There
everything was simple and comprehensible, but here it is all a mad
nightmare, a dark and foreboding storm!" I felt some tragedy, some
horror in every movement of Baron Ungern, behind whom paced this silent,
white-faced Veseloffsky and Death.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE HORROR OF WAR!

At dawn of the following morning they led up the splendid white camel
for me and we moved away. My company consisted of the two Cossacks, two
Mongol soldiers and one Lama with two pack camels carrying the tent and
food. I still apprehended that the Baron had it in mind not to dispose
of me before my friends there in Van Kure but to prepare this journey
for me under the guise of which it would be so easy to do away with
me by the road. A bullet in the back and all would be finished.
Consequently I was momentarily ready to draw my revolver and defend
myself. I took care all the time to have the Cossacks either ahead of me
or at the side. About noon we heard the distant honk of a motor car and
soon saw Baron Ungern whizzing by us at full speed. With him were two
adjutants and Prince Daichin Van. The Baron greeted me very kindly and
shouted:

"Shall see you again in Urga!"

"Ah!" I thought, "evidently I shall reach Urga. So I can be at ease
during my trip, and in Urga I have many friends beside the presence
there of the bold Polish soldiers whom I had worked with in Uliassutai
and who had outdistanced me in this journey."

After the meeting with the Baron my Cossacks became very attentive to
me and sought to distract me with stories. They told me about their
very severe struggles with the Bolsheviki in Transbaikalia and Mongolia,
about the battle with the Chinese near Urga, about finding communistic
passports on several Chinese soldiers from Moscow, about the bravery of
Baron Ungern and how he would sit at the campfire smoking and drinking
tea right on the battle line without ever being touched by a bullet.
At one fight seventy-four bullets entered his overcoat, saddle and
the boxes by his side and again left him untouched. This is one of
the reasons for his great influence over the Mongols. They related how
before the battle he had made a reconnaissance in Urga with only
one Cossack and on his way back had killed a Chinese officer and two
soldiers with his bamboo stick or tashur; how he had no outfit save one
change of linen and one extra pair of boots; how he was always calm and
jovial in battle and severe and morose in the rare d