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

by Herbert Strang

"Very sorry; it is impossible to-day as it was yesterday. None but military messages are going through."

"Well, I just came up on the chance."

"When are you leaving? We shall miss you."

"Thanks! In a few days, I hope. Father has just about settled up everything. In fact, that consignment of flour is the only thing left to trouble about now. I hope it will get through safely, but the Japanese appear to be scouting the seas pretty thoroughly. As soon as we hear from our agent at Vladivostok we shall be off."

"Come and have a glass of tea in the buffet. It may be the last time."

Jack Brown—known to his Russian friends as Ivan Ivanovitch, "John the son of John"—accepted the invitation. After a chat and a glass of tea from the large steaming samovar, always a conspicuous object in a Russian buffet, he left the station as the dusk was falling and a haze spread over the ground, covering up the many unlovely evidences of the Russian occupation. For variety's sake he changed his course and took a path to the left that skirted the native graveyard, intending to enter the city by one of the northern gates. A line of heavy native carts, with their long teams of mules and ponies, was slowly wending northwards; women, their hair decorated with flowers, were taking their children for an airing before the sun set and the gates were closed; a beggar stood by the roadside cleverly imitating a bird's cry by blowing through a curled-up leaf. Jack came to the great mandarin road and turned towards the city; such evening scenes were now a matter of course to him. But he was still at some distance from the outer wall when he came upon a sight which, common as it was in Moukden, he never beheld without pity and indignation. A big muscular Chinaman of some thirty to forty years was seated on the ground, his neck locked in the square wooden collar known as the cangue, an oriental variant of the old English pillory. So devised that the head and the upper part of the body are held rigid, the cangue as an instrument of punishment is worthy of Chinese ingenuity. The victim, as Jack knew, must have sat throughout the long sweltering day tortured by innumerable insects which his fixed hands were powerless to beat off. At nightfall a constable would come and release him, conveying him to the gaol attached to a yamen within the city, where he would be locked up until the morning. Then the cangue would be replaced and the criminal taken back to the same spot on the wayside.

Jack hurried his step as he approached, eager to leave the unpleasant sight behind him. But on drawing nearer he was surprised to find that he knew the man,—surprised, because he was one of the last who could have been expected to fall into such a plight. The recognition was mutual; and as Jack came up, the parched lips of the victim uttered a woeful exclamation of greeting.

"How came you here, Mr. Wang?" asked Jack in Chinese.

The crime was indicated on the upper board of the cangue, but Jack, though he had more than a smattering of colloquial Chinese, knew almost nothing of the written language. The poor wretch could hardly articulate; but with difficulty he at length managed, in the short high-pitched monosyllables of his native tongue, to explain. He had been accused of fraud; the charge was totally without foundation; but at the trial before the magistrates witness after witness had appeared against him: it is easy to suborn evidence in a Chinese court: and he had been condemned to the cangue, a first step in the system of torture by which a prisoner, innocent or guilty, is forced to confess.

To one who knew the Chinese as Jack did, there was nothing surprising in this explanation, except the fact that Wang Shih was the victim. He was a respectable man, the son of an old farmer some fifteen miles east of Moukden, and practically the owner of the farm, his father being past work. Hard-working and honest, he was the last man to be suspected of trickery or base dealing. Mr. Brown had done much business with him, and only recently had had a proof of his good faith. The Chinaman had contracted to supply him with a large quantity of fodder. A few days before the date of delivery he had been visited by a business rival of Mr. Brown's, a Pole, who had come to Moukden some four or five years before, and from small beginnings had worked up a considerable business. Almost from the first he had come into competition with Mr. Brown. The methods of the two men were diametrically opposed,—the Pole relying on bribery, the corruption of the official class with which he had to deal; the Englishman sternly resolute to lend himself to no transaction in Manchuria of which he would be ashamed at home. Anton Sowinski, as the Pole was called, offered Wang Shih the strongest inducements to break his contract with Mr. Brown; but finding his native honesty proof against temptation, he had lost his temper, abused him, and finally struck him with his whip. The Chinaman was a peaceable fellow; but beneath his stolidity slumbered the fierce temper of his race. Under the Pole's provocation and assault his self-restraint gave way. He seized Sowinski with the grip of a giant, rapped his head soundly against the fence, and then threw him bodily into the road. The contract with Mr. Brown had been duly fulfilled; and it was, to say the least, unlikely that a man who had thus kept faith to his own disadvantage should have descended to vulgar fraud.