16

The attack on the Rand Club began while Benham and White were at lunch in the dining-room at the Sherborough on the day following the burning of the star office.  The Sherborough dining-room was on the first floor, and the Venetian window beside their table opened on to a verandah above a piazza.  As they talked they became aware of an excitement in the street below, shouting and running and then a sound of wheels and the tramp of a body of soldiers marching quickly.  White stood up and looked.  “They’re seizing the stuff in the gunshops,” he said, sitting down again.  “It’s amazing they haven’t done it before.”

They went on eating and discussing the work of a medical mission at
Mukden that had won Benham’s admiration. . . .

A revolver cracked in the street and there was a sound of glass smashing.  Then more revolver shots.  “That’s at the big club at the corner, I think,” said Benham and went out upon the verandah.

Up and down the street mischief was afoot.  Outside the Rand Club in the cross street a considerable mass of people had accumulated, and was being hustled by a handful of khaki-clad soldiers.  Down the street people were looking in the direction of the market-place and then suddenly a rush of figures flooded round the corner, first a froth of scattered individuals and then a mass, a column, marching with an appearance of order and waving a flag.  It was a poorly disciplined body, it fringed out into a swarm of sympathizers and spectators upon the side walk, and at the head of it two men disputed.  They seemed to be differing about the direction of the whole crowd.  Suddenly one smote the other with his fist, a blow that hurled him sideways, and then turned with a triumphant gesture to the following ranks, waving his arms in the air.  He was a tall lean man, hatless and collarless, greyhaired and wild-eyed.  On he came, gesticulating gauntly, past the hotel.

And then up the street something happened.  Benham’s attention was turned round to it by a checking, by a kind of catch in the breath, on the part of the advancing procession under the verandah.

The roadway beyond the club had suddenly become clear.  Across it a dozen soldiers had appeared and dismounted methodically and lined out, with their carbines in readiness.  The mounted men at the club corner had vanished, and the people there had swayed about towards this new threat.  Quite abruptly the miscellaneous noises of the crowd ceased.  Understanding seized upon every one.

These soldiers were going to fire. . . .

The brown uniformed figures moved like automata; the rifle shots rang out almost in one report. . . .

There was a rush in the crowd towards doorways and side streets, an enquiring pause, the darting back of a number of individuals into the roadway and then a derisive shouting.  Nobody had been hit.  The soldiers had fired in the air.