*CHAPTER XV*
*Cossack and Chunchuse*
The Road in China--A Change of View--Looking Ahead--A ColdWelcome--Beleaguered--The Part of Prudence--Smoke--Beaten Back--TheWater Supply--An Inspiration--Ch'hoy!
At Hsien-chia-kou the strangely young old man with the two ponies metnot only the guide punctually furnished by Ah Lum's agent, but also Mr.Hi and his son. The compradore explained that after what had happenedhe no longer felt safe in his little cottage, and had made up his mindto join his brother in Harbin and do what he could there to further theenquiries for Mr. Brown. As for Hi Lo, the boy had for the first timeshown a most reprehensible and unfilial spirit of disobedience. He haddeclared that the Toitsche genelum's service, now that Sin Foo had left,had no further attraction for him. If he must serve someone, it shouldbe Mr. Chack Blown; and he would much rather serve Mr. Chack Blown thanaccompany his father to Harbin, for he did not like his Aunt Feng.
Jack laughed.
"Let him come with me, Mr. Hi. He saved those papers so cleverly that Ithink a great deal of him, and I'll really be glad to have him with me."
The compradore would not oppose his young master's express wish;accordingly, Jack, when he rode off, had two companions.
Jack had learnt from his guide that Ah Lum's camp was situated in thehills south of Kirin, at a point many miles due north of the spot wherehe had left the chief. He had before him, therefore, a journey ofnearly three hundred miles. Fortunately the rainy season was past; afew days of brilliant sunshine and bustling winds had worked amarvellous transformation. The road that only recently had been a pulpof liquid mud was now thick with soft brown blinding dust, clouds ofwhich were blown by the north-easter full in the travellers' faces,covering them from head to foot. Unpleasant as this was, it was lesstroublesome than the continual assaults of midges which Jack hadsuffered on his previous journey. The autumn air, already nipping outof the sunshine, had annihilated these pests, and the only trouble of asimilar kind that Jack experienced was from some black ants whose nesthis pony disturbed, and which bit with terrible ferocity.
For more than a week the three riders pursued their journey almostwithout incident. After the first few days they came into a country ofhill and forest, broken by richly cultivated valleys and large swiftstreams. They had to climb ridges, to cross ravines, to ford rivers,sometimes fording the same river a score of times, so serpentine wereits windings. Here and there were settlers' huts, where they foundscanty accommodation, but a warm welcome; here and there also a hillsideinn, at which they spent the night on the floor of a tiny room, withperhaps a dozen Chinamen packed like sardines in a box on the k'angabove them.
During these days and nights Jack had many opportunities of thinkingover his position. He wondered sometimes whether the course he haddecided on was the best he could have taken; but his ponderings alwaysconverged to the same point--that his only chance of obtaining news ofhis father and procuring his liberation lay in remaining in Russian orRusso-Chinese territory. For himself, hunted and outlawed as he was,capture might well mean death, and nowhere was he so likely to be safeas among the Chunchuses. But he saw that in seeking an asylum amongthem he was in a sense casting in his lot with the enemies of Russia andespousing their quarrel. That consideration gave him food for thought.He had no concern with the great struggle then in progress. It wasnothing to him whether Manchuria became the spoil of either Russia orJapan. Up to the time of his father's arrest, indeed, his sympathieshad inclined to the Russian side. He had made many friends among theRussians during his stay in Moukden, especially among the engineers andofficials connected with the railway. He had found them amiable,courteous, and singularly free from what, for want of a better word, theEnglishman calls "side". Of the Japanese, on the other hand, he knewalmost nothing. His impressions of the few he had met in the course ofbusiness were not wholly favourable, which was perhaps little to bewondered at, for the trading classes of Japan, with whom alone Mr. Brownhad had relations, were only just beginning to emerge from the conditionof a despised and, it must be admitted, despicable caste. Japanese ofthe Samurai class looked down on a merchant with far more disdain thanan English aristocrat shows towards a petty tradesman; and it would haveseemed incredible to them that an English marquis should become a coalmerchant or a dairyman. It was natural enough that a class thusdespised should not be greatly hampered with self-respect; and theirbusiness methods did not commend themselves to Mr. Brown, with whom, aswith every British merchant, his word was as good as his bond.
But the black sheep whom Jack had come across recently had brought abouta change in his feeling towards the Russians generally. He saw them nowas grasping adventurers, and the Chunchuses as patriots waging a lawfulwarfare against invasion and oppression. He had no very kindly feelingfor the men who were treating his father with such abominable injustice.He did not disguise from himself that in joining the Chunchuses he couldnot remain a passive spectator of the struggle. He must be prepared toidentify himself completely with the fortunes of Ah Lum's band, andbecome to all intents and purposes as lawless a brigand as themselves,But he hoped it would not be for long. If the tide of success uponwhich the Japanese arms had been borne from victory to victory did notturn, the Russian domination must ere long be shattered, and in somevague undefined way he felt that the fortunes of his quest were bound upwith the discomfiture of the Russians. But in thus throwing in his lotwith their enemies he reserved one point: he would steadily refuse tohave any part in such excesses as were from time to time reported of theChunchuses. It was likely enough that as a very unimportant individual,incurably a "foreign devil", he would be laughed to scorn for hisscruples by Ah Lum. The custom of torturing prisoners was so deeplyrooted in Chinese methods of warfare that Ah Lum, even if he so desired,might be unable to control his followers and prevent atrocity when theywere not under his immediate observation. This would make it difficultfor Jack to remain with them; but he put the matter from his thoughts:he would not meet difficulties half-way.
Now and again, as with his guide and Hi Lo he passed through isolatedvillages, he heard of small bodies of Cossacks having been seen in theirvicinity. From the general talk at inns and farmhouses he gathered thatthe Russians, alarmed for their communications after the battle ofLiao-yang, were about to make a serious attempt to deal with Ah Lum andone or two other Chunchuse chiefs who threatened the railway betweenHarbin and Vladivostok. The Cossack parties whose movements thevillagers reported, were presumably scouting to ascertain the exactposition of Ah Lum's band preparatory to a concerted attempt to entraphim.
One afternoon, as they climbed a rugged slope towards a village nestlingamong trees at the top, the travellers heard the rattle of musketry inthe distance, and saw a couple of Russian horsemen riding away in thedirection whence the sound came. At first Jack thought of avoiding thevillage altogether, and making a detour; but he had been riding sinceearly morning over difficult country, the sun had been hot, and he wasvery hungry; so that after consulting with his guide he decided to goon, the man thinking there was as great a risk of encountering Russiansthe one way as the other. They proceeded, therefore, but cautiously,keeping a sharp look-out. The guide knew the headman of the village; ifhe could get speech with him they might obtain useful information.
Firing could still be heard fitfully; it was impossible to tell how faraway, but it seemed at a considerable distance from the village. Whenthey entered the street, they came upon a knot of villagers in volublediscussion. They were instantly the object of a narrow scrutiny; but theguide had already marked his friend the headman among the group, andcalled him by name. The man came forward to meet the riders; the guideexplained in a sentence that he wished to have some private talk withhim, and he at once led the way to his house.
Thinking that frankness was here the best policy, Jack asked his guideto explain briefly who he was and what had brought him to the village.The headman was perturbed, almost
incensed, when he heard the story. Hehad suffered already from depredations by the brigands; if the Russiansknew that he had harboured a fugitive, he could only expect to suffereven more seriously at their hands. And there was great danger thatthey would discover the new-comers' presence. A squadron of Cossacksabout two hundred strong was at that moment besieging some fiftyChunchuses in a farm three miles away. The brigands had been shut infor three days, and it was expected that they must yield shortly,perhaps before another day was past. The owner of the farm had comeinto the village when the Chunchuses appeared. He said that there wasplenty of grain in his barns; the brigands could not be starved; but thewater supply was likely to give out. The farm being situated less thanhalf a mile from a river, the store of water kept in it was onlysufficient for his family and servants, and could not meet therequirements of the company of Chunchuses, to say nothing of theirhorses. Behind the walls they might succeed in keeping the Russians atbay unless artillery were brought against them; but lack of water mustinevitably cause them to surrender. They had made a good fight; thebesiegers had lost a good many men; two Cossacks had come into thevillage only a short time before Jack's arrival, with orders to theheadman to prepare quarters for the wounded. But they so greatlyoutnumbered the defenders that they could afford to lose heavily withoutseriously reducing the odds in their favour; and, taught by experience,they would probably not attempt to storm the place, but would sit downand leave its reduction to the work of time.
These explanations were given by the headman, who concluded by earnestlyentreating Jack and his companions to depart. If the Cossacks suspectedthat any of the villagers had been in relations with the brigands theywould certainly burn every house in the place, and in all likelihoodslaughter the inhabitants. Jack sympathized with the man in his terror;he said at once that the village should suffer no harm through him; andafter buying a little food to carry him to the next stage, he rode outwith his two companions.
But the news he had just heard was not of a kind to pass unconsidered.He was on his way to join Ah Lum's band; it was a part of that band thatwas now in such desperate straits, and he felt a personal interest intheir fate. Word had been sent to Ah Lum, as the headman had informedhim; but Ah Lum was at least two days' march away, and another two daysmust pass before help could come from him, even if he found himself in aposition to send assistance. If this siege of the farm were a part ofan organized movement against the Chunchuses, it was not unlikely thatAh Lum himself was hard pressed.
Jack was in a quandary. Prudence bade him press on without delay; theconvoy with the Russian wounded was no doubt already on the way to thevillage, and might meet him or cross his path at any moment. But hefelt an overpowering curiosity, natural in one of his active spirit, tosee for himself the place where the brigands were so stoutly keeping upa fight against odds; and his curiosity was reinforced by anothermotive: the desire to see whether there was any possibility of theirescaping from their peril. He felt the natural impulse of youth to "dosomething", even though he recognized how hopeless it was to imaginethat he, with but two companions, could intervene between the Chunchusesand their fate. Still, the impulse was overmastering; he must see withhis own eyes how they were situated; and having availed himself of AhLum's protection in placing himself in the hands of his agent, hethought it his duty not to leave the neighbourhood without at leastassuring himself that rescue was out of the question.
He announced his intention of riding to the farm. His guide vigorouslyprotested; it was absurd, he said, to go into the very jaws of danger;much better hurry on and reach safety with the chief.
"And what would Mr. Ah think of you if he heard that?"
"But I don't know the way, master."
"No matter. The firing was to our right; we saw the way the Cossackswent; no doubt the wounded will come the same way, so we must avoidthat; but if we work round gradually under cover of that copse yonder,we shall be going in the right direction. They're firing again. Youwill come with me," he added sternly, divining an inclination to bolt,"or you will no longer be Mr. Ah's man, and you know what that means."
The three turned off to the right, skirting the beech plantation ofwhich Jack had spoken, the guide resigned but sullen. It was now aboutfive o'clock in the afternoon; in an hour and a half it would be dark.Riding cautiously, keeping a keen look-out on all sides for signs of theRussians, they gradually made their way across country, guided by thefiring that was still heard at intervals. They were crossing a hilltopsome three miles from the village they had left behind, when Hi Losuddenly declared that he saw smoke in the distance.
"You have sharp eyes," said Jack. "We had better dismount. Being onthe sky-line we shall be easily seen if the Russians look this way. Letus hope they are giving their whole attention to the farm."
They tied up their ponies to trees some distance from the hill-path theyhad been following. Jack wished to leave Hi Lo in charge of theanimals, but the boy pleaded hard to be allowed to accompany his master.
"Masta say-lo my hab plenty good look-see. My walkee long-side masta;plaps my can helpum masta."
"Very well. Now show me where you saw the smoke."
The boy pointed to a hollow nearly a mile away, where at first Jackcould see nothing but fields of hay and over-ripe kowliang. The smokeof course had now disappeared; but, following Hi Lo's finger, Jackpresently saw the dull mud-coloured walls of a farm enclosure, barelydistinguishable from the brownish vegetation around. A moment later HiLo's keen glance lighted upon the low shelter-tents of the Russianencampment, some distance to the left of the farm, apparently situatedin a field, recently cropped, near the bank of the river, of which a fewyards could be seen. Not a man was in sight; but beyond the camp was aclump of brushwood, at the edge of which Jack fancied he saw the blackforms of two or three horses. Probably the rest were tethered in thecopse.
As Jack and his two companions, standing motionless on the hilltop,looked across the valley they suddenly saw a score of men rush out fromthe tall kowliang in which they had been concealed, and dash forwardagainst the far corner of the wall surrounding the farm. At the samemoment, from the fields around puffs of smoke were seen rising in theair, and a few moments later the sharp rattle of musketry, like thesudden shooting of pebbles from a cart, reached their ears. But thedefenders had not been caught napping. A withering fire met theRussians as they charged up the slight slope leading to the farm; only afew gained the crest, and these fell to the Chunchuses, who all at onceappeared as by magic in the courtyard. The survivors hesitated for amoment; then they turned and plunged into cover of the long grass andkowliang. In a few seconds every man had disappeared from view; peacereigned over the scene; there was nothing to show that the farm was thecentre of a bitter struggle.
But for the scarcity of water Jack had little doubt from what he hadseen that the Chunchuses would be able to hold their own indefinitelyagainst the Cossacks, unless siege operations of a regular kind wereadopted. He could see no trace of trenches, such as, with theirnumerical advantage, the besiegers could easily have constructed if theyhad been so minded and possessed the requisite knowledge. But they werea mounted force, unused, no doubt, to any tactics but the simple Cossackevolutions. The average Russian soldier has little adaptability. Theconstruction of trenches is not a horseman's business; it would notenter the head of a Cossack captain to employ a device so far removedfrom his routine. Yet with the aid of a trench the besiegers could makeshort work of the Chunchuse defences, which consisted simply of the mudwall surrounding the farm, and the farm itself--a thatched cottage withbyres and pig-sties adjacent, flimsy structures at the best.
Under cover of the tall shrubs that crowned the hill, Jack looked longand searchingly at the beleaguered farm. He tried to picture thedefenders within the walls, hoping for relief, watching the inch-fall oftheir water supply, tantalized by the sight of the full stream flowingso near, and yet as distant as though it were in another continent. ToJack it appeared that there was no c
hance whatever of doing anything toassist the Chunchuses, among whom doubtless were men whom he had seen inAh Lum's camp. He asked the guide whether he could suggest a way. Theman replied that the only course was to hurry on and inform Ah Lum ofthe desperate position of his men. Inasmuch as a messenger had gone onthe same errand two days before, the guide's suggestion was not veryhelpful. And Jack was possessed of the feeling that to act thus wouldbe equivalent to leaving the trapped band in the lurch, a thing thatwent very much against the grain. Yet what else could he do? If hecould give no help in the actual, pressing emergency, there was nothingto gain by remaining on the scene--not only nothing to gain buteverything to lose, for he would run the risk of being snapped up by theCossacks.
"There's no help for it, I suppose," he said half-aloud. Veryunwillingly he turned his back on the farm, and retraced his steps downthe hillside towards the copse where the ponies were tethered. Justbefore the farm was wholly shut from his sight by the crest of the hill,he turned again and swept the country with his eye, as though to take alast look at the scene of an approaching tragedy. It happened that inhis movements upon the hill he had reached a point where a somewhatdifferent view was obtainable, and he now noticed for the first time,half a mile away to his left, an open space in which a group of men,Russians no doubt, were busy around a number of tripods with bigcauldrons suspended. Smoke was rising from one or two; the men wereevidently lighting fires to prepare their evening meal.
"Strange," thought Jack, "that the cooking place should be so far fromthe shelter-tents and horses. It must be nearly half a mile from thefarm. Do the troops march to the food, I wonder, or is the food carriedto the troops? Probably the former. But why so far away?"
Even as the question occurred to him the answer flashed upon hismind--and not only the answer, but a possible means of doing what he somuch longed to do. Was it possible? He felt his pulse quicken at themere thought. The dusk was fast gathering over the scene; the farm andits surroundings must soon be shut altogether from his gaze; before thatcame about, he must take one more look. Bidding Hi Lo and the guideremain where they were, he went back to his former post of observation,moving very carefully so as not to be seen from the quarter where he hadnot previously suspected the presence of an enemy. Once more he scannedthe landscape; then he returned to the two Chinese, who looked at himquestioningly, wondering at the change of expression on his face.
"Back to the ponies!" he said briefly. As they went they saw the glowof the Russians' fires in the glooming sky. The sight brought a smileto Jack's lips, but he said nothing to his expectant companions. Theyfound the ponies where they had left them; they took from the saddlesthe food brought from the village--a little rice, some bean sprouts, anda small heap of monkey-nuts, all that they had been able to get at shortnotice. As they munched their frugal meal Jack could not but wish forfive minutes by the steaming cooking-pots on the other side of the hill.When their hunger was satisfied, and the dusk had deepened into night,Jack suddenly looked up from the brown study in which he had appeared tobe absorbed and said:
"Now, listen to me."
His two companions listened with all their ears; Hi Lo soon becamerestless with excitement; the guide, though his Chinese stolidity wasnot so easily broken through, at length gave utterance to theexclamation "Ch'hoy!" which signifies approbation or disdain, pleasureor misgiving, according to the inflection of the voice. What Jack hadto say took some time; it was quite dark when he finished; then he gotup.
"Remember," he said, "not a movement nor a sound. Do exactly as I havetold you; then make for this spot again."
Then he slipped away into the darkness.
Slowly, with infinite caution, he crossed the brow of the hill, struckoff towards the right, and descended the slope on the opposite side. Itwas so dark that he had no fear of being seen; but, his view of the campfires being intercepted by the hill, he could not make sure of hisdirection, and knew that at any moment he might stumble upon a sentry.The only chance of escape for the Chunchuses being to take advantage ofthe darkness, he had no doubt that the Russians would keep the strictestwatch at night. He had to guess his way; he was going to the farm.