Red Dusk and the Morrow

with all three of us when, after a second reconnoitre, we learned that our car was the particularly suspected one. We occupied with two other men a half-compartment at the end of a long second-class coach, but conversation with our fellow-travellers failed to give us any clue as to their business. The problem which faced us was, how to dispose of three small packets we were carrying, containing maps, documents, and personal papers of my own, all of the most incriminating nature. They were concealed in a bag of salt, through the sides of which the packets slightly protruded. The bag of salt would most certainly be opened to see what was in it. Our first idea was to throw it out of the window, but this could not be done unobserved because our two unknown travelling companions occupied the seats nearest the window. So in the pitch darkness we thrust them, loose, under the seat, where they would of course be discovered but we would say desperately that they were not ours. This was just done when the door opened and a man with a candle put his head in and asked: “Where are you all going?” It turned out that we were all leaving the train at Rezhitsa. “Rezhitsa?” said the man with the candle, “Good. Then at Rezhitsa we will put prisoners in here.”

Railway Travelling in Soviet Russia

I will not attempt to describe the hour of suspense that followed. Though my two friends resigned themselves calmly to what appeared to be an inevitable fate, I was quite unable to follow their example. I, personally, might not be shot⁠—not at once at any rate⁠—but should more likely be held as a valuable hostage, whom the Soviet Government would use to secure concessions from the British. But my two faithful companions would be shot like dogs against the first wall, and though each of us was cognizant of the risk from the outset, when the fatal moment came and I knew absolutely nothing could save them, the bitterness of the realization was past belief.

Compartment by compartment the train was searched. The subdued hubbub and commotion accompanying the turning out of passengers, the examination of their belongings, and the scrutiny of seats, racks, and cushions, gradually approached our end of the coach. From the other half of our compartment somebody was ejected and someone else put in in his stead. A light gleamed through the chink in the partition. We strained our ears to catch the snatches of conversation. Though our unknown travelling companions were invisible in the darkness, I felt that they too were listening intently. But nothing but muffled undertones came through the partition. The train moved forward, the shuffling in the corridors continuing. Then suddenly our door was rudely slid open. Our hearts stood still. We prepared to rise to receive the searchers. The same man with the candle stood in the doorway. But all he said on seeing us again was, “Ach⁠—yes!” in a peevish voice, and pushed the door to. We waited in protracted suspense. Why did nobody come? The whole train had been searched except for our half-compartment. There was silence now in the corridor and only mutterings came through the partition. The pallid dawn began to spread. We saw each other in dim outline, five men in a row, sitting motionless in silent, racking expectation. It was light when we reached Rezhitsa. Impatiently we remained seated while our two unknown companions moved out with their things. We had to let them go first, before we could recover the three packages hidden under the seat. As in a dream, we pushed out with the last of the crowd, moved hastily along the platform, and dived into the hustling mass of soldiers and peasant men and women filling the waiting-room. Here only did we speak to each other. The same words came⁠—mechanically and dryly, as if unreal: “They overlooked us!”

Then we laughed.

An hour later we were ensconced in a freight train which was to take us the last ten miles to the location of our artillery brigade. The train was almost empty and the three of us had a boxcar to ourselves. A couple of miles before we reached our destination we jumped off the moving train, and, dashing into the woods, ran hard till we were sure there was no pursuit. The younger of my companions knew the district and conducted us to a cottage where we gave ourselves out to be “Greens”⁠—neither Reds nor Whites. The nickname of “green guards” was applied to widespread and irregular bands of deserters both from the Red and White armies, and the epithet arose from the fact that they bolted for the woods and hid in great numbers in the fields and forests. The first “Greens” were anti-Red, but a dose of White regime served to make them equally anti-White, so that at various times they might be found on either side or on none. It was easy for them to maintain a separate roving existence, for the peasantry, seeing in them the truest protagonists of peasant interests, fed, supported, and aided them in every way. Under leaders who maintained with them terms of camaraderie it was not difficult to make disciplined forces out of the unorganized Greens. Not far from the point where we were, a band of Greens had turned out a trainload of Reds at a wayside station and ordered “all Communists and Jews” to “own up.” They were shown up readily enough by the other Red soldiers and shot on the spot. The remainder were disarmed, taken into the station, given a good feed, and then told they might do as they liked⁠—return to the Reds, join the Whites, or stay with the Greens⁠—“whichever they preferred.”

Our humble host fed us and lent us a cart in which we drove toward evening to a point about two miles