ous crosses which he wore round his neck.
One of these touched him very much: it had been given him by his mother
in August, 1914, when he set out for the war. It had protected him
ever since. He had gone through untold dangers and hardships, and had
actually never seen his home and his wife and his child since that
August morning when he marched away.

He belonged to a Guards regiment, and so I was interested to know what
part he had taken in the revolution, and what he thought of it all. It
should be remembered he was not a newspaper-reading Russian. He called
himself a _Gosudarstvenny_ or State peasant, apparently indicating that
his family had not been serfs but had been free men. He was normally a
peaceful tiller of the soil, stopped at the plough and put into
battle-harness by the politicians of Europe.

Though now one of Wrangel's army he attributed all Russia's misfortunes
to the "burgui." What a bourgeois really was he had not the remotest
idea, but the word served. It was the burgui who brought about the
March '17 revolution in Russia. "If we had been at Petrograd then it
could not have happened," said he.

"How?"

"Well, before the revolution took place, the burgui arranged that the
stanchest regiments should be sent to France. Yes, our regiment of
Guards was actually in the lines below Verdun when the Tsar was
dethroned.

"They did not tell us what had happened. We learned it first from the
Germans. They began calling out to us, 'The Tsar has abdicated.' We
did not pay any attention, as they were always shouting lies. Then
they erected long banners outside their trenches with the words 'There
is revolution in Russia. The Tsar has abdicated. Why do you go on
fighting?'

"We were so infuriated by this that we planned a night attack on our
own, and without the knowledge of our officers we entered the German
trenches that night, just to show them what it meant to insult the
Tsar. There was a great noise. The German artillery awoke. Ours
replied. Our neighbours on the right and left wondered what was
happening, and in the morning our N.C.O.'s were called to explain what
it was all about. They told the story and were strongly reprimanded.
Then officers addressed us and told us the bitter truth that there was
actually revolution in Russia. And we wept, and the officers wept with
us. . . ."

He was a sentimental warrior, and the tears glistened in his eyes now.
He professed to be unend