Only fifty of the whole battalion of women in Russia's Legion of Death
came through their first battle unscathed. But the wounded as well as
those who escaped are going back to the front.
Vera Butchkareff, commander of the Legion, suffering from shell shock
in a hospital, so declared as she proudly told the heroic story of her
unit's fighting. Half a dozen other wounded women in the same hospital
gave instant corroboration.
"We have fought with men and with women," Commander Butchkareff
declared, "and one is as good as the other if he or she loves the
fatherland.
"My girls have been divided before the battle. One half remained a
unit under my command and the other half were distributed in small
detachments of six or ten to various companies. These small units were
to act as ammunition carriers only. My half was an active fighting
force. I led them into the charge myself."
"We are all going back to the front," one of the girls declared. The
whole roomful of wounded Legionnaires chorused instant approval.
"The German girls we captured carried a sign 'Send us your women; we
will pay you well,'" declared one of the girl soldiers.
"They sent us--but we carried bayonets," she added.
The girls are for the most part between eighteen and thirty years of
age. Some of the force are married women with children and a few are of
middle age. Among these latter a striking figure is Mme. Sofie Vansa,
widow of a colonel killed in battle and whose two sons are now lying
wounded.
Mary Goloubyova, the eighteen-year-old high-school girl who was
wounded, tells this story:
"We went into action a fortnight after our arrival at the front under
heavy German cannon fire. Given the order to advance, we rushed out of
our trench. Feeling no sense of danger, we dashed toward the enemy in
the wood. The machine guns began knocking over my companions. We were
ordered to lie down. I noticed those at the front with me were all
women. The men were further back.
"I began shooting, the gun kicking my shoulder so hard that it is still
blue and stiff. I was glad when we were ordered to charge the machine
guns in the woods. We paid dearly, but we held on, and by night our
scouts discovered the machine gunners and we shelled them out.
"After the first attack I was attached to a machine gun, carrying
ammunition to an advanced position under the fire of hidden German
machine guns. We were advancing and constantly in danger of capture
by the Germans. On one trip over newly captured ground I saw what I
considered a wounded German officer lying on the ground. I went to help
him with my gun in my right hand and the machine-gun ammunition in my
left.
"Seeing this, he jumped to his knees and pulled out his revolver, but
before he could shoot I dropped the ammunition and killed him. How did
I feel on taking a human life? I had no sensation except to rid my
country of an enemy. There was no sentimentality. We were trying to
kill them and they were trying to kill us--that is all. Any Russian
girl or any American girl in the same position would have the same
feeling."