The Colonel asked me if I wanted to meet my fellow-travellers. I answered in the affirmative, and as they were at the moment at the Consulate, he took me into the room in which they were waiting. Scarcely had I crossed the threshold, when, glancing at the small group of officers, my eyes suddenly fell on Leonid Grigorievitch Filippov, my former battle adjutant, who had carried me unconscious under German fire to safety in that unhappy advance of the Battalion.
“What are you doing here?” both of us asked each other simultaneously, astonished at this unexpected meeting.
I had always felt that I owed my life to Lieutenant Filippov after I had been stunned by a shell and injured while running from the enemy at the end of the fruitless offensive launched by the Battalion. He had taken charge of the Battalion after I had been sent to the Petrograd hospital, and later left for Odessa to train as an aviator.
From a short private conversation I learned that Lieutenant Filippov was in the same plight as all the other officers who had come to Vladivostok under the impression that they would be accepted by the Allies. I decided to ask the Consul to allow him to assume his former post of adjutant to me and let him become a member of my party. The Consul graciously consented, and I was happy at the thought of journeying to foreign lands in the company of an educated friend, with a knowledge of languages, peoples and geography, who was also devoted to Russia with all his heart.
After another conference with the Consul, it was decided that I should be dressed as an Englishwoman and as such make an effort to get to the American transport. The necessary clothes were obtained, and in fifteen minutes I appeared no longer as a soldier, but as a veiled foreign lady who did not understand a word of Russian. Accompanied by the Colonel, I left for the harbour, after having expressed my deepest thanks to the Consul for his great sacrifices in my behalf.
I was supposed to play a speechless role and leave everything to my escort. This I did, although more than once my heart jumped when a guard seemed to scrutinize me closely, and now and then I had to suppress an impulse to laugh when the Colonel, in reply to questions, said that I was an Englishwoman returning home. It was dark when I was ferried to the transport, and everything went off without mishap. But that was not the end of the adventure.
The transport had to remain for another day in the harbour, and it was expected that the Soviet would search it for me. To baffle all attempts to discover me I was placed in a cabin, the entrance and all approaches to which were guarded. Nobody was allowed to come near the room, all inquirers being told that an important German general was detained there on his way to an American prison camp. Even Lieutenant Filippov did not know of the trick and was greatly worried over my non-arrival as the hour for the departure of the ship drew near. If any Bolshevik emissary was sent on board the vessel to look for me, he was stopped in front of a certain cabin by American soldiers and informed that no one would be permitted to get within so many feet of the imprisoned enemy general.
When the anchors of the Sheridan were raised and the ship began to move, I came out of the cabin, to the liveliest merriment of everybody who had expected to see a stern Teuton general emerge from the door.
I was free!
It was April 18, 1918, when I left Russian soil for the first time in my life. Under the American flag, on an American transport, I was heading for that wonderful land—America—carrying in my breast the message of the Russian peasant-soldier to the Allies:
“Help Russia to release herself from the German yoke and become free—in return for the five million lives that she has sacrificed for your safety, the security of your liberties, the preservation of your own lands and lives!”
Endnotes
Colophon
Yashka
was published in 1919 by
Maria Bochkareva.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Jacob Garber,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2023 by
Distributed Proofreaders
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
View from Pyynikki Ridge,
a painting completed in 1900 by
Helmi Biese.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
May 8, 2025, 7:53 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/maria-bochkareva/yashka.
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Uncopyright
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