It numbs the extremities and has a paralyzing effect on body and mind.
Summer is its time and snow checks its course. A man may have it a dozen
times and sometimes he dies. The young and able-bodied are its favorite
victims, old men its rare ones, and women and foreigners it wholly
spares. It made great havoc among Japanese soldiers in Korea, but the
Japanese now conquer beriberi as though it were a Russian metamorphosis.
Shung-yo-hing is the place now and the time is 2 P.M. The heat was awful
and the dust from thousands of carts, coolies, and beasts of burden
choked the very lungs. I have the bulge on Fuji now. I knot the reins
and draw them over the pommel of a McClellan saddle, thus holding his
muzzle close to his chest. It seemed to puzzle Fuji a good deal.
"He can't even neigh," I said to Brill in triumph, and Brill cackled
scorn. Fuji neighed five times in the next ten yards. I should say that
his record in six hours to-day was about this: stumbling with right
forefoot--300 times; stumbling with left hind-foot--200 times;
neighs--1,000.
There are about twenty miles more to Kaiping. Haicheng has been taken by
the Japanese. Somebody has just come in with cheering news--we can get
back to Yokohama by water. Gently we all said:
"Hooray!" The parting from Fuji will not be sad.
... This morning I found in one pocket some strange pieces of paper with
strange ideographs thereon in Japanese.
"What are these, Takeuchi?"
Takeuchi looked really embarrassed.
"Prayers," he said. "I got them at a temple. If you carry them, you will
get back safe." Well, that made Takeuchi immune for days.
At Kaiping we are now and we go to Haicheng to-morrow. At least we think
we do. We got here last night: Fuji being lame, I left him for Takeuchi
to lead (he rode him, of course); went on afoot and later climbed aboard
a freight-train drawn by 600 coolies. I told the Japanese in my
smattering best of their language that my horse had gone lame, and they
were very polite. The train went slowly along the dragon's length and I
had a chance to observe minutely those vertebræ--heavy Chinese wagons,
the wheels with two thick huge spokes cross-barred, the hoops of wood
and studded with big, shining rivets, and the axles turning with the
wheels; between the shafts, a horse, bullock, or a mule; in front, three
leaders, usually donkeys, mules (the best I've seen out of America), or
bullocks, in all possible combinations of donkey, mule, or bullock.
Sometimes an ass colt trotted alongside. The drivers were Chinese
coolies, each with a long whip--the butt of bamboo, the shaft spliced
with four cane reeds, the lash of leather and the cracker as it is all
over the rural world. The two or three leaders of the four- or
five-in-hand, pulled by ropes attached to the cart at either side of the
cart to one side of each shaft. The hames were two flat pieces of wood,
lashed to a straw collar that was sometimes canvas-covered. The cries of
the drivers, strange as they sounded to the foreigner near by, were at a
distance strangely like the cries of drivers everywhere:
"Atta! Atta! Atta-atta-atta!"
"Usui! Usui!--u-u-u-su-u-i!"
"Whoa-a-ah!"
At noon, Lionel James and little Clarkin rode by and shouted that the
Japanese Commandant there had a lunch ready near by. We found half a
dozen tables set in the walled yard of a Chinese farmhouse. All of us
were expected, but the others (except the Japanese correspondents who
were on hand) had gone on. There was a nice sergeant there and a grave
major with medals, and there were soldiers with fans to keep off the
flies, while we sat in an arbor, under white Malaga-like clusters of
grapes, and had tea and beer and tinned Kobbe beef and army crackers.
The rain started when we started on--and when it rains in Manchuria, it
really seems to rain. I was on foot in a light flannel shirt, and had no
coat or poncho. In ten minutes the road had a slippery coating of mud, I
was wet to the skin and, as my boots had very low heels, I was slipping
right, left, and backward with every step. Clarkin and James overtook me
and we took turns walking. In an hour the road was a very swift river,
belly-deep and with big waves--dangerous to cross. Miles and miles we
went through muddy cornfields for four hours, until we could see, across
a yellow river, the high, thick walls of Kaiping through the drizzling
mist. I waded the river, waist-high, and on the other side an
interpreter gave me a white mule, which I took in order not to get my
boots muddy again. We wound into a city gate, were stopped by a sentry
and sent on again around the city walls and three or four miles across a
muddy, slushy flat, full of deep wagon-ruts and holes. After much
floundering through mud, and the fording of many streams, we found the
Commandant with his shoes under his chair and his naked feet on the
rungs. James clicked his heels and saluted. We all took off our hats,
but as he neither rose nor moved naked foot toward yawning shoe, we put
them back on again. We must go to Kaiping, he said, and he was very
indifferent and smiled blandly when we told him that we had just waded
and swum from Kaiping. Just the same we had to wade and swim back--by
the same floundering way and through gathering darkness. We missed the
way, of course, rode entirely around the city walls, rode through
Kaiping and back again, and finally struck an interpreter who piloted us
to this Chinese temple where I write. I was cold, muddy, hungry, and
tired to the bone. But the button on the dragon's tail was there, and
Brill the gentle; and, mother of mercies! they had things to eat and to
drink. An hour later, Davis came in half-dead--leading Prior on Williams
and Walker. He had struck the same gentleman of the naked foot and
yawning shoe, had been sent on, and had gone into a stream over his head
and crawled on hands and knees most of the way through pitch dark. He
didn't mind himself, but Prior was elderly and was ill. Davis wanted the
Commandant to take him in, but he refused and Davis was indignant:
"I wouldn't turn a water-snake out of doors on a night like this."
But those two same Samaritans saved him straightway, and we sit now in
Chinese clothes in front of a temple and under a great spreading,
full-leafed tree, with two horses champing millet before the altar and
thousands of buzzing flies around. To-morrow we go on!
VI
THE WHITE SLAVES OF HAICHENG
Haicheng at last! The Russians are only five miles away and they can
drop shells on us, but they don't. The attachés were taken out on a
reconnaissance yesterday, and we, too, if we are very good, will be
allowed to see a Japanese soldier in a real ante-mortem trench.
We left Yoka-tong this morning at seven and in three hours reached
dirty, fly-ridden Ta-shi-kao. The valley has broadened as we have come
north. The Chinese houses are better and the millet-fields (kow-liang)
stretch away like a sea on each side of the road. Soldiers were bathing
in the river that we crossed to get to the gate of Haicheng, and the
stretch of sand was dotted with naked men. Every grove was, in color,
mingled black, brown, and dirty white from the carts, horses, and
soldiers packed under the trees. We found the courteous Captain of
Gendarmes, by accident, straightway, and we had to take tea hot, tea
cold, and tea with condensed milk before he would lead us to our
quarters in this mud compound. Lewis, Reggie, and Scull greeted us with
a shout and produced beer and Tansan and a bottle of champagne cider.
Heavens, what nectar each was! The rest are coming, but the button on
the dragon's tail--the Irishman on the bicycle--has come off. Nobody
knows where it dropped. Reggie the big Frenchman is newly mounted on a
savage yellow beast that can be approached, like a cow, only on the
right side--and Lewis told the story of the two. Davis answered with the
story of our tribulations--his, Brill's and mine. He told it so well
that Brill and I wished we had been there....
We slept in our riding-clothes for the third time last night and to-day
we know our fate. We are to play a week's engagement here in a drama of
still life--the title of which heads these lines. With a sleeve-badge of
identification on--the Red Badge of Shame we call it--we can wander more
or less freely within the city walls. We can even climb on them and walk
around the town--about two miles--but we cannot go outside without a
written application from the entire company, and then only under a
guard. We are to have three guards, by the way, and our letters--even
private ones--are to go to the censor and not come back to us. Thus no
man will know what has gone, and what hasn't, or whether what went was
worth sending. Later this restriction was removed.
Our Three Guardsmen came to us last night and told these things. One was
thick-set, bearded, and a son of Chicago University; one was
smooth-shaven, thin-faced--and an authority on international law--both,
of course, speaking English. The third carried a small mustache and
talked very good French--so said Reggie. After the usual apologies, the
bearded one said in partial excuse for shackling us:
"Some of our common soldiers, never having seen a foreigner before, are
not able to distinguish between you and Russians. We wish to provide
against accidents." And he laughed.
An incident on the way here, yesterday afternoon, made this sound
plausible. I was riding alone, and hearing a noise behind me I turned in
my saddle, to see a Japanese slipping upon me with his bayonet
half-drawn from his scabbard. I stopped Fuji and said: "Nan desuka?"
(What is it?) and he, too, stopped, and turned back. Whether this was a
case in point or whether he was drunk and showing off before his
companions, or whether my Tokio accent paralyzed him, I don't know, but
later, the men who broke away from our guards and got among the
soldiers, testified that they received nothing but courtesy, kindness,
and childlike curiosity from the Japanese Tommy always.
"You saw Nanshan?" asked the bearded one.
"No," I said. "We want to see fighting, not battle-fields." He laughed
again.
"You have had a very hard time, but I think the fight at Liao-Yang will
recompense you."
"Have you heard anything from Port Arthur?"
"Nothing."
"We heard the guns as we came by and it was very exasperating." He
laughed again.
"We do not think much about Port Arthur. That is only a question of
time. Liao-Yang will be decisive. The sooner the Russians give up at
Port Arthur, the better it will be for them."
"But they not only lose their own ships, but free the Japanese fleet for
operations elsewhere."
"That's true."
"And they free the investing army for operations up here."
"That's true." He shook his head. "But Liao-Yang will be decisive."
They got up to go then and the bearded one simply bowed. The other two
shook hands all around, and when they were through, the third said:
"Well, I will shake hands, too," and he went the round.
Lewis has just come in--his face luminous with joyful news. General Oku
has sent us over:
1 doz. bottles of champagne.
4 doz. bottles of beer.
1 package of fly-paper.
1 live sheep.
Liao-Yang is only about twenty-nine miles away, and the Three Guardsmen
say we are not to be here very long. If the Russians can drop a shell on
us here, I wish they would--just one, anyhow. Even one would save the
faces of us a little.
... That poor Manchuria lamb of General Oku's died voluntarily this
morning before the canteen-man could kill it--but the champagne, the
beer, and the fly-paper are all the heart could desire. This day has
been interesting. The Three Guardsmen rounded us up this afternoon and
took us to see General Oku.
We burnished up riding-gear and riding-clothes and at three o'clock the
compound was filled with squealing stallions and braying jackasses. It
took three men to saddle Reggie's savage Mongolian. The Irishman, as
usual, was not to be found--he and Scull had gone afoot, to the worry of
the Three Guardsmen; but we rode out finally, single-file, a brave but
strangely assorted company--Brill on his chestnut, Lewis on a milk-white
charger, the Italian on an iron-gray, Davis on Devery, Laguerié on a
little white donkey, Prior on his seventeen-hand, weak-backed white
horse, and big Burleigh on a tiny savage pony that pasted Prior's horse,
as we marched, with both heels.
"Why don't you go to the rear, Burleigh?" said Prior. "That beast of
yours kicks."
"No, he doesn't," said Burleigh indignantly. "He only bites."
These two veterans and Davis wore ribbons on the left breast. Dean
Prior, indeed, seemed to have his color-box there. I had a volunteer
policeman's badge that came from the mountains of old Virginia. I was
proud of it, and it meant campaigns, too, but I couldn't pull it amidst
the glory of those three. Lieutenant Satake, the authority on
international law, led. The bearded one guarded our centre and the third
watched our rear. At the city gate a sergeant sprang to his feet:
"Hoo--!" he said, and I thought he was going to give us a whole cheer,
but it was only a half. Still all the sentries sprang to attention and
the soldiers at the gate stood rigid as their muskets. Over the stretch
of white sand, across the yellow river, and up a sandy road we went,
past staring sentries, and then into a little Chinese village, where we
dismounted. No servants were allowed, so soldiers came forward to hold
our horses. Fuji was curvetting no little.
"Warui desu!" I said, which still means, "He's bad," and the soldier
smiled and led Fuji far to one side.
We followed Satake into a court-yard. He seemed rather nervous and
presently motioned us to halt. Presently he came back, called the roll,
and each man, after answering his name, stepped to one side and stood in
line where there were two tables under grape arbors and covered with
cigars and cigarettes. Satake looked relieved--not one of us had
escaped; even the Irishman was there. Several officers stood expectantly
about, and, after a long pause, a tired-looking, slender man appeared,
accompanied by a rather stout, sleek-looking young one, and followed by
an officer with a beard and a rather big nose that in color bespoke
considerable cheer. When they got near, a sad-faced interpreter stepped
forward and in a sad, uneasy voice said:
"I have the honor to present you to His Imperial Highness, Prince
Nashimoto."
The sleek young man bowed and thrust out his hand. We all advanced,
spoke each his own name, and shook. Prior said, "Melton Prior."
Burleigh, bending low, said, almost confidentially:
"Burleigh." Davis came last----
"Mr. Davis." Then the tired-looking man, General Oku, and his aide with
the nose of good cheer, shook hands: only it was they who went around
the circle this time. The Prince retired behind one of the tables and
General Oku stepped forward with his back to the Prince, and through the
sad interpreter said things:
We had come thousands of miles and had endured many hardships getting to
the front, and he welcomed us. He was sorry that on the battle-field he
could give us so few comforts, but he was glad to see us and would do
all he could for us, etc., etc.
Such solemnity as there was! Aide stood behind General--staff behind the
aide. Most of them kept their faces bent till chin touched breast, and
never looked up at all. If a high priest had been making a prayer for
the soul of a dead monarch while other priests listened, the scene could
not have been more solemn. Straight through, it was stiff, formal,
uneasy--due, of course, to the absence of a common tongue and the
uneasiness on the part of the Japanese in receiving us after the
Occidental way; and I wondered if the scene would not have been the same
had Occidentals been receiving the Japanese after the way of Japan. But
I think not--American humor and adaptability would have lightened the
gloom a little. I watched Oku keenly. Though I had seen him coming for
twenty yards, I recalled suddenly that I saw nothing but his face until
he got quite near. It was sad with something of Lincoln's sadness. In
profile, it was kindly, especially when he smiled; full-faced there were
proofs that he could be iron and relentless. But his eyes! Big, black,
glittering, fanatical, ever-moving they were, and you caught them never
but for a moment, but when you did, they made you think of lightning and
thunder-storms. He was dressed simply in olive-green serge, with one
star on his cap and three stars and three stripes on his sleeve. His
boots were good. His sword hung in his left hand--unclinched. His other
hand looked nerveless. Not once did he shift his weight from his right
foot--only the sole of his left ever touching the stone flagging. He is
the most remarkable looking man I've seen thus far among the Japanese,
and I think we shall hear from him.
Then the aide with the cheerful nose spoke the same welcome and hoped we
would obey the regulations. Dean Prior answered, thanking the General
for the champagne, the beer, the fly-paper, and the lamb, whose untoward
demise he gracefully skipped, and said he had always been trusted by
generals in the field and hoped he would be trusted now. Then we smoked
and the Irishman spoke halting French with the Prince, who (he looked
it) had been educated in Paris. General Oku asked questions and we asked
questions.
"How long have you been in Japan?"
"More than five months." He laughed and his teeth were not good.
"You must know Tokio well."
"I know every stone in Tokio," somebody said.
The General did not smile this time.
"Have you been to Nikko?" This was a malicious chance.
"We were afraid to leave Tokio for fear of not getting to the front."
"Shall we see much fighting?"
"I think so--from a high place. You cannot see in the valleys--the
kow-liang is too high to see over even on horseback. Yes, you will see
the fight."
Then we shook hands again, saluted the staff and departed.
The Japanese soldier had Fuji behind a tree--and he was smiling.
"Warui desu!" he said, and he looked at me with approval that I dared
ride him; for Fuji was Japanese and bad, and Japanese are not good
horsemen. At any rate, he followed me to the gate and held Fuji twice
more before we finally got away. On the way back to captivity Laguerié
turned a somersault over his white donkey's head. He rose, spluttering,
between the donkey's forelegs. It looked for a moment as though the
donkey were riding Laguerié.
* * * * *
At sunset, next day, the Irishman said:
"Come with me," and I followed unquestioning, because questioning was
useless. Out the compound we went, through narrow streets and up a rocky
little hill in the centre of the village, where we could look over the
low tiled roofs--here and there a tree was growing up through them--over
the mud-enclosures, the high-notched city walls, the stretch of white
sand beyond, a broader stretch of green still farther on, slit with the
one flashing cimeter-like sweep of the river--and then over the low
misty hills to the tender after-glow, above which wisp-like, darkening
clouds hung motionless.
"Greatest people in the world," said the Irishman with an
all-encompassing sweep of his right arm. "All happy--all peaceful. The
soldier lowest here in the social scale--in Japan, the highest. Home the
unit. Tilled the same soil for countless generations--always plenty to
eat. We forced opium on 'em with war in '52. To think they've got to be
cursed with our blasted, blasting materialism."
I had been through all that with the Irishman many times before, so we
went on. From a gateway a cur barked viciously at us. An old man came
out to call him in and the Irishman took the Chinaman by the arm and
pointed to a walled enclosure on the extreme summit.
"I want to get in there." How, on sight, he wins the confidence of these
people--men, women, and children--how he makes himself understood, not
knowing a word of Chinese, I don't know. Straightway the old fellow went
with us, the Irishman clinging to his arm, pounded on the heavy door and
left us.
"What is it?"
"A monastery," said the Irishman.
An ancient opened the portal, by and by, and we went in--through an
alley-way to a court-yard, stone-flagged--and I almost gasped. Temples
age-worn, old gardens tangled and unkempt and trees unpruned, dropped in
terraces below us; and with them in terraces dropped, too, the notched
gray walls that shut in the hushed silence of the spot from the noise of
the outside world. Black-and-white magpies flew noiselessly about among
the trees. Somewhere pigeons cooed and butterflies were fluttering
everywhere. It was a deserted Confucian monastery--gone to wreck and
ruin with only one priest to guard it, but untouched by the hand of
Russian or Japanese. Both use temples only when they must, and it seems
that Occidentals have much to learn from Tartar and heathen in reverence
for the things that concern the universal soul. To escape that compound,
we should have pitched our tents there, I suppose, had we been allowed.
But it was a place of peaceful refuge open to us all. An Irishman had
found it, and sharing the discovery we sat there and dreamed in silence
until the after-glow was gone.
... It is pretty mournful this morning--rainy, muddy, dreary, dark. We
have established a policing system--each man taking turn; but the mud in
the court-yard deepens and the smells fade not at all. We have flies,
mosquitoes, night-bugs that are homelike in species and scorpions that
are not. Every man shakes his shoes in the morning for a hiding
scorpion. A soldier brought in a dead one to-day, that yesterday had
bitten him on the hand. He was bandaged to the shoulder, and but for
quick treatment might have lost his arm. It can't be healthy in here,
but only Dean Prior and two others have been ill. What a game Dean it
is, by the way! He laughs at his sickness, laughs when that big white
horse with the weak back goes down in a river or mud-hole with him, and
never complains at all. I have never seen such forbearance and patience
and good-humor among any set of men. If a man wakes up cross and in an
ill-humor--that day is his. He may kick somebody's water-pail over the
wall, storm at his servant, curse out the food, and be a general
irritable nuisance; but the rest forbear, look down at their plates, and
nobody says a word, for each knows that the next day may be his. This
forbearance is one benefit anyhow that we are getting out of this
campaign, which is a sad, sad waste thus far. But Reggie appears at the
door. As he marches past us we rise and sing the Marseillaise; when he
marches back, we sing it again, and that smile of his is reward enough.
There is good news--_we_ are to go out on a reconnaissance to-morrow,
ourselves.
* * * * *
Holy Moses! but that reconnaissance was a terrifying experience. We went
out past the station where the last fight was, along a dusty road and up
a little hill, left our horses under its protecting bulk, sneaked over
the top, and boldly stood upright on the slant of the other side. Below
us was a big rude cross over a Russian grave. Things were pointed out to
us.
"You see that big camel-backed mountain there," said one of the Three
Guardsmen. We levelled glasses. "Well, that's where the main body of the
Russians are."
"How far away is that camel-back?" somebody asked innocently. The
Guardsman had turned and was beckoning violently to the Italian (who was
on top of the little hill, some thirty feet above us) to come down. Then
he said:
"About ten miles."
"So desuka!" (truly) said the same voice, lapsing with awe into
Japanese.
"So desu!"--which is "truly" in response,--said the Guardsman with
satisfaction, and we had a thrill. The Italian now had blithely drawn
near. He seemed unafraid, but perhaps he had been unaware of his peril
on the skyline only ten miles from a Russian gun.
Then we cautiously advanced along the road for another half a mile to an
empty trench in a little camp near which there must have been all of
twenty Japanese soldiers. One correspondent stepped across the trench
and was gesticulated back with some warmth. Davis sat down on the trench
and was politely asked to get up and move back--not that he would hurt
the trench, but because he was sitting on the half of it that was next
the ten-mile-away enemy--and apparently the Guardsman had orders that we
must not cross a carefully marked line. Davis got up like a shot and
hurriedly went away back to sit down.
The major of the post there gave us tea and beer at his quarters near
by. He was a big fellow and was most kind and courteous. He had been a
professor in a war-college and had asked the privilege of death at the
front. He got it, poor fellow, and later I saw a picture of his body
being burned after the fight at Liao-Yang.