Page:John Reed - Ten Days that Shook the World - 1919, Boni and Liveright.djvu/287

Rh into the road before us, shouted “Shtoi!” and threw up their guns.

We paid no attention. “The devil take you!” cried the Red Guards. “We don’t stop for anybody! We’re Red Guards!” And we thundered imperiously on, while Vladimir Nicolaievitch bellowed to me about the internationalisation of the Panama Canal, and such matters…

About five miles out we saw a squad of sailors marching back, and slowed down.

“Where’s the front, brothers?”

The foremost sailor halted and scratched his head. “This morning,” he said, “it was about half a kilometer down the road. But the damn thing isn’t anywhere now. We walked and walked and walked, but we couldn’t find it.”

They climbed into the truck, and we proceeded. It must have been about a mile further that Vladimir Nicolaievitch cocked his ear and shouted to the chauffeur to stop.

“Firing!” he said. “Do you hear it?” For a moment dead silence, and then, a little ahead and to the left, three shots in rapid succession. Along here the side of the road was heavily wooded. Very much excited now, we crept along, speaking in whispers, until the truck was nearly opposite the place where the firing had come from. Descending, we spread out, and every man carrying his rifle, went stealthily into the forest.

Two comrades, meanwhile, detached the cannon and slewed it around until it aimed as nearly as possible at our backs.

It was silent in the woods. The leaves were gone, and the tree-trunks were a pale wan colour in the low, sickly autumn sun. Not a thing moved, except the ice of little woodland pools shivering under our feet. Was it an ambush?

We went uneventfully forward until the trees began to thin, and paused. Beyond, in a little clearing, three soldiers sat around a small fire, perfectly oblivious.