Forbidden City of the oldest of civilisations, the capital of the world, to the Chinese, having dominion over all mankind. And now the foreign devils were coming, the whining pipes echoing out across the sodden plain, the jaunty little poilus with their kepis tilted, stepping it out, the jingling troopers of Fane’s and Probyn’s with the sun a-twinkle on their lance-heads, the Buffs swinging by to the odd little march that Handel wrote for them (so Grant told me)28, the artillery limbers churning up the mud, the Hampshire yokels and Lothian ploughboys, the Sikhs and Mahrattas and Punjabis, McCleverty bare to the waist in the prow of his gunboat, Wolseley halting his pony to sketch a group of coolies, Napier riding silent, shading his eyes ahead, Elgin sitting under the awning of Coromandel fanning himself with his hat and reading The Origin of Species, Montauban careering up and down the columns with great dash, chattering to his staff, Grant standing by the roadside, tugging his grizzled whiskers and touching his cap to the troops who cheered him as they marched by. Fifteen thousand horse, foot and guns rolling up the Peiho, not to fight or to hold or to conquer, but just so that the Big Barbarian could stand before the Son of Heaven and watch him put his mark on paper. “And when he does,” says Elgin, “the ends of the earth will have met at last, and there will be no more savage kings for our people to subdue. We’ve come a long way from our northern forests; I wonder if we were wise.”
The Chinese evidently thought not, for having given us fawning assurance of free passage and no resistance, they hampered us every yard to Tientsin. Transport and beasts had vanished from the country, the local officials used every excuse to delay us, and to make things worse the weather was at extremes of broiling heat and choking dust or deluges of rain and axle-deep mud29. Fortunately the Manchoos hadn’t had the wit to break bridges or block channels, and the peasantry, with a fine disregard for Imperial policy, were perfectly ready to repair our road and sell us beef and mutton, fruit, vegetables and ice at twenty times their proper price. Snug on Coromandel, I could endure our leisurely progress, but Parkes was plumb in the path of all the Manchoos’ growing insolence and deceit, and I could see his official smile getting tighter by the hour.
“At this rate we may reach Pekin by Christmas. The more we submit to their lies and hindrance, the less they respect us.” He was at the rail, glaring coldly at the glittering salt-heaps that lined the banks below Tientsin. “In ’58, after we shelled Canton, the river banks were black with Chinese – kow-towing. You will observe, Sir Harry, that they do not kow-tow today. Much as I admire our chief, I cannot share his recently-expressed satisfaction that in these enlightened times we no longer require every Chinaman to take off his hat to us.”
But even Elgin’s patience was beginning to wear thin. Somehow he preserved a placid politeness through every meeting with Manchoo officials who barely concealed their satisfaction in wasting time and frustrating our progress, but afterwards he’d be in a fever to get on, snapping at us, tugging his fringe, urging Grant and Montauban with an energy that stopped just short of rudeness; Montauban would bridle and Grant would nod, and then we staff-men would get pepper again. He was bedevilled, trying to keep the Chinks sweet and the advance moving, fearful of provoking downright hostility, but knowing that every hour lost was time for the war party in Pekin to get their nerve back after Taku; we knew Sang-kol-in-sen was back in the capital, urging resistance, and Elgin in his impatience was being tempted by a new Manchoo ploy – speedy passage to Pekin in return for a promise of active British help against the Taipings, which he daren’t concede or bluntly refuse.30
It took us ten crawling days to cover sixty miles to Tientsin, a stink-hole of salt-heaps and pi-dogs – and smiling Manchoo mandarins sent by Pekin to “negotiate” our further progress. They talked for a full week, while Parkes risked apoplexy – and Elgin nodded gravely, with his lip stuck out. Finally, after interminable discussion, they agreed that we might advance to Tang-chao, eleven miles from Pekin – provided we didn’t take artillery or too many gunboats to alarm the people – and from there Elgin and Baron Gros might go into Pekin with a thousand cavalry for escort, and sign the damned treaty. It seemed too good to be true – although Grant looked grim at the smallness of the escort – but Elgin accepted, hiding his satisfaction. And then the mandarins, smiling more politely than ever, said of course they couldn’t confirm these arrangements, but doubtless Pekin would do so if we were patient a little longer …
If Bismarck or D’Israeli or Metternich had had to sit through those interminable hours, listening to those bland, lying old dotards, and then received that slap in the face, I swear they’d have started to scream and smash the furniture. Elgin didn’t even blink. He listened to Parkes’s near-choked translation of that astounding insolence, thanked the mandarins for their courtesy, stood up, bowed – and told Parkes, almost offhand, to pass ’em the word that they now owed Britain four million quid for delays and damage to our expedition. Oh, aye, and the treaty would now contain a clause opening Tientsin to European trade.
Back on Coromandel he was grimly satisfied. “Their bad faith affords the perfect excuse for proceeding to Pekin forthwith. Sir Hope, the army will no longer halt when discussions take place; if they want to talk we’ll do it on the march. And if they don’t like it, and want a fight, they can have it.”
Suddenly everyone was grinning; even Parkes was delighted, although he confided to me later that Elgin should have taken a high hand sooner. Elgin himself looked ten years younger, now that he’d cast the die, but I thought exuberance had got the better of him when he strode into the saloon later, threw The Origin of Species on the table, and announced:
“It’s very original, no doubt, but not for a hot evening. What I need is some trollop.”
I couldn’t believe my ears, and him a church-goer, too. “Well, my lord, I dunno,” says I. “Tientsin ain’t much of a place, but I’ll see what I can drum up –”
“Michel’s been reading Dr Thorne since Taku,” cries he. “He must have finished it by now, surely! Ask him, Flashman, will you?” So I did, and had my ignorance enlightened.31
It was bundle and go now. We left 2nd Division at Tientsin, shed all surplus gear, and cracked away at twice our previous pace, while the Manchoos plagued Elgin with appeals to stop the advance – they would appoint new commissioners, they had further proposals, there must be a pause for discussion – and Elgin replied agreeably that he’d talk to ’em at Tangchao, as agreed. The Manchoos were frantic, and now we saw something new – great numbers of refugees, ordinary folk, streaming towards us from Pekin, in evident fear of what would happen when we arrived. They flooded past us, men, women, and children, with their possessions piled on rickety carts – I remember one enormous Mongol wheeling four women in a barrow. But no sign of armed opposition, and when our local guides and drivers decamped one night, spirits were so high that no one minded, and Admiral Hope and Bowlby, the Times correspondent, took over as mule-skinners, whooping and hawing like Deadwood Dick. We swung on up-river, the gunboats keeping pace and the Frog band thumping “Madelon”, for now Pekin was barely thirty miles ahead, and we were going to see the elephant at last, seven thousand cavalry and infantry ready for anything, not that it mattered for the Manchoo protests had subsided to whines of resignation, and we were coming home on a tight rein, hurrah, boys, hurrah!
And the dragon … waited.
It happened the day after we held divine service in a big temple, and afterwards there was much fun while we looked over a book of pictures which Beato, who’d been photographing the march, presented to Elgin. Word came that new Manchoo commissioners, including the famous Prince I, were waiting just up ahead, at Tangchao, and they hoped the army would camp on the near side of the town while we negotiated the details of Elgin’s entry to Pekin.
“Go and see
