Chapter VI: Part II: The Siege (1)

I

CHAOS

21st June, 1900.

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I passed the night in half a dozen different places, assimilating all there was to assimilate; gazing and noting the thousand things there were to be seen and heard, and sleeping exactly three hours. Few people would believe the extraordinary condition to which twelve hours of chaos can reduce a large number of civilised people who have been forced into an unnatural life. It is indeed extraordinary. Half the Legations are abandoned, excepting for a few sailors; others are being evacuated, and most people have even none of the necessities of life with them. For instance, at eight o'clock I discovered that I had had no breakfast, and on finding that it would be impossible for me to get any for some hours, I forthwith became so ravenously hungry that I determined I would steal some if necessary. What a position for a budding diplomatist!

Fortunately I thought of the Hotel de Pekin before I had done anything startling, and soon C----, the genial and energetic Swiss, who is the master of this wonderful hostelry, had given me coffee. He told me then to go into his private rooms, ransack the place and take what I liked. I found I was not alone in his private apartments. Baron R----, the Russian commandant, had just come in before me, and had fallen asleep from sheer fatigue as he was in the act of eating something. He looked so ridiculous lying in a chair with his mouth wide open and his sword and revolver mixed up with the things he had been eating, that I began laughing loudly, and, aroused by this sound, two more men appeared suddenly--Marquis P----, the cousin of the Italian _charge_, and K----, the Dutch Minister. What they were doing there I did not inquire. The Dutch Minister was in a frightful rage at everything and everybody, and began talking so loudly that R---- woke up, and commenced eating again in the most natural way in the world, without saying a single word. As soon as he had finished he went to sleep again. He was plainly a man of some character; the whole position was so ridiculous and yet he paid no attention.

I soon got tired of this, as plenty of other people now came in, all calling for food, and I was really so weary from lack of sleep and proper rest that I could not remember what they were talking about two seconds after they had finished speaking. Most of the men were angry at the "muddle," as they called it, and said it was hopeless going on this way. One of the Austrian midshipmen told me that there had been altogether very little firing, and not more than a few dozen Chinese skirmishers engaged, but that the whole northern and eastern fronts of our square were so imperfectly garrisoned that they could be rushed in a few minutes. Everybody agreed with him, but nobody appeared to know who was in supreme command, or who was responsible for a distribution of our defending forces, which would total at least six hundred or seven hundred men if every able-bodied man was forced into the fighting-line. Fortunately the Chinese Government appears to be hesitating again; we have been all driven into our square and can be safely left there for the time being--that seems to be the point of view.

I now became anxious about a trunk containing a few valuables, which I had sent into the British Legation, and I determined to go in person and see how things were looking there. What confusion! I soon learned that it had been very gay at the British Legation during the night. At four o'clock of the previous afternoon, when the first shots had already been dropping in at the northern and eastern defences, not a thing had been done in the way of barricading and sandbagging--that everybody admitted. The flood of people coming in from the other Legations, almost weeping and wailing, had driven them half insane. At the Main Gate, a majestic structure of stone and brick, a few sandbags had actually been got together, as if suggesting that later on something might be done. But for the time being this Legation, where all the women and children have rushed for safety, is quite defenceless. Yet it has long been an understood thing that it was to become the general base. It was not surprising, then, that at six in the evening yesterday a tragedy had occurred within eyesight of everybody at the Main Gate. A European, who afterwards turned out to be Professor J----, of the Imperial University, an eccentric of pronounced type, had attempted to cross the north bridge, which connects the extreme north of Prince Su's palace walls with a road passing just one hundred yards from the British Legation northern wall, and perhaps three hundred yards from the Main Gate itself. It was seen that the European was running, onlookers told me, and that after him came a Chinese brave in full war-paint, with his rifle at the trail. Instead of charging his men down the street to save this wretched man, the British officer, Captain W----, ordered the Main Gate to be closed, and everybody to go inside except himself and his file of marines. He then commanded volley-firing, apparently at the pink walls of the Imperial city, which form a background to the bridge, although he might as well have ordered musical drill. Meanwhile the unfortunate J---- was caught half way across the stone bridge by some other Chinese snipers, who had been lying concealed there all the time behind some piles of stones. He was hit several times, though not killed, as several people swear they saw him crawling down into the canal bed on his hands and knees. Volley-firing continued at the Main Gate, and the aforesaid British officer cursed himself into a fever of rage over his men. Even when J---- had finally disappeared, no steps were taken to see what had become of him; he was calmly reported lost. This was the opening of the ball at the British Legation.

No sooner was it dark than M----, the chief, appeared on the scenes, smoking a cigarette reminiscent of his Egyptian campaign, and clad in orthodox evening dress. This completed everyone's anger, but the end was not yet. At ten in the evening a scare developed among the women, and it was decided to begin fortifying some of the more exposed points. Everybody who could be found was turned on to this work, but in the dark little progress could be made excepting in removing all possibility of any one going to sleep.

But the sublimely ridiculous was reached in an out-of-the-way building facing the canal, an incident displaying even more than anything else the attitude of some of the _personnel_ of our missions to China. Sleeping peacefully in his nice pyjamas under a mosquito net was found a sleek official of the London Board of Works, who wanted to know what was meant by waking him up in the middle of the night. Investigations elsewhere found other members of this Legation asleep in their beds; everybody said the young men were all right, but those above a certain age...!

The night thus spent itself very uneasily. They were only learning what should have been known days before.

When day broke in the British Legation things had seemed more impossible than ever. Orders and counter-orders came from every side; the place was choked with women, missionaries, puling children, and whole hosts of lamb-faced converts, whose presence in such close proximity was intolerable. Heaven only knew how the matter would end. The night before people had been only too glad to rush frantically to a place of safety; with daylight they remembered that they were terribly uncomfortable--that this might have to go on for days or for weeks. It is very hard to die uncomfortably. I thought then that things would never be shaken into proper shape.

In this wise has our siege commenced; with all the men angry and discontented; with no responsible head; with the one man among those high-placed dead; with hundreds of converts crowding us at every turn--in a word, with everything just the natural outcome of the vacillation and ignorance displayed during the past weeks by those who should have been the leaders. Fortunately, as I have already said, so far there has been no fighting or no firing worth speaking of. Only along the French and Italian barricades, facing east and north, a dropping fire has continued since yesterday, and one Frenchman has been shot through the head and one Austrian wounded. It is worth while noting, now that I think of it, that the French, the Italians, the Germans, and, of course, the Austrians, have accepted Captain T----, the cruiser captain, as their commander-in-chief, and that the Japanese have signified their willingness to do so, too, as soon as the British and Americans do likewise. Thus already there are signs that a pretty storm is brewing over this question of a responsible commander; and, of course, so long as things remain as they are at present, there can be no question of an adequate defence. Each detachment is acting independently and swearing at all the others, excepting the French and Austrians, for the good reason that as the Austrians have taken refuge in the French lines they must remain polite. Half the officers are also at loggerheads; volunteers have been roaming about at will and sniping at anything they have happened to see moving in the distance; ammunition is being wasted; there are great gaps in our defences, which any resolute foe could rush in five minutes were they so inclined; there is not a single accurate map of the area we have to defend!

All this I discovered in the course of the morning, and by afternoon I had nothing better to do than go over to the great Su wang-fu, or Prince Su's palace grounds, now filled with Chinese refugees, both Catholic and Protestant, and there watch the Japanese at work. The Japanese Legation is squashed in between Prince Su's palace grounds and buildings and the French Legation lines, and, consequently, to be on the outer rim of our defences the little Japanese have been shifted north and now hold the northeast side of our quadrilateral. Prince Su, together with his various wives and concubines and their eunuchs, has days ago fled inside the Imperial city, abandoning this palace with its valuables to the tender mercies of the first comers; and thus the Japanese sailor detachment, reinforced by a couple of dozen Japanese and other volunteers, has made itself free with everything, and is holding an immense line of high walls, requiring at least five hundred men to be made tolerably safe. But they have an extraordinary little fellow in command, Colonel S----, the military attache. He is awkward and stiff-legged, as are most Japanese, but he is very much in earnest, and already understands exactly what he can do and what he cannot. After a search of many hours, I found here the first evidences of system. This little man, working quietly, is reducing things to order, and in the few hours which have gone by since the dreadful occurrences of yesterday he has succeeded in attending to the thousand small details which demanded his attention. He is organising his dependents into a little self-contained camp; he is making the hordes of converts come to his aid and strengthen his lines; in fact, he is doing everything that he should do. Already I honour this little man; soon I feel I shall be his slave.

But not only is there order within these Japanese lines; attempts are being made to find out what is going on beyond--that is, to discover what is being done in this deserted corner of the city, which is abandoned to the European. Although all is quiet without, it is not possible that everyone has fled, because some rifle-firing is going on.... When I arrived the Japanese had already discovered that a Chinese camp had been quietly established less than a quarter of a mile away. Half an hour afterwards a breathless Japanese sailor brought in a report that snipers had been seen stealthily approaching. I was just in the nick of time, as Colonel S---- immediately decided on a reconnaissance in force; any one who liked could go. Would I go?

We slipped out under command of the colonel himself and worked through tortuous lanes down towards the abandoned Customs Inspectorate and the Austrian Legation. We reached the rear of the Customs compounds without a sound being heard or a living thing seen. All along hundreds of yards of twisting alleyways the native houses stood empty and silent, abandoned by their owners just as they are. Even the Peking dog, a cur of great ferocity, who in peaceful times abounds everywhere and is the terror of our riding-parties, had fled, as if driven away by the fear of the coming storm. In the distance, as we stealthily moved, we could hear an occasional rattle of musketry, probably directed against the French Legation and the Italian barricade, where it has been going on for twenty-four hours; but so isolated is one street in Peking from the rest by the high walls of the numberless compounds and the thick trees which intercept all sounds that we could be certain of nothing. Perhaps the firing was not even the enemy at work, whoever he may be; it might be our men....

But directly in front of us all was still, and just as we thought of stealing on, a Japanese whispered "Hush," and pointed a warning finger. We flattened ourselves against houses and scurried into open doors. Suddenly it was getting exciting. Down another lane then came a noisy sound of feet, incautiously pattering on the hard ground to the accompaniment of some raucous talk. It is the very devil in this network of lanes and blind alleys which twist round the Legations, and no force could properly patrol them....

Without any warning two men came round the corner, peering everywhere with sharp eyes and bobbing up and down. Simultaneously with the sob of surprise they gave our rifles crashed off. And this time, owing to the short range and the Japanese warning, we got them fair and square, and both of them rolled over. But no, one fellow jumped to his feet again, and before we could stop him was down another lane like a flash of lighting. We promptly gave chase, yelling blue murder in an incautious manner, which might have brought hundreds of the enemy on our heels. But we did not care. Round a corner, as we followed the man up, a high wall rose sheer, but nothing daunted, the fellow took a tremendous leap, and by the aid of the lattice-work on a window, climbed to a roof. Then bang, bang, bang, seven shots went at him rapidly, one after another. In spite of the volley the man still crawled upwards, but as he reached the top of the low house and passed his legs over he gave a feeble moan and then.... _flopper-ti flop, flopper-ti flop_, he crashed down the other side and ended with a dull thud on the ground. On the other side there he was dead as a door-nail and all covered with blood. It was our first proper work. But he was not a soldier, he was a Boxer; and in place of the former incomplete attire of red sashes and strings, this true patriot wore a long red tunic edged with blue, and had his head tied up in the regulation _bonnet rouge_ of the French Revolution. Round his waist he had also girded on a blue cartridge-belt of cloth, with great thick Martini bullets jammed into the thumb holes. This we thought very curious at the time, as the Boxers were supposed to laugh at firearms. Elated by this little affair, we pushed on, and came upon other men working round our lines in small bands, and exchanged shots with them. All were Boxers in this new uniform; but although we tried to entice them on and corner them in houses, they were too cunning for us, and broke back each time. In the end we had so stirred up this hornet's nest that the scattered firing became more and more persistent, and stern orders came for us to fall back.

We came in feeling elated, but Colonel S---- was looking serious, for he had discovered that the extent of Prince Su's outer walls, which have to be held in their entirety, is so much greater than was expected, and every part can be so easily attacked from the outside, that the task is desperate. There are less than fifty men in all for these long Japanese lines, and if we take more from elsewhere it will be merely creating fresh gaps.... Decidedly it is not enticing. The whole line from the north right round to the south, where the Japanese, French, Austrians, Italians and Germans are distributed, ending on the Tartar Wall itself, is terribly weak. And as I began to understand this, an hour after this afternoon adventure I became quite gloomy at the outlook.

Everything, indeed, was upside down. Matters in the British Legation were not improving, and the fighting air which exists elsewhere is not to be found here. Men, women and children; ponies, mules and packing-cases; sandbags and Ministers Plenipotentiary--are still all engaged in attempting to sort themselves out and keep distinct from one another. Already the British Legation has surrendered itself, not to the enemy, but to committees. There are general committees, food committees, fortifications committees, and what other committees I do not know, except that American missionaries, who appear at least to have more energy than any one else, are practically ruling them. This is all very well in its way, but it is curious to see that dozens of able bodied men, armed with rifles, are hiding away in corners so that they shall not be drafted away to the outer defences. Everywhere a contemptible spirit is being displayed, because a feeling prevails that there are no responsible chiefs in whom absolute trust can be placed. A pleasant mess in all truth. It is now everyone for himself and nobody looking after the others....

Some of the people, however, have begun dividing themselves up, and now are billeted, nationality by nationality, in separate quarters. But many persons seem lost and distraught. H----, the great director of Chinese affairs, was siting on an old mattress looking quite paralysed; P----, his counterpart in the Russian bank, was striding about excitedly and muttering to himself. The Belgian Legation has disappeared entirely; whether they have run away or been lost in the confusion I could not for the life of me tell. What a position, what a condition! Already it is a great feat to be on speaking terms with a dozen people, and if we could only instill some of the savageness we all feel towards one another into our defence, it would become so vigorous and unconquerable that not all the legions of the Boxer Empire, massed in serried ranks, could break in on us. But this very defence, which should be so determined, is the most half-hearted thing imaginable. It has no real leader, and merely resolves itself into the old policy of each Legation holding its own in an irregular half-circle round the British Legation, which itself is a mass of disorder. I feel certain that if we have a night attack at once the Chinese will break in with the greatest ease, and then.... _Tant pis!_

The last thing I saw in the British Legation was M----, the great correspondent, sitting on a great stack of his books, looking wearily around him. His former energy and resolution have all departed, sapped by the spectacle of extraordinary incompetence around him. Of what good has all that rescuing of native Christians been--all that energy in dragging them more dead than alive into our lines in the face of Ministerial opposition, when we cannot even protect ourselves? But just when I began this moralising, the hundred and fifty mules and ponies that have been collected together all broke loose, frightened by some stray shots, and went careering madly around us. It was pitch dark and most gloomy before they had been all tied up again, and although firing became heavier and heavier as Chinese snipers found they could approach our outer lines in safety, I finally sought out a spot for myself and fell asleep with my rifle on my chest--cursing everybody. It is a sign of the times--my nerves are becoming Ministerial!

II

THE RETREAT AND THE RETURN

23rd June, 1900.

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Yesterday the inevitable happened, and only Heaven and the foolishness of the attacking forces, who are only playing with us, and do not seem to have settled down to their work, saved us from complete annihilation. Without a word of explanation, Captain T----, the Austrian commander, suddenly ordered all the French, Italians and Austrians to fall back on the British Legation, sending word meanwhile to the Japanese and the Germans to follow his example. This meant that the whole vast semicircle to the northeast and the southeast was being thrown up. The result was that for ten minutes armed men of all nationalities poured into the British Legation, until every rifle-bearing effective was standing there, all jabbering in a mass, and not knowing what it was all about. The Americans, who had established themselves on the Tartar Wall as the main point in the western defence, guessed they were not going to be left there cut off from salvation by a failure to remember their existence; and presently they, too, ran in, openly swearing at their officers. These American marines have never quite liked this idea of being planted on the Tartar Wall; for with that smartness for which their race is distinguished, they see it is quite on the cards that they are forgotten up there if a rush occurs while the others are sitting safe in the main base. And the Americans are not going to be forgotten--we soon found that out. They are the people of the future.

Depict to yourself, if you can, the blind fear of all the Plenipotentiaries, of all the missionaries and their lamb-faced converts, on seeing the gallant defenders of the outer lines rushing in on them at a fast trot, and then falling into line and standing very much at ease awaiting the next move. I may be brutal, but I relished that scene a little; it was a lesson that was sadly needed. It was the British Minister who remained the most calm; perhaps he immediately understood that the game was now in his hands. But the other Ministers, I wish you could have but seen them! They crowded round his British Excellency in an adoring and trembling ring, and without subterfuge offered him the supreme command; that was exactly what we had been expecting. Underneath their manner you could easily see they meant to say that they knew it was the British Legation in which they had taken refuge; that they had had enough of all these alarums and excursions; and that so long as they were left in peace they did not care about the rest. What mean little people we are in this world! The French, the Russian, the Italian and the Japanese Ministers were the first to act thus, and as they represented a majority of the detachments, the others who had Legation Guards had pretty well to follow suit, whether they liked it or not, and some did not like it, as I shall show hereafter. M---- had been hinting very plainly that he had been in a kilted regiment, and that the British Legation was the hub of the defence--the asylum for all; and so with a satisfied smile, he was pleased to accept the proffered appointment. Yet it was one only in name. For just as he was writing out his first _ordre du jour_ the various Plenipotentiaries showed their appreciation of the office they had conferred on him by ordering, each one of them separately, their respective detachments to return to their respective Legations so hurriedly abandoned. So the sailors and the marines, and the fighting volunteers who bear them company, bundled back to the outer lines and barricades again, finding all just as it had been before, except that the Italian Legation was in flames and the Italian barricades therefore useless. The snipers had found that they could suddenly work in peace, and had thrown blazing torches. Four Legations are now destroyed and abandoned, for the Belgian, the Austrian and the Dutch have all gone up in flames at different times during the last days. Seven Legations remain and ten Ministers.

The defence is thus getting into reasonable limits and so long as our attacks are confined to what they have been up till now, we may really pull through. Incendiary fires round the outer lines, lighted by means of torches stuck on long poles, a heavy rifle-fire poured into the most exposed barricades by an unseen enemy, and very occasionally a faint-hearted rush forward, which a fusillade on our part turns into a rout--these have so far been the dangers with which we have had to contend. But the very worst feature of the defence is that no one trusts the neighbouring detachment sufficiently to believe that it will stand firm under all circumstances and not abandon its ground; consequently this fear that a sudden breakdown along some barricades will allow of an inrush of Chinese troops and Boxers makes men fight all the time with their eyes over their shoulders, which is the very worst way of fighting I can possibly imagine. And another hardly less important point is that the burden is not evenly apportioned, and that the men know it. For instance, the British Legation, which is as yet not in the slightest exposed, is full of able-bodied men doing nothing--whereas on the outer lines of the other Legations many men are so dead with sleep that they can hardly sit awake two hours. It can easily be seen from the rude sketches I have made and re-made, what I mean. I have been over every inch on my own legs; there can be no mistake.

From the main sketch you will see that the holding of the Tartar Wall, together with the American and Russian Legations, protects the British Legation effectively from the south and partially, from the west; that the Franco-German-Austrian lines, and the Su wang-fu, with the Japanese, mask the east; and that of the other two sides on which the British Legation walls and outbuildings really constitute the actual defence line directly in touch with the enemy, the Imperial Carriage Park, a vast grass-grown area with but half a dozen yellow-roofed buildings in it, makes the western approaches very difficult to attack, since they are easily swept by our rifle-fire; and that the northern side is so filled with buildings belonging to the Chinese Government (which it now seems cannot be destroyed), that I do not apprehend attacks here. The only real dangers to the British Legation in any case are these two corners to the north and the southwest....

Passing over to the Su wang-fu, you realise the extraordinary difference between the danger points along the British Legation northern and western barricades, and little Colonel S----'s command. Here you are in direct touch with the enemy, for the snipers of forty-eight hours ago have been strongly reinforced, doubtless attracted by the possibility of loot.

Soldiers and all sorts of banditti must have joined hands with the Boxers, for it is clear that every hour is mysteriously adding more and more men round our lines. You can hear the men talking, and you can see bricks moving but fifty or sixty yards from where you are squinting through a loophole as fresh barricades, that are gradually surrounding us in a vise which may yet crush us to death, are silently built. The forty or fifty Japanese, and the few volunteers who are with them, have now been reinforced by all the Italians, who have been given a big strip of outer wall and a fortified hillock in Prince Su's ornamental garden--a hillock which commands a great stretch of territory, as territory goes in our wall split area. For here in the Su wang-fu the number of walls and buildings is terrible, and Heaven only knows how seventy or eighty men can even make a pretence of holding such positions. First there is the great outer wall eighteen feet high and three feet thick. Then from this outer wall, other thick walls run inwards at right angles, splitting up the place into little squares, in which as likely as not there will be a group of houses with great dragon-adorned roofs. Further towards the centre of the Fu is Prince Su's own palace and his retainers' quarters; to the south of this is an ornamental garden full of trees, a vast and mournful enclosure, standing in which the crack of outpost rifles can only be distantly heard. Moving across to the southern side--that is, the side near the French Legation and the protected Legation Street--the Christian refugees are found gathered here in huge droves. In one building there are alone four hundred native schoolgirls, rows upon rows of them that never seem to come to an end, sitting on the ground in their sober blue coats and trousers, peacefully combing each other's hair, or working on sandbags with the imperturbability of the Easterner who is placid under death. Farther on, again, you come on families, sometimes three generations huddling together on a six-foot straw mat. A mother trying to feed a child from her half-dry breasts tells you quietly that it is no use, since the meagre fare she is already getting does not make sustenance enough for her, let alone her child. Yet everything possible is being done to feed them. All the able-bodied converts have long ago been drafted off for barricade-building and loophole-making in the endless walls, and here the curious Japanese passion for order and detail is shown on the coats of the older men. The boss-shifts, each responsible for so many men who have to accomplish a given amount of work in a specified time, have big white labels with characters written squarely across them, telling everyone clearly what they are. At a little table near by writers, who have been carefully sorted out from this incongruous gathering, are provided with brush and ink, and have been set to work making up reports and lists of all the people. These are handed to a Japanese Secretary of Legation, who has been evolved into an engineer-in-chief and overseer of native labour, and thus at every hour of the day the distribution of the barricaders is known. Amid these crowds of native refugees, who number at least a couple of thousand people, two or three Japanese occasionally wander to see that all's well, and give the babies little things they have looted from Prince Su's palace to play with. Content to be where they are and assured that the European will not abandon them, these natives exhibit in a strange manner that inexplicable thing--Faith. Poor people--they little know! Is it always thus with faith?

So the Su wang-fu, which is but the northwestern part of our lines, is now a city in itself, inhabited by the most unlikely people in the world. Three days have sufficed to give it an entity of its own. The nature of the defence and the fighting value of the Japanese as compared to the Italians, are fitly illustrated by the distribution of forces which little Colonel S---- has already made. The Italians hold perhaps a hundred feet of the outer wall and one hillock of some importance. The Japanese have at least a thousand feet of loopholed and unloop-holed wall, and are quite ready to take another thousand if some one would be kind enough to give it to them. In posts of three and four men, distant sometimes hundreds of feet apart, the little Japanese takes his two hours on and his four hours off night and day without a murmur or without ever a break. Only at one place are there more than three or four little men together. At the eastern end of the Fu there is a big post grouped round the fortified Main Gate, where there are actually eight or nine men under the command of a Japanese naval lieutenant.

But the genius who has organised all this system, the little Japanese colonel, does not waste time walking around. He is at work at an eternal map decorated with green, blue and red spots, which show the distribution of his forces and their respective strength and fighting value. Somehow I could not tear myself away from this quarter. It was so orderly....

Behind the commanding hillock in the Italian centre I found Lieutenant P----, the Italian naval officer, dining off bread and Bologna sausage, which he was stripping after the Italian fashion, inelegantly using his knife both to punctuate his sentences and to assist the passage of his food. "Look out," he cried, as soon as I had appeared, "it is very warm here; the bullets are flying low." The leaves of the trees under which he was sitting were indeed falling thickly, cut down by snipers' fire. But still I wish he would walk down to a Japanese post not more than five hundred feet away and watch a little Jap and a half dozen Chinese snipers at work against each other. That is where I had just been--convoying some supplies. The little Japanese had ostentatiously placed his sailor cap just in front of an empty loophole twenty feet from where he actually squatted, and where he had probably been a few seconds before I had arrived. The snipers saw this and promptly fired, bang, bang, bang, a long line of shots following one after the other in quick succession. Hum! they must be reloading now, said the little Jap plainly by the expression on his face; and jumping straight on top of the wall in front of him he hastily snapped at one of his enemies. Then down he came again, but hardly quick enough, for bricks were dislodged all around him, and once he received one on the head. The little man rubbed his cranium ruefully, shook himself like a dog to get rid of the sting, and then with a little more caution began his strange performance again. This is what is going on all round the Japanese posts--men bobbing up and firing rapidly, in some cases only fifty feet away from one another. The Italians are lying comfortably on their stomachs completely out of sight, and wildly volleying far too often. Already their ammunition is running low, although there is hardly any need really to reply at all to our enemies. They have crept closer, it is true, and without surprising any one, or even causing notice, their numbers of riflemen have grown from hour to hour. Now I come to think of it, there must be many hundreds of men lying all round us and firing just as they please. But they are hidden behind walls and ruined houses; they belong to our curious state; they are the essential things after all. How foolish one becomes!

Threading your way due south you come suddenly on a French picquet, four Frenchmen and two Austrians behind a heavy barricade. This precious Su wang-fu is merely linked to the French Legation by a system of such posts audaciously feeble when you consider the duty they have to undertake--to keep up a connection hundreds of yards long which any moment may be broken in a dozen places by a determined rush of the enemy. This first French post is the extreme left of the French defence, and it is only after some long alleyways that you come on the centre itself. Here on roofs, squatting behind loopholes, and even on tree-tops, though these are very dangerous, French and Austrian sailors exchange shots with the enemy. Half a dozen men have been already hit here, but in spite of the strictest orders men are fearlessly exposing themselves and reaping the inevitable result. It is only at the beginning that one is so unwise. One giant Austrian had spread himself across the top of a roof near which I passed, with two sandbags to protect his head, and looked in his blue-black sailors clothes like an enormous fly squashed flat up there by the anger of the gods. Now leaning this way, now that, he flashed off a Mannlicher there towards the Italian Legation, where only one hundred hours ago no one ever dreamed that Chinese desperadoes would have made our normal life such a distant memory.

As I came up the French commander allowed the remark to drop that the position did not please him--_ca ne me dit rien_ is the exact expression he used--and that his defence was too thin to be capable of resisting a single determined rush. The abandoned Italian barricade, with the Italian Legation still smouldering behind it, is indeed now filling up with more and more Chinese sharpshooters, who continually pour in a hot fire only fifty feet from the French lines. Occasionally a reckless Chinese brave dashes across from the hiding-place he has selected to cover his advance into the nest of Chinese houses which are only separated by a twenty-foot lane from the French Legation wall, and coolly applies the torch. Then puff; first there is a small cloud of smoke, then a volley of crackling wood, and finally flames leaping skyward. You can see this here at all hours. Aided by fire and rifle-shots the Chinese are pushing nearer and nearer the French. It is clear that they will have a worse time than the Japanese if the situation develops as quietly but as rapidly as it has been doing....

Across Legation Street connection with the Germans is now had by means of more loopholed barricades; for the Germans link hands with the French and Austrians, just as they on their part link up with the little colonel of the Su wang-fu. But the Germans are not in force at their own Legation; they are merely using it as their base, for it is only by means of the Peking Club, whose grounds run sheer back, that they touch the priceless Tartar Wall. Spread-eagled along a very indifferently barricaded line, the marines of the German Sea Battalion now lie in an angry frame of mind dangerous for everyone. They have felt hurt ever since the loss of their Minister, and the men are recklessly desperate. On the Tartar Wall itself they are exposed to a dusting fire from the great Ha-ta Towers that loom up half a mile from them, and men are already falling. A three-inch gun commenced firing in the morning--nobody but the Wall posts noticed it at first--and now overhead whiz with that odd shaking of the air so hard to explain these light but dangerous projectiles. Happily it is rather a modern gun, and the Chinese, unaccustomed to the flat trajectory, are firing far too high. I noticed as I crept along that the shells fell screaming into the Imperial city a mile or two away. If they only get the range!

Far along the Tartar Wall, towards the Ch'ien Men Gate, yellow dots could be indistinctly seen. These were the Americans, in their slouch hats and khaki suits, lying on the ground and facing the enemy's fire in the other direction. Held in check by the Germans and Americans in two feeble posts of a few men each, the Chinese commanders cannot get their men along the Tartar Wall, and command the Legations that crouch below. Perhaps that is why playing is only going on and no assaults. Now sobbing, now gurgling, the bullets pass thickly enough overhead here, sometimes in dense flights like angry wild-fowl, sometimes speeding in quick succession after one another as if they were all late and were frantically endeavouring to make up for lost time.... I am certain now that this fusillade is increasing from hour to hour--almost from minute to minute. I do not think playing will soon be the right expression....

To get to the Russo-American side of the defence, there is no help for it, you have to make a long voyage; to climb down off the Wall, pass through the German Legation, cross Legation Street into the French lines, and work your way slowly through acres of compounds and deserted houses. Yesterday I would have made a dash, but after watching the four hundred yards of wall between the German and American posts, you are easily convinced that even to sneak along, hugging the protecting parapet, would be an undertaking of utter foolishness. For as I stood looking, the rank undergrowth, which Chinese sloth has allowed in past years to grow up along the top of the Tartar Wall, was apparently alive, now swinging this way, now swaying that, and sometimes even jumping into the air in pieces as if galvanised into madness by the rush of bullets. The number of riflemen is growing fast. So passing into the French Legation, great holes let you into the next compound, which happens to be that of my friend C----, the Peking hotel-keeper. Here there is a new sight; everybody is at work quite peacefully, milling wheat, washing rice, slaughtering animals, barricading windows--doing everything, in fact at once. This fellow C---- is an original, who knows how to make his Chinese slave with the greatest industry and sets them an admirable example himself. A rather desperate lot are these servants, although most of them are professed Roman Catholics, and can gabble French learned years ago at Monseigneur F----'s. And that reminds me: no one has thought of the gallant bishop during the past few days. That shows how indifferent the abnormal makes one; the French Legation has attempted once to get into communication with the distant cathedral and failed. Since then nobody I have seen has even mentioned the great Catholic mission.

These lonely and deserted compounds, merely connected with our bases and the outlying works by great holes rudely picked through their massive walls, are curiously mournful and passing strange. The houses are absolutely empty and silent; everything has been left exactly as it stood, when the occupants rushed off feverishly to the British Legation, where they now sit in idleness relying for protection on the thin outer lines I have described. In these abandoned Legations and residences you can scarcely hear more than a distant rattle of musketry, and when you think how great the distances are it is very easy to understand why the panic occurred yesterday morning among the men on the outer lines, at which those smugly safe in the British Legation were so indignant. Occupying widely separated positions, imperfectly linked together, and with no responsible commander to watch them with a keen and discerning eye, the defenders of the eastern, southern and western lines could well suppose that the incompetence of the Ministers and the disorders which have reigned during the past few weeks would culminate in their being abandoned without a word of warning being sent them. It is so silly to say that because men are soldiers and sailors they must be prepared to do their duty everywhere. There must have been times when even the Roman soldier at Pompeii felt like revolting.

Pushing on, I crossed the southern bridge of stone, in order to reach the Russo-American lines and the rear of the British Legation, and marvelled more and more at our good luck. As yet nothing has been done to protect this very exposed connecting link; and so bending low you have once more to sneak rapidly along, using the stone parapet as a traverse to save you from the enfilading fire, which is coming from heavens know where. The bullets were singing in all manner of tones here as I ran, the iron ones of old-fashioned make muttering a deep bass; the nickel-headed modern devils spitting the thinnest kind of treble as they hastened along. It was almost amusing to gauge their speed. Some had already travelled so far that with a flop which raises a little cloud of dust they dropped exhausted at your feet. The ricochets are in the majority, for with the vast number of intervening walls and trees and the sloping Chinese roofs which pen us in on all sides, the nickel, iron and lead of Mannlicher and Mauser rifles and Tower muskets are soon converted into mere discordant humming-birds, whose greatest inconvenience is their sound. Never have I heard such a humming as these spent ricochets make.

Fifty feet past this southern stone bridge you meet the first Russian barricade, with half a dozen tired Russian sailors sleeping on the ground and a sleepy-eyed lookout man leaning on his rifle. This barricade faces in both directions in the shape of a V, and under its protection this part of Legation Street is supposed to be safe from a rush, if the men stand firm. In the Russian and American Legations it is everywhere the same story--barricades and loopholed houses and outworks, now mostly crowned with sandbags, succeed one another with a regularity which becomes monotonous. But on this western side the bullets are few and far between as yet, and sometimes for a few seconds a curious quiet reigns, only broken by the distant and muffled hum of sound and crackling towards the east. Decidedly up to date it is the Japanese and the French and their companions who have all the honours in the matter of cannonading and fusillading, and the Germans are soon going to be not far behind them. Right up on the Tartar Wall I found the American marines once again lying mutinously silent. They, too, do not like it, frankly and unreservedly; and as I lay up there and told them what I had seen elsewhere, an old fellow with a beard said it was S----, the first secretary, who had insisted on their stopping, and had almost had a fight with everyone about it. The old marine told me that the other men would be damned--he used the word in a wistful sort of way which had nothing profane about it--if they stopped much longer. They wanted other people to share the honours; they did not see why every man should not have a turn at the same duty.... I was glad these Americans were making this fuss, for everything is just as unbalanced as it was at the beginning, and there is no sort of confidence anywhere. After three days of siege the only clear thing I can see is that there are a lot of bad tempers, and that the few good men are saving the situation by acting independently to the best of their ability and are not trying to understand anything else.

Much depressed, I at last slipped down through the back of the Russian Legation into the British Legation. Yes! the others are right, for on reaching the English grounds you feel unconsciously that you have passed from the fighting line to the hospital and commissariat base. Here, mixed impartially with the women, crowds of vigorous men, belonging to the junior ranks of the Legations' staffs and to numbers of other institutions, are skulking, or getting themselves placed on committees so as to escape duty. I suppose you could beat up a hundred, or even a hundred and fifty, rifle-bearing effectives in an hour. Many of the younger men were furious, and said they were quite willing to do anything, but that everybody should be turned out.... In the afternoon some of them fell in with my idea--volunteering under independent command on the outer lines--and now the Japanese, the French and the Germans have got more men. But what I wish to show you in this rambling account is the unbalanced condition. Except in two or three places we can be rushed in ten minutes.

III

FIRES AND FOOD

24th June, 1900.

* * * * *

I am convinced that not only does everything come to him who knows how to wait, but that sooner or later everybody meets with their deserts.

The British Legation, allowed to sink into a somewhat somnolent condition owing to its immunity from direct attack, has been now rudely awakened. Fires commencing in earnest yesterday, after a few half-hearted attempts made previously, have been raging in half a dozen different places in this huge compound; and one incendiary, creeping in with the stealthiness of a cat, threw his torches so skilfully that for at least an hour the fate of the Ministerial residences hung in the balance, and Ministerial fears assumed alarming proportions. Again I was satisfied; everybody should sooner or later meet with their deserts.

I have already said how the British Legation is situated. Protected on the east and south entirely by the other Legations and linked defences, it can run no risk from these quarters until the defenders of these lines are beaten back by superior weight of numbers. Partially protected on the west, owing to the fact that an immense grass-grown park renders approach from this quarter without carefully entrenching and barricading simple suicide, there remain but two points of meagre dimensions at which the Chinese attack can be successfully developed without much preliminary preparation; the narrow northern end and a southwestern point formed by a regular rabbit-warren of Chinese houses that push right up to the Legation walls. It is precisely at these two points that the Chinese, with their peculiar methods of attack, directed their best efforts.

Beginning in earnest at the northern end, after some inconsiderable efforts on the southwestern corner, they set fire to the sacro-sanct Hanlin Yuan, which is at once the Oxford and Cambridge, the Heidelberg and the Sorbonne of the eighteen provinces of China rolled into one, and is revered above all other earthly things by the Chinese scholar. In the spacious halls of the Hanlin Academy, which back against the flanking wall of the British Legation, are gathered in mighty piles the literature and labours of the premier scholars of the Celestial Empire. Here complete editions of Gargantuan compass; vast cyclopaedia copied by hand and running into thousands of volumes; essays dating from the time of dynasties now almost forgotten; woodblocks black with age crowded the endless unvarnished shelves. In an empire where scholarship has attained an untrammelled pedantry never dreamed of in the remote West, in a country where a perfect knowledge of the classics is respected by beggar and prince to such an extent that to attempt to convey an idea would cause laughter in Europe, all of us thought--even the pessimists--that it could never happen that this holy of holies would be desecrated by fire. Listen to what happened.

To the sound of a heavy rifle-fire, designed to frustrate all efforts at extinguishing the dread fire-demon, the flaming torch was applied by Chinese soldiery to half a dozen different places, and almost before anybody knew it, the holy of holies was lustily ablaze. As the flames shot skywards, advertising the danger to the most purblind, everybody at last became energetic and sank their feuds. British marines and volunteers were formed up and independent commands rushed over from the other lines; a hole was smashed through a wall, and the mixed force poured raggedly into the enclosures beyond. They had to clamber over obstacles, through tightly jammed doors, under falling beams, occasionally halting to volley heavily until they had cleared all the ground around the Hanlin, and found perhaps half a ton of empty brass cartridge cases left by the enemy, who had discreetly flown. From a safe distance snipers, hidden from view an untraceable, kept on firing steadily; but they were careful not to advance.