Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/406

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CHINA AND JAPAN

put it the other way. One of these, a pinnacle of rock with an arched opening through it, is ideal in beauty and form.

That night on the boat I found two new arrivals placed beside me at table. One was Lieutenant Dzjobek of the German Marines, who had been wounded in a reconnaissance near Kiaochou, where there is always a guerrilla warfare going on. His account of the incident was rather comical. He is near-sighted and wears glasses. Seeing something which he could not quite make out, he went right up to it, and too late discovered it to be an ancient Chinese gun, loaded with bullets. There were Chinese at the other end of it, and as he peered at it, they naturally let it off, and he received eight bullets in his body, some of which were still there. A few extracted he had in a little box, and I suggested that when all were recovered they would make a nice bead chain for some young lady, with a pearl between each.

He described a Chinaman coming at him with a long lance, giving him no time to think, so he could only shoot the man in the forehead, and he tumbled dead at his feet. The Chinese fought naked, their “buff” being an admirable colour for khaki, as they were invisible against the background. The other new arrival was Captain-Lieutenant Heinrich of the German Navy, who had been four months on a hospital ship, and was bound for the hotel in Japan, where his Government had hired rooms for the officers to recruit. We rose from dinner friends.

So it was that Paul Heinrich came into my life.

We had beautiful views of the famous Inland Sea. The coast and islands were very picturesque in outline, the colours of the landscape very