CHAPTER XV—ON A RUSSIAN MILITARY TRAIN
I was in the train at last, fairly on my way home, and I was glad. But I wasn't glad for very long. I began to wish myself back in the railway station at Stretensk, where at least I had fresh air. At first I had the window open and a corner seat. There are only two people on a seat in a Russian long-distance train, because when night falls they let down the seat above, which makes a bunk for the second person. But I was second class and my compartment opened without a door into the other compartments in the carriage, also two more bunks appeared crossways, and they were all filled with people. We were four women, two men who smoked, a baby who cried, and my little dog. I spread out my rugs and cushions, and when I wanted the window open the majority were against me. Not only was the window shut, but every ventilating arrangement was tightly closed also, and presently the atmosphere was pestilential. I grew desperate. I wandered out of the carriage and got on to the platform at the end, where the cold wind—for all it was August—cut me like a knife. The people objected to that cold wind coming in, and the next time I wandered out for a breath of fresh air I found the door barred and no prayers of mine would open it. In that carriage the people were packed like sardines, but though I was three-quarters suffocated no one else seemed at all the worse. I couldn't have looked at breakfast next morning, but the rest of the company preened themselves and fed cheerfully from the baskets they carried. Then at last I found a student going to a Western Siberian university who spoke a little French and through him I told the authorities that if I could not be transferred to a first-class carriage I was to be left behind at the next station. I had spent a night in a station and I knew all about it; it wasn't nice, but it was infinitely preferable to a night in a crowded second-class carriage.
After a little while the train master came and with the aid of the student informed me that there would be a first-class carriage a little farther on and if there was room I should go in it, also we would know in an hour or so.
So I bore up, and at a little town in the hills I was taken to a first-class compartment. There were three—that is, six bunks—making up half of a second-class carriage, and they were most luxurious, with mirrors and washing arrangements complete. The one I entered was already occupied by a very stout woman who, though we did not know any tongue in common, made me understand she was going to a place we would reach next morning for an operation, and she apologised—most unnecessarily but most courteously—for making me take the top bunk. She had a big Irish setter with her whom she called “Box”—“Anglisky,” as she said—and “Box” was by no means as courteous and friendly as his mistress, and not only objected to Buchanan's presence but said so in no measured terms. I had to keep my little dog up on the top bunk all the time, where he peered over and whimpered protestingly at intervals. There was one drawback, and so kind and hospitable was my stable companion that I hardly liked to mention it, but the atmosphere in that compartment you could have cut with a knife. Wildly I endeavoured to open the windows, and she looked at me in astonishment. But I was so vehement that the student was once more brought along to interpret, and then everybody took a turn at trying to open that window. I must say I think it was exceedingly kind and hospitable of them, for these people certainly shrank from the dangers of a draught quite as much as I did from the stuffiness of a shut window. But it was all to no purpose. That window had evidently never been opened since the carriage was made and it held on gallantly to the position it had taken up. They consulted together, and at length the student turned to me:
“Calm yourself, Madame, calm yourself; a man will come with an instrument.” And three stations farther down the line a man did appear with an instrument and opened that window, and I drew in deep breaths of exceedingly dusty fresh air.
The lady in possession and I shared our breakfast. She made the tea, and she also cleaned out the kettle by the simple process of emptying the tea leaves into the wash-hand basin. That, as far as I saw, was the only use she made of the excellent washing arrangements supplied by the railway. But it is not for me to carp, she was so kind, and bravely stood dusty wind blowing through the compartment all night just because I did not like stuffiness. And when she was gone, O luxury! Buchanan and I had the carriage to ourselves all the way to Irkutsk.
And this was Siberia. We were going West, slowly it is true, but with wonderful swiftness I felt when I remembered—and how should I not remember every moment of the time?—that this was the great and sorrowful road along which the exiles used to march, that the summer sun would scorch them, these great plains would be snow-covered and the biting, bitter wind would freeze them long before they reached their destination. I looked ahead into the West longingly; but I was going there, would be there in less than a fortnight at the most, while their reluctant feet had taken them slowly, the days stretched into weeks, the weeks into months, and they were still tramping east into an exile that for all they knew would be lifelong. Ah! but this road must have been watered with blood and tears. Every river, whether they were ferried over it or went across on the ice, must have seemed an added barrier to the man or woman thinking of escape; every forest would mean for them either shelter or danger, possibly both, for I had not forgotten the tigers of the Amur and the bears and wolves that are farther west. And yet the steppes, those hopeless plains, must have afforded still less chance of escape.
Oh! my early ideas were right after all. Nature was jailer enough here in Siberia. Men did escape, we know, but many more must have perished in the attempt, and many, many must have resigned themselves to their bitter fate, for surely all the forces of earth and air and sky had ranged themselves on the side of the Tsar. This beautiful country, and men had marched along it in chains!
At Chita, greatly to my surprise, my sotnik of Cossacks joined the train, and we greeted eaeh other as old friends. Indeed I was pleased to see his smiling face again, and Buchanan benefited largely, for many a time when I was not able to take him out for a little run our friend came along and did it for us.
The platforms at Siberian stations are short and this troop train, packed with soldiers, was long, so that many a time our carriage never drew up at the platform at all. This meant that the carriage was usually five feet from the ground, and often more. I am a little woman and five feet was all I could manage, when it was more it was beyond me. Of course I could have dropped down, but it would have been impossible to haul myself up again, to say nothing of getting Buchanan on board. A Russian post train—and this troop train was managed to all intents and purposes as a post train—stops at stations along the line so that the passengers may get food, and five minutes before it starts it rings a “Make ready” bell one minute before it rings a second bell, “Take your seats,” and with a third bell off the train goes. And it would have gone inexorably even though I, having climbed down, had been unable to climb up again. Deeply grateful then were Buehanan and I to the sotnik of Cossacks, who recognised our limitations and never forgot us.