In exceptionally difficult conditions, surrounded by troops of the Red Army, we formed a new detachment under the command of Colonel X (I cannot give the colonel's name; he is still carrying on guerilla warfare with the Soviet power in the Caucasus). Our detachment, despite its small numbers, waged warfare of a kind with success, and we were beginning to think of operations on a larger scale, when we unexpectedly lost the support on which we absolutely depended and counted; the famous "national rebellion" took place in Georgia. In reality the country was occupied, almost without resistance, by regular troops of the Red Army. Our detachment retired fighting through the wild mountains to Batoum. Here part of it was broken up and turned into larger or smaller bodies of insurgents, part left for Anatolia. I made my way to Ajaristan. Thence communication was established with Trebizond, where Y lived; his name, too, I cannot give in full for the reason stated above. Until the autumn of 1922 we and Y organised frequent raids on the Soviet Russian frontier. Then, as now, the unofficial direction of the whole insurgent movement in the Caucasus was in the hands of the well-known Colonel Tchelokaeff. Thanks to extensive help from the population, which sympathises with the "Whites," and to his own bravery and skill, the Bolsheviks have found Tchelokaeff quite uncatchable. I know for a fact that the "Gruztcheka" (Georgian Tcheka) and "Zaktcheka" (Trans-Caucasian Tcheka)[1] have repeatedly attempted to buy him; they have repeatedly offered him huge sums in gold simply to leave the Caucasus. They even offered him a villa in any country in Europe he liked to name. The elusive colonel, however, rejected these proposals with disgust, and is still carrying out surprise attacks on one or another stronghold of the Soviet power in the Caucasus. Between Tchelokaeff and the Communist authorities of the Caucasus a peculiar treaty exists. The colonel's family has for several years been confined in the Metekh[2] at Tiflis, a prison notorious for the cruelties practised there. The Bolsheviks, of course, would have shot them long ago, had not Tchelokaeff captured and hidden in a remote spot, as hostages, several of the most prominent representatives of the Soviet power. When the colonel heard that his family had been arrested, he sent the following letter to the presidential body of the Georgian Tcheka: "I shall send forty Communists' heads in a sack for each member of my family murdered by you. — Colonel Tchelokaeff." So the Tchelokaeff family and the Communist hostages are still alive. [Footnote 1: i.e., _Gruzinskaya_ (Georgian) and _Zakavkazkaya_ (Trans-Caucasian) Tcheka.] [Footnote 2: The former palace of the Georgian kings, used as a prison for many years past.] CHAPTER II A FAMOUS "AMNESTY" _My Foolish Credulity — A Boy Tchekist — Taken Out to be Shot — Mutual Reprisals — A Gallant Mountaineer — Identified by an Imbecile._