Brown of Moukden: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War

by Herbert Strang

"Let him come with me, Mr. Hi. He saved those papers so cleverly that I think a great deal of him, and I'll really be glad to have him with me."

The compradore would not oppose his young master's express wish; accordingly, Jack, when he rode off, had two companions.

Jack had learnt from his guide that Ah Lum's camp was situated in the hills south of Kirin, at a point many miles due north of the spot where he had left the chief. He had before him, therefore, a journey of nearly three hundred miles. Fortunately the rainy season was past; a few days of brilliant sunshine and bustling winds had worked a marvellous transformation. The road that only recently had been a pulp of liquid mud was now thick with soft brown blinding dust, clouds of which were blown by the north-easter full in the travellers' faces, covering them from head to foot. Unpleasant as this was, it was less troublesome than the continual assaults of midges which Jack had suffered on his previous journey. The autumn air, already nipping out of the sunshine, had annihilated these pests, and the only trouble of a similar kind that Jack experienced was from some black ants whose nest his pony disturbed, and which bit with terrible ferocity.

For more than a week the three riders pursued their journey almost without incident. After the first few days they came into a country of hill and forest, broken by richly cultivated valleys and large swift streams. They had to climb ridges, to cross ravines, to ford rivers, sometimes fording the same river a score of times, so serpentine were its windings. Here and there were settlers' huts, where they found scanty accommodation, but a warm welcome; here and there also a hillside inn, at which they spent the night on the floor of a tiny room, with perhaps a dozen Chinamen packed like sardines in a box on the k'ang above them.

During these days and nights Jack had many opportunities of thinking over his position. He wondered sometimes whether the course he had decided on was the best he could have taken; but his ponderings always converged to the same point—that his only chance of obtaining news of his father and procuring his liberation lay in remaining in Russian or Russo-Chinese territory. For himself, hunted and outlawed as he was, capture might well mean death, and nowhere was he so likely to be safe as among the Chunchuses. But he saw that in seeking an asylum among them he was in a sense casting in his lot with the enemies of Russia and espousing their quarrel. That consideration gave him food for thought. He had no concern with the great struggle then in progress. It was nothing to him whether Manchuria became the spoil of either Russia or Japan. Up to the time of his father's arrest, indeed, his sympathies had inclined to the Russian side. He had made many friends among the Russians during his stay in Moukden, especially among the engineers and officials connected with the railway. He had found them amiable, courteous, and singularly free from what, for want of a better word, the Englishman calls "side". Of the Japanese, on the other hand, he knew almost nothing. His impressions of the few he had met in the course of business were not wholly favourable, which was perhaps little to be wondered at, for the trading classes of Japan, with whom alone Mr. Brown had had relations, were only just beginning to emerge from the condition of a despised and, it must be admitted, despicable caste. Japanese of the Samurai class looked down on a merchant with far more disdain than an English aristocrat shows towards a petty tradesman; and it would have seemed incredible to them that an English marquis should become a coal merchant or a dairyman. It was natural enough that a class thus despised should not be greatly hampered with self-respect; and their business methods did not commend themselves to Mr. Brown, with whom, as with every British merchant, his word was as good as his bond.

But the black sheep whom Jack had come across recently had brought about a change in his feeling towards the Russians generally. He saw them now as grasping adventurers, and the Chunchuses as patriots waging a lawful warfare against invasion and oppression. He had no very kindly feeling for the men who were treating his father with such abominable injustice. He did not disguise from himself that in joining the Chunchuses he could not remain a passive spectator of the struggle. He must be prepared to identify himself completely with the fortunes of Ah Lum's band, and become to all intents and purposes as lawless a brigand as themselves, But he hoped it would not be for long. If the tide of success upon which the Japanese arms had been borne from victory to victory did not turn, the Russian domination must ere long be shattered, and in some vague undefined way he felt that the fortunes of his quest were bound up with the discomfiture of the Russians. But in thus throwing in his lot with their enemies he reserved one point: he would steadily refuse to have any part in such excesses as were from time to time reported of the Chunchuses. It was likely enough that as a very unimportant individual, incurably a "foreign devil", he would be laughed to scorn for his scruples by Ah Lum. The custom of torturing prisoners was so deeply rooted in Chinese methods of warfare that Ah Lum, even if he so desired, might be unable to control his followers and prevent atrocity when they were not under his immediate observation. This would make it difficult for Jack to remain with them; but he put the matter from his thoughts: he would not meet difficulties half-way.

Now and again, as with his guide and Hi Lo he passed through isolated villages, he heard of small bodies of Cossacks having been seen in their vicinity. From the general talk at inns and farmhouses he gathered that the Russians, alarmed for their communications after the battle of Liao-yang, were about to make a serious attempt to deal with Ah Lum and one or two other Chunchuse chiefs who threatened the railway between Harbin and Vladivostok. The Cossack parties whose movements the villagers reported, were presumably scouting to ascertain the exact position of Ah Lum's band preparatory to a concerted attempt to entrap him.

One afternoon, as they climbed a rugged slope towards a village nestling among trees at the top, the travellers heard the rattle of musketry in the distance, and saw a couple of Russian horsemen riding away in the direction whence the sound came. At first Jack thought of avoiding the village altogether, and making a detour; but he had been riding since early morning over difficult country, the sun had been hot, and he was very hungry; so that after consulting with his guide he decided to go on, the man thinking there was as great a risk of encountering Russians the one way as the other. They proceeded, therefore, but cautiously, keeping a sharp look-out. The guide knew the headman of the village; if he could get speech with him they might obtain useful information.

Firing could still be heard fitfully; it was impossible to tell how far away, but it seemed at a considerable distance from the village. When they entered the street, they came upon a knot of villagers in voluble discussion. They were instantly the object of a narrow scrutiny; but the guide had already marked his friend the headman among the group, and called him by name. The man came forward to meet the riders; the guide explained in a sentence that he wished to have some private talk with him, and he at once led the way to his house.

Thinking that frankness was here the best policy, Jack asked his guide to explain briefly who he was and what had brought him to the village. The headman was perturbed, almost incensed, when he heard the story. He had suffered already from depredations by the brigands; if the Russians knew that he had harboured a fugitive, he could only expect to suffer even more seriously at their hands. And there was great danger that they would discover the new-comers' presence. A squadron of Cossacks about two hundred strong was at that moment besieging some fifty Chunchuses in a farm three miles away. The brigands had been shut in for three days, and it was expected that they must yield shortly, perhaps before another day was past. The owner of the farm had come into the village when the Chunchuses appeared. He said that there was plenty of grain in his barns; the brigands could not be starved; but the water supply was likely to give out. The farm being situated less than half a mile from a river, the store of water kept in it was only sufficient for his family and servants, and could not meet the requirements of the company of Chunchuses, to say nothing of their horses. Behind the walls they might succeed in keeping the Russians at bay unless artillery were brought against them; but lack of water must inevitably cause them to surrender. They had made a good fight; the besiegers had lost a good many men; two Cossacks had come into the village only a short time before Jack's arrival, with orders to the headman to prepare quarters for the wounded. But they so greatly outnumbered the defenders that they could afford to lose heavily without seriously reducing the odds in their favour; and, taught by experience, they would probably not attempt to storm the place, but would sit down and leave its reduction to the work of time.