There is now, and has been for the best part of the last forty-eight hours, outpost shooting on all sides, which remains quite unexplained. Listen how it happens.
You are sitting at a loophole, half asleep, perhaps, during the daytime, when crack! a bullet sends a shower of brick chips and a powder-puff of dust over your head. You swear, maybe, and quietly continue dozing. Then come two or three rifle reports and more dust. This time the thing seems more serious, it may mean something; so you reach for your glasses and carefully survey the scene beyond through your loophole. To remain absolutely hidden is the order of the day. So there is nothing much to be seen. Far away, and very near, lie the enemy's barricades, some running almost up to your own, but quite peaceful and silent, others standing up frowningly hundreds of yards off, monuments erected weeks ago. These latter are so distant that they are unknown quantities. Then just as you are about to give it up as a bad job, you see the top of a rifle barrel glistening in the sun. You ... bang! perilously near your glasses another bullet has struck. So you pull up your rifle by the strap, open out your loophole a little by removing some of the bricks, and carefully and slowly you send the answering message at the enemy's head. If you have great luck a faint groan or a distant shout of pain may reward your efforts; but you can never be quite sure whether you have got home on your rival or not. Loophole shooting is very tricky, and the very best shots fire by the hour in vain. I have seen that often....
Yesterday I directly disobeyed orders by opening the ball myself. I had been posted in the early morning very close to one of the enemy's banners—perhaps not more than forty feet away—and this gaudy flag, defiantly flapping so near the end of my nose, must have incensed me; for almost before I had realised what I was doing I was very slowly and very carefully aiming at the bamboo staff so as to split it in two and bring down the banner with a run. I fired three shots in ten minutes and missed in an exasperating fashion. It is the devil's own job to do really accurate work with an untested government rifle. But my fourth shot was more successful; it snapped the staff neatly enough, and the banner floated to the ground just outside the barricade.
This Chinese outpost must have been but feebly manned, as, indeed, all the outposts have been since the armistice, for it was fully ten minutes before anything occurred. Then an arm came suddenly over and pecked vainly at the banner. I snapped rapidly, missed, and the arm flicked back. Another five minutes passed, and then a piece of curved bamboo moved over the barricade and hunted about. It was no use, however, the arm had to come, too. I waited until the brown hand clasping the bamboo was low and then pumped a quick shot at it. A yell of pain answered me; the bamboo was dropped, the arm disappeared. I had drawn blood.
Nothing now occurred for a quarter of an hour, and I heard not a sound. Then suddenly half a dozen arms clasping bamboos appeared at different points, and as soon as I had fired six heads swooped out and directed this bamboo fishing. In a trice they had harpooned the flag, and before I could fire again it was back in their camp. I had been beaten! Then, as a revenge, I was steadily pelted with lead for more than half an hour and had to lie very low. They searched for me with their missiles with devilish ingenuity. This firing became so persistent that one of our patrols at last appeared and crept forward to me from the line of main works behind. Only by ingenious lying did I escape from being reported....
Probably incidents like this account for the outpost duels which are hourly proceeding, in spite of all the Tsung-li Yamen despatches and the unending mutual assurances. Many of our men shoot immediately they see a Chinese rifle or a Chinese head in the hopes of adding another scalp to their tale. In any case, this does no harm. It seems to me that only the resolution of the outposts, acting independently, and sometimes even in defiance to orders from headquarters, has kept the enemy so long at bay. The rifle distrusts diplomacy.
This diplomatic correspondence with the Yamen is rapidly accumulating. Many documents are now coming through from European Foreign Offices in the form of cipher telegrams, that are copied out by the native telegraphists in the usual way. No one is being told what is in these documents; we can only guess. The Yamen covers each message with a formal despatch in Chinese, generally begging the Ministers to commit themselves to the care of the government. They now even propose that everyone should be escorted to Tientsin—at once. And yet we have learned from copies of the Peking Gazette that two members of the Yamen were executed exactly seven days ago for recommending a mild policy and making an immediate end of the Boxer régime. It is thus impossible to see how it will end. Our fate must ultimately be decided by a number of factors, concerning which we know nothing.
This breathing space is giving time, however, which is not being entirely wasted on our part. At several points we have managed to enter into secret relations with some of the Chinese commands, and to induce traitors to begin a secret traffic in ammunition and food supplies....
It is curious how it is done. By tunnelling through walls and houses in neglected corners, protected ways have been made into some of the nests of half-ruined native houses. And by spending many bags of dollars, friendship has first been bought and then supplies.