddenly as it had commenced, and the uproarious trumpets, that we know so well, once more called off the attacking forces with their stentorian voices. It seems as if an internecine warfare had begun outside our lines--that the loosely jointed Chinese Government is also struggling with itself. Thus legs and arms thrash around for a while and cause chaos; then the brain reasserts its sway, and the limbs become quieted and reposeful for a time. Never will there be such a siege again. I am beginning to understand something of all its vast complexity, to know that everybody is at once guilty and innocent, and that a strange deity decrees that it must be so....

For while we are beginning to be attacked fitfully, other strange things have been observed from the Tartar Wall. There has been some fighting and shooting in the burned and ruined Ch'ien Men great street down below, and Chinese cavalry have been seen chasing and cutting down red-coated men. A species of Communism may in the end rise from the ashes of the ruined capital, or a new dynasty be proclaimed, or nothing may happen at all, excepting that we shall die of starvation in a few weeks....

The native Christians in the Su wang-fu are already getting ravenous with hunger, and are robbing us of every scrap of food they can garner up. Their provisioning has almost broken down, in spite of every effort, and the missionary committees and sub-committees charged with their feeding are beginning to discriminate, they say. These vaunted committees cannot but be a failure except in those things which immediately concern the welfare of the committees themselves. The feeble authority of headquarters, now that puny diplomacy has been so busy, has become more feeble than it was in the first days, and, like the Chinese Government, we, too, shall soon fall to pieces by an ungumming process. Native children are now dying rapidly, and two weeks more will see a veritable famine. The trees are even now all stripped of their leaves; cats and dogs are hunted down and rudely beaten to death with stones, so that their carcases may be devoured. Many of the men and women cling to life with a desperation which seems wonderful, for some are getting hardly any food at all, and their ribs are cracking through their skin. There is something wrong somewhere, for while so many are half starving, the crowds of able-bodied converts used in the fortification work are fairly well fed. Nobody seems to wish to pay much attention to the question, although many reports have been sent in. Perhaps, from one point of view, it is without significance whether these useless people die or not. Hardly any of the many non-combatant Europeans stir beyond the limits of the British Legation, even with this lull. All sit there talking--talking eternally and praying for relief, calculating our chances of holding out for another two or three weeks, but never acting. A roll, indeed, has been made at last, with every able-bodied man's name set down, and a distribution table drawn up. But beyond that no action has been taken, and the hundred and more men who might be added to our active forces are allowed to do nothing.

This might be all right were there not certain ominous signs around us, which show that a change must soon come. For the enemy has planted new banners on all sides of us, bearing the names of new Chinese generals unknown to us. Audaciously driven into the ground but twenty or thirty feet from our outposts, these gaudy flags of black and yellow, and many other colours, flaunt us and mock us with the protection assured by the Tsung-li Yamen. Still, those despatches continue to come in, but the first interpreter of the French Legation, who sees some of them in the original, says that their tone is becoming more surly and imperative.

It is ominous, too, that the Chinese commands, which have been so reinforced and are now of great strength, are so close to our outer line that they heave over heavy stones in order to maim and hurt our outposts without firing. All the outer barricades and trenches are being hurriedly roofed in to protect us from this new danger. One of our men, struck on the head with a twenty-pound stone, has been unconscious ever since, and a great many many others are badly hurt in other ways. The Chinese can be very ingenious devils if they wish, and the score against them is piling up more and more.

XXVI

MORE MESSENGERS

10th August, 1900.

* * * * *

At last some great news! Messengers from the relief columns have actually arrived, and the columns themselves are only a few days' march from Peking. What excitement there has been among the non-combatant community; what handshaking; what embracing; what fervent delight! This unique life is to end; we are to become reasonably clean and quite ordinary mortals again, lost among the world's population of fifteen hundred millions--undistinguished, unknown--that is, if the relief gets in....

The messengers came to us apparently from nowhere, walking in after the Chinese manner, which is quite nonchalantly, and with the sublime calm of the East. One of the first slid in and out of the enemy's barricades with immense effrontery at dawn, and then climbed the Japanese defences, and produced a little ball of tissue paper from his left ear. Fateful news contained so long in that left ear! It was a cipher despatch from General Fukishima, chief of the staff of the relieving Japanese columns. It said that the advance guard would reach the outskirts of Peking on the 13th or 14th, if all went well. Heavens, we all said, as we calculated aloud, that meant only three or four days more....

This news was soon duplicated, for hardly had the first excitement subsided when the news spread that a second messenger from the British General of the relieving forces had managed to force his way through. It was a confirmation, was his message; three or four days more.... But the messenger, when he spoke, had other things to say. He had been sent out by us a week before by being lowered by ropes from the Tartar Wall. Forty miles from Peking he had met Black cavalry and Russian cavalry miles in advance of the other soldiery. They had charged at him and captured him, and led him before generals and officers.... The roads leading to Peking were littered with wounded and disbanded Chinese soldiery; there had been much fighting, but the natives could not withstand the foreigner--that is what their compatriot said. Everybody was terrified by the Black soldiery from India; they had come in the same way forty years before....

So the relieving armies are truly rolling up on Peking. It seems incredible and unreal, but it is undoubtedly true, and it must be accepted as true....

As if goaded by the terrors conjured up by these avenging armies, which are now so close, the Tsung-li Yamen, in some last despatches, has informed our Plenipotentiaries that it is decapitating wholesale the soldiery that have been firing on us--that it wishes for personal interviews with all our Ministers to arrange everything, so that there may be no more misunderstandings later on. Vain hope! Numbers of documents are coming in, and every Minister wishes to write something in return--to show that with the return of normal conditions there will be a return of importance. Somehow it seems to me that not one of them can become important again in Peking. They have been too ridiculous--politically, they are already all dead.

XXVII

THE ATTACKS RESUMED

12th August, 1900.

* * * * *

All thoughts of relief have been pushed into the middle distance--and even beyond--by the urgent business we have now on hand. For the attacks have been suddenly resumed, and have been continuous, well sustained, and far worse than anything we have ever experienced before, even in the first furious days of the siege. What stupendous quantities of ammunition have been loosed off on us during the past forty-eight hours--what tons of lead and nickel! Some of our barricades have been so eaten away by this fire, that there is but little left, and we are forced to lie prone on the ground hour after hour, not daring to move and not daring to send reliefs at the appointed intervals. So intense has the rifle-fire been around the Su Wang-fu and the French Legation lines, that high above the deafening roar of battle a distinct and ominous snake-like hissing can be heard--a hiss, hiss, hiss, that never ceases. It is the high-velocity nickel-nosed bullet tearing through the air at lightning speed, and spitting with rage at its ill success in driving home on some unfortunate wretch. They hiss, hiss, hiss, hour after hour, without stopping; and as undertone to that brutal hiss there is the roll of the rifles themselves, crackling at us by the thousand like dry fagots. At first this storm of sound paralyses you a little; then a lust for battle gains you, and you steadily drive bullets through the Chinese loopholes in the hope of finding a Chinese face. Whenever they bunch and press forward we wither them to pieces.... But men are falling on our side more rapidly than we care to think--one rolled over on top of me two hours ago drilled through and through--and if anything should happen to the relieving columns and delay their arrival for only two or three days, this tornado of fire will have swept all our defenders into the hospitals. The Chinese guns are also booming again, and shrapnel and segment are tearing down trees and outhouses, bursting through walls, splintering roofs, and wrecking our strongest defences more and more. Just now one of our few remaining ponies was struck, and it was a pitiable sight, giving a bloody illustration of the deadly force of shell-fragments. The piece that struck this poor animal was not very big, but still it simply tore into his flank, and seemed to burst him in two. With his entrails hanging out and his agonised eyes mutely protesting, the pony staggered and fell. Then we despatched him with our rifles.

Our casualty list has now passed the two hundred mark, they say. In a few days more, fifty per cent. of the total force of active combatants will have been either killed or wounded.

During the lulls which occur between the attacks, when the Chinese soldiery are probably coolly refreshing themselves with tea and pipes and hauling away those who have succumbed, we hear from the north of the city the same dull booming of big guns, continuous, relentless, and never-tiring. It is the sound of the Chinese artillery ranged against the great fortified Roman Catholic Cathedral. When we have a few moments we can well picture to ourselves this valiant Bishop F----, with cross in hand, like some old-time warrior-priest, pointing to the enemy, and urging his spear-armed flocks to stand firm along the outer rim. We can also see, in the smoke and dust, the thin fringe of sailors who must be forming the mainstay of the defence. Perhaps, sprinkled along the compound walls, with harsh-speaking rifles in their hands, they are a sort of human incense, exorcising by their mere presence the devils in pagan hearts....

Scant time for thoughts; none for recording, as each hour shows more clearly what we may expect. Scarcely has the fire been stilled in one quarter than it breaks out with even greater violence in another, and we are hurried in small reinforcements from point to point. And from the positions on the Tartar Wall, which are now also dusted by a continually growing fire that would sweep our men off in a cloud of sandbags and brick-chips, the enemy's attacks can be best understood. The growing number of rifles being brought to bear on us; the violence and increasing audacity; the building of new barricades that press closer and closer to our own, and are now so near that they almost crush in our chests--are all clear from the reports sent down. The relief columns on the Tientsin road are driving in unwieldy Chinese forces on top of us, and this native soldiery is falling back on the capital to be remarshalled after a fashion--placed on the city walls or flung against us in a despairing attempt to kill us all, and remove the Thing which is making the relieving columns advance so quickly. Crazy with fear, and with ghosts of the chastisement of 1860 etched on every column of dust raised by their retreating soldiery, the Chinese Government is acting like one possessed.

To-day I saw it all beautifully, with the aid of the best glasses we have got. First came bodies of infantry trotting hurriedly in their sandals and glancing about them. In the dust and the distance they seemed to have lost all formation--to be mere broken fragments. But once a man stopped, looked up at us, a mere dot in the ruined streets hundreds and hundreds of yards away, and then savagely discharged his rifle at us. He knew we were on the Tartar Wall, and so sent his impotent curses at us through a three-foot steel tube.... Behind such men were long country carts laden with wounded and broken men, and driven by savage-looking drivers, powdered with our cursed dust and driving standing up with voice and whip alone. The teams of ponies were all mud-stained and tired, and moved very slowly away; and their great iron-hooped wheels clanked discordantly over the stone-paved ways. Sometimes a body of cavalry, with gaudy banners in the van and the men flogging on their steeds with short whips, have also ridden by escaping from the rout. Infantry and horsemen, wounded in carts and wounded on foot, flow back into the city through the deserted and terror-stricken streets, and it is we who shall suffer. So much of this has been understood by everybody, that an order has been privately given that no one is to be allowed on the Tartar Wall, excepting the regular reliefs. There is in any case no time for most of us to creep up there and look on the city below; we are tied to the barricades and trenches down in the flat among the ruins, chained to our posts by a never-ending rifle-fire.

XXVIII

THE THIRTEENTH

13th August, 1900.

* * * * *

It is the 13th, that fateful number, and there are some who are divided between hope and fear. Is it good to hope on a 13th, or is it mere foolishness to thing about such things? Who knows?--for we have become unnatural and abnormal--subject to atavistic tendencies in thought and action.... Most people are keeping their thoughts to themselves, but actions cannot be hidden. You would not believe some of the things....

There has not been a sign or a word from the relief column for many hours. The fleeing Chinese soldiery we witnessed in such numbers yesterday entering the city have stopped rushing in, and now from the Tartar Wall the streets below in the outer city seem quite silent and deserted. Last night, too, it was seen that the line of the enemy's rifles packed against us was so continuous, and the spacing so close, that one continuous flame of fire ripped round from side to side and deluged us with metal. So heavy was this firing, so crushing, that it was paralysing. Any part broken into would have been irretrievably lost. The bullets and shells struck our walls and defences in great swarms sometimes several hundred projectiles swishing down at a time. There must have been ten or twelve thousand infantry firing at us and fifteen guns. Where I lay, with a post of sixteen men, there were more than five hundred riflemen facing us, at distances varying from forty feet to four hundred yards. Every ruined house outside the fringe of our defence has now been converted into a blockhouse by the persistent enemy. Every barricade we have built has a dozen other barricades opposing it in parallels, in chessboards, in every kind of formation; and from these barricades the fire poured in since the 10th--that is, for sixty long hours--has only ceased at rare intervals. Our stretcher-parties have been very busy, but how many men we have lost since the armistice was deliberately broken no one knows. Yesterday a French captain, a gallant officer, who feared nothing, was shot dead through the head, making the ninth officer killed or severely wounded since the beginning. Yesterday, also, the new Mongol market defences trembled on the brink hour after hour, and with them the fate of three thousand heads. New Chinese troops armed with Mannlicher carbines, the handiest weapons for barricade fighting, had been pushed up behind a veil of light entrenchments to within twenty feet of the Mongol market posts, and their fire was so tremendous that it drove right through our bricks and sandbags. God willed that just as the final rush was coming a Chinese barricade gave way; our men emptied their magazines with the rapidity of despair into the swarms of Chinese riflemen disclosed; dozens of them fell killed and wounded, and the rest were driven back in disorder. Ten seconds more would have made them masters of our positions. The closeness of this final agony was such that squads of reserves, who had not fired a shot during the siege, voluntarily went forward to the threatened points and lay there the whole night. At last it has been driven home on all that our fate hangs in the balance, and has hung in the balance for weeks. But it is too late now. If a single link in our chain is broken there will be a _sauve qui pent_ which no heroism can stop.

XXIX

THE NIGHT OF THE THIRTEENTH

14th August, 1900.

* * * * *

All yesterday the fire hardly diminished in violence, and more and more of our men were hit.... The Chinese commanders, having learned of the loss of a Chinese general and a great number of his men at the Mongol market, have been having their revenge by giving us not a minute's rest. Up to six o'clock yesterday evening I had been continually on duty for forty-eight hours, with a few minutes' sleep during the lulls. At six in the evening I stretched out. At half-past eight the pandemonium had risen to such a pitch that sleep without opiates was impossible. All round our lines roared and barked Mausers, Mannlichers, jingals, and Tower muskets, every gun that could be brought to bear on us firing as fast and as fiercely as possible in a last wild effort. The sound was so immense, so terrifying, that many could hardly breathe. Against the barricades, through half-blocked loopholes, and on to the very ground, myriads of projectiles beat their way, hissing and crashing, ricochetting and slashing, until it seemed impossible any living thing could exist in such a storm.

It was the night of the 13th. Not a word had been heard of the relief columns, not a message, not a courier had come in. But could anything have dared to move to us? Even the Tsung-li Yamen, affrighted anew at this storm of fire which it can no longer control, had not dared or attempted to communicate with us. We were abandoned to our own resources. At best we would have to work out our own salvation. Was it to be the last night of this insane Boxerism, or merely the beginning of a still more terrible series of attacks with massed assaults pushed right home on us? In any case, there was but one course--not to cede one inch until the last man had been hit. All the isolated post-commanders--I had risen to be one--decided that on us hinged the fate of all. The very idea of a supreme command watching intelligently and overseeing every spot of ground was impossible. It had been a war of post-commanders and their men from the beginning; it would remain so to the bitter end. A siege teaches you that this is always so.

By ten o'clock every sleeping man had been pulled up and pushed against the barricades. Privately all the doubtful men were told that if they moved they would be shot as they fell back. Everywhere we had been discovering that in the pitch dark many could hardly be held in place. By eleven o'clock the fire had grown to its maximum pitch. It was impossible that it could become heavier, for the enemy was manning every coign of vantage along the entire line, and blazing so fiercely and pushing in so close that many of the riflemen must have fallen from their own fire. From the great Tartar Wall to the Palace enclosure, and then round in a vast jagged circle, thousands of jets of fire spurted at us; and as these jets pushed closer and closer, we gave orders to reply steadily and slowly. Twice black bunches of men crept quickly in front of me, but were melted to pieces. By twelve o'clock the exhaustion of the attackers became suddenly marked. The rifles, heated to a burning pitch, were no longer deemed safe even by Chinese fatalists; and any men who had ventured out into the open had been so severely handled by our fire that they had no stomach for a massed charge. Trumpet calls now broke out along the line and echoed pealingly far and near. The riflemen were being called off.

But hardly had the fire dropped for ten or fifteen minutes than it broke out again with renewed vigour. Fresh troops lying in reserve had evidently been called up, and by one o'clock the tornado was fiercer than ever. Our men became intoxicated by this terrible clamour, and many of them, infuriated by splinters of brick and stone that broke off in clouds from the barricades and stung us from head to foot, sometimes even inflicting cruel wounds, could no longer be held in check. By two o'clock every rifle that could be brought in line was replying to the enemy's fire. If this continued, in a couple of hours our ammunition would be exhausted, and we would have only our bayonets to rely on. I passed down my line, and furiously attempted to stop this firing, but it was in vain. In two places the Chinese had pushed so close, that hand-to-hand fighting had taken place. This gives a lust that is uncontrollable.... Everything was being taken out of our hands....

Suddenly above the clamour of rifle-fire a distant boom to the far east broke on my ears, as I was shouting madly at my men. I held my breath and tried to think, but before I could decide, boom! came an answering big gun miles away. I dug my teeth into my lips to keep myself calm, but icy shivers ran down my back. They came faster and faster, those shivers.... You will never know that feeling. Then, boom! before I had calmed myself came a third shock; and then ten seconds afterwards, three booms, one, two, three, properly spaced. I understood, although the sounds only shivered in the air. It was a battery of six guns coming into action somewhere very far off. It must be true! I rose to my feet and shook myself. Then, in answer to the heavy guns, came such an immense rolling of machine-gun fire, that it sounded faintly, but distinctly, above the storm around us. Great forces must be engaged in the open....

I had been so ardently listening to these sounds that the enemy's fire had imperceptibly faded away in front of me unnoticed, until it had become almost completely stilled. Single rifles now alone cracked off; all the other men must be listening too--listening and wondering what this distant rumble meant. Far away the Chinese fire still continued to rage as fiercely--but near us, by some strange chance, these distant echoes had claimed attention.

Again the booming dully shook the air. Again the machine-guns beat their replying rataplan. Now every rifle near by suddenly was stilled, and a Chinese stretcher-party behind me murmured, "_Ta ping lai tao liao_"--"the armies arrived." Somebody took this up, and then we began shouting it across in Chinese to our enemy, shouting it louder and louder in a sort of ecstasy, and heaving heavy stones to attract their attention. We must have become quite crazy, for my throat suddenly gave out, and I could only speak in an absurd whisper.... Oh, what a night!...

Behind the barricades facing us we could now distinctly hear the Chinese soldiery moving uneasily and muttering excitedly to one another. They had understood that it must be the last night of Boxerism, so we threw more stones and shouted more taunts. Then, as if accepting the challenge, a rifle cracked off, a second one joined it, a third, a fourth, and soon the long lines blazed flames and ear-splitting sounds again. But it was the last night--this did not matter--assuredly it was the last night, and from our posts we despatched the first news to headquarters to report that heavy guns had been heard to the east....

Presently, going back during a lull to see ammunition brought up, I found that inside our lines the women and children had all risen, and were craning their necks to catch the distant sounds which had been so long in coming. All night long the buildings in the Su wang-fu, which are packed with native Christians, had been filled with the sound of praying. The elders appointed to watch over this vast flock had been warned that perhaps they would all have to retreat to the base at the last minute, and that all must remain ready during the night and none sleep. As soon as it was possible, they were told that the relief was coming--that the end was near.... What a sight it was to see them all grouped together, for they had scrupulously obeyed orders! In one great hall five hundred Roman Catholic women and children in sober blue gowns were sitting patiently and silently, with their hands folded--had been sitting so all the long night, waiting to hear any news or orders that might be brought to them. Relief or retreat, massacre or deliverance--all must be taken with the stoicism of the East. A single lamp cast its dim rays over these people; and a hundred feet farther on were other halls and buildings, all filled to overflowing with these waiting miserables. A word would have sent them surging back across the dry Imperial Canal--to seek safety for a few hours in our base. Would it have been safety? An immense flood of feeling overwhelmed me....

So the night passed uneasily away, but no more distant sounds were heard, and in the end we began to wonder whether our ears after this strain of weeks had not played us false.

XXX

HOW I SAW THE RELIEF

14th August, 1900.

* * * * *

Day broke, after that tremendous night, in a somewhat shambling and odd fashion. Exhausted by so much vigilance and such a strain, we merely posted a scattered line of picquets and threw ourselves on the ground. It was then nearly five o'clock, and with the growing light everything seemed unreal and untrue. There was not a sound around us; there was going to be no relief, and we had been only dreaming horrid dreams--that was the verdict of our eyes and looks. There was but scant time, however, for thinking, even if one could have thought with any sense or logic. The skies were blushing rosier and rosier; a solitary crow, that had lived through all that storm, came from somewhere and began calling hoarsely to its lost mates. We were dead with sleep; we would sleep, or else....

I awoke at eleven in the morning sick as a beaten dog. The sun beating hotly down, and a fierce ray had found its way through the branches of my protecting tree and had been burning the back of my neck. The Eastern sun is a brute; when it strikes you long in a tender spot, it can make you sicker than anything I know of. Arousing ourselves, we got up all of us gruntingly; reposted the sentries; drank some black tea; made a faint pretence at washing; and finding all dead quiet and not a trace of the enemy, sauntered off for news. Not a word anywhere, not a sound, not a message. Everybody was standing about in uneasy groups, from the French and German lines to the northern outposts of the British Legation. Where the devil were our relieving columns?

From the Tartar Wall we scanned the horizon with our glasses. Not a soul afoot--nothing. Was all the world still asleep, tired from the night's debauch, or was it merely the end of everything? As time went on, and the silence around us was uninterrupted, we became more and more nervous. In place of the storm of fire which had been raging for so many hours this unbroken calm was terrible; for far worse than all the tortures in the world is the one of a solitary silent confinement.

At one o'clock I could stand it no longer. Getting leave to take out a skirmishing party, I called for volunteer and got six men and two Chinese scouts. At half-past one we slid over the Eastern Su wang-fu barricades--near where the messengers are sent from--and scurried forward into the contested territory beyond. Working cautiously in a long line, we beat the ground thoroughly; approached the enemy's flanking barricades; peered over in some trepidation, and found the Chinese riflemen gone. Every soul had fled. Something had most certainly happened somewhere. This quiet was becoming more and more eloquent....

We abandoned our cover, and boldly taking to the brick-littered street, climbed over fortifications which had shut us in for so long. Not a sound or a living thing. On the ground, however, there were many grim evidences of the struggle which had been so long proceeding. Skulls picked clean by crows and dogs and the dead bodies of the scavenger-dogs themselves dotted the ground; in other places were pathetic wisps of pigtails half covered with rubbish, broken rifles, rusted swords, heaps of brass cartridges--all proclaiming the bitterness with which the warfare had been waged in this small corner alone. Eagerly gazing about us, we slowly pushed on, drinking in all these details with eager eyes. How sweet it is to be an escaped prisoner even for a few short minutes!

In a quarter of an hour we had cleared the ground intervening between our defences and the long-abandoned Customs Street--perhaps a couple of hundred yards; and peering about us, we at last jumped over the French barricade, where our first man had been shot dead two months ago. Two months--it might have been two years! Still there was not a sound. Nothing but acres of ruins. Forward.

Splitting into two sections, we began working down Customs Street towards the Austrian Legation, tightly hugging the walls and expecting a surprise every moment. Suddenly, as we were going along in this cautious manner, a tall, gaunt Chinaman started up only twenty feet from us, where he had been lying buried in the ruins. Our rifles went up with a leap, and "Master," cried the man, running towards me with outstretched arms, "master, save me; I am a carter of the foreign Legations, and have only just escaped." He pulled up his blue tunic, this strange apparition, and showed me underneath his scapula. He was of Roman Catholic family; there was no time to investigate; he was all right. Telling him to join us, we marched on. We progressed another fifty yards, and then there was a scuffle. I looked round, and our Catholic had disappeared. Were we trapped? Just as I was calling out, he reappeared; this time he was bearing a rifle and a bandolier. This was disconcerting. "I saw the man," he began calmly, "and with my hands I killed him by pulling on the throat--thus." He made a horrid pantomime with his hands. Behind a wall we found the red and black tunic of a Chinese soldier, the sash and the boots, but of a corpse there was no sign. I was glad I understood. "What do you mean by deceiving me?" I sternly asked the carter. "These are yours, and it was you who were fighting against us." The man fell on his knees, and confessed then and there without subterfuge. He had been captured, he said and imprisoned weeks ago by a Chinese commander, who had threatened to break the bones of his legs unless he enlisted against us. So he had joined and had been fighting for a month. Last night, as soon as the big guns had been heard, he deserted, and had lain where we found him for fifteen hours, waiting for our advances, and may his legs be broken if he lied. I paused in doubt for a minute; then I made up my mind--we let him follow! The odds were in any case against him.

As we moved stealthily forward we came on more and more fortifications. A formidable blockhouse had been constructed by dragging out big steel safes, looted from the various European offices in this abandoned area, and building them into a thick half-moon of stone and brick, making a shell-proof defence. On the ground brass cartridge-cases and broken straps and weapons were littered more and more thickly, but of any sign of life there was absolutely none. Absolute stillness reigned around us. We might have been in a city abandoned for dozens of years....

Past this blockhouse we crept more and more cautiously, beating the ground thoroughly, and wasting many minutes to make sure that no riflemen lurked in the ruins which covered the ground. Our new recruit had shown us how easily we could be trapped. Loopholes squinted at us from countless low-lying barricades roughly made by heaping bricks and charred timbers together. They had feared our sorties evidently as much as we had their rushes, had these Chinese soldiers. Their fortified lines were hundreds of feet deep.

We were now down near the abandoned Austrian Legation, and, rapidly trotting forward in Indian file under cover of the high encircling wall, we at last reached the main entrance. This was debatable ground. I looked round the corner with one cautious eye, and even as I did so, a shadow rushed along the ground.... Instantly I snapped off my rifle from my hip, the others followed suit, and a howl of canine rage answered us. We had rolled over a wolfish dog searching for dead bodies. Before we had time to realise much, the savage animal was up again and rushing at us--to escape through the gate. As it passed, we clubbed and bayonetted him with neatness, for we have now some art in close-quarter work, and with a last howl the animal's life flickered out. Dogs are highly dangerous, as we knew to our cost; they give the alarm in a way which no living man, even in these civilised days, can fail to understand. We waited in some anguish to see whether this scuffle had been heard; we were a quarter of a mile away from our own lines by the circuitous route we had been forced to take, and if we were ambuscaded, no one would probably go back to tell the tale....

Still not a sound, not a word. A little encouraged, we crept more valiantly into the Austrian Legation, and stood amazed at the spectacle. Rank-growing weeds covered the ground two or three feet high; all the houses and residences had been gutted by fire, everything combustible burned, leaving a terrible litter. But the brickwork and stonework stood almost intact, and the tall Corinthian pillars with which it had been the architect's fancy to adorn this mission of His Most Catholic Majesty, stood up white and chaste in all this scene of devastation and ruin; they might have dated from centuries ago. Broken weapons, thousands more of brass cartridges, and sometimes even a soldier's bloodstained tunic could be seen among the weeds. This must have been the site of another camp of Chinese soldiery. Abandoned straw matting showed where rough huts had once been built line upon line. But all these hosts had flown.

We now held a council of war. What should we do--push on or go back? It seemed highly dangerous, but suddenly making up my mind, I cut short all deliberations and ordered an advance. To feel for the enemy, to get in touch with the enemy at all costs, and to scratch him if possible, is evidently the scout's duty, even when the scout is but a siege amateur, with broken trousers, a mud-stained shirt and a battered rifle. But we must make ourselves secure. We bolted the big gates behind us; we sweatily piled up sufficient bricks to make its opening a matter of minutes for an enemy's hand, and then we once again trotted forward. This time we were irrevocably inside the Legation, and separated, perhaps, for good and all from our own people....

We rapidly covered the ground until we reached the extreme eastern corner of the vast enclosing Legation wall. Very recently there had been some one just here for a fire was still smouldering on the ground, and in some earthenware bowls there was some cold rice. We must see what was beyond....

The big recruit lent me his broad shoulder, and with some struggling I caught the edge of an outhouse roof and hitched myself astride of the main wall. Still nothing to be seen except ruined and battered houses; again not a soul, not a dog, not a vestige of life. The others came up, too, and we rapidly improvised a ladder to get down the other side and back again if necessary.

We were busily at work completing these preparations when suddenly the big recruit grabbed me unceremoniously by the shoulder and uttered a single word in a hoarse tone of excitement. "Look," he said; "look!" I looked, and far down the street below us towards where lay the Palace and the Imperial city, I saw a figure rapidly moving. A pair of binoculars were pulled out and brought to bear. It was a Chinese soldier!

We flattened ourselves on the top of the wall like so many crawling snails, pushed out our rifles in front of us, and at four hundred yards we most foolishly opened on the man. By instinct and experience, we had all learned much in two months; yet in a moment of excitement everything was being rapidly unlearned....

It takes some shooting to get home on a flickering figure, dodging along a street with irregular lines, at that range, and I confess we drew no blood. But still loophole shooting must spoil open-air work, otherwise at that range.... The man had paused irresolutely as the stream of bullets had hissed past him, and had then run violently into a doorway. Presently, as we intently watched, his head emerged, then his whole body; and, finally dodging quickly in and out, he gained a cross-road and disappeared. What did this mean?

It did not take long to learn, for just as we had finished swearing at our ill luck, other figures began to appear in the same direction, and as they ran we could see that they were throwing down their things. It seemed plain now; these must be deserters slipping out of the Imperial city and the Palace enclosures and fleeing rapidly to escape some fate. Something must have certainly happened somewhere, although there was still nothing to be heard, except perhaps a distant movement in the air, which might mean the rattle of musketry. Sometimes we could hear that faint suggestion of sound, sometimes we could not; it was impossible to say what it was.

Running gives Dutch courage, so we dropped from our wall, and we, too, began running--towards the deserters. Most foolish scouts were we becoming. The first band of fugitives saw us and bolted to the north, one man loosing off his rifle at us as he ran, and his bullet making an ugly swish in the air just above our heads. It was that Chinese hip-shot which is practised with jingal and matchlock in the native hunting, and which these Northern Chinese can with difficulty unlearn. As that swish reached us we pressed forward even more eagerly, and soon had debouched once more on the long Customs Street--this time many hundreds of yards higher up than we had ever been before. Flattening ourselves on the ground, and barricading our heads with bricks, we waited in silence for more of the enemy to appear. We were now admirably and safely posted.

It was some time before any more of them were to be seen, but at last, in twos and threes, other soldiers appeared, running hurriedly, and looking quickly about them, as if they expected to be shot down. This time they were men of many corps, whose uniforms we could almost make out at this short distance, and as they ran many of them threw off their tunics and loosened their leggings. This meant open and flagrant desertion. Just as I was about to give the order to fire a volley, a dense mass of men, in close formation, came out of a great building leaning up against the pink Palace walls and started marching rapidly towards us. Then as soon as they reached a cross-road five hundred yards away, they bent quickly due north and disappeared in a cloud of dust. What did this fleeing to the north of the city and this ominous quiet mean? What in the name of all that is extraordinary was happening to cause these strange doings?

There was little time for reflection, however, for like some theatre of the gods new scenes began to unroll. Soon other bodies of troops appeared and disappeared, always heading away there towards the north, always marching rapidly with hurried looks cast around them. Now safe in the knowledge that a general retreat was taking place from this quarter, we started volleying savagely. Bunched together in twos and threes, the enemy offered an easy mark, and with a callousness born of long privations we dropped at least fifteen or twenty men in very few minutes. Lying flat on the ground our angles soon grew fixed on to our rifle-sights, and at one house-corner four hundred yards away, six times I made the same shot and dropped a deserter. But this heavy firing must have attracted attention, for lead began to pelt at us from hidden places, and soon this little action became very warm. It was a curious experience....

It was now three in the afternoon, and, excepting for this unexplained movement of Chinese troops, we had not discovered any sign of our relief. Our volleying was becoming nonsensical, for having picked up numbers of Chinese Mauser cartridges, we amused ourselves firing away almost all the ammunition we carried. This could not continue indefinitely. So once more I drew my men together, and once again we scurried away, changing our direction to due east towards the great Ha-ta Gate. We were becoming callous, now that we knew there was small possibility of our being cut off, and half a mile from home meant nothing to us.

We had almost reached the Ha-ta great street, and were beginning to feel that by some strange chance we had half the city to ourselves, when a furious galloping gave us a timely signal, and made us shrink into a native house, the doorway of which had been beaten in by marauders. We were just in time, for no sooner had we disappeared than a body of Manchu cavalry came rapidly past, flogging their ponies, and shouting excitedly to one another as they passed. At their head were a number of high officials, and our new recruit whispered in a hoarse voice that an old man was no other than Jung Lu, the Manchu Generalissimo, who had command of everything. But whether this was actually so or not, there could be no doubt about the soldiery. They were _ch'in ping_, or body-guard troops, in sky-blue tunics, and this retirement was the most significant of all. There was now not a shadow of doubt.

We waited patiently in some trepidation, until the sound of these galloping hoofs had died away completely and then peering out and finding the coast clear, we ran for it as hard as we could leg. Faster and faster we spun along; we were not as safe as we thought, Three minutes brought us back again on Customs Street, and, panting sorely from this unaccustomed exertion, we looked around. Here there was now not a single sound, not the sight of a single man.

For many minutes nothing again occurred, but at length more Chinese troops began to appear, all running rapidly in long flights, and a troop of cavalry came out of a side street not more than two hundred yards away from where we lay, and headed away at a furious gallop. Everybody was obviously making for the north of the city; what was going on in the other quarters to cause this exodus? The cavalry, as they moved in close formation, were so tempting, that without hesitation once more our rifles rang out in a well-knit volley. That caused a terrible commotion, for cavalry are an easy mark. Ponies broke away and galloped frantically into side streets; there was a waving and a mix-up which blurred everything, and yet before we had time to realise it, bullets were hissing all round us and kicking up little spurts of dust a few inches from our bodies; a resolute commander was in front of us. This firing became so violent that we were driven to take shelter, and as we ran and were seen the bullets hissed quicker and quicker. Then as suddenly as it had commenced this pelting ceased; we saw our cavalrymen flicker away in the distance, and once more everything was absolutely quiet. It was obvious that something so urgent was taking place, that no one had any time to lose in pranks.

Many minutes elapsed before we noticed any fresh signs of life, and we remained spread across the street on our stomachs, earnestly searching in vain for some explanation. At last, when I was becoming tired of it, figures began to move on the long street again--little indecisive blue dots that jerked forward, halted, appeared and disappeared in a most curious way. They were also coming towards us--jerking about like people possessed. Climbing a wall, I brought my glasses to bear; they were ordinary townspeople, there was not a shadow of doubt about that, men, women, and children, running violently, waving and calling to one another, and apparently much distressed.

I remained on this wall-top idly gazing until my vision began to become blurred, and I could no longer see. Then something made me close my eyes for a second to regain command over them again; and when I opened them and looked again through that powerful Leiss, my jaw dropped. This time, with a vengeance, it was something new. Dense bodies of men in white tunics and dark trousers were debouching into the street, thousands of yards away, and were then marching due east--that is, towards the Palace. They came on and on, until it seemed they would never cease. What were these newcomers? Were they white troops at last--were they Bannermen of the white Banners?...

They might be anything--anything in the world--but they might be....

Yes, without a doubt they might be ordinary Russian infantry of the line. Russian infantry of the line! It was imperative to learn.

I clambered off the wall and decided at once on a grim test. All of us pushed up our flaps to the extreme range and gave four sharp volleys--the eight rifles crashing off jarringly together. As we were preparing to give them the last cartridge on the clips, the white specks we could just see with the naked eye stopped and flickered away. Then as we waited there was a moment's silence; a little vapour spurted up far away, and bang! a shell whizzed, and burst two hundred yards to our rear. That was an immense surprise! But now we had no doubts; these were European troops; the relief must have come; it was all over, we must communicate the news....

Before our ideas had grouped themselves coherently, we found ourselves bolting home--bolting like madmen. We charged clear down the middle of the streets, with a disregard for everything; we headed straight as arrows for the French lines, right through the heart of the most formidable Chinese works, where but twelve hours before furious attacks had been developed. We tore through hundreds of feet of trenches, barricades, saps, half-opened tunnels, where everything was scored and beaten by the riotous passage of nickel and lead. We vaguely saw, as we rushed, lines of mat huts, broken walls, charred timbers, countless brass cartridge cases, gaping holes--all the wreckage left by these weeks of insane warfare. But of living things there was not a trace.

Beating our way rapidly forward, we at length passed through those death-strewn French Legation lines, and reached our own last barricades, where the defence had been driven. Supposing that our men were still behind them, we violently shouted that we were friends. Nobody answered us.

Curiously alarmed, we clambered forward more and more quickly, and at last near the fortified little Hotel de Pekin a confused sound of voices arose from a stoutly fortified quadrangle. Then as we drew nearer the voices grew, until they framed themselves into half-suppressed cheers--a multitude of men uneasily greeting and calling to one another. At least, we had not been abandoned I put my leg up to swarm over a wall, and suddenly a thick smell greeted my nostrils, a smell I knew, because I had smelt it before, and yet a smell which belonged to another world.... With tremendous heart-beating, I looked over. It was the smell of India! Into this quadrangle beyond hundreds of native troops were filing and piling arms. They were Rajputs, all talking together, and greeting some of our sailors and men, and demanding immediately _pane, pane, pane_ all the time in a monotonous chorus. I could not understand that word. The relief had come; this must be some sections of an advance guard which had been flung forward, and had burst in unopposed....

We hurried forward in a sort of daze and looked for officers, to ask them how they had come, and whether it was all right. We found a knot of them standing-together, wiping the sweat from their streaming faces, and calling for water. They wanted to go to the British Legation; not to this place--what was it; where was the British Legation? In the heat and smell and excitement those continuous questions made one confused and angry. This advance guard which had rushed in could not understand our all-split area; yet it had been the saving of us. I told them where the British Legation was. I told them to follow me; I was going to run.

I ran on, once more choking a little, and with a curious desire to weep or shout or make uncouth noises. I was now terribly excited. I remember I kicked my way through barricades with such energy that once for my foolishness I came crashing down, my rifle loosing off of its own account and the bullet passing through my hat. I did not care; the relief had come. It was an immense occasion and I had not been there to see it.

Along the dry canal-bed, as I ran out of the Legation Street, I noted without amazement that tall Sikhs were picking their way in little groups, looking dog-tired. But they were very excited, too, and waved their hands to me as I ran, and called and cried with curious intonations. Pioneers, smaller men, in different turbans, were already smashing down our barricades, and clearing a road, and from the west, the Palace side, a tremendous rifle and machine-gun fire was dusting endlessly. I rushed into the British Legation through the canal open-cut, and here they were, piles and piles of Indian troops, standing and lying about and waving and talking. A British general and his staff were seated at a little table that had been dragged out, and were now drinking as if they, too, had been burned dry with thirst. Around all our people were crowding a confused mass of marines, sailors, volunteers, Ministers--everyone. Many of the women were crying and patting the sweating soldiery that never ceased streaming in. People you had not seen for weeks, who might have, indeed, been dead a hundred times without your being any the wiser, appeared now for the first time from the rooms in which they had been hidden and acted hysterically. They were pleased to rush about and fetch water and begin to tell their experiences. All that day, I was told, these hidden ones had taken a sudden interest in the hospital; had roused themselves from their lethargy and fright, because the end was coming. Now....

As we stood about, twisting our fingers and cheering, and trying to find something sensible to say or to do, there was a rush of people towards the lines connecting with the American Legation and the Tartar Wall This caused another tremendous outburst of cheering and counter-cheering, and led by C----, the American Minister, columns of American infantry in khaki suits and slouch hats came pressing in. In they came--more and more men, until the open squares were choking with them. These men were more dog-tired than the Indian troops, and their uniforms were stained and clotted with the dust and sweat flung on them by the rapid advance. Soon there was such confusion and excitement that all order was lost, until the Americans began filing out again, and the native troops were pushed to the northern line of defences. In the turmoil and delight everything had been temporarily forgotten, but the growing roar of rifles had at length called attention to the fact that there might be more fierce fighting. Every minute added to the din, and soon the ceaseless patter of sound showed machine-guns were firing like fury. Somebody called out to me that there was a fine sight to be seen from the Tartar Wall, for those who did not mind a few more bullets; and, enticed by the storm of sound that rose ever higher and higher, I ran hastily through our lines towards the city bastions. Every street and lane from the Ch'ien Men Gate was now choked with troops of the relieving column, all British and American, as far as I could see, and already the pioneers attached to each battalion were levelling our rude defences to the ground in order to facilitate the passage of the guns and transport waggons.... Strange cries smote one's ears--all the cursing of armed men, whose discipline has been loosened by days of strain and the impossibility of manoeuvring. One word struck me and clung to me again; everybody among the Indian troops was crying it: "_Chullo, chullo, chullo_," they were calling.

The general advance, which had been from the outer city, as soon as the news had been brought through that a way to the Legations had been opened, had thrown the various units into an immense confusion. Infantry, cavalry, artillery, and the fighting trains, were all mixed in a terrible tangle. Some had come forward so rapidly, in their eagerness not to be left out of it all, that they had passed in under the walls as soon as the gates had been burst open, and had now got jammed into our narrow streets and were unable to move. Just under the ramp of the Tartar Wall I came on some Indian cavalry--about thirty or forty troopers covered with mud and dirt, and led by a single British officer. As soon as the latter caught sight of me, he shouted an angry question as to what all this firing meant, and how in h---- he could get out of this into the open.... He rained his questions at me like the others had done, never waiting for an answer. The firing, in all truth, had increased enormously, and now rang out with a most tremendous roar. It always came from over there to the northwest, round about the Palace entrances. Evidently Chinese troops were holding all the Palace gates in great force, and for some reason wished to keep the relief columns at bay at all costs until nightfall. I yelled something of this to my disconsolate cavalry officer, and suggested that he should follow me up the wall and see for himself. I knew nothing. "Cavalry can't climb a wall," he furiously replied as I rushed up above, and as I climbed higher that voice followed me in gusts which became fainter and fainter, "Cavalry can't climb a wall! cavalry can't climb a wall!" Then the road blotted him and his voice completely out and a swelling scene was before me.

For up there I soon understood. A mass of Indian infantry, with some machine-guns, had established themselves for hundreds of yards along this commanding height, among the old Chinese barricades, and were now firing as fast as they could down into the distant Palace enclosures. Overhead bullets were passing in continuous streams, and crouching low in an angle of the buttresses lay a number of wounded men. Of the enemy, however, there was no sign to be seen; that he was firing back more and more quickly and desperately was certain. All these bullets....

As I stood and looked, suddenly the horrid bark of the modern high-velocity field-gun began down below in our lines, and the word passed along that a British battery had succeeded in getting through the jam, and was opening on the enemy from just outside the Legations. The barking went on very rapidly for a few minutes, and then ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The cause was not long to seek; an infantry advance had followed, for without any warning swarms of Chinese riflemen began running out from the nests of ruined Chinese houses a few hundred yards to the rear of our old lines. They came out in rapid rushes just as flights of startled sparrows dart over the ground, and, although very distant, from the commanding height of the Tartar Wall they offered a splendid mark. The rifles rattled at them as hard as possible, but the practice was as poor as ever. Of the first batch a dozen fell and began crawling and staggering away; but the next lot, although they ran and halted at first like dazed men under the sleet of nickel, rapidly became more cunning. All fell as if by some sudden signal on the ground, and crawling and jumping forward, they soon managed to push through without losing a single man, and immediately after this there was a droll incident such as only occurs at such times as these.

These bunches of men had ceased falling back in their sudden rout, and the firing of our men was being concentrated on some distant walls flanking the Palace enclosures, when a solitary Chinese rifleman, who had evidently been forgotten in the turmoil, trotted peacefully out. Then, seeing he was almost in the hands of his enemies, he ran like a hunted deer straight across a vast open, which lies directly in front of the Dynastic Gate--never seeking cover, but running like a madman in the open. It was wonderful.

A roar went up from our whole line when he was seen, but the infantry did not attempt to bring him down. A single machine-gun started rapping at him.... The man ran faster and faster as the swish of bullets hurtled around him, until his legs were twinkling so rapidly that he seemed to be fairly flying. The machine-gun went on rapping and clanging ever quicker as it followed him up, and it seemed at length impossible that he should get through. With a natural impulse, everybody's attention became concentrated on this fugitive: would he reach cover in safety? The answer came almost before one had thought the question, for with sudden disgust the machine-gun stopped dead; the man ran a few seconds longer, and then with a last bound he had disappeared--a tiny dot of blue and red flicking vaguely away behind some wall. Instinctively, then, some one began laughing; the next man took it up, and soon a roar of hoarse-throated laughter came from the hundreds of Indian soldiery who had witnessed the scene. It was like a scene in a theatre from that height, and I remember that this laughter of free men resounded in my ears for a long time--the laughter of free men who have never been enslaved in bricks. It came from straight off the chest, without any nervous nasal twanging or sudden stopping....

Soon after this the firing dropped and dwindled away to nothing, as if by common consent. Everybody was dog-tired, and as night fell both sides felt that nothing could be gained or materially changed until another day had dawned. I wandered round for the last time. Our lines, so carefully and painfully built up during those long never-ending weeks, had crumbled to pieces in half as many hours. The barricades and trenches obstructing the streets had been thrown all in a lump and sent to join the huge litter which surrounded them. There was hardly a sentry or a picquet to be seen, only a hundred of little camp-fires twinkling and twinkling everywhere. Such battalions and units as had pushed in had bivouacked exactly where they had halted. Far away under the Tartar Wall, on the long, sandy stretches, there were little wood fires blazing at regular intervals, with countless dots moving around. From a hundred other places there came that confused murmur which, speaks of masses of men and animals. There were faint cries, hoarse calls, and orders, with always a vague undercurrent trembling in the air. For the time being, they were only British and American troops--not a soldier of a single other nationality had been seen. As the hours went, other people, whose troops had not come in, began making excuses, and pretending that their generals were very wise in acting as they had done. There were all sorts of theories. Some said that they were securing all the gates of the city, and capturing the Court, and seeing to very important things. It was the political situation of three months ago being suddenly reborn, reincarnated, by all these people, before we had even breathed the air of freedom. It was for this that we had been rescued by the main body of the troops: merely because had we been all killed and all recent Peking history made an utter blank, there would have been a terrible gulf which no protocols could bridge. It would have meant an end, an absolute end, such as governments and their distinguished servants do not really love. We were mere puppets, whose rescue would set everything merrily dancing again--marionettes made the sport of mad events. We had merely saved diplomacy from an impossible situation....

As I stood there in the night, thinking of these things, and trying to escape from people with theories, a faint cheering arose, a hurrahing which somehow had but little vigour. I knew what it meant; the ground was being noisily cleared right up to the Palace walls, to make sure that none of the enemy were lurking in the ruins, and that the play could begin merrily on the morrow. After that cheering came a few dull explosions, the blowing-up of a few unnecessary walls, and then all was dead quiet again, excepting for the faint stirring of the soldiery encamped around us, which never ceased. There was not a volley, not a shot. It was all over, this siege, everything was finished.

With a growing blackness and distress in my heart, which I could not explain, and sought in vain to disguise, I wandered about. I wanted some more movement--some fresh distraction to tear my attention away from gloomy thoughts.

Near the battered Hotel de Pekin officers who had strayed from their commands and who were hungry had already gathered, and were paying in gold for anything they could buy. Luckily, there were a few cases of champagne left and a few tins of potted things, which could now be tranquilly sold. I found some French uniforms. Some officers had at last come in from the French commander, saying that at daylight the French columns would march in. At present they were too exhausted to move.

All these men, seated at the tables, were noisily discussing the relief. I learned how it had been effected and the moves of the few preceding days. They said that the Russians had attempted to steal a march on the Japanese on the night of the 13th, in order to force the Eastern gates, and reach the Imperial city and the Empress Dowager before any one else. That had upset the whole plan of attack, and there had then simply been a mad rush, everyone going as hard as possible, and trusting to Providence to pull them through.

Most of the officers at the tables soon became highly elated. That is the way when your stomach has been fed on hard rations and you have had fourteen days of the sun. They then all began shouting and singing and not talking so much. But still they were all devilishly keen to know about the siege, and who had fought best, and who had been killed.

I left them in what remains of a little barricaded and fortified hotel disputing away in rather a foolish fashion, because they were more or less inebriate and the sun had burned them badly. And speeding to my _cache_, I drew out my two blankets and my waterproof. While I had been forgetting other things, I had learned two new things--how to sleep and how to shoot--and now since there was no more need to practise the one, I would do the other.