But I couldn't do it as it was done that day—methodically, carefully, almost by numbers, with a gang to each house, all ticked on the list, and smash goes the door under the axes, and in tramp the carriers to remove the best pieces, and the hammermen to smash the rest with sledges, and the sappers to knock out a few beams and windows for draught, and set the oily rags and straw just so, and "Give us one o' your fusees, corporal … right … fall in outside!" And then on to the next house, while behind the flames lick up, blistering the enamels, cracking the porcelain, charring the polished wood, blackening the bright paint, smouldering the silks and rugs, crackling under the eaves. Next to the wreck of a human body, nothing looks so foul as a pretty house in its setting, when the smoke eddies from the roof, and the glare shines in the windows, and the air shakes with the heat.
That was how it was done, by word of command, one place after another, tramp-tramp-tramp, smash-smash-smash, burn-burn-burn, by men who didn't talk much, or swear, or laugh—that was the uncanny thing. British soldiers can make a jest of anything, including their own deaths; but no one joked in the Summer Palace. They went about it sour-tempered, grudging; I'd say they were heartsick, or just plain dull and morose. I remember one North Country voice saying it seemed a reet shame to spoil that many pretty things, but the only other note of protest came in a great set-to when some woods caught fire, and a red-faced fellow comes roaring:
"What the hell are you about, sir? Your orders are to burn buildings! That's good timber—fine trees, damnation take you! Are you a madman, or what?" And the reply: "No, sir, I'm not! But in case it's escaped your notice, bloody trees are made of bloody wood, you know, which commonly burns when exposed to bloody fire, and d'you expect me to race about catching all the bloody sparks?"
Now the curious thing about this was that one of the speakers was Major-General Sir John Michel, and the other a private soldier, gentleman-ranker, and they cussed each other blind, with no thought of discipline—and no reprisals, either. It was a strange day, that.
Later I remember the rending sound of roofs caving in, and the great rush of flames, the red glare of fire on bare chests and sweat-grimed faces, the harsh crackling and the foul stench as choking smoke drifted across the lawns, blotting out the lakes and flowers, the weary shouts and hoarse commands as the gangs moved on to the next little white jewel among the trees.
I've said I couldn't have done it—which is to say I wouldn't, for choice, but could if I had to, just as I've packed Dahomey slaves when needful. The Summer Palace was just about as sickly as that, but I watched, for curiosity, and because there was nothing else to do—Michel's men seemed to find the houses without my assistance. And it was curiosity that took me up the Ewen slope, towards evening, to look back on the great pall of smoke, many miles in extent, covering the country to the distant hills, with ugly patches of flame behind it, and here and there a break where you could see a blazing building, or a smouldering ruin, or a patch of burning forest, or virgin parkland, or a pool of dull grey water that had been a shining lake, or even a white palace, untouched amid the green. It looked pretty much like hell.
I'm not saying Elgin was wrong; it achieved what he wanted, without his having to break down a door or smash a window or set a match. That's the great thing about policy, and why the world is such an infernal place: the man who makes the policy don't have to carry it out, and the man who carries it out ain't responsible for the policy. Which is how our folk were tortured to death and the Summer Palace was burned. Mind you, if that wasn't the case, precious little would ever get done.
But didn't a tear mist my eye, or a lump rise in my throat; didn't I turn away at last with a manly sob? Well, no. Yes, as the chap remarked, it was a shame so many pretty things were spoiled—but I'm no great admirer of objets d'art, myself; they just bring out the worst in connoisseurs and female students. But even you, Flashman, surely to God, must have been moved at the destruction of so much beauty, in a spot where you had spent so many idyllic hours? Well, again, no. You see, I don't live there; I'm here, in Berkeley Square, and when I want to visit the Summer Palace, I can close my eyes, and there it is, and so is she.
It burned for almost a week, with a vast pillar of smoke a mile high in the windless air, like some great brooding genie from a bottle, spreading his pall across the countryside; Pekin was a city in twilight, its people awestricken to silence. To them it was incredible, yet there it was, and they saw it, and believed at last. If we hadn't burned it, but had merely occupied Pekin for a season and gone away again, I don't doubt that in no time the Manchoo propagandists would have convinced the population that we'd never been there at all. But with the Summer Palace in flames they couldn't doubt the truth—the barbarians had won, the Son of Heaven had been humbled to the dust, and there was the funeral pyre to prove it.
As some callous scoundrel remarked—and it may have been me, by the sound of it—at least The Times couldn't complain that Elgin hadn't avenged their correspondent properly; poor young Bowlby having been one of the Emperor's victims, you see. That smoke spread, metaphorically, all over the world, and some called Elgin a Visigoth, and others said he'd done the right thing, but one of the warmest debates was over exactly what he had done. Most folk still believe that one great palace building was burned; in fact, there were more than two hundred destroyed, to my knowledge, with most of their contents and great areas of woodland and garden. Some, like Loch, have softened it as best they can by claiming that many buildings and much treasure escaped, that some palaces were only half-burned(!), that few manuscripts were lost, and that the damage was less than it looked. The plain truth is that the great Summer Palace, eight miles by ten, was a charred ruin, and if Lloyds had been faced with the bill they'd have shut up shop and fled the country.
The lesson was driven home with the usual Horse Guards pomp when the convention was signed a few days later, Kung having had to agree to everything we demanded, including £100,000 for the families of our dead. Elgin, looking like Pick-wick strayed into an Aladdin pantomime, was toted through the streets of Pekin in an enormous palanquin by liveried Chinese, with our troops lining the route for three miles to the Hall of Ceremonies, the band playing the National Anthem, an escort of infantry and cavalry hundreds strong, and the senior men mounted in full fig, wearing that curious ceremonial expression of solemn intensity, as though they were trying not to fart. I can't be doing with Hyde Park soldiering; it looks so dam' ridiculous, when anyone can see with half an eye that it costs more time and trouble and expense than fighting a war, and the jacks-in-office and hangers-on who take part plainly think it's a whole heap more important. I'd abolish the Tin Bellies and Trooping the Colour, if I had my way. But that's by the by; the public love it, and there's no question it awed the Chinese; they gazed at Elgin in stricken silence, and knocked head as he went by.
The treaty was signed with tremendous ceremony, before a great concourse of mandarins in dragon robes, and ourselves in dress uniforms, Elgin looking damned disinheriting and poor little Prince Kung plainly scared out of his wits by Beato's camera, which he seemed to think was some kind of gun. (The picture never came out, either.) It was infernally dull and went on for hours, both sides loathing each other with icy politeness, and the only possibility of fun was when Parkes, that imperturbable diplomat, spotted the chap who'd pulled his hair, standing among the Chinese dignitaries, and I believe would have gone for him then and there, if Loch, the spoilsport, hadn't restrained him.45 (Parkes got his revenge, though; he had Prince I turned out of his splendid palace, and bagged it for the new British Embassy.)