I rose early next day but there was not much for me to do. Being Saturday the Jewish booths in the usually busy little marketplace were shut and only the Finnish ones were open. Most articles of the costume which I had decided on were already procured, but I made one or two slight additions on this day and on Sunday morning when the Jewish booths opened. My outfit consisted of a Russian shirt, black leather breeches, black knee boots, a shabby tunic, and an old leather cap with a fur brim and a little tassel on top, of the style worn by the Finns in the district north of Petrograd. With my shaggy black beard, which by now was quite profuse, and long unkempt hair dangling over my ears I looked a sight indeed, and in England or America should doubtless have been regarded as a thoroughly undesirable alien!
On Sunday an officer friend of Melnikoff’s came to see me and make sure I was ready. I knew him by the Christian name and patronymic of Ivan Sergeievitch. He was a pleasant fellow, kind and considerate. Like many other refugees from Russia he had no financial resources and was trying to make a living for himself, his wife, and his children by smuggling Finnish money and butter into Petrograd, where both were sold at a high premium. Thus he was on good terms with the Finnish patrols who also practised this trade and whose friendship he cultivated.
“Have you any passport yet, Pavel Pavlovitch?” Ivan Sergeievitch asked me.
“No,” I replied, “Melnikoff said the patrols would furnish me with one.”
“Yes, that is best,” he said; “they have the Bolshevist stamps. But we also collect the passports of all refugees from Petrograd, for they often come in handy. And if anything happens remember you are a ‘speculator.’ ”
All were stigmatized by the Bolsheviks as speculators who indulged in the private sale or purchase of foodstuffs or clothing. They suffered severely, but it was better to be a speculator than what I was.
When darkness fell Ivan Sergeievitch accompanied me to the station and part of the way in the train, though we sat separately so that it should not be seen that I was travelling with one who was known to be a Russian officer.
“And remember, Pavel Pavlovitch,” said Ivan Sergeievitch, “go to my flat whenever you are in need. There is an old housekeeper there who will admit you if you say I sent you. But do not let the house porter see you—he is a Bolshevik—and be careful the house committee do not know, for they will ask who is visiting the house.”
I was grateful for this offer, which turned out to be very valuable.
We boarded the train at Viborg and sat at opposite ends of the compartment, pretending not to know each other. When Ivan Sergeievitch got out at his destination he cast one glance at me but we made no sign of recognition. I sat huddled up gloomily in my corner, obsessed with the inevitable feeling that everybody was watching me. The very walls and seat seemed possessed of eyes! That man over there, did he not look at me—twice? And that woman, spying constantly (I thought) out of the corner of her eye! They would let me get as far as the frontier, then they would send word over to the Reds that I was coming! I shivered and was ready to curse myself for my fool adventure. But there was no turning back! Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit, wrote Virgil. (I used to write that on my Latin books at school—I hated Latin.) “Perhaps some day it will amuse you to remember even these things”—cold comfort, though, in a scrape and with your neck in a noose. Yet these escapades are amusing—afterwards.
At last the train stopped at Rajajoki, the last station on the Finnish side of the frontier. It was a pitch-dark night with no moon. Half-a-mile remained to the frontier, and I made my way along the rails in the direction of Russia and down to the wooden bridge over the little frontier river Sestra. I looked curiously across at the gloomy buildings and the dull, twinkling lights on the other bank. That was my Promised Land over there, but it was flowing not with milk and honey but with blood. The Finnish sentry stood at his post at the bar of the frontier bridge, and twenty paces away, on the other side, was the Red sentry. I left the bridge on my right and turned to look for the house of the Finnish patrols to whom I had been directed.
Finding the little wooden Villa with the white porch I knocked timidly. The door opened, and I handed in the slip of paper on which Melnikoff had written the password. The Finn who opened the door examined the paper by the light of a greasy oil lamp, then held the lamp to my face, peered closely at me, and finally signalled to me to enter.
“Come in,” he said. “We were expecting you. How are you feeling?” I did not tell him how I was really feeling, but replied cheerily that I was feeling splendid.
“That’s right,” he said. “You are lucky in having a dark night for it. A week ago one of our fellows was shot as we put him over the river. His body fell into the water and we have not yet fished it out.”
This, I suppose, was the Finnish way of cheering me up. “Has anyone been over since?” I queried, affecting a tone of indifference. “Only Melnikoff.” “Safely?” The Finn shrugged his shoulders. “We put him across all right—a dalshe ne zanyu … what happened to him after that I don’t know.”
The Finn was a lean, cadaverous-looking fellow.
