"Comrades! Comrades!" appealed the officer, sweat standing out on
his forehead. "I am Commissar of the Military Revolutionary
Committee. Do you trust me? Well, I tell you that these passes are
signed with the same names that are signed to my pass!"
He led us down through the Palace and out through a door opening
onto the Neva quay, before which stood the usual committee going
through pockets... "You have narrowly escaped," he kept muttering,
wiping his face.
"What happened to the Women's Battalion?" we asked.
"Oh-the women!" He laughed. "They were all huddled up in a back
room. We had a terrible time deciding what to do with them-many were
in hysterics, and so on. So finally we marched them up to the
Finland Station and put them on a train for Levashovo, where they
have a camp. (See App. IV, Sect. 4)....
We came out into the cold, nervous night, murmurous with obscure
armies on the move, electric with patrols. From across the river,
where loomed the darker mass of Peter-Paul, came a hoarse shout....
Underfoot the sidewalk was littered with broken stucco, from the
cornice of the Palace where two shells from the battleship _Avrora_
had struck; that was the only damage done by the bombardment....
It was now after three in the morning. On the Nevsky all the
street-lights were again shining, the cannon gone, and the only
signs of war were Red Guards and soldiers squatting around fires.
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