and the stretch of street
which runs along under the pink Palace walls and across the Northern
canal bridge has been securely fortified with a very powerful
barricade. Outside the Water-Gate the Chinese sharpshooters have dug
also a trench....

This last barricade was not built without some attempt on our part to
stop such a menacing step, for we tried with all our might, by
directing a heavy rifle-fire, and at last dragging the Italian gun and
a machine-gun into position, to make the barricade-builders' task
impossible. But it was all in vain, and now we are neatly encased in a
vast circle of bricks and timber; we are absolutely enclosed and shut
in, and we can never break through.

Of course this has been a violation of the armistice, for it was
mutually agreed that neither side should continue offensive
fortification work, or push closer, and that violation would entail a
reopening of rifle and gun fire. We reopened our fire for a short
interval, but little good that did us. We lost two men in the
operation, for an Italian gunner was shot through the hand and made
useless for weeks, and a volunteer was pinked in both shoulders, and
may have to lose one arm. After that we stopped firing, for those
bleeding men showed us how soon our defence would have melted away had
we not even this questionable armistice.

Very soon there was a partial explanation of why this immense
barricade had been built. Late in the afternoon Chinese troops began
to stream past at a trot under cover of the structure. First there
were only infantrymen, whose rifles and banners could just be seen
from some of our lookout posts on the highest roofs. But presently
came artillery and cavalry. Everybody could see those, although the
men bent low. Unendingly they streamed past, until the alarm became
general. Even in Peking, quite close to us, there were thousands of
soldiery. When the others were driven in off the Tientsin road it
would be our doom.

From the top of the Tartar Wall came the same reports. Our outposts
saw nothing but moving troops picking their way through the ruins of
the Ch'ien Men great street--troops moving both in and out, and
accompanied by long tails of carts bearing their impedimenta. Yet it
was impossible to trace the movements of the corps streaming past
under cover of the newly built barricade. The flitting glimpses we
got of them as they swarmed past were not sufficient to allow any
identification. Perhaps they were