Confessions Of A China Hand

A rare, advencurous, zestful booI H ^\. f/-
creating a way of t;f :i captures me
imagination !

CONFESSIONS OF A
CHINA HAND

By RONALD FARQUHARSON

Ronald Farquharson lived and worked
in China for ten years preceding World
War II. His experiences there proved to
be a rich fulfillment of his boyhood be-
lief in the phrase, "Adventures are to the
adventurous."

The Twenties and Thirties were a
halcyon time for the spirited young men
who went out from Europe and America
to sell their products in the East. And
the centuries-old land of China was an
exotic market with unlimited possibilities.
Ronald Farquharson turned down bids of
a career in Peru, then in Rangoon, pre-
ferring to wait until he could establish him-
self in the land of his boyhood dreams.

(continued on back flap)

Jacket by ALBERT ORBAAN

~"""~ - \ ' _ 1

WILLIAM MORROW & C

915,1 F23G J
Farquharson

Confessions of a
China hand
|3*OQ 51*2637

915 a F23e

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CONFESSIONS OF A :
CHINA HAND

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CONFESSIONS

OF A

CHINA HAND

WILLIAM MORROW AND COMPANY

New York:

Contents

Chapter i HERR HAO 1

Chapter 2 MAI YEO FA'TZE 28

Chapter 3 FACE 38

Chapter 4 DISTRICT MANAGER MANCHURIA 56

Chapter 5 THE ATTACHE CASE 68

Chapter 6 AH FAT 87

Chapter 7 "TALLY-HO" 105

Chapter 8 TRAVEL- AMAH 118

Chapter 9 THE HILL 131

Chapter 10 PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 142

Chapter n RETURN TO EDEN 180

Foreword

IN OFFERING to the public these stories of incidents
so largely concerned with my personal activities in
North China during an earlier decade, I would like
them to be accompanied by a word or two in both
explanation and acknowledgment.

With the exception of "The Hill/' which is a fan-
tasy in actual surroundings and somewhat different
from the others, the incidents in themselves are re-
corded very much in the manner of their actual hap-
pening, although I have considered it expedient in
certain instances to substitute names and in others
to alter localities or sequences. I have deliberately
added adjustment and a little colour to my 'Tor-
trait of a War Lord" in order that he may emerge
with the best characteristics among three whom I
knew; and, though I have no doubt that many of
my contemporaries in China will recognize him de-
spite it, it might be unwise even at this dateto
make him more widely apparent. "Return to Eden"
is very much a personal story, so personal in fact that
I have deliberately cloaked it with another, losing
my true identity in both; I hope some may read it
who were my companions on the famous Kikung-

ix

X FOREWORD

shan train in the summer o 1926 they, at least, will
know the reason why.

As for the other incidents, I think they may be of-
fered without further comment.

I am proud to acknowledge the fact that a few
among the happenings recorded in these ' 'confes-
sions" have already made their appearance in Black-
wood's Magazine; and I am particularly grateful to
Mr. G. D. Black wood for the encouragement which
he thereby extended to a new and unknown spare-
time scribe.

My final word is one of affection for the Chinese,
particularly those whom I met and knew during my
travels through the remoter regions of their country;
quite a few among whom figure in the pages ,of this
book and are need I say it real characters. To
each of them, whether they yet survive or already
are journeying towards "The Yellow Springs/' I
owe and acknowledge my deepest debt of all.

RONALD FARQUHARSON
June 3, 1950
22; Alexandra Drive,
Liverpool,, England

CONFESSIONS OF A
CHINA HAND

Chapter 1
HERR HAO

"ADVENTURES are to the adventurous" was an ex-
pression I first heard as a child. It might have left
less impression on me had I not heard it uttered
time and again by my Great-Uncle Aeneas who had
travelled, as he put it, "everywhere from China to
Peru" and boasted that he had lived dangerously in
five continents. I knew that I could never emulate
the possibly exaggerated exploits of Great-Uncle
Aeneas, but at least I might start off on the right
lines by going to China.

Somehow that childish ambition not only stuck
but grew in intensity and was foremost in my mind
when, just after leaving school at the age of eighteen,
I made a successful application to join a large in-
dustrial organization as a trainee for a post abroad.

To this firm, later to be known to the world as
Imperial Chemical Industries, I owe a great debt of
gratitude. Quite apart from the fact that they still
subscribe in a handsome manner to my existence,
they have been both tolerant and kind tome from the
very beginning. In 1922 they said in effect, "We have

2 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

now trained you for two years: we propose posting
you to Lima." I thought that Peru to start with,
seemed to be jumping too far ahead if I was to fol-
low the trail of Great-Uncle Aeneas, and in any case,
as I emphasized in some trepidation to my indulgent
employers, I had rather set my heart on going to
China. Six months later they sent for me again and
asked how soon I could be packed up and ready to
leave for Rangoon. This, at least, was a considerable
step nearer; but again, at no little risk to my con-
tinued employment, I intimated that I would still
prefer to wait until an opening became available in
China. It was evident that by this time I had fully
exhausted their patience, for they immediately
ceased to regard me as a foreign trainee and put me
on the road to sell to laundries a substance called
Sesqui-Carbonate of Soda.

But, by some miracle, I was not entirely "forgot-
ten; and one day, a few months before my twenty-
second birthday, I received a brief notice to the
effect that a tentative passage had been reserved for
me from London to Shanghai if I was prepared to
sail in three weeks' time. Of course I was.

So it all came about; and it seemed not long after-
wards that, within an hour of my first setting foot
on the Shanghai Bund, I presented myself to the
sales manager of our organization in China, hoping
to create the impression of a young man determined
to lose no time at all in justifying his appointment.

I discovered my immediate chief to be a preoccu-
pied person, possessed of an imperial liver, who shot
me a disparaging glance, rebuked me for arriving

HERR HAO

on mail day and forthwith dispatched me to the na-
tive city in a ricksha. There, greatly aided by Mr.
Yee, who had accompanied me from. the office, I im-
mediately proceeded to prove my prowess by dispos-
ing of a case of cod-liver oil to a Chinese apothecary
who normally dealt only in native herbs. It was Mr.
Yee, however, who had insisted that this early oppor-
tunity must be taken of extending face to the newly
arrived Englishman; and the apothecary, boasting a
single tooth of startling prominence and the equally
odd and appropriate name of Mr. Fang, had ex-
pressed himself as willing to comply on the under-
standing that if thereby he extended face to a
twenty-one-year-old Foreign Devil, he, in turn, must
be extended twenty-one days' credit. On such agree-
ment and the promise of immediate delivery, Mr.
Yee and I bowed ourselves backwards out of the
premises into our rickshas. Of this incident it re-
mains only to relate that twenty days later the case
of cod-liver oil was mysteriously translated from Mr.
Fang's shop back into our godown.

During the intervening period I had entered my
proper apprenticeship in the simpler aspects of the
Chinese commercial art, and face was preserved
through my having disposed of a modicum of mer-
chandise in a more genuine market. Nevertheless
Mr. Yee continued to exploit this same expedient
whenever newcomers arrived from England, in the
rather vain hope, one can only suppose, that on some
such occasion the face-extending Mr. Fang might,
prior to the expiry of his credit, forget to return the
goods.

4 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

I may say that for a young man who had previ-
ously confined his salesmanship to a single chemical
for one specific trade, I found quite apart from new
and peculiar methods of approach that I was unex-
pectedly called upon to school myself in the selling
points of almost every commodity that a Chinese
might conceivably employ to advantage. My com-
pany not only sold the widest possible range of its
own imported products but, as a prominent British
concern with a well-established organization cover-
ing most of China's vast territory, also acted as sell-
ing agents for a considerable number of other
industries. It was natural that in Hong Kong, Shang-
hai and the principal Treaty Ports, as they were
called in those days, our scope was greater than in
the less Westernized expanses of the interior.
" Chemicals to cod-liver oil" might well have been
an apt slogan for our sales activities in the main cen-
tres of China. But, despite restrictions, it had long
been realized that a far greater future for foreign
industrial enterprise lay behind the ability to probe
the unscratched surface of a nigh-limitless hinter-
land.

If Great-Uncle Aeneas made me a personal legacy
of some of what my family have politely referred to
as his "amicable weaknesses/' then I also inherited
from him a strong desire to pioneer. Here again my
ever accommodating employers gave me a rich op-
portunity to indulge this ambition by shortly post-
ing me from Shanghai to the northern port of
Tientsin to act as district manager. It was there that
my modest attempts to introduce and foster British

HERR HAO 5

trade, chiefly among the up-country merchants and
farmers, assumed for the first time a far more fasci-
nating aspect than was ever confined within a hom-
ing case of cod-liver oil.

There were established native Industries, invari-
ably of a crude and primitive nature, to be discov-
ered in the scattered and far-distant cities and
hsiens which, with the aid of our technicians, we
aimed to encourage and develop for the prosperity
of Chinese and British alike. There was new ground
to be broken in the less accessible, unexplored ter-
ritories which lay close to Mongolia in the north and
stretched out towards Turkestan and Tibet in the
west: here we tried to open trade in a world oblivi-
ous to the march of a thousand years. And over all
lay the soil, so much of its pristine richness spent
through centuries of crude cultivation- that once
good earth of China, from the meager fruits of
which countless millions took their pittance or, in
the unyielding years, perforce must perish. We
sought, through small beginnings, to nourish that
soil, to enliven it with the scientific discoveries of a
modern era, and thereby to increase the slender re-
sources by which vast communities lived or died. It
was essentially trade, but brightened by humane
purpose. I, with the ardent ideals common to youth,
interpreted it as commerce with a cause and at inter-
vals trekked out into the unknown, mentally pan-
oplied as though on a crusade. It was a propitious
state of mind, for in the so's and early go's there was
little else in favour of forsaking the easy club com-

6 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

forts o a Treaty Port for long weeks of hard and
hazardous journeying through uncharted wilds
where, blown by winds from the Gobi, only the grey
dust danced along age-old solitary ways. And after
the rains the dust made mud: such mud as that in
Flanders' fields or, say, on the devious track that
travellers take to reach Yangchu.

Yangchu, more familiarly known by its pre-Re-
public name of Taiyuanfu, is (or was) the capital
city of Shansi province. During the days of which I
write, all communications, including the dilapidated
railway which spasmodically ran north and south
through the province, were permitted to function
only in the interests and at the dictates of the local
war lords. This indeed was the era when only brib-
ery was brother to belligerency in the control of
provincial affairs, and under such conditions of cor-
ruption and chaos none but the sorely tried and
overtaxed merchants strove to maintain that high
standard of honesty which is inherent in the char-
acter of the Chinese trader.

Mr. Kim, who was a Chinese born in Honolulu
and a graduate in agriculture from an American
university, and I approached Yangchu overland
from the east in a springless ox-drawn cart. After a
full week's journey from Tientsin across the plains
of Chihli, we had since travelled a further five days,
jolting our precarious way along a hundred and fifty
miles of scarcely discernible track from Changtingf u,
in the adjoining province now known as Hopei,
where we had done good business. But we now
faced a more formidable task; for we had learnt that

HERR HAO 7

our German competitors had established in Yang-
chu a native agent, called Mr. Hao, who was so
much more progressive and resourceful than our
own representative that stocks of the German prod-
uct were flooding the whole of Shansi. We, on the
other hand, had not so much as a picul * through-
out the province. While this was to the extreme
detriment of British business, it had also an even
more irritating aspect. Over the earlier seasons we
had broken the ground and almost our hearts in the
process, we had staged the experiments, we had first
nourished the earth and sown the seeds that waxed
as magic to incredulous eyesall this we had done
before a competitive chop had even been designed;
and now, through some artifice as yet unknown, it
seemed that the Boche had ridden home with the
harvest. The object immediately ahead of us was
simply to discover the answer to one question: the
spring far spent now, the season lost in Shansi, we
must know how the Germans had won itthat was
all. With that knowledge, we might plan a cam-
paign even better than theirs and recapture the prov-
ince next year. But how to glean the secrets of Mr.
Hao? He would not be delivering them as a gratu-
itous gesture to any who asked; most assuredly he
would hold them more precious with the ears of the
enemy around. Our problem was one of approach
for probe those secrets we must.

One of the wheels struck a boulder embedded
deep in the mire, we lurched suddenly to one side,
and my head came into violent contact with the

* Chinese standard weight equal to 133% Ibs.

8 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

bamboo stay across which curved the blue cloth
cover of our primitive cart. To Mr. Kim's conster-
nation, the blood trickled down from my temple,
but I waved aside his ministrations. The jolt had
dislodged a dormant idea.

"Kim/' I cried, "I have it! It's come to me at last!
This fellow Hao," I went on, "I've no doubt he's
progressive. Maybe somewhat of a wizard in his
way but he's more than likely to be a local lad who
wouldn't know a Highlander from a Hun."

"So what?" drawled Mr. Kim.

"Just this," I explained. "Suppose we breeze
straight into Herr Hao and introduce ourselves as
a couple of the Farben freaks on a routine round.
You know, same as we do with our own agents;
checking up stocks, surveying the market, finding
out about this and that the usual rigmarole. He'd
be none the wiser while we most certainly would."

"You mean we'd learn the know-how?"

"Exactly. All's fair . . . isn't it?"

Mr. Kim ruminated for a while and then, to min-
imize the risk of losing either in the act of speech,
secured his last bit of spearmint to a loose filling
and remarked:

"That's right. So long as there are no genuine
Huns in town/'

I thought this a remote possibility. The Germans
were no fools and, with the sowing season over in a
locality that bristled with fireworks, nobody but in-
quisitive fools like us would venture in.

"Little chance of that," I said then added, "In-
cidentally there's just one thing."

HERR HAO 9

"What's that?"

"You'll have to do the lying for me. I don't know
enough of the lingo yet/'

Mr. Kim leaned forward on his haunches and
then looked back at me with a growing expression
of horror. "Now if I were British, I'd say you had
a bloody face!"

I put the best construction I could on his remark
and dabbed at my head with a wad of disinfectant.

Mr. Hao steamed his spectacles above a bowl of
tea, wiped the lenses clear on the wide sleeve of his
gown and, having replaced them about his nose, pro-
ceeded to regard us benevolently across a red-lac-
quered table. He was a rotund, middle-aged son of
Shansi, surrounded by an atmosphere that betok-
ened both prosperity and importance.

Mr. Kim, with a dead-pan expression on his fea-
tures, had duly intimated to Mr. Hao that we were
adherents to the agricultural interests of the Father-
land. He had achieved this not without difficulty,
for his Chinese conversation was an odd mixture of
Mandarin and Cantonese, a combination of dialect
which was entirely unaided by the addition of a
strong American accent; nevertheless it appeared
effective since no shadows of doubt darkened the
beaming countenance of our seemingly unsuspicious
host.

During the subsequent conversation I was able to
comprehend the substance of much that was said by
Mr. Hao, who spoke slowly in the same measured
tones which were invariably employed by my native

10 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

teacher in Tientsin. I formed the impression of his
being both scholarly and astute, a learned live-wire
but above all a kindly and a courteous man, with
such an obvious abundance of charm that I became
increasingly conscious of a growing distaste for my
presence before him as an impostor. But it was too
late for withdrawal now; I could do no more than
attribute my reaction to weak-mindedness and en-
deavour to overcome it by silent self-assurance that
the objects of our mission were too vital for consid-
erations of sentiment. But I still found difficulty in
convincing myself that we were here to outwit the
Germans and that Mr. Hao was no more than a
means to an end.

Without the necessity of obvious questioning, the
factor which lay behind the overwhelming success
of our competitors in Shansi soon became abun-
dantly clear. Their agent was a man of wide influ-
ence who cultivated the right people in the interests
of his business. Unlimited quantities of the German
product had been transported into the province un-
der the umbrella of "military supplies/' by means
of the commandeered railway running south from
Kalgan. In the recognized order of things, there was
little doubt that Mr. Hao subscribed handsomely to
the local war lord's coffers in return for the priv-
ileges of this monopoly; but, even were it an expense
not recognized by the Germans, it was an invest-
ment which, with now only obscure prospects of
British competition in the future, would reap for
him ever-increasing dividends.

"If the earth declines to yield a harvest/' ex-

HERR HAO 11

plained our host, "then a million piculs of rice must
be imported into the province, by the military, in
order that the soldiers o Shansi will not starve. It is
wiser, I think, to assure the harvest; and that is why
supplies of your product become a military neces-
sity/'

This utterance, with all that emphasis of sincerity
which the Chinese language commands, appeared so
logical as to allay my suspicion that bribery had en-
tered into the arrangement and, in my mind, Mr.
Hao immediately assumed the stature of a statesman.
He had now told us all that we wished to know, and
it seemed obvious that, short of appointing the Mil-
itary Governor of the province to act as our agent,
we might as well under present conditions write
Shansi off the map. I concluded that we had better
proceed to peddle our wares elsewhere; but since
Mr. Hao appeared amicably disposed towards us,
the elementary courtesies demanded that our stay
be prolonged, at least until our host had been al-
lowed further expression of matters which he re-
garded as momentous.

"I am/' he was saying, "no more than a humble
native of a troubled province in the centre of a civ-
ilization that crumbles and decays through sheer
antiquity. It is good/' he went on, now regarding
me steadily, "that the science and culture of the
great German nation should contribute to the re-
construction of our worn-out way of life, and I am
honoured only less in my unworthy association with
your great industry than I am by the privilege of
your presence in my humble surroundings/*

12 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

Mr. Hao bowed elegantly in my direction and
then took a sip from his bowl of tea, which he im-
bibed with an audible degree of relish. I glanced
across at the faintly amused expression on Mr. Kim's
face and, having finished my own tea, could accom-
plish no more than a slightly parched swallow. With
a rasping noise, our host cleared his throat and went
on:

"It is good that this victory in commerce should
have been won over a country which some years ago
cheated you out of victory in war. It is but a begin-
ning: the wise ones say that shortly a man may rise
from obscurity among your people and that through
his inspiration your arms, too, will be all victorious
and that within a decade you will conquer Eng-
land."

There was a deep and deathly silence, during
which it seemed that Mr. Hao was expecting me to
confirm or deny the intuitions of his wise ones; but
I felt that It was better to remain dumb than to risk
betraying any sense of my discomfort. It was Mr.
Kim who broke the rather tense atmosphere by say-
Ing, with an exaggerated air of cheerful indifference,
"So the product is selling well?"

The agent turned to face my companion, who was
nervously chewing on his remaining particle of gum,
and replied in the briefest possible terms:

"No."

Mr. Kim stopped chewing and his jaw dropped
open. "No?"

"The quality is poor/' said Mr. Hao.

The incredulous Kim repeated the first syllable

HERR HAD lg

of the Chinese expression for poor., but the act of
framing it caught him unawares. The gum shot
from his mouth across the table and lodged on the
side of Mr. Hao's tea bowl.

Quite oblivious to this slight domestic tragedy, the
agent went blandly on:

"I have acquired samples from competitive
sources and though the selling price does not dif-
fer, my experiments show that the substance does.
I think you must improve the quality of your prod-
uct, for it is indeed far inferior to that of your en-
emies, the British."

I observed Mr. Kim anxiously regarding the now
somewhat embellished pattern on the tea bowl across
the table; but I knew his perplexed expression was
more attributable to the fact that he was as well
aware as 1 that the analysis and quality of the Ger-
man product never varied and was, moreover, iden-
tical with that of the British make.

"Nevertheless," continued Mr. Hao, whonowrose
and drew open the drawer of a chest behind his
chair, "since there are no stocks of the higher-grade
commodity in the Province, I have managed to dis-
pose of a paltry nine thousand piculs; and, again,
since the disturbed conditions prevent me from rely-
ing on the postal service, I trust you will excuse me
for asking you to accept personally my draft for
sixty-eight thousand dollars in settlement/'

Never before, nor I am glad to say since, have I
been called upon to accomplish such a feat of fast
thinking. As I struggled to explain that travelling
with such a sum on my person would invite the un-

14 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

welcome attention of bandits, I was interrupted by
an alarming sound which emanated from the region
of Mr. Kim's epiglottis. In the maelstrom of these
unexpected developments, he had swallowed his
loose filling.

"Very well/' concluded Mr. Hao, as with extrav-
agant courtesy he bowed us back to our waiting cart,
"I will bring the remittance with me when I next
travel to your honourable Treaty Port. Local af-
fairs, I fear, will keep me here these next three
moons but after that I will allow myself the humble
privilege of acknowledging the distinction of your
call upon me today." He bowed twice. "So until
the seventh moon safe journeys to you both/'

My companion and I were some distance on the
long trek home before we found that words once
more came easily to us.

Some two weeks later I sat within the solid secur-
ity of the British Concession in Tientsin and, for the
edification of my directors in Shanghai, proceeded
to compile my report. When it came to touch upon
the unhappy state of our affairs in Shansi province,
any qualms of conscience concerning Mr. Hao had
entirely forsaken me and I dwelt extravagantly upon
the artful subterfuge which I had successfully
adopted, in the company's interests, at Yangchu.
The task completed, I relaxed even more deeply
into a blissful state of self-satisfaction, visualizing at
delicious intervals the nods of approval which the
report could hardly fail to evoke round the board

HERR HAO 15

room table. I was impatient only for adequate rec-
ognition of services so resourcefully rendered.

I had not long to wait: an epistle arrived for me
by return mail.

Since the close of our contemporary days in the
Far East, I am still frequently fortunate enough to
run across the one-time director of our China com-
pany who dictated that letter before signing it with
a discernible degree of emphasis about his familiar
flourish. In mellowed maturity he politely professes
to have forgotten the incident, and I take delight in
reminding him of certain expressions which he
rightly considered appropriate to the occasion. In-
deed, those expressions (like the remarks contained
in one of my earlier school reports on chemistry
* 'might do better if he desisted from playing with
every tap, bottle and drawer within reach") remain
indelibly implanted on my mind, despite the tumul-
tuous years that have intervened:

I must now refer to that lengthy section of your
report wherein it is stated that you unhappily
chose to represent yourself as belonging to the Ger-
man organization, in order to elicit certain infor-
mation from a native agent. Any value which
might be attached to your discussions in Yangchu
must be discounted entirely through the harm
which will inevitably result from such an ill-con-
sidered action. What will be Mr. Hao's opinion
of you and what will be his impression of the com-
pany which does employ you, when he learns of
your true identity? I must point out most emphat-
ically that this is not the manner in which our

l6 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

company would wish to go about its business.
British commerce in China has been built up on
unerring principles of absolute honesty of approach
and undertaking . . .

and so it went on, ad lib; there were pages of it!

Subconsciously at the time, I suppose, but more
realistically later on, I appreciated the full worth of
the man who wrote me that letter; he was grand and
he was genuine, and, moreover, every word of it was
absolutely right. I read it through but once; then
hurriedly stuffing it into my pocket, I took a ricksha
round to the Club where, aided by the ministrations
of the bar boy, I proceeded to peruse it many times
more. Then I relapsed into an easy chair and started
to consider the implications of the whole thing.

Some few hours later I emerged a man of action
upon the world again; and if there was a slight un-
steadiness about my gait, this was amply countered
by the firmness of my resolve. First I sought out my
native teacher and emphatically declined to be parted
from him until he had succeeded in imprinting, for
all time, upon my memory the means of expressing
In Chinese' 'Good Morning. I am not German, I
am your British competitor. I offer my most humble
apologies for having deceived you. May your off-
spring remain forever fertile. I must now return.
Goodbye/' Next, I lost little time in completing
arrangements for an absence of at least a month; and
that same afternoon I was on my way. I was going
back to see Mr. Hao again, in faraway Yangchu; and
this time I must needs make the journey alone.

HERR HAO 17

The hunchback who owned the inn at Showyang-
hsien kept no calendar to relieve the monotonous
mud walls of the sanctuary which I had shared with
a variety of resident vermin and where I had con-
tinually held court to a colony of neighbouring rats.
But, as I took my departure, I calculated that we
must be approaching the sixth moon, that I had
lain here for over a week and, if not yet free from
fever, I should at least by now be safe from the at-
tentions of the armed and grizzly horde who had so
long persisted in their endeavours to track me down.

Except during the period when I had been spas-
modically delirious, unsought circumstances had
granted me ample opportunity for reflection: dys-
entery, aided by a touch of the sun, had proved a
depressing malady, no doubt adding weight to my
self-recriminations. I realized that my plight was
primarily due to the fact that, over a month ago, I
had risen from an easy chair in the Tientsin Club
on no more than a starry-eyed impulse. Thereafter
the flood-swept city of Hokienfu, with its promise
of more perilous paths ahead, should have sufficed
to soften the hard core of my stupidity. But I had
continued to play the persistent fool who deliber-
ately blinds himself to risks for which, should calam-
ity come about, his unsuspecting and innocent
employers would be called upon to accept a large
measure of responsibility. It would have served me
right, for instance, if in the quite likely event of my
capture by bandits, my directors had flatly declined
to bail me out; but, of course, they would have felt
reluctantly obliged to pay the price of my ransom,

l8 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

a sum many times higher than all my potential
worth. Yet despite such inescapable considerations,
I had persisted along indiscernible, mud-submerged
tracks, more stubborn, more deserving by far of its
cruel fate than my companionable mule which slith-
ered whimpering to eternity in a six-foot depth of
mire. Its last despairing look of helplessness was to
haunt and sicken me on later, more solitary days,
during which I perforce must proceed on foot.

Even in retrospect I prefer to gloss over the dif-
ficulties into which my sheer pig-headedness led me.
Lack of food, stagnant water, sweeping rains fol-
lowed by damp humidity and a scorching sun, in-
adequate ability to seek and understand guidance,
with the inevitable result that one wandered a hun-
dred miles off course: these were a few of the haz-
ards to be met in the tracks of that treacherous mud.
They put me on familiar terms with gnawing hun-
ger and heartbreaking, unsheltered loneliness; they
gave me a knowledge of how it feels to be stricken
with sickness when one is alone and utterly lost, far
beyond the limits of habitation. There seemed such
little advantage in it all at the time, though in later
days one appreciates the wealth of philosophy that
is born of precarious plight. If my discomforts were
no lasting cure for dogmatism, at least they left me
with these legacies: a tolerance of conditions which
seemed exacting; the certainty that ever to despair
is to dally with disaster; and, most comforting of all,
the knowledge that a sense of fear becomes strangely
allayed in the realization that relief lies beyond the
power of personal action. Indeed, in such circum-

HERR HAO 19

stances, one becomes most conscious of human

frailty and its utter dependence upon sublime and
simple Faith; such, indeed, as that which brought
me through the merciless miles of mud, to meet
again with Mr. Hao.

Mr. Hao sat bolt upright at his red-lacquered
table as though he were a figure hewn from stone.
If his features betrayed any sign of emotion as he
took stock of the unkempt creature that stood before
him, then it was no more than one of mild surprise.

My mission was of brief and specific purpose and,
having greeted him in Chinese, I proceeded to the
simple task which I had journeyed desperately over
great distances to fulfil.

ff Wo pu shur Ter-kuo jen: wo shur Ying-kuo . . "
I began and thus continued until, my apologia con-
cluded with a slight bow, I half-turned to take my
leave and embark immediately upon the uncertain-
ties of the long trek home.

But, as I was turning from him, I observed that
an unexpected change had overcome the mien of
Mr. Hao: whereas he had listened in polite and sol-
emn silence to my address, a measure of animation
now swept across his features and he stretched for-
ward an arm to indicate the dragon-gilded chair
which was placed opposite him across the table. It
was as though some graven image had come to life,
maturing as an unemotional enigma who for no
more than an unmasked moment was, none the less,
unmistakably moved.

20 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

"I thank you." He paused perceptibly. "Now
please, sit down."

Instinctively I obeyed, since physically, and to a
certain degree mentally, I was utterly exhausted.
Then my sluggish mind stirred me abruptly to my
feet again and I looked keenly across at the man who
had spoken. He now wore a tolerant smile such as
might become some ancient sage from whom no
secrets of the heart and mind are hid.

"You would appear/' he went on, "to be a little
surprised."

"I didn't ..." I stammered. "I never thought . . .
that ... I didn't realize that you spoke English."

As I sat down again Mr. Hao inclined his head
slightly forward and regarded me rather gravely
over the horn rims of his spectacles.

"It is not easy," he remarked, "for one who speaks
only Chinese to obtain a degree in one of your Eng-
lish universities."

"No ..." I observed, in a poor attempt to conceal
my bewilderment. "No I suppose not. But last
time, when . . . when ..."

"When you were a German?" suggested Mr. Hao
blandly. "Perhaps then it would have appeared dis-
courteous to address you in English."

I was given time to consider the implications and
aptness of this remark whilst two bowls of piping
hot tea were placed on the table before us. Simul-
taneously we removed the saucerlike tops and bent
our heads to the steaming fragrance.

"Mr. Hao," I began presently, "you may not have

HERR HAO 21

understood ... I have come to offer my most humble
apology. I . . /'

With a deft twist which shook it free from the
deep folds of his sleeve, my host raised an elegant
hand.

"Your Chinese was excellent/' he interjected,
"but it was unnecessary, for I am quite unworthy of
your remarks/'

Then, as though to lend a greater degree of em-
phasis to his words, he leaned towards me across the
table and went on, "But as an honourable gesture
I shall always treasure it as the greatest courtesy
which I have ever received from a foreigner/'

That was sufficient for me. Now, for the first
time in five doubtful weeks, a warm glow of gratifi-
cation enveloped my whole being, leaving me sing-
ularly refreshed in the assurance that, after all, I had
not plodded on, through torturous days, to no avail.

"When I received word that you were coming/*
continued Mr. Hao, "I dispatched a request to the
Garrison Commander at Pintingchow to furnish
you with a bodyguard, so as to insure your safe pas-
sage from the provincial borders to Yangchu."

As he paused to take a further sip from the bowl
before him, I leaned back in my dragon-gilded chair,
utterly dumbfounded by the fact that any knowl-
edge of my journey should have reached him. But
I knew that to give tongue to my curiosity would be
discourteous and probably prove no more than a
vain attempt to probe the unaccountable art of Chi-
nese Intelligence, which foreigners will forever fail

22 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

to comprehend. Presently he proceeded serenely on.

"It was known that you had crossed into Shansi
east of Chengtingfu and were seen to be approach-
Ing Showyanghsien. But after that, all trace of your
movements was lost: the garrison escort had searched
some days before presuming, to my dismay, that you
had perished along the road/'

Maybe I might have been forgiven an audible
sigh as my hands moved along the arm rests to clutch
at imperial claws and I sank back into bitter, un-
avoidably ironic reflection. 1 found no heart to in-
form such a solicitous friend of the extent to which
I had employed my meagre resources to achieve
sanctuary from the armed rabble I had steadfastly
believed to be a fearsome horde of marauding ban-
dits. In retrospect, how frequently have I smiled
grimly at the thought of the heavily bribed hunch-
back at Showyanghsien turning them twice away
from within feet of where I lay.

"I must express apology/' Mr. Hao droned on,
"for my discourtesy in not meeting you personally
at the borders of the Province in order to allay the
natural suspicions which no doubt caused you to
take refuge from my ill-considered attempts at suc-
cour. But it was essential that I visit Kalgan ..."

"Mr. Hao." I felt that at all costs I must inter-
rupt him by some expression of appreciation. "It
was kind of you: I never thought . . . You see i . .
I ..."

Then I realized how hopeless and inadequate any
attempts at explanation would appear and I felt

HERR HAO Sg

gratified when, after a polite pause, he took up the
threads again.

". . . it was essential that I visit Kalgan before I
could proceed in my negotiations with you.' 3

"With me!"

As the tea bowls were being replenished I tried
to think of any matter which he could possibly wish
to negotiate with interests against which he had so
successfully competed. Then, after loudly clearing
his throat, Mr. Hao proceeded by degrees to en-
lighten me.

"On the occasion of your earlier visit, I addressed
you and Mr. Kim in terms which I thought to be in
keeping with the identity which you chose to adopt
for which courtesy I hope that you will now grant
me pardon."

He paused, while we gracefully bowed in each
other's direction, and then went on:

"But when I spoke about the poor quality of the
German product, I trusted that you would take no-
tice of the fact if indeed you were not already aware
of it."

"Aware of it!" I protested. "I am only aware of
this that the quality of the German product is iden-
tical with that of .our own. We have an agreement
concerning quality, as well as price, to which both
sides faithfully adhere."

Mr. Hao regarded me gravely, as he had done
earlier, over the tops of his lenses.

"You still do not know, then, that the German
cargo has been deliberately and persistently adul-
terated?"

24 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

"Adulterated!" I exclaimed. "Who has been
adulterating it?"

Mr. Hao did not answer; inscrutably, he contfn-
ued to regard me over the rims of his spectacles.

It suddenly dawned on me that, for some reason,
Mr. Hao had been under the impression that, even
if we had no direct hand in it, my company must be
aware that some nefarious influence had been at
work to discredit the quality of the German product
in Shansi. I was naturally eager to learn more.

"Where has this happened?" I persisted.

"At Kalgan," replied Mr. Hao. "My stocks come
by way of Kalgan, where they are delayed until such
time as I can arrange with the military to take de-
livery by rail at Tatungf u in the north of the Prov-
ince. You see," he went on, "it is well arranged:
adulteration has taken place after the goods have
passed beyond German supervision but before I be-
come accountable for them. It means, of course,"
he concluded, "that the Germans must accept re-
sponsibility."

"And what . . . what have you done about it?" I
inquired.

"I have withdrawn all the remaining stocks
throughout the Province," replied Mr. Hao, "and
since the farmers have now lost confidence in your
competitors' product, I have undertaken to replace
each bag next spring with the British commodity/'

I found it difficult to contain my excitement.
"Mr. Hao, you must be aware that nothing," I re-
peated the word to lend it emphasis, "nothing could
please me, or my company, better: it is unfortunate

HERR HAO 25

only that no German agent is considered eligible to
deal in the British product/ 7

"It is unfortunate only, perhaps, for the Ger-
mans/' replied the agent, "in that they must take the
responsibility if the cargo of which I take delivery
at Tatungfu is largely composed of sand and chalk.
My monetary losses are of little account: considera-
tion, though, of my face is paramount. I have ac-
cordingly notified the German principals that I am
no longer able to act as their agent/'

Ah! This was better, I thought. There only re-
mained the consideration of our own agent in Yang-
chu whom I had not yet visited. Perhaps it would
be possible to bring him and Mr. Hao together in
partnership; that might be one solution at least.

"The question of our already established agent in
the Provincial capital worries me/' I said. "While
he is by no means a man of your merit and distinc-
tion, I know of no wrong he has done such as might
call for cancellation of his agreement with us."

"No/* said Mr. Hao, sombrely, after a long pause.

Then he rose a little abruptly, signifying that our
discussion was at an end, and in brighter tones
begged that I be his guest, that I eat at his table and
rest for two days in his house before he personally
escorted me back to Tientsin, under military influ-
ences, by rail.

"The journey/' he concluded, "should take no
more than thirty-six hours/'

"Hell's a poppinY* remarked Mr. Kim.

2 6 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

"Is It Indeed!" I observed. "What have I done
wrong now?"

"You go twice to Yangchu," replied Mr. Kim,
"and never check up on our own agent."

"Well ..." I glanced across my desk at the im-
perturbable figure of Mr. Hao gazing impassively
3ut of the window at an assortment of native craft
steadily plying the Pei-ho. I turned back to Mr.
Kim.

"I did call. He was away. They told me he was
in ..." I stopped abruptly. Then, "What is the
trouble, exactly?"

"The Huns are mad as hell/' said Mr. Kim.
"They've called on our directors about the adultera-
tion of their stocks in Kalgan."

"But * . . but has that anything to do with our
agent in Yangchu?"

Mr. Kim's reply was abrupt and to the point.
"Seems like everything."

"Everything!" It confirmed a suspicion that had
only just dawned on me in the recollection that,
when I had called upon him, they had said that our
agent was still absent "on business" north of the
Shansi border. And as the full significance of so
much seeped in upon me, I glanced across once more
at the inscrutable Mr. Hao.

With half-closed eyes he appeared to be following
intently the smooth passage of a white sail which was
moving majestically alongside the approaches to our
godown.

"I was considering," he said presently, with a full

HERR HAO 27

degree of deliberation, "that in the coming spring
we should employ the clear canvases of many inland
water craft to advertize, with due elegance, the su-
preme excellence of our mutual commodity."

Chapter 2

MAI YEO FA'TZE

Mai yeo ku'tze, mai yeo wa'tze,
Mai yeo chi'enmai yeo fa'tze.

No trousers, no socks,

No money no matter.
(Mandarin jingle)

I RECALL a question which was put to me by a young
lady across a luncheon table in Mayfair, shortly after
my return from China. In precise terms, it went like
this:

"But do tell me: how on earth did you cope with
those frightfully fantastic hieroglyphics which they
scrawl backwards or something? Without actually
qualifying for certification, I mean or did you?"

The way she put it took a bit of sorting out, but I
considered it sufficient to reply briefly that I dis-
dained to "cope/' which was presumably why I was
still permitted to roam at large! The same query,
however, though perhaps couched in less enigmatic
terms, has persisted down the years, which suggests
that certain light reflections on the foreigner's ap-

28

MAI YEO FA'TZE 29

proach to the calligraphy and conversation of the
Manchus may possibly be o interest.

In actual fact, unless one was Diplomatic, Con-
sular, Maritime Customs, or cursed with an insati-
able thirst for unusual knowledge, one was wise to
avoid assiduously any serious exploration into the
limitless field of Chinese characters. That is, of
course, apart from the more familiar ones which it
paid to recognize on the face of Mah Jongg tiles and
those which appeal to the- cynically minded as par-
ticularly apt: such, for instance, as the one beloved
of Ben Travers which depicts two women under
one roof and means, quite simply, discord. No one
knows exactly how many thousands of years ago it
was that the ancient artists of China first started
transcribing their thoughts into pictures, but who
shall deny that their wisdom must be of like antiq-
uity!

Neither, I believe, is it known exactly how many
thousands of these intricate and carefully chosen
signs exist, since I have always understood that not
one among the great Celestial Scholars has ever ac-
quired a knowledge of them all. The educated na-
tive man-of -business rubs along quite nicely on well
under a thousand, whilst, I have been told, most
official documents can be decoded with a recognition
of no more than five hundred. During ten years in
China I eventually succeeded in recognizing, all told,
about twenty of them and with a masterly flourish
of the brush could create a fair representation of less
than a dozen: three of these comprised my name,
three more the brief style of the company which

gO CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

employed me (these six being invaluable for the pur-
pose of obtaining native credit) and then my cal-
ligraphy tailed off into portraying the numerals one
to three, which a sidelong glance would detect as
being no more than their Roman counterparts
assuming a horizontal attitude. A pretty poor per-
formance on the whole, maybe, but richly com-
pensated for by what I, at least, believe to be a
continuing state of sanity: a condition possibly dif-
ferent from that of certain stark-eyed student inter-
preters whom I used to observe mouthing Manchu
monosyllables and sketching strange signs in the air
about the Legation quarter in Peking.

Unless, therefore, the necessity is paramount or
the urge beyond control, to the Westerner who re-
tains respect for the balance of his mind, yet aspires
to read and write in Chinese, my advice is quite
simple: let him be content to read this it's far
easier and write the other ambition off!

But I would add that to understand, and particu-
larly to talk, the spoken idiom of Mandarin is a
glorious experience and well worth the minor effort
its acquisition entails. It is fascinating study and a
vastly different bowl of tea to any straw-in-the-hair
excursions into hieroglyphics. It is a language which
is lyrical and full of music; it is rich in charm and
subtlety of expression; and being entirely devoid of
grammar, its assimilation avoids recapturing, for
many, what must have often been the despairing
atmosphere of the Fourth Form room in an era of
earlier struggle.

But of course there are pitfalls. The inevitable

MAI YEO FA'TZE 31

one is immediate failure to appreciate the fact that
there are four distinct tones employed in the enun-
ciation of each syllable and that an incorrect intona-
tion can introduce an unexpected and somewhat
startling element into the most prosaic conversation.
The sound p'ing, for instance, according to char-
acter and the intonation it is afforded, can give ex-
pression to matters so widely diverse as a block of
ice, a military gentleman, or the distressing circum-
stances of mal de mer. Again, the word mai uttered
in one tone can be interpreted as to buy and in an-
other, only a shade different, it means to sell;
whereby it may be seen that a knowledge of intona-
tion cannot wholly be disregarded. But once over
the fence, the going is dead easy, for one merely has
to combine to buy and to sell in the word mai-mai
and that means business. "Simple as poo-ding!" to
use an expression once employed by my Chinese
teacher.

From the earliest days of my arrival in North
China, I was taught something of the four tones of
Mandarin by a native professor of great antiquity
whom I can best describe as a man of shapes. His
figure was fashioned in the form of a question mark,
his inch-long fingernails after the manner of talons,
and his carpet-slippered feet stood permanently at a
quarter to three. His voice reverberated like peals
of thunder rolling across the Western Hills and he
was known by succeeding generations of his pupils
as "Roaring George." His knowledge of English
never appeared to extend beyond such expressions as

32 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

"Wrong-tone," "Same-meaning/' and "Again-pliss,"
supplemented by a few rather alarming phrases
which I suspect were taught him in moments of lev-
ity by young Britons who had retained something
of their school-boy exuberance.

His practice was to arrive at my house at eight
o'clock in the morning, immediately proceeding up-
stairs to my bedroom where the lesson began. In
due course he would follow me to the bathroom
where he drooped over me, seemingly from a great
height, as I performed my ablutions. He continued
to bellow at me from all sides as I dressed and fin-
ished off by draping himself opposite me at break-
fast, the conclusion of which coincided with that of
the day's learning.

If, as more frequently was the case, I had been
riding for an hour before "Roaring George's" sten-
torian tones greeted me from halfway upstairs, I
was in a fairly receptive state of mind; if I had fore-
gone my exercise I was only moderate; and if there
had been a party lasting into the small hours, my
four tones were apt to reflect the sluggish state of
my liver. On one occasion I think it must have
coincided with a naval visit I crept up to bed no
more than a hundred minutes before the professor
himself was due to mount the stairs, no doubt to re-
gale me with his usual greeting of Hao-pu-hao (lit-
erally "good-no-good," meaning "Are you well or
otherwise?"). But "Roaring George," bearing down
upon me as I lay in oblivious slumber, had to choose
that particular occasion to work off one of the
phrases he had accepted from some poker-faced

MAI YEO FA'TZE 33

young Englishman as a most solicitous inquiry into
one's state of health.

"How . . ." he roared from directly above me,
"how-- is your Lordship's belly for- spots?"

Having delivered himself of this astounding ut-
terance, "Roaring George' ' hovered about in the
half-light like a genie emerging from the bottle, to
float presently towards the window, where his talons
clutched at the curtains. Even in my half-conscious
state I sensed there was more of this nightmare to
come, and come it did!

"Do I," he bawled, "nowuncork the day-
light?"

"No!" I hurled back at him, "you do not! K'weik
k'wei t'so (quick, quick, go) and chase your Aunt
Fanny round the racecourse!"

I hardly thought he would succeed in memorizing
that one, but it was sufficient to me for the moment
that he was able to grasp its portent; he hurriedly
disappeared out of my life until the next day when,
I am glad to say, I was feeling more hao than pu hao
and he, in turn, was content to confine his remarks
once more to "Wrong-tone," "Same-meaning" and
"Again-pliss."

Except for these expressions supplemented on rare
occasions by the somewhat eccentric phrases which
I have quoted (and a few others concerning which
it would be better for me to maintain a discreet si-
lence) "Roaring George" had no English vocabu-
lary; neither did he favour the use of a dictionary.
But he overcame what would otherwise have been
an obvious handicap, particularly with raw recruits.

34 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

by truly remarkable displays of histrionic ability.
He could cry like a child, crow like a rooster, con-
tort himself into the shape of almost anything, and
treat me to vivid impersonations of a steam engine
at speed or a water buffalo bellowing to its mate.
His act of illustrating what was meant by the Chi-
nese word to expire, which he staged on the bed I
had just vacated, with a wealth of diminishing
groans and gurgles, followed by a long period of
complete inertia, was so realistic that it was with
considerable relief that I subsequently witnessed
him arising from the dead.

Lovable though he was in many ways, I concluded
that "Roaring George'* was, for me at all events,
rather more of an entertainer than an adept in ped-
agogy; but lacking the heart to replace him, I even-
tually decided that a prolonged tour of my district
in the interior might do more for me than merely
rectify a precarious financial condition.

With this thought I came to Paotingfu and simul-
taneously to the conclusion that, short of murder, it
would be easier to run away from a devoted grey-
hound than to persuade the office interpreter to al-
low me to proceed on my travels without him. I had
understood that we would part company at two ear-
lier points on the journey; and on each occasion I
had trekked confidently along on my own in a Pe-
king cart fifty miles or so across the wastes to the next
town or village, only to discover my companion pa-
tiently waiting for me in our agent's shop. I never
found the courage to ask him how he had contrived
to travel at such speed in a well-nigh trackless coun-

MAI YEO FA'TZE 35

try, since I have always maintained a terror of the
supernatural and would sooner stumble across an
up-to-date dinosaur than be shown a carpet actually
possessed o magic qualities. I could fathom it out
no further than that. But at Paotingfu Providence
served me better than it did my fast-moving inter-
preter. He fell into an open cesspool and broke his
leg.

I stayed with him for a week and then, consigning
him to the medical care of a Scottish missionary, 1
set out to make the widely scattered visits that lay
ahead, accompanied only by a wall-eyed charioteer
who was obviously less capable of expressing his sen-
timents than were the ill-bred brace of mules behind
which we jogged and jostled together for days on
end.

For the first week I must confess that I had some
bitter regrets about my rashness, for I found that the
going was truly tough; but it is remarkable how
quickly one's senses can combine, in extremis, to
frame an appropriate appeal for sustenance and
shelter, and the right direction. After a fortnight
I had doubled my Chinese vocabulary and, what
was more, I felt instinctively that the timbre of my
tones was improving as well. At the end of three
weeks I discovered that I could sustain a conversa-
tion relating to business matters with my agents for
a full minute with recourse to Wo pu ming-pi ("Me
no savvy") every ten seconds.

So it was that I came to know, despite a wealth o
differing local dialect, that the soft tones of Man-

6 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

darin will see the traveller successfully through all
but the southernmost provinces, where they indulge
in that comparatively tuneless tongue so full of
kwoks and kwaks that is known as Cantonese.

But the two women under one roof, the peasant
with a bundle of sticks, the small boy with the fish-
ing line, the half -open gates, and the square pierced
by a shaft of sun, which is the character of China
itself: all these and the remaining multitude of mo-
saics in miniature are common throughout the
length and breadth of a once-wide Empire ruled,
down the dynasties, from the Dragon throne in Pe-
king. Actually they extend further; for though
through the centuries they have suffered a sea-
change, the origin of the hieroglyphics adopted by
the subjects of the Mikado, claiming direct descent
from Divinity, can be clearly traced to Influences
which sought no more than to be considered collec-
tively Celestial.

In anticlimax, may I add that in a remote corner
of the province now known as Hopei I once hap-
pened across a Bavarian who was trying to sell fire
extinguishers solely on the basis of a practical dem-
onstration backed up by a few phrases of pidgin Eng-
lish. With a proper degree of deference, I suggested
to him that if, for reasons of his own, he was averse
to the employment of a qualified interpreter, he
might well limit his acts of petty arson, succeeded
by expenditure of chemical squirt, by acquiring
without undue difficulty a working knowledge of
the tongue common to his wide market. In a sense,

MAI YEO FA'TZE 37

I suppose, he answered for far too many miscellane-
ous commercial emigrants from every country in
Europe and beyond, who regularly head towards
the East and aspire to trade with the honest mer-
chants of China.

"Ach!" he exclaimed. "Before to China coming,
it is necessary only the English to learn."

Some years later, I relayed the portent of this ex-
change to a prominent official at the Ministry of In-
dustry and Commerce in Nanking. It brought forth
an impatient gesture accompanied by the expression
mai yeo fa'tze. Literally it means "without fashion"
and more often than not in the English idiom, it
suggests "no matter/' or "it is of little account." In
other words, the official at the Ministry intended to
convey that if such were the methods through which
the foreigner sought to do business in China, he,
personally, couldn't care less.

Then, again, an American, professing to have be-
come bilingual within a fortnight, had his own in-
terpretation of the same expression:

"What it means/' he drawled, "is that it's kinda
screwy."

So it will be seen, indeed, that all things are not
necessarily alike to all men and, by the same token,
I am well content to let this rest atMai yeo fa'tze.

Chapter 3

FACE

ALTHOUGH I spent comparatively brief periods trav-
elling through the interior, it was on those occasions
that I learnt almost as much as any Westerner can
o the language and customs o the Chinese mer-
chant. If this was so I claim no credit, for the most
hopeless dullard could not have been the student
and fellow traveller of Mr. Ho without becoming
fascinated with Ids appreciation of the native out-
look and the elegant approach of his philosophical
mind to the intricacies of all occasions.

I seldom undertook any of my periodical trips
into the interior of North China unless I could be
accompanied by Jason Ho. He was never-failing as
guide, philosopher and friend, and typical of so
many millions of his. fellow countrymen whose qual-
ities are as rich in virtue as they are in complexity.

The correct English interpretation of his name
was Ho Chai-sun; but Mr. Ho had, during some
period of his remote youth, supplemented his still
vague knowledge of the English language with read-
ings from Greek mythology and had been much

38

FACE 3Q

*J <J

Impressed by the story of the Golden Fleece, It re-
quired only the slightest phonetic change to merge
his supplementary name of Chai-sun into the style
of Jason and so it was as Jason Ho that he signed
himself.

In the summer of 1928 we travelled together two
hundred miles up the Yalu River to Linkiang a
journey which to the best of my knowledge no Eng-
lishman had previously made.

The course of the Yalu forms the boundary be-
tween China and Korea. The river is about two
miles wide where it flows into the Yellow Sea near
the Chinese port of Antung, but in Its middle and
upper reaches it narrows down to never more than
half a mile in width as it progresses precariously by
gorges and rapids with the high mountains of Man-
churia on the one side and the gentler slopes of
Korea on the other.

Jason Ho and I were ferried across the river from
Antung to Korea accompanied by a packing case
full of tinned foods, a quantity of bedding which
enfolded a change of clothes, a first-aid outfit, a cam-
era, a portable typewriter, and I never learnt where
Jason Ho found it a crate of bottled lager.

Immediately we set foot on their territory, in
those days very much under Japanese domination,
the authorities regarded us with the gravest suspi-
cion and took possession of the camera. The cus-
toms officials obviously believed in doing their job
thoroughly. They took most of my portable type-
writer to pieces, displaying a childlike interest in its
construction, and Mr. HQ'& subsequent efforts to re-

40 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

assemble It occupied him at various Intervals for
six days. Their next outrage was to remove every
cigarette from my case and rubberstamp each one
of them Individually with a large purple hiero-
glyphic. They confiscated the first-aid outfit but
heeded little the provisions, the bedding and the
beer. They were well aware that the exigencies of
the voyage itself would separate us from these latter
possessions, and indeed we never saw any trace of
them again.

It seemed appropriate that the only English those
Japanese officials appeared to know were the four
words "Very sorry for you/' which they repeated at
frequent intervals. We had already begun to feel
very sorry for ourselves, a state of mind which was
in no way alleviated by the discovery of the craft
that was to convey us to a remote part of Korea,
whence we hoped to cross over to China again In
search of Linkiang.

The boat was a somewhat elongated variety of
sampan about thirty feet in length and maybe a
third of that in width. It boasted a covered-wagon
effect over what was destined to serve as passenger
accommodation while in the stern sheet was a petrol
engine designed to rotate a three-bladed aeroplane
propeller. The accommodation might have been
sufficient to house four persons, in cramped sur-
roundings, but without undue discomfort, for a
period not exceeding half an hour. It was therefore
somewhat disconcerting to discover, with a week's
journey ahead of us, that the "passenger list" In-
cluded a mixture of some forty Chinese, Koreans,

FACE 41

and Japanese of both sexes and all ages. Eventually
we were all battened down, with the canvas top
reaching to a height of four feet above the ship's
bottom, and it needed only the roar of the aeroplane
propeller above us to complete my worst conception
of purgatory.

On the sixth day we disembarked, with no feel-
ings of regret, and sought out a ferry to take us
across the river to Linkiang. But first of all there
were preparations. Jason Ho insisted that I should
assume the blue garb of a Chinese peasant. He in-
timated that by this means I should direct less atten-
tion to myself by appearing, as he put it, 'less
extraordinary/'

In such manner we arrived in the Chinese town
that was apparently hitherto unknown to the West-
erner. There was nothing, however, to distinguish
it from a score of native cities I had previously vis-
ited in the interior, and after several days we
completed somewhat prolonged negotiations by ap-
pointing a certain Mr. Wang to be our agent.

It was altogether a rather tricky business, espe-
cially since Jason Ho felt it expedient to explain at
great length to Mr. Wang that I was not the accred-
ited representative of my company at all. I was in-
troduced into the picture as a quite impecunious
missionary from Antung who was acting as go-be-
tween in negotiating an arrangement of mutual ben-
efit to both parties. My commission and only
reward, in accordance with Chinese custom in such
cases, would be five dollars from each side. Jason
Ho in his usual flowery style told our prospective

42 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

agent this fabulous story in such a convincing man-
ner that it seemed indeed Mr. Wang actually be-
lieved it. At any rate when the negotiations were
complete and the chops applied to a document al-
ready prepared by Mr. Ho, I was handed my five
dollars' commission with due ceremony. It subse-
quently took many months to credit the sum back
to our agent through the accounts bit by bit in such
a way that it might escape his attention.

We could have saved ourselves the trouble, for a
year later Mr. Wang decided to discover the world
that lay beyond a small stretch of the Yalu River and
unexpectedly returned my call in the company's
spacious premises in Dairen. There he caught the
impecunious missionary from Antung sitting among
the polished spittoons and other refinements of a
district manager's office. Whether it was to save his
own face or mine, or possibly both, he blandly
acknowledged his receipt of the last instalment of
the five dollars and added that, of course, our subter-
fuge had not for one moment deceived him. He was
also generous in expressing his admiration for the
cunning that had baffled Mr. Fu.

Mr. Fu, accompanied by two less prosperous-
looking characters, had paid us a visit the night be-
fore we went down river again from Linkiang. He
was a gentleman possessed of great courtesy but per-
sistent curiosity. The discussion which we had to-
gether was carried on in an atmosphere of extreme
politeness with a full measure of tea-drinking and
age-old Chinese elegancies, but if Mr. Fu was suave
he had nothing of the persuasion of Jason Ho. In

FACE 43

answer to certain rather urgent questions which
were put to him concerning me, Jason at great
length related that although I was indeed a mis-
sionary I had through some miscarriage of justice
recently been unfrocked and disowned by nay par-
ticular society. He declared with the utmost convic-
tion that I was now a person quite devoid of
background or associations and no longer of the
slightest interest to my relatives or friends. In fact
he contrived, with complete success, to present me
as the world's biggest bum, and, dressed up as I was
like a Chinese coolie with two weeks 7 uneven growth
about my features, I was quite certain I must have
looked it.

It was as well, for though his appearance and man-
ner might suggest otherwise, we were left in no
doubt whatsoever that in a country where there is
refinement as well as honour among thieves, Mr. Fu
was a bandit of more than local renown. Indeed, I
have often reflected that only Jason Ho's ingenuity
and powers of invention were responsible at that crit-
ical moment for saving me the indignity of having
one of my ears placed on the board room table with
a demand for a hundred thousand dollars before
further portions of my anatomy were delivered for
the contemplation of my directors.

Yes, as a mentor, Jason Ho was supreme, for one
never tired of learning from him. As a business
asset his worth was incalculable, though no spoken
praise or material reward could ever persuade him
to recognize the fact. He would not, for instance,
accept the credit for one of his most impressive

44 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

achievements in collecting a debt of thirty-eight
thousand dollars which one of our up-country agents
a certain Mr. Tsao had owed my company for a
very long time. Mr. Ho's generous loyalty almost
convinced me that I had some share in the honours,
but in actual fact I merely played to the best of my
limited ability the minor role in which with inex-
haustible patience he had previously rehearsed me.

The facts of the case are interesting for they serve
as an example of the reactions of an honest Chinese,
unimpressed by the manners of the West, to any
approach that is not accompanied by the age-old
courtesies which personal prestige or, more briefly,
face demands. Two earlier visits by members of our
English staff, unaccompanied by Mr. Ho, had com-
pletely failed to impress upon Mr. Tsao the urgency
of a settlement. They reported a conviction that he
was bankrupt. In the meantime business in the area
of Hopeh Province under this agent's control was
being sadly held up, and my object now was to make
a last effort to collect the debt or, alternatively, take
preliminary steps towards appointing a new repre-
sentative. Thirty-eight thousand dollars, even in
Chinese currency, was a lot of money in those days,
but it was of less importance to us than maintaining
and expanding British trade against threatening
competition from other sources.

The long journey from Tientsin to Mr. Tsao's
headquarters had, "for the most part, been made by
native cart, and during the four days and nights we
had spent en route Mr. Ho had not only vastly im~,
proved my knowledge of his tongue by politely

FACE 45

ignoring any remarks which I passed to him in Eng-
lish, but had also contrived to create within me a
state of mind more likely to be receptive to the at-
mosphere of the approaching exchanges.

Now the stage was set and the curtain had already
risen on a dimly lit room which smelt strongly of
kerosene and was overstocked with many crude and
strangely assorted pieces of furniture. As I looked
across the table, it was difficult to discern the blunt
features of Mr. Tsao, but obviously he was giving
polite ear to the rambling discourse of Mr. Ho. In
the melodious, richly emphasized tones of the north-
ern dialect, my companion held our host's attention
by leading from one topic to another all quite re-
mote from the object of our visit, the real nature of
which would be quite obvious to Mr. Tsao.

Occasionally one or other of us would take a sip
from the bowl of tea before us. It was piping hot
but seemed little more than water touched by some
exotic flowerlike fragrance. At intervals the three
bowls were replenished by a very small and earnest-
faced young boy to whom it would appear that ex-
travagant courtesies were no more than second
nature. Mr. Ho, whose hands, like those of the
agent, were firmly embedded within the sleeves of
his gown, was now approaching the height of his
eloquence, relying only on the intonation of his
voice to impart colour where emphasis was de-
manded. Mr. Tsao's features became less impassive
as he turned from the speaker to me and back again
to indulge a childlike interest in a graphic descrip-
tion of the perils of Shanghai traffic on Nanking

46 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

Road. To a man of fifty or so who had never trav-
elled beyond a ten-mile radius of his own compound,
the sight of a motorcar would have been a complete
novelty. It was doubtful if he had ever seen a bi-
cycle. Long before Mr. Ho began to spellbind our
host with further tales of modern invention, Mr.
Tsao exclaimed, "Ai Ya! (Goodness me!) What
will the foreign devils be up to next?" But if his
terminology was ill-chosen, the remark was inno-
cently and kindly meant.

Then, most unexpectedly, Mr. Tsao changed the
whole nature of these pleasantries by introducing
the subject of one of our chief products which had
become an essential commodity to the local com-
munity.

"My stocks are exhausted. I shall require a
further three thousand piculs before the rivers
close," he observed nonchalantly. "What is the
price, Mr. Ho Sien-seng?"

"But Tsao Sien-seng/' protested Mr. Ho, "you
are aware that it is our practice to send you this
cargo on consignment terms. That means we do not
expect you to pay for it until you, in turn, have sold
it. Certainly it will be our duty and pleasure to
dispatch you a further three thousand piculs and
ask in immediate return no more than that you ad-
vance us the shipping charges as usual/*

There was a prolonged silence, broken eventually
by the slightly perplexed tones of Mr. Tsao.

"As usual?" he exclaimed. "Such a request I have
never before heard. It would not be possible for me

FACE 47

to consider losing face to the extent of advancing
shipping charges. What thing is this, Ho Sien-seng?"

Mr. Ho half-rose in his seat and bobbed his head
at the pouting features of the agent.

"I humbly beg ten thousand pardons of you, Tsao
Sien-seng, that we did not make you previously
aware of this new regulation of our company. Let
me explain that many hundred of li away, where
our humble company has an agent far less illustri-
ous than your honourable self, it happened that a
considerable cargo was ordered and shipped at great
cost when there was but little water within the river-
beds. After the waning of three moons, that con-
siderable cargo returned at the expense of our quite
unworthy company to the point from which its
mighty journey had originally begun. Some devil,
it seems, had entered the market of that obscure
trader and devoured the buyers of our quite un-
worthy wares. Our humble taipans were extremely
wroth and set forth the unhappy decree that all
agents should henceforth be humiliated by advanc-
ing the charges for shipping. The lords of Fa Sien-
seng and myself must feel themselves protected/'

At the introduction of my name Mr. Tsao di-
rected his now bewildered gaze towards me.

"Such a thing may be/ 7 he protested, "but you
would not ask the humble yet honest Tsao . . ."

The rest of his sentence was lost as Mr. Ho
quickly played his ace.

"Fa Sien-seng, no less than I and all our lords and
taipans, knows but too well that you, the most hon-
ourable Tsao, should have been deemed the one and

48 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

everlasting exception to this degrading decree, but
after much consultation we considered that were an
exception made of our greatest and most worthy
agent, he himself might come to take it amiss. Who
knows but that such action might not be interpreted
as a suggestion that it was a financial impossibility
for him to meet this new obligation? Indeed it hurt
us to contemplate the considerable face of which we
might deprive the honourable Tsao were we to sug-
gest excluding him from the arrangement/'

Mr. Tsao considered this for a long time whilst
on his normally expressionless features could just be
distinguished the glow of face preserved.

"How much/' he eventually asked with an air of
resignation, "would the shipping charges be on three
thousand piculs?"

Mr. Ho reached for an abacus from the table and
with a few flourishes of the fingers made some rapid
calculations. He then turned his imperturbable gaze
to the smoking kerosene lamp and answered blandly,
"Thirty-eight thousand, one hundred and twenty-
three dollars and fifty cents/'

"Ai Ya," exclaimed Mr. Tsao, in a somewhat
stricken voice, "Ai Ya." Then his whole counte-
nance lit up with a broad grin. The significance of
it all had dawned on him and the humour of it
pleased him, even though the joke was on himself.
Then he assumed an air of mock seriousness.

"Thirty-eight thousand, one hundred and twenty-
three dollars and how many cents?" he inquired.

"Fifty," replied Mr. Ho briskly, with a small bow.

FACE 49

Then the three of us joined together in uproari-
ous laughter at the thought of such exactitude.

As the merriment died down, the entire subject
was considered closed. Mr. Tsao entered into the
most abject apologies for the rudeness of his humble
surroundings and suggested that we might care to
accompany him to an utterly unworthy restaurant
in the neighbourhood where a few common dishes
might be made available. There would be the added
inducement of a sing-song girl to entertain us,
though we should have to excuse him if we consid-
ered the whole meagre offering to be little more
than fit for bandits.

Mr. Ho's reply to this display of extreme medioc-
rity was to bestow upon Mr. Tsao the titles of high
degree, then relapse into ecstasies over the grandeur
of his house and the obvious elegance of his ances-
try. He rounded off this dissertation with a few re-
marks concerning the overgenerous hospitality Mr.
Tsao was extending to two unworthy strangers
whose presence could but lower their host's prestige
in the district and cost him considerable face among
his less exalted neighbours. This battle of wits to
see how wide the social scale could be stretched be-
tween two students of the courtesies continued until
we reached the restaurant. By that time Mr. Tsao
had degraded himself to the rank of ignorant peasant
presuming to walk in the company of a potentate.
But a few minutes later Mr. Ho had assumed the
role of disreputable beggar demurring to seat him-
self at the same table as a chief official and merchant
prince combined. I felt this was another round in

50 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

favour of my companion and only hoped that when
my turn came, as it inevitably would, I should do
him justice.

The meal provided by Mr. Tsao was a veritable
banquet plates of sliced pork, delectable soup, eggs
that were black from long burial, sweet puddings,
beef balls, chopped liver, and much more besides
with intermittent appearances of steaming towels to
wipe the brow and hands. Throughout all this Mr.
Tsao officiated with innumerable kettles of hot sam-
shu, which served to warm one to a better apprecia-
tion of the proceedings.

By the time the bowls of rice arrived to indicate
the termination of this orgy of eating, the discomfort
of my stomach was hardly less than that of the fingers
of my right hand, which were numb and cramped
through two hours' continual association with chop-
sticks. These minor aches, however, were nothing
compared with the periodic torment of the finer
senses occasioned by the entertainment of the local
artistes. In a corner of the room sat a very old and
somewhat nonchalant musician who spasmodically
drew forth from a two-stringed fiddle a series of
nerve-shattering discords. From time to time his
efforts were supplemented by the performance of
two flashily dressed and rather frightened-looking
little girls who warbled high-pitched and, to me,
quite tuneless ditties. The lyrics in each case, ap-
propriately enough, concerned themselves with sad
tales of those who had languished long before finally
expiring in excruciating agony. Perhaps Mr. Ho
really did like it, but I fancy not quite to the extent

FACE 5 1

he praised the whole exhibition to Mr. Tsao for the
benefit of all concerned.

Then we were joined by txvo of our agent's ac-
quaintances, who were introduced to my companion
and me with a great display of ceremony. After
much bowing and shaking of one's own hands to-
wards all and sundry and the formalities of exchang-
ing cards, the new arrivals divested themselves of a
quantity of clothing and settled down very much at
their ease. One of them, Mr. Kwo, suggested that
the party might shortly repair to his unworthy home
and smoke a pipe or two of his inferior opium. But
the other, Mr. Ouyang, was of the opinion that it
would be better to call for the Mah Jongg tiles and
play a game for mild stakes in the restaurant. This
was eventually agreed upon, and after a considerable
exhibition of politeness and much demur all round
they eventually accepted from me what I hope was
a courteous refusal to participate in the required
four.

I sat and watched them awhile, and although
hardly a word was exchanged it was obvious that a
considerable amount of money was passing from the
direction of Mr. Tsao. I realized with dismay what
was obviously becoming of my company's dues but
not without sorrow, for I found in this recalcitrant
agent much that was easily lovable. Gradually I be-
came less and less conscious of the rapid, monoto-
nous click of the tiles and the impassive features of
the four contestants, as utter weariness from long
travel and much eating could no longer be denied.

It was after midnight when Mr. Ho woke me to

52 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

say that the game was at an end and then to add
quietly, for obvious reasons in English, that Mr.
Tsao had lost nearly two thousand dollars.

My immediate reaction was to exclaim, "Ai Ya!"
As I gathered consciousness again, I saw that our
visitors were preparing to depart and that our agent
was in the act of producing from his person a further
quantity of notes with which to settle the bill for
dinner. He appeared in not the slightest degree per-
turbed by his reverses and on the way home chatted
gaily to Mr. Ho about the possibilities of selling
perhaps a further thousand piculs of the company's
products over and above what he had previously
estimated as his requirements for the next few
months.

As the heavily barred doors to the agent's home
were thrown open by a weary-eyed watchman, Mr.
Tsao remarked indifferently, "The shipping charges
are very high, of course." "But," replied the ever-
ready Mr. Ho, "soon perhaps the long and eagerly
awaited waters will flow through the riverbeds to-
wards our undistinguished Treaty Port of Tientsin;
and then . . ." He paused for a moment. "And then,
Tsao Sien-seng, how much reduced those charges
may be."

"Must the rivers be in full spate," inquired Mr.
Tsao, "before the boats can bring my cargo up?"

"I think in full spate, Tsao Sien-seng."

We had settled ourselves once more in the dimly
lit room with the smoking kerosene lamp above us
when I was conscious that the agent was regarding

FACE 53

me closely and I knew that he was about to give me
the cue to say my piece.

He addressed me in slow and distinct Mandarin.
"Fa Sien-seng, you are an Englishman?"

"I am indeed an unworthy foreigner from Eng-
land/* I replied.

"But you speak the Chinese language very well
indeed."

"You are generous and kind, Tsao Sien-seng, but
it is true that I speak but a few words. I fear my
ignorance is profound."

"Fa Sien-seng, you are not only a big man with
strong arms, but I think you have a great and a good
heart too/'

I caught Mr. Ho's eye and he nodded approval.
I" gathered that in his view Mr. Tsao was not just
flattering to deceive.

"We Chinese that are away from the Treaty Ports
do not understand the language or the ways of the
foreigner/' continued the agent, "but we recognize
those who appreciate the elegancies which it is our
custom to observe. You are such a man, Fa Sien-
seng, with a good heart, and it is deserving that you
be given face. I will give you this face that may serve
you well when you return to the great taipans who
make such laws as their protection demands."

I did not fully comprehend the significance of this
last address, for it was out of the context in which
Mr. Ho had so patiently schooled me.

I hesitated for a moment and foundered. But Mr.
Tsao continued on a different tack as though my
confusion had quite escaped his attention.

54 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

"Fa Sien-seng, you are the third foreign man who
has come to me from your distinguished Treaty
Port this year. Those others, they understood
neither the language nor the courtesies in which you
excel. They spoke indifferently one sentence which
was without the fundamental of refinement. It may
be that your honourable lords who desire protection
have suggested those same words to you. But I have
not heard you utter them nor do I think that it will
be so. Those others, they would not lodge in my
humble house, nor partake of my poor offerings of
common food. Neither would they accept one bowl
of my poor-quality tea. They spoke only of money
though it is true that it is the money of your com-
pany. You are wiser than they, Fa Sien-seng, for you
are not unmindful that face is the first courtesy and
you have preserved an elegance that I would not lose
even for the sake of immediately honouring a due
obligation/'

I thanked him in terms which employed the
majority of the flowery expressions of courtesy which
Mr. Ho had taught me, and I had succeeded in
memorizing a great number of them. Not only did
I feel that the occasion was appropriate, but 1 found
myself giving tongue to them in all sincerity, though
it is probable that much of my speech was lost on
Mr. Tsao through my inability to lend proper dis-
tinction to the four varying tones of the northern
dialect. The effort was obviously equally exhausting
to the three of us, for it brought the curtain down
on the proceedings for the night and we parted on
terms of mutual and extraordinary admiration.

FACE 55

As I retired to bed I felt there was much that the
Westerner might profitably learn from the people of
a nation that was at the height of its civilization at
the time of the Norman Conquest, and who, away
from the influence of the foreigners, had changed
but little in a thousand years. I wondered, too, if
in a country where the factor of time is of such little
account, our mission to Mr. Tsao was to end in suc-
cess. I earnestly hoped it might for, though he would
repudiate them, Mr. Ho was deserving of laurels.

Shortly after dawn we took our farewells from the
agent, and Mr. Ho and I were firmly ensconced in a
native cart surrounded by our various belongings.
Through an aperture in the blue covering of the
vehicle, Mr. Tsao, in the manner of an afterthought,
was addressing some last words to us.

"My servant/' he said, "has included in your lug-
gage some quite unworthy porcelains of an old dy-
nasty. Their value, as you may see, is but a few tens
of dollars each, but your acceptance of them as
tokens of my personal esteem will be worth five sons
more to me than a draft for thirty-eight thousand
dollars and some cents to cover your shipping
charges. Fa Sien-seng, I give you thanks for honour-
ing my humble house; Ho Sien-seng, I thank you
and to you both safe journeys. The meagre draft is
together with the unworthy porcelains."

The springless cart lurched suddenly forward as
a gust blew from off the Gobi. So the blunt features
and the bowing figure of Mr. Tsao were soon lost
to view in a cloud of dust.

Chapter 4

DISTRICT MANAGER
MANCHURIA

ALTHOUGH my ten years' sojourn in North China
embraced no more than a twenty months' assign-
ment in Manchuria, that period, during which my
commercial activities were based on the then Japa-
nese-controlled port of Dairen, remains in retrospect
the most colourful of my career.

Rich in its diversity of race and custom, my dis-
trict represented a broad field about which I roamed
more or less at will. From time to time I furnished
my taipans with a trade report which, while couched
in optimistic terms, was generously studded with the
noncommittal "If" and I trusted it, probably more
than they did, to justify my journeyings. I was thus
enabled, less officially, to become an interested ob-
server of quickening political developments in an
environment aptly described by my friend Owen
Lattimore as "Cradle of Conflict."

These reflections deal so largely with personalities
that, now I have mentioned him, I cannot refrain

56

DISTRICT MANAGER MANCHURIA 57

from a word or two more about Owen Lattimore,
whose name, at least, must be known to millions of
American people. Although I saw much of him in
North China before he began his wanderings and
delightfully informative writings about Asia, Owen
was a figure who had first fascinated me several years
before that. It happens that we were contemporaries
at one among the more ancient of English schools
during the years of the first World War; and as a
patriotic gesture we spent part of one summer holi-
day together with a view to assisting with the harvest.
Actually, being an English summer, it rained the
entire time and the farmer armed each of us with a
scythe and set us to the task of mowing down thistles
instead of corn. This soon became tedious and, find-
ing ourselves close to the Scottish border, we took
every opportunity of laying down our weapons and
searching for traces of Hadrian's historical wall. I
cannot recall our finding any evidence of Roman re-
mains, but one picture is indelibly imprinted on my
mind. It is the sturdy school-boy figure of Owen,
clad in little more than a sopping wet cape, taking
refuge from the downpour in a disused, vermin-
infested barn which smelt like a charnel house.

"I am of the opinion/' said the serious-minded
sixteen-year-old Owen Lattimore, as he fumbled
within the folds of his garment, "I am of the opinion
that the occasion merits a cigarette/'

But to return to Manchuria, my journal records,
for example, a Friday evening in 1928 when, in com-
pany with a few fellow members of English, Ameri-
can, Danish and German nationality, I lent casual

58 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

ear to one Yosuke Matsuoka, propounding some
surprisingly pro-British views over the bar of the
Dairen Club. In those days he was an official of the
South Manchuria Railway, and I doubt if any
among his cosmopolitan acquaintances of that period
mistook Japan's subsequent Foreign Minister for a
person possessed of much deep sincerity. Within a
few years the world was to become witness to his
worth.

The following afternoon found me, some distance
beyond the borders of the Kwantung Leased Ter-
ritory, dissipating my slender assets on the race
course at Newchwang. Apart from the contrast be-
tween Japanese- and Chinese-controlled territory, the
significance of the occasion lies in little more than
the fact that my company included a young English
girl, who, while exercising her pony on the same
course a few months later, was kidnapped and held
to ransom by Chinese bandits.* The subsequent
story of her courage and resource in captivity did
much more than merely hold the international head-
lines and stir public imagination for several weeks:
her imperturbable bearing in the face of constant
ordeals and threats restored much of dwindling
British prestige to the impressionable minds of the
Chinese. But in my journal for the day she, like the
then equally unknown Matsuoka, figures as no more
than a name; and the contrast has lost nothing of its
significance in the passing of two decades. The one
name creeps away into ignominious oblivion through

* "Tinko" Pawley, daughter of the Resident British doctor in
Newchwang.

DISTRICT MANAGER MANCHURIA 59

a sinister chapter of dark history, whilst the other
will always survive among the brighter legends of
youthful courage.

Turning the page, I find two lines recorded for
the Sunday, sufficient in themselves to flood the
mind with a torrent of oddly assorted memories,
many of them now diffuse and intangible, but a few
as fresh and as clearly defined as the happenings of
a month ago. It appears that overnight I had
travelled many miles further north and spent the
day on the Mukden Golf Course with The Young
Marshal.

Chang Hsueh Liang was thus known, the better
to distinguish him from his father, Chang T'so Lin,
who in turn was referred to as The Old Marshal.
Normally, Chinese war lords are not among the
characters whom one would have either the inclina-
tion or the opportunity to cultivate, but there was
much that was exceptional in the personality of my
golfing companion. I liked him because, in contrast
to my foreign friends who took my unexpected de-
scents upon them with somewhat weary forebear-
ance, he, busier and overburdened by far greater
responsibilities, always made a show of being genu-
inely delighted to see me.

The Young Marshal was, I believe on his own
merits, a great soldier and an able administrator, but
some of his shots to the green were inclined to be
rather more than mildly erratic. I always imagined
his golf had about it much the same limits of prowess
as those manifest in his father's excursions into the
game of poker.

6o CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

I have no first-hand evidence of what went on
when The Old Marshal sat down at the table with
half a dozen of his army commanders and the hands
were dealt out, but I gleaned a fairly authoritative
picture from one of his generals who was shrewd
enough in the first place to teach him the game. And
his is a name that figures in my journal for the same
day: what a wealth of reminiscence is conjured up
through mention of "One Arm" Sutton quite the
most colourful Englishman I ever met! In one re-
spect he was comparable with the immortal Vicar
of Bray, in that whatsoever war lord was in power,
Frank Sutton was still a general in the Chinese
Army. Seemingly he could raise regiments from the
Gobi dust and train them to a strange state of per-
fection: he found equipment, procured arms, nego-
tiated anything or everything, dictated his own terms
and invariably became Indispensable to whoever
could afford his services. At the end of each poker
session The Old Marshal, who was invariably the
big loser, handed I.O.U/s for fabulous sums to the
generals sitting round him, who politely accepted
them in lieu of their winnings. If they valued their
jobs, or more than likely, their heads, none of them
would ever have the temerity to present their bits
of paper at a later date; that is, none of them except
"One Arm" Sutton, whose tokens were immediately
honoured, without question. Then, from time to
time, this true soldier of fortune would purchase for
half their face value the I.O.U/s handed to the other
generals, which at a strategic opportunity he would
present as his own to The Old Marshal, in return

DISTRICT MANAGER MANCHURIA 6l

receiving full measure. In those years Frank Sutton
certainly rode the high places of North China.

I reflect now how The Old Marshal was strategi-
cally liquidated in a railway "accident" of distinctly
Japanese design and how some years later The
Young Marshal, with what I am convinced were
motives more patriotic than personal, kidnapped his
generalissimo, Chiang Kai Shek, for which indis-
cretion he was subsequently shorn of his rank and
offices and banished into ignominy. I believe he was
such a man as might have changed the present un-
happy history of China. As for "One Arm" Sutton
perhaps his end was most tragic of all. I am told
that he died in 1942 during internment at the hands
of the Japanese in Stanley Camp, Hong Kong. He
had, in his time, made and lost more than one for-
tune; and few men, I should say, were endowed with
such a powerful zest for living as was this gay and
gallant personality. But my informant, who was
with him at the time, tells me that for some months
before the end, Frank Sutton was a disillusioned,
heart-broken man, forsaken by even the remotest
desire to continue his existence. Sic transit gloria . . .

I observe that on the fourth night I lent my no
doubt willing patronage to "The Fantasia" in Har-
bin, where one danced with a Russian countess for
fifty cents in Mexican currency or with the younger
of the Grand Duchesses, who might well demand
the inclusion of a bottle of bogus champagne into
the bargain. Who shall say that those were not the
days! But I shudder to think in these what has be-
come of those Tsarist refugees from the Bolshevik

62 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

terror, whose tales of escape, invariably culminating
in a swim across the Sungari River into China, were
always stirring and, more than likely in some cases,
genuine too.

So much for the broad canvas. Certainly in that
cradle of conflict there was the spice of variety in a
district manager's life. But inevitably most of it had
to be spent attending to routine in the less colourful
environment of Dairen. The office staff consisted of
a dozen Chinese clerks, all thoroughly loyal and im-
peccably honest, and one Japanese interpreter whose
principal function was to translate the complicated
decrees of his fellow countrymen, who unimagina-
tively administered the Kwantung Leased Territory
and whose insatiable, childlike curiosity about our
business affairs was inclined to impair one's patience.

My arrival in Dairen coincided with the necessity
of recruiting to the office strength a new Japanese
employee, preferably one guaranteed not to emulate
the performance of his two immediate predecessors
who, each in turn, had absconded with considerably
more than his lawful share of my company's assets.

Though I never came to love the Japanese either
as administrators or en masse it would be untrue
and unjust not to admit that I developed quite a
warm affection for several whom I met in Dairen.
Thus I was grateful to Mr. Kasheda on two counts:
first because, from the moment of his arrival, his
serio-comic approach to the appointment afforded
me much quiet amusement; secondly, because it was
a full three months after I handed over to my suc-
cessor and left for England on leave that Mr.

DISTRICT MANAGER MANCHURIA 63

Kasheda decided to display his own remarkable ex-
hibition of rascally craftsmanship and so, alas, fol-
lowed his predecessors into the more restricted
atmosphere of prison life. Any lesser sin he might
have been forgiven, for "Kashie" was a character If
ever one lived. On applying in person for the job,
he announced himself to me in these terms: "I am
very many different kinds of office clerk, also inter-
pretations and typewriter."

He scored a bull's-eye with his first assignment,
which was to accompany me to the Japanese Admin-
istrative Offices and assist me in obtaining a licence
to drive a motorcycle and sidecar. The practical test
was easy until my examiner, sitting in the sidecar on
a precipitous slope, ordered me through the medium
of Mr. Kasheda, who was clinging to me like a limpet
from the pillion, to reverse the combination uphill.
We passed that over when my interpreter, explain-
ing that the vehicle was not geared for such a ma-
noeuvre, suggested that we all dismount and push.
In the written test he apologized to the examining
official for his failure to understand the technicalities
involved in the paper, only to extract from his fel-
low countryman the confession that he, too, found
himself in a similar quandary. This led to a great
deal of head-scratching and loud intakes of breath
from the two of them, whilst I bent helplessly over a
series of questions composed in what was to me the
quite uncommunicative calligraphy of Japan. The
hopeless situation was relieved by a sudden stroke
of brilliant inspiration on the part of Mr. Kasheda.
"Why not/' he suggested in effect, "procure the list

64 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

of answers? Then I can Inform the student what the
questions mean/' The suggestion was adopted, and
oddly enough it seemed that neither examiner nor
Interpreter appeared to sense any touch of irregu-
larity about the manner in which the difficulties
were so successfully overcome.

The incident may seem incredible, but everyone
who has lived in close association with the Japanese,
apart from those who have suffered under them in
prison camps, knows that they are a nation handi-
capped by an entire lack of any sense of the ridicu-
lous, which largely explains why they are a race so
rich in unconscious humour.

Perhaps a classic example of this was the colonel
of th Imperial Japanese Army who shared a part of
my journey to Linkiang with Jason Ho. In that
overcrowded sampan, the colonel sat at ease, as it
were, and by spreading out his heavily spurred ex-
tremities as far as they would reach, insured for him-
self four times his normal share of accommodation.
Obviously a selfish and conceited man, his eventual
departure was in a manner most pleasing to his fel-
low travellers.

His command, consisting of a battalion of in-
fantry, complete with band, were drawn up waiting
for him on some otherwise obscure stretch of the
Korean bank. The craft drew In as near as possible
to the river's edge and a gangplank was thrown
ashore. Directly the colonel's head appeared from
under the "covered wagon" the battalion presented
arms and the band struck up what I presumed to be
the Japanese equivalent of the general salute. The

DISTRICT MANAGER MANCHURIA 65

colonel took one step forward on to the gangplank,
and then one of his spurs became attached to an idle
boathook and he was immediately catapulted into
three feet of intervening water. It was an inspiring
spectacle from every point of view; for not a muscle
moved among his rigid troops ashore, nor was there
even the suggestion of a gurgle in the heavier brasses
of the band that was doing him honour. After the
splash had subsided the colonel was observed drip-
ping with slime, up to the waist in water, fishing for
his cap. When he had retrieved this and emptied
from it a pint of Yalu River he solemnly replaced it
on his head and proceeded to return the salute of
his command. I was undecided whether the incident
was indicative of iron discipline or just an example
of the natural reactions of a humourless, unimagina-
tive breed. I did not know. But I do know that the
swashbuckling little fellow, probably smelling to
high heaven, had scrambled up the river bank and
the craft had pushed off into the stream again before
Jason Ho and I and the others dared laugh.

I recall also an incident which occurred along the
Yamagata Dori in Dairen in 1958. The then young
Chichibu, brother of the Emperor, was due to drive
along the wide thoroughfare, flanked by its modern
buildings, at noon. An hour earlier the Japanese
police had removed every resident along the route
from the height of their normal precincts to the
level of the street. Even the half-step high of the
pavement was debarred from the public, since intri-
cate calculation could not make it certain that its
eminence might not afford the tallest among the

66 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

populace the outrageous opportunity of looking
down upon a passing prince.

As he emerged from our office on that cold morn-
ing, Mr. Kasheda unexpectedly bumped into Mr.
Tanaka, who had simultaneously stepped out on the
pavement from next door. I was subsequently to
learn that the two of them had not met since they
were schoolmates in some faraway prefecture of
Southern Japan. Simultaneous faint cries of mutual
recognition were followed by almost inexhaustible
intakes of breath as, oblivious to the world about
them, each paid homage to the other by assuming
the attitude of a right angle, whilst poised slightly
above the level of the multitude. The courtesies,
which demanded that the privilege of rising first be
granted to him of greater accomplishment, naturally
prolonged these pleasantries; polite inquiries on the
subject of current status being, perforce, through
their extravagant postures, addressed less audibly to
one another than to the unaiding surface of the pave-
ment. Mr. Kasheda was dressed in a foreign suit
and, out of deference to visiting royalty, had left his
overcoat at home. Mr. Tanaka was garbed with a
greater degree of glamour: he wore wooden sandals
and a flowered kimona, while about his neck was
draped a seedy-looking fox with a startled expres-
sion, the whole topped by a bowler hat.

This ludicrous scene was temporarily cut short by
the descent of two police batons upon a pair of in-
viting posteriors, accompanied by a peremptory
command that further deliberations must be carried
on at a lower level. They obeyed the injunction in

DISTRICT MANAGER MANCHURIA 67

precise terms and after shuffling sideways from the
pavement, still inclined in each other's direction,
proceeded to settle the issue in the gutter.

If I have appeared to labour this incident, it is for
the reason that at the moment of its happening, I
seemed to sense one thing for certain. Thinking of
the quick humour of the London Cockney and the
slow drollness of the Midwesterner, I knew instinc-
tively that when war came, though we might suffer
long at their hands, while God was in His Heaven,
such a race would never get us down.

Chapter 5

THE ATTACHE CASE

IN THE spring of 1929 I had been in China a full
five years, having served my company first in Tien-
tsin, subsequently in the humidity of the Yangtze
valley, and for the past twenty months or so as dis-
trict manager in the more invigorating climate of
South Manchuria. I was due for relief and a spell
of leave in England, and on the eve of departure
was paying a last round of calls on certain of our up-
country agents.

I sat in the lavishly appointed observation car at
the rear of the northbound express which always
pulled out of Dairen station punctually at 9.30 each
morning and adhered to a precise timetable over the
whole of its route. The Japanese ran the South
Manchuria Railway Company with its wide rami-
fications, hotels, hospitals, schools and half the in-
dustries of the Kwantung Leased Territory, like
clock-work. Everything was ordered exactly in ac-
cordance with the rules, and a grim air of deter-
mined efficiency brooded over each venture of this
vast political organization. The world knows now,

68

THE ATTACHE CASE 69

as many of us then surmised would be the case, how
the railroad, running like a wedge through nearly
the whole length of Manchuria with its concessional
mile of Japanese Territory on either side, was no
mean factor in Nippon's later conquest of the three
eastern provinces subsequently known as Man-
chukuo.

Sitting opposite me, rather upright in his easy
chair and dressed in the elegant blue gown of a less
swashbuckling citizen, was a Chinese war lord. From
time to time, with the aid of a miniature comb, he
marshalled into less straggling array the thin, droop-
ing ends of a pair of conventional whiskers. With a
fair sense of positioning, in a somewhat intricate
territorial situation, his two thinly disguised body-
guards stood, seldom out of view, in the corridor
adjoining our coach. Beside the war lord, in contrast
but also without his accoutrements, lounged a young
assistant military attache from the American Lega-
tion in Peking, who had immediately made himself
known to me.

The fourth occupant of the observation car, who
completed our purely chance and oddly assorted
party, was no less a personage than the President of
the Railway himself, literally monarch of all he sur-
veyed and in those significant years the biggest polit-
ical factor outside Tokyo. The President reclined
a little distance away, immersed in official docu-
ments, but the persistent efforts of the young Ameri-
can to draw him into the conversation could not be
long denied. With a somewhat deliberate air His
Excellency stuffed his papers into a briefcase and

70 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

then proceeded to treat us in faultless English to an
account of his youth and education abroad. He
quoted both the classics and the Scriptures and was
obviously no mean historian. He provided us with
a great deal of 110 doubt accurate information con-
cerning the existing trend of trade and politics in
nearly every country of consequence except, signifi-
cantly enough, his own. To me, at least, he emerged
on that occasion as a man of great charm and culture
and, since I never saw or indeed heard of him again,
I like to retain the impression I formed of him that
morning twenty years ago.

Our efforts with the war lord were less productive.
He indicated that he spoke no English and afforded
us only monosyllabic replies to remarks which the
attache and I passed to him in Chinese. I was aware
that he had received his military training in Japan
and twenty-five years earlier had actively assisted in
routing the Russians from the Kwantung Peninsula,
but no words passed between him and the President,
One presumed that relations between China and
Japan in Manchuria were, even then, stretched be-
yond a point that would enable either of them to
utilize the other's tongue without considerable loss
of face. The China Incident was only a year or two
away.

The attache and I left the train at Mukden, but
before doing so the American insisted on exchanging
cards with the President and would have carried out
the same courtesy with the war lord had not the lat-

THE ATTACHE CASE 71

ter indicated with polite regret that he had not one
readily available on his person.

I spent the remainder o the day with our Chinese
agent in Mukden who, speaking no English himself,
was surprised and delighted that I should call upon
him unaccompanied by an interpreter. It was a
somewhat conceited experiment on my part, which
I thought might improve my knowledge of Man-
darin sufficiently to enable me to qualify for the
company's bonus before I went on leave. The agent
observed the elegancies sufficiently to show no signs
of strain during the somewhat halting course of our
deliberations and we parted on the most amicable
terms of mutual admiration. But I had found the
first leg of my experiment a little exhausting and I
was therefore relieved to have the somewhat easier
companionship of the American attache at dinner.

He became intensely interested when I told him
that it was my intention to take the South Manchuria
route on to Szepingkai the following day to spend the
night there with my agent and then proceed by the
less distinguished Chinese railway to Taonan, a city
that stood on the borders of Outer Mongolia and at
the very edge of the Gobi Desert. The assistant mili-
tary attache was less concerned with Taonan than
he was with the features of the railroad that was to
lead me there. It was just a question of routine In-
telligence, and I told him that if he cared to dine
with me in Dairen in a week's time, I felt I should
be doing no one any disservice and saving him a lot
of trouble by telling him then the very simple facts
he was seeking.

72 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

He was thoughtful. "Perhaps I should look it
over myself."

"As you will/' I replied. "But from what you tell
me you've a lot of other ground to cover in a limited
time and I can save you a couple of days at least. Of
course it's up to you."

We left it at that until the end of dinner, when
I was taking my leave of him since I was due to make
an early start on the morrow.

"It's been a pleasure to meet you/' he remarked
politely. "Will you take care of that little job for
me? It would save me some valuable time." He
fumbled in his notecase. "Here take my card, and
if I'm not in Dairen a week from tonight, drop me
a line before you leave."

1 had the card in my hand as I went upstairs to my
room, and as I put it down on my dressing table I
was surprised to find that he had apparently handed
me two by mistake. The first was inscribed in Eng-
lish and Chinese with his name and rank, quoting
his address as the United States Legation (it had not
then become an embassy) in Peking. The second
was printed in English and Japanese and bore the
august name and status of His Excellency the Presi-
dent, who had handed it to my American friend that
morning. I carefully preserved them both, hoping
that I would remember to hand back the latter to
the attache when next we met.

Some fifteen hours later I arrived at Szepingkai
by the South Manchuria Railway, spent the late
afternoon rapidly improving my Chinese conversa-

THE ATTACHE CASE 73

tion at our agent's expense and put up for the night
at a Japanese inn. By 7.30 the next morning I was
back at Szepingkai station, but on an isolated plat-
form boarding a train far less luxurious than those
on which I had travelled during the past two days.
It started an hour late with a lurch that threw me
across the narrow compartment and then came to
such an abrupt halt that I was immediately rocketed
back into my seat again. This performance was re-
peated with sickening regularity throughout the
long, slow journey towards Taonan.

We stopped for seemingly interminable periods
at an endless succession of wayside stations, with the
sole object, apparently, of aiding the business of the
local food vendors. We halted in between stations
for no imaginable reason whatsoever. At one stop-
ping-place we entrained what seemed to amount to
a complete army corps. They crowded out every
inch of the compartments and corridors, massed
themselves about the coach tops and clung like lim-
pets to the running boards and even the buffers.
They travelled with us for not more than ten miles
and then spilled out in a seething grey mass onto a
wayside platform, slowly sorting out themselves,
their rifles and somewhat sparse equipment. I learnt
that they had accompanied us as escorts through a
notoriously infested bandit area and subsequently
calculated that there must have been at least fifty
troops for the protection of each individual passen-
ger. In the early afternoon we spent a particularly
long interlude at rest on what I noted to be one of
the very few stretches of double track. This was in

74 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

order to allow the daily southbound train to pass on
its way, and as it went by I observed that it would
have to take a chance with the bandits as the pas-
sengers were already overcrowding it, including the
roofs, almost beyond belief. As we jerked and jolted
forward again I thought it was remarkable that we
were a mere handful of passengers compared with
what appeared to be a general exodus from the di-
rection in which we were moving. What was hap-
pening in Taonan, I wondered. Was it civil war or
famine or drought? Any of these things could hap-
pen unexpectedly in the remoter parts of China
without any forewarning to intending travellers.
But the desire for sleep battled successfully with a
curiosity which was more than mildly tinged with
apprehension.

I awoke abruptly in the midst of a seething, shout-
ing tumult of Chinese besieging the train on both
sides. It was nightfall and I realized we must be
drawing into Taonan station. But what of the
clamouring multitude, I thought. This is the end
of the journey. Then it slowly dawned on me that
the train returned south next morning and several
thousand inhabitants of Taonan were desperately
anxious to travel with it. I made to step out into
the maelstrom that covered every inch of both plat-
forms, but there was sheer panic abroad and the
great mass surged forward and hemmed me in from
each side. I resumed a bare six inches of what had
been my seat and thought that in time the crowd
might settle and enable me to emerge and go about
my lawful business. But there was a babbling, ex-

THE ATTACHE CASE 75

cited, half-frightened score of men and women, chil-
dren of all ages and very old people, now jammed
so tight around me that to move was an utter
impossibility. Presently above the sounds of com-
motion I heard the unmistakable tones of an
Englishman talking in Chinese from the platform.
He managed to squeeze his head in through the
window.

"Room for an expectant mother?" he urged in the
straightforward manner of the native dialect. "Room
for an expectant mother?"

"Thank Heavens for that/' I said in English,
much to his astonishment. "Here, let me out, just
enough room for her here/'

I had to employ Rugby tactics to force myself to
the carriage door and onto the still crowded plat-
form. But the way was kept clear for the young
woman until she had gained my seat.

"That was a very noble gesture/' said the Eng-
lishman, "but I think you'll be better off on the
roof anyway, if we can . . ."

"But look here," I explained, "I've been trying
to get out of the train. I'm arriving you see, not
departing."

"Arriving!" He stopped and looked at me. "What
for? Are you a doctor?"

"No, I'm not, I'm . . /'

"Then you're a fool to come here at all. You
must be crazy. Go on, hop up there and squeeze
yourself amongst that mass on the roof there's just
room. You'll be there all night and probably fall

76 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

off when the train starts tomorrow/' he added cheer-
fully, "but it's safer than coming into the city."

"But what is it?" I asked. 'Tire, or flood or . . ."

"Fire or flood! Good God, man, don't you know?
It's plague. They're dying like flies until we can
get it under control. Now clamber up quick while
you've still a chance/'

I flung myself off the platform onto a buffer and
began to hoist my body upwards.

"But what about you?" 1 asked, as I noticed him
threading his way back through the crowd.

"No, my job's in the city," he shouted back. "I'm
a medical missionary."

Through that long chilly night and the longer
journey back, I endured discomforts and alarms on
the roof of that train which I can never recall with-
out a shudder. I realized that we Westerners are
far less inured to hardship and suffering than the
great masses of Chinese, whose very existence hangs
by such a slender thread. But I hung on, feeling
inordinately humble in the thought that they, like
me, were running away, while an unknown English-
man stayed behind with cheerful courage to stem
the tide of pestilence and death.

In the early afternoon of the following day we
slid past the stationary northbound train. From my
precarious perch it was impossible to observe if it
carried any passengers, but by that time I was be-
yond caring and only desired most earnestly to re-
turn as speedily as possible to the sanctuary and solid
comforts of Dairen. But when the train eventually

THE ATTACHE CASE 77

pulled into Szepingkai I immediately realized that
unless I could achieve something drastic, my escape
from seething infection to personal security would
still be considerably delayed. As I and over a thou-
sand of my fellow passengers poured off every con-
ceivable portion of the train, we were hemmed in
by a strong cordon of Japanese police, all of whom
wore protective masks over the lower part of their
faces. We were then herded into a roped-in enclos-
ure some distance away, where there were already a
considerable number of the previous day's travellers
still awaiting medical examination by the Japanese
authorities before being permitted within the ter-
ritorial precincts of the South Manchuria Railway.
It was a natural and quite reasonable precaution,
but in my frustrated state of mind I regarded the
whole affair as an outrageous assault on such dig-
nity as was left to me.

The prospect of spending a further night and
probably several hours of the next day exposed to
both the elements and possible infection from so
many inhabitants of plague-infested Taonan closely
packed around me, was more than I was prepared
to face. I sought out a policeman who in turn passed
me on to someone in higher authority. Eventually
I was escorted into a wooden hut where two Jap-
anese doctors were engaged in scrutinizing a long
patient line of the previous day's passengers. I was
regarded impassively but with certain signs of im-
patience. One of the doctors lowered his protective
mask.

"You come," he asked, "from where?"

78 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

"I haven't been in the city of Taonan," I shouted
impatiently. "I stayed in the train. I never went
into Taonan/'

"Ah, Taonan/' He made that noise peculiar to
the Japanese that is an audible drawing-in of a deep
breath through clenched teeth. "You must wait-
have medical examinations/'

I was about to remonstrate further when a more
cultured, but no kinder-looking, official approached
me.

"I am Doctor Tsuda of the South Manchuria Rail-
way/' he said politely. "If you have come in the
train from Taonan you must wait your turn for
medical examinations. I am very sorry/ 7

1 was vexed and overwrought.

"I shall complain bitterly about this," I protested,
"unless you make an exception of me or examine
me immediately/'

He regarded me closely for a moment. Then a
sudden thought seemed to strike him. "You are an
American?" he asked.

"I . . /' My tired mind was just able to focus on
the possible significance of his question before com-
mitting myself either way, when he spoke again.

"You are assistant American military attache? I
have notifications about him. If you have your
card, please."

I was past endeavouring to account for this amaz-
ing turn of events. How did he know about my
friend? Who had notified him? Perhaps the attache
had heard what was going on in Taonan and had
done some quiet work for me in the background,

THE ATTACHE CASE 79

knowing that the card which he had given me would
extend diplomatic privileges which my own could
not achieve. I satisfied my conscience by presuming
that the young American was working on the basis
of one good turn deserving another, and sorting his
card out from that of the President, which he had
erroneously given me at the same time, I passed it
over without further comment to Dr. Tsuda. He
glanced at it, inhaled loudly through his teeth, in-
clined his body gracefully from the waist and said,
"Very sorry. Please."

He led me out of a door behind the examining
doctors, called two policemen and gave them certain
instructions. I was still mildly apprehensive until
I fully realized that they were escorting me back to
Szepingkai station and onto the platform from which
the South Manchuria Railway express was due to
leave for Dairen in a few minutes. They stood
rigidly by while I boarded the train, and only after
it started pulling effortlessly out did they incline
themselves slightly forward, salute, then turn on
their heels like a pair of automata.

I fingered the card in my pocket that bore the
name of the President of this gigantic and coldly
efficient organization, then examined it closely be-
fore tucking it safely away in my notecase. What a
story I should have to relate to my attache friend
when I restored that card to him in Dairen within
the next few days, and how grateful I felt to him
for what I fondly imagined to be the subtle arrange-
ments he had made on my behalf!

80 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

On the evening prior to the date of my departure
from Dairen I gave a small dinner party at the Ya-
mato Hotel. It was arranged in order to say farewell
to my particular friends amongst the British and
American community and introduce them to my
successor and his wife. It was a friendly, cheerful
gathering, about a dozen all told. That, added to
the prospect of a lazy, carefree five weeks at sea in a
new P & O liner, with England after a five years'
absence at the end of the voyage, served to dispel
from my mind the nightmare of my recent trip to
Taonan. My one regret was that the young Amer-
ican military attache had not shown up at the Dairen
Club the previous evening in accordance with the
arrangement we had made a week earlier in Muk-
den. I presumed that his travels must have delayed
him, and it was my intention at all costs to make a
point of dropping him a line before 1 went to bed,
enclosing the brief report I had prepared for him
on the subject of the Taonan railway and, of course,
restoring to him the card of His Excellency the
President.

Towards the end of dinner, my successor's wife,
a bride recently arrived from home, drew my atten-
tion to the Japanese orchestra up in the balcony
which was playing "Rose Marie" even less tunefully
than usual, and inquired why it carried on its activ-
ities behind a protective barricade of wire netting.
I related how, when I first came to Dairen, I had
asked the hotel manager the same question, and,
regarding me impassively, he had supplied me with

THE ATTACHE CASE 8l

a straightforward answer. "Englishmens sometime
make silly asses of violin."

"The Japs which, incidentally, you mustn't call
them/' I explained to her, "are a severely practical
breed of little men, essentially efficient, but pos-
sessed of about as much sense of humour as a coffin
lid."

"You said it!"

I turned round quickly, for it was the unmistak-
able voice of the attache, who was standing behind
me.

"You said it!" he repeated, with a strange, half-
quizzical look on his boyish face.

"This is an unexpected pleasure for all of us," I
said, as I greeted him and suggested he should join
the party. "You're only about twenty-seven hours
late."

He opened his mouth to speak, but it appeared
that he was quite lost jEor words, and I immediately
started introducing him all round. He repeated
each name in turn so as to implant them upon his
memory and then proceeded, with a charm which
matched his looks, to make himself thoroughly
agreeable to everybody. I was aware that he cast oc-
casional glances in my direction in the manner of a
man who has a tale to unfold when opportunity of-
fers, but in the meantime he would allow nothing to
mar the spirit of the party. After a time he unex-
pectedly rose and proposed my health.

"To those who travel," he announced briefly, rais-
ing his glass and fixing me with a somewhat satirical
look. My friends joined him with gay acclamation

82 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

and then I rose and, looking straight towards the
attache, I uttered the counter toast, "To those who
don't."

His face wore a sardonic smile for several mo-
ments, then someone next to him claimed his atten-
tion. There was something in his expression that
caused a sudden doubt to spring into my mind.
With a certain apprehension I began to wonder.
Later on I had a brief opportunity of a word with
him across the table. I took out my notecase and,
amongst a mass of sailing tickets, emigration passes,
medical certificates and the like, started searching
for the President's card.

"There's something here I have to give you. You
remember at Mukden you . . ."

"If you're talking about what I asked you to do
for me in Mukden," he broke in, ''forget it."

"Well, it's not quite that ..." I started, but he
had turned to the lady who sat on his left, and I
put my case back in my pocket and continued my
discourse on the idiosyncrasies of the Oriental to the
bride from England.

When the ladies left us, the oldest and most re-
spected British resident of Dairen turned to the man
I had met on my recent travels.

"Tell me," he asked, "just what does an assistant
military attache have to do?"

The American removed the cigar from his mouth.
"If that assistant military attache is me," he said, "he
has to do some damfool things."

We waited expectantly while he took another
draw at his cigar.

THE ATTACHE CASE 83

"I met an English guy oncea generous kind of
fellow/' he recounted, avoiding my eye, "who of-
fered to do a little job for me looking over a railroad
in the north. Maybe he did it, and maybe he had
more sense than to go, if he knew any better than
I just what was cooking up there. I was still in the
dark when I figured later on that I'd better go up
and give that railroad the once-over myself. Boy,
did I find plenty of trouble there. Thirty-six hours
I spent at that railroad terminus and then came back
on the coaltender of a locomotive. I'm not telling
you why maybe it might scare you. That was trou-
ble enough, but when I got back among the Japs
there was plenty more."

My throat felt suddenly parched and I finished
my glass of whisky in a single gulp.

"You see," went on the attache, "there was a rea-
son why they had to hold on to everyone who'd trav-
elled that route, for a while anyway, and I figured
there would be close on five thousand of us milling
about in a short time four thousand nine hundred
and ninety-nine Chinese, lousy, if not worse, and
me, just a stranger/'

"But/' broke in the oldest British resident, "as a
member of the Legation surely you would only have
to identify yourself your card or something?"

"That's what I thought/' the attache replied. "So
I gave them a card, and I yelled, Let me out of here
quick!"

"Then what happened?" asked my successor.

"What happened! Well, I'll tell you what hap-
pened. It was dark and they took it away and went

84 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

into a huddle over it under a lamp. Then they caxne
back and said, Tou try make one big fool of Jap-
anese policemens/ and for that they kept me cor-
ralled with that mob of soiled Celestials for two days
and a night/'

"But didn't you make a protest?" someone asked.
"It's outrageous/'

' 'That's what I thought, especially since the Amer-
ican Consul discovered what was cooking after I'd
left and officially requested that when I got back I
should certainly not be detained."

"You told the Consul about it, of course?" said the
oldest British resident.

"No, sir/' replied the attache.

"No?"

The American chuckled to himself for a few mo-
ments, then, "That's the pay-off/' he said. "Just too
late I realized they were sore at me for trying to pass
myself off as who do you think? His Excellency
the President of the South Manchuria Railway/'

"As who?" asked everyone except me.

"It was the only way I could figure it/' he ex-
plained. "I had the old Nip's card among my own:
he gave it to me when I met him a day or two earlier.
I must have handed it out to them in the dark since
it was missing when I looked for it next morning.
They had a perfect right to get mad at me for trying
to pass myself off as the railroad president. It was
sure 'making one big fool of Japanese policemens/ "

He turned to his original questioner. "So now,
sir, you see the damfool things an assistant military
attache has to do/'

THE ATTACHE CASE 85

There was a clearing of throats and a general mur-
mur of comment all round. I felt that it was im-
perative that I should speak up, but for the life of
me I just couldn't think how to begin. My mind
was in a state of complete emotional jumble where
embarrassment, guilt, the urge for confession and a
natural desire to preserve face particularly before
my friends, all struggled in turn for ascendancy. Yet
say something I must.

"I ... I say . . ." I began, then dried up.

Nobody paid any attention, least of all the attache.

"I say . . ." I tried again in a louder voice. "Look
here, I must tell you this. It ... it wasn't . . . you
know . . . I . . ." That was all I had managed before
my American friend had risen from his seat and
come over to me. He placed his left hand on my
shoulder as though to prevent me from rising while
his right gripped mine and shook it warmly. Then
with the friendliest smile he took swift and silent
leave of me, bowed to the others and was imme-
diately gone.

I never saw him again. Yet, while two decades
have passed, I have often wondered about him. For
some reason he always figured most prominently in
my mind when I read of Corregidor or Okinawa, of
the swift advance through Sicily or the heroic de-
fence of Bastogne. Certainly, it seemed, he would
be thereabouts: maybe in those undying feats of
American arms he died himself. Perhaps, more hap-
pily, he is a one- or two-star general to-day and I
sincerely hope that may be so. I have thought of
him also in relation to the incident which I have

86 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

narrated, the title for which has been deliberately
chosen. Hidden away somewhere in The Attache
Case is the solution to a problem which has vexed
me for twenty years. Time and again I have rum-
maged through it, never being quite certain if I
found the right answer or not. Was that charming
fellow simply sincere? Or was he supremely subtle?
Was it that he intended his revelation at the dinner
party to serve as a cunning guarantee that I should
never forget that misguided impersonation? Or was
it . . . ? But it's anybody's guess and I shall never
know.

Chapter 6

AH FAT

BORNE, a light burden, on wings from ten thousand
miles away, there came back to me the other day the
echo of an era that ended fifteen years ago.

It was a letter from Ah Fat.

There was little enough In it that mattered: noth-
ing at any rate to compare with the knowledge that
my old Chinese houseboy still survived, and the grat-
ification it afforded me to be remembered particu-
larly as "Deer Masta," from which 1 sensed that, in
his changing world, he at least had not absorbed the
new ideologies.

But then, of course, Ah Fat never absorbed any-
thing. From the evening in 1927 when I came home
and found that he had taken possession of my bun-
galow at Hoshigaura until I bade farewell to him
on the Shanghai Bund in 1934, he steadfastly re-
mained the jealous guardian of an unalterable law
that was utterly his own. He was quite impassive,
philosophical even in the face of nigh-catastrophic
emergency, resourceful beyond the degree of genius,
and capable of experiencing no insult save one, the

87

88 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

outrage of Inference that his rather tawdry timepiece
was somewhat out of true. Only once, save when I
was on the point of departure, did I suggest that
his cherished watch was wrong, and never again con-
sidered such comment good token for the several
unaccountable little ' "accidents" that followed.

His letter, arriving in austerity England where
there are but few survivals among those who more
than disdainfully "oblige," served to recapture what
was for me an atmosphere of essentially spacious
days.

I had brought my own boy to Daiten when I was
transferred to Manchuria from Hankow in 1957;
but he was never happy, being obviously ill at ease
in the leased territory under Japanese jurisdiction
and homesick for his native province of Hunan and
the sultry clime of the Yangtze valley. So I wired
my predecessor, and he in turn dispatched an urgent
missive to his former retainer, who had retired from
service to eke out a sufficiency of well-won wage
and supplementary squeeze in that elastic and in-
definable district known as "Ningpo-more-far." That
was all I knew, until the evening on which, accom-
panied by two friends, I returned from Dairen to
my bungalow at Hoshigaura seven miles away and
found the then quite unfamiliar features of Ah Fat
expanding over an immaculate white gown, from
the nether end of which protruded a pair of neatly
bound trouser bottoms over the conventional carpet
slippers. He was assuming an attitude on the door-
step that was at once expectant and imperial.

AH FAT 89

"Where's Fong?" I asked, referring to my boy
from Hankow.

"Have go, Masta," came the immediate reply.
"Coolie have go too. Tomorrow me find new coo-
lie/'

"But . . ."

"Me have pay month's wages. Me fix all ploper
fashion. Me b'long Ah Fat. Me . . ."

"So you're Ah Fat! Before you work for Mr "

"Yes, Masta. Masta, me have fix chow three men.
Just now me take cock-a-tail, shake plenty much,
from icebox/'

My friends and I relaxed on the verandah and
presently found ourselves imbibing the most delect-
able martinis, accompanied by a wide variety of
"small eats/' Both of them were birds of passage,
having travelled from Europe on the Trans-Siberian
Railway and unexpectedly walked into my office less
than two hours earlier; yet it seemed that Ah Fat
not only knew they would arrive with me at the
bungalow^ but moreover appeared to be fully con-
versant with all our particular tastes. As he waited
on us at table, with an air of quiet and utterly un-
obtrusive efficiency, Maynard's glass was filled and
replenished with whisky, Harcourt's with orange
squash, and mine with a special brand of lager beer.
There was no questioning as to which or any of us
took our coffee black or otherwise; it was all exactly
right and at ten, precisely, there was a motorcar at
the door to drive us to a Russian cabaret called "The
Babylon," where a table had been booked so that
we might indulge our fancies for an hour before my

go CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

friends caught their boat to Shanghai. It is no use
endeavouring to fathom how such a knowledge of
one's habits or inclinations gets abroad in China; it
just remains one of those unsolved mysteries of the
East into which it is frequently as well not to in-
quire.

During my spell in Manchuria and later, Ah Fat
was ever immaculate, always there at all hours with
limitless meals and a sufficiency of drinks to suit all
tastes. On no occasion was he either obtrusive or,
indeed, even mildly apparent. He had what might
be termed his idiosyncrasies, but few of them were
uncommon to the recognized procedure and the per-
quisites of his calling, the order of which he had,
during his many years of experience in service to
the Englishman, perfected to a fine art. We had the
usual understanding, for instance, about the bill for
soup meat, which was invariably paid without cre-
ating loss of face through any insistence concerning
its inspection: the soup meat was just something
which never materialized, except, possibly, in the
strange shape of some native delicacy which Ah Fat
and his assistant found particularly succulent. Then
there was the ten per cent discount for cash monthly
on the comprador's account, which that rascally ven-
dor of foreign provisions apparently never honoured
in accordance with his published terms. One re-
frained from asking about that either, since one was
well aware that its allotment had also become an
established precedent. It was likely, however, to be
mildly irritating if one invited the native tailor, the
shirt-cutter or the shoemaker to call in his profes-

AH FAT 91

sional capacity on one's own premises, should he
feel disinclined to pay the toll for admittance or
the recognized amount of levy on subsequent de-
livery of the finished article. If questions were
asked, Ah Fat was ever ready with a wide variety of
valid reasons as to why, for my own protection and
the preservation of my face, I should honour a rival
establishment with my patronage.

One bitter wintry afternoon, such as I have ex-
perienced nowhere but in Manchuria, Ah Fat rang
me up at the office and suggested I should secure a
room at the Yamato Hotel for the night as the cen-
tral heating at the bungalow had "broke down."
The cost of my dinner and room was the price I had
to pay for an insistence that a trial consignment of
Japanese anthracite which I had ordered would be
better suited to the furnace than the cheaper type
of Chinese fuel organized by Ah Fat. I had, as it
were, invited the imposition; but the affair of the
"rain water" seeping into the petrol tank of my
motorcycle was a penance in no way deserved.

High-spirited as I was, it would have been unjust
of Ah Fat to imagine that I deliberately contrived to
detach from its moorings the sidecar in which he sat
dozing over his shopping baskets while our high-
powered combination was speeding round a slight
curve in the highway. The nodding Ah Fat had pro-
ceeded on his solo expedition with only gradual loss
of momentum for some distance along the road be-
fore the unleashed connecting rod hit the surface
with a metallic screech, spun the sidecar round in a
series of revolutions as remarkable as the pirouettes

g2 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

of an ice ballerina, then shot it up a bank where it
turned turtle and came to rest in the middle of some
trolley lines. Ah Fat was wide-awake by the time
I rejoined him and only slightly shaken. But in one
of his baskets had been two dozen eggs and a^ flimsy
bag of flour, and as I helped him to his feet he pre-
sented such an awe-inspiring spectacle that I was
quite unable to restrain a rich and rude guffaw.
Maybe it was that laugh that subsequently let the
waters of heaven mingle with the spirits in my tank.

I think my old retainer was really at his best when
he rejoined me in Tientsin after I had been on leave
in England and subsequently when he came with
me to Shanghai. The wider variety of social life in
the larger ports allowed a greater degree of scope
for his talents.

In actual fact when I left Dairen I had said good-
bye to him, given him a generous cumsha and imag-
ined that he would then disappear for ever within
the fastness of his sanctuary at "Ningpo-more-far."
But I had a five-year further blessing. Returning to
China from England at the end of 1929 I was booked
to travel P & O, but at the last minute decided to
cancel my passage, travel to New York and from
there to Los Angeles, where I stayed several days
with friends, before catching a cargo boat across the
Pacific. I made no advance bookings, gambling
more or less on good fortune enabling me to report
back at my head office in Shanghai on or about the
date my leave expired. They were surprised to find
in actual fact that I had returned a week early, fully
expecting me to be on the P & O which had hardly

AH FAT 93

yet arrived In Hong Kong. But Ah Fat was on the
landing stage to greet me and impart the informa-
tion that within two days "we" were being posted
to Tientsin. It didn't surprise me: long since had
I given up any idea of probing into Ah Fat's partic-
ular model of ' 'bush-radio/' He seemed to know
things which I didn't even know myself or to the
best of my knowledge any one else was aware of
either. I was delighted at the reunion, however,
certain that henceforth all arrangements for my per-
sonal comfort, which I had been obliged to take
thought of myself in England and America, would
now be adequately catered for. My life would re-
sume its well-organized supervision all ploper fash-
ion!

In Tientsin I shared a mess with three other some-
what carefree young men: one was an American
employed in oil, while the other two belonged to
British concerns. In common with the great major-
ity of foreigners working with prominent business
interests in those days we all lived like fighting cocks,
joined all the clubs, ran cars, kept ponies, favoured
the gay life, and now and then paid a few bills. We
also each had our individual boys; but by mutual
and simultaneous agreement on both sides, as it
were, of the green baize door, Ah Fat became the
undisputed majordomo and answerable to us all for
the manifold sins and omissions of the others. We
learnt to respect his astuteness the hard way, partic-
ularly, for instance, in the matter of the rapidly dis-
appearing sherrya lesson in itself to us all.

Matt, the American, was the one responsible for

94 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

saying he'd stop "those so-and-so's from helping
themselves to the Bristol Milk"; and, taking the
half-empty bottle, he poured us out one each, then
filled It up again to its previous level with a care-
fully prepared liquid he had brought with him from
the office, replaced the cork firmly and let matters
rest for three days.

"I hope it isn't poison," somebody had said at the
time.

"It won't quite kill 'em," was the reply, "but it'll
give 'em a darned uncomfortable twenty-four
hours."

I was then suddenly called up to Peking and,
when I returned to the mess two days later, was sur-
prised to find all my three companions apparently
suffering from what was known colloquially as
"Tientsin Tummy." Instinctively I looked in the
cupboard for the sherry bottle, found that its con-
tents had shrunk to the level of the dregs and sum-
moned Ah Fat. I had never seen him look so well,
nor for a man of his years more sprightlya circum-
stance which prompted me to inquire into the im-
mediate health of the other servants, only to learn
that they were all equally robust and hearty,

"Only other Mastas little bit ill," he said with a
faint expression of concern.

"Ah Fat," I inquired, "which man drink sherry
last two days?"

"Dlink shelley!" exclaimed Ah Fat. "No man
dlink shelley three days more: dlink gin."

I waved the well-nigh empty bottle at him. "How

AH FAT 95

come then no man drink sherry, this before-time
half-full, now finish?"

Ah Fat's features bore no trace of emotion as he
blandly replied, "Soup meat not easy, Masta every
night must put lit' shelley in Masta's soup. Suppose
not put shelley . . ."

"That's all right, Ah Fat," I concluded hurriedly.
"Go topside, take other three master hot rice pud-
ding, then bring me whisky-sodabig fashion."

"Lice pudding/' beamed Ah Fat, and shimmered
out.

It was our practice to invite some of the junior
officers from the British and American garrisons sta-
tioned in Tientsin, as well as a number of the
younger foreign business element, to dine in our
mess about once a month. It never seemed to per-
turb Ah Fat and his satellites if we asked half a
dozen guests and, as frequently happened, about
fifteen turned up. The food and drink was invari-
ably adequate, since well-trained Chinese houseboys
are always prepared for such emergencies. And Ah
Fat, in common with others of his calibre, had
evolved a simple expedient for overcoming a sudden
and embarrassing shortage in plates and cutlery: he
took a note of those present and delayed dinner un-
til he had communicated with their respective es-
tablishments and made arrangements for the guests'
own utensils to be sent over. There was, of course,
the unforgettable evening when a newly arrived and
rather stuffy British major mistook our address for
that of a very distinguished resident and drifted into
the household just as one of our more hilarious and

96 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

overcrowded parties was getting under way. Some-
body gave him a drink and one can only presume
that somebody else probably one of the guests-
suggested he should stay to dinner. At any rate his
presence was otherwise quite overlooked until the
middle of the meal when he was observed closely
examining his bread plate through an eyeglass.

"I say dammit/' he exclaimed, "this is mess stuff.
How the

But no one paid the slightest attention, least of
all Ah Fat, who with utterly immobile features was
busy officiating with the claret. It was considered
bad form to notice, let alone comment on, the means
by which an overflow of guests were catered for: so
far as Ah Fat was concerned the all-important con-
sideration of face was involved. Later, during a very
temporary lull in the conversation, the same tones
became audible in even more startled protest.

"I say it's highly irregular, y'know: this spoon
bears the regimental crest . . ."

His further comments were quickly drowned in
an immediate crescendo of talk from all sides. But
it was not until the end of the meal when the major
rolled up his table napkin and found himself insert-
ing it into a silver ring on which were engraved his
own initials and the date of his christening 'way
back in the dim eighties, that his eyeglass fell out
altogether and he left the party rather hurriedly in
a mood of bewildered mutterings.

Following a short period of relaxation after din-
ner on these occasions, we frequently indulged in a
thoroughly destructive, but invariably hilarious

AH FAT 97

game which was known as "Fanning the Disc/'
There was a certain amount of ritual about the pre-
liminaries, rather like the prologue to a bullfight:
first a procession of house coolies came into our
wide lounge, solemnly moved all the chairs and
sofas close to the walls, and turned all the tables on
their sides and piled them up in front of the win-
dow. Lots would then ceremoniously be drawn for
places behind the various barricades of furniture,
leaving one unfortunate, known as "The Tosser,"
high and dry in the middle of the room. Presently
Ah Fat would make his entrance, clutching to his
stomach a vast pile of sing-song-girl gramophone rec-
ords which it was his duty to purchase in the native
city at the equivalent cost of about threepence a
piece. These he placed in the centre of the floor,
bobbed his head three times at "The Tosser/' re-
treated and, while making his dignified exit through
the door, moved over the switch which turned on
the large four-bladed ceiling-fan to full. The rest
of the proceedings hardly require description, ex-
cept to say they were based on the principle of mu-
sical chairs. When "The Tosser" shouted "hup"
and lobbed a record neatly into the whirling tor-
nado above, those behind the barricades had to
scramble one place to the right and he, in turn,
dived for one of the covers before the next man got
there. Apart from the discs which naturally fin-
ished in smithereens, quite a lot of other things used
to get broken as well, but oddly enough there were
never any serious casualties amongst personnel. One
boisterous and evergreen naval captain thought it

98 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

was the greatest fun he had experienced since his
gunroom days, until it came to his turn to stand
under the fan armed with a disc and shout "hup":
he then made one leap for the door and, flinging
himself through it, collapsed in a heap on the top
of Ah Fat, who, having acquired a baseball catcher's
headpiece, had been witnessing the proceedings
through one of the glass panels.

Perhaps it is as well in some ways, but it is still
none the less an unhappy thought that there is prob-
ably nowhere in the world to-day where the natural,
harmless exuberance of youth can be allowed so
loose a rein. At least I hope that in certain regimen-
tal messes all the young officers of this era are not
too serious-minded to let off a bit of steam after
dinner on guest nights. It is good, in the days when
one settles down, especially in an atmosphere of es-
sential austerity charged with so many uneasy
doubts, to feel, as perhaps the rising generation
never will feel, that at least one has had one's meas-
ure of fun out of life. I wonder: Are visiting majors
still likely to be de-bagged without their dignity
diminishing the fun . . . ? But I'm digressing. I just
had in mind to relate an occasion when in a certain
army mess in North China we indulged in a series
of set scrums, with a strangely unsuitable article to
serve as a ball, before proceeding to an even more
vigorous and discomforting pastime known as "high-
cockalorum." I know it sufficed to split my boiled
shirt round the neck and that some cheerful idiot
immediately saw fit to insert his finger into the aper-
ture and transform the split into a formidable rent.

AH FAT gg

After that my shirt was anybody's. Indeed I think
everyone claimed his fair portion of it. The matter
was not only one of distress, but obvious concern,
to Ah Fat who, shortly before seven the next morn-
ing, followed me out to the mafoo who was pacifying
my rather impatient pony by the gate and remarked,
"Masta me no savvy at all, at all."

"What thing, Ah Fat?" I asked abruptly, suppress-
ing some tendency towards a liver.

"Me no savvy," he insisted in perplexed tones,
"Masta come home last ni'. Collar and the tie blong
all ploper same time Masta no have shirt . . ."

Shortly I was jumping the narrow creeks and gal-
loping round the grave mounds in the open coun-
try. My liver was restored and I could put my head
back and laugh in the crisp air and the early red
sun. This was a great life and indeed it was worth
the living.

Ah Fat was a servant who, though he could never
fathom what it was all about, came none the less to
adapt himself in a full-hearted manner to the many
and varied peculiarities and pastimes of the for-
eigner. He was there, and indeed obviously happy
to be there, with the sole object of rendering never-
questioning fealty in all circumstances and condi-
tions. At the same time, even if his very presence
had not demanded it, his dignity was always our
most essential consideration and the preservation of
his face, which to him was paramount, was never
absent from the thoughts of those who were priv-
ileged to come into touch with him. I paid him the
equivalent of thirty-six pounds a year, which, added

1OO CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

to his recognized perquisites and the fact that he
lived on "soup meat/' made him a positive Croesus
in his native environment. Even he, with rather
more fervour than that demanded by the elegancies,
frequently protested that he was overpaid.

Overpaid! Compare the picture of average pres-
ent-day England with the one typical example of a
dozen cosmopolitans, after several sets of tennis,
seated round a table on the verandah of the famous
Circle Sportif Francais in Shanghai, playing liar dice
for the distinction of signing the chit for the next
drink. At, say, nine o'clock one generously suggests
they all come home and dine; whereupon the head
club boy is called and the information is relayed on
the telephone to Ah Fat to the effect that twelve
guests will be arriving for dinner in half an hour's
time. Ah Fat knows the form, weighs up his imme-
diate stock of food and cutlery against requirements,
and then inquires who his master's immediate com-
panions at the French Club may be. On being in-
formed, he puts through a series of swift calls on
his own account and by the time the guests have ar-
rived and partaken of a "cock-a-tail" the banquet is
served. Familiar plate, though it be not one's own;
a recognition of some delicacy which could only
have emerged from the refrigerator of Mrs. S., who
is sitting next to you; a vice consul's own boy, push-
ing in an unfamiliar chair for him: all these things
were more than likely to happen, and though they
were noticed, no mention was ever made concern-
ing them. They were accepted as being inevitable in
a community which lived freely and where highly

AH FAT 1OI

trained service was considered, by those who under-
took it, to be both an honourable and an enviable
profession to follow.

I shall not easily forget one final episode which
may justify revival here. It happened shortly after
I was married and I think my wife has in more re-
cent years frequently been fortified, if not encour-
aged, by the recollection of it as she stands over the
sink peeling the potatoes and, devoid of much hope,
ponders over the possibilities of their eventual ac-
companiment on the table being mildly palatable,
or even existent. We had asked six people to tiffin
on a Sunday to eat the snipe I had shot a few days
earlier; I arrived very late from the golf course un-
expectedly accompanied by my opponent, who made
nine of us in all. My wife, quite new to such irreg-
ularities, took the earliest opportunity to express
considerable concern in a somewhat agitated under-
tone.

"Darling, youVe made it nine. What shall we
do?"

"About what?"

"Well, darling you were only clever enough to
shoot eight snipe . . ."

"Oh, that's all right," I reassured her, feeling
slightly self-conscious. "Does Ah Fat know?"

Ah Fat knew all right, and in due course he del-
icately offered round nine perfect-looking snipe on
a large platter to each in turn, coming to me last.
He must have juggled that platter about with no
mean dexterity to make certain that no one among
the others helped themselves to the bird which was

102 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

intended for me. I think he must have hewn it out
of buffalo hide with a chisel, but the piece de re-
sistance about it was the beak, which had been
carved out of a wooden skewer and tinted with
soya-bean oil. But nobody else knew the difference.

One of the amazing things about Ah Fat was the
fact that I never knew him to suffer a day's illness.
Also, I suppose because in common with the major-
ity of his fellow countrymen he could sleep at all
times wherever or whenever opportunity offered, he
was never the slightest bit dismayed at being sum-
moned to cook bacon and eggs at the most unearthly
hours. It was a thoroughly unequal struggle to try
and persuade him to take a holiday and visit his
children and grandchildren in "Ningpo-more-far" at
that native festival of reunion, the Chinese New
Year. "Make plenty trouble" was his invariable re-
joinder to the suggestion. He insisted only on two
hours off once a fortnight to keep his appointment
at the establishment he termed "the wash-body
shop/' and I can only presume it was no subterfuge,
for he was in every sense always immaculately clean.

He was there in the crowd on the landing stage
against the Shanghai Bund that saw the passengers,
my wife and I among them, embark on the tender
which was to sever my own happy ten-year-long so-
journ in his country. I was more moved by that
personal parting than by saying good-bye to any
of the Europeans or Americans who formed the
more disinterested pattern o one's business and so-
cial life. They were grand people, but in their cos-
mopolitan atmosphere of gaiety we should soon be

AH FAT

forgotten, and none of them possessed that true
genius for friendship, and affection which I knew
was deeply embedded in the heart of Ah Fat. As
the tender slipped her moorings and he stood there
immobile and impervious to the milling crowd that
jostled about him, I observed for the first and only
time in our long association that he was capable of
visible emotion. And it touched me to the extent
of hopelessly wishing I could leap ashore and thank
him all over again. Instead, I thought I must make
perhaps no more than a vain effort to comfort and
distract him. Cupping my hands to my mouth I
bawled to him across the widening water, "Ah Fat!"

He looked up and I saw that his lips were just
capable of framing the inevitable "Yes, Masta."

"Look-see customs clock. Ah Fat's timepiece no
right!" I hoped it might serve to lighten a situation
that was mutually tense.

He fumbled under his gown and I saw him pro-
duce his infallible token of reliability; he glanced at
it, then up to the customs tower, put the watch to
his ear, and, ripping it from its strap, hurled it over
the heads of the crowd into the swirling wash of the
Whang-po River. Then his face lit up again and his
features were restored to a broad grin. It was a mag-
nificent gesture since he undoubtedly knew, as I did,
that the customs clock was invariably eight minutes
fast. But I sent him a much better watch from Lon-
dona self-winding affair to wear on his wrist.

His letter concludes, "Timepiece plenty long day
go now no savvy how to stop s'pose no stop. Ah
Fat die too soon what thing?" So now that I am no

104 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

more than a memory to him it seems that he has
centred his destinies at the dictates of my gift. He
remains rich in a sublime and simple faith of which
I well might wish to have been more deserving.

Chapter 7
"TALLY-HO'

SOME time ago I visited a large industrial works in
the north of England where I was shown something
o the production, packing and dispatch for export
of a crude chemical which as an essential raw mate-
rial is sold in profusion all over the world.

I watched the gunny bags being machine-marked,
then saw them automatically filled and stitched be-
fore they passed along a moving platform to be me-
chanically tallied into a barge. The craft, with three
others like it, would shortly be making passage
along two rivers and a canal; and then another con-
signment of a thousand tons would be ready for
trans-shipment into an ocean-going vessel in Liver-
pool docks.

"I hear they eat this stuff in China/' remarked
the foreman. "What d'ycm know about that?"

"Precious little," I replied, "though I believe the
Cantonese do use it in certain types of native con-
fectionery. Myself, I'm better acquainted with the
customs of the North," I went on. "They don't ac-
tually eat it there not at any rate in its present

105

106 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

form but they certainly consume it in a wide vari-
ety of other ways/'

The foreman looked slightly disillusioned, as
though a good story he had been telling for years
had suddenly come a trifle unstuck. He proceeded
on a different tack.

"I s'pose without any of this modern equipment-
devices and such-like as we've got here your old
Chinaman would take maybe a week to discharge
this lot."

"A week!" I laughed. "A mere thousand tons , . ."

My mind slipped back through the years and I
found myself reflecting on the vivid atmosphere of
that festival in North China known as "Cargo-come"
day.

Mr. Ho nearly six feet and over seventeen stone
of him stood framed in the open doorway of the
district manager's office in Tientsin. He was head
custodian of the company's extensive godowns on
the south bank of the Pei-ho, and, since he professed
to speak no English, I was doing my best to explain
to him in his own tongue that I would be on parade
at 6.30 hours the following morning to witness the
discharge of a thousand tons of Yung Gi-en (liter-
ally, "foreign powder") from lighters to store. Mr.
Ho understood: that wise and loyal old character
understood a lot of things about which he said but
little.

At the appointed hour next day, I find that the
hatch covers have been removed from three lighters
moored alongside our property and several gangs,

"TALLY-HO" 107

comprising about a hundred coolies in all, are stand-
ing by. Mr. Ho, surrounded by stacks of bamboo
sticks and with parcels o coppers and small silver
spread out on a table before him, sits in his accus-
tomed place by the open godown door. The stage
is all set for the performance of an arduous task
made lighter with the fun of a fair.

Soon two long processions of scantily clad coolies,
each with a two-hundredweight bag perched across
his shoulders, are moving along the gangplanks,
then over the dusty pathway to converge at the ware-
house entrance, where, as they pass, each receives
from the hand of Mr. Ho a plain foot-long bamboo
stick. These toilers are the "individualists" who, on
the completion of five such journeys and the acquisi-
tion of the same number of plain bamboos, ex-
change them for a single one of slightly larger
dimensions, decorated with a red band. As soon as
twenty-five individual journeys have been completed
and five of the larger embellished sticks acquired,
Mr. Ho then recovers them in exchange for the
agreed rate of piecework hire; and the recipient,
with a bit of "the ready" tucked away in his waist-
band, can now afford to take a well-earned breather.

At the same time a third procession of a somewhat
different order is emanating from the remaining
lighter and also converging at the godown entrance
to claim the attentions of Mr. Ho. It is composed of
the more sporting, get-rich-quick element who oper-
ate in prearranged pairs and, with the aid of a pole
and a sling, carry between them three bags at a time,
to the accompaniment of the appropriate sing-song

I08 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

chant. Though he must accept them (like foreign-
ers and death) as being inevitable, Mr. Ho is wont
to take a dim view of these duet-performers since,
wise though he may be, he has never succeeded in
discovering how to divide three into five and re-
mains strongly averse to the necessity of adjusting
his system to meet special arrangements. He is also
somewhat of a rarity in that he is a Chinese born
without a natural instinct to gamble; and holds but
small regard for chanting teammates in general, who
subsequently draw lots to decide which of them be-
comes entitled to cash in the collectively earned
sticks and retain the more legal form of tender. In
particular, he is possessed of still less sympathy to-
wards the unfortunate who, having sweated and
strained an hour or so to no more than his friend's
advantage, is now obliged to start afresh among the
"individualists."

With a nice sense of timing that is, when it may
be calculated that Mr. Ho has recovered sufficient
length of bamboo to have been fairly active with
the disbursementsthe scene becomes enlivened by
the arrival of a succession of one-man portable estab-
lishments. These are broken down to enable them
to be borne in two nicely balanced sections dangling
from either end of a long pole slung across the shoul-
ders. Presently they are set up on some convenient
pitch in the shape of general emporium, chow shop
and kitchen combined, and, of course, the complete
tonsorial parlour. They comprise the more honest
traders; but inevitably appearing in their wake, and
bent on getting amongst the money, come those of

'TALLY-HO" 109

lesser repute: the letter- writers, the magicians, the
story-tellers, the jugglers, the handspring artistes,
and several others representative of the native ele-
ment among spivs and opportunists. Consequently
as the morning wears on, the scene of activity in
front of our godown becomes more and more di-
verse.

But far from troubling him, the fairground atmos-
phere surrounding his coolie-hire is welcomed by
Mr. Ho. He knows that Chinese casual labour be-
comes as the lilies of the field, in that it toils not
when it has a few coppers to spin. The cavalcade
about us serves the purpose of attracting a large por-
tion of up-to-date earnings, thereby necessitating an
immediate resumption of work by those who other-
wise would be too inclined to classify themselves as
the idle rich. So it all aids towards the discharge
being completed with sufficient dispatch to avoid
payment of demurrage on the lighters; and this con-
sideration, coupled with minor concern over the ac-
curacy of his tally, represents the sum total of Mr.
Ho's worries.

The chow-vendor has staked out a claim, and al-
ready his soup and rice pans are bubbling and steam-
ing away behind him, while his bowls and other
utensils are laid out for hire, as required, before
him. Meanwhile, in the manner of a rumba mu-
sician, he is engaged in shaking ten chopsticks up
and down in a wooden cylinder. This not only
serves to draw the attentions of the multitude to the
appetizing aromas of his kitchen, but affords the
hungry an opportunity of extracting the stick which

11O CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

has a well-defined chip about Its unseen end, and
which allows the lucky ones the privilege o eating
on the house.

Some distance away a sartorially elegant clothier
is beating a tattoo, then giving voice concerning his
display of coolie cloth, and drawing attention to the
nimble skill of his cut. A white-bearded patriarch
has erected two poles from which hang a score of
bird-cages housing a complete aviary of songsters in
all sizes and dressed in a wide variety of plumage,
all of which appear to be contributing a fair share
to the general cacophony. Further along, a more
lugubrious-looking type is sounding a funeral gong
and accepting first premiums on insurance against
the inevitable expense of one's obsequies. There,
in oddly assorted array, stand the peanut seller, the
fruit merchant, the black-egg specialist, and the pro-
fessor with the patent medicines. Business Is brisk
all round, and the brisker it becomes so much more
speedily does the main operation proceed and so
much better pleased is Mr. Ho.

The barber, traditionally recognized among the
Chinese as belonging to the lowest caste of all, has,
appropriately enough, opened up his salon adjacent
to the temporarily erected latrines and is now en-
gaged upon the task of shaving heads at the rate of
half a dozen an hour. Now and again his chair is
occupied by a customer who requires a little addi-
tional attention, such as a pummelling of the back,
a little massage on the stomach, or perhaps just a
touch of chiropody. For, despite his low status in
the social order, the Chinese barber serves a versatile

TALLY-HO 111

apprenticeship and furthermore adheres to a fixed
tariff, with none of your tossing for double or noth-
ing, as practised in the other professions. Maybe he
finds it too risky when he never knows beforehand
what he may be called upon to deal with next.

We move about in an animated, not uncolourful
atmosphere amid sounds of clamour and song and
an overall spirit, carefree in luck and philosophical
in misfortune, that on the whole seems to breathe
an air of happiness. We are amongst those, the great
majority of whom are indeed content to live for the
day and very much hand-to-mouth. They are dis-
interested in political crises and oblivious to chang-
ing ideologies; they are not bothered by union
regulations and have never been introduced to a
shop steward. They live without responsibilities
and eventually they die without any knowledge of
the fear of death: all of which would appear to
breed a strange contentment. There are the un-
pleasantries in season, of course, such as hunger and
cold; but usually, not far distant, there's sufficient
"humping" to be found that will ward off both dis-
comforts. Sickness well, if you're too sick to work
and there's no copper-cash in the kitty, then, logi-
cally, you're much better off if you're dead.

In the fullness of time the reformers will change
all thisone must hope they will; but it is a simple
philosophy that dies hard, and deprived of it, with a
host of "rights" in substitution, the lovable charac-
ter that is the carefree coolie will still, one earnestly
hopes, continue to reap his reward of contentment.

Let us take a glance at Fu Sung as an example of

112 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

his kind and calling: he is happy indeed, for this
has been a day of days for him so far. From being
penniless at dawn, he has since cashed in the ringed
bamboos at the expense of teammate Wang Er, and
has added to this success by selecting the chopstick
with the chipped end. He has received double pay
for no more than an hour's work, filled his belly free
of charge, had his head shaved and a corn cut out
of his toe, slept peacefully for an hour, and is still
some thirty cents and a few copper-cash in hand.
Furthermore he has just supplemented his earnings
by joining a school of squatters near the water's edge
and winning two hands of fan-tan. But if, as one
strongly suspects will be the case, he allows himself
shortly to be drawn towards battling his wits against
those of the travelling "catchee-lady" trickster (with
the inevitable result) he will philosophically adopt
the adage of Kipling and, not breathing a word
about his loss, start again at his beginnings: in other
words hell get down to a bit more "humping'* as an
"individualist/'

We find by mid-afternoon that former teammate
and co-chanter, Wang Er, has atoned for his luckless
start and, having eaten, is now sleeping peacefully
in a spot of shade. He has also discharged an obliga-
tion, in that for the sum of five copper-cash he has
dictated a letter to the travelling scribe which will
serve to notify his aged mother in faraway Hunan
that, although he has indeed recently been appointed
a partner in the transport and haulage, business, he
finds himself in no immediate position to subscribe
towards her coffin fund. Wang Er's prevailing weak-

TALLY-HO" 113

ness for face-building is invariably landing him in
jams of this sort with his somewhat gullible and
ever-opportunist parent. Then, as he awakens, his
conscience no doubt stirs him into an immediate
resumption of ' 'humping' '; at least he should carry
a sufficient number of bags to supply his letter with
a postage stamp and so spare his mother the expense
of delivery fees in addition to the necessity to finance
the doubtful satisfaction of having her son's com-
munication read to her. Also he is possessed of a
purely transitory fancy that he might start saving
something up ...

Well, we've stolen glances at Fu Sung and Wang
Er: there's not much that differs in character or
feature among the other ninety-eight who work and
idle in rotation, at the dictates of fancy or sheer ne-
cessity. Time is getting on now and it will be worth-
while seeing how Mr. Ho is faring in his battle
against it.

I put the question to him and while he continues
to juggle his bamboos with his right hand, the fin-
gers of his left perform a startling operation on the
abacus. Mr. Ho then transfers his glance from some
Chinese heiroglyphics scrawled on a scrap, of paper
before him and casts his eyes towards the sun.

"Another one thousand four hundred and thirty-
odd bags to discharge in two hours and ten min-
utes/' he announces with assured exactitude. There
is no need for me to ask him whether or when he
intends to introduce a "hit or miss" session, or
whether it might be more economical to pay a lim-
ited amount of demurrage on the lighters. By his

114 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

own peculiar methods he will have the respective
merits of every alternative already weighed up, and
at five o'clock, with an hour and a half in hand, he
will take the course guaranteed to serve the best in-
terests of all.

"Hit or miss" tactics, when employed, are much
akin to a sporting declaration in cricket, where the
opposing side is given a limited time in which to go
for the runs or lose the match. Mr. Ho would loudly
proclaim for the benefit of all and sundry at the ap-
propriate moment that there were yet nine hundred
and sixty-eight bags to discharge and seventy-four
minutes within which to complete the job: bamboo
sticks worth double if accomplished otherwise quite
valueless.

The effect of this pronouncement is electrifying.
Recumbent bodies spring into life from all over the
place; the stalls and sideshows become suddenly de-
serted and games of chance are hastily abandoned.
This is the best gamble of the day, and the chal-
lenge is invariably accepted with joyous acclama-
tion.

The scene rapidly assumes the effect of a film
which is being projected on the screen at twice its
normal speed. Long lines of laughing, shouting,
good-humoured coolies jostle each other as they dou-
ble under their burdens and then speed back for
more. Mr. Ho, with a box of bamboos between his
knees, is handing out the sticks so fast that he takes
on the appearance of a normally sedate cello player
who has suddenly gone berserk. Only his assistants,
perched on high within and hard-pressed to main-

"TALLY-HO" 115

tain the uniformity of the stacks under such rapid
fire from below, are reluctant participators in this
win or burst effort. The lighter hands don't care
much about it either: they are feeding the remain-
ing bags onto a long queue of impatient backs with
such dexterity that from the middle distance they
appear as a well-drilled squad performing physical
jerks at lightning speed. But Mr. Ho will see that
full recompense is paid to all: before instituting "hit
or miss" sessions he is invariably aware that the bal-
ance is weighed heavily in favour of double rates,
but only over a period calculated to cost less than
the price of delay to the lighters. As I remarked
earlier, Mr. Ho is not a betting man and only in-
dulges these practices in the interests of sound econ-
omy and also because everyone is happy in the end
everyone except perhaps the salesmen and spivs
who, like a travelling circus, strike camp at the first
cry of "hit or miss" and waddle away towards fresh
fields. Mr. Ho is sure they have done well enough
a view that is shared, though rapidly forgotten, by a
vast multitude of others.

Then finally, when the shouting and the tumult
has died and all except Mr. Ho have departed, I
approach him as he remains there in the cool of the
evening, gently perspiring but quite undefeated as
he neatly stacks away his bamboos in readiness for
some future festival of "cargo-come."

"Hao ja-tze" I announce, meaning in the English
idiom, "good show," then add with only mild Ap-
prehension, "How does it all work out?"

Mr. Ho seems slightly perplexed.

Il6 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

"Only nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-
eight bags, including five that broke in the lighters/'
he proclaims sorrowfully. "There must be two more
somewhere."

I suppress my utter amazement at this miracle of
tallying which Mr. Ho invariably accomplishes with
accuracy, aided by no more than two sets of sticks,
the beads of his abacus and an amount of money left
over in odd bits of newspaper which serve as his till.

"Two whole bags missing!" I observe in mock
horror. "The trouble with you, Mr. Ho," I add in
effect, "is that your ideas of making a tally are hope-
lessly out of date. I hear they have a machine at the
works in Englandthey call it 'the magic eye/ Well
have to see about getting one sent out. We just can't
afford to go on losing two bags out of every ten thou-
sand, you know. It's not good enough."

Mr. Ho, whose sense of humour is far more subtle
than mine, undoubtedly catches the look in my eye,
but he does not yet know that I have his ace tucked
away in my pocket. So I allow him to express him-
self volubly and at considerable length on the sub-
ject of all "devil" machines, which in his view not
only are thoroughly unreliable, but are created in
the West with the sole purpose of maliciously dis-
crediting the far more elegant and accurate methods
of the East. "Those two bags," he concludes, "could
never have come up the river."

"You are perfectly right, as usual/1 I assure him
quietly. "To a humble Westerner like myself the
thing is quite uncanny. This piece of paper here
comes from the stevedore in charge of trans-ship-

"TALLY-HO" 117

ment into lighters at Taku and says 'Two bags
jump out of sling into bar get drowned!' "

Mr. Ho does not smile. Indeed no one has ever
yet observed him to do so. But across the whole of
his countenance can be detected the rich and un-
mistakable glow of face preserved.

"A week!" I repeated to the foreman. "A mere
thousand tons or ten thousand bags if you like.
Good Heavens! In less than a day they . . . why,
they'd eat it!"

Chapter 8

TRAVEL-AMAH

MARIE, who travelled more than twenty thousand
miles with us, was a part of our lives for no more
than six months. But during that comparatively
brief period she established herself as a vital, though
often somewhat unpredictable, factor. The boys re-
call many clear-cut impressions of their travel-amah,
whilst the memory of later and less transient cus-
todians of their childhood has faded beyond even
faint recollection. And for my part, I shall always
remember Marie as a brave doyen among Chinese
nurses and something of a character as well.

Rather out of a blue sky I found myself called
upon to spend three months in England in between
my normal periods of home leave from China;
whereupon the company insisted that my wife and
our three-year-old twin sons accompany me and, far
more importantly, made this financially possible.
The travel-amah was, however, my personal liabil-
ity, though I considered the outlay for her passage
and wages an investment likely to pay my wife and
me large dividends in freedom and leisure.

118

TRAVEL-AMAH 1 19

So it was that in answer to an advertisement In
the vernacular press, a lacquer-glossed private rick-
sha rolled up to our house in Shanghai, a week be-
fore we were to sail via Suez. It contained Marie,
who presumably paid the requisite toll to the house
boy, addressed a few well-chosen ancestral elegancies
to the resident amah, and was at length permitted
entry to the presence of the Master and Missy. She
was launched upon us as my wife and I were relax-
ing over martinis and such was the life in Shanghai
in those days thinking that many evenings had
elapsed since we had been permitted to dine at home
a deux.

4 'Me come: look-see: by-n-by maybe go."

It was a statement much like Julius Caesar's upon
the successful conclusion of his Pontic campaign and
as all-embracing. In Marie's case it was accompanied
by intermittent flashes of gold teeth and the tintin-
nabulation of a score of thin silver bangles. The
bun of her hair was adorned by a single white
bloom, and the lobes of her ears were hung with
jade. And she wore a flowered silk gown, modelled
in the Chinese style, which as though in compensa-
tion for the high severity of the neckline, was slit
a la mode from ankle to knee.

My wife later confessed to a first impression that
our visitor was one of the elder sisters in that some-
what elastic order, the sing-song sorority! Of course,
nothing could have been further from the truth.
Though Marie bedecked herself flashily in her own
circle, there was no adornment to lend relief to the
white linen tunic and wide black trousers that hence-

120 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

forward became, on board and In England, the in-
variable rig of her working hours. She had,
moreover, a sense of propriety as supreme as her
standards of duty and loyal affection.

We were not devoid of doubts, however, as we led
her upstairs to show her the twins that first evening.
But they sat up abruptly in their beds, overjoyed
with the opportunity of postponing their obligations
to Morpheus; and it soon became obvious that all
three had discovered an instantaneous and mutual
delight in each other.

"Ai Ya!" exclaimed Marie. "Two piece allive all-
same-time!"

The boys jumped on their beds and treated her
to a display of their acrobatic repertoire, interlaced
with a few competitive feats of contortion, the whole
accompanied by wild whoops of delight. Their
mother and I vainly attempted to still them, but
Marie had the master touch. Within moments she
had them both restored within the sheets, listening
in drowsy fascination to her soft rendering of "Sha-
ke lo-taiShang-ke lo taiTung chi ma-mah Fa cha
lai" and presently they fell asleep to this crooning
of an old Chinese cradle song which, to the bewil-
derment of their friends, the twins are likely to ren-
der, in more raucous tones, to this day.

It put the matter beyond any further doubt in all
our minds: Marie must accompany us to England.
We fixed it there and then and, one more problem
having solved itself, descended the stairs to another
martini.

TRAVEL-AMAH ' 121

As we ploughed our way through the Yellow Sea
a week later, with little more than a gentle pitch of
the bows and a scarcely discernible thinning of at-
tendance in the saloon at dinner, we discovered that
Marie was flying the distress signal of mat de mer.
It reluctantly forced the conclusion upon us that, if
we were to experience anything less than a flat calm
over the next five weeks, there would be little oppor-
tunity for my wife and me to combine forces in all,
or any, of the fun and games being offered aboard.
But we were quite wrong there as well: Marie could
exert mind over matter in a most meritable way.
Indeed, since no milder means of persuasion could
accomplish it, when she was obviously in need of
rest, a gentle order became necessary to separate her
from her charges. Even that was of little avail, for
we were eventually to discover that on such occa-
sions she did no more than conceal herself close by,
where she could still watch them without being seen.

As things turned out, if we had come aboard un-
equipped with a travel-amah, we should probably
not have suffered much lack of respite from nurse-
maid routine. I record this with every appreciation
for Marie's never-failing fealty and quite doglike
devotion, adding that even had she allowed herself
to be hors de combat for every day of the voyage it
would still have been a rare privilege to have such a
woman with us. But we were also privileged by the
company, as fellow passengers, of a number of Brit-
ish naval officers from the China Station. Two of
them I must mention in particular, for they were
both lovable and unforgettable characters whose

12,2 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

close friendship we were to retain and whose sub-
sequent careers we assiduously followed, often by
devious means, during the war, right up to their
ending.

One, then a post captain, whose name was a
household word in the Navy, was destined to die as
a rear-admiral and the Commodore of Convoys on
the hazardous route to North Russia. The other,
much younger, having brought fresh lustre to an
honourable name, went down with the Barham in
November 1941. My wife and I can do no more in
salute to their memory in these days than to reflect
with pride that we knew them; and recall how lost
in admiration and gratitude we were for their in-
ventive genius in bringing joy and ever-fresh enter-
tainment to our sons. It was amazing, in fact, to
witness the variety of contrivance which a post cap-
tain and a two-striper, vying with each other, could
conjure up for the amusement of those three-year-
olds. Yet the ever-watchful Marie was always unob-
trusively in the background.

It is impossible to forget a very rough day off the
Gulf of Aden when the ship in which we were trav-
elling was pitching deep and rolling heavily with a
kind of corkscrew twist that jarred her aging tim-
bers. It was no day for contrivances; but undaunted
by the somewhat violent motion, one "twin was
swinging high on a nautical leg whilst the other,
clinging unsteadily to a stationary trouser bottom,
was impatiently giving tongue to imploring pleas of
"Me too!" Then a sudden lurch of the ship threw
the precariously balanced two-striper off his station-

TRAVEL-AMAH 1 2 g

ary foot and the boy, then poised In forward flight,
let slip his moorings and went hurtling towards the
scuppers. Panic-stricken, we instinctively moved
forward, fervently praying in that awful second that
the rails might save him, just as Marie, materializ-
ing from nowhere with a complexion the shade of
cigar ash, neatly fielded him with such delicate tech-
nique that he immediately came back for more. I
imagine she may well have anticipated just such a
happening and, regardless of the physical discomfort
she was suffering, have poised herself in readiness
behind an adjacent vent-shaft.

In retrospect, I have found myself reflecting upon
the incident in terms of light and shade: the darker
aspect concerns what might have happened if Marie
just hadn't been there; the lighter, that were such
a thing practicable, she would have qualified for a
county cricket trial any day.

Marie confessed, on arrival at Tilbury, that she
had never seen England before. But after accepting
a few preliminary differences, such as the spectacle
of white men catching ropes and handling baggage,
she appeared quite unmoved by any aspect of her
strange surroundings. Evidently she was adopting
the attitude of Kipling's cat to whom all places were
alike.

Her wide trousers, flanked on either side by a
fair-headed twin, caused little stir along Piccadilly
or in Hyde Park, where many strange figures are
seen at all hours of every day; but when I motored
the family north, eventually arriving at a small re-

124 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

sort on the English, side of the Solway Firth, the
locals really sat up and took notice.

My parents had taken a house for the summer
near the mouth of the Firth so that they might share
the company of their first grandchildren in the
healthy atmosphere of the seaside. Every morning,
it seemed, Marie was quite unable to avoid a follow-
ing as she ambled out with the boys along by the
gorse bushes and eventually down to the beach.
There the three of them would doodle about the
sands, conversing unconcernedly together in Chi-
nese, whilst forming the centrepiece in a conjectur-
ing crowd of Cumbrians. But though Marie with
her peculiar dignity was indifferent to any amount
of unfamiliar nods and whispers, this was by no
means true of my mother when certain implications
were borne back to her via tradespeople and such.
Having lived all her life in Cumberland, apart from
temporary sojourns in warmer climates, with the
natural consequence that not only she herself but
almost everything that has to do with her is widely
known in the county, she found it a little perplexing
to be met by a growing succession of sympathetic
glances from the inhabitants and downright disturb-
ing to learn the portent of them from one of her
closest friends,

''They think Ronald/' her friend explained be-
tween spasms of ill-concealed mirth, "has come home
with a Chinese wife/' Then, as if to cheer things up
a bit she added, "And they are only consoled be-
cause happily the children don't look like her/'

It failed to improve matters when, during the

TRAVEL-AMAH

days that were left to me before I got down to work,
I decided I had perhaps better forsake the golfcourse
and be seen in the company of the twins and their
real mother. But wherever we went together, the
ever-faithful Marie insisted on accompanying us,
walking, with that traditional deference of the na-
tive servant, a few paces to the rear, laden down
with boats and buckets, extra clothes and, more
often than not, a tame and seldom protesting duck
called Hunloke, who had come to share with her the
boys inseparable companionship. The sight of this
rather startling procession, aided by the fact that to
local ears there was no distinction between the twins'
alternating addresses to "Amah" and "Mama," gave
rise to the assumption that I had become thoroughly
steeped in the customs of Old Cathay and taken unto
myself no less than two wives. But it was not until
char-a-banc parties from the industrial towns of
West Cumberland began pulling up at the front
gate, with well-mannered demands to view "the
black woman with the white children," that my
mother's usual good humour showed definite signs
of deterioration.

We sent for the local police sergeant, who arrived
on his bicycle, bearing with him a somewhat faded
yellow form for completion in respect of aliens, with
which during his thirty-odd years in the force he had
never previously been called upon to familiarize
himself.

The three of us Marie, the sergeant and I sat
round the dining room table with the questionnaire
before us. The sergeant produced, then moistened

CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

with his tongue a stub of indelible pencil, looked
across at Marie and started, "Now, this 'ere , . ." but
he made little progress further since it was soon evi-
dent that Marie was quite incapable of understand-
ing a solitary word of his dialect. While he removed
his helmet and mopped his brow, I picked up the
blank to see if I could improve matters. Presently
I was engaged in explaining the gist of the thing to
Marie in her own tongue. As she answered me in
the melodious tones of Mandarin, I caught the look
in that Cumberland policeman's eye. He was lean-
ing back in a daze, wondering where on earth his
pursuit of the law had now landed him. " 'eathen
proceedin's reet enuffi an 7 all" was what I felt he was
longing to remark; but he satisfied himself by draw-
ing the back of his hand across a walrus moustache
and directing his attention to a bottle of beer on the
sideboard.

Four bottles later we had, between us, completed
the form except for the important formality of
Marie's signature. I indicated that she should in-
scribe it in Chinese, and with interest I observed
her pencil in the two characters for which the pho-
netic English spelling would be "Ma" and "Lee."
I then realized for the first time that through the
accepted tendency of the Chinese to substitute an I
for an r (as in "allive" for "arrive") I had been quite
mistaken in ever supposing her name to be Marie,
though, of course, to us she always continued to re-
main so.

The sergeant, now somewhat redder in the face,
regarded the Chinese characters with grave misgiv-

TRAVEL-AMAH 127

ings, a state of affairs apparently not improved by
his studying them upside down and subsequently
from all angles and various distances. *T inspector
won't J ave this," he announced solemnly. "Like, it
seems to ... well too . . ."

"Too heathenlike?" I suggested.

"Aye that's reet enuff, Mister!" he agreed, bring-
ing his fist down on the polished mahogany. "Too
'eathenlike."

Only after we had smeared the ball of Marie's
right thumb with boot polish and impinged its im-
pression upon the base of the form, would he be
satisfied. Then the guardian of the law mounted
his bicycle, a little unsteadily, from behind and, with
intermittent shakings of the head, had sedately cy-
cled some distance down the road before I realized
that I had quite forgotten to ask him to do some-
thing about the char-a-banc parties.

During my absence on the business which I had
come home to perform, one notable minor incident
occurred. That was the occasion on which my
mother discovered Marie in the act of giving decent
burial to a clutch of eggs in a remote corner of the
garden.

"By-n-by plenty velly good," she explained. "Me
think after lil boys blong big men they velly much
likee."

Which reminds me: on the next occasion I visit
the Solway Firth, I must remember to have a look
and see if they are still there. If so, they should be
fairly fruity by this time!

128 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

There Is much more that I could recount concern-
ing Marie; but I will be content to relate, as a final
incident, something to establish beyond doubt the
calibre of woman that she was.

On our return voyage East, as we were approach-
ing the China Sea, we were unfortunate enough to
strike the full force of a typhoon. I imagine that
even to the most hardened sailors in sizable ships,
the fury of the typhoon must be a terrifying thing.
It certainly was to me and to the handful of others
aboard who still remained in a state capable of be-
traying any emotions at all. For two days and nights,
despite battening down and lashing up, one was still
conscious of the intermittent thud of heavy objects
breaking loose above and below decks and the al-
most continual crash of crockery from the galleys
and pantries. It seemed indeed that all hell had
broken loose as the gale howled and screamed re-
lentlessly about us: great seas thundered over the
bows as the vessel heeled over so steeply, first to port
and then to starboard, that at times one despaired o
her ever regaining an even keel.

My wife, a seasoned traveller and normally ob-
livious to high seas, was completely out. I could do
no more for her than to wedge her into her bunk so
that she might avoid being flung across the cabin.
What Marie must have suffered is impossible even
to imagine; yet no amount of coaxing, bribery, or
harsh words would persuade her to give up her
charges and be left to her agony alone. With pillows
and mattresses and everything else soft that she could
lay hands on, she barricaded the boys securely in the

TRAVEL-AMAH

bunk where they lay end to end. Clinging to their
bed rail and looking sicker than anyone I have ever
seen, she sought to overcome their occasional whim-
pers and soothe their fears. Nothing could defeat
that woman.

Employing the only safe means of locomotion, I
crawled back along the corridor on all fours to our
own cabin. Just as I managed to enter it, the ship
broke suddenly from a deep roll to port and, with a
cracking wrench of timbers, heaved violently over
to starboard. I thought that surely no ship could
ride out such a storm as this. The wedges I had
placed about my wife fell adrift, and I was just able
to prevent her prostrate form being precipitated
heavily across the floor. I packed her in again, a
little more securely, reassured her concerning Marie
and the twins and presently crawled back along the
corridor to the others.

I found that Marie was lying down now behind
her barricades, with a boy securely held within the
crook of either arm. Her face was a ghastly colour
and seemed distorted with pain while tears, which
she had no hand free to check, rolled down her
cheeks.

"Marie!" I implored her, but nothing on land or
at sea would either shift her or cause her to utter a
word of her woes. Clinging onto the bunk opposite,
feeling frightened and far from well myself, I
watched her at intervals through that night. Despite
her intense anguish, she still contrived to hush the
children with the whispered measure of "Sha-ke lo
taiShang-ke lo tai . . "

CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

We were clear of the storm by daylight; and It was
only after I had summoned the harassed and over-
worked ship's doctor that I discovered that the vio-
lent lurch which so nearly dislodged my wife had
taken heavy toll of Marie. How she crawled back
to the twins is a mystery; and how, without so much
as betraying a hint of what had happened, she was
able to withstand the terrible buffeting that fol-
lowed, is little less than a miracle. Few others on
this earth could have managed to do it with a frac-
tured leg.

But then Marie was no ordinary person!

Chapter 9

THE HILL

THE Traveller paused in his climb, looked stead-
fastly ahead for a moment as though to judge his
distance, and then continued on towards the ancient
temple which crested the rise and stood guardian
over the wide valley that lay beyond.

The old Chinese pedlar with whom he had con-
versed the previous day at Tsunwha had had a
strange tale to relate concerning this temple that
held watch over the Eastern Tombs. But he had
heard more, and from many, of the grandeur which
it surveyed, and his desire for a brief sharing of such
splendour had brought the Traveller a full day's
journey under the south shelter of the Great Wall
to the halting inn at Malanyu. It was from there,
just before sunset, that he had begun to climb the
hill.

Now he was at the summit, rather breathlessly
crossing the outer precincts of the temple, which
seemed uncared for and strangely deserted. He
passed through the further courtyards and presently
into the open again where, beneath a solitary pine,

131

132 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

he came to rest. Then, gradually at first, but with
increasing significance, an awareness of some new
wonder transfixed him as his eyes absorbed the wide
panorama that stretched below.

"To look down upon the Eastern Tombs from the
hill above Malanyu when the sun is in the far west
is among memories immortal/' they had told him.
Yet to the Traveller such praise seemed strangely
insufficient to this setting. The last rays of sun glint-
ing from the imperial yellow tiles that adorned a
score or more of scattered mausoleums, the dignified
magnificence of the tombs themselvesthe ultimate
domains of once dragon-throned Emperors; such
impressions of material grace were in themselves
sufficient for eulogy, but, surpassing the bounds of
normal comprehension, there brooded about the
scene an atmosphere of spiritual quietude, a pro-
found sense of peace that held the valley immune
from the wild wretchedness of the world that lay
beyond it.

The years recently passed had seen the armies of
the invader marching relentlessly on, had seen five
of the great provinces laid waste through modern
war and all China in turmoil. And at this time, not
far south of Peking, itself no more than a hundred
li to the west, those who had united so that a nation
might remain unconquered now grappled with pup-
pets of opposing political creeds, inspired by passions
and equipped with weapons all alien to the inherent
tranquillity of an age-long elegance.

Down the dusty white highways to the south
lurched the monster machines, and in the cities be-

THE HILL

yond the plain were the stir and clash and the shriek
of arms that bewilder and destroy. But in the valley
no flash came back, no more than a faint echo borne
on some idle breeze that but gently stirred the slen-
derest pine. This was hallowed ground that yet re-
mained sacred to the Lords of the Universe who lay
below.

The Traveller tried hard to define the element
that held him there. It was perhaps the mystery of
the unknown, he thought; for down there among
the immortals of their time lay the secrets of forgot-
ten dynasties. There rested the bones of emperors
who sprang from a civilization older than any that
is known. Their lives were deep-rooted in beliefs
that were born before history and their faith in the
hereafter was sublime. So it was until, with the
pomp and ceremony that was their due, they came
to the plain below, on their last journey east from
Peking. And as they passed further, unescorted, be-
yond the provinces that are known, the pattern of
their lives might pass as good token when they
reached The Yellow Springs.

The wide mountain range to the north grew
dusky in the half-light and the shadow of the hill
lengthened along the way that led to the east. Above
it and beyond, winding interminably through the
darkening distance, still sentinel above the furthest
peak, stretched the jagged, unbroken line that was
the Great Wall of China.

The Watcher by the temple remained immovable,
as though he had become absorbed into the drowsy,

CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

still peace that reigned above the sleeping kings.
High beauty was in the air and a tranquillity which
his age had never known enveloped him.

He rested there unaccompanied, but strangely not
alone while that ace of tricksters Time slipped
back through four decades.

Now he knew that a presence was beside him; a
being intangible that spoke with the soft accents of
the Manchu dialect. The gentle voice came to him
as a whispered echo.

"Look your way to the west, Foreign Friend; faint
sounds will follow the dawn and then draw nearer,
as slowly the pageant that was Peking unfolds from
the dust to pass majestically on its ultimate errand."
The voice paused, then added in more pronounced
tones, "Look well, for this is the very end of an era/'

Shortly, borne on a light breeze, came the single
note of a funeral horn, and a fluff of white dust rose
across the distant edge of the plain. It seemed as
though the cloud moved slowly towards the hill,
bearing in its approach the deep intermittent clang
of a gong and the high clash of cymbals that echoed
back across the valley from the northern heights.
Nearer came the wail of lamentation rising and fall-
ing above the sing-song chant of a hundred and
twenty bearers. Then slowly emerging into view
came their burden, the huge catafalque like some
great, gaudily arrayed marquee; and the plain was
suddenly alive with colour and movement and the
eerie noises that are of half-unleashed emotion. At
the head of this glittering cortege marched a body-

THE HILL 135

guard of Manchu princes and all the members of
the Grand Council, whose habit it had been to meet
their ruler at the dawn of each day in the Hall of
Perfect Harmony.

A question had hardly framed itself on The
Traveller's lips before the answer came softly from
beside him.

"Tz'u Hsi, Empress Dowager and last of the celes-
tial ones; she ruled China for five decades and died
in the ninth year of your present century."

Behind the mighty catafalque rode mounted
troops followed by the slow ambling gait of camels
accompanied by their Mongol attendants. Then
borne aloft in procession came a kaleidoscope of the
gay honorific umbrellas that had welcomed Her
Majesty back from exile eight years earlier. In con-
trast followed a sedate file of high Lama dignitaries
in their, sombre robes, then a host of white-clad offi-
cials bearing Manchu sacrificial vessels of carved
jade, massive incense bearers of gold and silver, Bud-
dhist symbols and colourfully embroidered panels.
Slowly the long cortege moved up and halted at the
end of its four-day journey from The Forbidden
City. Three splendid chariots with trappings and
curtains of imperial yellow silk, emblazoned with
dragon and phoenix, and two state palanquins sim-
ilarly arrayed passed on their majestic way and then
came to rest. And now the great conclave was
about the mausoleum, the most magnificent of them
all, built by the faithful Jung Lu for his imperial
mistress at a cost calculated at eight millions of taels.
The dust drifted upwards and dispersed as the end

CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

of the long procession drew up and the final cere-
mony at the tomb began.

The richly jewelled couch was ready to receive
the coffin while about it were assembled the carved
figures of serving maids and eunuchs, destined, it
seemed, to stand forever in attendance. The princes,
chamberlains and high officials of the Manchu dy-
nasty made ready to take their final farewell of the
illustrious dead, while the succeeding Empress Dow-
ager, and the surviving consorts of the imperial
house, offered the last rites in the mortuary chamber.

From the hill it was as though The Traveller
were existing through some as yet unexplored di-
mension; that he sensed rather than saw a ritual that
was forty years old being re-enacted on the plain
below. The conviction, too, came to him that the
quiet voice at his side was ageless and the whispering
echo of some far richer decade. Indeed it seemed
that he stood within a magic circle which was im-
mune from the standards that set a yesterday and a
to-morrow. His being had become merged in the un-
changing and dateless philosophy where forty years
are but a moment and death is no more than a gen-
tle closing of the eyes and a tranquil journeying on.

Again he was aware of the soft tones of the Man-
chu dialect that somehow divined and then pro-
vided expression to his train of thought.

"The two great doors of stone descend for the
resting place of the Empress Tz'u Hsi to be closed
forever. Alas! that it might be so. It should be that
at the instant of that closing, the spirit of the de-
parted ruler is translated to Her Majesty's Ancestral

THE HILL

Tablet. It is in itself no more than a simple strip of
carved and lacquered wood, but it is accorded hon-
our and ceremony equal with that which was cred-
ited to the sovereign during her lifetime. You see
the gorgeous chariot draped with yellow silk that
bears its light burden aloft, back from the plain to
Peking, along the imperial way that is swept hourly
by a thousand men. There, with ceremony unsur-
passed in any age or era, the Tablet is accorded its
rightful place in the Temple of Ancestors that lies
behind the high walls of the Forbidden City. So
the spirit returns, perchance to find rest awhile, un-
til the call comes for the ceremony at the Yellow
Springs, where body and soul are cleansed new and
reunited to roam at will among the sunlit hills of
Enduring Concord."

The soft tones melted away, and a sudden dark-
ness descended over the whole valley. Thunder
pealed out above the high hills to the north and
echoed and reverberated across the wide plain, while
angry stabs of lightning seemed to pierce down into
the very earth itself.

"Time/' the voice whispered above the storm,
"Time still plays philanderer. To the mind that
would use it for measure you are moving forward
instantly through two decades. Now watch as the
lightning strikes.

Then The Traveller saw that from a pageant of
reverential splendour the scene at the tomb of the
Great Empress had transformed itself into one of
stark horror. A rabble of shouting grey-clad figures
had torn asunder the great doors of the mausoleum

ig8 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

and were rifling the mortuary chamber of its pre-
cious contents, the trappings of a Queen that were
intended to accompany her through the gardens of
fragrance. Loaded and then borne away on crude
ox carts were the sacrificial vessels, the incense burn-
ers of gold and silver and the carved jade and ivory
figures that had stood watch over their imperial mis-
tress for just under twenty years. Nothing seemed
sacred to this unaccountable mob of sacrilegious
vandals nothing. A blinding flash from the skies
revealed the most unbelievable horror of all the
body was being dragged out from the coffin ... It
was something most shockingly macabre, so gro-
tesquely unreal as to be indefinable. Yet The Trav-
eller knew that it had actually happened. It was
done, he recalled, by the disbanded, unpaid soldiers
of an avenging war lord; some said at the instigation
of an uncouth and callous authority. That was im-
material; the tragedy lay in the poignant fact that it
had happened.

As swiftly as it had descended, the storm passed
and a blazing sun bore down on the plain, betraying
the now deserted and empty tomb. Near at hand
lay the naked body of the Great Dowager Empress
with every feature still perfectly intact and, even in
such utter abandonment, strangely calm and serene.
And she lay there exposed, yet quite impervious, to
the changing elements of numberless days.

Then, unaccountably, she was there no longer as
the voice, still gently, yet a little more urgently,
breathed again at his side.

"It is no more than the symbol of a restless age.

THE HILL 139

The deep sorrows of China are closely interwoven
with those of Ts'u Hsi: voyagers in suspense, since
mortals do not choose to leave them undisturbed.
For centuries the empire that was China was change-
less and immune; the dawn of her civilization is
dateless, though for a thousand years it has gradually
declined. But the ancient sages were wise in their
time, and their elegant philosophies, steeped in the
old laws of cultural perfection, have lived on down
the dynasties. They will continue to exist through
the period of adjustment while the best, for a while,
must needs lie dormant. The factor of time is im-
material; for progress no scribe has designed a
character to portray its meaning. Prosperity is
known; it is born and lives solely within the mind
at rest. No culture, no art, in their unchanging
fashions were practised elsewhere in higher degree:
no change can ever destroy such refinements, for
China is essentially unchangeable. Four hundred
millions of her people have been content to crave
no more than a meagre life from the soil about their
homes and the divine right to indulge the sacred
code of filial piety. The great continent, once
proudly ruled from the Dragon Throne, is stirring
restlessly, but the influences that despoil her come
from beyond her wide horizons. The invaders have
come the Mongols and the Tartars and the little
men from the islands to the East. The outer prov-
inces have been dispossessed for such that you term
as time; it is a transitory thing, for always the people
will return and the country remain mistress of her
own destinies. China is vast, she is all-absorbing;

140 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

tolerant of her transgressors, unchanging in the re-
lentless march of events about her; inscrutable, im-
movable and quite unconquerable. It is appropriate
for it to be known that the country which the Great
Emperors once ruled must suffer the internal strife
of readjustment; that it is a phase in the struggle to
recapture a spirit of nationalism which was lost
when twilight fell over the Forbidden City. The
surge is so that an ordered unity may replace the
days of chaos and yield the nation strength from
which will be born anew the old independence.
There are the expediences of the East, used in some
measure to counter those of the West, but there is
no ideology that does not spring naturally from the
hearts and minds of the people. China will never
become heir to a doctrine that tends to destroy her
heritage of human rights nor will she bear the yoke
of overlords from beyond her borders. She is ever
intolerant of influences that would defile the ele-
gance of her ancient culture, and men should know
the uselessness of their endeavours to implant upon
her the ways that are not written in her philosophy.
In the history of China forty years are no more than
a moment and immune from the ruins that your
progress brings about the world; hereabouts may
once more become the cradle of a calmer civiliza-
tion. It is no more than a matter of values."

There was a pause and when the voice spoke again
it was only the breath of a whisper.

''Foreign Friend, you have come to the Hill, as no
doubt others may, in search of something. You will
have found only this: that in the great heart of

THE HILL 141

countless millions of Chinese people there are dig-
nity, pride and sufficiency. Their desire in life is as
simple as was Tz'u Hsi's in death to be left un-
disturbed. Now rest for a while before you travel
on beyond the Hill in your full world with its yes-
terdays and its tomorrows. As you go, may you yet
remember and repeat and respect that simple phrase:
it is the message of Malenyu.

" to be left undisturbed/'

A chill breeze stirred the branches of the pine
tree under which he lay. Gradually The Traveller
became aware of a strange emptiness in the atmos-
phere about him an uneasy sense of being suddenly
alone. A wandering mist swept clear of the hill and
a pale moon was shining across the valley where the
Great Emperors lay at rest.

Chapter 10

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD

MENG Li Fu was not his real name; neither for that
matter was the one by which he was universally
known. In China there is much in a name: one in-
herited from less exacting or ambitious forbears is
likely, if inappropriate, to prove a handicap to those
who seek the highest rank in their particular pro-
fession; and there exists in China a far greater tend-
ency for a man's name to be regarded as a clue to
his characteristics. Consequently a Chinese with the
inherited appellation of "Swaying Bamboo" sug-
gesting that he be no more than a reed shaken by
the wind would have little chance of ever becoming
a war lord unless he took steps to exchange it for
one that was more fitting. The astute Marshal Meng
had, quite early in his military career, rectified pre-
cisely such a state of affairs, thus enabling himself
subsequently to emerge into official prominence as
"Lord of the Elegant Sword/'

Less officially, in the course of his swashbuckling
rise to military governorship, he had, in addition,
acquired one or two other titles. His soldiers, who

142

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 143

spontaneously regarded him as Deity, referred to
him in open reverence as Tiger Fang; the provincial
peasantry, whom he taxed well-nigh out of exist-
ence, dubbed him, though always from a safe dis-
tance, The Monster Leech of Loyang. In strange
and simple contrast, I addressed him, though but
once at his request, as Herbert: a title too incon-
gruous by far, when I came to think of it, for a
young foreigner to bestow habitually upon an aging
and quite heathen marshal of Chinese armies who
held, and indeed exercised, the power of life and
death over tens of millions of people. Besides,
though while the kaoliang wine flowed freely he
liked me to consider him the Kitchener of China
and address him familiarly as such, he was subject
to such quick and quite unaccountable changes of
mood that an ill-timed "Herbert" might have served
to sever our delations, if indeed not improbably, my
head.

At heart, though by no means in mind, Marshal
Meng was essentially a simple man; but perceived
through Occidental eyes, certain of his habits and
practices might well give rise to doubts concerning
his over-all merit. For my part, I never considered
it my business to judge him. Neither is this rough
sketch of a remarkable and often astonishing man,
who projected his personality so forcibly upon my
Western mind, designed in criticism or caricature:
it is an unvarnished portrait drawn from still vivid
memories of a brief encounter.

It took me nearly two weeks to discover that, in

144 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

the course of my vain endeavours to meet Marshal
Meng, I had succeeded in becoming a source of un-
earned income to a host of those responsible for his
protection. On first boldly advancing to the outer
gates of his palatial Yamen I was immediately ar-
rested by a scruffy-looking sentry equipped with
Sherlock Holmes hat, bulging bandolier, a carbine
to which was attached by wire an instrument like a
meat skewer and, as a touch of the more modern
Mars, two Mills bombs hung with twine and dan-
gling precariously from his belt hooks. It cost me a
dollar to speak to the sergeant and two more to in-
terview the lieutenant who, in exchange for my
cigarettes, suggested I should return on the morrow.
On that and subsequent days I persevered through
the costly expedient of allowing myself to be ini-
tially arrested, released and, at ever increasing
expense, passed through successive ranks to be dis-
missed on each occasion at the level of one grade
higher. I suffered this daily experience thus far in
the knowledge that it was in accordance with ac-
cepted procedure; and on the eleventh day perse-
verance was rewarded by my introduction to an
unshaven character, with cotton wool bursting forth
from his quilted tunic, who purported to be a gen-
eral. He, having intimated (not without avail) that
he was temporarily embarrassed to the extent of
twenty-five dollars, presently proceeded to inform
me, with an elegant display of courteous apology,
that the Tuchan was absent on a visit to his native
Loyang. It was then I decided that this extravagant
form of tomfoolery was obviously no more than

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 145

wasted effort; no one among my Inquisitors had
even inquired as to what might be the nature of my
business with the Marshal; and when on one occa-
sion I volunteered the information, it was met by a
conspicuous lack of interest. So, accompanied only
by a sense of frustration and the little that was left
of my "ready," I turned my steps somewhat discon-
solately away back in the direction of the Treaty
Port from whence I had speculatively come.

The Chinese military, I concluded, are certainly
no exception to the enigma which characterizes the
whole of their nation. There, for instance, was that
sentry whose equipment was held together by bits
of wire and twine, and the unshaven general with
his tunic falling to pieces; and yet . . . and yet . . .

My mind had harked back to my service with the
Shanghai Volunteers in which I had been a proud
member of the Scottish Company; and now, welcom-
ing any distraction from the bitter disappointment
of my failure to meet Marshal Meng, I pondered on
the strange contrast which had occurred to me.

With the possible exception of the French Foreign
Legion, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, recruited
from all sections of the community for the protec-
tion of the International Settlement, must have
represented the most cosmopolitan company of as-
sorted soldiery to be found anywhere in the world.
The Commanding Officer was a Regular British
Army colonel whose appointment was sponsored by
the War Office, and at that time the Adjutant was a
gallant and immaculate gentleman who had been
seconded to the unit from the Scots Guards. So far

146 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

as I am aware, no other regular soldiers of any na-
tionality were employed on the strength. The sec-
ond-in-command, during my service with the Corps,
was a Portuguese business man, and the Headquar-
ters Staff was composed of a rare diversity in race
and colour, all of which combined to maintain an
efficient and well-trained body of men.

In pride of place on ceremonial occasions invari-
ably came the cavalry. This consisted of the Amer-
ican Troop, who sat astride their Chinese ponies
garbed in "Mounty" hats, and the British Light
Horse, perhaps naturally composed of the younger
element among the racing and hunting community.
The squadron of mounted Englishmen invariably
looked resplendent with spurs to their boots and
chainmail burnished about their shoulders; second
only, of course, to the Shanghai Scottish, they lent
a great deal of colour and smart bearing to all cere-
monial parades. I am sure it was altogether a gross
injustice to their habits that some jealous wit of a
footslogger had once thought fit to dub them "The
Tight Horse"- but inevitably the name stuck!

Then came the companies of infantry: the English
contingent, which included in its ranks one or two
Chinese who rightly claimed to be British because
they were born in Hong Kong; the Americans, bear-
ing their firearms on what seemed to an Englishman
the wrong shoulder and swinging their own arms
across their stomachs; the Portuguese, rather dimin-
utive and dark-skinned; the Filipinos, still more
diminutive and even darker-skinned; the Chinese
company, all bespectacled and with a tendency to

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 147

break Into the goose step; the Russians with their
greatcoats neatly furled about them, even in a Shang-
hai summer, and then, preceded by pipers in plaid
and plume, invariably raising the biggest cheer from
the region of the saluting base, came the swinging
sporans and pipe-clayed spats of the Shanghai Scot-
tishthree score more of kilted exiles from their
fathers' land.

In addition to the Inspection and March Past,
there was another annual affair in the curriculum of
the Shanghai Volunteers which produced a sense of
rivalry and called for a great deal of earnest prep-
aration. It was the inter-unit competition, adjudi-
cated by the General Officer Commanding the
British Garrison in China, to decide which was the
smartest, most efficient all-round company or squad-
ron of the whole Corps.

Though we "Shanghailanders" were always de-
termined to take this opportunity of proving
through a generous display of all that was best in
soldierly qualities that we were second to none, the
fact must be recorded that we never, in my time,
won the trophy; neither, for that matter, did any
of the other British or American units.

What happened was all the more remarkable to
me since in the course of my wanderings through
the interior of North China I frequently found my-
self in the vicinity of some native garrison; and it
had amused me to witness the ill-equipped rabble
of some rising war lord undergoing their military
exercises. It was all precisely in keeping with the
burlesque sentry hung with Mills bombs and the

148 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

broken-down general who begged me for twenty-
five dollars. They would not, I feel sure, be lacking
in courage, but in appearance and drill Chinese
troops in their native surroundings always suggested
to me a mob of overgrown slum-children playing at
soldiers on a waste plot of land. In those days, be-
fore China was faced with a common foe, and prior
to the beginnings of the prolonged struggle between
the Nationalist and Liberation armies, no one took
China's frequent civil wars with any great degree of
seriousness: least of all, no doubt, the bulk of par-
ticipants themselves who probably knew, to a lesser
extent even than anyone else, what might be the
cause of the conflict. The conflict itself invariably
consisted of no more than a few days' skirmishing
before the inevitable buying and selling of troops
began; and, as a consequence, the swashbuckling
commander who had drained the resources of the
local peasantry to the better advantage of his war
chest was invariably in a position to proclaim him-
self the victor. And then everyone went home to tea.

By this it may be gathered that the discipline and
efficiency of Chinese soldiers, in those comparatively
recent days, could serve no very good purpose and
was therefore of little account; and this, in turn,
makes it all the more remarkable to reflect on the
fact that the inter-unit competition of the Shanghai
Volunteer Corps, with an almost Guards-like stand-
ard of fitness was always, or nearly always, won and
deservedly so by the company of infantry which
was officered and manned throughout by Chinese.

My mind alternated between such as the sentry

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 149

I had left behind at the Yamen gates, whose profes-
sion was supposed to be that of a soldier, and the
company of Chinese business clerks in Shanghai who
moulded themselves into a pattern that might well
be seen within the railings of Wellington Bar-
racks . . .

Reflection on this strange paradox had occupied
my thoughts for the best part of a mile on my home-
ward journey before my meditations were suddenly
arrested by the unmistakable clatter of many horse-
men ahead and the sight of a dust cloud rolling to-
wards me from the distance. I stepped hurriedly off
the narrow and crudely metalled track out of the
way of their swift approach; and presently what ap-
peared to be a heavily armed squadron of Chinese
cavalry came cantering into view. The detachment,
about thirty strong, was preceded by a pair of out-
riders bearing heavy executioners* swords over their
shoulders, the main body riding four abreast imme-
diately behind a standard bearer. They were uni-
formly clad in light-grey padded coats topped by
rather motheaten fur caps with ear flaps; each had
a bandolier and a carbine slung across his shoulder
and bumped along uneasily astride sturdy, though
ill-groomed, Mongolian ponies. But in the very
centre of the cavalcade, flanked by another pair of
ceremonial swordsmen, rode an outstanding and
quite exceptional figure: he was far more smartly
accoutred than the rest and, in even greater con-
trast, was reining in a magnificent beast which from
every appearance might well have been foaled on
The Curragh. By every precept this figure should

150 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

have been the fabulous Marshal himself; obviously,
though, he was not, since the centrepiece around
which this grizzly escort moved was beyond all doubt
a foreigner. Moreover, I observed to my amazement,
as In passing he cast a critical glance at me standing
ankle-deep in a paddy, that the features were more
than familiar: they were unmistakably those of the
ever-adventurous "Mad Boy" McCammond who had
caused Treaty-Port life to become both the quieter
and the poorer by his disappearance from its then
gay security some six or so years earlier. I was in
two minds as to whether or not I should turn back.
I was sufficiently Intrigued to try to learn more, and
besides, there at least was a man who might well
prove the means of accomplishing rny mission. How-
ever, on further reflection I came to the conclusion
that even to see Mad Boy again and listen to his
story no doubt a fascinating one was not worth the
risk of a new series of expensive arrests. Then, al-
most immediately after I had started again on my
way, I was aware of galloping hooves behind me and
in turning saw the familiar figure draw level, rein
in and dismount, almost in one effortless action.

"It's yourself sure enough, then/' he greeted me.

"Mad Boy, this is grand!" I cried. "So you did
recognize me?"

"Sure, and how could I not?" Then suddenly,
looking slightly apprehensive, he added, "And how
the divil did you know I was here?"

I could hardly restrain a smile. Whatever he was
up to, Mad Boy had apparently lost none of his Irish
conceit.

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 151

"If Fd known you were here/' I replied, "I prob-
ably wouldn't have been arrested on eleven succes-
sive days on charges of attempting to see the
Marshal/'

He threw back his head and laughed. "Praise be
to the pigs!" he exclaimed. " 'Tis always the same.
But come along now and if it's himself that you're
after, then sure 'tis aisy enough for you to be seeing
him to-day/'

We started back, I with mingled feelings of sur-
prise and delight.

"But tell me/' I asked, "what in the name of all
that's insane have you got yourself up to now?"

"Praise be! And did you know I'm a general?"
he replied. "And indeed I'm prouder still of the
tidy price that's set about my head; it's a long story
I'd be telling. But now what will it be that brings
you after plaguing the Marshal?"

"Well!" I exclaimed, thankful that somebody had
actually asked me at last. "It's roads. I believe
there's a big scheme afoot for threading the prov-
ince with roads. I'm only interested commercially,"
I added with caution.

What 1 gathered to be two bodyguards had now
joined us and taken over my companion's horse as
we slowly retraced our way to the Yainen.

"Roads," he reflected. "Yes, and indeed there was
a scheme, but now . . . Anyhow, you'll be talking
to the Marshal; it's himself that better be telling
you/'

"I've just paid twenty-five dollars for the priv-

152 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

ilege of learning that ' Himself is in Loyang," I
informed him.

44 And indeed he was. What would you be think-
ing the dust storm just now was all about? Sure, it
was no more than 'Himself coming back from
Loyang/'

"The Marshal!" I exclaimed. "Marshal Meng-
but . . . but which was he?"

"You may ask/' came the reply, "for I'm niver
quite certain myself. You see, hell always be riding
as one of the escort/'

"Indeed! Is that caution or democracy?"

"Divil, and it's a bit of 'ern both," replied Mad
Boy, "but he does it, I'd be saying, chiefly for the
fun of the thing."

I smiled. "He must be a character."

"A character, you're saying! He's a barrelful of
monkeys in mischief and cruder by far than Mc-
Ginty's backyard. But he's as fine a man as ever
you'll be meeting. I'd die for him ivery day, even
if 'twere not my job to be doing just that."

We had regained the outer approaches to the
Yamen, and I was about to ask my friend the extent
to which he was rewarded for this quaintly expressed
privilege when there was a metallic clatter on the
stone cobbles. I observed that my now startled ac-
quaintance, the scruffy sentry so much of whose
daily routine had been lately taken up in arresting
me, was in the act of presenting arms. It was a re-
markable performance made even more distinctive
by the fact that in its process the meat skewer be-
came detached from the muzzle of his carbine and,

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 153

as we passed, lay adjacent to a pair of carpet-slip-
pered extremities.

"You'll be welcome in my quarters/' my friend
was saying. "They're roomy enough and Danny
the pilot 's away."

I murmured my thanks.

"Sure and you can stay/' he went on, "if indeed
for the love of Michael you'll not be crying out your
eyes with laughing, or be forfeiting your head for
the loss of his face."

I began deliberating with some apprehension on
the extent to which acceptance might prejudice my
fond hopes for a long future.

"Of course/' I said, rather lamely, "it's very good
of you . . . very good indeed of you ... I ..."

"Not at all, at all, now/' he interrupted me. "Ill
arrange for the Marshal to be seeing you at six. 'Tis
the hour before that is his sacred one."

"Sacred one?" I inquired. "The hour of Mogreb
or something?"

Mad Boy was smiling. " 'Himself/ " he said, "is,
if you'll not be knowing it, a high priest among
heathen. I might be telling you about that hour,
but 'tis better, maybe, yourself should be finding
out. And if you'll be curbing that gape of surprise,
he'll be showing you the finest man to be born be-
yond Kerry and a bagful of pranks besides/*

I was indeed surprised, if not bewildered, from
the first moment of my meeting with the Marshal.
I thought Mad Boy must have been back at his old
tricks when he ushered me into an apartment which

154 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

was utterly devoid o any furniture or adornments
save for a single bench set against one of the bare
and crudely plastered walls. In the middle of this
rickety form sat a huddled and begrimed creature
clothed in the tattered garments of an impoverished
outlaw. 1 glanced over my shoulder and noted that
the door had been closed behind me, so that I stood
alone in a state of embarrassed uncertainty before
this strange and sorry figure who neither looked up
nor made the slightest stir of life at my entrance.
Then it occurred to me that this must be an ante-
room to the Marshal's private apartment and that
if I instilled into the bedraggled creature before me
the urgency of my appointment, something would
assuredly happen. I tried it, only to find that my
idea was a mistaken one. Raising my voice to some
semblance of authority, I inquired in Chinese who
he was, adding that It would be as well that he an-
swer rny question, if indeed he was equipped with
the faculties of hearing any speech. That utterance
caused him to stir, though no more than perceptibly.
But the reply which it evoked, surprising in itself,
staggered me the more by the fact that it was not
framed in the local dialect but delivered in the soft
measured tones of Mandarin.

"I can hear and I can speak. You ask me who I
am. I answer I am a common soldier. You are, I
suppose, an Englishman, for you are impatient and
obviously lacking a little in elegance. What might
it be that you want?"

Intrigued though I was, I recovered my compo-
sure quickly, since I found myself to be little en-

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 155

amoured of the twist of this clever ruffian's tongue.

"I have an appointment with the Marshal," I
replied brusquely. "Please show me to him imme-
diately."

The tattered and uncouth creature before me
then slowly raised his head and looked me straight
in the eye. As he did so, I vividly remembered some
children's pantomime in which the ogre is, in a flash,
transformed into a glittering figure of princeliness.
An exaggerated metaphor, maybe, but it was just as
though the tattered trappings and generally be-
grimed appearance all magically fell away. A coun-
tenance rich in infinite wisdom and full of fearless
intent, it was in every way the most striking I have
thus far seen: indeed, a remarkable face. It was at
once ruthless and kindly, and precious to behold in
that moment when I became aware that the features
were indisputably those of the Marshal.

Clumsily, of course, I endeavoured to make
amends. I clicked my heels, then bobbed my head
three times towards him, said "Your Excellency"
in Chinese and added "Sorry" in my own tongue:
in all, I suppose, a pretty poor pattern of apology.

"Mai~yeo-fa-t'ze" he said, rather wearily I
thought; and then, as though it might be in mimicry,
astounded me by translating the expression into Eng-
lish. "It is," he repeated, "of little account."

Then, with an elegant gesture, he removed his
hands from the frayed folds of their opposite sleeves
and motioned me to be seated beside him. I could
not help observing those hands: to his general un-
kempt and bedraggled appearance, they were as

156 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

much in contrast as was the form of his face and
expression. They were most exquisitely shaped and,
beneath the grime, undoubtedly smooth. Somehow
it was difficult to escape a conviction that the dirt
had been deliberately applied; it was as though the
man were a well-bred actor cast in the role of desti-
tute beggar. And here I was to find that, for once,
my conviction was perfectly right.

Obeying his injunction, I seated myself cautiously
at his side; for the bench we now shared was so
crudely carpentered that it swayed perilously be-
neath us. Thus I sat for a time, in mortal dread,
not daring to imagine such a scene as might ensue
should this frail thing collapse in the course of our
conversation. Already I had been embarrassed
enough and prayed only to be spared this final ca-
tastrophe.

"To-morrow/' said the Marshal, reverting sud-
denly to his native tongue, "1 beg that you will
honour me by acceptance of my hospitality in an at-
mosphere more appropriate to a foreign guest of
obvious distinction. To-day, I would crave your
pardon and ask you to excuse me: I am weary and
not a little troubled/'

I thanked him and in token of my appreciation
and sympathy inclined myself gracefully from the
waist towards him. Hastily, however, I made frantic
endeavour to restore equilibrium, and with but a
fraction of time to spare. As though to mock my
movement, the seat had inclined in equal degree to
the accompaniment of an ominous creak, causing
the Marshal, who must needs be borne with it, a

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 157

moment of alert apprehension. That put "paid" to
any attempts at elegance: I was much too precar-
iously perched for further excursions into the cour-
tesies of China. Henceforward I posed in the sadly
lost style once assumed by cockaded footmen of
Edwardian England, whose immobile attitude above
the box bestowed dignity upon the crested carriages
of society in more spacious days.

"To-morrow," continued the war lord, as calm
was restored, "you will feast with the Marshal Meng
Li Fu. Just now, you honour with your company
no more than his most humble servant. A fact,"
he concluded, "which, to judge from your manner,
was apparent on your entry."

"No one," I protested in all sincerity, "could fail
to detect the Lord of the Elegant Sword, even
though he may, for good reasons unknown to me,
adopt trappings that would better become a bandit."

As I finished my sentence I became conscious of
the fact that he was for the first time regarding me
with interest.

"You speak my language surprisingly well for a
foreigner," he remarked, "and the turn of your
phrase suggests that you were born to be wise. But
I fear I must call you to a state of correction. These
trappings, as you term them are those of Lao Er,
the lowest of all my menials, who, as you earlier sug-
gested, is normally mute. But, as yet, not one among
the force which form the Yanien guard, nor indeed
within the garrisons beyond, has proclaimed me,
thus guised, as Lord of the Elegant Sword."

"But surely your features ..." I began.

158 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

With no more than an elegant twist of his hand,
he bade me hold my words.

"You must be unaware, I think, of certain mat-
ters. The first concerns me, the rest are affairs
among the men of my armies. Was I not born to
become a marshal of China, then indeed I should
have been known as an actor less talented maybe
than Mei Lang Fan, but certainly more robust."

He paused as though to allow the significance of
this statement its due measure of appreciation, and
then continued:

"It is perhaps well that I be endowed with the
ability to play a part. You see, there is much that
may be said in the presence of one who is widely be-
lieved to lack the gifts of hearing and speech. Thus
it is that the mute menial by whom you sit may
sweep at will about the quarters of the Guard or, at
such times as his uncertain health permits, boil tea
for those who argue in idleness about the barrack-
room. Lao Er, you will understand, must needs be
a sickly man equipped with an absentee warrant
which applies whenever the Marshal has affairs else-
where. In effect, though, by some strange unques-
tioned artifice that is all his own, the same sick
servant contrives to follow the High Tuchan on his
many missions to the garrisons further afield; and if,
perchance, the Marshal must unwillingly treat with
the scum of a so-called central government, the slat-
ternly presence of his silent shadow performs an
essentially significant service."

The war lord cleared his throat as though to indi-

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 159

cate that his utterances were still short of their
climax.

"I am told/' he went on, "that you are an English-
man with a high sense of honour; and therefore I
have no doubt that, in accordance with your West-
ern code, I may belittle myself in your mind by the
fact that I spy upon my soldiers. It is a pity If this
be so, since it is my desire that, in exchange for my
confidences, you, in turn, may honour me with cer-
tain of yours/'

He continued Immediately, as though to safeguard
his remarks against the slightest intrusion: "So first
I must explain this poor wretch who has been tor-
tured and horse-whipped and was once all but
hanged by disorderly elements among my Guard,
and tell you why I cannot as yet grant him his only
wish, which is the privilege of peacefully dying. As
it is, I may well die first, since these days are pre-
carious and the elements of treachery abound in
whichever direction I turn the deaf ears of Lao Er.
I must know the extent of it and from whence It
springs; there Is much that I have learnt in the past
few days, but . . /' He stopped abruptly. "Why do
you look at me in such surprise?"

"I ... I must beg your pardon/' I stammered. "I
thought ..."

"Of course," he reassured me. "The Marshal was
indeed in Loyang; but Lao Er has not been blind to
the discomforts of your several arrests. You are a
persistent man, I think. Perhaps you will inform
me of the cost of your persistence in the matter of
bribes."

l6o CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

"It is of no account/' I replied briefly.

1 'Then I, too, can be persistent/' said the Marshal
severely. "I would like to know how much you paid
to the officers and men o the Yamen Guard/'

"Well/* I made a rapid calculation and divided
the answer by half "certainly not more than forty-
five dollars in all/'

"Ai Ya!" exclaimed the war lord. "You have paid
my soldiers forty-five dollars!"

"Perhaps it was not quite so much/' I added ra-
ther nervously.

"If you had paid them ninety dollars/' replied
the Marshal, "1 should have been better pleased.
Because, you see/' he blandly concluded, "now for
six moons past I have paid them nothing at all."

I was struck by the frankness of his utterance,
which explained so much that I had recently ex-
perienced.

"Forty-five dollars," he reflected, "adds an urgency
to your persistence; and is it, as the Irish general
suggests, all in aid of my roads?"

"Not in their construction," I explained, seizing
this unexpected opportunity to expand upon the ob-
jects of my mission, "but there is a substance which
hardens the surface. It . . ."

"We will forbear for the moment," he broke in,
"to discuss any questions of surface: there are mat-
ters which to me are of much deeper moment. I
have the wish to know, first, the Englishman's im-
pression of me/'

This was wholly unexpected.

"I have no knowledge of official opinion," I re-

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD l6l

plied tactfully, "since I am neither of the Embassy
nor of the Consular service. But wholeheartedly I
will proclaim my own, which is widely shared, and
say you are regarded as a soldier of brave distinction,
an administrator of considerable merit and, over-all,
a figure never-failing in its ability to capture the
imagination of the multitude. Politically, it is a
matter of common knowledge that you are out of
sympathy with the central government and that in
no greater degree are you attracted to their per-
petual enemiesthe new People's Army whose ris-
ing strength Nanking but vainly endeavours to
suppress. It is thought/' I continued, "at least by
the traders, that you may well be such a man as
might hold the balance of power between these main
elements of continual civil strife, since where you
might choose to throw the weight of your loyal and
independent armies should serve in itself to settle
the issue/'

The suggestion of a sigh escaped the Marshal, "I
would surrender life that it might be so/' he whis-
pered. And then on a louder, more hopeful note
he added, "As it is, it must, I suppose, be the roads.
Indeed there may be only the roads left on which
to depend for the continued existence of my power
and the maintenance of all my men at arms. So un-
less/' lie laid emphasis on the word "unless it may
happen that you and your trader friends will lend
some measure of practical support to the polite opin-
ions you have so elegantly expressed, then as a last
resort I must turn to the highways to deaden the at-
tention of my troops to the rebellious elements; the

CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

infiltrators who are finding their way into each of
the scattered garrisons that house what you have
generously termed my loyal and independent ar-
mies. A soldier, you know/' he continued more
slowly and softly, "is first of all human: he remains
loyal and independent for only so long. After a time
his independence must needs be fortified by some
token for his service, lest his loyalty become subject
to barter among agents from the armies of others."

While he paused for a moment I endeavoured to
sort out in my mind the significance of what he had
said. But I completely failed to fathom how it might
be that the construction of highways would serve to
prevent the desertion of unpaid troops to forces op-
posed to his. As to his alternative suggestion, I had
no doubt that it was his intention to become more
precise.

"If, as you suggest/' the war lord went on pres-
ently, "that I hold the balance of power in China,
is that not in itself a sufficiency upon which to come
to agreement? I am aware of the millions of British
money tied up in the Treaty Ports and which in the
passage of time, I would warn you, may well become
forfeit. Now, were I to offer for development, to
your industrialists and engineers, the wide virgin
territories of China that are beholden to me in
themselves both vaster and richer than all England-
would you not, in return for such monopoly, extend
your support and indulgence to me?"

This astounding offer, which 1 took to be genu-
ine, led me to take refuge from immediate commit-
ment behind long-winded explanations concerning

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD l6g

government recognitions, international agreements
and commercial treaties about which, I may say, my
knowledge was probably on a par with that of the
sentry in the Sherlock Holmes hat.

He lent polite ear to this rambling discourse until
such time as I dried up completely. Then he re-
plied with a patient air:

' 'But I think you misunderstand me. I am well
aware that this is a matter which cannot be nego-
tiated through the diplomatic authorities whose
letters of credence are addressed to the central gov-
ernment. For this reason it is to you please under-
stand, to you personally that I am making this
offer. Since I am told that you are the representa-
tive of perhaps the most prominent among all Brit-
ish industries possessing wide interests which are
quite independent of governments and embassies,
to you, alone, therefore, I am affording the oppor-
tunity of a great development in your own interests,
in return for which I would ask no more than shall
we say a few hundred thousand of taels in first
token of good faith and understanding. I think it
is a bargain which you would be wise to accept."

It seemed hard to grasp the fact that I had come
here in the hope of selling an experimental ton or
two of surface hardening, only to find myself sharing
a precarious bench with a fabulous war lord, dressed
up as a deaf-and-dumb coolie, who was seriously
trying to interest me in the purchase of eighty thou-
sand square miles of Central China.

"Will you accept?" he insisted.

164 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

"But Marshal/' I pleaded, "this cannot be decided
by me."

"It cannot!" he shouted in tones of rising anger.
"It cannot! Then who are you who dare to intrude
upon niy time? Must I remind you that I am Meng
Li Fu a marshal of China, the dignity of whose
position confines his attention solely to others who
are of sufficient eminence to provide his proposals
with an instant Yes or No?"

This roiled me: the man was being childish.
"Very well, Your Excellency," I said coldly. "Then
I will give you an immediate reply: the answer is
No."

I sat stock still in the deathly hush that was even-
tually broken by the war lord's reversion to a more
normal manner.

"You are a brave man," he said quietly, "and I
respect you the more for it." He paused and then
added more slowly, "Tell me, at what would you
assess your worth?"

"My worth?"

"Shall we say, ten thousand taels?"

"You mean . . ."

"You suggested," he explained, "that my trap-
pings might better become the bandit. Maybe I
might better become the character too, since unless
my roads mature with promptitude, I will indeed
be a desperate man. It would be easyvery easy, I
think to hold you to hostage, though, of course, an
honoured guest, for as many weeks as it might take
your industrial lords to negotiate terms for your re-
lease. Do you not agree?"

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 165

Having delivered himself of this ominous state-
ment, he regarded me with Intent for a second
before becoming suddenly charged with a new ur-
gency. All in one instant he shuffled his feet, rose
abruptly and moved swiftly to the door, which I
was presently aware had closed behind him. It was
a manoeuvre which, in that moment of my grave ap-
prehension, could not have been more perfectly
timed to catch me offguard. As I picked myself up
a little painfully from the floor, I could only be-
lieve that it was deliberately done. I stood dusting
my suit, stupidly surveying the splintered remains
of the bench, and vaguely speculated on what there
might be to follow. Then the door fell slightly ajar
again and Mad Boy's head appeared, like a conspira-
tor's, round it.

"Praise be to the Almighty!" he whispered.
"Surely now and you've not been allowing him to
upset yourself?"

"Oh no!" I replied in louder tones. "But, if you
have such a thing in captivity, I could surely use a
drink."

"Eight swords!" I ventured, thrusting forward
three fingers of my right hand; but the wily Mar-
shal had simultaneously shot out no more than an
elegant two. In strict unison we closed our respec-
tive palms to throw them open again with a changed
display of digits and his accompanying call of "Five
bamboos!" The estimate was no more correct; so
the traditional contest continued until the loser was
found and called to pay forfeit: the result, I felt

l66 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

sure, was a foregone conclusion, since the war lord
in his cups was craftier still.

"Nine stars!" he bellowed,

'Tour flowers!" I countered.

"One phoenix."

"Six scrolls-ah!" His fully open palm mocked at
my solitary upraised finger while the Marshal gra-
ciously bowed to me as a victor may to the van-
quished. I, in turn, appropriately raised my cup,
brimful of the warm wine from kaoliang, first to
him with a ringing "kam-bei" and then to my lips
to drain the measure, in accordance with tradition,
in a single quaff.

"Ai Ya!" exclaimed the war lord. "What the
Irish general has told me is right. It seems, indeed,
that both your legs must be hollow/'

As I put my cup down it was immediately re-
plenished from a burnished kettle by an exquisite
maiden with a camellia in her tightly bound raven
hair. Her figure was so elegantly slender as to be
scarcely discernible beneath a gown of patterned bro-
cade fashioned high to the throat and slit from
ankle to knee.

In answer to my formal inquiries she said that her
name was White Floating Lotus and that she would
be seventeen in the first moon of the coming year.
She was certainly wise to the use of cosmetics and,
I should hazard, despite her coy facade, to the ways
of the world as well.

White Floating Lotus was utterly mine. With an
extravagant gesture Marshal Meng Li Fu had, half-
way through the fourteenth dish, made me an en-

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 167

tirely unsolicited gift of her. For himself, despite an
outward air of utter indifference, he appeared well
content with the yet younger charms of Precious
Blue Hill. Her close and quite immovable prox-
imity to the Marshal's chair proclaimed her a hussy,
while it afforded the war lord the use of but one
overworked hand for his chopsticks, his cup, his
more elegant gestures and an increasing insistence
to engage me in the finger game.

"W. F. Lotus" and "P. B. Hill," as the droll pilot
Danny proclaimed them, had just arrived at the
Yamen by air from Shanghai. It was all in the day's
work for Danny to purchase such playthings for the
Marshal; but, as the pilot put it to me, "The Old
Man's apt to be choosy and it's no picnic when I'm
ordered to return the empties."

Apart from the playthings, we were a party of six
until Danny passed quietly out, and the night was
designed on a truly imperial scale. Certainly the
Marshal was en fete and, in his gala rig, a striking
contrast to the equally unforgettable figure who had
so thoroughly unsettled me on the evening before.
Now he was resplendent in a uniform- fashioned, I
was told, from his own design of blue and scarlet
and gold, emblazoned with trappings and an extrav-
agant cluster of orders in odd design. Except for
the gendarme's hat two sizes too small with a bob-
ble on top which reposed upon his head through-
out the night, his attire resembled that which I once
saw worn by a French firechief at a function in the
town of Tours. But whether he was thus fabulously
arrayed or clothed in rags was of little account to

1 68 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

me, drawn as I was by the strange magnetism of the
Marshal's mien. Unshaven and deliberately be-
grimed or, as now, smooth and flushed with wine
and lit by the glow of abandon, his was ever a face
indescribably brave and, in moments of unguarded
repose, still charged with the wisdom of all things,
set off by an air of effortless grace. I found it utterly
impossible to believe that even the dullest among
his near-million garrisoned men could fail for a mo-
ment to detect that the eyes of a mute Lao Er were
in reality those of the Marshal. This led me to won-
der how much I should accept among the things
which he had said on the previous day. Could this
brave face have been carved on a figure of no more
than fabulous fun, or was it just that he was a man
possessed of a puckish wit? Was he certain that 1
would sprawl on the floor when he suddenly rose
from the rickety bench and, of paramount impor-
tance, was I indeed even now being held as his hos-
tage? I knew the answer to none of these things;
and not a glimmer could I gain from Mad Boy Mo
Camrnond, whom I had taxed all day with my ques-
tions and whose features 1 sought again now in
search of some possible, unguarded clue.

There was nothing to be discerned. He sat, a
little ruffled maybe with too much food and wine,
but still erect, rather formal and, unlike the Mad
Boy I had known of old, keeping an obviously tight
rein on sobriety. He was uniformed in undress or-
der of light field grey, and his tunic, with epaulets
bearing the Chinese insignia of a general, had ob-
viously been cut with precision. On his breast hung

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 169

three medals. The first two' were rewards for service
with the Marshal; the third, the Military Cross, he
had gained in some minor British operation during
the early twenties, not long after he had been ga-
zetted from Sandhurst. It was strange indeed to see
the latter worn in the wake of such odd companions.
Two other things I noticed about the young Irish-
man that evening: he wore a revolver at the ready
in its holster, and his eyes seemed but seldom to
stray from the Marshal.

There was little to note about Danny before he
slumped into a heap on the floor and was left there
to the utter unconcern of the others. He had been
in the air all day, no doubt after a long night of
making up for lost time in the brighter haunts of
Shanghai. I put him down as a typical young Amer-
ican of the daredevil type to whom life, in its prob-
able brevity, existed as a prolonged escapade. He
could hardly have been more than twenty-four, and
the only embellishments his tunic bore were min-
iature wings and evidence that he held the rank of
full colonel.

Then there was Major General Huang, who was
the war lord's chief of staff. Ralph Huang was a
product of Harrow and "The Shop/* and in every
way a delightful fellow with the unusual faculty of
combining the best qualities of both the East and
the West. There could be no question concerning
his genuine respect for the Marshal; indeed it was
impossible to be other than aware that he wor-
shipped his war lord even more deeply than did
Mad Boy. The difference probably amounted to

CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA^ HAND

no more than the fact that the Irishman did at times
have occasional thoughts for himself.

The party was completed by Dr. Chen, a some-
what sinister man who wore wide horn-rimmed
glasses and a long black gown. He was the Mar-
shal's minister for civil affairs and had just returned
to the Yamen that afternoon, having completed a
tour of several months, during which he had visited
every town and district within the wide territories
of the war lord's rule. Dr. Chen became more and
more expansive as the night wore on; and, in the
end, his timely return to the Yarnen acquired a deep
significance for me, since it provided an answer to
at least one of my questions. It was Dr. Chen's
proud boast that the success of his recent mission
lay in the fact that he had brought sufficient pres-
sure to bear upon a vast and widely scattered pop-
ulace to extract from them in advance the taxes
falling due over the next ten years. He was no more
specific than to state that the necessity for such ruth-
less action lay in the interests of provincial develop-
ments which would ultimately benefit the people
themselves.

So much did Dr. Chen say to me. To the thou-
sands whose ' 'benefit" would amount to no more
than immediate starvation, I had a notion that he
had not said "developments" but "roads."

"I must turn to the highways," the Marshal had
said, "to deaden the attention of my troops to the
rebellious elements." I understood now what he
meant. "Roads" was a face-saving figure of speech,
no more than a means to an end. The overtaxed

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 171

peasant must perish, I thought; but I doubted that,
as he died slowly and in desperate want, he would
suffer the less by knowing that his life was token
for the loyalty of a soldier.

The orgy of eating had terminated with the tra-
ditional bowls of rice and tea; but while the Mar-
shal remained on the crest of his form, in a mood of
ever-increasing benevolence, no question arose of
forsaking the table. The war lord, who periodically
wiped his glowing face with a steaming towel, had
consumed without aid a full flagon of native liquor
and was now surveying with relish a second, which
he insisted upon opening himself by the simple ex-
pedient of breaking its neck on the back of my chair.
He offered me a share in this; but anticipating the
immediate effect of such a travesty of brandy upon
an already discomforted stomach, I craved most
courteously to be excused, and the Marshal, despite
his earlier designs so obviously aimed at seeing me
"spliced," seemed now less inclined to insist. Ralph
Huang was aware of the reason, which he whispered
in a neutral tongue: "C'est la dernier e bouteille dans
la cave. 33

"Marshal Meng," I presently began, with a view
to making some expression of thanks to a lavish host,
but he raised his disengaged hand in objection.

"I would like it," he said, "if you would address
me more familiarly by the honourable name which
was given to him who was once the Marshal Meng
of England/'

During this stage of the proceedings the war lord,
not a little surprisingly, was suffering from hie-

172 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

coughs which he unleashed at intervals upon his
audience with a deafening lack o restraint.

"Of England?'' I repeated in a bewildered voice.

"Ker-cher-na," he announced whilst in the throes
of an internal upheaval which expelled Itself like a
clap of thunder re-echoing from the rafters.

Mad Boy took the opportunity of mouthing across
at me, "Kitchener -he's after asking you to be call-
ing him Herbert/' at which astonishing prompt I
have no doubt my already bemused expression as-
sumed the look of a lunatic. But if indeed it was
the Marshal's wish, then . . .

"Look here, Herbert . . /' I began, accidentally
slipping back into English, but that was as far as I
got before stranger events began to happen.

The door opened and an officer of the Yamen
Guard approached the Marshal. "It is an hour be-
fore dawn," he announced. "Your Excellency
wished to speak with the rebels before they bow to
the sword/'

In a moment the war lord was steady and his
clear voice penetrated the stillness of the room.

"Bring them before me now/'^

As the officer went about his bidding there was a
stifled gasp followed by the scamper of feet and,
though my eyes were held to the Marshal, I was
aware that the girls had hurriedly left through the
servants* door. Then I heard the nervous tones of
Dr. Chen excusing himself on some hastily framed
pretext and I knew that he must be lily-livered too.
So only the three of us, Ralph Huang, Mad Boy
and I, remained seated by the Marshal as the main

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 173

door opened again to admit, with their guards, six
men whose heads were shortly due to be severed.

They were a strangely assorted lot. One was out-
standing in his physical bearing and fearless expres-
sion and in particular contrast to another who
looked no more than a boy of fifteenupon whom
terror had taken a merciless grip. The remaining
four were nondescript rabble. All were stripped to
the waist, their wrists manacled, and each had been
branded on the chest with the indelible legend of
"Traitor." They knelt in line and bowed their
heads before the Marshal. Meng Li Fu then rose,
poised in perfect dignity, bowed in turn to them
and bade the guards unshackle the men and then
withdraw. Presently, in slow, steady tones of quiet
authority, he addressed himself to the condemned.

"I know each of you/' he began, "by name and
that you are emissaries from the armies of others
who would barter for the loyalty of my troops. I
know also/* he went on, "from whence you each
have come and where I shall shortly return your
severed heads, whilst your bodies remain rotting
above the soil. I offer you no quarter, for your kid-
ney is such as calls for none; but as an honourable
soldier I will grant to your elected spokesman the
usual courtesy, which is the last privilege of speak-
ing at will from the heart. Please stand to your
feet."

The Marshal then seated himself, and the branded
men all rose with the exception of the whimpering
boy who remained kneeling and pleading most piti-
fully for mercy.

174 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

"High Tuchan I am no rebel, no traitor. Jus-
tice/' he cried, "has forsaken me. Oh my Lord, I
have served none but you . . . none never . . /'
Then he broke down so completely in a torrent of
sobbing that I was moved irresistibly to the point
of intervention.

"Your Excellency/' I said rising, "this is none of
my affair, but permit me to suggest that the boy
seems over-young to have part in such troubles as
these/'

It had to come out, though I, whose business
it should have been to remain silent, nervously
watched the Marshal's face with a sense of grave mis-
giving. His features, masklike and immovable, cast
a contemptuous glance at the squirming youth; then,
to my intense surprise, he gently commanded the
boy to rise, to be silent and to stand apart from the
others.

"My honoured guest, the Englishman," he added,
"presumes to say you are innocent. For his sake,
therefore, I will spare you the headman's sword/'
He turned to face the others. "I now await the
words that would spring from the spokesman's
heart/'

The words then came from the one of broad stat-
ure and fearless expression.

"High Tuchan/' he began with a gracious bow,
"first I speak not as a common soldier under arms
to the Lord of the Elegant Sword; but as a captain
in the Nanking Company of Guards whose alle-
giance is to Marshal Chang. And, since you have ex-
tended to me the last liberty of speaking from the

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 175

heart, I would say, High Tuchan, that I am an actor
of equal talent with you."

In the unbearable silence which followed this
opening, I was conscious that Mad Boy's hand
moved instinctively towards his holster.

"You said just now/' continued the captain, "that
you pose as an honourable soldier. You are an able
and fearless one yes; but I say that he who one day
wears the insignia which proclaims him a marshal
of China and on the next is to be seen in the guise
of some mute, mild mercenary, so as to spy upon
his restless and unpaid men, can never, at least in
the code of the central armies, be considered a sol-
dier of honour."

Again I was aware of Mad Boy shifting his feet
as his hand took a grip on the butt of his revolver.

The spokesman now concluded: "I will use my
last words in the expression of thanks for the patient
ear so graciously afforded me. In return for this, I
will extend to you the gift of some knowledge that
may be of service in your private affairs. Among
your Yamen Guard and in all the garrisons which
house so many who may shortly desert your arms,
it is everywhere known that the mute Lao Er has
the same brave eyes as the Marshal Meng Li Fu."

He bowed elegantly and was silent.

Then with a wealth of deliberation and dignity,
the Marshal rose and, after a gesture of courtesy,
began his answer to this outspoken address:

"Captain Yangfor I am well aware as to your real
identity you are the brave son of a proud father
whom I was once honoured to know as Provincial

176 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

Governor of Northern Hupeh. What you have said
is only thus far true: indeed you saw the same eyes
in the sickly halfwit, the same eyes which / now use
with envy to regard the finer figure of youthful
courage which is you. Because I am a proud man,
though with less reason to be than your father, I
have never before betrayed the fact that the mute
Lao Er was none other than my son. His eyes yes,
they were brave; but that was all: none the less I
dearly loved him, for which reason I kept him by
me, forever close at hand/'

"If your words be true, High Tuchan," came back
the challenging voice of Captain Yang, "then I claim
this extension to my last privilege. Call him, now,
to your side, so that I may take my final leave of
father and son together/'

The rest of us at the table were fully conscious
that the condemned man had indeed thrown down
a last challenge to the old Marshal which must surely
be beyond his wits to counter. I turned apprehen-
sively from the younger man, chin high and fearless
in face of his imminent end, and looked up into the
features of the war lord. He, in turn, stood his
ground like a rock, his countenance sublime, his
expression quite unwavering. And when he spoke
it was with a voice charged as though from the very
depths of human emotion.

"I pray, Captain Yang, that you will forbear to
taunt an aging man who speaks to you thus humbly
in his hour of most desperate grief, that you will not
torture me the more by an insistence that I have
the poor wretch brought before us now. You see

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD

..." and it was as if the Marshal's eyes, now brim-
ful with unchecked tears, reached out towards the
stars, "you see, sad creature though he may have
been, he was a son who was abundantly precious to
me; and . . . and he died this afternoon. That . . .
that is all there is to be said."

Even the men whom he had condemned were
moved beyond further words by the Marshal's ap-
parently genuine expression of grief. His was the
curtain; he had seen to it that his must be the last
lines spoken in this strange, unaccountable drama.
And presently, as though it were to clear the stage
and change the set, the guards returned and led the
five men out to meet their ignominious end.

The Marshal wiped his face; then seizing the
flagon of brandy, he raised its jagged neck to his lips
and, throwing back his head, drained its contents in
a single audible gulp.

"Your son . ." I began presently, anxious to
create the courteous but quite false impression that
I, too, had been deceived by his display of histrionics.
"Your son through what means did he die?"

The Marshal turned himself fully towards me,
and soon his whole countenance was beaming in ob-
vious delight at my question.

"He died," he replied, "at the very moment in
which his purpose for living was complete. He died
this afternoon on the Highway."

For a time his whole frame shook in a paroxysm
of hiccoughs and uncontrolled mirth at the calcu-
lated success of his cunning. Then abruptly his
attention was aroused by the whimpering of the lad

178 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

whose life he had spared at my behest and who still
stood, despite it, a picture of stark terror at the far
end of the room.

In an instant, it seemed, it had all happened and
was over. That perhaps was the only merciful thing
about that most dramatic moment of a quite unfor-
gettable, indeed almost unbelievable, evening.

In less time than it took me to realize what he was
about, the Marshal had impulsively seized the re-
volver from Mad Boy's holster and shot the snivel-
ling youth straight through the heart.

It was something horrible and haunting. I was
hardly aware that in the next moment the war lord
had thrown the still smoking gun with a thud on
the table before us, and was now addressing himself
to me in completely casual tones.

"My foreign friend, it is possible that you are not
acquainted with the custom of China/ 7 he was say-
ing. "In this country it is understood that he who
chooses to save a drowning man must needs support
him throughout the length of his remaining days.
The lad was young: I would not have my honoured
guest fettered by an obligation of which he was
doubtless unaware/*

"But ... but Marshal, I . . /'

"You had saved his life/' he concluded with utter
indifference. Then he rose a trifle unsteadily to his
feet. "Come. It is dawn with over-much death in
the air; and an actor, like a marshal, tends to grow
weary/*

We all automatically rose and moved from the
table, while the war lord, with his hand on my

PORTRAIT OF A WAR LORD 179

sleeve, went on, "I must thank you for honouring
me with your distinguished company and, indeed,
I am sorry that it will not now be necessary for your
visit to be further prolonged. The American colo-
nelif you wish itwill fly you back to your Treaty
Port tomorrow or . . ." He paused and looked about
him. "General Huang, where is the American colo-
nel?"

Ralph Huang could hardly suppress a smile as he
nodded at the Marshal's feet, where lay the recum-
bent figure of Danny in an attitude of deep and
drunken slumber,

"Ai Ya!" exclaimed the war lord, fearful lest at an
earlier hour he had unaccountably also slaughtered
his pilot. Hurriedly and as though to make certain,
he unsheathed his sword and drove its tip fully an
inch into the fleshier part of the American's buttock.

Danny came to with a yell which gave complete
satisfaction to the Marshal, who merely nodded, put
up his sword and made for the door.

Ralph Huang and Mad Boy stood strictly to atten-
tion and bowed but perceptibly as the war lord, with
stately carriage and grave dignity, moved out be-
tween them. So he passed from view through the
door and out of my immediate, since emptier life.

But fortunate indeed are such as I, whose walls
of memory are richly adorned by the colours and
contrasts of many a Chinese canvas; and most re-
markable among them all, in vivid reflection, is the
portrait of a war lord with an inscrutable look upon
a strangely elegant face.

Chapter 11

RETURN TO EDEN

IN THE spring of 1945 I spent a week end at that
famous rendezvous of North Country anglers, the
Mitre Hotel at Wichell, overlooking the wide ex-
panse of woods below Harby Castle which slope
down to the clear grey and effortlessly moving waters
of the river Eden. Here is a paradise for those who
would cast a fly towards the ripple of a rising sal-
mon, but I had been drawn more urgently by
nostalgia, back to a boyhood haunt. While buzz
bombs fell haphazardly about London, I sought
brief sanctuary in the loveliest stretch of woods and
water which, in many years of roaming about the
world, I had yet found.

New folk had come to the village and it seemed
that my old friends were gone. What I had known
as an inn was a flourishing state-managed hotel, its
erstwhile stables converted into a garage; a half-
hourly bus service brought its week-end litter to the
glades; and I was a stranger after the passing of
nearly four decades. But there was the rough green
with its ancient commemorative cross, and about it

180

RETURN TO EDEN l8l

the picturesque dwellings had, for the most part,
changed only in their tenantry. The Norman tower,
successor centuries ago to an earlier Saxon edifice,
still rose above the ivied church testimony in a
decadent age to a steadfast and changeless faith.
And, older than history, as yet unhewn, were the
deep, lush woods below that flanked on either side
the soft, rippling curves of the river. To all these
I was no stranger: no more than a man may be to
his mother or indeed, ever, to the sights and sounds
and the early springtide of his first environment.
Basking in the gentle glow of this reflection and in
the noon stillness of an April Sunday, I strolled past
"The Old House" and leisurely along by the village
green, knowing that my footsteps would lead me
down the steep slope, past the lych gate by the
Church and inevitably on to the waters of the Eden.

I paused awhile as my thoughts were distracted by
what was at first the trickle, then the small stream
of villagers and visitors who came towards me, home-
ward-bound from Sunday morning service. Some
passed by in motorcars, to whom I paid no heed:
they would be domiciled further afield. It was a
local face I sought; one, or perhaps more, that might
not have mellowed beyond recognition. But all
were unknown to me as indeed, obviously, I was to
them.

At the end of the procession two young men walked
together. Both of them looked to be under twenty,
and, although they did not present what I was look-
ing for, they claimed my undivided attention. Mag-
nificently built so that they seemed taller than the

l82 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

six and a half feet which I judged them to be, they
each bore clean, clear-cut, rather sensitive features
so alike as to deny any doubts as to their relation-
ship. But in the matter of their dress they presented
not only a strange contrast to this rural setting, but
an exact and indeed somewhat unconventional an-
tithesis to one another. One wore, like a tight glove,
a superbly tailored Khaki service jacket, its highly
polished buttons arranged in clusters of three; his
shoes and belt had the sheen of rich mahogany, and,
its gilt-edged peak almost touching the bridge of his
nose, his blue hat was resplendent with large silver
badge and band of "dice-board. " A single star on
each shoulder proclaimed him to be an ensign in the
Scots Guards. The other walked with a no less un-
affected swagger and wore becomingly the "square
rig" and "bell-bottomed" trousers of the lower
deck. I stood there, lost to all else, fascinated by
their appearance and by the spectacle in a Cumber-
land village of an officer in the Brigade marching
along with a matelot who could hardly have been
other than his identical twin.

As they approached me, absorbed in gay conver-
sation with each other, I was overwhelmed by a
curious desire to know who they might be and how,
and when, they had come to live here if indeed
they didand a number of other things about them
as well, including the quite inconsequential consid-
eration as to whether they had ever thought of
changing uniforms and confounding their friends.

"Excuse me butting In," I said rather limply to
the officer, "but at one time I had quite a few friends

RETURN TO EDEN i8g

In your regiment. I was wondering if you knew . . ."

His keen young eye regarded me critically as he
and his carbon-copy in bell-bottoms halted abruptly
in their tracks, but when I mentioned the name his
face lit up and he said immediately, "Oh yes, sir.
Colonel John." His glance swivelled round to the
solitary star on his shoulder, "Frightfully senior, of
course/'

"And have you come across . . ." I mentioned the
name of a boy whose father I had first met when he
was an attache in Peking.

"David!" He exclaimed jubilantly. "But he's my
greatest friend; always has been that is, discounting
this hairy matelot here. David was at school, then
at Caterham and Pirbright with me; we passed out
together at Sandhurst he got the belt. We've been
up at Hawick but are going overseas on Tuesday.
But I was forgetting; I knew David first as an infant
in China."

"In China!" I exclaimed. It instantly struck me
that this superb specimen of young Guards officer
seemed somehow even more remote from any asso-
ciation with China than he did with this quiet corner
of Cumberland. But I realized by his afterthought
that we could no doubt discover a host more of mu-
tual acquaintances.

"That's intensely interesting to me," I added, and
suggested that the two of them should come back to
The Mitre with me and have a drink. It was the
sailor who demurred, explaining that they were
both on short embarkation leave and that their

184 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

grandparents, with whom they were staying, would
be expecting them.

"But, sir/' he added, "if you would care to come
inthe house is just here I know they both would
be delighted. Why not stay to lunch?"

I was struck now not only by their appearance but
by their charming manners, and perhaps rather too
eagerly accepted. The young soldier said, "Excel-
lent show! Come on/' and we moved off.

"I'm Nigel/' said the same voice, emanating from
somewhere considerably above the thin patch on my
crown, "and the Senior Service on your left is rightly
represented by my one-day-older brother, Anthony.
Here's the gate. Forgive us if we do a lightning
change; we only parade like this for church. You
know, sir, the old people rather expect it. Choose
the dry sherry, it's better than the medium ..."

" The Old House/ " I observed, trying to con-
ceal my excitement. "How long have your grand-
parents lived here?"

"Oh, about ten years, I suppose/' came the reply
as we walked up the gravel drive to the front door.
"They moved here from the south just after we
came home to school."

I realized that as they had come from another dis-
trict I would not have known them in my time, a
fact which was fully confirmed by my first eager
glance at the charming and very handsome elderly
couple who greeted us at the door. Here I was left
to introduce myself, since the moment the boys
reached the hall they did no more than mutter some-
thing quite inaudible in polite reference to me be-

RETURN TO EDEN 185

fore throwing their caps onto a camphor chest and
bounding upstairs after one another, shouting "Off
with the motley!" and undoing buttons and straps
as they went.

"Steady, there!" implored their grandfather after
them. "You'll have the house down on top of us/'

"What wonderful chaps they are/' I remarked.
"By the way, they were kind enough to ask me in.
I hope you don't mind. I'm afraid none of us know
each other's names. Mine is . . /'

My attempt to give expression to the formalities
was immediately swept aside with a laugh and an
unmistakable welcome towards a cheerful log fire
and two decanters of sherry.

"They're quite hopeless," remarked their grand-
mother, with an amused, yet quite obvious expres-
sion of deep affection on her face. "We are delighted
you should come." And I sensed that, while the
boys were staying here, nothing else very much mat-
tered.

"Are they here often?" I inquired.

"Oh, yes," she replied. "We've more or less
brought them up since they were eight. You see,
their parents, my son and his wife, are abroad . . ."

"Dry or medium?" interposed the grandfather,
fingering a decanter and wincing only slightly as a
heavy boot flung to the floor above rattled the chan-
delier under which he was standing.

"Dry if I may, please. Odd," I went on, "that
twins should choose different services/'

Their grandfather was in the midst of explaining
that they were different in many ways when he was

1 86 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

interrupted by a series of violent leaps which in-
stinctively caused him to screw up his features and
draw his chair slightly further out of range of the
centre of the threatened ceiling.

"For instance/' his wife explained for my benefit,
"Anthony sits on his bed and draws his trousers on
delicately. Nigel invariably jumps into his! It's al-
ways been the same. Won't you stay for luncheon?"

I must have appeared excessively rude by not im-
mediately acknowledging her kindness, but my at-
tention had focussed on a photograph that stood in
a silver frame above the writing desk. I was not
aware that my hostess's eyes had followed mine until
she remarked quietly:

"She's very lovely, don't you think? That was
taken many years ago, but only the last three may
have changed her, though we hope ..." She cleared
her throat. "She is the twin's mother, of course.
Our son and she were on their way home from China
at the beginning of 1 942 and were caught in Manila
after Pearl Harbor. They are in Santa Lucia in-
ternment camp that's all we know. Not very
healthy, we hear; the Japanese can be a bit bru-
tal . . ."

"I'm terribly sorry," I said hurriedly. "I . . ."

"But we must forget it," she went on, "especially
when the boys are home and both of them just going
overseas." She turned to me and smiled a little
wearily. "We try not to think about that either:
everyone's got their little troubles and after all we
escape quite a lot up here. I only mentioned it be-
cause you were looking at that photograph and she,

RETURN TO EDEN 187

poor girl, has had more than her share. It started
when the twins were born ..."

There was a crash in the hall outside, immediately
followed by another, and as their grandfather turned
up the lapels of his coat and drew his head down-
wards, the boys each cleared the last flight of stairs,
from a standing jump. Then in a moment, quite
indistinguishable to me now, they towered like a
couple of giants above the lintel of the door, clad
in the most disreputable country clothes and almost
bursting, it seemed, with fitness and health.

"Grannie, are the big eats laid on? We're starv-
ing/' said one.

"But famished/' echoed the other.

"Yes, tell Bessie/ 7 came the soft rejoinder. "Lis-
ten, tell Bessie to lay an extra place and then we're
ready."

As they scrambled towards the back premises I
made mild protest only to be met with the whis-
pered reassurance, "It's all right. I've been hoard-
ing a ham, but they don't know yet; you see, it's the
last day they'll . . /'

I am afraid that the rest of her sentence was lost,
for as the warcries echoed along the passage I was
no longer able to contain myself.

"You were saying when the twins were born," I
reminded her, vainly endeavouring to control my
excitement. "It is almost inconceivable how these
coincidences occur, but the mention of China, the
names of Anthony and Nigel, the day's difference in
their ages, and finally the photograph of their mother
which ties it all together have convinced me of some-

l88 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

thing. Just/' I concluded, "to be finally certain I
apologize for not catching itbut surely your name
must be Forsythe/'

"Of course, it's Forsythe," broke in the old man,
emerging from his coat collar and regarding me
closely. "Have you some news . . ."

"My news/' I replied, "is no more than ancient
history, but it has a bearing on the present. First,
sir, I must ask if you ever heard about the adven-
tures that attended the birth of these two giants?"

The old man sat a little more upright in his chair
and his wife leaned a little nearer towards me.

"Only/ 5 he countered, "that they were bora long
before they were expected, in a hill station or on a
train or something, and there was trouble of a sort-
one of those Chinese rebellions, if I remember. The
boy was away exploring in the wilds at the time, not
expecting anything to happen for a coupla months,
and the girl well, she's never said very much . . ."

"She wouldn't," I observed. Then rising, I picked
up the photograph in the silver frame and turned
to the two who were now regarding me with an air
of interest and expectancy.

"Sir, and with your permission, Mrs. Forsythe,"
I said, "you should all know the story, for I feel con-
vinced that if I relate it none of you will worry any
more about the twins' mother in Santa Lucia camp.
This girl, though her looks belie it, is not only the
toughest, but quite the bravest woman I know. My
part in that drama was infinitesimal compared to
hers. I merely ran ten miles over the hills to find
a doctorand again two days later to find a padre

RETURN TO EDEN i8g

to christen those two frail bundles of practically
nothing, before they had to run the gauntlet of op-
posing armies. To me it was no more than a dra-
matic adventure and always a race against time, but
for her . . . Good God! forgive me this girl could
go through hell without turning a hair and come
out of it quite unscathed. None of you need worry
on her behalf not for a moment ever . . ."

The gong echoed through the old house and there
was laughter and scurrying footsteps in the hall.
Mrs. Forsythe rose and put her hand on mine. "Tell
all of us/' she said softly. "It'll be most interesting,
but shall we tackle 'the big eats' first?"

Then she led the way into the dining room.

During the midsummer of 1926, whilst I was sta-
tioned in the humid Yangtze valley, I succumbed
to a bout of malaria and was subsequently ordered
away from Hankow to recuperate for a full week at
Mei-shan, a small resort situated in the hills of South
Honan, some sixty miles distant. The idea would
hardly have appealed to me at the best of times, for
the place consisted of no more than a few widely
scattered bungalows and a guest house which served
as a cooler retreat for British and American wives,
with their children, whose menfolk were wont to
join them only at week ends. At this time, the idea
appealed to me still less, for things were afoot which
would seem to demand the presence at their posts
of all responsible Britons.

The three cities of the Central Yangtze, known
collectively as Wu-han, were under immediate threat

1 9O CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

of capture by advancing Red Armies led by a then
unknown young soldier called Chiang Kai-shek,
who was later destined to spend over twenty years
fighting against them. Among the battlecries o this
conquering force sweeping up from the south were
"Down with Imperialism/' "Abolish the unequal
treaties," and exhortations to force out the foreigner
and seize his property. It seemed no time to be
leaving Hankow, principal of the Wu-han cities and
a Treaty Port with a large and prosperous British
concession protected by no more than a cruiser and
a gunboat anchored off the Bund, two platoons of
Royal Marines and the local Volunteers recruited
from foreign business representatives such as myself.

The fact that the British territory was subse-
quently overrun, the Marines withdrawn, the Vol-
unteers disbanded, the Union Jack openly insulted,
and the concession meekly handed over at the behest
of an apathetic Whitehall, is no more than a now
forgotten page in the history of the decline of Brit-
ish prestige abroad during the past twenty-five years.
But it serves here to create an atmosphere in which
the lives and property of English men and women
were of little account to the crude, warring factions
on the spot and, apparently, of no great concern to
those who sat in comfortable officialdom at home.

Had I known that events were to follow with such
unexpected suddenness I would have disobeyed or-
ders and stayed in Hankow; but, as it was, I travelled
the sixty miles north to Sin-Tien station on the Pe-
king-Hankow railway and was thence borne in a
wicker chair up the steep three-mile track that led

RETURN TO EDEN

to Mei-shan. There, remote from communication
with the outside world, I was prepared to stay no
more than a week, somewhat self-consciously a lone
able-bodied male amongst a host of women and chil-
dren in a rather ramshackle and overcrowded guest
house.

On the second night of my visit the most violent
thunderstorm broke over the wide range of hills sur-
rounding us, the fury of which became the more
eerie from the frightened screams of children and
the baying of pariah dogs seeking shelter. At the
height of the storm, I thought I heard a woman's
voice calling in urgent tones below my window and
endeavouring to be heard above the tumult. I threw
up the sash, and as I did so an almost blinding flash
of lightning revealed the bedraggled and drenched
figure of a young American wife I knew, clutching a
hurricane lamp and appealing to me to come
quickly. I threw on a few clothes and an old trench
coat, and within a few seconds I had let her into the
hall.

"Stella, what on earth ..." I began.

"There's no time to waste/' she said urgently.
"It's a doctor and a nurse quickly. I'm sharing a
bungalow with Kitty Forsythe and she's starting to
have a baby . . /'

"Good God!" I exclaimed, "there's no one in this
place." I thought frantically. "But wait a minute,
there's Mrs. James who runs this joint, I think she
was a nurse . . /'

"Well, for heaven's sake get her quickly/'

I ran along and hammered on Sophie James*

I 92 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

door, hoping to make myself heard above the un-
ceasing clamour of the storm. Presently I had in-
formed her what was happening in the nearest
bungalow. She was a brick, that woman, if ever
there was one; said she'd never been present at any
birth except her own and that all her nursing had
been done in army wards during the war, but she'd
pack some things and go along right away, and in
the meantime Stella must remove those soaking
clothes and have her bed.

"I know everyone who's in Mei-shan at the mo-
ment/' she went on, "and there's no one else cer-
tainly no midwife so it looks as if you and I will
have to tackle this job between us."

"Me!" I said, trying to conceal my horror.

"Oh, your part's easy," she assured me. "You have
only to find your way to the Inland Mission hospital
and bring back a doctor as fast as your legs will
carry you. If only there were telephones! But if
you keep to the right track it can't be more than
ten miles . . . Here, take this hurricane lamp; and,
Stella, you come along to my room."

I had discarded my sopping trench coat and hid-
den it with the lamp under a bush (which I never
succeeded in rediscovering) when the storm passed
and dawn broke suddenly. I cursed my lack of
training and recent bout of sickness as I cantered the
last two miles of my journey in an open shirt and
shorts and a pair of canvas shoes which continually
seemed to be taking in fresh supplies of sand and
gravel. I was grateful for my good fortune in find-
ing the way, and even more so for the manner of my

RETURN TO EDEN 193

reception at the Inland Mission Summer Hostel,
where, though it was before six in the morning, all
appeared to be up and about. They insisted I must
eat and rest and indeed, to my impatience, seemed
more concerned about me than the urgent object of
my journey.

Babies/' one of them said, "are born in China
prematurely and otherwise, at the rate of well over
a thousand an hour without much fuss or prepara-
tion. It is a natural function . . ."

"Yes, but . . ."

"You look as if you'd got a touch of malaria . . ."

It was no use protesting. I had to suffer being
given some dope, which certainly refreshed me, but
I felt that precious minutes were slipping by and
was not happy until I was shortly urging on the slug-
gish ass that had been rounded up, with another of
its kind, to convey the doctor and me back to Mei-
shan.

"Damn!" unexpectedly exclaimed my companion,
in somewhat unmissionary parlance, some two hours
later as we trotted along within half a mile of the
bungalow. "I've forgotten the blasted anaesthetic/*

Sophie James met us at the door.

"How is she?" I began.

"Wonderful! Truly marvellous/ 5 was the reply.
"Doctor, would you like to come along?"

Within five minutes he rejoined me on the mound
of rough scrub across the pathway.

"In oodles of time/' he remarked. "By the way,
d'you know her?"

I shook my head. ""Think I met her husband

1Q4 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

once. He goes off into the Gobi looking for eggs,
or something." Then we smoked and sat in silence
for a time.

"Funny thing/' he observed presently. "I did my
stuff at Bart'syears ago, of course but I've never
attended an English woman beforenot for this sort
of thing, I mean."

I was almost asleep when I suddenly remembered
something and sat up. "What about that anaes-
thetic?" I asked. "Shall I go back?"

"Oh no, that's all right/' he replied. "Mrs.
What's-her-name, the nurse woman, has sent her
Chinese cook over on one of the donkeys/'

"Then it's all right if I go and get some shut-eye?"

"You'd better," he advised, "and 111 see about
somebody pumping up a bit of water. Ought to get
it on the boil . . /'

It was after seven in the evening when I awoke,
and the news was already abroad that less than an
hour earlier Mrs. Forsythe had given birth to a boy.
The event was really no immediate concern of mine,
but I found It impossible to escape some feeling of
apprehension when I walked out in the cool evening
air and observed Mrs. James' cook astride the animal
which had earlier borne me In the same direction,
leisurely ambling towards the bungalow with a pack-
age in train. That girl must have had a hell of a
time, I thought.

I realized the next morning that my sentiment
was fully justified: another boy had been born half
an hour after midnight.

There was nothing suitably available with which

RETURN TO EDEN 195

to put his statement to the test, but the doctor cal-
culated that the infants would probably not weigh
as much as seven and a half pounds between them,
Neither he nor the ex-army nurse was fully qualified
or up-to-date in obstetrics, but they had managed to
bring the miracle off, so far successfully, with hardly
the aid of a single amenity normally available in the
meanest English household.

I glanced at the little man whose sparse frame was
drooping with anxiety and fatigue. Then spontane-
ously, and for no reason other than that I had sud-
denly developed a profound admiration for him,
I wrung his hand and said, "You ought to be
proud . . ."

"Oh, I'm getting quite good at it now" was all
that medical missionary would say in acknowledg-
ment. "But/' he added, "it's that young mother who
deserves all the praise. Ill wager that no mere man
could ever have lived out the time she's been
through; and yet she's lying in there now, as happy
as Larry, and just as proud of those boys as though
they were a couple of giants/'

"I hope they will be, some day/' I said, then added
rather tentatively, "Are they all right?"

"About a fifty-fifty chance/' he replied. "I've sent
word back to the Hostel asking them to arrange for
a fully qualified nurse and some equipment to be
sent up from the Mission Hospital in Hankow. In
the meantime I'll stand by here, and Mrs. James
and I'll do all that's possible. The mother's sheer
strength of will should see her through all right,
and the boys stand a fair chanceprovided, of

196 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

course/' he concluded, "nothing unforeseen hap-
pens."

The unforeseen did happen at five o'clock two
mornings later.

I was rudely awaked by one of the junior British
Consulate staff from Hankow.

"We've got to get moving right away/' he urged.

"Who? Where?" I asked, sitting up.

"Everyone all these women and children here
the missionaries too, wherever they are. It's got to
be done right away, otherwise anything may happen
and the Consul-General cannot accept responsibility.
Look here/' he went on rather breathlessly, "while
you're pulling on some clothes I'll tell you the posi-
tion. Briefly it's like this: Chiang Kai-shek's troops
are in Hanyang and literally at the gates of Hankow,
and demonstrations are already taking place at the
boundaries of the Concession. Marshal Wu Pei Fu
told the C.G. last night that he can hold on to the
city no longer than a further forty-eight hours, if
that. It's all the time we've got to get the women
and children out of here, down to Hankow and
aboard the ships."

I was feverishly drawing on a pair of shorts, still
slightly bewildered.

"Aren't they safer here than in Hankow?" I ven-
tured.

"Safer! Listen, Marshal Wu has sent a special
train to Sin-Tien. I came up in it. It's waiting down
there now. He's done it at the instigation of the
C.G. to give these people a chance. You see, when
the Marshal gives up Hankow he has elected to with-

RETURN TO EDEN 1 97

draw his army here here to Mei-shan, and stem the
Reds' advance towards Peking. Don't you under-
standthis is the day-after-tomorrow's battle-
field . . ."

"Wait a minute/' I said. "Oughtn't we to take
them north?"

"My instructions are quite clear/' he replied.
"Besides the Yellow River bridge . . ."

I was halfway into a light pull-over when I sud-
denly remembered.

"Good God!" I exclaimed, and sat down on my
bed.

"For heaven's sake get a move on/' said the other.
"We've no time . . ."

"When has the train got to leave?'* I asked.

"No later than five this evening that's twelve
hours from now. The evacuation ship is sailing at
midnight."

"All right/' I said. "The houseboy will wake
everybody here and tell them to get ready. You must
explain thingstactfully, of course, if the kids are
about and then get somebody to take you round
all the bungalows all of them where there are for-
eigners staying except the nearest one and 111 deal
with that myself, right away."

Then I went over and stirred the little missionary
doctor, who was sleeping fully clothed on the open
verandah of Mrs. Forsythe's bungalow, and told him
the news. When he grasped the full significance of
it, a cloud came over his normally unruffled coun-
tenance and he disappeared inside the door to confer
with Sophie James.

198 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

After about five minutes they both emerged and
Indicated that Mrs. Forsythe would like to see me.

1 found her, propped up on pillows, and if her
face betrayed any manifestation of physical strain
this was entirely overlaid with an unutterably lovely
radiance that absorbed every feature. Within her
reach were the two halves of a wicker hamper, each
of which housed in smug repose quite the tiniest
person I had ever seen.

"Aren't they darlings?" she remarked. Then,
turning to me, "I've never met you/' she said. "I
only know youVe been terribly kind and that's all
the more reason why I wanted to thank you for what
you did. It was grand of you."

I murmured something before she went on.

"So now we've got to strike camp?"

"Can it be done?" I asked. "Otherwise I'm quite
ready to . . ."

"There would seem no option/' she replied.

A frail, rather delicate hand emerged from the
bedclothes and was laid on mine.

"We'll have to try," she continued, "but I'm
afraid we must rely on you again. I wonder can I
ask you? You see, I don't worry about myself; but
my sons they're such tiny little chaps I would like
somebody to christen them first you know just in
case . . /'

I had to swallow hard before I could reassure her
that somehow it would be arranged; and then I left
hurriedly, biting back a weak tendency to emotion
and a thousand curses upon the wretched conse-
quences of man's barbarity. With no great sense of

RETURN TO EDEN 1Q9

chivalry or heroics I just knew that there was the
one woman I'd cheerfully die for.

It was nearly midday before I returned, pretty
well all in, from the faraway Mission Hostel, accom-
panied by a stalwart in light clerical garb who had
won the half-mile for Cambridge in 1909. Mei-shan
was deserted, save for the small party gathered at
the bungalow. It included the doctor, Sophie James
and Stella, who with me stood sponsor at the little
ceremony devoted to Anthony and Nigel.

But there were the chair-coolies waiting by the
mound opposite, and close on five o'clock, after in-
numerable halts for necessary respite, we completed
the hazardous journey down to Sin-Tien station.
There, the doctor and the padre insisted on accom-
panying me onto the train with no intention of
returning to their Mission until the personal crisis
was over and the party free from danger. They,
like Kitty Forsythe, who with her sons and Mrs.
James was in possession of the next compartment,
had nothing but the most remote thoughts for their
own security.

About an hour later the train slowly pulled out
south, along the single track towards Hankow.

It must have been nearly nine in the evening that
our slow journey came to an abrupt halt, and it was
growing dark when the consular representative and
I walked along the line to discover that the locomo-
tive which had been drawing the train now stead-
fastly refused to budge an inch further. We were
still twenty miles away from our destination, and if
we delayed much longer I feared that some of our

200 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

passengers might become panic-stricken. Then a
series of things happened which I must confess
brought more than momentary panic to me.

A lever-driven trolley came round a bend in the
line towards us with four pairs of Chinese hands
propelling it at top speed. An English official of the
railway, who was accompanying it, had the presence
of mind to leap off the vehicle in time, as did the
others, before it hit the bumpers of our engine with
terrific impact. But the Englishman lost no time in
picking himself up:

"Wei-tzo! Wei-tzo! Kivei-kwei wei-tzo!" he urged
the driver of our train. "Get back! Get back!
Quickly!" he repeated in English.

Spontaneously the alarmed Chinese in the cab
swung the lever over to reverse, and with a wheeze,
accompanied by a great outpouring of steam, the
train which had refused to proceed forward through
some miracle moved back. We reached a siding
and the points were switched over again with no
more than moments to spare.

We could hear their approach for miles in the
still gathering dusk, and we stood on the embank-
ment waiting with awe and apprehension in the
knowledge- which we silently prayed our restless
passengers might not share that Hankow had fallen
and that a defeated army was being swiftly borne
towards us in a wild stampede to the north.

I shall not easily forget the macabre sight of those
monster trains rushing past us in the half-light. No
less than a hundred and eighty open wagons, half
of them set with bell tents, the rest loaded with guns

RETURN TO EDEN 2O1

and equipment, were drawn in one unit by four
powerful locomotives which belched forth furnace-
lit clouds of grey smoke and sparks which flew high
into the dusk, while on the couplings of the fore-
most hung the splintered wreckage of the lever-
driven trolley. Less than a mile behind came another
of similar dimensions, then another, followed by yet
one more, seemingly even of greater magnitude and
thundering past at higher speed than its forerun-
ners. Then from away up the line to the north there
came back to us a vivid flash, followed by a noise
which there could be no mistakingthe simultane-
ous impact of a hundred metal buffers. We knew
then that calamity was not far distant and that the
chance of our party ever reaching sanctuary or of
Anthony and Nigel continuing to live had become
highly doubtful. Any means of escape from our pre-
dicament seemed hopelessly remote.

On hearing the crash, the railway official was the
first to leap into action. With a quickness apparent
in both mind and body, he seized a red lamp from
the guard and raced down the track. He had the
brave and unhesitating intention of waving to a
stop any further mass units that might be following
up. In retrospect, the grimness of the situation as-
sumes a lighter aspect at the thought of a lone Eng-
lishman flagging to a halt a train-borne Chinese
army in retreat. Nevertheless that is what he suc-
ceeded in doing and within an hour he was back,
begrimed and perspiring, accompanied by two of
Marshal Wu's staff officers.

They were both intellectual, if somewhat over-

CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

wrought young men, and before proceeding with the
English official further along the track to take toll
of the damage ahead, they advised us to evacuate
the train immediately and hide somewhere in the
surrounding country. Only half of Wu Pei Fu's
army was to the north of us, they explained, and the
remainder were about to pass us along the railway
track on foot. They could not offer any guarantee
for their discipline or behaviour. "Morale is pretty
low among defeated troops," observed one of them,
"and the Marshal will be quite unable to accept re-
sponsibility if the soldiers go through the train and
take what they want. Even if they don't/' he added,
"now the line is blocked ahead, the Marshal may
well decide to dig in here, and your train will be no
more than a target for both sides. It is certain/' he
concluded, "that, now they have taken Hankow, the
Reds will corne this way. If you have a hundred
foreign women and children with you, then they
should move away from the railway to-night, other-
wise

It was just wild barren country about us, without
any sign of habitation and no immediate means of
obtaining either food or water which would be fit
for drinking. The place was almost unbearably
humid and infested with mosquitoes. It was there-
fore in a decidedly unpromising atmosphere that the
consular official, the padre and the doctor and I held
our swift consultation. My first question concerned
Kitty Forsythe,

"Not too good/' was the doctor's verdict. "That

RETURN TO EDEN 203

journey down the hill has used up pretty well all
the strength she had."

"I see. And the twins?"

"Look here/' he said, "I'm sorry I'm not very up-
to-date as to what might or might not be done, but
you must take my opinion for what it's worth. To
shift any of them to-night would be murder; to-mor-
row possibly but not to-night."

There was silence after that for a moment as we
all tried desperately hard to think of a solution.
Then came the quiet, authoritative tones of the
padre.

"Two of us," he said, "must try and get through
to Hankow and arrange a relief party. We obviously
can't follow the railroad so we must take a chance
across country. I say two, because that gives a better
prospect of one getting through. The river must
be about seven or eight miles to the east of us, and
there should be creeks a launch might be sent to if
we can find one. Now I think that you," he turned
to the doctor "are the best man to take charge here,
then you'll be close to that young mother. I suggest
you clear everyone else off the train with all their
belongings and tell them to disperse at least a hun-
dred yards away from the embankment and see the
mothers impress upon the kids that the slightest
sound may imperil the whole lot of them. Leave
only Mrs. James on board with Mrs. Forsythe and
the twins. Tell her to draw the blinds and jam the
door of the compartment. That should get us
through to-night at least. Then the remaining one
amongst the four of us must scour the countryside

204 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

for food and something that's fit to drink;. that is
most urgent and vital, otherwise those children will
be drinking all kinds of muck. Right? Now that's
all settled, which of you two are coming with me?"

''Listen/' I said, "I agree, and I'm sure the rest of
us do too, with all you suggest. I think it's the only
chance we've got." The other two murmured their
agreement. "But" I added, "excluding the doctor
who has a definite job here, the three of us will draw
lots to decide which two make for Hankow and who
goes scrounging for food/'

Lots were quickly drawn and the padre and the
consular official immediately set oft to the South and
disappeared swiftly into the night. I, having bor-
rowed all the money the others could spare to sup-
plement what I already had in my possession,
scrambled down the embankment to search for
farms; and the doctor, who, it struck me, had the
toughest assignment of all, climbed back into the
train.

It was after daylight when I rejoined the party,
accompanied by two somewhat apprehensive, but
richly bribed native boys who had travelled miles
with me, laden with chickens and eggs, several ducks,
a quantity of buffalo meat, which I thought might
serve for a stew, and an assortment of vegetables. I
had also managed to acquire a few pots and pans,
but I had not been very successful in the matter of
precious fluids. True, I had obtained a certain
amount of milk, secreted in two bottles tied out of
view round my waist; it played no small part in sus-
taining throughout that day the lives of the twins

RETURN TO EDEN 305

and possibly that of their mother as well. For water,
one o my henchmen bore two churnfuls slung
across his shoulder on either end of a pole; when
that was finished, as in the heat of the day would
quickly be the case, I had in mind to explore the
potentialities of the engine.

I found my fellow travellers hidden from view of
the railway embankment, about half a mile away
from it, and scattered about the dried-up bed of a
shallow creek. They were all perfectly composed;
and if any of those women knew the full portent of
the imminent dangers they were facing and the
majority of them must have known itthey kept
their fears to themselves and allowed no trace or sug-
gestion of it to extend to the children. And how
those women, who normally never did a hand's turn
for themselves in their own kitchens, got down to
the preparation and distribution of the provisions!
They organized themselves into various tasks with-
out so much as a hint of dispute, made fires, boiled
water, plucked and drew the poultry, prepared a
stew pot, and, because the children outnumbered
them, probably partook of but little for themselves.
I left them with a profound admiration for their
pluck and, hung about with the milk and delicately
clutching half a dozen eggs, made my way to the
train.

An endless stream of grey-clad troops, the residue
of Wu Pei Fu's army, were steadily moving north
along the railway embankment and I was relieved
to learn from the little Mission doctor that, although
they had been continually passing through most of

2O6 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

the night, they had chosen to ignore the train. It
was not surprising, since it bore the appearance o
being utterly deserted.

"Are they bearing up all right?" I asked rather
anxiously.

"I'm desperately worried/' he replied. "She's
tried to feed them several times during the last few
hours, but either they won't take it or, more than
likely, she's got nothing to give 'em."

"I've brought some milk ..." I began.

"You have? Good man! Where is it?"

I undid the knot under my shirt. "Here/' I said,
"and a few eggs."

"You're a wizard/' he exclaimed with a sigh of
relief. "Mrs. J. has got a spirit lamp and we'll have
a boil-up; then we'll give Mrs. F. breakfast and if
the little brats won't eat after that, I'll serve it to
'em myself in an eyedropper. Come on! The day
may yet be saved."

As the morning wore on it became almost unbear-
ably hot, and by midday the air both in the train
and in the unshaded creek was stifling. Flies were
everywhere. Sophie James and Stella, who took it
in turns to minister to Kitty Forsythe and her sons,
had stripped themselves well-nigh to the last limits
and were oblivious to all else save creating such
comfort as they could for their charges, though the
little doctor seemed capable of remaining cool whilst
fully clad even to the extent of his collar and tie
and jacket. By early afternoon, when the scorching
sun was at its height, the women a little distance
away who struggled against mounting odds to keep

RETURN TO EDEN 207

the children distracted and free from fear, had long
since followed Sophie James' and Stella's example.
In heart-breaking circumstances they were behaving
with a magnificent disregard for the dangers that
beset them, and only Kitty Forsythe deserved a little
more praise than they.

I sat with her as she lay on the seat opposite,
stretched across the length of the compartment, and
I stirred up the sparse, oppressive air about her
brow and face with the aid of a folded paper. Still
there were little beads of perspiration about her
forehead, which Stella dabbed from time to time
with a handkerchief soaked in eau de cologne. The
infants in their little wicker cribs had been taken
next door, where Sophie James and the doctor
watched over them. The windows were open now,
for the last remnants of the retreating force had
passed by and there was at least respite for a while,
save from the burdensome heat and the intolerable
menace of the flies. Then at about five o'clock there
came the rumble of big guns in the distance. Grad-
ually they broke into their overture in growing
crescendo as those from the north spoke back, and
some minutes later we heard the whine of the first
shell.

Kitty Forsythe raised herself slightly, then sank
back against the cushions which had been heavily
stacked beneath her. "What a mercy it is," she
breathed, "that Anthony and Nigel don't know
what it's all about! Do you think . . /' She turned
to me. "Do you think that the other children are
all right? Oughtn't you to go and see?"

2C)8 CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

I rose and was leaving her compartment when
she added, "Have a peep at my young men too, will
you? If they're awake and have a lean and hungry
look, tell them they can come in and have tea."

I slid the door to, and as I turned round in the
corridor I came face to face with the most hideous-
looking Chinaman I had ever yet set eyes upon, and
I had seen a good many.

"Yao su'mah?" I asked abruptly. "What do you
want?"

"Mu-chin, Yao mu-chin shiao hia tza." He wanted,
he had said, the mother and the small children, and
I was wondering which would be the swiftest, surest
and most noiseless way of killing him when I heard
other feet clambering on the train from the perma-
nent way below and a burly figure appeared in the
corridor.

"They're coming," he proclaimed breathlessly.
"They're on their way. It won't be long now."

It was at that moment, I think, that my nerve
cracked. The thing had become too much of a
grotesque nightmare.

"Who are coming?" I shouted at him, over-
wrought and oblivious to my surroundings. "Who?"

"The British Navy are coming/' was the quiet
reply. "Calm yourself, laddie. Though a bit in-
formally clad I'm Number One of the 'Grasshop-
per/ and if I were you I'd take my hands off that
ruffian there because he happens to be kingpin of
the chair and stretcher party, and I gather he's im-
portant. Now here's the scheme . . ."

Within a quarter of an hour these forerunners of

RETURN TO EDEN

the relief party had been supplemented by no less
than two fully trained doctors and nurses from the
Inland Mission in Hankow, escorted by an array of
British naval officers and bluejackets. Emergency
supplies of all kinds had arrived, and a host of Chi-
nese were ready with the wherewithal to bear bur-
dens of any variety or description.

The thunder of the guns and the scream of shells
passing in both directions overhead grew in intensity
as the party moved off in an easterly direction to
where, six miles across country, two naval launches,
escorted by a gunboat, had penetrated a creek as far
as it continued to be navigable. This was an opera-
tion which, apart from actual combat with a formi-
dable enemy at sea, was, I suppose, as near to the
heart of the British Navy as any could be. It was
carried out in a manner typical of the Senior Service
and, I am sure, altogether in keeping with its best
traditions.

A score of bluejackets proceeded warily across the
rough countryside, each carrying some unfamiliar,
yet quite at home youngster on his shoulders and
in many cases leading another by the hand, chatting
away gaily to them as though they might for all the
world have been their own children whom they
were bringing home again after a pleasant day's ex-
cursion to the sands. Wives and mothers, their
decorum now fully restored, rode in chairs or walked
with officers of the escort, and none of them glanced
more than casually over their shoulders. Between
them and the deserted train moved more slowly the
end of the procession. Two baskets swung on either

2IO CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

end of a pole over the shoulder o a sure-footed
young Hunanese, bore Anthony and Nigel to safety,
and they appeared to be sleeping peacefully in the
even motion resulting from the half-walk, half-trot
which is the gait of the practiced Chinese bearer.
And then there was Kitty Forsythe, quite the bravest
of them all. She was carried on a litter borne by
eight men and flanked on either side by doctors and
nurses. Every now and then her stretcher was placed
on the ground, the bearers moved away and some
special attention was given to her. I maintained my
place well to the rear of the convoy. For only once
had I essayed to walk beside her and I had noticed
that her forehead and hair were saturated, that her
eyes were blinded by tears she struggled to hold
back, and that there was a trickle of blood where
she had bitten through her lower lip.

"Hold on/' I had urged, "not much further to go
now . . ."

"I'm all right." She had managed to smile back.
"Right as rain. You've been ... so helpful. This
is ... awfully thrilling, isn't it?"

I had slipped back quietly again then, to the rear
of the party. I could find no courage within me
that might even remotely be a match for hers.

And so it was until we arrived at the narrow creek,
where a young and rosy-faced lieutenant in charge
of the naval launches saw all the women and chil-
dren safely housed aboard. It was significant that he
turned to salute Mrs. Forsythe as she was gently
hoisted over the rail and then lowered into the
cabin. Maybe he knew her; more likely it was just

RETURN TO EDEN 211

a typically naval gesture. It was, anyhow, admirably
appropriate. Then he wheeled round to face me, a
pair of binoculars swinging about his chest.

"Any more for the Skylark?" he shouted cheer-
fully.

"Yes/' I retorted, stepping aboard. "One of your
best shilling sicks to Margate, please. Here, lend me
those glasses/'

As the gangplank was drawn in and the screws
started whipping up fresh mud to the shallow sur-
face of brown water, I looked back, through power-
ful lenses, across the long barren distance we had
come. Dusk was just falling, but I could still faintly
discern the outlines of the train standing high above
the embankment. A moment later the scene was
obscured by a blinding red flash followed by a long
muffled roar. As the smoke cleared I could detect
that our train was now no more than a faint blur
of smouldering wreckage. I lowered the glasses and
turned away. There had been no time to lose.

I turned to the elder Mrs. Forsythe. It was ob-
vious that all four of them, sitting in silence round
the table, were deeply impressed with the signifi-
cance of my story.

"Your daughter-in-law and the boys/' I concluded,
"went on almost immediately to Shanghai whilst I,
with others, remained for a time to sort things out
in Hankow. But I had the most wonderful letter
from her which I shall always cherish; and later on
your son, too, wrote to me most kindly. Then pres-
ently I was posted away to the wilds of Manchuria

CONFESSIONS OF A CHINA HAND

and, you know how it is, events happen and one
loses touch. So, since that evening nearly nineteen
years ago now, when they were the minutest bundles
slung in baskets from either end of a bamboo pole,
I had not seen the twins again until this morning/'

I surveyed their massive frames, hunched in polite
attention to me across the table.

"Don't worry about your mother/' I urged them.
"Shell come through again all right. Perhaps now
we can all feel a little more certain of that."

I glanced up at the clock, then rose and took my
hostess's hand.

"Thank you. And again thank you for listening
to me," I said. "For me this has been the most mem-
orable reunion, and, may I add a very wonderful
homecoming too."

The old man cleared his throat, his eyebrows
slightly raised. "Homecoming . . . ?"

"You see, sir," I concluded, "I had a less precari-
ous beginning than the boys. I had the advantage
of everything which science had devised by the turn
of the century and all the care and attention that
money could provide. More precious than that, sir,
I enjoyed the luxury of being born and living my
earliest years not only in the spring magic of these
lovely surroundings, but, as it strangely happens
in this very house!"

\( continued from front flap)

N * f(r , ^Vtv ' months before his twenty-
second" birthday it all came true, and Mr.
Farquharson embarked on a career in
China that lasted through the outbreak of
the Sino- Japanese war.

As a representative of Imperial Chemi-
cal Industries, Ltd., one of the great
British business houses, he traveled up and
down China for a decade. His personal,
high-spot reminiscences of those days are
a much needed leavening in the current
emphasis on Red China. For this is at once
a chronicle of an earlier day and also an
evaluation of the lasting human qualities
of the Chinese people that wars and revo-
lutions will not change.

The book is not a continuous narrative
of the author's activities, but rather a series
of episodes that typify and interpret his
experience -in the hot and humid Yangtze
Valley of Central China, in the hinter-
lands of North China, in Manchuria. Here
are Chinese peasants, business men, war
lords; here are the sing-song girls and the
White Russian refugee Countesses. They
all belong in the picture of China as Mr.
Farquharson knew it and he writes of them
with understanding, affection and humor.

AM MORROW & COMPANY

124058