" Are there any Japanese here? " the colonel then asked abruptly.
" Oh, no! " returned the Chinaman, in a sad, reproachful voice, as if rebutting a charge of gross personal misconduct preferred against him by a friend, the last person in the world from whom he had expected such a stab.
When the ordeal was over, the colonel shook hands with the station-master and bade him good-bye, and the station-master said, " Please come again." He seemed to be uncertain whether he was dealing with Russian or English officers, or whether he was awake or dreaming.
It was still night when we left the station, but, by the time that we had found ourselves quarters in the neighbouring village, day was dawning. On this occasion, and on the following morning, the Cossacks' eyes were wide open with astonishment. "This is the English railway," they said, "but where are the English? " They had heard all their lives long about these Englishmen, and for them the great attraction of this trip was that it would bring them into close personal contact with these fabled beings; but, lo and behold! there were no Englishmen to be seen! It could not have been fear that had driven the English away, for the visit had been a surprise. No! the fact was that, just as those Englishmen had got the Japanese to fight Russia for thern, so they were getting the Chinese to work their railway for them. Evidently they kept, as a rule, far in the mysterious background and pulled the strings.
The surprise of the Cossacks was all the greater owing to the contrast this railway presented to their own. The Russian line was alive with Russians — passengers, waiters, railway officials, clerks, peddlers, and functionaries of all descriptions. But here there was not a single white man to be seen. Enginedrivers, conductors, station officials were all Chinese; yet everything seemed to work smoothly.
" Where, then, are the English? " asked the Cossacks in chorus.
In the grey light of the early dawn a goods train came along from the south. It was chock-full of goods. What a contrast to the Russian line, which had for twelve months previous been carrying nothing to the front except soldiers and instruments of destruction, and nothing to the rear but wounded!
" It's a fine railway," remarked one of the officers briefly, as this long train slid slowly in and then came to a stop.
" Search the carriages for Japanese," said the colonel; but there were evidently no Japanese about. So, at least, I thought at the time; but I have since come to
1
think differently. Seeing a Chinaman seated on a pile of corn bags in an open truck, I asked, not because I wanted particularly to know, but because I had nothing else to say, " Yeebin yo mayo? " (" Are there any Japanese about? "); and he replied by pointing to a depression in the pile of bags, on the edge of which depression stood, outlined against the eastern sky, one of those small, frayed, brown leather hand-bags which Japanese will, for some reason or other, persist in carrying with them wherever they go.
" By Jove! there's a Jap here, sure enough," I said to myself, as I clambered up on the truck so as to have a better view of the inside of the aforesaid depression. I was disappointed, however; for inside there peacefully slept a young Chinese, pigtail and all complete. Subsequent reflection has led me to entertain doubts, however, about the genuineness of that pigtail; but even had a Japanese soldier been there in full uniform, I should not, of course, have felt myself justified, under the circumstances, in making his presence known. It was not my business.
The passenger train from Tsinmintun was due at 9.30 a.m., and Colonel Plaoutine sent an officer and a Cossack guard to the station to have a look at it. They did no more. The Cossacks stared for all they were worth at the Chinese passengers with which the train was laden, and the Chinese passengers stared blankly at the weapons and the wolfish busbies of the Russians.
The station-master then appeared on the scene, and told us about some Russian deserters who had passed that way some days before. Having said this, he paused to see if we would confess that it was these deserters that we were looking after. He also told me in a confidential manner that he knew from the way I spoke that I was an Englishman, and then he tried to extract information out of me. In a flash I saw that he had become a different man since I had seen him last. Somebody had been galvanising this Oriental. He had had a wire from Peking, and it was no longer a Chinaman that I was dealing with, but the wizard Morrison or the astute Kinder.