Chinese Whispers

by Andrew Wareham

  “I hear that the Americans are to send more boats out, Graf. The word is that they took several Spanish vessels in the Philippines, small ships of little use to the navy but possibly valuable on the rivers here. Screw steamers carrying two big guns and a number of Maxims is what I have been told. They could be of use, which is more than can be said for their existing gunboats.”

  Captain Hawkins had instructed Magnus to pass that word to the Germans, in the hope that they would find themselves obliged to at least match the American commitment. Money from the funds available for China that was spent on new gunboats could not be used to build up the base at Tsingtao.

  “We are to hold a musical evening next month, my lord. Will you and your lady grace us with your company?”

  Ellen smiled her best, said how glad they would be to enjoy the finest of music. Despite the rather pompous efforts of the fellow Elgar, composition was not a British talent, it seemed. Graf agreed – the Germanic soul was better attuned to the graces of music.

  “The pity of it is that he’s right, Magnus! There has not been a major British composer since Handel, and he can hardly be claimed as a true Briton, after all.”

  “A nation of shopkeepers, merchants, manufacturers and pirates – not necessarily attributes that lend themselves to music, I must suppose, my love. A pity, in many ways – but I do not begrudge the Germans their eminence in that particular field. They are inferior in every other way so why should they not be allowed one talent?”

  She agreed reluctantly, wondering if she should not mention the Krupp gun, for example.

  The Austro-Hungarians were polite and thought that all was for the best in China. The efforts of the previous decade had massively expanded European influence throughout the moribund Chinese Empire, and that was as it should be. They would, they suggested, much like a Treaty Port of their own, such as Germany had recently achieved in Tsingtao; no doubt the British would wish to support them in this endeavour.

  Magnus thought it most unlikely that Lord Salisbury’s government would wish to do any such thing. He suggested that he had understood that the Habsburg Empire was to concentrate on the collapsing Ottoman lands.

  “The state of the Balkans is such that one might expect Vienna to use her remarkable talents and power to bring the lost lands of Europe back into the hands of Christianity, Prince. China is perhaps best left to those countries who because of their geography are primarily naval powers rather than military.”

  “Easily said, my lord, by the possessors of Hong Kong.”

  Magnus wondered exactly what that might mean. The Prince made no attempt to elucidate.

  “What of Russia, Prince? Their possession of Port Arthur must be a source of some concern to us all, do you not agree?”

  “Just so, my lord. Hence the need for a comparable naval base in the hands of the Habsburgs. Russia is the great enemy of all things European. No doubt there will be a land war one day and that will spill over into the East.”

  Magnus noted that sentiment for his report to Captain Hawkins. He could not imagine that the Austro-Hungarian navy - a small fleet based in the Adriatic - he believed, could realistically maintain a base in China, but it was interesting to note that they considered Russia to be their true enemy.

  The French Legation showed far less welcoming. French interests in Cochin China were in many ways inimical to British control of Hong Kong and Singapore, as they made quite clear in the thirty minutes that were allocated to the courtesy visit of the new arrivals. They had no interest in Boxers and were dismissive of Tsingtao, knowing that their own ports were sufficiently defended against any German squadron that might be based in the East. There was, they made clear, no community of interest between Britain and France in China.

  “Bloody Frogs, Ellen! Makes a man inclined to support Charlie B, you know! Better a war with France than with Germany, if there must be war at all.”

  She agreed, gravely, but believed that Magnus was too deeply committed to the Fishpond to change his allegiances.

  “So I am. A pity, even so. We are to visit the Americans tomorrow, are we not?”

  “We must, Magnus. What do we expect of them?”

  “Precious little. Very dour and austere, I am told. They believe they have a Christian mission to bring the Chinese to the Light.”

  Ellen said nothing, having shared that belief herself prior to meeting her husband.

  The American Minister, Mr Conger, was a scholarly-seeming gentleman, with no more than a slight accent to Magnus’ ears. He had an evident and self-satisfied sense of mission – he represented the most morally advanced country in the world, he believed, and truly generously wished every other nation to climb to similar eminence.

  “The qualities that have made America great are to be found in the all of the world’s peoples, Lord Eskdale. Buried deeper in some than in others, no doubt, but requiring only education and perseverance to bring them out. The benighted heathen of China must be brought to an acknowledgement of the glory of the Lord and thence to an understanding of their own personal merits. Having achieved that noble aim, then China will be able to take its rightful place in the world. Not as a leader, obviously, for that is the role of the white man, but as devoted followers residing in an easy prosperity and gaining to themselves the rewards of hard work and virtue.”

  Magnus smiled his best and tried to find words that might express apparent and tactful agreement with his host.

  “I am told that the Chinese of Wei-Hai-Wei are showing the ability to adapt to British ways, sir, much as you suggest. We have held the new treaty port for only a few years yet but have recruited and trained a regiment there for which we have the brightest of hopes. The Chinese are certainly the match of the sepoy regiments of India, and they are the best of soldiers, as you will know. There will be Chinese officers soon, and undoubtedly the most capable of men.”

  “I trust they are all saved, Lord Eskdale?”

  “Highly unlikely, sir. The sepoys always retain their own religion and are the better for it. We do not demand that our soldiers should show disdain for their own ways and people, sir.”

  The American could not believe that to be wise. The Christian religion was the sole true faith and every man must recognise that fact.

  “A private soldier will fight better for knowing the Spirit of the Lord, sir.”

  “You may well be right, sir. It is not our habit in England, however, to interfere in men’s personal beliefs. I do not know how many of my jack tars are to be found in church or chapel, but I have always found them to be the fiercest of fighting men. Not perhaps better than your own sailors, sir, who have shown so well in your recent war with Spain, but their match, I would have no doubt.”

  Ellen smiled her best at Magnus’ side and diverted him to meet Captain Hall, a soldier attached to the Legation, tall and upstanding and truly martial in appearance. He had a wonderful moustache.

  The American Captain shook hands, displaying a manly and bruising grip.

  “Newt Hall, Lord Eskdale, and glad to meet you!”

  “A pleasure, Captain Hall. Were you in the Philippines, sir?”

  “No, my lord. I had the honour of serving in Cuba, though I was unfortunate in being kept at the general’s side as an aide. I was not permitted into the front line, sir.”

  Perhaps the American service differed from the English, Magnus thought. It was commonly the case that aides managed to be sent forward with messages and then found themselves unable to make their way back before the day’s battle ended. Possibly the regulations in America made that impossible to their fiery young men.

  Hall was a powerfully built man, Magnus thought, tall, like so many Americans, and open-faced. He looked like a fighting man.

  “What do you hear of the Boxers, Captain Hall?”

  “Too much, my lord! I would like to hear some facts, sir, rather than the hot air that seems all that comes our way. We are told that they are to be found in their millions, my lord, but I don’t k
now if they are counted on Chinese fingers to come up with those numbers.”

  Magnus laughed appreciatively.

  “I would like to discover a true figure myself, sir. A million is a big number – but it is a number that needs some vouching for, I believe. As well, a million country boys with bamboo spears is a very different thing to a million soldiers each carrying a rifle. We hear a great deal, but we seem to know remarkably little.”

  “Exactly so, my lord! However, we have a few dozen of American boys here, and they do have rifles, and I will back them against any number of Chinese!”

  That seemed a remarkably foolish comment, but Magnus was a guest paying a morning call and could not politely disagree.

  “I have seen a few of the Chinese fighting, Captain Hall. Well led and properly trained, which they sometimes are, they make formidable soldiers. Mind you, sir, from the little I hear, the Boxers seem to believe that they have magical rituals which make them invulnerable to bullets. Soldiers who do not believe they can be killed are unlikely to be serious foes.”

  Captain Hall had heard the same tales. Apparently, the Boxer rituals would turn bullets to water, greatly to the discomfiture of the foreign devil soldiers who fired them.

  “I suspect, and much hope, they are wrong, Captain Hall.”

  “If they come against us, my lord, I guess we shall see. I do not think myself we shall have a deal to worry about!”

  Magnus as well did not expect bullets to turn to water; he joined in the laughter at the conceit. He wondered however, just how many of those bullets Captain Hall might be inclined to fire, and whether he would be in the front line of any conflict with the Boxers. The gentleman seemed a little too good to be true, but that might be no more than English distaste for a somewhat brash American; a swagger did not of itself make a man into an untrustworthy soldier.

  Ellen had rejoined the Minister and his Secretary, Mr Herbert Squiers, enquiring if he had heard reports from the inland mission stations that led him to fear for their safety.

  “I had rather they were not so exposed, my lady. I have begged the missionaries to withdraw to the rivers, where we may support them effectively. We have more of gunboats coming out from Manila and will be able to do some good with them, but there is effectively nothing to be offered to men and women who are as much as a hundred miles inland of the nearest river port.”

  “There is reason to fear for them, you suggest, sir?”

  “The Boxers, if they do exist, seem to be offering hatred of the foreigners as their main rationale. ‘Support the Qing. Destroy the Foreigners’. That seems to be their slogan. But they have no high command, so it may be no more than the words of one group that we know about. In fact, my lady, we know so little about them, that we can say nothing meaningful. Sir Claude has a better intelligence service to inform him of all that happens in China – he knows far more than I do – but I believe he is left guessing as to whether the Boxers are a threat or not.”

  She did not say that Sir Claude was happy to ignore his intelligence service, preferring instead to rely upon his own prejudices to inform him.

  “Can you order your missionaries to come in from the field, sir?”

  Mr Squiers feared it was not possible – the Legation lacked the legal powers to give such orders.

  “We would wish them to go to safety, my lady, but they insist that they are in God’s hands and will continue to do His work. It is difficult to argue the opposing case.”

  She was forced to agree.

  “It must be a continual worry for you, Mr Squiers.”

  “It is indeed, my lady. I am fortunate in having the company of my lady wife, of course, and we enliven our minds with the study and collection of porcelain. Peking is obviously the finest place in the world in which to pursue such an interest.”

  Mrs Squiers, previously a silent adjunct to her husband, smiled and agreed that must be so.

  “What did you make of the Americans, Ellen?”

  She glanced about her, to be sure there were no servants within hearing range, knowing that all would be in the pay of one at least of the legations and probably of the Tsongli Yamen and certainly in thrall to a triad. She answered in a soft voice as a further precaution.

  “Mr Conger is an amateur – he may know his politics, but he does not comprehend China to any greater extent than Sir Claude. He honestly believes that the Chinese are simple folk, deprived of religion and culture and in need of the ministrations of whatever his particular church may be. He will not accept that the Boxers are a great menace to his missionaries, for he knows them to be protected by the favour of the Lord. He has nothing to offer. The man Squiers is less easy to characterise; I think he may be a soldier, at least. Captain Hall? A big, blustering, bold fellow who’s like I have not met. Is he typical of soldiers, Magnus?”

  Magnus grimaced, waved a deprecating hand.

  “No. He might be exactly what he portrays – a brave and simple fighting man – but he does not ring true. Perhaps I am allowing British prejudice to colour my judgement – he does not display the stiff upper lip. I do not know, but I have no trust in him. I will be surprised to see him first into the fight and last out, as an officer should be. Squiers, by the way, has fought the American Indians in the West – no need to query his backbone. I do not know, but the Americans will not have the same ideas as us. If it comes to a fight, as it well may, then we shall be obliged to work with them, so it will be as well to understand them.”

  Ellen could not entirely understand how it might come to a fight.

  “Are we to be attacked in Peking, my love?”

  “That I very much doubt. We may have to send out a party to the rescue of missionaries from inland stations. They should not be there at the moment and we might be forced to save their foolish necks. The Boxers, from the little we know, are particularly opposed to the missions, believing they wish to steal China from its rightful owners.”

  “The Qing are Manchu conquerors of China, are they not, Magnus? Are they the ‘rightful’ owners of China?”

  That was a question definitely not to be posed in public, as she realised. Magnus grimaced and in his turn glanced about to see if there were servants close to hand.

  “That offers the Boxers every excuse to turn against the dynasty, my lady! If the mood strikes them, they can claim the Qing are no more than foreign oppressors. The slogan of ‘Death to the Foreigners’ gives them a wide range of enemies. That, of course, assumes that they know themselves what their slogans mean and what their aims are. The little I have been told says they have no national leadership, that they are a hodgepodge of local groups, united by the vague understanding of their exercises and slogans and by nothing else at all. I much suspect their enemies will be equally local. Where they have a greedy mission station, they will be the enemy; where there is a missionary doctor who works all hours of the day in his hospital then it is possible that they may protect him in his labours. Or perhaps not – I do not know. I cannot guess.”

  “Unlike Sir Claude and Mr Conger, Magnus – they seem to know everything.”

  Magnus took over his office and collated the reports that were sent to him. Captain Hawkins had established and planted a large number of informants throughout north and west China and they were able to forward any number of letters, mostly carried by traders coming into Peking with grains to feed the great city.

  There were three clerks whose main function was to read and interpret the letters; Magnus was forced to trust them though wondering who they worked for. He read the transcriptions they provided and gained the impression of a country that was falling into chaos. He made his first report to Sir Claude.

  “I estimate more than five thousand of Chinese Christians killed in the past week, Sir Claude. At least four separate instances, well separate from each other. Missionaries threatened and insulted but none as yet driven out and no more killings of British or Americans as yet.”

  “Nothing to worry about then, Eskdale. In a lan
d of at least four hundred millions, five thousand is a flyspeck. Just another set of riots, Eskdale, nothing to worry about. What do you hear of the Great Canal? Has there been any move to rebuild properly yet?”

  “I have heard nothing, Sir Claude. The committee appointed to examine the flooding and the destruction of the Great Canal has completed its deliberations, but no orders have been issued in response.”

  “I shall address the Tsongli Yamen on the issue, Eskdale. They must be pushed into action. The bulk of the wheat and barley and millet that comes into Peking is brought – was brought, I should say – by the Canal. The rice comes up from the south and is less affected. The chicken and ducks and geese need the feed grains. There will be a meat shortage if they cannot be raised.”

  Magnus could appreciate that to be a worry – they did not want food riots in Peking.

  “Could we not suggest to one of the hongs that they should bring in shiploads of feed grain, sir?”

  Sir Claude was opposed to the very concept of taking action. It was not the foreigner’s place to do things. The Legation must simply offer the Chinese the fruits of their superior wisdom and tell the Tsongli Yamen what they should do.

  “Better not, Eskdale. We do not wish to take any part in the internal governance of China, you know. Wiser to keep clear and let them go to a hell of their own devising. None of our affair, when all is said and done. In any case, was there to be an uprising which ended in the downfall of the Qing, then all would be better off. China will go nowhere without massive change, and we should not take action that might prevent the necessary and eventual revolution from taking place – not that these Boxers will be the answer, of course. But the Boxers might cause enough bother to lead to the proper leaders of the country taking action. Some sort of palace coup, perhaps – change and new government eventuating, but nothing too drastic. We do not want to see too much happening in a short time, after all. No, a palace revolution, properly guided, is just what China needs.”