Under the Dragon Flag Part 2

I remarked on the extraordinary rapidity with which a nation, closed like the j.a.panese, up to within thirty years since, to European trade and European ideas, had adopted and a.s.similated the system of Western civilization.

"Yes," he replied, "we can learn, and we have learnt, because we saw that the knowledge would give us a great advantage in our own part of the world."

He had been in France, and expressed great admiration of French s.h.i.+p-building and French seamans.h.i.+p, and seemed doubtful when I maintained that British seamen would in case of war a.s.sert their superiority over the French ones just as decisively now as they ever had done in the past--and of naval history in general His.h.i.+di had a good idea.

"You might," he said, "as your navy is so much larger than theirs."

But I pointed out that our naval triumphs had seldom been gained by superior force--"although," I admitted, "we certainly have now double the force of any other European power, on which account none of them dare attack us singly, as they know that if they did, the majority of their knocked-out tubs would be towing up the Downs in a very brief s.p.a.ce of time. But numbers apart, the British sailor of to-day can still do more with a s.h.i.+p than a Frenchman. The conditions are certainly completely changed, but the best seaman will make the most of the new order."

He shook his head dubiously, and said he should like to see a war between England and France.

"Well," said I, "you may live to see that and not be an old man. You may live to see a war between England and half the rest of the world, and see England get the best of it. It has happened once or twice before."

On another occasion we were talking about Russia, when His.h.i.+di remarked--

"Russia wants China."

"Russia wants everything," said I.

"Ah, that is what they say of you," replied he.

I once asked him what he thought of the torpedo.

"Well," said he, "the torpedo is as yet far from being thoroughly understood. It is very uncertain in use, though when it takes effect invariably deadly. Gun-fire should be able to neutralize it, that is, to keep it at a distance, for once struck, no sort of construction could resist the explosion of two hundred pounds of gun-cotton against the hull under the water line; water-tight compartments would be of no avail against such devastation. Vessels of the cruiser type, fast, and with a heavy quick-firing armament, are best suited to cope with torpedo-boats, which would find it difficult to get to close quarters with such craft. Wars.h.i.+ps have lately been built with a considerable increase of length, which of course increases a torpedo's chance of striking by giving it a larger target. Moderate size, no overloading with armour, speed, good coal supply, and as many quick-firing guns as can be mounted--that is my idea of the best type of wars.h.i.+p at present. The policy of building monstrous s.h.i.+ps is doubtful, when they can be sunk by a torpedo-boat. Under such conditions, it seems to me that ease and rapidity of manoeuvring is of more advantage than gigantic weight of ordnance and armour, because after all the torpedo's attack is directed against a part which nothing can render invulnerable."

Such is the substance of my conversation with the lieutenant, but despite the charms of intellectual intercourse, I soon began to get desperately weary of my detention. Day after day the _Itsuku_ cruised about, sometimes in company with other craft, sometimes alone. The enemy kept well out of sight, and few events occurred to chequer the monotony. Once we sighted two Chinese gunboats not far from Chefoo, and the j.a.panese varied the day's drill and gun exercise by sh.e.l.ling them into Wei-hai-wei. They ran ignominiously and never made the least show of fight. Had the _Itsuku_ been a faster vessel, she would undoubtedly have captured or destroyed one of them. Her maximum speed was under sixteen knots. On another occasion, off the western coast of the Liaotung, we came upon a fleet of junks, craft engaged in coast trade, I presume. Their crews ran them ash.o.r.e and escaped, whilst the j.a.panese fired the stranded junks with sh.e.l.ls, the officers amusing themselves by sighting the guns and betting on the shots. When a satisfactory bonfire had been created we steamed away.

This sort of thing, I have said, went on for more than a month. The gunboat's cruising-ground was chiefly about the mouth of the Pechili Gulf, now under the frowning forts of Wei-hai-wei, and now opposite Port Arthur on the other side. There did not seem to be any regular blockade of the Gulf, though j.a.panese wars.h.i.+ps were constantly hovering about. The Chinese fleet, I believe, confined itself to the modest seclusion of Wei-hai-wei harbour, and was not to be tempted outside. Once I asked His.h.i.+di when they meant to a.s.sail Wei-hai-wei and Port Arthur?

"Oh," said he, "we are waiting our time; it has not come yet."

British war-vessels were frequently in sight, but to my requests to be put on board one of them, or at least to be brought before a j.a.panese admiral, the commander of the _Itsuku_--I have completely forgotten his name--turned a deaf ear. October wore away, and any termination of my captivity seemed as distant as ever. I was obliged to put an end to it on my own initiative. One evening--the fourth or fifth of November it would be--we were outside Port Arthur. At dusk the gunboat anch.o.r.ed, and a boat was despatched on some errand of reconnaissance.

A point of the coast was less than a mile distant, and as I leant over the bulwark in the fore-part of the vessel, it struck me that I might easily swim off to it, if I could get into the water un.o.bserved. Under Webster's tuition I had become an excellent swimmer. I looked round; I was apparently not under notice, and there was no light near where I was. My mind was made up at once. I stole as far forward as I could, and watching my opportunity, and steadying myself by the cathead, I made a leap for the cable, intending to climb down it to the water. A leap in the dark is proverbially a dangerous thing; the vessel perversely veered away as I sprang, and instead of catching the cable I soused into the water with a loud splash. The sentry on the gangway heard it, ran forward, and emptied the magazine of his rifle at me as I swam away, but by diving and swimming under water out of the direct line of advance, I managed to evade the bullets. A boat was soon down and in hot pursuit, but I had had a good start, and they were at a loss for my true direction at first. I struck out vigorously and made good headway, but had the disadvantage of swimming in my clothes; moreover, the water was frightfully cold, and began to chill me to the bone. I could tell, however, that the tide was strongly in my favour, and I believe I should have escaped the boat's notice, but that the people on sh.o.r.e, hearing, I suppose, the rifle-shots, turned on an electric search-light to see what was going forward. I was still a good quarter of a mile from the sh.o.r.e, and the boat was nearly as close in--almost parallel with me, though several hundred yards away.

There was no fort near, but I could see the dark ma.s.s of one on a towering height far to the left. The bright glare soon showed me to my pursuers, who turned the boat's head towards me and gave way with might and main. They closed fast, and I gave myself up for lost. A heavy rifle-fire began crackling along the sh.o.r.e, and the b.a.l.l.s frequently skimmed along the water disagreeably near me. I struggled on, but would inevitably have been retaken if the event had depended on my own efforts. There was a small coast battery near containing two or three mortars, and a sh.e.l.l was thrown at the boat as it held its daring course for the sh.o.r.e. It was not a hundred yards from me at the moment. I heard the scream of the projectile, saw it describing its flaring parabola in my direction, and with my last energies dived to avoid it. The sound of its explosion rang in my ears as I went under.

When I came up again, the boat was putting back in a hurry with three or four oars disabled. How near to them the bomb had pitched I cannot say, but they had evidently got a good allowance of the splinters, though chance probably had more to do with the matter than marksmans.h.i.+p. The gunboat was under steam and standing in, returning the fire. I strained every nerve, and struggled ash.o.r.e at last in such a numbed and exhausted state that I could not stand upright without a.s.sistance. I found myself surrounded by Chinese soldiers, who plied me with questions, which I could not have answered even if I had understood Chinese. Perceiving my condition, they took me off to a small building like a guard-house, some way to the rear of a line of trenches. They made a blazing wood fire in the middle of the stone floor, and when I had stripped off my wet clothes and was partially thawed, they renewed their interrogatories. I absolutely knew not a word of Chinese, and could only endeavour by gestures to give them an idea of what had happened. This was not very satisfactory, but they at least could make out that I was no friend to the j.a.panese. They jabbered away for a while amongst themselves, apparently discussing me. At length one of them brought me some food in a large wooden bowl--a strange mess of I know not what mysterious compounds, amongst which, however, I could distinguish rice. It was palatable and I ate it gladly, and asked, too, for a supplementary supply, which was not denied. Overcome by exhaustion and the fierce heat of the fire, a drowsy stupor came upon me, and I made signs that I wished to sleep.

They did not seem to have any clothing to offer me for my own which was drying in the blaze, but they brought in several long, coa.r.s.e cloaks or mantles, and one of them enveloping himself in these, stretched himself before the fire on the ground, to intimate to me that in such a manner I must pa.s.s the night. Another offered me a pipe of opium, which I knew it would be a great discourtesy, according to their ideas, to decline, although I was quite unaccustomed to the drug. I therefore took it and affected to smoke, and as I lay down, they left the little room in which they had placed me, and I heard them barricade the door outside.

I immediately fell into a profound slumber. The few whiffs of opium which, despite of myself, I had inhaled, had their effect, and produced a series of those magical dreams with which the drug tempts and deceives the novice. Through all of them the idea of flight and pursuit ran bewilderingly. I will give one as a specimen. I dreamt that I was on the sh.o.r.e of the sea; the waters suddenly began to rise, and threatened to overwhelm me. I turned and ran, but nearer and nearer the flood came after. Then there yawned across my path a precipice of which I could not see the bottom. Down I plunged. I seemed to fly like a bird, and once more stood on firm ground. The precipice seemed to reach to the sky behind me. I resumed my flight, and looking back, beheld the flood leaping down the gulf in a mighty volume, with the sun rising above it, and bathing the illimitable cataract with golden light. It would be impossible to describe or imagine the gorgeousness of the spectacle. With such visions as these does the treacherous narcotic lure its victims. I believe its use is forbidden by the Chinese military authorities, but the undisciplined soldiers seemed to use it extensively when they could get it, like tobacco.

CHAPTER V

I slept till the middle of the following day, and would in all probability have slept longer but that I was awakened by my hosts, if so I may term them. My clothes were quite dry; I got into them, and was escorted outside at once. The first thing I saw was a detachment of cavalry, mounted on little s.h.a.ggy Tartar ponies. One of these I was invited to bestride, and a moment afterwards, without the possibility of explanations being either asked or given, we were _en route_.

I may as well say at once that the spot where I had come ash.o.r.e was the land below the West Port, and I was being conveyed to the Man-tse-ying fort, one of the princ.i.p.al seaward fortifications. It has an elevation of 266 feet above the sea level, and the latter part of the ascent had to be made on foot. I was at once taken before the commandant, who with a few other officers and a secretary sat prepared to investigate the peculiar circ.u.mstances which had brought a Fan Quei, or foreign devil, amongst them. The secretary knew English very indifferently--so indifferently that I am doubtful if he understood my story rightly. He asked me if I was acquainted with German, and gave me to understand that he knew more of that language than of English; however, I did not know ten words of it. The examination was long, and, from the difficulty of understanding one another, confused enough. I gathered that I was, or had been, under suspicion of being a j.a.panese spy in the minds of those before whom I had been brought, and they rigorously questioned the men whom I had first seen as to the circ.u.mstances attending my landing. These, I consoled myself by reflecting, could not be deemed consistent with the supposition that I was an agent of the enemy. I was asked if there was any one in the town who could witness to my having been there previously under the circ.u.mstances I alleged. I replied that probably the people at the inn would remember me.

Finally the Chinamen held a lengthened consultation amongst themselves, at the end of which I was told that I would be taken forthwith before the higher authorities on the other side of the port.

I hinted to the secretary that I had had nothing to eat that day and felt decidedly hungry. I was accordingly served before my departure with a meal of fish and boiled bread, with a cup of rice wine, a decoction which tasted like thin, sour claret. This done, I was placed in charge of my former escort, who struck across country from the rear of the Man-tse-ying, pa.s.sed two or three other forts and numerous entrenchments and redoubts, and finally reached the water on the inner side of the long arm of land enclosing the West Port. Here, close by a torpedo store, I was put on board a sampan, a long, narrow boat, sharp at both extremities, with an awning. In this I was conveyed to the East Port and taken through the dockyards to the military head-quarters near the great drill and parade ground at the entrance to the town. It was late in the evening when we arrived there, and I was not brought up for examination until the next day. Here, to my great satisfaction, I found I had to deal with somebody who knew English well--a military aide-de-camp, who spoke the language with both fluency and correctness. To him I told my story plainly and straightforwardly, and by the testimony of my former landlord, Sen, and an official at the bank where I had changed my money, established my ident.i.ty as the person who had pa.s.sed two days in the town with Wong, and accompanied him on board the despatch-boat. This was sufficient to procure my release. Everything I said was very carefully noted down. My interrogation was conducted before a couple of mandarins. The Taotai I believe to have been absent from the place at this time. He is alleged to have deserted his position and to have been ordered back again. This may or may not be so, but it is undoubtedly the fact that he fled from Port Arthur the night before the j.a.panese attacked it. He does not appear to have been open to the accusation of heroism.

I was informed by the aide-de-camp that the port had been visited only a day or two before by the British wars.h.i.+p _Crescent_, the officers of which had landed for a short while. Fate seemed resolved that I should have no chance of leaving the place without seeing in it something worth remembering, as I had no sooner returned to Sen's inn, which I did on my release, than I was seized with a kind of aguish fever, the effect, no doubt, of the exposure I had recently undergone. It was nothing serious, but caused a feeling of great la.s.situde and depression, and confined me indoors for some ten or twelve days. I had the place almost to myself, as the approach of the j.a.panese armies had not been favourable to custom, and the usual course of travel to and from the north had been suspended. Sen was anxious to learn from me whether I considered it advisable for residents and townspeople to leave the port. I replied, as I sincerely thought, that the j.a.panese, if they succeeded in taking the place, would do no harm to non-combatants. I was, however, fatally mistaken.

The inn was a place of two storeys--few Chinese habitations have more.

Most of the rooms opened round a partially covered courtyard. I had a good one in the upper storey, or the "top-side," as it is expressed in "pidgin." There were no fireplaces; the apartments were chiefly warmed by charcoal in braziers. Along one side of that which I occupied was a long low hollow bench, filled with hot air from a furnace. This contrivance usually served me for a bed, for although they use bedsteads, there is nothing on them but an immense wadded quilt, in which you roll yourself up. I transferred it to the hot-air holder, which made a far warmer and more comfortable couch. I was waited on mostly by a lad named Chung, one of the professors of "pidgin." He was a native of Canton, had been in Hong Kong, and was well accustomed to Englishmen and their ways. The fare was very tolerable--poultry, pork, and various kinds of fish, but no beef, as the Chinaman deems it wrong to kill the animal that helps to till the ground. Chung told me that in the south cats and dogs are fattened for food, which it occurred to me would be a distinct advantage in Port Arthur at that time, with a siege imminent, and a great abundance of those animals observable. For drink I naturally had plenty of tea, though it is very washy stuff as made by the Chinese, who usually content themselves with putting the leaves in a cup and pouring hot water over them, flavouring the infusion with tiny bits of lemon.

As soon as I was sufficiently recovered to go out, I made an effort to find out whether there was any prospect of getting away from the place by sea, but soon found that this was hopeless to expect. No foreign vessels were in the port, and the native ones were chiefly junks, the proprietors of which, as interpreted by Chung, whom I took with me, refused to venture out unless for such a sum as I could by no possibility procure. There were no Chinese war-vessels in the harbour, and indeed they would have been of no use there.

Knowing that the fortress was a very strong one, I made up my mind that there would be a protracted siege, and my spirits fell as I surveyed the prospect, for my pecuniary resources were limited, and it seemed very unlikely that I would again see the _Columbia_ in the port. However, my fears were groundless. Little did I think that within three days the place would be in the hands of the j.a.panese.

It was on November 18 that I made the fruitless attempt to negotiate for a pa.s.sage. The appearance of the place had considerably changed since first I was in it. The numbers of the soldiery had obviously been largely increased. Industry was completely suspended in the dockyard, the whole of which had been converted into barracks. In returning from the wharves with Chung, I witnessed a specimen of military punishment. Pa.s.sing the open gate of an enclosure near the clearing-house, I perceived a group which at once riveted my attention. A number of soldiers were standing round one who, stripped to the waist, was kneeling with his forehead stooped almost to the ground, and his hands tied behind, the thongs that bound them being held by a man standing close in his rear. Thus disposed, he received a tremendous flogging from a whip with a fearful heavy leathern lash, which made me think of the Russian knout. The blows fell with a thud that made my nerves s.h.i.+ver, and the back of the sufferer was covered with blood, which was thrown here and there by the ensanguined instrument of torture as it whistled through the air. He took his punishment, however, to use the language of the P.R., like a man, and though his body seemed to bend like a reed with each stroke, he never uttered a sound that I could hear. I did not count the lashes, but there was no stint in the allowance. Minute after minute the castigator laboured away in his vocation, until finally the victim collapsed, and rolling over, lay like a log in a pool of blood, and was then carried off. I was rather surprised to see a whip used, as I had always supposed the bastinado to be the favourite method of flagellation in China. I asked Chung for an explanation, but he did not seem to understand my question, and replied that the "one piecee ting (soldier) no hab muchee hurtee," and that they might if they had liked have cut off his "one piecee head." True it is that decapitation is a very common punishment in the Chinese army.

Strongly as the ma.s.sacre by the j.a.panese troops in Port Arthur is to be condemned, there is not the slightest doubt in the world that the Chinese brought it on themselves by their own vindictive savagery towards their enemies. The attacking armies, advancing down the Peninsula in touch with the fleet, were now within a day or two's march of the inland forts. Bodies of Chinese troops hara.s.sed and resisted them, and brushes between the opposing forces frequently took place. The Chinese took some prisoners, whom they slew mercilessly, and one of the first things I saw on the morning of the 19th was a pair of corpses suspended by the feet from the branches of a huge camphor tree near the parade-ground. They were hideously mutilated.

They had been disembowelled; the eyes were gouged out, the throat cut, and the right hand severed. They were perfectly naked, and groups of children were pelting them with mud and stones.

Similar ghastly spectacles were to be seen in other parts, both inside the town and beyond it. Nor was this the worst; the walls exhibited placards, in the sacred imperial yellow, inciting to these atrocities.

This I know by means of Chung, whom I usually took out with me. The tenor, as he translated, was this:--"To the soldiers and subjects of the Celestial Lord of the Dragon Throne. So much for every j.a.panese dog alive. So much for his head or hand. In the name of the Sacred Son of Heaven," etc. Then came the date and the signature of the Taotai.

The exact amount of the rewards I forget. I think it was fifty taels for a live prisoner, and a less amount for heads or hands. The bodies of the j.a.panese soldiers killed in encounters with the enemy as they closed on the place, were often found minus the head or right hand, sometimes both, besides being ferociously gashed and slashed. Corpses were still hanging on the trees when the fortress fell, and it is not surprising that their former comrades should have been maddened by the sight, though of course the officers are greatly to blame for permitting the fearful retaliation which ensued to be carried to such lengths. The ma.s.sacre seems to have been allowed to continue unchecked until no more victims could be found.

This, however, is to antic.i.p.ate. On the 19th the enemy were close upon the forts, and everything was bustle and commotion. Business was suspended nearly everywhere, and the movements of the troops were the chief attraction. Great crowds gathered in the vicinity of the general's pavilion overlooking the parade-ground, where a council was held in the afternoon. A strong armed force held back the mob. All the princ.i.p.al military officers arrived from their posts at the head of their staffs one by one. The Taotai was brought from his residence in a magnificent sedan-chair, carried by ten or twelve bearers. The pavilion itself is a splendid structure, adorned with the most gaudy and brilliant colours, and covered with Chinese characters beautifully worked in gold. The consultation lasted for at least three hours. I had only a distant view of Kung over the heads of the soldiers. The fighting outside continued, and on the next day more j.a.panese corpses had been brought in by the vengeful soldiery, and left for the rabble to amuse themselves with. I do not think that any j.a.panese was brought into the town alive.

Towards noon the next day (20th) the first guns were heard. Cannon rumbled away in the distance all the afternoon, ceasing as night came on. A wild and anxious night it was. There was no certain news of the fighting, and the most contradictory rumours were prevalent. Excited crowds filled the streets, which blazed with great coloured paper lanterns, of which nearly every individual carried one; indeed, the person who is seen outside without a lantern after dark becomes an object of suspicion to the police watch.

I determined to see, if possible, something of the fighting next day.

All the ground around Port Arthur is, as I have before remarked, very hilly. Outside the town, and between it and the north-western forts, is a lofty elevation named White Boulders, for an obvious reason--the ground is full of chalk. This spot I determined upon as my point of observation. Most of the front face had been covered with trenches, but the rear was easy of attainment, and I was struggling up the steep ascent at day-break. The summit is very uneven, covered with huge crags and deep indentations, and there were any number of secure enough nooks to pick and choose from.

The field of action seen from White Boulders is very simple and may be described in a few words. Behind me was the West Port; on my left the north-western fortifications, called the Table Mountain forts; on my right the East Port and the sea, and in front the greater part of the town, with the north-eastern forts beyond. Of these latter there are, I think, eight, all connected by a wall. I had only a partial view of them. Between the elevations on which stand the north-eastern and north-western forts, the ground sinks deeply, and there is a wide s.p.a.ce comparatively level, part of it occupied by a village. This tract is defended by redoubts and earthworks, and can be swept by the fire of the higher fortifications, particularly by those of the north-east, but still it is a weak point in the defence, though capable, it seemed to me, of being greatly strengthened.

The day broke with a frosty clearness, and though I had no gla.s.s, it was possible to see for miles on every hand. The dragon flag waved everywhere on the Chinese forts, but I could see at first no sign of the j.a.panese, and it was not until they began to fire that their positions were indicated. It was about half-past seven when, far to the north-west, their guns began to boom. All their preparations had apparently been made over-night, and they were only waiting for daylight to begin. The Chinese opened fire in reply on both sides; battery after battery joined in, and soon there was a thundering roar of artillery, and a dense volume of white smoke, through which glanced the flash of the cannon, all round the great semi-circle. The scream of sh.e.l.ls, and the blaze and detonation with which they burst, were incessant. Away on the right the sea was covered with wars.h.i.+ps, which seemed to have nothing to do, and certainly were not a.s.sailing the coast defences. Some of the seaward forts were able to get their guns to bear on the positions of the j.a.panese armies, and were blazing away, though I don't think they could do much damage.

Some minor outlying fortifications had been captured the previous afternoon, and the j.a.panese had divided into two bodies for the main a.s.saults on the north-west and north-east. The Chinese in these two sections appeared to have no combination, and by a feint at the north-east the j.a.panese kept that part diverted until the west forts had been carried. It is a fact that they fell about an hour and a half after the cannonade commenced. The j.a.panese infantry advanced against them, and the valiant troops holding them ran away at the sight. The Chinese forts on the other side now began to fire away across the intervening valley, as if that could remedy the disaster. Upon them then became concentrated the whole j.a.panese fire. The Chinamen here made a far better show, and the fire was vigorous and sustained. About eleven o'clock, with a terrific blast of flame and thunder, which seemed to shake the ground far and near to the sh.o.r.es of the sea, their largest fort, the Shoju, or Pine Tree Hill, blew up; a sh.e.l.l must have alighted in the magazine. At noon the whole j.a.panese line advanced to the charge, and here, too, the Celestials never waited for the a.s.sault, but fled precipitately. There was no fighting at all at close quarters; not a solitary Chinaman stood for a bayonet thrust.

Thus pusillanimously were abandoned these two great ma.s.ses of fortifications, placed in the most commanding situations, on steep mountain heights where attacking forces could keep no sort of regular formation, and could have been mowed down in thousands by competent gunners as they struggled up the impregnable inclines. It was with a feeling of bewilderment that I beheld such powerful defences lost in such a manner, and realized that after three or four hours'

bombardment on one side, without a shot fired against the tremendous coast defences, it was all up with Port Arthur.

The victors next turned their attention to the redoubts and walled camps on the lower ground, with the calm method which distinguished all their operations. From the valleys between the hills began to emerge dark columns of infantry, which closed steadily upon the devoted town, rolling to their positions with the mechanical regularity of parade, the sheen of their bayonets glancing here and there through the volumes of smoke which had settled thickly in the hollows. Nearer, spread over the ground to which the forts their cowardice had lost should have afforded ample protection, were the disorganized ma.s.ses of Chinese, preparing for their last scattered and fruitless efforts. Only one of the inland forts, that nearest to the town, and called, I think, Golden Hill, was still in their possession.

The trenches below me on White Boulders' front face, which had been unoccupied during the early portion of the day, now began to swarm with riflemen, whose weapons kept up a continuous roll, swelled from many a rifle-pit and redoubt away forward from the base of the elevation. Steadily the enemy advanced, working their way round on both wings within the captured fortresses. They took skilful advantage of every protection the ground afforded, and the resistance in their front rapidly diminished as they pressed on irresistibly from position to position.

It was now high time for me to evacuate my post, where I had had a solitary and secure vantage-place amidst the rugged inequalities of its summit, which probably I should not have been permitted to attain if I had not set about it so early. Past its front runs a shallow but broad stream, which coming through the Suis.h.i.+yeh valley, rounds the parade-ground on the south towards White Boulders, whence it flows into a large and deep creek farther west. This stream the j.a.panese had to cross before they could attack the trenches below me. Two or three times they were beaten back by the hail of bullets poured on them at very close range, but covered by a heavy fire on their own side they were at length over, and then their opponents took to flight round the right-hand side of the hill. I stayed only to see this, and plunged down the rear. It was growing dusk, and I had numerous narrow escapes of breaking my neck in the deep and rugged hollows, some of them almost ravines, which seam that side of the elevation.

The town was now at the mercy of the conquerors. The Chinese were running from the Golden Hill fort as I descended, without an effort at defending it, and the water beyond was covered with boats and small craft filled with fugitives, mostly the dastardly troops, who threw away arms and uniforms as they ran. For incompetence and cowardice commend me for the future to Chinese soldiers. The twenty thousand of them who occupied Port Arthur contrived to kill about sixty of their antagonists on November 21, with all the best modern weapons at their disposal. And these are the men who, according to Lord Wolseley and other critics, are some day to start out to conquer the earth! Let, says Lord Wolseley, a Napoleon arise amidst this vast people, and we shall see. But is an essentially unwarlike nation at all likely to breed a Napoleon, or to supply him with openings for a career? Who ever heard of a Chinese conqueror? Have they ever appeared otherwise than as the most self-centred and unenterprising people in the world, displaying the least possible apt.i.tude for the career of arms? And from what source, after thousands of years of such characteristics, are they to bring forth the material for this sudden burst of conquering militarism?

CHAPTER VI

I directed my retreat towards the dockyards, with a view to getting round to the south part of the town, as far as possible from the quarter by which the j.a.panese were entering it. The idea of a general ma.s.sacre never entered my mind, and I only thought of getting back to my inn, there to stay until things quieted down. My prevailing feeling was one of satisfaction that I should not after all have to face a long residence in a beleaguered town. I therefore paid little attention at first to the fact that people were flying on every hand, and I did not suppose that there could be any good reason for flight, beyond the desirability of getting out of the way of the conquering troops until the ardour of victory had cooled down. I was not long to be left undeceived. A deadly work of vengeance and slaughter had commenced Down the panic-crowded streets, louder and louder as I advanced, came ringing the volleys of the rifle-fire, the shouts of the infuriated soldiers, and the death-shrieks of their victims. I knew that all armed resistance had been broken, and as these sounds of terror increased, an idea of what might be imminent crossed my mind. I recollected what so often follows the fall of a place carried by storm; I remembered the atrocities committed on the j.a.panese prisoners; and I remembered, too, the general character of all Oriental soldiers. I paused to consider my situation. I had pa.s.sed round by the water-side until outside the dock basin, and then turned into the streets, striking across in the direction of the inn, with the route from which to the East Port I was well enough acquainted.