This is the tale of a Hussar who had escaped twice from Russian
prisons, faced murder, come half-round the world, and ran the British
blockade. He was a reserve officer in the Austrian Army, a Hungarian
captain in a famous regiment of Hussars. He was stationed in the
fortress at Peremysl when the Russians advanced into the Karpathians
and took the city. Taken prisoner, he was marched off to a detention
camp near the front where the officers were separated from the
soldiers. The men disappeared, but the officers were taken to a
military prison near Odessa.
The prison fare was not particularly bad, but the monotony of the place
was dreadful. Shut up as they were without anything to think of, they
began to have all kinds of imaginary grievances--principally against
one another. "If half the challenges to deadly combat are carried out
there will be a duel a minute after the war," he says. It got to be
positively ludicrous. Pompous and sensitive enough in all conscience
in ordinary circumstances, the German and Austrian officers, under the
nervous conditions of prison life, lived under a hair-trigger. If you
accidentally bumped into a man on your morning walk, or if you forgot
to bow in the usual manner, you promptly had a challenge to a duel--to
be fought after the war, as there was nothing to fight with in prison.
Having been brought up along the Galician borders, this Hungarian spoke
Russian like a native. This fact encouraged him to make an attempt to
escape.
For some remarkable reason the Russians had allowed the captured
officers to retain all their money. He himself had several thousand
dollars in his pockets. When it became whispered around that he
intended to make a getaway, other officers asked him to carry money
back to their families. The result was that when he slipped away he had
nearly $30,000 in cash on his person.
He didn't tell me exactly how he managed to get away, but I inferred
that it was through the bribery of some of the prison guards. At any
rate he slipped out of the prison one night and turned eastward.
His general plan was to make his way down through the passes of the
Caucasus Mountains through Armenia, and thence to Turkey, where he
would be safe.
Hiding by day and walking by night, he managed to get to a
half-civilized little hamlet on the edge of the great mountains.
The wilderness of the journey before him left him rather appalled. He
had intended to buy a horse and try to make his own way through, but he
saw that this would be impossible. It inevitably meant losing his way
and starving--if he were not killed by wandering bandits!
The town was full of wild-looking Kurdish mountaineers armed to the
teeth. He decided to open negotiations with one of these to act as his
guide. The first one approached readily agreed to act as his guard,
guide, and escort on the long journey through the mountains. He said
the fellow was as dirty as a pig and looked as tough as a Malay pirate,
but his belt was filled like an arsenal.
Under his advice, the Hungarian officer bought a horse for about three
times what it was worth. The arrangements were all made and they were
to start the next morning when the wife of the Kurdish peasant at whose
hut the Hungarian had taken lodging whispered him a word of warning.
"Don't go with him," she said. "As soon as you are one day out, he will
kill you."
"Why should he kill me?" asked the Hussar.
The woman shrugged her shoulders. "Well, it is a long journey," she
said, "why should he take all that trouble when he could get your money
in some other way?"
Her logic was at least convincing if not reassuring. The Hungarian took
a little walk through the one street of the town. In the light of her
warning, he saw that all the men there would kill a baby to get a drink
of milk. They looked vicious enough to commit any crime.
The Hussar sat down to think it over. If he tried to go on through
the mountains alone he would probably be followed and killed, or
assassinated for his rifle by the wandering Kurdish tribes in the
mountains. If his luck was good enough to keep him from being shot, he
would lose his way and starve. If he went out with his guide, it was
simply a question of how long the man allowed him to live. There was
only one thing left to do--he must get back to the prison from which he
had escaped, where he would find food, shelter, and safety.
He got up in the middle of the night, slipped out of the hut, and took
the trail again. Without a great deal of difficulty he found his way
back to the prison. A day or two later the sentinel at the officers'
prison was amazed to see a Hungarian Hussar come nonchalantly up the
road and ask to be let into prison.
They led him before the Russian governor of the prison who was furious.
"Where have you been?" he demanded.
"Why," said the Hussar blindly, "I have always wanted to see these
wonderful mountains, so I just went out for a day or two to see the
scenery."
"What do you think this is, a summer resort?" roared the Russian
colonel.
The Hussar was ordered for a time into solitary confinement. But
the Russian commandant was a pretty good fellow. Besides, with his
education and his knowledge of Russian, the Hungarian was very useful
about the prison. So they restored him to favor very soon.
Meanwhile his uniform had worn out. They had to give him some kind of
clothing, so they fitted him out with the clothes of a Russian peasant.
The loose, easy-going discipline of the prison, his pockets full
of money, and these Russian clothes made escape the second time
ridiculously easy.
He said it could scarcely be called escaping. He literally put on his
hat and walked. He figured it out this time that the way to avoid
detection was not to hide around dark corners; but to disarm suspicion
by openly mixing with the crowds.
Wherefore he went openly down the streets to the railroad-depot, bought
a ticket to Moscow in the ordinary way, and traveled just like any
other passenger.
At Moscow he stopped for several weeks. His story became decidedly
vague at this point.
He told me that he fell in with a woman who had the _entrée_ to army
circles in Russia and that she got him a card to a Russian officers'
club where he hung around for two weeks, mingling with the officers
without his nationality being suspected. The woman had in the meantime
dressed him up in good clothes and had changed his Austrian money into
Russian coinage.
The Hussar tried to give me the impression that the woman had fallen a
victim to his manly charms and had thereby been induced to turn traitor
to her country. I couldn't quite believe this, he didn't look the part.
From what we have since learned of Russian conditions, it seems very
probable that, when the Hussar got to Moscow, he hunted up the circle
of German spies who were operating there, reported for duty, and was
taken care of.
* * * * *
"Well, what am I going to do--stay here for the rest of my life?"
demanded the Hussar testily.
"Patience, my son," said the old man. "To-night there is another
train--a scrubby little local train that runs back and forth across the
border carrying the peasants and traders. No one pays any attention to
that train. You will be on it when it goes out to-night."
When the local train left that night the Hussar was one of the
passengers. The others were dirty, badly smelling Manchurian farmers.
But it carried him safely across the border and into China. Without
further difficulty he made his way to America.
He was on his way to the Eastern coast and expected to take ship for
Austria within a month. When his companion hinted that he would find
it harder to get through the British blockade than to hoodwink the
Russian officials, he winked. And sure enough, within three months the
Westerner had received a card from him. He was back at his old table in
the café of Peremysl, drinking cool concoctions from tall glasses.
(The foregoing stories are: (I) told in the _New York Evening World_;
(II) told in the _Los Angeles Times_, and reprinted in the _Literary
Digest_.)