“I haven’t changed that much, not physically.” He sighed. “In other ways, perhaps. I had such high ideals when the legion formed. Getting stuck in the middle of a civil war somehow tarnished it, but we got our country. And you taught me about faith. I guess those are the things that matter most.” He pressed his lips into her temple. “That, and finding you again.”
“Prague, Czechoslovakia.” Nadia tried the name out on her tongue and was satisfied. “Will your family like me?”
“They’ll love you. And we don’t have to stay with them permanently, but until we find our own place, they’ll be happy to make room for the two of us.”
Nadia pulled one of his hands to her abdomen. “I think it will be the three of us within a few months of arrival.”
“But we’ve barely had a moment to ourselves . . .” Filip shifted positions and turned her so they were facing each other. He glanced at her abdomen, then at her face, and his mouth broke into a grin. “That bathhouse in Chita.”
“That’s my assumption.” She had worried that their time apart had damaged all the emotional and physical connections they’d built before her abduction. But in Chita, there had been no flashbacks, no terrors. Just Filip and her and a love that was strong enough to overcome the hurt of the past and promise them a joyful future.
Filip took her hand in his. “I would go anywhere and do anything for you. Do you know that?”
“Yes.” She did know that. Despite the differences of their pasts, Filip loved her. And she loved him. She looked back toward Russia. Vladivostok was a mere blur on the horizon. “For now, let’s go find that new country you worked so hard to create.”
Author’s Notes
In a war where gains were often measured in yards, it isn’t surprising that the story of the Czechoslovak Legion captured contemporary news coverage. But a century later, their story is largely forgotten. I first heard of the Czechoslovak Legion while watching a series of lectures on the Great War in preparation for writing
As I dove into research, I quickly realized I wouldn’t be able to tell the entire story. The various units were too far-flung and involved in too many things to weave everything into one coherent plot. But I also realized that I didn’t have to tell everything. Each of the seventy to eighty legion trains heading east in 1918 had enough history to bring a novel to life. Telling a good story involving
Though I have done my best to thoroughly research these events, I was limited to English-language sources. Often, different sources told a slightly (or vastly) different version of the same events. In such cases, I’ve done my best to be true to at least one of the accounts. At other times, I found details sparse, and despite my digging, I couldn’t find more than an overview of a particular event or battle. In those cases, I used creative license and filled in the gaps using my best judgment. Most of the events mentioned in this book really happened, but
Most of the characters in this novel are fictional, but their experiences are based on things that happened to real people. Historic individuals include Lenin, Trotsky, Professor Masaryk, General Voitsekhovsky (also spelled Voytsekhovsky, Vojcechovsky, Voitzekhovski, and Wojciechowski), General Gajda, Commissar Sadlucky, František Richter, Admiral Kolchak, the Romanov family, and General Kappel.
The Cheka was small in the beginning of 1918 but grew quickly. Could someone like Baron Linsky have been executed for his aristocratic connections in March 1918? According to some sources, until July 1918, the Cheka was only allowed to execute people for criminal activities. Other sources noted the Cheka having jurisdiction to execute class enemies as early as February of that year.
The Sixth Regiment of the legion really did spend time in Piryatin, Ukraine, before the German advance that prompted the evacuation and fighting around Bakhmach. They even prevented peasants from burning down a nearby manor while stationed there. The evacuation from Ukraine and most of what followed in Penza and Samara is factual—down to weather details at Bakhmach and the multiple telegrams giving multiple instructions to the Penza Soviets.
The main details of the Chelyabinsk incident are from my research, though several different versions exist. Ducháček and Malik (the Czech and Hungarian soldiers who died) are real, as is the overarching story of what happened. Most accounts agree that the legion cut telephone lines, seized important intersections, disarmed guards, and took the armory. Tactical details of how the legion took over the town are fiction, based on common practices at the time.