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

CHAPTER VI

I di­rect­ed my re­treat to­wards the dock­yards, with a view to get­ting round to the south part of the town, as far as pos­si­ble from the quar­ter by which the Japanese were en­ter­ing it. The idea of a gen­er­al mas­sacre nev­er en­tered my mind, and I on­ly thought of get­ting back to my inn, there to stay un­til things qui­et­ed down. My pre­vail­ing feel­ing was one of sat­is­fac­tion that I should not af­ter all have to face a long res­idence in a be­lea­guered town. I there­fore paid lit­tle at­ten­tion at first to the fact that peo­ple were fly­ing on ev­ery hand, and I did not sup­pose that there could be any good rea­son for flight, be­yond the de­sir­abil­ity of get­ting out of the way of the con­quer­ing troops un­til the ar­dour of vic­to­ry had cooled down. I was not long to be left un­de­ceived. A dead­ly work of vengeance and slaugh­ter had com­menced Down the pan­ic-​crowd­ed streets, loud­er and loud­er as I ad­vanced, came ring­ing the vol­leys of the ri­fle-​fire, the shouts of the in­fu­ri­at­ed sol­diers, and the death-​shrieks of their vic­tims. I knew that all armed re­sis­tance had been bro­ken, and as these sounds of ter­ror in­creased, an idea of what might be im­mi­nent crossed my mind. I rec­ol­lect­ed what so of­ten fol­lows the fall of a place car­ried by storm; I re­mem­bered the atroc­ities com­mit­ted on the Japanese pris­on­ers; and I re­mem­bered, too, the gen­er­al char­ac­ter of all Ori­en­tal sol­diers. I paused to con­sid­er my sit­ua­tion. I had passed round by the wa­ter-​side un­til out­side the dock basin, and then turned in­to the streets, strik­ing across in the di­rec­tion of the inn, with the route from which to the East Port I was well enough ac­quaint­ed. There was a rush and hur­ry of fugi­tives all around me, and now for the first time I saw the Japanese sol­diers in pur­suit, press­ing on the flee­ing throng, and us­ing ri­fle and bay­onet fu­ri­ous­ly on all and sundry, stab­bing and hack­ing fiendish­ly at those who fell. I was knocked down in the rush and tram­pled up­on, and it was some time be­fore I could rise. A Japanese sol­dier was near me as I stag­gered to my feet, and took aim at me with his ri­fle. The bar­rel was with­in a foot of me, and I struck it aside just in time to es­cape get­ting a bul­let through my body. I had no weapon but those of na­ture, but in their use I was, like most of the An­glo-​Sax­on breed, some­thing of an artist, and be­fore the Jap could re­cov­er his piece I gave him a good, straight, British right-​han­der be­tween the eyes, which sent him down like a nine-​pin. In all hu­man prob­abil­ity it was the first sam­ple of the ar­ti­cle that had ev­er come un­der his no­tice; he was clear­ly un­used to the method of at­tack, and lay quite flat as if to think it over, whilst I re­treat­ed as fast as my legs could car­ry me. I re­solved to hold on for the inn, think­ing that if I suc­ceed­ed in reach­ing it, I should be com­par­ative­ly safe, as per­haps the out­break of fury might con­fine it­self to the streets. I knew, too, that I had not much far­ther to go. I made lit­tle progress, nev­er­the­less, be­ing fre­quent­ly turned out of the road by the ne­ces­si­ty of avoid­ing the sol­diers, who were spread­ing fast across the town, shoot­ing down all whom they en­coun­tered. One be­gan to stum­ble over corpses in near­ly ev­ery street, and the risk of en­coun­ter­ing par­ties of the mur­der­ers in­creased, ev­ery minute. Again and again I came in­to the midst of the work of butch­ery, and ev­ery now and then ran the gaunt­let of a flight of bul­lets fired down the nar­row av­enues. At length I lost my way com­plete­ly, and wan­dered about through the pan­de­mo­ni­um around, think­ing that each minute would be my last. At length, in emerg­ing from a dark lane lead­ing up an as­cent, I came up­on a sheet of wa­ter. I im­me­di­ate­ly rec­og­nized it as a large shal­low fresh-​wa­ter lake in the rear of the dock basin, and it thus ap­peared that I had strayed back near­ly to the point where I had re-​en­tered the town on de­scend­ing from White Boul­ders.

A fright­ful scene was be­fore me. I have said that the land by which I had come out on the lake in­clined steeply up­wards, and the wa­ter was about fif­teen feet be­low me when I ar­rived in sight of it. It was sur­round­ed by crowds of Japanese sol­diers, who had driv­en large num­bers of the fugi­tives in­to the wa­ter, and were fir­ing on them from ev­ery side, and driv­ing back with the bay­onet those who at­tempt­ed to strug­gle out. The dead float­ed on the wa­ter, which was red­dened with blood. The sol­diers, yelling and laugh­ing with venge­ful glee, seemed to gloat over the ag­onies of their vic­tims. It was fear­ful to see those gory forms strug­gling in the ag­itat­ed wa­ter, those who still lived en­deav­our­ing to ex­tri­cate them­selves from the mass of corpses, falling fast, but of­ten ris­ing again with their last en­er­gies, stream­ing with wa­ter and blood, and ut­ter­ing piteous cries and ap­peals for mer­cy, which were mocked by the fiends around them. Many wom­en were amongst them; one I no­ticed car­ry­ing a lit­tle child, which, strug­gling for­ward, she held up to the sol­diers as if in ap­peal. As she reached the bank, one of the wretch­es struck her through with his bay­onet, and with a sec­ond stroke as she fell trans­fixed the child, which might have been two years old, and held its lit­tle body aloft. The wom­an rose and made a wild ef­fort to re­gain the child, but ev­ident­ly ex­haust­ed and dy­ing, fell back again in­to the wa­ter. Her body--and in fact it was done with ev­ery­body that came with­in reach--was hacked in pieces. Fresh batch­es of vic­tims were be­ing driv­en in, un­til there threat­ened soon to be no room in the wa­ter for any more. I could bear the spec­ta­cle no longer, but turned and fled from the ghast­ly spot.

I now knew my where­abouts, and once more set out for the inn, along the line from which I had strayed. Heaps of dead and spec­ta­cles of mur­der were con­tin­ual­ly pre­sent­ing them­selves. In one place I saw some ten or twelve sol­diers with a num­ber of un­for­tu­nates whom they had tied back to back in a batch. With vol­ley af­ter vol­ley they despatched them, and pro­ceed­ed to mu­ti­late their bod­ies in the usu­al hor­ri­ble fash­ion. No­body was spared, man, wom­an, or child, that I could see. The Chi­nese ap­peared to of­fer no re­sis­tance. Many of them pros­trat­ed them­selves on the ground be­fore the butch­ers with ab­ject sub­mis­sion, and were shot or stabbed in that pos­ture.

I was now to have a close shave. I came sud­den­ly and un­awares up­on a par­ty en­gaged in slaugh­ter­ing some shriek­ing wretch­es--wom­en and chil­dren amongst them--and be­ing per­ceived was shot at by one of the sol­diers. I rapid­ly re­treat­ed, but he de­tached him­self in pur­suit. I en­tered a house; he fol­lowed, but I had the start of him, and for a while evad­ed him. I got in­to what looked like a kitchen or scullery, and amongst some oth­er uten­sils I came up­on a cu­ri­ous­ly shaped hatch­et, very heavy and sharp. I wait­ed for about a quar­ter of an hour, and then, judg­ing that the Jap must have left when un­able to find me, I pre­pared to sal­ly forth again, as it was rather more dan­ger­ous to be in the hous­es than in the streets, the sol­diers en­ter­ing and pil­lag­ing them one by one, and of course slaugh­ter­ing any­body they found with­in. No soon­er, how­ev­er, had I got to the front, than I un­ex­pect­ed­ly en­coun­tered the very man who had driv­en me in, re­tir­ing laden with booty. He dropped his plun­der at once up­on see­ing me, and han­dled his bay­onet to run me through. We were in a lit­tle low room, with a door in a cor­ner open­ing on the street. He made a fu­ri­ous thrust at me; by a quick move­ment I evad­ed it. The steel grazed my left side, and crashed through the wall be­hind me, to which I was pinned by the clothes, and as he tried to with­draw his weapon, I had a fair stroke at him in re­turn. The axe was very sharp; rage and de­spair seemed to have dou­bled my strength, and I split his skull half-​way down to the jaw. Brains and blood were scat­tered over me, as he sank dead at my feet.

I felt no in­cli­na­tion to stay any longer, and was about to take my de­par­ture, when it struck me that I might as well arm my­self with my de­funct an­tag­onist's ri­fle and car­tridge-​pouch. This led im­me­di­ate­ly to a bet­ter idea. The Jap was a man of near­ly my own stature; why not put on his clothes? It was fast dark­en­ing, and aid­ed in the de­cep­tion by the ob­scu­ri­ty, my chance of es­cape would be great­ly in­creased, though I be­gan to have an un­easy feel­ing that it would be a mir­acle if I es­caped de­struc­tion any­how. I im­me­di­ate­ly act­ed on the in­spi­ra­tion. The sol­dier, I have said, was near­ly of my own height (5 ft. 6 in.), but I was a good deal broad­er across the shoul­ders, and I made an ex­ten­sive split up the back of his tu­nic in strug­gling in­to it. That, how­ev­er, was no great mat­ter, and I was soon equipped in all his out­er case­ment, ex­cept his cap, which had been bi­sect­ed along with his head. There was a lit­tle keen dag­ger in his belt, and with it I cut off my mous­tache as close as I could, as the Japanese sel­dom have much hair on their faces. Then, not for­get­ting his ri­fle, a beau­ti­ful Lee-​Met­ford, I sal­lied forth, car­ry­ing my dis­card­ed clothes over my arm, a cir­cum­stance not at all like­ly to at­tract at­ten­tion, as they were all load­ing them­selves with booty.

I was un­de­cid­ed enough how to pro­ceed. I might pass out in­to the open coun­try north of the town, but if I did so I should prob­ably ei­ther die of star­va­tion or get killed as a Japanese strag­gler. I be­gan to think my best course would be to re­turn to the port, and take my chance of get­ting away in some small ves­sel. First of all, how­ev­er, I re­solved to com­plete my in­ten­tion of see­ing what was go­ing on at the inn, to which I was now quite close. I kept bold­ly on, and my dis­guise an­swered ad­mirably, not one of the sol­diers seem­ing to sus­pect that I was any­thing but a com­rade. Now and then I would be greet­ed by wild cries in their high, shrill voic­es, or one, wav­ing his ri­fle, would shout some­thing as he passed. I re­turned the greet­ings in dumb show, and hur­ried on. I do not know how it would have fared with me in broad day­light; prob­ably not near­ly so well; but it was now near­ly dark. Most of the sol­diers had pro­vid­ed them­selves, to light the work of slaugh­ter and pil­lage, with one of those coloured lanterns which are to be found in such pro­fu­sion in Chi­nese towns, and their de­mo­ni­ac as­pect was great­ly height­ened by the il­lu­mi­na­tions they car­ried as they flit­ted to and fro. The butch­ery was pro­ceed­ing with­out the least sign of abate­ment; shots, shouts, shrieks, and groans re­sound­ed on ev­ery side; the streets pre­sent­ed a fear­ful spec­ta­cle; the ground was sat­urat­ed with blood, and ev­ery­where strewn with hor­ri­bly mu­ti­lat­ed corpses; some of the nar­row­er av­enues were pos­itive­ly choked with car­nage. The dead were most­ly the towns­peo­ple; their valiant de­fend­ers seemed to have been able to make them­selves scarce; where they all got to is a mys­tery to me; per­haps ow­ing to the fact that they got rid of their uni­forms ear­ly in the pro­ceed­ings in or­der not to be iden­ti­fied as com­bat­ants, a dodge that must have served them very lit­tle, as the con­querors killed ev­ery­one they came across.

At length I reached Sen's house, on­ly to find that the de­stroy­er had been there. The place was in dark­ness; I took down the lantern from over the out­er gate, with the name of the inn and its pro­pri­etor's writ­ten on it in the Chi­nese char­ac­ter, lit it, and be­gan an in­spec­tion. The first thing I saw was the corpse of my land­lord him­self, ly­ing in the cov­ered court. His head was al­most sev­ered, and he had been dis­em­bow­elled. Most of the low­er storey rooms had doors open­ing in­to this court; across the thresh­old of one lay the corpse of a fe­male ser­vant, mu­ti­lat­ed in an un­speak­able man­ner. The house­hold es­tab­lish­ment con­sist­ed in all of some ten or twelve per­sons, and eight of them I found ly­ing mur­dered in dif­fer­ent parts of the premis­es. There was no sign of liv­ing pres­ence any­where. The place had been thor­ough­ly ran­sacked, and ev­ery­thing worth hav­ing car­ried off. My blood boiled as I sur­veyed the scene of des­ola­tion and mas­sacre, where late­ly I had wit­nessed hap­pi­ness and cheer­ful in­dus­try, and I felt that I could will­ing­ly have died my­self on the spot to ob­tain vengeance on the mur­der­ers.

In one of the up­per rooms there was a bam­boo lad­der and trap lead­ing on the roof, which was flat, and it oc­curred to me to as­cend and look round. It was quite dark, and there was lit­tle to be seen be­yond the lim­its of the street. Dis­tant il­lu­mi­na­tions marked the po­si­tions of the forts on the sur­round­ing heights. The sea­ward ones were still in pos­ses­sion of the Chi­nese. They fell eas­ily on the fol­low­ing day, and had been prac­ti­cal­ly aban­doned. I no­ticed that the sounds of vi­olence in the town were rapid­ly de­creas­ing. As I walked slow­ly round, the dim light of my lantern fell on two fig­ures skulk­ing in the shad­ow. They re­treat­ed as I ad­vanced, un­til they could back no fur­ther, and then one of them fell on his knees be­fore me, bow­ing his fore­head on the roof with ab­ject cries. I held the lantern to­wards him, and to my as­ton­ish­ment rec­og­nized Chung. He ev­ident­ly did not know me, and no won­der, con­sid­er­ing the man­ner in which I had rigged my­self out. He seemed half out of his wits with fear, and I had some dif­fi­cul­ty in forc­ing the fact of my iden­ti­ty up­on his con­vic­tion. Then his de­light was as great as his pre­vi­ous ter­ror. His com­pan­ion was a stranger to him--a man of ex­ceed­ing­ly gen­tle­man­ly and pre­pos­sess­ing ap­pear­ance, and clear­ly a per­son of con­di­tion, be­ing, in fact, as I af­ter­wards found, a man­darin. His own res­idence had been sacked and his fam­ily mur­dered. He and a broth­er had es­caped in­to the street, were pur­sued, and his rel­ative shot in run­ning away. Though with his left arm bro­ken by a bul­let, he had run in­to the inn. When the sol­diers en­tered it he and Chung got on to the roof, where none of the Japanese thought of look­ing for vic­tims. His bro­ken arm was caus­ing him con­sid­er­able suf­fer­ing, and hav­ing ac­quired dur­ing my knock-​about life some rude knowl­edge of surgery, I put the frac­ture to­geth­er, and made a sling with my neck-​tie.

I ex­plained my sit­ua­tion to Chung as well as I was able; he trans­lat­ed to his coun­try­man, who knew no En­glish, and we held a coun­cil as to fu­ture pro­ceed­ings. The work of slaugh­ter had ap­par­ent­ly been sus­pend­ed; ei­ther the sol­diers were tired of it or had been re­called. The Japanese forces ex­ceed­ed 20,000, and of these I do not think that more than one half, per­haps not one third, were en­gaged in this first evening's work, which was on­ly the open­ing scene of the mas­sacre. Mass­es of the troops had been placed to oc­cu­py the forts, and oth­er­wise se­cure the con­quest. We thought it like­ly, as in­deed was the case, that they would all with­draw to the camps out­side as the night ad­vanced, and we re­solved to at­tempt to gain the wa­ter-​side, and seek a last chance of es­cape, un­der cov­er of dark­ness. We searched the place for food, but all we could find was a lit­tle bread, and a few pre­pared sweet­meat cakes.

An aw­ful still­ness, bro­ken at times by omi­nous sounds, came over the town. Lights flit­ted at times through its dark labyrinths, by whom borne it was im­pos­si­ble to per­ceive. The pres­ence of death, in its most fear­ful shapes, seemed pal­pa­ble to the sens­es, and we, crouch­ing in the gloom on the roof, to which as the safest place we had re­turned, had be­fore our men­tal vi­sion the mu­ti­lat­ed bod­ies in the rooms close be­low us, with the ghast­ly prob­abil­ity, al­most the cer­tain­ty, that an­oth­er hour or two would join us in their hor­rid fate. To my­self, the reck­less, wast­ed past pre­sent­ed it­self, in that sit­ua­tion of ap­palling ter­rors, in all its enor­mi­ty. There was I, af­ter throw­ing away the high ad­van­tages of for­tune and pros­per­ity, a ru­ined and de­grad­ed man, about to meet an ap­pro­pri­ate end­ing to such a ca­reer by a bloody death at the hands of some bru­tal sol­dier, in an un­known land, at the ends of the earth, where scarce­ly a hu­man be­ing knew a word of my na­tive tongue. If these pages should be read by any young man em­bark­ing with­out a thought of the fu­ture, in the flush of high spir­its and in­ex­pe­ri­ence, up­on cours­es sim­ilar to mine, I hope he will take warn­ing, and stop in time.

It was, I should judge, about ten o'clock when at last we de­scend­ed to the street. There had been no fir­ing for about two hours. The lantern was re-​lit, and Chung, who knew the way best, took it and went ahead. I still wore the sol­dier's dress; if met and chal­lenged, I pro­posed to make it ap­pear, as best I could, that I was mak­ing the Chi­na­men con­duct me to one of the camps, or if I failed in this to sell my life dear­ly with the ri­fle.

Our path lay right across the town, and the dead lay thick­ly in near­ly ev­ery street in the quar­ters we tra­versed, where, of ev­ery age, sex, and con­di­tion, they had been promis­cu­ous­ly butchered by the hun­dred. Here and there the mis­er­able sur­vivors--sur­vivors on­ly for the present--were search­ing, with low wail­ings and lamen­ta­tions, for those they had lost, with the aid of their coloured lanterns, which gave a look of in­de­scrib­able ghast­li­ness to the mu­ti­lat­ed forms they bent over to ex­am­ine. To my last day I shall re­mem­ber, with un­fad­ing hor­ror, the as­pect of those rem­nants of mor­tal­ity, in all the hideous­ness stamped up­on them by the un­nam­able atroc­ities prac­tised dur­ing that di­abol­ical or­gy of mur­der and mu­ti­la­tion, rape, lust, and rap­ine. This is war! Away, in the splen­did pavil­ion of the van­quished, the con­quer­ing mar­shal, sur­round­ed by his gen­er­als and of­fi­cers, was in­stalled in tri­umph, se­cure of his coun­try's ap­plause and his em­per­or's favour; but here, amid these des­olat­ed homes, these mu­ti­lat­ed heaps of death, was the night side, the shad­ow, of their glo­ry. And this was but the first day of _four_! It must be ad­mit­ted that the Chi­nese drew it up­on them­selves, that ev­ery­where else the Japanese be­haved with ad­mirable clemen­cy and mod­er­ation; but af­ter mak­ing ev­ery al­lowance, their con­duct in this in­stance, and par­tic­ular­ly that of the high com­mand­ing chiefs in nev­er seek­ing to put a stop to the dev­il­ish ex­cess­es per­pe­trat­ed be­fore their eyes on un­of­fend­ing non-​com­bat­ants, is rich­ly de­serv­ing of ev­er­last­ing in­famy.

Many of the poor wretch­es thus cow­er­ing about ran away up­on per­ceiv­ing, as they thought, an armed Japanese sol­dier, but in one in­stance I had rea­son to be thank­ful that I was not alone. A mid­dle-​aged man and two younger ones were car­ry­ing away, in one of the streets we tra­versed, the half-​naked body of a wom­an, which had been split open from the ab­domen to the chest. The el­der man glared up­on me, in the dim light, with the ex­pres­sion of a tiger, and draw­ing a long curved knife from his breast, and point­ing at me, shout­ed some­thing to his com­pan­ions, who per­haps were his sons. Chung at once in­ter­posed, and talked with them rapid­ly for a few mo­ments, and nat­ural­ly his ex­pla­na­tion suf­ficed and we pro­ceed­ed. I asked Chung what the man had said:--“There is one of the Japanese dev­ils; let us rip him up.”

But it would on­ly be need­less­ly har­row­ing to dwell on the sights of hor­ror we en­coun­tered at ev­ery turn. We pressed on, rapid­ly yet cau­tious­ly, our feet dab­bling in blood wher­ev­er we trod. As we pro­ceed­ed down a street about ten feet broad, we heard in front sounds as of voic­es shout­ing and singing. The av­enue we were in took a turn about fif­teen yards in ad­vance of us, and as we hes­itat­ed and fi­nal­ly stopped, there ap­peared round it a body of men in whom we at once rec­og­nized the Japanese sol­diers. There was a low but wide door­way on our right, and in­to it we at once slipped with no tri­fling celer­ity. It was in­tense­ly dark and of­fered a good con­ceal­ment. We could not af­ford to ex­tin­guish our lantern, and I placed it be­hind an an­gle of the in­ner wall where it was im­pos­si­ble that its glim­mer could be seen from the street. Crouch­ing in the deep shad­ow, we anx­ious­ly await­ed the pass­ing of the sol­diers, whose voic­es we heard mo­men­tar­ily ap­proach­ing, shout­ing at their full pitch a dis­cor­dant song, ac­com­pa­nied by a loud ring­ing sound which at first I mis­took for that of some in­stru­ment. They were soon abreast of us, some twen­ty or thir­ty in num­ber. I scarce­ly breathed as the fe­ro­cious band went troop­ing past. Their ap­pear­ance was ghast­ly and ter­ri­ble be­yond con­cep­tion. They were lit­er­al­ly reek­ing from the sham­bles of in­hu­man butch­ery; their clothes and weapons were smeared and clot­ted with blood; some held hu­man heads aloft on their bay­onets; the lanterns which most of them car­ried, and swung to and fro as they marched, threw on their re­pul­sive fig­ures and sav­age Ori­en­tal faces, their white teeth, oblique eyes, and sal­low coun­te­nances, a weird, wa­ver­ing light, ap­pro­pri­ate to their in­fer­nal as­pect; they looked more like demons than like men. The fore­most, who ap­peared to be dis­mount­ed dra­goons, were clash­ing their sabres to­geth­er in a kind of ac­com­pa­ni­ment to the yelling chant in which they all joined. On they went, tram­pling the dead with whom their bes­tial fe­roc­ity had strewn the de­vot­ed town, the sound of their high shrill voic­es and the ring of the clash­ing steel be­ing au­di­ble for some time af­ter they had passed out of sight. At length it died away and all was still again, so silent that I seemed to hear the quick and heavy throb­bing of my heart.

Af­ter wait­ing two or three min­utes I told Chung to take the lantern so that we might set out again. He did so, but as he was about to step from the door­way he tripped over some ob­ject con­cealed by the dark­ness and fell: it was a dead body. I ex­am­ined it by the lantern-​light. There were sev­er­al deep bay­onet wounds and a ter­rif­ic sabre-​slash across the face which had com­plete­ly de­stroyed the left eye. The ab­domen was abom­inably mu­ti­lat­ed. A knife was clenched in the right hand of the vic­tim, show­ing that he had not died with­out an ef­fort to de­fend him­self. I swung the lantern about the re­cess, and per­ceived fur­ther back three or four steps, as­cend­ing to a door slight­ly open. These steps were cov­ered with blood which seemed to flow from be­hind the door. I pushed it open, and en­tered the place to which it gave ac­cess. It seemed to be a kind of pub­lic of­fice--a wide, low, bare apart­ment, di­vid­ed on one side by a mas­sive wood­en counter, sur­mount­ed by a par­ti­tion pierced at in­ter­vals with pi­geon-​holes, as if for com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween per­sons on op­po­site sides of the di­vi­sion. It may have been a bank or mon­ey-​chang­er's of­fice. It is not, how­ev­er, on ac­count of the place it­self, but of its con­tents, that I de­scribe it. The floor was cov­ered with the corpses of men, wom­en, and chil­dren, min­gled in­dis­crim­inate­ly to­geth­er, fugi­tives who had there tak­en refuge and been re­lent­less­ly butchered. The bod­ies had been de­cap­itat­ed, and the bloody heads stuck up on a long row of spikes which sur­mount­ed the wood­en par­ti­tion over the counter. Both Chung and the man­darin ut­tered a cry of ter­ror as we caught sight of those dis­tort­ed coun­te­nances, grin­ning up­on us with the livid stare of vi­olent death through the dim medi­um of the coloured lamp­light. My blood seemed to freeze as my eyes en­coun­tered that ghast­ly gaze of the dead, to which the up­right po­si­tion of the heads gave a sort of sem­blance or mock­ery of life. An in­fant a few months old was pinned to the counter be­low by a sharp piece of iron run through its lit­tle body. The floor was two or three inch­es deep in thick­en­ing blood and the en­trails of the mu­ti­lat­ed bod­ies. The arms and legs as well as heads had been hacked off some of them and flung about the place. Al­to­geth­er a more hideous and re­volt­ing spec­ta­cle than this cham­ber of hor­rors can nev­er have been pre­sent­ed to mor­tal gaze. Such a scene, and the sick­en­ing smell of blood, drove us out again al­most im­me­di­ate­ly. At that mo­ment an­oth­er par­ty of the Japanese passed our hid­ing-​place. An in­fantry sol­dier in ad­vance car­ried a large un­cov­ered flam­beau, which threw a broad, red, steady glare over all sur­round­ing ob­jects. I at once saw that these were all of­fi­cers, ex­cept­ing two or three; smart, well-​got-​up, gen­tle­man­ly-​look­ing lit­tle men in the ex­treme; re­turn­ing, per­haps, from call­ing off the last of their bloody war-​dogs, or mak­ing sure that all re­sis­tance had ceased. They were laugh­ing and chat­ting gai­ly, as if the mas­sacre were rather a pleas­ant af­fair than oth­er­wise. When they had gone by, we is­sued in­to the street, but had pro­ceed­ed on­ly a few paces when we saw a man car­ry­ing a lantern ap­pear round the abrupt bend be­fore men­tioned. He looked like an­oth­er Japanese hur­ry­ing af­ter his com­pan­ions who had just passed. We re­turned with all haste to the door­way; and as we judged that he had prob­ably seen us, we re-​en­tered the in­ner slaugh­ter-​house and closed the door. We were right in think­ing we had been seen, and in about a minute we heard steps out­side the door, which was present­ly thrust vi­olent­ly open and the sol­dier en­tered, a low, sin­is­ter fig­ure, hold­ing a drawn sword in what seemed to me a cu­ri­ous­ly white hand. He peered in­to the ob­scu­ri­ty, per­ceived me, and doubt­less tak­ing me, in the un­cer­tain light, for a Japanese, from the clothes I wore, low­ered his weapon and ad­dressed me in a harsh au­thor­ita­tive tone. The sound of the lan­guage was sin­gu­lar­ly like that of Ital­ian. He point­ed to the Chi­na­men, prob­ably ask­ing what they were. I took ad­van­tage of his un­guard­ed pause to plunge my bay­onet in his body, with a thrust so rapid that he had not time to make the least move­ment to avoid it. He fell at once where he stood, but at­tempt­ed to rise again, when I gave him an­oth­er prick which set­tled his busi­ness. He fell back heav­ily against the counter with a groan. One of the heads above was shak­en off its spike by the con­cus­sion and struck him on the shoul­der as he lay. His eyes, open­ing and shut­ting con­vul­sive­ly, seemed to gaze up­on the ghast­ly ob­ject. He groaned again, and in a few mo­ments was dead. I bent over him with the lantern, and soon per­ceived from the rich­ness of his uni­form and ac­cou­trements, as well as from the look of caste about the head and face, that I had killed an of­fi­cer of high rank. He wore white gloves, which ac­count­ed for the odd look of his hands when he ap­peared on the thresh­old. I felt sor­ry when I re­al­ized that he was a man of con­se­quence and au­thor­ity, for had I per­ceived it at first I would cer­tain­ly have en­deav­oured to ob­tain his pro­tec­tion for my­self and my com­pan­ions; but Chung had slunk be­hind me with the lantern, the of­fi­cer's own was a very dim one, so that in the ob­scu­ri­ty I could on­ly make out that he was a Japanese sol­dier, and ex­pect­ing to be at­tacked judged it pru­dent to get my blow in first. Hav­ing giv­en him what his coun­try­men called the “hap­py despatch,” he could be of no fur­ther use to us. Be­fore again leav­ing the place, I took pos­ses­sion of his sword, which was a very beau­ti­ful and valu­able weapon, the hilt or­na­ment­ed by a quan­ti­ty of mas­sive and rich­ly-​chased gold, and a great num­ber of tiny di­amonds and ru­bies,--in­finites­imal gems, set in pret­ty, quaint de­vices, with a larg­er stone here and there. This tro­phy I brought away with me from Port Arthur, but when in Liv­er­pool at the be­gin­ning of the year of grace 1896, the pres­sure of fi­nan­cial ex­igen­cy com­pelled me to en­trust it to the tem­po­rary care of the uni­ver­sal un­cle of mankind, who said it was worth L600 or L700. I could by no means per­suade him to be­lieve my ac­count of how it came in­to my pos­ses­sion. He laughed and said I was mak­ing fun of him. His ob­sti­nate in­creduli­ty was amus­ing. “You're a sailor, sir, I see,” he said, “and we know what sailors' yarns are in this town. I've heard a few of them.”

Again steal­ing out­side, we re­sumed our per­ilous way through this city of dread­ful night. We lost no time in turn­ing out of the street where had oc­curred the in­ci­dents just de­scribed, and which seemed in the track of strag­glers mov­ing to­wards the ad­ja­cent Gold­en Hill fort. We left it by a very nar­row lane abut­ting at right an­gles. The oth­er end of this was blocked by a heap of corpses which we had to climb over. As I was do­ing so a hideous groan struck my ear, and the body un­der my foot seemed to heave. I start­ed back, and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly the ap­par­ent corpse rose up, a tall, blood-​be­smeared fig­ure, which stared hor­ri­bly up­on me for a mo­ment and then, with an­oth­er loud and hor­rid groan, fell prone on his back, his arms wide­ly ex­tend­ed. I lost no time in scram­bling past him af­ter my com­pan­ions, who had run away, and small blame to them, for it was like the ris­ing of a corpse sud­den­ly en­dowed with vo­li­tion. Both were by this time in what has been forcibly and pic­turesque­ly de­scribed as a “blue funk”; they trem­bled cease­less­ly; their teeth chat­tered, and their eyes roved here and there with a wild, hunt­ed look; ev­ery now and then they stopped con­vul­sive­ly, imag­in­ing that they saw or heard some­thing to in­di­cate the prox­im­ity of the fe­ro­cious mur­der­ers. As for my­self, if my out­ward man were less open to re­proach, my in­ward con­di­tion was noth­ing much to boast of, and tru­ly the hor­rors which con­tin­ual­ly pre­sent­ed them­selves, joined to the op­pres­sive mid­night shad­ow and still­ness which hung over the place of doom, would have dam­aged the nerve of a foot­ball ref­er­ee.

We reached the basin through a se­ries of open brick-​works, used as tim­ber stores, on its north side. Ev­ery­thing was dark­ness and de­ser­tion. The moon was ris­ing far be­yond the West Port away in our front, but it was in the last quar­ter and af­ford­ed lit­tle light. There were very few stars vis­ible. The night had turned pierc­ing­ly cold, but so great was my men­tal anx­iety and ex­cite­ment that I seemed un­af­fect­ed in body by the sever­ity of the weath­er. With the lantern we be­gan to search about for a boat, at first with­out suc­cess. In a square-​shaped in­let or creek a lit­tle above the dock­yard we present­ly came up­on an­oth­er hor­ri­fy­ing spec­ta­cle. A junk lay strand­ed in the shal­lows. It was lit­er­al­ly full of dead bod­ies, and many lay on the ad­ja­cent shore. The un­for­tu­nates had ev­ident­ly been pur­sued down to where the junk lay, and slaugh­tered be­fore they could get it off. It struck me that what we were look­ing for, a boat, might in all prob­abil­ity be found on board the fa­tal ves­sel. It lay heeled over broad­side to the beach, and I wad­ed out to it through the shal­low wa­ter. I gained the up­per deck with some dif­fi­cul­ty and stood amidst the mass of car­nage. Ri­fle-​balls had done the work of death. Many of the bod­ies were in army uni­forms. I could find on­ly two boats. One, a mere cock­le-​shell, had been per­fo­rat­ed by bul­lets and ren­dered use­less. An­oth­er lay in­board on the quar­ter-​deck, but it was so filled and cov­ered with corpses that at first I did not no­tice it. It seemed in fair con­di­tion, but the task of rid­ding it of its hor­ri­ble freight was so re­pug­nant that I re­turned on shore to re­sume the search for one else­where. It was in vain, how­ev­er; all we could find in the vicin­ity was an old sam­pan, which be­sides be­ing very leaky, was more than three men could man­age, on­ly one of them, more­over, hav­ing any knowl­edge of sailor­ing. There was noth­ing for it but to re­turn to the death-​ship. We all went on board this time, and ap­plied our­selves to the work. The pile of dead were dragged away, and with con­sid­er­able labour, and aid­ed by the ca­reened con­di­tion of the junk, we man­aged to launch the boat, which had been se­cured in­side the bul­wark. It was in a hor­rid state with blood, but we were not in a sit­ua­tion to be par­tic­ular. We found a quan­ti­ty of pro­vi­sions and fresh wa­ter--or rather wa­ter which had once been fresh--in the cook-​house of the junk.

It must have been af­ter mid­night when we shoved off and got afloat. Nei­ther of my com­pan­ions were ex­perts with an oar, and could ren­der me very lit­tle aid; more­over, Chi­nese oars, like Chi­nese be­long­ings al­to­geth­er, are very un­like any­thing else in the world and need some prac­tice to use. We were, how­ev­er, close to the en­trance of the port, which be­ing de­fend­ed by tor­pe­does and mines, we ran lit­tle risk of en­coun­ter­ing Japanese ves­sels, al­though the sub­ma­rine dan­gers threat­ened us as well, if we strayed from the deep-​wa­ter chan­nel in the dark. We got on in safe­ty, though very slow­ly, and an­oth­er two hours had been con­sumed be­fore we were through.

What to do next I had no fixed idea. One thing, how­ev­er, was as­sured, that it was cer­tain death to stay in Port Arthur, and that our on­ly chance, slen­der as it seemed at best, con­sist­ed in get­ting as far away as pos­si­ble. I re­solved, af­ter some con­sid­er­ation, to hold on south round the ex­trem­ity of the Penin­su­la.

In the sea­ward forts above us we could dis­cern no signs of ac­tiv­ity, and on­ly a light here and there, far out on the misty ex­panse of wa­ters, showed the po­si­tion of the Japanese war-​ves­sels, which had an easy job of it as far as Port Arthur was con­cerned. The weath­er, though so bit­ter­ly cold, was far from stormy, yet the dif­fi­cul­ty of row­ing was in­creased nat­ural­ly when we got out in­to the heav­ier wa­ters of the sea. So un­promis­ing in fact did our sit­ua­tion look, that I be­gan to re­flect whether it would not be bet­ter to stay about the mouth of the har­bour, and al­low our­selves to be tak­en by some Japanese ship, than wan­der off I knew not where, prob­ably in the end to per­ish of star­va­tion. Luck de­cid­ed the point. We had painful­ly made a cou­ple of miles from the es­tu­ary of the har­bour, when we came up­on a large junk strand­ed on a sand-​bank. There were no lights show­ing on board her; in the ob­scu­ri­ty we could see no­body; yet she did not look like a wreck, and at first we did not know what to make of it. Af­ter a con­sul­ta­tion, it was de­cid­ed to fire a shot from the ri­fle and see what it would lead to. No soon­er had the re­port rung out, than there was a bus­tle and stir on the ves­sel's decks, which ap­peared sud­den­ly to swarm with men, and be­came il­lu­mi­nat­ed by lanterns. I told Chung to hail. He did so, and a voice replied in Chi­nese. We drew close abreast, and my com­pan­ions held a par­ley with those on board. Our sit­ua­tion ex­plained we were per­mit­ted to as­cend. The junk was full of men. She had got in­to her present predica­ment in es­cap­ing, and they were wait­ing for the morn­ing flood tide to float her off. Two or three junks, we were told, had struck tor­pe­does in leav­ing the har­bour and been blown in pieces, and many oth­ers had fall­en in­to the clutch­es of the en­emy. Those on board, be­sides her usu­al crew, were chiefly sol­diers. With the pro­found def­er­ence paid to rank by the Ori­en­tals, the chief cab­in was at once giv­en up to the man­darin, who in­sist­ed on my shar­ing it with him. He and Chung gave a most glow­ing ac­count of me to those on board, to whom, in my re­mark­able ac­cou­trement, I was an ob­ject of le­git­imate cu­rios­ity.

Ex­haust­ed by ex­er­tion and anx­iety, I was fast asleep with­in half-​an-​hour af­ter step­ping up the junk's side. I slept far in­to the day, and when I emerged found that she had been suc­cess­ful­ly float­ed off the bank, and got out to sea with­out so far at­tract­ing the no­tice of the Japanese ships.