provided wooden shelves for six persons, the upper ones so arranged
that they could be folded up out of the way. I begged the train
commander to put four of the six non-commissioned officers who had been
ousted for my benefit, back in their quarters, but he replied through
his interpreter, and with profound bows, that the entire section
was mine. And the hospitality accorded me in that car will never be
forgotten. On that trip I came nearer to being royal than I ever expect
to be again.
Knowing something of the administration of a battery of light
artillery, I was most interested in seeing how horses and men were
cared for by the Japanese. They attended to their duties as if work
were sacred rites. They messed their men, fed and watered their horses,
not merely well, but as if the fate of the Japanese Empire depended
upon the utmost efficiency of every cog in that particular machine.
The simplicity of their messing arrangements for the men, in comparison
with our own army in trains, is remarkable. We have to provide
kitchen-cars, fitted up with field ranges, meat, bread, potatoes,
canned tomatoes, coffee, and provide buckets of hot water for washing
mess-kits. It is like a primitive travelling hotel, and our men go
to the car to have their meals dealt out by the cooks. And on the
trans-Siberian line, the road-bed was so rough, and the cars so light
and the wheels so flattened by bad usage, it was frequently impossible
to boil water over our stoves while under way. This necessitated stops
en route to prepare meals and serve them, and once a train has lost its
right of way by stopping in a siding, it may mean hours before the line
ahead is clear of regular traffic, so that the troop-train may go on.
The mess-kit of the Japanese soldier is a metal container, about the
size and shape of a case for large field-glasses. The top clamps on so
that it is water-tight. A handful of dry rice, a little water, a fire
by the track, and the mess-kits are thrown into the blaze.
In a short time, the soldier’s meal is ready, and after he has eaten
as much as he wants, the remainder is kept hot by closing the lid.
I have seen Japanese prepare their meals during a ten-minute stop by
such methods. And each soldier, on the march, can carry enough dry,
light rice, to last him several days. His columns are not hampered by
the slow progress of heavy ration-wagons, his food is not in danger of
being cut off by enemy, his service of supply presents no problem. The
swift movements of the Japanese armies during the Russo-Japanese war
were due to the simplicity of their transport.
On this trip I came to a full realization of the hatred held for the
Japanese by the Siberian populace. It is hatred remaining as a result
of the Russo-Japanese war; it is a hatred engendered by fear of the
Japanese, and their ambitions regarding the future of Siberia; it is
a hatred deeply-embedded in the hearts of the Russians, and of such
intensity that the two races cannot hope ever to mingle with any amity.
I found it embarrassing, too; to stop in a station, and be recognized
as an “Americansky” and receive the smiles and open admiration of the
people, while my hosts were covertly, and sometimes openly, sneered at,
and disrespectful and insulting remarks about “monkey-faces” came out
of groups of peasants, made it apparent to my hosts that I was much
in favor with the people, and that the Japanese were regarded as if
they were rattle-snakes. It must have hurt the sensitive pride of the
Japanese, but I must give them credit for good discipline, and splendid
self-control, in the face of such treatment.
Had I not been present, it is likely that the Russians would have been
more cautious; as it was, my presence only subjected the Japanese to
insults which they might not have had to endure in the presence of a
witness. But they went on about their business, as if their superiority
to the Siberians was something which was beyond question--and perhaps
their attitude held something of a “biding my time,” for a suitable
revenge.
Standing outside the car one afternoon, beside the Japanese troop-train
commander, I saw a Japanese soldier coming toward the train with two
large buckets, a Siberian peasant following him closely, and calling
out in protest. The soldier, aware of the fact that he was under the
eyes of his commander, made no reply, but came on. Presently, as the
Siberian came close enough to recognize me as an American, he darted
up behind the soldier, and pulled from one of the buckets, a head of
cabbage. The train commander looked on, but made no comment, though it
was obvious that the Japanese soldier was stealing the cabbage. Under
similar circumstances, an American soldier would have been reprimanded
on the spot.
The Siberian put the cabbage on the ground, and emboldened by the
passive attitude of the Japanese, once more ran in pursuit, and
extracted from the other bucket, another cabbage. Having emptied the
buckets of the forager, he departed with his cabbages. I wondered if he
would have been allowed to regain his property if I had not been with
the Japanese.
In this connection, peasants always came to my interpreter with
complaints against the Japanese. But our orders were to give no heed
to such complaints--in fact, not to listen to them. There were tales
of murder, robbery, outrage, of isolated districts in which Japanese
soldiers drove the people from their homes, and took the dwellings as
quarters, confiscating all money and property in possession of the
people. I can only cite the fact that these stories were told; the
truth of them is a matter I am not competent to discuss.
Early in the morning we were back in Botchkereva, and stopped there
while the horses were fed and watered. I went to the station restaurant
for tea. There I found a young lieutenant of the Twenty-seventh
Infantry, who had left Khabarovsk two days later than I did, in an
effort to find Major Miller’s force.
His name was D----, and he was shivering from the cold, for it was not
time to begin the sale of tea and food, though the girls were sleepily
washing the floors, and firing up the samovars. A throng of refugees
were standing about, patiently waiting for the hour to arrive when they
might get something hot.
My interpreter and I were thoroughly chilled, but no amount of money
would induce the slatternly girls to give us even hot water from the
samovars--it lacked a half an hour before they would begin to serve
anything. I looked at the men, women and children huddled together
in corners, some of them shivering so violently that their teeth
chattered, and poor, under-nourished and illy-clad children crying from
cold. Why the attendants must observe such regular hours, under such
conditions, I could not understand, and never will. It may be that it
was a demonstration of the “rosy conditions of Soviet Russia,” which an
American referred to recently in a speech at Madison Square Garden, New
York, at which the beauties of the Bolshevist régime were extolled. But
I wish to call attention to the fact that those who did the extolling
of the Bolshevist régime were not enjoying that régime in Russia--they
were enduring the hardships of the “capitalistic United States.”
The solution of the mystery as to why shivering and hungry people in
that station could not buy tea from bubbling samovars till the clock
struck a certain hour, probably lies in the fact that the attendants
were “free,” and members of a Soviet. When it comes to autocracy, the
peasant of Russia can outdo all autocrats. And curiously enough, they
are most cruel to their own kind. If a pair of Cossack officers had
come into that station, and demanded tea forthwith, I believe they
would have had it, regardless of the time. The fact that the samovars
were steaming would have been reason enough for serving the tea.
More out of curiosity than necessity, I made every plea to get tea; my
train would go on shortly; I would give fifty rubles for three glasses
of tea; I was ill; I must have tea then, or go without it all day.
None of these arguments got the tea.
So having a supply of dry tea of my own, my interpreter took the cups
from our canteens, and putting them over the little fires of the
Japanese soldiers alongside the track, brewed our own warming beverage
for breakfast, and invited D---- to join us.
Once he had driven the chills from his body, he told me that he had sat
up in the station all night, only pretending to nap, because he had a
suitcase full of rubles to pay off the men of Major Miller’s force and
was afraid it might be stolen. And in order to divert suspicion from
the suitcase, he had thrown it carelessly in a nearby corner, as if it
did not matter what became of it, though he kept a wary eye upon it.
He said it was likely that the train to take him back to Khabarovsk
might not arrive till that night. I immediately asked the commander of
the train if I might take D---- with me, and he gladly assented. So
when the train moved out, D---- shared a lower shelf with me.
IX
A RED SWEATER AND THE GENERAL
It happened that I wanted to get off at a little station, called Bira.
And I understood that the Japanese troop-train would stop there to
feed and water, making a sufficient stop for me to visit the company
of American soldiers quartered in box-cars on a siding. But we whisked
through Bira at an early hour, and we were well down the line toward
Khabarovsk, before I learned of the change of plans of the train
commander.
But I planned to leave the train the next morning, and double back,
visiting our detachments on the way. Besides, I wished to locate a
certain English-speaking Russian, who wore a red sweater and made it
his business to work or loaf wherever we had soldiers and to mingle
with them to strike up acquaintances. This man had worked several years
in the United States, and he was busy at his special propaganda among
our troops.
It was not so much his work and spying which I wished to investigate,
but I was interested in his methods, and I wished to determine if
possible who was supplying him with money and who was directing his
efforts. He was not merely a man who professed a dislike for the
United States, but he evidently belonged to a coterie which was well
instructed as to how to build up an enmity between the Russians and the
Americans.
I had talked with this man twice, or rather he had sought me out and
tested my knowledge on what the United States intended to do in Russia.
I had discussed matters with him as if he were what he pretended to
be--an uneducated working man. As a matter of fact he had been a lawyer
in Michigan, making a poor living among Russian and other immigrants,
and none too ethical in his ways of making money.
Such detachment commanders as I had talked with on the way up, when
asked as to suspicious characters, all declared that they had noticed
no persons who appeared to be worthy of attention--and all told me of
Red Sweater. The usual story about him was about this:
“There is a man in a red sweater who worked here on the track a few
days, with the section hands. He talks English. He hung around our men,
generally showing up at mess-time, and asking for some American food.
He has ‘joshed’ the men about being in this country, but they don’t pay
any attention to him. He finally went away, and we haven’t seen him for
a couple of weeks. But he doesn’t amount to anything--just kind of a
poor simpleton, who thinks he knows it all because he can talk a little
English.”
That sounded reasonable enough the first time I heard it. The next
time I heard it, I began to take notice, and a day or so later, Red
Sweater attached himself to my train in the capacity of a provodnik, a
man who keeps up the fires, pretends to sweep the car, and gives out
the candles.
Red Sweater worked first on my interpreter, and then felt his way along
with me in English. At that time, I was confident that our expedition
would take such action as was necessary for the good of Russia, and
in time proceed to establish a new Russian front against Germany in
association with all the available forces of our Allies. Of course,
this was some time before the armistice, or early in October. But I
professed to be entirely out of sympathy with any American action in
Russia. That attitude was far more likely to bring to my attention such
Russians, or enemy agents, as secretly opposed us, than an attitude
of desiring aggressive action by my country. And in their eagerness
to find an American who upheld their contention, Bolshevist agents
and others, walked into the little trap and revealed their lines
of propaganda. It is remarkable how the person who appears to be a
malcontent, attracts the professional agitators--they seem overjoyed
at the prospect of making a convert, or in having their reasoning and
actions justified by others not in their circle.
And Red Sweater was dangerous, not because of the falsity of the things
he said, but on account of the truths he uttered, and his subtlety
in perverting truth to fit his ideas and theories. It was probably
such chaps, working among our troops in Archangel, which caused the
reported “mutiny” in our forces there--just “kind of a poor simpleton,”
saying silly things, and not worthy of attention.
Red Sweater was clever in his ways. He made no statements on his own
responsibility, but always quoted the “Russian people.” As I listened
to his arguments, I was led to believe that he must have held a
plebecite which included every inhabitant of Siberia and European
Russia, and to him alone, had been revealed the desires and intentions
of two hundred million inhabitants.
“The Russian people do not trust the United States,” he said glibly,
after he was assured that I was “safe.” “You are a capitalistic nation,
and they know it. You say you are friends of the Russian people but the
Russian people ask: ‘Why are you fighting Russian people near Archangel
if you are our friends?’
“You are not fighting the Russian people here. They ask why not? And
their answer is: ‘The capitalists of the United States do not fight us
here, because they wish to steal our trans-Siberian railroad.’
“The Russian people say they have freed themselves of capitalists. The
United States say they are free people--but the capitalists of the
United States have conscripted the ‘free’ working men of the United
States, and compelled them to come here to Russia to fight the free
Russian working men. That is what the Russian people say. You think you
are serving your country by being here. The Russian people say you are
serving your capitalists, to again enslave the Russian working men.
The Russian people say they have a right to run their own country in
their own way, but the capitalists of the United States send an army of
conscripts over here to prevent the Russian people from keeping their
freedom. If the working men of the United States were satisfied with
their country, would they want a Russian army to go over there, and
tell them how to run it? But the Russian people know that the people
of the United States did not send this conscript army over here--the
capitalists did that. And for that reason the Russian people do not
want to fight you--they do not want you to fight them. Japan and
England do not want a republic here--they want to put the Czar back.
Both those countries have thrones, and their rulers do not want to see
new republics. And the reason they want to see the Czar back here,
is that they can make secret treaties with the Czar, but they could
not make secret treaties if we had a government of the people. The
Russian people say the American capitalists sent an army here to help
Japan and England put the Czar back on his throne. If he is put back
on the throne, and partly by your help, are you sure that the Czar,
the Emperor of Japan, and the King of England, will not combine, and
some day send their armies to force the people of the United States
into having an Emperor? The Russian people say to you: ‘Comrades, we
understand. You, too, must overthrow your capitalists, as we have done,
and control your own country for the benefit of the working men.’ The
Russian people say you are not free yet--no man is free, if he can be
conscripted for the benefit of capitalists, and sent to the other side
of the world to fight the working men of another country.”
And some officers thought Red Sweater did not “amount to anything.”
This was because they had no way of knowing that his itinerary included
every station where American troops might be found, and because he was
clever enough to look like a poor tramp, and wise enough to act the
fool when the occasion demanded that he conceal his purposes.
He deserted my train after he had traveled far enough to plant his
insidious propaganda in my mind. The next time I saw him, he did his
best to get me to ask the Japanese troop-train commander to let him
ride with us. I did no such thing, whereupon he concealed himself
between the cars, and I was now interested to see at what point he
would leave us. This was one of the reasons I was willing enough to
pass through Bira.
The night following our passage through Bira, I got to sleep about ten
o’clock. At a quarter to eleven I woke with a start, for no apparent
reason. D---- was sleeping soundly beside me, and my interpreter was
snoring on an upper shelf. The train was toiling up hills slowly, and
then dashing down the other side recklessly, or so it seemed to me.
Many bridges had been blown out by the Bolshevists, and small rivers
and gullies were crossed by the railroad over temporary trackage, laid
on amazing grades, and poorly ballasted, for the purpose of making
detours around the wrecked bridges.
I felt the train making painful progress up a slope. The engine puffed
laboriously. We reached the crest of the hill, and suddenly began to go
down at a rapidly increasing rate, and at the same time I missed the
noise of the engine, some thirty or forty cars ahead. Our car was the
last on the train.
There was a terrific crash, far ahead, and then every moveable thing
on our car started for the front end. My interpreter was hurled off
his shelf amid all the cooking utensils and food in the car, D---- was
slammed up against the side of the section, and I skidded on my elbows
out on the floor, barely avoiding taking an iron support which held the
shelf above me, off with my head.
The car swung round sidewise and lurched downward, and amid the sound
of rending timbers, appeared to be headed for a river below. I was sure
we had gone through a blown-out bridge.
But the derailed car settled over gently on its side, and came to rest.
We got out as quickly as possible, not sure that the wrecked train
was safe from attack by Bolshevists. Under a cold, clear sky, we saw
that the train had been shattered in the center, the wreck occurring
on a sharp down grade between the banks of a cut. Several of the small
and light box-cars, containing horses and Japanese soldiers, had been
smashed, but the damage was not great, due to the fact that the shock
had been absorbed by the cars bulging upward into an inverted V. The
Japanese were busily engaged in getting out horses, and in checking up
their men, to ascertain if any had been killed. There were a few minor
injuries.
It was too cold to linger outside long in my pajamas, and I went back
to the car, and finding our electric flashlights, sorted ourselves
out and went back to sleep. In the morning we learned just what had
happened.
The train had broken open in the middle at the crest of the hill.
The engine, with the forward half, had run down into the valley over
temporary trackage. Then the engineer discovered what had happened.
The tail end of his train was just gaining headway over the crest, and
coming down with increasing speed. So, in order to go back and get
it, he reversed his engine and came back at top speed, meeting us in
the cut when we had acquired good speed from the descending grade. It
was a splendid example of how not to recapture the runaway half of a
troop-train.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN SOLDIERS CLEARING THE TRACK AFTER A WRECK ON THE
TRANS-SIBERIAN]
[Illustration: JAPANESE OFFICERS TALKING WITH AN AMERICAN OFFICER]
That is an impartial description of what happened. But there was every
reason to believe that the engineer, working with a confederate aboard
the train, knew the train would be split at the proper place to allow
the engine to get away, and then come back with the most disastrous
results. And I believe that Red Sweater split the train, for when a
wrecking train came the next morning to clear the tracks, the engine
of our train and such cars as would travel, going ahead to the next
station to allow the wreckers to get in at the smashed cars, Red
Sweater rode away with the first load of battered cars pulled out.
During that day, and the best part of that night, the Russian wrecking
crew worked and talked and drank tea, on a job that would have taken an
American wrecking crew, two hours. Before a pair of broken trucks could
be ditched, there must be a discussion which suggested the Duma in
action against the Czar. But the Japanese, stoical and silent, were not
fooled--they recognized as fine a piece of sabotage as had ever been
produced.
When we resumed our journey, we three were nearly famished for want of
food. We had brewed tea, and consumed a string-load of pretzels, and
as the Japanese had not noticed that we were short of supplies, we had
refrained from asking for any of their food.
Train schedules were so upset, that I figured I might as well go on to
Khabarovsk, and get the next train out again to Bira. In the meantime
I might pick up the trail of Red Sweater among the railway detachments
strung along the line.
So we made a long stop at a station called Poperoffka, some fifteen
versts from Khabarovsk. There was a platoon of Americans there,
commanded by a lieutenant, quartered in box-cars. D----, my interpreter
and myself lost no time in getting to the kitchen-car, where we bought
canned tomatoes, potatoes, bread and coffee, and bribed the cook to
prepare a meal.
There we learned that the Commanding General had passed through,
bound north in a private car, with a private engine. And just as I
had attacked a mess-kit full of corned beef, my first square meal in
a week, soldiers came to inform the lieutenant in command, that the
Commanding General was returning, and that he was leaving his private
car with his staff.
General Graves was making a tour of inspection. He visited our
kitchen-car, with a dozen or more officers. He was puzzled because
he had just visited a station where the commanding officer had not
heard of my presence in that part of the country. He was very wroth
because he had found some commanding officers away from their commands
on hunting excursions, and as it turned out, one of these officers
had talked to me on the up trip, and later left in command one of his
subalterns who had recently joined from Vladivostok, and naturally
could not know I was prowling about in that part of Siberia.
I preferred to leave General Graves puzzled as to ignorance at that
place about me, for if I had made too full an explanation, the officer
concerned, already in the bad graces of his Commanding General,
might have been disciplined. And General Graves, travelling in a
special train with right of way over everything, appeared to have no
appreciation of the difficulty of travel on intermittent passenger
trains. And some members of the personal staff, accustomed to travel
in such special trains, persisted in regarding the trans-Siberian
line as if it were part of, say, the New York Central system. Being a
Commanding General has its disadvantages under such circumstances.
General Graves suggested that I go back to Bira. As I had lost
considerable sleep and worn out several time-tables figuring out how
I could go back to Bira, I was in hearty accord with the General’s
wishes on the subject. And I eventually carried them out. And certain
officers, fully aware of what had happened, told the General some time
later that trains on the trans-Siberian line could not be trusted to
make the time between different points which the time-tables promised.
And up to the time I left Siberia, those in the know generally greeted
me at mess, with: “Go back to Bira,” which always gave us a good
laugh--at my expense.
And by going back to Bira, I lost the trail of Red Sweater, for the
last sight I had of him, was from that kitchen-car at Popperoffka. He
was evidently trailing General Graves’s special train.
X
OVER THE AMUR RIVER ON HORSEBACK