On the Finland Road, outside of Petrograd, the Red ragamuffins held a perpetual carmagnole, and all fugitives danced to their piping, and many paid for the music.
But though White Guards and Red now operated in respectively hostile gangs everywhere throughout the land, and the treacherous hun armies were now in full tide of their Baltic invasion, there still remained ways and means of escapeinconspicuous highways and unguarded roads still open that led out of that white hell to the icy but friendly seas clashing against the northward coasts.
Diplomats were inelegantly beating it. A kindly but futile Ambassador shook the snow of Petrograd from his galoshes and solemnly and laboriously vanished. Mixed bands of attachés, consular personnel, casuals, emissaries, newspaper men, and mission specialists scattered into unfeigned flight toward those several and distant sections of Gods Country, divided among civilised nations and lying far away somewhere in the outer sunshine.
Sometimes White Guards caught these fugitives; sometimes Red Guards; and sometimes the hun nabbed them on the general hunnish principle that whatever is running away is fair game for a pot shot.
Even the American Red Cross was suspecttreachery being alleged in its relations with Roumania; and hun and Bolshevik became very troublesomeso troublesome, in fact, that Estridge, for example, was having an impossible time of it, arrested every few days, wriggling out of it, only to be collared again and detained.
Sometimes they questioned him concerning gun-running into Roumania; sometimes in regard to his part in conducting the American girl, Miss Dumont, to the convent where the imperial family had been detained.
That the de facto government had requested him to undertake this mission and to employ an American Red Cross ambulance in the affair seemed to make no difference.
He continued to be dogged, spied on, arrested, detained, badgered, until one evening, leaving the Smolny, he encountered an Americana slim, short man who smiled amiably upon him through his glasses, removed a cigar from his lips, and asked Estridge what was the nature of his evident and visible trouble.
So they walked back to the hotel together and settled on a course of action during the long walk. What this friend in need did and how he did it, Estridge never learned; but that same evening he was instructed to pack up, take a train, and descend at a certain station a few hours later.
Estridge followed instructions, encountered no interference, got off at the station designated, and waited there all day, drinking boiling tea.
Toward evening a train from Petrograd stopped at the station, and from the open door of a compartment Estridge saw his chance acquaintance of the previous day making signs to him to get aboard.
Nobody interfered. They had a long, cold, unpleasant night journey, wedged in between two soldiers wearing arm-bands, who glowered at a Russian general officer opposite, and continued to mutter to each other about imperialists, bourgeoisie, and cadets.
At every stop they were inspected by lantern light, their papers examined, and sometimes their luggage opened. But these examinations seemed to be perfunctory, and nobody was detained.
In the grey of morning the train stopped and some soldiers with red arm-bands looked in and insulted the general officer, but offered no violence. The officer gave them a stony glance and closed his cold, puffy eyes in disdain. He was blond and looked like a German.
At the next stop Estridge received a careless nod from his chance acquaintance, gathered up his luggage and descended to the frosty platform.
Nobody bothered to open their bags; their papers were merely glanced at. They had some steaming tea and some sour bread together.
A little later a large sleigh drove up behind the station; their light baggage was stowed aboard, they climbed in under the furs.
Now, remarked his calm companion to Estridge, were all right if the Reds, the Whites and the boches dont shoot us up.
What are the chances? inquired Estridge.
Excellent, excellent, said his companion cheerily, I should say we have about one chance in ten to get out of this alive. Ill take either endten to one we dont get outten to two were shot up and not killedten to three we are arrested but not killedone to ten we pull through with whole skins.
Estridge smiled. They remained silent, probably preoccupied with the hazards of their respective fortunes. It grew colder toward noon.
The young man seated beside Estridge in the sleigh smoked continually.
He was attached to one of the American missions sent into Russia by an optimistic administrationa mission, as a whole, foredoomed to political failure.
In every detail, too, it had already failed, excepting only in that particular part played by this young man, whose name was Brisson.
He, however, had gone about his occult business in a most amazing mannerthe manner of a Yankee who knows what he wants and what his country ought to want if it knew enough to know it wanted it.
He was the last American to leave Petrograd: he had taken his time; he left only when he was quite ready to leave.
And this was the man, now seated beside Estridge, who had coolly and cleverly taken his sporting chance in remaining till the eleventh hour and the fifty-ninth minute in the service of his country. Then, as the twelfth hour began to strike, he bluffed his way through.
During the first two or three days of sleigh travel, Brisson learned all he desired to know about Estridge, and Estridge learned almost nothing about Brisson except that he possessed a most unholy genius for wriggling out of trouble.
Nothing, nobody, seemed able to block this young mans progress. He bluffed his way through White Guards and Red; he squirmed affably out of the clutches of wandering Cossacks; he jollied officials of all shades of political opinion; but he always continued his journey from one étape to the next. Also, he was continually lighting one large cigar after another. Buttoned snugly into his New York-made arctic clothing, and far more comfortable at thirty below zero than was Estridge in Russian costume, he smoked comfortably in the teeth of the icy gale or conversed soundly on any topic chosen. And the range was wide.
But about himself and his mission in Russia he never conversed except to remark, once, that he could buy better Russian clothing in New York than in Petrograd.
Indeed, his only concession to the customs of the country was in the fur cap he wore. But it was the galoshes of Manhattan that saved his feet from freezing. He had two pair and gave one to Estridge.
During several hundreds of miles in sleighs, Brissons constant regret was the absence of ferocious wolves. He desired to enjoy the whole show as depicted by the geographies. He complained to Estridge quite seriously concerning the lack of enterprise among the wolves.
But there seemed to be no wolves in Russia sufficiently polite to oblige him; so he comforted himself by patting his stomach where, sewed inside his outer underclothing, reposed documents destined to electrify the civilised world with proof infernal of the treachery of those three men who belong in history and in hell to the fraternity which includes Benedict Arnold and Judas.
One late afternoon, while smoking his large cigar and hopefully inspecting the neighbouring forest for wolves, this able young man beheld a sotnia of Ural Cossacks galloping across the snow toward the flying sleigh, where he and Estridge sat so snugly ensconced.
There was, of course, only one thing to do, and that was to halt. Kaledines had blown his brains out, but his riders rode as swiftly as ever. So the sleigh stopped.
And now these matchless horsemen of the Wild Division came galloping up around the sleigh. Brilliant little slanting eyes glittered under shaggy head-gear; broad, thick-lipped mouths split into grins at sight of the two little American flags fluttering so gaily on the sleigh.
Then two booted and furred riders climbed out of their saddles, and, under their sheepskin caps, Brisson saw the delicate features of two young women, one a big, superb, blue-eyed girl; the other slim, dark-eyed, and ivory-pale.
The latter said in English: Could you help us? We saw the flags on your sleigh. We are trying to leave the country. I am American. My name is Palla Dumont. My friend is Swedish and her name is Ilse Westgard.
Get in, any way, said Brisson briskly. We cant be in a worse mess than we are. I imagine its the same case with you. So if were all going to smash, its pleasanter, I think, to go together.
At that the Swedish girl laughed and aided her companion to enter the sleigh.
Good-bye! she called in her clear, gay voice to the Cossacks. When we come back again we shall ride with you from Vladivostok to Moscow and never see an enemy!
When the young women were comfortably ensconced in the sleigh, the riders of the Wild Division crowded their horses around them and shook hands with them English fashion.
When you come back, they cried, you shall find us riding through Petrograd behind Korniloff! And to Brisson and Estridge, in a friendly manner: Come also, comrades. We will show you a monument made out of heads and higher than the Kremlin. That would be a funny joke and worth coming back to see.
Brisson said pleasantly that such an exquisite jest would be well worth their return to Russia.
Everybody seemed pleased; the Cossacks wheeled their shaggy mounts and trotted away into the woods, singing. The sleigh drove on.
This is very jolly, said Brisson cheerfully. Wherever were bound for, now, well all go together.
Is not America the destination of your long journey? inquired the big, blue-eyed girl.
Brisson chuckled: Yes, he said, but bullets sometimes shorten routes and alter destinations. I think you ought to know the worst.
If thats the worst, its nothing to frighten one, said the Swedish girl. And her crystalline laughter filled the icy air.
She put one persuasive arm around her slender, dark-eyed comrade:
To meet God unexpectedly is nothing to scare one, is it, Palla? she urged coaxingly.
The other reddened and her eyes flashed: What God do you mean? she retorted. If I have anything to say about my destination after death I shall go wherever love is. And it does not dwell with the God or in the Heaven that we have been taught to desire and hope for.
The Swedish girl patted her shoulder and smiled in good humoured deprecation at Brisson and Estridge.
God let her dearest friend die under the rifles of the Reds, she explained cheerfully, and my little comrade can not reconcile this sad affair with her faith in Divine justice. So she concludes there isnt any such thing. And no Divinity. She shrugged: That is what shakes the faith in youththe seeming indifference of the Most High.
Palla Dumont sat silent. The colour had died out in her cheeks, her dark, indifferent eyes became fixed.
Estridge opened the fur collar of his coat and pulled back his fur cap.
Do you remember me? he said to Ilse Westgard.
The girl laughed: Yes, I remember you, now!
To Palla Dumont he said: And do you remember?
At that she looked up incuriously; leaned forward slowly; gazed intently at him; then she caught both his hands in hers with a swift, sobbing intake of breath.
You are John Estridge, she said. You took me to her in your ambulance! She pressed his hands almost convulsively, and he felt her trembling under the fur robe.
Is it true, he said, that ghastly tragedy?
Yes.
All died?
All.
Estridge turned to Brisson: Miss Dumont was companion to the Grand Duchess Marie, he said in brief explanation.
Brisson nodded, biting his cigar.
The Swedish girl-soldier said: They were devotedthe little Grand Duchess and Palla It was horrible, there in the convent cellarthose young girls She gazed out across the snow; then,
The Reds who did it had already made me prisoner They arrested me in uniform after the decree disbanding us I was on my way to join Kaledines Cossacksa rendezvous Well, the Reds left me outside the convent and went in to do their bloody work. And I gnawed the rope and ran into the chapel to hide among the nuns. And there I saw a White Nunquite crazed with grief
I had heard the volley that killed her, said Palla, in explanation, to nobody in particular. She sat staring out across the snow with dry, bright eyes.
Brisson looked askance at her, looked significantly at the Swedish girl, Ilse Westgard: And what happened then? he inquired, with the pleasant, impersonal manner of a physician.
Ilse said: Palla had already begun her novitiate. But what happened in those terrible moments changed her utterly I think she went mad at the moment Then the Superior came to me and begged me to hide Palla because the Bolsheviki had promised to return and cut her throat when they had finished their bloody business in the crypt So I caught her up in my arms and I ran out into the convent grounds. And at that very moment, God be thanked, a sotnia of the Wild Division rode up looking for me. And they had led horses with them. And we were in the saddle and riding like maniacs before I could think. That is all, except, an hour ago we saw your sleigh.
You have been hiding with the Cossacks ever since! exclaimed Estridge to Palla.
That is her history, replied Ilse, and mine. And, she added cheerfully but tenderly, my little comrade, here, is very, very homesick, very weary, very deeply and profoundly unhappy in the loss of her closest friend and perhaps in the loss of her faith in God.
I am tranquil and I am not unhappy,said Palla. And if I ever win free of this murderous country I shall, for the first time in my life, understand what the meaning of life really is. And shall know how to live.
You thought you knew how to live when you took the white veil, said Ilse cheerfully. Perhaps, after all, you may make other errors before you learn the truth about it all. Who knows? You might even care to take the veil again
Never! cried Palla in a clear, hard little voice, tinged with the scorn and anger of that hot revolt which sometimes shakes youth to the very source of its vitality.
Ilse said very calmly to Estridge: With me it is my reason and not mere hope that convinces me of Gods existence. I try to reason with Palla because one is indeed to be pitied who has lost belief in God
You are mistaken, said Palla drily; one merely becomes ones self when once the belief in that sort of God is ended.
Ilse turned to Brisson: That, she said, is what seems so impossible for some to acceptso terriblethe apparent indifference, the lack of explanationGods dreadful reticence in this thunderous whirlwind of prayer that storms skyward day and night from our martyred world.
Palla, listening, sat forward and said to Brisson: There is only one religion and it has only two preceptslove and give! The restthe forms, observances, creeds, ceremonies, threats, promises, are man-made trash!
If mans man-made God pleases him, let him worship him. That kind of deity does not please me. I no longer care whether He pleases me or not. He no longer exists as far as I am concerned.