1
MEANTIME, M. Pourmont, at Ping Yang, was calling in his white
assistants and sifting out the trustworthy among his native employees
in preparation for withstanding a siege. He had swiftly carried out his
plan of destroying the native huts that stood within a hundred yards
of his compound. Such lumber and bricks as were of any value he had
brought into the compound, using them to build two small redoubts at
opposite comers of the walled-in rectangle and to increase the number
of firing positions along the walls. From the redoubts the faces of the
four walls and all of the hillside were commanded by the two machine
guns. A wall of bricks and sand-bags was built up just within the
compound gate so that the gate could be opened without exposing the
interior to outside eyes or weapons. On all the roofs of the low stables
and storehouses that bordered the walls were parapets of sand-bags.
These elaborate preparations were meant as much to impress and
intimidate the natives of the region as for actual defense. In the main,
and in so far as they could be understood, the natives seemed friendly.
Several thousand of the young men among them had been at various times
on M. Pourmont's pay-roll. The trade in food supplies, brick and other
necessary articles was locally profitable. And the shen magistrate was
keenly aware of the commercial and military strength represented by the
foreigners.
There were--engineers, instrument men, stake-boys, supply agents,
clerks, timekeepers, foremen and others--fourteen Frenchmen, eight
Australians, three Belgians, six Englishmen, two Scotch engineers,
four Americans, two Russians. Three of the Chinese had served as
non-commissioned officers in the British Wei Hai Wei regiment in 1900.
There were a few native foremen who had been trained in the modern
Chinese army of Yuan Shi K'ai. The total force, including M. Pourmont
himself and his immediate office force, came to forty-six white and
about eighty able-bodied Chinese. These latter were now being put
through hours of military drill every day in conspicuous places about
the hillside.
A number of men acted as intelligence runners, and the activity of
these, supplemented by occasional word from the yamen of the shen
magistrate, kept M. Pourmont informed of the march of events in the
province. Thus it could not have been twelve hours after Brachey bore
the news of Griggsby Doane's death to the mission at T'ainan-fu before
M. Pourmont as well knew of it, the word coming hy wire to the local
yamen and thence passing in whispers to the compound on the hill.
Then, late one afternoon, Doane's pretty little daughter came in,
escorted by the American journalist, Jonathan Brachey, and a young
secretary from the yamen of the provincial judge disguised as a
muleteer. Brachey at once volunteered to help and was put in charge
of preparing two small lookout posts on the upper hill. He was
uncommunicative and dryly self-sufficient in manner, but proved a real
addition to the establishment, contributing the great Anglo-Saxon
quality of confidence and tone. Though M. Pour-mont would have preferred
a more sociable man. His was a lonely life. He loved talk--even in
broken English--for its own sake. He had, himself, vivacity and humor.
And it was a disappointment that this Brachey didn't know _Çhambertin_
from _vin ordinaire_, and cared little for either.
Little Miss Doane touched his heart, she was so pretty, so quick in
her bright graceful way, yet so white and sad. But always brave, as
if sustained by inner faith. She asked at once to be put to work, and
quickly adapted herself to the atmosphere of Mme. Pourmont's workroom
in the residence, where Madarhe's two daughters and the English trained
nurse were busy directing the Chinese sewing women.... It transpired
that the Mrs. Boatwright who was in charge at the mission had refused
to save herself and those in her charge, so the Mademoiselle had come
on independently. This, thought M. Pourmont, showed a courage and
enterprise suggestive of her father.
2
That night M. Pourmont telegraphed Elmer Boatwright confirming the news
of Doane's death, and urging an immediate attempt to get through to Ping
Yang.
On the preceding day he had sent a party of twelve men, white and
Chinese, in command of an Australian engineer, to Shau T'ing, on the
Eastern Border, to get the supplies that had been shipped down from
Peking. These men returned on the following day; and among the cases and
bales of supplies borne on the long train of carts they guarded were
the bodies of two dead Chinese and a Russian youth with a bullet in his
throat.
News came then that a large force of Lookers had started in an easterly
direction from Hung Chan. And Boatwright wired that the mission party
was at last under way, seven whites and fifty natives.
M. Pourmont at once sent a party of forty mounted men westward along the
highway, commanded by an Englishman named Swain. This small force fought
a pitched battle with the Looker band that had been evaded by Brachey,
suffering several casualties. A native was sent on ahead, riding all
night, with a note to Boatwright advising great haste. But it was
difficult for the mission party to travel with any speed, as it had been
found impossible to secure horses or carts for many of the Chinese
converts, and not one of the missionaries would consent to leave these
charges behind. It became necessary therefore for Swain to move a
half-day's march farther west than had been intended. He joined the
missionaries shortly after the advance guard of the Western Lookers had
begun an attack on the inn compound. Already six or seven of the
secondary Christians had been dragged out and shot or burned to death
when Swain led his white and yellow troopers in among them, shooting
right and left. There must have been several hundred of the Lookers; but
they amounted to little more than a disorganized mob, and as soon as
they found their comrades falling around them, screaming in agony and
fright, they threw away their rifles and fled.
Swain at once ordered out the entire mission company, mounted as many
as possible of the frightened fugitives on the horses of his troop,
and with such extra carts as he could commandeer in the village for his
wounded, himself and his uninjured men on foot, he pushed rapidly hack
toward Ping Yang. The few Chinese who lagged were left in native houses.
The horses that fell were dragged off the road and shot.
This man Swain, though he concerns us in this narrative only
incidentally, was one of a not unfamiliar type on the China coast. He
was hardly thirty years of age, a blond Briton, handsome, athletic,
evidently a man of some education and breeding. He had once spoken of
serving as a subaltern in the Boer War. A slightly elusive reputation as
a Shanghai gambler had floated after him to Ping Yang. He was at times
a hard drinker, as his lined face indicated, faint, purplish markings
already forming a fine network under the skin of his nose. His blue eyes
were always slightly bloodshot. He never spoke of his own people. And it
had been noted that after a few drinks he was fond of quoting Kipling's
_The Lost Legion_. Yet on this little expedition, unknown to the
archives of any war department, Swain proved himself a hero. He brought
all but twelve of the fifty-seven mission folk and eight of his own
wounded safely to Ping Yang, leaving three of his Chinese buried back
there. And himself sustained a bullet wound through the flesh of his
left forearm and a severe knife cut on the left hand.... The drift of
opinion among respectable people along Bubbling Well Road in Shanghai,
as here in Ping Yang, was that Swain would hardly do. Certain of these
mission folk, in particular Miss Hemphill, whose philosophy of life
could hardly be termed comprehensive, were later to find their mental
attitude toward their rescuer somewhat perplexing.
3
Though she evidently tried to be quiet about it, Mrs. Boatwright's first
act was troublesome. She had been taken in, of course, with the other
white women, by the Pourmonts; in the big house. Here the principal
three of them--Dr. Cassin on her one hand and Miss Hemphill on the
other--were put down at the dinner table on that first evening directly
opposite Betty. Miss Hemphill flushed a little, bit her lip, then
inclined her head with what was clearly enough meant to be distant
courtesy. Dr. Cassin, already too deeply occupied with her wounded
to waste thought on merely personal matters, bowed coolly. But Mrs.
Boatwright stared firmly past the girl at the screen of carved wood that
stood behind her.
Betty bent her head over her plate. She had of course dreaded this first
encounter; all of her courage had been called on to bring her into the
dining-room; but her own sense of personal loss and injury had lately
been so overshadowed by the growing tragedy in which they were dwelling
that she had forgotten with what complete cruelty and consistency this
woman's stern sense of character could function. She had lost, too, in
the mounting sober beauty of her love for Brachey, any lingering
sense of wrong-doing. Here at Ping Yang Brachey commanded, she knew
triumphantly, the respect of the little community.
They were thinking, he and she, only at moments of themselves. Indeed,
days passed without a stolen half-hour together. She gloried in her
knowledge that he would neglect no smallest duty to indulge his emotions
in companionship with her; nor would she neglect duty for him........And
the people here were all so kind to her, so friendly! The presence of
this grim personally was an intrusion.
After dinner Mrs. Boatwright went directly to M. Pourmont in his study
and told him that it would be necessary for her to sleep and eat in
another building. She would give no reasons, nor would she in any
pleasant way soften her demand. Accordingly, the Pourmonts, always
courteous, always cheerful, made at once a new arrangement in the
crowded compound. Some of the Australian young men were turned out into
a tent; and the Boatwrights, accompanied by their assistants, were
settled by midnight in the smaller building immediately adjoining the
residence. Mr. Boatwright protested a little to his wife, but was
silenced. All he could do was to make some extreme effort to treat the
Pourmonts with courtesy.
And so Betty, when in the morning she again mustered her courage to
enter the dining-room, found them gone. And instantly she knew why... .
She couldn't eat. All day forlorn, her mind a cavern of shadows, she put
herself in the way of meeting Brachey, but did not find him until late
in the afternoon. He was coming in then from the outworks up the hill.
She stood waiting just within the gate.
They had been thinking constantly, since the one misunderstanding, of
the cablegram that would announce his freedom. In his eagerness he had
expected to find it waiting at Ping Yang. Day after day native runners
got through to the telegraph station and brought messages for
others... To Betty now it seemed the one thing that could arm her
against the stern judgment in Mrs. Boatwright's eyes.
Brachey's knickerbockers and stockings were red with mud. He wore a
canvas shooting coat of M. Pourmont. He was lean, strong, quick of
tread.
They drew aside, into a corner of the wall of sandbags. She saw the
momentary light in his tired eyes when they rested on her; gravely
beautiful eyes she thought them. Her fingers caught his sleeve; her eyes
timidly searched his face, and read an answer there to the question in
her heart.
“You haven't heard?”
He slowly shook his head. “No, dear, not yet.”
Her gaze wavered away from him “It's got to come,” he added. “It isn't
as if there weren't a positive understanding.”
“I know,” she murmured, but without conviction. “Of course. It's got to
come.”
They were silent a moment.
“I--I'll go back to the house,” she breathed, then. “Keep strong, dear,”
said he very gently.
“I know. I will. It's helped, just seeing you.”
Then she was gone.
As he looked after her, his heart full of a gloomy beauty, he longed to
call her back and in some way restore her confidence. But the appearance
of the mission folk had shaken him, as well, this day. The mere presence
of Mrs. Boatwright in the compound was suddenly again a living force. Up
there on the hillside, driving his native workmen through the long hot
hours, he had faced unnerving thoughts. For Mrs. Boatwright had brought
him out of the glamour of his love; she, that sense of her, if merely
by stirring his mind to resentment and resistance, restored for the time
his keen logical faculty. He saw again clearly the mission compound at
T'ainan-fu. And he saw Griggsby Doane--huge, strong, the face that might
so easily be tender, working with passion in the softly flickering light
from a Chinese lamp.
He had given Griggsby Doane a pledge as solemn as one man can give
another. He had, because Doane was so suddenly dead, broken that pledge.
But now he knew, coldly, clearly, that of material proof that Doane was
dead neither he nor M. Pourmont nor these difficult folk from T'ainan
held a shred.
4
Early on the following morning--at about three o'clock--a small shell
exploded in the compound. Within five minutes two others fell outside
the walls.
At once the open spaces within the walls were filled with Chinese, none
fully dressed, talking, shouting, wailing. Among them, a moment later,
moved white men, cartridge pouches and revolvers hastily slung on,
rifles in hand, quietly ordering them back to their quarters and
themselves taking positions along the walls. The crews of the two
machine guns promptly joined the sentries in the redoubts. M. Pourmont
went about calmly, pleasantly, supervising the final preparations.
Two small parties, one led by Swain, the other by Brachey, went up
the hillside to the men in the rifle pits there. A few trusted natives
slipped out on scouting expeditions.
As the first faint color appeared in the eastern sky, and the darkness
slowly gave way through the morning twilight to the young day, the walls
were lined with anxious faces. Strained eyes peered up and down the
hillside for the first glimpse of the enemy. Surmises and conjectures
flew from lip to lip--the attackers were thousands strong; American,
French and English troops were already on the way down from Peking;
no troops could be spared; such a relieving party had already been
intercepted and driven back as McCalla had been driven back in 1900; the
Shau T'ing bridge was down, the telegraph lines were broken, old Kang
had beheaded Pao and seized the entire provincial government, was,
indeed, in personal command here at Ping Yang. So the rumors ran.
Daylight spread slowly over the hillside. Far up among the native houses
and down near the village groups of strange figures could be seen moving
about. They wore a uniform much like that the Boxers had worn, except
that coat and trousers were alike red and only the turban yellow. At
intervals shells fell here and there about the walls.
Back in his study in the residence M. Pourmont, by breakfast time, had
reports from several of his scouts and was able to sift the rumors
down to a basis of fact. Several thousand Lookers were already in the
neighborhood and others were on the way. The Shau T'ing bridge was gone,
and it was true that the local shen magistrate had been cut off from
telegraphic communication with the outside world. And Kang was at the
moment establishing headquarters five _li_ to the westward.
The entrenched parties up the hillside lay unseen and unheard in their
trenches, awaiting the signal to fire. The compound was still now.
Breakfast was carried about to the men on duty.
Toward nine o'clock considerable activity was noted up the hill, beyond
the outposts. Several squads of the red and yellow figures appeared
in the open apparently digging out a level emplacement on the steep
hillside. Then a small field gun was dragged into view from behind a
native compound wall and set in position. The distance was hardly more
than two hundred yards; they meant to fire point-blank.
M. Pourmont went out to the upper redoubt and studied the scene through
field-glasses. The men begged permission to fire, but the bearded French
engineer ordered them to wait.
The little red and yellow men were a long time at their preparations.
They moved about as if confident that no white man's eyes could discern
them. Finally they gathered back of the gun. There was some further
delay. Then the gun was fired, and a shell whirred over the compound
and on across the valley, exploding against the opposite hillside, near a
temple, in a cloud of smoke and red dust.
There was still another wait. Then a shell carried away part of a
chimney of the residence. The sound of distant cheers floated down-hill
on the soft breeze. The little men clustered about the gun.
M. Puurmont lowered his glasses and nodded. The machine gun opened fire,
spraying its stream of bullets directly on the crowded figures.
To the men standing and kneeling in the redoubt the scene, despite the
rattle of the gun and the wisps of smoke curling about them and the
choking smell, was one of impersonal calm. The Australian working the
gun was quietly methodical about it. The crowded figures up the hill
seemed to sit or lie down deliberately enough. Others appeared to be
moving away slowly toward the houses, though when M. Pourmont gave them
a look through his glasses it became evident that their legs were
moving rapidly. Soon all who could get away were gone, leaving several
heaped-up mounds of red near the gun and smaller dots of red scattered
along the path of the retreat. With a few scattering shots the
Australian sat back on his heels and glanced up at M. Pourmont. “Heats
up pretty fast,” he remarked casually, indicating the machine gun.
5
A shout, sounded up the hill. All turned. Swain had mounted to the
parapet of his rifle pit and was waving his rifle. His half dozen men,
white and Chinese, followed, all shouting now. Over to the right, from
the other pit, the lean figure of Jonathan Brachey appeared, followed by
others. Then they started up the hillside. Like the retreating Lookers
they seemed to move very slowly; but the glasses made it clear that they
were running and scrambling feverishly up the slope, fourteen of them,
pausing only at intervals to fire toward the houses, where a few puffs
of white smoke appeared.
They reached the Chinese sun, turned it around and, five or six of them,
began running it down-hill. The others lingered, clustering together.
A shot from one of the red heaps was met by a blow of a clubbed rifle;
that was seen by the Australian through the glasses. There were more
shots from the compound walls beyond.
The Australian quietly returned the glasses to his chief, sighted along
his machine gun, and sprayed bullets along those walls, first to the
left of the raiding party, then, very carefully, to the right.
M. Pourmont descended to the compound and ordered a party of coolies
out with wheelbarrows. These began mounting the slope, obediently,
painfully. The raiders dropped behind the little heaps of dead and
waited. To the many watching eyes along the wall it seemed as if those
deliberate coolies would never end their climb; inch by inch they seemed
to move. Even the more rapidly moving gun, descending the slope, seemed
to crawl. When it did at length draw near, the eager observers noted
that the men handling it were all Chinese; the whites had stayed up
there. Swain was there, and Brachey, and the others.
Betty witnessed the scene from an upper window of the residence with
Mme. Pourmont and her daughters. She heard the rat-tat-tat of the
machine gun; through a pair of glasses she saw the red-clad Lookers
fall, all without clearly realizing that this was battle and death. It
seemed a calm enough picture. But when Brachey started up the hill her
heart stopped.
More and more slowly, as the climb told on the porters, the barrows
moved up the slope; but at last they reached their destination. Then
all worked like ants about them. Within ten minutes all were back in the
compound creaking and squealing, each on its high center wheel, under
the loads of shells.
Betty watched Brachey through the glasses. Naively she assumed that he
would return to her after passing through such danger. And when she saw
him drop casually into the little pit on the hillside it seemed to her
that she couldn't wait out the day. Now that she had watched him leading
his men straight into mortal danger--had so nearly, in her own heart,
lost him--she began to sense the terrible power of love. All that had
gone before in this strange relationship of theirs seemed like the play
of children beside her present sense of him as her other self. Indeed
the danger seemed now to be--she thought of it, in lucid moments, as a
danger--that she should cease to care about outside opinion. Her heart
throbbed with pride in him.
At dusk the outposts were relieved. When Brachey entered the gate, Betty
was there, waiting, a tremulous smile hovering about her tender little
mouth and about her misty eyes.
He paused, in surprise and pleasure. She gave him a hand, hesitantly,
then the other; then, impulsively, her arms went around his neck.... His
men straggled wearily past, their day's work done. Not one looked back.
She was almost sorry, for that and for the dusk. Arm in arm they entered
the compound and walked to the steps of the residence.
That night, three shells struck within the compound. One wrecked a
corner of Mme. Pourmont's kitchen. Another carried away a section of
galvanized iron roof and killed a horse. The third destroyed a tent,
killing a Chinese woman and wounding a man and two girls. Thus, before
morning, Dr. Cassam and her helpers were at the grim business of patching
and restoring the piteous debris of war.
By daylight the red and yellow' lines were closed about the compound.
Shells roared by at intervals all day, and bullets rattled against
the walls. The upper windows of the residence were barricaded now with
sand-bags. Five more were wounded during the day, two of them white.
Enemy trenches appeared, above and below the compound. During the
following night M. Pourmont set a considerable force of men at work
running a sap out to the rifle pits, and digging in other outposts on
the lower slope. His night runners moved with difficulty, but brought
in reports of feasts and orgies at Kang's headquarters down the valley,
where, surrounded by his full retinue, the old Manchu was preparing to
revel in slaughter. As the days passed, the sense of danger grew deeper;
the faces one saw about the compound wore a dogged expression. An armed
guard stood over the storehouses, men were killed and wounded, and women
and children. They talked, heavily where the casual was intended,
of settling down to a siege. They spoke of other, larger sieges; of
Mafeking and Ladysmith of recent memory. But no one, now, mentioned
the prospects of early relief. One night Mr. Po went out with a Chinese
soldier on a scouting trip; and neither returned. On the following
night, one of the Wei Hai Wei men was sent. At daybreak they found his
head, wrapped in a cloth, just inside the gate. The enemy had crept
close enough, despite the outposts, to toss it over the wall... After
this, for a time, no word went out or came in.
6
Elmer Boatwright slept alone in a small room; his wife, Miss Hemphill
and Dr. Cassin occupied a large room in the same building. One night,
tossing on his cot, the prey of nightmares, Boatwright started up, cold
with sweat, and sat shivering in the dark room. Outside sounded the
pop--pop, pop--of the snipers. But there was another sound that had
crashed in among the familiar noises of his dreams.
It came again--a light tapping at his door. He tried to get his breath;
then tried to call out, “Who is it?” But his voice came only in a
whisper.
It wasn't his wife; she wouldn't have knocked. He had not before been
disturbed at night; it would mean something serious, nothing good. It
could mean nothing good.
Elmer Boatwright was by no means a simple coward. He rose, shivering
with this strange sense of cold; struck a light; and candle in hand
advanced to the door. Here, for a moment he waited.
Again the tapping sounded.
He opened the door; and beheld, dimly outlined in the shadowy hall, clad
in rags, face seamed and haggard, eyes staring out of deep hollows, the
gigantic frame of Griggsby Doane, leaning on his old walking stick. He
was hatless, and his hair was matted. A stubble of beard covered the
lower half of his face. His left shoulder, under the torn coat, was
bandaged with the caked, bloodstained remnant of his shirt.