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.