The woods! the woods! It was the one thought that possessed my whole being. Louder and louder grew the shouts behind me:
“A female-spy! A female-spy!”
The woods were within my reach. Another bound, and I was in them. Onward I dashed like a wild deer. Was it because there were only a few soldiers left at the post and they could not desert it to engage in a hunt, or because the men decided that I could not escape from the forest anyhow, that my pursuers did not follow me into the woods? I know only that they were satisfied with sending a stream of bullets into the forest and then ceased to trouble about me.
I concealed myself in a hollow till everything was quiet again. Then I got out and tried to work out the right direction, but I made a mistake at first and returned to the edge at which I had entered. I then walked to the opposite side, struck a path and before taking it, I threw off my costume of a Sister of Mercy and hid it, drew out my soldier’s cap, destroyed the passport of Smirnova, and appeared again in my own uniform. I realized that reports must have been sent out by my pursuers of a spy dressed as a nurse and determined that as Botchkareva I might still have a chance of life, but as Smirnova I was done for.
Day was breaking, but it was still dark in the woods. I met a soldier, who greeted me. I answered gruffly, and he passed on, evidently taking me for a comrade. A little later I encountered two or three other soldiers, but again passed them without being suspected. I pulled out my direct ticket to Kislovodsk and the letter from Princess Tatuyeva. These were my two trump-cards. After walking for about thirteen miles I came in view of the station at Zverevo. A decision had to be adopted without delay. I felt that loitering would be fatal, and so I made up my mind to go straight to the station, announce my identity, claim that I had lost my way and surrender myself.
When I opened the door of the station, which was filled with Red Guards, and appeared on the threshold, the men gaped at me as if I were an apparition.
“Botchkareva!” they gasped.
Without stopping to hear them I walked up to the first soldier, with my legs trembling and my heart in my mouth, and said:
“Where is the Commandant? Take me to the Commandant!”
He looked at me with an ugly expression, but obeyed the order and led me to an office, also packed with Red Guards, where a youth of not more than nineteen or twenty was introduced to me as the head of the investigation committee, who was acting as chief in the absence of the Commandant. Again everybody gave vent to exclamations of surprise at my unexpected appearance.