A RIVER IN TRAVAIL
My presence in the Sifkova country was not for long but I used it in
full measure. First, I sent a man in whom I had confidence and whom I
considered trustworthy to my friends in the town that I had left and
received from them linen, boots, money and a small case of first aid
materials and essential medicines, and, what was most important, a
passport in another name, since I was dead for the Bolsheviki. Secondly,
in these more or less favorable conditions I reflected upon the plan for
my future actions. Soon in Sifkova the people heard that the Bolshevik
commissar would come for the requisition of cattle for the Red Army. It
was dangerous to remain longer. I waited only until the Yenisei should
lose its massive lock of ice, which kept it sealed long after the small
rivulets had opened and the trees had taken on their spring foliage.
For one thousand roubles I engaged a fisherman who agreed to take me
fifty-five miles up the river to an abandoned gold mine as soon as the
river, which had then only opened in places, should be entirely clear
of ice. At last one morning I heard a deafening roar like a tremendous
cannonade and ran out to find the river had lifted its great bulk of ice
and then given way to break it up. I rushed on down to the bank, where I
witnessed an awe-inspiring but magnificent scene. The river had brought
down the great volume of ice that had been dislodged in the south and
was carrying it northward under the thick layer which still covered
parts of the stream until finally its weight had broken the winter dam
to the north and released the whole grand mass in one last rush for the
Arctic. The Yenisei, “Father Yenisei,” “Hero Yenisei,” is one of the
longest rivers in Asia, deep and magnificent, especially through the
middle range of its course, where it is flanked and held in canyon-like
by great towering ranges. The huge stream had brought down whole miles
of ice fields, breaking them up on the rapids and on isolated rocks,
twisting them with angry swirls, throwing up sections of the black
winter roads, carrying down the tepees built for the use of passing
caravans which in the Winter always go from Minnusinsk to Krasnoyarsk on
the frozen river. From time to time the stream stopped in its flow, the
roar began and the great fields of ice were squeezed and piled upward,
sometimes as high as thirty feet, damming up the water behind, so that
it rapidly rose and ran out over the low places, casting on the shore
great masses of ice. Then the power of the reinforced waters conquered
the towering dam of ice and carried it downward with a sound like
breaking glass. At the bends in the river and round the great rocks
developed terrifying chaos. Huge blocks of ice jammed and jostled until
some were thrown clear into the air, crashing against others already
there, or were hurled against the curving cliffs and banks, tearing
out boulders, earth and trees high up the sides. All along the low
embankments this giant of nature flung upward with a suddenness that
leaves man but a pigmy in force a great wall of ice fifteen to twenty
feet high, which the peasants call “Zaberega” and through which they
cannot get to the river without cutting out a road. One incredible feat
I saw the giant perform, when a block many feet thick and many yards
square was hurled through the air and dropped to crush saplings and
little trees more than a half hundred feet from the bank.
Watching this glorious withdrawal of the ice, I was filled with terror
and revolt at seeing the awful spoils which the Yenisei bore away
in this annual retreat. These were the bodies of the executed
counter-revolutionaries--officers, soldiers and Cossacks of the former
army of the Superior Governor of all anti-Bolshevik Russia, Admiral
Kolchak. They were the results of the bloody work of the “Cheka” at
Minnusinsk. Hundreds of these bodies with heads and hands cut off, with
mutilated faces and bodies half burned, with broken skulls, floated and
mingled with the blocks of ice, looking for their graves; or, turning
in the furious whirlpools among the jagged blocks, they were ground and
torn to pieces into shapeless masses, which the river, nauseated with
its task, vomited out upon the islands and projecting sand bars. I
passed the whole length of the middle Yenisei and constantly came across
these putrifying and terrifying reminders of the work of the Bolsheviki.
In one place at a turn of the river I saw a great heap of horses, which
had been cast up by the ice and current, in number not less than three
hundred. A verst below there I was sickened beyond endurance by the
discovery of a grove of willows along the bank which had raked from the
polluted stream and held in their finger-like drooping branches human
bodies in all shapes and attitudes with a semblance of naturalness
which made an everlasting picture on my distraught mind. Of this pitiful
gruesome company I counted seventy.
At last the mountain of ice passed by, followed by the muddy freshets
that carried down the trunks of fallen trees, logs and bodies, bodies,
bodies. The fisherman and his son put me and my luggage into their
dugout made from an aspen tree and poled upstream along the bank.
Poling in a swift current is very hard work. At the sharp curves we were
compelled to row, struggling against the force of the stream and even in
places hugging the cliffs and making headway only by clutching the rocks
with our hands and dragging along slowly. Sometimes it took us a long
while to do five or six metres through these rapid holes. In two days we
reached the goal of our journey. I spent several days in this gold mine,
where the watchman and his family were living. As they were short of
food, they had nothing to spare for me and consequently my rifle again
served to nourish me, as well as contributing something to my hosts.
One day there appeared here a trained agriculturalist. I did not hide
because during my winter in the woods I had raised a heavy beard, so
that probably my own mother could not have recognized me. However, our
guest was very shrewd and at once deciphered me. I did not fear him
because I saw that he was not a Bolshevik and later had confirmation of
this. We found common acquaintances and a common viewpoint on current
events. He lived close to the gold mine in a small village where he
superintended public works. We determined to escape together from
Russia. For a long time I had puzzled over this matter and now my plan
was ready. Knowing the position in Siberia and its geography, I decided
that the best way to safety was through Urianhai, the northern part of
Mongolia on the head waters of the Yenisei, then through Mongolia and
out to the Far East and the Pacific. Before the overthrow of the Kolchak
Government I had received a commission to investigate Urianhai and
Western Mongolia and then, with great accuracy, I studied all the
maps and literature I could get on this question. To accomplish this
audacious plan I had the great incentive of my own safety.