Mr. Squiers has been assigned two rooms of this house placed at the disposal of the United States Legation. They are situated at the back, opening directly on the filthy, dirty Chinese servants’ quarters. Mrs. Squiers, my maid, and I have the large room, which is practically the living-room for the family and mess of the First Secretary of the Legation. Our trunks, with two silver chests, and all the many dozens of tins of food that we brought from our Legation, are banked all round, up against the walls. The big double mattress on which we sleep is rolled up in the daytime, and we use it for seats as well as the trunks. We have no furniture, as Dr. Poole moved his bed to the hospital and found other places for the rest that he had, so the room is completely empty. Perhaps it is just as well, however, because we have great difficulty in finding a place big enough to spread our mattress out when night comes as our stores and trunks almost fill the room.
The three children have their respective cribs, which we were wise enough to bring over from our Legation. They are placed in the other room which looks out on the little avenue that runs through the compound. The air is much purer there than in our room, where we breathe the servants’ air and gas which rises from a broken sewer. The French and German governesses are placed in the ends of small halls.
When we were collecting a few comforts—mattresses, cribs for the children, etc.—in our Legation to bring over to this compound, we carelessly brought, too, a light-blue satin eiderdown quilt, which we took from one of the bedrooms, and now we are glad to have it, for it serves as a most admirable portable bed. When his services are not needed as orderly to Captain Strouts, Fargo Squiers gets some hours of good rest on it. He takes it to any particular spot where he thinks his services may be needed during the night, and, with a childlike ability to sleep anywhere, and an old veteran’s ability to wake up promptly, he finds this scrap of luxury from the old life doing excellent duty as a campaign adjunct. The sky-blue shade, however, is fast becoming a rich London smoke. Mr. Squiers, like other men who assist at the night-attacks, and must be ready to work anywhere at any time, sleeps in his clothes and his boots, usually in the American Legation, taking his rest in periods of forty Winks at such time as he is not needed.
As things are not systematically arranged yet—in fact, we hope the troops will be here before we need to get things in such a condition—we do a good deal of cooking on our chafing-dish. When we turn the room into a nursery for the children (for we cannot keep them always in their own room, nor can we allow them to be much in the compound, as half the time it is thick with exploding bullets), it is then a sight to behold. There are a good many children here. Their one game seems to be “Boxers,” and they copy in miniature what we grown-ups are playing in earnest. The younger ones are forced into being the attacking Chinese, and I am afraid when the big ones repulse them, they occasionally get very real bumps on their heads. They have small sandbags and barricades, and their Chinese warwhoop of Sha, sha! (Kill, kill!) is a creditable imitation of the real thing. It is all very clever, and they are all very full of life, and I help them to play, for it’s a good thing that they don’t realize what all this may mean, and we hope that relief will come before they lose their spirit and before they know.
One can see, on walking about, missionary children, of whom there are quantities, elbowing Ministers Plenipotentiary, and the latter going about without collars. The Belgian Minister, for instance, is a good example of the condition of to-day. He, with his First Secretary of Legation, M. Merghelynckem, Chevalier de Melotte, and his English valet, have been most gallantly defending their Legation for a long time without help of any kind. They killed many Boxers who attacked them, but they were so few that they found it impossible, after eight days, to hold out any longer, and were forced to leave. A party of Austrian soldiers went to their rescue and escorted them into the Legation lines, as the Belgian is quite distant from this centre. They had the pleasure of seeing their compound fired fifteen minutes after they left, and knew it was being looted as well. They then became “refugee colleagues,” and stopped first with the Austrians, then came here. They have for wardrobes the clothes they have on their backs, only M. Joostens has one extra blue cotton shirt and one piqué cravat.
Our Protestant missionaries are working steadily and continually wherever it is most essential, and besides doing everywhere the work of men, they have taken under their wing the care and feeding of that vast number of rescued Chinese converts who are now in Prince Su’s park. Most of the Roman Catholic brothers, in contrast, not only do not raise a finger to work, but in no way occupy themselves usefully.
Firing seems to continue at all times, but it is mostly over our heads. Yesterday Boxers tried to loot and fire the Dutch Legation, which is next to ours, and Captain Myers turned our machine-gun on the crowd for a minute and killed six Boxers, so the attempt to loot was not successful, but the burning of the compound continues. The Methodist Mission, so lately vacated, was looted and burned last night. So much happens in every twenty-four hours I can hardly keep account of it all, and as a background to the hourly horrors that develop is the continuous snipe, snipe, sniping, mostly by our own men, who are on roofs of buildings shooting at the constantly approaching incendiaries.
All food-supplies which can be procured in any way from anywhere by anyone have now to be turned in to the committee in charge of food, and everything is deposited with them on the erstwhile tennis-court of the British Legation, which is their headquarters. In fact, everything of a useful nature is stored there, whence it will later be distributed where most needed. The two foreign shops in Peking are Imbeck’s and Kieruff’s, and as they are too far up Legation Street to be defended in any way, they have been abandoned by their owners with their contents. The committee on food-supplies, although greatly desiring the stores on the shelves of these shops, would not attempt to get them, as anyone making the attempt would become a perfect target for Boxer snipers as soon as he left the protection of our last barricade on Legation Street.
Imagine our surprise when, late in the afternoon, a Chinese cart, driven by Fargo Squiers, a boy of fifteen years old, came thundering into the British compound with the upper part of the cart riddled with bullet-holes. He was heading for the two rooms in Dr. Poole’s house which had been allotted to his family, and his freight consisted of dozens of tins of the above-mentioned supplies from Imbeck’s death-surrounded shop, which he had procured at the greatest risk to his own life. The committee were about to order him to unload his desirable cargo with them, to be used for the good of the public, but upon hearing that the boy had ridden into the very jaws of death to procure these supplies, and had dared what no man in the compound had dared to do, they told him he could have the disposition of them, for by his rash valour he had well earned the lot.
It seems he procured a Chinese cart and forced two coolies to go with him. On their way to Imbeck’s one was killed by a bullet in his head, and though the other survived to help him load the cart, after arriving in the courtyard of the place, he had difficult work, as coolie number two tried to run away, and twice the boy had to point the muzzle of his rifle at him, indicating what he would do if he made any further attempts. They were fairly free from shots while actually loading the cart. On the return trip every yard of the way they were peppered by bullets, and the second coolie was wounded, but not killed. This boy saw what he thought he ought to do, and he did it; but what a terrible price might have been paid for these stores! Apropos of stores, these last certainly are welcome. Our mess is large, and so many tins were given to the missionaries and other needy people before we came to the British compound that we would have felt the lack of staple groceries tremendously had not this large windfall arrived.