the whole family
would quietly disappear, and the valuables were distributed by sale, or
otherwise, amongst the Soviet authorities. If a workman protested
against this violence, he disappeared, too, in the same secret fashion.

The poor women who used the shed during the day for its legitimate
purpose told from time to time grim stories of blood and evidence of
death struggles on the frozen floor as they began the morning's work.
Several thousand people were missing by the time the Koltchak forces
captured the town.

The ice in the shelter of the bank began to thaw before the more exposed
part of the river, which enabled the people whose friends and neighbours
were missing to put a rude and ineffective screen below the shed in the
hope of recovering the bodies of some of their friends. I knew about the
shed but not about the screen, until I was informed by Regt.
Sergeant-Major Gordon that he had seen several hundred bodies taken from
the river. The following morning I walked into the crowd of anxious
people who were watching the work. The official in charge told me quite
simply that they had not had a very good morning, for three hours' work
had only produced some forty bodies. I looked at these relics of the new
order; they were of both sexes and belonged to every condition of life,
from the gruff, horny-handed worker to the delicately-nurtured young
girl. A miscellaneous assortment of the goods, among other things,
revolutions are bound to deliver.

We held a big meeting in the great railway works which created quite a
sensation. The fact that the English were at Perm spread back to Omsk,
and four days later Japanese and French Missions put in an appearance.
If the French came to maintain their prestige it was a pity that they
did not choose a better agent for their purpose. I had been invited to
lunch with a very worthy representative of the town, Mr. Pastrokoff, and
his wife. I arrived to find the good lady in great agitation. A French
officer had called and informed the household that a French Mission had
just arrived composed of three officers; they would require the three
best rooms in the house, the use of the servants and kitchen; that no
furniture must be removed from the three rooms he saw under pain of
punishment, etc. The lady protested and told the French officer that
even the Bolsheviks had not demanded part of her very small house when
made acquainted with the requirements of her family, but the office