The Great War revived, to a degree that few dream of, methods of very old campaigns, when the hero had his attendant myrmidons and the Spartan foot soldier his helots. Study a “ration strength” return of the B.E.F., France, 1918, and discover how the actual fighting men in trench or gun-pit had to be supported not only by Base soldiers but by British non-combatant labour companies, by French civilian labour companies, by Q.M.A.A.C.s, by prisoner-of-war labour companies, by Indian, West Indian, Fijian, and Chinese labour companies. It was a big business, this organisation of the labour behind the fighting area.
Chinese labour was of very notable help to the British Army. At its best it was the most efficient and hard-working force imaginable. At its worst it was at least a good source of fun. The Chinaman came over to the war with very definite ideas of making as good a thing out of it as possible. “I sell my labour” was his formula in signing the contract, and, though he probably would not recognise as his own the old British law formula _caveat emptor_, that was the principle on which he acted. If the buyer of his labour was fool enough to pay the price and not get the work that was the buyer’s look-out.
Every Chinese coolie on arrival (as we soon found out) was “put wise” by the representative of his secret society, his “Tong,” that “this is a good place. You have only to pretend to work.” He acted on that, and unless the people in charge knew how to deal with Chinese, so little was done as to make the most finished British exponent of “ca-canny” go
green with envy. But, given an officer who knew his business, knew how to get the Chinese headmen to get the Chinese coolies to work, and the results were splendid.
The Chinaman knew that by his contract he was not to suffer war risks, that he was not supposed to work under shell-fire, and he was soon sufficiently advanced to interpret an occasional air bombardment as “shell-fire,” and to give it as a reason for demanding more pay. As a rule he was willing to take risks, if he were paid extra. When sick or wounded he was a great nuisance, for if a Chinaman died of sickness whilst in charge of the white man the conclusion was that he had been done to death. Ordinarily a sick Chinaman demobilised two workers–himself and some member of his own secret society who had to accompany him to hospital to see that all was fair.
The most earnest effort was therefore made to keep the Chinaman from dying, not only from ordinary motives of humanity, but because as a corpse he was an even greater nuisance. A British soldier might be buried in a blanket, but the Chinese dead had to have wooden coffins, and their graveyards had to be chosen with great care–preferably in a valley with a stream running through it. All this to satisfy the spiritual world of the Chinese, which seems to be very exigent in such matters. The official instructions regarding Chinese graves stated: “The ideal site to secure repose and drive away evil spirits is on sloping ground with a stream below, or gully down which water always or occasionally passes. The grave should not be parallel to the N.S.E. or W. This is specially important to Chinese Mohammedans. It should be about four feet deep, with the head towards the hill and the feet towards the water. A mound of earth about two feet high is piled over the grave.”
In matters of finance the Chinaman was also a little bothersome. He had to have his pay right down on the nail; he distrusted any white man’s savings-bank or any system of deferred pay. In time Chinese savings-banks were instituted, and these solved the difficulty that the Chinaman would not let the white paymaster keep his money for him, and
if he had it in personal custody gambled it away.
Keener even than his passion for gambling was the Chinaman’s passion for decoration. Was it in a sense of real fun on his part or was it an accident that his taste for decoration culminated in the two “grand passions”–an Australian hat and a Scotsman’s kilt? If either of these came within his reach the Chinaman knew real bliss. One Chinaman who managed to get hold of both at once, and paraded a Base town in their joint glory for a full half-hour was the legendary hero of all the Chinese coolies in France. Of course to be in possession of an unauthorised article of military equipment was an offence, and the Chinaman going out in a kilt or an Australian hat, or a general’s red-haloed cap, knew that he was in for severe punishment. That was no deterrent if his ingenuity could secure, by theft or purchase, such glory. As often as it did the Chinaman was quite willing to stand the subsequent racket. One Chinese coolie used to light up a quarter of Boulogne with a decoration that challenged military discipline successfully. He had secured one of those brass basins still used in places as barbers’ signs, had fixed this on his ordinary coolie hat, polished it resplendently, and sported it with Celestial pride. His was the brassiest hat of any brass hat in France; but the basin was not an article of military equipment, and authority decided to wink at it. In a hot sun you had to wink with both eyes.
Discipline was good with the Chinese coolies if the controlling officers knew their business and took care to “save face” of the headmen of the gangs. An officer had to see that the headman did not fool him or ill-treat the coolies and then to back up the headman always. If the coolies got to think that the headman was out of favour with the white boss nothing could be done with them. In matters of prohibitions the Chinese language showed a strange inadequacy. It was decided to forbid smoking in labour camps, and a notice “Smoking is Prohibited,” was printed in English, German, and Chinese, to be affixed in the compounds. After some months a distinguished visitor, who was (or thought he was) skilled in the Chinese language, pointed out to high authority that the literal translation of the Chinese notice was “Do not get caught smoking.” The educated Chinese who had drawn up the notice originally was sent for. He blandly insisted that that was the only way to say “Smoking is Prohibited,” in Chinese, and that the Chinese coolie would understand nothing else.
On the whole the Chinaman was a cheerful soul. He organised his own theatrical companies and enjoyed those interminable Chinese operas which are familiar to travellers in the East and to visitors to the Chinese quarters of American or Australian cities.
The “Chink” gambled as much as the regulations allowed him to. But he could stand up to a hard day’s work with constant cheerfulness, and, apart from his craze for some prohibited military decoration, contrived to make his uniform picturesque enough. The barber was an important unit of every camp, for Chinese head-dressing is a matter of complicated ritual.
Taking one consideration with another, Chinese labour in France was a success. It released many scores of thousands of men for the fighting line. If the Germans had not thrown in their hand at the time they did, it is probable that another 100,000 coolies would have been recruited in China for France, though most other types of coloured labour were being dispensed with as not being worth while.
Chinese labour has a way of cropping up in British history. It might have lost the Mother Country a whole continent of colonies at one time, when Sir Henry Parkes, a leonine Norfolk peasant who had become Prime Minister for New South Wales, dared Great Britain to veto Australian exclusion of Chinese immigrants. Later it loomed, with vast possibilities of mischief, over South African history. In the Great War Chinese labour appeared again, but this time with no sinister threat of trouble, but very helpful in matters of railway-building and ship-building, and lightening, with a touch of Celestial humour, the grim business of putting the German in his place.
Source: From the Book G. H. Q. (MONTREUIL-SUR-MER),Chapter 11, printed in 1920.