Under the Dragon Flag My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War

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 shag­gy 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 ashore was the land be­low the West Port, and I was be­ing con­veyed to the Man-​tse-​ying fort, one of the prin­ci­pal 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 cir­cum­stances 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 Japanese 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 cir­cum­stances 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 cir­cum­stances 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, passed 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 iden­ti­ty as the per­son who had passed 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 Japanese 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 war­ship _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 las­si­tude and de­pres­sion, and con­fined me in­doors for some ten or twelve days. I had the place al­most to my­self, as the ap­proach of the Japanese 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 Japanese, 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 Japanese.

It was on Novem­ber 18 that I made the fruit­less at­tempt to ne­go­ti­ate for a pas­sage. 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. Pass­ing 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 shiv­er, 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 mas­sacre by the Japanese 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 ha­rassed 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 mas­sacre seems to have been al­lowed to con­tin­ue unchecked un­til no more vic­tims could be found.

This, how­ev­er, is to an­tic­ipate. 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 prin­ci­pal 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 Japanese corpses had been brought in by the venge­ful sol­diery, and left for the rab­ble to amuse them­selves with. I do not think that any Japanese 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 space 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 glass, 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 Japanese, 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 shells, and the blaze and det­ona­tion with which they burst, were in­ces­sant. Away on the right the sea was cov­ered with war­ships, which seemed to have noth­ing to do, and cer­tain­ly were not as­sail­ing the coast de­fences. Some of the sea­ward forts were able to get their guns to bear on the po­si­tions of the Japanese 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 Japanese had di­vid­ed in­to two bod­ies for the main as­saults 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 shores of the sea, their largest fort, the Sho­ju, or Pine Tree Hill, blew up; a shell must have alight­ed in the mag­azine. At noon the whole Japanese line ad­vanced to the charge, and here, too, the Ce­les­tials nev­er wait­ed for the as­sault, 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 mass­es 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 mass­es 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 Su­ishiyeh 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 Japanese 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 ap­ti­tude 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?