With the Allies to Pekin: A Tale of the Relief of the Legations

by G. A. Henty

“We have been practically two nights without sleep,” said Rex, “and now I know that the girls are well, I feel that I have only to find room enough to lie down somewhere, and I shall be off to sleep almost before my head touches the ground.”

“I cannot ask you to stop here, Mr. Bateman, for our regulations are very strict.”

“Thank you! I was not thinking of that, and indeed I should much prefer the open air.”

He joined Ah Lo again, and, lying down on the ground close to the entrance of the hospital, he fell asleep almost immediately.

Although the Japanese had done by far the heaviest fighting and suffered the greatest loss, the other allies had in some cases had serious fighting. The Russian attack, although it had been made in defiance of the agreement entered into, that no advance whatever should be made against the city until all the allies had arrived at the positions assigned to them, was a gallant affair, and to a certain extent an accident. Their reconnoitring party, consisting of four hundred infantry and three guns, had pushed forward, meeting with no signs of the enemy until, to their surprise, they found themselves close up to the outer walls, at the angle where the walls of the Chinese and Tartar cities join. It was pitch dark when they arrived, and with a sudden rush they disposed of the Chinese guard on duty on the bridge immediately outside the Tung Pien gate, and then blew a hole in the gate itself with their guns. They then mounted on the Tartar Wall.

Up to this time the opposition they had encountered had been very slight, which may be accounted for by the fact that the Chinese were so briskly engaged at the time in an attack upon the Legations that the proceedings of the Russians had really been unnoticed. About this time, however, the moon rose, bringing into relief the Russians moving on the wall. Immediately a desperate fire was opened upon them. Nearly all the horses with the guns were at once killed, and the infantry, taking their places, dragged the guns back to shelter, near the point where they had entered the city. Urgent demands for reinforcements were then sent to the main body of the Russian force. The refusal of the Japanese to take part in the affair, on the ground that it was the result of a breach of the arrangement arrived at by the allied commanders, paralyzed the action of the Russian general, and it was not until ten oʼclock on the following morning that reinforcements arrived.

In the meantime the detachment had been exposed to a continuous and heavy fire, and had been obliged to sally out to defeat a force which advanced with the intention of taking them in rear. The attack, although made contrary to the agreement, was of great advantage to the Legations, for a furious onslaught had been made upon them with the evident intention of destroying them before the allies attacked the city, and therefore releasing the whole of the Chinese force for the purposes of defence. As soon, however, as the Chinese learned that the Russians had entered the gate, a considerable portion of the force round the Legation was withdrawn to oppose their advance, and from that moment the fury of the assault abated considerably.

The British had met with but slight resistance. Their main body had left Tung–Chow at two oʼclock on the morning of the fourteenth. When within a mile of the southeast gate, they bombarded a village and drove the enemy holding it into the town, and then advancing they entered the Chinese city, and pushed on until they reached the Chien gate of the Tartar Wall. Here they were welcomed by the allied troops holding the wall near the gate.

They could not, however, let them in, and for a short time the British force were exposed to a galling fire from the Chinese city and from other parts of the wall. The British, however, knew of the water gate which opens into the canal, running up between the Russian and British Legations and the Fu, having received news that it was likely to be unguarded, by a messenger sent out by Sir Claude Macdonald. General Gaselee, therefore, taking with him the 7th Rajputs and a party of the 1st Sikhs, made a dash for this gate, and got through without much trouble.