第54章 HARASSING DAYS(1)

Once more we found ourselves in the whirl of events. During our fortnight away a great deal had happened here. The Chinese Commissioner Wang Tsao-tsun had sent eleven envoys to Urga but none had returned. The situation in Mongolia remained far from clear.

The Russian detachment had been increased by the arrival of new colonists and secretly continued its illegal existence, although the Chinese knew about it through their omnipresent system of spies. In the town no Russian or foreign citizens left their houses and all remained armed and ready to act. At night armed sentinels stood guard in all their court-yards. It was the Chinese who induced such precautions. By order of their Commissioner all the Chinese merchants with stocks of rifles armed their staffs and handed over any surplus guns to the officials, who with these formed and equipped a force of two hundred coolies into a special garrison of gamins. Then they took possession of the Mongolian arsenal and distributed these additional guns among the Chinese vegetable farmers in the nagan hushun, where there was always a floating population of the lowest grade of transient Chinese laborers. This trash of China now felt themselves strong, gathered together in excited discussions and evidently were preparing for some outburst of aggression. At night the coolies transported many boxes of cartridges from the Chinese shops to the nagan hushun and the behaviour of the Chinese mob became unbearably audacious.

These coolies and gamins impertinently stopped and searched people right on the streets and sought to provoke fights that would allow them to take anything they wanted. Through secret news we received from certain Chinese quarters we learned that the Chinese were preparing a pogrom for all the Russians and Mongols in Uliassutai.

We fully realized that it was only necessary to fire one single house at the right part of the town and the entire settlement of wooden buildings would go up in flames. The whole population prepared to defend themselves, increased the sentinels in the compounds, appointed leaders for certain sections of the town, organized a special fire brigade and prepared horses, carts and food for a hasty flight. The situation became worse when news arrived from Kobdo that the Chinese there had made a pogrom, killing some of the inhabitants and burning the whole town after a wild looting orgy. Most of the people got away to the forests on the mountains but it was at night and consequently without warm clothes and without food. During the following days these mountains around Kobdo heard many cries of misfortune, woe and death. The severe cold and hunger killed off the women and children out under the open sky of the Mongolian winter. This news was soon known to the Chinese. They laughed in mockery and soon organized a big meeting at the nagan hushun to discuss letting the mob and gamins loose on the town.

A young Chinese, the son of a cook of one of the colonists, revealed this news. We immediately decided to make an investigation. A Russian officer and my friend joined me with this young Chinese as a guide for a trip to the outskirts of the town.

We feigned simply a stroll but were stopped by the Chinese sentinel on the side of the city toward the nagan hushun with an impertinent command that no one was allowed to leave the town. As we spoke with him, I noticed that between the town and the nagan hushun Chinese guards were stationed all along the way and that streams of Chinese were moving in that direction. We saw at once it was impossible to reach the meeting from this approach, so we chose another route. We left the city from the eastern side and passed along by the camp of the Mongolians who had been reduced to beggary by the Chinese impositions. There also they were evidently anxiously awaiting the turn of events, for, in spite of the lateness of the hour, none had gone to sleep. We slipped out on the ice and worked around by the river to the nagan hushun. As we passed free of the city we began to sneak cautiously along, taking advantage of every bit of cover. We were armed with revolvers and hand grenades and knew that a small detachment had been prepared in the town to come to our aid, if we should be in danger. First the young Chinese stole forward with my friend following him like a shadow, constantly reminding him that he would strangle him like a mouse if he made one move to betray us. I fear the young guide did not greatly enjoy the trip with my gigantic friend puffing all too loudly with the unusual exertions. At last the fences of nagan hushun were in sight and nothing between us and them save the open plain, where our group would have been easily spotted; so that we decided to crawl up one by one, save that the Chinese was retained in the society of my trusted friend. Fortunately there were many heaps of frozen manure on the plain, which we made use of as cover to lead us right up to our objective point, the fence of the enclosures. In the shadow of this we slunk along to the courtyard where the voices of the excited crowd beckoned us. As we took good vantage points in the darkness for listening and making observations, we remarked two extraordinary things in our immediate neighborhood.

Another invisible guest was present with us at the Chinese gathering. He lay on the ground with his head in a hole dug by the dogs under the fence. He was perfectly still and evidently had not heard our advance. Nearby in a ditch lay a white horse with his nose muzzled and a little further away stood another saddled horse tied to a fence.

In the courtyard there was a great hubbub. About two thousand men were shouting, arguing and flourishing their arms about in wild gesticulations. Nearly all were armed with rifles, revolvers, swords and axes. In among the crowd circulated the gamins, constantly talking, handing out papers, explaining and assuring.