omen, and murdered children, not the ravages of an alien
enemy, but the work of their own hands, Russian against Russian, tears
trickled down their war-scarred faces. Clearly these men felt they had
been deceived, and would willingly endeavour to rectify the injuries of
the past. Some volunteered their services at once to help their Mother
Country to recover from the ravages they had made and administer justice
upon those who had led them into madness, but Colonel Nikolioff asked
them to remember that their crimes had been very great, and nothing but
time could heal the wounds and soften the bitterness their conduct had
created. Some asked that it should be remembered that they were not
Bolshevik in principle, but had been forced to become soldiers in the
Red Army, from which they could not desert until their villages were
captured by the Koltchak army, as their whole families, held as hostages
for their good conduct, would have been massacred. This they asserted
had been done in numberless cases where the families were in Bolshevik
hands.

The value of the rouble in Perm at that time was about one penny. My
officers and men were paid at the rate of 40 roubles to the L1. The
prisoners' camp was about three and a half versts distant, and the
duration of the meeting was one hour and five minutes; the droshky hire
for the journey was 100 roubles per droshky. Everything was in
proportion. For instance, common cigarettes were 1 rouble each. If I had
smoked twenty a day or used them between myself and my numerous official
visitors, half my colonel's pay would have gone. There must surely have
been something wrong in fixing the rate of exchange at Harbin or
"Vlady," 5,000 versts away, and leaving officers at the front in a stage
of poverty not one whit better than the people whose all had been
destroyed by the Revolution. I have no remedy to offer, but it is not
very satisfactory to receive your rouble at 6d. and spend it at 1d. What
is more! If I had been paid in L1 notes or sovereigns, I could have got
something approaching 200 roubles for each at the Perm rate! Wages had
increased under Bolshevik rule, but prices were such that one of the
petitions we had to forward to the Government at Omsk on behalf of the
workmen was that the wages and prices should be the same as under the
old regime.

On April 24 the ice on the Khama started to move about 5 A.M. It was a
very imposing sight. It moved first as one solid block, carrying