The Colonel winked at Bertram.
“You see the virtue of the A. R. A.? Marvellous, don’t you think? Almost incredible!”
Perhaps his cold clear eyes had perceived the comradeship of Bertram and “his” princess. If so, he was discreet, and made no personal remarks, and it was by his suggestion that Nadia was asked to go with Bertram and Dr. Weekes to inspect the hospitals and homes for abandoned children in Kazan.
“You’d better take the Princess with you, Doctor. I’ve faith in a woman’s eyes, and anyhow, I’m going to put her in charge of the local committee for child-feeding, so she must get about and see things. You’d like to join them, Pollard?”
It was Nadia who acted as interpreter, and it was by her side, getting courage from her, that Bertram went into places which made him cry out to God in his heart, and filled him with horror, and turned his stomach so that he could hardly prevent himself from vomiting, as he had done in the barrack yard at Petrograd.
The children’s homes seemed worst of all. In the first of them were fifteen hundred who had been abandoned by their parents.
“Why abandoned?” asked Bertram.
Nadia bent down to one child, a girl of twelve or so, stark naked, and so emaciated that all her ribs were visible beneath the tight-drawn skin. Word by word she translated the child’s monologue, told with the gravity of an old woman.
“She says her father belonged to Lubimovka. Once his barns were filled with grain and he had twenty cows. When the drought came, the standing wheat was burnt black in the fields. Red soldiers came and took the grain from the barn, all but a very little. Then the cows died, one by one. There was no food in the house. This little one had six brothers and sisters. Three of them died, because they had no food. The mother wept very much when they died. The father did not weep, until one day he took his children for a long, long walk away from Lubimovka to the town of Tetiushi. Then he said, ‘Wait here a little while, my children. Perhaps God will send his angels with food for you.’ And then he wept, and walked away. They waited a long while, and he did not come back. And God did not come with His angels. So they lay down to die. It was little Anna that died. The two others were fed by the market people in Tetiushi, and then put on a train that came to Kazan. So they were brought to this house, with many other children who were like themselves. They had bread once a day, and potato soup. They would be glad to have some clothes, because it is very cold.”
Nadia turned to Bertram, and her eyes were shining with tears.