Part 25
The cars were met by a vast crowd at the railroad-station, which cheered them tumultuously. The returning exiles returned the cheers, but they were in a deplorable physical condition--shaggy, uncouth, unwashed, and extremely emaciated.
Many were crippled with rheumatism, two had lost hands and feet from frostbites, and one, who attempted flight a week before the revolution, had been shot in the leg when he was recaptured. He was lying in a prison-hospital when he learned that he was a free man.
Five days after the triumph of the revolution 6,000 exiles entered Irkutsk, but the vast majority were unable to proceed west, owing to the lack of rolling-stock. These encamped about the town and along the railroad, and at least a month will be needed before they can be sent home.
The crowds at Tyumen cheered the famous terrorist, Nicolai Anuikhin, who shot and killed the chief of the Petrograd-Warsaw Railway in 1906. His victim, General Fuchloff, was about to kidnap 400 railroad strikers and send them to Siberia.
Anuikhin, who introduced himself as "a released jailbird," is a gigantic, broad-shouldered, elderly man, with a gray imperial and an excited manner of speech. He said:
"After one year in European convict prisons I spent ten years in the Alexandrovsk prison, fifty miles from Irkutsk. This is the biggest convict jail in Russia and contained 12,000 ordinary criminals and about 500 political prisoners, mostly sentenced to life _katroga_, the severest form of Russian punishment short of death.
"I spent the first five years in the so-called probation class, with hands and feet manacled and chained to a wheelbarrow which I had to take everywhere. In addition I was repeatedly flogged by order of the Governor. The Assistant Governor, during the absence of his chief, ordered daily floggings for his own satisfaction.
"The occupants of the different dormitories communicated by means of tappings and other systems of signaling. Although we also had means of communication with the outside world, we knew nothing of the revolution until the morning of our release.
"After our release we learned that the Assistant Governor, on getting the news of the revolution, declared that he would give a farewell flogging, 'in order to prepare my jailbirds for sweet liberty.'"
Among the political prisoners from Tobolsk was Alexander Popoff. He was sentenced to death for an alleged plot against the Emperor, a charge which he declares was a fabrication by the police. Popoff, who is a highly intelligent artizan, was chained by the wrists and ankles for four years. In describing his release, he says:
"A most remarkable feature of amnesty day in Tobolsk was the sudden demand for blacksmiths. The prison blacksmith, fearing the vengeance of the convicts, fled, and private blacksmiths, in the general orgy of revolutionary triumph, could not be found.
"In the meantime sixty chained men waited for their liberation. The newly formed committee of public safety, unable to find blacksmiths, drove the still chained convicts to the dismissed Governor's palace, where a banquet had been prepared, and we had our first free meal. Above the din of speeches and cheers for the Russian Republic could be heard the jangling of our shackles."
The news of the revolution reached the prisoners in Siberia by various channels, but in all cases the announcement was unexpected and dramatic. In several places the police were wise enough to tell the news themselves in order to escape the danger of suddenly finding themselves in the power of men they had abused with impunity for years. The exiles rarely rose against their jailers. Basil Muravin, once a social revolutionist, tells this story:
"When the revolution occurred I was in the small Udinsk transport-prison awaiting the arrival of other convicts for dispatch together to the east. I had long lost hope of pardon when I learned that I was free. The discovery came in a most dramatic way. I was at the time in chains as a newcomer of unknown character. I heard a sudden shouting and afterward a terrific rifle-firing. It sounded as if a million cartridges had exploded in quick succession.
"Next bullets began to fly over the prison-yard. Finally a bullet cut the halyard of the Russian flag which waved over the prison-building. The flag dropped on the roof and shortly afterward a crowd stormed the prison and hoisted there a revolutionary ensign. My last experience of the old régime was a visit by the former Governor of the jail, who, fearing retaliation, begged me to sign a statement acquitting him of ill-treatment. Though his treatment of the convicts had been bad, I agreed, not desiring to mar Russia's new freedom by acts of petty vengeance."
In another case the priests announced the revolution in the churches.
Fifty exiles, who were in the congregation, rushed out, determined on vengeance on the local police-captain, who was a wanton tyrant. They were met by the policeman's ten-year-old daughter, who stood before her father and exclaimed, "Kill me first!" The child's action saved the captain's life.
II--STORY OF THE HUSSAR WHO ESCAPED FROM SIBERIA
This is the tale of a Hussar who had escaped twice from Russian prisons, faced murder, come half-round the world, and ran the British blockade. He was a reserve officer in the Austrian Army, a Hungarian captain in a famous regiment of Hussars. He was stationed in the fortress at Peremysl when the Russians advanced into the Karpathians and took the city. Taken prisoner, he was marched off to a detention camp near the front where the officers were separated from the soldiers. The men disappeared, but the officers were taken to a military prison near Odessa.
The prison fare was not particularly bad, but the monotony of the place was dreadful. Shut up as they were without anything to think of, they began to have all kinds of imaginary grievances--principally against one another. "If half the challenges to deadly combat are carried out there will be a duel a minute after the war," he says. It got to be positively ludicrous. Pompous and sensitive enough in all conscience in ordinary circumstances, the German and Austrian officers, under the nervous conditions of prison life, lived under a hair-trigger. If you accidentally bumped into a man on your morning walk, or if you forgot to bow in the usual manner, you promptly had a challenge to a duel--to be fought after the war, as there was nothing to fight with in prison.
Having been brought up along the Galician borders, this Hungarian spoke Russian like a native. This fact encouraged him to make an attempt to escape.
For some remarkable reason the Russians had allowed the captured officers to retain all their money. He himself had several thousand dollars in his pockets. When it became whispered around that he intended to make a getaway, other officers asked him to carry money back to their families. The result was that when he slipped away he had nearly $30,000 in cash on his person.
He didn't tell me exactly how he managed to get away, but I inferred that it was through the bribery of some of the prison guards. At any rate he slipped out of the prison one night and turned eastward. His general plan was to make his way down through the passes of the Caucasus Mountains through Armenia, and thence to Turkey, where he would be safe.
Hiding by day and walking by night, he managed to get to a half-civilized little hamlet on the edge of the great mountains.
The wilderness of the journey before him left him rather appalled. He had intended to buy a horse and try to make his own way through, but he saw that this would be impossible. It inevitably meant losing his way and starving--if he were not killed by wandering bandits!
The town was full of wild-looking Kurdish mountaineers armed to the teeth. He decided to open negotiations with one of these to act as his guide. The first one approached readily agreed to act as his guard, guide, and escort on the long journey through the mountains. He said the fellow was as dirty as a pig and looked as tough as a Malay pirate, but his belt was filled like an arsenal.
Under his advice, the Hungarian officer bought a horse for about three times what it was worth. The arrangements were all made and they were to start the next morning when the wife of the Kurdish peasant at whose hut the Hungarian had taken lodging whispered him a word of warning.
"Don't go with him," she said. "As soon as you are one day out, he will kill you."
"Why should he kill me?" asked the Hussar.
The woman shrugged her shoulders. "Well, it is a long journey," she said, "why should he take all that trouble when he could get your money in some other way?"
Her logic was at least convincing if not reassuring. The Hungarian took a little walk through the one street of the town. In the light of her warning, he saw that all the men there would kill a baby to get a drink of milk. They looked vicious enough to commit any crime.
The Hussar sat down to think it over. If he tried to go on through the mountains alone he would probably be followed and killed, or assassinated for his rifle by the wandering Kurdish tribes in the mountains. If his luck was good enough to keep him from being shot, he would lose his way and starve. If he went out with his guide, it was simply a question of how long the man allowed him to live. There was only one thing left to do--he must get back to the prison from which he had escaped, where he would find food, shelter, and safety.
He got up in the middle of the night, slipped out of the hut, and took the trail again. Without a great deal of difficulty he found his way back to the prison. A day or two later the sentinel at the officers' prison was amazed to see a Hungarian Hussar come nonchalantly up the road and ask to be let into prison.
They led him before the Russian governor of the prison who was furious.
"Where have you been?" he demanded.
"Why," said the Hussar blindly, "I have always wanted to see these wonderful mountains, so I just went out for a day or two to see the scenery."
"What do you think this is, a summer resort?" roared the Russian colonel.
The Hussar was ordered for a time into solitary confinement. But the Russian commandant was a pretty good fellow. Besides, with his education and his knowledge of Russian, the Hungarian was very useful about the prison. So they restored him to favor very soon.
Meanwhile his uniform had worn out. They had to give him some kind of clothing, so they fitted him out with the clothes of a Russian peasant.
The loose, easy-going discipline of the prison, his pockets full of money, and these Russian clothes made escape the second time ridiculously easy.
He said it could scarcely be called escaping. He literally put on his hat and walked. He figured it out this time that the way to avoid detection was not to hide around dark corners; but to disarm suspicion by openly mixing with the crowds.
Wherefore he went openly down the streets to the railroad-depot, bought a ticket to Moscow in the ordinary way, and traveled just like any other passenger.
At Moscow he stopped for several weeks. His story became decidedly vague at this point.
He told me that he fell in with a woman who had the _entrée_ to army circles in Russia and that she got him a card to a Russian officers' club where he hung around for two weeks, mingling with the officers without his nationality being suspected. The woman had in the meantime dressed him up in good clothes and had changed his Austrian money into Russian coinage.
The Hussar tried to give me the impression that the woman had fallen a victim to his manly charms and had thereby been induced to turn traitor to her country. I couldn't quite believe this, he didn't look the part.
From what we have since learned of Russian conditions, it seems very probable that, when the Hussar got to Moscow, he hunted up the circle of German spies who were operating there, reported for duty, and was taken care of.
* * * * *
"Well, what am I going to do--stay here for the rest of my life?" demanded the Hussar testily.
"Patience, my son," said the old man. "To-night there is another train--a scrubby little local train that runs back and forth across the border carrying the peasants and traders. No one pays any attention to that train. You will be on it when it goes out to-night."
When the local train left that night the Hussar was one of the passengers. The others were dirty, badly smelling Manchurian farmers.
But it carried him safely across the border and into China. Without further difficulty he made his way to America.
He was on his way to the Eastern coast and expected to take ship for Austria within a month. When his companion hinted that he would find it harder to get through the British blockade than to hoodwink the Russian officials, he winked. And sure enough, within three months the Westerner had received a card from him. He was back at his old table in the café of Peremysl, drinking cool concoctions from tall glasses.
(The foregoing stories are: (I) told in the _New York Evening World_; (II) told in the _Los Angeles Times_, and reprinted in the _Literary Digest_.)
SURVIVORS' STORIES OF SINKING OF THE _LUSITANIA_
"_How We Saw Our Ship Go Down--Torpedoed by a German Submarine_"
_Told by Passengers of the Ill-Fated "Lusitania"_
These tragic stories are like voices from the grave--the ocean giving up its dead. They are told by those who were saved from the tragedy ship on that fearful day, May 7, 1915 (at 2:08 P.M. Greenwich time) when the _Lusitania_, fifteen miles off "Old Head of Winsale" on the Irish coast, was torpedoed by a German submarine. The _Lusitania_ sailed from New York at noon, May 1, 1915, carrying 1,959 persons--passengers and crew. It had been warned by official notices from the German embassy that it would be attacked by German submarines, which only aggravates the crime by making plain its deliberate intention. The voyage was uneventful until the seventh, when the ship, running at 17 knots, was nearing its destination. It was shortly after luncheon, the sea was calm, when two torpedoes struck the _Lusitania_. The scenes of terror which followed are described by the survivors--a few of their stories, typical of their fearful experiences, are told here. The ship sank in less than twenty minutes, and 1,198 men, women, and children went down into an ocean grave.
I--STORY OF CAPTAIN W. T. TURNER, COMMANDER OF THE "LUSITANIA"
I was on the bridge of the _Lusitania_ (at 2:08 Friday afternoon, May 7, 1915, off Old Head of Kinsdale on Irish Coast) when I saw a torpedo speeding toward us, and immediately I tried to change our course, but was unable to manoeuvre out of its way. There was a terrible impact as the torpedo struck the starboard side of the vessel, and a second torpedo followed almost immediately. This one struck squarely over the boilers. I tried to turn the _Lusitania_ shoreward, hoping to beach her, but her engines were crippled and it was impossible. Until the _Lusitania_ came to a standstill it was absolutely out of the question to launch the boats--they would have been swamped. It has been suggested that it was impact with ammunition in the cargo that made the work of the torpedoes so deadly, but if there had been ammunition in the cargo the _Lusitania_ would have been blown to pieces. I saw the torpedoes with my own eyes as did many others. It was cold-blooded murder.
I was in the water four hours after the _Lusitania_ sank. I am a strong swimmer, and so was able to keep afloat until I was rescued. When I was swimming about, suddenly a German submarine rose to the surface amid the wreckage, then submerged again. Some persons in lifeboats nearby saw the submarine even better than I did.
(As Captain Turner went about the streets of Queenstown he tried bravely to cheer the survivors, but he seemed stunned. For the most part he walked with bowed head, and many of those he met did not recognize him. When told of the recovery of Charles Frohman's body, and of the finding of many other Americans among the dead, tears came to his eyes.)
II--STORY TOLD BY W. B. PHILLIPS, AN AMERICAN PASSENGER
It was seven or eight minutes after 2 o'clock when the torpedo struck us, and my watch stopped at 2:33, when I went into the water a half minute before the _Lusitania_ disappeared. Captain Turner was on the bridge when the ship went down, and the last order I heard him give was "Hard aport," just before the torpedo struck. It seems as though he was trying to turn the ship to escape the torpedo. I rushed on deck, but met two women in the companionway who shouted "torpedo"! I rushed back to my stateroom for some belongings, but as the water was coming through the promenade deck I didn't wait, but rushed back to the deck again. Most everybody went to the cabins for life preservers. There was no panic, though lots of excitement. Not even a panic when the ship went down.
The worst thing was the inefficiency with the lifeboats. On the port side many of the davits wouldn't work and the boats would not go over. The tackle broke on one of four or five boats I saw lowered, while one dropped from the davits and split in two. A few of the collapsible boats floated away upside down, while one raft, which some one cut away with an axe, crushed some men who were trying to climb into a boat.
There was a great whirlpool when the _Lusitania_ finally settled into the sea, but no suction. I was drawn into the whirlpool, but had no trouble in swimming out. She went down very fast at one end. Our boat, which was the most crowded of all, with eighty-four in it, was almost swamped by the wireless antennæ, which swept across us as the _Lusitania_ keeled over for the last time before she righted and sank.
The daughter of Lady Allan told me she saw the submarine, but I know of no one else who did. Shots were fired while we were in the small boats, about twenty minutes after the _Lusitania_ sank, but I don't know if they were from the submarine. They might have been signals from land. The only boat in sight was a fishing smack, or pilot boat, three or four miles away. There was smoke on the horizon, and one vessel seemed to be coming up, but she sheered off.
The wireless operator told me he got in four wireless signals and got an answer to the last one. The boats rowed toward the smack, which took part of the people on board and towed two other boatloads. It was 5 o'clock when we were picked up, and at that time no boat was anywhere near the scene of the wreck. One trawler got to the wreck about 5:30. It was followed by two torpedo boats and eight or nine other boats. Captain Turner had ordered some lifeboats swung over the side on Wednesday and all swung over on Thursday morning, but the rafts and collapsible boats were not touched, but remained securely fastened. There was plenty of boat accommodation if there had been time to get them over.
The men all waited until no women were in sight before they went into the boats. I never believed it true before, but there seemed to be a regular chorus all the time on the _Lusitania_: "Women first! Women first!"
III--STORY OF OLIVER P. BERNARD, AN ENGLISH PASSENGER
I think I can say that I was one of the few persons who really saw a torpedo discharged at the _Lusitania_. Coming on deck from the dining saloon. I was leaning against the starboard rail of the ship when I saw the periscope of a submarine about two hundred yards away. Then I noticed a long white streak of foam. It gave me the impression of frothy fizzing in water. A woman came to me and said: "There's a torpedo coming." Before she had finished the explosion took place and tons of debris were blown up through the four decks. Almost immediately there was a terrific impact, followed by an explosion. The _Lusitania_ was going at fifteen knots at the time. The shot was perfectly aimed at the boat, and when it struck, debris, dust and water were thrown up in a dense column through the entire superstructure of the vessel about the bridge. A hundred must have been blown to atoms, including trimmers and stokers, to say nothing of men and women in the forward cabins, who were about to come on deck.
The _Lusitania_ fell over to starboard and then slowly righted part way. Nearly every one rushed below. I went to the flying deck and stood between the funnels, where I could see them making an awful mess of getting the boats out. They were cutting and hacking at them. The first boat floated away empty. The next three were smashed. The Marconi main room was put out of commission by the first torpedo; then the wireless operator rushed to the emergency room, and just as he got the first reply to the "S. O. S." the whole apparatus went out of action.
The first torpedo hit amidship by the grand entrance to the saloon and rear of the bridge. A Marconi man rushed to me and offered me a chair, and said I had better take that, as it might be useful and better than nothing.
A few moments after the explosion the vessel toppled over, as if she were in drydock and some of the underpinning on the starboard side had been knocked away. There was a frantic dash from the starboard entrances to the port side and from below women were shouting, "What shall we do?" They knew well what had happened, as the chance of being torpedoed was discussed every day. I heard nothing else on the voyage. When the _Lusitania_ listed still more I slid off the flying deck on to the boat deck, and from there fell into a boat lying alongside. As I got into the boat she was swept almost away by one of the funnels falling across her, and we only managed to push clear. I saw a minister's wife sucked right down one of the funnels and shot out again, looking like a piece of burned coal. We managed to save her. I rowed for some time with a woman between my knees before discovering that she was dead.
There was no great excitement, in the real sense of the word. Most of the women tried hard to keep cool, and except for occasional screams of "Where is my husband? Where is my child?" they acted bravely. I noticed more people going below than coming on deck after the explosion. The last person I spoke to before the vessel went down was Mrs. Mason, the young American daughter of William Lindsay, a manufacturer of Boston, who was on her honeymoon. She was asking for her husband.