Читать книгу The Last Days of Pekin - Pierre Loti - Страница 7

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Thursday, Oct. 11, 1900.

At noon, on a beautiful calm day that is almost warm and very luminous on the water, I leave the admiral's ship, the Redoutable, to go on a mission to Pekin.

We are in the gulf of Petchili on the road to Taku, but at such a distance from the shore that it is not visible, so there is no indication of China anywhere.

The trip begins with a short ride on a steam launch, which takes us out to the Bengali, the little despatch-boat which will bring me to land by to-night.

The water is softly blue in the autumn sunshine, which is always bright in this part of the world. To-day, by chance, the wind and the waves seem to sleep. As far as one can see, great warships succeed one another, motionless and menacing. As far as the horizon there are the turrets, the masts, the smoke of the astonishing international squadron with all its train of satellites, torpedo boats, transports, and a legion of packet-boats.

The Bengali, upon which I am about to embark for a day, is one of the little French ships carrying troops and war supplies, which for a month past has been painfully and wearisomely going and coming between the transports or freighters arriving from France, and the port of Taku beyond the Pei-Ho bar.

To-day it is full of Zouaves—brave Zouaves who arrived yesterday from Tunis, careless and happy, bound for this ominous Chinese land. They are crowded on the bridge, packed together, their faces gay and their eyes wide open for a glimpse of China, which has filled their thoughts for weeks and which is now near at hand, just over the horizon.

According to ceremonial custom, the Bengali, when it appears, must pass the stern of the Redoutable to salute the admiral. The music waits behind the armor, ready to play one of those marches so intoxicating to the sailor. And when we come up close to the big ship, almost under its shadow, all the Zouaves—those destined to return as well as those who must perish—wave their red caps to the sound of the bugle, with hurrahs for the ship, which here represents France to their eyes, and for the admiral, who from the bridge raises his cap in their honor.

At the end of half an hour China appears.

Never has an uglier and more forbidding shore surprised and congealed poor newly arrived soldiers. A low shore, a gray barren land without tree or grass. Everywhere there are forts of colossal size of the same gray as the earth, masses of geometrical outline pierced by embrasures for guns. Never has the approach to a country presented a more extensive or aggressive military array; on both sides of the horrible stream with its muddy waters loom similar forts, giving the impression of a place both terrible and impregnable, giving the impression also that this harbor, in spite of its wretched surroundings, is of the first order of importance, is the key to a great country, and gives access to a city large, rich, and powerful—as Pekin must have been. From a nearer view the walls of the first two forts, stained, full of holes, and ravaged by cannon-balls, bear witness to furious and recent battles.

We know how, on the day Taku was taken, they exhausted their strength on one another. By a miracle, a French shell from the Lion fell right into one of them, causing the explosion of its enormous powder magazine so that the yellow gunners lost their heads. The Japanese then seized this fort and opened an unexpected fire on the one opposite, and immediately the overthrow of the Chinese began. Had it not been for this chance, for this shell, and for this panic, all the European gunners anchored in the Pei-Ho would inevitably have been lost; the landing of the Allies would have been impossible or problematical, and the whole face of the war changed.

Transports on the Pei-ho

We now move up the river through the muddy infected water where impurities of all sorts are floating, as well as the bodies of men and animals. On both of the sombre shores we see by the light of the declining sun a procession of ruins, a uniform black and gray desolation of earth, ashes, and calcined slopes, tumbled walls, and ruins.

On this pestilential river a feverish animation reigns, so that it is difficult for us to make our way through the obstructions. Junks by the hundreds, each flying the colors and having at the stern the name of the nation by whom it is employed—France, Italy, United States, etc.—in big letters above the devilry of the Chinese inscription, besides a numberless flotilla of towing vessels, lighters, colliers, and packets.

On the terrible, steep, muddy banks, amongst filth and dead animals, there is an ant-like activity. Soldiers of all the armies of Europe mingle with coolies driven with sticks, unpacking military stores, tents, guns, wagons, mules, horses. Such a confusion as never was of uniforms, rubbish, cannons, débris, and provisions of all kinds. An icy wind which rises toward evening makes us shiver after the hot sun of the day and brings with it the gloom of winter.

Before the ruins of a quarter where the flag of France is floating, the Bengali approaches the lugubrious shore, and our Zouaves disembark rather discountenanced by the sombre reception given them by China. While waiting for some sort of a shelter to be provided, they light fires on the shore which the wind fans into flame, and there they heat their evening meal in darkness and silence and in the midst of clouds of infected dust.

On the deserted plain from which the dust, the cold, and the squalls come, the black devastated town, overrun with soldiers, extends, breathing pestilence and death.

A small street through its centre, hastily rebuilt in a few days' time with mud, broken timbers, and iron, is lined with dubious-looking taverns. Men from I don't know where, mongrels of every race, sell absinthe, salt-fish, and deadly liquors to the soldiers. There is some drunkenness, and occasionally knives are drawn.

Outside of this improvised quarter Taku no longer exists. Nothing but ruined walls, burned roofs, piles of ashes, and nameless receptacles of filth, wherein are huddled together old clothing, dogs, and human heads covered with hair.

I slept on board the Bengali, this hospitality having been extended to me by the commander. Occasional shots break the nocturnal silence, and toward morning I hear—although half asleep—horrible cries uttered by the Chinese on shore.

Friday, October 12.

I rose at daybreak to go and take the train, which still runs as far as Tien-Tsin and even a little beyond. Farther on, the road having been destroyed by Boxers, I shall continue I do not yet know how, either in a Chinese cart, in a junk, or on horseback, and from all accounts cannot count on seeing the great walls of Pekin for six or seven days. I have an order which will secure me rations from the posts along the road, otherwise I should run the risk of dying from hunger in this ravaged land. I have as little baggage as possible, nothing but a light canteen, and but one travelling companion, a faithful servant brought from France.

At the station, where I arrive at sunrise, I find again all yesterday's Zouaves, their knapsacks on their backs. No tickets are necessary for this railway, everything military is carried by right of conquest. Along with Cossack and Japanese soldiers a thousand Zouaves pile into carriages with broken panes through which the wind whistles. I find a place with their officers, and very soon we are calling up memories of Africa, where they have been, and longing for Tunis and Algeria the White.

We are two hours and a half on the road across the mournful plain. At first it was only gray earth as at Taku; then there were reeds and herbage touched with frost. On all sides are immense splashes of red, like blood stains, due to the autumn flowering of a kind of marsh plant. On the horizon of this desert myriads of migratory birds may be seen, rising like clouds, eddying and then falling. The north wind blows and it is very cold.

Soon the plain is peopled with tombs—tombs without number, all of the same shape—each one a kind of cone of earth piled up and surmounted by a ball of faience—some small, like little huts, others as large as camping tents. They are grouped according to families and they are legion. The entire country is a burial-place with a gory look resulting from the splashes of red to which I have referred.

At the stopping-places where the ruined stations are occupied by Cossacks, there are calcined cars—damaged by fire—and locomotives riddled with balls. At other places we do not stop because there is nothing left; the few villages which mark this vicinity are all destroyed.

Tien-Tsin! It is ten o'clock in the morning. Pierced by the cold, we step down amid the clouds of dust which the north wind perpetually scatters over this dried-up country. We are taken in hand by Chinese scouts, who, without even knowing where we want to go, trot off, at full speed, with us in their little carriages. The European streets along which they are running (here called "concessions"), seen through a cloud of blinding dust, have the look of a big city, but the almost luxurious houses are riddled with shells, literally ripped open and without roofs or windows. The shores of the rivers, here as at Taku, are like a fevered babel; thousands of junks lie there, unloading troops, horses, guns. In the streets where Chinese workmen are carrying enormous loads of war supplies, one meets soldiers of all the nations of Europe, officers in every sort of uniform, on horseback, in chairs, or on foot. And there is of course a perpetual interchange of military salutes.

Where are we to lay our heads? Really, we have no idea, in spite of our desire for a shelter from the icy wind and dust. However, our Chinese runners keep on like rolling balls.

We knock at the doors of two or three hotels which have risen up among the ruins out of a confusion of broken furniture. Everything is full, full to overflowing; gold will not buy a loft with a mattress.

Willy-nilly we must beg our board and lodging from unknown officers, who give us the most friendly hospitality in houses where the holes made by shot and shell have been hastily stopped up so that the wind may no longer enter.