,
displayed great coolness and bravery in stopping with and attending to a
wounded seaman, under an excessively hot fire, eventually assisting to
carry him across a fire-swept force. When it is remembered what kind of
treatment the Chinese dealt out to all who fell into their hands, and
the brutalities of which they were guilty, the heroism of the above act
stands out all the more sharply and unmistakably. For the action thus
described in the _Gazette_ Mr Guy was awarded a Victoria Cross.

THE SIEGE OF PEKIN.

The foreign guard that arrived in Pekin on the evening of 31st May and
following days numbered only 18 officers and 389 men, far too few for
the defence, and ridiculously inadequately supplied with guns and
ammunition. The British brought one old type Nordenfeldt; the
Austrians, one quick-firing gun; while the Russians brought a supply of
12-pound shell, but left their gun behind. It seemed as if the powers
only contemplated a demonstration, whereas this little force was
destined to sustain a siege that will rank amongst the most memorable in
history, and to hold--against Krupp guns and hordes of Chinese, firing
at close quarters modern magazine rifles--gardens and buildings
occupying some ten acres of ground, surrounded by a high wall, but in
other respects before the commencement of the siege utterly unprotected.

The superior number of the enemy and the daily bombardment was not the
greatest danger they had to meet. One compound was crowded with women
and children and native refugees; famine and failure of ammunition daily
approached; the only hope of relief from these was the arrival of a
relieving force. The thought of the horrors that must follow if this
failed, and the awful fate at the hands of the fanatic and cruel Chinese
soldiery which must befall the women and children, was ever before each
member of the force, as day by day, for over nine weeks, day and night
he guarded his post, cut off from the world outside and with hardly a
hope of rescue.

The British party consisted of 75 non-commissioned officers and men of
the Royal Marines, under Captains Strouts, Halliday, and Wray. There
were also present of other nations--American, 3 officers and 52 men;
Austrians, 5 officers and 30 men; French, 2 officers and 45 men; German,
1 officer and 51 men; Italian, 1 officer and 28 men; Japanese, 1 officer
and 24 men; Russian, 2 officers and 79 men. The British brought an
old-fashioned five-barrel Norde