Under the allied flags; a boy's adventures in the international war against the Boxers and China

Front matter

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Preface

I N pursuance of a desire to present to young people a series of adventures against a background of recent historical happenings the author of this book follows his “ In Defence of the Flag ” and “ With Lawton and Roberts ” with a tale of the war in China, thus making a series of adventure stories that deal in due succession with the war with Spain, the revolt in the Philippines, the conflict in the Transvaal, and the siege and relief of the legations at Pekin.

As in the preceding stories, “ Under the Allied Flags ” does not seek to go into the discussion of world problems and international rights ; the author has endeavored simply to tell a story of danger and adventure, introducing to the readers of the companion stories, some familiar friends, and showing how pluck and heedlessness, valor and carelessness may lead a healthy and well-meaning American lad into scrapes and experiences that only a boy could blunder into and out of. At the same time he has tried to sketch types of the various nationalities who, 7

PREFACE ranged under or against the allied flags, waged this war for the safety of diplomatic and other representatives in a hostile land, and helped to make the story of the war in China at once interesting, dramatic and inspiring.

If the story of Ned Pevear and his adventures “ Under the Allied Flags ” shall have taken to itself any of these qualities, the author will feel amply repaid for his endeavor to tell a tale of action founded upon facts.

For the facts drawn upon the author desires to accord credit to the excellent sketches of the conflict that have appeared in print, and especially to the graphic accounts of the American correspondents, Frederick Palmer and Oscar King Davis.

ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS.

Boston, April , 1901.

Contents

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CHAPTER PAGE

I. Why Ned Joined the Marines i

CHAPTER I “ They're signalling us, sir/' the quartermaster reported

“ Looks like it/* the captain of the Orlando replied. “ Now, what under the sun — here ! quartermaster, let’s have the code book — or, hold on ! two — * eight — I can spell it out, I reckon. H-e-a-v-e t-o. S-p-e-c-i-a-l O-r-d-e-r-s. Special orders, eh? All right; heave to, it is. What in the nation is up now, I wonder ? ”

The captain of the United States transport Orlando , two days out from Hong Kong and a week from Manila had not long to wait. The engines were slowed down and the transport held herself drifting on the Yellow Sea, while a cutter from the detaining despatch boat swiftly cut across the intervening water. In the stern sheets sat a white bloused officer ii and his hail speedily rang out as he approached the transport.

“ Ship ahoy ! ” he called. “ Is that the Orlando transport? ”

“ Ay-ay-sir, homeward bound/’ the mate replied.

Five minutes later, the lieutenant from the U. S. despatch boat Mont auk stood on the deck of the Orlando.

“ You have Captain Marshall with a detachment of marines on board, homeward bound ? ” he inquired.

“ Yes, sir,” the officer of the deck replied.

“ My compliments to the captain,” said the lieutenant; “ beg him to see me at once. I have orders for him from the admiral.”

The messenger despatched with the summons had not far to go to find the captain of marines. In fact, that officer was already on deck, aroused by the slowing down of the Orlando's engines and the hail across the water. Red tape, however, must be unwound and the message was duly delivered.

The captain of marines saluted the lieutenant, and the latter turned over his order.

“ A draft of three hundred marines, eh,” he said as he hastily scanned the order; “ to go to Taku at once? Hm! I’m not surprised. I thought something was up or would be soon, from what I heard at Hong Kong.”

“ Yes, captain,” the lieutenant of the Montauk replied; “something is up with a vengeance. The Boxers are up; the Chinese are up, and we’ve got to protect our interests and our legations. The scalawags are tearing up railroads, burning down stations, attacking engineers and missionaries and no one knows what they may do to our people in Pekin. We’ve got to get more men into Taku harbor and up to Tien Tsin and Pekin, and we’ve got to do it quick. So the admiral is raking in all the marines and blue jackets he can spare from the fleet, and all the homeward-bounds he can recall. What number do you report, captain ? ”

The captain of marines was considering.

“ Sick, invalided, expired term, leave of absence, transferred,” he went over his list — “ Well, most of ’em come under those heads, lieutenant,” he said. “ I can give you about thirty on orders, lieutenant, and we may pipe out a few volunteers.”

“ Count me as one, captain, You’ll let me go, won’t you ? ”

The speaker was a sturdily built, clean cut lad, not yet out of his ’teens, whose face showed exposure to an Oriental sun and whose eyes lighted up with the love of action as the captain went over his list of availables.

“ Count you as one, Ned ! ” the captain replied with a laugh; “why, you’re no marine, nor yet in the service, even if you did have experiences. Besides, what will your father say? ”

“ He’ll say I’m a chip of the old block, captain,” the lad replied. “ Why, he did the same thing when he was a boy, and he’s always said to me ‘ never be afraid of anything except dishonor or run away from any duty that is a duty.’ Now this is a duty, captain, — to relieve our folks at Pekin; and — you called for volunteers. I don’t see but that lets me in, all right.”

Captain Marshall smiled again.

“The service first,” he said; “then — I’ll think about you, Ned. I’d like mighty well to have you go back with me, if it’s all right for you to do so. We’re going to need all the availables we can get just now.”

So certain was the captain of this need that he went over his list of returning marines again and again; but out of his force of one hundred and twenty he could really only count upon thirty-five or forty as available for active service. A long season in the Philippines had influenced or affected the most of those listed for a return to the states, and even for the excitement of possible service in China the homeward bound men preferred “ God’s country ” of America to the fascinating mysteries of the Flowery Kingdom and the Forbidden City.

“Thirty-five, eh? Well, that’s better than nothing,” the lieutenant from the despatch boat said when Captain Marshall had completed his detail. “ Tumble their kits overboard and get 'em off to the Montauk as soon as you can, captain. We’ve no time to lose.”

It was quick work; in a half hour the men and their belongings were transferred to the Montauk , and, instead of the long voyage homeward-bound across the Pacific, they were soon — some of them grumbling and some of them jubilant — steaming westward across the Yellow Sea to Taku and the treaty port of Tien Tsin. And Ned Pevear went with them.

Now Ned Pevear may be no stranger to certain of my readers who, perhaps, followed his adventures and experiences as, under three flags and two heroes, he saw service in the Philippines and the Transvaal, with Lawton and Roberts. If Ned really is an old acquaintance you will understand how, in the haste and hustle of transfer from the Orlando to the Montauk, Captain Marshall of the marines might be induced to accede to the lad’s request and permit Ned Pevear to accompany him as volunteer; for Ned Pevear had a way of bringing people to see things as he saw them, and he was always a delightful and desirable companion.

Ned had seen service in two wars under two notable leaders; his experiences fitted him to engage in similar enterprises where coolness in decision, steadiness in action and an utter absence of fear were important considerations; his father was an old soldier, who had transmitted alike his courage and his soldierly qualities to his son; the business, upon which he had been despatched to the Philippines by his father, had been completed, and he was now on his homeward way, free to consider fresh enterprises if he so desired.

To be sure he had been compelled to leave Tollman’ s — his school in California, as you may remember, to which he had returned after his home-coming from South Africa. But that had been his father’s doing and not his. Major Pevear of the Bighorn ranches in Montana had need of one who knew the Philippines to look after a beef contract at Manila; Ned, from experience and acquaintance in that new possession of the republic had, naturally, been his first thought when the problem presented itself, and to Manila Ned had gone; there he had completed his business satisfactorily and was now returning home on the transport Orlando — the very same steamer in which, as the readers of “ With Lawton and Roberts ” may remember, he had his first unpleasant experience as “ a gentleman stowaway.”

But things were vastly different from that day of deliverance. Captain Thompson of the Orlando, gruff and grumpy though he could be, “ thought a days later, three hundred foreign troops were sent forward to guard the legations at Pekin, fifty of whom were from the American fleet.

But escorts despatched for the safety of the legations at Pekin were but as oil poured upon the rising flame of riot and massacre. Maddened by the false reports of their leaders the fighting element of the Boxers rose against the foreigners in mission “ compound ” and engineer camp and destroyed property, terrorized foreigners and natives, and vented on those they captured the relentless persecutions and nameless tortures of a people without sympathy, sentiment or the fear of pain.

Day by day the danger to the foreigners in Pekin increased, and when Ned Pevear sailed over the Taku bar the allied naval commanders had decided to march a force of marines from the international fleet to the relief of the beleaguered legations within the walls of Pekin.

The draft had already been made from the fleet; it included a hundred marines from the American ships under the command of Captain McCalla of the Newark , and the strength of the mixed command barely exceeded two thousand men, with the senior foreign captain, Vice Admiral Edward Hobart Seymour of the British Navy, as chief in command.

A relief column! That promised adventure, excitement, service in the cause of humanity — everything that appealed to the adventurous and chivalric soul of so earnest a youth as Ned Pevear.

“ Captain/' he said to Marshall of the marines, “ I want to join Admiral Seymour’s expedition. Can’t you fix it for me? ”

“ I don’t see why you shouldn’t want to, Ned,” the captain replied, with enthusiasm. “ I wish I had been detailed for that service, too. I’ll see Captain McCalla and try to get a chance for you as volunteer aid, writer or something. I don’t suppose you know Chinese, eh ? If you did, I could arrange for you at once as an interpreter.”

Ned knew much for a lad of his years; but he really felt obliged to acknowledge that he was not “ fluent ” in the Chinese lingo.

“ I did get hold of pidgin English, Captain,” he said, “both in California and the Philippines; but I’m afraid that wouldn’t help much hereabouts.”

“ I’m afraid not, Ned,” said the captain. “ Pidgin English in California and the Chinese lingo of North China haven’t much in common. I’ll try another tack with Captain McCalla.”

Whatever the tack was that Captain Marshall tried, it worked. Within an hour he saw the commander of the Newark and reported to Ned that Captain McCalla would be glad to have him accompany the expedition as special messenger or volunteer orderly in the marine contingent.

“ And that means about anything the captain takes it into his head to detail you for, from writing dispatches to swinging a cutlass,” Marshall explained. “ It seems Captain McCalla heard of you and your Philippine experiences from someone or other and he says you’re too good an all-round chap to lose. You are to report to him on the Newark to-morrow.”

Ned was overjoyed. He was a lad of pluck and spirit, and, to such as he, the pluck and spirit of Captain McCalla of the Newark were peculiarly attractive.

He had heard the story of how the determined McCalla dominated the foreign council that debated the question of an advance for relief. It was a story well fitted to stir the American blood.

“ Gentlemen,” said Captain McCalla, as British, Japanese and Germans, Americans, French and Russians debated the question of advance and relief, “ we have talked a good deal ; now I will tell you what I will do. Our minister telegraphs that he is in danger. It matters not what others may or may not do. My entire force of one hundred blue jackets will take a train and start for Pekin to-morrow morning.”

And start they did, the allies following the brave American’s lead. And so, too, it came about that Ned Pevear joined the marines at Taku, and reported for duty as auxiliary aid to Captain McCalla of Admiral Seymour’s advance.

The peculiar and manifold experiences of a young fellow like Ned Pevear became part of the gossip of camp and mess and when Sir Edward Seymour, the senior admiral of the allied fleets, learned that, in the American detail there was one who had seen scouting service as well in the Transvaal as in the Philippines, and who was acquainted with the conversational demands of three languages, besides pidgin English and Tagalog, he begged from Captain McCalla a loan of the young man for special service in the advance and Ned Pevear was despatched from Tien Tsin to accompany the advance and report upon the condition of the railway from Tien Tsin to Pekin.

Up the muddy-brown Pei-Ho, from where, swinging at their berths, the forty warships of the allied nations threatened the adobe forts of Taku, to muddy-brown Tien Tsin, the commercial capital of North China walled about with mud and the home of a million Mongolians and a well-kept foreign concession, Ned Pevear made his way in obedience to commands; and was soon steaming away from the port of Pekin to Pekin itself as the crudely armored train pulled out from the barn-like station beyond the pontoon bridge to feel the way for Seymour’s advance.

Ned had experienced the ways and perils of armored trains both in the Philippines and in the country of the Boers, but he, equally with his comrades of the advance, had little faith in the fighting abilities of the Chinese.

“ Mighty slim chance for more’n a brush with em, I reckon,” he said to an old sergeant of British marines who sat beside him in the armored car. x “ They tell me most of these Chinamen don’t know a Mauser from a bolo and that they fight with spears and drum banging, and all that old fogy stuff. According to that we good British or Yankee blue jackets ought to be a match for anything from a hundred to a thousand Chinks, eh ? ”

The grizzled old sergeant looked at the lad beside him with poorly-concealed contempt.

“ Now who’s been a-stuffin’ of ye like that, lad? ” he said. “ See here, I’ve seen these yellow chaps in more’n one scrap. I was with the allies forty years ago when they did this very job we’re at to-day. I was powder monkey on the Kestral when Admiral Seymour — it was a Seymour then, too, you see — stormed the Taku forts and we and the Frenchies got more than we bargained for ; I was on deck when Pekin fell at last, and I got good stuff when we looted the Summer palace; I got a peep at these fellows when Japan laid them out in the Yulu fight, and I’ve sized ’em up since we’ve been patrolling the treaty ports ; and let me tell you these chappies aren’t the same stuff the allies faced in ’59 nor the Japs in

’97. The German drill-masters have made soldiers of them and their best fighters — the Bannermen — are just as well up in handling Mausers and machine guns as any armorer on our fleet.”

“ Yes, but those are the soldiers — a few of them,” Ned replied. “ We’re not up against them yet; we’re after the Boxers — and what do they know about fighting? ”

“ You’ll find out, young chap,” the old sergeant said. “ You mark my word, the soldiers are standing in with the Boxers in this affair. They’ll talk one way and shoot another. And as for these Boxers not being fighters — why, see here! lad — eh? what’s that? Torn up the track have they? Here’s trouble for us, then. No fighters, my Yankee boy? You just watch and see.”

But Ned had not much time to watch. He was to learn by actual experience. For when the first division of the armored train bearing English and American marines had run some fifteen miles from Tien Tsin the railway track was found to have been torn up by the natives and the track menders were set to work under the protection of American and English rifles.

In the brush that flanked the track a skirmish line taken from the forces on the train was at once concealed.

“ Jump in that hand car with me and see what we can see ahead,” the sergeant said to Ned, and the two, with a half dozen marines £nd laborers, ran to the limit of the relaid track, two hundred yards or so in advance of the train.

“ They tell me you’re great at a scout, young ’un,” the sergeant said. “Just use your eyes and see if the land’s clear, so that we can let in a gang of track men.”

“ Seems to be all clear, sergeant,” Ned replied, letting his sharp eyes range far ahead of the hand ear. “ Clear all around,” he continued, letting his glance linger an instant to the right and the left. “ You know these Chin-Chins better than I do though, sergeant; but, all the same, don’t you think it would be a good plan to beat the brush a bit off to the right and go back a piece before we let the track men — hullo! see there! Cut off, by George! There’s a crowd of ’em breaking the brush. We’re surrounded, sergeant.”

The sergeant leaped from the hand car, his Mauser in his hand ; he ordered three marines on the car to his side. Ned stood on the car, his rifle ready also.

“ Not surrounded,” said the sergeant. “ Cut off; that’s what we are. See, yonder! they’re trotting down the track. They’re going to wreck the train and leave us for the last.”

“ Attack an armored train with rifles, swords and spears? ” exclaimed Ned; “ what do they think they are — iron clad? ”

“ They don’t know the train is, lad,” cried the sergeant with a chuckle. “Just keep your eye on that skirmish line. John Chinaman’s going to have a surprise.”

The sergeant was correct. Down the track in single file trotted the Chinamen, three hundred strong. Ahead of them lay the train, an easy prey, as they believed, for they evidently supposed the men on the hand car to be all there were of the train hands and guard.

Nearer and nearer the skirmish line they ran; then, when within less than twenty paces of the masking growth of brush a sharp order was heard and a volley that sounded like a single shot rang out from the brush.

With a yell of surprise the advancing file of Boxers stopped short, the rear bunched in with the advance and, beneath that deadly volley of the skirmishers, the whole quivering mass of men seemed to fall in their tracks.

They were up again; others joined them from the rear; another volley caught them for an instant; then the ambushers — English and American both — sprang from the bush with a rousing yell, and the over-confident Boxers turned and raced up the track for dear life, the skirmishers at their heels.

Tumbling Ned into the hands of the Boxers.

The sergeant and Ned Pevear with the half dozen riflemen of the guard stood at bay before the retreating mass, and as they came upon them a half-dozen Mausers rang out the little squad’s defiance. Caught thus as they thought between two fires, the Chinamen broke in every direction, but a line of spearmen led by an officer with sword and gun dashed straight ahead at the hand car and before Ned could spring from his stand upon the car, the officer with fifty men at his back had broken through the defence of the guard and rushing at the hand car sent it spinning up the track and off the broken end, tumbling Ned Pevear straight into the hands of the retreating Boxers.

Chapter II Of The Frying Pan Into The Fire

The thing all happened so quickly that Ned was down almost before he realized his danger. But he was on his feet as swiftly and clubbing his rifle laid about him to left and right, scarce giving his assailants time to fight or flee.

As it was the leader of the Boxers who had headed the rush on the hand car it was at him that Ned aimed the chief attack. He was a stout Chinaman, whose face seemed to belie his Chinese origin and when one of Ned’s swinging blows took him with a thud in his stomach the officer was completely doubled up with the blow, and an expression, — certainly not Chinese, Mongol, nor Manchurian — escaped him.

“ Ach, himmel!” he cried, as he recovered himself and lunged a furious blow at the boy with the clubbed Mauser.

But Ned had been in tight places before and knew how to defend himself at bay.

He did this so effectively, that he actually held back the brief assault by sword and spear made upon 28 him — brief because, with a ringing shout, the advance from the skirmish line came charging up the wrecked railroad track and a volley from the skirmishers sent the throng to the right about the hand car scattering in demoralized flight.

Strengthened by this rescue Ned sought^ {o gain some glory from the affair and singling out the leader of the now flying Boxers, he fairly leaped upon him, clutched him about the neck, and with a well-remembered lock and twist flung him to the ground. There he simply sat upon him.

“ Surrender ! ” he cried, “ or I’ll — ” Then he remembered that his foeman could scarcely comprehend his English demand and he actually laughed aloud at his first fight on Chinese soil. He was floored by conversational difficulties.

With the laugh of the captor the countenance of the captive changed also and an ingratiating sort of smile accompanied the query “ You will let me free, young Englander, yes? It was but in sport, this.”

“ What! you speak English? ” cried Ned. “ Surrender then, or I’ll kill you.”

“ Again the sport,” the prostrate one remarked; “ You could not — would not kill me.”

It did seem almost like murder to give the death stroke to “ the under dog,” even on the field of battle, and Ned, who struck only in the excitement of the charge or in self defence, confessed as much.

3 °

“ Hanged if I can ! ” he replied with a laugh. “ Get up and clear out before the marines are on you. They don’t give quarter to you bloody Boxers. But, say ! ” he cried out, as with a scramble and a sweeping bow the man he had set free was up and off, “ what are you doing among these murderers, you’re not a Boxer, are you, — or a Chinaman ? ” -

The officer was already scurrying toward his men who, heavily reinforced, were massing two hundred yards ahead.

“Auf wiedersehen! ” came back the answer, and the released one joined the enemy.

“ Auf wiedersehen f ” echoed Ned. “ Why, that’s Dutch, isn’t it — or German? It can’t be possible there are any Europeans or white men leading that bloodthirsty crew. Auf wiedersehen? That means till we meet again or something of that sort. Well ! if we do meet again I’ll find out whether you’re Dutch, Irish, Yankee, South Sea Islander or just plain Chinaman. You’re something you ought not to be anyhow — and that’s a Boxer.”

Of Ned’s companions on the hand car, two had been killed and two wounded in the Chinese onset, but the sergeant was in good condition and excessively angry.

“ Rushed and tumbled over by a gang of laundrymen,” he cried. “ That’s a fine to-do, that is. Here, you chaps ! ” he shouted to the advance of the skirmish line, “ show some more ginger and hurry up, fcan’t ye. Drive ’em back before they mass again. Hollo! lad; you’re safe, are you? I thought they’d done for you, sure. What d’ye think about their fighting now ? ”

“ They had spears as I said they had,” Ned answered, “ and they ran like sheep. That wasn’t fighting.”

“ Don’t crow yet,” the sergeant retorted. “ Look at ’em yonder. They mean to make another stand. Run back to the train won’t you and tell ’em to rush it along. Our skirmish line is too small to stand against that rush.”

Ned sped down the newly-laid track as the sergeant requested, while the skirmishers rallied about the old sergeant as a temporary advance guard.

“ In force, eh ? ” the major of marines in the first of the armored trains said, as Ned delivered his message. “ Is the track clear to the skrmish line? ”

“ Very nearly, sir,” Ned responded. “ I can show the engineer the limit.”

“ Jump into the cab then and play lookout,” said the major, as he bade the engineer pull slowly ahead. “ When we’re as far as we can go we’ll try a rapid-fire gun on ’em.”

Slowly the armored train crept on along the half repaired track; already the Chinese mass was moving on toward the thin but determined skirmish line;

3 * there came a shrill yell from the Boxer ranks and with a scattering volley they came with a rush upon the skirmish line.

“ Swing open the port,” cried the major of marines, unmindful of his mixing of terms in his excitement. “ Now then, train that rapid-fire gun on ’em through the opening and when I bid ye, let the rascals have it”

Five hundred Boxers, spearmen and swordsmen, charged upon the skirmish line, while, across the flat fields that skirted the railway track, at least five hundred more hurried to join the assault.

There came a sharp volley from the skirmish line so timed in unison that again it rang out like one great shot; the advance of the Boxers wavered and shook for an instant; then the mass closed upon the skirmishers, while the shouts of the new forces swarming across the platted barley fields came in vengeful warning to the little band.

Suddenly the port or closed side door of the armordefended car swung open and the harmless looking nose of a rapid-fire gun protruded itself.

“ Got the range, boys? Now! let her go,” came the command from the major.

Snip, snip, pling, pling ! with bark and crack and snap in quick succession the terrible fusilade of the rapid-fire gun opened upon the startled and huddling mass of Boxers; the gun from the second car followed suit and, stricken with surprise and terror, the whole mass of attacking Boxers broke and fled across the barley fields, leaving the ground strewn with the dead and dying — three hundred and more, — victims to modern improvements in war.

Ned Pevear was a good fighter, but he had a tender heart toward distress; the writhing mass of wounded heathen amid their dead brethren, the harvest of death on the grain fields of Yang-tsun, aroused his pity.

“ By George ! that’s rough,” he commented as he looked from the cab at the swath of death the rapid-fire gun had cut. “ They’re men even if they are heathen. Can’t we help ’em somehow ? ”

He swung himself from the cab and put the same inquiry to the major of marines in the armored car.

“ Help ’em ? Why, lad, don’t you know there is nothing more treacherous than a wounded Chinaman? ” the major replied. “ You hold your hands off if you wish to keep the breath in your body. There is no such thing as sentiment, honor or gratitude for favors in the whole Chinese race. Isn’t that so, sergeant ? ” he added, as the old marine from the skirmish line, came up to report.