Part 7 (1/2)

But the genius who has organised all this system, the little j.a.panese 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 fas.h.i.+on, inelegantly using his knife both to punctuate his sentences and to a.s.sist the pa.s.sage 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 j.a.panese post not more than five hundred feet away and watch a little j.a.p and a half dozen Chinese snipers at work against each other. That is where I had just been--convoying some supplies. The little j.a.panese 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 j.a.p 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 j.a.panese 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 w.a.n.g-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 pa.s.sed, 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 G.o.ds. 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 pus.h.i.+ng nearer and nearer the French. It is clear that they will have a worse time than the j.a.panese 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 w.a.n.g-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--n.o.body 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 a.s.saults.

Now sobbing, now gurgling, the bullets pa.s.s 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, pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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, was.h.i.+ng 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 n.o.body 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 ma.s.sive walls, are curiously mournful and pa.s.sing 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.

Pus.h.i.+ng 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-fas.h.i.+oned make muttering a deep ba.s.s; 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 m.u.f.fled hum of sound and crackling towards the east. Decidedly up to date it is the j.a.panese 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 d.a.m.ned--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 pa.s.sed 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 j.a.panese, 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 a.s.sumed 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 gra.s.s-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 s.p.a.cious 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 compa.s.s; 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 scholars.h.i.+p has attained an untrammelled pedantry never dreamed of in the remote West, in a country where a perfect knowledge of the cla.s.sics 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 extinguis.h.i.+ng 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 l.u.s.tily 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 bra.s.s 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.