Part 8

And the Intelligence party, I was informed, had been summoned and told to “keep quiet, to betray no initiative, not to criticise, and to keep busy doing nothing.” And in order to nullify as far as possible all attempts of the individuals of the party to accomplish anything in their own lines of endeavor, the “chart” of the organization was dismantled, and each officer put at some duty with which he was unfamiliar. For instance an expert on ciphers was sent far into the interior, and an expert on maps was put in charge of several translators, though he had a most limited knowledge of Russian. And the Chief of Intelligence found himself with some fifteen officers who had been shipped half way round the world at government expense, and drawing an average of two hundred dollars a month in pay, buzzing indignantly about his ears, and doing little but making his life a burden.

Most of these officers were quartered in a warehouse some five miles from headquarters, and an irregular launch taking them back and forth across the bay for meals, with the consequence that most of the time was spent traveling or waiting on the pier for the launch.

And when the launch was taken off the run, an automobile was provided, which held five persons, to transport a dozen officers and as many field clerks, in a single trip, from and to quarters. About the time the Intelligence detachment took ship for home, a truck was provided. But in order to avoid the loss of time in going back and forth, many of the officers had hired at their own expense, rooms in crowded Vladivostok.

There is something on the other side of the shield. This obvious attempt to humiliate the Intelligence detachment, probably grew out of the reports which reached headquarters with us. The officer who had been bedeviled by Smith in San Francisco, came in the transport _Logan_.

He had apparently judged the whole party by Smith, and had given us a bad repute. However that may be, the Professor engaged by Smith as “advisor,” as told in a previous chapter, got anything but a pleasant reception when he came to report his status.

As related to me, General Graves was most indignant when he learned how and why the Professor had been thrust upon the expedition. He was told that his services were not required, and he was paid off at the rate allowed a field clerk. He refused to acknowledge the money received as payment in full, and charged poor Smith with having misrepresented his authority, asserted that he had been damaged by quitting his positions in San Francisco as undoubtedly he had been, and took the return transport threatening suit against Smith and a claim against the government.

There is every reason to believe that this incident established the “Intelligence bunch” as a group of high-handed incompetents. The Staff to my mind, had every reason for withholding from the members of the party that measure of confidence and respect which an Intelligence Department must have before it can operate with any efficiency.

A Commanding General and his staff in a situation such as confronted them in Siberia, has something else to do beside test individually a lot of officers who from previous acts by one or two of them appeared to give every evidence of having no judgment. It is safer to assume that they are all Smiths, and put them at such simple tasks as insure that they will not do something disastrous. It is also cheaper to pay them to do nothing.

In time, most of the officers were sent away to inland cities, where they remained as observers, till they signified their desire for discharge after the armistice in accordance with the terms of their commissions. And in justice to the majority of these officers, I wish to assert that they were highly efficient in their various vocations, and that most of them had distinguished themselves in civil life. One had been minister for the United States to foreign countries and was schooled as a diplomat; others were professors of history and could tell the various life-careers of big and small nations; some were ethnologists, and could give the pedigree of any nondescript person found in the motley throngs all over Siberia; many had previously been in Russia several years, spoke the language well, and found themselves in familiar surroundings. With a few exceptions, they did the duties of glorified office boys, while attached to an expedition which needed above all things, an alert and efficient system of Military Intelligence. They did their best under disheartening conditions.

XII

AN ARMY IMPRESARIO

For a week or two after my return to Vladivostok, I familiarized myself with the Intelligence organization at Headquarters. So far as I could see, we had no authority over anybody who happened to be suspected of enemy activity, or actually guilty of some act against the American or Russian laws.

When we found a man who had come in under a fraudulent passport, and had in our files data which proved him to be a Bolshevist agent, or sympathizer, we could take no action, other than hold his American passport. Then we notified the Czech commandant, and he was arrested after passing from our custody.

So we exercised no military or police authority over anybody but our own nationals, or such Russians or other foreigners as fraudulently claimed American citizenship and attempted to travel as such.

In order to watch the incoming ships, all the Allies sent passport officers aboard them, and each officer conducted the examination of his own nationals. There was a line of Russian steamers, running between Tsuruga, Japan, and Vladivostok, known as the Russian Volunteer Fleet; and a similar line owned by the Japanese. These little steamers served as ferry-boats, gathering in Japan all travelers bound for Vladivostok who arrived in ports of the Far East in liners--this was the funnel through which passed the stream of civilians who came first to Shanghai, Nagasaki, Yokohama and other ports.

And before these steamers docked, they were boarded by a Japanese, a Czech, a Russian, a British, an American and a French officer, and the polyglot lot examined before they were allowed to land. I attended some of these examinations, provided with a list of suspicious characters, and with the various interpreters in action, the smoking-room put to shame anything that must have been heard at the Tower of Babel.

But so far as we were concerned, it was all a silly farce. Technically, we had no right to examine anybody. I once asked an Allied officer the basis for his authority, whereupon he told me that the city was under martial law, and controlled by an Allied Council which delegated the powers of examination to all the Allies. But this was promptly denied by another Allied officer.

In fact, it appeared that we Americans, in an effort to avoid interference, claimed no rights of control over anybody on Russian soil, making it necessary for us in order to question suspected enemies, to resort to autocratic methods. That is, we disclaimed all intentions of interfering and asserted no authority, except this plan of going through the motions of authority, which was a taking of power which might have been granted had we asked for it.

For my part, I prefer an autocracy working in the open, to a power which denies it is autocratic and then proceeds to act autocratically without any warrant. Such methods puzzled the decent Russians, and they began to doubt the things which we wanted them to believe, and which it was essential that they believe if we were to have the confidence of the Russian people.

A few days after I had raised the question of the rights of the American officers in passport control, we relinquished by order the rights we had been exercising. When Russian or other officials held men or women as suspicious, who professed to be American citizens, they brought them to American headquarters, where the examination took place. And if the facts cited by them were refuted by our information, we could do nothing but advise the Czechs of the case, and let the latter act without any suggestions from us, thus, like, Pilate, washing our hands of the whole affair.

A Czech officer, upon being asked what he would do with a certain suspect, said casually, “I don’t know--maybe we shoot him.” And maybe they did. No doubt we had to “save our face,” and if the Czechs were willing to serve us as jailers or executioners, that took a disagreeable job off our hands.

I am not, mind, asserting that the Czechs dealt out injustice, or that we should have executed anybody or everybody arrested. I object to heads in our government who lack decision as to what should be done, and resort to chicane in attending to disagreeable tasks. I object to an expedition being sent into a country, the hands of the commander apparently tied, and yet demanding that certain results be attained in a left-handed manner so that the responsibility may be shifted to other shoulders. This country is altruistic and generous toward all other nations in trouble, and we should demand from our representatives who attend to our business, the kind of leadership we are entitled to, and the clear demonstration before such foreign peoples as we come into contact with officially, of our honest motives.

From toying with various parts of the Intelligence machine, I turned my attention to distributing fifty cases of books which had been sent to the troops by the American Library Association. Our men, living in the stone-floored Russian barracks, which were cold and damp and dirty, found these books most welcome. It was a most dreary environment for young and active men, most of them too far from the city to get any entertainment from it, and when its novelty was worn off, they found even Vladivostok dull and disheartening.

The Chief of Staff suggested that a vaudeville show be organized out of the forces, and I was put in charge of it. Some fifteen men who had vaudeville experience were detailed from various companies. And to provide something with “local color,” the Chief of Staff suggested that we might hire a trio of Cossack dancers appearing at a local cabaret known as the “Aquarium.” This show began at midnight. The Chief of Staff, Donald Thompson, the war-photographer, Mrs. Thompson and myself, attended a performance. We sat in a gallery box, and drank coffee from nickel coffee-machines to keep us awake. It was a cheap and tawdry show, and the floor below was filled with a throng of people sitting at little tables and drinking and eating. The Cossack trio--two brothers and a young woman--gave an interesting exhibition of Cossack dancing, interspersed with dialogue in Russian, which delighted the doughboys present.

In a couple of days we put on a show of our own at the Aquarium, which General Graves, and many officers from all the Allied commands, attended as his guests. We had gymnasts, black-face comedians, vocal and stringed quartettes, and a regular vaudeville program of some dozen acts, including the Cossacks, with the regimental band of the Thirty-first Infantry.

It was a “hit,” probably due to the fact that I interfered not at all, but told the performers to “go ahead and get your acts ready, tell me what you will have, and we’ll write a program.” When you want the American doughboy to do something outside his regular line of duty, let him alone and he’ll come home--he needs no Bo Peep.

The Cossacks were to provide two acts, one that they supposed to be a refined American cake-walk, done in conventional evening-dress, and the other their dance, in native costume. Of course, they took more pride in their American act than in the dance, which we wished to place in the program so that it would be the “star” attraction.

It was suggested to them that they be third on the bill with the cake-walk, to give them time to rest and get into costume for the more strenuous effort next to the finale. They agreed, perfectly satisfied, and so they were billed.

I remained back stage. To my horror, when the act preceding the cake-walk was in progress, and the Cossacks were called from the dressing-room somewhere in the cellar, they appeared in their outlandish Cossack costume and makeup. For this act they required stage-sets and improvised lighting, which of course were not ready at that time.

I told my interpreter to ask them to change as quickly as possible, as they must have misunderstood the agreement about how their acts were placed on the program. But they averred that they had simply changed their minds, and intended to do the Cossack dance first, because the regular Aquarium show followed ours, and they would have to do their exhausting dance twice almost in succession if they appeared on our bill last.

I was willing enough to announce the change, and let it go at that, but although I surrendered to their wishes, they persisted in continuing a loud and long Russian conversation behind the curtain in competition with the monologuist who was amusing the audience. Then, when it was all settled that they would appear immediately in the dance, they changed their minds again, and went below to change costumes at the moment they should have gone on.

Luckily the monologuist got several encores, and being known to many of the soldiers out front, they demanded certain of his stories, and he pieced his act out long enough to conceal the wait for the Cossacks.

This example of mental instability I found to be typical of most Siberians--they will spend hours settling a problem, and having threshed out all the details, and arrived at a logical conclusion, somebody remarks: “Maybe we are wrong after all,” and away they go again on the argument, from the beginning, getting themselves more enmeshed in doubts than ever, and finally have to quit in exhaustion without reaching any decision.

Before we could start touring with our show, the Cossacks had to go to Nikolsk-Ussuri to fill an engagement at that place. And our troupe had to get costumes and rehearse, cars must be provided for winter travel, and we had to work out songs with the members of the band.

When the Chief of Staff engaged the Cossack trio, it was at the rate of four thousand rubles a month and all expenses, food and quarters. At that time, with the current rate of rubles, which was ten rubles for the dollar, the salary stood us four hundred dollars. But having in mind the dollar basis, the deal was made in rubles. When I went to Nikolsk to advise the Cossacks that we were ready for them, rubles had gone to six for a dollar, so were more valuable--and of course, the Cossacks wanted their pay in rubles.

They reached Vladivostok late at night, and with the city over-crowded, they had difficulty in getting quarters. They were temporarily sent to a Russian house across the bay, and then a fourth-class car was arranged for them on the siding at the Base. The weather was getting very cold, the car was unsatisfactory to them, they objected to being halted by our sentries when they came to the car late at night, and despite two stoves kept going by a German war prisoner, they said they nearly froze to death.

I began to understand some of the troubles of impresarios with foreign “artists.” They objected to rehearsing with our band at nine o’clock in the morning, the only time the band had available time, because they were accustomed to getting their breakfasts at eleven--they talked the most violent Russian at me at all times possible, regardless of whether my interpreter was present or not. I was sorry for them.

At this stage of affairs, I got sudden orders to proceed to Chita, two thousand versts away, and take station as the American officer on Intelligence duty. There were no American troops there, and it was reported that the American officer of Philippine Scouts whom I was to relieve, had been threatened with assassination. My “circus” was turned over to another officer, and with my interpreter, First Class Private Werkstein, I went aboard a Red Cross train bound for the front, to take station at Chita, Trans-Baikal, where Ataman Semenoff had his headquarters with his Cossack and Mongol army.

XIII

AWAY TO TRANS-BAIKAL

Our Red Cross Train left Vladivostok just before midnight, December 11, 1918. It consisted chiefly of box-cars full of medical supplies and clothing bound for Omsk; there was an International sleeping car for some twenty Red Cross nurses, Russian women doctors, American missionaries from Japan serving as refugee workers, dentists and physicians. Some of the men had just arrived in Siberia from Manila, and some of the women from Japan, and knew little of travel on a Siberian train. There were two men sent out by our War Trade Board to investigate the supply of raw materials and the wants of the people for manufactured goods. The sleeping car compartments for four persons, had to accommodate six.

The train had been combined with a Czech train, carrying supplies for the Czech army at the front, and two fourth-class cars were provided for Czech soldiers. There was also a fourth-class car full of wounded and sick Czech soldiers, most of the latter suffering from tuberculosis, to be left at Buchedo, a station far up the line where there was a hospital.

An American Infantry captain bound for Harbin to take command of a company there, serving as guard for the consulate, shared quarters with me in one of the fourth-class cars, with the Czech soldiers, and my interpreter, Werkstein, was with me.

There was a dining-car improvised out of a small and springless ordinary box-car, by building a range into one end, cutting a door in the other, and building a table down the center. Along the sides were piled our food supplies, our bread hanging in sacks from the roof, and under the table our feet rested on frozen cabbages, potatoes, and beef.

The cook got off now and then, and having, with mere money, wheedled the “starving populace” into parting with fat pheasants, threw the dead and frozen birds into the cook-car with brutal disregard of the needs of the natives. And as a further example of dire necessity, of food shortage, I observed at one place some peasants (not pheasants) so close to starvation, that they had nothing with which to grease the wheels of their wagons but best Siberian butter! We heard about this time by cable that the Congress of the United States would be asked to appropriate a hundred million dollars for the purchase of food, which food was to be sent to wheatless and meatless Europe in order to prevent the spread of Bolshevism--that same Bolshevism which had swept Siberia “as the result of a lack of food.”

Chang, a wily Chinese, bossed the “China boys” who did the cooking and waited on the table. And a place at the table generally meant being frozen, or roasted, according to whether one sat at the end away from a red-hot stove near the door, or near the stove. And it seemed that the engineer picked out the roughest part of the road-bed to show his best speed, when we were at meals.

A doctor once asked me to pass the cheese. At the same instant, we hit a curve, and a whole round of cheese from the top of the pile of stores behind him over his head, toppled over, sailed over him and alighted on his coffee.

As we got into Manchuria, the temperature dropped to about forty degrees below zero. The door of the diner, from which emerged the warm air, was draped in great icicles, and when the door was opened, we were met by a rush of steam--the warm air meeting the cold.

The women nurses, having modern ideas of ventilation, left the windows of their compartments slightly open one night. In the morning the heating-pipes in that car were useless, for it was a hot-water system, and the provodnik had allowed the fires in the heater to go down during the night. The sleeping car, for the rest of the trip, might have served well as a cold-storage car.

With two stoves going continually in our fourth-class car, even though they burned Manchurian coal and gave off a yellow smoke, most of which escaped into the car, kept us comfortable. We were warm, if not sanitary. And when the weather got to sixty below, I gave up all ideas of hoping for fresh air while sleeping.

And during the day, at every stop, we three Americans got out for air, risking having our feet frozen in the process. The Czechs did not seem to mind--they went on with their cooking, and stoked the fires all the harder to warm the air we had cooled by opening the doors to go out.

Everything that was metal inside, became covered with heavy frost--pistols, iron braces, nail-heads, bolts. And to touch any of the iron work with bare hands, getting on or off the car, meant leaving a palm sticking to the iron.

At the same time that the water-bucket on the floor under my bunk was freezing solid, when I stood up to dress my head was in smothering heat gathered at the top of the car. And the passing landscape was obscured by tropical foliage, etched in frost, on the double windows.

In such a climate, I can well understand that the Russian peasant cares little who rules in Petrograd, for his mind is concerned only with having food, shelter and warmth. Such cold probably accounts for much of the mental stupefaction of the Siberians, and explains why the Czars held their power so long.

When Siberia was chosen as a place of exile, to cure people of thinking, the person who selected that frozen land for prisons doubtless knew what terrible cold will do to the human brain. It killed many exiles, but it acted as a preservative of their ideas, and they bided their time, waiting for a chance to get freedom, so that they might go on a spree of destruction. It will take more than a few months of education to turn such people from their age-old lessons in oppression, cruelty and annihilation.

There was a merry wag among the Czechs. He had lost two front teeth, he was poorly clad, but he relished his soup, enjoyed his sleep, and was always smiling and chattering gaily. One cold night, when we were out of coal, he dug from his boxes a gorgeous robe, blue outside and embellished with red decorations of barbaric design. It was lined with long, white Angora-goat wool. As he wrapped himself in it, he looked like some Mongolian prince, preparing for a royal audience.

This garment roused my curiosity. He said it was from the Khirgiz tribes. I asked its price, and Werkstein interpreted this:

“A man’s life.”

“Whose life?” I asked.

“The man who had it.”

“Who had it?”

“A Bolshevist.”

“Why did it cost him his life?”

“Because I killed him and took it.” The wag smiled a gentle smile.

“He got that rifle, and that pistol he has, from the same man,” said Werkstein. And the wag rolled up and went to sleep, evidently not at all concerned about the ghost of the Bolshevist who had owned the robe.

“He was in an Austrian regiment,” continued Werkstein, giving me some of the merry one’s history. “He deserted with his regiment to the Russians, for the Czechs did not want to serve the Germans. In reprisal, the little business he had at home was confiscated, his wife became crazy when his two children were taken away, and he does not know what became of any of them. He is waiting now to get back to that Austrian village, and he swears he will kill till he is killed when he gets there. He does not care what happens to him--he will get his revenge.”

And without doubt the wag will.

In about a week we arrived in Harbin, and stopped there some three days. The city appeared very dull by day, but at night the restaurants and theatres were crowded with gay throngs.

I found a young officer on duty there, who had shared my stateroom on the transport, and we dined at the Hotel Moderne. The prices were extremely high, but the food excellent. The restaurant was full of Russian officers, and wealthy civilians, for Harbin is really the center of high life for the Siberians, it being in Manchuria and somewhat safer than other cities.