Now this Water Gate entrance is no longer a drain, as it used to be, but is rapidly shooting forth a veritable military kaleidoscope. The yellow lines have changed into a stream of plodding, heavily-laden, tiny Japanese soldiers; then the picturesque uniforms of the French Zouaves, from Saigon, with their loose, baggy, cumbersome red trousers, come into view. We stood transfixed. It seemed to us as if the whole world had come to our rescue. Now the passing lines have changed again, and this time Cossacks, with their black, high leather boots and soiled white tunics, tramp past us, but we could not wait for more. We returned to the British compound, where we found that the galling fire from the Ch’ien Men Gate, which had done such damage amongst our attacking troops, had been stopped by a sortie of our marines down the Tartar Wall to the gate, where they silenced the Chinese and the Chinese guns, and helped our incoming soldiers to mount theirs in the erstwhile Chinese position, from which splendid vantage they fired directly into the Imperial City, and by this fire opened two more of the big gates of the Forbidden City.
This charge down the Tartar Wall to clear it of Chinese soldiers and Chinese guns by our marines was a brilliant bit of action. The guard, one and all, were anxious to help in some way our relief, which was so hard pressed at the Ch’ien Men Gate, and they welcomed with shouts of joy the orders from Sir Claude which enabled them to have a hand in this last great fight. They were joined by twenty Russians, the siege friends and almost the dear “bunkies” of our men, one Russian officer, and Mr. Squiers, of our diplomatic service (the Chief of Staff to Sir Claude during the siege), who led the charge.
The other nationalities have done about the same sort of thing on entering Peking; they have each taken some one gate, and are stationed now at different parts of the city, and, by a hasty conference of the generals and Ministers, they have each been given areas to be responsible for and to police. To police—which means that in these districts they will turn their men out to loot.
The Americans, after taking the Ch’ien Men Gate and the continuing inner gate directly up to the Purple City, left them manned, and then retired to the south-east portion of the Chinese city, which is contiguous to this district. In all Peking, but principally in our lines, confusion is rampant. This modern “Tower of Babel” will, I suppose, eventually settle itself or spread itself, as the case may require. One of the difficulties of late arriving columns trying to find their headquarters and marching round and round is the fact that their headquarters are also on the move, and until they bump into each other by accident they are at a loss to know what to do. To-day, at least, no one can direct anyone else.
Out of this wonderful military kaleidoscope, how glad I was to see old friends and acquaintances emerge! First to come to me was Colonel Churchill, the British Military Attaché to Japan, who got permission in Tokyo to come up with the Japanese troops to Peking. On finding me alive and well, he returned to the Japanese headquarters in time to send word with the first official telegram of General Fukushima to the War Office in Tokyo (announcing that the Japanese troops had arrived in Peking), to my brother-in-law, Lieutenant Key, who is the American Naval Attaché to Japan, that I was safe and well. How wonderful to think that, as the troops were marching up to Peking, the engineers were steadily placing the telegraph-wires, so that six hours after we were relieved a message went flying down to the coast with the tidings! To know that my dear sister in Japan and my family at home have been relieved from the uncertainty of my condition, already causes my heartstrings to loosen up a bit, and the tension is not quite so painful. A year before, I lunched with General and Mrs. Chaffee in Havana, and it was very nice to see him again here in this wicked old Peking.
He told me that no hours in his life had ever been so full of dreadful anxiety as the hours before the dawn of this morning at Tungchou, just before the starting of the columns for Peking. They could hear the continuous Chinese fire, and also the weak but steady spitting of our little Colt automatic gun, which he knew the marine guard had with them, and he said that all the sounds he heard spelled but one sentence, “Shall we be too late? Shall we be too late?”
It seems that the greater part of the allied armies had spent the night at Tungchou, and it had been absolutely settled by the commanders that the following night and morning hours were to be spent there, which would give time for scouts to go out and make reasonable reconnaissances; and that by early noon the main body of the allies should march on to Peking, each having a different city gate to take simultaneously. This plan was very nice and correct and military, but the Japanese and Russians, who had been eyeing each other distrustfully, could not stand it any longer, and throwing to the winds the pledge that they had given that day in conference, they both started their columns off double-quick before dawn for the capital. This breaking of their promise to the allies at the last moment, so to speak, rather mixed things up, but perhaps, after all, it was a relief to the others, because it then meant they were relieved, too, from any long concerted action, and they all could begin to march straight for Peking, which they did.
The night of the 14th was the last night that our siege mess dined together on our little eight-sided Chinese table, which was generously stocked with the remaining tins which we had been hoarding for such a long time. Somebody has said, “There is a sadness about the last time of everything,” and truly it was so with us. I felt exactly as children feel when they have been having a wild game of make-believe all day, when the grown-ups break in and say, “Come, children, there has been enough of this.” And so it was with us: these terrible times are over, and there is nothing for us to do but remain passive, and try and get some sort of equilibrium into our lives again; and as we dined together last night there was a strong feeling, although we did not speak of it, that nobody but ourselves, who went through this incredible eight weeks of horror, were ever going to know really what the siege in Peking has been, and that we might all talk until doomsday, but the world will never understand. Perhaps it is too busy to try. So, as the kiddies say after a game, “Well, we know who’s who, and who has done what, and that is as near as we ever will get to teaching the grown-ups, who know it all, about it.”
August 16.
Captain Reilly, who was killed this morning while gallantly directing the fire of his battery, was buried this afternoon in a small open space in the American Legation. This funeral, however, was not as pitiful to me as the siege funerals we have been having all summer. Perhaps because there was some help and satisfaction to be got out of the military pomp and honours which were given him as he was laid away. All the guard captains were there. Captain Reilly’s brother-officers and the officials in general assisted. The rough coffin was generously shrouded in an enormous flag, and after a short military service was let down into the wide, deep grave made for him.