| International racing—The Swede and the Jap—An Admiral intervenes—Russia gets stung with a horse—Box-wallahs and brass-bound soldiers—Social struggle on China coast. |
After leaving Morrison I ran up against an English soldier of fortune, one MacMillan, a little square-shouldered, bull-headed, thick-necked battler—a sort of Hal o’ the Wynd who fought for his own hand. Perhaps not much of a celebrity, but if it were not for such as MacMillan there would not be many celebrities. He had been in Manila, South America, all over China, the Northern Territory of Australia, Singapore, Batavia, and the old country. In default of a better celebrity let us look through the eyes of MacMillan at the welter on the Chinese coast in war-time. When writing of the world’s great dog-fight it is worth-while occasionally to get the views of the under-dog. Sitting in the Country Club at Bubbling Well Road, Shanghai, with its hundred yards of bar-counter, built in the form of a hollow square, MacMillan and I listened to a roar of talk like that round the Tower of Babel. Chinese waiters flitted about with drinks ranging from the apéritif of the Frenchman to the old brandy which the Russians were drinking as though it were milk.
A high-pitched female voice said: “Boy, bring us two cocktails.”
And the Chinaman promptly said: “Yes sir.”
Outside, the pat, pat, of tennis-balls and the rattle of a bowling alley occasionally made themselves heard above the roar of conversation.
MacMillan, the hero of a hundred adventures, ran his fierce little eyes over the assemblage.
“Australia’s a stone-dead place compared to this,” he said. “Look at the money they’re spending. Even the Swedes have got money. But there’s a lot going on here that you can’t see with the naked eye. Those women over there with the diamonds like lighthouses, they’re wives of the Taipans. You know what a Taipan is, don’t you?—the head of a big factory or shipping business. Until the army came over, those women ran everything. If anybody wanted to argue, they just pushed his face in. But when the army women came over, they wouldn’t even call on the wives of the Taipans.”
“They said the Taipans were just a lot of box-wallahs, and wouldn’t amount to a row of pins in England. You know what a box-wallah is, don’t you?—a chap that sells goods in the bazaar or carries a pack round. Damn it, they even drew a line at solicitors and said that they wouldn’t call on the wives of attorneys. Can you beat it?”
“I suppose the Taipans got sore, too,” I said.
“Not half, laddie, not half. Of course the Taipans were looking for it, in a way, because a lot of them graduated from behind a counter, and when they got over here and got five or ten thousand a year, they started to throw their weight about. I don’t count for anything financially myself, but I belong to the Wellington Club in England, and when any of the Taipans got putting the boot into me I used to ask him, just casually like, what club he belonged to in London. Most of them belong to clubs sacred to commercial travellers, so they took to letting me alone. They and their women run this club here, and for a time they decided that they wouldn’t admit Swedes. God only knows why they picked on the Swedes, but that’s what they did. Then they said that they would admit Swedes, and when about a dozen Swedes put up they blackballed more than half of ’em, just to show their exclusiveness. And yet any chap from overseas can get made an honorary member so long as he has a collar on.”
So there they sat; everybody happy; everybody laughing and swilling cocktails; and yet the worm was gnawing at their hearts. I ordered two more cocktails while MacMillan got his breath.
“You weren’t here for the races, were you?” he went on. “There was something doing then all right. There was a beautiful cup given, and the Taipans’ wives all wanted it; so they made their husbands enter horses. And the military entered their horses, and there was more fighting over it than there was at the relief of the legations. The military had no money to speak of, but they had a pretty good horse, and he just managed to win, ridden by an Australian fellow named Robin Johnson, an officer in the Welsh Fusiliers. Then the box-wallahs whipped in a protest for foul riding and the fun started. The committee were equally divided—soldiers and civilians—so there was no hope of an agreement.”
“Then they referred it to a good-natured old admiral, who had just come out and hadn’t joined either clique. I wouldn’t have taken it on for a fortune; but then you see I’ve got to live here. He was as fair as the sun, this Admiral, but he knew nothing about racing. He did the best he could, for he said that, at manoeuvres, a ship had to give another ship at least two clear lengths’ sea-room, and the military rider hadn’t done that. So he decided against the military. They withdrew all their horses, saying that they would not tolerate a charge of foul riding against a British officer, and that they wouldn’t race any more against men who were neither sportsmen nor gentlemen.”
“You’ve heard about the Dreyfuss case in France? Well, there wasn’t half as much fuss about Dreyfuss as there was about the disqualification of this Johnson. Of course, it’s all blown over—till the next time—and they’re off to the Chefoo races as thick as thieves—and just as likely to fall out.”
Wednesday, September 18th 1901—Went to track at daylight and watched the horses work. There are some English and Australian horses here, also Arabs and Indian country-breds; but most of the racing is done by griffin China ponies. By the rules of the concern every pony must be trained by its owner or a member of the club. The training was described by an English jockey as “a fair masterpiece.”
A China pony, fresh off the grass, is brought in and saddled with considerable difficulty. Then he is allowed to buck round a bit with a mahfoo on him till he can be ridden round the track. Next day he is sent a mile gallop against the watch! One hears such dialogue as the following:
“You’re not going to try him to-day, are you?”
“Well, no, I only bought him yesterday, and I’ll give him another day’s training before I try him.”
These ponies are square-built little things, with short necks; solid as pigs; and they gallop with their heads down. The rider can pull at them if he likes—he can please himself about that—it is all one to the pony. By the time he has run a quarter of a mile the pony becomes fit for stratagems and treasons and begins to shirk his job, or to “stink,” as they have it, in the classic idiom of the China coast. Then he gets a good hiding with a cutting whip, and comes in from his gallop determined to do for somebody on the first opportunity. After a time he becomes more or less reconciled to business, for he is well fed, and his life is a lot easier than when he was carrying a Manchurian over leagues of snow. But, as for racing—well, Kipling’s man, who tried to hustle the East, had a better chance than the man who tries to hustle a China pony.
Chefoo races. A two days’ meeting. Military and civilians have buried the hatchet. I arrive after a trip on a Russian steamer where the food is fat bacon in steaks, sardines which have been opened for three days, tinned meat ditto, curry slimy with grease, and lukewarm tea. We never saw the captain nor any of the officials at meals. They mess by themselves. Five Russian ladies of easy virtue are moving up the coast on a sort of pilgrimage, going from one port to another, but how they can compete with the local article is a problem. In Shanghai there are two and a half miles of red-light establishments! These wanderers are all sick and lie on deck all day, looking very ghastly, and fruitlessly calling out “boy” at intervals.
I find Robin Johnson here, the Dreyfuss of the Chinese coast. He takes me to the club where a Calcutta sweep is held, the names of the horses being drawn from a hat and then put up to auction. Robin introduces me to a Russian banker, a French importer, and an Italian of sorts—all partners in one horse.
Presumably, Johnson pitches them some very strong tale about me, for, after a while the Russian asks me if I will ride their horse for them next day.
Having had some previous experience of amateur racing, I ask at once: “What’s wrong with him?”
“How do you mean what’s wrong with him?” said the Russian.
“Well, you wouldn’t be looking for a rider at the last minute unless there was something wrong with him. What is it?”
“Rien, detout,” says the Frenchman. “Nossing at all! ’E is a bit ’ard to—’ow you say monter?— to get on. Zat is all.”
As there are plenty of riders about, it is obvious that this pony has a reputation, and probably has two or three deaths to his credit. Resolving to arm myself with a three-bushel bag to put over this outlaw’s head when mounting, I agreed to take the ride. Then the trio asked me to buy their horse in for them at the auction, and I find that he is a hot favourite. He is named Gilyak, and was the winner of the Peking Derby for China ponies. All of which sounds like apple-sauce to me, for the ponies are better at Peking than they are here, and the winner of the Peking Derby must be a fairly civilized and well-trained animal.
A man would live for a good many years in Sydney without seeing anything like that Calcutta sweep. The vultures of the world, waiting for their feast of Chinese flesh, sat round small tables drinking every drink under the sun, and talking—well, it was nothing unusual to hear a man talking in three different languages to his three companions. Russians (like money) speak all languages, and the Germans are not far behind them. An Englishman is auctioneer, while a Jew records the winning bids, and calls out the amount in the pool. The French have the national aplomb, but the Germans get very excited and yell loud, guttural bids. I am put in to bid for Gilyak, so that the crowd may not know that the owners fancy his chance. But, as Johnson puts it, this crowd were all born with a full set of teeth, and as soon as I start to bid, Gilyak’s price goes up a fiver at a time. Finally I get him for seventy pounds.
After the auction everybody settles down to steady drinking, at which the Russians are in a class by themselves. Even the most seasoned soaks of the British Navy will shudder and turn white when asked to go to an official dinner on a Russian warship.
“I blame it on our ancestors,” says a British naval officer. “They got civilized and developed a nervous system. When they had nothing to do they would sit and think and worry themselves; but the Russians would just sit. The Russians have got nerves and stomachs like these buffaloes that can eat mangrove-leaves and drink swamp water.”
Next morning I am awakened by a booming of gongs and a noise that sounds like rifle-fire. The Chinese grooms are beating gongs and letting off bunches of crackers by way of propitiating Lady Luck before they go out to the course. We go to the course in a launch and ride Chinese coolies pick-a-back to the beach through the shallow water. The track up to the gates is blocked by hundreds of shrieking, howling beggars, with every malformation and disease known to science. They beat their breasts with clubs, and have to be driven out of the way with whips.
Inside the course the place is alive with ponies, for every young officer of the various forces has bought a pony for the meeting and has “trained” him himself. Fields are very large; but most of the runners stop to “stink” half-way through the job, and the finishes are left to a few honest battlers.
I find Gilyak rolling his eyes and letting fly at anything that comes near him. He looks a stupid, uncivilized brute, very unlike the winner of a Peking Derby, or of any other Derby. Just as the spectators are gathered to see some wild-west business, I hand the three-bushel bag to the mahfoos—he has one on each side of him—and with his head in a bag, Gilyak is easy enough to mount. He jumps away well at the start, and we get a lead of three or four lengths, but as soon as a pony comes alongside him he goes into low gear, and is beat to the world before we reach the turn. I refuse to ride him any more. A half-caste professional rider does no better with him next day. Then it turns out that this pony is not Gilyak at all. The Russian banker and his associates paid £120 for Gilyak, but the Chinese delivered them a green Manchurian pony that they had bought out of a mob for three pounds ten!
“For ways that are dark and for tricks that are vain, the heathen Chinee is peculiar.”
At the start of our race, a Japanese officer, in a very neat rig-out, is carried by his pony into an irrigation drain, where the pony rolls on him and then careers away with bridle flying. Covered with evil-smelling mud, and looking like nothing on earth, the Japanese emerges right in front of a Swede civilian, who looks strong enough to hold an elephant, but can make no impression on his pony’s iron mouth. The Swede’s pony stops dead and its rider is thrown heavily. Mistaking the Japanese for some sort of coolie, the Swede advances on him with a whip. Heaven knows what international complications might have arisen had not a Frenchman’s pony, coming along full split, separated the pair and narrowly missed destroying the Swede. By degrees the loose ends are gathered up; unmanageable ponies are held at the post by their grooms; and the field gets away somehow. One race is set apart for ponies ridden by their grooms, and the ponies behave themselves perfectly under their Chinese riders. The white punters, however, get a shock. They all back what appears to be an unbeatable certainty, only to find that the Chinese riders have put their heads together and backed the biggest outsider on the totalizator. The ways of the Chinese are quite inscrutable. They will fix up a racing swindle, gamble like devils, and then go out and pick flowers.
September 20th—Dined on an American warship as guest of the doctor, who says that the cold winds from the north here would blow the horns off a goat. The natives do not make any doors or windows on the northern side of their houses. The American officers are much the same as one would meet on an English warship; but a lot of the men join up just to learn trades. Every man has a camera. The doctor says that if their camera fiends had been told that they could take snapshots of the forbidden city they would have relieved the legations any fine day before breakfast.
September 21st—Coming down the coast in a Butterfield and Swire boat. Great contrast to the Russian boat on which I came up. A lot of the passengers are ladies who have been up north for the summer and are coming back with their children and cows and ponies. Butterfield and Swire are fighting for the trade, and on this trip they give free drinks, a thing quite unknown previously. The cautious old Scotch skipper will not comment on the move, but says he is afraid that some passengers may abuse it.
In Weihawei harbour at night. Saw the warships of all nations at anchor using their searchlights like great pencils of flame; and the flickering of helios go on all night long. Might, majesty, dominion, and glory—we have them all in our British warships; and the sight of the British flag in a foreign port is never without its thrill to the wandering colonial. The old Scotch skipper agrees with Morrison. “We should ha’ taken charrge,” he says. “We should ha’ taken charrge.”