Impressions of a War Correspondent

by George Lynch

Coming from the glare of white light outside, it was some moments before I could distinguish anything in the gloom within. By degrees one made out rows of rounded forms of little children lying on the floor. Above, the stained-glass windows were broken in many places, and the roof perforated where shells had entered, letting in shafts of light that fell aslant the gloom. High up on the wall one lit up a figure of Christ that with bowed head and extended, nail-pierced hands seemed to point in eloquent silence to the little suffering children below. The entire floor of the church, even up to the extinguished lamp of the sanctuary, was occupied with them. In one explosion alone eighty children were killed, and a still greater number injured. Many more were ailing for want of sufficient food, because when the actual relief came they had been reduced to only two ounces of rice per day, and had but two days' rations left. Other children, who were helping the nuns, moved noiselessly about among the prostrate forms. The hushed silence of sanctuary was broken only by low moaning, or the querulous sobbing of little children weary with pain. The Sister brought me to see one little mite, whom she called the "first fruit" of their recommenced labour.

It was a strange story, that of this little child. The French soldiers who occupied that quarter of the city had come across a house where, stretched on the kang side by side, were the bodies of all its occupants. They had committed suicide on the advent of the Allies. As the soldiers had not time to bury them immediately, intent as they were on pillaging and looting the neighbourhood, they threw lime on the bodies. After two days, when they came to throw their remains into a pit which had been dug for their burial, they found that the youngest victim was yet alive, and carried her, with her hair still caked with lime, to the nuns.

In the midst of these ruins these good women, mostly of gentle birth, were striving to recommence their labours, and nurse, and feed, and teach the children that remained. But, conversing with them, one perceived, underlying their heroic resignation, a strain of very human despondency and disappointment. Their talk here was not of compensation. It was merely of how they could get their ruined mission-house fit for work again—the work for which they had left father and mother and friends, and their homes in far-off France.

It was not quite the same elsewhere, however. There were some missionaries who appeared to take a different view of the situation. Already they were lodging claims with their respective Consuls, and in order to guard themselves against the dilatoriness or uncertainty of action of their various Governments they were taking measures to secure immediate compensation.

One reverend gentleman, for instance, was to be seen day after day holding a sale of loot in a house that he had taken possession of. Another, an American, was carrying on a similar sale in a palatial mansion which he had commandeered. The latter was to be seen surrounded by jade and porcelain vases, costly embroideries from the spoiled temples, sable cloaks and various other furs, and rows of Buddhas arranged like wild-fowl in a poulterer's shop. As his stock became depleted he was in a position to ask any unsatisfied customer to call in again, as his converts were bringing in fresh supplies of loot almost every day!

Indeed, not satisfied with the proceeds of his loot sale, this worthy man was enterprising enough to levy compensation on the Chinese, and, in addition to recovering the full value of the damage sustained by his converts, inflicted fines that exceeded that amount—according to his own admission—by one-third.

General French And Staff On Black Monday.

There are others who took possession of Chinese houses wholesale, and found a source of income in letting or leasing them. The fact of their having a number of converts to support was given by them as a justification of their actions. Unquestionably they had a large number more or less dependent upon them, but some other means might surely have been found. They were very busy in those days. And perhaps that accounts for their taking no notice of the actions of various portions of the Allied soldiery. Wholesale robbery, cruelty, and the raping of women were going on all round; a regular orgy of rapine surged through the captured city. Yet not one solitary voice of protest was heard.