Beleaguered in Pekin: The Boxer's War Against the ForeignerColtman, Robert
History
Beleaguered in Pekin: The Boxer's War Against the Foreigner
Coltman, Robert
China -- History -- Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901
Grasping my double-barreled shotgun, I rose from the floor, where I had
just thrown myself down, and stepped outside in front of the legation
chapel. As I did so I heard the thunder of heavy guns in the direction
of the Tungchow gate. Then the situation was clear. The relief were
outside the city engaging the Chinese troops, and the automatic gun was
not ours, but theirs.
I dropped on my knees in the roadway and put up a few words of
thanksgiving to Almighty God, and then, rising, called out the good
news to those inside the houses, in excited tones. Oh, the sweetness
of those sounds! Shall I ever forget how delightful to our ears? How
anxious I felt when they ceased for a few moments, and how happy when
they were resumed!
The Chinese attacking us heard them too, and for a while somewhat
slackened their fire to listen; but only for a while, for they kept up
a hot fire all day.
Poor Mitchell, the brave American gunner, was wounded in the night,
having his arm broken by a bullet from the Mongol market attack, but
he smiled a grim smile when the guns were heard outside, and remarked:
“Oh, you can keep up your devilish racket now, but in a little while
longer you will be silent enough!”
[Illustration: SIKH POLICEMAN
The two Oriental types, East Indian and the Chinese, are plainly shown
in this picture. The policeman looms up almost like a giant in the
midst of his Celestial neighbors.]
At about four o’clock the Americans on the wall saw men in foreign
uniforms directly opposite them. While the Americans and Japanese
had attacked the Tungchow stone road gate and the Pieu gate, the
English had found the Shahkuo gate entirely open and unguarded, and
had hastened, as directed by our notes of advice, to the water-gate,
directly under the eastern extremity of the American position on the
wall. The Sikhs came pouring up to the gate, which they soon smashed
in, and then the hurrahs that rent the skies told those in the houses
and in the hospital that the siege was over.
Just as the relief forces were pouring into the British legation, the
first woman to be wounded during the siege, Mme. Cuillier, a French
woman, was struck by a Mauser rifle bullet in the thigh and seriously,
but not dangerously, wounded.
* * * * *
The following table shows the number of officers and men who were
killed or wounded, and those who died of disease during the siege:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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