Sir Robert Hart Part 3

The first order transmitted by Prince Kung to the new Inspector-General--or the I.G., as he was always familiarly called--was that he should live at Shanghai. This gave him the opportunity of meeting and working with the famous "Chinese Gordon,"

to whom the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion was so largely due.

For the history of that rebellion--how one soldier of fortune after the other attempted to suppress it; how the picturesque American Burgevine, on changing masters and seeking to better his fortune with the rebels, was succeeded by the prosaic failure Holland; how at last, on General Staveley's recommendation, Charles Gordon was lent with several other young officers to the Imperialist cause--the reader must go (and will thank me for sending him) to some of the many historians who have immortalized the struggle.

Nothing remains to be told about that terrible war--except the part that Robert Hart accidentally played in it.

His first meeting with Gordon was planned for October 1863, when Major-General Brown, commanding the troops at Hongkong, came up to Shanghai for the express purpose of seeing the brilliant young commander of what was already known as "The Ever-Victorious Army." Gordon sent the _Firefly_ to take the General and the Inspector-General up the Soochow Creek to Quinsan, where he then was, and on a certain Sunday morning they intended to have started.

Fortunately, as it afterwards turned out, Fate interfered at this point.

The English mail arrived suddenly on Sat.u.r.day night with important despatches; the General sent his A.D.C. to say that he could not possibly leave until they were answered; and so, reluctantly, the visit was postponed--as the two men thought, for a few days, but in reality for much longer. Next morning the A.D.C. hurried round again almost before Hart was out of bed, and this time with the most sensational news--the _Firefly_ had been boarded as she lay at her moorings by foreign friends of the rebels, carried up stream, and burnt. Both her European engineers had mysteriously disappeared.

The whole affair, of course, was a plot as deep laid as diabolical, hatched by the rebels for the purpose of getting rid of General Brown, who they feared was about to reinforce Gordon. But for the timely arrival of those pressing despatches it would have succeeded, and he and the I.G. would have been trapped and quietly murdered.

Not till the spring of 1864 did the delayed meeting finally take place. There had been a serious difference of opinion between Gordon and Li Hung Chang--a difference which arose over the taking of Soochow. When the city, thanks to Gordon's co-operation, was captured, certain of the Taiping princes agreed to surrender. General Ching went to interview them outside one of the city gates, taking Gordon with him. His idea was that if the great General Gordon showed the rebels that he had actually been concerned in the successful operations against them, they would be the more likely to consider further resistance hopeless. Gordon, on the other hand, thought his presence would be taken by them to mean surety for their safety. It was not an unnatural misunderstanding, seeing that Gordon spoke no Chinese, that neither the rebels nor General Ching understood English, and that there was no interpreter present.

In the end the rebellious princes surrendered, not from any feeling that Gordon's presence would ensure the sparing of their lives, but because they believed--just as General Ching shrewdly guessed they would--that his presence in Soochow made it useless to continue the struggle. Had they only been wise enough to retire gracefully from the field, all would have been well. But they swaggered into Li's presence. "They appeared"--so an eyewitness described the scene--"rather like leaders in a position to dictate terms than men sharing in an act of clemency." They even had the audacity to suggest that Li should pay their soldiers--_their_ soldiers, who had fought _him_, mind you--and divide the city of Soochow by a great wall, leaving half of it in rebel hands.

Naturally he refused to do either of these things; how could he possibly agree to such quixotic demands? But through his refusal, he found himself face to face with the problem of what to do with the surrendered w.a.n.gs. He might keep them prisoners--that would be difficult; or he might summarily behead them--and that would be easy.

The latter action must certainly be open to the ugly suspicion of treachery, but he had as his excuse that the city was under martial law, and that prompt and vigorous measures might be the means of saving more bloodshed in the end. Accordingly he ordered the immediate execution of the surrendered chiefs.

When Gordon heard of it he was as angry as only a pa.s.sionate nature such as his could be. The idea that his unspoken word of honour to helpless prisoners had been broken for him made him mad with fury. Out into the city he went, revolver in hand, to look for Li, and to avenge what he called the "murder." His sense of his own guilt was certainly morbid; morbid too was his treatment of the head of the Na w.a.n.g, which he found exposed in an iron lantern on one of the city gates.

He brought it home, kept it for days beside him, even laying it on his bed, and kneeling and asking forgiveness beside it. The Na w.a.n.g's son he adopted into his bodyguard. No father could have treated his own child more tenderly. I believe not once but a dozen times in an afternoon he would turn to the boy and ask wistfully, "Who are you?"

receiving the same soft answer, "I am your son," each time with the same pleasure.

Almost immediately after the decapitation of the w.a.n.gs, Gordon, still fuming with rage, suddenly determined to break off all relations with Li, to retire to Quinsan, and to take his "Ever-Victorious Army" with him. Though his friends, singly and in company, did their best to dissuade him from this rash course, and pointed out the consequences, he would not listen, and he went.

The Chinese Government took fright at Gordon's dramatic move--there was no knowing what he might do next--(I wonder if in the back of their minds they had a sneaking fear he might join the rebels like Burgevine?)--and consequently they thought it wisdom to send the I.G.

to make peace--since peace was so badly needed.

Robert Hart, in his new role of military arbitrator, left Shanghai on January 19th by boat, creeping slowly through the ca.n.a.ls. The desolation along both banks was pitiful; every village had been burned, every field trampled; not a living thing was in sight--not even a dog--but the creeks were choked with corpses. No man could pa.s.s through such a dreary waste unmoved, least of all one who had the slightest power to alter the sad conditions, and Robert Hart met Li at Soochow with his determination to do all in his power to reconcile him with Gordon, and so end the war quickly, greatly strengthened.

Li promptly explained his action by justifying his policy from his own point of view, and finally ended by saying, "Do tell Gordon I never meant to do it; I meant to keep my word as to the Princes'

safe-conduct; but when I saw those fellows come in with their hair long, the very sign of rebellion, and only wearing the white badge of submission in their b.u.t.tonholes, I thought it such insolence that anger overcame me, and I gave the order for their execution. But it was my doing, not Gordon's; my safe-conduct, not Gordon's, that had been violated. Tell him that I am ready to proclaim far and wide that he had nothing to do with it, so that he loses no reputation by it.

Can you not make peace with him for me?"

To find Gordon at that time was no easy matter. He was moving about very rapidly. With his wonderful eye for country, he saw at a glance--almost by instinct--a point that ought to be taken in order to command other points, and wasted no time over the taking of it. Thus he was never long in any particular spot, and Robert Hart had a week's search before he came up with him at Quinsan. Truly that was an exciting week's journey, I can promise you, dodging up and down ca.n.a.ls, expecting every moment to run round a corner into a rebel camp--yet fortunately never doing it--in fact, doing nothing at all more exciting than listening to the cries of startled pheasants.

Gordon greeted the I.G. very cordially and held a parade in his honour, just by way of celebrating his arrival. That march past was unforgettable. Though the soldiers were commonplace enough, plain and businesslike the officers, of whom Gordon had about thirty of all ages, sizes and tastes, usually designed their own uniforms, which were sometimes fantastic, to say the least. On this great occasion you may be sure none had neglected to appear in the fullest of full dress, with highly comical results. Indeed their efforts amused Gordon so much that all the time they were advancing he kept repeating as he rubbed his hands gleefully together, "Go it, ye cripples; go it, ye cripples!"

By contrast, he himself, the commander of them all, appeared so simple in his long blue frock coat--the old uniform of the Engineers--with his trousers tucked roughly into his big boots and a little cane, the only weapon he ever carried--"I am too hot tempered for any other" he would often say laughingly of himself--in his hand. This simplicity, this utter absence of affectation, was the keynote to his character--just as it was the keynote of Robert Hart's character.

Because both possessed it to an unusual degree, each understood the other--and at once.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR ROBERT HART ABOUT 1866.]

Within a week of the I.G.'s arrival Gordon's fit of gloom, brought on by the affair of the w.a.n.gs, was dissipating; within two it was gone, for a character of such violent "downs" must have equally mercurial "ups"; within three he capitulated to argument and agreed to go back to Soochow and see Li. Impulsive and generous as ever, he then wished that Hart should say he (Hart) had induced him to come to Li. "That will give you immense influence with the Chinese," he declared. But Hart would not have it so; he preferred to tell Li that Gordon had come of his own free will, knowing that this would please Li personally far more.

The three-cornered meeting pa.s.sed off well. As little as possible was said about past disagreements, as much as possible about future agreements, and the end of it was that Gordon agreed to take the field again. At the same time the I.G. took care to suggest the removal of an excuse for future misunderstandings in the person of an officious, inefficient interpreter whom Robert Hart himself described as a "'Talkee talkee, me-no-savey,' the sort of person whose attempt at Mandarin [official Chinese] is even viler than his English."

There then remained nothing more to do in Soochow, and Hart and Gordon started back together to Quinsan, though not before they had visited the historic Soochow stockades together, and Gordon, taking his friend over every disputed foot of ground, had vividly described the b.l.o.o.d.y fighting there--the victory so pleasant to remember, the tragedy so difficult to forget.

I doubt if anything he ever did in China gave Robert Hart greater pleasure than this reconciliation, or if there was any other single episode in his career in which he took more pride; though he spoke of it so seldom and so modestly that scarcely any one--certainly not the public--knew of what he had done. It cost him a few friends among minor officials who thought that negotiations should have pa.s.sed through their hands rather than his. But his old friend Sir Frederick Bruce, to whom he wrote a report of the whole affair (afterwards included in the Blue Book for 1864), took genuine pleasure in his success, while the Chinese grat.i.tude was unbounded; they realized very clearly what the extremity had been and the difficulty from which they had been rescued.

Three months after the reconciliation (April 28th) Robert Hart went once again to see Gordon and to be present at the taking of Chang-Chow-Fu. This was one of those typical water cities of Central China, walled in of course and with a ca.n.a.l--the Grand Ca.n.a.l in this case--doing duty for a moat. Gordon's headquarters were in boats, and Hart and his little party--one of whom, Colonel Mann Stuart, afterwards helped to keep the line of communications open for Gordon in Khartoum--moored his flotilla alongside. The largest vessel of the fleet was the common dining-room, and owed its excellent ventilation to two holes opposite each other torn out close to the ceiling by a sh.e.l.l while Gordon had been lunching a few days before.

This taking of Chang-Chow-Fu was to be a sight worth seeing--the culminating point of the whole campaign. Nowhere had the rebels fought with greater obstinacy or gathered in greater numbers. One spy told Gordon that he had forty thousand soldiers against him; another fifty thousand; a third a hundred thousand. It was impossible to get accurate information. He only knew that twice the rebels were strong enough to repulse the Imperialist attacks and that he himself was determined to lead the third--from which there could be no turning back. "You," said he to Robert Hart, "must arrange with Li that, if I fall, some one is ready to take my place." Major Edwardes, also a Royal Engineer, was the man chosen; but, after all, his services were not needed.

The great attack was fixed for the 11th of May. On the 10th Gordon determined to find out all he could about the position of the rebels on the city wall, so taking a small party, which included Hart and two of his faithful bodyguard, he went out to reconnoitre. No sooner had the Taipings recognized the Ever-Victorious Leader than they pelted shots at him. The wooden screen behind which he took shelter looked in a very few minutes as if it were suffering from an acute attack of smallpox.

But Gordon, with his usual miraculous luck--in his fighting before more than twenty cities he was only once wounded--escaped scot-free, though one of his bodyguard got a bullet in his chest. With all possible haste the poor fellow was taken back to the doctor's boat, and the surgeon began poking his fingers into the wound to find the ball. It was not a pleasant operation for the guardsman, and he made some grimaces, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of several of his companions, who stood on the bank and jeered at his lack of courage. Those jeers, in addition to the pain, exasperated him greatly, and Hart, whose boat was moored next to the doctor's overheard the man say to his companions, "Yes, it's all very well for you to laugh, but if you had a rebel fiend's bullet in your chest, and a foreign devil's fingers groping after it, you would make more fuss than I do."

Very early in the morning of the 11th all was in readiness. The guns from the various batteries around the city began to play. They barked and roared until noon, when Gordon gave the order to "Cease fire."

"You see," he remarked to Hart by way of explanation, "those beggars inside will be completely thrown off their guard by the silence. They will take it that we have finished work for the day."

Gordon then s.n.a.t.c.hed a hasty lunch, and at one o'clock the signal was given for the big attack by four soldiers waving red flags on the little hill where Li Hung Chang's tent stood. From this hill Hart and Li stood together to watch the operations. Three rushes were made simultaneously--two feints, and one led by Gordon himself. How splendidly he called his men on, how he flourished his little cane, just as though it had been a lance with flying pennant! I can imagine how the watchers held their breath with excitement. "They're in--no, they're out; no, they're in," one said to the other, I'm sure, till at last they _were_ in, Gordon himself the very first to dash through the narrow breach, his too reckless exposure of his own precious life redeemed by the inspiring audacity of his presence.

The spectacular moment was over, but work still remained to be done. The rebels immediately attempted a turning movement, which if successful, threatened the artillery camp, and Gordon sent post haste to Li with a request for more troops to help him. Li turned to the I.G. in despair. "What can I do?" he said. "All my men are scattered over the city looting by this time. How shall I collect them?" Hart persuaded Li to send messengers and try. Meantime, luckily, the rebels dispersed and the city fell.

They fled wildly in every direction, dropping flags, rifles, and the fans without which no Chinese soldier of the old regime ever went to war, as they ran. From the grey belt of city wall the I.G. looked down on the whole tragic panorama. Fires were burning north, east, south and west. In one street he saw an old woman hobble out of a house supported by her two sons. Just before they could reach shelter a narrow stone bridge over a pond had to be crossed. The old woman limped pitifully to the middle, when a shrill ping rang out. A sharpshooter's bullet struck her; she toppled over into the water, while the men took to their heels and fled back into the smoke of the burning building.

Similar horrors took place in nearly every lane; men were struck down in the att.i.tudes of escape, and the hateful lean dogs that infest Chinese cities crept stealthily out of holes and corners.

As Robert Hart turned away from these sights and descended the ramp of the wall, he noticed a dozen little boys following him, naked urchins with uncombed hair on shoulders. Some of Li Hung Chang's men, seeing them too, rushed up, rolling their sleeves high and flourishing swords. Here, thought they, was an excellent opportunity to gain favour with their master by cutting off some rebel heads and exaggerating the exploit into a severe fight. But the I.G. immediately stepped between, showed his revolver, and threatened to shoot the first man who stirred a step nearer to the boys. "Are you not ashamed to fight with children?" said he, and they slunk off.

At the end of the day, when he returned to the boats, the whole ragged troop was there waiting, their number increased by a little fellow of six or seven years, the son of the Taiping w.a.n.g (Prince) of Chang-Chow-Fu, who had been left behind in the confusion and rescued by Gordon from his father's burning palace. He was adopted at once by the party, made much of, petted, and consoled for his fall from high estate by being placed in the seat of honour; and he caused great amus.e.m.e.nt to the a.s.sembled company by the matter-of-fact way in which he accepted his dignity and looked about with serious eyes, as if to say, "This is just what I am accustomed to."

Yet he ill repaid the care that was lavished on him till he grew to manhood. Clothes, food, some education, and finally a position on one of the Customs cruisers, were given to him. He wasted no breath in thanks to his generous captors; but one day, when the wild fighting blood in his veins a.s.serted itself, disappeared. Nor from that day to this has anything been heard of the errant princeling.

What to do with the other children was a problem. All could not be adopted: so the youngest, a winning little fellow of ten years, who lisped out "Lo Atsai" when asked his name, remained at headquarters, while the rest were sent off to find their friends.

Lo Atsai was promptly handed over to the cook--with no cannibal intent, but simply to be washed. "The energy and enthusiasm that cook put into his task," the I.G. would remark when telling the story, "made the whole operation most ludicrous. Into the river the child was plunged again and again, our chef holding him stoutly by the hair all the time as he bobbed up and down between the boats and the unsavoury corpses sticking there, till he was considered clean enough to be hauled on board again."

This little child, son of humble parents, was destined to rise far higher in the world than the prince's son who sat in the place of honour while Lo Atsai ingratiated himself with the servants in the confined kitchen quarters of the boat. Because of his whole-hearted allegiance, the I.G. sent him to school in Hongkong, where he improved his opportunities so well that the Head Master, reporting on him, could only say, "He is too conscientious; he will kill himself with study."

He was truly wearing himself out with diligence, when a rich merchant took a fancy to him and gave him a good position; then another gave him a better, so that in a few years he had become a very rich man.

It is nice to add--for the benefit of those who sneer at Chinese grat.i.tude--that at every new year he would travel, no matter how far away he might be, to see his old patron and friend. Nor did he ever grow too grand to go into the kitchen afterwards and gossip with the servants, sitting down in his sable robes and peac.o.c.k's feathers without thought of sn.o.bbery, without desire to make himself appear great in humble eyes.

Chang-Chow-Fu was the last city Gordon took. Its fall closed his career, and the I.G. arranged most of the details regarding the disbandment of the famous "Ever-Victorious Army." He did more; once again he smoothed out a difficulty for the too impulsive Gordon. At the close of the rebellion the Chinese showed towards Gordon a warmth of feeling which it has seldom been their habit to show to foreigners.

They thereupon begged Sir Frederick Bruce to advise them as to what would be a suitable reward to offer him for his valuable services to the Imperial cause. Finally a gratuity of 3,000 (Tls. 18,000) was decided upon; but when Gordon got wind of this, he was so furious at being treated like what he called "an adventurer," that he chased the messenger out of the camp.

Now the Chinese were utterly at a loss to understand a man who grew furious at the offer of a large sum of money, such an occurrence being without precedent. As usual in times of perplexity, they asked the ever-tactful I.G. to sound Gordon as to what he _would_ accept. "Tell Wen Hsiang" (then Premier), was Gordon's answer, "that though I have refused the money, I would like a Chinese costume." Accordingly, by Imperial Decree, a costume was sent him, and, on Hart's suggestion, the famous Yellow Jacket was added. Gordon afterwards had his portrait painted in the full regalia, and, like a glorified Chinese Field-Marshal in his quaint garb, he still looks down from over the mantelpiece in the Royal Engineers' mess-room at Chatham.

Once again before his tragic death this strange soldier of destiny was to see China, though on this second visit he did not meet his old friend Robert Hart. He came in the early eighties direct from India, where he had been Private Secretary to the Viceroy. The position never suited his too independent character, and when the Chinese, perplexed over Russian questions, invited him to the Middle Kingdom, he gladly accepted their invitation.

Unfortunately the visit was a failure. His advice was unpractical, and though, as the first prophet of "China for the Chinese," he found a fundamental truth, he found it too soon for immediate utility. On political matters he and the I.G. disagreed; the latter was far too wise to hold with Gordon's somewhat visionary idea that China could raise an army as good as the best in the twinkling of an eye; and when Gordon left Peking after a very short stay, he left disappointed and disgusted.

It was, however, characteristic of him that before he had got farther than Hongkong he wrote an affectionate letter to his old friend, acknowledging himself in the wrong and giving the highest praise to that friend's policy. This, with all the rest of Gordon's letters to the I.G., was burned in the Boxer outbreak of 1900.

But what nothing could destroy was Robert Hart's admiration for the soldier hero. If the apparent inconsistencies of his character were numerous, all of them added force and picturesqueness to it, and only served to increase the affection of one who knew him and understood him most thoroughly.