Before the sun had reached the zenith the line was whipped end to end, as Binford of Indiana had said it might be. In this engagement on the sandy plain about the little village of Peit-Tsang, Thaine with his comrades 371 saw what it meant to lead that battle line. He saw the brave little Japanese mowed down like standing grain before the reaper’s sickle. He saw the ranks move swiftly up to take the places of the fallen, never wavering nor retreating, rushing to certain death as to places of vantage in a coronal pageantry. The Filipino’s Mauser was as deadly as the older style gun of the Boxer. A bullet aimed true does a bullet’s work. But in this battle that raged about Peit-Tsang Thaine quickly discovered that this was no fight in a Filipino jungle. Here was real war, as big and terrible above the campaigns he had known in Luzon as the purpose in it was big above loyalty to the flag and extension of American dominion and ideals.
When the thing was ended with the routing of the Boxer forces, of the sixteen thousand that went into battle a tithe of one-tenth of their number lay dead on the plains—sixteen hundred men, the cost of conquest in a far wilderness. The heaviest toll fell on the brave Japanese who had led in the attack.
Thaine Aydelot did not dream of home that night. He slept on his arms the heavy sleep of utter weariness, which Little Kemper’s bugle call broke at three o’clock the next morning. Before the August sun had crawled over the eastern horizon the armies were swinging up the Peiho river toward Peking. The American troops were leading the column now, as Thaine Aydelot had wished they might, and in all that followed after the day at Peit-Tsang the Stars and Stripes, brave token of a brave people, floated above the front lines of soldiery, even to the end of the struggle.
It was high noon above the Orient, where the Peiho 372 flows beside the populous town of Yang-Tsun. The Boxer army routed by the battle of Peit-Tsang had massed its front before the town, a formidable array in numbers, equipment, and frenzied eagerness to halt here and forever the poor little line of foreign soldiers creeping in upon it from the sea. The Boxers knew that they could match the fighting strength of this line with quadruple force. The troops coming toward them had marched twelve miles under the August heat of a hundred degrees, through sand and alkali dust, in the heavy humid air saturated with evil odors. They had had no food since the night before, nor a drink of water since daydawn. Joyful would it be to slaughter here the entire band and then rush back to the hoary old City of Peking with the triumphant message that the Allied Armies of the World had fallen before China. Then the death of every foreigner in the Empire would be certain.
At noon the battle lines were formed. In the swinging into place as Thaine Aydelot stood beside Tasker, surrounded by his comrades, Little Kemper dashed by him.
“Here’s where the corn-fed Kansans do their work,” he said gaily to the Kansas men.
“With a few bean-eaters from Boston to help,” Goodrich responded.
“And a Hoosier to give them culture,” Binford added.
“Yes, yes, with the William Penn Quakers and the Pennsylvania Dutch,” Schwoebel roared, striking McLearn on the shoulder.
Men think of many things as the battle breaks, but never do they fight less bravely because they have laughed the moment before. 373