Indiscreet Letters From Peking Part 13

But there is more news, although it is not quite cheering or definite.

On the 18th the j.a.panese received a message direct from Tientsin, giving information to the effect that thirty thousand troops were a.s.sembling there for a general advance on Peking. They say that ten days or a fortnight may see us relieved, but somehow the j.a.panese 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 ca.n.a.l 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 a.s.surances 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 j.a.panese 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 ident.i.ty 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 rea.s.sure 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 j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese, 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 j.a.panese, forty-five out of a band of sixty sailors and j.a.panese 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 cla.s.ses. 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 sh.e.l.l holes and number of sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 j.a.panese, 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 a.s.sures 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 ma.s.sacre 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 pa.s.sages, they would speedily blow us into an ever narrower ring, until there was only that left of us which could be calmly destroyed by sh.e.l.ls. We now occupy such an extended area, and are so well entrenched, that sh.e.l.ling, 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 j.a.panese 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-b.a.l.l.s 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-b.a.l.l.s 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. n.o.body 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."