Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

Most of the attackers wielded savage-looking knives or swords and only a few carried pistols or rifles. From experience, Ned knew that edged weapons were more dangerous than firearms in rebel hands, for while few Moros could shoot straight, nearly all were master swordsmen and superb athletes, easily capable of closing in fast to lop off a head or an arm before a soldier could raise his weapon to fire. And the rebels’ will to fight was rooted in a fervent belief that a devout Muslim warrior who took the life of an infidel would instantly go to heaven if killed while hacking and stabbing away at his enemies.

The Moro ambushers raced forward to attack but were quickly cut down by deadly rifle fire and close-range blasts from the Americans’ Model 1911 .45-caliber self-loading pistols, whose heavy copper-jacketed slugs were capable of stopping a charging horse in its tracks. Then, all at once, Ned felt a fresh stab of pain in his shoulder. He turned to find his platoon sergeant shouting at him to hold still as he attempted to withdraw the spear. Then, with the attack driven off and his men out of danger, Ned’s vision clouded, his strength ebbed, and he slumped slowly forward onto his horse’s sweat-drenched neck.

Chapter 2: Transbaikalia

“The good old rule,

Sufficeth them, the simple plan,
That they should take, who have the power
And they should keep who can.”

—William Wordsworth

Musical Theme: The Seasons, Op. 67, Summer, by Alexander Glazunov

LATE NOVEMBER, 1918, IRKUTSK

Ned awoke with a gasp. In his nightmare, he had felt the pain of the Moro spear in his left shoulder, as he had scores of times in dreams since leaving the army hospital and returning to garrison duty in Manila. The skirmish had won him a decoration for bravery and a promotion to captain. But something inside him had changed. He wanted no more of guerrilla warfare, of the endless jungle hide-and-seek with an unseen enemy. Fighting these poor, ignorant devils was pointless. To subdue them would take decades, if it could be done at all. Not that he was battle-shy. No, he was ready to get back on horseback after falling off, but he wanted a different horse. He wanted a real war—a war like in Belgium and France. And, oddly enough, that desire was exactly what had landed him in Siberia, whose capital was roughly midway between Manila and Paris and more than three thousand miles from each.

In the light of a sputtering oil lamp, Ned looked around the rented dormitory room at the former girls’ school in Irkutsk. This was the temporary quarters where he and a dozen other Allied officers had slept on the floor for the past several nights while awaiting an American military train for the next leg of their journey to the Siberian capital at Omsk. The room’s crudely planked floor was covered with tightly packed bodies, most of them huddled around the blazing tile stove to stay warm. The air was filled with the odors of wet wool, stale sweat, alcoholic breath, and the reek of cheap Russian tobacco. Ned sat up in the gloom and rummaged in his rucksack for the evil-looking blue bottle of bootleg vodka he had bought in Chita. He took a long pull, gasped from the burning in his throat as it went down, stowed the bottle away again, and sank back into to a deep and dreamless sleep.

* * *

Ned awoke again shortly after dawn, with the sun barely above the horizon and shining diffusely through an overcast sky. By now, all but two of his fellow soldiers had departed. The last pair had staggered in after a drinking bout and had not stirred since. Ned sat up and felt a powerful itch at his wrists and ankles. In the next instant, he saw a fat louse fleeing from where he had intended to scratch. ”Lice are only lice. You don’t count them in the trenches,“ a veteran of the Spanish-American War had once told him. But lice carried typhus, and years of war had spread typhus epidemics all across Russia. Never mind, he would manage to stay healthy somehow. He had to, for he was alone in Siberia, far from any American hospital or military base. And that situation might not change until his mission was over.

Ned looked at his watch and realized that he had less than an hour to get ready before he was scheduled to meet his Russian liaison officer. Throwing on a fresh tunic, he packed his bedroll hastily, gathered his wash kit, and strode off to the lavatory to clean up for the day ahead. There would be just enough time to wolf down a bowl of kasha gruel with a mug of sweet black tea at the school’s canteen.