A Modern Legionary

by John Patrick Le Poer

We were nearly an hour so waiting, watching, and listening, and the constant strain had just begun to tell upon the nerves, when from the eastern side of the camp a report of a rifle came. Almost at once this was followed by a constant fire, not firing by volleys, be it well understood, but a well kept-up fire on both sides, never ceasing, but swaying, as it were, up and down, as now the reports came almost all together, now they came in twos and threes, or in dozens and in scores. The eastern side was not engaged long when the northern and southern ones joined in. A moment afterwards the red spirts came to us out of the darkness of the night. We replied, and a hot fusilade was well maintained without and within. The block-house garrison was also hotly engaged. They had little trouble with two faces, for the fronts of them were swept by the fire from the nearest angle of the fort, but on the other faces their work was far harder than ours. As was obvious afterwards, when the light came and gave us the advantage, the Black Flags had tried to catch the main position unawares, if possible, but at least to give its garrison enough to do. The chief object was to win the block-house; that captured, we others could be poisoned out. I afterwards learned that in the block-house there were two engineers and twenty-one legionaries, the whole being commanded by the sergeant-major I spoke of, the Alsatian who came from No. 3. They were good men; one engineer and seven legionaries, all simple soldiers, were killed; almost all the others were wounded, but even wounded men who could stand remained at their posts, and those others who had to stay out of the fight loaded their rifles and the rifles of the dead, and passed them to the fighting men, so that two shots often went through a loophole when, in the Black Flags' minds, only one should be expected. They were good men; I am proud of having soldiered with such.

But one attempt was made to rush the fort. This occurred at the angle where the fire from the two sides swept the ground in front of two faces of the block-house. I don't believe that the enemy dreamt of taking our place by storm, but one thing was certain, the attack in force took away all aid for the block-house from the main position and made the men outside dependent altogether on themselves. That the determined attack on the little garrison outside, weakened as it was by death and wounds, did not succeed was due, first to their determined resistance, and secondly to the fact that, just as the attack became fiercest, the light became good enough for us to see our foes, to reckon their strength, and then to allow our captain to withdraw men from the two sides that were but feebly fired at to the others where the firing was practically point-blank. The sudden reinforcement overpowered the attack. A rapid and unexpected sally by fifty or sixty legionaries with fixed bayonets relieved the pressure round the block-house. The little garrison received from the sortie party a dozen men as reinforcements, the rest returned, and that really finished the engagement. A few shots still continued to be exchanged, but the firing after the sally was of no account—a man killed or wounded on either side "did not count in the tale of the battle."

After this we had a little peace. We buried our dead outside the ramparts, but we left no mounds to afford shelter to enemies. All the earth that would in ordinary cases form heaps above the graves was taken to strengthen our defences; the plain outside was left as level as before. Was he not a clever captain? As for the enemy's killed and wounded, the uniformed men amongst them took them away under a flag of truce. We never allowed more than twenty-five to be engaged on the work within a hundred yards of the outer face of the fortifications, because we never trusted the Chinese. One thing else we did, we sent out the Annamites to gather all the weapons and ammunition of those who had fallen near the camp. These were of no use to us, but we deprived the enemy of them. Some of the wounded fell out with the Annamite tirailleurs; well, it was so much the worse for the wounded.

When the burials were over and the wounded were going along well, we began to look forward to another attack. The Chinese regulars evidently took the business in hand this time, for there was no attempt to carry the main post or the block-house by assault; now we had to contend with mines. It was very well for us that there were engineers in the garrison; without them we should in all probability have seen most of our defences blown into the air. As it was, the Chinese mined and our engineers countermined. At first the mining was comparatively simple, as far as we were concerned. The Chinese had not the skill of the French sappers, and the result was that we always found out where they were boring, before they even imagined that we could know anything about their operations, but after we had destroyed a few mines, and with them a certain number of men, the underground attack became more skilful and more concealed. On more than one occasion both parties of tunnellers discovered each other at the same time, and the earth was quickly put back by both; we did not want a communication between mine and countermine, for that might give passage to a couple of thousand Chinese and Black Flags into our camp; the enemy did not want to come to close quarters with us, for more than once they had learned that, bayonet to bayonet, the Asiatic stood no chance against the European. I shall not say much about the underground operations, as I am not an engineer; moreover, my duties as sergeant kept me almost always above ground; we allowed the military engineers to direct everything below. Of course, it will be understood that the legionaries, and sometimes the Annamite tirailleurs, furnished the working parties; the regular engineers chiefly concerned themselves with planning the works first and overseeing them afterwards. There is a story of one countermine which, however, I must narrate, as it intimately concerned myself.

Our fellows had cautiously dug forward for a considerable distance. No sound of tunnelling on the side of the Chinese had been heard; as the dénoûment proved, they had been as cautious as we. The working party was tearing down the earth with the sharp edge of the pick, not striking with all their strength. Thus very little noise was made, and, besides, it was enjoined on all who were at work in the mine that talking could not be allowed. The men loyally obeyed orders, even if they had not felt inclined to do so through the spirit of discipline, the knowledge that the others were doing their best to tunnel under the fortification and then blow part of it to pieces prior to a grand attack with rifle and bayonet, would have made them obedient enough. I had gone down into the mine, more out of curiosity than because I had business there; my excuse was that I wished to get the names of the men of my section working in the pit. When I went down, I stayed for a moment or two. While I was holding a whispered conversation with a sub-officer of engineers, a cry from a worker drew our attention. In a moment the engineer saw what had happened, and cried out: "Les Chinois, les Chinois!"

As a matter of fact, the Chinese miners and we were separated only by a thin wall of loose earth; a blow or two struck by I know not which party tumbled this down, and we were all mixed up together, French and Chinese, in the tunnel. All struck out at random. I drew my bayonet, which, of course, I always wore, and dashed the point in the face of a yellow man from outside.

The lamps were extinguished in the struggle that ensued; we were all striking blindly about with pick-axe, shovel, and bayonet; no man knew who might receive his blow. It was a horrible time. In the darkness I heard the cries and oaths and groans; I shoved forward my bayonet, it met something soft; I drew it back and lunged again; again it met the soft, yielding substance, or perhaps the blow was lost on empty air. If I struggled forward, I tripped over a body; if I went back, surely a miner would knock my brains out with his pick. This went on for a short space that seemed an eternity. At last hurrying footsteps and shouts of encouragement and a welcome gleaming of lights told of the arrival of aid. When our comrades came up, we found that all the Chinese able to flee had fled; fourteen of them, however, and eight or nine men of ours, were lying pressed against and on top of one another in a narrow space. All, dead and wounded alike, were carried out; the place was blocked up at once, and the countermine that had taken so much time and work on our part was filled in. When the dead and wounded were examined two legionaries and two engineers were found dead, four legionaries and an Annamite tirailleur wounded, ten Chinese killed outright, four just alive. An ugly list for the small place in which the fight was, but it was the darkness that caused so heavy a casualty list amongst comparatively few combatants. It was a most unpleasant struggle. After that experience I shall never care to fight again in the dark.

For some time afterwards the siege went on in a less exciting way. The enemy had evidently resolved to starve us out. We had, as we thought, enough of stores in the beginning to last until relief came, but when the relief did not make its appearance at or after the time expected, the captain began to have serious misgivings for the future. We were utterly shut off from all communication with the outside world; for all we knew, another disaster might have befallen the French troops, and, if that were the case, there could be no hope of relief in time. A full fortnight had now elapsed since the date that we had confidently set for the coming up of reinforcements; we were all asking one another the reason of the delay. Other questions also arose. Would our comrades come soon? If they did not, would our provisions hold out? Should we be able to fight our way through, in case the post had to be abandoned? There was no thought of surrender, for all understood that it was better to die fighting than to give ourselves up to the diabolical tortures inflicted by the Black Flags and their allies on unlucky prisoners of war.

One day rations were reduced by one half. In some way to make up for this an allowance of native spirit was served out every afternoon, but the brandy and the wine were carefully kept for the use of the sick and wounded. These were by no means few, and when the dead were added to the ineffectives the total reached almost fifty per cent. of the original force. Indeed, after we had been on half-rations for a time, we legionaries formed a skeleton company of skeletons; we were so few and so reduced in weight. But through all we were resolute and, nearly to the last, cheerful. Certainly when the half-rations were further diminished, our spirits markedly sank, but no one expects starving men to show much gaiety.

The soldiers were kept constantly on the alert both by the enemy and by us, their sub-officers. The captain told the sergeants and corporals that the men were to be always engaged in some work or other, as he did not wish to give them time to annoy themselves by thinking. This instruction made me a busy man. I was always on the look-out for little duties for my section, at the same time taking care not to overwork the men, and I tried to be as cheerful as possible with them. My fellows and I got along well together on the whole. I never brought a man before the captain if I could help it, and I let the corporals of the section understand that the squads were not to be sworn at more than was absolutely necessary. At the same time all knew that an order once given had to be at once obeyed.