“Well,” answered the soldiers, “we are only fighting because we are ordered to.” “Aren’t you Bolsheviks, then?” “No, nothing of the sort.” “Would you fight for the Czar?” “Yes, certainly, if we were ordered to.” The Bolshevik theory of equality between officers and men worked out as it always will do under stress of actual danger. On one occasion two scouts were wanted to carry a message across a valley infested with Cossacks. A whole company refused, one after the other. At last the only two educated men in the ranks volunteered. They had held back, not out of cowardice, but merely because they had been doing all the dangerous work for the company since the fighting began. It was interesting to watch the Bolshevik general with his men. They used to come slouching in from patrol and the general would try to get a report from them. He had to put on a jovial, hail-fellow-well-met air and clap them heartily on the back, saying, “Now, comrade, what have you been doing with yourself?” The comrade might, or might not, have seen something of the enemy. Then the general, with extreme politeness, as of a shopwalker conducting a lady to the silk-counter, would suggest, “Now, comrade, do you think you could just go and have a look along those houses over there?” “Oh no,” said the soldiers, “we are hungry, comrade. We must go and have our dinner.” And the poor general had to wait about in the cold, until he could coax or wheedle some soldier into doing that bit of patrol for him. We were privileged to be in the thick of the fighting. Our house was the nearest of the regimental buildings to the Cossacks and the most exposed to danger. On the first night a desperate struggle took place half a mile to the north of us, where the Cossacks tried to rush a Bolshevik battery. In our courtyard the air was alive with the singing of bullets, but this did not prevent us from paying or receiving visits. And then, amid the thunder of artillery, the rattle of machine-guns, and all the tumult of a battle, a report was brought to us that a mad dog in the neighbourhood had broken loose and bitten a woman, and therefore it was not advisable for us to venture out of doors! This anti-climax was too much for us, and we gave way to helpless laughter. Next morning we were in a more serious mood. During breakfast we noticed a Bolshevik soldier crouching down under our window. We asked him what he was doing. He explained that in the night the Cossacks had driven them back and that our house was now the foremost point in the Bolshevik line. We went out to have a look, and could see the Cossacks converging in upon us, while just behind our garden the Bolsheviks were advancing in open order. With all possible speed we packed a few things together and made our way through the Bolshevik lines to the barracks, bullets whistling past our ears, or burying themselves with a dull thud in the snow as we passed. At the barracks we found the remaining officers of the regiment, and their