Our poor Legation Guards and their commanding officers, with whom we were so pleased a fortnight ago, are quite as crushed as everyone else now—­perhaps even more.  You see the rank and file are merely a crowd of uneducated sailors, who have not yet made head or tail of what all this Peking bouleversement means.  They were suddenly entrained and rushed up to Peking many days ago; they arrived in the dark; they were crammed into their respective Legations as quickly as possible; they have done a little patrol and picquet work on the streets, and have stood expectantly behind barricades which they were told to erect; but otherwise they are as completely at sea again as if they were back to their ships....  In all the clouds of dust and smoke around them, how can they understand?  It is true I have rather a grudge against some persons of the Legation defenders as yet unknown, and think of them perhaps a little angrily, for, like all soldiery, they loot.  They have already taken my field-glasses, an excellent revolver, and several other things during the confusion of the nights.  Of course this is the fortune of war, as all old campaigners will tell you, but a more decent interval should have been allowed to elapse before beginning the inevitable stripping process....

As for the detachment officers, some of them are very good fellows and some of them are not; but already they have each of them instinctively adopted the old attitude of the Legations towards one another.  They are mutually suspicious.  The detachment officers are also considerably tired and in very bad tempers, for the night has been turned into day with a regularity which cannot leave anybody very happy.  Then dirt is accumulating, too, sad truth; and in the East you cannot feel dirty in the summer and be happy.  That is quite impossible....

Thus we are all in a very grunting frame of mind.  The British Legation appears to be at length hopelessly crowded with perspiring missionaries of all denominations and creeds, who have suddenly come in from beyond the barricades.  Life must be quite impossible there.  The novelty of this experience has been worn off, and I for one would welcome any change, either for better or worse.  So long as it is only a change....

XIV

THE ULTIMATUM

19th June, 1900.

* * * * *

How foolish we can be!  Only last night I was bewailing the dulness and the dirt of it all, and the general absurdity and discomfort, and now without one qualm I confess I would willingly exchange yesterday’s uncertainty for to-day’s certainty—­that we are all going to be made into mincemeat.  But I do not even feel serious or desperate now; it has got beyond that.