Yasha would often remonstrate with me for working so incessantly and so hard. But I had my reward in the gratitude and blessings these women bestowed upon me. There was joy in being able to serve. In addition, I sent regularly to my mother ten roubles (about £1 1s.) a month. Yasha taught me in leisure moments how to read.
My name became a household word in the neighbourhood. Wherever I went I was blessed. “There goes Buk-Bochkareva!” people would point at me, whispering. Yasha’s parents also grew very attached to me.
It all ended one evening in May, 1912. There was a peculiar knock at the door, and Yasha went out to admit a man of about thirty, well dressed, with a beard and pince-nez, of distinguished appearance. He was pale and showed signs of agitation. He stood with Yasha in the passageway for ten minutes, talking in a whisper. He was then introduced to me as an old friend of Yasha’s. He had escaped from prison and it was our task to hide him, as his capture would mean his death. The unexpected guest was no less a person than the revolutionary who was responsible for the death of a notorious Governor of Siberia.
Yasha proceeded to remove our bed from its corner. He next removed a board in the lower part of the wall, revealing, to my great astonishment, a deep cavity in the ground underneath. Our visitor was invited to make himself comfortable there. The board was replaced and the bed restored to its former position. Yasha and I went to bed.
We had barely put out the light when there was heard a thumping of many feet around the house, followed by loud knocks at the door. It was the police! My heart was in my mouth, but I feigned sleep while Yasha opened the door. He had previously given me his revolver to hide and I concealed it in my bosom. The search continued for nearly two hours. I was dragged out of bed, and everything in the house was turned upside down.
We denied any knowledge of a political fugitive, but the sheriff took Yasha along with him. However, he was released a couple of hours later. Upon his return Yasha let the man out of the secret hole, supplied him with peasant clothes and food, harnessed our horse and drove away with him before dawn, instructing me to answer to all inquiries by saying that he had gone to buy cattle.
On the outskirts of the town a policeman, emerging from some drinking den in a semi-drunken condition, observed Yasha driving by. He attached little significance to the fact at the time, but when he reported for duty in the morning and learned of the fugitive, he said that he had seen Yasha leave the town with a stranger. I was doing some washing when the house was again surrounded by police.
“Where is your husband?” the sheriff inquired fiercely. “Gone to buy cattle,” I replied.
“Get ready to come with me!” he shouted angrily. I pleaded innocence, but in a terrible voice he informed me that I was under arrest.
I was taken to the detective bureau, where a middle-aged man, who talked very gently, and seemed very mindful of my comfort, entered into a conversation with me and even invited me to tea, which invitation I refused. He went about his work very craftily, and I was nearly caught when he asked me if I had also met the young man who had arrived at our house at nine o’clock the night before.
His information was quite correct, but I obstinately refused to admit the truth. I declared that I knew nothing of the young man he spoke of, but my examiner was patient. He was generous in his praise of my help and devotion to the poor. Promising me immunity, he urged me to tell the truth.
I would not yield, and his patience finally wore out and he struck me furiously with a rubber whip a couple of times. I was enraged and bestowed on him some epithets that led to my being locked up in a cell where two drunken street women were confined. They were of the lowest class and were venting curses on everybody. They persecuted me unceasingly. It was a horrible night that I passed there. The stench alone was sufficient to drive one mad. I was greatly relieved when morning arrived, and I was taken to the office for another examination.
I repeated my denials. There followed threats of long imprisonment, coaxings, rebukes and attempts to extort a confession from me, and I learned that Yasha had been arrested on his way back, before reaching home, so that he did not know of my own arrest. I was detained for seven days, at the end of which the authorities, having been unable to obtain anything from me, set me free.
Yasha was still in jail, and I started out to visit various officials and bureaus in his behalf. The chief of police of the province was then in town, stopping in the house of a friend of ours. I invoked the aid of the latter for the purpose of obtaining an interview with him, and finally I was admitted to the presence of a largely built man wearing the uniform of a colonel. I fell on my knees before him and protested my husband’s innocence, praying for mercy.
