“RED HORRORS.”

Western Star, 13 April 1920, Page 4

“RED HORRORS.”

IN A BOLSHEVIST DUNGEON. Aii Englishman who worked for several years in the Russian Red Cross, and was detained as a: hostage by the 'Bolshevists till he succeeded in escaping from Russia a few months ago, is contributing to The Times a seriesi o\f articles on his experiences. In the first ''he describes how he subsisted in the district around Moscow by begging, aided occasionally by friends. While suffering from Spanish iufluenzai in a. friends house in Moscow he was arrested by a party of Redj Guards. What next befel him) he tells as follows: I got out of bed and was about to put on a day suit, when a. Bolshevist barred by arum with his rifle. “Leave that!” he ordered. “Surely I may dress!” I replied. “ You are dressed already,’’ said the commissary, “But these are merely pyjamas,” I protested;. . “ That’s quite enough, he replied; “ it’s a bourgeois prejudice to wear more than one suit.” I had just time to slip on a pair of bedroom slippers when I was seized by two Chinese. I realised it was useless to resist. Led by the commissary, and followed by the Red Guards, I was conduct ed| downstairs and through the deserted streets to a large old house in the Georgievski Square. There I was taken before some Bolshevist women and soldiers, who asked me a number of questions and cracked coarse jokes at my expense. When they had finished examining me, a woman cried out, “ Take the English rabble (svoloch) diOwnstains! ” and then started; an unseemly dance with a soldier to the accompaniment of whistling and shouts. I was immediately seized by the Chinese, who grinned at me in a sickly manner. I was led down a flight of steps and along a dark corridor, at the end of which was an iron grille. This Was opened, together' with «ii door, and with a. brutal thrust in the back from the: butt-end of a rifle I was thrown into darkness. I saw nothing. The smell of the place was so terrible that I felt it like a heavy cloak. After a few seconds I heard harsh voices, and I was surrounded by invisible people, who felt me from head to- foot with their, cold bony bands. “ Haive you brought -any food!'” was the only cry. “ Nichevo ’’ (nothing) was all I'could answer. Some of them were enraged at this reply. “ Another mouth to devour what little we get! ” they said with curses. Every new prisoner was searched by the inmates of the dungeon in the siv.no manner.

When the noise of the starving prisoners had ceased, the soft voice of a cultured lady asked me why I had been arrested. I endeavoured to go i in the direction of the voice, hut I stumbled over the bodies of prisoners who were trying to sleep on the damp Hoor. A gentle hand came from out the darkness and ledl me across the bodies to the wall. “ I am a. coloners wife,” the voice told m(e. “ I am 7o years of age and have been thrown into this dungeon for some reason which I cannot imagine.” When I told the voice that I was ill and merely dressed in pyjamas, I heard a little rustling, sound by my si do and immediately something soft and warm was thrust into my arum. “Put this on,” the voice said. “It is a woollen petticoat. It will - keep you warto. I have another lor myself.” The kind voice obliged me to accept the offer, and I put the garment on.” Prom time to time the door of the dungeon was opened and new prisoners were brought in. One wta/s a working woman, who cried out in a hysterical voice that the Bolshevists had obliged her to leave her suckling baby at home. She was almost driven out of her mind by the fear lest her baby should die of starvation before she ' was released 'from the dungeon. She kept up her hysterical wailing till she sank, in a, state of utter exhaustion, on the stone'floor. Later,- when the pale dawn sent a ghastly light through the slmiall grating, an old man of 85 was brought in. He bad long white locky and a flowing, heard. He coughed incessantly and was evidently very ill. He told us that he had been denounced to the Bolshevists as a counter-revo-lutionary by his own drunkard son, whom he could no longer supply with money for his orgies. From time to time a commissary visited the dungeon and called out a few names. The unfortunate owners were led) away after endeavouring, to bid farewell to their fellow prisoners in a heart-rending manner. After the bolts had been shot in the door behind them- an awful silence came over us. A few minutes passed and we heard the sound of firing in the back yard. Sometimes we would) wait in vain for the firing, and would then conclude that the prisoners had been set free.

No one was allowed out o'f the prison except to be shot or liberated. The old man of 8.5 died a couple of days after his arrival. The prisoners begged that a 'doctor, or at least a priest, might he sent to him. When a priest was asked for the commissary replied : r —“ We’ve abolished the Almighty.’ When a doctor was requested the eominiiissary replied: “Let the old mam die. He’s of no use to the Stale.” The old man's body was left among us 'for two days.