Yashka · Part IV · Chapter 18 (1/2)

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 to fight the men that I loved so much,” he declared. “But they have turned beasts now. We are fighting for our lives, for our uniforms. The life of every Russian officer is at the mercy of the mob. It is a question of organizing for self-defence. One cannot hope to do much for the country, if the Bolsheviks are waging civil war when the Germans are advancing into Russia. This is a time for peace and union among all classes. It is a time for presenting a united front to the enemy of the Motherland. But Bolshevism has perverted the minds of the people. What is necessary, therefore, is to enlighten the masses. We can’t hope to enlighten them by fighting. If it were possible to organize a counter-propaganda, to convince the Russian peasants that the Bolsheviks are rapidly driving our country to utter ruin, then they would rise and make an end of Lenin and Trotsky, elect a new Government, and drive the Germans out of Russia. This is the only solution that I can see, unless the Allies aid us in conciliating our soldiers and reestablishing a front against Germany.”

This, in substance, was Kornilov’s view of conditions in Russia, when I saw him in February, 1918. I remained only one day at his headquarters. From conversations with the men attached to his Staff, I learned that Kornilov’s force comprised only about three thousand men. The Bolshevik army opposing it was about twenty times its strength. I left Novocherkassk in the evening, after an affectionate parting from Kornilov. He kissed me as he bade me farewell, and I wished him success for the sake of the country. But there was no success in prospect. We both knew it only too well. A heavy darkness had settled on Russia, stifling all that was still noble and righteous.

Encouraged by my success in reaching Kornilov’s line, I determined to return by myself. I was taken to the outposts by a group of officers, and from there, accompanied by their blessings, I started out through the war zone alone. I crawled on all-fours as if through No Man’s Land, and advanced a couple of versts without any mishap. The experience I had gained at the front stood me in good stead. I scented the approach of a patrol and hid just in time to escape being observed. The patrol turned out to be one of Kornilov’s force, but I remained hidden. After some more crawling I caught the sound of voices coming from the direction of a coal-mine and judged the place to be one of the front positions. Exercising extreme caution, I managed to pass beyond it safely. Some distance away, dimly standing out against the horizon, was a wood.

A Bolshevik force got wind of the patrol I had encountered and went out to capture it by a flank operation. I decided to conceal myself behind a pile of coal and wait till quiet was restored. On my right and left were dumps of coal.

Keeping close against the coal-heap, I breathlessly awaited the result of the enterprise. After a little while the Bolsheviks returned with the prey. They had captured the patrol! There were twenty captives, fifteen officers and five cadets, I discovered. They were led to a place only about twenty feet distant from the coal-heap behind which I was concealed.

The hundred Bolshevik soldiers surrounded the officers, cursed them, beat them with the butts of their rifles, tore off their epaulets and handled them in the most brutal fashion. The five youthful cadets must have suddenly seen an opportunity to escape, for they dashed off a few minutes afterwards. But they failed in their attempt. They were caught several hundred feet away and brought back.

The Bolshevik soldiers then decided to gouge out the eyes of the five youths in punishment for their attempt to run away. Each of the victims was held by a couple of men in such a position as to allow the bloody torturers to do their frightful work. In all my experiences of horror this was the most horrible crime I witnessed.

One of the officers could not contain himself and shrieked:

“Murderers! Beasts! Kill me!”

He was struck with a bayonet, but only wounded. All the fifteen officers begged to be killed outright. But their request was refused.

“You must be taken before the Staff first,” was the answer. Soon they were led away.

The five martyrs were left to expire in agony where they were.

My heart was petrified. My blood congealed. I thought I was going mad, that in a second I should not be able to control myself and should jump out, inviting death or perhaps similar torture.

I finally gathered strength to turn round and crawl away, in the opposite direction, toward the woods. At a distance of several hundred feet from the forest it seemed to me safe to rise and run for it. But somebody noticed me from the mine.

“A spy!” went up in a chorus from several throats, and a number of soldiers set off after me, shooting as they ran.

Nearer and nearer the pursuers came. I raced faster than I ever did before in my life. Here, within another hundred feet or so, were the woods. There, I might still hope to hide. I prayed for strength to get there. Bullets whistled by me, but firing as they ran the men could not take aim.

The woods! the woods! It was the one thought that possessed my whole being. Louder and louder grew the shouts behind me:

“A female-spy! A female-spy!”

The woods were within my reach. Another bound, and I was in them. Onward I dashed like a wild deer. Was it because there were only a few soldiers left at the post and they could not desert it to engage in a hunt, or because the men decided that I could not escape from the forest anyhow, that my pursuers did not follow me into the woods? I know only that they were satisfied with sending a stream of bullets into the forest and then ceased to trouble about me.

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. They will know how to take care of her. Ha, ha, ha!”

I arose horror-stricken. I wanted to say something but was speechless. Petrukhin was greatly horrified too. He ran after Pugatchov, seized him by the arm, and shouted:

“What is the matter, have you gone mad? Madame Bochkareva came here of her own accord. Nobody captured her. She is going to Kislovodsk for a cure. She is a sick woman. She says that she lost her way. Anyhow, she has never fought against us. She returned home after we took over the power.”

“Ah, you don’t know her!” exclaimed Pugatchov. “She is a Kornilovka, the right hand of Kornilov.”