The Forum, October 1914

by Various

Through the breaches came the soldiers. Tribesmen they seemed of the old days of the Grand Khan.

The soldiers were thinking. They were not accustomed to thought. Was it true, ran their thoughts, that their leader had promised that there would be no looting? He had promised, this they knew, that there would be no looting after he entered the city. What was the meaning of that “he”? Did it mean the army or did it mean the general? Did it mean the soldiers? There was the rumor that the general could not leave his present quarters for three days. Rain, or snow, or ice, or drought prevented. What was the meaning of that? Did it mean three days of fine, bloody looting?

The soldiers entered the city. Like the tribesmen of the Grand Khan they poured in. Through one gate, through two gates, through three gates they came. It was a sullen business and silently did they press forward. They had not made up their minds about those three days. They were not sure about the general. Perhaps he was playing one of his grim jokes. Was he, perhaps, already within the city? He had promised before many that there would be no looting. The foreigner, the Jesus-religion man in black clothes, had stood beside him. It was hard to tell, where foreigners were concerned, how much to believe. Foreigners were an unusual sort of people. Most of them did not look dangerous, but any one of them might have power. It was one of the inexplicable things about foreigners that one could never tell the amount of power a foreigner had by the amount he used. To have power and not use it, to have rice and not eat it—strange men these foreigners.

The soldiers poured into the city. Like the tribesmen of the Grand Khan they came; but not like the tribesmen of the Grand Khan. The loot and the fun were before them, yet they restrained themselves.

The soldiers were yellow and clad in yellow, and they poured through the gates as the yellow Yangtsze pours between its banks. Silver and silks were before them, but the hand was withheld from the knife and a sullen silence was around them.

Some one began it. There came a curse and an answer, a taunt and a gunshot. So it began.

Here was a shop boarded, bolted, and locked. A crowd of soldiers gathered before it. They demanded that the shop be opened. No reply came from within. The demand was repeated and emphasized with a blow of a rifle butt against the boards. Still there was no reply. More gun butts fell upon the boards and they began to creak and snap. A scared man within began to dicker for life, property, and family. He paid and paid high—for nothing. The shop was broken open. Stripped and wounded, the man was sent down the street. His goods became the playthings of the soldiers. His wife lay above, outraged and stabbed. His daughter was in the hands of other tormentors. At the command of the soldiers, his son began carrying his father’s goods and piling them as the soldiers directed. There was a look of death upon the boy’s face; he was sick and weary. The soldiers demanded more silver. The boy knew there was no more. He knew that his father had paid it all to save the family. He was so sadly sure he would not look. The soldiers cut him down and went their way.

There was a ricksha coolie who had sunk frightened against a wall in a side street. He had hidden his family, but he, himself, had come forth from hiding in the hope of much work and large pay. With quaking knees he had pulled loads of loot for the soldiers. At last the horror had overcome him and here he cowered against a wall. He was called but he could not move. He knew that he could not pass down the bloody streets again. The call was repeated and still he did not move. They shot him as he lay and took his ricksha from him. That street also, a little street and a quiet one, had its spreading mark of red.

A poor barber lay trembling upon his bamboo bed. He had no family and few friends. Why had he not run away? He lay thinking and thinking but he could think of no good reason. As he lay thus they came upon his shop. Down came the boards. He paid them all his savings, a pitifully small sum, and they demanded his wife and children. They killed him because he had neither the one nor the other. “For,” said they, “no honest man is without a family.”

There was a girl of eighteen whom the soldiers seized. Guile or temporary insanity prompted her to play her part as if with pleasure. She smiled on them and shrugged her shoulders most coquettishly. She bandied jokes with them and made advances. A petty officer accepted her advances and, later, had her beaten to death. The soldiers approved. “These people must be taught,” said they, “that modesty is a woman’s duty.”