In the front were the little brown Japanese Cavalry, Artillery, and Infantry—men who in battle make dying as much their business as living. Beside these were the English forces, the Scotch Highlanders, the Welsh Fusiliers, the Royal Artillery, all in best array. Behind them the Indian Empire troops, the Sikh Infantry with a sprinkling of Sepoys and the Mounted Bengalese Lancers. Then followed, each in its place, the Italian marines and foot soldiery, the well-groomed French troops from all branches of the military; the stalwart, fair-haired Germans, soldiers to a finish in weight and training; the Siberian Cossacks and the Russian Infantry and Cavalry, big, brutal looking men whom women of any nation might fear. In reserve at the last of the line were the American forces, the Ninth and Fourteenth Regiments of Infantry, the Sixth Cavalry, and F Battery of the Fifth Artillery.
So marched the host from Tien-Tsin along the sandy plains, led on by one purpose, to reach the old city of Peking and save the lives of the foreign citizens shut up inside their compound—whether massacred, or living, starved, and tortured, this allied army then could not know.
The August day was intensely hot, with its hours made grievous by a heavy, humid air, and the sand and thick dust ground and flung up in clouds by sixteen thousand troops, with all the cavalry hoofs and artillery wheels. It was only a type of the ten days that followed, wherein heat and dust and humid air, and thirst—burning, maddening thirst—joined together against the brave soldiery fighting not for fortune, nor glory, nor patriotism, but for humanity. 369
As they tramped away in military order, Thaine Aydelot said to his nearest comrade:
“Goodrich, I saw a familiar German face up in the line.”
“Friend of yours the Emperor sent out to keep you company?” Goodrich inquired with a smile.
“No, a Kansas joint-keeper named Hans Wyker. What do you suppose put him against the Boxers?”
“Oh, the army is the last resort for some men. It’s society’s clearing house,” Goodrich replied.
The speaker was a Harvard man, a cultured gentleman, in civil life a University Professor. The same high purpose was in his service that controlled Thaine Aydelot now.
“I don’t like being at the tail-end of this procession,” a big German from the Pennsylvania foundries declared, as he trudged sturdily along under the blazing sun. The courage in his determined face and his huge strength would warrant him a place in the front line anywhere.