AN ADVENTURE ON THE HILLS--THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH--TALIEN-WAN
For a while I was passive. Then, realising the danger of this new
situation, I made violent efforts to escape my captors. A prod of a
sword-bayonet was the only reply, and the sharp steel point caused a
cry of pain to escape me. What had I done? I looked at the men who
had captured me. They did not appear to be regular soldiers. They
were armed indeed, but they lacked the uniform, the gaiters, and the
knapsacks, so heavy to be borne, which the Japanese regular infantry
wear. Where were the white-crowned caps or the white bands of the
regiments I had seen? nor was the grenade-star of the engineers
visible. Then I guessed that these men were
camp-followers--coolies--robbers, perhaps, who had got out of hand and
intended to kill or torture the Chinese. Finding me in the fort, and a
stranger, they had seized me too. No one amid all the hurrying
soldiers took any notice of my escort save to glance at us. The
spectacle of Chinese prisoners was too common then.
"The Japanese never kill their prisoners." These soothing words came
into my mind as the party of camp-followers descended the hill--not in
the direction of the camp which I had quitted, but in that of the
seaside. As we advanced I could see the warships shelling the villages
along the coast, punishing the innocent natives. My captors also saw
them, and gesticulated savagely. Then the idea struck me that I was in
the power of banditti! Men who made war equally upon both sides, and
in Japanese garb or in Chinese dress plundered or murdered all alike.
The two Chinese, my companions in misfortune, wore buttons on their
hats. They were perhaps mandarin officers. The buttons seemed to me
to be of glass or crystal, and the men were perhaps of moderately high
rank. The coral button is the highest token, and descends to blue and
lapis-lazuli, to crystal and gilt buttons.
These officers made no reply to the remarks which I supposed were
addressed to them, if they understood them. But when we had reached a
retired ravine amongst the twisted hills which bound that coast, our
captors raised their pistols and evidently demanded money, tearing at
our dress, and searching our garments and persons. All this time the
Chinese gentlemen submitted to the insults with a truly Christian, or
Chinese, patience. But one could discern the flash of the eye and the
movement of the face which spoke of the passion within. When we had
been robbed, we were bound by our ankles and made to stand against the
slope of the hill, half-naked, wholly chilled, and destitute. Verily,
between Jack and Jap I was having a cheerful season.
My belt and all my money, my "pass" and badge, which I prized most
highly, were confiscated. The Chinese officers were even worse
treated--their clothing was appropriated, their rings and distinctions.
All this time no one had taken any trouble about us. Everyone
apparently was occupied in fighting or pursuing the fugitives, of whom
a number had been taken to the rear.
When the robbers had completed their work, and prevented our escape,
they slowly retired to the end of the ravine, covering us with their
purloined rifles as they went backward. At times these pleasant
gentlemen halted, aimed at us, and again retired, till I began to think
they would leave us, bound, to die there of cold and hunger. Then
again I fancied they intended to shoot at us as targets, and practise
upon us, and this idea was almost confirmed by the way in which they
separated into a line; they took up positions apart, and looked to
their arms. The suspense was torture!
I looked at my fellow-prisoners of olive complexion, they were
perfectly passive, and apparently unconcerned by these manoeuvres. But
I was not. After the first glance at them I concentrated my gaze upon
the robbers, who evidently wished to put us away to the place where no
tales can be told. I watched the levelled rifles, I heard a voice say
something, I saw five faces laid upon the gun-stocks, and uttering a
cry fell flat on my face as a heavy body came hurtling down the ravine
and kicked up a furious dust beyond us. The roar and the detonations
arose simultaneously. Then more guns, but perhaps blank--at least they
did no visible harm; and then, after a while, silence: deadly, thick
silence in the solitary ravine near the village on the cliff!
I lay still, half-suffocated, breathing with great difficulty, but
quite afraid to move. The shells had ceased, the "blank shots" had
stopped resounding amid the hills, the robbers had fled--for I could
not hear them, and the Chinese I knew were habitually silent. But the
silence was particularly impressive after the late uproar, and even
though I was glad to lie unmolested I began to wish for a change from
the death-like silence of the now gloomy ravine. The sun was
disappearing into the clouds beyond the farthest hills, and still no
one came. I determined to rise. I moved, and felt rather dizzy;
perhaps I had been asleep! I sat up. What had happened?
I gazed around me in all directions, unable to comprehend the result of
the adventure. The first objects which met my wondering eyes were the
five camp-followers lying in all sorts of attitudes, dead and
mutilated; their rifles lay at their feet or rested upon the bodies.
They had been instantly killed; and, indeed, partly destroyed.
Turning my head seaward I beheld the ships at a distance, and close by
me the Chinese officers resting limp and lifeless against the rocks,
wearing the same stolid expression upon their now pale-yellow features,
their eyes being nearly closed altogether. Again I asked myself what
had happened? What--who--had killed all these men and yet spared me?
My first movement was directed to my feet. I managed to unbind my
ankles, and after a while was able to walk steadily. Then, moved by
curiosity first--not by compassion, I regret to say--I advanced
cautiously towards the camp-followers, still clad in the leggings and
loose blouses, a kind of undress uniform. I went up and stood over
them. They were dead, blown to pieces by a shell, I decided; their
rifles lying upon their chests, or beside them. But what had killed
the Chinese officers, then? They, too, were dead. It was not possible
that the shell would have slain them also and left me alone alive!
I took up one of the rifles and examined it. It had been discharged.
Another, and another! Yes, all five were empty! Then the fellows had
fired at us as I had anticipated. Anticipated is the correct
expression. I had anticipated the discharge by one second, when I
beheld the flying body--the shell--in the air dark against the sky and
flaming. I had fallen flat: the bullets had struck above me; the fiery
message had completed the tragedy of the day.
That was all! By some impulse I had flung myself on my face, no doubt
in fear you will say--perhaps. I was very young, and did not wish to
pose as a hero when there was no gain in bravado and no dishonour in
stooping. I have read of soldiers "ducking" at a cannon-ball, and why
is it blameworthy in me--a lad almost--if I winced at the bullet of the
assassin? At anyrate I didn't see the good of being killed, and I
"ducked" to the shell, and to the expected bullets.
What could I do now? Evening was closing in, and to wander amid those
hills alone would be to woo death once more. Yet to remain there with
the dead was worse. So I took a look at the robbers, and ventured to
search the pockets of the leader of the party, from which I took my
precious "passes" and the money, which were still in my belt. Then,
having secured them as before, I quitted the scene of slaughter, and
made my way across the darkening hills, thankful to the Providence
which had preserved me from a horrible death.
All the night I wandered aimlessly--fancying that I was near the camp
and the fires, but finding deep and black ravines between myself and
them. At length I gave way, and seating myself in a deserted spot, not
without qualms concerning wild animals, and commending myself to
Heaven, I slept and dreamed.
My dream figured a kind of Robinson Crusoe incident. The savages were
preparing their feast on the desert island, I thought, and were passing
back and forward in front of the flames. Even in my dream the air "bit
shrewdly"--and I shivered and looked on. A vivid dream indeed! I
could almost fancy I was awake. I could see the men and the fire, and
distinguished dark forms carrying others and throwing them into the
flames. My senses were leaving me. Was this a dream or a vision of
the fiend's concoction? Was I _mad_? Had my trouble unhinged my mind?
I shut my eyes and tried to think. I pinched myself, and thumped my
chest. I was awake! Opening my eyes I sat up. Still the same weird
scene: the black mountain glade, the bright, cold sky studded with
stars, the great leaping flame surmounted by thick vapour which rose
slowly and crawled along the hill inland. What could it be? I lay for
a while, and then crept nearer and nearer to attempt to distinguish the
actors in this Walpurgis night-drama enacted on the Manchurian Brocken.
Nearer and nearer I came, lying still a while and then proceeding. The
actors were _men_: I decided that; but their occupation? I lay and
looked.
It seemed to me very astonishing that these funereal figures should be
thus occupied in such a stealthy manner in an outlying spot amid the
hills. What they were destroying I could not discern, because all the
surroundings beyond the glare of the fire were more intensely dark than
the atmosphere, but I could see, time after time, that the men carried
burdens, and cast them into the flames. Then the fearful reflection
came into my mind--
These men, Japanese, were thus disposing of their prisoners by torture!
Yet I heard no cries, nor saw any resistance.
Again I crawled nearer, nearer. I was then within the circle of
leaping light, and lay as still as possible.
Two men appeared near me. They looked around them, and, horror of
horrors! saw me extended upon the coarse herbage, my staring eyes
reflecting the glare of the flames, no doubt. They at once came
towards me, their blackened faces and untidy dress causing them to
appear absolutely repulsive. They might have posed, in such
surroundings, for fiends incarnate.
Without a word they raised me by shoulders and below the knees; in a
careless, rough manner they advanced towards the fire, which was
blazing fiercely at a little distance. I could feel the heat of it,
but so upset was I, and so perplexed, that I could not utter a sound.
My tongue was a piece of dry stick in my mouth, my lips were parched
and cracked, and I was almost in a fever. The whole seemed a horrible
nightmare--the fire and smoke, the blackness of the more distant
surroundings, the black inquisitors, like the assistants pictured in
illustrations of the burnings under Queen Mary, which I had seen in the
_Tower of London_--a favourite book of mine. All the accessories were
frightful, stupefying, maddening! yet I could utter no complaint, nor
was I able to resist my captors.
But fortunately this hypnotic trance did not continue. The smell of
oil (petroleum) penetrated my half-conscious brain, and aroused me from
my stupor. The oil was blazing in the fire, the receptacles--and
bodies, I had fancied them also--were steeped in oil, the pungent smell
of which had aroused my faculties. I wriggled in my bearers' hands,
and they let me fall suddenly and heavily with some loud exclamations.
Other assistants in this holocaust came up at this, and all of them
chattered and stared, but I understood none of their remarks or
exclamations. Left to myself, I rose to my feet, and stood there in
the circle as if the victim of some usury game. To my requests for
information they only replied in the Japanese language,--so far I could
understand,--and then again the pass and badge proclaimed my identity.
These relics were passed from hand to hand, and I felt what perhaps a
custodian of the Bank of England feels when he first sees a lump of
uncoined gold passing from hand to hand amongst privileged spectators
to the door of the vault, and wonders whether the precious sample will
return to him. Thus was my attention directed to my credentials. They
did come back; and when the men had burned all the bodies and coffins
they took me to the camp again.
Then I understood the scene I had witnessed. The Japanese habit is to
burn the bodies of the dead after an engagement, for sanitary reasons.
The coffins are steeped in oil, and then burned in some remote place,
after certain rites performed. I had wandered into this Gehenna, and
had been rescued from the fire into which I had been so nearly cast.
When we returned to the camp my identity was firmly established. My
acquaintance, Hoko, the interpreter, was summoned, and he again
constituted himself my guardian. Well it was that he did, for in
twelve hours I was in a high fever. My brain had been overtaxed, and
my body so reduced, that recovery seemed almost hopeless, as I
afterwards was informed. But the attack was sharp and short. In less
than two weeks I was on my legs again, tottering indeed, but useful,
and my first question asked of the officer who spoke English was--
"Can I get away from Port Arthur?"
"Perhaps. We have not taken it yet."
"Ah!" I said, "then it is different from what you imagined?"
"No; we have been compelled to await the heavy guns."
"When will they arrive?"
"They are expected immediately. When they are planted we shall assault
the forts and seize the port."
"Has there been fighting?"
"Yes; outposts and pickets have been engaged frequently."
"Is that artillery now? I hear firing."
"Yes; there is another attack developing. We do not fear."
There was a pause, then I asked--
"What day is it, pray?"
"In your calendar it is the twentieth of November."
"The twentieth! Then I have been here ill for thirteen days? How can
I ever repay this kindness and care? Most heartily I thank you, sir,
and"--
"But say no more, please. I am glad. Farewell."
He hastened away, leaving me overwhelmed with gratitude, and highly
appreciative of the courtesy and kindness of the Japanese officers both
of army and navy.