“Good day, grandfather!” I greeted the old man.
“Good day, little sister,” he answered.
“Would you drive me to the city?” I asked.
“Great God! How is it possible? The Bolsheviks are fighting in front of the city, and they don’t let anybody pass,” he said.
“But people do go sometimes, don’t they?”
“Yes, sometimes they do.”
“Well, I will give you fifty roubles for driving me to the city,” I offered.
The muzhik scratched his neck, reconsidering the matter.
“But aren’t you a political?” he inquired cautiously.
“No,” I assured him, “I am not.”
He went into the cabin to talk it over with his baba. It was a tempting offer and her consent was apparently quickly obtained, for he soon returned and said:
“All right, we will go. Come into the house. We will have tea and something to eat.”
The invitation was welcome indeed, as I had grown hungry during my long wait at the station and the walk to the village. When we had finished our tea and lunch and the peasant harnessed his horse, I asked for a large apron, which I put on over my clothes. I then asked for the baba’s winter shawl and wrapped it over my head and shoulders, almost completely covering my face, so that I no longer looked like a Sister of Mercy, but one of the local peasant-women.
Praying to God to grant me a safe journey, I seated myself in the cart. The horse started off along the road.
The Bolshevik front was still ahead of me. But I was making progress. …
XVIII
Caught in a Bolshevik Deathtrap
“What shall I say to the sentries?” the muzhik asked me as we approached the front positions.
“Tell them that you are carrying your sick baba to a hospital in the city, as she is suffering from high fever,” I answered, and I asked him to wrap me in the huge fur overcoat on which he was seated. I was warm enough without it, but I thought that it would raise my temperature even more, and I was not mistaken. Under all the wrappings I looked more like a heap than a human form. When we reached the outposts I began to moan as if in pain.
“Where are you going?” I heard a voice ask my driver sharply, as the horse stopped.
“To a hospital in the city,” was the answer.
“What have you got there?” the inquirer continued.
“My baba. She is dying. I am taking her to a doctor,” the peasant replied.
Here I groaned louder than ever. I was suffocating. My heart was thumping with dread of a sudden exposure and discovery. Every particle of time seemed an age.
The sentry who had stopped us apparently talked the matter over with some of his comrades, to the accompaniment of my loud moans. Without uncovering my face he issued a pass to the muzhik.
My heart beat joyfully as the horse started off at a rapid pace. For a while I still held my breath, hardly daring to believe that I had left Bolshevik territory behind me with so little difficulty.
After some time we arrived at Kornilov’s front. The posts along it were held by officers, of whom his force was almost exclusively composed. At one such post we were stopped by an imperative “Halt!”
The driver was about to repeat the story of his sick baba when I surprised him by throwing off the fur coat, then the shawl, and jumping out of the vehicle, heaving a deep sigh of relief. I could not help laughing.
The muzhik must have thought me mad at first. The officers at the post could not understand it either.
“What the devil!” a couple of them muttered under their breath. I proceeded very coolly to pay the fifty roubles to the peasant, and thereupon to dismiss him, to his great amazement.
“I shall get to the city all right from here,” I informed him.
“The deuce you will!” blurted out the officer in charge. “Who are you?”
“Why, can’t you see, I am a Sister of Mercy,” I answered impatiently.
“Where are you going?”
“I am going to see General Kornilov,” I said, laughing.
The officers were getting furious.
“You will not go a step further,” the chief officer ordered.
“Oh, yes, I will,” I announced emphatically.
“You are arrested!” was the reply.
I burst out laughing, while the officers turned white with fury.
“Don’t you recognize me? I am Bochkareva,” and I threw off my headdress of the Sister of Mercy, revealing my own self. The officers gasped, and then immediately crowded round me congratulating me and shaking me by the hand. Kornilov was notified by telephone of my arrival and of the joke I had played on the sentries.
“How do you do, little sister?” he greeted me laughingly when I was brought to his headquarters. The story of my arrival and of the way I had got through the lines amused him very much. He looked very thin and somewhat aged, but as energetic as ever.
I reported to him that I was sent from Petrograd by General X and other officers, for the purpose of ascertaining his plans and exact situation. I also informed him that the Bolsheviks were making big preparations for an attack against him, that I had seen eleven cars with ammunition at Zverevo, and that the blow was planned to take place in a couple of days.
Kornilov replied that he knew of the impending offensive and that his condition was precarious. He had no money and no food, while the Bolsheviks were amply supplied with both. His soldiers were deserting him one by one. He was cut off from his friends and surrounded by enemies.
“Was it your intention to remain with me and join my force?” he asked me.
“No,” I said, “I could not fight against my own people. The Russian soldier is dear to me, although he has been led astray for the present.”
“It is also very hard for me
