the Birthday Garden a couple of days later; no one else would even look at 'em, which showed judgment, since the experts will tell you that black jade doesn't exist. I don't mind; all I know is that while Lucknow paid for Gandamack Lodge, those chessmen bought me the place on Berkeley Square. But I still have the tortoiseshell plaque; Elspeth stands her bedside teapot on it.42
'The prisoners are safe!' someone had hollered when I first rode into Elgin's headquarters, supposing that my appearance heralded the return of the others. They weren't, and it didn't, although hopes ran high when Loch and Parkes turned up a day later; they'd been released fifteen minutes before their vermilion death warrant arrived at the Board of Punishments. Whether Yehonala or the mandarin who had special charge of them, Hang-ki, had held it back, or whether they were just plain lucky, we never discovered. They'd had a bad time: Parkes had escaped with binding and hammering, but Loch had been dungeoned and shackled and put to the iron collar, and from what he'd seen he suspected that some of the others had been tortured to death. Whether Elgin had any earlier suspicion of this I can't say; I think he may have, from the way he questioned me about my treatment. In any event, his one thought now was to get them out.
Grant had already positioned his guns against the Anting Gate, and the word went to Prince Kung, the Emperor's brother and regent, that unless Pekin surrendered and the prisoners were released, the bombardment would begin. And still the Chinese put off the inevitable, with futile messages and maddening delays, while Elgin aged ten years under the mortal fear that if he did start shooting, the prisoners would be goners for certain … so he must wait, and hope, and question Parkes and Loch and me again and again about our treatment, and what we thought might be happening to the others.
I'd escaped on the Sunday; Parkes and Loch arrived on the Monday; it was Friday before eight Sikhs and three Frenchmen were set free, and when Elgin had talked to them he came out grey-faced and told Grant that he was to open fire the following noon. At the eleventh hour Kung surrendered—and the following night the first bodies came out.
They came on carts after dark, four of them, two British, two Sikh, and had to be examined by torchlight; when the lids came off the coffins there were cries of horror and disbelief, and one or two of the younger fellows turned away, physically sick; after that no one said a word, except to whisper: 'Christ … that's Anderson!' or 'That's Mahomed Bux—my daffadar!' or 'That's De Normann … is it?' Elgin stopped at each coffin in turn, with a face like stone; then he said harshly to replace the lids, and stood turning his hat in his hands, staring before him, and I saw him biting his lips and the tears shining in the torch-light. Then he walked quickly away, without a word.
The other bodies came two days later; they had been used in the same fashion, fourteen of them, and if Elgin had given the word, our army would have slaughtered every man in Pekin.
Now, I've never aimed to horrify you for horrifying's sake, or revelled in gory detail with the excuse that I'm just being a faithful historian. But I'm bound to tell you what the Chinese had done, if you are to understand the sequel—and judge it, if you've a mind to.
The bodies were in quicklime, but it was still easy to see what had happened. I told you the Chinese tie their captives as tightly as possible, so that eventually the hands and feet burst and mortify; some of our people had been bound for weeks, a few au crapaudine (hands and feet in the small of the back), some hung up, some with heavy chains; many had had their bonds soaked to make them tighter, others had been flogged. I'll add only that if, in a Chinese prison, you get the least cut or scratch … good-night; there's a special kind of maggot, by the million, and they eat you alive, agonisingly, sometimes for weeks. So you see, as I said earlier, there's nothing ingenious about Chinese torture; there don't need to be. They just rot you slowly to death, and the lucky ones are Brabazon and the little French padre, who were beheaded at Pah-li-chao, like Nolan.
'It is the uselessness of it that defeats me. If they had wanted to wring information from us, at least torture would be understandable. But this had no purpose. It was the wanton cruelty of men who enjoyed inflicting pain for its own sake, knowing that if retribution followed, it would not fall on them personally. I mean the Emperor, and Sang, and Prince I, and the like. For the Emperor certainly knew; De Normann's torture began in the royal apartments. Indeed they knew.'
This was Harry Parkes, lean and pale but as stubbornly urbane as ever, although his drawl shook a bit when he told me how Loch, when he was sure he was going to die, had sung 'Rule, Britannia' to let the others hear; and of Trooper Phipps, who'd kept everyone's spirits up with jokes when he was dying in agony; and Anderson, telling his sowars not to cry out, for the honour of the regiment; and old Daffadar Mahomed Bux, with no hands left, damning his torturers for giving him pork to eat. Even so, Parkes and Loch had more Christian forgiveness towards their captors than I care for; given my way, I'd have collared Sang and Prince I and the whole foul gang, and turned 'em over to the wives and daughters of our Afghan troopers, if I'd had to drag 'ern the whole way to Peshawar to do it.43
What riled everyone was that the Chinks had been careful to surrender on terms before we'd seen the bodies, so there was no hope of the mandarins being punished as they deserved. How to make 'em pay—that was the question that ran through the army camped before Pekin, and Elgin sent word to Kung that there'd be no talk of treaty-signing, or indeed any talk at all, until he'd decided how to avenge our people. Diplomatic clap-trap, thinks I; we'll let the swine get away with it, as usual. I didn't know the Big Barbarian.
He took a day to think about it, brooding alone under the trees in the temple garden, wearing a face that kept us all at a distance, except Grant. He and Elgin talked for about an hour—at least Elgin did, while Grant listened and nodded and presently retired to his tent to put his bull fiddle through its paces something cruel. 'That's his way of beating his wife,' says Wolseley. 'Summat's in the wind that he don't like—who's going to inquire, eh?' No one else volunteered, so during a pause in the cacophony I loafed in and found him staring at the manuscript on his music stand, with his pencil behind his ear. I asked what was up.
'Finished,' says he. 'Not right. Can't help it.'
'What's finished and not right?'
'Quartet. Piano, violins, and 'cello.' He grunted impatiently. 'Journeyman work. Just to have to perform it. See what's amiss then.'
'Oh, absolutely,' says I. 'It'll come right, I daresay, if you keep whistling it to yourself. But, general sahib … what's Elgin going to do?'
He turned those bright eyes and tufted brows on me, for about three minutes, and picked up his bull fiddle. 'Man's in torment,' says he. 'Difficult.' He began to saw away again, so I gave up and went back to the mess to report failure.
We weren't kept long in suspense. The last bodies came in next day, and after he'd seen them Elgin called an immediate meeting of all the leading men from both armies, with Baron Gros, the French envoy, sharing the table- top with him, and Parkes, Loch, and myself sitting by. He was wearing his frock-coat, which was a portent, since he was used to roll about in flannels and open neck, with a cricket belt and a handkerchief round his head. But he seemed easy enough, pouring a lemonade for Gros, asking if Montauban's cold were any better, making his opening statement in a quiet, measured way—just from his style, I was positive he'd memorised it carefully beforehand.
'It is necessary,' says he without preamble, 'to mark in a manner that cannot soon be forgotten, the punishment we are bound to award for the treachery and brutality which have characterised the Chinese Emperor's policy, and which have resulted in the cruel murder of so many officers and men. Of the Emperor's personal implication, and that of his leading mandarins, there can be no doubt. So, while the punishment must be apparent to the whole Chinese Empire, I am most anxious that it should fall, and be seen to fall, only on the Emperor and his chief nobles, who were fully aware of, and responsible for, these atrocious crimes.'
He paused, looking round the table, and I wondered for a moment if he was going to propose hanging the pack of 'em, Emperor and all; the same thought may have been exercising Gros (a genial snail-eater who'd endeared himself to our troops by calling out: ' 'Allo, camarades, cheer-o!' whenever they saluted him). He was wearing a worried frown, but Elgin's next words should have put his mind at rest.
'It is manifestly impossible to proceed directly against the persons of the culprits, even if we wished to, since they are beyond our reach. Considering the temper of the army—which, I confess, expresses my own feeling—that is perhaps as well. It remains to punish them by other means. Them and them alone.'
He glanced at Gros, who came in nineteen to the dozen to say that milor' was bowling a perfect length, it leaped to the eye, the offenders must be made to account for their conduct unpardonable, and no nonsense. It remained only to determine a suitable method of expressing the just indignation of the Powers, and to -
