The Russian pointed to his chest. “Here. But it is nearly well. Only it hurts sometimes to breathe. Will you listen a moment, Gospodin Captain?”
“Yes,” Bob nodded.
The Russian pulled himself to that edge of his cot which was nearest Bob’s and began at once, “My name is Andrei Androvsky. I live in the town of Nijny-Novgorod, which is, as your honor knows, east of Moscow. There I left my wife and two young children.”
He paused, breathless again. Bob thought with a touch of impatience, for that strained, eager voice was beginning to get on his nerves, “It’s the story of his life he wants to tell me, then. What on earth for?”
Androvsky caught his breath and continued: “I left them in 1914 to enter the Czar’s army and fight Germany.” Perhaps his clear, watchful eyes guessed something of Bob’s thoughts, for he hurried on with fewer details. “I fought under the Grand Duke and under Brusilov. I became an officer. I fought with the Republican army after the Czar’s fall. My papers would show you this, but the Bolsheviki kept them when they forced me to serve.”
“Forced you?” Bob interrupted. “What do you mean?”
“They threatened me with death and——”
“But death at their hands or death fighting like a slave in a bad cause—I think you made a poor choice,” said Bob pitilessly. He was picturing himself forced to fight with the Germans against his own countrymen.
The Russian’s eyes darkened with shame and sorrow. Bob’s heart suddenly smote him for his hard words. But Androvsky answered unresentfully, his thin voice shaking a little:
“Yes, if life were all, I would have given it. But the Bolsheviki were going to take my house and little patrimony and turn my wife and children out-of-doors in the bitter winter. My youngest child was six months old. Could I see them starve and freeze to death?”