Finding paper, pen, and ink proved more of a challenge than Nadia had expected. Nikolai bought a sheet of paper at the telegraph office, but by then, the Czech’s engine was whistling. She had only a minute to borrow pen and ink and scrawl out a message before the legion would be gone again. Nikolai ran to give it to one of the guards, and then the train disappeared.
Would her letter reach Filip? And if it did, would it be legible, or would the ink be smeared because she hadn’t had time to let it dry? As the train pulled away, she told herself that she’d have another chance, and she almost believed it.
***
The White Army drew closer and closer to Irkutsk, moving on sleighs and on foot. The legion stayed ahead of them, keeping control of the railroad. Both skirmished with the Red Army, but Nikolai kept Nadia far from the firing line.
With each dawn, she wondered if the coming day would be the one when Filip found her. But a week passed, and he didn’t appear.
Eventually, the White Army gained control of Innokentievskaia Station. The next station to the east was Glaskov, across the river from Irkutsk.
Nikolai motioned her away from the wounded men she was tending. “I’m going to Irkutsk to negotiate. It’s dangerous, but there are still Czechs passing through. Maybe you can find your husband. Would you like to come?”
Nadia looked at the wounded men around her. They needed her. But no matter how hard she worked, there would always be more wounded to care for. The ice would always find new victims, as would disease and bullets. She wanted to help, but more than that, she wanted Filip, regardless of the risk. “Yes, I’d like to come.”
She joined Nikolai, Sokolov, Fedorov, and Tanya. While the men met with the leaders of Irkutsk, Tanya and Nadia went to the train depot in search of Czechs.
“The Sixth Regiment cleared out over a week ago.” A legionnaire waved his hand to the east. “Probably halfway to Chita by now.”
She was a week behind Filip. A week and several hundred miles. “Can you arrange for me to follow them?”
The man shook his head but looked sympathetic. “I’m sorry. I can send a letter for you, but it might not catch him until he gets to Vladivostok.”
Nadia wrote another letter, but it felt like a goodbye rather than a plea for help. Vladivostok. It was over two thousand miles away. In perfect health, with a well-stocked sleigh and team of horses, she might make it. On foot, after starving for nearly a year? She didn’t like her chances.
She couldn’t leave the White Army, or she’d be vulnerable to bandits. Yet staying with them meant the Reds were a constant threat. Things were going badly for the Whites. General Kappel had died when his frostbite had turned to gangrene, and even the ministrations of a Czech doctor hadn’t been able to save him. Voitsekhovsky was their new leader, the man who had sent Nikolai and the others to negotiate. But even if Irkutsk’s current leaders cooperated, the larger enemy, the Red Army, would continue its pursuit. They wouldn’t stop until all of Russia was under Bolshevik control.
They spent the night in a broken boxcar. The back wheels were gone, so it balanced at an angle on the ground near the train depot, no longer on the tracks.
Nikolai sat beside her. It was dark, but it wasn’t late. He and the others had delivered the White Army’s demands to the Irkutsk government, but they hadn’t yet received an answer.
“If the White Army never recovers, would you consider emigration?” she asked.
“You mean if we lose?”
“Yes.” She hated to sound so defeatist, but it was hard to have faith in an army so desperate for food, ammunition, and clothing. The only things the White Army had in abundance were typhus, dysentery, and frostbite cases. Maybe courage too, but courage alone didn’t win wars.
Nikolai sighed. “I don’t think I can leave Russia without breaking my soul in two. Our family’s lands are here. This is where our ancestors lived and bled and died. You heard Papa tell the stories, same as I did.”
She remembered the stories. And she had the same concerns. Her Russian soul was connected to the Russian soil in a way that couldn’t be easily severed. She’d been willing to emigrate when her family was dead, but now that Nikolai was alive, the thought of leaving him hurt more than the ever-present ache of hunger or the sharp sting of the Siberian winter.
Nikolai continued. “I don’t think the Bolsheviks will ever forgive me for being born a baron’s son and fighting against them. If I stay, my only inheritance in Russia will be a grave. So I suppose I’ll have to leave, because I don’t think we can win. The war’s lost, Nadia. It’s not over yet, but we can’t win anymore. We’re here to negotiate safe passage. We told them we won’t attack Irkutsk if they let our wounded through unscathed, release Kolchak, and give us 250 million rubles.”
“That much?”
“It’s about a third of what they took from the Czechs. If we take the city, we’ll take all the gold. They’d have trouble moving it before we arrived in force.”