Part 19
A new tumult in the air! It was like an instant horrid crash of drums in the midst of a violin solo. Artillery now roared down upon Oyama’s left wing.... The wildest dream of hell was on. Routledge, crawling westward through the pit of fire, saw a platoon of infantry smashed as a cue-ball shatters a fifteen block in pool.... Westward under the Russian guns, he crawled through the sun-shot, smoke-charged shambles, miraculously continuing alive in that thick, steady, annihilating blizzard of steel--his brain desperate with the rush of images and the shock of sounds. Over a blood-wet turf he crawled, among the quivering parts of men....
Silence. Oku stopped to breathe and pick up the fragments.... From far up on the Russian works--it was like the celestial singing in the ears of the dying--began a distant, thrilling music. Some regiment or brigade, swinging into the intrenchments to relieve a weary command, had burst into song.... Once before Routledge had caught a touch of this enchantment, during the Boxer Rebellion. He had never been able to forget Jerry Cardinegh’s telling of the Russian battle-hymns at Plevna.... Great emotions bowed him now. Another terrace of defense caught up the song, and the winds that cleared the reeking valley of smoke carried along the vibrant inspiration. Every Russian heart gripped the grand contagion. From terrace to terrace, from trench to trench, from pit to emplacement, that glorious thunder stalked, a company, a battery, a brigade, at a stride. Each voice was a raw, dust-bitten shout--the whole a majestic harmony, from the cannon-meat of Liaoyang! Sons of the North, gray, sodden, sorrow-stunted men of pent misery and unlit souls--Finlander, Siberian, Caspian, Caucasian--hurling forth their heart-hunger in a tumult of song that shook the continent. The spirit of All the Russias giving tongue--the tragedy of Poland, the clank of chains, the mockery of palaces, the iron pressure of frost, the wail of the wolf-pack on frozen tundras, the cry of the crushed, the blind groping of the human to God--it was all in that rhythmic roar, all the dreadful annals of a decadent people.
As it was born, so it died,--that music,--from terrace to terrace, the last wavering chant from out the city walls. The little Japanese made no answer. Routledge could not help but see the mark of the beast in contrast. It wasn’t the Russians that bothered Oku, but the Russian position. Kuroki would pull them out of that.... Song or steel, they would take Liaoyang. They prepared to charge again.
* * * * *
In the disorder of the next charge Routledge crossed the railroad and passed out of the Japanese lines. Late afternoon, as he hurried westward for his horses, he met the eyes of Bingley. He was not given a chance to pass another way. The race for the cable was on.
TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER
ROUTLEDGE ENCOUNTERS THE “HORSE-KILLER” ON THE FIELD OF LIAOYANG, AND THEY RACE FOR THE UNCENSORED CABLE AT SHANHAIKWAN
To each man the intention of the other was clear as the purpose of a fire-department’s run. One of them would file the first uncensored story of the great battle. Bingley had given up his chance to follow the Japanese army, and had set his stony face to freedom for this end--and England could not have horsed a man more unwhippable. Routledge, striding into the sunset, toward the place he had left his mounts, discovered with a smile that his pace was quickening, quickening. The character of the man just passed was an inspiration to rivalry. Moreover, from a newspaper standpoint, the issue at hand was big among dreams. The Great God, News, is a marvellous master. Would England or America be first to connect with Manchuria by wire? _World-News_ or _Thames_? If New York beat London, Dartmore would trace the story.... Dartmore had been a savage. Bingley had been a savage.
Routledge laughed aloud. He had long since put away any resentment toward either of these men, but there was vim, and glow, in getting into the struggle again. He felt that he had earned his entry to this race. He had counted upon taking the chances of discovery. Already Bingley had seen him, and the word would go back; but the result of it would require time. He had long planned to close his own campaign for the year, even if the Japanese pushed on to Mukden. He would go deeper, past following, into China--even to the Leper Valley.
It was a momentous incident to Routledge--this meeting with the “Horse-killer.” The quick, startled, sullen look on the face of Bingley--not a flicker of a smile, not even a scornful smile, to answer his own--had meant that Cardinegh, dead or alive, had not told.
Bingley found the highway two miles west of the railroad, and spurred south in the darkness at the rate of about seven miles an hour. He meant to do six or seven hours of this before resting his mount.... Between twelve and one in the morning--and at most twenty miles to go! If there was anything left in his horse, after an hour’s rest, so much the better. Otherwise he could do it on foot, crossing the river above Fengmarong by six in the morning. This would leave two hours for the last two or three miles into Wangcheng. As for the other, without a mount, Bingley did not concede it to be within human possibility for him to reach the Chinese Eastern at any point to-morrow morning. Evidently Routledge had not planned to get away so soon. It would take eighteen hours at least to reach Wangcheng by the river, and Routledge, aiming westward, seemed to have this route in view.... With all his conjecturing, Bingley could find no peace of mind. Even if Routledge had not planned to reach travelled-lines to-morrow, would not the sight of a rival, with his speed signals out and whistling for right of way, stir him to competition? Such was his respect for the man who had passed on, that Bingley could not find serenity in judging the actions and acumen of Routledge by ordinary weights and measures.
Any other British correspondent would have hailed the outcast with the old welcome, notwithstanding the race-challenge which his appearance involved. On the morning he left Tokyo, five months before, Bingley had also promised Miss Cardinegh to carry the news of her father’s confession and death to Routledge, if he should be the first to find him. It did not occur to Bingley now, isolated as he had been so long, that this was the first time Routledge had been seen. Moreover, in their last meeting, at the Army and Navy ball, there had been a brief but bitter passage of words. Bingley was not the man to make an overture when there was a chance of its being repelled. Finally, the sudden discovery of a trained man, with carnage behind and the cable ahead, was a juggernaut which crushed the life from every other thought in his brain.
Routledge found his horses in excellent condition. The Chinese whom he had brought from Pingyang had proved faithful before, but with all the natives, not alone the banditti and river-thieves, emboldened by the war, the safe holding of his property was a joy indeed. At seven in the evening, the sky black with gathering storm, he left his servant, rich in _taels_ and blessings, and turned westward along the Taitse river-road. This was neither the best nor the shortest way, but Routledge preferred to be impeded by ruts, even by chasms, than by Japanese sentries. With Bingley’s full panoply of credentials it would have been different.
Sixty-five miles to ride, a river to cross, an audience with Consul Milner, a train to catch, to say nothing of enforced delays by the possible interest of the Japanese in his movements--all in fourteen hours.
As Bingley conjectured, the chance meeting had hastened the plan of Routledge. He had intended to reach Wangcheng the following day, but by no means in time for the morning train; in fact, he had determined to tarry at the American consulate until the decision from the battle should come in. Wangcheng had changed hands since his last call at the port, but he counted on the wise and winning American to be as finely appreciated by the Japanese as he had been by the Russians. Milner would get the returns from the battle almost as soon as the Japanese commander at the base. The one word _victory_ or _defeat_, and a line covering the incidental strategic cause, was all that Routledge needed for a startling story. He had mastered the field, and Oku had supplied a rainbow of pigments.
Bingley, having left the field, would not loiter on the road to the cable, nor would he halt before reaching an uncensored cable--therefore Shanhaikwan to-morrow night! Routledge did not care to accept second place, if hard-riding would win first. He faced the longer journey, and also set apart an hour before train-time for an interview with the Consul. It was eminently plain to him that this day had marked the crisis of the great battle, even if it had not already ended with nightfall. The unparalleled fury of Oku’s assaults was significant to this effect. To-morrow would doubtless bring the verdict; and all day to-morrow he would be on train to Shanhaikwan, in touch with Milner by wire at every station. Even if he reached the cable with the battle still raging, he could file the story of the great conflict, as it was synthesized in one man’s brain--up to the point of the historic last sentence.... Even as he rode, the lines and sentences fused in his mind, a colorful, dashing, galvanic conception that burned for expression.
On and on, hours and miles; cloud-bursts and flashes of lightning to show the trail ahead--until he came to doubt his watch, even the dawn of a new day, in the pressure of the illusion formed of dragging hours and darkened distances.
The rains helped to keep his mounts fresh. Every two hours he changed. The beasts had been long together, and either led with a slackened thong. He ran them very little, and it was after midnight before he dulled the fine edge of their fettle. They were tough, low-geared Tartar beasts, heavy-breasted, short in the pasterns, and quartered like hunters--built for rough trails and rough wear. Routledge slapped and praised them, riding light. It would take more than one gruelling night under such a horseman to break their hearts.
Two hours after midnight the rain ceased, and the wrung clouds parted for the moon. The hill country was passed. Routledge moved swiftly along the river-flats. It was the second night he had not slept, and his fatigue was no trifle, but he was drilled to endure. It was not in him to make a strongly reckonable matter out of muscular stiffness and cuticle abrasions. True, rain softens the glaze of a saddle, and long riding on the sticky leather tears the limbs, but Routledge had a body that would obey so long as consciousness lasted. He used it that night.
Five-thirty in the morning; daylight; sixty miles put behind. Ahead far in the new day he discerned the Japanese outposts of Fengmarong; and on the right hand was the big, mottled Liao, swollen with flood. If he were to be detained by the Japanese, he preferred it to be on the opposite bank--the Wangcheng side. Routledge rode up to the ferry-scow and called for service. Yellow babies were playing like cinnamon-cubs on the shore; two women were cooking rice and fish; two men were asleep in the sail-tackle. These he aroused. They helped him with the horses, half-lifting the weary, trembling beasts aboard. Cups of tea; rice with black dressing, as the scow made the opposite landing at a forty-five degree angle! A quick and safe crossing; and two hours for the Japanese lines, the American Consul, and the Chinese Eastern!... A distant call through the morning light! Bingley, horseless, imperiously demands the return of the craft to the Fengmorang bank.
Routledge had hoped to be missed by the other, at least until train-time. He smiled at the compelling incidents of the race thus far, and at the surpassing prospects--even though he chilled at the thought that the Japanese in Wangcheng would have big excuse to detain him if Bingley intimated that his rival had once betrayed England to the Russian spies on the Indian border. Consul Milner would sweat, indeed, to free him against that....
Yet Routledge had a feeling that he would win against Bingley. Work had always favored him. So far he had borne out the prophecy that he would not be wounded in battle, in a manner past astonishment. It was no less than a miracle--his escape from the firing of both armies at Liaoyang. Often during the night-ride he had thought of the wound that was to come to him--thought with a chill of dread of the lawless country he passed through. Now, with Wangcheng ahead, and in touch with the safe-lines of foreign-travel--the chance seemed minimized once more. There must be significance in this.... He looked back and saw the Chinese beating up against the river to the Fengmarong landing, where Bingley waited, doubtless frothing his curb.
At the edge of the town Routledge was arrested by a five-foot Japanese sentry, and was locked with his world tidings in a garrison, lately Russian, which overlooked Wangcheng’s little square. He wrote “A. V. Weed” on a slip of paper and asked to have it taken to Consul Milner; then sat down by the barred window to watch the Consulate across the Square. It was now seven o’clock. The train left in an hour, and the station was a mile away. Minutes dragged by.
An enlivening spectacle from the window. The “Horse-killer” is being borne across the Square under a Japanese guard! The little sentries at the edge of town have been busy, this sweet-smelling morning after the rain! Even at the distance, Routledge perceives that the Englishman’s face is warmed with a lust for murder, and he hears the Englishman’s voice demanding _his_ Consul. Bingley is borne into the garrison, and his voice and step are heard throughout the halls. The voice continues--as he is locked in the apartment next to Routledge’s.
Fifteen dreadful minutes. Bingley is a noisy, unlovely devil in the next room, beating against his bars. Routledge remembers what Hans Breittmann said of the caged orang-outang: “There is too much ego in his cosmos.” The “Horse-killer” does not know that his rival is so near--as he cries unto his heaven of martial law, for artillery to shoot his way out of this town of beastly, pig-headed Japanese coolies!... A Consul appears in the Square. It is not the natty Milner, but an elderly Briton, with a cane and a presence, who just now asks to be shown to Mr. Bingley.... The two talk softly for several minutes--a harsh interval for Routledge.
“I shall do what I can as promptly as possible, Mr. Bingley--trust me,” concludes the Consul, and his cane sounds upon the flags once more--diminuendo.
“Remember, I must be on my way at once,” the “Horse-killer” shouts after him.
Seven-twenty. Where was Milner?... Routledge wondered bitterly if the Gods of War had turned their faces from him at last. A low laugh from Bingley. Milner was crossing the Square hastily, but did not approach the garrison--instead was admitted to the big building occupied by the Japanese headquarters.
“God, I’d hate to have to depend upon an American Consul at a time like this,” is heard from the “Horse-killer.”
Routledge’s nerve was taxed to smile at this.... Seven-thirty. Consul Milner reappears in the Square, this time followed by two Japanese officers of rank.... Routledge’s door is unlocked, and he is called out into the hall.
“This is the gentleman--and I’ll vouch for him.” Milner observes, holding out his hand to Routledge. “Weed, my boy, how are you? Missed the train last night at Yopanga, I suppose, and came down the river. Didn’t you know we’re a closed port down here?”
“Yes, but I knew _you_ were here, Consul. The battle’s on at Liaoyang, I understand.”
The eyes of the men managed to meet. The Japanese officers bowed politely, and the two Americans left the garrison.... Bingley’s voice is loudly upraised. The Japanese officers politely inform him that the order for his release has not yet reached them.
“Milner,” said Routledge, “would it complicate matters if I fell upon your neck and wept?”
“Wait till we catch the train, Weed. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” the Consul whispered.
“Badly.”
“So I concluded when I got the slip from you. That’s why I went to headquarters to fix things before coming here--saved a few minutes. Also I told my Chino to get up the carriage. It’ll be ready.... Our British friend will have to get his business transacted at once or he won’t get off for Shanhaikwan this morning.... Great God, Weed, did you get the battle--any of it?”
“I was with the left wing all day yesterday, Consul--it seems like a month ago. Oku was beating his brains out against the Russian intrenchments.”
They were crossing the Square. Bingley’s voice reached them: “Oh, I say, American Consul, prod up my man a bit--won’t you?”
The agonized face behind the bars took the edge off his own success to Routledge. He knew what these moments meant to the “Horse-killer.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not on speaking terms with the British Consul,” Milner observed lightly to Routledge, as they hurried to the carriage.
“I take it that Kuroki has crossed the Taitse--what have you heard?” Routledge inquired quickly.
“Just that much,” Milner replied. “The Japanese here say that Oyama will enter the city to-day. Kuroki pontooned the river two days ago. What you saw was the terrific effort of the Japanese to hold the bulk of the Russian army in the city and below while Kuroki flanked.”
“Exactly. I’m doing the story on those lines. I’ll be in Shanhaikwan to-night. You’ll get the decision to-day probably--wire me anywhere along the route, Consul?”
“Of course.”
“The _World-News_ will get you Tokyo for your next post,” Routledge said with a laugh. “All I need is the single sentence--‘Oyama wins’ or ‘Oyama loses.’ By the way, the Japanese have got two good horses of mine----”
“I’ll see to them.”
The carriage reached the station at two minutes before eight.
“It looks as if you had it all your own way, Weed,” Milner observed with a laugh. “God! you’ve got the world at your feet--the greatest newspaper chance in years. You’ll give ’em a story that will rip up the States. Show ’em pictures--never mind the featureless skeleton--show ’em pictures, Weed!”
“I’ll try, Consul,” said Routledge, with feeling.
The station-boys were clanging their bells. The eyes of both men were fixed upon a clot of dust far down the road.
“Weed, my boy,” said Milner excitedly, “the race isn’t won yet. Your rival is going to make the train.”
The huge figure of the “Horse-killer” was sprinting toward them, less than two hundred yards away.
“So I observe,” said Routledge. “You’ll have to give me one more lift, Consul. A man who can run like that will be rather hard to beat over the half-mile course from the train to the cable-office in Shanhaikwan at seven to-night. Wire Borden, the American Combined Press man there, to arrange for me at the cable-office, and to meet me when the train pulls in to-night, with the fastest saddle-horse in Shanhaikwan--none but the fastest will do. I’ll win the half-mile!”
The train was leaving the station. Bingley caught the railing of the first-class coach, swung on, and staggered by Routledge into the car. Milner signified with a final gesture that he would look after the rights of America and the _World-News_. Bingley, panting hoarsely, was stretched out in his compartment when the American entered. He did not look up, and no word passed between them. For a moment Routledge hoped it might be different--that day might bring to him something of the life or death of Jerry Cardinegh. As the alleged author of the Indian treachery, he could not bring himself to seek the other’s notice. He wondered if Bingley had used the crime charged against him, to hold him in Wangcheng. This would have been natural; certainly he had whispered to the British Consul in the garrison. At all events, the swiftness of Milner’s efforts in his behalf had killed the result of such an intent. Routledge fell asleep. It was after ten when he awoke.
The “Horse-killer” was writing steadily, swiftly, fighting sleep, his eyes cocked open like a stuffed bird’s, and referring often to a carefully crowded note-book, the like of which he had carried in India.... Routledge started on his story. An hour’s sleep had quieted his brain a trifle. Before, his thoughts had darted about, like tumbler pigeons at play--in that queer light fashion of extreme fatigue. With the structure placed, he began to spend the great coiled chronicle at a swift, steady pressure. For the first time in his life he turned loose all that he had for a newspaper. The hurl of power glorified him for the time--work’s chaste and lofty joy--until he was beyond misery or any earthly evil. Without thinking, he turned to Bingley at last:
“We both want the free cable at Shanhaikwan,” he said briefly. “One of us will reach it first. It might be well to arrange for the winner to turn over the wire--at the end of, say, two hours--then both London and New York would have the story in the morning.”
“No,” said the “Horse-killer” coldly. “I shall put on whole story at once, and there will be five columns or more of it.”
Routledge laughed inwardly, surprised at himself for speaking, and just a little appalled at the grim nerve of the other. In the great glow from his work, he had followed a generous impulse to give Bingley and the _Thames_ a chance that night--on the basis of his meeting a man at Shanhaikwan, with the best horse in the town. In the emancipation of high expression, the sense of rivalry had been lost, and he saw that Bingley was entitled to no little consideration, even if he were beaten by a nose to the cable-door. Routledge went on with his work, his compunctions eased.
At Koupangtze, the half-way station, there was a stop for ten minutes. Bingley improved the time by close conversation with an Englishman on the station platform. Routledge, who remained in his compartment, wondered with animation, as Bingley passed the other a sum of money, if he were arranging with the Englishman to telegraph for a horse to meet _him_ at the train in Shanhaikwan. Could there be two fastest horses at the end of the run?
All that afternoon, as they crossed the brownest, most level and ancient country on earth, two correspondents toiled with words and a battle. At the little town of Shenkau, Routledge heard the name of “Weed” called in a laughable intonation by a Chinese boy on the platform. He reached out and took the telegram. Milner had not allowed a single sentence to suffice. Here is the message:
Oyama entered Liaoyang to-day. Russians in flight to Mukden. Russian rear-guard still fighting. Flanking movement successful. Show ’em pictures.
The gods of war had been good to him, indeed. He ran the telegram entire, at the head of his story. An hour later the Great Wall appeared to his tired eyes. His capacity to express or thrill at a thought was utterly gone. Every film of the battle which his brain had caught, all that he had desired to say, had been re-done in pencil. He folded the sheets and put them away with his credentials and cable-frank. The early twilight was soft and warm. The Great Wall cast a long shadow as the train passed through its single break. The sea was gilded and crimson-touched with the sunset. Shanhaikwan station is but a half-mile from the Wall. Already huts and burial-mounds were passed--dull brown in the dusk.... They were in a free land now; the zone of war and censorship lay behind. It was a dramatic moment.
Each correspondent arose. Each correspondent glanced at the heels of the other and found _spurs_!