Groups of soldiers here and there, in the streets of Molodechno, stopped me with jeering remarks:
“Ha, there goes the Commander of the Women’s Battalion. She demands iron discipline. Ha, ha!” they would laugh, turning to me, “What now?”
With smiles and conciliatory answers I managed to get to Headquarters. I made a report to the Commandant and was assigned some dugouts for the Battalion. There were crowds of soldiers everywhere as I walked to the billets. They began to harangue me.
“You were late with your Battalion,” they said. “It’s peace now.”
“I am always with you, I am myself a common peasant soldier,” I answered. “If you make peace now I will abide by your decision. I am not going to fight against the people.”
“Yes, you are for the people now, but where were you before?” they inquired. “You maintained the discipline of the old regime in your Battalion.”
“If I had had no discipline,” I answered, “my Battalion would have become a shameful thing. You would have sneered at it yourselves. Women are not like men. It is not customary for women to fight. Imagine what would have become of three hundred girls among thousands of men let loose without supervision and restraint, and you will agree with me that I was right.”
The men appreciated my argument.
“We think you are right about that,” they assented, and became more sympathetic.
I requested their help in cleaning out the dugouts for my girls, and they gave it cheerfully. I dispatched an instructor for the Battalion, and by night my soldiers were comfortably quartered. Under the protection of sentinels picked from the men attached to my unit we passed a restful night. But our presence offered too good an opportunity for the agitators to let it pass. So in the morning after breakfast, as I started on my way to Headquarters, a small group of insolent soldiers, not more than ten in number, blocked my path, heaping insults upon me.
In a few minutes the ten ruffians were increased to twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred. I tried to parry their jeers and threats, but without success. In ten minutes I was almost surrounded by several hundreds of these ruffians in uniform.
“What do you want with me?” I cried out, losing patience.
“We want to disband your Battalion. We want you to surrender all the rifles to us.”
Now there can hardly be a greater dishonour for a soldier than to surrender his arms without a fight. However, my girls knew that I hated the idea of perishing at the hands of a mob. When they heard of the demand of the crowd they all came out, with rifles in hand.
I made a couple of attempts to argue, but it was apparent that the men came with the purpose fixed in their minds by propagandists. They would not give way and finally cut me short by giving me three minutes to decide. One of the ringleaders stood there, watch in hand, counting the time. Those were moments of indescribable agony.
“I would rather advance against an entire German army than surrender arms to these Bolshevik scoundrels,” I thought. “But it is not my life only that is at stake. Everything is lost, anyhow. They say that peace has been declared already. Have I a right to play with the lives of my girls? But, Holy Mother, how can I, a soldier true to my oath and loyal to my country, order the surrender of my Battalion’s arms without a fight?”
The three minutes were up. I had arrived at no decision. Still, I mounted the speaker’s bench. There was complete silence. The crowd of course expected my capitulation. My girls waited in great tension for their Commander’s orders. My heart throbbed violently as my mind still groped for a solution.
“Shoot!” I suddenly shouted at the top of my voice to the girls.
The men were so surprised that for a moment they remained petrified. They were unarmed.
A volley from two hundred rifles went up into the air.
The crowd dispersed in all directions. My order almost drove the men out of their senses with rage. They ran to their barracks for weapons, threatening to return and do for us all.
The real crisis now arose. There was no question that the mob would return, several times stronger, and tear us to pieces. A decision had to be arrived at and carried out instantly. It would take not more than ten minutes for the men to come back. If we did not escape it was certain death.
“In five minutes the Battalion must be ready to march!” I thundered. I sent one of my instructors to the barracks, to mix with the crowd, and later report to me in the woods on the mob’s activity. Simultaneously I directed the supply detachment to follow the road in the direction of Krasnoye Selo. Then I called for a volunteer from among the instructors to take care of our battle flag under oath that he would defend it to his death. Accompanied by three other instructors he was sent ahead with the flag.
All this was done in less than five minutes. It was no ordinary feat for a military unit to form in full marching formation in that space of time. But my girls did it. I sent one squad after another into the woods, leaving with the last squad myself.
I had fixed as our destination a certain clearing in the woods, five miles distant. This distance we covered at breakneck speed. I knew that the infuriated men would follow the road in pursuing us, and I ordered the Battalion to go into the heart of the woods. There were few of us who did not trip on the way several times. Our uniforms were torn by thorns and brambles, and many of us had cuts in our
