We went upstairs and into the big room and there we found the other white people, men, women and children, some safe, some wounded by gunshots, some hurt by manhandling and rough usage, and when we had been welcomed we heard the varying stories of the tragic dead. All these alive had been rescued by heroic Chinese who had worked steadily to save the lives of the white people without thought of their own danger and future punishment for taking our part. It was a wonderful and joyful meeting, and never had I felt so near to my own people. Never, either, had I loved the Chinese so well or honored them so much. Somewhere and sometime, I was sure that my two great peoples would come together in understanding and enduring friendship and so the dreadful day closed in exhilaration of spirit. We bedded the children down in overcoats and quilts that the Chinese had gathered and at last we slept.
What remains to be told? We stayed there that night and all the next day, still not knowing whether we were to be released or held for an unknown purpose, but there was nothing lonely about our imprisonment. One by one through the night and the next day the few remaining white people who had not yet been found were brought to join our number. We knew now the dead, and among them was a gentle old Catholic priest, an Italian, who had been a teacher at the Chinese university where I too had taught. There we had often talked together while we waited for our classes to gather.
But what kept us from being lonely or isolated was the steady flow of Chinese friends who continued to brave the harsh revolutionary guards to bring us food and changes of clothing and toothbrushes and money and combs and warm clothes and everything they could think of for our comfort. They came weeping and heartbroken and we had to cheer them up and thank them over and over and assure them that we bore no one ill will for what had happened. And indeed this was true, for we had all been heartened and warmed by the friendship they had shown us.
Still we did not know what was to happen, although we heard rumors that the commanders on the foreign warships were negotiating for our release. Late in the afternoon of that second day, however, we were told to gather ourselves together and come out of the building. We were to march to the Bund, there to be taken off on the warships. When we reached the gate we found that several broken-down carriages had been provided for the old people and women with little children, and so I with other mothers climbed in and drove off down the familiar streets. How strange, how strange it was, and still it seems strange to me, even after all these years, and I remember it all as though there were no years between. The streets were lined with watching silent people, but the scene, so familiar, had changed overnight. Would I ever see the city again? I did not know, and yet I could not imagine never coming back. The miles were slow, but at last we reached the river’s edge and there we were met by American sailors, who took us aboard the gunboats. And almost at once we learned that we had had a second narrow escape, this time at the hands of our own countrymen. Here is the story. The American Consul, John Davis, an old friend of mine, whose father had been a missionary and a friend of my father’s, was on board the man-of-war, whence the American Commander was directing our escape. The Communist military officers in the city had been given a time ultimatum for our arrival, and if we failed to appear by the set hour, six o’clock I think it was, the city would be bombarded in earnest, not at all like the firing of the day before which had been carefully planned for the empty spaces within the city wall, so that only two or three people were killed. At six o’clock we were still not in sight and the American Commander was about to order the bombardment to begin. But John Davis, knowing that exact hours meant nothing to Chinese, begged for a fifteen-minute delay, and when, at the end of that time, we were still not in sight, for yet another brief delay. Still we were not in sight and the American officer was ready to give orders, when a third time John Davis besought him to wait only a few minutes more. Within those minutes the first of our ragged caravan appeared at the river’s edge. Had the cannon fired, undoubtedly we would have been killed by our own fire. As it was, we went aboard the ships safely.
All my life I had seen those gunboats on the river, and I had wished that they were not there. I had felt they should not be there, foreign warships in Chinese interior waters. Now such a ship was saving me and mine and taking us to a refuge. I was glad not to die, but I wished that I had not needed to justify, against my will, what still I knew to be wrong. There was no use quibbling now, however, and I turned toward my own countrymen. They were only the sailors, young and crude, from aboard the destroyer, but I longed for a friendly word from them. Alas, they were not friendly to anyone. I suppose they were tired, I suppose they were disgusted with us because we had not left Nanking when the Consul warned us, months earlier, of the dangers from the revolutionary Chinese army. Certainly those young American sailors could not understand our being in China at all, and it was only weariness that we were there to be cared for. At any rate, they were harsh and some of them even contemptuous, and I shrank away from them and felt lonely indeed. Yet I had to accept their help for the sake of the children, and so on the ship at last we gathered about a bare table where plates and forks and spoons were heaped, and a sailor ladled out some sort of stew. Everybody ate except me and I could not eat. It was more than mere exhaustion. The exhilaration of spirit was gone. The Chinese who had been our friends were far away, and here were only these rough young men who did not smile, even when they looked at the children.
In the night we had one more catastrophe. Into a cabin designed for six sailors, fourteen women and all their children were crowded. Some of the women had come from the mission hospital with newborn babies, and they were given the best berths. Others slept on the floor. I was given a berth for my children, and I put them to bed in the same clothes they had worn, the only ones they had, and I sat down beside them to rest for a moment. Then I saw that my helpless child was feverish and somewhere I borrowed a thermometer and took her temperature. She was fretful and bit the glass to pieces and I had to be sure that she swallowed none of it. It was just then that I noticed a greenish look on other faces and suddenly my younger child vomited and other children began to vomit. In a few minutes women and children were in violent nausea, except me, and a missionary doctor, called to attend them, staggered into the cabin, himself violently ill, to report that everybody was ill. The stew, it seemed, had been made from old tinned meat, long held in reserve, and it had caused ptomaine poisoning.
What a night that was! I ran back and forth with various vessels, emptying and washing and holding them again to be refilled. We had only one toilet, but fortunately it was a flush toilet and so somehow we managed. Once when I went in, loaded with pots, I found a friend, a woman who had been my neighbor, earnestly searching the toilet contents. She had swallowed her wedding ring the day before when a Communist soldier had tried to take it from her and now she was trying to recover it. It was part of the absurd nightmare of that night that she did recover it, thanks to her determination.