Indiscreet Letters From Peking | Page 8

that the British, French, Russian,
American, Italian, and Japanese detachments had arrived. The Germans
and the Austrians were missing, but we concluded that they would
arrive by another train within very few hours. The important point was
that men had been allowed to come through--that the Chinese
Government, in spite of its enormous capacity for mischief, could not
yet have made up its mind how to act. That consoled us.
After this, a faint-hearted attempt was made to continue our talk. But it
was no good. We soon discovered that each one of us had been
simulating a false interest in our never-ending discussion. We really
wished to see with our own eyes these Legation Guards who might still
save the situation.
Strolling out in the warm night, just as we were, we first came on them
in the French Legation. The French detachment were merely sailors
belonging to what they call their Compagnies de debarquement, and
they were all brushing each other down and cursing the sacree
poussiere. Such a leading motif has this Peking dust become that the
very sailors notice it. Also we found two priests from Monseigneur
F----'s Cathedral, sitting in the garden and patiently waiting for the
Minister's return. I heard afterwards that they would not move until
P---- decided that twenty-five sailors should march the next day to the
Cathedral--in fact at daylight.
In all the Legations I found it was much the same thing--the men of the
various detachments were brushing each other down and exchanging
congratulations that they had been picked for Peking service. It was,
perhaps, only because they were so glad to be allotted shore-duty after

interminable service afloat off China's muddy coasts that they
congratulated one another; but it might be also because they had heard
tell throughout the fleets that the men who had come in '98, after the
_coup d'etat_, had had the finest time which could be imagined--all
loafing and no duties. They did not seem to understand or suspect....
I found later in the night that there had actually been a little trouble at
the Tientsin station. The British had tried to get through a hundred
marines instead of the maximum of seventy-five which had been
agreed on. The Chinese authorities had then refused to let the train go,
and although an English ship's captain had threatened to hang the
station-master, in the end the point was won by the Chinese. By one or
two in the morning everybody was very gay, walking about and having
drinks with one another, and saying that it was all right now. Then it
was that I remembered that it was already June--the historic month
which has seen more crises than any other--and I became a little
gloomy again. It was so terribly sultry and dry that it seemed as if
anything could happen. I felt convinced that the guards were too few.

V
THE PLOT THICKENS
4th June, 1900.
* * * * *
No matter in what light you look at it, you realise that somehow--in
some wonderful, inexplicable manner--normal conditions have ceased
long ago--in the month of May, I believe. The days, which a couple of
weeks ago had but twenty-four hours, have now at least forty-two. You
cannot exactly say why this strange state of affairs obtains, for as yet
there is nothing very definite to fix upon, and you have absolutely no
physical sensation of fear; but the mercury of both the barometer and
the thermometer has been somehow badly shaken, and the mainsprings
of all watches and clocks, although still much as the mainsprings of

clocks and watches in other parts of the world--bringing your mind to
bear on it you know they are exactly the same--are merely mechanism,
and allow the day to have at least forty-two hours. It is strange, is it not,
and you begin to understand vaguely some of the quite impossible
Indian metaphysics which tell you gravely that what is, is not, and that
what is not can still be.... In the crushing heat you can understand that.
Perhaps it is all because the hours are now split into ten separate and
different parts by the fierce rumours which rage for a few minutes and
then, dissipating their strength through their very violence, die away as
suddenly as they came. The air is charged with electricity of human
passions until it throbs painfully, and then.... You are merrily eating
your tiffin or your dinner, and quite calmly cursing your "_boy_"
because something is not properly iced. Your "boy," who is a
Bannerman or Manchu and of Roman Catholic family, as are all
servants of polite Peking society, does not move a muscle nor show any
passing indignation, as he would were the ordinary rules and
regulations of life still