Brown of Moukden: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War

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Brown of Moukden: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War Page 10

by Herbert Strang


  *CHAPTER IX*

  *Ah Lum*

  Ishmaels--The Chief--Fair Words--Wise Saws--Ah Fu's Tutors--An HonoraryAppointment--Chopping Maxims--A Deputation--Hunting the Boar--A ForestMonarch--Charging Home--The Knife--A Close Call

  The Chunchuse camp, Jack learnt as he rode, was some thirty milesdistant in the hills. It had been shifted; it was always shifting; thatwas why the intervention of Wang Shih had been so nearly too late.

  Jack was somewhat amused when he reflected on the strange company inwhich he found himself. He had heard a good deal about theseredoubtable bandits, but never till this day had he seen any of them.Their bands were, he knew, very miscellaneous in their composition.Escaped prisoners, whether guilty, or innocent like Wang Shih,frequently sought refuge with one or other of the brigand chiefs. Menwho had been ruined in business, or were too indolent for regular work;men possessed of grievances against the mandarins, or by a sheer lust ofadventure and lawlessness; helped to swell their numbers; and Mr. Brownhad once remarked that they reminded him of the motley band thatgathered about David in the cave Adullam: "Every one that was indistress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that wasdiscontented".

  The name Chunchuse means "red beard", and was originally applied by thenatives to any foreigner. Since the bandits were almost allclean-shaven, like the majority of Chinamen, Jack could only conjecturethat they were styled "red beards" from some fancied resemblance oftheir predatory ways to the methods of the hated foreigners. They wereheld in terror by all the law-abiding inhabitants, and the machinery ofthe Chinese government was totally unable to keep them down. Since thecoming of the Russians they had grown in numbers and in power. Knowingevery inch of the country they were able to wage an effective guerrillawarfare against the invaders, often surprising scouting parties ofSiberian riflemen or Cossacks, raiding isolated camps, damaging therailways, and capturing convoys.

  Jack was interested in taking stock of his strange companions. Theywere tall strapping fellows, powerfully built, with muscular andathletic frames, and they included men of every race known in Manchuria.Their costumes differed as greatly as the men themselves. Some wereclad in the usual garb of Chinamen; others had black cloth jackets withbrass buttons, tight-fitting trousers, and long riding-boots reaching tothe knees. Their heads were covered with knotted handkerchiefs of red,black, or yellow cotton, beneath which their pigtails were coiled up outof sight. Each carried a rifle and a revolver stuck in his leatherbelt.

  On the way to the camp Wang Shih gave Jack a few particulars about theband, in which he had already risen to a high position. Ah Lum, thechief, had been for many years notorious for the daring with which hewould swoop with a few men on rich merchants travelling through thecountry, even though they might be escorted by Chinese soldiers. Butsince the outbreak of the war such sources of gain had ceased, and hehad gradually collected a very large following for the purpose ofconducting irregular operations against his country's despoilers. Allwere magnificent horsemen; the Russians had in vain endeavoured to huntthem down; and the very rifles they carried were the spoil of successfulraids.

  After a ride of about five hours through the hills, Wang Shih's partyreached the Chunchuse camp. It was a strange mixture of shelters, manyof them huts built of the stalks of kowliang, yet arranged, as Jacknoticed, in a certain order. Conspicuous in the middle of the camp wasa large tent, in which, as they approached, Jack recognized the Russianservice pattern. This too was evidently part of the spoil of a raid.

  At the outskirts of the camp Wang Shih dismissed his men, proceedingalone with Jack to the tent. It was the head-quarters of the chief.There was no sign of state, no sentinel at the entrance; Wang Shih rodeup unquestioned, and unceremoniously shouted into the tent for Mr. Ah.If Jack had expected to see the typical brigand of romance he must havebeen disappointed. Ah Lum was the shortest member of the band, a wiryfigure with a slight stoop. His appearance was that of a universityprofessor rather than a warrior. He was apparently between forty andfifty years of age, with an intelligent and thoughtful cast ofcountenance, enhanced by a pair of horn spectacles over which he lookedsearchingly when Jack was introduced to him. Ah Lum was, in fact, a manof considerable education and even learning. He had taken the highesthonours in the examinations for the successive degrees of CultivatedTalent, Uplifted Literary Man, and Exalted Bookworm; and the poems hecomposed when competing for a place in the Board of Civil Office wereacknowledged as superior to anything recently written in the Mandarinlanguage. But his success on this occasion awoke a bitter jealousy inthe breast of a "same-year-man" who had kept pace with him throughouthis career until this last promotion. The disappointed candidateadopted a characteristically Chinese mode of wreaking vengeance. Hecommitted suicide on Ah Lum's door-step. According to Chinese belief AhLum would not only be haunted ever after by his rival's spirit, butwould also have to clear himself before the mandarin's court of a chargeof murder. Unluckily the mandarin was an enemy of Ah Lum; his price fora favourable judgment was more than the Exalted Bookworm could offer;and the latter, seeing that his condemnation was certain, discreetlyvacated his desk at the Board of Civil Office and betook himself to themountains.

  Jack only learnt all this gradually. His first impression of Ah Lum asa spectacled, courteous, polished savant left him wondering how such aman had succeeded in imposing his authority on the hard-living,hard-faring, reckless set of outlaws who composed his band. That he hadsome personal force of character was a foregone conclusion, for hisposition could depend on nothing else. He received Jack very kindly,and, having Heard his story from Wang Shih, promised to do all he couldto help him.

  "Mr. Wang," he said, bowing to his lieutenant, "does me the honour to bemy friend. Has he not rendered me great services? Surely it becomes meto serve his friends when my insignificant capabilities permit.Meanwhile deign, sir, to regard all our contemptible possessions as yourown, and excuse our numberless shortcomings. Where good-will is thecook, the dish is already seasoned."

  He paused, as though expecting a comment on the proverb.

  "Quite so," said Jack, feeling that he ought to say something.

  The chief proceeded at once to warn him of the danger of pursuingfurther his attempt to enter Moukden in disguise. If he tried to passas a Canton man he might at any moment meet a real Cantonese, as hadalready happened to his cost; and, besides, the Cantonese were not lovedin Manchuria. As a Manchu, on the other hand, he would be apt to betrayhimself in endless little ways. However, if he were bent on it, Ah Lumwould do what he could to secure him good treatment. Meanwhile, afterwhat he had gone through, a few days' rest in camp would do him no harm.

  "Haste is the parent of delay," he said; "whereas if one has a mind tobeat a stone, the stone will in due time have a hole in it."

  Again he paused, like an actor waiting for the gallery's applause to histag.

  "A very sound maxim," said Jack, thinking it well to humour thissingular moralist.

  The chief concluded with an offer of hospitality so cordial, that Jack,anxious as he was to pursue his mission, could not well decline it.

  Wang Shih, Jack found, was third in command. His enormous strength,allied to a bull-dog courage, had enabled him to force his way to thefront in a community where those qualities were esteemed above allothers. That they were not the only titles to respect was proved by theposition of the chief; and the longer Jack stayed in the camp the morehe was impressed by the ease and firmness with which Ah Lum swayed hisband.

  The chief had a son, a boy of twelve, who from the first took a greatliking to Jack. Ah Fu was a bright boy, vivacious for a Chinese; and AhLum loved him with even more than the usual Chinaman's devotion. Hedoted on the child. He never tired of talking about him to Jack.

  "If," he said, "a man has much money, but no child, he cannot bereckoned rich: if he has children, but no money, he cannot be reckonedpoor. And I am blessed in my son: he is dutiful, respec
tful, voraciousof knowledge. 'A bad son', says the Sage, 'is as a dunning creditor; buta good son as the repayment of a long-standing debt'."

  At great pains he had kidnapped two graduates for the express purpose ofhaving Ah Fu carefully trained in the elements of Chinese culture.Himself a man of education, he set the highest value on learning."Weeds are the only harvest of an untilled field," he would say."Though your sons be well disposed, yet if they be not duly instructed,what can you expect of them but ignorance?" In addition to his dailyinstruction in the philosophers and poets, the boy went through allkinds of physical exercises--practising with the bow and the rifle,riding a spirited little pony, learning fearless horsemanship from thebest rider in the band; and the Chunchuses rival the Cossacks in thesuperb management of their steeds. Before Jack had been a day in thecamp he was requested by the chief to teach his son English. He agreed,though he thought that in the short time he was to spend with them notmuch could be done. Ah Lum was very pressing in the matter. Jack, hewas sure, had all the learning of the west (this tickled Jack; how thefourth-form master at Sherborne would have roared!). The learning ofthe east Ah Lum himself could get for the boy. In addition to thekidnapped graduates he had his eye on an astronomer of distinction atKirin, and at Tieling there lived a very learned man, skilled in thecasting of horoscopes. But he had naturally few opportunities ofproviding European instruction. "True doctrine cannot injure the truescholar," he said. "An ounce of wisdom is worth a world of gold." Hewas particularly anxious that Ah Fu should lack nothing in educationthrough his father's outlawed condition. Himself a poet, he set muchstore by poetry; and having learnt from Jack that the most popularEnglish poet was Tennyson, he made it a special point that the boyshould from the first learn some of his poems. Jack was amused; he didnot tell the chief that poetry was not so highly esteemed in England asin China; but happening to know a few odds and ends of Tennyson's verse,he got Ah Fu to repeat them after him until the boy could recite themfaultlessly. Jack had his doubts whether the poems thus recited wouldhave been recognized by an Englishman, but that was nothing to thepoint.

  After a week, when he felt his strength thoroughly recruited, Jack spokeof continuing his journey. But Ah Lum, in his politest manner, urgedexcellent reasons why he should remain a little longer. It had beenraining almost continuously since his arrival; the streams were inflood; the rivers were not fordable. Moreover, a large body of Russiantroops was moving between the camp and Moukden; and Chinamen were beingnarrowly questioned and examined under suspicion of being Japanese spiesin disguise. Day after day passed; every hint of Jack's that he wishedto be off was met by some new excuse enforced by maxims, and turned by aquestion as to how Ah Fu was getting on with his poetry. At last Jackgrew uneasy and suspicious; it appeared as if Ah Lum intended to keephim as an additional tutor, unpaid. He began to think of taking Frenchleave, but was restrained by several considerations: the fact that heowed his life to the brigands; the danger lest his disappearance shouldcause a quarrel between Wang Shih and the chief; the hope that he mightfind the Chunchuses useful in prosecuting his search; and the risk ofrecapture, for he knew that the country people would certainly give himup to the chief if they caught him.

  He abandoned therefore the idea of flight, resolving to stay on withwhat patience he could muster, and hoping to obtain his end by mildpersistence. But his courteous and repeated applications were met bystill more courteous and equally firm refusals--not direct refusals, butregrets that on one pretext or another the "Ingoua superior man" couldnot safely leave the camp. Ah Lum's stock of proverbs and maxims wasagain drawn upon. "Though powerful drugs be nauseous to the taste, theyare beneficial to the stomach. So, candid advice may be unpleasant tothe ear, but it is profitable for the conduct. The carpenter makes thecangue that he himself may be doomed to wear."

  "Exactly."

  There was a want of conviction in Jack's stereotyped reply. He wasgrowing tired of these eternal copy-book headings, which seemed to himoften the merest platitudes--tired of expressing the assent which hissententious host always looked for. He asked Wang Shih to expostulatewith the chief; but when the Chinaman ventured to suggest that the youngEnglishman's dutiful regard for his father ought to be respected and hiserrand furthered, he got a good snubbing for his pains.

  "It is easy to convince a wise man," said Ah Lum with a snap; "but toreason with fools, that is a difficult undertaking. You cannot turn asomersault in an oyster-shell."

  Greatly daring, Wang Shih cited a maxim very pertinent, he thought, tothe case.

  "True, honourable sir; but is it not written: 'Of a hundred virtues,filial piety is the best'?"

  "No doubt," retorted Ah Lum, still more snappishly. "But remember thatif a man has good desires, heaven will assuredly grant them."

  And Jack had to kick his heels, and drum poetry into Ah Fu, thinkingdisrespectfully of proverbial philosophy.

  Thus three weeks passed. During this period the band grew steadilystronger. Jack reckoned that it now numbered at least eleven hundred.The rains having ceased, the camp was moved some twenty miles to thenorth-west, not in a direct line to Moukden, but nearer to that city. ToJack this was a crumb of comfort; but there were disadvantages in thechange, for with the finer weather and the removal to somewhat lowerground, the midges and mosquitoes became more lively and troublesome,and he spent many a hot hour of pain and smart.

  Another fortnight went by. The Chunchuses had been inactive so far asbrigandage was concerned, and, except that they did no work, they mighthave been nothing but a peaceful mountain tribe. But one day adeputation came to the chief from a village lying in the midst of awoody and well-cultivated valley a few miles from the camp. Theyannounced that their plantations of young bamboos were being devastatedby a herd of wild boars with which they were unable to cope, and theyhad been deputed to beg the Chunchuse chief to come to their assistance.Ah Lum was never unwilling to please the country people when he saw achance of gaining a substantial advantage. "Let no man," he would say,"despise the snake that has no horns, for who can say that it may notbecome a dragon?" Food was running short, and but for the deputation itwas probable that some fine night the village would have been raided andplundered. But the request for assistance opened the way for a deal; AhLum consented to organize a battue in return for a large supply of foodand fodder; and after half a day had been spent in haggling, thedeputation returned, promising to send in the quantity first demanded.

  The chief was exceedingly pleased.

  "Do not rashly provoke quarrels, but let concord and good understandingprevail among neighbours. Seeing an opportunity to make a bargain, oneshould think of righteousness."

  Jack welcomed the impending hunt as a pleasant change, and appeared togratify the chief when he asked to be allowed to join in it. As adiversion from the sugared sweetness of Tennyson, he bethought himselfto teach Ah Fu Fielding's fine song "A-hunting we will go"; and when theboy learnt the meaning of the words, he was all afire to share in thechase. Ah Lum was pleased with his spirit; but being unwilling that hisonly son should run any risk, he at first declined his request. The boypersisted, pointing out that he was already a good shot, and asking whatwas the good of his learning poems of hunting if he was not allowed toexpress in action the ardour thus fostered. This argument appealed tothe chief's sense of the fitness of things; he would have agreed withSocrates that action was the end of heroic poetry; he yielded,stipulating, however, that throughout the hunt the boy should remain athis side.

  Jack soon found that the hunt was not to be conducted on the lines ofpig-sticking in India. He remembered the vivid account of such anadventure given him by a Behar planter whom he had once met on board asteamer between Shanghai and Newchang. Nor were the animals to becaught in artfully-contrived pits, as is the custom in Manchuria. Thechief was ignorant of the Indian method, and was possessed of too stronga sporting instinct to be content with the work of a trapper; it was tobe a real hunt, as he understood it. The cover in which th
e boars wereknown to lurk was about a square mile in extent. Ah Lum intended to takeadvantage of the large force at his disposal and arrange for beaters todrive the animals to a comparatively open space, at the end of which heand a select few would take up their positions and shoot down the boarsas they emerged from cover. This seemed likely to be a safe way ofeffecting the desired object; and though not sport in the British sense,it would at any rate make some demand on their nerve and theirmarksmanship.

  The important day came. On a bright fresh morning, soon after the sunhad gilded the hilltops, when the air was clear and a cool breezetempered the summer heat, Ah Lum, accompanied by seven of his bestmarksmen and by Ah Fu and Jack, rode down to skirt the base of the hilland gain the northern side of the clearing to which the boars were to bedriven. Jack had been provided with a rifle and a long knife; his pupilrode at his side, armed with a carbine; and very proudly the boy borehimself. At the foot of the hill the party were met by some of thevillagers, come to guide them to their destination. When they reachedthe spot they found that the clearing was about a furlong across, withthin plantations behind them and on either side, and in front a mass ofdense, almost impenetrable scrub interspersed with trees.

  The party of ten took up their position in line facing the scrub,standing a few feet apart; Ah Lum was in the centre, with the boy on hisleft, and Jack one place farther in the same direction. Jack felt thatif the Manchurian boar was anything like the Indian specimen of whichhis planter friend had told him, the party might have a lively timeshould two or three of the beasts break cover at the same moment,especially if they should charge down through the plantations on leftand right. The Chunchuses, however, were evidently secure in theirnumbers and the stopping power of their military rifles.

  The beaters, nearly a thousand strong, had been sent to their allottedpositions earlier in the morning. They formed a rough semicircle morethan two miles in length. When all was ready, the chief sent a horsemanto the farthest point with orders to begin the beat. The clang of agong soon rang out in the still morning air; immediately the sound wastaken up all along the arc; drums, gongs, rattles, shrill yells combinedto form a pandemonium of noise. Flocks of birds clattered out of thetree-tops and flew in consternation over the country; hares and rabbitsdarted out of the underwood as the beaters closed in; a fox or two, evena wolf, came padding out, stopped at the edge, gave a glance at the lineof men, and disappeared on either side. All these passed unmolested;the ten stood in silent expectation, ready to bring their weapons to theshoulder.

  Suddenly from the centre of the scrub pounded with lowered tusks a largeboar. He had advanced some yards into the open before he was aware ofthe ten human figures ranged opposite to him. Then, swerving heavily tothe left, he trotted towards the plantation. At the same moment twoshots rang out as one; the chief and his son had fired together, theothers waiting in courtesy. Ah Lum, for all his spectacles, his poetry,and his sentences, was an excellent shot; the boar fell within a yard ofthe trees; the chief's bullet had penetrated his brain.

  Hardly had the smoke cleared away when two other boars appeared atdifferent parts of the scrub. Eight rifles flashed; the boar to theright fell; but the other, unhurt, instead of making towards safety inthe plantation, dashed straight across the open. As by a miracle itsurvived a volley from the whole party of ten, and had come withintwenty yards of them before it was struck mortally and rolled over. Thehunters, their attention fixed on the gallant beast that had justsuccumbed, did not notice that he was followed at a few yards by a hugetusker, the glare of whose red eyes sent a thrill through one at leastof the party. Dashing at headlong speed through the plantation almostin a line with the hunters, the boar came on unswervingly, heedless of ascattering fire. The hunters impeded each other; Ah Lum and the men onhis right could hardly fire as they stood without hitting theircompanions. There was a moment's hesitation; then the chief, with a cryto his boy to run, stepped calmly to the front, preparing to fire at arange of only a few yards. But one of his men on the left, in a nervousanxiety born of the emergency, rushed forward, and, stumbling againsthis leader, spoilt his aim. The shot flew wide. The unfortunate manpaid dearly for his clumsiness. In another moment the boar was among theparty, making frantic rushes, ripping and tearing with his formidabletusks, his bloodshot eyes glaring with the concentrated fury which onlya wounded boar can express. Several shots were fired, but the beast'smovements were so rapid that they either missed him, or, hitting him ata non-fatal spot, served only still further to infuriate him. Theinexperienced hunters, indeed, were in greater danger than the boar fromeach other's firearms. They hesitated in confusion, moving this way andthat to avoid each other; then, in a sudden panic, several of them tookto their heels and made for the shelter of the trees.

  But Ah Fu stood his ground, as though fascinated. His father and Jackperceived at the same moment that the boar in desperate and vengefulrage was heading straight for the boy, who held his carbine at theslant, looking on as at some fearful thrilling spectacle. Ah Lum andJack, separated from the boy in their movements for securing good aim,sprang to his assistance. But before they could reach his side thebeast was upon him. Awake to his danger, the little fellow raised hiscarbine to his shoulder and fired almost point-blank; but the Russianservice bullet has no stopping power to check a wild boar in fullcareer; the boy was toppled over, receiving a gash in the leg from themighty tusk. Then the animal wheeled in his tracks to pursue hisvengeance. Jack's rifle was empty; even if it had been loaded he couldhardly have fired without running the risk of hitting the boy. Thechief was still a few yards away, he, too, rendered helpless by the sameappalling danger. Jack saw that in an instant his little pupil, nowgamely struggling to his feet, must be gored to death. Dropping hisrifle, he drew his knife, and flung himself upon the blinded, maddenedbrute, driving the weapon between its shoulders. So great was hisimpetus that he stumbled full across the boar, which, intent upon itspurpose, struggled on a foot or two, staggering under the blow, butmaking light of Jack's weight. Even as Jack was wondering whether hisstroke had failed, the beast uttered a long squealing grunt, fell on itsknees, then rolled over stone-dead within a few inches of Ah Fu.

  Jack saves Ah Fu]

  The chief caught the boy in his arms and held him in a warm embrace; therunaway Chunchuses, no more boars being visible, came dropping back fromthe plantations; and Jack, his coat covered with blood, rose pantingfrom the back of the victim.

 

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