Читать книгу Brown of Moukden - George Herbert Ely - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Mesalliance—An Outing—Bonbons—"Mr. Blown"—A Northern Frontier—Bandit and Patriot—Hi Lo—Arrested—Monsieur Brin offers Condolences—Old Scores—General Bekovitch—Short Notice—The General loses Patience

"Ah! I disturb you, Mr. Brown. I always disturb somebody. I disturb myself! Therefore I go; another time, another time."

"Not a bit of it, Monsieur. Sit down; I shall be through with these papers in five minutes. What will you drink? We have a fair selection."

"Lemonade, my dear Mr. Brown, nothing but lemonade. It is the cool drink."

"Hi Lo, wailo fetchee lemonade for Monsieur."

"Allo lightee, sah," said a little fellow of some thirteen years, bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, a smiling Chinese boy.

Monsieur Anatole Brin, correspondent of the Soleil, sat down in a cane chair and wiped his perspiring bald pate with a yellow silk handkerchief. Mr. Brown continued to sort his papers. It was not possible for Monsieur Brin to sit speechless.

"Ah! Mr. Brown, you have things to do. You do not suffer, as we others, from nostalgia—the home-sickness, you understand? I sigh for Paris, for the boulevards, the cafés, the Opera, for anything, anything, but this Moukden. It is five weeks that I am here; I have my paper, my pencils, my authorization; I have presented to the Viceroy my letter of credit, my photograph, as it is ordained. I have the red band on my arm; you see it: the letters B.K., correspondent of war; also Chinese arabesques, one says they mean 'Him who spies out the military things!' and here I am still in Moukden. I spy out no military things; I broil myself with sun, choke myself with dust; it is not possible to go to the south, where the war is made; no, it is permitted to do anything but what I am sent for; I become meagre with disappointment."

"Cheer up! Yours is a hard lot, no doubt. The modern general has no liking for you correspondents. But you will get your chance, no doubt, in time. The Japanese are coming north. There has been a fight at Wa-fang-ho, I hear."

"What!" cried the Frenchman, starting up. "A battle and I not there! I hear of no battle. Colonel Pestitch hear of none. I ask him just now. Does he tell me lie—prevaricate?"

"He probably knows nothing about it. I knew it through a Chinaman yesterday. The natives outdo the telegraph, Monsieur, especially the telegraph with a censor at one end. But, in fact, I have more than once heard the result of an engagement before even the military authorities."

Monsieur Brin walked up and down the little office impatiently twisting his moustache.

"Ah! It is abominable—but yes, abominable. Of what good that France is the ally of Russia? I might be Japanese, or Englishman, with no alliance at all. Why did I quit Paris? To put on this odious red badge, like a convict. For what? To promenade myself about Moukden, from day to day, from week to week, in prey to hundred Chinese diseases, subject to thousand Chinese odours! Ah, quelle malaise, quel désappointement, quel spleen!"

"You're in low spirits to-day, Monsieur. Why don't you go about the country and see the sights?"

"The sights! I have seen them. I have seen the tombs. They do not equal the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame. Pouah! My throat fills itself with dust, or my feet stick fast in the mud. For the rest, if I go farther I fall into the hands of the Koungouzes, the brigands; they have asperity; I have respect for my skin."

"Look here, Monsieur, this won't do. You'll make yourself ill if you take things so hardly. What do you say to this, now? My boy is going some fifteen miles out to a farm, to see some friends of ours—Chinese, you understand. Why not go with him and see something of the Chinese at home? Our friend Mr. Wang has an interesting family; you'll enjoy it, and get material for one article at least for the Soleil."

"Ah! it is an idea. We go—how?"

"On ponies. They will put you up for the night. You can return in the cool to-morrow morning."

"It is an idea. It please me. There is no risk?"

"None, I should think. You can take a revolver, but Jack is pretty well known. Hi Lo, tell Mr. Jack I want him."

In a few seconds Jack entered. He shook hands cordially with Monsieur Brin, whom he had seen once or twice since his arrival with a letter of introduction to Mr. Brown.

"Jack, Monsieur Brin is making himself ill for want of something to do. Take him with you and introduce him to Wang Shih's people. I think he'll like them."

"I'll be glad, I'm sure. Will you come, Monsieur?"

"With pleasure, to pass the time."

"I am starting immediately. Hi Lo, saddle a pony for Monsieur, quick."

The little fellow, son of Mr. Brown's compradore, ran off, and returned in five minutes.

"Pony allo lightee, sah."

"Good boy! Now, Monsieur, shall we start?"

"Hope you'll have a pleasant day, Monsieur," said Mr. Brown. "Look me up in the morning, and tell me how you got on."

"Good-bye! Thanks! I have not disturb you—busy man like you?"

"Not a bit. Good-bye!"

Mounted on neat little ponies, Monsieur Brin and Jack set off through the city. To the Frenchman's surprise, Jack did not choose the main thoroughfare direct to one of the eastern gates, but turned first into one side street, then into another. They were dusty, dirty, crowded with people, pigs, and poultry, and Monsieur Brin held his nose and began to expostulate.

"Wait a little, Monsieur," said Jack. "We are coming to my street. I never miss it when I come in this direction."

They came by and by to a street differing in no wise from the rest, except that in one of the paper-windowed houses a school was held. No sooner had Jack appeared at the end of the street than the sing-song of children at lessons ceased as by magic, and out of the school flocked a score of little ones, who rushed towards him with loud and happy cries of greeting, scattering the fowls and pigs and kicking up clouds of dust as they ran.

"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Monsieur Brin, reining up his pony to avoid trampling them.

"Don't be alarmed," said Jack, laughing. "They are my little pensioners."

The biggest of the children were already swarming round the pony. Jack put his hand into his pocket. Instantly there was a yell of delight. Then suddenly a shower of sweetmeats fell on the outskirts of the crowd, among the smallest of the children. There was a merry scramble; before the first handful was picked up a second was scattered in the opposite direction, and soon every child was on all-fours, hunting for treasure in the thick brown dust. Meanwhile every door in the street had become blocked with smiling elders,—toothless old grandames, brawny workmen, women, girls, all enjoying the scene, chattering among themselves, some of them giving pleasant salutation to Jack. His pockets at last were empty; his pony was becoming impatient; and, laughingly threatening to run the youngsters down, he moved on amid high-pitched cries of "Come again soon, Mr. Blown!"

Monsieur Brin was vastly entertained. The children's antics were very droll, and Monsieur was a man of sentiment.

"My word!" he said. "Here is something at last for the readers of the Soleil. I have no victories of war to write; I write of a victory of peace; how a young Englishman has won the hearts of all a street of Chinese; how to them he is no longer foreign devil but sweet-stuff saint. Eh? How became you so great a friend?"

"Oh, it is very simple. I took a fancy one day to a little toddler; picked him up out of the way of a boisterous pig, and gave him a sweet to comfort him. Other children were looking on; next time I came this way a group of them stood with their fingers in their mouths and their eyes on my pockets. I flung them a sweet or two; they picked them up and scampered away as though half-scared; but they were on the watch for me after that, and now, as you see, it has become an institution. They have very easy-going schoolmasters here; as soon as my nose is seen at the street end the word is given and out they troop, and the elders know the sounds and come to see the fun. They are all very good friends of mine."

Leaving the narrow streets, they came at length to the outer gate, guarded jointly by several sleepy Chinese soldiers and a Russian sentry. Jack was well known, and the two riders passed through without difficulty.

Having a little business to settle with Mr. Wang senior, Jack had offered, before Wang Shih left Mr. Brown's house in the small hours of that morning, to ride out and inform the family of his escape. A ride of some fifteen miles brought the two within sight of the farm. It was a brick building of one story, like all Manchurian houses, with cow-byres, pig-sties, and poultry-houses clinging to the wall. The farmstead was surrounded by lofty wooden palings, and Monsieur Brin's attention was attracted by two fantastic warlike figures roughly daubed in red and green on either side of the great gate.

"Oh!" said Jack, in reply to his question, "they're supposed to scare away evil spirits."

"Hé! Are not the dogs enough?"

The appearance of the two strangers was hailed by a rush of dogs, large and small, yelping and barking fiercely, but without malice. The noise brought the inmates to the door: an old Chinaman and his wife, and two girls of eighteen or thereabouts, whose regular features, soft brown eyes, and delicately ruddy complexion made an instant impression upon the Frenchman. He doffed his hat with the most elegant and graceful ease, and was not disconcerted when this unaccustomed mode of salutation set the girls giggling. The mistress led the visitors into the best room, lofty, airy, clean, with paper windows; along one side a broad platform some thirty inches from the floor. This was the k'ang, a hollow structure containing a flue warmed by the smoke and hot air from the kitchen-fire; it served as a table by day and a bed by night. A little graven image occupied a tinselled niche; and, the kitchen-fire not being required in hot weather, a kettle stood on a small brazier, boiling water for the indispensable tea.

The old people were greatly distressed at the disgrace that had befallen their only son; still more at his approaching fate, for to die without a male child to honour one's ashes is the worst of ills to a Chinaman. They were not aware of his escape; but when Jack told them that he was now at large, and had gone to join the great Chunchuse chief Ah Lum, they all, parents and girls, clapped their hands, feeling now secure against ill-treatment by the Chinese officials. The chief would send word from his head-quarters to his agent in Moukden that Wang Shih was under his protection, and the terror in which the brigand was held was so great that the farmer's family would remain unmolested.

Jack asked where was the encampment of the Chunchuse band. It varied, said the old man. To avoid capture by the Russians, the chief frequently shifted his quarters. His band was constantly on the move between Kirin and the Shan-yan-alin mountains, going so swiftly and secretly that no one knew where it would turn up next. One day it would be on the Hun-ho; a detachment of Cossacks would be sent to cut it off, only to find that it had disappeared. Two or three days later it might be heard of several hundred li away, on the Sungari.

"Yes," said the old man. "Ah Lum is a great leader, and a great hater of the Russians; but he hates the Japanese nearly as much. He would drive all foreigners out of the country. I am glad my son is with him, though I fear he will not be able to return home until the war is over."

Jack and Monsieur Brin spent some time in rambling about the farm, the latter smoking innumerable cigarettes, making copious notes, and every now and then breaking forth into enthusiastic praise of the eldest daughter, who he declared reminded him of his fiancée in the boulevard Raspail. He watched with absorbed interest the Chinese way of making tea: the green leaves placed in a broad saucer and covered with boiling water; another saucer inverted over the first, and pushed back a little way after the tea had "drawn", the beverage being sipped through the interstice. The old farmer insisted on his guests going to see his coffin, a very handsome box thoughtfully provided by his son and kept in an outhouse, where Mr. Wang frequently spent an hour in meditation on mortality. Afterwards Brin was initiated into the complexities of fan-tan—a guessing game that was prolonged far into the night. They slept comfortably on the k'ang, and left about eight next morning very well pleased with their visit.

The sun was already hot, and they rode at a walking pace, partly to avoid the clouds of choking dust which trotting would have raised. They were still several miles from the city when Jack saw a small Chinese boy hastening in their direction.

"That's young Hi Lo," he said, as the figure came more clearly into view. "I wonder what he is coming this way for! Surely Wang Shih has not been caught after all?"

The boy had broken into a run, and when he met them Jack saw at once by his face that he bore grave news. But he was not prepared for what the little fellow told him in breathless gasps. Soon after daybreak a squad of Siberian infantry had appeared at Mr. Brown's house, put the merchant under arrest, ransacked his papers, and carried him off a prisoner. Hi Lo's father, the compradore, happened to be at a window of the front room as the soldiers came up; and suspecting, with Chinese shrewdness and dislike of the soldiers, that something was amiss, he had run to the inner sanctum and removed the most valuable papers from the safe before the Russians entered. But knowing that he was likely to be searched, he had handed the papers to Hi Lo, hoping that the boy would escape the visitors' attentions. Mr. Brown made a vigorous protest against the Russians' action, and demanded by what authority they arrested him and the crime with which he was charged; but the officer in command refused to give him any information. Before he was marched off, he was allowed a few words with his compradore, a servant of many years' standing. Learning that the papers were for the present secure, he had managed, without making his meaning clear to the Russian officer, to direct that they should be handed to Jack. They were for the most part vouchers from the Russian authorities for goods supplied; if not concealed, they would certainly be seized, and Mr. Brown knew how impossible it was to make a Russian official disgorge plunder. The whole thing was probably a mistake, at the worst a plot which could no doubt be shown up. The first necessity was to put the securities out of harm's way; then Jack could take whatever steps might be called for to obtain his father's release, if he were still detained after he had met the charge against him.

The boy told his story rapidly in pidgin English; not that Jack did not understand Chinese, but because, like all Chinese servants, Hi Lo made it a point of pride to use his master's language. Monsieur Brin could make nothing of the narrative.

"What is the matter with you, my friend?" he asked, seeing the look of concern on Jack's face.

"An annoying mistake, Monsieur. My father has been arrested by the Russians."

"Oho! What has he been doing?"

"Nothing, of course. Some official has been too zealous, I suppose. I must ride on, Monsieur."

"But may not you be arrested, too?"

"I don't think so. If they intended it, they would already have sent a detachment after me. You may be sure their spies know very well where I have been. No, I'm in no danger; but anyhow I must find out what it all means, so if you don't mind, Monsieur, we'll hurry on and chance the dust."

"Certainly, my friend. My word! this is an unfortunate end to our pleasant little picnic."

"You have the papers, Hi Lo?"

The boy produced them from some pouch in his wadded cotton garments. Jack looked them over. They represented a considerable sum of money. He did not care to have them about him, in case he should be searched. What could he do with them? For a moment he thought of giving them into the care of Monsieur Brin, but on reflection he hesitated to involve the correspondent in his difficulties. Hi Lo was a clever little fellow, devoted to him; probably he would be the best custodian for the present. He gave the papers back to the boy.

"Keep them carefully, Hi Lo. Don't come near our house till I send for you."

Then he put his pony to a canter, and with Brin by his side hastened on to the city. At the moment, as Jack knew, there were few Russian soldiers in Moukden. General Kuropatkin was at the front, somewhere south of Liao-yang; Admiral Alexeieff was at Harbin. The arrest must have been made in their absence, and probably unknown to them, by the local military authorities. But, knowing his father's innocence, Jack expected to find that he had already been released.

On entering the city he said good-bye to Monsieur Brin, who was full of condolence.

"If I can do anything, tell me," he said. "Unhappily I cannot telegraph; the soldiers have monopoly of the wires; and, besides, there is the terrible censor. But if I can do anything——"

"Don't worry, Monsieur. It will be all right. My father is a British subject; and though the Russians don't love us just now, they won't do anything very dreadful, I imagine. Many thanks! I will let you know how things stand."

He rode straight home, and, finding that the house was shut and locked, sought the compradore at his cottage at the rear of the compound behind. Learning from him further details of the arrest, he at once set off for the military head-quarters near the railway-station. He knew several of the Russian officers, but those to whom he spoke had heard nothing of the singular occurrence. One of them offered to make enquiries. He returned by and by with the information that the order for Mr. Brown's arrest had been given by General Bekovitch. This was not cheering, for General Bekovitch, as Jack knew, was an officer who under a surface polish and refinement was thoroughly unscrupulous, and one indeed whose enmity Mr. Brown had incurred by his uncompromising attitude towards the official methods of corruption. Some time before this, when Bekovitch was a colonel, he had transferred to the Pole, Sowinski, a contract which had been placed in Mr. Brown's hands. The latter protested, and Bekovitch's superior disallowed his action and gave him metaphorically a rap on the knuckles. The colonel was deeply chagrined, both at the reprimand and at the loss of the secret commission arranged with Sowinski. He was now promoted major-general; his superior was gone; and Jack could hardly doubt that he had seized the opportunity to pay off his grudge against the English merchant. Jack shrank somewhat from a meeting with the general, but his indignation outweighed every other feeling, and, plucking up his courage, he made his way to the luxurious railway-carriage which served Bekovitch for quarters.

He had to wait some time before he gained admittance to the general's presence. When at last he was invited to enter, he found Bekovitch lolling on a divan smoking a cigarette, a champagne bottle at his elbow. He was a tall fair man, inclining to stoutness, with a long moustache and carefully-trimmed beard, and looked in his white uniform a very dignified representative of the military bureaucracy.

Jack's residence as a boy in Vladivostok had given him a good colloquial knowledge of Russian, so that he had no difficulty in addressing the general in his own language.

"I have recently heard, sir, of my father's arrest," he said, "and I have come to ask if you will be good enough to tell me where he is and what he is charged with."

"You are Mr. Brown's son? How do you do?" said the general suavely. "I am sorry for you. It is a bad business altogether. I should be quite justified in refusing to give you information, but I am, of course, willing to stretch a point in a case like this—father and son, you know. Well, I regret to say that I had to arrest your father for giving military information to the Japanese."

"But, sir, that is ridiculous. My father never did such a thing. He has had no connection, not even a business one, with the Japanese; he doesn't like them. Besides, he would never think of doing anything underhand. No one who knows him could even imagine it."

If Bekovitch felt the personal application, he did not show it.

"Very creditable, very creditable indeed. A loyal son; excellent. I should be the last to undeceive you; therefore we will say no more about it. Let me offer you a cigarette."

"No, thank you, sir. Really the matter cannot end thus. What evidence have you against my father?"

The general shrugged.

"Well, if you will—— We had our suspicions; your father is an Englishman, you know; we examined his papers and found proof of our suspicions—full, conclusive. There is no doubt at all about it."

"But you will allow my father to clear himself. I am sure he can do so."

"We have no time for long-winded processes," replied the general, throwing away the end of his cigarette and lighting another. "Moukden, as you must be aware, young man, is under martial law."

"Then what has become of my father, sir? Where is he?"

"We might have shot him, you know." The general's manner was suaver than ever. "But we are a merciful people. Your father has merely been—deported."

At this Jack felt that either there was a hole in the net woven around his father, or the Russians had feared to proceed to extremities owing to his British nationality.

"Well, sir," he said, "I shall, of course, appeal to our government."

"Certainly, my young friend, certainly! But on what ground? See, I recognize your anxiety; it is perfectly natural; for that reason I am patient with you. But we must be the judges as to who shall stay in Manchuria, who shall leave. Your father is now on his way to—to the frontier. You will follow without loss of time. I give you twelve hours to quit the city. A pass shall be made out for you; you will go by to-night's train to Harbin."

General Bekovitch's manner was as urbane and polite as ever, but there was in his tone a something that warned the boy that further protest would be useless. Still, he must make one more effort to discover his father's whereabouts.

"Has my father gone to Harbin?" he asked.

"I have told you, my young friend, he has been deported. I can tell you no more."

"But why not tell me his route, General Bekovitch? He was in any case leaving for England in a few days. If I am to go to Harbin I should like to know whether there is any possibility of overtaking my father and proceeding to Europe with him."

For answer the general summoned an attendant.

"Michel Sergeitch, show this young man out."

Jack gave him one look, then turned in silence towards the door.

"One moment," called the general after him. "As I said, a pass shall be sent you. The train leaves at eight. If you are found here to-morrow, you will be arrested and escorted as a prisoner to the frontier. That, I may remark, is an unpleasant mode of travelling. Remember, eight o'clock."