Much talk and an unhealthy atmosphere of expectation and curiosity were being artificially created around this question....
Kerensky sent a telegram to the Commissariat: “I am sure of the prudence of the garrison, which may elect, from among its numbers, two representatives to accompany.”
In the morning the Commissariat began visiting all the units in the garrison, to obtain their consent to our transfer.
The Committee had appointed a meeting of the whole garrison for 2 p.m., i.e., three hours before our departure, and in the field, moreover, immediately beside our prison. This mass meeting did indeed take place; at it the representatives of the Commissariat and of the Committee of the Front announced the orders for our transfer to Bykhov, thoughtfully announced the hour of our departure and appealed to the garrison ... to be prudent; the meeting continued for a long time and, of course, did not disperse. By 5 o’clock an excited crowd of thousands of men had surrounded the guard-room, and its dull murmur made its way into the building.
Among the officers of the Cadet Battalion of the 2nd Zhitomir School of 2nd Lieutenants, which was on guard this day, was Captain Betling, wounded in many battles, who before the War had served in the 17th Archangelogorod Infantry Regiment, which I commanded.[78] Betling asked the superior officer of the School to replace by his half-company the detachment appointed to accompany the prisoners to the railway station. We all dressed and came out into the corridor. We waited. An hour, two hours passed....
The meeting continued. Numerous speakers called for an immediate lynching.... The soldier who had been wounded by Lieutenant Kletsando was shouting hysterically and demanding his head.... Standing in the porch of the guard-room, Assistant Commissaries Kostitsin and Grigoriev were trying persuasion with the mob. That dear Betling, too, spoke several times, hotly and passionately. We could not hear his words.
At last, pale and agitated, Betling and Kostitsin came up to me.
“How will you decide? The crowd has promised not to touch anyone, only it demands that you should be taken to the station on foot. But we cannot answer for anything.”
I replied:
“Let us go.”