Once a soldier decided to complain to Francis Joseph or Wilhelm. He went up to an electric pole, formed his fingers so that it looked as if he were speaking into a telephone horn, and shouted, "Hello, Germans, give us some more bread!" He called and knocked with his fists for some time, but, of course, received no reply. Many soldiers made fun of him at first, but others began to look for a way to complain against such treatment of war prisoners. Meanwhile the bread became poorer and poorer in quality and less in quantity. The meals consisted of beans, and in addition there were bugs in the beans. We got meat three times a week, the other days we got herring.
On the 24th of May, 1915, a company was recruited among us to be sent away to do some "agricultural" work. The soldiers would not believe it, claiming that peace was near. I was in the first contingent. Our train was passing between mountains covered with evergreen. Every now and then it would shoot through tunnels. This surprised me greatly. I understood that we were not going in the direction of Russia. And so it was. We finally arrived in a place, where the thousand of us were quartered in one building. We at once began to be treated differently, much more insolently and severely. On the 27th we were driven to the fields to work. We wondered what the agricultural labour we were to do could be. We were supplied with shovels and pick-axes, led to a wood on a hill some 1,600 metres high, mustered into rows, and ordered to dig a ditch—that is what the Germans called it—but we called it otherwise. It became clear that we were to dig trenches.
The first day passed in idleness and grumbling. All unanimously refused to work, even if we had to pay with our lives for it.
We waited for the following morning. The guards came to take us out to work, but we said that we would not dig trenches. Then the Colonel came and asked in Russian: "Why don't you want to work?" We all answered: "This work is against the law. You are violating the European laws and breaking all agreements by forcing us to construct defensive lines for you." The Colonel said: "Look out, don't resist, or we will shoot every one of you. We don't care now for the laws to which you point us. All Europe is at war now—this is no time for laws. If you don't go to work, I will have you shot."
We all exclaimed: "We won't. Shoot us, but we will not do the work."
II—STANDING BEFORE THE EXECUTIONER
All of the 28th we were in our yard. No food was given us. Thus we were held for three days without food. On the fourth day a company of cadets arrived. Leading them was the executioner, with stripes on his sleeves. They loaded their rifles, holding them ready. Then the Colonel asked: "Who will go to work?" The crowd answered "No!" The Colonel said: "I am sorry for you, boys, you don't understand that you are resisting in vain." Suddenly the crowd was split into two. Those who agreed to work were given dinner and put to work. The other half, in which I was included, was led away to another yard. From among us ten were picked out and taken away—we knew not where. We were ordered to lie on the ground with our faces downward, and not to turn our heads.
On June 2 there remained only fifty men who still refused to work, suffering hunger for the sixth day. The ten soldiers who were daily taken away from us were subjected to, besides hunger, suspense in the air from rings, with their hands tied to their backs. In about thirty minutes one would lose consciousness, and then he would be taken down to the ground. After he recovered his senses he would be asked if he agreed to work. What could one answer? To say "I refuse" meant another ordeal. He would begin to cry and agree to work.
The following day our heroes were led out into the open, ten were selected from our midst, arranged in a line facing the rest of us, and told that they would be shot immediately. Of the remainder half were to be shot in the evening, the other half the following morning. Their graves had been dug by the ten heroes themselves. I have not the slightest hesitancy in calling them so.
Then a space was cleared, and Ivan Tistchenko, Feodor Lupin, Ivan Katayev, and Philip Kulikov were ordered forward. The first was Ivan Tistchenko. An officer and four cadets approached him. The officer asked him if he would agree to work. He answered "No," and crossed himself. His eyes were bound with a white 'kerchief, and these pitiless and unjust cadets fired at the order of the officer. Two bullets pierced his head and two his breast, and the brave fellow fell to the wet ground noiselessly and peacefully.