“Have you heard of the Women’s Battalion of Death?”
My heart thumped violently.
“What Battalion did you say?” I asked with an air of ignorance.
“Why, Bochkareva’s Battalion!” he replied in a loud voice.
“Bochkareva’s?” I asked reminiscently. “Oh, yes, Bochkareva; yes, I have heard about her.”
“The ⸻! She is a Kornilovka!” he exclaimed. “She is for the old regime.”
“How do you know?” I asked. “I thought she was nonpartisan.”
“We know them all, the counter-revolutionists! She is one of them,” my companion declared emphatically.
“Well, but the Battalion of Death no longer exists, and Bochkareva has apparently vanished,” I suggested.
“Yes, we know how they vanish. Many of them have vanished like that. Kornilov had vanished, too. Then they all pop up again somewhere or other and cause trouble,” he declared.
“Now, what would you do to her if she were to pop up here?” I ventured to inquire.
“Kill her. She would never get away alive, you may stake an oath on that,” he assured me. “We have the photographs of all the leading counterrevolutionaries, so that they can’t conceal their identity if they are caught.”
The conversation then took a more profitable turn for me. I learned all about the plans of the Bolshevik force against Kornilov. The arrival of the train at Zverevo put an end to my association with my travelling companion. I thanked him warmly for all his kindness to me.
“You know, Sister,” he unexpectedly declared before parting, “I like you. Will you marry me?”
I was not prepared for this. It rather took me aback. He was such a dirty, repulsive-looking creature, and the proposal was so ludicrous that it was with difficulty that I controlled my desire to laugh. The situation was not one for merriment.
“Yes, with pleasure,” I responded to his offer, with as much graciousness as I could command, “but after I have seen my mother.”
He gave me his address and asked me to write to him, which I promised to do. Perhaps he is still waiting for a letter from me.
I left him at the train and went toward the station. There were Red Guards, sailors, soldiers, even Cossacks, who had joined the Bolsheviks, on the platform and inside the station. But there were no private citizens in sight. I sat down in a corner and waited. I was taken for a nurse attached to the Bolshevik army, and was not molested. One, two, three hours passed and still I could find no opportunity to proceed to my destination. A civilian, who somehow found his way into the station, was placed under arrest before my eyes without any preliminaries. I, therefore, preferred to sit quietly in my corner rather than move about.
Finally a pleasant looking young soldier became interested in me. He walked up and asked:
“Why are you waiting here, Sister?”
“I am waiting for a comrade,” I answered.
“What is his name?” he inquired, interested.
“Oh, that is a secret,” I replied in a teasing manner.
He sat down near me, and asked me if I had worked at the front. I said that unfortunately I had been detailed only to hospitals in the rear.
“Why was that man arrested?” I ventured to ask.
“Because he had no papers from the Soviet,” was the reply. “He will be shot immediately.”
“Do you execute everybody who has no papers?” I asked.
“Everybody, without distinction.”
“Even women?” I inquired.
“Yes, even women,” was the reply. “This is a war zone.”
“Holy Mother!” I exclaimed in horror. “How terrible! You really slay them all? Without even a trial?”
“There is little time for trials here. Once fallen here, there is no escape. Our firing squads make an end of all suspected persons on the spot,” he informed me kindly. “Come, would you like to see the execution-grounds? They are quite near here.”
I followed him reluctantly. A few hundred feet away from the station we stopped. I could go no further. The field in front of us was covered with scores of mangled, naked corpses. It made my flesh creep.
“There are about two hundred of them here, mostly officers who had joined or sought to join Kornilov,” he explained.
I could not help shivering. The dreadful scene nearly shattered my nerves and it was all I could do not to collapse.
“Ah, you women, women,” my escort nodded sympathetically. “You are all weak. You don’t know what war is. Still,” he admitted, “there are some who can compare with men. Take Bochkareva, for instance, she would not shudder at sights like this.”
“Who is she, this Bochkareva?” I was curious.
“Haven’t you heard of her?” he asked in surprise. “Why, she was a soldier of the old regime and organized the Women’s Battalion of Death. She is for Kornilov and the bourgeoisie. They gave her an officer’s rank and bought her over to their side, although she is of peasant blood.”
It was all very interesting, this theory of my corruption. I had heard it before, but not stated in such definite terms. At the same time I was haunted by the picture of those mangled bodies, and the thought rankled in my mind of the treacherous Bolsheviks who had opposed capital punishment in the war against Germany but introduced it in the most brutal fashion in the war against their own brothers.
I then told my friend of the trouble in which I found myself, that I was penniless, that I had to get home to Kislovodsk and that I did not know how to get through the front. He explained to me that the so-called front was not a continuous line but a series of posts, maintained on this side by the Bolsheviks and on the opposite side by Kornilov.
“Sometimes,” he added, “the peasants of the neighbouring villages are allowed by both sides to pass through to Novocherkassk, Kornilov’s headquarters. If you follow that road,” and he pointed to it, “you will come to a village about three miles from here. One of the peasants may be willing to convey you across.”
I thanked him for the valuable information, and we parted friends. The walk to the
