Following the Sun-Flag: A Vain Pursuit Through Manchuria

by Jr. John Fox

"You'd better tell him to keep awake." Another voice answered:

"I will take care of him," and I lifted my hat, to see the ever-faithful Takeuchi stalking along through the deep mud by me, with a big stick in his hand. But we saw no bandits. It was the middle of the afternoon now, and we began to meet column after column of Japanese troops moving toward the front from the new point of disembarkation—Newchwang. Somehow, on the wind, a rumor was borne to us that there was a foreign hotel in Newchwang which had bath-tubs and beer and tansan; even a wilder rumor came that the Russians had left champagne there. We held a consultation. If all those things were there, it were just as well that some one of us should engage them for the four as quickly as possible. The happy lot fell to me, and I mounted Dean Prior's great white horse and went ahead at a gallop. That horse was all right loping in a straight line, but if there was a curve to be turned or a slippery bank to descend, his weak back drew mortality for the rider very near. Then he had an ungovernable passion for lying down in mud-holes and streams, which held distinct possibilities for discomfort. Twice he went down with me on the road, though he walked over a stream on a stone arch that was not two feet wide in perfect safety. In one river, too, he went down, and we rolled together for a little while in the yellow mud and water; but I ploughed a way through columns of troops, and, led by a Chinese guide, reached Newchwang at sunset. I went to the Japanese headquarters, but could learn nothing about that hotel. I asked directions of everybody, and when, going down the street, I saw coming toward me through the dust a boy with a tennis-racquet over his shoulder and a real white girl in a white dress, with black hair hanging down her back, I asked directions again, merely that I might look a little longer upon that girl's face. It seemed a thousand years since I had seen a woman who looked like her. I found the hotel, and I got rooms for ourselves and quarters for our servants and horses. Looking for a stable in the dark, I turned a corner, to see a Japanese naked bayonet thrust within a foot of my breast. Naturally, I stopped, but as it came no nearer, I went on, and not a word was said by the sentinel nor by me. None of my companions came in, and I ate dinner in lonely magnificence, put beer, champagne, and tansan on ice, gave orders that the servants should wait until midnight, and sent guides out to wait for Davis and Prior and the Irishman at the city gates. Then I went to bed. About two o'clock there was a pounding on my door, and a little Japanese officer with a two-handed sword some five feet long came in and arrested me as a Russian spy. He said I would have to leave Newchwang by the earliest train the next morning. Now, if I had had wings I should have been cleaving the Manchurian darkness at that very minute for home, and with a little more self-control I should have hung out the window and laughed when he made that direful threat. But I had ridden into that town on the biggest white horse I ever saw, and I looked like an English field-marshal without his blouse. I had gone to the Japanese headquarters. I had registered my name and the names of my three friends on the hotel-book. I had filled out the blank that is usual for the passing stranger in time of war. I had added information that was not asked for on that blank. I had engaged four rooms, had ordered dinner for four people, and had things to eat and things to drink awaiting for the other three whenever they should come. I had my war-pass in my pocket, which I displayed, and yet this Japanese officer, the second in command at Newchwang and a graduate of Yale, as I learned afterward, woke me up at two o'clock in the morning, and in excellent English put me under arrest as a Russian spy. I was robed only in a blue flannel shirt and a pair of "Bonnie Maginns," but I sprang shamelessly from out that mosquito-netting, and I said things that I am not yet sorry for. Over that scene I will draw the curtain quickly—but just the same, a Japanese soldier sat at my door all through the night. The next morning I heard a great noise, and I saw our entire train in the street below. I called my sentinel to the window and pointed out to him four carts, twelve horses and mules, eight coolies, and eight interpreters and servants, and I asked him if Russian spies were accustomed to travel that way—if they did business with a circus procession and a brass band? He grinned slightly.

Half an hour later Davis and I went down to see the Yale graduate, and he apologized. He said graciously that he would remove the guard from my door, and I did not tell him that that intelligent soldier had voluntarily removed himself an hour before. We told him we were very anxious to get back to Yokohama to catch a steamer for home. He said that we probably would not be allowed to go home on a transport, and that even if we had permission we could not, for the reason that no transports were going.

"There is none going to-day?"

"No."

"Nor to-morrow?"

"No."

"Nor the day after?"

"No."

We said good-by. Just outside the door we met another Japanese officer who had been sent into Manchuria with a special message from the Emperor, and had been told incidentally to look in on the correspondents. He had looked in on us above Haicheng, and he was apparently trying to do all he could for us. He was quite sure if we saw the Major in Command there, that we should be allowed to go. "Is there a transport going to-day?" I asked.