Of the twenty Red Cross volunteers only five returned alive.
The following day an order was issued by the Commander thanking all those soldiers who had been captured three days before and had resolved to save themselves by fighting their captors. My name appeared first on the list. Those of us who had refused to give any information to the enemy were praised in the order. One soldier, who had revealed to the Germans a great deal of important information, was executed. I was recommended for a cross of the 2nd Degree, but, being a woman, I received only a medal of the 3rd Degree.
The opening of the year 1917 found us resting two miles in the rear. There was much fun and merriment in the reserve billets. Although the discipline was as strict as ever, the relations between the officers and men had, in the course of the three and a half years of the war, undergone a complete transformation.
The older officers, trained in prewar conditions, were no longer to be found, having died in battle or been disabled. The new junior officers, all young men taken from civil life, many of them former students and school teachers, were liberal in their views and very humane in their conduct. They mixed freely with the men in the ranks and allowed us more liberty than we had ever enjoyed. At the New Year festival we all danced together. These new relations were not entirely due to the new attitude from above. In a sense, they were generated from below by a dumb and yet potent undercurrent of restlessness.
We were reviewed before returning to the front line by General Valuyev, the Commander of the Fifth Corps. I was presented to him by the Commander. The General shook my hand warmly, remarking that he had heard many praiseworthy things of me.
Our positions were now on a hill, in the vicinity of Zelenaya Kolonia, while the enemy was at our feet in the valley. The trenches we occupied had been in German hands some time before.
It was late in January when I made an expedition into No Man’s Land at the head of a patrol of fifteen men. We crawled along a ditch that had once been a German communication trench. It ran along a very exposed part of the field and we exercised the utmost caution. As we came near to the enemy’s trench line I thought I heard German conversation. Leaving ten men behind, with instructions to come to our aid in case of a fight, five of us crept forward at a snail’s pace and with perfect noiselessness. The German voices grew clearer and clearer.
Finally we beheld a German listening-post. There were four of them, all seated with their backs toward us. Their rifles were scattered on the ground while they warmed their hands over a fire. Two of my men stretched their hands out, reached the rifles and removed them. It was a slow and difficult operation. The Germans chattered on unconcernedly. As I was cautiously reaching for the third rifle two of the Germans, having apparently heard a noise, made as if they were about to turn.
In an instant my men were upon them. The two were bayoneted before I was able to realize what was happening. It had been my intention to bring in the four alive. The other two Germans were safe in our hands.
In all my experience of patrol duty, and I must have taken part in at least a hundred expeditions into No Man’s Land, it was the first case of a German listening-post being caught in such a manner. We returned triumphantly with our prizes.
One of the prisoners was a tall, redheaded fellow, the other, who wore pince-nez, was evidently an educated man. We took them to Regimental Headquarters, accompanied on the way by much cheering and congratulations. The Commander wanted to know the details of the capture and had them written down word for word. He congratulated me, pressing my hand, and so did all the other officers, telling me that my name would live forever in the annals of the Polotsk Regiment. I was recommended for a gold cross of the 1st Degree and given two days’ leave for rest in the village.
At the end of the two days my Company joined me in the reserve. Strange things were occurring in our midst. In subdued voices the men repeated dark rumours about Rasputin’s death. Wild stories about his connections with the Court and Germany were communicated from mouth to mouth. The spirit of insubordination was growing among the soldiers, though at that time it was still kept within bounds. The men were weary, terribly weary of the war. “How long shall we continue this fighting?” and “What are we fighting for?” were on the lips of everybody. It was the fourth winter and still there was no end in sight.
Our men were genuinely anxious to solve the great puzzle that the war had become to them. Hadn’t it been proved again and again that the officers at Headquarters were selling them to the enemy? Hadn’t a multitude of reports reached them that the Court was pro-German? Hadn’t they heard of the War Minister placed under arrest and charged with being a traitor? Wasn’t it clear, therefore, that the Government, the official class, was in league with the enemy? Then, why continue this carnage indefinitely? If the Government was in alliance with Germany, what prevented it from concluding peace? Was it the desire to have millions more of them slaughtered?
This was the riddle that forced itself upon the peasant mind. It was complicated by a hundred other suggestions that were injected into his
