Hills of Han 40

Hills of Han 40

Little Miss Doane touched his heart, she was so pretty, so quick in

her bright graceful way, yet so white and sad. But always brave, as

if sustained by inner faith. She asked at once to be put to work, and

quickly adapted herself to the atmosphere of Mme. Pourmont’s workroom

in the residence, where Madarhe’s two daughters and the English trained

nurse were busy directing the Chinese sewing women.... It transpired

that the Mrs. Boatwright who was in charge at the mission had refused

to save herself and those in her charge, so the Mademoiselle had come

on independently. This, thought M. Pourmont, showed a courage and

enterprise suggestive of her father.

 

2

 

That night M. Pourmont telegraphed Elmer Boatwright confirming the news

of Doane’s death, and urging an immediate attempt to get through to Ping

Yang.

 

On the preceding day he had sent a party of twelve men, white and

Chinese, in command of an Australian engineer, to Shau T’ing, on the

Eastern Border, to get the supplies that had been shipped down from

Peking. These men returned on the following day; and among the cases and

bales of supplies borne on the long train of carts they guarded were

the bodies of two dead Chinese and a Russian youth with a bullet in his

throat.

 

News came then that a large force of Lookers had started in an easterly

direction from Hung Chan. And Boatwright wired that the mission party

was at last under way, seven whites and fifty natives.

 

M. Pourmont at once sent a party of forty mounted men westward along the

highway, commanded by an Englishman named Swain. This small force fought

a pitched battle with the Looker band that had been evaded by Brachey,

suffering several casualties. A native was sent on ahead, riding all

night, with a note to Boatwright advising great haste. But it was

difficult for the mission party to travel with any speed, as it had been

found impossible to secure horses or carts for many of the Chinese

converts, and not one of the missionaries would consent to leave these

charges behind. It became necessary therefore for Swain to move a

half-day’s march farther west than had been intended. He joined the

missionaries shortly after the advance guard of the Western Lookers had

begun an attack on the inn compound. Already six or seven of the

secondary Christians had been dragged out and shot or burned to death

when Swain led his white and yellow troopers in among them, shooting

right and left. There must have been several hundred of the Lookers; but

they amounted to little more than a disorganized mob, and as soon as

they found their comrades falling around them, screaming in agony and

fright, they threw away their rifles and fled.

 

Swain at once ordered out the entire mission company, mounted as many

as possible of the frightened fugitives on the horses of his troop,

and with such extra carts as he could commandeer in the village for his

wounded, himself and his uninjured men on foot, he pushed rapidly hack

toward Ping Yang. The few Chinese who lagged were left in native houses.

The horses that fell were dragged off the road and shot.

 

This man Swain, though he concerns us in this narrative only

incidentally, was one of a not unfamiliar type on the China coast. He

was hardly thirty years of age, a blond Briton, handsome, athletic,

evidently a man of some education and breeding. He had once spoken of

serving as a subaltern in the Boer War. A slightly elusive reputation as

a Shanghai gambler had floated after him to Ping Yang. He was at times

a hard drinker, as his lined face indicated, faint, purplish markings

already forming a fine network under the skin of his nose. His blue eyes

were always slightly bloodshot. He never spoke of his own people. And it

had been noted that after a few drinks he was fond of quoting Kipling’s

_The Lost Legion_. Yet on this little expedition, unknown to the

archives of any war department, Swain proved himself a hero. He brought

all but twelve of the fifty-seven mission folk and eight of his own

wounded safely to Ping Yang, leaving three of his Chinese buried back

there. And himself sustained a bullet wound through the flesh of his

left forearm and a severe knife cut on the left hand.... The drift of

opinion among respectable people along Bubbling Well Road in Shanghai,

as here in Ping Yang, was that Swain would hardly do. Certain of these

mission folk, in particular Miss Hemphill, whose philosophy of life

could hardly be termed comprehensive, were later to find their mental

attitude toward their rescuer somewhat perplexing.

 

3

 

Though she evidently tried to be quiet about it, Mrs. Boatwright’s first

act was troublesome. She had been taken in, of course, with the other

white women, by the Pourmonts; in the big house. Here the principal

three of them--Dr. Cassin on her one hand and Miss Hemphill on the

other--were put down at the dinner table on that first evening directly

opposite Betty. Miss Hemphill flushed a little, bit her lip, then

inclined her head with what was clearly enough meant to be distant

courtesy. Dr. Cassin, already too deeply occupied with her wounded

to waste thought on merely personal matters, bowed coolly. But Mrs.

Boatwright stared firmly past the girl at the screen of carved wood that

stood behind her.

 

Betty bent her head over her plate. She had of course dreaded this first

encounter; all of her courage had been called on to bring her into the

dining-room; but her own sense of personal loss and injury had lately

been so overshadowed by the growing tragedy in which they were dwelling

that she had forgotten with what complete cruelty and consistency this

woman’s stern sense of character could function. She had lost, too, in

the mounting sober beauty of her love for Brachey, any lingering

sense of wrong-doing. Here at Ping Yang Brachey commanded, she knew

triumphantly, the respect of the little community.

 

They were thinking, he and she, only at moments of themselves. Indeed,

days passed without a stolen half-hour together. She gloried in her

knowledge that he would neglect no smallest duty to indulge his emotions

in companionship with her; nor would she neglect duty for him........And

the people here were all so kind to her, so friendly! The presence of

this grim personally was an intrusion.

 

After dinner Mrs. Boatwright went directly to M. Pourmont in his study

and told him that it would be necessary for her to sleep and eat in

another building. She would give no reasons, nor would she in any

pleasant way soften her demand. Accordingly, the Pourmonts, always

courteous, always cheerful, made at once a new arrangement in the

crowded compound. Some of the Australian young men were turned out into

a tent; and the Boatwrights, accompanied by their assistants, were

settled by midnight in the smaller building immediately adjoining the

residence. Mr. Boatwright protested a little to his wife, but was

silenced. All he could do was to make some extreme effort to treat the

Pourmonts with courtesy.

 

And so Betty, when in the morning she again mustered her courage to

enter the dining-room, found them gone. And instantly she knew why... .

She couldn’t eat. All day forlorn, her mind a cavern of shadows, she put

herself in the way of meeting Brachey, but did not find him until late

in the afternoon. He was coming in then from the outworks up the hill.

She stood waiting just within the gate.

 

They had been thinking constantly, since the one misunderstanding, of

the cablegram that would announce his freedom. In his eagerness he had

expected to find it waiting at Ping Yang. Day after day native runners

got through to the telegraph station and brought messages for

others... To Betty now it seemed the one thing that could arm her

against the stern judgment in Mrs. Boatwright’s eyes.

 

Brachey’s knickerbockers and stockings were red with mud. He wore a

canvas shooting coat of M. Pourmont. He was lean, strong, quick of

tread.

 

They drew aside, into a corner of the wall of sandbags. She saw the

momentary light in his tired eyes when they rested on her; gravely

beautiful eyes she thought them. Her fingers caught his sleeve; her eyes

timidly searched his face, and read an answer there to the question in

her heart.

 

“You haven’t heard?”

 

He slowly shook his head. “No, dear, not yet.”

 

Her gaze wavered away from him “It’s got to come,” he added. “It isn’t

as if there weren’t a positive understanding.”

 

“I know,” she murmured, but without conviction. “Of course. It’s got to

come.”

 

They were silent a moment.

 

“I--I’ll go back to the house,” she breathed, then. “Keep strong, dear,”

said he very gently.

 

“I know. I will. It’s helped, just seeing you.”

 

Then she was gone.

 

As he looked after her, his heart full of a gloomy beauty, he longed to

call her back and in some way restore her confidence. But the appearance

of the mission folk had shaken him, as well, this day. The mere presence

of Mrs. Boatwright in the compound was suddenly again a living force. Up

there on the hillside, driving his native workmen through the long hot

hours, he had faced unnerving thoughts. For Mrs. Boatwright had brought

him out of the glamour of his love; she, that sense of her, if merely

by stirring his mind to resentment and resistance, restored for the time

his keen logical faculty. He saw again clearly the mission compound at

T’ainan-fu. And he saw Griggsby Doane--huge, strong, the face that might

so easily be tender, working with passion in the softly flickering light

from a Chinese lamp.

 

He had given Griggsby Doane a pledge as solemn as one man can give

another. He had, because Doane was so suddenly dead, broken that pledge.

But now he knew, coldly, clearly, that of material proof that Doane was

dead neither he nor M. Pourmont nor these difficult folk from T’ainan

held a shred.

 

4

 

Early on the following morning--at about three o’clock--a small shell

exploded in the compound. Within five minutes two others fell outside

the walls.

 

At once the open spaces within the walls were filled with Chinese, none

fully dressed, talking, shouting, wailing. Among them, a moment later,

moved white men, cartridge pouches and revolvers hastily slung on,

rifles in hand, quietly ordering them back to their quarters and