"Then you think that the Chinese have been underestimated as soldiers," said Mr. MacAllister.
"I certainly do. For one thing, I have never seen nor heard of among any other people anything like the ability of the Chinese to bear pain. I was compelled to perform without anæsthetics operations so painful that most Europeans or Americans would rather have died than have endured them. Yet the Chinese bore them with little more than an occasional groan or a suppressed 'ai-yah.'"
"Why, then, is it that they have made such a poor showing when opposed to European troops? I have always been informed that it was the lack of physical courage."
"It is not because of the lack of courage. It is the lack of training and the lack of leadership. Going into battle vain, self-confident, and contemptuous towards the foreigners, they have suddenly found themselves exposed by incompetent commanders, mowed down by the foreign weapons, disconcerted by well-ordered movements of trained men, and helpless to meet foreign strategy. The inevitable panic followed, and they ran."
"But we have been told again and again by the experts that it is impossible to drill the Chinese; that they will never be anything else than a mob."
"Then I wish those experts could have seen Sergeant Gorman and his ambulance corps. He was given some of the toughest material in Liu Ming-chuan's army. In a month's time they moved like clock-work. As the American general they have over there said, I'd just like to see Gorman 'lickin' a regiment into fightin' shape.' General Gordon proved what could be done with a Chinese army during the Tai-ping rebellion. If China only had a few native General Gordons, the world would soon receive notice that China was to be left alone."
"Is that not just where the difficulty lies, the lack of able, patriotic leadership? The authorities tell us that there is no patriotism in China. They say that every man is for himself, or at most for his own city or province, but he cares nothing for the country as a whole."
"That may have been true in the past, and doubtless still is true of the mass of the people. But it is no longer true of many of the younger and better educated men. There are young officers in the army who are just as patriotically Chinese, whether they come from the North or Centre or South, as we are British, whether we be from Britain or Canada or Australia. They are learning more from defeats than they would from victories. Some day before very long China will produce a man whom his countrymen will follow. Then it will say 'Hands off!' to the world."