A large part of the defense of the southern half of the Hanlin Yuan has been performed by the customs volunteers, and there has been no more trying military service in the siege than at that place. We early took possession of the southern end, and built a barricade of bricks and sand-bags running completely across the compound.
Our barricade and the Chinese barricades are so close that often the Chinese have thrown half bricks over at us, as their rifle-bullets cannot penetrate the barricade. Several of our men have been injured by stones and bricks in this way.
In addition to the members of the customs staff given above as enrolled members of the customs volunteers, there have been attached to the corps for duty at various times Messrs. Barbier, Flicke, and Hagermann.
Messrs. E. Wagner and H. P. Destelan were soon called to serve at the French legation, as the fighting had been very hot there, and men were needed to take the places of those who had fallen. They barely joined their fellow-nationals at their perilous post, and there on July 1 Wagner was struck by a shell in the head and instantly killed. A few days later Destelan had a miraculous escape. The Chinese across the narrow lane, known as Customs lane, had undermined the street, and placed a mine under the wall and eastern buildings of the legation. When they exploded it, Destelan and several others were buried in the ruins; but a second explosion almost immediately blew several of them out again, among them Destelan and Von Rosthorn, the Austrian chargé d’affaires, who was on duty in the French legation after the surrender of his own legation to the Chinese troops. Only two Frenchmen lost their lives by this mine, while the Chinese acknowledge they lost twenty of their own men by the explosion.
The sad death of Wagner threw a deep gloom for many days over his young comrades in arms. He was so intelligent, bright and cheerful, always willing to undertake any service, and always in the front, that he has been sorely missed. Mr. H. Bismarck was obliged by the necessities of the German legation to join his nationals there, as was also Mr. Diehr.
Bismarck has had his hat shot off and his clothes perforated several times, has been in several sorties and all sorts of dangers, but has wonderfully escaped.
Mr. L. de Luca received a painful, but not serious, wound of the forearm, which partially disabled him for a time; but, as soon as possible, he was again serving at the various posts. For a time he was on Captain Wray’s staff as aid in the commissary department, but in this place there was no danger to be incurred, and he joyfully relinquished it to Mr. C. H. Oliver.
Mr. J. W. Richardson was the first of the customs volunteers to be disabled, having received, early in the siege, a flesh-wound of the shoulder. He, too, made a rapid recovery, and was soon acting as assistant steward in the hospital, but when entirely in health returned again to guard duty.
Mr. A. G. Bethell became ill from overwork and fatigue, and was obliged to go into the hospital for several days, but recovered under rest and appropriate treatment and returned to duty. Mr. U. F. Wintour, while excavating a deep trench in the Hanlin Yuan as a countermine to the Chinese mining attempts, badly sprained his knee-joint, which has since resulted in a severe synovitis, compelling him to remain with his leg fixed in a plaster-of-paris cast for some weeks.