While my regiment was coming apart on the Galician front, Nelka's unit was doing the same on the Rumanian border. Some time towards the end of the summer the remnants of her unit were in Rumania and finally came apart. She was left with but a few sisters and her assistant chief, a friend of hers, a Finnish gentleman, Baron Wrede.
At a certain moment she sent him with some of the personnel and equipment from Rumania over the border back into Russia. However, she herself remained behind to take care of the local priest who was desperately ill. A few days later, the priest died and she was ready to follow the unit back over the border. Just before leaving she found and picked up a poor, small abandoned kitten. Tying the kitten up in her shawl and hanging it from her neck, she rode away from Rumania back to Russia. One soldier was riding back with her. At night time they arrived at a small village and for some reason or other, the soldier disappeared. After waiting for a while, there was nothing to do but to continue. And so in the night, Nelka rode alone through the woods and over the mountains over the border from Rumania into Russia. A woman, riding alone, in the night in the midst of the Revolution! She rode all night, the kitten dangling in front of her. By morning she reached a Russian village and soon located the unit. She said she would never forget that ride in the night. The next day the lost soldier turned up very much upset at having lost her on the way.
The revolution was taking its toll and everything was rapidly coming apart, disintegrating and in a state of anarchy. There was no choice but to drop everything and try to get back to Petrograd if possible. But this was not easy to do. Everything was in complete turmoil, no regular train service and the revolutionary soldiers in complete control of everything. The greatest danger was for the Finnish Baron who as an officer was in danger from the soldiers. So a stratagem had to be invented. Nelka went and declared that the Baron was desperately ill and had to be sent to Petrograd without delay, and that for that she needed a special permit. This she managed to secure and was assigned a compartment in the overfilled train. The perfectly healthy Baron was brought in and arranged lying down all the trip of several days, while Nelka had to take care of him, bring him food and look after the 'invalide.' He said afterwards that he had a 'very pleasant trip.' While lying in his berth he kept with him the kitten. Finally they arrived in Petrograd. The Baron then returned to Finland taking with him the kitten where it lived on their estate to a ripe old age.
Nelka, upon her arrival, stopped as usual at my mother's. Soon after that I returned from the front. Now we were all together once more and all together tried to survive in the Revolution, which was not an easy matter. I then joined the British Military Mission with the offices at the British Embassy.
About that time the Kerensky Government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks and a lot of fighting took place in the city. Nelka used to say how pretty the city looked with the streets completely empty, when she would be returning home, sometimes skirting the walls of the buildings when some shooting would start along the street. We all soon got used to that kind of existence, which became a normal way of life.
But the Revolution was going on and things were getting worse from day to day. The Bolsheviks were killing right and left and the Red terror was in full swing. My work with the British Mission was at that time of some protection for the Bolsheviks were not yet sure of themselves to the extent of daring to molest the foreign missions. My work with the Mission took me away on various trips accompanying British officers.
In the spring of 1918, one of these trips took me to Mourmansk on the
Arctic Ocean and where fighting was in progress between White
Russians and other foreign units and the Bolsheviks.
All that area was not exactly a very healthy place to be in and after quite a few adventures I managed to return to Petrograd. I brought back with me 75 cases of what the British call 'Iron Rations,' a mixture of all kinds of food to be used in emergencies.
Food was more than scarce by that time and I was given a couple of cases. It was a God send for all of us. We all subsisted on it.
But the Bolsheviks were getting bolder by the day and were raiding houses, arresting former officers and executing them every night.