In a low voice, for fear of wounding the Colonel’s pride, Baklanov explained to me. “You see, I am the chairman of the Committee. We control the Battalion absolutely, except in action, when the Colonel is delegated by us to command. In action his orders must be obeyed, but he is strictly responsible to us. In barracks he must ask our permission before taking any action…. You might call him our Executive Officer….” Arms were distributed to us, revolvers and rifles—“we might meet some Cossacks, you know”—and we all piled into the ambulance, together with three great bundles of newspapers for the front. Straight down the Liteiny we rattled, and along the Zagorodny Prospekt. Next to me sat a youth with the shoulder-straps of a Lieutenant, who seemed to speak all European languages with equal fluency. He was a member of the Battalion Committee. “I am not a Bolshevik,” he assured me, emphatically. “My family is a very ancient and noble one. I, myself, am, you might say, a Cadet….” “But how—?” I began, bewildered. “Oh, yes, I am a member of the Committee. I make no secret of my political opinions, but the others do not mind, because they know I do not believe in opposing the will of the majority…. I have refused to take any action in the present civil war, however, for I do not believe in taking up arms against my brother Russians….” “Provocator! Kornilovitz!” the others cried at him gaily, slapping him on the shoulder…. Passing under the huge grey stone archway of the Moskovsky Gate, covered with golden hieroglyphics, ponderous Imperial eagles and the names of Tsars, we sped out on the wide straight highway, grey with the first light fall of snow. It was thronged with Red Guards, stumbling along on foot toward the revolutionary front, shouting and singing; and others, greyfaced and muddy, coming back. Most of them seemed to be mere boys. Women with spades, some with rifles and bandoleers, others wearing the Red Cross on their arm-bands—the bowed, toil-worn women of the slums. Squads of soldiers marching out of step, with an affectionate jeer for the Red Guards; sailors, grim-looking; children with bundles of food for their fathers and mothers; all these, coming and going, trudged through the whitened mud that covered the cobbles of the highway inches deep. We passed cannon, jingling southward with their caissons; trucks bound both ways, bristling with armed men; ambulances full of wounded from the direction of the battle, and once a peasant cart, creaking slowly along, in which sat a white-faced boy bent over his shattered stomach and screaming monotonously. In the fields on either side women and old men were digging trenches and stringing barbed wire entanglements.