Somehow news of this expedition must have leaked out everywhere through the indiscretion of confident busybodies, until everybody knew about it, for we kept on meeting men riding across our road as if by chance, and asking what luck we had had. This made the companions I had gathered more furious than ever, and at the last moment, as we parted, I could not restrain myself. I rode up to one of the staff officers who had been the most officious and the most offensive, and begged him not to forget to remind the general that he had a duty to perform. An account must be telegraphed at once to Alexieff! That was the last word—the very last.



VIII

THE PALSY REMAINS

September, 1900.

* * * * *

I have now ridden to every point of the compass in the city, and even beyond, and I have inspected everything with a critical eye. It is wonderful how things shape themselves. There are now some portions of the city that are reasonably peaceful even at night, and where even women can come forth and walk openly about; others that are quiet on the surface and yet throw up mad things at all hours; and lastly, there are those where riot and disorder still reign supreme. Some people estimate that half or even three quarters of the native population have fled, and that this accounts for the curious silence which now reigns, only to be broken by the noise of marauders or marching troops. Yet I do not believe that so many of the population have really fled; many people remain half hidden in quiet spots, where, packed dozens and dozens in a single house, they tremulously await the return to happier days. The Chinese, I sometimes think, of all peoples of this earth must have their historic sense enormously developed. Thousands of years of civil wars and countless endless sieges have placed them in the dilemma of to-day more often than it is possible to say. Only fifty years ago the Taipings made whole provinces suffer the way Peking has now suffered.... Such things must live in the blood of a people and never be quite forgotten....

You muse like this very often when you ride out and meet lumbering military trains going back to Tientsin, laden with countless chests of loot. What immense quantities of things have been taken! Every place of importance, indeed, has been picked as clean as a bone. Now that the road is well open, dozens of amateurs, too, from the ends of the earth have been pouring in to buy up everything they can. The armies have thus become mere bands of traders eternally selling or exchanging, comparing or pricing, transporting or shipping. Every man of them wishes to know whether there is a fortune in a collection of old porcelain or merely a competence, and whether it is true that a long robe of Amur River sables, when the furs are perfect and undyed, fetch so many hundreds of pounds on the London market. There are official military auctions going on everywhere, where huge quantities of furs and silks and other things come under the hammer. Yet it is noticed that the very best things always disappear before they can be publicly sold. A phrase has been invented to meet the case. "Cherchez le general," people say.

Even with these sales the stocks never seem to sink lower. There are always fresh finds being made—seizures made officially by an officer or two with a few files of men so that there may be some reasonable excuse to offer to those who persist in remaining mulishly prudish. These new finds are, of course, called treasures-trove. They are good words. Looting has officially ceased; is, indeed, forbidden under the most severe penalties. That is why it is being systematised and made open and respectable. It is in the blood. You cannot escape it; it still follows you everywhere, no matter how far away you go.

Listen to this. I rode some days ago into the Imperial city in order to climb the famous Mei Shan, or Coal Hill, built, according to ancient tradition, so that when some immense disaster overwhelmed the ruling dynasty, it might be lighted and consume in its flames the whole Imperial family. That is the tradition—that the hill is an immense funeral pyre. (Nowadays, however, ruling dynasties are so human that they merely run away.) All the way up that historic hill I was followed by the whining voices of disappointed looters. A battalion of the French troops, which came straight from Europe a week or so too late for the relief, was in garrison at the base of this eminence, and French soldiers escorted me to the top, probably under orders to see that I did not try and chip off the gold-leaf which is reputed to line the roofs of the pavilions. You can never be quite certain for what reason you are watched by rival nationalities now.

It was a long climb to the top, up winding steps that never ceased and through little pavilions which looked out on the scene below. A final flight of stairs at last introduced you into a structure which crowned the whole. From here the view was magnificent. Right below you could see far into the Palace and inspect the marble bridges, the lotus-covered sheets of water and all the other things of the Imperial plaisaunce. Farther on, the city of Peking spread out in huge expanses hemmed in only miles away by the grey tracing of the city walls and the high-standing towers. Farther again were waving fields with uncut crops rotting as they stood, because all the country people had fled to escape the vengeance. On the very horizon line were dark hills. The view was indeed immense and wonderful.

I stood lost a little in this contemplation, and forgot the attendants who had so persistently followed me, until suddenly their voices rose in a dispute which was purposely loud so that it should engage my attention. At last, as the stratagem had failed, and I did not turn, a soldier bolder than his comrades pushed up to me, and saluting politely enough, said that they had a few things to sell, although they had had hard luck and had found Peking almost empty. Indeed, before showing me anything, they complained bitterly of the men from Tonkin, who were no better than disciplinary battalions and who got everything because they had come with the first columns. This they called cruelly unjust. Then from their pockets and tunics these men began producing their little articles de vertu. They made me laugh at first, for they had systematised so much that each man's possession had a ticket attached, with the price in francs clearly marked. That was good commercialism brought straight from France.

They were, however, only the usual things—watches, rings, snuff-boxes, hair-ornaments, curios of minor value, and a few stones of bad colour. But the men crowded round me and extolled their wares like the hucksters of Europe, and beseeched me to buy in a most anxious manner. They would sell cheap, very cheap, they confessed, at the present moment, because they had just learned that an order had been issued to search all their kits and to turn over the finds to a common fund. Rumours had spread to Europe, they said—it was the first I had heard of it—of the dark things which had been going on, and the generals were becoming alarmed....

Fortunately I had with me some gold coin, and for a mere song I purchased everything. I did not want to do so, but already experience has taught us that it is best to buy when you are alone and no help near by, otherwise your pockets may be turned out and everything taken without an excuse. That happened to a man in the German Legation.

I climbed down from the famous Coal Hill, thinking very little of the renowned view. I wondered merely when it was all going to end, and how normal conditions were going to come. I wandered, thinking in this manner, over the famous marble bridge, that delicate, delightful tracing of stone which so charmingly crosses an artificial lake thick with swaying lotus. I turned this way and that, not thinking very much where I was going; and presently, on my way back, walked past the Little Detached Palace, where, they say, the Emperor was imprisoned after the 1898 coup d'etat. Here there was a curious sight, which brought back my wandering attention. French and English soldiers divided the honour of guarding this Palace entrance. Rival sentries stood only ten or fifteen feet away from one another and jealously watched to see that this prize was not secretly seized. The British regiment had the actual gates; it seemed that the French had posted themselves so close merely to watch. I passed these lines of sentries and wandered along, only to be accosted once more as soon as I was in a quiet alley. I soon found that this man and his mates were more cunning than those with whom I had had previously to deal and that some time must elapse before a bargain could be struck. They wasted time ascertaining who I was, and only hinted at good things—not the usual watches and rings, they said, but really things worth their weight in pure gold. Then one man tempted me deliberately with an abrupt movement which reminded me of the way the sellers of obscene playing-cards in Paris disclose to the unsuspecting stranger their wares. He drew from his tunic a little wooden box, opened it quickly, and laid bare a most exquisite Louis XV. gold belt-buckle, set in diamonds and rubies, and beautifully painted. I, who knew a little of Manchu history, understood that belt-buckle. It must have been one of the countless presents made during the early days of the Jesuits in Peking, when they almost controlled the destinies of the Empire. It was a priceless relic.

Of course I succumbed. Such things have an international value, and were not merely the sordid pickings from deserted private dwellings. Who would not rob a fleeing Emperor of his possessions?

After this we went into the English camp unostentatiously, and by some means men came forward from nowhere, and without greeting or superfluous words showed me what they had. The English are good traders; they never waste their words; and as I looked I thought of the anguish which the patrons of the Hotel Drouot or Christie's would have felt could they have seen this marvellous collection. For these common men had made one of such taste and value that there could be no doubt where the things had been obtained. Every piece was good and a century or two old. There were enamels and miniatures which must have lain undisturbed for countless years watching the Manchu Emperors come and go. There were beautiful stones and snuff-boxes, and many other things. There might be none of the black pearls of General Monttauban, Comte de Palikao, that had delighted the Empress Eugenie half a century ago, but there were objets de vertu such as duchesses love.

In the end, I, too, became commercial and arranged that some men should come and find me that same evening, bringing as much as they could carry of the spoils they had amassed. They were to be paid in gold coin or in gold bars just as I pleased, weight for weight, and a quarter in my favour. That was soon settled. In the evening the men duly came, not the few I had supposed, but so many that they filled my courtyards, yet managing to remain curiously, silent. For them an important turning-point had been reached; they would make small fortunes if the thing went through successfully. With scales in front of me and gold alongside, we weighed and calculated unendingly—weight for weight, with that one quarter in my favour. It took two hours and more, for these common men were very careful, and everything had to be written down and recorded with strange marks and numbers, denoting the private division of profits which would afterwards follow. In the end everything was finished with and bought. Then the men stood up and shook themselves as if they had been bathed in a perspiration of anxiety, and the spokesman, a dark man with a quick tongue, which showed that he had not always been a soldier, thanked me curtly. When they had drunk, at my request, he explained to me how it was done. There was something dramatic in the way he described. It was so simple. I recorded what he said so as not to forget. "When it's dark" he said, in a low voice, with no introduction, "there's only the picquets. They have everything to themselves excepting that the Frenchies are just alongside. The Frenchies watch us close, but we watch them closer, and there's always a way. Rounds are not kept up the whole night, for everything is slack now, and when they are finished the fun begins. The reliefs, lying on the ground, strip off everything so that they can crawl like snakes and that no one can get hold of them. They crawl in through holes, over walls, with never a match or a light to show them how. In the end they get inside." The man laughed a little hoarsely, spat, and again went on.

"The palace they call the Little Detached Palace will soon be picked clean—clean as any dog's bone, with the Frenchies only fifteen feet off, and you'll get nothing more from there. Sometimes the Frenchies suspect and want to march right in on us, but our corporals are waiting, and are ready for them, and our bayonets stop them short. Twice it's happened that their officers march a guard right up to the gates of the Little Detached, and want to stay there all night with our fellows crawling about inside. They suspected. But we bluffed them away every time, and now that all the good things are gone we are carrying away the big ones—vases, small tables, carvings, jars, bowls—everything. We wrap them up in a bundle of great-coats and feed-bags in the morning, and carry them away; no one's ever the wiser. All round the Palace they are doing the same. The Yankees, the Russians, and all of them are in the same boat. All night they climb the walls to get the swag. Give them another six months and there will be nothing left."

Thus spoke the spokesman of the party. It was organised plundering, and everybody winked at it. After they had gone I sat long and reflected. This was the retribution and the vengeance. We were all tarred with the same brush; we were returning to primitive methods. Yet, what could be done—what steps could be taken? It was rather a hopeless tangle, and once more I gave it up.



IX

DRIFTING

September, 1900.

* * * * *

There is not a single scrap of news worth recording, although telegrams are now coming through more and more freely by the field telegraphs from Europe. Still, no one knows what is going to happen. As an appreciation of the astute action of the Court in fleeing at the last second of the eleventh hour becomes more and more general, people begin to see how absurd we have become with our avenging armies which were going to do so much, and are now merely traders collecting and valuing and slowly taking away the best loot of the capital. The troops effected the relief, it is true; but there should have been other steps. If these are now taken it is too late. Some, indeed, say that punitive expeditions are going to be sent into the country as soon as a transport service can be organised. Even now nests of Boxers and disbanded soldiers are reported in great numbers only a few miles beyond Peking. These men seem to understand that they are quite safe even so close as this to the European corps, and that ample warning will be conveyed to them directly there is any movement, so as to allow them to escape. They, too, are now pillaging and setting fire far and wide. Cossacks and other cavalry are supposed to be out many miles beyond Peking, sweeping the country, and blowing up or setting fire to temples and rich country-seats as a warning to others of the fate which may overtake all for harbouring evil-doers. Yet even this is done on no system. It is irresolute, foolish. A day or two ago, from the top of the Tartar Wall, where I was idly sitting, I saw a huge pillar of smoke roll up on the horizon ten or fifteen miles away, and gradually spread farther and farther. The air was very still, for the heat can still be baking in the midday of this autumn month, and that smoke hung on the skies like some funeral pall. Into the hearts of a whole country-side it must have struck a blind terror, for the peasants still believe that they are all to die as soon as the troops move out. The panic is thus only being added to; and a sort of blind scourging of people who may not be in the least guilty can never be of use. There is also still the same palsy on everyone and everything in Peking. No one really knows what is going to happen. No one very much cares. They say that this is being debated in Europe, and that there are divided counsels which may bring about a split and really turn the various corps now nominally allied to one another into active enemies, as I dream when I see those jealous guards at the Palace entrances....

Yesterday some Chinese whom I had known in the old days came stealthily to see me, and as soon as they were alone with me, without excuse or warning, they fell on their knees and began bitterly weeping. How sad, indeed, they were, these respectable people of the Chinese bourgeoisie—so sad that for a long time I could not persuade them to speak. Yet even as they wept they were dignified in a curious way, and you felt that you were in the presence of men who had only been cruelly wronged. At length they began speaking. They had lost everything, absolutely everything, they said, what with the Boxers and the sack, all this long, unending Reign of Terror. But that they did not mind. They were bitter and beyond consolation because they had lost the intangible—their honour. Each one had had women of their households violated. One, with many hideous details, told me how ... soldiers came in and violated all his womankind, young and old. That account, muttered to me with trembling lips, was no invention. Their blanched and haggard faces showed that it was only the truth they were speaking. About such elemental tragedies no one lies.

I tried to comfort these poor men as best I could. I told them old sayings which had once been familiar to me; it was hard to know really what to do. Yet they at length became more philosophic, and said they understood that this was a visitation which the nation had deserved. China had been utterly wrong; it had been madness. Then they remained silent, and that silence was like a sermon straight from Heaven, both for them and for me. I saw dimly for a few seconds many things, and understood that it was useless saying more. But as they were wretchedly poor, I gave them silver from the rich men's houses, which seemed very Biblical—each man as much as he could carry—and told them that they could always come for more. I asked them also to tell all the people I had known to come, too; I would do as much as I could for all of them. So all to-day they have been coming, and I have showered largesse. A few households have thus some relief, but the last man who came told me that a Hanlin scholar, who was his neighbour—a learned man, who in the times of peace was courted by all—is now selling wretched little cakes down the side alleys so as to save himself and his few remaining relations from slow starvation. Such things are the dregs. It is too much....



X

PICKING UP THREADS

September, 1900.

* * * * *

I suppose in some subtle way the conviction is being gradually forced home that something must really be done to try and ameliorate the general situation. It could obviously not go on forever in this way, with the commanders of the rival columns almost fighting among themselves, and with everybody quietly looting, and our Ministers, who have lost so much, just twiddling their thumbs and delaying their departure because they are afraid of worse things happening. So somebody has been getting into communication with whoever represents the last vestiges of Chinese authority in this ruined capital, and diligent search has discovered that there are actually a few high officials left and a great number of smaller ones. These have all shown a trembling haste to oblige; and after some pourparlers, there is now a faint possibility of a modus vivendi being arranged during the next few weeks.

For it soon transpired, after the confidence of these remaining officials had been gained, that Prince Ching had been discreetly dropped by the fleeing Court only about fifty miles to the southwest of Peking—dropped just behind the first mountain barriers, so that he was at once safe and yet within easy call. He had been in waiting there for weeks, it appears. Sage old man! Those conciliatory despatches, coming from the officers of the defunct Tsung-li Yamen, have made of this old Manchu prince the natural person to bridge over the ever-widening gulf the Court has dug by its insanity. People remember now that this procedure of leaving behind a Prince to begin the first pourparlers is only the precedent of 1860. Then Prince Kung played exactly the same role when the Court had fled to Jehol.

Prince Ching fenced a long time before he would move forward, or even disclose his safe hiding-place; but in the end he was prevailed upon by some one. And yesterday he actually entered Peking through the same Northern Gates which witnessed the mad flight of the Court a month ago.

Many rode out to see this entry, half expecting something spectacular, which would give them a change of thought. But they were grievously disappointed. Prince Ching merely appeared in a sedan chair, looking very old and very white, and with his cortege closely surrounded by Japanese cavalry, whose drawn swords gave the great man the appearance of a prisoner rather than that of an Envoy. Every Chinese official, large and small, in the city came out on this occasion for the first time since the troops burst in; and sitting in what carts they could find, and clothed in the remains of their official clothes, they paid their Manchu dignitary their trembling respects. What terror these wretched men exhibited until they actually met the Prince, and saw that there was going to be no treachery of shooting down by ignorant soldiery! For a whole month everyone of them had been living disguised in the most humble clothes, escaping over back walls directly news was brought that marauders were at their front doors; offering their very women up so as to escape themselves; living in all truth the most wretched lives. Hourly they had expected to be denounced by enemies to the European commanders as ex-Boxer chiefs, and then to be summarily shot. That is what had happened for miles round Monseigneur F——'s cathedral, it is being whispered. The native Catholics, having died in hundreds, and lost whole families of relatives, had revenged themselves as cruelly as only men who have been between life and death for many weeks do. They had led French soldiers into every suspected household, and pointing out the man on whom rumour had fixed some small blame, they had exacted vengeance. Even on this day of Prince Ching's entry this search and revenge was still going on; there were so many scores to pay....

It was plain to me that every official was thinking of these things, for the little convoys that I watched all day wending their way to the north of the city represented petrified fear in forms that I hope I may never see again. I stopped one cart, all bedecked with flags—German flags, English flags, Russian flags, French flags, Japanese flags, every kind of flag, to help to protect from all possible injury—merely to inquire at what hour precisely Prince Ching would arrive and where he was going to live. What a result these questions had! Instantly he heard my voice, the official inside the cart crawled half out with a deathly green pallor on his face, and with his whole body trembling so violently that I thought he would collapse for good. As it was, he remained in a sort of stricken attitude, like a man who has been stunned. He was quite speechless. I called to him several times that all was well, that he would not be hurt, to calm himself.... In vain. Every word I spoke only added to his terror and remained unintelligible because of his panic. He was a lost soul—for ever. The iron had entered too deeply. He was so smitten that he never could be cured.

His outriders, who had swung themselves from their saddles, at last bowed to me. They were a little pale, but quite collected. "Excellency," they said, "forgive him; it is not his fault. He has been frightened into semi-insanity." "Hsia hu-tu-lo," they said. Yes, that is the phrase, frightened into semi-lunacy. They are employing this for everyone. The tragedy has been so immense, the strain has been endured for so many months, there has been so much of it, that all minds excepting those of the common people have become a little unhinged. Half the time you speak to men you are not understood; they look at you with staring eyes, wondering whether the rifle or the bayonet is to follow the question. It is past curing for the time being.

Meanwhile Prince Ching has got in safely, and has been given a big residence, which is closely guarded by the Japanese. Perhaps the modus vivendi will after all be arranged.



XI

THE IMPOSSIBLE

30th September, 1900.

* * * * *

Prince Ching has been here a number of days now—I have not even taken the trouble to note how many—but still nothing has been done. They say that half the Powers refuse to treat with him until things are better arranged, and that the Russians have already raised insuperable difficulties because they say the Japanese have the big Manchu in their pocket. Others argue that expeditions must really be launched against a number of cities in Northern China, where hideous atrocities have been committed, and where missionaries and converts were butchered in countless numbers during the Boxer reign. Until these expeditions have marched and had their revenge, there can be no treating. There must be more killing, more blood. That is what people say.

The fleeing Court has reached Taiyuanfu, it is reliably reported. This is three hundred miles away, but the Court does not yet feel safe; it is going farther west, straight on to Hsianfu, the capital of Shensi province, which is seven hundred miles away. That is a big gulf to bridge; yet if there is any advance of European corps in that direction, already Chinese say that the Empress will flee into the terribly distant Kansu province—perhaps to Langchou, which is another four hundred miles inland; perhaps even to Kanchau or Suchau, which are five hundred miles nearer Central Asia. These cities, lying at the very southwestern extremity of the Great Wall of China, look out over the vast steppes of Mongolia, where there are nothing but Mongols belonging to many hordes, who live in the saddle and drive their flocks of sheep and their herds of ponies in front of them, forever moving. It is nearly two thousand miles in all; no European armies could ever follow, not in five years. They would slowly melt away on that long, interminable road. With such a line of retreat open the Court is absolutely safe, and knows it. It can act as it pleases.

Prince Ching is so miserably poor, they say, and has so little of the things he most needs, that he has been forced to borrow looted sycee from corps commanders and to give orders on the Southern Treaty ports in payment. It is an extraordinary situation.

A number of little expeditions have already been pushed out forty, fifty and even sixty miles into the country, feeling for any remnants of the Chinese armies which may remain. I went with one of these faute-de mieux, as Peking has become so gloomy, and there is so little to do that it fills one with an immense nostalgia to remain and continually to contemplate the ruins and devastation, from which there can be no escape.

Never shall I regret that little expedition into the rude hills and mountains, where climbs in wonderful manner the Great Wall of China. It was divine. There was a sense of freedom and of openness which no one who has not been a prisoner in a siege can ever experience. In the morning sweet-throated cavalry trumpets sounded a reveille, which floated over hill and dale so chastely and calmly that one wished they might never stop. How those notes floated and trembled in the air, as grey daylight was gently stealing up, and how good the brown earth smelt! I almost forget the other kind of trumpet—that cruel Chinese trumpet which only shrieks and roars.

Each day we rode farther and farther away, and higher and higher, beating the ground and examining the villages, from which whole populations had fled, to see that no enemy was secretly lurking. Travelling in this wise, and presently climbing ever higher and higher, we came at last to little mountain burgs, with great thick outer walls and tall watch-towers, where in olden days the marauders from the Mongolian plains were held in check until help could be summoned from the country below. It was a wonderful experience to travel along unaccustomed paths and to come on endless ruined bastions and ivy-clad gates, which closed every ingress from Mongolia. Once these defences must have been of enormous strength.

One night, after journeying for a long time, we camped in one of these little mountain burgs, taking full possession, so that there should be no treachery while it was dark. The night passed quietly, for even fifty miles beyond Peking the terror lies heavy on the land, and in the morning we wandered to the massive iron-clad gates and the tall watch-towers which stood sentinel on either side to see if there was anything to be had. How old these were, how very old! For, mounting the staircase leading to the towers, we found that, although the rude rooms beneath showed signs of having been recently occupied, the stone steps which led to the roof-chambers were covered with enormous cobwebs and great layers of dust, showing that nothing had been disturbed for very many years. That was as it should be. At the very top of one tower we discovered a locked door, and beating it in amid showers of dust, we penetrated a room such as a witch of mediaeval Europe would dearly have loved. Nothing but cobwebs, dust, flapping, grey-yellow paper and decay. It was immensely old.

And yet we found something. For there were some chests hidden away, and prizing these open, we discovered great books of yellow parchment, so old and so sodden that they fell to pieces as soon as one touched them. They were in some Mongol or Manchu script. They, too, were centuries old. But there was something else—a great discovery. Beneath the books we found helmets, inlaid with silver and gold and embellished with black velvet trappings studded with little iron knobs. There were also complete suits of chain armour. It seemed to us in that early morning that we were suddenly discovering the Middle Ages, perhaps even the Dark Ages. For these things were not even early Manchu; they were Mongol; Mogul—the war-dress of conquerors whose bodies had been rotting in the dust for five, six, seven, eight, or even nine centuries. These relics had lain there undisturbed for all this time because China has been merely tilling the fields and neglecting everything else. In a curious mood we donned these suits and went down below clad as the conquerors of old.

There were some Indian troopers waiting, and when they saw these things they exclaimed and muttered excitedly to one another, casting half-startled looks. These were the same trappings and war-dresses as in the days of the Great Moguls at Delhi. The very same. The conquerors who had swept across high Asia had worn such things, and every man from Northern India must have understood their meaning and message. As they looked the Indian troopers chattered and talked to one another in a growing excitement. It seemed as if we had suddenly dug up some links of the half-forgotten past which showed how the chain of armed men had been tightly bound by Genghis Khan and Batu Khan, and all the other great Khans, from the Great Wall of China all round Northern and Central Asia, until it had reached down over the Himalayas into India. It was very curious.

When we had finished this reconnaissance, which carried us in every direction under the shadow of the Great Wall, we turned bridle and made back towards Peking by another route. A day's march away from the capital, word was brought us that there were still numbers of disbanded soldiery and suspected Boxers hiding in the Nan-Hai-tsu—a great Imperial Hunting Park, which had fallen into decay during the present century. We would have to sweep this park, which was dozens of miles broad and quite wild, and scatter any bands we might find. So starting after midnight, we marched hard in the gloom for several hours with native guides leading us, and daylight found us under the encircling wall of the ancient hunting-ground. We halted there a bit and refreshed ourselves quickly, and then galloped in through a breach. There were miles upon miles of beautiful grass stretches, and we and our mounts were fairly pumped before we saw or heard anything. But towards midday we came on some tiny hills and a few low buildings, which seemed suspicious, and no sooner had we approached than a whole nest of men rushed out on us, firing and shouting as they ran. Some had only huge lances made of bamboo, fifteen feet and more long, and tipped with iron and with little red pennons fluttering; yet these were the most effective of all. Waving these lances violently, and holding them in such a manner that it was impossible to get near, these men scattered our charge before it got home and unhorsed a number of troopers. Then it became a general melee, which ended in the killing or capture of a few of the enemy and the rapid escape of the remainder.

Very late in the evening we rode into Peking with our helmets and our coats of mail and our long lances as trophies. The capital seemed terribly listless and oppressed after the country beyond, and I was bitterly sorry that expedition had not lasted for weeks and months.



XII

SUSPENSE

October, 1900.

* * * * *

Another month has come and there has been practically no change. They say now Prince Ching has no power to treat, and that he is a mere Japanese prisoner. Li Hung Chang is in Tientsin, too, it appears. He is to be the other plenipotentiary when negotiations really commence, but for the time being he is the Russian captive. The Russians have him surrounded with their troops, and no one but a favoured few may even see him. Already there has been trouble with the British on this score at Tientsin, and some people say that some pretext will be seized to bring about an international crisis among the expeditionary corps. They are fighting about the destroyed railway up to Peking already. Various people are claiming the right to rebuild the line, and refuse to give up the sections they have garrisoned. Everywhere there are pretty complications in the air.

Meanwhile, in Peking itself things have become more and more quiet, and as the policing is slowly improving, confidence is a little restored. But still new troops are being marched in all the time—notably German troops—and as soon as night closes down all these men fall to looting and outraging in any way they can. They say that the Kaiser, in his farewell speech to his first contingent, before Peking had been heard of for weeks, told the men to act in this way. They are strictly obeying orders. Even the officers of the new troops take a hand in this looting in a modified way. They force their way into the remains of the curio shops, take the few pieces which are left, place a dollar or so on the counter and then walk out. This makes a legitimate purchase.

In the Japanese district, which is now the best policed and the most tranquil, shops are being reopened, but are now being panic-stricken by this new procedure. It is the refinement of the game, and there is no redress possible. Beyond this I know not of a thing worth the mentioning.



XIII

STILL DRIFTING

October, 1900.

* * * * *

There is, after all, to be no immediate peace—that seems now quite certain. We hear that the Russians have invaded all Manchuria and are strengthening their hold there by bringing in more and more troops from the Amur districts. They say, too, that the French have crossed the Tonkin frontier. But really accurately we know nothing very much of what is being done. With sixty or seventy thousand soldiery suddenly flung down on the ruined stretch of country between Peking and the sea, everything has been put in the most horrible confusion. You can get nothing, nor hear anything. Telegrams are the only things which are coming through with any regularity, and even these are cut to pieces by the field telegraphs or continually getting lost. The mails, it is true, have at last arrived, but they are all mixed in such a way, and there is such old correspondence heaped on top of the new, that general instructions and the proposals made read in this way seem to be the ravings of madmen. There are hundreds of despatches of April, May and June, showing the calibre of some Foreign Offices in an unmistakable way. I sometimes wonder if only the fools are left in the home offices.

Still, after a good many headaches, one can begin to appreciate the general plan which was finally settled on by the various Chancelleries, and to understand what delayed the relief so much. Most of all it has been the South African war. Also, is seems to me, they wanted Waldersee, the German Field Marshal, to have time to take over the supreme command for the sake of peace in Asia, and so that there should be an enormous massed advance on Peking, which would capture all North China to Christendom and enslave the cunning old Empress Dowager, and do everything as arranged in Europe. It was, above all, necessary not to cause an imbroglio in Europe.

Of course, the very opposite has happened, and everybody is now as discontented and jealous as before the siege. Waldersee is in Tientsin and has been there for weeks for some new decision to be made. The grand advance is finished and done with, but now some column commanders wish to push down into the south of the province and isolate the Court, if possible. Meetings are being held the whole time, but as Waldersee is coming up, nothing is to be done until his arrival. By one ingenious stroke—the sudden flight of the Court—the Chinese have turned the tables on allied Europe and made us all ridiculous. Any one might have anticipated something of this—there is a precedent in the histories. Yet history is only made to be immediately forgotten.



XIV

PUNITIVE EXPEDITIONS

October, 1900.

* * * * *

At length Waldersee has arrived. He made a sort of entry which seemed to me farcical. I only noticed that he was very old, and that the hats that have been served out to the special German expeditionary corps are absurd. They are made of straw and are shaped after the manner of the Colonial hats used in South Africa. They have also a cockade of the German colours sewn to the turned-up edge. This must be some Berlin tailor's idea of an appropriate head-dress for a summer and autumn campaign in the East. The hat is quite useless, and had it been a month earlier all the men would certainly have died of sunstroke.

Of course, now with Waldersee in Peking, something more has to be done, and the rumour is to-day that the Court has begun fleeing yet farther to the West. The rulers of China are being kept accurately informed of every move by some one, and any indication of a pursuit will see them penetrate farther and farther towards the vast regions of Central Asia. It seems to me that it would be almost amusing (would not the consequences be so tragic) to begin this pursuit and really to attempt to push the Court so far away that it finally lost touch with all the rest of China. Then something beneficial to everyone might come. An ultimatum, to which attention would be paid, might be served, and guarantees exacted which would do service for a number of years. At present the flight has done no harm whatever to China. The Court is not even ridiculous in the eyes of the populace. It is merely terribly unfortunate—a really luckless Court, which deserves to be commiserated with and wept over rather than upbraided. For it is plain to everyone that the first and last reason for all this is the foreigner and no one else. Everything the foreigner does is always a source of trouble.

Even the machinery of government has not been disturbed by the fact that vast Peking, the vaunted capital, is in the hands of ruthless invaders. At first everyone thought that with the Palace empty, and all the great Boards and offices made mere camping-places for thousands of hostile soldiery, the government of the whole empire would be paralysed—sterilised. Yet that has not happened. The government goes on much the same as ever. We know that now. For as the Court flees it issues edicts, receives reports and accounts, is met with tribute from provincial governors and viceroys, is clothed and banqueted, makes fresh appointments, does its day's work while it runs. I cannot understand, therefore, how this is to end. It is beyond the keenest intellects in Peking, and people are now simply waiting for things to happen and to accept facts as they may be dealt out by the Fates. It is an inevitable policy. For you must always accept facts when you cannot mould them.



XV

THE CLIMAX

October, 1900.

* * * * *

I am becoming tired of it all once again—inexpressibly tired. It seems to me at times now as if those of us who remain had been very sick, and then, when we had become convalescent, had been ordered by some cruel fate to remain sitting in our sick-rooms forever. A siege is always a hospital—a hospital where mad thoughts abound and where mad things are done; where, under the stimulus of an unnatural excitement, new beings are evolved, beings who, while having the outward shape of their former selves, and, indeed, most of the old outward characteristics, are yet reborn in some subtle way and are no longer the same.

For you can never be exactly the same; about that there is no doubt. You have been made sick, as it were, by tasting a dangerous poison. Great soldiers have often told their men after great battles have been fought and great wars won that they have tasted the salt of life. The salt of life! Is it true, or is it merely a mistake, such as life-loving man most naturally makes? For it can be nothing but the salt of death which has lain for a brief instant on the tongue of every soldier—a revolting salt which the soldier refuses to swallow and only is compelled to with strange cries and demon-like mutterings. Sometimes, poor mortal, all his struggles and his oaths are in vain. The dread salt is forced down his throat and he dies. The very fortunate have only an acrid taste which defies analysis left them. Of these more fortunate there are, however, many classes. Some, because they are neurotic or have some hereditary taint, the existence of which they have never suspected, in the end succumb; others do not entirely succumb, but carry traces to their graves; yet others do not appear to mind at all. It is a very subtle poison, which may lie hidden in the blood for many months and many years. I believe it is a terrible thing.

Nobody should have been allowed to stay behind after hearing for so many weeks that ceaseless roar, sustaining that endless strain, enduring so much. They should have been made to forget—by force.

And yet even this nobody understands or cares to speak of, although a number of men are still half mad. The newcomers, soldiers and civilians alike, who never cease streaming in now to gaze and gape and inquire how it was all done, are quite indifferent. Some say that it must have been an immense farce—that there was really nothing worth speaking about. Others wish to know curious details which have no general importance. The Englishmen are proud, and want to know whether you were inside the British Legation, their Legation, and when they have heard yes or no their interest ceases. They little know what the Legation stood for. The Americans march up to the Tartar Wall, talk about "Uncle Sam's boys," and exclaim that it requires no guessing to tell who saved the Legations. The French are the same, so are the Germans, so even the Italians. Only the Japanese and the Russians say nothing.

At first I was at some pains to explain to each separate man what really occurred. I pulled out my rough map, all thumb-marked and dirtied with brick chips and the soil of the trenches, and showed stage by stage how the drama unrolled. It was no good. Poor me! nobody quite understood. Some thought possibly that I was a glib liar; others did not even trouble to think anything. How much they understood! They had not the background, the atmosphere, the long weeks which were necessary to teach even us ourselves. They had not tasted the poison and did not yet suspect its existence. So I gradually desisted. Now I say nothing, never a word. I listen and understand how history is made. It is best never to explain or argue if you thoroughly understand. Rhetoric is only the amplification of something long understood in one's heart of hearts.

I am, therefore, tired of it all, inexpressibly tired. I wish to escape from my hospital, to go away to some clean land where they understand so little of such things that their indifference will in the end, perhaps, convince me and make me forget.

Yet can one ever forget?



XVI

THE END

November, 1900.

* * * * *

Another month, and I have made up my mind quite suddenly. I have finished with it—at least, in outward form. After waiting a couple of weeks and wondering what I should do, a last argument brought it about—an argument with a German which ended by enraging me to an impossible point and making me challenge him to anything he liked. That showed me that my last safe moment had arrived.

He was a youngish officer sent from the Field-Marshal's staff to discuss some diplomatic-military details with my chief. The business part was soon over, for there was really little to decide, and then the man fell to talking about what should be done. He said that were there not so much rivalry and jealousy, and could Waldersee only act as he wished, they would have proper punitive expeditions which would shoot all the headmen of every village for hundreds of miles, and make such an example of everybody that the memory would endure for generations in every district where there had been Boxers. The officer was eloquent because he had only just arrived, and understood nothing—absolutely nothing. For some reason our stars crossed and I hated him immediately. So I waited until he had finished so that I could begin. Then I began.

I cannot even remember all I said, for I was greatly enraged by the brutality of the man's ideas, but I treated him as he had never been treated before. As I poured out my lava stream and he slowly understood what I meant, he first became very red, and then very pale, and finally he stood up. I took advantage of that action, and since we all still are armed, I told him he could have satisfaction, at once if he wished, and at any number of paces he chose to name.

My chief then suddenly intervened, and, trembling violently, said that it could not go on—that it was a mistake. He took the blame on his shoulders, he said, and would apologise himself later on. For many minutes he harangued, and in the end the officer went away with his eyes glittering, but not too reluctantly. He knew that I could have killed him with my second chamber unless his first shot hit my vitals....

After that there was a second scene—but one which was much more brief. My chief attempted to deal with me, and to him I spoke my mind. I am afraid I said many things which were so brusque that modern society would have reproved me. I told him that it was well known that he and every other man of position had been tremulously fearing death at every turn for weeks, and had been unwilling to do anything when they might have really saved the situation; merely because they were so afraid; that everything had been misstated in the reports, and that although the full truth might not be known for years, eventually it would be known and people would understand. I said that this petty life created by men without stomachs had ended by disgusting me, and that I had finished with it for good and for ever. Then I went out in silence, slamming the door behind me with all the strength of my arms. It was a most enormous slam. It had to be so; it was my last word. In my commandeered residence I found that the breath of misfortune had also come. The rightful owners had managed to steal into Peking in the train of some big official who had had an escort of foreign soldiery provided him, and now smilingly and cringingly greeted me, and thanked me for my guardianship during their unavoidable absence. The Manchu women were grouped round in great excitement. They did not relish the change—they did not want it. The tall and stately one who had first touched my knee on that dark night during the sack was not there.

The rightful owners irritated me intensely with their obsequiousness. I was irritated because they lived: they should have ceased to exist long ago. They were still very much afraid, although they had reached Peking in safety, for they half thought that I would hand them over to some provost-marshal as Boxer partisans in order to get rid of them. They were very afraid. The Manchu women were all talking and praising me, and telling wonderful stories of all I had done. But the most important one of them was absent. I became vaguely conscious that this also meant something, that perhaps there was to be another tragedy. I found her later wishing to kill herself, to commit suicide, so that she, too, need never return to her other life.... That was more terrible than the other scenes. I could do nothing, yet my responsibility had been great. In the end something was arranged. I hardly remember what.

I was soon ready to go; on the same afternoon I had completed all my preparations. I had so little to prepare. Then I rode out for the last time with all my men behind me, and not a single other person. We passed down the streets out from the Tartar City, through the ruins of the great Ch'ien Men Gate, and then followed straight along the vast main street, still covered with debris and dirt, and skulls and broken weapons, as if the weeks and months which had gone by since the fighting had been quite unheeded. Near the outer gates of the city I met my three cavalrymen of the Indian regiment waiting to bid good-bye. They joined me with some attempt at gaiety, but that soon fizzled out. I had so plainly collapsed.

We passed into the country with the tall crops still rotting as they stood, because everyone had fled and no one dared to return. We went on faster and faster as the roads broadened, and as we galloped we met new troops marching in on Peking. They were Germans driving captives of many kinds in front of them. "Damned Germans," said the smaller officer, who was the senior, and who had been quite silent for some time. "Damned Germans," repeated the two others mechanically, as if this was a new creed, and I, approving, faintly smiled. That stirred them to talk again, and they told me that the expeditions had been settled on, and that they would have to go, too. Orders had come from home that they must not fall out with Waldersee. It was highly important to placate the Germans because of South Africa. But the Americans would not go, neither would the Russians, nor yet the Japanese. It was to be a new arrangement. They went on talking in this wise for a long time, and I heard these scraps of conversation vaguely as in a dream. Cynically I thought that, although I was leaving it all behind me in company of men who were strangers to Peking, the last words would still be concerned with our tortuous diplomacy. Yet my gallant friends were only trying to console me—to make me forget. Such things they understood far better than others. They were from India, where men think a good deal, and sometimes act. They were treating me as best they could. Then when we came to a sharp rise over which the road curled and crawled, they halted suddenly, stretched out their hands, and bade me good-bye. They meant it to be a sharp wrench—to be over quickly. Just on the rim of the horizon stretched the grey of the fading Tartar Walls with their high-pitched towers. The sun sinking behind the western hills threw some last flames of golden fire, but the air remained chill. It was becoming cold, and even the dust no longer rose in clouds. Everything was pinned to the soil—tired—finished....

I rode on abruptly. Then, for the last time, my cavalrymen turned round and shouted faintly back to me. It was a word which carried well. "Chubb, Chubb, Chubb," they were shouting, to give my thoughts a turn. They knew what I must be thinking. They knew; they had been in India. I quickened my horse into a gallop, rode faster and faster, and before night had fallen I had gained the river-boats. It was over....



* * * * * *



BOOKS BY PUTNAM WEALE

Political

MANCHU AND MUSCOVITE

THE RE-SHAPING OF THE FAR EAST (2 volumes)

THE TRUCE IN THE EAST AND ITS AFTER-MATH

THE COMING STRUGGLE IN EASTERN ASIA

THE CONFLICT OF COLOUR

THE TRUTH ABOUT CHINA AND JAPAN

THE PAGEANT OF PEKING (In collaboration with Donald Mennie)

Romantic

INDISCREET LETTERS FROM PEKING

THE FORBIDDEN BOUNDARY

THE HUMAN COBWEB

THE UNKNOWN GOD

THE ROMANCE OF A FEW DAYS

THE REVOLT

THE ETERNAL PRIESTESS

THE ALTAR FIRE

WANG, THE NINTH

THE END