TREMBLE THEE BEFORE THE LORD.
Bert Hoover’s fevered brain had been keening for hours with the admonition that his pastor mother always invoked when sending him as a boy to the Quaker meeting halls. Crouched behind a low mud wall, he examined the raised purple veins in his shaking hands and wondered if his soul was preparing to shed the flesh. His thoughts were clouded, and the periphery of his vision was starting to tunnel. Exhausted and unsteady from the vertigo, he placed a palm to his sweating forehead. Dysentery was spreading rapidly among the families of the Western diplomats and businessmen who remained trapped with him inside the besieged legation compound.
Was he fated to die just when his industry and perseverance were about to bear fruit? No, he could not accept that God would be so wasteful with His earthly resources. Once before, as a child, he had been mortally sick, infected with the croup. On that cold Iowa morning twenty-four years ago, he had given up his spirit, only to be resuscitated by his uncle, a physician. Blessed with that miracle, his birth parents, not long before their untimely deaths, came to believe that the Almighty had brought him back to serve some great purpose.
He fished the chained watch from his breast pocket and squinted at its hands under the diffused moonlight. It was nearly three a.m., that dreaded slough of morning when the fanatical occupiers of Tientsin often whipped themselves into a spiritual frenzy and stormed this suburban settlement. Posted here a year ago as the chief engineer for the London mining firm of Bewick, Moreing & Company, he could never have imagined that he would become trapped in the middle of a brutal civil war.
Now, fighting to stay awake, he peered out across the maze of lagoons and paddies toward the Old City. Thousands of Chinese had massed inside its walls, vowing to drive all foreigners from the country. Behind him, in the warehouse that served as their makeshift fortress, his new bride Lou gripped a pistol and stood guard over the other women and children. He worried how much longer she could—
“Thee is a fine Friend.”
He recoiled into the shadows, startled by that discarnate voice. Had his dead father’s Inner Light come forth to give praise that his son had finally been brought prostrate before the Almighty’s terrible glory? Sensing a looming presence, he turned to find a shadowy figure emerge through the smoky haze. As the mists cleared, he released a held breath.
Kneeling down next to him was a young Marine lieutenant with slightly crossed eyes separated by a bruised, triangular nose that resembled a locomotive grille. “Didn’t mean to fright you, Mr. Hoover. I thought a little humor might help.”
Hoover braced against the wall to recover his balance. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage on your meaning, Lieutenant.”
“I come from Pennsylvania Quaker stock. My father was a congressman. Served on the House Naval Affairs Committee. One day, a fellow believer, disgusted with my father’s involvement with war legislation, yelled at him, ‘Thee is a fine Friend!’”
Hoover nodded. His own choice of a career in ore extraction, some of which made its way to the military, had confronted him with that same challenge of faith’s demands. “And what did your father offer as a defense?”
“He told the constituent, ‘Thee is a damn Fool!’”
Hoover muffled a coughed laugh, the first one he had enjoyed in weeks.
The officer extended his hand. “Smedley Butler. One of the Brits in the compound mentioned that you were a Quaker. I decided to find you and make your acquaintance.”
Heartened to find a fellow believer at such time of crisis, Hoover shook Butler’s hand quickly, hoping to hide his unsteadiness. He studied the officer’s wide grin that betrayed the brashness of youth. “If you don’t mind my asking, Lieutenant, how old are you?”
“Officially… nineteen.”
Hoover calculated that the officer must have been in the service for at least three years to attain that rank. “I guess you had a little congressional pull to get in under age.”
Lt. Butler wouldn’t looked at him directly, an admission of guilt.
“So, what is a pacifist Quaker doing in the Marines?”
“I come from the hot-tempered branch of the Society, I guess. Both of my grandpas joined the Union army to defend Gettysburg. My ma tried to drill the dream out of me, but I’d already heard too many battle stories. When the Spanish blew up the Maine, I was off the next day to the recruiting station.”
Hoover smiled ruefully, remembering how his own mother, before leaving him an orphan at the age of nine, had told neighbors of her hope that he would devote his life to the ministry. “I suppose we’ve both disappointed our mothers with our chosen vocations.”
Lt. Butler inched his eyes over the mud barricade. “Tell you the truth, ever since we got off the boat from the Philippines, I haven’t had time to think about my ma, let alone put two thoughts together. You mind telling me what all this ruckus is about?”
Hoover was stunned. This officer and his nine hundred fellow Marines of the 9th U.S. Infantry, which had arrived in the port a few days ago, had apparently been kept in the dark about the deteriorating situation here. “Military plans still trickle down in drips, I see.”
“The brass always plays its hand close to the vest.”
Hoover found a stick and drew a crude map of Tientsin in the mud. “Short answer is, the entire country has gone insane. That city out there guards the approach to the imperial capitol at Peking, which is a three-day march up river. We’re surrounded by a mob of zealots who call themselves Boxers.”
“You mean … like prize fighters?”
Hoover nodded grimly. “They use their fists, all right, and any club they can find. They’re mostly unemployed soldiers and dockworkers, abandoned by the Empress Dowager to starve. They practice martial arts in their temples and believe they make themselves invincible to bullets.”
“Why doesn’t the Chinese Army knock some heads?”
“The Dowager just sits in her Forbidden City eating candies while those anarchists out there murder Christian missionaries and converts. Many of the government soldiers have deserted to the Boxer side.”
Informed of the difficulties facing him, Lt. Butler lost his grin. “Are you a God-fearing man, Mr. Hoover?”
Hoover thought back on the many nights when he had risked his life carrying fresh water for his fellow besieged civilians from the treatment plant outside these walls. “I’ve been getting some practice at it.” Behind him, in the darkness, he heard the rustling of boots and rifles. “Why do you ask?”
Lt. Butler ratcheted the bolt on his carbine to confirm that it was in working order. “I have a confession. Making your acquaintance wasn’t the only reason I came out here to find you.… In twenty minutes, we’re going to launch a night assault.”
Hoover nearly swore, but caught himself. “You can’t be serious.”
The officer nodded. “We’ve been ordered to attack the South Gate with the British, Japanese, and French troops. The Russians and Germans will circle around the city and attack the East Gate.”
Hoover grasped the officer’s shoulder to plead for him to reconsider. “There are fifty thousand Chinese inside that city. We have less than seven thousand troops. A frontal assault would be suicide. I’ve been calling for action for weeks, but that was before the Boxers brought in reinforcements. The wiser course now would be to get us out and march to Peking.”
Lt. Butler could only shrug. He had no authority to countermand the order. Keeping his eyes trained on the walls a half-mile away, he confided, “You being an engineer and all, word back in the compound is that you know that ground out there better than anyone.”
Hoover pointed him toward the most direct approach. “I’ve walked it many times. You’d have to navigate a dozen blocks of blind alleys and dangerous turns between the shacks. Then there’s another miserable stretch of marshes followed by a narrow causeway. One misstep in this darkness and a man could fall and drown in one of those sinkholes out—” He froze with his mouth slacking, only then perceiving the real reason for the officer’s confession.
“Major Waller was wondering if you’d be willing to guide us.”
Before Hoover could press his protest, the wall on both sides of him filled with khaki-clad Marines, armed for battle. Hovering over his junior officer’s shoulder, the major who had sent the request waited for an answer.
Hoover glanced down at his frayed black jacket and was struck by how slovenly he looked next to their crisp, clean khaki uniforms. Once the Marines hit open ground, the Boxers would ignite their torches on the walls, and he would stand out like a raisin in a bowl of oatmeal. He held no illusion about what would happen if he were captured. He had seen the mutilated bodies of Christian missionaries dangling from hooks in the pagan temples, flayed alive and left to hang upside down to slowly bleed to death. This wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when he left Stanford eight years ago to find a life of adventure.
“Sir?” Lt. Butler prodded, reminding him of the need for a quick decision.
Hoover could hear his mother’s stern voice reproaching him for even considering a breach of her Quaker principles. He stole a glance over his shoulder at the Victorian gables of Gordon Hall, where the American and British women and children, accompanied by hundreds of frightened Chinese Christian refugees, hurried down into the municipal crypt. They were singing Nearer My God To Thee to prepare for the coming onslaught of shells. Silently arguing with his mother, he asked her how he could allow these Marines to risk their lives while he cowered here in relative safety.
At last, despite feeling woozy from the fever, he nodded his agreement to guide them. “I suppose I, too, will be a damn fool, rather than a fine Friend.”
Lt. Butler shook his new scout’s hand in gratitude. Then, signaling to his fellow officers, he led Hoover toward the boarded entry to the no-man’s land beyond the legation settlement. Behind them, the Marines filed up, two by two, checking their weapons one last time.
Before launching off, Hoover warned the leathernecks that the grassy stretch of open marshland ahead hid a thousand sinkholes and rice sluices. “Five hundred yards past low shacks, the Chinese snipers on the towers will see our movement. Once we reach the low ground near the arsenal, don’t stop until you get under the range of their guns on the walls.”
Major Waller tipped the brim of his cap, the command to advance.
The Marines fingered their triggers—and Lt. Butler kicked the settlement gate open. Hoover led them on the double-quick through the warren of shacks. Zigzagging from alley to alley, he heard the night sky open up with rifle cracks, first in dozens, then cascading to hundreds of bullets pinging the tin roofs and thudding the rotted wood. Cries erupted behind him. He turned and saw several Marines drop as if scythed at the ankles. Lt. Butler clasped his new scout’s forearm and pulled him forward under rifle and artillery fire so heavy that it sounded like thunder.
Feeling his heart thumping in his chest, Hoover shouted, “Give me a rifle!”
An eerie calmness came over him. Had he just asked for a weapon?
Before he could question the morality of that spontaneous decision, one of the Marines retrieved an Enfield from a fallen comrade and thrust it into his hands. He stood frozen, expecting for God to test his bravado by bringing him face to face with a hatchet-armed Boxer. But his blood was up, and he was about to fall in with the closing ranks when someone shoved him off toward the rear shacks.
“Back thee go to the wall, Friend!” Lt. Butler shouted at him. “We’ll take it from here!”
Bullets hissed around Hoover’s ears, close enough to make the plastered hair on his scalp bristle. Needing no encouragement, he hurried back toward the settlement and ducked into an alley as the Marines surged toward the high walls around Tientsin. Relegated to the Western compound, he watched through a crack in the boards as Colonel Robert Meade, son of the hero of Gettysburg, walked courageously into battle wrapped like a mummy, his hands and feet so swollen that he had ordered them covered in gauze. A whirl of untold minutes passed as the Marines scrambled across the low rice fields, dodging the grave markers of a cemetery. Some sank knee deep in the mud, others abandoned their mired boots and, barefoot, charged on. He had never seen the flags of so many countries flying together for one cause.
A half-hour into the desperate fighting, the allied attack ground to a halt.
The surviving Marines now stood exposed, sucked down into the paddies and easy targets for the Boxer snipers. From his protected vantage, Hoover could only stand back and pray for the boys who just minutes earlier had been slapping his back appreciatively. Seeing the leathernecks falling in scores on their left flank, British troopers tried to come to their aid, but the heavy Chinese artillery on the walls repulsed their effort. The gates of the city were flung open, and hordes of death-defying Boxers poured out, raving to take prisoners. The remnants of the Marine unit regrouped and fought fiercely, but as the hours of bloodshed wore on, the broken allied lines were finally driven into a retreat.
Lt. Butler was one of the last of the leathernecks to fall back. He staggered toward the legation wall and dropped to his knees, grasping his thigh. Hoover rushed to the officer and motioned up two medics to help carry him back to the fortified warehouse.
“YOUR YANKEE GRANDFATHERS WOULD HAVE been proud of you,” Hoover whispered. “But I’m not so sure about your mother.”
Roused from his slumber by that ambivalent praise, Lt. Butler opened his eyes and found Hoover sitting next to his bed in a makeshift hospital. “I was half-expecting to see a Chinese face.”
“You’re lucky to see a face at all,” Hoover said. “Two of your men earned the Medal of Honor yesterday. I told Colonel Meade that you deserved one, but he said the Corps doesn’t give them to officers. I guess you’ll have to be satisfied with a new nickname.”
“Whatever it is, please don’t let it be—”
“The Fighting Quaker.” Hoover grinned at the trouble that moniker would surely cause the young Marine during his promising military career.
Levering to his elbows, the officer looked around the ward and saw dozens of wounded Marines on both sides of him. “What happened? I blacked out.”
“You’ll be up before you know it. Probably in time to join the march to Peking.”
Lt. Butler’s wan face suddenly brightened. “Peking? You mean … we drove those bastards out of Tientsin?”
Hoover nodded, granting the brave Marine the right to indulge in a little coarse language. “Late last night, after we were thrown back, the Japanese circled the city and blew open the South Gate. The Boxers were so stunned, they ran north.”
Lt. Butler thrust his fist in the air, but he quickly tempered his celebration when he noticed that Hoover seemed troubled. “What’s the sour mug about?”
Hoover found it difficult to talk about what he had witnessed that morning when entering the shattered city with the allied troops. “The Chinese who fought on our side murdered their own people until the streets ran red with blood. The corpses were piled up to the windows. We found some of the defenders so starved, they were eating human flesh.”
“I reckon people will do the unthinkable if they’re hungry enough,” Lt. Butler said. “I saw the same thing in the Philippines. A man’s got to eat.”
Hoover understood the barbaric effects of deprivation all too well, but he still had difficulty coming to terms with this madness. Only a few days ago, thousands of Chinese had joined the cruel Boxers for a few helpings of stolen food. Now, with the shocking fall of Tientsin, these same peasants and unemployed soldiers were turning on their defeated saviors, butchering them in the streets like cattle in a slaughterhouse. And the natives weren’t the only ones fickle with their loyalty. Many of his fellow Westerners had abandoned their innocent Chinese servants, accusing them of treason and subjecting them to hysterical witch-hunts. During these past weeks, he had stared death in the face, and in the process, he had learned more about himself than he had ever wished to know. When his Quaker pacifism was tested, he had proven to be a damn poor Friend.
Hearing footsteps, he pushed his chair back and stood up to allow a medic to administer a dose of morphine to the wounded officer. The needle’s plunge into Lt. Butler’s leg shook Hoover from his self-pity; he braced his wounded friend with a hand to his shoulder until the painkiller eased the throbbing.
The officer smiled up at him, as if reading his mind. “Makes one glad to be an American, don’t it, Mr. Hoover? Folks back home would never let their neighbors starve like those poor people out there.”
Fighting the grip in his throat, Hoover shook the officer’s hand to say goodbye. “That is why, Lt. Butler, we must toil tirelessly to spread the healing balm of capitalism and Christian industry around the world. These poor Chinese peasants have never tasted freedom and liberty. I still firmly believe that so long as a man is allowed to take full heed of his destiny, he will always turn to the better angel of his soul, even in times of trial.”