Part 6

"I am glad it is for Servia, but O what a horror. I had none of this impression at Adrianople--the panic of a whole town before the war. Mobilization was begun last night, but the inhabitants were ordered to leave six days ago. I cannot describe it. It is just everything that one has ever read about war and a great deal besides. I am glad I have a good lot of sisters. I hope they will all do their duty. Communication will be cut off any minute. I shall be so anxious about my family if we are shut up for long. Well, goodbye. I pray for the best. One must be ready for anything."

Kovno 1914.

"Everything is cut off from Europe and I am dreadfully worried and unhappy to have no news from you and all the family. The whole fortress was put in a state of defense in no time, and the whole town has been ordered out from one station. You can't imagine the scenes. Prince Wasilchikoff has helped me very much in the place of his wife who had to go to Petersburg, and now he is going to join his regiment. I hope he can take this letter to send through Sweden. My consolation is that the war was started in behalf of Servia--it alleviates the horror of all that is going on. Prince Wasilchikoff came in for a moment and said that the political situation was very good and that England has declared war. Everyone is going to the war with enthusiasm. Don't worry too much. This section of the Army will not give in till the last. The Commander Grigorieff is splendid and General Rennenkamph is a real fighting man. I have 56 sisters ready in Kovno. My heart and head are full of anxiety and love for you, for you all. I may be able to get letters to you still, but if not, look out for Tibi's little grave whatever happens."

The absorbing work in Kovno, the excitement and the patriotic fervor were all beneficial to Nelka's state of mind in that it took it off her constant thinking about the death of her little dog.

While Nelka had her own sisters and hospital, the Army decided to consolidate the services under their jurisdiction and turned their own Army sisters over to Nelka and she found herself at the head of some 300 sisters. This was a large complicated administrative job but she handled it with great efficiency. Most of the time the fortress was under fire and it soon became obvious that it would not hold out.

The commanding general did not prove to be as good and efficient as Nelka supposed and he also lost his nerve. Under the increasing pressure of the Germans, he ordered the complete evacuation of the fortress, of the troops and material, while this was still possible. However, this was accomplished in a very poor manner and the commander himself left the fortress 17 hours before Nelka did. He also lost a great deal of his equipment.

Nelka in turn completed a full evacuation of her whole hospital and saved all of her material. Everything in the hospital building which could not be moved was destroyed and she went even that far to have all brass knobs removed from the doors and thrown into the river so that the Germans would not get the metal.

So Kovno fell, but the war went on and Nelka's hospital was reestablished some 40 or 50 miles to the rear as a rear unit taking care of the evacuated wounded. They were settled in a large agricultural school building in very fine surroundings. I managed to visit Nelka at that hospital for a few days.

Soon, however, the fighting resumed and the Germans resumed their advance. The hospital once again had to be moved. At that moment Nelka came down with a very severe case of scarlet fever. The doctor said that she could not be moved, just as the hospital was getting under way. The head doctor had her arranged in bed in a tent, leaving her one nurse. At the last moment when leaving, he slipped a revolver under her pillow! But Nelka recovered. The Germans did not reach that point and ultimately she was able to rejoin her unit.

Soon after that she was sent to the rear to a town called Novgorod, to organize a new unit. There she spent most of the winter and once again I managed to visit her there, as it was not very far from Petersburg.

All during the war, at different intervals, Nelka came back to Petersburg, mostly for just a few days and because of some business for her hospital or unit. Each time when she came to Petersburg she stayed at my mother's and thus I was able to see her occasionally.

The impression she had made on me when I first saw her as a small boy never changed. The only difference was that growing up I came more and more under her spell and was more and more deeply attached and devoted to her. I was then 17 years old and very much in love with her. But she was fully grown and I was but a boy yet, so that any hopes would seem rather futile for me. Futile because of the difference of age and because I could hardly expect that she could be interested in me. Also because of her great charm and personality she always had great success with men everywhere and it was more than possible that some fortunate man would be able to win her.

Both in Russia and in America and also while she was in Bulgaria and in Paris she had a great number of admirers and had over thirty proposals from men of different nationalities. She even had a Japanese suitor. But she never was interested in any of these suitors and once told my mother that she would never marry unless she had a complete and all consuming feeling for the man she chose.

But for the moment the war was on and everyone had other thoughts and jobs on hand than romance.

But I was growing up and so was my feelings for her. Every time Nelka would come to Petersburg, I would see her off to the train, taking her back to the front. On one such an occasion I gave her a box of white cream caramels. It was nothing, but for some reason or other it touched her very much and she always said that to her it was measure of my devotion.

On these departures to the front, she was always in a hurry--having so much to do and attend to. On these occasions the determination of her character manifested itself at different times. Once she failed to secure the necessary permit to board a train going to the front--there just wasn't the time for it. At the entrance to the platforms armed guards stood and one had to show one's pass to get through. I warned Nelka that she probably would have trouble, but she said there was no time for this now and that she would find a way to get through. Of course we arrived just about the time the train was pulling out and dashed towards the platform. A soldier stood at the entrance with his rifle and when Nelka plunged headlong towards him, he thrust his rifle horizontally in front of her to stop her. Without a moments hesitation she ducked low and slipped under the extended rifle, and was on the moving train before the sentry knew what it was all about!

On another occasion we arrived at the station just a little too late, even though she had her pass. When we dashed out on the platform we just could see the two receding red lights of the departing train. To this day I do not know what happened, but Nelka raised such fireworks that that train backed into the station. Nelka got on and the train pulled out again!

I have often said that it took courage to be in love with a woman of such determination!

After her winter in Novgorod, Nelka decided to form and organize a unit of her own to serve with the cavalry. She proceeded to raise the necessary money and to select the personnel. As the head of the unit she chose my uncle, my mother's brother, and as assistant a friend of his. She also chose some of the doctors she knew in Kovno as well as some of the sisters. The regular men orderlies and the horses were being supplied by the Red Cross. This unit was attached to the First Guard Cavalry Division. The doctors, the orderlies, the nurses were all on horseback; the stretchers for the wounded likewise were on long poles between two horses. When the whole unit was strung out Indian file it was a very long unit.

Once attached to the Cavalry Division, the unit moved right along with it. Often this was very rough going. Often they would be called out at night, had to saddle and be on the move. Nelka rode a horse named 'Vive la France.' If they were to move any distance they were loaded into trains. She always remembered a dark autumn night unloading the horses from the train in the dark, in the woods, and right next to the position of artillery batteries, firing steadily--the difficulty of controlling and trying to keep the horses reasonably quiet. She had a great deal of trouble with her frightened horse, trembling and scared, because of the noise and flashing guns. The fighting was going on a short distance ahead and hardly had they unloaded as the wounded started to be brought in. They worked on them in muddy dugouts. Between moments of respite Nelka would run out into the dark and try to soothe her horse which was tied in the woods. The guns kept on firing all night.

This was the kind of life which went on. In July 1916 my uncle, the head of the unit, was killed by shell fire, at a moment of some very heavy fighting. The work they were carrying on was right near the firing lines.

At one time, during 1916 Nelka came for a few days to our country estate and one day I went with her to Petrograd. There she received a letter from her Aunt Martha Wadsworth. I was coming back to the country with Nelka on the train. She had the letter in her hand but would not open it for she said she felt it was bad news and she was afraid. She had a premonition of something wrong. We traveled all the way in silence and I could see how very anxious and upset she was. Feeling as I did for her, it was painful for me to see her in that state but there was nothing I could do. She did not open the letter until we reached home and she went alone into her room. It was what she had expected--the news that her beloved Aunt Susie Blow had died in New York.

Another terrible, painful shock, Nelka took it in a very hard way but with great calm and fortitude. She felt that she had failed her aunt, that she should have been with her, instead of at the war. She blames herself. She felt that being at the war was a form of selfishness of self-indulgence, when her duty should have been to remain with her aunt.

Once again a tragic and very hard blow, a blow so hard to accept because of her special devotion to that aunt.

But the war was on--she could not even indulge in her sorrow and she had to return to the front. Fighting was heavy that summer and her cavalry division was engaged and on the move. The unit was always up front, close to the fighting lines and the work was hard.

That summer I entered Officers Training School and did not see Nelka for a very long time.

On the first of February 1917, I received my commission as second lieutenant in the First Infantry Guard Regiment. This was the last promotion done by the Emperor. I was assigned to the Reserve Battalion stationed in Petrograd.

Less than a month later the Revolution broke out and I had a week of street fighting. Then chaos ensued.

Through most of the summer of 1917, I was at the front in Galicia. Nelka was somewhere at the front near the Rumanian border. We did not know where each of us was and had no communications.

Gradually the discipline in the Army, under the impact of the Revolution, broke down and the front started to disintegrate.

While my regiment was coming apart on the Galician front, Nelka's unit was doing the same on the Rumanian border. Some time towards the end of the summer the remnants of her unit were in Rumania and finally came apart. She was left with but a few sisters and her assistant chief, a friend of hers, a Finnish gentleman, Baron Wrede.

At a certain moment she sent him with some of the personnel and equipment from Rumania over the border back into Russia. However, she herself remained behind to take care of the local priest who was desperately ill. A few days later, the priest died and she was ready to follow the unit back over the border. Just before leaving she found and picked up a poor, small abandoned kitten. Tying the kitten up in her shawl and hanging it from her neck, she rode away from Rumania back to Russia. One soldier was riding back with her. At night time they arrived at a small village and for some reason or other, the soldier disappeared. After waiting for a while, there was nothing to do but to continue. And so in the night, Nelka rode alone through the woods and over the mountains over the border from Rumania into Russia. A woman, riding alone, in the night in the midst of the Revolution! She rode all night, the kitten dangling in front of her. By morning she reached a Russian village and soon located the unit. She said she would never forget that ride in the night. The next day the lost soldier turned up very much upset at having lost her on the way.

The revolution was taking its toll and everything was rapidly coming apart, disintegrating and in a state of anarchy. There was no choice but to drop everything and try to get back to Petrograd if possible. But this was not easy to do. Everything was in complete turmoil, no regular train service and the revolutionary soldiers in complete control of everything. The greatest danger was for the Finnish Baron who as an officer was in danger from the soldiers. So a stratagem had to be invented. Nelka went and declared that the Baron was desperately ill and had to be sent to Petrograd without delay, and that for that she needed a special permit. This she managed to secure and was assigned a compartment in the overfilled train. The perfectly healthy Baron was brought in and arranged lying down all the trip of several days, while Nelka had to take care of him, bring him food and look after the 'invalide.' He said afterwards that he had a 'very pleasant trip.' While lying in his berth he kept with him the kitten. Finally they arrived in Petrograd. The Baron then returned to Finland taking with him the kitten where it lived on their estate to a ripe old age.

Nelka, upon her arrival, stopped as usual at my mother's. Soon after that I returned from the front. Now we were all together once more and all together tried to survive in the Revolution, which was not an easy matter. I then joined the British Military Mission with the offices at the British Embassy.

About that time the Kerensky Government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks and a lot of fighting took place in the city. Nelka used to say how pretty the city looked with the streets completely empty, when she would be returning home, sometimes skirting the walls of the buildings when some shooting would start along the street. We all soon got used to that kind of existence, which became a normal way of life.

But the Revolution was going on and things were getting worse from day to day. The Bolsheviks were killing right and left and the Red terror was in full swing. My work with the British Mission was at that time of some protection for the Bolsheviks were not yet sure of themselves to the extent of daring to molest the foreign missions. My work with the Mission took me away on various trips accompanying British officers.

In the spring of 1918, one of these trips took me to Mourmansk on the Arctic Ocean and where fighting was in progress between White Russians and other foreign units and the Bolsheviks.

All that area was not exactly a very healthy place to be in and after quite a few adventures I managed to return to Petrograd. I brought back with me 75 cases of what the British call 'Iron Rations,' a mixture of all kinds of food to be used in emergencies.

Food was more than scarce by that time and I was given a couple of cases. It was a God send for all of us. We all subsisted on it.

But the Bolsheviks were getting bolder by the day and were raiding houses, arresting former officers and executing them every night.

One evening about ten, a knock came on the door. I opened. Three men with rifles came in with a commissar. They asked for me by name and said they had an order to search the place. They asked if I had any arms and I said I had a service revolver, which had been given to me by the British. I also had another revolver of mine which lay on the mantelpiece. Nelka, who was there in the room, did at that moment a most risky thing. Unobtrusively she slipped my revolver into the pocket of her dress. I noticed this, but the men did not. I produced the other gun which they dutifully registered and took. They then proceeded to search the place and after examining my papers, announced that I would not be arrested in view of my service with the British. Upon that they left. Nelka had done a most risky thing, for had the pistol been discovered in her pocket, it probably would have been the end of all of us.

However, things were getting very acute and very dangerous. It was obvious that a similar raid might happen again any day and might not finish as well. Should I be arrested and taken away the chances would be of my being shot. So far my service with the British had served as a protection, but with the relations with the foreigners fast getting worse, this could mean just the opposite for me and the connection would be detrimental instead of helpful. So it soon proved to be.

We all had a general consultation and decided to try and get out of the country if only possible. My father went to Moscow where he knew a prominent Jew who was procuring exit permits, for a price, and was helping that way people to get abroad. Then we all began to move about trying to stay in different places, different nights.

In the midst of all this, I declared my love to Nelka and asked her to marry me. She refused because she said she did not think it was fair to me on account of our age difference. I was then twenty-one and she was forty. I kept insisting. She admitted that she loved me and would not hesitate had it not been because of the age difference.

On a certain Friday morning something kept me from going as usual to the British Embassy where our offices were located. This proved to be my salvation for that same morning the Embassy was raided by the Bolsheviks. They invaded the Embassy, arrested all the British officers and killed Commander Crombie right on the entrance steps when he tried to stop them from entering. They hung his body head down out of one of the windows.

All the Russian officers who worked with the Mission were also arrested and promptly shot. Of 16 such officers, only three including myself ultimately got away. Thirteen were shot.

After the Embassy raid my position became extremely precarious, for I was now on the black list and being searched for. While previously my connection with the Mission had been a protection, now it was just the opposite. I could not very well remain in our apartment and we all scattered, except my mother who remained. My father was still in Moscow. Nelka went to some friends. I spent some time in the country where I hid for some time in our empty house.

It is to be noted that food was practically unavailable and that there was no money to buy it with if there was any. So we all had a pretty desperate time, but so did everyone else.

In the midst of all this, Nelka finally agreed to marry me. Perhaps the Revolution, the circumstances, the constant danger which we were all facing all of the time, helped her make her decision. But decide she did and so one day early in September 1918 we went to Tsarskoe Selo, an hour by train from Petrograd where an old aunt of mine lived. We were married in a church there with just a handful of friends in attendance. Nelka wore a white sister's uniform for her wedding dress. My old aunt who was very fond of Nelka took off a gold bracelet she wore and put it on Nelka's arm. Nelka never took it off throughout her life.

Some friends of ours let us use their empty apartment for our honeymoon. We had a 5 pound can of British bully beef and subsisted on that until it was used up. We then returned to Petrograd and moved into one room of a tiny flat where a Polish woman, Mrs. Kelpsh, lived who had worked in Nelka's hospital in Kovno. This was in a back yard of a small side street. She registered Nelka under her maiden name and me not at all. If seen, I was just supposed to be a boy-friend visiting.

However, things were getting more and more dangerous, and we had to invent something if we were to save ourselves.

Earlier, before our marriage, when things were not so bad and we were all seeking ways of getting out of Russia, I had applied for a foreign passport to go abroad. At first some people were being let out before the Bolsheviks clamped down on everybody.

Now, this application at the Foreign Office or Commissariat was a dangerous identity of myself and a disclosure, especially when I was being searched for because of my connection with the British Mission.

Nelka knew this situation and one day unknown to me she went to the Commissariat. There she very naively inquired about the application of Michael Moukhanoff. The girl looked up and brought out my file, looked it over and said that no decision had been made yet. Nelka then asked when one could hope to have an answer. The girl said she did not know but could go and find out. If Nelka would wait she would go and inquire. She left the room and Nelka then did a very desperate thing. She picked up the file from the table, walked quickly out of the room, down the corridor and then faster down the steps and into the street where she mixed into the crowd. A dangerous thing to do, but my file was gone, even though my position became that way only more illegal and perhaps even more dangerous. But Nelka as usual did the decided thing with courage and determination.

Like many others we were now trying to escape. Like always in such cases, there are people who for a price were getting people out of town and over the Finish border. It was very dangerous work for them--dangerous for the people trying to leave and also expensive. We established contact with one such person who turned out to be a very decent fellow, and he agreed to try and get us out. He had peasants along the border whom he knew and who were helping him. These he had to pay and quite highly for it was all dangerous work for them also. He warned us that he could not tell when he would be ready to move us and that we should be ready to go on a moment's notice. Therefore, we prepared what we thought we could take with us and waited.

In the meantime my father had succeeded to get some false papers through his Jewish friend in Moscow and with these he and my mother managed to get over the Finnish border into Finland by train. They were by now in Stockholm and getting ready to sail to America.

By this time also, Nelka and I were living in another house, in a closed apartment in a house where some very close friends of ours lived. Nelka was registered there under a false passport in the name of Emilia Sarapp. I was not known, unless as a boy friend.

The food situation had become absolutely desperate. There just was none. Some mornings I would go to the outskirts of the city where peasants would come in their sleighs selling milk. People fought to get a quart of this watery stuff.

We also had some frozen potatoes. When frozen, potatoes are pink and sweet and slimy. These we ate without butter or even salt which was not available. The watery milk sometimes helped. Once in a while we got a loaf of black bread with a mixture of straw. I saw people cut off chunks of meat from a dead horse lying in the street and carry it home for their dinner.