RUSSIA FROM WITHIN

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11293, 19 August 1922, Page 10

RUSSIA FROM WITHIN

LIFE IN THE LAND OF THE SOVIET. AN ESCAPE. OVER THE ICE. It was after midnight when we drove out, and, conditions being good, the drive over the sea to a point well along the Finnish coast, a distanoe of some forty odd miles, was to tako us between four and five hours. The sledge was of the type known as drovny, a wooden one, broad and low, filled with hay. - The drovny, used mostly for farm haulage, is my favourite bind of sledge, and nestling comfortably at full length under the hay, I thought of long night-drives in the interior in days gone by, whbn someone used to ride ahead on horseback with a torch to keep away the wolves. In a moment we were out, flying at break-neck speed across the ice, windswept after recent storms. The halfinch of frozen snow just gave grip to the horse’s hoofs. Twice, suddenly bumping into snow nidges, we capsized completely. When we got going again the runners sang just like a sawmill. The driver noticed this too, and was alive to the danger of being heard from shore a couple of miles away; but his sturdy pony, exhilarated by the keen frosty -air, was hard to restrain. Some miles out of Petrograd there lies on an island in the Finnish Gulf the famous fortress of Cronstadt, one of the most impregnable in the world , Searchlights from the fortress played from time to time across the belt of ice separating tbe fortress from the northern there. The passage through this narrow belt was the crucial point in our journey. Once past Oronstadt we should be in Finnish waters and safe. To avoid danger from the searchlights, the Finn drove within a wile of the mainland, the runners hissing and singing like saws. As we entered the narrows a dazzling beam of light swept the horizon from the fortress, catching us momentarily in its track; but we were sufficiently near the shore not to appeal; as a black speck adnft on the ice. Too near, perhaps? The dark line of the woods seemed but a stone’s throw away! You could almost see the individual trees. Hell! what a noise our sledge-runners made! “Can’t you keep the horse baok a bit, man?” “Yes, but this is the spot we’ve got to drive past quickly I” We were crossing the line of Lissy Nos, a jutting point on the coast marking the narrowest part of the strait. Again a beam of light shot out from the fortress, and the wooden pier and huts of Lissy Nos were lit as by a flash of lightning. But we had passed the point already. It was rapidly receding into the darkness as we regained the open sea. Sitting upright on the heap of hay, I kept my eyes riveted on the receding promontory. We were nearly a mile away now, and you could no lonjjfer distinguish objects clearly. But my eyes were still riveted on the rocky promontory. Were those rocks—moving? I tried to pierce the darkness, my eyes rooted to the black point! Rocks ? Trees ? Or —or—— I sprang to my feet and shook the Finn by the shoulders with all my force. . .■ ■ “Damn it, man! Drive like hell—we’re being pursued!” Riding out from Lissy Nos was a group of horsemen, five or six in pumber. My driver gate a moan, lashed his home, the sledge leapt forward, and the chase began in earnest. “Ten thousand marks if we escape I ’ I yelled in the Finn’s ear. For a time we kepi a good lead, but in the darkness it was to see whether we were gaining or losing. My driver was making low moaning cries; he appeared to bo pulling hard on .the reins, and the sledge jerked so that I could scarcely stand. Then I saw that_ the pursuers were gaining—and gaining rapidly 1 The moving dots. grew into figures galloping at full speed. Suddenly there was a flash and a crack; then another, and another. They were firing, with carbines, against which a pistol was use. lees. I threatened the driver with my revolver if he did not pull ahead, hut dropped like a stone into the hay as a bullet whizzed close to my ear. At that moment the sledge suddenly swung round. The driver had clearly had difficulty with his reins, which appeared to have goi caught in the shaft, and before I realised what was happening, the horse fell, the sledge whirled routed and came to a sudden stop. At such momenta one has to think rapidly. What would the pureumg Red Guards gp for first —a fugitive? Not if there was possible loot. ■ And what mere likely than that the sledge oontained loot? , • Eel-like, I slithered over the side and made in the direction of the shore. Progress was difficult, for there were big patches of ice, coal-black in colour, whicn were completely wind-swept and as slippery as glass. Stumbling along, I chow from my pocket a packet, wrapped in dark brown paper, containing maps and documents which were sufficient, if discovered, to assure my being shot without further ado, and held it ready to hurl away across the l °lf seized, I would plead smuggling. It seemed impossible that I could escape I Looking backward I saw the group round the sledge. The Reds, dismounted, were examining the driver; in a moment they would renew the pursuit, and I should be spotted at once, running over the ice. Then an idea occurred. The ice, where completely windswept, formed great patches as black as ink. My clothes were dark. I ran into the middle of a big blaok patch and looked at my hoots. I could not see theml To get to the shore was impossible, anyway, so this was the only chance. Jerking the packet a fenv yards from me where I might easily find it, I dropped flat on the black ice and lay motionless, praying that I should be invisible. It was not long before I heard the sound of hoofs and voices approaching. The search for me had begun. But the riders avoided the slippery wind-swept places as studiously as I had done in running, and, thank Heaven! just there much of the ioe was wind-swept. As they rode round and about, I felt that someone was bound to ride just over me! Yet they didn’t, after all. It aeemed hours and days of night and darkness before tbe riders retreated to the sledge and rode off with it, returning whenoe they had come. But time is measured not by degrees of hope or despair, hut by fleeting seconds and minutes, and by my luminous watch I detected that it was only halfpast one. Prosaio half-past one! (From “Red Dusk and the Morrow,” bv Sir Paul Dukes, K.B.E. late chief of the British Secret Service in Soviet Russia.)

It is stated that £BOO out of every £IOOO spent on the construction of ships goes in wages.