"Why not?" he muttered. "After all, it is a
serious crime to kill an innocent man."
We walked up to the front door of the house and knocked. A short,
stout woman opened it, and shrank back in alarm, babbling, "I don't
know anything about them! I don't know anything about them!" One of
my guards held out the pass. She screamed. "Just to read it,
comrade." Hesitatingly she took the paper and read aloud, swiftly:
The bearer of this pass, John Reed, is a representative of the
American Social-Democracy, an internationalist....
Out on the road again the two soldiers held another consultation.
"We must take you to the Regimental Committee," they said. In the
fast-deepening twilight we trudged along the muddy road.
Occasionally we met squads of soldiers, who stopped and surrounded
me with looks of menace, handling my pass around and arguing
violently as to whether or not I should be killed....
It was dark when we came to the barracks of the Second Tsarskoye
Selo Rifles, low sprawling buildings huddled along the post-road. A
number of soldiers slouching at the entrance asked eager questions.
A spy? A provocator? We mounted a winding stair and emerged into a
great, bare room with a huge stove in the centre, and rows of cots
on the floor, where about a thousand soldiers were playing cards,
talking, singing, and asleep. In the roof was a jagged hole made by
Kerensky's cannon.
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