FOREWORD
An American ambulance going south stopped on the snowy road; the driver, an American named Estridge, got out; his companion, a young woman in furs, remained in her seat.
Estridge, with the din of the barrage in his ears, went forward to show his papers to the soldiers who had stopped him on the snowy forest road.
His papers identified him and the young woman; and further they revealed the fact that the ambulance contained only a trunk and some hand luggage; and called upon all in authority to permit John Henry Estridge and Miss Palla Dumont to continue without hindrance the journey therein described.
The soldiers––Siberian riflemen––were satisfied and seemed friendly enough and rather curious to obtain a better look at this American girl, Miss Dumont, described in the papers submitted to them as “American companion to Marie, third daughter of Nicholas Romanoff, ex-Tzar.”
An officer came up, examined the papers, shrugged.
“Very well,” he said, “if authority is to be given this American lady to join the Romanoff family, now under detention, it is not my affair.”
But he, also, appeared to be perfectly good natured about the matter, accepting a cigarette from Estridge and glancing at the young woman in the ambulance as he lighted it.
“You know,” he remarked, “if it would interest you xii and the young lady, the Battalion of Death is over yonder in the birch woods.”
“The woman’s battalion?” asked Estridge.