Chaos greeted them when they reached the nearest station. Throngs of desperate refugees pushed toward the trains, and uniformed legionnaires held them at bay.
Nikolai helped her maneuver through the crowd until she stood before one of the guards.
She used her best Czech. “My husband is in the Sixth Regiment, but we were separated. Can you get me to him?”
The man rolled his eyes. “Yes, you and the last seven women who’ve spoken to me are married to someone in a regiment farther east. Our trains are full. We don’t have room for anyone else. You’ll have to do your best on sleigh or foot.”
“But I really am married to a legionnaire. Sergeant Filip Sedlák. His commanding officer is Karel Kral. If you don’t believe me, send a telegram. His best friend is Dalek Pokorný, and he’s a telegraph clerk—he’ll tell you I’m not lying.”
“Telegrams are for official purposes only.” The guard rattled off the response as if he said it regularly.
“But I helped the legion when they took Omsk in 1918. And I served as a nurse. I can help your wounded.”
“We’ve already moved the wounded farther east. And I’ve heard that before too—everyone wanting to sneak on board is either a nurse or one of the missing grand duchesses. Move on. Our trains are full.”
Nikolai dug in his pocket and tried to put something into the man’s hand. Money. A lot of it.
The legionnaire shoved it back. “I don’t take bribes.”
“Please,” Nikolai said. “She really did marry one of your men. Back in 1918, in the Ukraine.”
“I have my orders. And even if I didn’t, the only way we’d have room for her was if we kicked off one of our own men. You wouldn’t expect us to do that, would you?”
“What about a letter?” She had to let Filip know where she was. “Could you get a letter to him?”
The guard’s face softened. “I can try.”
Finding paper, pen, and ink proved more of a challenge than Nadia had expected. Nikolai bought a sheet of paper at the telegraph office, but by then, the Czech’s engine was whistling. She had only a minute to borrow pen and ink and scrawl out a message before the legion would be gone again. Nikolai ran to give it to one of the guards, and then the train disappeared.
Would her letter reach Filip? And if it did, would it be legible, or would the ink be smeared because she hadn’t had time to let it dry? As the train pulled away, she told herself that she’d have another chance, and she almost believed it.
***
The White Army drew closer and closer to Irkutsk, moving on sleighs and on foot. The legion stayed ahead of them, keeping control of the railroad. Both skirmished with the Red Army, but Nikolai kept Nadia far from the firing line.
With each dawn, she wondered if the coming day would be the one when Filip found her. But a week passed, and he didn’t appear.
Eventually, the White Army gained control of Innokentievskaia Station. The next station to the east was Glaskov, across the river from Irkutsk.
Nikolai motioned her away from the wounded men she was tending. “I’m going to Irkutsk to negotiate. It’s dangerous, but there are still Czechs passing through. Maybe you can find your husband. Would you like to come?”
Nadia looked at the wounded men around her. They needed her. But no matter how hard she worked, there would always be more wounded to care for. The ice would always find new victims, as would disease and bullets. She wanted to help, but more than that, she wanted Filip, regardless of the risk. “Yes, I’d like to come.”
She joined Nikolai, Sokolov, Fedorov, and Tanya. While the men met with the leaders of Irkutsk, Tanya and Nadia went to the train depot in search of Czechs.
“The Sixth Regiment cleared out over a week ago.” A legionnaire waved his hand to the east. “Probably halfway to Chita by now.”
She was a week behind Filip. A week and several hundred miles. “Can you arrange for me to follow them?”
The man shook his head but looked sympathetic. “I’m sorry. I can send a letter for you, but it might not catch him until he gets to Vladivostok.”
Nadia wrote another letter, but it felt like a goodbye rather than a plea for help. Vladivostok. It was over two thousand miles away. In perfect health, with a well-stocked sleigh and team of horses, she might make it. On foot, after starving for nearly a year? She didn’t like her chances.
She couldn’t leave the White Army, or she’d be vulnerable to bandits. Yet staying with them meant the Reds were a constant threat. Things were going badly for the Whites. General Kappel had died when his frostbite had turned to gangrene, and even the ministrations of a Czech doctor hadn’t been able to save him. Voitsekhovsky was their new leader, the man who had sent Nikolai and the others to negotiate. But even if Irkutsk’s current leaders cooperated, the larger enemy, the Red Army, would continue its pursuit. They wouldn’t stop until all of Russia was under Bolshevik control.
They spent the night in a broken boxcar. The back wheels were gone, so it balanced at an angle on the ground near the train depot, no longer on the tracks.
Nikolai sat beside her. It was dark, but it wasn’t late. He and the others had delivered the White Army’s demands to the Irkutsk government, but they hadn’t yet received an answer.
“If the White Army never recovers, would you consider emigration?” she asked.
“You mean if we lose?”
“Yes.” She hated to sound so defeatist, but it was hard to have faith in an army so desperate for food, ammunition, and clothing. The only things the White Army had in abundance were typhus, dysentery, and frostbite cases. Maybe courage too, but courage alone didn’t win wars.
Nikolai sighed. “I don’t think I can leave Russia without breaking my soul in two. Our family’s lands are here. This is where our ancestors lived and bled and died. You heard Papa tell the stories, same as I did.”
She remembered the stories. And she had the same concerns. Her Russian soul was connected to the Russian soil in a way that couldn’t be easily severed. She’d been willing to emigrate when her family was dead, but now that Nikolai was alive, the thought of leaving him hurt more than the ever-present ache of hunger or the sharp sting of the Siberian winter.
Nikolai continued. “I don’t think the Bolsheviks will ever forgive me for being born a baron’s son and fighting against them. If I stay, my only inheritance in Russia will be a grave. So I suppose I’ll have to leave, because I don’t think we can win. The war’s lost, Nadia. It’s not over yet, but we can’t win anymore. We’re here to negotiate safe passage. We told them we won’t attack Irkutsk if they let our wounded through unscathed, release Kolchak, and give us 250 million rubles.”
“That much?”
“It’s about a third of what they took from the Czechs. If we take the city, we’ll take all the gold. They’d have trouble moving it before we arrived in force.”
“Do you think they’ll agree?”
Sokolov shook his head. “I doubt it. The Red Army is right behind us. They’ll be in Irkutsk soon. If Revkom makes an agreement with us, they’ll face reprisals from the Red Army.”
“Revkom?”
“A Bolshevik revolutionary committee. Took over from the Political Centre the end of January.”
“So they have Kolchak?” Nadia remembered Filip’s reservations about Kolchak, but Gajda had liked him, and Filip thought Gajda the best officer in all the legion. But that had been a long time ago, and things changed swiftly during civil wars.
“Yes.”
Kolchak in the hands of the SRs of the Political Centre had been bad. Kolchak in the hands of the Bolsheviks of Revkom sounded far worse. “What would you do if they released Kolchak to you?”
Sokolov pulled a blanket around his shoulders. “I suppose we’d bring him with us. Maybe on the other side of Baikal, we can regroup. Block the tunnels and hold off the Red Army. There are plenty of supplies in Vladivostok. If we could get those and convince the peasants to rally to our cause, maybe we could negotiate a peace with the Reds.”