PART II--THE SIEGE

I

CHAOS

21st June, 1900.

* * * * *

I passed the night in half a dozen different places, assimilating all

there was to assimilate; gazing and noting the thousand things there

were to be seen and heard, and sleeping exactly three hours. Few

people would believe the extraordinary condition to which twelve hours

of chaos can reduce a large number of civilised people who have been

forced into an unnatural life. It is indeed extraordinary. Half the

Legations are abandoned, excepting for a few sailors; others are being

evacuated, and most people have even none of the necessities of life

with them. For instance, at eight o'clock I discovered that I had had

no breakfast, and on finding that it would be impossible for me to get

any for some hours, I forthwith became so ravenously hungry that I

determined I would steal some if necessary. What a position for a

budding diplomatist!

Fortunately I thought of the Hotel de Pekin before I had done anything

startling, and soon C----, the genial and energetic Swiss, who is the

master of this wonderful hostelry, had given me coffee. He told me

then to go into his private rooms, ransack the place and take what I

liked. I found I was not alone in his private apartments. Baron

R----, the Russian commandant, had just come in before me, and had

fallen asleep from sheer fatigue as he was in the act of eating

something. He looked so ridiculous lying in a chair with his mouth

wide open and his sword and revolver mixed up with the things he had

been eating, that I began laughing loudly, and, aroused by this sound,

two more men appeared suddenly--Marquis P----, the cousin of the

Italian _charge_, and K----, the Dutch Minister. What they were doing

there I did not inquire. The Dutch Minister was in a frightful rage at

everything and everybody, and began talking so loudly that R---- woke

up, and commenced eating again in the most natural way in the world,

without saying a single word. As soon as he had finished he went to

sleep again. He was plainly a man of some character; the whole

position was so ridiculous and yet he paid no attention.

I soon got tired of this, as plenty of other people now came in, all

calling for food, and I was really so weary from lack of sleep and

proper rest that I could not remember what they were talking about two

seconds after they had finished speaking. Most of the men were angry

at the "muddle," as they called it, and said it was hopeless going on

this way. One of the Austrian midshipmen told me that there had been

altogether very little firing, and not more than a few dozen Chinese

skirmishers engaged, but that the whole northern and eastern fronts of

our square were so imperfectly garrisoned that they could be rushed in

a few minutes. Everybody agreed with him, but nobody appeared to know

who was in supreme command, or who was responsible for a distribution

of our defending forces, which would total at least six hundred or

seven hundred men if every able-bodied man was forced into the

fighting-line. Fortunately the Chinese Government appears to be

hesitating again; we have been all driven into our square and can be

safely left there for the time being--that seems to be the point of

view.

I now became anxious about a trunk containing a few valuables, which I

had sent into the British Legation, and I determined to go in person

and see how things were looking there. What confusion! I soon learned

that it had been very gay at the British Legation during the night. At

four o'clock of the previous afternoon, when the first shots had

already been dropping in at the northern and eastern defences, not a

thing had been done in the way of barricading and sandbagging--that

everybody admitted. The flood of people coming in from the other

Legations, almost weeping and wailing, had driven them half insane. At

the Main Gate, a majestic structure of stone and brick, a few sandbags

had actually been got together, as if suggesting that later on

something might be done. But for the time being this Legation, where

all the women and children have rushed for safety, is quite

defenceless. Yet it has long been an understood thing that it was to

become the general base. It was not surprising, then, that at six in

the evening yesterday a tragedy had occurred within eyesight of

everybody at the Main Gate. A European, who afterwards turned out to

be Professor J----, of the Imperial University, an eccentric of

pronounced type, had attempted to cross the north bridge, which

connects the extreme north of Prince Su's palace walls with a road

passing just one hundred yards from the British Legation northern

wall, and perhaps three hundred yards from the Main Gate itself. It

was seen that the European was running, onlookers told me, and that

after him came a Chinese brave in full war-paint, with his rifle at

the trail. Instead of charging his men down the street to save this

wretched man, the British officer, Captain W----, ordered the Main

Gate to be closed, and everybody to go inside except himself and his

file of marines. He then commanded volley-firing, apparently at the

pink walls of the Imperial city, which form a background to the

bridge, although he might as well have ordered musical drill.

Meanwhile the unfortunate J---- was caught half way across the stone

bridge by some other Chinese snipers, who had been lying concealed

there all the time behind some piles of stones. He was hit several

times, though not killed, as several people swear they saw him

crawling down into the canal bed on his hands and knees. Volley-firing

continued at the Main Gate, and the aforesaid British officer cursed

himself into a fever of rage over his men. Even when J---- had finally

disappeared, no steps were taken to see what had become of him; he was

calmly reported lost. This was the opening of the ball at the British

Legation.

No sooner was it dark than M----, the chief, appeared on the scenes,

smoking a cigarette reminiscent of his Egyptian campaign, and clad in

orthodox evening dress. This completed everyone's anger, but the end

was not yet. At ten in the evening a scare developed among the women,

and it was decided to begin fortifying some of the more exposed

points. Everybody who could be found was turned on to this work, but

in the dark little progress could be made excepting in removing all

possibility of any one going to sleep.

But the sublimely ridiculous was reached in an out-of-the-way building

facing the canal, an incident displaying even more than anything else

the attitude of some of the _personnel_ of our missions to China.

Sleeping peacefully in his nice pyjamas under a mosquito net was found

a sleek official of the London Board of Works, who wanted to know what

was meant by waking him up in the middle of the night. Investigations

elsewhere found other members of this Legation asleep in their beds;

everybody said the young men were all right, but those above a certain

age...!

The night thus spent itself very uneasily. They were only learning

what should have been known days before.

When day broke in the British Legation things had seemed more

impossible than ever. Orders and counter-orders came from every side;

the place was choked with women, missionaries, puling children, and

whole hosts of lamb-faced converts, whose presence in such close

proximity was intolerable. Heaven only knew how the matter would end.

The night before people had been only too glad to rush frantically to

a place of safety; with daylight they remembered that they were

terribly uncomfortable--that this might have to go on for days or for

weeks. It is very hard to die uncomfortably. I thought then that

things would never be shaken into proper shape.

In this wise has our siege commenced; with all the men angry and

discontented; with no responsible head; with the one man among those

high-placed dead; with hundreds of converts crowding us at every

turn--in a word, with everything just the natural outcome of the

vacillation and ignorance displayed during the past weeks by those who

should have been the leaders. Fortunately, as I have already said, so

far there has been no fighting or no firing worth speaking of. Only

along the French and Italian barricades, facing east and north, a

dropping fire has continued since yesterday, and one Frenchman has

been shot through the head and one Austrian wounded. It is worth while

noting, now that I think of it, that the French, the Italians, the

Germans, and, of course, the Austrians, have accepted Captain T----,

the cruiser captain, as their commander-in-chief, and that the

Japanese have signified their willingness to do so, too, as soon as

the British and Americans do likewise. Thus already there are signs

that a pretty storm is brewing over this question of a responsible

commander; and, of course, so long as things remain as they are at

present, there can be no question of an adequate defence. Each

detachment is acting independently and swearing at all the others,

excepting the French and Austrians, for the good reason that as the

Austrians have taken refuge in the French lines they must remain

polite. Half the officers are also at loggerheads; volunteers have

been roaming about at will and sniping at anything they have happened

to see moving in the distance; ammunition is being wasted; there are

great gaps in our defences, which any resolute foe could rush in five

minutes were they so inclined; there is not a single accurate map of

the area we have to defend!

All this I discovered in the course of the morning, and by afternoon I

had nothing better to do than go over to the great Su wang-fu, or

Prince Su's palace grounds, now filled with Chinese refugees, both

Catholic and Protestant, and there watch the Japanese at work. The

Japanese Legation is squashed in between Prince Su's palace grounds

and buildings and the French Legation lines, and, consequently, to be

on the outer rim of our defences the little Japanese have been shifted

north and now hold the northeast side of our quadrilateral. Prince Su,

together with his various wives and concubines and their eunuchs, has

days ago fled inside the Imperial city, abandoning this palace with

its valuables to the tender mercies of the first comers; and thus the

Japanese sailor detachment, reinforced by a couple of dozen Japanese

and other volunteers, has made itself free with everything, and is

holding an immense line of high walls, requiring at least five hundred

men to be made tolerably safe. But they have an extraordinary little

fellow in command, Colonel S----, the military attache. He is awkward

and stiff-legged, as are most Japanese, but he is very much in

earnest, and already understands exactly what he can do and what he

cannot. After a search of many hours, I found here the first evidences

of system. This little man, working quietly, is reducing things to

order, and in the few hours which have gone by since the dreadful

occurrences of yesterday he has succeeded in attending to the thousand

small details which demanded his attention. He is organising his

dependents into a little self-contained camp; he is making the hordes

of converts come to his aid and strengthen his lines; in fact, he is

doing everything that he should do. Already I honour this little man;

soon I feel I shall be his slave.

But not only is there order within these Japanese lines; attempts are

being made to find out what is going on beyond--that is, to discover

what is being done in this deserted corner of the city, which is

abandoned to the European. Although all is quiet without, it is not

possible that everyone has fled, because some rifle-firing is going

on.... When I arrived the Japanese had already discovered that a

Chinese camp had been quietly established less than a quarter of a

mile away. Half an hour afterwards a breathless Japanese sailor

brought in a report that snipers had been seen stealthily approaching.

I was just in the nick of time, as Colonel S---- immediately decided on

a reconnaissance in force; any one who liked could go. Would I go?

We slipped out under command of the colonel himself and worked through

tortuous lanes down towards the abandoned Customs Inspectorate and the

Austrian Legation. We reached the rear of the Customs compounds

without a sound being heard or a living thing seen. All along hundreds

of yards of twisting alleyways the native houses stood empty and

silent, abandoned by their owners just as they are. Even the Peking

dog, a cur of great ferocity, who in peaceful times abounds everywhere

and is the terror of our riding-parties, had fled, as if driven away

by the fear of the coming storm. In the distance, as we stealthily

moved, we could hear an occasional rattle of musketry, probably

directed against the French Legation and the Italian barricade, where

it has been going on for twenty-four hours; but so isolated is one

street in Peking from the rest by the high walls of the numberless

compounds and the thick trees which intercept all sounds that we could

be certain of nothing. Perhaps the firing was not even the enemy at

work, whoever he may be; it might be our men....

But directly in front of us all was still, and just as we thought of

stealing on, a Japanese whispered "Hush," and pointed a warning

finger. We flattened ourselves against houses and scurried into open

doors. Suddenly it was getting exciting. Down another lane then came a

noisy sound of feet, incautiously pattering on the hard ground to the

accompaniment of some raucous talk. It is the very devil in this

network of lanes and blind alleys which twist round the Legations, and

no force could properly patrol them....

Without any warning two men came round the corner, peering everywhere

with sharp eyes and bobbing up and down. Simultaneously with the sob

of surprise they gave our rifles crashed off. And this time, owing to

the short range and the Japanese warning, we got them fair and square,

and both of them rolled over. But no, one fellow jumped to his feet

again, and before we could stop him was down another lane like a flash

of lighting. We promptly gave chase, yelling blue murder in an

incautious manner, which might have brought hundreds of the enemy on

our heels. But we did not care. Round a corner, as we followed the man

up, a high wall rose sheer, but nothing daunted, the fellow took a

tremendous leap, and by the aid of the lattice-work on a window,

climbed to a roof. Then bang, bang, bang, seven shots went at him

rapidly, one after another. In spite of the volley the man still

crawled upwards, but as he reached the top of the low house and passed

his legs over he gave a feeble moan and then.... _flopper-ti flop,

flopper-ti flop_, he crashed down the other side and ended with a dull

thud on the ground. On the other side there he was dead as a door-nail

and all covered with blood. It was our first proper work. But he was

not a soldier, he was a Boxer; and in place of the former incomplete

attire of red sashes and strings, this true patriot wore a long red

tunic edged with blue, and had his head tied up in the regulation

_bonnet rouge_ of the French Revolution. Round his waist he had also

girded on a blue cartridge-belt of cloth, with great thick Martini

bullets jammed into the thumb holes. This we thought very curious at

the time, as the Boxers were supposed to laugh at firearms. Elated by

this little affair, we pushed on, and came upon other men working

round our lines in small bands, and exchanged shots with them. All

were Boxers in this new uniform; but although we tried to entice them

on and corner them in houses, they were too cunning for us, and broke

back each time. In the end we had so stirred up this hornet's nest

that the scattered firing became more and more persistent, and stern

orders came for us to fall back.

We came in feeling elated, but Colonel S---- was looking serious, for

he had discovered that the extent of Prince Su's outer walls, which

have to be held in their entirety, is so much greater than was

expected, and every part can be so easily attacked from the outside,

that the task is desperate. There are less than fifty men in all for

these long Japanese lines, and if we take more from elsewhere it will

be merely creating fresh gaps.... Decidedly it is not enticing. The

whole line from the north right round to the south, where the

Japanese, French, Austrians, Italians and Germans are distributed,

ending on the Tartar Wall itself, is terribly weak. And as I began to

understand this, an hour after this afternoon adventure I became quite

gloomy at the outlook.

Everything, indeed, was upside down. Matters in the British Legation

were not improving, and the fighting air which exists elsewhere is not

to be found here. Men, women and children; ponies, mules and

packing-cases; sandbags and Ministers Plenipotentiary--are still all

engaged in attempting to sort themselves out and keep distinct from

one another. Already the British Legation has surrendered itself, not

to the enemy, but to committees. There are general committees, food

committees, fortifications committees, and what other committees I do

not know, except that American missionaries, who appear at least to

have more energy than any one else, are practically ruling them. This

is all very well in its way, but it is curious to see that dozens of

able bodied men, armed with rifles, are hiding away in corners so that

they shall not be drafted away to the outer defences. Everywhere a

contemptible spirit is being displayed, because a feeling prevails

that there are no responsible chiefs in whom absolute trust can be

placed. A pleasant mess in all truth. It is now everyone for himself

and nobody looking after the others....

Some of the people, however, have begun dividing themselves up, and

now are billeted, nationality by nationality, in separate quarters.

But many persons seem lost and distraught. H----, the great director

of Chinese affairs, was siting on an old mattress looking quite

paralysed; P----, his counterpart in the Russian bank, was striding

about excitedly and muttering to himself. The Belgian Legation has

disappeared entirely; whether they have run away or been lost in the

confusion I could not for the life of me tell. What a position, what a

condition! Already it is a great feat to be on speaking terms with a

dozen people, and if we could only instill some of the savageness we

all feel towards one another into our defence, it would become so

vigorous and unconquerable that not all the legions of the Boxer

Empire, massed in serried ranks, could break in on us. But this very

defence, which should be so determined, is the most half-hearted thing

imaginable. It has no real leader, and merely resolves itself into

the old policy of each Legation holding its own in an irregular

half-circle round the British Legation, which itself is a mass of

disorder. I feel certain that if we have a night attack at once the

Chinese will break in with the greatest ease, and then.... _Tant pis!_

The last thing I saw in the British Legation was M----, the great

correspondent, sitting on a great stack of his books, looking wearily

around him. His former energy and resolution have all departed, sapped

by the spectacle of extraordinary incompetence around him. Of what

good has all that rescuing of native Christians been--all that energy

in dragging them more dead than alive into our lines in the face of

Ministerial opposition, when we cannot even protect ourselves? But

just when I began this moralising, the hundred and fifty mules and

ponies that have been collected together all broke loose, frightened

by some stray shots, and went careering madly around us. It was pitch

dark and most gloomy before they had been all tied up again, and

although firing became heavier and heavier as Chinese snipers found

they could approach our outer lines in safety, I finally sought out a

spot for myself and fell asleep with my rifle on my chest--cursing

everybody. It is a sign of the times--my nerves are becoming

Ministerial!

II

THE RETREAT AND THE RETURN

23rd June, 1900.

* * * * *

Yesterday the inevitable happened, and only Heaven and the foolishness

of the attacking forces, who are only playing with us, and do not seem

to have settled down to their work, saved us from complete

annihilation. Without a word of explanation, Captain T----, the

Austrian commander, suddenly ordered all the French, Italians and

Austrians to fall back on the British Legation, sending word meanwhile

to the Japanese and the Germans to follow his example. This meant that

the whole vast semicircle to the northeast and the southeast was being

thrown up. The result was that for ten minutes armed men of all

nationalities poured into the British Legation, until every

rifle-bearing effective was standing there, all jabbering in a mass,

and not knowing what it was all about. The Americans, who had

established themselves on the Tartar Wall as the main point in the

western defence, guessed they were not going to be left there cut off

from salvation by a failure to remember their existence; and presently

they, too, ran in, openly swearing at their officers. These American

marines have never quite liked this idea of being planted on the

Tartar Wall; for with that smartness for which their race is

distinguished, they see it is quite on the cards that they are

forgotten up there if a rush occurs while the others are sitting safe

in the main base. And the Americans are not going to be forgotten--we

soon found that out. They are the people of the future.

Depict to yourself, if you can, the blind fear of all the

Plenipotentiaries, of all the missionaries and their lamb-faced

converts, on seeing the gallant defenders of the outer lines rushing

in on them at a fast trot, and then falling into line and standing

very much at ease awaiting the next move. I may be brutal, but I

relished that scene a little; it was a lesson that was sadly needed.

It was the British Minister who remained the most calm; perhaps he

immediately understood that the game was now in his hands. But the

other Ministers, I wish you could have but seen them! They crowded

round his British Excellency in an adoring and trembling ring, and

without subterfuge offered him the supreme command; that was exactly

what we had been expecting. Underneath their manner you could easily

see they meant to say that they knew it was the British Legation in

which they had taken refuge; that they had had enough of all these

alarums and excursions; and that so long as they were left in peace

they did not care about the rest. What mean little people we are in

this world! The French, the Russian, the Italian and the Japanese

Ministers were the first to act thus, and as they represented a

majority of the detachments, the others who had Legation Guards had

pretty well to follow suit, whether they liked it or not, and some did

not like it, as I shall show hereafter. M---- had been hinting very

plainly that he had been in a kilted regiment, and that the British

Legation was the hub of the defence--the asylum for all; and so with a

satisfied smile, he was pleased to accept the proffered appointment.

Yet it was one only in name. For just as he was writing out his first

_ordre du jour_ the various Plenipotentiaries showed their

appreciation of the office they had conferred on him by ordering, each

one of them separately, their respective detachments to return to

their respective Legations so hurriedly abandoned. So the sailors and

the marines, and the fighting volunteers who bear them company,

bundled back to the outer lines and barricades again, finding all just

as it had been before, except that the Italian Legation was in flames

and the Italian barricades therefore useless. The snipers had found

that they could suddenly work in peace, and had thrown blazing

torches. Four Legations are now destroyed and abandoned, for the

Belgian, the Austrian and the Dutch have all gone up in flames at

different times during the last days. Seven Legations remain and ten

Ministers.

The defence is thus getting into reasonable limits and so long as our

attacks are confined to what they have been up till now, we may really

pull through. Incendiary fires round the outer lines, lighted by means

of torches stuck on long poles, a heavy rifle-fire poured into the

most exposed barricades by an unseen enemy, and very occasionally a

faint-hearted rush forward, which a fusillade on our part turns into a

rout--these have so far been the dangers with which we have had to

contend. But the very worst feature of the defence is that no one

trusts the neighbouring detachment sufficiently to believe that it

will stand firm under all circumstances and not abandon its ground;

consequently this fear that a sudden breakdown along some barricades

will allow of an inrush of Chinese troops and Boxers makes men fight

all the time with their eyes over their shoulders, which is the very

worst way of fighting I can possibly imagine. And another hardly less

important point is that the burden is not evenly apportioned, and that

the men know it. For instance, the British Legation, which is as yet

not in the slightest exposed, is full of able-bodied men doing

nothing--whereas on the outer lines of the other Legations many men

are so dead with sleep that they can hardly sit awake two hours. It

can easily be seen from the rude sketches I have made and re-made,

what I mean. I have been over every inch on my own legs; there can be

no mistake.

From the main sketch you will see that the holding of the Tartar Wall,

together with the American and Russian Legations, protects the British

Legation effectively from the south and partially, from the west; that

the Franco-German-Austrian lines, and the Su wang-fu, with the

Japanese, mask the east; and that of the other two sides on which the

British Legation walls and outbuildings really constitute the actual

defence line directly in touch with the enemy, the Imperial Carriage

Park, a vast grass-grown area with but half a dozen yellow-roofed

buildings in it, makes the western approaches very difficult to

attack, since they are easily swept by our rifle-fire; and that the

northern side is so filled with buildings belonging to the Chinese

Government (which it now seems cannot be destroyed), that I do not

apprehend attacks here. The only real dangers to the British Legation

in any case are these two corners to the north and the southwest....

Passing over to the Su wang-fu, you realise the extraordinary

difference between the danger points along the British Legation

northern and western barricades, and little Colonel S----'s command.

Here you are in direct touch with the enemy, for the snipers of

forty-eight hours ago have been strongly reinforced, doubtless

attracted by the possibility of loot.

[Illustration: Map of the siege.]

Soldiers and all sorts of banditti must have joined hands with the

Boxers, for it is clear that every hour is mysteriously adding more

and more men round our lines. You can hear the men talking, and you

can see bricks moving but fifty or sixty yards from where you are

squinting through a loophole as fresh barricades, that are gradually

surrounding us in a vise which may yet crush us to death, are silently

built. The forty or fifty Japanese, and the few volunteers who are

with them, have now been reinforced by all the Italians, who have been

given a big strip of outer wall and a fortified hillock in Prince Su's

ornamental garden--a hillock which commands a great stretch of

territory, as territory goes in our wall split area. For here in the

Su wang-fu the number of walls and buildings is terrible, and Heaven

only knows how seventy or eighty men can even make a pretence of

holding such positions. First there is the great outer wall eighteen

feet high and three feet thick. Then from this outer wall, other thick

walls run inwards at right angles, splitting up the place into little

squares, in which as likely as not there will be a group of houses

with great dragon-adorned roofs. Further towards the centre of the Fu

is Prince Su's own palace and his retainers' quarters; to the south of

this is an ornamental garden full of trees, a vast and mournful

enclosure, standing in which the crack of outpost rifles can only be

distantly heard. Moving across to the southern side--that is, the side

near the French Legation and the protected Legation Street--the

Christian refugees are found gathered here in huge droves. In one

building there are alone four hundred native schoolgirls, rows upon

rows of them that never seem to come to an end, sitting on the ground

in their sober blue coats and trousers, peacefully combing each

other's hair, or working on sandbags with the imperturbability of the

Easterner who is placid under death. Farther on, again, you come on

families, sometimes three generations huddling together on a six-foot

straw mat. A mother trying to feed a child from her half-dry breasts

tells you quietly that it is no use, since the meagre fare she is

already getting does not make sustenance enough for her, let alone her

child. Yet everything possible is being done to feed them. All the

able-bodied converts have long ago been drafted off for

barricade-building and loophole-making in the endless walls, and here

the curious Japanese passion for order and detail is shown on the

coats of the older men. The boss-shifts, each responsible for so many

men who have to accomplish a given amount of work in a specified time,

have big white labels with characters written squarely across them,

telling everyone clearly what they are. At a little table near by

writers, who have been carefully sorted out from this incongruous

gathering, are provided with brush and ink, and have been set to work

making up reports and lists of all the people. These are handed to a

Japanese Secretary of Legation, who has been evolved into an

engineer-in-chief and overseer of native labour, and thus at every

hour of the day the distribution of the barricaders is known. Amid

these crowds of native refugees, who number at least a couple of

thousand people, two or three Japanese occasionally wander to see that

all's well, and give the babies little things they have looted from

Prince Su's palace to play with. Content to be where they are and

assured that the European will not abandon them, these natives exhibit

in a strange manner that inexplicable thing--Faith. Poor people--they

little know! Is it always thus with faith?

So the Su wang-fu, which is but the northwestern part of our lines, is

now a city in itself, inhabited by the most unlikely people in the

world. Three days have sufficed to give it an entity of its own. The

nature of the defence and the fighting value of the Japanese as

compared to the Italians, are fitly illustrated by the distribution of

forces which little Colonel S---- has already made. The Italians hold

perhaps a hundred feet of the outer wall and one hillock of some

importance. The Japanese have at least a thousand feet of loopholed

and unloop-holed wall, and are quite ready to take another thousand if

some one would be kind enough to give it to them. In posts of three

and four men, distant sometimes hundreds of feet apart, the little

Japanese takes his two hours on and his four hours off night and day

without a murmur or without ever a break. Only at one place are there

more than three or four little men together. At the eastern end of the

Fu there is a big post grouped round the fortified Main Gate, where

there are actually eight or nine men under the command of a Japanese

naval lieutenant.

But the genius who has organised all this system, the little Japanese

colonel, does not waste time walking around. He is at work at an

eternal map decorated with green, blue and red spots, which show the

distribution of his forces and their respective strength and fighting

value. Somehow I could not tear myself away from this quarter. It was

so orderly....

Behind the commanding hillock in the Italian centre I found Lieutenant

P----, the Italian naval officer, dining off bread and Bologna

sausage, which he was stripping after the Italian fashion, inelegantly

using his knife both to punctuate his sentences and to assist the

passage of his food. "Look out," he cried, as soon as I had appeared,

"it is very warm here; the bullets are flying low." The leaves of the

trees under which he was sitting were indeed falling thickly, cut down

by snipers' fire. But still I wish he would walk down to a Japanese

post not more than five hundred feet away and watch a little Jap and a

half dozen Chinese snipers at work against each other. That is where I

had just been--convoying some supplies. The little Japanese had

ostentatiously placed his sailor cap just in front of an empty

loophole twenty feet from where he actually squatted, and where he had

probably been a few seconds before I had arrived. The snipers saw this

and promptly fired, bang, bang, bang, a long line of shots following

one after the other in quick succession. Hum! they must be reloading

now, said the little Jap plainly by the expression on his face; and

jumping straight on top of the wall in front of him he hastily snapped

at one of his enemies. Then down he came again, but hardly quick

enough, for bricks were dislodged all around him, and once he received

one on the head. The little man rubbed his cranium ruefully, shook

himself like a dog to get rid of the sting, and then with a little

more caution began his strange performance again. This is what is

going on all round the Japanese posts--men bobbing up and firing

rapidly, in some cases only fifty feet away from one another. The

Italians are lying comfortably on their stomachs completely out of

sight, and wildly volleying far too often. Already their ammunition

is running low, although there is hardly any need really to reply at

all to our enemies. They have crept closer, it is true, and without

surprising any one, or even causing notice, their numbers of riflemen

have grown from hour to hour. Now I come to think of it, there must be

many hundreds of men lying all round us and firing just as they

please. But they are hidden behind walls and ruined houses; they

belong to our curious state; they are the essential things after all.

How foolish one becomes!

Threading your way due south you come suddenly on a French picquet,

four Frenchmen and two Austrians behind a heavy barricade. This

precious Su wang-fu is merely linked to the French Legation by a

system of such posts audaciously feeble when you consider the duty

they have to undertake--to keep up a connection hundreds of yards long

which any moment may be broken in a dozen places by a determined rush

of the enemy. This first French post is the extreme left of the French

defence, and it is only after some long alleyways that you come on the

centre itself. Here on roofs, squatting behind loopholes, and even on

tree-tops, though these are very dangerous, French and Austrian

sailors exchange shots with the enemy. Half a dozen men have been

already hit here, but in spite of the strictest orders men are

fearlessly exposing themselves and reaping the inevitable result. It

is only at the beginning that one is so unwise. One giant Austrian had

spread himself across the top of a roof near which I passed, with two

sandbags to protect his head, and looked in his blue-black sailors

clothes like an enormous fly squashed flat up there by the anger of

the gods. Now leaning this way, now that, he flashed off a Mannlicher

there towards the Italian Legation, where only one hundred hours ago

no one ever dreamed that Chinese desperadoes would have made our

normal life such a distant memory.

As I came up the French commander allowed the remark to drop that the

position did not please him--_ca ne me dit rien_ is the exact

expression he used--and that his defence was too thin to be capable of

resisting a single determined rush. The abandoned Italian barricade,

with the Italian Legation still smouldering behind it, is indeed now

filling up with more and more Chinese sharpshooters, who continually

pour in a hot fire only fifty feet from the French lines. Occasionally

a reckless Chinese brave dashes across from the hiding-place he has

selected to cover his advance into the nest of Chinese houses which

are only separated by a twenty-foot lane from the French Legation

wall, and coolly applies the torch. Then puff; first there is a small

cloud of smoke, then a volley of crackling wood, and finally flames

leaping skyward. You can see this here at all hours. Aided by fire and

rifle-shots the Chinese are pushing nearer and nearer the French. It

is clear that they will have a worse time than the Japanese if the

situation develops as quietly but as rapidly as it has been doing....

Across Legation Street connection with the Germans is now had by means

of more loopholed barricades; for the Germans link hands with the

French and Austrians, just as they on their part link up with the

little colonel of the Su wang-fu. But the Germans are not in force at

their own Legation; they are merely using it as their base, for it is

only by means of the Peking Club, whose grounds run sheer back, that

they touch the priceless Tartar Wall. Spread-eagled along a very

indifferently barricaded line, the marines of the German Sea Battalion

now lie in an angry frame of mind dangerous for everyone. They have

felt hurt ever since the loss of their Minister, and the men are

recklessly desperate. On the Tartar Wall itself they are exposed to a

dusting fire from the great Ha-ta Towers that loom up half a mile from

them, and men are already falling. A three-inch gun commenced firing

in the morning--nobody but the Wall posts noticed it at first--and now

overhead whiz with that odd shaking of the air so hard to explain

these light but dangerous projectiles. Happily it is rather a modern

gun, and the Chinese, unaccustomed to the flat trajectory, are firing

far too high. I noticed as I crept along that the shells fell

screaming into the Imperial city a mile or two away. If they only get

the range!

Far along the Tartar Wall, towards the Ch'ien Men Gate, yellow dots

could be indistinctly seen. These were the Americans, in their slouch

hats and khaki suits, lying on the ground and facing the enemy's fire

in the other direction. Held in check by the Germans and Americans in

two feeble posts of a few men each, the Chinese commanders cannot get

their men along the Tartar Wall, and command the Legations that crouch

below. Perhaps that is why playing is only going on and no assaults.

Now sobbing, now gurgling, the bullets pass thickly enough overhead

here, sometimes in dense flights like angry wild-fowl, sometimes

speeding in quick succession after one another as if they were all

late and were frantically endeavouring to make up for lost time.... I

am certain now that this fusillade is increasing from hour to

hour--almost from minute to minute. I do not think playing will soon

be the right expression....

To get to the Russo-American side of the defence, there is no help for

it, you have to make a long voyage; to climb down off the Wall, pass

through the German Legation, cross Legation Street into the French

lines, and work your way slowly through acres of compounds and

deserted houses. Yesterday I would have made a dash, but after

watching the four hundred yards of wall between the German and

American posts, you are easily convinced that even to sneak along,

hugging the protecting parapet, would be an undertaking of utter

foolishness. For as I stood looking, the rank undergrowth, which

Chinese sloth has allowed in past years to grow up along the top of

the Tartar Wall, was apparently alive, now swinging this way, now

swaying that, and sometimes even jumping into the air in pieces as if

galvanised into madness by the rush of bullets. The number of riflemen

is growing fast. So passing into the French Legation, great holes let

you into the next compound, which happens to be that of my friend

C----, the Peking hotel-keeper. Here there is a new sight; everybody

is at work quite peacefully, milling wheat, washing rice, slaughtering

animals, barricading windows--doing everything, in fact at once. This

fellow C---- is an original, who knows how to make his Chinese slave

with the greatest industry and sets them an admirable example himself.

A rather desperate lot are these servants, although most of them are

professed Roman Catholics, and can gabble French learned years ago at

Monseigneur F----'s. And that reminds me: no one has thought of the

gallant bishop during the past few days. That shows how indifferent

the abnormal makes one; the French Legation has attempted once to get

into communication with the distant cathedral and failed. Since then

nobody I have seen has even mentioned the great Catholic mission.

These lonely and deserted compounds, merely connected with our bases

and the outlying works by great holes rudely picked through their

massive walls, are curiously mournful and passing strange. The houses

are absolutely empty and silent; everything has been left exactly as

it stood, when the occupants rushed off feverishly to the British

Legation, where they now sit in idleness relying for protection on the

thin outer lines I have described. In these abandoned Legations and

residences you can scarcely hear more than a distant rattle of

musketry, and when you think how great the distances are it is very

easy to understand why the panic occurred yesterday morning among the

men on the outer lines, at which those smugly safe in the British

Legation were so indignant. Occupying widely separated positions,

imperfectly linked together, and with no responsible commander to

watch them with a keen and discerning eye, the defenders of the

eastern, southern and western lines could well suppose that the

incompetence of the Ministers and the disorders which have reigned

during the past few weeks would culminate in their being abandoned

without a word of warning being sent them. It is so silly to say that

because men are soldiers and sailors they must be prepared to do their

duty everywhere. There must have been times when even the Roman

soldier at Pompeii felt like revolting.

Pushing on, I crossed the southern bridge of stone, in order to reach

the Russo-American lines and the rear of the British Legation, and

marvelled more and more at our good luck. As yet nothing has been

done to protect this very exposed connecting link; and so bending low

you have once more to sneak rapidly along, using the stone parapet as

a traverse to save you from the enfilading fire, which is coming from

heavens know where. The bullets were singing in all manner of tones

here as I ran, the iron ones of old-fashioned make muttering a deep

bass; the nickel-headed modern devils spitting the thinnest kind of

treble as they hastened along. It was almost amusing to gauge their

speed. Some had already travelled so far that with a flop which raises

a little cloud of dust they dropped exhausted at your feet. The

ricochets are in the majority, for with the vast number of intervening

walls and trees and the sloping Chinese roofs which pen us in on all

sides, the nickel, iron and lead of Mannlicher and Mauser rifles and

Tower muskets are soon converted into mere discordant humming-birds,

whose greatest inconvenience is their sound. Never have I heard such a

humming as these spent ricochets make.

Fifty feet past this southern stone bridge you meet the first Russian

barricade, with half a dozen tired Russian sailors sleeping on the

ground and a sleepy-eyed lookout man leaning on his rifle. This

barricade faces in both directions in the shape of a V, and under its

protection this part of Legation Street is supposed to be safe from a

rush, if the men stand firm. In the Russian and American Legations it

is everywhere the same story--barricades and loopholed houses and

outworks, now mostly crowned with sandbags, succeed one another with a

regularity which becomes monotonous. But on this western side the

bullets are few and far between as yet, and sometimes for a few

seconds a curious quiet reigns, only broken by the distant and

muffled hum of sound and crackling towards the east. Decidedly up to

date it is the Japanese and the French and their companions who have

all the honours in the matter of cannonading and fusillading, and the

Germans are soon going to be not far behind them. Right up on the

Tartar Wall I found the American marines once again lying mutinously

silent. They, too, do not like it, frankly and unreservedly; and as I

lay up there and told them what I had seen elsewhere, an old fellow

with a beard said it was S----, the first secretary, who had insisted

on their stopping, and had almost had a fight with everyone about it.

The old marine told me that the other men would be damned--he used the

word in a wistful sort of way which had nothing profane about it--if

they stopped much longer. They wanted other people to share the

honours; they did not see why every man should not have a turn at the

same duty.... I was glad these Americans were making this fuss, for

everything is just as unbalanced as it was at the beginning, and there

is no sort of confidence anywhere. After three days of siege the only

clear thing I can see is that there are a lot of bad tempers, and that

the few good men are saving the situation by acting independently to

the best of their ability and are not trying to understand anything

else.

Much depressed, I at last slipped down through the back of the Russian

Legation into the British Legation. Yes! the others are right, for on

reaching the English grounds you feel unconsciously that you have

passed from the fighting line to the hospital and commissariat base.

Here, mixed impartially with the women, crowds of vigorous men,

belonging to the junior ranks of the Legations' staffs and to numbers

of other institutions, are skulking, or getting themselves placed on

committees so as to escape duty. I suppose you could beat up a

hundred, or even a hundred and fifty, rifle-bearing effectives in an

hour. Many of the younger men were furious, and said they were quite

willing to do anything, but that everybody should be turned out.... In

the afternoon some of them fell in with my idea--volunteering under

independent command on the outer lines--and now the Japanese, the

French and the Germans have got more men. But what I wish to show you

in this rambling account is the unbalanced condition. Except in two or

three places we can be rushed in ten minutes.

III

FIRES AND FOOD

24th June, 1900.

* * * * *

I am convinced that not only does everything come to him who knows how

to wait, but that sooner or later everybody meets with their deserts.

The British Legation, allowed to sink into a somewhat somnolent

condition owing to its immunity from direct attack, has been now

rudely awakened. Fires commencing in earnest yesterday, after a few

half-hearted attempts made previously, have been raging in half a

dozen different places in this huge compound; and one incendiary,

creeping in with the stealthiness of a cat, threw his torches so

skilfully that for at least an hour the fate of the Ministerial

residences hung in the balance, and Ministerial fears assumed alarming

proportions. Again I was satisfied; everybody should sooner or later

meet with their deserts.

I have already said how the British Legation is situated. Protected on

the east and south entirely by the other Legations and linked

defences, it can run no risk from these quarters until the defenders

of these lines are beaten back by superior weight of numbers.

Partially protected on the west, owing to the fact that an immense

grass-grown park renders approach from this quarter without carefully

entrenching and barricading simple suicide, there remain but two

points of meagre dimensions at which the Chinese attack can be

successfully developed without much preliminary preparation; the

narrow northern end and a southwestern point formed by a regular

rabbit-warren of Chinese houses that push right up to the Legation

walls. It is precisely at these two points that the Chinese, with

their peculiar methods of attack, directed their best efforts.

Beginning in earnest at the northern end, after some inconsiderable

efforts on the southwestern corner, they set fire to the sacro-sanct

Hanlin Yuan, which is at once the Oxford and Cambridge, the Heidelberg

and the Sorbonne of the eighteen provinces of China rolled into one,

and is revered above all other earthly things by the Chinese scholar.

In the spacious halls of the Hanlin Academy, which back against the

flanking wall of the British Legation, are gathered in mighty piles

the literature and labours of the premier scholars of the Celestial

Empire. Here complete editions of Gargantuan compass; vast cyclopaedia

copied by hand and running into thousands of volumes; essays dating

from the time of dynasties now almost forgotten; woodblocks black with

age crowded the endless unvarnished shelves. In an empire where

scholarship has attained an untrammelled pedantry never dreamed of in

the remote West, in a country where a perfect knowledge of the

classics is respected by beggar and prince to such an extent that to

attempt to convey an idea would cause laughter in Europe, all of us

thought--even the pessimists--that it could never happen that this

holy of holies would be desecrated by fire. Listen to what happened.

To the sound of a heavy rifle-fire, designed to frustrate all efforts

at extinguishing the dread fire-demon, the flaming torch was applied

by Chinese soldiery to half a dozen different places, and almost

before anybody knew it, the holy of holies was lustily ablaze. As the

flames shot skywards, advertising the danger to the most purblind,

everybody at last became energetic and sank their feuds. British

marines and volunteers were formed up and independent commands rushed

over from the other lines; a hole was smashed through a wall, and the

mixed force poured raggedly into the enclosures beyond. They had to

clamber over obstacles, through tightly jammed doors, under falling

beams, occasionally halting to volley heavily until they had cleared

all the ground around the Hanlin, and found perhaps half a ton of

empty brass cartridge cases left by the enemy, who had discreetly

flown. From a safe distance snipers, hidden from view an untraceable,

kept on firing steadily; but they were careful not to advance.

Meanwhile the flames were spreading rapidly, the century-old beams and

rafters crackling with a most alarming fierceness which threatened to

engulf the adjacent buildings of the Legation. What huge flames they

were! The priceless literature was also catching fire, so the

dragon-adorned pools and wells in the peaceful Hanlin courtyards were

soon choked with the tens of thousands of books that were heaved in by

many willing hands. At all costs this fire must be checked. Dozens of

men from the British Legation, hastily whipped into action by sharp

words, were now pushed into the burning Hanlin College, abandoning

their tranquil occupation of committee meetings and commissariat work,

which had been engaging their attention since the first shots had been

fired on the 20th, and thus reinforced the marines and the volunteers

soon made short work of twenty centuries of literature. Beautiful

silk-covered volumes, illumined by hand and written by masters of the

Chinese brush, were pitched unceremoniously here and there by the

thousand with utter disregard. Sometimes a sinologue, of whom there

are plenty in the Legations, unable to restrain himself at the sight

of these literary riches which in any other times would be utterly

beyond his reach, would select an armful of volumes and attempt to

fight his way back through the flames to where he might deposit his

burden in safety; but soon the way was barred by marines with stern

orders to stop such literary looting. Some of these books were worth

their weight in gold. A few managed to get through with their spoils,

and it is possible that missing copies of China's literature may be

some day resurrected in strange lands.

With such curious scenes proceeding these fires were checked in one

direction only to break out in another. For later on, sneaking in

under the cover of trees and the many massive buildings which pushed

up so close, Chinese marauders finding that they could escape, threw

torch after torch soaked in petroleum on the neighbouring roofs and

rafters. In some cases they forced our posts to seek cover by firing

on them very heavily, and then with a sudden dash they could

accomplish their deadly work at ease. At one time, thanks to this

policy, the outbuildings of the British Legation actually caught fire,

and the flames, urged on by a sharp north wind, lolled out their

tongues longingly towards the main buildings. Lines of men, women, and

children were hastily formed to our wells and hundreds of utensils of

the most incongruous character were brought into play. I came back to

find ladies of the Legations handing even _pots de chambre_ full of

water to the next person in the long chain which had been formed; and

among all these people who were at length willing to work because of

the imminent danger of their being smoked out, I found long-lost

faces, including that of my own chief. Where they had all sprung from

I could not make out. But to see Madame So-and-so, a Ministerial wife,

handing these delectable utensils, and forced to labour hard, was

worth a good many privations. There are so many elements of the

tragic-absurd now to be seen.

That work on the British Legation lines confined me for some time to

this area, and determined to profit by it, I sought out Viscount

T----, who loves delicacies, and offered to exchange champagne for a

few tins of preserves. We have mules, we have ponies, and we have even

donkeys, it is true, and a great mass of grain and rice which will

last for weeks. But it is dry and sorrowful food, and I long for a few

delicacies. To-day my midday tiffin consisted of a rude curry made of

pony meat; and in the evening, because I was busy and had no time to

search out other things, I ate once again of pony--this time cold! 'I

will frankly confess that I was not enchanted, and had it not been for

the Monopole, of which there are great stores in the hotel and the

club--thousand cases in all, I believe--I should have collapsed. For

as Monsieur la Fontaine has informed us, even the most willing of

stomachs has certain rights, and there are times when a good deal of

zeal is necessary. It is true we have now a narcotic to feed on which

supports us at all times almost without the aid of anything else--the

never-ending roll of rifle-fire now blazing forth with grim violence

and sending a storm of bullets overhead, now muttering slowly and

cautiously with merely a falling leaf or a snipped branch to show

that it is directed at our devoted heads. You can live on that for

many hours, but it is a bad thing to feed on, of course, for it must

leave after-effects more hard to overcome than those of opium. Little

d'A----, of the French Legation, swears he never feels hungry at all

so long as the firing continues....

To perform this work of feeding so many mouths, there are

committees--committees far too big, since everyone is anxious to join

their safe ranks--committees which, although they number men of all

nationalities, are simply standing examples, I opine, of the

organising capacity of the Yankee and his masterfulness over other

people. For it is the Yankee missionary who has invaded and taken

charge of the British Legation; it is the Yankee missionary who is

doing all the work there and getting all the credit. Beginning with

the fortifications committee, there is an extraordinary man named

G----, who is doing everything--absolutely everything. I believe there

are actually other members of this committee--at least, there are some

people who assist--but G---- is the man of the hour, and will brook no

interference. Already the British Legation, which at the commencement

of the siege was utterly undefended by any entrenchments or sandbags,

is rapidly being hustled into order by the masterful hand of this

missionary. Coolies are evolved from the converts of all classes, who,

although they protest that they are unaccustomed to manual work, are

merely given shovels and picks, sandbags and bricks, and resolutely

told to commence and learn. Already the discontented in the outer

lines are sending for him and asking him to do this and that, and the

hard-worked man always finds time for everything. It is a wonder.

And behind this one man fortifications committee there are many other

committees now. There is a general committee which no one has yet

fathomed; a fuel committee; a sanitary committee; nothing but

committees, all noisily talking and quite safe in the British

Legation. Out of the noise and chatter the American missionary

emerges, sometimes odorous and unpleasant to look upon, but whose

excuse for not shouldering a rifle and volunteering for the front is

written on his tired face. It is the selfsame Yankee missionary who is

grinding the wheat and seeing that it is not stolen; it is the

American missionary who is surveying the butcher at work and seeing

that not even the hoofs are wasted. And I am sad to confess that it is

he who is feeding those thousands of Roman Catholics in the Su

wang-fu, while the French and Italian priests and fathers, divorced

from the dull routine of their ordinary life, sit helplessly with

their hands folded, willingly abandoning their charges to these more

energetic Anglo-Saxons. This Protestantism is not my religion, but for

masculine energy there is none other like it. I would not have you

think by this and my constant irritation that there are no Englishmen

doing well; it is merely that the ponderous atmosphere of the British

Legation is such that very few men who live habitually there can shake

themselves free from it even in such times as these. I know that half

of them are much upset at the _role_ they are being forced to play,

but who can help them?

We are progressing more quietly now that the big fires are out; but

still there is scant reason for any congratulations. S----, for

instance, is quite forgotten, I assure you, for I mentioned his name

to P----, the French Minister, only an hour ago, and the only reply he

made was to spread out his hands in front of him and give vent to an

immense sigh. Then he muttered as he went away, "_II a disparu

completement--entierement; c'est la fin_."...

All relief is now felt to be out of the question. Men are also beginning to

fall with regularity, and are carried in bloodstained, as evidence that

this is really a serious business. The British Chancery is now the

hospital; despatch tables have been washed and covered with surgical cloth;

cases are dropping in (seventeen up to date, I hear), and doctors are busy.

Already in the night smothered cries burst from the walls of these

torture-rooms, and make one conscious that it may be one's turn next. I

have always felt that it is all right up in the firing line, but it is that

dreadful afterwards on the operating-table.... But nurses and doctors are

doing valiantly. There is a German army doctor who knows his business very

well, they say; and his reputation has already spread so far among the men

of our all-nation sailors and marines that they all ask for him. I have

heard that request in four languages already.

To me it seems that by incontestable laws each actor is taking his

proper place, and that each nationality is pushing out its best to the

proper perspective. Ah! a siege is evidently the testing-room of the

gods. If we could only in ordinary life apply the great siege test,

what mistakes would be avoided, what reputations would be saved from

being shattered! Because no weak man would ever be given advancement.

IV

THE BONDS TIGHTEN

25th June, 1900.

* * * * *

On all sides our position has become less secure, less enviable, and

the enemy more menacing, more daring and more intent in breaking in on

us. The few dropping shots which opened the ball on the 20th have now

duly blossomed into a rich harvest of bullets that sometimes continues

for hours without intermission or break. The Japanese, unable to hold

their huge line, consisting of Prince Su's outer wall, have already

been forced to give way at several points, but in doing so they have

each time managed to bite hard at the enemy's attacking head. The day

before yesterday the little Japanese colonel decided he would have to

give up a block of courts on the northeast--some of those courts I

have already described, which, hemmed in by walls almost as high as

the outer monster, itself eighteen or twenty feet high and three feet

thick, form veritable death-traps if you can entice any one inside and

hammer them to pieces by loophole fire. This is precisely the policy

adopted by Colonel S----.

The battalion of the Peking Field Force which faces the northern front

had been industriously pushing forward massive barricades until they

almost touched Prince Su's outer wall. Secure behind these

sharpshooter fortifications a distressing fire was concentrated on

the half a dozen fortified Japanese posts that lined the outer wall.

Here on high stagings, crudely made of timber and bamboo poles and

protected by thick wedges of sandbags, Japanese sailors and some

miscellaneous volunteers, grouped in posts of four and five men, lay

hour after hour unable to show a finger or move a hand. Hundreds of

Chinese rifles at the closest possible range poured in a never-ending

fire on these facile targets, and the sandbagged positions, literally

eaten away by old-fashioned iron bullets in company with the most

modern nickel-headed variety, crumbled down to practically nothing.

Lying on your back at these advanced posts and looking at the sloping

roofs of Prince Su's ornamental pavilions a few hundred feet within

our lines was a droll sight. The Chinese riflemen, being on a slightly

lower level and forced to fire upwards at the Japanese positions,

caused many of their bullets to skim the sandbagged crest and strike

the line of roofs behind. Many, I say; I should have said thousands

and tens of thousands, for the roofs seemed alive and palpitating with

strange feelings; and extraordinary as it may sound, big holes were

soon eaten into the heavily tiled roofs by this simple rifle

fusillade. It seemed as if the Chinese hoped to destroy us and our

defences by this novel method. But there was a more ominous sign than

this. A Japanese sailor perched high up aloft on a roof five hundred

feet inside these advance positions and armed with a telescope, had

seen two guns being dragged forward. In a few hours at the most, even

allowing for Chinese sloth and indifference as to time, the guns would

be in position, and then the outer wall would be demolished, and

possibly a disordered retirement would be the result. So the little

Japanese colonel took the bull by the horns. Setting all the coolies

he could muster from among the converts, he quickly formed a second

line of defence by loopholing and sandbagging all the chess-board

squares that flank the northern wall. When night came the advanced

positions were quietly abandoned, and as soon as the Chinese scouts,

who always creep forward at daybreak, discovered that our men had

flown, their leaders ordered a charge. A confused mass rushed forward,

penetrated one of the courtyards, and finding it apparently deserted,

incautiously pushed into the next square. Before they could fly, a

murderous fire caught them on three sides and wiped out several dozens

of them, the rifles and ammunition being taken by our men and the

corpses thrown outside. This has apparently had a chilling effect on

the policy of open charges in this quarter, and now the Chinese

commanders are advancing their lines by means of ingenious parallels

and zig-zag barricades, which will take some time to construct.

Meanwhile, the Japanese main-gate fort, at the extreme Japanese east,

with its outlying barricades, is being slowly reached for by the same

means. Two or three times the French, who make connection with the

Japanese lines a hundred feet to the south, have had to send as many

men as they could spare to hold back a sudden rush. Each time the

threatened Chinese charge has not come off, and the incipient attack

has fizzled out to the accompaniment of a diminishing fusillade.

The commanding Italian knoll on the northwest corner of the Su wang-fu

remains firm, but somehow no one has very much confidence in the

Italians, and secondary lines are being formed behind them, towards

which the Italians look with longing eyes. And yet next to the

British Legation posts the Italians are having the easiest time of

all. Lieutenant P----, their commander, is a brave fellow; but he is

brave because he is educated. The uneducated Italian, unlike the

uneducated Frenchman, has little stomach for fighting, and it is easy

to understand in the light of our present experiences why the

Austrians so long dominated Northern Italy, and why unlucky Baratieri

and his men were seized with panic and overwhelmed at Adowa.

Opposite the French and German Legations, Chinese activity is not so

intense as it has been heretofore. Everything in this quarter for

thousands of yards is practically flat with the ground, for

incendiaries have destroyed hundreds and hundreds of houses, and the

Chinese commanders are favouring low-lying barricades, which are hard

to pick out from the enormous mass of partially burned ruins which

encumber the ground. Just as in South Africa we were reading only the

other day, before this plight overtook us, that the hardest thing to

see is a live Boer on the battlefield, so here it is the merest chance

to make out the soldiery that is attacking us. Sometimes dozens of men

scuttle across from position to position, and for a moment a vision of

dark, sunburned faces and brightly coloured uniforms waves in front of

us; but in the main, so well has the enemy learned the art of taking

cover, and of utilising every fold in the ground, that many, have not

even seen a Boxer or a soldier or know what they look like, although

their fire has been so assiduously pelting us. But some sharp-eyed men

of the Legations have learned two things--that the Manchu Banners and

Tung Fu-hsiang's Kansu soldiery now divide the honour of the attack.

Tung Fu-hsiang fortunately has mostly cavalry, and a strong force of

his dismounted men armed with Mannlicher carbines are on the northeast

of the Japanese position, for two have been shot and dragged into our

lines. These cavalrymen are not much to be feared.

Farther to the south the German position has become exceedingly

curious. While from the American marines on the Tartar Wall round in a

vast sweep on to the French Legation, each hour sees more defences go

up, the Germans have to content themselves with what practically

amounts to fighting in the open. There has been no time to give them

enough coolies, and so they have only lookout men, with the main body

entrenched in the centre of their position. But yesterday they

surprised some Boxers, who had daringly pushed their way into a

Chinese house a few yards from one outwork, and who were about to set

fire to it, preparatory to calling forward their regular troops. The

Germans charged with a tremendous rush, killed everyone of the

marauders, and flung the dead bodies far out so that the enemy might

see the reward for daring. Being certain that the Chinese commanders

would attempt to revenge this blow, what driblets of men could be

spared have been lent to make the German chain more continuous. It is

almost impossible now to follow the ebb and flow of reinforcements

from one point to another; but it may be roughly said that the

southeastern, eastern, northern and northwestern part of our

square--that is, the Germans, French, Austrians, Japanese and

Italians--feed one another with men whenever the rifle fire in any

given direction along their lines and the flitting movements of the

enemy make post commanders suppose a mass attack is coming; and that

the British Legation and the western Russo-American front, together

with the American posts on the Tartar Wall, work together. It is, of

course, self-evident from what I have written that the first, or

Continental and Japanese lines, are having by far the worst time. For,

apart from the American posts on the Tartar Wall, no outposts in the

second section are as yet in direct touch with the enemy. The strain

on those who are within a few yards of Chinese commands is at times

terrible. At night many men can only be held in place by a system of

patrols designed to give them confidence....

I have just said that no part of the second half of our irregular

system was in direct touch with the enemy, but this, although true

enough to-day, was not so yesterday. The Chinese pushed up a gun

somewhere near the dangerous southwestern corner of the British

Legation, and the fire became so annoying that it was decided to make

a sortie and effect a capture if possible. Captain H----, the second

captain of the British detachment, was selected to command the sortie,

and with a small force of British marines who have been pining at

their enforced inaction and dull sentry-go, and are jealous of the

greater glory the others have already earned by their successful

butchery of the enemy, a wall was breached and our men rushed out.

Being off duty, I witnessed most of the affair. Of course, the sortie

ended in failure, as every such movement is foredoomed to, when the

nature of the ground which surrounds us is considered. There are

nothing but small Chinese houses and walls on every side, making it

impossible to move beyond our lines without demolishing and breaking

through heavy brickwork. The marines went forward as gallantly as they

could, and surprised some of the nests of sharpshooters protecting the

gun; but the Chinese, as they retreated, set fire to the houses on

all sides, and in the thick flames and smoke it was impossible to move

save back by the way they had come. Under cover of the smoke the

Chinese soldiery opened a tremendous fire on the sortie party, who

were picking up some of the rifles and swords with which the ground

was strewn, and seeing that our men could not possibly advance, the

enemy pushed forward boldly, rapidly firing more and more

energetically. The British captain received a terrible wound, but

refused to retire; a marine was shot through the groin and died in a

few minutes; bullets cut the men's tunics to pieces; and in a

hailstorm of fire, poured on them a few yards away, they retreated.

H---- covered the retreat all the way, wounded as he was, and shot

three men with his revolver, who were heading a last desperate rush at

his men as they made for the hole in the wall. Dripping with blood,

this brave man staggered all the way to the hospital alone, refusing

all support, and gripping his smoking revolver to the last. His

battered appearance so frightened all the miserables who swarm in the

British Legation that everyone was very gloomy until the next meal

had been eaten, and they had restored themselves by garrulous talk.

The German doctor says that H---- will probably die.

Meanwhile the Americans on the Wall are behaving more erratically than

ever. They have retired and reoccupied their position three or four

times since the siege began, and the men are now more than mutinous.

Yesterday they came down twice--no one could quite make out why--and

after a lapse of an hour or two in each case, they returned. Matters

reached a crisis this morning, and a council of war was called by the

British Minister, composed of all the officers commanding

detachments. The meeting took place under the American barricade on

the Tartar Wall itself, apparently to give confidence to the men and

to make them ashamed of themselves. But the most curious part of it

all was that our commander-in-chief excused himself on the diplomatic

ground that he was sick, and amid the smiles of all, Captain T----, the

Austrian, presided and laid down the law. This clearly shows how

absurd is our whole system. Everyone says the Americans were quite

ashamed of themselves when the meeting was over, for the general vote

of all the detachment officers was that the position was well

fortified, easy to retain, and absolutely essential to hold. They say

the whole reason is that there is internal trouble in the American

contingent, and that one of the officers is hated. Whether this is

really so or not, I do not know; we never know anything certain now.

But although the American has but little discipline, as a sharpshooter

on the defensive he is quite unrivalled by reason of his superior

intelligence and the interest he takes in devoting himself to the

matter in hand. You only have to see these mutinous marines at work

for five minutes as snipers to be convinced of that. I saw a case in

point only a few hours ago. Men were wanted to drive back, or at least

intimidate, a whole nest of Chinese riflemen, who had cautiously

established themselves in a big block of Chinese houses across the dry

canal, which separates the British Legation from the Su wang-fu. This

block of houses is so placed that an enfilading fire can reach a

number of points which are hidden from the Japanese lines; and this

enfilading fire was badly needed, as the Chinese riflemen were

becoming more and more daring, and had already made several hits.

Half a dozen of the best American shots were requisitioned.

The six men who came over went deliberately to work in a very

characteristic way. They split into pairs, and each pair got, by some

means binoculars. After a quarter of an hour they settled down to

work, lying on their stomachs. First they stripped off their slouch

hats and hung them up elsewhere, but instead of putting them a few

feet to the right or left as everybody else, with a vague idea of Red

Indian warfare, within our lines had been doing, they placed them in

such a way as to attract the enemy's fire and make the enemy disclose

himself, which is quite a different matter. This they did by adding

their coats and decorating adjacent trees with them so far away from

where they lay that there could be no chance of the enemy's bad

shooting hitting them by mistake--as had been the case elsewhere where

this device had been tried.

All this by-play took some time, but at last they were ready--one man

armed with a pair of binoculars and the other with the American naval

rifle--the Lee straight-pull, which fires the thinnest pin of a

cartridge I have seen and has but a two-pound trigger pull. Even then

nothing was done for perhaps another ten minutes, and in some cases

for half an hour; it varied according to individual requirements. Then

when the quarry was located by the man with the binoculars, and the

man with the rifle had finished asking a lot of playful questions so

as to gain time, the first shots were fired. The marines armed with

binoculars were not unduly elated by any one shot, but merely reported

progress in a characteristic American fashion--that is, by a system of

chaffing. This provided tonic, and presently the bullets crept in so

close to the marks that all chaff was forgotten. Sometimes it took an

hour, or even two, to bring down a single man; but no matter how long

the time necessary might be, the Americans stayed patiently with their

man until the sniper's life's blood was drilled out of him by these

thin pencils of Lee straight-pull bullets. Once, and once only, did

excitement overtake a linked pair I was watching. They had already

knocked over two of the enemy aloft in trees, and were attacking a

third, who only showed his head occasionally above a roof-line when he

fired, and who bobbed up and down with lightning speed. The sole thing

to do under the circumstances was to calculate when the head would

reappear. So the man with the binoculars calculated aloud for the

benefit of the man with the rifle, and soon, in safety below the

wall-line, a curious group had collected to see the end. But it was a

hard shot and a disappointing one, since it was essential not to scare

the quarry thoroughly by smashing the roof-line instead of the head.

So the bullets flew high, and although the sharpshooter was comforted

by the remarks of the other man, no progress was made. Then suddenly

the rifleman fired, on an inspiration, he said afterwards, and lo! and

behold, the head and shoulders of a Chinese brave rose clear in the

air and then tumbled backwards. "Killed, by G----; killed, by G----!"

swore the man with the binoculars irreverently; and well content with

their morning's work, the two climbed down and went away.

You will realise from all these things that everything is still very

erratic, and that the men remain badly distributed. Nor is this all.

The general command over the whole of the Legation area is now plainly

modelled on the Chinese plan--that is, the officer commanding does

not interfere with the others, excepting when he can do so with

impunity to himself. As I have shown, orders which are distasteful are

simply ignored. There is a spirit of rebellion which can only spring

from one cause. People who have read a lot say that every siege in

history has been like this--with everything incomplete and in

disorder. If this is so, I wonder how history has been made! Certainly

in this age there is very little of real valour and bravery. Perhaps

there has been a little in the past, and it is only the glozing-over

of time which makes it seem otherwise.

V

THE MYSTERIOUS BOARD OF TRUCE

25th June, 1900 (night-time).

* * * * *

It is always true that the unexpected affords relief when least

awaited. In our case it has been amply proved.

The sun, which had been shining fiercely all day long until we felt

fairly baked and very disconsolate, was heaving down slowly towards

the west, flooding the pink walls of the Imperial city with a golden

light and sinking the black outline of the sombre Tartar Wall that

towers so high above us, when all round our battered lines the

dropping rifle-fire drooped more and more until single shots alone

punctuated the silence. Our outposts, grouping together, leaned on

their rifles and gave vent to sighs of relief. Perhaps something had

at last really happened, for though five days only have passed since

the beginning of the real siege, they seemed to everyone more like

five weeks, or even five months, so clearly do startling events

separate one by huge gaps from the dull routine of every-day life. All

of us listened attentively, and presently on all sides the fierce

music of the long Chinese trumpets blared out uproariously--blare,

blare, sobbing on a high note tremulously, and then, boom, boom,

suddenly dropping to a thrilling basso profondissimo. Even the

children know that sound now. Louder and louder the trumpet-calls rang

out to one another in answering voice, imperatively calling off the

attacking forces. Impelled to retire by this constant clamour, all the

Chinese soldiery must have retreated, except a few straggling snipers,

who remained for a few minutes longer, dully and methodically loosing

off their rifles at our barricades. Ten or fifteen minutes passed, and

then, as if the growing solitude were oppressing them, these last

snipers desisted, and, coolly rising and disclosing their brightly

coloured tunics and sombre turbans, they sauntered off in full view. I

saw half a dozen go off in this way. Clearly something remarkable was

happening and our astonishment deepened.

Presently the word ran round our half-mile of barricades that a board,

with big Chinese characters written across it, had been placed by a

Chinese soldier bearing the conventional white flag of truce on the

parapet of the north bridge, where J----, the first man killed, had

fallen, and that the curious board was exciting everyone's

astonishment. Getting leave to absent myself, I ran into the British

Legation, and from a scaffolding not a hundred yards from the bridge I

saw the mysterious placard with my own eyes. Already binoculars and

telescopes had been busily adjusted, and all the sinologues mustered

in the British Legation had roughly written copies of the message in

their hands and were disputing as to the exact meaning. It was only

then that I realised what a strange medley of nationalities had been

collected together in this siege. Frenchmen, Russians, Germans,

Japanese, English, Americans, and many others were all arguing

together, until finally H----, the great administrator, was called

upon to decide. The legend ran:

"In accordance with the Imperial commands to protect the Ministers,

firing will cease immediately and a despatch will be delivered at the

Imperial canal-bridge."

A vast commotion was created, as you may judge, when this news

circulated among the refugee Ministers and all the heterogeneous crowd

who have been behaving so strangely since the serious business began.

Not one of us had relished the idea of being massacred after the

manner of the Indian Mutiny, but there are different ways of behaving

under such perils; some of those we had witnessed would not bear

relating.

In a very short time, indeed, a suitable reply had been written

briefly in Chinese on another board, but the finding of a messenger

was more difficult. We must send a proper man. A chinaman was at

length discovered, who, after having been invested with the customary

official hat and the long official coat, was persuaded to advance

towards the bridge bearing our message and piteously waving a white

flag to show that he likewise was a harbinger of peace. The man

progressed but slowly towards the Imperial bridge, and twice he gave

unmistakable signs of wishing to bolt; but urged on by cries and a

frantic waving, he at last reached the parapet on which leaned our

enemy's placard. Then depositing our own reply, his courage left him

completely, and he incontinently bolted for our lines as hard as he

could run, casting his dignity to the winds. In his haste he had set

his board all askew, and the enemy could not possibly have understood

it. But no arguments could induce our messenger to return. He swore,

indeed, that he had just escaped in time, as the enemy's rifles were

all pointed towards him from a number of positions just beneath the

Imperial city wall, which we could not see from our lines. So nothing

more was done by our headquarters, and an hour passed away with all

the world waiting, but with no Imperial despatch brought to us.

The sun was now down only six inches above the pink walls--in another

hour it would be dark and our position would be exactly the same as

before. On all sides our fighting line had clambered over their

barricades and were examining the enemy's silent ones with curiosity.

Beyond the fortified Hanlin courtyards, to the north of the British

Legation courtyards, which had been occupied and heavily sandbagged

after the big fires there, so as to keep the enemy at a safe

distance--the mass of ruins were indeed as silent and as deserted as a

graveyard. Cautiously escalading walls and pushing down narrow

alleyways, some of us advanced several hundred yards to see what was

happening beyond; and presently, standing on the top of an unbroken

wall line, there were the Palace gates and the mysterious pink walls

almost within a stone's throw of us. The sun had moved still farther

west, and its slanting rays now struck the Imperial city, under whose

orders we had been so lustily bombarded, with a wonderful light. Just

outside the Palace gates were crowds of Manchu and Chinese

soldiery--infantry, cavalry, and gunners grouped all together in one

vast mass of colour. Never in my life have I seen such a wonderful

panorama--such a brilliant blaze in such rude and barbaric

surroundings. There were jackets and tunics of every colour;

trouserings of blood red embroidered with black dragons; great

two-handed swords in some hands; men armed with bows and arrows mixing

with Tung Fu-hsian's Kansu horsemen, who had the most modern carbines

slung across their backs. There were blue banners, yellow banners

embroidered with black, white and red flags, both triangular and

square, all presented in a jumble to our wondering eyes. The Kansu

soldiery of Tung Fu-hsiang's command were easy to pick out from among

the milder looking Peking Banner troops. Tanned almost to a colour of

chocolate by years of campaigning in the sun, of sturdy and muscular

physique, these men who desired to be our butchers showed by their

aspect what little pity we should meet with if they were allowed to

break in on us. Men from all the Peking Banners seemed to be there

with their plain and bordered jackets showing their divisions; but of

Boxers there was not a sign. Where had the famed Boxers vanished to?

Thus we stood for some time, the enemy gazing as eagerly at us as we

at them. Strict orders must have come from the Palace, for not a

hostile sign was made. It was almost worth five days of siege just to

see that unique sight, which took one back to times when savage hordes

were overrunning the world. Peking is still so barbaric!

We sent back word that it might be possible to parley with the enemy,

and to learn, perhaps, the reason for this sudden truce; and soon

several members of the so-called general committee, whose organisation

and duties I confess I do not clearly understand, came out from our

lines and stood waving their handkerchiefs. But it was some time

before the gaudy-coated enemy would pay any attention to these

advances, and finally one of our committeemen, to show that he was a

man of peace and really wished to speak with them, went slowly forward

with his hands held high above his head. Then a thin, sallow Chinese,

throwing a sword to the ground, advanced from the Palace walls, and

finally these two were standing thirty or forty yards apart and

within hail of one another. Then a parley began which led to nothing,

but gave us some news. The board ordering firing to cease had been

carried out under instructions from Jung Lu--Jung Lu being the

Generalissimo of the Peking field forces. A despatch would certainly

follow, because even now a Palace meeting was being held. The Empress

Dowager, the man continued, was much distressed, and had given orders

to stop the fighting; the Boxers were fools....

Then the soldier waved a farewell, and retreated cautiously, picking

his way back through the ruins and masses of _debris_. Several times

he stopped and raised the head of some dead man that lay there, victim

to our rifles, and peered at the face to see whether it was

recognisable. In five days we have accounted for very many killed and

wounded, and numbers still lie in the exposed positions where they

fell.

The disappearing figure of that man was the end to the last clue we

came across regarding the meaning of this sudden quiet. The shadows

gradually lengthened and night suddenly fell, and around us were

nothing but these strangely silent ruins. There was barricade for

barricade, loophole for loophole, and sandbag for sandbag. What has

been levelled to the ground by fire has been heaped up once more so

that the ruins themselves may bring more ruin!

But although we exhausted ourselves with questions, and many of us

hoped against hope, the hours sped slowly by and no message came. The

Palace, enclosed in its pink walls, had slunk to sleep, or forgotten

us--or, perhaps, had even found that there could be no truce. Then

midnight came, and as we were preparing, half incredulously, to go to

sleep, we truly knew. Crack, crack, went the first shots from some

distant barricade, and bang went an answering rifle on our side.

Awakened by these echoes, the firing grew naturally and mechanically

to the storm of sound we have become so accustomed to, and the short

truce was forgotten. It is no use; we must go through to the end....

VI

SHELLS AND SORTIES

3rd July, 1900.

* * * * *

For a week I have written nothing, absolutely nothing, and have not

even taken a note, nor cared what happened to me or to anybody else.

How could I when I have been so crushed by unending sentry-go, by such

an unending roar of rifles and crash of shells, that I merely

mechanically wake at the appointed hour, mechanically perform my duty

and as mechanically fall asleep again. My _ego_ has been crushed out

of me, and I have become, doubtless, quite rightly so, an

insignificant atom in a curious thing called a siege. No mortal under

such circumstances, no matter how faithful to an appointed task, can

put pencil to paper, and attempt to sketch the confusion and smoke

around him. You may try, perhaps, as I have tried, and then, suddenly,

before you can realise it, you fall half asleep and pencil and paper

are thrice damned.

For we have been worked so hard, those of us who do not care and are

young, and the enemy is pushing in so close and so persistently, that

we have not much farther to run if the signs that I see about me go

for anything. Artillery, to the number of some eight or ten pieces, is

now grinding our barricades to pieces and making our outworks more and

more untenable. Rifle bullets float overhead in such swarms that by a

comparison of notes I now estimate that there must be from five to

six thousand infantry and dismounted cavalry ranged against us. Mines

are being already run under so many parts of our advanced lines, and

their dangers are so near that on the outworks we fall asleep ready to

be blown up....

... Nor are the dangers merely prospective.' They are actual and

grimly disgusting. During the past week the casualty list has gone on

rapidly increasing, and to-day our total is close on one hundred

killed and wounded in less than two weeks' intermittent fighting out

of a force of four hundred and fifty rifles. The shells occasionally

fly low and take you on the head; the bullets flick through loopholes

or as often take you in the back from some enfilading barricades, and

thus through two agencies you can be hastened towards the Unknown. As

far as I am personally concerned, it is largely a matter of food

whether this affects one acutely or not. If you have a full stomach

you do not mind so much, and even shrug your shoulders should the man

next to you be hit; but at four or five in the morning, when

everything is pale and damp, and you are stomach-sick, it is

nerve-shaking to see a man brutally struck and gasping under the blow.

I have seen this happen three times; once it was truly horrible, for I

was so splashed with blood....

It is also largely a matter of days. On some days, you think, in a

curious sort of a way, that your turn has come, and that it will be

all over in a few minutes. You try to convince yourself by silent

arguing that such thoughts are the merest foolishness, that you are at

heart a real coward; but in spite of every device the feeling remains,

and in place of your former unconcern a nervousness takes possession

of you. This nervousness is not exactly the nervousness of yourself,

for your outer self surveys your inner depths with some contempt, but

the slight fear remains. You do not know what it is--it is

inexplicable. Yet it is there.

Yesterday I had the experience in full force, just as a line of us in

extended order were galloping up to a threatened position. My boots

untied and twice nearly tripped me. I had to stop, perhaps two

seconds, perhaps five, dropping on my knee with my head low beside it.

For some reason I did not finish tying the laces. I sprang up, threw

my right leg forward preparatory to doubling, and then _ping_--I was

spinning on the ground, laughing at my own clumsiness in falling down.

Then I glanced to see why my right knee-cap stung me so much. I

stopped laughing. A bullet had split across the skin--_rafle_, the

French call it--and a shred of my trousers, mixed with some shreds of

skin, was hanging down covered with blood. Half a second before my

head had been exactly where my knee was, and had I not moved, spurred

by some curious intuition, I would have been dead on the ground.

Perhaps one's inner consciousness knows more than one thinks....

But such personal experiences are trivial compared with what is going

on around us generally. I should not speak of them. For if the Chinese

commands are closing in on us on every side, our fighting line is

biting back as savagely as it can, and is giving them better than they

give us when we get to grips. But in spite of this our position is

less enviable than ever, and it requires no genius to see that if the

Chinese commanders persist in their present policy the Legations must

fall unless relief comes in another two weeks.

Look at the Su wang-fu and the plucky little Japanese colonel! You

will, perhaps, remember that I said that the great flanking wall of

the Su wang-fu was far too big a task for the Japanese command, and

that sooner or later they would have to give way. It has been proved

days ago that what I said was correct, for slowly but surely the fire

of two Chinese guns has demolished successively the outer wall, the

enclosed courtyards behind it, and then a line of houses linked

together by field-works hastily constructed from the rubble lying

around. It was my duty to be one of a post six men hastily sent here

and entrenched on the fringe of our defence in one of these Chinese

houses. It was a curious experience. It lasted for hours.

Inside the partly demolished wall of one house we were forced to squat

on a staging, peeping at the enemy, who was not more than twenty yards

off, lying _perdu_ just behind a confused mass of low-lying

barricades. These riflemen, flung far forward of the main Chinese

positions in this quarter, lay very silent, hardly moving hour after

hour. A couple of hundred yards or so behind them, the main body of

the enemy, secure behind massive earthen and brick works, poured in an

unending fire on our devoted heads with a vigour which never seemed to

flag. Our loopholes, which we had carefully blocked up with loose

bricks so that the merest cracks remained, spat dust at us as the

enemy's bullets persistently pecked at the outside, but could gain no

entrance. Sometimes a single missile would slue its way in through

everything and end with a sob against the inside wall. Once one came

crash through and struck the Japanese who was next to me full in the

face. It knocked out two teeth, cut his mouth and his cheek so that

they bled red blood hour after hour, making him hideous to look on;

but the Japanese, calmly untying the clout which encased his head,

bound it instead across the wound, merely cursing the enemy and not

stirring an inch. The rest of us had not time to note much even of

that which was taking place right alongside of us; for we had orders

to be ready at any moment for a forward rush. If it had come we should

have been caught in a trap and lost. That I knew and understood.

We had stood this storm for a couple of hours, and were beginning to

revenge ourselves on the advanced line of skirmishers by winging them

whenever an incautious movement disclosed an arm or a leg, although we

had the strictest orders not to fire except to check a rush, when a

new danger presented itself, and was added to our already

uncomfortable position. An antiquated gun that had been sending

screeching shells over our heads, had evidently been given orders to

drive us from where we lay, for the shells which had been flying high

moved lower and lower, and buzzed more and more fiercely, until at

last one struck the roof. The aim, however, was still too high, for

the _debris_ of tiles, timber and mortar clattered down the other side

of the house and did us no harm.

It may have been five or ten minutes when a tremendous blow shook our

staging, and a vast shower of falling tiles and bricks drowned all

other sound. A shell, aimed well and low, had taken the roof full and

fair, and brought a big piece in on top of us. For some time we could

see nothing, nor realise the extent of the damage done, for clouds of

choking dust filled our improvised fort, and made us oblivious to

everything except a supreme desire for fresh air. Pushing our

loopholes open, regardless of the enemy's fire, we gasped for breath;

never have I been so choked and so distressed, and presently, the air

clearing a little, a huge rent in the roof was disclosed. On the

ground behind lay piles upon piles of rubbish and broken tiles, and

perilously near our heads a huge rafter sagged downwards, half split

in two. We were debating how long we could stand under such

circumstances, when a second shock shook the building, and once more

we were deluged with dust and dirt. This time the hanging rafter was

dislodged and fell sullenly with a heavy crash to the ground; and now,

in addition to the gap in the roof, a long rent appeared in the rear

wall. Our top line of loopholes was obviously, worse than useless, and

as it seemed more than likely that with the accurate range they had

got the Chinese gunners would soon be pitching their shells right into

our faces, we decided to climb down off the staging and man a lower

line of loopholes pierced two feet above the ground line. Here we

could see very little in front on account of the ruins. We were not a

minute too soon, for the very next missile struck our front wall

fairly and squarely, and showered bricks and ragged bits of segment on

to the platform above us. Luckily the planks and timber with which

this edifice was stoutly constructed saved our heads, and the loosened

bricks, piling up on the improvised flooring above us, made our

position below even more secure. Seizing the breathing time the clumsy

reloading of the gun attacking us gave, we pulled spare rafters and

bricks around us in the shape of a blockhouse, and thus apparently

buried in the ruins of the house, we-were soon in reality quite

comfortably and securely ensconced. Slowly and methodically the

artillerymen demolished the upper part of our fort, and brought tons

and tons of bricks and slates rattling about our ears; but with the

exception of many bruises impartially distributed among all of us, no

one was further hurt. After two hours' bombardment and throwing forty

or fifty shells right on top of us, the enemy apparently tired of the

amusement, and we, on our part, seeing no good in remaining where we

were, sallied out of the side of the building and suddenly faced the

skirmishers, who were still lying on the sunburned bricks. The Chinese

soldiery, alarmed at this sudden appearance when they must have

thought us dead, took precipitously to flight, and in their haste to

escape so exposed themselves that we had no difficulty in rolling over

a couple. As soon as they had retreated we reoccupied a little

position slightly in advance of the house, and lay there contentedly

munching biscuit and having a pull at the water bottles. It is

extraordinary how callous you become.

It was not until four or five o'clock in the afternoon that we were

relieved, and then in a fashion that highly flattered our vanity. The

little Japanese colonel appeared in person with a small force of

riflemen and some stretcher bearers, and he fell back in astonishment

when he saw our occupation. We had pushed forward a lookout a few

yards in advance, and the rest of us were playing noughts and crosses

on some broken tiles. In front of us the barricades were silent, and

the Japanese sailor so curiously wounded in the earlier part of the

day was fiercely wrangling with an English volunteer, who had taught

him the game and had just insulted him by saying he was cheating. The

colonel declared he had thought us all dead, but that although he had

sent twice to find out how we were faring, the tremendous storm of

shells and bullets raging round our entire lines had made it

impossible to reinforce us. The French, he said, had been so heavily

beaten that he had had to prepare for a general retreat into the

British Legation; the Germans had been swept off the Tartar Wall; the

Americans had been shaken and almost driven back; and had not the

Chinese themselves tired of the game, another hour would have seen a

general retreat sounded. We were much commended for not having fallen

back, but we pointed out that it had been really nothing, since we had

only had one man slightly wounded. Still, it was an experience hard to

beat to be left in a house practically levelled to the ground by

shell-fire, and as I got eighteen hours off duty granted me, during

which time I slept solidly without waking once, the whole affair

remains most firmly impressed on the tablets of my memory. It is only

when you have been through it that you understand what you can endure.

All this was some days ago, and was really nothing to what we had the

day before yesterday, which happened to be the 1st of July.

The Chinese artillery practice, although poor, the guns and shells

being hopelessly ancient, had become so annoying and so distressing

that it was determined to adopt a policy of reprisals, taking the form

of sorties, and by bayonetting the gunners and damaging the guns if we

could not drag them off, to induce the enemy to make his offensive

less galling. The ball was opened by an attack which was miserably

conducted on the selfsame gun that had so harshly treated that little

post I have described a few days before. On the 1st of the month,

Lieutenant P----, the commander of the Italian hillock, laid a plan of

sortie before headquarters to which consent was given. Supported by

British marines and volunteers, the Italians were to make a sortie in

force from their position and seize the gun. The Japanese were to

co-operate from their barricades and trenches by opening a heavy fire,

and moving slowly forward in extended order as soon as the Italian

charge had commenced. All the morning the Italians were noisily

preparing, and as soon as their attack was delivered, it justified all

we had already thought about them. They issued from their lines with a

wild rush, but no sooner did the Chinese fire strike them than they

broke and fled, losing several killed and wounded, and fighting like

madmen to escape through a passageway which led back. P---- was very

severely wounded in the arm, and had to give up his command, and the

bodies of the Italians killed were never recovered. A section of the

British Legation students, who had gone forward with the Italians, had

a man badly wounded, and the sight of this young fellow staggering

back with his clothes literally dripping with blood gave the British

Legation inmates a start it took some time to recover from. Later, it

turned out that P----'s sortie plan was based on a faulty map; that

the whole command found itself being fired on from a dozen quarters

before fifty yards had been covered; and that there were nothing but

impossible walls and barricades. But still this does not excuse the

fact that while the Italians were behaving like madmen the young

students stood stock-still and awaited orders to retire. In truth, we

are being educated by events.

The loss of the Italian commander has made the Italian posts more

useless than ever. These men are now nervous, and have hardly a round

of ammunition left, although they were given some of the captured

Chinese Mausers and a fresh stock of cartridges three days ago. Every

shadow is fired at by them at night, and the vague uneasiness which

overcomes everyone when dozens of the enemy are moving in the inkly

black only a few feet off seems more than they can stand.

Meanwhile the French Legation, thanks to this gun-fire, is now but a

ruined mass of buildings, a portion of which has fallen into Chinese

hands. Alarmed at the progress which has been made everywhere, M----,

the British Minister, who is still the nominal commander-in-chief, has

for days been pestering the French commandant to send him men to

reinforce other points. The same stubborn answer has been sent back,

that not a sailor can be spared, and that none will be sent. This

curious contest between the commander of the French lines and the

British Minister has ended in a species of deadlock, which bodes ill

for us all. The Frenchman believes that the remains of the French

lines form a vital part in the defence; the British Minister, invested

with military rank by his colleagues, instead of examining the entire

area of the defence carefully with his own eyes and seeing exactly

whether this is so or not, never ventures beyond the limits of the

British Legation. At least, no one has ever seen him. Even the

so-called chief of the staff, who is the commander of the British

marines, does not regularly visit the French lines. Practically, it

may be said that while there is death and murder outside there is only

armed neutrality within. It is an extraordinary position.

In spite of the way they have been treated up to the 1st Of July, the

French and Austrians still sullenly cling to the ruins of the French

barricades. But on the 1st the Chinese, elated at their success in

capturing the eastern half of the French Legation, pushed their

barricades nearer and nearer, and only one hundred yards behind their

advanced lines they brought two guns into action, firing segment and

shrapnel alternately. Under this devastating bombardment, almost _a bout

portant_, as the French say, the last line of French trenches and their

main-gate blockhouse became untenable. Pieces of shell tore through

everything; men were wounded more and more quickly, and in the most

sheltered part a French volunteer, Wagner, had his entire face blown off

him, dying a horrible death. The French commander, disheartened by the

treatment he had received from the commander-in-chief, and convinced

that all his men would be blown to pieces if they remained where they

were, ordered his bugler to sound the retire. The clarion's notes rose

shrilly above this storm of fire, and dragging their dead with them, the

Franco-American survivors retreated into the fortified line behind

them--the Peking hotel. Here they manned the windows and barricades of

the intrepid Swiss' hostelry, which had already been heavily damaged by

the Chinese guns. A determination was arrived at not to be driven out of

this hotel until the last man had been killed; it was necessary at all

costs to prevent the enemy from breaking in so far. More volunteers were

brought to reinforce this line, and the sinking spirits of the French

were restored; for within half an hour of their retreat the bugler had

sounded the advance again, and with a rush the abandoned positions were

reoccupied and the Chinese driven back. Then the guns stopped their

cannonade, and a breathing space was given which was sufficient to

repair some of the damage done.