I concealed myself in a hollow till everything was quiet again. Then I got out and tried to work out the right direction, but I made a mistake at first and returned to the edge at which I had entered. I then walked to the opposite side, struck a path and before taking it, I threw off my costume of a Sister of Mercy and hid it, drew out my soldier’s cap, destroyed the passport of Smirnova, and appeared again in my own uniform. I realized that reports must have been sent out by my pursuers of a spy dressed as a nurse and determined that as Bochkareva I might still have a chance of life, but as Smirnova I was done for.
Day was breaking, but it was still dark in the woods. I met a soldier, who greeted me. I answered gruffly, and he passed on, evidently taking me for a comrade. A little later I encountered two or three other soldiers, but again passed them without being suspected. I pulled out my direct ticket to Kislovodsk and the letter from Princess Tatuyeva. These were my two trump-cards. After walking for about thirteen miles I came in view of the station at Zverevo. A decision had to be adopted without delay. I felt that loitering would be fatal, and so I made up my mind to go straight to the station, announce my identity, claim that I had lost my way and surrender myself.
When I opened the door of the station, which was filled with Red Guards, and appeared on the threshold, the men gaped at me as if I were an apparition.
“Bochkareva!” they gasped.
Without stopping to hear them I walked up to the first soldier, with my legs trembling and my heart in my mouth, and said:
“Where is the Commandant? Take me to the Commandant!”
He looked at me with an ugly expression, but obeyed the order and led me to an office, also packed with Red Guards, where a youth of not more than nineteen or twenty was introduced to me as the head of the investigation committee, who was acting as chief in the absence of the Commandant. Again everybody gave vent to exclamations of surprise at my unexpected appearance.
“Are you Bochkareva?” the young man inquired, showing me to a seat. I was pale, weak and travel-worn and I sank into the chair gratefully. Looking at the young man, hope kindled in my breast. He had a noble, winning face.
“Yes, I am Bochkareva,” I answered. “I am going to Kislovodsk, to cure my wound in the spine, and I have lost my way.”
“What were you thinking of? Are you in your senses? We are just preparing for an offensive against Kornilov. How could you take this route at such a time? Didn’t you know that your appearance here would mean your certain death?” the young man asked, greatly agitated over my fatal blunder.
“Why,” he continued, “I just had a telephone call telling that a woman-spy had crossed from Kornilov’s side early this morning. They are looking for her now. You see the situation into which you have brought yourself!”
The youthful chief was apparently favourably inclined toward me. I decided to try to win him over completely.
“But I came of my own accord,” I said, breaking into sobs. “I am innocent. I am just a sick woman, going to take a cure at the springs. Here is my ticket to Kislovodsk, and here is a letter from a friend of mine, my former adjutant, inviting me to come to the Caucasus. Surely you will not murder a poor, sick woman, if not for my own sake, at least for the sake of my wretched parents.”
Several of the Red Guards present cut short my entreaties with angry cries:
“Kill her! What is the use of letting her talk! Kill her, and there will be one slut less in the world!”
“Now wait a minute!” the Acting Commandant interrupted. “She has come to us of her own free will and is not one of the officers that are opposing us. There will be an investigation first and we will ascertain whether she is guilty or innocent. If she is guilty, we will shoot her.”
The words of the chief of the investigation committee gave me courage. He was evidently a humane and educated man. Subsequently I learned that he was a university student. His name was Ivan Ivanovitch Petrukhin.
As he was still discoursing, a man dashed in like a whirlwind, puffing, perspiring, but rubbing his hands in satisfaction.
“Ah, I have just finished a good job! Fifteen of them, all officers! The boys got them like that,” and he bowed and made a sign across the legs. “The first volley peppered their legs and threw them in a heap on the ground. Then they were bayoneted and slashed to pieces. Ha, ha, ha! There were five others captured with them, cadets. They tried to escape and the good fellows gouged their eyes out!”
I was petrified. The newcomer was of middle height, heavily built, and dressed in an officer’s uniform but without the epaulets. He looked savage, and his hideous laughter sent shudders up my spine. The bloodthirsty brute! Even Petrukhin’s face turned pale at his entrance. He was no less a person than the assistant to the Commander-in-Chief of the Bolshevik Army. His name was Pugatchov.
He did not notice me at first, so absorbed was in the story of the slaughter of the fifteen officers.
“And here we have a celebrity,” Petrukhin said, pointing at me.
The Assistant Commander made a step forward in military fashion, stared at me for an instant and then cried out in a terrifying voice:
“Bochkareva!”
He was beside himself with joy.
“Ha, ha, ha!” he laughed diabolically. “Under the old regime. I should have received an award of the first class for capturing such a spy! I will run out and tell the soldiers and sailors the good news.
