Under the Dragon Flag

Under the Dragon Flag, by James
Allan

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Title: Under the Dragon Flag My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese
War
Author: James Allan

Release Date: August 1, 2005 [eBook #16407]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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UNDER THE DRAGON FLAG
My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War
by
JAMES ALLAN
New York Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers
1898
CHAPTER I
The following narrative is a record of my experiences during the late
memorable war between China and Japan. Without going into any
detailed account of my earlier life, some few facts concerning myself
are probably necessary for the better understanding of the
circumstances which led up to the events here presented. It will be
obvious that I can make no claim to literary skill; I have simply written
down my exact and unadorned remembrance of incidents which I
witnessed and took part in. Now it is all over I wonder more and more
at the slightness of the hazard which suddenly placed me at such a
period in so strange an experience.
I am the son of a Lancashire gentleman who accumulated considerable
wealth in the cotton trade. He died when I was still a boy. I found
myself, when I came of age, the possessor of upwards of £80,000. Thus
I started in life as a man of fortune; but it is due to myself to say that I
took prompt and effectual measures to clear myself of that invidious
character. Not to mince matters needlessly, I ran through that eighty
thousand pounds in something short of four years. I was not in the least
"horsey"; my sphere was the gaieties of Paris and the gaming-tables of
Monte Carlo--a sphere which has made short work of fortunes
compared with which mine would be insignificant. The pace was fast
and furious; I threw out my ballast liberally as I went along, and the
harpies, male and female, who surrounded me, picked it up. Bright and
fair enough was the prospect as I started on the road to ruin; gloomy the

clouds that settled round me as I approached that dismal terminus. Then,
when too late, I began to regret my folly. I seemed to wake as if from a
dream, from a state of helpless infatuation, in which my acts were
scarcely the effect of my own volition. The general out-look became
decidedly uninviting.
About eleven o'clock one spring night of the year 1892, I was standing
close to the railings of the Whitworth Park in my native city of
Manchester, to whose dull provincial shades I had retired at the
enforced close of my creditable career. I remember that I was engaged
in wondering what on earth I could have done with all my money, the
only tangible return for which appeared to be an intimate and peculiar
knowledge of the French language and of certain undesirable phases of
French life. The hour, as I have said, was late, and Moss Lane, the
street in which I stood disconsolate, dark and deserted. Presently there
came along towards me a man whose uncertain gait was strongly
suggestive of the influence of alcohol. He stopped upon reaching me,
and asked if I could direct him to Victoria Park. This is an extensive
semi-private enclosure, where numbers of the plutocracy of
Cottonopolis have their residences. One of its several gates is nearly
opposite the spot where Moss Lane leads into Oxford Street, which fact
I communicated to my questioner. To my surprise he, by way of
acknowledgment, struck his hand into mine and shook it fervently.
"Shake hands, shake hands," he said; "that's right--you're talking to a
gentleman, though you mightn't think it."
I certainly should not have thought it. He was a short, thick-set man, of
about five feet and two or three inches, shabbily dressed; and his
unsteady lurch, swollen features, and odorous breath, told plainly of a
heavy debauch. Amused by his manner, I entered into conversation
with him. He was, it appeared, a sailor, a Lancashire man, and, if he
was to be believed, very respectably connected in Manchester. I
gathered that he had ended a boyhood of contumacy by running away
to sea, his people, though they had practically disowned him, allowing
him a pound a week. This allowance had for some time past been
stopped, and he