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

by Herbert Strang

Greatly daring, Wang Shih cited a maxim very pertinent, he thought, to the case.

"True, honourable sir; but is it not written: 'Of a hundred virtues, filial piety is the best'?"

"No doubt," retorted Ah Lum, still more snappishly. "But remember that if a man has good desires, heaven will assuredly grant them."

And Jack had to kick his heels, and drum poetry into Ah Fu, thinking disrespectfully of proverbial philosophy.

Thus three weeks passed. During this period the band grew steadily stronger. Jack reckoned that it now numbered at least eleven hundred. The rains having ceased, the camp was moved some twenty miles to the north-west, not in a direct line to Moukden, but nearer to that city. To Jack this was a crumb of comfort; but there were disadvantages in the change, for with the finer weather and the removal to somewhat lower ground, the midges and mosquitoes became more lively and troublesome, and he spent many a hot hour of pain and smart.

Another fortnight went by. The Chunchuses had been inactive so far as brigandage was concerned, and, except that they did no work, they might have been nothing but a peaceful mountain tribe. But one day a deputation came to the chief from a village lying in the midst of a woody and well-cultivated valley a few miles from the camp. They announced that their plantations of young bamboos were being devastated by a herd of wild boars with which they were unable to cope, and they had been deputed to beg the Chunchuse chief to come to their assistance. Ah Lum was never unwilling to please the country people when he saw a chance of gaining a substantial advantage. "Let no man," he would say, "despise the snake that has no horns, for who can say that it may not become a dragon?" Food was running short, and but for the deputation it was probable that some fine night the village would have been raided and plundered. But the request for assistance opened the way for a deal; Ah Lum consented to organize a battue in return for a large supply of food and fodder; and after half a day had been spent in haggling, the deputation returned, promising to send in the quantity first demanded.

The chief was exceedingly pleased.

"Do not rashly provoke quarrels, but let concord and good understanding prevail among neighbours. Seeing an opportunity to make a bargain, one should think of righteousness."

Jack welcomed the impending hunt as a pleasant change, and appeared to gratify the chief when he asked to be allowed to join in it. As a diversion from the sugared sweetness of Tennyson, he bethought himself to teach Ah Fu Fielding's fine song "A-hunting we will go"; and when the boy learnt the meaning of the words, he was all afire to share in the chase. Ah Lum was pleased with his spirit; but being unwilling that his only son should run any risk, he at first declined his request. The boy persisted, pointing out that he was already a good shot, and asking what was the good of his learning poems of hunting if he was not allowed to express in action the ardour thus fostered. This argument appealed to the chief's sense of the fitness of things; he would have agreed with Socrates that action was the end of heroic poetry; he yielded, stipulating, however, that throughout the hunt the boy should remain at his side.

Jack soon found that the hunt was not to be conducted on the lines of pig-sticking in India. He remembered the vivid account of such an adventure given him by a Behar planter whom he had once met on board a steamer between Shanghai and Newchang. Nor were the animals to be caught in artfully-contrived pits, as is the custom in Manchuria. The chief was ignorant of the Indian method, and was possessed of too strong a sporting instinct to be content with the work of a trapper; it was to be a real hunt, as he understood it. The cover in which the boars were known to lurk was about a square mile in extent. Ah Lum intended to take advantage of the large force at his disposal and arrange for beaters to drive the animals to a comparatively open space, at the end of which he and a select few would take up their positions and shoot down the boars as they emerged from cover. This seemed likely to be a safe way of effecting the desired object; and though not sport in the British sense, it would at any rate make some demand on their nerve and their marksmanship.