Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

“Sadly,” Barrows continued, “the Bolshevik coup came at a moment when the people’s morale had been so shattered that they were prepared to endure almost anything in hopes of being left alone. But the Reds have not left them alone. On the contrary, they have brought about oppression unequalled in human history. Thousands have been executed without even the mockery of a trial. Thousands more are left to rot in prisons under conditions scarcely to be imagined.”

The colonel shook his head in disgust before carrying on.

“What the outside world has only recently come to see is that Bolshevism is just another form of autocracy: tsarism turned on its head. Stripped of all pretense, it amounts to the age-old notion that one person, or an enlightened few, know best and deserve a monopoly on power, unrestrained by law or the popular will. And such tyranny can be initiated and maintained only by violence, which is the complete opposite of self-determination.”

“So you believe that Admiral Kolchak and his crowd are different somehow? That they would be better for the average Russian, and not just for the upper classes?” Ned asked, still skeptical. “And that America has a right to put its thumb on the scales in someone else’s civil war?”

“I do, so help me,” Barrows replied, holding up a hand as if to swear an oath. “And though the frozen wastes of Siberia are a terrible place for American soldiers to endure yet another year of war, it falls upon men like you and me to ensure that Admiral Kolchak drives the Bolsheviks out of Russia and prevents the Red infection from spreading to Europe and beyond. Because if we make a mess of it, all of Russia’s sacrifices during the Great War and its present civil war will have been for naught. And when historians write of the American expedition to Siberia, the kindest judgment we can hope from them will be, ‘What the hell was that about, anyway?’”

* * *

Despite the sobering effect of the colonel’s briefing, Ned left the consulate buoyed by one small bit of good news. Rather than travel to Omsk aboard a spartan troop or munitions train, he would make the weeklong journey in a private train specially chartered to deliver American Red Cross staff and their supplies to cities across Siberia. Barrows had expressed regret that the privilege could not be extended to Staff Captain Ivashov, who would be obliged to follow aboard a later troop train. Even in the face of Ned’s refusal to travel without Ivashov, Barrows remained firm, ordering Ned to take the Red Cross train for his own security and that of his intelligence mission.

Ned delivered the news to Ivashov later that afternoon when the Russian arrived at the girls’ school to take Ned on a tour of the city.

“I’m sorry to disrupt the plans we made, Igor Ivanovich, but we won’t be traveling together to Omsk,” he began with downcast eyes. “I have to leave tonight on a special American train. I tried to get you a berth on it but couldn’t.” Though such things didn’t generally need explaining in the army, Ned felt awkward all the same.

“It’s nothing,” Ivashov replied without changing his expression. “Better for you. No Bolshevik agents.”

Then the two men shook hands and agreed to meet at the American Consulate in Omsk after both had arrived in the capital. Ivashov returned to his droshky without looking back and Ned returned to his room to pack his belongings.

Now that his immediate future was settled, Ned began looking forward to the weeklong trip. En route to the railway station, he even felt a new appreciation for Irkutsk, with its tree-lined avenues and modern stone buildings trimmed with wrought iron in imitation of Baron Haussmann’s creations in Paris. Somehow the clamor of the city seemed to retreat into those stone buildings, muffling and softening its force. And along the side streets, he admired Irkutsk’s wooden merchants’ houses, with their painted shutters and whitewashed fences.

As his droshky passed through throngs of Russians headed to and from the railway station, Ned took particular interest in the exotic species of natives he saw on the street. Among them were Old Believers,[15] at once ascetic and industrious, wearing long untrimmed beards, shoulder-length hair, high-collared caftans, and tall boots. Less exotic, though no less intriguing, were the hard-worn Russian peasant women wrapped in threadbare shawls and faded kerchiefs, pulling carloads of firewood and butchered carcasses to market like beasts of burden. These contrasted sharply with gaggles of upper class teenage girls, neat and pretty in their fur-trimmed coats, hats, and mufflers.