It was in the city of Samara, crowded with refugees, abandoned children, typhus-stricken families, and starving peasants, that Bertram wrote the Truth about the Famine.
Every word he wrote was an appeal to the world for mercy and pity on behalf of these people. As his pen travelled over the white pages of his writing blocks, he had before his eyes the vision of women wailing over their starving children, of straw-bearded peasants with the agony of death in their patient eyes, of boys and girls he had seen lying down to die in each other’s arms. He wrote with a Biblical simplicity, but Dr. Weekes who read what he wrote, wept frankly and unashamed, and said, “It’s God’s truth, Pollard! You’ll make the English-speaking peoples see the things you have seen, and feel the touch of the pity that’s in your heart. I envy you your gift of words.”
The boat was ice-bound at Samara, and it was by train that Bertram went back with Dr. Weekes to Moscow, with all his narrative. It was a four days’ journey, and like the Russian journeys he had made, filthy and fatiguing. During those four days and nights he thought always in his waking hours of that lady, Nadia, to whom he was returning after his work for the people she loved. Through all this time, indeed, on the Volga and in the villages, her words were with him, her spiritual comradeship gave him courage and endurance, the gift of her love lightened even the darkness of all that horror. He was going back to the best woman he had ever known, utterly unselfish, “saintly” in a gay and beautiful way, yet human and gracious as one of Shakespeare’s women. She would be his companion along the lonely road. She would keep his courage to the sticking point. She would be, perhaps, the mother of his children. The image of Joyce was fading from his mind. She belonged to a different age, and a different world—a thousand years ago, a million miles away. He could think of Joyce now without a pang, without anger, even, and without jealousy. He was sorry about Kenneth Murless. It was hard on Joyce that Kenneth had died. Not a bad chap, after all! A gentleman in the old meaning of the word. With Nadia as his mate, he could wish Joyce all happiness. That pretty child! That spoilt darling of an ancient caste, now passing into history with other ghosts!
With Nadia he would walk in the middle of the road, as he had tried to walk with Joyce. No longer was he lonely.
It was the Colonel with his young “puu” who met them at the station in Moscow. Sims was there too, and some of the other boys.
“Glad to see you back,” said the Colonel. “It seems an age since you went. Thought you might have turned Bolsheviks and gone to rule the Far Eastern Republic!”
“Any news?” asked Dr. Weekes.
The Colonel pondered.
“Devilish little. Odd bits. There’s a Treaty of Peace between England and Ireland.”