II
Far down the southern end of the Irkutsk railroad yards on a muddy night in September, 1918, three men in khaki sat in a caboose freight car around a small sheet-iron stove. Upon a near-by shelf-table, a lone candle burned in an empty bottle.
The interior of the car was warm but sordid. Living utensils and army paraphernalia were strewn around, with scraps of food. In an alcove behind, two rumpled bunks showed indistinctly. Outside the wind was blowing, bringing down the febrile, incessant tootings of locomotive switchers up the yards, where swarthy engineers in lambskin hats signaled their yardmen with maximum of noise and blunder.
They were lean-jawed, copper-faced men with khaki shirts torn open roughly at their throats. One had the insignia of the United States Engineering Corps (officially known as the “Stevens Mission”) on his pocket. The others were Red Triangle “secretaries.” And the air was blue with their pipe smoke. They talked horrors which will never be written in books.
A pause came in their conversation. The locomotive blasts died down. For a time the silence was so deep the only sound was the crackle of the flames in the stove or a meditative tapping of a briar-stem against the smaller man’s teeth. The deepness of that silence was suddenly disturbed by a noise. It was a noise like a cry. It was followed by a thud. Some one had fallen on the outside steps.
A burly young fellow from Scranton, Pennsylvania, in charge of the Y. train at the moment, leapt up and opened the door. “What do you want?” he cried irritably into the dark. Some drunken trainman was probably after “pappyroose”—Russian cigarettes—again.
“Give me a hand, will you? This is the Y. car, isn’t it? I’m—all—in!”
“My God!” cried the Y. man. “It’s a Yank!”
They helped the stranger into the car. The door was closed, shutting out the murky night. The stranger sank on an inverted box by the wall shelf and for a minute leaned his forehead over on his wrist. Then he raised a gaunt, haggard face and looked at each man in turn.
The three saw a fellow countryman of twenty-eight or thirty who might have come through the well-known Inferno as amanuensis for the late Mr. Dante. His uniform was foul with grease, dried mud, stains of origin beyond explanation. His eyes were deep-sunken. Hair fell an inch over his collar. His thin beard was stringy and ragged. He wore an old Russian hat with a great chunk of the lamb-wool missing in front.
“I just got in,” he said, “train pulled in a few minutes ago—haven’t eaten anything for two days—rode for the past forty-eight hours packed away in a dark berth behind two stinking Chinamen. Who’s got a—cigarette?”
Three pairs of hands began frantically fumbling in six pairs of pockets.
“What’s your name, ’bo? Where’ve you come from—now?”
“Forge is my name—Nat Forge. I’ve just come through from—from—Moscow.”
Crack! One of the briars had fallen to the floor and the hard-rubber stem had broken in two pieces.
“Forge? Nat Forge? God in heaven! Are you—the fellow—that started in toward Moscow with Dick Wiley a year ago? Where’s Wiley?”
“Dead,” responded Nat simply. “They shot him. Let me have that cigarette.”
They got him his cigarette. They got him many cigarettes. They rolled them for him as fast as he could smoke them, meeting each other’s eyes blankly. The fellow from Scranton dug around in his boxes and cartons for food. The fire was poked in thick silence. A battered pot was set thereon. Coffee was sifted in from a scoop of open fingers down in a bag.
They finally set food before him. They had sense enough not to prod the famished, emaciated man with damfool questions until he had partially recovered his strength.
“War? Gad, boys—I’ve seen enough war! You guys at this end of the country don’t know anything about it. This is the first square meal I’ve eaten in seven months. I mean it. Seven months. Since last February when we left Omsk, going east.”
It was pathetic, the way he ate that food. A square meal!
“You been in Moscow—ever since?”
“No. We reached Moscow, turned right round and walked right out again. I’ve been with the Czechs at Kolybelsk. I’m on my way out—to Harbin or Vladivostok—to see if I can’t hustle along some supplies. Medical supplies. They’re chopping off arms and legs down there with butcher knives and no anesthetics.”
Ten minutes had elapsed before more was spoken. The sudden introduction of food into the man’s weakened vitals distressed him. He drank cup after cup of the vile coffee. But it was hot. Heat was what counted. Then more cigarettes. Eleven of them.
“I know my clothes must smell like hell, boys, but if you’d seen what I’ve been thrown among, coming across from——”
“I’ve got an extra outfit you can change into,” offered the man from Scranton. “Jake, turn some fresh water into that kettle and put it on. Forge’ll want to shave.”
“Yes,” said Nat, with a choke of emotion at being among his countrymen again. “And which of you boys is a barber? Some one’s got to harvest this hair. Nothing fancy. Anything to get it off.”
Nat took a sponge bath, nude at one side before them, at the huge samovar. He changed into clean garments. He removed his stringy beard with scissors and shaved his face. His hair was sheared. He came back and sat down at the stove.
“When did they shoot Wiley? What for?”
“They shot him at Krasnoyek. We got there in the rainy dark. We were on our way back toward Ekaterinburg. Something was the matter with his papers—a ‘t’ wasn’t crossed or an ‘i’ dotted somewhere. He was standing within three feet of me—without a word they asked him to step aside—an official pumped four bullets from an automatic into his chest and stomach before he knew what it was all about—he looked at me in surprise—sort of sickly—he just sank down to a sitting posture on the ground, holding himself up on a stiffened arm, his other hand at his stomach—then he laid his forehead down on his wrist—he never spoke a word—just died. God damn this bloody country and all the low-browed fiends in it! It’s getting just what it deserves—my papers happened to be all right—thank the Lord for tobacco—how long you fellows been here, anyhow—and for the love of Mike, tell me what’s happening in France?”