"I wouldn't turn a water-snake out of doors on a night like this."
But those two same Samaritans saved him straightway, and we sit now in Chinese clothes in front of a temple and under a great spreading, full-leafed tree, with two horses champing millet before the altar and thousands of buzzing flies around. To-morrow we go on!
VI
THE WHITE SLAVES OF HAICHENG
Haicheng at last! The Russians are only five miles away and they can drop shells on us, but they don't. The attachés were taken out on a reconnaissance yesterday, and we, too, if we are very good, will be allowed to see a Japanese soldier in a real ante-mortem trench.
We left Yoka-tong this morning at seven and in three hours reached dirty, fly-ridden Ta-shi-kao. The valley has broadened as we have come north. The Chinese houses are better and the millet-fields (kow-liang) stretch away like a sea on each side of the road. Soldiers were bathing in the river that we crossed to get to the gate of Haicheng, and the stretch of sand was dotted with naked men. Every grove was, in color, mingled black, brown, and dirty white from the carts, horses, and soldiers packed under the trees. We found the courteous Captain of Gendarmes, by accident, straightway, and we had to take tea hot, tea cold, and tea with condensed milk before he would lead us to our quarters in this mud compound. Lewis, Reggie, and Scull greeted us with a shout and produced beer and Tansan and a bottle of champagne cider. Heavens, what nectar each was! The rest are coming, but the button on the dragon's tail—the Irishman on the bicycle—has come off. Nobody knows where it dropped. Reggie the big Frenchman is newly mounted on a savage yellow beast that can be approached, like a cow, only on the right side—and Lewis told the story of the two. Davis answered with the story of our tribulations—his, Brill's and mine. He told it so well that Brill and I wished we had been there....
We slept in our riding-clothes for the third time last night and to-day we know our fate. We are to play a week's engagement here in a drama of still life—the title of which heads these lines. With a sleeve-badge of identification on—the Red Badge of Shame we call it—we can wander more or less freely within the city walls. We can even climb on them and walk around the town—about two miles—but we cannot go outside without a written application from the entire company, and then only under a guard. We are to have three guards, by the way, and our letters—even private ones—are to go to the censor and not come back to us. Thus no man will know what has gone, and what hasn't, or whether what went was worth sending. Later this restriction was removed.
Our Three Guardsmen came to us last night and told these things. One was thick-set, bearded, and a son of Chicago University; one was smooth-shaven, thin-faced—and an authority on international law—both, of course, speaking English. The third carried a small mustache and talked very good French—so said Reggie. After the usual apologies, the bearded one said in partial excuse for shackling us: