The Red Reign: The True Story of an Adventurous Year in RussiaDurland, Kellogg
History
The Red Reign: The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia
Durland, Kellogg
Russia -- Politics and government -- 1894-1917
Nearly an hour had passed since we had left Paul, and I had begun to
wonder about him, when again the countersign rap was heard on the door.
A soldier sauntered in and directly over to one of the windows, which he
raised, and tossed a cigarette into the street. This proved a signal to
a group who were waiting below and who presently joined us. With them
was Paul, but so marvelously changed that I caught my breath as my eye
fell upon him. His long, towsled hair of an hour before was now closely
clipped, his face shaved clean, and he wore the uniform of a sailor, a
round pancake hat sitting jauntily over one ear. Under his arm he
carried a bundle done up in a newspaper. Coming toward me he handed me
the bundle and said:
“Go into the next room and put on these things.”
The spirit of the game filled me when I cut the string and tore the
newspapers off a Russian sailor suit. In the Caucasus I had worn the
uniform of a Cossack officer and hobnobbed with the loyalest supporters
of the Czar. Now I was to wear the costume of an ordinary seaman and
conspire with the arch enemies of czardom. I made the change quickly and
reappeared a sailor laddie with the name of a proud man-o’-war stamped
in gilt letters around my cap. As I pressed into the crowd of bona fide
sailors in the room, I was conscious of feeling distinctly less at ease
than when first I donned my Cossack outfit, but perhaps conscience made
the difference. There is no doubt about it: loyal revolutionists though
these people be and imbued with the martyr spirit--they yet find a
fascination in intrigue and masquerading that is not altogether without
its pleasurable thrill and has in it the element of the childish love of
“dressing up.”
The “comrades” hailed my coming with louder glee than discretion, and I
was viewed from all points by critical eyes. Paul then disclosed to me
the plan. I was next to be shaved and shorn. During the afternoon we
would attend a conspirative meeting and at sunset he and I would join a
boatload of sailors returning to their ship from shore leave and be
smuggled aboard the cruiser whose name we both wore on our caps. He and
I would be stowed away below, and late at night, when the ever
suspicious officers would be less watchful, we would hold a meeting for
the sailors. At least, Paul would hold the meeting and I would stand by
and encourage the cause by my presence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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