IX A RED SWEATER AND THE GENERAL

It happened that I wanted to get off at a little station, called Bira. And I understood that the Japanese troop-train would stop there to feed and water, making a sufficient stop for me to visit the company of American soldiers quartered in box-cars on a siding. But we whisked through Bira at an early hour, and we were well down the line toward Khabarovsk, before I learned of the change of plans of the train commander.

But I planned to leave the train the next morning, and double back, visiting our detachments on the way. Besides, I wished to locate a certain English-speaking Russian, who wore a red sweater and made it his business to work or loaf wherever we had soldiers and to mingle with them to strike up acquaintances. This man had worked several years in the United States, and he was busy at his special propaganda among our troops.

It was not so much his work and spying which I wished to investigate, but I was interested in his methods, and I wished to determine if possible who was supplying him with money and who was directing his efforts. He was not merely a man who professed a dislike for the United States, but he evidently belonged to a coterie which was well instructed as to how to build up an enmity between the Russians and the Americans.

I had talked with this man twice, or rather he had sought me out and tested my knowledge on what the United States intended to do in Russia. I had discussed matters with him as if he were what he pretended to be—an uneducated working man. As a matter of fact he had been a lawyer in Michigan, making a poor living among Russian and other immigrants, and none too ethical in his ways of making money.

Such detachment commanders as I had talked with on the way up, when asked as to suspicious characters, all declared that they had noticed no persons who appeared to be worthy of attention—and all told me of Red Sweater. The usual story about him was about this:

“There is a man in a red sweater who worked here on the track a few days, with the section hands. He talks English. He hung around our men, generally showing up at mess-time, and asking for some American food. He has ‘joshed’ the men about being in this country, but they don’t pay any attention to him. He finally went away, and we haven’t seen him for a couple of weeks. But he doesn’t amount to anything—just kind of a poor simpleton, who thinks he knows it all because he can talk a little English.”

That sounded reasonable enough the first time I heard it. The next time I heard it, I began to take notice, and a day or so later, Red Sweater attached himself to my train in the capacity of a provodnik, a man who keeps up the fires, pretends to sweep the car, and gives out the candles.

Red Sweater worked first on my interpreter, and then felt his way along with me in English. At that time, I was confident that our expedition would take such action as was necessary for the good of Russia, and in time proceed to establish a new Russian front against Germany in association with all the available forces of our Allies. Of course, this was some time before the armistice, or early in October. But I professed to be entirely out of sympathy with any American action in Russia. That attitude was far more likely to bring to my attention such Russians, or enemy agents, as secretly opposed us, than an attitude of desiring aggressive action by my country. And in their eagerness to find an American who upheld their contention, Bolshevist agents and others, walked into the little trap and revealed their lines of propaganda. It is remarkable how the person who appears to be a malcontent, attracts the professional agitators—they seem overjoyed at the prospect of making a convert, or in having their reasoning and actions justified by others not in their circle.

And Red Sweater was dangerous, not because of the falsity of the things he said, but on account of the truths he uttered, and his subtlety in perverting truth to fit his ideas and theories. It was probably such chaps, working among our troops in Archangel, which caused the reported “mutiny” in our forces there—just “kind of a poor simpleton,” saying silly things, and not worthy of attention.

Red Sweater was clever in his ways. He made no statements on his own responsibility, but always quoted the “Russian people.” As I listened to his arguments, I was led to believe that he must have held a plebecite which included every inhabitant of Siberia and European Russia, and to him alone, had been revealed the desires and intentions of two hundred million inhabitants.

“The Russian people do not trust the United States,” he said glibly, after he was assured that I was “safe.” “You are a capitalistic nation, and they know it. You say you are friends of the Russian people but the Russian people ask: ‘Why are you fighting Russian people near Archangel if you are our friends?’

“You are not fighting the Russian people here. They ask why not? And their answer is: ‘The capitalists of the United States do not fight us here, because they wish to steal our trans-Siberian railroad.’

“The Russian people say they have freed themselves of capitalists. The United States say they are free people—but the capitalists of the United States have conscripted the ‘free’ working men of the United States, and compelled them to come here to Russia to fight the free Russian working men. That is what the Russian people say. You think you are serving your country by being here. The Russian people say you are serving your capitalists, to again enslave the Russian working men. The Russian people say they have a right to run their own country in their own way, but the capitalists of the United States send an army of conscripts over here to prevent the Russian people from keeping their freedom. If the working men of the United States were satisfied with their country, would they want a Russian army to go over there, and tell them how to run it? But the Russian people know that the people of the United States did not send this conscript army over here—the capitalists did that. And for that reason the Russian people do not want to fight you—they do not want you to fight them. Japan and England do not want a republic here—they want to put the Czar back. Both those countries have thrones, and their rulers do not want to see new republics. And the reason they want to see the Czar back here, is that they can make secret treaties with the Czar, but they could not make secret treaties if we had a government of the people. The Russian people say the American capitalists sent an army here to help Japan and England put the Czar back on his throne. If he is put back on the throne, and partly by your help, are you sure that the Czar, the Emperor of Japan, and the King of England, will not combine, and some day send their armies to force the people of the United States into having an Emperor? The Russian people say to you: ‘Comrades, we understand. You, too, must overthrow your capitalists, as we have done, and control your own country for the benefit of the working men.’ The Russian people say you are not free yet—no man is free, if he can be conscripted for the benefit of capitalists, and sent to the other side of the world to fight the working men of another country.”

And some officers thought Red Sweater did not “amount to anything.” This was because they had no way of knowing that his itinerary included every station where American troops might be found, and because he was clever enough to look like a poor tramp, and wise enough to act the fool when the occasion demanded that he conceal his purposes.

He deserted my train after he had traveled far enough to plant his insidious propaganda in my mind. The next time I saw him, he did his best to get me to ask the Japanese troop-train commander to let him ride with us. I did no such thing, whereupon he concealed himself between the cars, and I was now interested to see at what point he would leave us. This was one of the reasons I was willing enough to pass through Bira.

The night following our passage through Bira, I got to sleep about ten o’clock. At a quarter to eleven I woke with a start, for no apparent reason. D—— was sleeping soundly beside me, and my interpreter was snoring on an upper shelf. The train was toiling up hills slowly, and then dashing down the other side recklessly, or so it seemed to me. Many bridges had been blown out by the Bolshevists, and small rivers and gullies were crossed by the railroad over temporary trackage, laid on amazing grades, and poorly ballasted, for the purpose of making detours around the wrecked bridges.

I felt the train making painful progress up a slope. The engine puffed laboriously. We reached the crest of the hill, and suddenly began to go down at a rapidly increasing rate, and at the same time I missed the noise of the engine, some thirty or forty cars ahead. Our car was the last on the train.

There was a terrific crash, far ahead, and then every moveable thing on our car started for the front end. My interpreter was hurled off his shelf amid all the cooking utensils and food in the car, D—— was slammed up against the side of the section, and I skidded on my elbows out on the floor, barely avoiding taking an iron support which held the shelf above me, off with my head.

The car swung round sidewise and lurched downward, and amid the sound of rending timbers, appeared to be headed for a river below. I was sure we had gone through a blown-out bridge.

But the derailed car settled over gently on its side, and came to rest. We got out as quickly as possible, not sure that the wrecked train was safe from attack by Bolshevists. Under a cold, clear sky, we saw that the train had been shattered in the center, the wreck occurring on a sharp down grade between the banks of a cut. Several of the small and light box-cars, containing horses and Japanese soldiers, had been smashed, but the damage was not great, due to the fact that the shock had been absorbed by the cars bulging upward into an inverted V. The Japanese were busily engaged in getting out horses, and in checking up their men, to ascertain if any had been killed. There were a few minor injuries.

It was too cold to linger outside long in my pajamas, and I went back to the car, and finding our electric flashlights, sorted ourselves out and went back to sleep. In the morning we learned just what had happened.

The train had broken open in the middle at the crest of the hill. The engine, with the forward half, had run down into the valley over temporary trackage. Then the engineer discovered what had happened. The tail end of his train was just gaining headway over the crest, and coming down with increasing speed. So, in order to go back and get it, he reversed his engine and came back at top speed, meeting us in the cut when we had acquired good speed from the descending grade. It was a splendid example of how not to recapture the runaway half of a troop-train.

RUSSIAN SOLDIERS CLEARING THE TRACK
AFTER A WRECK ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN

JAPANESE OFFICERS TALKING WITH AN
AMERICAN OFFICER

That is an impartial description of what happened. But there was every reason to believe that the engineer, working with a confederate aboard the train, knew the train would be split at the proper place to allow the engine to get away, and then come back with the most disastrous results. And I believe that Red Sweater split the train, for when a wrecking train came the next morning to clear the tracks, the engine of our train and such cars as would travel, going ahead to the next station to allow the wreckers to get in at the smashed cars, Red Sweater rode away with the first load of battered cars pulled out.

During that day, and the best part of that night, the Russian wrecking crew worked and talked and drank tea, on a job that would have taken an American wrecking crew, two hours. Before a pair of broken trucks could be ditched, there must be a discussion which suggested the Duma in action against the Czar. But the Japanese, stoical and silent, were not fooled—they recognized as fine a piece of sabotage as had ever been produced.

When we resumed our journey, we three were nearly famished for want of food. We had brewed tea, and consumed a string-load of pretzels, and as the Japanese had not noticed that we were short of supplies, we had refrained from asking for any of their food.

Train schedules were so upset, that I figured I might as well go on to Khabarovsk, and get the next train out again to Bira. In the meantime I might pick up the trail of Red Sweater among the railway detachments strung along the line.

So we made a long stop at a station called Poperoffka, some fifteen versts from Khabarovsk. There was a platoon of Americans there, commanded by a lieutenant, quartered in box-cars. D——, my interpreter and myself lost no time in getting to the kitchen-car, where we bought canned tomatoes, potatoes, bread and coffee, and bribed the cook to prepare a meal.

There we learned that the Commanding General had passed through, bound north in a private car, with a private engine. And just as I had attacked a mess-kit full of corned beef, my first square meal in a week, soldiers came to inform the lieutenant in command, that the Commanding General was returning, and that he was leaving his private car with his staff.

General Graves was making a tour of inspection. He visited our kitchen-car, with a dozen or more officers. He was puzzled because he had just visited a station where the commanding officer had not heard of my presence in that part of the country. He was very wroth because he had found some commanding officers away from their commands on hunting excursions, and as it turned out, one of these officers had talked to me on the up trip, and later left in command one of his subalterns who had recently joined from Vladivostok, and naturally could not know I was prowling about in that part of Siberia.

I preferred to leave General Graves puzzled as to ignorance at that place about me, for if I had made too full an explanation, the officer concerned, already in the bad graces of his Commanding General, might have been disciplined. And General Graves, travelling in a special train with right of way over everything, appeared to have no appreciation of the difficulty of travel on intermittent passenger trains. And some members of the personal staff, accustomed to travel in such special trains, persisted in regarding the trans-Siberian line as if it were part of, say, the New York Central system. Being a Commanding General has its disadvantages under such circumstances.

General Graves suggested that I go back to Bira. As I had lost considerable sleep and worn out several time-tables figuring out how I could go back to Bira, I was in hearty accord with the General’s wishes on the subject. And I eventually carried them out. And certain officers, fully aware of what had happened, told the General some time later that trains on the trans-Siberian line could not be trusted to make the time between different points which the time-tables promised.

And up to the time I left Siberia, those in the know generally greeted me at mess, with: “Go back to Bira,” which always gave us a good laugh—at my expense.

And by going back to Bira, I lost the trail of Red Sweater, for the last sight I had of him, was from that kitchen-car at Popperoffka. He was evidently trailing General Graves’s special train.