Survival apart, the great thing in intelligence work is knowing how to report. Well, you saw that at the start of this memoir, when I danced truth’s gossamer tight-rope before Parkes at Canton. The principal aim, remember, is to win the greatest possible credit to yourself, which calls not only for the exclusion of anything that might damage you, but also for the judicious understatement of those things which tell in your favour, if any; brush ’em aside, never boast, let appearances speak for themselves. This was revealed to me at the age of nineteen, when I woke in Jalallabad hospital to find myself a hero – provided I lay still and made the right responses. Then, you must convince your chiefs that what you’re telling ’em is important, which ain’t difficult, since they want to believe you, having chiefs of their own to satisfy; make as much mystery of your methods as you can; hint what a thoroughgoing ruffian you can be in a good cause, but never forget that innocence shines brighter than any virtue (“Flashman? Extraordinary fellow – kicks ’em in the crotch with the heart of a child”); remember that silence frequently passes for shrewdness, and that while suppressio veri is a damned good servant, suggestio falsi is a perilous master. Selah.
I stuck to these principles in making my verbal report to Elgin that afternoon – and for once they were almost completely wasted. This was because the first words I’d uttered, after gulping Grant’s tea, were to tell him that there was a vermilion death sentence on Parkes and the other prisoners; this caused such a sensation that, once I’d told all I knew about it (which wasn’t much; I didn’t know even where they were confined) I was forgotten in the uproar of activity, with diplomatic threats being sent into Pekin, and Probyn ordered to stand by with a flying squadron. And when I sat down with Elgin later, and gave him my word-of-mouth, it was plain that the fate of our people was the only thing on his mind, reasonably enough; my account of the secret intrigues of the Imperial court (which I thought a pretty fair coup) interested him hardly at all.
It cramped my style, which, as I’ve indicated, tends to be bluff and laconic, making little of such hardships as binding, caging, and starvation. “Oh, they knocked me about a bit, you know,” is my line, but he wasn’t having it. He wanted every detail of my treatment, and damn the politics; so he got it, including a fictitious account of how they’d hammered me senseless before dragging me, gasping defiance, to audience with the Emperor, so that I didn’t remember much about it (that seemed the best way out of that embarrassing episode). I needn’t have fretted; Elgin was still grinding his teeth over Sang’s threatening me with death by the thousand cuts, and clenching his fist at the butchery of Nolan.
My account of captivity in the Summer Palace, which I’d planned as my pièce de résistance, fell flat as your hat. I gave him the plain, unvarnished truth, too – omitting only the trifling detail that the Emperor’s favourite concubine had been grinding me breathless every night. I believe in discretion and delicacy, you see – for one thing, you never know who’ll run tattling to Elspeth. Anyway, I’d have thought my story sufficiently sensational as it was.
He received it almost impatiently, prime political stuff and all. I now realise that, even if he hadn’t had the prisoners obsessing him, he still wouldn’t have been much interested in all the tattle I’d eavesdropped between Yehonala and Little An – he was there to ratify a treaty and show the Chinese that we meant business; the last thing he wanted was entanglement in Manchoo politics, with himself acting as king-maker, or anything of that sort. He brightened briefly at my description of the set-to with Sang and his braves (which I kept modestly brief, knowing that my blood-stained sabre had already spoken more eloquently than I could), but when I’d done his first question was:
“Excepting Prince Sang’s murderous attack, was no violence offered to you at the Summer Palace? None at all? No rigorous confinement or ill-usage?”
“Hardly, my lord,” says I, and just for devilment I added: “The Yi Concubine’s ladies did throw apples at me, on one occasion.”
“Good God!” cries he. “Apples?” He stared at me. “In play, you mean?”
“I believe it was in a spirit of mischief, my lord. They were quite small apples.”
“Small apples? I’ll be damned,” he muttered, and thought hard for a moment, frowning at the scenery and then at me.
“Did you obtain any inkling of the … purpose for which you were … kept at the house of this … Yi Concubine, did you say?”
“I gathered she had never seen a barbarian before,” says I gravely. “She seemed to regard me as a curiosity.”
“Damned impertinence!” says he, but I noticed his pate had gone slightly pink. “What sort of a woman is she? In her person, I mean.”
I reflected judiciously. “Ravishing is the word that best describes her, my lord. Quite ravishing … in the oriental style.”
“Oh! I see.” He digested this. “And her character? Strong? Retiring? Amiable, perhaps? I take it she’s an educated woman?”
“Not amiable, precisely.” I shook my head. “Strong-willed, certainly. Exacting, purposeful … immensely energetic. I should say she was extremely well-educated, my lord.”
At this point he noticed that his young secretary, who’d been recording my report, was agog with hopeful interest, so he concluded rather abruptly by saying I’d done extremely well, congratulated me on my safe return, told the secretary to make a fair copy for me to sign, and dismissed me, shooting me a last perplexed look; that business about being pelted with apples by harem beauties had unsettled him, I could see. He wasn’t alone, either; outside I found the young pen-pusher blinking at me enviously, obviously wishing that he, too, could be regarded as a curiosity by ravishing orientals.
“I say!” says he. “The Summer Palace must be a jolly place!”
“Damned jolly,” says I. “Did you get it all down?”
“I say! Oh, yes, every word! It was frightfully interesting, you know – not at all like most reports.” He peered at his notes through steamy spectacles. “Ah, yes … what’s a concubine?”
“Harlequin’s lady-love in the pantomime … no, don’t put that down, you young juggins! A concubine is a Chinese nobleman’s personal whore.”
“I say! How d’you spell it?”
I told him – and what he told others in his turn I don’t care to think, but just to show you how rumours run and reputations are made, Desborough of the Artillery swore to me later that he’d heard one of his gunners telling his chum that there was no daht abaht it, Flash ’Arry ’ad got isself took prisoner a-purpose, see, ’cos ’e was beloved by this yeller bint, the Empress o’China, an’ ’im an’ Sam Collinson, wot was jealous, ’ad fought a bloody duel over ’er, an’ Flash ’Arry touched the barstid in five places, strite up, an’ then cut ‘is bleedin’ ’ead orf, see?
Strange how close fiction can come to truth, ain’t it? The oddest thing of all was that the part of the yarn which did gain some acceptance, among quite sensible people, too, was that I’d deliberately allowed myself to be captured, as a clever way of getting into the enemy’s head-quarters. Folk’ll believe anything, especially if they’ve invented it themselves. Anyway, you can see why I don’t count my report to Elgin entirely wasted.
Later that day he and Grant and our senior commanders went to the Ewen-ming-ewen, officially to view the splendours, but in fact to make sure that the Frogs didn’t pick it clean before our army got its share. I was on hand, and absolutely heard Montauban protesting volubly that no looting whatever had taken place – this with his rascals still streaming out of the Hall of Audience with everything but the floor-tiles, and the piles of spoil filling the great courtyard. Some of our early-comers, I noticed, were already among the plunderers; a party of Sikh cavalry were offering magnificent bolts of coloured silk to the later arrivals at two dollars a time, and the Frogs, who’d had the best of it, were doing a fine trade in jade tablets, watches, jewelled masks, furs, ornamental weapons, enamels, toys, and robes, and finding no lack of takers. The yard was like a tremendous gaudy market, for loot from the other buildings near at hand was being brought in as well, and fellows were bargaining away what they couldn’t carry.
Elgin watched in bleak disgust, with Montauban hopping at his elbow crying, ah, but this is merely to make the inventory, is it not, so that all can be divided fairly among the allies; milor’ might rest assured that every item would be accounted for, so that all should benefit.
“What a splendid place it has been,” says Elgin sadly, standing in the entrance to the great golden hall. “And now, desolation.” The floor was covered with broken shards of glass and jade and porcelain, broken cabinetwork and torn hangings, and gangs of Frogs and Chink villagers and our own early birds were swarming everywhere after the last pickings, the vast hollow chamber echoing to their yells of triumph and disappointment, the smashing of furniture and pottery that was too big to carry, the oaths and laughter and quarrelling. “No credit to our vaunted civilisation, gentlemen,” says Elgin, and everyone looked sober, except Montauban, who sulked.
“Can’t stop it,” says Hope Grant, casting a bright professional eye and tugging his whisker. “Soldier’s privilege. Time immemorial.” He glanced at me. “Remember Lucknow?”
“It is the waste that offends!” cries Elgin. “I daresay this place contained a million yesterday; how much would it fetch now? Fifty thousand? Bah! Plunder is one thing, but sheer wanton destruction …” He shook his head angrily.
Wolseley, consulting a notebook, said that of course this was only a fraction of the Summer Palace, which was of vast extent, no doubt packed with stuff … Flashman probably knew it best of anybody, at which they all fell silent and looked to me; you never in your life saw so many beady eyes. Just for a second I had a vision of that pretty pavilion by the lake, and Yehonala’s white hand placing a delicate ivory fairy-piece on the game board just so, the silver nails reflected in the polished jade, her ladies’ silken sleeves rustling – and felt a sudden anger and revulsion – but what was the odds, when they’d find it anyway? And why not, after all? We’d won. The irony was that if the Manchoos had kept their word on the treaty to begin with, or even compromised a fortnight ago, we’d never have been near the place.
I said there were hundreds of buildings, palaces and temples and so forth, spread over many miles of parkland; that the Ewen, where we stood, was probably the biggest, since it contained the Imperial apartments, but that the rest was pretty fine, too.
“Good spot o’ boodle, though, what?” says someone; I said I supposed there’d be enough to go round.
At this there was great debate about the need for prize agents who would select prime pieces for each army, the rest going for individual spoil. Grant said he would have all the British share sold and paid out to the troops as prize money on the spot, rather than wait for government adjudication which (although he didn’t say so) would have meant cut shares at the end of the day. Some ass said that was unauthorised; Grant said he didn’t give a dam, he was doing it anyway.
“Who took Pekin?” says he. “Commons committee? No such thing. Our fellows. Very good. Wrath o’ the gods? I’ll stand bail.” He did it, too.
Wolseley, who was a dab artist, was in a fidget to be exercising his pencil, so after the seniors had departed I strolled with him among the buildings, and we watched the looters gutting the place – as Elgin had observed, and I knew from India, they destroyed fifty times what they took away. “See how they enjoy destruction!” says Joe, sketching for dear life while I smoked and studied. “It’s a marvellous thing, the effect of plunder on soldiers. I suppose they feel real power for once in their wretched lives – not the power to kill, they know all about that, it’s just brute force against a body – but the greater power to destroy a creation of the mind, something they know they could never make. Look at that! Just look at ’em, will you?”
He was pointing up at a gallery where a mob of Whitechapel scruff had found huge boxes of the most delicate yellow eggshell porcelain, priceless pieces varying in size from vases four feet high to the tiniest tea-cups, each wrapped carefully in fine tissue. They were throwing ’em down from the balcony in a golden shower, to smash on the floor in explosions of a million glittering fragments so light that they drifted like a snow-mist through the hall. Those below ran laughing among them, scattering them and making them swirl like golden smoke, yelling to the chaps above to throw down more, which they did until the whole place seemed to be filled with it.
“Can’t draw that,” grumbles Joe. “Hang it all, Turner himself couldn’t catch that colour! Odd, ain’t it – that’s quite lovely, too.”
We watched another gang, British, French, and Sikhs, manhandling an enormous vase, twenty feet if it was an inch, all inlaid with dazzling mosaic work, to the top of a flight of steps, poising it with a “One-two-three-and-AWAY!” and hurrahing like mad as it smashed with an explosion like artillery, scattering gleaming shards everywhere. And at the same time there were quiet coves going about methodically examining a jade bowl here and an enamel tablet there, consulting and appraising and dropping ’em in their knapsacks – you know that porcelain statuette on the mantel, or the pretty screen with dragons on it that Aunt Sophie’s so proud of? That’s what they were picking up, while alongside ’em Patsy Hooligan was kicking a door in because he couldn’t be bothered to try the handle, and Pierre Maquereau was grimacing at himself in a Sèvres mirror and taking the butt to his own reflection, and Yussef Beg was carving up an oil painting with his bayonet, and Joe Tomkins was painting a moustache on an ivory Venus, haw-hawing while Jock MacHaggis used it as an Aunt Sally, and the little Chinaman from down the road – oh, don’t forget him – was squealing with glee as he ripped up cloth-of-gold cushions and capered among the feathers.
And through it all went the quiet strollers, like Joe and me, and the tall fair fellow in the Sapper coat whom we found in a room that had once contained hundreds of jewelled timepieces and mechanical toys, and was now ankle-deep in glittering rubble. He had found an item undamaged, and was grinning delightedly over it.
“I really must have this!” cries he. “She will be delighted with it, don’t you think? Such exquisite craftsmanship!” He sighed fondly. “What pleasure to look at a gift for a dear one at home, and think of the joy with which it will be received.”
It was one of the little chiming watches, enamelled and inlaid with diamonds; he held it up for Joe and me to look at, exclaiming at the clear tone of the bell.
“See, mama – it rings!” thinks I to myself – dear God, had that been only yesterday? She would be safe in Jehol now, with her dying Emperor and the little son through whom she hoped to rule China. What would she think, when she came back to her beloved Summer Palace?
We complimented the fair chap on his good taste. I’d never seen him before, but I knew him well later on. He was Chinese Gordon.
The three of us took a turn in the gardens, and watched a group of enthusiasts digging up shrubs and flowers and sticking them in jade vases filched from the rooms. “I can see these taking splendidly in Suffolk!” cries one. “I say, Jim, if only we can keep ’em alive, what a capital rockery we shall have!” Give him the transport, he’d have had the blasted trees up.
Suddenly I stopped short at the sight of a round doorway in the third palace; it was the one, scarred now with shot-holes. We went in, and the ante-room that had been hung with the Son of Heaven’s quilted dragon robes was bare as a cupboard, and not a trace of the musk with which Little An had sprayed me; no wonder, since the soldiery had been pissing on the floor. But here was the little corridor to the Chamber of Divine Repose; the great golden door hung half off it hinges, its precious mouldings stripped away and the handle hacked off. The tortoiseshell plaques of the concubines were scattered about, some of them broken; Gordon turned one over. “What can these be – tokens in some sort of game, d’you suppose?” I said I was fairly sure he was right.
My heart was beating faster as I followed the others into the room; I didn’t really want to see it, but I looked about anyway. The filthy pictures and implements of perversion had gone (trust the French), the mattress of the great bed had been dragged from the alcove and hacked to shreds, its purple silks torn, the gold pillows ripped open. But it was the shattered hole in the dressing-table mirror that made me wince; that was where her lovely reflection had looked out at me, while she painted carefully at her lower lip; that broken stool had supported the wonderful body, with one perfect leg thrust out to the side, the silver toes brushing the carpet. Yet even amid that wreckage, while the others gaped and speculated foolishly about whose room it had been, there was a fierce secret joy about remembering. How the others would have stared if they’d known; Gordon would probably have burst into tears.
I didn’t know which was her tortoiseshell plaque, but I took one anyway, slipping it into my pocket with the jewellery and gold I’d picked up on our walk – though none of it compared with the black jade chessmen I collared in the Birthday Garden a couple of days later; no one else would even look at ’em, which showed judgment, since the experts will tell you that black jade doesn’t exist. I don’t mind; all I know is that while Lucknow paid for Gandamack Lodge, those chessmen bought me the place on Berkeley Square. But I still have the tortoiseshell plaque; Elspeth stands her bedside teapot on it.42
“The prisoners are safe!” someone had hollered when I first rode into Elgin’s headquarters, supposing that my appearance heralded the return of the others. They weren’t, and it didn’t although hopes ran high when Loch and Parkes turned up a day later; they’d been released fifteen minutes before their vermilion death warrant arrived at the Board of Punishments. Whether Yehonala or the mandarin who had special charge of them, Hang-ki, had held it back, or whether they were just plain lucky, we never discovered. They’d had a bad time: Parkes had escaped with binding and hammering, but Loch had been dungeoned and shackled and put to the iron collar, and from what he’d seen he suspected that some of the others had been tortured to death. Whether Elgin had any earlier suspicion of this I can’t say; I think he may have, from the way he questioned me about my treatment. In any event, his one thought now was to get them out.
Grant had already positioned his guns against the Anting Gate, and the word went to Prince Kung, the Emperor’s brother and regent, that unless Pekin surrendered and the prisoners were released, the bombardment would begin. And still the Chinese put off the inevitable, with futile messages and maddening delays, while Elgin aged ten years under the mortal fear that if he did start shooting, the prisoners would be goners for certain … so he must wait, and hope, and question Parkes and Loch and me again and again about our treatment, and what we thought might be happening to the others.
I’d escaped on the Sunday; Parkes and Loch arrived on the Monday; it was Friday before eight Sikhs and three Frenchmen were set free, and when Elgin had talked to them he came out grey-faced and told Grant that he was to open fire the following noon. At the eleventh hour Kung surrendered – and the following night the first bodies came out.
They came on carts after dark, four of them, two British, two Sikh, and had to be examined by torchlight; when the lids came off the coffins there were cries of horror and disbelief, and one or two of the younger fellows turned away, physically sick; after that no one said a word, except to whisper: “Christ … that’s Anderson!” or “That’s Mahomed Bux – my daffadar!” or “That’s De Normann … is it?” Elgin stopped at each coffin in turn, with a face like stone; then he said harshly to replace the lids, and stood turning his hat in his hands, staring before him, and I saw him biting his lips and the tears shining in the torchlight. Then he walked quickly away, without a word.
The other bodies came two days later; they had been used in the same fashion, fourteen of them, and if Elgin had given the word, our army would have slaughtered every man in Pekin.
Now, I’ve never aimed to horrify you for horrifying’s sake, or revelled in gory detail with the excuse that I’m just being a faithful historian. But I’m bound to tell you what the Chinese had done, if you are to understand the sequel – and judge it, if you’ve a mind to.
The bodies were in quicklime, but it was still easy to see what had happened. I told you the Chinese tie their captives as tightly as possible, so that eventually the hands and feet burst and mortify; some of our people had been bound for weeks, a few au crapaudine (hands and feet in the small of the back), some hung up, some with heavy chains; many had had their bonds soaked to make them tighter, others had been flogged. I’ll add only that if, in a Chinese prison, you get the least cut or scratch … good-night; there’s a special kind of maggot, by the million, and they eat you alive, agonisingly, sometimes for weeks. So you see, as I said earlier, there’s nothing ingenious about Chinese torture; there don’t need to be. They just rot you slowly to death, and the lucky ones are Brabazon and the little French padré, who were beheaded at Pah-li-chao, like Nolan.
“It is the uselessness of it that defeats me. If they had wanted to wring information from us, at least torture would be understandable. But this had no purpose. It was the wanton cruelty of men who enjoyed inflicting pain for its own sake, knowing that if retribution followed, it would not fall on them personally. I mean the Emperor, and Sang, and Prince I, and the like. For the Emperor certainly knew; De Normann’s torture began in the royal apartments. Indeed they knew.”
This was Harry Parkes, lean and pale but as stubbornly urbane as ever, although his drawl shook a bit when he told me how Loch, when he was sure he was going to die, had sung “Rule, Britannia” to let the others hear; and of Trooper Phipps, who’d kept everyone’s spirits up with jokes when he was dying in agony; and Anderson, telling his sowars not to cry out, for the honour of the regiment; and old Daffadar Mahomed Bux, with no hands left, damning his torturers for giving him pork to eat. Even so, Parkes and Loch had more Christian forgiveness towards their captors than I care for; given my way, I’d have collared Sang and Prince I and the whole foul gang, and turned ’em over to the wives and daughters of our Afghan troopers, if I’d had to drag ’em the whole way to Peshawar to do it.43
What riled everyone was that the Chinks had been careful to surrender on terms before we’d seen the bodies, so there was no hope of the mandarins being punished as they deserved. How to make ’em pay – that was the question that ran through the army camped before Pekin, and Elgin sent word to Kung that there’d be no talk of treaty-singing, or indeed any talk at all, until he’d decided how to avenge our people. Diplomatic claptrap, thinks I; we’ll let the swine get away with it, as usual. I didn’t know the Big Barbarian.
He took a day to think about it, brooding alone under the trees in the temple garden, wearing a face that kept us all at a distance, except Grant. He and Elgin talked for about an hour – at least Elgin did, while Grant listened and nodded and presently retired to his tent to put his bull fiddle through its paces something cruel. “That’s his way of beating his wife,” says Wolseley. “Summat’s in the wind that he don’t like – who’s going to inquire, eh?” No one else volunteered, so during a pause in the cacophony I loafed in and found him staring at the manuscript on his music stand, with his pencil behind his ear. I asked what was up.
“Finished,” says he. “Not right. Can’t help it.”
“What’s finished and not right?”
“Quartet. Piano, violins, and ’cello.” He grunted impatiently. “Journeyman work. Just to have to perform it. See what’s amiss then.”
“Oh, absolutely,” says I. “It’ll come right, I daresay, if you keep whistling it to yourself. But, general sahib … what’s Elgin going to do?”
He turned those bright eyes and tufted brows on me, for about three minutes, and picked up his bull fiddle. “Man’s in torment,” says he. “Difficult.” He began to saw away again, so I gave up and went back to the mess to report failure.
We weren’t kept long in suspense. The last bodies came in next day, and after he’d seen them Elgin called an immediate meeting of all the leading men from both armies, with Baron Gros, the French envoy, sharing the table-top with him, and Parkes, Loch, and myself sitting by. He was wearing his frock-coat, which was a portent, since he was used to roll about in flannels and open neck, with a cricket belt and a handkerchief round his head. But he seemed easy enough, pouring a lemonade for Gros, asking if Montauban’s cold were any better, making his opening statement in a quiet, measured way – just from his style, I was positive he’d memorised it carefully beforehand.
“It is necessary,” says he without preamble, “to mark in a manner that cannot soon be forgotten, the punishment we are bound to award for the treachery and brutality which have characterised the Chinese Emperor’s policy, and which have resulted in the cruel murder of so many officers and men. Of the Emperor’s personal implication, and that of his leading mandarins, there can be no doubt. So, while the punishment must be apparent to the whole Chinese Empire, I am most anxious that it should fall, and be seen to fall, only on the Emperor and his chief nobles, who were fully aware of, and responsible for, these atrocious crimes.”
He paused, looking round the table, and I wondered for a moment if he was going to propose hanging the pack of ’em, Emperor and all; the same thought may have been exercising Gros (a genial snail-eater who’d endeared himself to our troops by calling out: “’Allo, camarades, cheer-o!” whenever they saluted him). He was wearing a worried frown, but Elgin’s next words should have put his mind at rest.
“It is manifestly impossible to proceed directly against the persons of the culprits, even if we wished to, since they are beyond our reach. Considering the temper of the army – which, I confess, expresses my own feeling – that is perhaps as well. It remains to punish them by other means. Them and them alone.”
He glanced at Gros, who came in nineteen to the dozen to say that milor’ was bowling a perfect length, it leaped to the eye, the offenders must be made to account for their conduct unpardonable, and no nonsense. It remained only to determine a suitable method of expressing the just indignation of the Powers, and to –
“Precisely, monsieur le baron,” says Elgin. “And I have so determined. After careful deliberation, I can see only one way to mark to the Chinese Empire, and to the whole world, our abhorrence of these wanton and cruel acts of treachery and bloodshed. I am therefore requesting the Commander-in-Chief –” he nodded towards Grant – “to take the requisite steps for the complete destruction of the Summer Palace.”
My first thought was that I hadn’t heard right; my second, what a perfectly nonsensical idea: someone murders twenty people, so you plough up his garden. Others seemed to share my thoughts: Gros and Montauban were staring blank bewilderment, Parkes was looking thoughtfully at the sky, Hope Grant was pursing his lips, which in him was the equivalent of leaping up and beating his forehead; Loch’s mouth was open. Gros was just drawing breath when Elgin went on:
“Before you respond, gentlemen, permit me to observe that this is no hasty decision. It is based on what seem to me to be compelling reasons.” The bulldog face was expressionless, but he tapped a finger to emphasise each point. “Bear in mind that we have no quarrel with the people of China, who are in no way to blame; they do not suffer by this penalty. The Emperor and nobles suffer by the loss of their most precious possession; they suffer also in their pride because their punishment, and their sole guilt, are made plain for the world to see, and the Chinese people are made aware of their Emperor’s shame. Nothing could show more clearly that he is not omnipotent, as he pretends; nothing could demonstrate so clearly our detestation of his perfidy and cruelty.”
He sat with his hands flat on the table, waiting for the storm of protest which he guessed was coming from Gros, and perhaps as much from pique at not being consulted beforehand, as from genuine disapproval, the normally amiable little Frenchman weighed in like a good ’un.
“Milor’! I am astonished! It grieves me extremely to have to disagree with your lordship before these gentlemen assembled, but I cannot accept this … this extraordinary proposal! It … it … appears to me to have no relevance, this! It is … unthinkable.” He took a deep breath. “I must beg your lordship to reconsider!”
“I have, monsieur le baron,” says Elgin quietly. “With great care, I assure you.”
“But … forgive me, milor’, you appear to contradict yourself! You say we must punish the Emperor – with which I and all agree – but not the people of China! Yet you propose the destruction, the desecration of a … a national shrine of China, the repository of its ancient civilisation, its art, its culture, its genius, its learning!” He was in full Gallic spate by now, all waving hands and eyebrows, bouncing in his chair. “What is this but an insult, of the most gross, to the very soul of China?”
“If it were that, I should not have proposed it,” says Elgin. “The Summer Palace is not a shrine of any kind, unless to Imperial luxury and vanity. It is the Emperor’s private pleasure park, and not one of the millions of ordinary Chinese has ever been inside it, or cares a straw for it and its treasures. If they think of it at all, it must be as a monument to human greed, built on extortion and suffering. China has bled to make that place, and China will not weep for its loss, believe me, monsieur le baron.”
The fact that he said this as though he’d been reading the minutes of the last meeting, did nothing to cool Gros’s indignation. He gasped for breath, and found it.
“And the treasures, then? Are they nothing? The irreplaceable works of art, the sublime craftsmanship, the priceless carvings and paintings and jewellery? Are they to be vandalised, to signal our abhorrence of the crime of a few guilty noblemen? Are we to punish their barbarism by an act infinitely more barbaric? By destroying a thing of infinite beauty, of incalculable value? It is … it is out of all proportion, milor’!”
“Out of proportion?” For the first time there was a touch of colour on Elgin’s cheek, but his voice was even quieter than before. “That is a matter of opinion. A few moments ago you and I, monsieur le baron, looked on something which had been infinitely more beautiful, and of incalculably greater value than anything ever created by a Chinese architect: the body of a soldier of the Queen. His name was Ayub Khan. You saw what Chinese civilisation had done to him –”
“Milor’, that is not just!” Gros was on his feet, white-faced. “You know very well I am as enraged as yourself at the atrocities committed upon our people! But I ask you, what can it profit your good soldier, or any other of those martyred, to take revenge in this fashion, by destroying … something with which they, and their deaths, had nothing to do?”
“Please, sir, take your seat again,” says Elgin rising, “and with it my assurance that I intended no reflection on your humanity or your concern for our dead comrades.” Didn’t you, though, thinks I. He waited until Gros had sat down again. “There is no way to profit, or adequately to avenge them. My purpose is to punish their murderers in a way that will best bring down their pride and publish their infamy. That is why I shall burn the Summer Palace, unless your excellency can suggest a suitable alternative.”
Poor Gros stared at him helplessly, and waved his hands. “If it seems good to destroy some building – why, then, let it be the Board of Punishments, where the crimes were committed! What could be more fitting?”
“I’ve heard that suggestion,” says Elgin dryly. “It emanated, I believe, from the Russian Mission at Pekin – to burn the Board and erect a suitable memorial on the site to Chinese perfidy. I can think of nothing better calculated to inflame hatred of our two countries among ordinary Chinese. I hesitate, of course, to conclude that that is why the Russians suggested it. You would say, monsieur le baron?”
“Only … only …” Gros shrugged in real distress. “Ah, milor’, you think only of the effect on the Emperor and the others! But consider another effect – on the honour of our countries and ourselves! Think how such an act will be regarded in the world! It is not the Emperor of China who will be disgraced by what all civilised peoples must see as a … as a barbarism, grossier, incivilisé! Are we to bear the brand of Attila and Alaric, merely to punish the Emperor’s vanity?” And possibly encouraged by the approving cries of his own folk, and the doubtful looks of some of ours, the silly ass put his great Frog foot right in it. “Ah, surely, milor’, you of all men must be aware of what … of what public opinion …” Realising his gaffe, he broke off, shaking his head. “Ah, Dieu! The destruction of precious works of art is not well regarded!” he finished snappishly.
Even the other Frogs were trying to look elsewhere; Parkes, beside me, sighed and murmured something about “Gros by name and nature, what?” Well, everyone knew how Elgin’s guvnor had stripped half Greece of statuary; even then Elgin Marbles was a slogan of outrage among Hellenic enthusiasts. The only person present who didn’t seem to mind was Elgin himself. For the first time in days, he absolutely grinned.
“I had no notion,” says he affably, “from the conduct of your troops at the Ewen-ming-ewen, that such a sentiment prevailed in France –”
“Milor’!” Montauban was wattling furiously, but Elgin didn’t mind him.
“If stigma there be,” he went on, talking straight to Gros, “I shall be content to bear it alone, if I must. It will be a small thing compared to the wound dealt to the pride and false glory of the creature who calls himself Emperor of China.”
“And if it wounds him, as you hope,” cries Gros. “If you so disgrace him in the eyes of his subjects, have you considered it may mean the downfall of the Manchoo dynasty?” He was on his feet again, all frosty dignity. Elgin rose with him, all John Bull.
“If I thought that, monsieur le baron,” says he, “I should be in the Summer Palace this minute, with a torch and a bundle of straw. Alas, I fear it will have no such consequence.”
Gros bowed stiffly. “Milor’ Elgin, I must officially inform you that my government cannot associate itself with a policy which we must consider ill-advised, disproportionate, and – I have to say it, deeply as I deplore the necessity … uncivilised.” He looked Elgin in the eye. “Monsieur, it is cruel.”
“Yes, sir,” says Elgin quietly. “It’s meant to be.”
When the French had stalked off, Elgin sat down and passed a hand across his forehead; suddenly he looked very tired. “Aye, weel,” says he heavily, “a stoot he’rt tae a stae brae – eh, Loch? Now, Grant, which troops shall do the work?”
They settled on Michel’s division, the destruction to begin two days hence. Loch was instructed to write the letter of information to Prince Kung, and the proclamation for general distribution; I was interested that neither referred to the deaths of our people, but only to the Emperor’s treachery and bad faith – that, officially, was why the Summer Palace was to be destroyed, to show “that no individual, however exalted, could escape the responsibility and punishment which must always follow acts of falsehood and deceit.”
“Here endeth the lesson,” says Parkes to me. “He means to rub it into the Emperor, rather.”
“The Emperor don’t know a dam’ thing about it,” says I. “The fellow’s an idiot – probably a dead idiot, by now.”
“You don’t really care for this, do you?” says he, eyeing me.
“Me?” I shook my head. “Tain’t my house and flower-beds.”
He laughed. “I don’t like it, much, myself. My suggestion was for a thumping fine, and the surrender to our justice of the actual murderers – the jailers and tormentors who did the work, and in particular one gross brute who took the keenest satisfaction in pulling my hair out by the roots. H.E. pointed out, correctly, that a fine would inevitably fall on the populace, and that the jailers were merely doing what they were bidden by fiends like Sang. Also, that they probably wouldn’t be handed over – they’d send us a batch of condemned convicts, and who would know the difference?” He looked to where Elgin was sitting, hands in pockets, talking to Grant. “In fact, he’s dead right. This will accomplish what he wants to do.”
“Teach the Emperor a lesson, you mean?” says I, not greatly interested.
“Oh, no. He’s teaching China. The word will go to the ends of the Empire – how the barbarians came, and smashed the chalice, and went away. And for the first time all China will realise that they’re not the world’s core, that their Emperor is not God, and that the dream they’ve lived in for thousands of years, is just … a dream. Gros was right – it’ll bring down the Manchoos, no error; not today, perhaps not for years, but at last. The mystery that binds China will go up in smoke with the Summer Palace, you see. And just by the way – China will break no more treaties; not in our time.”
I thought about Yehonala, and wondered if he was right. As it turned out, he was, almost; China was quiet for forty years, until she roused the Boxers against us. And now the Manchoos are gone, and who’ll deny that it was the fire that Elgin kindled that made China’s millions think thoughts they’d never thought before?
He called me over presently, and asked – not ordered, mark you, but asked, which wasn’t his usual style – if I’d mind going with Michel as guide, so that no buildings were missed. “You know the Summer Palace better, I daresay, than any European living,” says he. “Had that occurred to you?” It hadn’t, as it happened. “But the duty’s not distasteful to you, Flashman?” I said I didn’t mind.
Grant had gone off, and we were alone by the table in the temple garden. He gave me a keen look, and then fell to examining the peeled skin on the back of his hand, smiling a little.
“I seem to sense some disapproval in my staff,” says he, “but since I dislike embarrassment almost as much as I dislike contradiction, I have borne it in silence. A chief of intelligence, however, has an obligation to be forthright. Do you agree with Gros?”
Once on a day I’d have cried no, my lord, you’re entirely right, my lord, burn the bugger hull and sticks, my lord, like a good little toady. But it’s better fun to tell the truth, when it can’t hurt, and is bound to cause devilment. So I said:
“No, my lord. I’m sure your decision is correct.” I waited until he was looking at me to see that I meant it, and then added: “But in your position, I’d not burn the Summer Palace.”
He stared at me, frowning. “I don’t understand, Flashman. You think it right … but you wouldn’t do it? What can you mean?”
“I mean I wouldn’t dare, my lord.” I do love to stir ’em up; oh, I’ll fry in hell for it. “You see, Gros is right in one thing: it’ll get a dam’ bad press. And I’d not care to have Punch labelling me Harry the Hun.”
His jaw jerked at that, and for a moment I thought he was going to explode. Then he gave a jarring laugh. “By God,” says he, “you’re an uncomfortable man! Well, you’re honest, at least. Which is more than can be said for the French, who have already looted the place, but take care to escape the odium for its destruction. Ha! And while crying ‘Philistine!’ they and the other Powers will be happy enough to enjoy the trade benefits and safe commerce which our salutary action will have ensured.” He folded his arms, leaning back, and gave me a bleak look. “Harry the Hun, indeed. They’ll have no need to coin a nickname for me; the Chinese have done it for them, have they not?”
The Big Barbarian, he was thinking; he knew what to expect, but it had rattled him to have me state it so bluntly – which is why I’d done it, of course. Yet he wasn’t altogether displeased; I wondered if he wasn’t glad, in a way, to be bearing the blame alone. He was odd fish, was Elgin. He was no vandal, certainly; indeed, bar Wolseley, he was probably the most sincere lover of the arts in the army – not that I’m an authority, you understand; give me Rubens and you can keep the rest. So how could he bring himself to destroy so much that was rare and beautiful and valuable? I’ll tell you. He was avenging our dead with cold-blooded fury, striking at their murderers (the Emperor, Sang, Prince I, and – although he didn’t know it – Yehonala, who probably shaped Imperial policy more than all the rest) in the way he knew would hurt them most. For he was right there; he knew the Chinese mind; he was hitting ’em where they lived – and putting the fear of God into China, too.
But I suspect he had another reason, which he may not have admitted to himself: I believe that the Summer Palace offended Elgin; that the thought of so much luxury and extravagance for the pleasure of a privileged, selfish few, while the coolie millions paid for it and lived in squalor, was too much for his Scotch stomach. Odd notions for a belted earl, you think? Well, perhaps I’m wrong.44
Tragedy usually has a fair element of farce about it, and this was seen next day when the mass funeral of our dead took place at the Russian Cemetery, outside Pekin. As Elgin observed, the French had a wonderful time, making speeches in bad taste and following their usual practice of firing the final volleys into the grave and not over it. Chinese observers were heard to remark that this was to make sure the corpses were dead. There were Protestant, Roman, and Greek priests officiating together, which looked odd enough, but the sight I wouldn’t have missed was Hope Grant taking part in Papist rituals, sprinkling holy water at Montauban’s request, and plainly enjoying it as much as John Knox in a music hall.
We began to burn the Summer Palace the day after. Michel’s division marched up to the Ewen-ming-ewen gate, where they were split into parties, furnished with crowbars, sledges, axes, and combustibles, and despatched under their officers to chosen spots in the four great gardens – the Enclosed and Beautiful, the Golden and Brilliant, the Birthday, and the Fragrant Hills. I rode round to the Birthday Garden entrance, because I had no great desire to view the whole splendid panorama again from the Ewen slope before the fires were lighted. It was a glorious day; there wasn’t a soul to be seen, and the park seemed to glow in the sunlight, the great beds of flowers and avenues of shrubs had never been so brilliant, or the lawns so green; a little breeze was ruffling the waters of the lake and stirring the leaves in the woods; her pavilion gleamed white among its trees, the birds were singing and the deer posing in the sunshine, and there was such a perfume on the warm air as you might breathe in paradise. From a long way off I caught the first drift of wood-smoke.
Then there were distant voices, and the soft tramp of feet, and someone calling the step, sounding closer, and the stamp as they halted, and the clatter of crowbars and hammers being grounded. And a voice sings out: “Which ’un fust, sir?” and “Over there, sarn’t!” and “Right you are, lads! This way!” and the first smash of timber.
I’m a bad man. I’ve done most wickedness, and I’d do it again, for the pleasure it gave me. I’ve hurt, and done spite, and amused myself most viciously, often at the expense of others, and I don’t feel regret enough to keep me awake of nights. I guess, if drink and the devil were in me, I could ruin a Summer Palace in my own way, rampaging and whooping and hollering and breaking windows and heaving vases downstairs for the joy of hearing ’em smash, and stuffing my pockets with whatever I could lay hands on, like the fellows Wolseley and I watched at the Ewen. I’d certainly have to be drunk – but, yes, I know my nature; I’d do it, and revel in the doing, until I got fed up, or my eye lit on a woman.
But I couldn’t do it as it was done that day – methodically, carefully, almost by numbers, with a gang to each house, all ticked on the list, and smash goes the door under the axes, and in tramp the carriers to remove the best pieces, and the hammermen to smash the rest with sledges, and the sappers to knock out a few beams and windows for draught, and set the oily rags and straw just so, and “Give us one o’ your fusees, corporal … right … fall in outside!” And then on to the next house, while behind the flames lick up, blistering the enamels, cracking the porcelain, charring the polished wood, blackening the bright paint, smouldering the silks and rugs, crackling under the eaves. Next to the wreck of a human body, nothing looks so foul as a pretty house in its setting, when the smoke eddies from the roof, and the glare shines in the windows, and the air shakes with the heat.
That was how it was done, by word of command, one place after another, tramp-tramp-tramp, smash-smash-smash, burn-burn-burn, by men who didn’t talk much, or swear, or laugh – that was the uncanny thing. British soldiers can make a jest of anything, including their own deaths: but no one joked in the Summer Palace. They went about it sour-tempered, grudging; I’d say they were heartsick, or just plain dull and morose. I remember one North Country voice saying it seemed a reet shame to spoil that many pretty things, but the only other note of protest came in a great set-to when some woods caught fire, and a red-faced fellow comes roaring:
“What the hell are you about, sir? Your orders are to burn buildings! That’s good timber – fine trees, damnation take you! Are you a madman, or what?” And the reply: “No, sir, I’m not! But in case it’s escaped your notice, bloody trees are made of bloody wood, you know, which commonly burns when exposed to bloody fire, and d’you expect me to race about catching all the bloody sparks?”
Now the curious thing about this was that one of the speakers was Major-General Sir John Michel, and the other a private soldier, gentleman-ranker, and they cussed each other blind, with no thought of discipline – and no reprisals, either. It was a strange day, that.
Later I remember the rending sound of roofs caving in, and the great rush of flames, the red glare of fire on bare chests and sweat-grimed faces, the harsh crackling and the foul stench as choking smoke drifted across the lawns, blotting out the lakes and flowers, the weary shouts and hoarse commands as the gangs moved on to the next little white jewel among the trees.
I’ve said I couldn’t have done it – which is to say I wouldn’t, for choice, but could if I had to, just as I’ve packed Dahomey slaves when needful. The Summer Palace was just about as sickly as that, but I watched, for curiosity, and because there was nothing else to do – Michel’s men seemed to find the houses without my assistance. And it was curiosity that took me up the Ewen slope, towards evening, to look back on the great pall of smoke, many miles in extent, covering the country to the distant hills, with ugly patches of flame behind it, and here and there a break where you could see a blazing building, or a smouldering ruin, or a patch of burning forest, or virgin parkland, or a pool of dull grey water that had been a shining lake, or even a white palace, untouched amid the green. It looked pretty much like hell.
I’m not saying Elgin was wrong; it achieved what he wanted, without his having to break down a door or smash a window or set a match. That’s the great thing about policy, and why the world is such an infernal place: the man who makes the policy don’t have to carry it out, and the man who carries it out ain’t responsible for the policy. Which is how our folk were tortured to death and the Summer Palace was burned. Mind you, if that wasn’t the case, precious little would ever get done.
But didn’t a tear mist my eye, or a lump rise in my throat; didn’t I turn away at last with a manly sob? Well, no. Yes, as the chap remarked, it was a shame so many pretty things were spoiled – but I’m no great admirer of objects d’art, myself; they just bring out the worst in connoisseurs and female students. But even you, Flashman, surely to God, must have been moved at the destruction of so much beauty, in a spot where you had spent so many idyllic hours? Well, again, no. You see, I don’t live there; I’m here, in Berkeley Square, and when I want to visit the Summer Palace, I can close my eyes, and there it is, and so is she.