Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/74

 made, and were taken by surprise. The Bolsheviks, when a short distance from the train, opened fire with their machine-guns. They made the mistake of setting up their machine-guns too close to the train. In a few jumps our men were upon them. They simply rushed out of their cars, throwing stones or anything they could lay hold of at the Red Guards, and captured their machine guns, which they immediately turned on the Bolsheviks. About thirty of our men were killed, but the Bolsheviks were routed. The echelon under the command of Captain Müller found itself isolated and unable to proceed by train. The locomotive and cars were out of use, and the line was damaged. They came to the heroic decision of going on foot to Siberia. The difficulty was to carry with them all the wounded, who numbered about fifty. The most gravely wounded begged them not to trouble, but to take only the slightly wounded with them. The few who would remain behind felt sure that relief would soon come from some other echelon.

Captain Müller and his battalion thus started on a march of nearly 200 kilometres across the Ural Moutains. They had no guides, there were no roads, and most of their march was through forests. The Bashkirs, Mongol inhabitations in the mountains, were very kind to them, gave them food, and showed them the direction as best they could. They relied chiefly on the compass, and marched east until they should get near some town. After a march of five days they came to the vicinity of the railway line again, and found that the station of Myash was not many kilometres away. They sent a soldier dressed as a Bashkir, accompanied by a real native Bashkir, to get information. They were arrested by our own men, who had already been in possession of Myash Station for several days. Our soldier made known who he was, and that a Czech echelon which had marched more than 150 kilometres was up in the woods under the command of a Czech officer. He was sent back in a hurry to inform Captain Müller that he could come to Myash without fear, the Czechs being in possession.

During the week that marked the end of May, 1918. and the beginning of June, we captured the greater part of the stations in the region of the Volga through which our echelons had to pass. They took possession either by force or stratagem as the case required. The most daring feat was accomplished by a few Czecho-Slovak soldiers in the station of Pensa. They told the Red Guards of an armoured train that mines had been laid at a number of points, and that if their train proceeded it would surely be blown up. The Red Guards, who easily believed anything they were told, abandoned the train with its machine-guns, and our men took possession of it, and held it till our companies came up. Our soldiers did wonderful work, disguising themselves as Red Guards, mixing with the Bolsheviks, and finding out all about the