REFLECTIONS, INCIDENTS, AND MEMORANDA WRITTEN DURING SIEGE

ONE OF the most noticeable effects of siege-life has been to bring out into prominence all the mean and selfish characteristics of the individual, as well as the heroic and self-sacrificing. People who in times of peace pass for very nice, sociable individuals, with no particularly mean tendencies, when subjected to deprivation in the food-supply, and their nerves become a bit shattered with the sound of whistling bullets, the shrieking of flying shells, or the dull thud followed by the crashing and grinding of solid shot, show up in their true bedrock character, and are meanness to the core.

It has been most interesting to observe the dissolution of previous friendships, often of years’ standing, and the making of new ones between individuals formerly more or less at variance. This has come about sometimes from a man or woman with a sick child, or sick member of his or her family having no supplies of their own, begging a tin of milk or a can of soup or some little delicacy or necessity from a friend having abundance of stores. Upon a flat refusal on the ground that he has none he can spare, the aforetime friend realizes the depth of the former friendship and has no wish to continue it.

Again, another instance: A gentleman has gone to inquire of a person in authority in a certain establishment, where he is to move another gentleman, a mutual friend, ill and unable to take care of himself, to a place of safety, from quarters no longer tenable, and is told: “If you have been near the sick man, keep away from me. Do what you please with him, only keep away from me and mine, as we are fearful of contagion.” “But what do you advise?” persists the inquirer of his quondam friend and superior. “I don’t advise anything,” is the reply. “Is he to be left alone to die or be captured, where he is?” still persists the anxious friend. “That is none of my business,” is the heartless answer, destroying a friendship which had existed for twenty years.

Then, too, it has been an interesting study to watch the effects on the optimistic man and the pessimistic man of the various rumors that have drifted in through occasional reports from captives or deserters from the enemy’s troops.

The optimist believes that our enemies are discouraged, are short of ammunition, are fighting among themselves, are firing high purposely not to injure us; that the relief force is very near, that flashes of heat lightning are search-lights of our friends, etc.

The pessimist believes the powers are fighting among themselves to prevent relief until no one power has more troops in the relief than any other; scouts the idea of search-lights; says that the provisions are nearly exhausted; sees new barricades erected by the enemy every night; recounts the fatal casualties, increasing each day, and notes the diminishing strength of the remainder, and, moreover, fully believes and constantly asserts that we are only staving off for a little while an inevitable general massacre.

One must admit that to know that eleven of the powers of the world are kept away, or are staying away, from relieving their ministers, with their families and nationals, for two months, at a distance of only eighty miles from navigation by large vessels, is a circumstance rather calculated to increase pessimism.

Before the siege began I heard the United States minister say that if the Boxers destroyed a single station on the Peking-Hankow railroad, known popularly as the Lu Han road, they would have a horde of Cossacks protecting the line within a fortnight. Yet of the 15,000 Russians reported to have been in Port Arthur, when the entire Lu Han line and the Peking-Tientsin railroad was destroyed, not a man has as yet (August 13th) reached Peking. The Boxers are still seen from our loopholes, and make our nights hideous with their horn-blowing and incessant rifle-fire.

We were also told by those wiseacres, the foreign ministers, that Japan could and would have 50,000 men in Peking if one member of their legation was injured. Their second and third secretaries have been killed, their legation guard has been almost annihilated, and we see, as yet, no new Japanese faces.

Again, Captain Myers assured us the Americans could easily spare 10,000 men from the Philippines, who could reach Peking in, at longest, two weeks; but two months have now gone by, and they have not materialized.

The people who have, on the whole, stood the siege best are the missionaries. They have been more crowded than any others, all the Americans being compelled to occupy the British legation chapel, where they are, indeed, closely packed, while the English missionaries occupy part of the first secretary’s house.

The Americans have formed into two messes, the Presbyterians and Methodists eating at one time, the Congregationalists, who are in the majority, at another. They brought in with them considerable provisions in the way of tinned stores, but have been compelled to draw from their commissariat their supply of rice and cracked wheat every day.

The foreign ministers guaranteed the three shopkeepers of Peking, Messrs. Krueger, of Kierullf & Co., Imbeck, and Chamot, the amount of their stock if they would turn it into a commissary’s hands for distribution to the entire community as needed. This was at once done, and a commissary department appointed to take charge.

Many of the besieged owned ponies or mules, which were also placed under a committee, consisting of Messrs. Dering, Allardyce, and Brazier. One or two of these animals have been killed each day, and each person (foreigner) has been allowed to draw half a pound of meat. Many at first could not be persuaded to even taste horse-meat or mule-meat; but after several weeks of siege-life there were very few who did not daily go to the butchery for their supply.

The meat has been inspected every day by a physician, and a certificate of healthy flesh given to the butcher before the meat was allowed to be dispensed. One of the British marines, William Betts, of the Royal Marine Light Infantry, had been a butcher previous to enlistment, and his services have been most valuable to the entire community.

The Chinese coolies are fed with soup made from the bones, the head, and cleaned entrails. Not an ounce of the flesh has been wasted.

Many of the ponies that took part in the Peking spring meeting as racers, last May, have since served us with juicy steaks or toothsome sausages. The mule-meat is considered to be better, on the whole, than horse-meat, and in this opinion I fully concur. As we have only one donkey in the compound, none of us has as yet tried donkey-flesh; but the Chinese assure us it is even better than the larger animals.

Several days since one of the two cows in the compound, having gone dry, was killed for food, and a notice was placed on the bulletin board at the bell-tower that applications for portions of the meat would be received from all women and children, but that only such men as were wounded or ill could, upon a physician’s certificate, receive a portion.

Every one wanted some, expecting to highly enjoy a taste of fresh beef and a change from horse. The result was most disappointing. The cow was old and tough, and her flesh infinitely inferior to the regular ration of horse or mule.

The Chinese Christians, supported by us in the Su Wang Fu, having been for weeks upon nothing but cracked wheat or “hao liang” gruel, were longing for some animal food, and begged they might be given some of the dogs that continued to come from all over the city to feed each night upon the refuse in the moat between the Su Wang Fu and the British legation.

A few foreigners with shotguns, therefore, sallied forth yesterday and killed eight good-sized specimens of the canine race, that were forthwith handed over to the hungry converts for their consumption. Dog-hunting as a food supply will not be neglected in the future.

As after July 18th the shelling ceased, and some of the enemies’ soldiers, with an eye to business, brought a few eggs to the Japanese barricade for sale, a market department was established and placed under the care of Messrs. A. D. Brent and J. M. Allardyce, where eggs could be obtained pro rata for numbers of women and children in a household, compared with the supply on hand. These eggs were sold at four cents each. But often the supply only admitted of one egg being sold to a household of women or children. At other times an egg each could be obtained daily. But alas! the Chinese soldiers soon found out what their soldiers were doing, and promptly stopped it, so that after August 6th the market was obliged to close from lack of eggs.

On July 20th, two days after the shelling ceased, the tsung-li-yamen sent a present to the ministers of one hundred watermelons, seventy eggplants, sixty vegetable squashes, and one hundred cucumbers. Some few of the besieged, besides the diplomats, thus obtained the first taste of fresh vegetables they had enjoyed for a month.

The ministers’ request to the yamen that vegetable-venders be allowed to come to the barricades or the great gate, however, was denied, and we have since had no further supply. It is hard to know that within half a mile of us in any direction there is an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables, and yet, owing to the closeness of our investment by the hostile troops, we cannot obtain a cent’s worth.

On August 5th, while I was standing talking with a Japanese sentry, on an outpost barricade of the Su Wang Fu, a Chinese soldier in full uniform walked quickly up the narrow lane our barricade commanded toward us. I called on the Japanese to fire on him, but he remarked: “Let him come on; he has no gun, and may want to sell something.”

True enough, just before reaching us he held up his hand in front of his face to indicate that he wished to speak, and so was allowed to come around the corner of the barricade. He was a young man of not over twenty-five, but showed the marks of being a confirmed opium-eater.

“I have brought you some eggs,” he remarked, hastily exposing ten of the precious ovules to view. The Jap counted out forty cents and gave him, and advised him to clear out, which he speedily did, remarking as he left: “I will lose my head if I am caught at this.” As he could buy the eggs in the market for five cents, his percentage of profit was very handsome.

After the so-called truce of July 18th, the native soldiers occupying the wall to the east of the American marines’ barricade strictly observed the terms of the truce, and never either enlarged their barricade nor fired another shot.

These were the only ones, however, who did so. From all the other barricades we were frequently fired on, and every night or two a vigorous attack would be made upon us, during which the Chinese would expend many hundred rounds of ammunition, firing their rifles into our barricades or the roofs of our houses, and scarcely doing any damage, as we would all seek shelter until the enemy were tired out.

Only once or twice did they actually come out from behind their barricades with the intention apparently of rushing us; but upon receiving a volley, and having several killed or wounded, they would hastily bolt back again to cover.

One night the author was selected by Adjutant Squiers to lead a company of ten coolies in an attempt to remove the stinking carcasses of two mules that had been lying festering in the rays of the summer sun for several days, directly under the noses of the American marines entrenched at foot of the city wall. The stench they emitted was overpowering, but there seemed to be no way to remove them, as to show a head, even, at the barricade was certain to bring a volley from the Chinese on the wall to the east, just beyond the moat. The situation having grown unendurable, it was necessary to risk life even to remove them, and had to be attempted.

Mr. Squiers formed the plan to have ten coolies, under a foreigner, go quietly at night through the alley-ways and court-yards that had been cut through to communicate with the American legation, to the moat directly under the Chinese on the wall. From thence we were to crawl forward toward the barricade, where our men were warned not to fire upon us, tie a rope around a mule, slip back toward the moat, and drag the mule after us, and down into the moat, where it could subsequently be covered with kerosene oil and burned.

With ten volunteer coolies, all dressed in dark clothes, and warned not to speak or even whisper, I undertook the task.

We reached the position on the wall street without incident, and I was congratulating myself we would succeed without the Chinese discovering us, when one of the coolies unfortunately struck his foot against a tin can and sent it rattling across the road. Instantly a volley was fired upon us from the Chinese barricade, only some fifty yards distant, and a perfect hail of bullets struck all about us.

“Drop on your faces and lie still,” I commanded in a hoarse whisper, which was promptly obeyed.

We lay still for about fifteen minutes. Then I sent one coolie crawling on toward the nearest mule, only ten yards away, and he soon had the noose slipped over his head and returned.

We dragged the animal quietly enough, until just at the corner of the bridge, where a lot of tins, bottles, and refuse had been dumped in the early days of the siege, and before the Chinese had obtained their present position by driving the Germans from the wall in the rear of their legation.

When the animal passed over these obstacles a loud grating, rattling noise was made, and a second volley poured down from the wall. But this time the corners of the stone bridge protected us and we were in no danger.

After another wait of fifteen minutes, during which time all became quiet again, we returned and repeated the operation on the second mule, dragging his fragrant (?) carcass alongside the first, and completing our work under a third volley, equally harmless.

I received the thanks of Mr. Squiers and the entire marine guard for this service, as it rendered their position much more bearable thereafter, and their gratitude fully repaid me for the danger incurred.

Directly across a moat leading from the Imperial city wall to the southern wall of the Tartar city of Peking, opposite to the British legation, is a large square compound, known in the local mandarin tongue as Su Wang Fu, or in plain English as the palace of Prince Su.

This prince inherited the title from his father only two years ago. He is a young man of rather pleasant appearance, about thirty years of age. I have dined with him twice at the residence of his next younger brother, who was a patient of mine last winter.

This compound is surrounded by a stout brick wall from twelve to fifteen feet high. Lying, as the place does, in between the British and Austrian legations, it was decided to take possession of it for the thousand-odd Christian refugees, mostly Catholics, who had claimed the protection of their teachers, the missionaries, when the cathedrals and mission premises were burned.

The idea of doing this originated with Mr. F. H. James, who was killed on the bridge by Kansu soldiers a few days after the occupation. Dr. G. E. Morrison warmly seconded it, and the plan was carried out without opposition from Prince Su or his retainers, as actual warfare had not yet broken out.

This palace consists of a lot of rather fine (for Chinese buildings) edifices, all of one story, arranged in a series of courts, with a considerable park on the west side facing on the moat dividing the palace from the British legation.

As less than a hundred yards’ space is taken up by the width of the moat and the roadway on either side, it will be readily seen that to hold this compound was to protect the entire east side of the British legation from the Chinese fire.

Colonel Shiba, the Japanese commandant, with his twenty-five soldiers, was first placed in charge, but later on he was reinforced from time to time by detachments from the Austrians, Italians, British, and French marines, and by the young men of the customs service, known as the Customs volunteers.

The most determined efforts of the siege have been made by the Chinese troops and Boxers to obtain possession of the palace—first, doubtless, because it commanded the entire east wall of the British legation at short range, and secondly, because they desired to exterminate the thousand-odd refugees—men, women, and children—harbored there. Consequently, the loss of life of our defenders and the number of wounded brought from the Su Wang Fu into the hospital has greatly exceeded that of any other one place.

To Colonel Shiba, its heroic defender, is due the greatest credit, inasmuch as he has held the place for weeks, after the other commanders had prophesied it would have to be given up in twenty-four hours.

This he has been enabled to do by building barricade after barricade in the rear of his first line of defense, at often less than fifty yards’ distance, and when one barricade was shelled until absolutely untenable, retreating to the next strong position in his rear.

Colonel Shiba also enlisted all the Japanese civilians in the city, and even trained twenty-five of the native Catholic converts into very steady soldiers, arming them with rifles taken from the bodies of dead soldiers of the enemy.

In addition to the military officers who arrived with the legation guards, there happened to be in Peking at the commencement of the siege two English captains, one to study Chinese, the other representing a concession syndicate—Captains Poole and Percy Smith. Both of the gentlemen have rendered efficient and valuable service, and, since the death of Captain Strouts, have been on regular duty.

A curious fact, interesting alike to English and Americans, is that on the Fourth of July, after Captain Myers had been wounded in the sortie on the city wall the previous night, Captain Percy Smith commanded the American marines in the trench on the wall all day, under hot fire from cannon and rifles, and the marines speak in the highest terms of his bravery and coolness, and his care for their comfort and safety.

Mr. E. von Strauch, formerly first lieutenant in the German army, but now a member of the customs service, has also rendered valuable service in relieving the officer in charge at all the various posts, such as the city wall, held by the Americans; the Su Wang Fu, held by Colonel Shiba; the Hanlin Yuan, held by the British, and other points outside the legation. The men also express the highest regard for him.

So much for the outside officers. Among civilians deserving credit are many who have daily and faithfully done the work apportioned to them in capacities where they have been unnoticed, but where their work has contributed much to the general comfort, and some of them at least should be mentioned.

Messrs. Allardyce and Brazier in the meat supply department, Mr. S. M. Russell in the commissary department, Mr. Stell in the coolie supply department, Dr. Chauncey Goodrich and Messrs. Walker and Whiting in the coolies’ food supply, together with Messrs. Tewkesbury, Hobart, and Norris, all have steadily worked for the common good, often both day and night.

It has been noticed by a great many Englishmen and others that the Russians besieged with us have been of uniformly gentlemanly and courteous bearing. They have won golden opinions from all, with the exception, perhaps, of one intensely biased newspaper correspondent, who reads in the most commonplace saying some deeply-concealed meaning, and some unkind intention toward the British interests. A Russian gentleman is a perfect gentleman, and uniformly a marvelous linguist.

I have several times been present in a room with a Frenchman, a German, and an Italian, with whom several Russians carried on animated conversations, addressing each man in his own language, and apparently with equal fluency.

From M. de Giers, down through his whole legation, the professors of Russian in the Imperial University and Tung Wen Kuan, the officers and clerks of the Russo-Chinese bank, one can find none who are not perfect gentlemen and most agreeable companions.

Baron von Radew, the captain in charge of the Russian marines, has been a most devoted officer, and every point of his defenses has had his constant personal supervision. He has never undressed to sleep in the last two months, but has taken the broken rest he has obtained lying in a steamer chair in one of his barricades. He has lost greatly in flesh, and is but a skeleton of his former self, but remains the same courteous officer and gentleman under circumstances that have altered the dispositions of not a few.