While this was going on and the soldiers in the rear were holding the meeting the news arrived of the overthrow of Kerensky and the Bolshevists’ victory in Petrograd. It was announced to the men by the Chairman and was hailed with such an outburst of enthusiasm that the shouts almost drowned the rattling of the machine guns. “Peace! Peace!!” thundered through the air. “We will leave the front now! We are going home! Hurrah for Lenin! Hurrah for Trotzky! Hurrah for Kolontay!” “Land and freedom! Bread! Down with the bourgeoisie!” As the rejoicing was at its height, the ears of the multitude suddenly caught the sound of the shooting at my sector. The men were roused to fury. “Kill her! Kill them all! We have peace now!” they roared as they stampeded in our direction. Several girls dashed up to me to tell me of the approach of the bloodthirsty mob. Almost simultaneously the Commanding General rang up on the field telephone. “Run!” was his first word. “We are all lost. I am escaping myself. Go to Krasnoye Selo!” I ordered my girls to seize their rifles and whatever belongings they could and run without stopping. To one of the men instructors I gave the direction in which we were to go, asking him to transmit the information to our supply detachment. Meanwhile the mob was advancing. It encountered in the immediate rear about twenty of my girls, who were engaged in the supporting line. These twenty girls were lynched by the maddened mob. Four of the instructors, who made an attempt to defend these innocent women, were crushed under the heels of the savage crowd. I and my remaining soldiers ran for ten miles. Although we could see no sign of pursuers we ran no risks. We stopped in the woods beside the road to Molodechno. It was dark. We drank tea for supper and prepared sleeping quarters under the trees. Our supply train came up during the night and was intercepted by one of the sentries. We were up at four in the morning. I had a connection made with the telephone wire running to Army Headquarters at Molodechno and talked to the officer in charge, telling him of our approach and asking for dugouts. The officer replied that Molodechno was overflowing with deserters and that it was as dangerous a place for the Battalion as the front itself. But what could I do? I had to go somewhere. I could not very well continue living in the forest. It was an awful situation. We had escaped from one mob, leaving twenty victims in its hands, and were running straight into the arms of another, perhaps even more bloodthirsty. So we resumed our march. Within two miles of Molodechno I led the Battalion far into the woods and left it there with the supply detachment, comprising twenty-five men. I went to Molodechno alone, having decided to make preliminary investigations and see what was to be done. Groups of soldiers here and there, in the streets of Molodechno, stopped me with jeering remarks: