Indiscreet Letters From Peking Part 3

14th June, 1900.

I had risen yesterday some what late in the day with the oddness and uncomfortableness--I do not mean discomfort--which comes from too much boots, too much disturbance of one's ordinary routine, too much listening to people airing their opinions and recounting rumours, and, last of all, very wearied by the uncustomary task of transporting a terrible battery of hand artillery (for we are at last all heavily armed); and consequent of these varied things, I, like everybody else, was a good deal out of temper and rather sick of it all. I began to ask myself this question: Were we really playing an immense comedy, or was there a great and terrible peril menacing us? I could never get beyond asking the question. I could not think sanely long enough for the answer.

The day pa.s.sed slowly, and very late in the afternoon, when some of us had completed a tour of the Legations, and looked at their various picquets, I finished up at the Austrian Legation and the Customs Street. Men were everywhere sitting about, idly watching the dusty and deserted streets, half hoping that something was going to happen shortly, when suddenly there was a shout and a fierce running of feet.

Something had happened.

We all jumped up as if we had been shot, for we had been sitting very democratically on the sidewalk, and round the corner, running with the speed of the scared, came a youthful English postal carrier. That was all at first.

But behind him were Chinese, and ponies and carts ridden or driven with recklessness that was amazing. The English youth had started gasping exclamations as he ran in, and tried to fetch his breath, when from the back of the Austrian Legation came a rapid roll of musketry.

Austrian marines, who were spread-eagled along the roofs of their Legation residences, and on the top of the high surrounding wall, had evidently caught sight of the edge of an advancing storm, and were firing fiercely. We seized our rifles--everybody has been armed _cap-a-pie_ for days--and in a disorderly crowd we ran down to the end of the great wall surrounding the Austrian compounds to view the broad street which runs towards the city gates. The firing ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and in its place arose a perfect storm of distant roaring and shouting. Soon we could see flames shooting up not more than half a mile from where we stood; but the intervening houses and trees, the din and the excitement, coupled with the stern order of an Austrian officer, shouted from the top of an outhouse, not to move as their machine-gun was coming into action over our heads, made it impossible for us to understand or move forward. What was it?

Presently somebody trotted up from behind us on a pony, and, waiting his opportunity, rode into the open, and with considerable skill seized a fleeing Chinaman by the neck. This prisoner was dragged in more dead than alive with fear, and he told us that all he knew was that as he had pa.s.sed into the Tartar city through the Ha-ta Gate a quarter of an hour before, myriads of Boxers--those were his words--armed with swords and spears, and with their red sashes and insignia openly worn, had rushed into the Tartar city from the Chinese city, slashing and stabbing at everyone indiscriminately. The foreigners' guns had caught them, he said, and dusted them badly, and they were now running towards the north, setting fire to chapels and churches, and any evidences of the European they could find. He knew nothing more. We let our prisoner go, and no sooner had he disappeared than fresh waves of fugitives appeared sobbing and weeping with excitement. The Boxers, deflected from the Legation quarter, were spreading rapidly down the Ha-ta Great Street which runs due north, and everybody was fleeing west past our quarter. Never have I seen such fast galloping and driving in the Peking streets; never would I have believed that small-footed women, of whom there are a goodly number even in the large-footed Manchu city, could get so nimbly over the ground. Everybody was panic-stricken and distraught, and we could do nothing but look on. They went on running, running, running. Then the waves of men, women and animals disappeared as suddenly as they had come, and the roads became once again silent and deserted. Far away the din of the Boxers could still be heard, and flames shooting up to the skies now marked their track; but of the dreaded men themselves we had not seen a single one.

We had now time to breathe, and to run round making inquiries. We found the Italian picquet at the Ha-ta end of Legation Street nearly mad with excitement; the men were crimson and shouting at one another.

But there was nothing new to learn. Bands of Boxers had pa.s.sed the Italian line only eighty or a hundred yards off, and a number of dark spots on the ground testified to some slaughter by small-bore Mausers.

They had been given a taste of our guns, that was all; and, fearing the worst, every able-bodied man in the Legations fell in at the prearranged posts and waited for fresh developments.

At eight o'clock, while we were hurriedly eating some food, word was pa.s.sed that fires to the north and east were recommencing with renewed vigour. The Boxers, having pa.s.sed two miles of neutral territory, had reached the belt of abandoned foreign houses and grounds belonging to the foreign Customs, to missionaries, and to some other people.

Pillaging and burning and unopposed, they were spreading everywhere.

Flames were now leaping up from a dozen different quarters, ever higher and higher. The night was inky black, and these points of fire, gathering strength as their progress was unchecked, soon met and formed a vast line of flame half a mile long. There is nothing which can make such a splendid but fearful spectacle as fire at night. The wind, which had been blowing gently from the north, veered to the east, as if the G.o.d's wished us to realise our plight; and on the breeze leading towards the Legations, some sound of the vast tumult and excitement was wafted to us. The whole city seemed now to be alive with hoa.r.s.e noises, which spoke of the force of disorder unloosed.

Orders for every man to stand by and for reinforcements to be ma.s.sed near the Austrian quarter were issued, and impatient, yet impotent, we waited the upshot of it all. Chinese officialdom gave no sign; not a single word did or could the Chinese Government dare to send us. We were abandoned to our own resources, as was inevitable.

Suddenly a tremor pa.s.sed over all who were watching the brilliant scene. The flames, which till then had been confined to a broad belt at least three thousand yards from our eastern picquets, began leaping up a mile nearer. The Boxers, having destroyed all the foreign houses in the Tsung-li Yamen quarter, were advancing up rapidly on the Tung T'ang--the Roman Catholic Eastern Cathedral, which was but fifteen minutes' walk from our lines. We knew that hundreds of native Christians lived around the cathedral, and that as soon as their lives were threatened they would at once seek refuge in their church, and we knew, also, what that would mean.

The roar increased in vigour, and then hundreds of torches, dancing like will-o'-the-wisps in front of our straining eyes, appeared far down the w.a.n.g-ta, or so-called Customs Street, which separates Sir R---- H----'s Inspectorate from the Austrian Legation. They were less than a thousand yards away. The Boxers, casting discretion to the winds, appeared to be once more advancing on the Legations. But then came a shout from the Austrian Legation, some hoa.r.s.e cries in guttural German, and the big gates of the Legation were thrown open near us.

The night was inky black, and you could see nothing. A confused banging of feet followed, then some more orders, and with a rattling of gun-wheels a machine-gun was run out and planted in the very centre of the street.

"At two thousand yards," sang out the naval lieutenant unexpectedly and jarringly as we stood watching, "slow fire."

I was surprised at such decision. _Tang, tang, tang, tang, tang_, spat the machine-gun in the black night, now rasping out bullets at the rate of three hundred a minute, as the gunner under the excitement of the hour and his surroundings forgot his instructions, now steadying to a slow second fire. This was something like a counter-excitement; we were beginning to speak at last. We were delighted. It was not so much the gun reports which thrilled us as the resonant echoes which, crackling like very dry f.a.gots in a fierce fire as the bullets sped down the long, straight street, made us realise their destroying power. Have you ever heard a high-velocity machine-gun firing down deserted and gloomy thorough-fares? It crackles all over your body in electrical shocks as powerful as those of a galvanic battery; it stimulates the brain as nothing else can do; it is extraordinary.

The will-o'-the-wisp torches had stopped dancing forward now, but still they remained there, quite inexplicable in their fixity. We imagined that our five minutes' bombardment must have carried death and destruction to everyone and everything. And yet what did this mean? The flames, which had been licking round near the cathedral, suddenly burst up in a great pillar of fire. That was the answer; the cathedral was at last alight. At this we all gave a howl of rage, for we knew what that meant. The picquets had been mysteriously reinforced by Frenchmen, Englishmen, and men of half a dozen other nationalities, all chattering together in all the languages of Europe. "_Que faire, que faire_," somebody kept bawling. "Get your d.a.m.ned gun out of the way," shouted other angry voices, "and let us charge the beggars." But Captain T----, the Austrian commander, was already conferring with a dear colleague whom he had discovered in the dark. Even in this storm of excitement the protocol could not be forgotten. Marines, sailors, and Legation juniors groaned; was this opportunity to be missed? At last they arranged it; it should be a charge of volunteers.

"Volunteers to the front," shouted somebody. Everybody sprang forward like one man. A French squad was already fixing bayonets noisily and excusing their rattle and cursing on account of the dark; the Austrians had deployed and were already advancing. _"Pas de charge,"_ called a French middy. Somebody started tootling a bugle, and helter-skelter we were off down the street, with fixed bayonets and loaded magazines, a veritable ma.s.sacre for ourselves in the dark....

The charge blew itself out in less than four hundred yards, and we pulled up panting, swearing and laughing. Somebody had stuck some one else through the seat of the trousers, and the some one else was making a horrid noise about this trivial detail. Some rifles had also gone off by themselves, how, why and at whom no one would explain. A very fine night counter-attack we were, and the rear was the safest place. Yet that run did us good. It was like a good drink of strong wine.

But we had now reached the first torches and understood why they remained stationary. The Boxers, met by the Austrian machine-gun, had stuck them in long lines along the edge of the raised driving road, and had then sneaked back quietly in the dark. Every minute we expected to have our progress checked by the dead bodies of those we had slain, but not a corpse could you see. The Austrian commander was now once again holding a council of war, and this time he urged a prompt retreat. We had certainly lost touch with our own lines, and for all we knew we might suddenly be greeted with a volley from our own people coming out to reinforce us. Our commanders wobbled this way and that for a few minutes, but then, goaded by the general desire, we pushed forward again, with a common movement, without orders this time. We moved more slowly, firing heavily at every shadow along the sides of the road. Here it seemed more black than ever, for the spluttering torches, which cast a dim light on the raised road itself, left the neighbouring houses in an impenetrable gloom. Whole battalions of Boxers could have lurked there unmarked by us; perhaps they were only waiting until they could safely cut us off. It was very uncanny.

In front of us the flames of the burning Roman Catholic Cathedral rose higher and higher, and the shouts and roars, becoming ever fiercer and fiercer, could be plainly heard. Just then a Frenchman stumbled with a muttered oath, and, bending down, jumped back with a cry of alarm. At his feet lay a native woman trussed tightly with ropes, with her body already half-charred and reeking with kerosene, but still alive and moaning faintly. The Boxers, inhuman brutes, had caught her, set fire to her, and then flung her on the road to light their way. She was the first victim of their rage we had as yet come across. That made us feel like savages. We were now not more than three hundred yards from the cathedral, and in the light of the flames, which were now burning more brightly than ever, we could see hundreds of figures dancing about busily. We had just halted to prepare for a final charge when something moved in front of us. "Halt," we all cried, marking our different nationalities by our different intonations of the word. A sobbing Chinese voice called back to us: "_Wo pu shih; wo pu shih_,"

which merely means, "I am not," leaving us to infer that he was referring to the Boxers; and then without waiting for an answer the night wanderer, whoever he might be, scampered away hurriedly. The immediate result was that we opened a terrible fusillade in the direction he had fled, our men firing at least a hundred shots. Many mocking voices then called back to us from the shadows. There was laughter, too. It was obviously hopeless trying to do anything in this dark; so when a bugler trotted up from our lines with stern orders from the French commandant for his men to retire, we all stumbled back more than willingly We had gone out of our depth.

Meanwhile the flames spread farther and farther, until half the Tartar city seemed on fire. All Peking awoke, and from every part confused noises and a vast barking of dogs was borne down on us. What course should we take, if the attack was suddenly carried all round our area?

The French Minister was by this time officially informed that native Catholics were being butchered wholesale; that there were plenty of men who were willing to go and rescue them, but that no one seemed to have any orders, and that everyone was swearing at the general incompetence. Absolute confusion reigned within our lines; the picquets broke away from their posts; the different nationalities fraternised under the excitement of the hour and lost themselves; and it would have been child's play to have rushed the whole Legation area. We felt that clearly enough.

It was not until well past midnight, and after several heated discussions, that a relief party was finally organised; but when they got to the cathedral there was hardly anything to see, for the butchery was nearly over and the ruin completed. Several hundred native Roman Catholics had disappeared, only a few Boxers were seen and shot and a few converts rescued.

How well I remember the scene when this second expedition returned, excited and garrulous as only Frenchmen can be. The French Minister led them in. He explained to us that the Boxers had already absolutely demolished everything--that it was no use risking one's self so far from one's own lines any more--that it was a terrible business, but _que faire_.... The French Minister did not hurry away, but stood there talking endlessly. It was at once dramatic and absurd. Sir R---- H----, in company with many others, stood listening, however, with an awestruck expression on his face. He carried a somewhat formidable armament--at least two large Colt revolvers strapped on to his thin body, and possibly a third stowed away in his hip pocket. From midnight to the small hours there was a constant stream of our most distinguished personages coming and looking down this street and wondering what would happen next. It was not a very valiant spectacle.

In this curious fashion the memorable night of the 12th pa.s.sed away, with sometimes one picquet firing, sometimes another, and with everybody waiting wearily for the morning. We had almost lost interest by that time.

At half-past four the pink light began chasing away the gloom; the shadows lightened, and day at last broke. At six o'clock native refugees from the foreign houses that had been burned came slinking silently in with white faces and trembling hands, all quite broken down by terrible experiences. One gate-keeper, whose case was tragically unique, had lost everything and everybody belonging to him, and was weeping in a curious Chinese way, without tears and without much contortion of features, but persistently, without any break or intermission, in a somewhat terrifying fashion. His wife, six children, his father and mother, and a number of relations had all been burned alive--thirteen in all. They had been driven into the flames with spears. Moaning like a sick dog, and making us all feel cowardly because we had not attempted a rescue, the man sought refuge in an outhouse. Sir R---- H---- was still standing at his post, looking terribly old and hardly less distressed than the wretched fugitives pouring in. His old offices and residences, where forty years before he had painfully begun a life-long work, were all stamped out of existence, and the iron had entered into his soul. A number of the officers commanding detachments, and people belonging to various Legations, attempted to glean details as to the strength of the Boxer detachments from these survivors, but n.o.body could give any information worth having. I noticed that no Ministers came; they were all in bed!

At eight o'clock, still afoot, we heard that there was a deuce of a row going on at the Ha-ta Gate, because it was still locked and the key was gone. It now transpired that a party of volunteers, led by the Swiss hotel-keeper of the place and his wife, had marched down to the gate after the Boxers had rushed in, had locked it, and taken the key home to bed, so that no one else could pay us their attentions from this quarter. This is the simplest and the most sensible thing which has been yet done, and it shows how we will have to take the law into our own hands if we are to survive.

In this fashion the Boxers were ushered in on us. Most of us kept awake until ten or eleven in the morning for fear that by sleeping we might miss some incidents. But even the Boxers had apparently become tired, for there was not a sign of a disturbance after midnight. In spite of the quiet, however, the streets remain absolutely deserted, and we have no means of knowing what is going to happen next.

X

BARRICADES AND RELIEFS

16th June, 1900.

We have entered quite naturally in these unnatural times on a new phase of existence. It is the time of barricades and punitive expeditions; of the Legations tardily bestirring themselves in their own defence, and realising that they must try and forget their private politics if they are even to live, not to say one day to resume their various rivalries and animosities. Imperceptibly we are being impelled to take action; we must do something.

We woke up late on the 14th to the fact that loopholed barricades had been everywhere begun on our streets, as effective bars to the inrush of savage torch-bearing desperadoes, each Legation doing its own work; and that the Chinese Government, with its likes and dislikes, would have to be seriously and cynically disregarded if we wished to preserve the breath of life. So barricades have been going up on all sides, excepting near the British Legation, where the same indifference and sloth, which have so greatly contributed to this _impa.s.se_, still remain undisturbed. Near the Austrian, French, American, Italian and Russian Legations barricade-builders are at work, capturing stray Peking carts, turning them over and filling them full of bricks. So quickly has the work been pushed on, that in some places there are already loopholed walls three feet thick stretching across our streets, and so cleverly constructed that carts can still pa.s.s in and out without great difficulty. We are still on speaking terms with the Chinese Government, but who knows what the morrow may bring?

But although you may have gathered some idea of the general aspect of Peking from what I have written, it is more than probable that you have no clear conception of the Legation quarter and what this barricading means. It seems certain that we will have to fight some one in time, so I will try and explain.

Legation Street, or the _Chiao Min hsiang_, to give it the native appellation, runs parallel to the Tartar Wall. Beginning at the west end of the street--that is, the end nearest the Imperial City and the great Ch'ien Men Gate--the Legations run as follows: Dutch, American, Russian, German, Spanish, j.a.panese, French, Italian. Of the eleven Legations, therefore, eight are in the one street, some on one side, some on the other; some adjoining one another, with their enormous compounds actually meeting, others standing more or less alone with nests of Chinese houses in between. Apart from the eight Legations, there are a number of other buildings belonging to Europeans in this street, such as banks, the club, the hotel, and a few stores and nondescript houses. Taking the remaining three Legations, the Belgian is hopelessly far away beyond the Ha-ta Gate line; the Austrian is two hundred yards down a side street on which is also the Customs Inspectorate; and, finally, the British is at the back of the other Legations--that is, to the north of the south Tartar Wall. The extent of this Legation and its sheltered position make it a sort of natural sanctuary for all non-combatants, since it is masked on two sides by the other Legations, and is only really exposed on two sides, the north and the west. Already many missionaries and nondescripts have been coming in and claiming protection, and in the natural course of events it must become the central base of any defence. Everyone sees and acknowledges that.

At the two ends of Legation Street, the western Russo-American end and the eastern Italian end, heavy barricades have already gone up. The Dutch Legation, lying beyond the Russian and American Legations at this west end of the street, being without any guards and protectors, will, therefore, have to be abandoned immediately there is a rush from the Ch'ien Men Gate. The Belgian Legation is naturally untenable, and will also have to be sacrificed. The Austrian Legation is likewise a little too far away; but for the time being a triple line of barricades have gone up, having been constructed along the road between this Legation and the Customs inspectorate. To-day, the 16th, carts are no more to be seen on these streets; foot traffic is likewise almost at an end. There is a tacit understanding that everybody must act on the defensive.

Also every Chinaman pa.s.sing our barricades is forced to provide himself with a pa.s.s, which shows clearly his reason for wandering abroad in times like this. There has already been trouble on this score, for our system has had no proper trial....

Since the 14th and that dreadful first Boxer night, we have begun to take affairs a good deal into our own hands, and have attempted to strike blows at this growing movement, which remains so unexplained, whenever an occasion warranted it--that is, those of us who have any spirit. Thus, on the afternoon of the 14th, Baron von K---- took a party of his marines on top of the Tartar Wall, pointed out to them a party of Boxer recruits openly drilling below on the sandy stretch, and gave orders to fire without a moment's hesitation. So the German rifles cracked off, and the sands were spotted with about twenty dead and dying. This action of the German Minister's at once created an immense controversy. The timid Ministers unhesitatingly condemned the action; all those who understand that you must p.r.i.c.k an ulcer with a lancet instead of pegging at it with despatch-pens, as nearly all our chiefs have been doing, approved and began to follow the example set.

This is the only way to act when the time for action comes in the East, and the net result is that we have been unendingly busy. There have been expeditions, raids, and native Christians pouring in and demanding sanctuary within our lines. One story is worth telling, as showing how we are being forced to act.

Word came to us suddenly that the Boxers had caught a lot of native Christians, and had taken them to a temple where they were engaged in torturing them with a refinement of cruelty. One of our leaders collected a few marines and some volunteers, marched out and surrounded the temple and captured everybody red-handed. The Boxers were given short shrift--those that had their insignia on; but in the sorting-out process it was impossible to tell everybody right at first sight. Christians and Boxers were all of them gory with the blood which had flown from the torturing and brutalities that had been going on; so the Christians were told to line up against the wall of the temple to facilitate the summary execution in progress. Then a big fellow rushed out of a corner, yelling, "I have received the faith."

Our leader looked at the man with a critical eye, and then said to him in his quietest tones, "Stand up against the wall." The Boxer stood up and a revolver belched the top of his head off. With that quickness of eye for which he is distinguished, our leader had seen a few red threads hanging below the fellow's tunic. The man, as he fell with a cry, disclosed his sash underneath. He was a Boxer chief. At least thirty men were killed here.

But it was at the Western Roman Catholic Cathedral that the most exciting times up till now have been had, for there, as at the other cathedral, the Boxers have been at work. The first relief expedition went out during the night--that is, last night. Headed by some one from the French Legation, the expedition managed to bring in all the priests and nuns attached to the cathedral mission. Old Father d'A----, a charming Italian priest, was the most important man rescued. After having been forty years here, he surveys the present scenes of devastation and pillage with the remark, "_En Chine il n'y a ni Chretiens ni civilisation. Ce ne sont la que des phrases_." That is what he said.

This morning a second relief corps, containing the most miscellaneous elements, tramped away stolidly in the direction of the still smoking cathedral ruins in the hopes of saving some more unfortunates, and our expectations were soon realised. After a walk of a mile and a half, we rounded a corner with the sound of much wailing on all sides, and ran suddenly full tilt into at least two or three dozen Boxers, who have been allowed to do exactly as they like for days. There was a fierce scuffle, for we were down on them in a wild rush before they could get away, and they showed some fight. I marked down one man and drove an old sword at his chest. The fellow howled frightfully, and just as I was going to despatch him, a French sailor saved me the trouble by stretching him out with a resounding thump on the head from his Lebel rifle. The Boxer curled over like a sick worm and expired. There was not much time, however, to take stock of such minor incidents as the slaying of individual men, even when one was the princ.i.p.al actor, for everywhere men were running frantically in and out of houses, shouting and screaming, and the confusion was such that no one knew what to do.

The Boxers had been calmly butchering all people who seemed to them to be Christians--had been engaged in this work for many hours--and all were now mixed up in such a confused crowd that it was impossible to distinguish friends and foes. As they caught sight of us, many of the marauders tore off their red sashes and fell howling to the ground, in the hope that they would be pa.s.sed by. Dozens of narrow lanes round the ruined cathedral, which was still smoking, were full of Christian families hiding in the most impossible places, and everywhere Boxers and banditti, sometimes in groups, sometimes singly, still chased them and cut them down. Numbers had already been ma.s.sacred, and several lanes looked like veritable shambles. The stench of human blood in the hot June air was almost intolerable, and the sights more than we could bear. Men, women and children lay indiscriminately heaped together, some hacked to pieces, others with their throats cut from ear to ear, some still moving, others quite motionless.

Gradually we collected an ever-growing mob of terror stricken people who had escaped this ma.s.sacre. Some of the girls seemed quite paralysed with fear; others were apparently temporarily bereft and kept on shrieking with a persistency that was maddening. A young French sailor who did not look more than seventeen, and was splashed all over with blood from having fallen in one of the worst places, kept striking them two and three at a time, and cursing them in fluent Breton, in the hope of bringing them to reason. "_Eh bien, mes belles!

Vous ne finissez pas_," he ended despairingly, and rushed off again to see whether he could find any more.