silent. They, too, do not like it, frankly and unreservedly; and as I
lay up there and told them what I had seen elsewhere, an old fellow
with a beard said it was S----, the first secretary, who had insisted
on their stopping, and had almost had a fight with everyone about it.
The old marine told me that the other men would be damned--he used the
word in a wistful sort of way which had nothing profane about it--if
they stopped much longer. They wanted other people to share the
honours; they did not see why every man should not have a turn at the
same duty.... I was glad these Americans were making this fuss, for
everything is just as unbalanced as it was at the beginning, and there
is no sort of confidence anywhere. After three days of siege the only
clear thing I can see is that there are a lot of bad tempers, and that
the few good men are saving the situation by acting independently to
the best of their ability and are not trying to understand anything
else.

Much depressed, I at last slipped down through the back of the Russian
Legation into the British Legation. Yes! the others are right, for on
reaching the English grounds you feel unconsciously that you have
passed from the fighting line to the hospital and commissariat base.
Here, mixed impartially with the women, crowds of vigorous men,
belonging to the junior ranks of the Legations' staffs and to numbers
of other institutions, are skulking, or getting themselves placed on
committees so as to escape duty. I suppose you could beat up a
hundred, or even a hundred and fifty, rifle-bearing effectives in an
hour. Many of the younger men were furious, and said they were quite
willing to do anything, but that everybody should be turned out.... In
the afternoon some of them fell in with my idea--volunteering under
independent command on the outer lines--and now the Japanese, the
French and the Germans have got more men. But what I wish to show you