Indiscreet Letters From Peking Part 5

Thus we are all in a very grunting frame of mind. The British Legation appears to be at length hopelessly crowded with perspiring missionaries of all denominations and creeds, who have suddenly come in from beyond the barricades. Life must be quite impossible there.

The novelty of this experience has been worn off, and I for one would welcome any change, either for better or worse. So long as it is only a change....

XIV

THE ULTIMATUM

19th June, 1900.

How foolish we can be! Only last night I was bewailing the dulness and the dirt of it all, and the general absurdity and discomfort, and now without one qualm I confess I would willingly exchange yesterday's uncertainty for to-day's certainty--that we are all going to be made into mincemeat. But I do not even feel serious or desperate now; it has got beyond that.

I do not know at what hour the ultimatum came to-day; it may have been eleven in the morning or one in the afternoon; but one thing I do know is, that here, at four in the afternoon, the great majority of one thousand Europeans are shaking, absolutely distraught. It is evident therefrom that there is something impressive and demoralising to most people in the idea of finality, and that on the threshold of the twentieth century, courage, since it is seldom dealt in, is hardly a great living force. It makes one realise, too, that with all their faults, the aristocrats of France, who, a hundred years ago, were condemned to the shameful death of the guillotine and went in their tumbrils through streets filled with cursing crowds of sansculottes, with scorn and contempt written on their features, were rather exceptional people. Things have changed since then, and the so-called Americanisation of the world has not conduced to gallantry. Fortunate are we that there is no white man's audience to watch us impa.s.sively, and to witness the effects of this bombsh.e.l.l of an ultimatum which has come to-day. There is nothing so humiliating as abject fear. Curiously enough, the women bear it much better than the elder men, who are openly distraught; and when I say women, I mean all the women, both those belonging to the Legations and the dozens of missionary women who have crowded in. Nearly everyone of them is better than the elderly men; at least, they try and say nothing so as not to add to the terrible confusion....

But the ultimatum--what is it, and against whom is it so summarily directed? Briefly the ultimatum is a neat-looking doc.u.ment written on striped Chinese despatch-paper, and comes from the Tsung-li Yamen, or office charged with the overseeing of "the outside nations'

affairs"--which are the affairs of Europe. After very briefly referring to a demand made by the allied admirals for a surrender of the Taku forts off the muddy bar of the Tientsin River--about which we know nothing--it goes on to say that as China can no longer protect the Legations, the Legations will have to protect themselves by leaving Peking within twenty-four hours, dating from to-day at four o'clock. That is all. Not another word. Yet in other words this doc.u.ment means this: that the demand of the admirals must have been refused; that they would not have made it unless something disastrous had happened to S---- and to Tientsin; that acts of war have already been committed, and that it will be no longer a Boxer affair, but a government affair. This makes our position desperate enough in all truth. There is to be war.... The ultimatum was conveyed to the eleven Legations and the Inspectorate-General of Foreign Customs in twelve neat red envelopes by trembling _t'ing ch'ai_ of the Chinese Government, and in spite of some attempt at first to hide its contents was soon known by everyone. The twelve copies, indeed, were exactly alike, twelve bombsh.e.l.ls, which, bursting in twelve different parts of our barricaded quarter, finally united their fumes until we were all fairly suffocated. For we have either got to flee now or be butchered.

Mechanically all eyes were turned at once to the chiefs of the eleven missions to China, who have brought things to such a pa.s.s, and everybody demanded frantically that something should be done. People lost control themselves and behaved insanely. It was not long before the whole diplomatic body met--in a terrible gloom--at the Legation of the Spanish Minister, who is the _doyen_ of the Corps, and soon a tremendous discussion was raging. There were mutual recriminations, and proposal after proposal was taken up and rejected as being too dangerous. n.o.body had for a moment dreamed that such a menace would come so swiftly. Expectant crowds soon gathered round the gates of the Spanish Legation, and attempted to find out what was being decided, but the only thing I could learn was that brave Von K---- proposed at once that the Ministers should go in a body to the Yamen and force the Chinese Government to agree to an armistice. This was vetoed by all, of course, and one gentleman openly wept at the idea. In the end, at seven o'clock, when it was nearly dark, a joint Note was prepared, saying that the Ministers could only accept the demand made on them and prepare to leave Peking at once, but that twenty-four hours was too short a notice in which to pack their trunks, and that, besides, they must have some guarantees as to the ninety miles road to Tientsin, which were so swarming with bandits that communication had been completely interrupted. That is to say, the Ministers were prepared to accept....

No sooner had this weak reply been despatched than a fresh wave of consternation pa.s.sed over the whole Legation quarter, for we now number nearly a thousand white people in all, and we could never march that distance to Tientsin unbroken. But beneath that wave of consternation a fiercer note steadily rose--the note of revolt against the decrees of eleven men. I cannot describe to you what an intensity of pa.s.sion was suddenly revealed. Muttering first, this revolt became quite open and almost unanimous. All of us would have a fair fight behind barricades and entrenchments, but no ma.s.sacre of a long, unending convoy. For picture to yourself what this convoy would be crawling out of giant Peking in carts, on ponies and afoot, if it were forced to go; we would be a thousand white people with a vast trail of native Christians following us, and calling on us not to abandon them and their children. Do you think we could run ahead, while a cowardly ma.s.sacre by Boxers and savage soldiery was hourly thinning out the stragglers and defenceless people in the rear? Never!

Hardly anybody thought of eating all that long evening. Most of us were trying to find out whether some sensible understanding could not be arrived at; whether we could not prepare before it was too late.

But it was quite in vain to plan anything or attempt to think of anything. Everything was so topsy-turvy, everybody so panic-stricken.

But as the night grew later and later, some people began busying themselves packing boxes, still deluding themselves that they were going to leave comfortably on the morrow as if nothing had happened.

Yet the world is really upside down as far as we are concerned, and it is quite absolutely impossible that the situation should end so normally as to find us quietly retreating down the Tientsin road.

Others kept sending out servants to discover at what price carts would undertake to drive the whole way down to the sea, or at least to Tientsin. Forty, fifty, and even one hundred taels were demanded for three days' work; and then, although the carters said they would come if the government sends proper escorts of soldiers as has been promised, Heaven only knows if they will ever dare to move near our stricken quarter. Still in some Legations they ordered fifty carts at any price, with the most lavish promises of reward for those that could manage to secure them. All the official servants soon came back trembling, saying that they had found a few carts, but that it was _pu yi t'ing_--not at all sure whether the carters would dare to move when daylight came. For the whole city is already in a fresh uproar; people are flying in every direction in the night. Stories come in of officials who have been pulled out of their chairs and forced to _K'et'ou_ to Boxers to show their respect to the new power. Prince Tuan has been appointed President of the Tsung-li Yamen, high Manchus have been placed in charge of the Boxer commands, and rice is being issued to them from the Imperial granaries. There is no end to the tales that now come in, since everybody has understood that there is no need for concealment and that there is going to be some sort of war. At two o'clock I even began to get news of what the Empress Dowager had been doing, and how the Boxer partisans had become so strong that it was absolutely impossible to hope for anything but the worst.

Once when I got some details which I thought of importance, I tried to find my chief in order to communicate it to him. But he was lost in the middle of the night, conferring unofficially with some of his colleagues; and I could but feel immensely amused when in his office I saw that he had been scribbling some frenzied notes on the back of a completed despatch, dealing with one of those petty little affairs which were so important only the other day.

Ah, where are the dear little political situations of only a few weeks ago; those safe little political situations which redounded so much to the credit of those that made them and did not contain any of the dread elements of our present very real and terrible one! Like soldiers who have degenerated from the chasing of mere vagabonds of mediocre importance, so have our Peking Ministers Plenipotentiary and Envoys Extraordinary fallen from their proud estate to mere diplomatic make-beliefs full of wind--wind-blown from much tilting at windmills, with their Governments rescuing them Sancho Panza-like at the eleventh hour....

But though for us there is still some hope, there is very little for the wretched native Christians quartered in the palace grounds of Prince Su, whom we have saved from the Boxers.

They soon heard the news, too, that the foreigner who has once saved them is going--going away because he has been ordered to. All night long there was an awful panic among these people which made one's heart sick, for they understood better than us how quickly they would be ma.s.sacred once they left our care.

I shall never forget the night of the 19th of June, 1900, with all its tragedy and tragi-comedy, though I live to be a hundred. It allowed me to see something of real human nature in momentary flashes; of how mean and full of fear we really are, how small and how easily impressed. A hundred times I longed to have the time and the power to set down exactly so that everyone might understand the incidents and the sudden impulses which took place--all prompted by that master of human beings--FEAR. That is why we worship heroes, or we pretend we worship them, because it is the _culte_. For a moment these people who have been set on pedestals were not afraid. Is it only the power not to be afraid which makes one a hero?

XV

THE DEBACLE BEGINS

20th June, 1900.

It is notorious that in moments of tension, when the mind has been stimulated to too great an activity by unhealthy excitement, you think of the most curiously a.s.sorted things--in fact, of absurd things which are quite out of place. I have been thinking the whole time of something very stupid which is only fiction: That a Zulu, named Umslopagas, rode and ran one hundred miles in a single night and then refreshed himself sufficiently by a couple of hours' sleep to deliver battle with such vigour at the head of a marble staircase, that he saved the haggard hero. That is what I have been thinking of....

We of Peking are, unfortunately, not of the mettle of Zulus, and as far as I am personally concerned, three hours' sleep is but the appet.i.te-giver for five hours more. And so on this fateful 20th June, with the time limit of our ultimatum expiring at four o'clock, I got up in no sort of valorous spirit, and with the feeling that tragedies outside the theatre--at least those that spin themselves out for an indefinite number of days--are quite impossible for us Moderns. But, then, probably everybody has always thought the same thing--even those who lived before the Renaissance.

At eight o'clock everyone was once more afoot, although most have hardly had a wink of sleep. All over our Legation quarter, dusty and dirty men, unwashed and unbathed, now squatted along the edge of the streets, hanging their weary heads against their rifles, with their faces very white from too much sentry-go and too little sleep. There is little distinction between sailors and Legation people, for we are all in the same dilemma. On this eventful 20th of June, instead of being resolute and alert, everybody is merely tired and weakened by a couple of weeks' watchfulness against Boxers during an unofficial semi-siege, a state of affairs which has quite unfitted us for fresh strains. Yet beyond our barricades of upturned carts and stolen building-bricks all was quiet and peaceful, and hardly a thing moves.

It seemed as if we had been only dreaming.... Wandering down beyond the eastern end of Legation Street, which gives you the most view of the mysterious world around the great Ha-ta Street, which the Boxers have conquered, indeed you find everything practically deserted, the people having learned that it is best to stay indoors until this crisis is solved in some manner. Occasionally a rag-picker, or some humble person so little separated from the life hereafter that to push a trifle closer does not spell much peril, can be seen hooking up rags and whatnots from the piles of Peking offal. If you speak to him he gives an unintelligent _pu chih tao_--"I do not know"--and moves boorishly on. As my old Chinese writer said a week ago, Peking has never been in such a state of topsy-turvydom since the robber who unseated the Ming dynasty rushed in two and a half centuries ago....

Going on top of the great Tartar Wall and gazing down on the scene of devastation and ruin beyond the Ch'ien Men Gate, one can hardly believe one's eyes, for where there was once a mighty bustle one now sees thousands of houses with nothing but their walls standing and charred timbers strewing the grounds. The great burned tower which blazed so wondrously a few nights ago is still half standing, its mighty brickwork too powerful and too proud to succ.u.mb totally to the flames' destroying energy. Gaunt and hollow-eyed, the old Tartar tower surveys the scene somewhat contemptuously, as if saying that the pigmy men of to-day are far removed from the paladins of old and their works....

Quiet and perfectly silent it all looks--but below the tower, and, indeed, on all sides as far as the eyes can see, some search shows little ants of men are at work in the ruins--not moving much, but bobbing up and down with unending energy and regularity. They are the beggars of Peking in their hundreds and thousands salving what they can from all this immense destruction by poking deep holes into the ruins and pulling out all manner of things from under the ma.s.s of bricks and rubbish. In the conserving hands of the Chinaman nothing is ever irremediably destroyed....

Looking far to the east, even the Ha-ta Gate, where no harm has been done, does not show much movement. The carts pa.s.sing in and out are very few and far between, and the dust which in ordinary times floats above the din and roar of the gates in heavy clouds is to-day seemingly absent. Even our Peking dust is awed by the approaching storm and nestles close to Mother Earth, so that it may come to no harm.

The more I looked the more observant I became. The sun lolling up in a red ball, the birds, twittering and flying about while the heat of the day is not severe, showed themselves in a new light; and thus the 20th June is ushered in so complaisantly, when all the world of men appear merely tired and watchful, that the contrast makes one wonder, and at nine o'clock once more our Ministers Plenipotentiary and our _Charges d'Affaires_ gather their eleven estimable persons together at the Legation of the _doyen_. For yesterday's Ministerial reply agreeing to the Manchu order to vacate the capital, if certain conditions were fulfilled, had begged for an urgent answer by nine o'clock regarding the little counter-demands for a time-extension, and a definite arrangement concerning the Chinese troops who are to be the safe conduct along the Tientsin road. Nine o'clock has come, but alas! with it there is no neat Chinese despatch on striped paper which would so relieve our Ministerial feelings. The Chinese Government remains grimly silent, for the Chinese Government has spoken plainly once, and never within the memory of man has it done so on two consecutive occasions. So the eleven Ministers meet once more in anything but a happy frame of mind--eleven sorely tried and wholly fearful persons, except for two or three who vainly try to instill some courage into the others. All idea of completing the packing commenced last night has vanished; even that would demand action and resolution. A proposal to visit the Tsung-li Yamen in a body is set aside with nervous protestations once more. The meeting thereupon became very stormy, and the French Minister was kind enough to report afterwards that the British Minister became thereafter very red--_il est devenu soudainement tres rouge_, for what reason is unknown. S----, who did the minutes afterwards, said that the French Minister volunteered to go with the others if they would proceed in a body, and became very pale at the idea, that he confessed himself. Here we have, then, a red Minister and a white Minister, and if we add those who were most certainly blue and green, the national flags of the entire a.s.sembly could be fitly made up. The French Minister, although simply a _citoyen_ sent by the Republic to intrigue in times of peace, and aid his Russian colleague to the best of his ability, is a man withal, although quite unfitted _de carriere_ for wars and sieges. In the French Legation he has been receiving such tearful instructions from his wife during the past three weeks that it is a wonder he has any backbone at all....

The meeting became stormier and stormier as it went on, S---- says, until old C---- argued that the only way to decide was to put everything to the vote. Every vote put was promptly lost, and after an hour's haggling they had got no farther than at the beginning!

The dramatic moment came when Baron Von K---- got up and stated shortly that as he had a previous appointment with the Tsung-li Yamen at eleven o'clock, in spite of the ultimatum and a possible state of war--in fact, in spite of everything--it was his intention to keep his appointment, cost what it might. The others urged him not to go, for they must have been feeling rather ashamed of themselves and their overvalued lives. But K---- insisted he would go; he had said so once, and did not intend to allow the Chinese Government to say he broke an appointment through fear.

S----, who told me the whole story a few hours afterwards, said that he added that as soon as his own personal business was finished, he would attend to the general question of the Legations' departure from Peking, if the diplomatic corps would give him authority. As time was pressing they gave it to him promptly enough. I remember everything that happened afterwards with a very extraordinary accuracy of detail, because I had just walked past the Spanish Legation when the Ministerial meeting broke up, and I had determined to follow any move in person so as to know what our fate was to be.

The German Minister turned into his Legation, and after a time he reappeared in his green and red official chair, with C----, the dragonman, in a similar conveyance. There were only two Chinese outriders with them, as Von K---- had refused to take any of his guards. I remember Von K---- was smoking and leaning his arms on the front bar of his sedan, for all the world as if he were going on a picnic. The little _cortege_ soon turned a corner and was swallowed up. I walked out some distance beyond our barricades with Baron R----, of the Russian Legation, and we wondered how long he would take to come back. We soon knew! How terrible that was! For not more than fifteen minutes pa.s.sed before, crashing their Manchu riding-sticks terror-stricken on to their ponies' hides, the two outriders appeared alone in a mad gallop and nearly rode us down. Through the barricades they pa.s.sed, yelling desperately. It was impossible to understand what they were saying, but disaster was written in the air.

At this we started running after these two men, but when we reached the corner of the French Legation the people there had already understood, and said the German Minister had been shot down and was stone-dead. Everybody was paralysed.

Meanwhile the outriders had reached the German Legation and had flung themselves, disordered, from their sweating ponies. The men of the Legation Guard were swarming round them and questioning them roughly when I came up, but there was nothing further to be learned about Von K----. A shot had pa.s.sed through his chair and he had never moved again, while other shots struck all round. C----, the dragonman, dripping with blood, had run round a corner closely pursued by Chinese riflemen. What happened to him they cannot say, for they, too, would have been shot had they not fled. The tragedy was so simple, but so crushing, that we all stood dazed. Our one man of character and decision was dead--lost beyond recall!

A quarter of an hour after this half the German detachment was marching rapidly down Customs Street, with fixed bayonets and an air of desperation on their harsh Teutonic faces. They were determined to try and at least save the body. I thought of going with them, too, but a moment's thought told me there were other things which were now more pressing. I went and gave some attention to the contents of despatch-boxes which no one else had a right to see....

The detachment reached the scene of the murder led by a trembling outrider. Drops of blood were found on the ground; the Peking dust was sc.r.a.ped this way and that, as if it had only been made an accomplice unwillingly and with a violent struggle too; but the sedan-chairs, the bearers, the murderous soldiers, and every other trace had vanished completely. To question people was impossible, since everyone was keeping closely indoors and barred entrances everywhere met the eye.

The Peking streets have become so lonely and deserted that not even a dog allows himself to be entrapped in the open. Later I heard that C---- had escaped, although terribly wounded.

The detachment tramped back stolidly, and would not answer a word when spoken to, for German despair is very gloomy. The remaining Plenipotentiaries at last understood the nature of the game that was being played, and realised that we were down to the naked and crude facts of life and death. Their confounded vacillation has alone brought us to this pa.s.s. They do realise it now, and they are made to realise it more and more by the savage looks everyone has been giving them....

The departure for Tientsin half-acquiesced in but fifteen short hours ago is no longer thought of, for what the Ministers propose to do now interests no one. After impotently attempting to deal with questions for which they were in no wise fitted they have resigned themselves to the inevitable, and have become mere p.a.w.ns like the rest of us.

Fortunately the men who are men begin to work with frenzied energy, rushing about collecting food and materials. S----, the first Secretary of the American Legation, began it, and soon stood out with some insistence. He guesses with no one contradicting him that rice is useful, that flour is still more useful, and that every pound we can find in the native shops should be taken. The obvious is often somewhat obscure in times like these, and the men who act are very laudable. There is no denying it that on this 20th the Americans showed more energy than anybody else, and pushed everybody to sending out their carts and bringing in tons upon tons of food. Every shop containing grain was raided, payment being made in some cases and in others postponed to a more propitious moment. The American missionaries concentrated in a fortified missionary compound a couple of miles from us, and the last people to remain outside were hastily sent for, given twenty minutes in which to pack their things, and marched in as quickly as possible by a guard of American marines.

There were seventy white men, women and children, and countless herds of native schoolgirls and converts. Their reports were the last we got. Vast crowds of silent people had watched them pa.s.s through the eastern Tartar city to our Legation lines without comment or without hostility. Gloomily the Peking crowd must have watched this strange convoy curling its way to a safer place, the missionaries armed in a droll fashion with Remingtons and revolvers, and some of the converts carrying pikes and carving-knives in their hands, for the Peking crowd and Peking itself has been, and is being, terrorised by the Boxers and the Manchu extremists, and is not really allied to them--of that we all are now convinced. But C----, who was so nearly ma.s.sacred, came in too with the American missionaries. He managed somehow, after he was shot in a deadly place, to half-run and half-crawl until he was picked up and carried into the American missionary compound. From what I heard, he knows nothing more about the death of the German Minister.

It was only a few hours ago, and yet it already seems days!

All the non-combatants were now rushed into the British Legation, and to the women and children join themselves dozens of men, whose place should be in the fighting-line, but who have no idea of being there.

Lines of carts conveying stores, clothing, trunks and miscellaneous belongings were soon pouring towards the British Legation, and long before nightfall the s.p.a.cious compounds were so crowded with impedimenta and ma.s.ses of human beings that one could hardly move there. It was a memorable and an extraordinary sight.

The few Chinese shops that had been until now carrying on business in our Legation quarter in spite of the semi-siege and the barricades in a furtive way, were soon quietly putting up their shutters--not entirely, but what they call three-quarters shut after the custom on their New Year holidays, when they are not supposed to trade, but do trade all the same. The shop-boys, slipping their arms into their long coats and dusting off their trousers and shoes after the Peking manner with their long sleeves, made one feel in a rather laughable sort of way that finality had been reached! They had that curious half-laugh on their faces which signifies an intense nervousness being politely concealed. Up to three o'clock these complaisant shopmen were still selling things at a purely nominal price, which was not entered in the books, but quietly pocketed by them for their own benefit. Having completed my own arrangements, I began idly watching their actions, they were so curious. At three o'clock sharp the last shutters went up, the last shopman pasted a diamond-shaped Fu, or Happiness, of red paper over the wooden bars, and vanished silently and mysteriously. It was for all the world once again exactly like the telegraph-operator in "Michael Strogoff," when the Tartars smash in the front doors of his office and seize the person of the hero, while the clerk coolly takes up his hat and disappears through a back door. These Chinese had done business in the very same way, until the very last moment--the very last.

And not only are the few shopmen slipping away, but also numbers of others within our lines who had been half-imprisoned during the past week by our barricades and incessant patrolling. Men, women, and children, each with a single blue-cloth bundle tied across their backs containing a few belongings, slip away; gliding, as it were, rapidly across the open s.p.a.ces where a shot could reach them, and scuttling down mysterious back alleys and holes in the walls, the existence of which has been unknown to most of us. This time the rats are leaving the sinking ship quietly and silently, for a quiet word pa.s.sed round had informed everyone of what is coming, and no one wishes to be caught. This is the sort of silent play I love to watch.