ON THE WAR-DRAGON'S TRAIL
There was the dean of the corps, one Melton Prior, who, in spite of his years—may they be many more—is still the first war artist in the world. He was mounted on a white horse, seventeen hands high and with a weak back that has a history. Prior sold him in the end to a canny Englishman, who sold him to the Japanese—giving Prior the price asked. "Why, didn't you know that he wasn't sound?" said a man of another race, who wondered, perhaps, that in a horse-trade blood should so speak to blood even in a strange land.
"Yes," said the Englishman, "but the Japanese won't know it." They didn't. There was Richard Harding Davis, who, for two reasons—the power to pick from any given incident the most details that will interest the mostpeople, and the good luck or good judgment to be always just where the most interesting thing is taking place (with one natural exception, that shall be told)—is also supreme. Mounted on another big horse was he—one Devery by name—with a mule in the rear, of a name that must equally appeal. Quite early, after purchase, Davis had laid whispering lip to flapping ear.
"I'll call you Williams or I'll call you Walker, just as you choose," he said.
There was no response.
"Then I'll call you both," said Davis, and that wayward animal was Williams and Walker through the campaign. A double name was never more appropriate, for a flagrant double life was his. There was Bill the Brill of the gentle heart, on a nice chestnut; Burleigh, the veteran, on a wretched beast that was equally dangerous at either end; Lionel James with cart and coolies of his own, and the Italian on a handsome iron-gray. There were the two Frenchmen—Reggie, the young, the gigantic, the self-controlled and never complaining—sobeloved, that his very appearance always brought the Marseillaise from us all—and Laguerié, the courteous, ever-vivacious, irascible—so typical that he might have stepped into Manchuria from the stage. There was Whiting, artist, on the littlest beast with the biggest ambition that I ever saw vaulting on legs; lanky Wallace, whose legs, like Lincoln's, were long enough to reach the ground—even when he was mounted—and there were the two Smiths—English and American—and Lewis, gifted with many tongues and a beautiful barytone, who, his much-boasted milky steed being lame, struck Oku's trail on foot. On Pit-a-Pat, a pony that used to win and lose money for us at the Yokohama races, was little Clarkin the stubborn, the argumentative, who, at a glance, was plainly sponsor for the highest ideals of the paper that, in somebody's words, made virtue a thing to be shunned; and, finally and leastly, there were Fuji and his unhappy attachment, who chronicles this.
These were the men who thought they were going to Port Arthur and who, with the soundof the big guns at that fortress growing fainter behind them, struck Oku's trail, up through a rolling valley that was bordered by two blue volcanic mountain chains. The sky was cloudless and the sun was hot. The roads were as bad as roads would likely be after 4,000 years of travel and 4,000 years of neglect, but the wonder was that, after the Russian army had tramped them twice and the Japanese army had tramped them once, they were not worse.
The tail of the War-Dragon, whose jaws were snapping at flying Russian heels far on ahead, had been drawn on at dawn, and through dust and mire and sand we followed its squirming wake. On the top of every little hill we could see it painfully crawling ahead—length interminable, its vertebræ carts, coolies, Chinese wagons, its body columns of soldiers, its scales the flashes of sword-scabbard and wagon-tire—and whipping the dust heavenward in clouds. The button on that tail was Lynch the Irishman on a bicycle, and that button was rolling itself headward—leading us all. Behind, Lewis was eating the road upwith a swinging English stride, and, drinking the dust of the world, we followed. Fuji had side-stepped from barrack-yard into that road, sawing on his bit, pawing the earth, and squealing challenges or boisterous love-calls to anything and everything that walked. Sex, species, biped, or quadruped—never knew I such indiscriminate buoyancy—all were one to Fuji. With malediction on tongue and murder in heart, I sawed his gutta-percha mouth until my fingers were blistered and my very jaws ached, but I could hold him back only a while. We overtook the Italian, a handsome boy with a wild intensity of eye—one puttee unwound and flying after him. The iron-gray was giving trouble and he, too, was unhappy. We passed Reggie—his great body stretched on a lumpy heap of baggage—with a pipe in his mouth, that was halved with his perennial smile of unshakable good-humor, and the other Frenchman squatting between two humps of baggage on a jolting cart.
"Ah!" he cried with extended hands, "you see—you see—" his head was tossed to oneside just then, he clutched wildly first one way and then the other and with palms upward again—"you see how comfortable I am. It ees gr-reat—gr-reat!" From laughter I let Fuji go then and he went—through coil after coil of that war-dragon's length, past the creaking, straining vertebræ, taking a whack with teeth or heels at something now and then and something now and then taking a similar whack at him. The etiquette of the road Fuji either knew not, or cared nothing for—nor cared he for distinctions of rank in his own world or mine. By rights the led cavalry horses should have had precedence. But nay, Fuji passed two regiments without so much as "by your leave"; but I was doing that for him vigorously and, whenever he broke through the line, I said two things, and I kept saying them that I might not be cut off with a sword:
"Warui desu!" I said, which means "He's bad!" and "Gomen nasai," which is Japanese for "Beg pardon." These two phrases never failed to bring a smile instead of the curse that I might have got in any other army in theworld. We passed even an officer who seemed and was, no doubt, in a great and just hurry, but even his eyes had to take the dust thrown from Fuji's heels. I pulled the beast in at last on top of a little hill whence I could see the battle-hills of Nanshan. But I cared no more for that field than did Fuji, both of us being too much interested in life to care much for post-mortem battle-fields, and when the rest came up, we rode by Nanshan without turning up its green slopes and on to where the first walled Chinese city I had ever seen lifted its gate-towers and high notched walls in glaring sunlight and a mist of strangling dust. We passed in through the city gates and stopped where I know not. It was some bad-smelling spot under a hot sun, and being off Fuji and in that sun, I cared not. I have vague memories of white men coming by and telling me to come out of the sun and of not coming out of the sun; of horses kicking and stamping near by and an occasional neigh from Fuji hitched in the shade of the city wall and guarded by a Chinaman; of a yellow man asleep on a cart, his unguardedface stark to that sun and a hundred flies crawling about his open mouth; and of an altercation going on between two white men. One said:
"Your horse has kicked mine—remove him!"
"Move your own," said another, and his tone was that of some Lord Cyril in a melodrama. "Mine was there first."
The other took off his coat:
"I'm sorry, but I've got to fight you."
"Very well, then," said Lord Cyril, stripping, too, and then the voice of a peace-maker that I knew well broke in and in a moment all was still. Takeuchi rode in on a mule. No hitting the dust for the proud feet of Takeuchi then, as I learned, nor afterward, when there were any other four feet that could be made to travel for hire.
"I want a 'betto,'" he said—which is Japanese for hostler—"for Fuji."
"Whatever need there be for Fuji, the accursed," said I, lapsing into such Oriental phraseology as I had read in books, "buy, andbuy quickly—my money is in thy belt." He bought then and kept on buying afterward.
Straightway I fell again into sun-dreams with the yellow man near by whose mouth was wide, for it was my first experience with the God of Fire in his hell-hot Eastern home, and I strayed in them until I was shaken into consciousness by a white man with a beer-bottle in his hand. I remember a garden and trees next, a Chinese room with mats, a Chinese woman—the first I had seen—with a sad, pretty face, who rose, when I came to the door, and stalked into a house as though she were walking on deer-hoofs (every step she took on her tiny, misshapen feet made me shudder), and then the sound of Davis's guitar and Lewis's voice on the soft night air and under a Manchurian moon soaring starward above the Eastern city-wall.
... It is noon of the second day now and we sit in the shade of willow-trees. We left that first Chinese town of Kinchau and its dirty natives this morning at eight. The dragon's tail again had been drawn aheadthrough a narrow valley, rich in fields of millet and corn, from which on either side a bleak, hilly, treeless desert ran desolately to a blue mountain chain. Now, still on its trail, we sit in a green oasis, on real grass and under sheltering willows. A lot of little Chinese boys are around us, all naked except for a little embroidered varicolored stomacher which hangs by a cord from the neck of each—for what purpose I know not—and their elders are bringing water for us and sheaves of millet-blades for the menagerie of beasts we ride. They seem a good-natured race—these Manchurian farmers—genuine, submissive, kindly, but genuine and human in contrast, if I must say it, with the Japanese. Who was it that said the Chinese were the Saxons of the East and the Japanese the Gauls? I know now what he meant.
Lewis, in a big white helmet, has just ridden in on a diminutive white jackass. I envy the peace and content of both of them, for Fuji was particularly bad this morning. Again he passed everything on the road, and as we swept the length of a cavalry column, I saw a soldierleading a puny stallion a hundred yards ahead. When he heard us, he shouted a warning:
"Warui desu!"
At the same time the beast he was leading turned, with ears laid back and teeth showing, and made for us, dragging the soldier along. I was greatly pleased.
"Here, Fuji," I said, "is where my revenge comes in. You are going to get it now and, if I mistake not, literally in the neck."
But the brute attacked me instead—me. He got my right forearm between his teeth and held on until I shifted a stick from right hand to left and beat him off—the soldier spouting Japanese with French vivacity meanwhile and tugging ineffectively. I got away only after the vicious brute had pasted Fuji with both heels first on one side of my right leg and then similarly on the other, missing me about three inches each time. Fuji now shows blood but I am little hurt. Somehow in the scrimmage O-kin-san's charm—the little block of wood—was broken in its wicker case and whether the heels reached it that high I don't know. Butit was a good omen—that it should be broken and its owner still come out unhurt—and it means that I am to be safe in this campaign. The puny brute had not strength enough to break an Anglo-Saxon arm—and it is his kind that make impossible for the Japanese certain big guns that the Russians use.
T... It is 6P.M.of the third day now and we are at Wa-fang-tien. We left Pa-lien-tan this morning and made thirty-two miles. We took lunch in a stinking Chinese village, and the chicken—well, it was a question which was the more disturbing conjecture—how long it had lived or how long it had been dead. Oh, Yokoyama! Fuji has not improved. He kicked the Italian on the leg today and I've just helped to bandage it. Again to-day I had to let him go. I tried to tire him out by riding him through mud-holes and see-sawing him across deep wagon-ruts. But it was no use. If a horse, bullock, man, woman, child, cat, or dog is visible 500 yards away, Fuji with a squeal makes for it. When the object is overtaken, Fuji pays no attention to it, butlooks for something else toward which he can start his squealing way. For brutal, insensate curiosity give me Fuji, or rather give him to anybody but me. 'Tis an Eveless land for Fuji, but hope springs eternal for him. Dinner is just over—tinned soup, half-cooked tinned sausages, prunes and rice from Yokoyama's larder—which we are stocking at 12 yen per day. Hundreds of coolies are squatting along the railroad track. In front of us a group of Japanese soldiers has stood for five minutes staring at us with the frank curiosity of children. They began to move away when I pulled this note-book. Leaning against the tallest telegraph-pole, with hands bound behind him, his pigtail tied to a thick wire twice twisted, stands a miserable Chinese coolie. An hour ago I saw him on his knees across the track, held down by four men, while the littlest Japanese soldier in the group beat him heavily with a stick much thicker than the thumb. Then they led him praying, howling, and limping to the telegraph-pole, where he stands as an awful example to his fellows. He hadstolen some coal and it was his second offence. It was all right, of course, but it was strange to see the apparent joy with which the Japanese did it and stranger still to see the other coolies grinning, chatting, and making fun of the culprit. I wonder whether they were crooking the pregnant hinges of the knee or what on earth it did mean. We were hung up here at 3P.M., and allowed to go no farther. There is no order for us to remain—only a "strong desire" that we should—which is the Japanese way. Davis and I had a great bath to-day in a pool which somebody had dammed up—for what purpose I know not. What I do know is that it was not meant for us.
... Sitting on the sand, we are this August 5th under birch saplings and by the side of a running stream. Davis and Lewis are asleep in the sand. Fifteen miles only is ourmétierto-day and Brill is anxious to go on. The roads are bad farther on, say the Japanese, and transportation difficult: the only satisfactory reason yet given for this hideous delay,and this, I'm afraid, not the true one. They simply don't trust us—that's all. The body of the dragon is naturally getting bigger and his vertebræ are distinctly more lumpy. For instance, he gathered in a train of thirty freight-cars this morning and he had six hundred coolies pulling it for him. The button of him dropped back to-day toward the tip o' tail that is his anatomical place. Brill passed him on the road. His bicycle-tire was punctured and he was trying to mend it, Brill says, with 25-cent postage-stamps. He evidently succeeded, for he has just arrived. He seems to have had a high old time on the way. At the last Chinese village he halted long enough to offer a prize—what I don't know—to the Chinese child that could display the prettiest embroidered stomacher. He had them lined up in a shy, smiling row, and was about to deliver the prize when the winner was suddenly thrust forward with a wonderful piece on his chubby tum-tum. The wild Irishman gave him the prize, hoisted him on the bicycle and circled the compound swiftly to the delight of the village.I asked him how he communicated with these isolated heathens and he said he talked Irish to them. I'm quite sure he does and he seems to make himself understood.
It's sunset now at North Wa-fang-tien and all of us are out in a hard-packed, sand-floor yard under little birch trees. It was a hot ride to-day—the last mile being over a glaring white road and through glaring white sand. That glare of a fierce sun made the head ache and the very eyeballs burn. I almost reeled from Fuji, who for that mile was, for the first time, almost docile.
We had a shock and a thrill to-day—Brill, Lewis, Davis, and I. It was noon, and while we sat on a low stone wall in a grassy grove, a few carts filled with wounded Japanese passed slowly by. In one cart sat a man in a red shirt, with a white handkerchief tied over his head and under his chin. Facing him was a bearded Japanese with a musket between his knees. The man in the red shirt wearily turned his face. It was young, smooth-shaven, andwhite. The thrill was that the man was thefirst Russian prisoner we had seen—the shock that among those yellow faces was a captive with a skin like ours. I couldn't help feeling pity and shame—pity for him and a shame for myself that I needn't explain. I wondered how I should have felt had I been in his place and suddenly found four white men staring at me. It's no use. Blood is thicker than water—or anything else—in the end.
This is distinctly a human country—a country of cornfields, beans and potatoes, horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, goats, and no freaks in tree-trunk, branch, or foliage. But I can't get over seeing a Chinaman in a cornfield. It is always a shock. He doesn't seem to have any right there—somehow nobody does except a white man or a darky. There are tumble-bugs in the dusty road and gray, flying grasshopper-like things that rise from the dust, flutter a few feet from the earth and drop back again, just as they do at home. And the dragon-flies—why, they are nothing in the world but the "snake-doctors" that I used to throw stones at when I was a boy in the Bluegrass. Themountains are treeless and volcanic, but it's a human country and I don't feel as far from home as I did in Japan. Brill says it all looks like a lot of Montana hills around Ohio cornfields: only the corn is millet that grows twelve feet high. The people eat the top, they feed the blades to live-stock, and the stalk serves almost every purpose of bamboo and for firewood as well. You can ride for hours between two solid walls of it, and you wonder how there can be people enough in the scattering villages to plant and till, or even to cut it. A richer land I never saw. It looks as though it would feed both armies, and yet there was no sign—no burned house or robbed field or even a cast-off bit of the soldier's equipment to show that an army had ever passed that way. One fact only spoke significantly of war. No woman—except a child or a crone—was ever visible. This struck me—when I recalled the trail of the Massachusetts volunteers from Siboney to Santiago and the thousands of women refugees straggling into Caney—as very remarkable. I suppose both Japanese and Russiansare trying to keep the good-will of the Chinaman as well as of the rest of the world. I don't wonder that the Russians are fighting for that land, nor shall I wonder should the Japanese, if they win, try to keep it. But how it should belong to anybody but the Chinaman who has tilled it in peace and with no harm to anybody for thousands of years—I can't for the life of me see.
Next morning there was a sign of war. At daybreak some red flecks from the dragon's jaws drifted back from the mist and dust through which he was writhing forward. It looked, some man said, like the procession of the damned who filed past Dante in hell. Each man had a red roll around him. They uttered no sound—they looked not at one another, but stared vacantly and mildly at us as they shuffled silently from the mist and shuffled silently on. The expression of each was so like the expression of the rest that they looked like brothers. A more creepy, ghost-like thing I never saw. I knew not what they were, but they fascinated me and made me shudder, andI found myself drawing toward them, step by step, hardly conscious that I was moving. I do not recall that any one of us uttered a word. Yet they were only sick men coming back from the front—soldiers sick with thekakke, the "beriberi," the sleeping sickness. It was hard to believe that the face of any one of them had ever belonged to a soldier—-hard to believe that sickness could make a soldier's face so gentle. That man in the red shirt and those gray ghosts that shuffled so silently out of one mist and so silently into another are the high lights in the two most vivid pictures I've seen thus far.
The beriberi comes from a diet of too much fish and rice, I understand. It numbs the extremities and has a paralyzing effect on body and mind. Summer is its time and snow checks its course. A man may have it a dozen times and sometimes he dies. The young and able-bodied are its favorite victims, old men its rare ones, and women and foreigners it wholly spares. It made great havoc among Japanese soldiers in Korea, but the Japanesenow conquer beriberi as though it were a Russian metamorphosis.
Shung-yo-hing is the place now and the time is 2P.M.The heat was awful and the dust from thousands of carts, coolies, and beasts of burden choked the very lungs. I have the bulge on Fuji now. I knot the reins and draw them over the pommel of a McClellan saddle, thus holding his muzzle close to his chest. It seemed to puzzle Fuji a good deal.
"He can't even neigh," I said to Brill in triumph, and Brill cackled scorn. Fuji neighed five times in the next ten yards. I should say that his record in six hours to-day was about this: stumbling with right forefoot—300 times; stumbling with left hind-foot—200 times; neighs—1,000.
There are about twenty miles more to Kaiping. Haicheng has been taken by the Japanese. Somebody has just come in with cheering news—we can get back to Yokohama by water. Gently we all said:
"Hooray!" The parting from Fuji will not be sad.
... This morning I found in one pocket some strange pieces of paper with strange ideographs thereon in Japanese.
"What are these, Takeuchi?"
Takeuchi looked really embarrassed.
"Prayers," he said. "I got them at a temple. If you carry them, you will get back safe." Well, that made Takeuchi immune for days.
At Kaiping we are now and we go to Haicheng to-morrow. At least we think we do. We got here last night: Fuji being lame, I left him for Takeuchi to lead (he rode him, of course); went on afoot and later climbed aboard a freight-train drawn by 600 coolies. I told the Japanese in my smattering best of their language that my horse had gone lame, and they were very polite. The train went slowly along the dragon's length and I had a chance to observe minutely those vertebræ—heavy Chinese wagons, the wheels with two thick huge spokes cross-barred, the hoops of wood and studded with big, shining rivets, and the axles turning with the wheels; between theshafts, a horse, bullock, or a mule; in front, three leaders, usually donkeys, mules (the best I've seen out of America), or bullocks, in all possible combinations of donkey, mule, or bullock. Sometimes an ass colt trotted alongside. The drivers were Chinese coolies, each with a long whip—the butt of bamboo, the shaft spliced with four cane reeds, the lash of leather and the cracker as it is all over the rural world. The two or three leaders of the four- or five-in-hand, pulled by ropes attached to the cart at either side of the cart to one side of each shaft. The hames were two flat pieces of wood, lashed to a straw collar that was sometimes canvas-covered. The cries of the drivers, strange as they sounded to the foreigner near by, were at a distance strangely like the cries of drivers everywhere:
"Atta! Atta! Atta-atta-atta!"
"Usui! Usui!—u-u-u-su-u-i!"
"Whoa-a-ah!"
At noon, Lionel James and little Clarkin rode by and shouted that the Japanese Commandant there had a lunch ready near by. Wefound half a dozen tables set in the walled yard of a Chinese farmhouse. All of us were expected, but the others (except the Japanese correspondents who were on hand) had gone on. There was a nice sergeant there and a grave major with medals, and there were soldiers with fans to keep off the flies, while we sat in an arbor, under white Malaga-like clusters of grapes, and had tea and beer and tinned Kobbe beef and army crackers. The rain started when we started on—and when it rains in Manchuria, it really seems to rain. I was on foot in a light flannel shirt, and had no coat or poncho. In ten minutes the road had a slippery coating of mud, I was wet to the skin and, as my boots had very low heels, I was slipping right, left, and backward with every step. Clarkin and James overtook me and we took turns walking. In an hour the road was a very swift river, belly-deep and with big waves—dangerous to cross. Miles and miles we went through muddy cornfields for four hours, until we could see, across a yellow river, the high, thick walls of Kaiping through the drizzlingmist. I waded the river, waist-high, and on the other side an interpreter gave me a white mule, which I took in order not to get my boots muddy again. We wound into a city gate, were stopped by a sentry and sent on again around the city walls and three or four miles across a muddy, slushy flat, full of deep wagon-ruts and holes. After much floundering through mud, and the fording of many streams, we found the Commandant with his shoes under his chair and his naked feet on the rungs. James clicked his heels and saluted. We all took off our hats, but as he neither rose nor moved naked foot toward yawning shoe, we put them back on again. We must go to Kaiping, he said, and he was very indifferent and smiled blandly when we told him that we had just waded and swum from Kaiping. Just the same we had to wade and swim back—by the same floundering way and through gathering darkness. We missed the way, of course, rode entirely around the city walls, rode through Kaiping and back again, and finally struck an interpreter who piloted us to this Chinese templewhere I write. I was cold, muddy, hungry, and tired to the bone. But the button on the dragon's tail was there, and Brill the gentle; and, mother of mercies! they had things to eat and to drink. An hour later, Davis came in half-dead—leading Prior on Williams and Walker. He had struck the same gentleman of the naked foot and yawning shoe, had been sent on, and had gone into a stream over his head and crawled on hands and knees most of the way through pitch dark. He didn't mind himself, but Prior was elderly and was ill. Davis wanted the Commandant to take him in, but he refused and Davis was indignant:
"I wouldn't turn a water-snake out of doors on a night like this."
But those two same Samaritans saved him straightway, and we sit now in Chinese clothes in front of a temple and under a great spreading, full-leafed tree, with two horses champing millet before the altar and thousands of buzzing flies around. To-morrow we go on!
THE WHITE SLAVES OF HAICHENG
Haicheng at last! The Russians are only five miles away and they can drop shells on us, but they don't. The attachés were taken out on a reconnaissance yesterday, and we, too, if we are very good, will be allowed to see a Japanese soldier in a real ante-mortem trench.
We left Yoka-tong this morning at seven and in three hours reached dirty, fly-ridden Ta-shi-kao. The valley has broadened as we have come north. The Chinese houses are better and the millet-fields (kow-liang) stretch away like a sea on each side of the road. Soldiers were bathing in the river that we crossed to get to the gate of Haicheng, and the stretch of sand was dotted with naked men. Every grove was, in color, mingled black, brown, and dirty white from the carts, horses, and soldiers packed under the trees. We found the courteous Captain of Gendarmes, by accident, straightway, and we had to take tea hot, tea cold, andtea with condensed milk before he would lead us to our quarters in this mud compound. Lewis, Reggie, and Scull greeted us with a shout and produced beer and Tansan and a bottle of champagne cider. Heavens, what nectar each was! The rest are coming, but the button on the dragon's tail—the Irishman on the bicycle—has come off. Nobody knows where it dropped. Reggie the big Frenchman is newly mounted on a savage yellow beast that can be approached, like a cow, only on the right side—and Lewis told the story of the two. Davis answered with the story of our tribulations—his, Brill's and mine. He told it so well that Brill and I wished we had been there....
We slept in our riding-clothes for the third time last night and to-day we know our fate. We are to play a week's engagement here in a drama of still life—the title of which heads these lines. With a sleeve-badge of identification on—the Red Badge of Shame we call it—we can wander more or less freely within the city walls. We can even climb on them and walk around the town—about two miles—butwe cannot go outside without a written application from the entire company, and then only under a guard. We are to have three guards, by the way, and our letters—even private ones—are to go to the censor and not come back to us. Thus no man will know what has gone, and what hasn't, or whether what went was worth sending. Later this restriction was removed.
Our Three Guardsmen came to us last night and told these things. One was thick-set, bearded, and a son of Chicago University; one was smooth-shaven, thin-faced—and an authority on international law—both, of course, speaking English. The third carried a small mustache and talked very good French—so said Reggie. After the usual apologies, the bearded one said in partial excuse for shackling us:
"Some of our common soldiers, never having seen a foreigner before, are not able to distinguish between you and Russians. We wish to provide against accidents." And he laughed.
An incident on the way here, yesterday afternoon,made this sound plausible. I was riding alone, and hearing a noise behind me I turned in my saddle, to see a Japanese slipping upon me with his bayonet half-drawn from his scabbard. I stopped Fuji and said: "Nan desuka?" (What is it?) and he, too, stopped, and turned back. Whether this was a case in point or whether he was drunk and showing off before his companions, or whether my Tokio accent paralyzed him, I don't know, but later, the men who broke away from our guards and got among the soldiers, testified that they received nothing but courtesy, kindness, and childlike curiosity from the Japanese Tommy always.
"You saw Nanshan?" asked the bearded one.
"No," I said. "We want to see fighting, not battle-fields." He laughed again.
"You have had a very hard time, but I think the fight at Liao-Yang will recompense you."
"Have you heard anything from Port Arthur?"
"Nothing."
"We heard the guns as we came by and it was very exasperating." He laughed again.
"We do not think much about Port Arthur. That is only a question of time. Liao-Yang will be decisive. The sooner the Russians give up at Port Arthur, the better it will be for them."
"But they not only lose their own ships, but free the Japanese fleet for operations elsewhere."
"That's true."
"And they free the investing army for operations up here."
"That's true." He shook his head. "But Liao-Yang will be decisive."
They got up to go then and the bearded one simply bowed. The other two shook hands all around, and when they were through, the third said: "Well, I will shake hands, too," and he went the round.
Lewis has just come in—his face luminous with joyful news. General Oku has sent us over:
1 doz. bottles of champagne.4 doz. bottles of beer.1 package of fly-paper.1 live sheep.
1 doz. bottles of champagne.4 doz. bottles of beer.1 package of fly-paper.1 live sheep.
Liao-Yang is only about twenty-nine miles away, and the Three Guardsmen say we are not to be here very long. If the Russians can drop a shell on us here, I wish they would—just one, anyhow. Even one would save the faces of us a little.
... That poor Manchuria lamb of General Oku's died voluntarily this morning before the canteen-man could kill it—but the champagne, the beer, and the fly-paper are all the heart could desire. This day has been interesting. The Three Guardsmen rounded us up this afternoon and took us to see General Oku.
We burnished up riding-gear and riding-clothes and at three o'clock the compound was filled with squealing stallions and braying jackasses. It took three men to saddle Reggie's savage Mongolian. The Irishman, as usual, was not to be found—he and Scull had goneafoot, to the worry of the Three Guardsmen; but we rode out finally, single-file, a brave but strangely assorted company—Brill on his chestnut, Lewis on a milk-white charger, the Italian on an iron-gray, Davis on Devery, Laguerié on a little white donkey, Prior on his seventeen-hand, weak-backed white horse, and big Burleigh on a tiny savage pony that pasted Prior's horse, as we marched, with both heels.
"Why don't you go to the rear, Burleigh?" said Prior. "That beast of yours kicks."
"No, he doesn't," said Burleigh indignantly. "He only bites."
These two veterans and Davis wore ribbons on the left breast. Dean Prior, indeed, seemed to have his color-box there. I had a volunteer policeman's badge that came from the mountains of old Virginia. I was proud of it, and it meant campaigns, too, but I couldn't pull it amidst the glory of those three. Lieutenant Satake, the authority on international law, led. The bearded one guarded our centre and the third watched our rear. At the city gate a sergeant sprang to his feet:
"Hoo—!" he said, and I thought he was going to give us a whole cheer, but it was only a half. Still all the sentries sprang to attention and the soldiers at the gate stood rigid as their muskets. Over the stretch of white sand, across the yellow river, and up a sandy road we went, past staring sentries, and then into a little Chinese village, where we dismounted. No servants were allowed, so soldiers came forward to hold our horses. Fuji was curvetting no little.
"Warui desu!" I said, which still means, "He's bad," and the soldier smiled and led Fuji far to one side.
We followed Satake into a court-yard. He seemed rather nervous and presently motioned us to halt. Presently he came back, called the roll, and each man, after answering his name, stepped to one side and stood in line where there were two tables under grape arbors and covered with cigars and cigarettes. Satake looked relieved—not one of us had escaped; even the Irishman was there. Several officers stood expectantly about, and, after a longpause, a tired-looking, slender man appeared, accompanied by a rather stout, sleek-looking young one, and followed by an officer with a beard and a rather big nose that in color bespoke considerable cheer. When they got near, a sad-faced interpreter stepped forward and in a sad, uneasy voice said:
"I have the honor to present you to His Imperial Highness, Prince Nashimoto."
The sleek young man bowed and thrust out his hand. We all advanced, spoke each his own name, and shook. Prior said, "Melton Prior."
Burleigh, bending low, said, almost confidentially:
"Burleigh." Davis came last——
"Mr. Davis." Then the tired-looking man, General Oku, and his aide with the nose of good cheer, shook hands: only it was they who went around the circle this time. The Prince retired behind one of the tables and General Oku stepped forward with his back to the Prince, and through the sad interpreter said things:
We had come thousands of miles and had endured many hardships getting to the front, and he welcomed us. He was sorry that on the battle-field he could give us so few comforts, but he was glad to see us and would do all he could for us, etc., etc.
Such solemnity as there was! Aide stood behind General—staff behind the aide. Most of them kept their faces bent till chin touched breast, and never looked up at all. If a high priest had been making a prayer for the soul of a dead monarch while other priests listened, the scene could not have been more solemn. Straight through, it was stiff, formal, uneasy—due, of course, to the absence of a common tongue and the uneasiness on the part of the Japanese in receiving us after the Occidental way; and I wondered if the scene would not have been the same had Occidentals been receiving the Japanese after the way of Japan. But I think not—American humor and adaptability would have lightened the gloom a little. I watched Oku keenly. Though I had seen him coming for twenty yards, I recalled suddenlythat I saw nothing but his face until he got quite near. It was sad with something of Lincoln's sadness. In profile, it was kindly, especially when he smiled; full-faced there were proofs that he could be iron and relentless. But his eyes! Big, black, glittering, fanatical, ever-moving they were, and you caught them never but for a moment, but when you did, they made you think of lightning and thunder-storms. He was dressed simply in olive-green serge, with one star on his cap and three stars and three stripes on his sleeve. His boots were good. His sword hung in his left hand—unclinched. His other hand looked nerveless. Not once did he shift his weight from his right foot—only the sole of his left ever touching the stone flagging. He is the most remarkable looking man I've seen thus far among the Japanese, and I think we shall hear from him.
Then the aide with the cheerful nose spoke the same welcome and hoped we would obey the regulations. Dean Prior answered, thanking the General for the champagne, the beer,the fly-paper, and the lamb, whose untoward demise he gracefully skipped, and said he had always been trusted by generals in the field and hoped he would be trusted now. Then we smoked and the Irishman spoke halting French with the Prince, who (he looked it) had been educated in Paris. General Oku asked questions and we asked questions.
"How long have you been in Japan?"
"More than five months." He laughed and his teeth were not good.
"You must know Tokio well."
"I know every stone in Tokio," somebody said.
The General did not smile this time.
"Have you been to Nikko?" This was a malicious chance.
"We were afraid to leave Tokio for fear of not getting to the front."
"Shall we see much fighting?"
"I think so—from a high place. You cannot see in the valleys—the kow-liang is too high to see over even on horseback. Yes, you will see the fight."
Then we shook hands again, saluted the staff and departed.
The Japanese soldier had Fuji behind a tree—and he was smiling.
"Warui desu!" he said, and he looked at me with approval that I dared ride him; for Fuji was Japanese and bad, and Japanese are not good horsemen. At any rate, he followed me to the gate and held Fuji twice more before we finally got away. On the way back to captivity Laguerié turned a somersault over his white donkey's head. He rose, spluttering, between the donkey's forelegs. It looked for a moment as though the donkey were riding Laguerié.
At sunset, next day, the Irishman said:
"Come with me," and I followed unquestioning, because questioning was useless. Out the compound we went, through narrow streets and up a rocky little hill in the centre of the village, where we could look over the low tiled roofs—here and there a tree was growing up through them—over the mud-enclosures, thehigh-notched city walls, the stretch of white sand beyond, a broader stretch of green still farther on, slit with the one flashing cimeter-like sweep of the river—and then over the low misty hills to the tender after-glow, above which wisp-like, darkening clouds hung motionless.
"Greatest people in the world," said the Irishman with an all-encompassing sweep of his right arm. "All happy—all peaceful. The soldier lowest here in the social scale—in Japan, the highest. Home the unit. Tilled the same soil for countless generations—always plenty to eat. We forced opium on 'em with war in '52. To think they've got to be cursed with our blasted, blasting materialism."
I had been through all that with the Irishman many times before, so we went on. From a gateway a cur barked viciously at us. An old man came out to call him in and the Irishman took the Chinaman by the arm and pointed to a walled enclosure on the extreme summit.
"I want to get in there." How, on sight, he wins the confidence of these people—men,women, and children—how he makes himself understood, not knowing a word of Chinese, I don't know. Straightway the old fellow went with us, the Irishman clinging to his arm, pounded on the heavy door and left us.
"What is it?"
"A monastery," said the Irishman.
An ancient opened the portal, by and by, and we went in—through an alley-way to a court-yard, stone-flagged—and I almost gasped. Temples age-worn, old gardens tangled and unkempt and trees unpruned, dropped in terraces below us; and with them in terraces dropped, too, the notched gray walls that shut in the hushed silence of the spot from the noise of the outside world. Black-and-white magpies flew noiselessly about among the trees. Somewhere pigeons cooed and butterflies were fluttering everywhere. It was a deserted Confucian monastery—gone to wreck and ruin with only one priest to guard it, but untouched by the hand of Russian or Japanese. Both use temples only when they must, and it seems that Occidentals have much to learn from Tartarand heathen in reverence for the things that concern the universal soul. To escape that compound, we should have pitched our tents there, I suppose, had we been allowed. But it was a place of peaceful refuge open to us all. An Irishman had found it, and sharing the discovery we sat there and dreamed in silence until the after-glow was gone.
... It is pretty mournful this morning—rainy, muddy, dreary, dark. We have established a policing system—each man taking turn; but the mud in the court-yard deepens and the smells fade not at all. We have flies, mosquitoes, night-bugs that are homelike in species and scorpions that are not. Every man shakes his shoes in the morning for a hiding scorpion. A soldier brought in a dead one to-day, that yesterday had bitten him on the hand. He was bandaged to the shoulder, and but for quick treatment might have lost his arm. It can't be healthy in here, but only Dean Prior and two others have been ill. What a game Dean it is, by the way! He laughs at his sickness, laughs when that big white horse with theweak back goes down in a river or mud-hole with him, and never complains at all. I have never seen such forbearance and patience and good-humor among any set of men. If a man wakes up cross and in an ill-humor—that day is his. He may kick somebody's water-pail over the wall, storm at his servant, curse out the food, and be a general irritable nuisance; but the rest forbear, look down at their plates, and nobody says a word, for each knows that the next day may be his. This forbearance is one benefit anyhow that we are getting out of this campaign, which is a sad, sad waste thus far. But Reggie appears at the door. As he marches past us we rise and sing the Marseillaise; when he marches back, we sing it again, and that smile of his is reward enough. There is good news—weare to go out on a reconnaissance to-morrow, ourselves.
Holy Moses! but that reconnaissance was a terrifying experience. We went out past the station where the last fight was, along a dusty road and up a little hill, left our horses underits protecting bulk, sneaked over the top, and boldly stood upright on the slant of the other side. Below us was a big rude cross over a Russian grave. Things were pointed out to us.
"You see that big camel-backed mountain there," said one of the Three Guardsmen. We levelled glasses. "Well, that's where the main body of the Russians are."
"How far away is that camel-back?" somebody asked innocently. The Guardsman had turned and was beckoning violently to the Italian (who was on top of the little hill, some thirty feet above us) to come down. Then he said:
"About ten miles."
"So desuka!" (truly) said the same voice, lapsing with awe into Japanese.
"So desu!"—which is "truly" in response,—said the Guardsman with satisfaction, and we had a thrill. The Italian now had blithely drawn near. He seemed unafraid, but perhaps he had been unaware of his peril on the skyline only ten miles from a Russian gun.
Then we cautiously advanced along the roadfor another half a mile to an empty trench in a little camp near which there must have been all of twenty Japanese soldiers. One correspondent stepped across the trench and was gesticulated back with some warmth. Davis sat down on the trench and was politely asked to get up and move back—not that he would hurt the trench, but because he was sitting on the half of it that was next the ten-mile-away enemy—and apparently the Guardsman had orders that we must not cross a carefully marked line. Davis got up like a shot and hurriedly went away back to sit down.
The major of the post there gave us tea and beer at his quarters near by. He was a big fellow and was most kind and courteous. He had been a professor in a war-college and had asked the privilege of death at the front. He got it, poor fellow, and later I saw a picture of his body being burned after the fight at Liao-Yang.
We are getting pretty restless now. The Irishman and I were denied admittance at the monastery yesterday by the order of the ImperialHighness whom we met the other day. However, he relaxed it in our favor. Dean Prior started to go up on the city wall to-day to sketch, and was stopped by a sentry, who put a naked bayonet within two feet of his breast. He came back raging, and wrote a scathing letter which I don't think he will send.
This morningWongcame.
At ten o'clock the Irishman appeared at the entrance of the compound, leading by the hand a little Chinese boy some eight or ten years old. He was the dirtiest little wretch I ever saw, but he smiled—and never saw I such teeth or such a winsome smile. The Irishman said simply and gravely:
"This is Wong," and no more. He led the boy behind the paling that enclosed our bathing-quarters, plucking, as he walked, a sponge and a cake of soap, which happened to be mine. Then I heard:
"Take it off!" And again: "Take it off, I say!"
Apparently he was obeyed. Then:
"Take that off, too; yes, that, too!" Evidently the boy had but two garments on, for considerable splashing took the place of peremptory commands. By and by they came out together and, still hand in hand, passed out of the compound. In half an hour the Irishman came back.
"I've just taken Wong down to Poole's," he said, still gravely, "to get him a new suit of clothes."
"The trousers were too long, and Wong objected. Poole told him that trousers were worn long this season, and Wong compromised by rolling them up. He'll be here by and by."
By and by Wong came back resplendent in new blouse, new trousers, new shoes and socks. On his breast was sewed a big white piece of cotton in the shape of a shamrock, and on the shamrock was printed this: