Indiscreet Letters From Peking Part 8

Meanwhile the Americans on the Wall are behaving more erratically than ever. They have retired and reoccupied their position three or four times since the siege began, and the men are now more than mutinous.

Yesterday they came down twice--no one could quite make out why--and after a lapse of an hour or two in each case, they returned. Matters reached a crisis this morning, and a council of war was called by the British Minister, composed of all the officers commanding detachments. The meeting took place under the American barricade on the Tartar Wall itself, apparently to give confidence to the men and to make them ashamed of themselves. But the most curious part of it all was that our commander-in-chief excused himself on the diplomatic ground that he was sick, and amid the smiles of all, Captain T----, the Austrian, presided and laid down the law. This clearly shows how absurd is our whole system. Everyone says the Americans were quite ashamed of themselves when the meeting was over, for the general vote of all the detachment officers was that the position was well fortified, easy to retain, and absolutely essential to hold. They say the whole reason is that there is internal trouble in the American contingent, and that one of the officers is hated. Whether this is really so or not, I do not know; we never know anything certain now.

But although the American has but little discipline, as a sharpshooter on the defensive he is quite unrivalled by reason of his superior intelligence and the interest he takes in devoting himself to the matter in hand. You only have to see these mutinous marines at work for five minutes as snipers to be convinced of that. I saw a case in point only a few hours ago. Men were wanted to drive back, or at least intimidate, a whole nest of Chinese riflemen, who had cautiously established themselves in a big block of Chinese houses across the dry ca.n.a.l, which separates the British Legation from the Su w.a.n.g-fu. This block of houses is so placed that an enfilading fire can reach a number of points which are hidden from the j.a.panese lines; and this enfilading fire was badly needed, as the Chinese riflemen were becoming more and more daring, and had already made several hits.

Half a dozen of the best American shots were requisitioned.

The six men who came over went deliberately to work in a very characteristic way. They split into pairs, and each pair got, by some means binoculars. After a quarter of an hour they settled down to work, lying on their stomachs. First they stripped off their slouch hats and hung them up elsewhere, but instead of putting them a few feet to the right or left as everybody else, with a vague idea of Red Indian warfare, within our lines had been doing, they placed them in such a way as to attract the enemy's fire and make the enemy disclose himself, which is quite a different matter. This they did by adding their coats and decorating adjacent trees with them so far away from where they lay that there could be no chance of the enemy's bad shooting hitting them by mistake--as had been the case elsewhere where this device had been tried.

All this by-play took some time, but at last they were ready--one man armed with a pair of binoculars and the other with the American naval rifle--the Lee straight-pull, which fires the thinnest pin of a cartridge I have seen and has but a two-pound trigger pull. Even then nothing was done for perhaps another ten minutes, and in some cases for half an hour; it varied according to individual requirements. Then when the quarry was located by the man with the binoculars, and the man with the rifle had finished asking a lot of playful questions so as to gain time, the first shots were fired. The marines armed with binoculars were not unduly elated by any one shot, but merely reported progress in a characteristic American fas.h.i.+on--that is, by a system of chaffing. This provided tonic, and presently the bullets crept in so close to the marks that all chaff was forgotten. Sometimes it took an hour, or even two, to bring down a single man; but no matter how long the time necessary might be, the Americans stayed patiently with their man until the sniper's life's blood was drilled out of him by these thin pencils of Lee straight-pull bullets. Once, and once only, did excitement overtake a linked pair I was watching. They had already knocked over two of the enemy aloft in trees, and were attacking a third, who only showed his head occasionally above a roof-line when he fired, and who bobbed up and down with lightning speed. The sole thing to do under the circ.u.mstances was to calculate when the head would reappear. So the man with the binoculars calculated aloud for the benefit of the man with the rifle, and soon, in safety below the wall-line, a curious group had collected to see the end. But it was a hard shot and a disappointing one, since it was essential not to scare the quarry thoroughly by smas.h.i.+ng the roof-line instead of the head.

So the bullets flew high, and although the sharpshooter was comforted by the remarks of the other man, no progress was made. Then suddenly the rifleman fired, on an inspiration, he said afterwards, and lo! and behold, the head and shoulders of a Chinese brave rose clear in the air and then tumbled backwards. "Killed, by G----; killed, by G----!"

swore the man with the binoculars irreverently; and well content with their morning's work, the two climbed down and went away.

You will realise from all these things that everything is still very erratic, and that the men remain badly distributed. Nor is this all.

The general command over the whole of the Legation area is now plainly modelled on the Chinese plan--that is, the officer commanding does not interfere with the others, excepting when he can do so with impunity to himself. As I have shown, orders which are distasteful are simply ignored. There is a spirit of rebellion which can only spring from one cause. People who have read a lot say that every siege in history has been like this--with everything incomplete and in disorder. If this is so, I wonder how history has been made! Certainly in this age there is very little of real valour and bravery. Perhaps there has been a little in the past, and it is only the glozing-over of time which makes it seem otherwise.

V

THE MYSTERIOUS BOARD OF TRUCE

25th June, 1900 (night-time).

It is always true that the unexpected affords relief when least awaited. In our case it has been amply proved.

The sun, which had been s.h.i.+ning fiercely all day long until we felt fairly baked and very disconsolate, was heaving down slowly towards the west, flooding the pink walls of the Imperial city with a golden light and sinking the black outline of the sombre Tartar Wall that towers so high above us, when all round our battered lines the dropping rifle-fire drooped more and more until single shots alone punctuated the silence. Our outposts, grouping together, leaned on their rifles and gave vent to sighs of relief. Perhaps something had at last really happened, for though five days only have pa.s.sed since the beginning of the real siege, they seemed to everyone more like five weeks, or even five months, so clearly do startling events separate one by huge gaps from the dull routine of every-day life. All of us listened attentively, and presently on all sides the fierce music of the long Chinese trumpets blared out uproariously--blare, blare, sobbing on a high note tremulously, and then, boom, boom, suddenly dropping to a thrilling ba.s.so profondissimo. Even the children know that sound now. Louder and louder the trumpet-calls rang out to one another in answering voice, imperatively calling off the attacking forces. Impelled to retire by this constant clamour, all the Chinese soldiery must have retreated, except a few straggling snipers, who remained for a few minutes longer, dully and methodically loosing off their rifles at our barricades. Ten or fifteen minutes pa.s.sed, and then, as if the growing solitude were oppressing them, these last snipers desisted, and, coolly rising and disclosing their brightly coloured tunics and sombre turbans, they sauntered off in full view. I saw half a dozen go off in this way. Clearly something remarkable was happening and our astonishment deepened.

Presently the word ran round our half-mile of barricades that a board, with big Chinese characters written across it, had been placed by a Chinese soldier bearing the conventional white flag of truce on the parapet of the north bridge, where J----, the first man killed, had fallen, and that the curious board was exciting everyone's astonishment. Getting leave to absent myself, I ran into the British Legation, and from a scaffolding not a hundred yards from the bridge I saw the mysterious placard with my own eyes. Already binoculars and telescopes had been busily adjusted, and all the sinologues mustered in the British Legation had roughly written copies of the message in their hands and were disputing as to the exact meaning. It was only then that I realised what a strange medley of nationalities had been collected together in this siege. Frenchmen, Russians, Germans, j.a.panese, English, Americans, and many others were all arguing together, until finally H----, the great administrator, was called upon to decide. The legend ran:

"In accordance with the Imperial commands to protect the Ministers, firing will cease immediately and a despatch will be delivered at the Imperial ca.n.a.l-bridge."

A vast commotion was created, as you may judge, when this news circulated among the refugee Ministers and all the heterogeneous crowd who have been behaving so strangely since the serious business began.

Not one of us had relished the idea of being ma.s.sacred after the manner of the Indian Mutiny, but there are different ways of behaving under such perils; some of those we had witnessed would not bear relating.

In a very short time, indeed, a suitable reply had been written briefly in Chinese on another board, but the finding of a messenger was more difficult. We must send a proper man. A chinaman was at length discovered, who, after having been invested with the customary official hat and the long official coat, was persuaded to advance towards the bridge bearing our message and piteously waving a white flag to show that he likewise was a harbinger of peace. The man progressed but slowly towards the Imperial bridge, and twice he gave unmistakable signs of wis.h.i.+ng to bolt; but urged on by cries and a frantic waving, he at last reached the parapet on which leaned our enemy's placard. Then depositing our own reply, his courage left him completely, and he incontinently bolted for our lines as hard as he could run, casting his dignity to the winds. In his haste he had set his board all askew, and the enemy could not possibly have understood it. But no arguments could induce our messenger to return. He swore, indeed, that he had just escaped in time, as the enemy's rifles were all pointed towards him from a number of positions just beneath the Imperial city wall, which we could not see from our lines. So nothing more was done by our headquarters, and an hour pa.s.sed away with all the world waiting, but with no Imperial despatch brought to us.

The sun was now down only six inches above the pink walls--in another hour it would be dark and our position would be exactly the same as before. On all sides our fighting line had clambered over their barricades and were examining the enemy's silent ones with curiosity.

Beyond the fortified Hanlin courtyards, to the north of the British Legation courtyards, which had been occupied and heavily sandbagged after the big fires there, so as to keep the enemy at a safe distance--the ma.s.s of ruins were indeed as silent and as deserted as a graveyard. Cautiously escalading walls and pus.h.i.+ng down narrow alleyways, some of us advanced several hundred yards to see what was happening beyond; and presently, standing on the top of an unbroken wall line, there were the Palace gates and the mysterious pink walls almost within a stone's throw of us. The sun had moved still farther west, and its slanting rays now struck the Imperial city, under whose orders we had been so l.u.s.tily bombarded, with a wonderful light. Just outside the Palace gates were crowds of Manchu and Chinese soldiery--infantry, cavalry, and gunners grouped all together in one vast ma.s.s of colour. Never in my life have I seen such a wonderful panorama--such a brilliant blaze in such rude and barbaric surroundings. There were jackets and tunics of every colour; trouserings of blood red embroidered with black dragons; great two-handed swords in some hands; men armed with bows and arrows mixing with Tung Fu-hsian's Kansu hors.e.m.e.n, who had the most modern carbines slung across their backs. There were blue banners, yellow banners embroidered with black, white and red flags, both triangular and square, all presented in a jumble to our wondering eyes. The Kansu soldiery of Tung Fu-hsiang's command were easy to pick out from among the milder looking Peking Banner troops. Tanned almost to a colour of chocolate by years of campaigning in the sun, of st.u.r.dy and muscular physique, these men who desired to be our butchers showed by their aspect what little pity we should meet with if they were allowed to break in on us. Men from all the Peking Banners seemed to be there with their plain and bordered jackets showing their divisions; but of Boxers there was not a sign. Where had the famed Boxers vanished to?

Thus we stood for some time, the enemy gazing as eagerly at us as we at them. Strict orders must have come from the Palace, for not a hostile sign was made. It was almost worth five days of siege just to see that unique sight, which took one back to times when savage hordes were overrunning the world. Peking is still so barbaric!

We sent back word that it might be possible to parley with the enemy, and to learn, perhaps, the reason for this sudden truce; and soon several members of the so-called general committee, whose organisation and duties I confess I do not clearly understand, came out from our lines and stood waving their handkerchiefs. But it was some time before the gaudy-coated enemy would pay any attention to these advances, and finally one of our committeemen, to show that he was a man of peace and really wished to speak with them, went slowly forward with his hands held high above his head. Then a thin, sallow Chinese, throwing a sword to the ground, advanced from the Palace walls, and finally these two were standing thirty or forty yards apart and within hail of one another. Then a parley began which led to nothing, but gave us some news. The board ordering firing to cease had been carried out under instructions from Jung Lu--Jung Lu being the Generalissimo of the Peking field forces. A despatch would certainly follow, because even now a Palace meeting was being held. The Empress Dowager, the man continued, was much distressed, and had given orders to stop the fighting; the Boxers were fools....

Then the soldier waved a farewell, and retreated cautiously, picking his way back through the ruins and ma.s.ses of _debris_. Several times he stopped and raised the head of some dead man that lay there, victim to our rifles, and peered at the face to see whether it was recognisable. In five days we have accounted for very many killed and wounded, and numbers still lie in the exposed positions where they fell.

The disappearing figure of that man was the end to the last clue we came across regarding the meaning of this sudden quiet. The shadows gradually lengthened and night suddenly fell, and around us were nothing but these strangely silent ruins. There was barricade for barricade, loophole for loophole, and sandbag for sandbag. What has been levelled to the ground by fire has been heaped up once more so that the ruins themselves may bring more ruin!

But although we exhausted ourselves with questions, and many of us hoped against hope, the hours sped slowly by and no message came. The Palace, enclosed in its pink walls, had slunk to sleep, or forgotten us--or, perhaps, had even found that there could be no truce. Then midnight came, and as we were preparing, half incredulously, to go to sleep, we truly knew. Crack, crack, went the first shots from some distant barricade, and bang went an answering rifle on our side.

Awakened by these echoes, the firing grew naturally and mechanically to the storm of sound we have become so accustomed to, and the short truce was forgotten. It is no use; we must go through to the end....

VI

Sh.e.l.lS AND SORTIES

3rd July, 1900.

For a week I have written nothing, absolutely nothing, and have not even taken a note, nor cared what happened to me or to anybody else.

How could I when I have been so crushed by unending sentry-go, by such an unending roar of rifles and crash of sh.e.l.ls, that I merely mechanically wake at the appointed hour, mechanically perform my duty and as mechanically fall asleep again. My _ego_ has been crushed out of me, and I have become, doubtless, quite rightly so, an insignificant atom in a curious thing called a siege. No mortal under such circ.u.mstances, no matter how faithful to an appointed task, can put pencil to paper, and attempt to sketch the confusion and smoke around him. You may try, perhaps, as I have tried, and then, suddenly, before you can realise it, you fall half asleep and pencil and paper are thrice d.a.m.ned.

For we have been worked so hard, those of us who do not care and are young, and the enemy is pus.h.i.+ng in so close and so persistently, that we have not much farther to run if the signs that I see about me go for anything. Artillery, to the number of some eight or ten pieces, is now grinding our barricades to pieces and making our outworks more and more untenable. Rifle bullets float overhead in such swarms that by a comparison of notes I now estimate that there must be from five to six thousand infantry and dismounted cavalry ranged against us. Mines are being already run under so many parts of our advanced lines, and their dangers are so near that on the outworks we fall asleep ready to be blown up....

... Nor are the dangers merely prospective.' They are actual and grimly disgusting. During the past week the casualty list has gone on rapidly increasing, and to-day our total is close on one hundred killed and wounded in less than two weeks' intermittent fighting out of a force of four hundred and fifty rifles. The sh.e.l.ls occasionally fly low and take you on the head; the bullets flick through loopholes or as often take you in the back from some enfilading barricades, and thus through two agencies you can be hastened towards the Unknown. As far as I am personally concerned, it is largely a matter of food whether this affects one acutely or not. If you have a full stomach you do not mind so much, and even shrug your shoulders should the man next to you be hit; but at four or five in the morning, when everything is pale and damp, and you are stomach-sick, it is nerve-shaking to see a man brutally struck and gasping under the blow.

I have seen this happen three times; once it was truly horrible, for I was so splashed with blood....

It is also largely a matter of days. On some days, you think, in a curious sort of a way, that your turn has come, and that it will be all over in a few minutes. You try to convince yourself by silent arguing that such thoughts are the merest foolishness, that you are at heart a real coward; but in spite of every device the feeling remains, and in place of your former unconcern a nervousness takes possession of you. This nervousness is not exactly the nervousness of yourself, for your outer self surveys your inner depths with some contempt, but the slight fear remains. You do not know what it is--it is inexplicable. Yet it is there.

Yesterday I had the experience in full force, just as a line of us in extended order were galloping up to a threatened position. My boots untied and twice nearly tripped me. I had to stop, perhaps two seconds, perhaps five, dropping on my knee with my head low beside it.

For some reason I did not finish tying the laces. I sprang up, threw my right leg forward preparatory to doubling, and then _ping_--I was spinning on the ground, laughing at my own clumsiness in falling down.

Then I glanced to see why my right knee-cap stung me so much. I stopped laughing. A bullet had split across the skin--_rafle_, the French call it--and a shred of my trousers, mixed with some shreds of skin, was hanging down covered with blood. Half a second before my head had been exactly where my knee was, and had I not moved, spurred by some curious intuition, I would have been dead on the ground.

Perhaps one's inner consciousness knows more than one thinks....

But such personal experiences are trivial compared with what is going on around us generally. I should not speak of them. For if the Chinese commands are closing in on us on every side, our fighting line is biting back as savagely as it can, and is giving them better than they give us when we get to grips. But in spite of this our position is less enviable than ever, and it requires no genius to see that if the Chinese commanders persist in their present policy the Legations must fall unless relief comes in another two weeks.

Look at the Su w.a.n.g-fu and the plucky little j.a.panese colonel! You will, perhaps, remember that I said that the great flanking wall of the Su w.a.n.g-fu was far too big a task for the j.a.panese command, and that sooner or later they would have to give way. It has been proved days ago that what I said was correct, for slowly but surely the fire of two Chinese guns has demolished successively the outer wall, the enclosed courtyards behind it, and then a line of houses linked together by field-works hastily constructed from the rubble lying around. It was my duty to be one of a post six men hastily sent here and entrenched on the fringe of our defence in one of these Chinese houses. It was a curious experience. It lasted for hours.

Inside the partly demolished wall of one house we were forced to squat on a staging, peeping at the enemy, who was not more than twenty yards off, lying _perdu_ just behind a confused ma.s.s of low-lying barricades. These riflemen, flung far forward of the main Chinese positions in this quarter, lay very silent, hardly moving hour after hour. A couple of hundred yards or so behind them, the main body of the enemy, secure behind ma.s.sive earthen and brick works, poured in an unending fire on our devoted heads with a vigour which never seemed to flag. Our loopholes, which we had carefully blocked up with loose bricks so that the merest cracks remained, spat dust at us as the enemy's bullets persistently pecked at the outside, but could gain no entrance. Sometimes a single missile would slue its way in through everything and end with a sob against the inside wall. Once one came crash through and struck the j.a.panese who was next to me full in the face. It knocked out two teeth, cut his mouth and his cheek so that they bled red blood hour after hour, making him hideous to look on; but the j.a.panese, calmly untying the clout which encased his head, bound it instead across the wound, merely cursing the enemy and not stirring an inch. The rest of us had not time to note much even of that which was taking place right alongside of us; for we had orders to be ready at any moment for a forward rush. If it had come we should have been caught in a trap and lost. That I knew and understood.

We had stood this storm for a couple of hours, and were beginning to revenge ourselves on the advanced line of skirmishers by winging them whenever an incautious movement disclosed an arm or a leg, although we had the strictest orders not to fire except to check a rush, when a new danger presented itself, and was added to our already uncomfortable position. An antiquated gun that had been sending screeching sh.e.l.ls over our heads, had evidently been given orders to drive us from where we lay, for the sh.e.l.ls which had been flying high moved lower and lower, and buzzed more and more fiercely, until at last one struck the roof. The aim, however, was still too high, for the _debris_ of tiles, timber and mortar clattered down the other side of the house and did us no harm.

It may have been five or ten minutes when a tremendous blow shook our staging, and a vast shower of falling tiles and bricks drowned all other sound. A sh.e.l.l, aimed well and low, had taken the roof full and fair, and brought a big piece in on top of us. For some time we could see nothing, nor realise the extent of the damage done, for clouds of choking dust filled our improvised fort, and made us oblivious to everything except a supreme desire for fresh air. Pus.h.i.+ng our loopholes open, regardless of the enemy's fire, we gasped for breath; never have I been so choked and so distressed, and presently, the air clearing a little, a huge rent in the roof was disclosed. On the ground behind lay piles upon piles of rubbish and broken tiles, and perilously near our heads a huge rafter sagged downwards, half split in two. We were debating how long we could stand under such circ.u.mstances, when a second shock shook the building, and once more we were deluged with dust and dirt. This time the hanging rafter was dislodged and fell sullenly with a heavy crash to the ground; and now, in addition to the gap in the roof, a long rent appeared in the rear wall. Our top line of loopholes was obviously, worse than useless, and as it seemed more than likely that with the accurate range they had got the Chinese gunners would soon be pitching their sh.e.l.ls right into our faces, we decided to climb down off the staging and man a lower line of loopholes pierced two feet above the ground line. Here we could see very little in front on account of the ruins. We were not a minute too soon, for the very next missile struck our front wall fairly and squarely, and showered bricks and ragged bits of segment on to the platform above us. Luckily the planks and timber with which this edifice was stoutly constructed saved our heads, and the loosened bricks, piling up on the improvised flooring above us, made our position below even more secure. Seizing the breathing time the clumsy reloading of the gun attacking us gave, we pulled spare rafters and bricks around us in the shape of a blockhouse, and thus apparently buried in the ruins of the house, we-were soon in reality quite comfortably and securely ensconced. Slowly and methodically the artillerymen demolished the upper part of our fort, and brought tons and tons of bricks and slates rattling about our ears; but with the exception of many bruises impartially distributed among all of us, no one was further hurt. After two hours' bombardment and throwing forty or fifty sh.e.l.ls right on top of us, the enemy apparently tired of the amus.e.m.e.nt, and we, on our part, seeing no good in remaining where we were, sallied out of the side of the building and suddenly faced the skirmishers, who were still lying on the sunburned bricks. The Chinese soldiery, alarmed at this sudden appearance when they must have thought us dead, took precipitously to flight, and in their haste to escape so exposed themselves that we had no difficulty in rolling over a couple. As soon as they had retreated we reoccupied a little position slightly in advance of the house, and lay there contentedly munching biscuit and having a pull at the water bottles. It is extraordinary how callous you become.

It was not until four or five o'clock in the afternoon that we were relieved, and then in a fas.h.i.+on that highly flattered our vanity. The little j.a.panese colonel appeared in person with a small force of riflemen and some stretcher bearers, and he fell back in astonishment when he saw our occupation. We had pushed forward a lookout a few yards in advance, and the rest of us were playing noughts and crosses on some broken tiles. In front of us the barricades were silent, and the j.a.panese sailor so curiously wounded in the earlier part of the day was fiercely wrangling with an English volunteer, who had taught him the game and had just insulted him by saying he was cheating. The colonel declared he had thought us all dead, but that although he had sent twice to find out how we were faring, the tremendous storm of sh.e.l.ls and bullets raging round our entire lines had made it impossible to reinforce us. The French, he said, had been so heavily beaten that he had had to prepare for a general retreat into the British Legation; the Germans had been swept off the Tartar Wall; the Americans had been shaken and almost driven back; and had not the Chinese themselves tired of the game, another hour would have seen a general retreat sounded. We were much commended for not having fallen back, but we pointed out that it had been really nothing, since we had only had one man slightly wounded. Still, it was an experience hard to beat to be left in a house practically levelled to the ground by sh.e.l.l-fire, and as I got eighteen hours off duty granted me, during which time I slept solidly without waking once, the whole affair remains most firmly impressed on the tablets of my memory. It is only when you have been through it that you understand what you can endure.

All this was some days ago, and was really nothing to what we had the day before yesterday, which happened to be the 1st of July.

The Chinese artillery practice, although poor, the guns and sh.e.l.ls being hopelessly ancient, had become so annoying and so distressing that it was determined to adopt a policy of reprisals, taking the form of sorties, and by bayonetting the gunners and damaging the guns if we could not drag them off, to induce the enemy to make his offensive less galling. The ball was opened by an attack which was miserably conducted on the selfsame gun that had so harshly treated that little post I have described a few days before. On the 1st of the month, Lieutenant P----, the commander of the Italian hillock, laid a plan of sortie before headquarters to which consent was given. Supported by British marines and volunteers, the Italians were to make a sortie in force from their position and seize the gun. The j.a.panese were to co-operate from their barricades and trenches by opening a heavy fire, and moving slowly forward in extended order as soon as the Italian charge had commenced. All the morning the Italians were noisily preparing, and as soon as their attack was delivered, it justified all we had already thought about them. They issued from their lines with a wild rush, but no sooner did the Chinese fire strike them than they broke and fled, losing several killed and wounded, and fighting like madmen to escape through a pa.s.sageway which led back. P---- was very severely wounded in the arm, and had to give up his command, and the bodies of the Italians killed were never recovered. A section of the British Legation students, who had gone forward with the Italians, had a man badly wounded, and the sight of this young fellow staggering back with his clothes literally dripping with blood gave the British Legation inmates a start it took some time to recover from. Later, it turned out that P----'s sortie plan was based on a faulty map; that the whole command found itself being fired on from a dozen quarters before fifty yards had been covered; and that there were nothing but impossible walls and barricades. But still this does not excuse the fact that while the Italians were behaving like madmen the young students stood stock-still and awaited orders to retire. In truth, we are being educated by events.

The loss of the Italian commander has made the Italian posts more useless than ever. These men are now nervous, and have hardly a round of ammunition left, although they were given some of the captured Chinese Mausers and a fresh stock of cartridges three days ago. Every shadow is fired at by them at night, and the vague uneasiness which overcomes everyone when dozens of the enemy are moving in the inkly black only a few feet off seems more than they can stand.

Meanwhile the French Legation, thanks to this gun-fire, is now but a ruined ma.s.s of buildings, a portion of which has fallen into Chinese hands. Alarmed at the progress which has been made everywhere, M----, the British Minister, who is still the nominal commander-in-chief, has for days been pestering the French commandant to send him men to reinforce other points. The same stubborn answer has been sent back, that not a sailor can be spared, and that none will be sent. This curious contest between the commander of the French lines and the British Minister has ended in a species of deadlock, which bodes ill for us all. The Frenchman believes that the remains of the French lines form a vital part in the defence; the British Minister, invested with military rank by his colleagues, instead of examining the entire area of the defence carefully with his own eyes and seeing exactly whether this is so or not, never ventures beyond the limits of the British Legation. At least, no one has ever seen him. Even the so-called chief of the staff, who is the commander of the British marines, does not regularly visit the French lines. Practically, it may be said that while there is death and murder outside there is only armed neutrality within. It is an extraordinary position.