Indiscreet Letters From Peking Part 16

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 quant.i.ties 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 p.r.o.ne 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 w.a.n.g-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 f.a.gots. At first this storm of sound paralyses you a little; then a l.u.s.t 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 b.l.o.o.d.y ill.u.s.tration of the deadly force of sh.e.l.l-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 pa.s.sed 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 succ.u.mbed, 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 chastis.e.m.e.nt 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 gla.s.ses 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 hors.e.m.e.n, 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 s.p.a.cing 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 sh.e.l.ls 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. G.o.d 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 ma.s.sed a.s.saults 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 ma.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 l.u.s.t 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 s.p.a.ced. 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--a.s.suredly 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 w.a.n.g-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, ma.s.sacre 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 Ca.n.a.l--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 pa.s.sed 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.

x.x.x

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 hoa.r.s.ely 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 gla.s.ses. 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 w.a.n.g-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 bra.s.s 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 sh.e.l.l-proof defence. On the ground bra.s.s 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....