Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/303

Rh Even as he speaks the end of the street is filling with troops. So are the side-streets. In all quarters soldiers are moving, in boats from across the bay, in launches from the battleships. Down from the hill above and up from the piers below, like a dense fog the army of Interventionists rolls in upon the city. The open spaces are seething with soldiery, heavily armed, loaded with grenades, huge ominous-looking things. Enough explosives to pulverize the whole city!

The occupation proceeds swiftly, like clock-work, according to plan.

The Japanese seize the powder-magazine, the British the railroad station. The Americans throw a cordon around the consulate. The Chinese and others take up lesser points. The Czechs converge upon the Soviet building. They encircle it from all sides. With a loud "Hurrah,"—they rush forward, and go crashing thru the doors. The Red Flag of the Socialist Republic is pulled down, and the red, white and blue flag of autocracy is run up. Vladivostok passes into the hands of the Imperialists.

"The Soviet has fallen," a hoarse shout goes up in the street, and runs like wildfire thru the city. The patrons of the Olympia Café, rushing out into the street, burst into yells, flinging up their hats, cheering the Czechs. The Soviet and all its works is a cursed thing to them. It is fallen. But that is not enough. They would obliterate every trace of it.