Chapter XXI Ah Lum at Bay
Schwab again Retreats—A Business Friend—Reinstated—A Little Light—Ah Lum Threatened—A Thousand Roubles Reward—The Lessening Circle—A Mountain Tiger—Mirage—Ah Lum’s Lament—A Cossack Cloak
It was not merely curiosity that had held Jack within the area of fighting. He clung with a sort of superstition to the belief that his father’s fate was inwoven with the fate of the Russian army. He had a conviction, perfectly illogical, that a victory for Japan would favour his quest. There was so much truth in this idea as that amid the disorders of a Russian retreat he might hope to pass undetected in his disguise. The Russians would be too busy to look closely into the bona-fides of a mere Chinaman, one of thousands who would be swept northwards on the tide. He could easily keep out of sight of the few who might recognize him.
He thus had a purely personal interest in the result of the battle. Convinced that the compradore must have remained with his brother in Harbin, he had resolved to go north and learn from the man’s own lips the issue of his enquiries. When the victorious army had rolled by, he set off with Hi Lo in its wake.
One day, a few miles north of Tieling, he was riding slowly along, contrasting his present position with the different circumstances under which he had made the retreat from Liao-yang, with Mr. Schwab’s precious tripod in his care, when, a little ahead of him, he caught sight of a solitary figure trudging wearily along. It needed but one glance at the broad back. The tired pedestrian was Schwab himself—and he was carrying the camera.
Jack’s lips twitched. To this had come the descendant of the great Hildebrand Suobensius, the itinerant representative of Germany’s imperial might! There was matter for amusement in the reflection, and for sympathy too: Schwab’s patriotism was genuine; his little vanities were harmless enough; and whatever else might be said of him, he was devoted to the interests of the Schlagintwert company. Jack resolved to make himself known to the correspondent, who could have no interest in betraying him to the Russians. Cantering up behind, he heard Schwab sighing and muttering under his breath.
“Excellenz,” he said, “my Sin Foo——”
At the first word Schwab swung round with an alacrity that betokened as much pleasure as surprise.
“Ach!” he said, “I know you; you are imbostor. I am delighted. I abologize.”
“That’s very good of you, Herr Schwab, but I don’t know why.”
“Vy! Vy, for my vant of gombrehension, my zickness of shkull. But you did bretend; zat you muss gonfess; and I did bay you your vages, so!”
Jack smiled.
“I’ve nothing to complain of,” he said. “To you I was a Chinese servant, and I never want a better master.”
“Say you so? I vill shake hands viz you. Zere vas talk about you in Moukden; vy truly, zey gratulate me for because I haf, zey say, a so clever servant. Ach, mein freund! you see me; I am sad, I am broken; no longer am I vat I haf been.”
Schwab proceeded to tell a pitiful story. He had started on the retreat in company with Sowinski, with whom he had arranged a great deal of business against the termination of the war. One night they had taken refuge in a Chinese hovel. Schwab had carefully put the satchel containing his papers and money under his head. In the night he had heard and felt a movement, and, springing up in the dark, seized and held an arm. The arm was wrenched away, then Sowinski’s voice asked whether he had heard anything.
“‘Yes, certainly,’ I said, ‘I zink zere is a zief. ‘Shtrike a light!’ I cry. Zere shtrikes a light; I look for my zinks; siehe da! eferyzink is gone. Against ze door had I blaced a big kettle, for to gif notice if anyvun intrude. Zere it is, in ze same sbot. I say: ‘Sowinski, you are vun big scoundrel; gif me my money!’ Zen he burst into fearful bassion; he bresent me a bistol and demand instant abology. For myself, I am berfeckly cool. I egsblain I am business man; certainly it is not my business to fight, ven ze ozer man hold a revolver. I abologize; Sowinski say he is satisfied; but zen he say I had cast asbersion on his honour; no longer could he travel in my gompany; he demand me to get out. Vat could I? Ze bistol muzzle vas at my head. It is gombulsion. I vat you call clear out, viz my photographabbaratus. But my trouble only begins. My mafoo, vere is he? Vizout doubt he has abbrobriated my bony. Zere am I, zen, viz no babers, no money, no bony, nozink in ze vide vorld but my camera. I cannot send a message to ze Illustrirte Vaterland und Colonien: vere is ze money to gome from? Ze Kaiser,—alas! he is in Berlin. I zink vat is var gorresbondence for a kind of business? I try to sell my camera; no vun buys. Ze Russian soldier is good comrade, ver’ fine fellow; for zree days I eat nozink but vat he gif me. But ze officers—ach! ven I egsblain to zem, zey are all too busy to listen; zey tell me, abbly Colonel Egoroff. But Colonel Egoroff, vere is he? Nobody know. Nobody know vere nobody is. All is gonfusion and upside-down. I never see nozink so unbusinesslike novere.”
As he told his story Schwab trudged along beside Jack’s pony. Jack did not interrupt him; the man’s relief in finding someone to lend him a sympathizing ear was so obvious.
“You have had an uncommonly hard time,” he said. “I’m very sorry. What do you think of doing?”
“Zink! I zink nozink. My brain is no more vat it vas. All I can do, you see it; I valk and valk; I beg my bread, vich is Russian biscuit. Nefer shall I see ze Vaterland no more. Hildebrand Schwab is gome to an end.”
“Cheer up! What do you say to taking me on as your servant again?”
“Zat is unkind, to mock at me.”
“Believe me, nothing is further from my thoughts. I mean it. There will be some risk for you and for me, but it’s worth chancing. Let me explain my plan.”
Jack saw in Schwab’s plight a means of advancing his own quest, and at the same time doing a good turn to the unfortunate representative of the Illustrirte Vaterland, for whom, in spite of certain unlovely characteristics, he had a real liking. As servant of a European, far from any place where he was likely to be recognized, Jack thought he would probably reach Harbin more quickly than as a masterless Chinese fugitive. He proposed that they should make for the railway. The nearest point was Erh-shih-li-pu, the junction of the Kirin branch with the main line. It was not unlikely that if Schwab told his story there the officials would give him a passage to Harbin. The German eagerly accepted the proposal. Jack insisted on his mounting the pony; it was necessary, he explained, to keep up appearances, but his firmness on the point was really due to the quite obvious fact that Schwab was completely worn out. At the first village both Jack and Hi Lo made a few alterations in their dress, so as to look as little like Schwab’s former servants as possible; and without more than the expected difficulties and delays, the three at length reached Erh-shih-li-pu. Luckily at the station Schwab was recognized by a Russian officer, a member of Stackelberg’s staff, who had once dined with the foreign correspondents at the Green Dragon in Moukden. On hearing the German’s troubles he readily agreed to give him a pass to Harbin for himself and his servants, and would not allow the fares to be paid; Jack had previously pressed upon Schwab some of his rouble notes. Thus on a bright March day, when the frozen ground was sparkling in the sunshine, the three travellers arrived in Harbin. Schwab was lucky in obtaining quarters in the Oriental Hotel; Jack made his way at once with Hi Lo to the house of his uncle, the grain merchant, and there, as he had expected, found Hi An. The two brothers were delighted to see their visitors, and there was a touching scene of welcome between Hi Lo and his father.
For Jack there was but one crumb of information. Hi Feng, as he had promised, had set on foot such enquiries as seemed safe, especially along the railway line. About a fortnight after Jack left Harbin in the horse-box, a customer of Hi Feng came in with the news that he had seen a man answering to the description of Mr. Brown among a batch of prisoners at Imien-po on the Harbin-Vladivostok section. The train was apparently bound for Vladivostok, but it had remained for twenty-four hours on a siding, and the man’s business had not allowed him to wait to see what became of it. Hi Feng had himself travelled to the place; the train had of course by that time departed; and the Chinese of the neighbourhood could give him no information about it; one train was to them like another, and delays at this siding were of constant occurrence.
Jack shuddered to think what his father’s sufferings must have been during the protracted journey. His blood boiled when he saw Russian officers in the streets; his rage against Bekovitch poisoned his former good-will towards them. He fumed under his utter helplessness; he could do nothing. To some extent the information received narrowed the area of search. The fact of the train having been seen at Imien-po showed that the prisoners had been taken either to Eastern Siberia or to Sakhalin. Whichever it might be, Mr. Brown would be equally unable to communicate with his son, and his removal from Manchuria seemed to destroy all chance of help from the Chinese. To them Siberia and Sakhalin are foreign lands; and if Siberia was remote, Sakhalin was inaccessible. Being wholly a penal settlement, there was little chance of getting into or out of its ports undetected.
Jack remained for several weeks with Hi Feng, hoping against hope. Herr Schwab was still at the Oriental Hotel. Exposure to cold, lack of sufficient food, and his mental anxieties had broken down the German’s robust health, and for a fortnight he lay at death’s door. Monsieur Brin happened to be at the same hotel; he had missed every fight, solely through his own restlessness, which sent him backwards and forwards from place to place—never the time and the place and the correspondent together. He was a good-hearted fellow, and, finding a German lying ill and not too carefully tended, he constituted himself sick nurse, and devoted himself to his self-imposed duties with unusual constancy. He had his reward in the patient’s convalescence. As soon as Schwab was able to sit up and take a little nourishment, Brin undertook to prove to him that the Kaiser in Berlin was the Man of Sin, and for a good fortnight he had much the better of the argument.
One day Hi Feng learnt that a great effort was at last being made against Ah Lum. He had already been defeated by a large force of Cossacks, and driven from the neighbourhood of Kirin north-eastwards towards the Harbin-Vladivostok railway. Strong columns were hard upon his heels in pursuit. Through his position as forage contractor to the Russians, Hi Feng already knew that a large body of Cossacks was shortly to leave Harbin for a place half-way between that town and Vladivostok. Putting the two pieces of news together, and making discreet enquiries, he found that it was intended to make a sudden dash upon Ah Lum’s line of retreat and dispose of him once for all. The evacuation of Moukden and the narrowing of the area of country open to the Russians in Manchuria had made the presence of a strong guerrilla force within their lines insupportable. Ah Lum must be rooted out.
Hi Feng was to deliver a large quantity of forage within ten days; it was pretty safe to infer that the expedition would start from Harbin soon afterwards. Jack felt that Ah Lum must be warned at once. Furthermore, he was much disposed to rejoin the Chunchuses. Without overrating his abilities, he knew that he had been able to do something for them, and what he had learnt about his father’s treatment did not make him more friendly to the Russians or less inclined to do what he could to thwart them. If he had seen any chance of reaching or communicating with his father he might have taken a different view: having left Ah Lum with that purpose there would be no call for him to abandon his quest. But it was now clear that his enquiries must be pursued through Russian agents. He therefore decided to rejoin Ah Lum. At the same time he would let it be known that a reward of 1000 roubles should be paid to anyone giving him certain information of his father’s whereabouts. This offer, judiciously circulated through Chinese channels among the officials of the railway, might bring definite news.
There was another consideration. Among the Chunchuses, so long as Ah Lum held his own, Jack would be out of reach of the Russian authorities. If he remained in Harbin, or any other Russian centre, the news of his offer would at once put his enemies on his track. While he was in Ah Lum’s camp Hi Feng or his brother the compradore could easily communicate with him if they received any information.
Once more, then, he set out to join Ah Lum, Hi Lo accompanying him. He travelled in the guise of a Chinese farmer. Each took two ponies, and they pushed on with great rapidity, riding the animals alternately. By means of the secret signs used by Ah Lum, Jack soon got upon the chief’s track. Making a wide detour to avoid the Russian columns now steadily driving Ah Lum towards the point whence the Harbin force was to complete his encirclement, he came upon the Chunchuses from the east, and early one morning rode into the brigand camp.
His arrival was regarded as a favourable omen. It was likened by Ah Lum to the delightfulness of rain after long drought. Sin Foo was lucky; Fortune would now surely smile. The Chunchuses were, in fact, in a somewhat critical position. The camp, only one day old, was pitched in a valley of the Chang-ling hills some twenty miles above the Kan-hu lake—an extensive sheet of water nearly thirty miles long and of varying breadth. Fifty miles to the north lay the nearest point on the railway, about 150 miles from Harbin and twice as far from Vladivostok, the line threading a tortuous path among the hills. A considerable Russian force sent out from Kirin was known to be at Wo-ke-chan to the south-west; from this place a winter track led over the hills to the head of the La-lin-ho valley, within striking distance of Ah Lum’s camp. Another column, at O-mu-so to the south, commanded the upper valley of the Mu-tan-chiang, and while cutting off access to Ah Lum’s old quarters on the upper Sungari, threatened his left flank by the high-road to Ninguta. At that place, some eighty miles from O-mu-so, a third column covered the passes into the Lao-ling mountains on the east. The bandits were thus in a ring-fence. Only the north was open, and Jack’s news confirmed the wary chief’s suspicions that the apparent gap in the north had been left with the sole object of tempting him into the neighbourhood of the railway, on which an overwhelming force was held in readiness.
The confirmation of his suspicions roused the chief from the dejection into which the gradual tightening of the coils had thrown him. From an attitude almost of despair he now rose to a spirit of sullen determination. The Russians were gradually closing around him; they would drive him to bay.
“The tiger comes to eat the fly,” he said. “Wah! he may prove a wooden tiger. The Russians shall see what it is to draw a badger. I own, honoured sir, I thought once of disbanding my force. But on reflection I have come to another mind. The very villagers who have been most willing to help me would probably turn against me retreating, and sell me to the Russians. He who advances may fight, but he who retreats must take care of himself. It is better to die fighting. Adversity is necessary to the development of men’s virtues. I will choose a strong position and await the flood. It will not be long in coming. The Russians, I doubt not, when their arrangements along the railway are complete, will advance at the same time from east, west, and south, driving me against the spears of the Cossacks hiding behind the railway to the north. I have only 600 men left. There has been much fighting since you left, honoured sir; my men are exhausted with constant marching and insufficient food. It is not easy to stop the fire when water is at a distance.”
Jack found that the Russian prisoners were no longer with the Chunchuses. Ah Lum had been glad to exchange them against as many of his band captured during the recent fight. But for this exchange his force would have been even smaller than it was. He was hopelessly outnumbered by the Russians, each of whose columns was about 1200 strong. Their horses were in good condition; and the work of chasing the Chunchuses having devolved on one only of the columns at a time, the Cossacks were not so much worn out as their quarry, who had been kept moving constantly.
Ah Lum and Jack discussed the situation in great detail. There seemed indeed no way out. To fight or to disband: those were the alternatives, each fraught with peril if not disaster. Another fight would probably be the last, for the Russians would hardly make a serious attack until they had the wily brigand who had given them so much trouble completely surrounded. With perhaps 5000 men engaged on one side and only 600 on the other there was but one result to be expected.
If the gap to the north had really been a gap—if the Russians had been as stupid as they wished Ah Lum to believe—there would still have been a chance. The chief explained that far to the north, in the high hills above the lower valley of the Mu-tan-chiang, he might hope to elude pursuit for an indefinite period. It was a wild, mountainous, almost uninhabited country, in which the only difficulty would be that of subsistence, not of hiding. But a Chunchuse can live on much less than a Cossack, little though the latter requires. If only Ah Lum could have gained those hills, he could have shown a clean pair of heels to his pursuers.
Regrets, however, were useless. “It is no good climbing a tree to hunt for fish.” The appearance of the Chunchuses within twenty miles of the railway would be the signal for a simultaneous movement of squadron upon squadron of Cossacks from east and west, while the three columns now closing upon them would seize the opportunity of occupying the passes in their rear, hemming them within a small circle where they would soon be annihilated.
“No,” said Ah Lum, “I can only eat my three meals in the day and look forward to sleeping at night. It is impossible to stand on two ships at once. I shall stay here, occupy the approaches on each side, and fight to the last gasp. Death has no terror for me. I can eat my rice looking towards heaven. My only trouble is my son, my only son Ah Fu. If I die, he will die; who then will do honour to my bones? True, I shall be remembered; as the scream of the eagle is heard when she has passed over, so a man’s name remains after his death. But my cooking-range will go to a stranger; the ancestral tablets of my family will be broken; there will be none to sacrifice to my manes. And the boy: why should he be cut off? The growth of a mulberry-tree corresponds with its early bent. Ah Fu is a good boy, as you know, honoured sir. He is brave; I love him, and have been liberal in punishment, as the sage advises; his intelligence, though but a grain of millet, will in due time grow green to the height of a horse’s head. I looked for him to endure the nine days’ examination and write verses worthy of high office. Ai! ai!”
Through the scholar’s pedantries Jack saw the man’s heart throbbing. He expressed his sympathy.
“Wah!” returned Ah Lum. “Calamity comes from heaven. After the pig has been killed it is useless to speak of the price. I have done all I can. The one thing remaining is to meet the inevitable end with dignity. But as for you, honoured sir, you have done enough. I do not ask you to stay. You have your own quest to follow. Let every man sweep the snow from before his own doors, and not heed the frost on his neighbour’s tiles.”
“You are right, chief,” said Jack. “But it has not come to that yet. There may be a way out even yet, and you have been so kind to me that I should not think of leaving you while there is any hope at all.”
Ah Lum’s remark about the possibility of evading pursuit if he could reach the farther side of the railway had set Jack thinking. Was there no way out of his strait? Could the Russians, he wondered, be led off the scent, thus gaining time for the band to make a dash across the line? In the privacy of his little hut of kowliang stalks Jack pondered the problem long. But the more he thought, the less feasible the thing appeared. The railway gave the Russians so great a mobility: they could move troops so quickly up and down it, and now that the main armies were for the time quiescent, they had so many men available, that with only 600 Chunchuses there seemed no hope of such a dash being successful. He racked his brains far into the night. As the hours drew on, it became very cold; the north wind struck keenly. Looking around for an additional garment, Jack saw a military cloak, part of the stock of clothing captured from the Cossacks. He put it on, and tramped up and down, thinking and thinking again. The fur-lined cloak warmed him, by and by he became hot with the excitement of an idea. He rolled himself up in the cloak and tried to sleep, but his eyes were still unclosed when the chill dawn stole over the mountains. With racking head he sought an interview with the chief. For some hours they remained in earnest consultation. When the talk was ended Ah Lum rubbed his hands together and said:
“If you succeed, honoured friend, we shall certainly escape the net. The task you have set yourself is difficult. It is like feeling after a pin on the bottom of the ocean. But whether you succeed or not, we shall owe you an unfathomable debt of gratitude. Choose what men you need; all will be proud to serve under you.”
Then, weary but light of heart, Jack returned to his hut and slept.