IN the autumn of 1911 I became engaged to Miss
Henrietta Joy, the daughter of Mrs. Joy, our friend and
neighbour in Branksome Park. The Joy family had
come to Boston from Hingham, Norfolk, in 1637.
There is a Joy Street in Boston, named after the first
Thomas Joy, an architect, who built the first Town
Hall, which was later destroyed by fire. My fiancée's
father was a famous scientist, and Professor of
Chemistry at Columbia University, New York, for many
years; he died when she was 18.
As soon as I obtained home leave I travelled via
Siberia and England to New York, as my fiancée
preferred to be married there among her very large
circle of friends, rather than in England. From the
moment I landed in America until we left some four
weeks later, the most marvellous hospitality and
kindness was shown to me. I was put up at all the best
clubs, and dinners, luncheons, theatre parties, and
receptions, followed each other in rapid succession.
I discovered how popular my wife was.
We were married on a fine sunny day, December
20th, 1911, an auspicious beginning to 25 very happy
years, which we have just celebrated in Parkstone,
surrounded by our friends here. My fiancée's greatest
friends in New York were the family of Mr. Joseph H.
Choate, the eminent barrister, who for six years so
brilliantly filled the post of American Ambassador to
Great Britain. He and his wife and daughter Mabel
most kindly invited us to have the wedding at their
beautiful mansion in New York, and it was a lovely
occasion. The whole house was most charmingly
decorated with flowers, principally with lilies of the
valley, white lilac and roses. The wedding march was
played on a very fine large organ in the hall, while
my bride walked down the stairs on Mr. Choate's arm.
Her especial friends formed an aisle for her to pass
through by holding white satin ribbons. We were
married by an English Bishop in the lovely drawing
room, and then followed the wedding breakfast, and
best of all a delightful speech by Mr. Choate, to which
Mr. Whitridge replied. The latter had married the
daughter of Matthew Arnold. We then left for our
honeymoon in Washington, feeling very much married,
as, in addition to the Bishop, we had been married the
day before at the City Hall and at the British Consul-General's.
Some years previously I had met a Mr. Chester Snow
and his charming wife and young son on the steamer
travelling to Hankow. The Snow family were from
Washington, U.S.A. I showed the Snows Hankow,
and took them to the station first. We found a large
number of troops there displaying banners, and a
group of Chinese officers, in full regalia on the platform.
Shortly after, a train arrived from Peking, and an
important Chinese official stepped out of it. A lucky
stroke on my part which gave me the reputation of
being a good showman. On seeing me off on the upriver steamer, Mrs. Snow begged me to stay at their
home in Washington if I ever went there. After our
marriage I wrote to her, and Mr. Snow replied that his
wife had died, and that he had given up his house,
but that his car would be at our disposal during our
stay in Washington. Both he, and his son, now grown
up, were most kind and took us sightseeing to
Washington's beautiful home at Mount Vernon, the
Congressional Library, and many other places in that
beautiful city.
After I had packed up all the hundreds of wedding
presents we had receivec, we sailed for England. I
am glad to say that nothing was broken on that 1,400-
mile journey. After a few days with our relations we
had a delightful journey to Shanghai, via Suez, Penang,
Ceylon, Singapore and Hong Kong, meeting friends of
mine on the boat and at every port. The weather was
perfect throughout.
On our arrival in Shanghai we were met by friends
and driven to my house. The doors stood wide open,
all the lights were lit, flowers and wedding presents were
everywhere, and no one was in sight, except the Chinese
servants smiling on the doorstep. All these arrangements had been made by my women friends, principally
by Mrs. Wynyard Brooke, and if she should read these
lines, she will realize how much we appreciated her
kindness.
My friends killed the fatted calf for us, and we dined
out the first 40 nights after our arrival. Unfortunately,
I was laid up with paratyphoid later, and as I was on
the point of leaving by house-boat to go by the Grand
Canal to Chin Kiang, my eyes began to trouble me.
I had to carry on, so my wife, a friend and I took the
journey. We passed Soochow by night, and it is
romantic to see the lights shining through the paper
windows. We were a long string of house-boats towed
by a motor launch, a silent and charming way to travel.
The beautiful temples, pagodas, bridges and quaint
towns we passed were a delight.
While at work on the Grand Canal getting water
levels, I contracted dysentry and had to return to
Shanghai by train and go to hospital. On my recovery
my doctor told me that my eye trouble was chronic
glacoma, and that I must go to Europe as soon as
possible to undergo an operation, or else I would lose
my eyesight completely. I had been married for less
than a year and found it very difficult to get leave again
so soon, but my chief, realising the urgency, obtained it
for me, and I proceeded to Darien by steamer and then
on by rail via Siberia to Berlin. I insured my life against
accidents before leaving.
When on the Japanese train between Darien and
Changchun, our luggage was removed from our compartments to the lobby at the end of the passage when
we were nearing Changchun, and when I went to look
for it I could not see it anywhere. Here I must explain
that as the platforms at all railway stations in these
parts are only from four to six inches above the ground,
there are steps leading from the railway carriages to the
platform, and on the Japanese trains these steps are
inside the door, and are covered by an iron plate hinged
at the side.
I found all the luggage piled up on one side, with an
electric light above it, while the other side was in
darkness. I was on the point of stepping backwards
to return to the compartment, when I felt an arm behind
me. It was that of a fellow-passenger on the other side
of the partition, who had noticed me stepping back.
He had saved my life, for the door behind me was open,
with the iron plate flapped back, and had that arm not
stopped me I should have fallen backwards down the
steps and headlong to the ground, when the train was
travelling at top speed.
On arrival at Harbin, Watson, the Commissioner,
asked me to dine with him, and said that he would
see me off at midnight; but as he was expecting a
friend to arrive from Europe at 1.30 a.m., I &clined his
kind invitation and accepted that of Mr. Steineche,
the Harbour Master, instead.
This suited me better, as Steineche knew Russian
and I, for economy's sake, was going to travel across
Siberia by second class Post train. He saw me to my
compartment at midnight, at the door of which stood
the man who had taken my luggage. As I approached,
a young woman came out of the compartment. I asked
Steineche to explain that I was travelling in that
compartment. She replied in Russian with a French
accent, "I know, but I prefer to travel in a mixed compartment rather than in the ladies' compartment,
because ladies when together always quarrel." This
I felt sure to be untrue, but those were the words I
was told she had spoken.
That young woman was clever enough to have
brought with her a curtain of a dark material, which
she pinned to the berth above with safety pins, and was
entirely hidden from view during the night. As there
were no restaurants on Post trains, one had to scramble
for meals at the different stations we stopped at, or
else picnic in the compartment.
Arriving at Manchuli, a town on the frontier between
Manchuria and Siberia, where we had to change trains,
I was met by the Chinese Customs representative,
a young Russian gentleman who very kindly took us
to his house for lunch, as he saw we were together. I
will explain things a bit more fully. Travelling by
Post train and having one's through ticket to Moscow,
one had, at each station where one changed trains —
i.e., Manchuli, Irkutsk and Chaliabinsk — to procure a
plas-cart to secure accommodation. We therefore made
the arrangement between us that, on arrival at these
stations, I was to take both our tickets and go with the
first porter I could get hold of and procure two lower
berth plas-carts, which are always the best, especially
when picnicking; while she had our luggage placed on
the platform and waited with it until my return.
Having explained that we were going to picnic in
our compartment after Manchuli and wanted to buy a
suitable basket, provisions, tin kettle, and so on, our
host very kindly drove us to the market in his carriage.
I never felt so cold in my life, it being early in the
January of 1913, with the thermometer registering
about 45 degrees below zero. What interested me most
were the piled-up blocks of frozen milk, sections of
which had to be cut off by a saw and given to those
buying it. Having procured all we needed, I was jolly
glad to get to the large and well-heated waiting-room,
where our luggage had been placed.
Now that we were independent of station restaurants,
we each took a different job — one would fill the kettle
with hot water for tea, while the other would get the
food ready. There is always a plentiful supply of hot
water at every station for the convenience of passengers,
for which no extra charge is made. Next, we would
have our meal at the small table by the window, seated
on our respective berths. By night we had to use our
own candles to see by, for the one in the lantern over
the doorway provided very scanty illumination. As in
winter there were only some six hours of daylight,
our candle was in frequent use.
It made little difference to us if the other two berths
were occupied, as we conversed in French, and as there
were no luggage racks all our luggage was put in our
respective berths, which were some seven feet long.
I had two large suitcases, a hatbox and our picnic
basket stacked up at the foot of my berth, and used
my hold-all as an extra pillow, for second class Post
passengers were only provided with a thick rug and a
pillow, covered with horsehair, which I found very
slippery and uncomfortable.
I was rather impressed when travelling by Post trains
in winter, at the large number of small children who
travelled on the train long distances in order to get
to the nearest school. One bumped into them standing
in the dark corridors in the early hours of the morning,
sometimes even earlier than five o'clock. One reason
for this early hour was that there were very few trains
running, and it was a case of starting early or missing
school altogether.
When I went to see my cousin and his wife at Moscow,
the latter remarked that my French had greatly improved since I had last seen her, two years before,
so I explained that I had spoken French during the
train trip with a French lady who was travelling in my
compartment. I had been accustomed to speaking
that language with my cousins, as they knew little
English and my Russian was not at all fluent.
I was met at Berlin by my friend, Mr. Schoeneeke,
who put me up in his flat and took me to the oculist,
a most charming and capable man, who at once told
me that unless I was operated on I would lose my sight
altogether. In those days modern methods had not
yet been heard of, and, while he was one of the most
capable oculists of the day, and promised me that my
sight would be permanently improved, yet I am now,
in 1936, only just able to write, and get about with
great difficulty. However, I was able to carry on my
job to the satisfaction of my chief until I was retired
in 1924, so I have much to be thankful for.
Having recovered from the operation — for both eyes
were operated on, although one was already of no use
to me — I returned to Shanghai via Siberia, travelling
as a second class passenger in the Wagons-Lits, as
before. I happened to hear some American ladies
on the train speaking of a Dr. Mackenzie as if he were
a fellow passenger, and at Irkutsk, where we changed
trains, a lady addressed him by name. She was standing
just behind me, so I turned round and told him that my
name was Eldridge. He was delighted to meet me,
for he was the Dr. Mackenzie whom Miss Skegg had
married, and whom I have already mentioned earlier
on in my book. He told me that his wife had died.
It was a curious coincidence that we should have met
like this on the Siberian train.
I met him again in 1916 at Cook's office in Shanghai,
where I had gone at eight o'clock in the morning to
see about accommodation for my wife's passage to
England, where she was going to do War work. On
entering the premises I noticed a man seated by the
window reading a newspaper who, as soon as I had
spoken to the clerk, came up to me saying, "I arrived
by steamer from Foochow early this morning to
volunteer my services for the War, and I wondered if
I should see you. You are the first European I have
spoken to since I landed from the steamer." It was
Dr. Mackenzie, and I have not met him since that day,
or heard anything of him.
On my way to Shanghai I called at Peking to show
the Inspector-General of Customs — Sir Francis Aglen —
that I could see again. I then took steamer from
Chin-wan-tao, which was near the end of the Great
Wall of China. The approaches to Tientsin were frozen
over, the railway between Tientsin and Shanghai via
Nanking had not been built, and it was out of my way
to travel from Peking to Hankow and then on to
Shanghai by river steamer. The steamer left Chin-wan-
tao (where there is an artificial harbour built by the
Tungshan Coal Mining Company for their steamer,
on which I was now travelling), and during the night
I was awakened by a bump or collision of some sort;
but as there was no noise and I could feel that the
steamer had not altered her speed, I stayed in my
cabin. I was only a passenger, so did not feel that there
was any need for me to interfere.
When I went on deck next morning I found that the
vessel was well down by the head, and on enquiring
the cause, was told that we had bumped into a large
block of ice during the night, which had holed the bow
of the vessel, and the forward compartment of the
steamer was full of water. On arrival at Chefoo the bow
of the vessel was run on to a sheltered sand spit, the
hole patched and the water pumped out at low tide.
