To rediscover the ease and luxury of lying down, not brute-like, but man-like, seemed to me an immense thing. I had had my first night's sleep on a bed for nearly three months, and I wished never to rise again. I wished to be immensely lazy for a long period—not to have to move or think or act. But that could not be. All sorts of marauders were sweeping the city and working their wills in a hundred different ways. Half a dozen times, as soon as daylight had come, shots had been fired through my gateway. European soldiery, who had broken away from their corps, and native vagabonds and disguised Boxers, who had hidden panic-stricken during the first hours after the relief, were now prowling about armed from head to foot. The vast city, which had been given over for weeks to mad disorders and insane Boxerism, was in a receptive condition for this final climax. There was no semblance of authority left; with troops of many rival nationalities always pouring in, and a nominal state of war still existing, with the possibility of a Chinese counter-advance taking place, how could there be?... There was nothing left to restrain anybody....
I thought of these things lying at my ease, and debated how long I could stay in that unconcerned attitude. It was not long. For as I lay, there was a thunder of blows somewhere near, and then a crackle of shots, whose echoes smote so clean that I knew that firearms were pointed in the direction of this house. I jumped up without delay. I was not a minute too soon, for as I seized my rifle, one of my men ran in and shouted to me that foreign cavalrymen had burst in, shooting in the air, and were now driving out all the animals and looting all the carts as well. Nothing could be done unless I lent my leadership.
Hastily I ran out, feeding a cartridge into my rifle-chamber as I rushed. This time I was determined to give a lesson and pay back in the same coin. The marauders were Cossacks again.
There were only four of them, however, and when they caught sight of me they tried to stampede my mob and bolt ingloriously with them. But we were too quick. I gave the first man's mount my first cartridge in a fast shot, which took the animal well behind the shoulder and brought the rider instantly down in a heap to the ground. That mixed them up so that before they could extricate themselves they were all covered with our rifles and the gates tight shut. Then we calmly dragged the men off their ponies and kept them in suspense for many minutes, debating aloud what to do. Finally we let them go after some harsh threatening. The man who had lost his mount, nothing abashed, swung himself coolly up behind a comrade, with his saddle and bridle on his arm, without a comment. And as soon as they were in the open street they galloped fast away, as if they feared we would shoot them down from behind. That showed what was going on elsewhere....
I knew now what to expect unless we made very ready, for surely a sharp revenge attack would come as soon as it was dark. So grimly we set to work, with a return of-our old fighting feelings, and rapidly fortified the main gate against all cavalry raids. We dug a broad moat behind the gate, and threw up a respectable barricade with the earth we had gained. Then we brought some timbers and built them in on top with the aid of bricks and stones, so as to have a line of loopholes converging on the entrance. We trained some of the many rifles we had picked up in the same direction, and strapped them into position, just as the Chinese commands had done all along their barricades during the siege. In this way we made it so that in a few seconds a dozen of the enemy could be brought to the ground without the defending force showing a finger. That would be enough for any Cossacks....
Before midday we had added a couple of lookout posts to the roofs, and then, secure in this new-found strength, I determined to go abroad once more to collect supplies and food. That decision was materially helped by an incident which showed that everyone was acting and that it was the only way. As we cautiously opened our main gate and prepared to sally out, a cart came by, accompanied by several men from the Legations on horseback, who were much excited. Well might they be; they had two of their number inside that cart, both shot and bleeding badly from flesh wounds. They had been right to the east of the city, they reported, where the Russians and Japanese had come in. It was terrible there, they said. Nothing but dead people and fires and looting. Chinese soldiers had still remained there in hiding and were defending some of the bigger buildings belonging to Manchu princes. Plunderers, also, were everywhere on the road. They advised caution and told us not to trust ourselves in the alleyways. They had been caught like that, and their servants and horse-boys had deserted in a body four miles away immediately fire was opened on them from some fortified house. That made me all the more determined. I would go and be shot, too, if necessary, since it was the order of the day, but I made up my mind that it would be no easy job to catch me sleeping. Already I understood fully the new methods and the new requirements.
We rode away, stirrup to stirrup, I, a single white man, with a dozen doubtful adherents, made savage at the idea of loot, as companions, and held to me only by a questionable community of interests. Yet what did it matter, I thought. One lives only once and dies only once. That is elemental truth. So tant pis.
In our joy at being on those open streets again, with never a passer-by or a vehicle to obstruct one's rapid passage, we went ahead in a whirlwind of dust. We passed street after street with always the same silence about us we had noticed the day before. Everything was closed, tight shut; there was not a cat or a dog stirring abroad. Near the Legations and the Palace, where the fear lay the heaviest, it seemed like a city of the dead.
Yet we knew that there were plenty of living men only biding their time and waiting their opportunity. It was only night that these people desired; a good black night so that no one could see them flit about. You felt in the small of your back as you rode along that ugly faces were looking at you from the silent houses, and that at any moment shots might ring out suddenly and bear you to the ground. But that was merely a preliminary feeling. Soon it added zest to the entertainment. What, indeed, did it matter? It only made one more and more reckless.
We sped swiftly along, only twice seeing men of any sort in several miles of streets. Once they were fellows who, on our approach, scuttled so quickly away to hide their identity that we could not be sure whether they were white or yellow. But once, without concealment, a band of mixed European soldiery, in terrible disorder, who first wished to fire on us, and then when they saw me set up a colourless sort of cheer, appeared suddenly, only to disappear. We never paused an instant; we kept straight on.