Page 52 - GFA – A Different Drumbeat
P. 52
GFA – A Different Drumbeat 52
a mile long and two hundred feet deep. Since a day’s wages for them in brass coins
would have weighed seven tons, he was forced to print his own paper currency
which could be exchanged at a good rate in the towns. And he who had had no
training for such tasks, found he could do whatever had to be done. He speaks of
"putting a light railway together" at the base, which was thirty miles
from the shattered country towns of Hweining and Tsingning.
Sixty miles north of the latter, a large cave had been in use as a mosque under the
leadership of Ma-Shan-Ren.an outstanding figure among China's Muslims in those
days. Years before GFA had seen many thousands of people prostrating
themselves in the dust as he was carried aloft in a green chair. On the fatal night of
December 16th, 1920 Ma-Shan-Ren and some three hundred of his closest
associates were gathered in the cave. It was GFA's conviction that a major rising of
the Muslims against the Chinese had been fixed for that very night. The holy man
had just left the cave when the earthquake struck, but he was killed in a house
nearby. All the others were entombed and, in spite of months of digging, they were
never found.
GFA travelled constantly between the various sites, crossing rugged ranges in all
weathers on primitive tracks. "Got caught in soaking rain", he recorded one day.
"The mule fell over a 40-foot cliff. Spent the night in a farm-house without bedding."
Bridge-building was part of the business. "A heavy thunderstorm washed away the
bridge we had erected", he reported sadly. Inevitably there were disagreements
and even riots, but through it all he acquired an extraordinary ability to handle
masses of Chinese labourers and win their respect. His own living conditions were
as primitive as theirs. On his 34th birthday his colleague, Roy Seaman of the CIM,
"caused a disastrous fire which burnt up two pairs of my trousers and a shirt."
On August 29th he returned late to base after travelling from 5 a.m. "I must have
slept soundly, for at night Muslim robbers entered my room, drugged me with special
incense manufactured for the purpose, and decamped with nearly all my belongings",
including his watch & pen. Seaman assured me they got his revolver from under his
pillow too!
It was a race against time, for in mid-October heavy snow blankets the mountains of
Kansu and work would become impossible. But the task was by then moving to its
goal. On site after site the cuttings were ready for the water to be released,
watched by anxious thousands. It was always a dangerous business which, GFA
casually remarked, “eventually had to be undertaken by the foreigner in charge". So,
on October 1st, up in the ranges above Tsingning, "I let the water go at 4 p.m. When
these huge lakes got fairly on the move, the power of their torrent was indescribable.
In crossing the swollen river I was nearly carried away, my horse swept away twice".
Just before the winter closed in, the Job was done and on November 9th Mr EJ
Mann, who had succeeded GFA's father as CIM Superintendent in Kansu, met him
a mile long and two hundred feet deep. Since a day’s wages for them in brass coins
would have weighed seven tons, he was forced to print his own paper currency
which could be exchanged at a good rate in the towns. And he who had had no
training for such tasks, found he could do whatever had to be done. He speaks of
"putting a light railway together" at the base, which was thirty miles
from the shattered country towns of Hweining and Tsingning.
Sixty miles north of the latter, a large cave had been in use as a mosque under the
leadership of Ma-Shan-Ren.an outstanding figure among China's Muslims in those
days. Years before GFA had seen many thousands of people prostrating
themselves in the dust as he was carried aloft in a green chair. On the fatal night of
December 16th, 1920 Ma-Shan-Ren and some three hundred of his closest
associates were gathered in the cave. It was GFA's conviction that a major rising of
the Muslims against the Chinese had been fixed for that very night. The holy man
had just left the cave when the earthquake struck, but he was killed in a house
nearby. All the others were entombed and, in spite of months of digging, they were
never found.
GFA travelled constantly between the various sites, crossing rugged ranges in all
weathers on primitive tracks. "Got caught in soaking rain", he recorded one day.
"The mule fell over a 40-foot cliff. Spent the night in a farm-house without bedding."
Bridge-building was part of the business. "A heavy thunderstorm washed away the
bridge we had erected", he reported sadly. Inevitably there were disagreements
and even riots, but through it all he acquired an extraordinary ability to handle
masses of Chinese labourers and win their respect. His own living conditions were
as primitive as theirs. On his 34th birthday his colleague, Roy Seaman of the CIM,
"caused a disastrous fire which burnt up two pairs of my trousers and a shirt."
On August 29th he returned late to base after travelling from 5 a.m. "I must have
slept soundly, for at night Muslim robbers entered my room, drugged me with special
incense manufactured for the purpose, and decamped with nearly all my belongings",
including his watch & pen. Seaman assured me they got his revolver from under his
pillow too!
It was a race against time, for in mid-October heavy snow blankets the mountains of
Kansu and work would become impossible. But the task was by then moving to its
goal. On site after site the cuttings were ready for the water to be released,
watched by anxious thousands. It was always a dangerous business which, GFA
casually remarked, “eventually had to be undertaken by the foreigner in charge". So,
on October 1st, up in the ranges above Tsingning, "I let the water go at 4 p.m. When
these huge lakes got fairly on the move, the power of their torrent was indescribable.
In crossing the swollen river I was nearly carried away, my horse swept away twice".
Just before the winter closed in, the Job was done and on November 9th Mr EJ
Mann, who had succeeded GFA's father as CIM Superintendent in Kansu, met him
