JO HEAPS COALS OF FIRE
Turner, crack shot of the American marines and one of the best men in
the corps, was buried. Rob laid a wreath of flowers, twined by Annabel
Lorimer, on his coffin, and then went back to the wall, where he was on
guard duty at the eastern barricade. A drizzle of rain had fallen since
early morning. The Fourth of July of 1900, as celebrated by Americans in
Pekin, had not been a particularly happy or enjoyable day.
When Rob relieved the man who had taken poor Turner's place on guard,
the latter said:
"There's some chap down below there in the southern city who has
bothered me a good deal. He keeps calling out, 'I-ho!' or something of
that kind, every few minutes, and has been at it for more than an hour;
but I can't get a sight of him or even locate him."
"Like this?" asked Rob, at the same time leaning over the parapet and
uttering clear and loud the Hatton Academy call.
"Yes, that's exactly it," answered the marine. "How did you know? There
he goes now--"
The answer had been prompt, but still no one likely to have given it
could be discovered. While they watched and speculated a Chinese arrow
came flying up from some unseen bow, and fell on the wall just within
the barricades.
"It was only a trick to get a pot shot at us!" exclaimed the marine,
disgustedly; but Rob picked up the arrow, wrapped around which he found
a sheet of thin paper. It was, as he had hoped, a note from Jo, that
read as follows:
"DEAR ROB,--Don't worry. Everything will come out
right side. You have plenty friend in Pekin, among them Prince
Ching, who tells that the spirits of air are protect you, and
orders them fired at. I have fire-gun at Ha-ta tower, but only
blank cartridge. Make plenty noise, and all body is please. Many
big gun cannot be use, for fear shoot over and kill Chinese on
other side. Now say can starve you out. If you want send letter
Tien-Tsin, drop it over wall same place to-morrow, sun dark, and I
take it."
From the foregoing it will be seen that Jo's ability to write English
was not equal to his conversational fluency in that same tongue; but his
letter was readily understood, and gave great satisfaction to the few
persons in authority among the defenders, who shortly afterwards were
made acquainted with its contents.
Repeated efforts had been made to get news of their situation to the
outside world, but thus far all the messengers had been captured or
turned back. Now, with renewed hope a despatch, descriptive of the
situation in Pekin, and imploring speedy relief, was prepared and given
to Rob Hinckley for transmission.
At sunset he again stood at the appointed place on the parapet, and with
the first gathering of dusk a low but distinct call of "Hi-ho!" came up
to him from the dark shadows at the foot of the lofty wall. His tiny
message, folded in oiled silk and weighted with a bit of brick, already
was attached to a thread, by which it was promptly lowered. Then came a
slight jerk on the thread, and he pulled up the broken end to satisfy
himself that the little packet really had been taken.
After this incident the siege dragged wearily on, with frequent
skirmishes and constant firing on both sides, but with no decisive
advantage to either. The death-list received almost daily additions,
and the hospitals became filled to overflowing. To the heats of the
summer season were added flooding rains that necessitated a constant
repairing of washed-down defences. Thus weary days lengthened into
tedious weeks, and the weeks formed themselves into an unbroken month
of siege, before anything hopeful happened. Then came a white flag from
the Tsung Li Yamen, with a note signed "Prince Ching and others," asking
for a cessation of firing that negotiations for the departure of the
foreigners might be renewed.
This proposition being accepted, active hostilities on both sides were
suspended for a period of three weeks. During this interval the inmates
of the legations were as closely confined to their lines as ever, and
hardly a day passed without more or less rifle-firing.
In all this time there was no word from Jo, nor any proof that the
precious message intrusted to him ever had been delivered. There were
rumors, filtering through Chinese sources, that Tien-Tsin had been
captured, and that a great foreign army was marching towards Pekin; but
these rumors could not be verified, and as firing on the legations,
especially at night, was again begun, the situation appeared more
hopeless than ever.
Shortly before daylight, on the 10th of August, a furious fire was
directed against the legations, beginning at the southwest, or Russian
corner, and rapidly extending around the entire circle. While it was in
progress, Rob Hinckley, who again was stationed on the wall, thought he
heard the signal cry of Hatton Academy coming from the direction of the
Ha-ta watch-tower. The noise of the cannonade and the rattle of musketry
were so tremendous that he could not be sure, but he ventured an
answering cry, and then breathlessly listened. Yes, there it was again,
not loud, but distinct, and apparently close at hand. Rifle-bullets from
the Ha-ta tower were sweeping the wall and thudding against the tough
bricks of the shelter behind which crouched the Americans.
"Don't shoot, men! I am going out!" cried our lad. As he spoke he leaped
the low barricade and ran to the outer parapet, from which the call had
seemed to come.
"Jo!" he shouted. "Jo! where are you?"
"Here I am, Rob," came in feeble tone, and in another moment the young
American had found his friend crawling weakly in the partial shelter of
the parapet, but at the very end of his strength.
Somehow Rob got him behind the barricade, where he lay panting.
"What is it, old man?" cried his friend, bending anxiously over the
exhausted and pitiably emaciated figure. "Are you sick, or wounded, or
what? Did you get through to Tien-Tsin? Are troops on the way?"
Jo's eyes were closed, and he barely breathed; but his lips moved, and
Rob caught the whispered words:
"Army most here. Look, leg bandage, Rob, dear friend--"
That was all, and Chinese Jo never spoke again. The last great,
self-imposed duty of his life had splendidly been performed, but at what
expense of suffering never can be known, for in the turmoil of the days
immediately following his heroic death he was forgotten. Afterwards
General Gasalee, commanding the relieving army, could only say that he
had given several despatches to as many messengers, with the hope that
at least one of them might be got through. The one borne by Jo was found
hidden in a blood-stained cloth bound around one of his legs. It was a
brief note from the commanding general, stating that an allied force
of twenty thousand men, British, American, Japanese, and Russian, were
fighting their way towards Pekin, and making such steady progress that
they expected to be at Tung Chou, only twelve miles away, on the 12th,
and to reach the capital by the 13th or 14th.
This, the first reliable news received from the relieving army, was
hailed with extravagant joy by the long-imprisoned inmates of the
British Legation, and for hours the bulletin-board on which it was
posted was surrounded by a dense throng of all nationalities, many of
whom could not read English, while some could not read at all, but all
anxious to see the blessed words that promised them speedy safety.
The story of Chinese Jo's bravery was told from mouth to mouth until all
knew it; and when, that evening, his poor, emaciated body, covered with
mute evidences of his sufferings in the form of livid scars and unhealed
wounds, was laid to rest in the legation grounds, his funeral was the
most largely attended of any during the siege. Although it was not a
military funeral, the guns of his own countrymen, firing upon those he
had given his life to save, thundered a requiem alike for him and for
the dying era of Chinese national life that was about to close.
Again Rob Hinckley and Annabel Lorimer stood together at an open grave,
and as they turned away at the conclusion of the simple but solemnly
impressive ceremony of committal, the latter said, with tear-choked
voice:
"I think he was the bravest boy I ever knew."
"He certainly was," replied Rob, "and also he was the best friend I ever
had."
When Sir Claude Macdonald first read the welcome despatch from General
Gasalee, and at the same time heard that its bearer was dead, he
exclaimed: "What a pity he could not have lived to take back a plan of
the city walls, showing the best place of entrance!"
A little later this regret became generally expressed, but it did not
reach Rob Hinckley's ears until the day after Jo's funeral. Immediately
upon hearing it, he went to the American minister and offered his
own services as a messenger to convey any desired information to the
approaching army.
At first the minister refused his consent. "The southern city, as
well as the country between here and Tung Chou, is crowded with the
enemy," he said, "and for a foreigner, or even for a native messenger,
to attempt a passage through them would be to court an almost certain
death."
"My friend gave his life for us," replied Rob, simply, "and he was
a Chinese who had been badly treated by Americans. What he did any
American ought to be willing to do. Besides, I believe I can get
through. He taught me how to travel in China as a Chinese, and now, if
ever, is my chance to profit by his lessons. Please let me go, sir.
If I am killed, it will only be one life lost; if I get through, the
information I can give about the water-gate may save thousands of lives."
That night a Chinese beggar, apparently old and on the verge of
starvation, clad in the filthiest of rags, and with a scanty, unkempt
queue coiled in slovenly manner about his half-shaven head, hobbled, by
aid of a stick, towards the low water-gate, under the Tartar City wall,
that carried off the surplus water of the imperial canal. This gate
nominally was closed by iron bars, and in times of flood was impassable;
but now there was little water flowing through it, and it was only
choked with black mud. Above it was that section of the city wall held
by American marines.
Fumbling in the darkness of this almost-forgotten water-gate, the beggar
found a bar so rusted and worn by age that he could force a way through.
When he emerged on the other side of the wall he was covered with black,
vile-smelling mud. It rendered him so disgusting an object that even a
Chinese could not tolerate his presence, and, whenever he approached one
with a whining plea for alms, he was driven away with blows and curses.
Thus he wandered on from group to group, through many streets, until he
came to a gate in the eastern wall of the southern city that was guarded
by a troop of Chinese cavalry. These amused themselves by teasing him,
until, at length, one of them, tired of the sport, said:
"Oh! Put him outside, and let the old bag of bones go to the foreign
devils. They will stuff him full of bullets and make him fat."
So the gate was opened a little way, and the beggar was thrust through
it at the points of a dozen spears, some of which pricked him cruelly.
Thus driven from the city, he continued his way, walking more strongly
now than he had before, over the great stone road leading to Tung Chou.
With sunrise there was borne to his ears the startling sounds of heavy
firing in the east, the boom of field-artillery, the rat-tat-tat of
machine-guns, and the sharp, volleying crash of musketry. Then came the
roar of a heavy explosion, and he felt the earth tremble as though from
a distant earthquake. Fugitive Chinese soldiers, many of them wounded,
began to appear and hurry past him. A little later, as they threatened
to throng the highway, he withdrew to a cluster of ruined mud-huts
marking the site of an abandoned village. Here, desperately weary, he
flung himself on the ground, and almost instantly fell asleep. An hour
or two afterwards he awoke and cautiously peered from his shelter. The
highway was deserted, and, regaining it, he again pressed on towards
Tung Chou.
At length, the city wall was so close at hand that he could hear
bugle-calls sounding beyond it. As he eagerly listened to the familiar
notes, a rifle-shot came, without warning, from a ruined village similar
to that in which he had rested. The beggar was spun half-way round, and
felt a stinging sensation in his right shoulder. A moment later half
a dozen Japanese soldiers, forming a scouting party, sprang from the
ruins and ran towards him, laughing at the sorry figure he cut. One of
them drew a pistol and was about to put him out of the misery indicated
by his appearance, when, to their amazement, he shouted to them in a
language that they knew to be English:
"I am American! Take me to General Chaffee!"
After a parley he managed to make them understand, and shortly
afterwards he stood in the presence of the stern-featured, keen-eyed
American commander.
"Well, sir! Who are you? What do you want?" demanded the general.
"I have just come from Pekin with this plan of the walls, sent by the
American minister, and my name is Robert Hinckley," was the reply.
The words were hardly uttered when an officer, who had been writing
in another part of the room, sprang to his feet and confronted the
disguised lad with incredulous eyes.