Our luggage was speedily disembarked. Most of our fellow‐passengers, learning that a train for Tientsin was due to leave almost at once, hurried off to the railway station, about a mile away. Three of us of the same regiment were met by a brother officer who was in charge of a detachment at Hsin‐ho. He offered us the hospitality of the station mess, composed of those employed on various duties at the place; and, desirous of seeing how the work of the disembarkation of a large force was carried out, we determined to remain for the night.
We visited Tong‐ku that afternoon, and found a marked difference in the methods prevailing there and at Hsin‐ho. The presence of so many different nationalities naturally entailed great confusion. At the railway station a very babel of languages resounded on every side.
One truck with German stores had to be detached from a goods train and sent down one siding; the next, with French cavalry horses, sent down another; a Russian and an Italian officer disputed the ownership of a third. Lost baggage‐guards stood disconsolate or wandered round aimlessly until rescued by their transport officers. Detachments of Continental troops stood helplessly waiting for someone to conduct them to their proper trains. Disorder reigned supreme.
At Hsin‐ho everything proceeded without confusion. It might have been an up‐country station in the heart of India. Comfortable huts had been built for the detachment responsible for the guard duties; and the various details were equally well accommodated. The military officers had established themselves in a stone house that had formerly been the quarters of a railway engineer. The Royal Indian Marine officers in charge of the naval transport had settled down with the readiness with which sailors adapt themselves to shore life. A line of felt‐roofed, mud huts had been turned by them into an excellent mess and quarters. A raised terrace looked down on a tennis‐court, on the far side of which a pond in the mud flats, stretching away to the horizon, boasted a couple of canoes. From a tall flagstaff that stood on the terrace floated the blue ensign and Star of India of their Service.
The railway siding ran past large and well‐built storehouses. On the river bank long lines of mules were picketed, looking in excellent condition despite the hard work they had gone through. In a little cutting in the bank was an old and tiny steam tug, which had been turned into a condenser for drinking‐water. Everything was trim and tidy. The work of disembarking the stores from the lighters in the river and putting them into the railway trucks almost alongside went on in perfect order, all in marked contrast to the confusion that prevailed at Tong‐ku.
Early next morning we were en route for Tientsin. My brother officers and I tramped down through awful mud to the long platform which was dignified by the title of “Hsin‐ho Railway Station.” A small house close by sheltered the railway employees and the telegraph staff, signallers of the Army Telegraph Department.
The train from the Tong‐ku terminus soon appeared, and as it steamed in presented a—to us—novel appearance. Leaning out of the windows was a motley crowd of many nationalities. Out of one appeared the heads of a boyish Cossack and a bearded Sikh. The next displayed the chubby face of a German soldier beside the dark features of an Italian sailor. When the train stopped, a smart Australian bluejacket stepped out of the brake‐van. He was the guard. In the corridor cars were Yagers, Austrian sailors, brawny American soldiers, baggy‐trousered Zouave and red‐breeched Chasseur d’Afrique. Sturdy little Japanese infantrymen sat beside tall Bengal Lancers. A small Frenchman chatted volubly with a German trooper from the Lost Provinces. Smart Tommy Atkins gazed in wondering disdain at the smaller Continental soldiers, or listened with an amused smile to the vitriolic comments of a Yankee friend on the manners and appearance of “those darned Dagoes.” And among them, perfectly at his ease, sat the imperturbable Chinaman, apparently a little bored but otherwise quite uninterested in the “foreign devils.”
The first‐class carriages were filled with the officers of every nation whose flag now waved on Chinese soil. Russians in white coats with flat caps and gold shoulder‐straps sat side by side with khaki‐clad Britishers; Italian officers in yellow; Frenchmen in every shade of supposed‐to‐be khaki; Germans with silver belts and sashes; Japanese with many medals and enamelled decorations on their breasts. As we entered our carriage we touched our helmets to the previous occupants—a salute which was punctiliously returned by everyone present. Settling ourselves in our seats, our interest was at first fully absorbed by the various uniforms around us; and it was some time before we could devote our attention to the scenery through which we were passing.
The train ran first over wide‐stretching mud flats, then through a level, monotonous country, flooded or covered with high crops; and, barely seen above the tall vegetation, here and there roofless houses and ruined villages showed the track of war. At every bridge and culvert stood a tent with a guard of an Indian regiment, the sentry presenting arms as the train passed. The stations along the line were numerous. Over their stone buildings floated the Union Jack, for the railway was now in British hands. On each platform the same scene presented itself. The English Staff Officer in khaki and red‐banded forage cap; the stalwart Indian sentry; a varied mob of French and German soldiers, Sikhs, Mussulmans, Chinese.
The fields of luxuriant, waving grain stretched away to the rim of the distant horizon. A trail of smoke, the tall masts of junks showed where the river wound in frequent bends. At length we passed the extensive buildings and high chimneys of the Chinese Arsenal, captured by our marines and held by the Russians; and above the trees towers and domes told that we were nearing Tientsin. Then through a gap in a big earthen wall that is twenty miles in circumference, past many sidings and long lines of iron trucks and waggons with bullet‐marked sides, eloquent of fierce fighting, we ran into the station.