The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  The protests of Dmitri and Eugenia went unheeded. They bemoaned her stubbornness, and Dmitri mentioned more than once how, indeed, she was just like her mother.

  But Mariana had chosen the medical profession in the first place so she could serve. She loved her work in the hospital, directly serving the needy. She didn’t need trigonometry, or biology, or chemistry for that. And now she could serve her country as well. Her uncle Ilya had been called back into the army and sent to the front. For him, and for all the men like him, she would do what she could. If she didn’t get killed before she got there, that is.

  Shaken, but feeling an undeniable sense of gratitude that their lives had been spared, the passengers returned to their cars. Once the sense of disaster had dissipated, however, the event quickly turned into just another of the many frustrating delays they had been forced to endure on the tedious trip.

  Mariana joined the grumblers when they learned they’d be delayed several days while the bridge was being repaired. At least it wasn’t the middle of winter, and a nearby village could provide makeshift accommodations for the women. The soldiers and officers would remain on the train.

  She closed her eyes and tried to sleep while waiting for the wagons that would take the nurses to the village. But the seat was hard and uncomfortable, and she squirmed like a cranky child. She tried not to think of the delay, which if Russian efficiency were true to form, would probably be even longer than the original repair “estimate.” It could be worse. The poor soldiers were packed into the freight cars, which were filled with three times more human cargo than they could comfortably hold. The nurses were allowed the privilege of traveling in the passenger cars with the officers.

  The conductor must have realized his passengers needed a distraction, because it wasn’t long before a porter arrived with hot tea. At least there was plenty of that. As Mariana sipped her tea and munched a barley cake she had bought at a previous stop, she started to feel a little better.

  Mariana shared one of her cakes with Ludmilla, the nurse next to her, and they talked while they finished their tea. Then the girl laid her head back against the hard seat and was soon asleep.

  The wagons arrived a couple of hours later and took them to a village as poor as Katyk, but large enough to have a small school, where the nurses were lodged. It wasn’t comfortable, but at least they had safe shelter while they waited.

  The days of the delay seemed to drag on forever. Mariana availed herself of the fine weather by taking walks in the countryside—sometimes alone, sometimes with Ludmilla or the other nurses. But the long hours of idleness gave her ample time, perhaps too much time, to race away with endless thoughts. She wondered what her family would think of the incident of the bridge. She knew there would be few neutral opinions. Everyone had attitudes about the war, from Dmitri’s rampant nationalism to her little brother Andrei’s budding radicalism. Andrei liked to quote the university students her father tutored, spouting things he probably understood little of.

  But at the outbreak of the war, nearly everyone had been caught up in initial nationalism, herself included. Without a formal declaration of war, the Japanese had attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. They called it a surprise attack.

  The only real surprise was that it hadn’t happened sooner. Trouble with Japan had been brewing for years.

  In 1894, after war with China, Japan had received the Liaotung Peninsula, where the Russian Port Arthur was located, as one of its spoils.

  Japan’s budding military power was a far greater threat to Russia’s interests in the Far East than China’s crumbling empire. Russia was determined to keep its foothold in the East. Port Arthur provided a much needed warm-water port, and it satisfied Russian expansionist visions as well. Once the Trans-Siberian Railway was completed, it took only a few weeks to reach the Pacific Ocean instead of a year and a half.

  On an international level, Russia was not the only one that was concerned over the growing strength of Japan. She was joined by others of the European powers that had political interest in the Far East. The tsar was especially egged on by his German cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II. The cunning German was fond of referring to his cousin as the “Admiral of the Pacific,” while he called himself the “Admiral of the Atlantic.” Nicholas felt quite flattered that the tsar of all the Russias was known for such power in the Pacific. In actuality, his cousin “Willy” was only showering him with praise in regard to the Russian power in Asia so as to distract Nicholas from his political ploys in European affairs.

  The European powers managed to pressure Japan to return control of Port Arthur to the weaker China. Then, as foreign nations scrambled to extend their colonial powers and seize pieces of China, Russia took advantage of the opportunity and moved in on the port, which was then leased to them by China. To ensure dominance in the region, Russia immediately began to fortify this vital position by building a spur of the Trans-Siberian Railway from Harbin to Port Arthur. This aggression, not only by Russia but also by other colonial foreign powers attempting to claim hold of parts of China, incited the Boxer Uprising in 1900.

  After this, Russia’s continued presence in Asia caused British anxiety. Consequently, the British saw the Nippon Empire as a perfect ally against their perennial foe, the Russians, and thus made an agreement with the Japanese that if a conflict should arise they would remain neutral. No doubt encouraged by this, the Japanese began to pressure Russia to loosen its hold on Korea. Russia ignored the Japanese while continuing to strenghten its position in Manchuria and Korea.

  Finally, in early January of 1904, the Japanese declared that Manchuria was outside its sphere of influence, hoping to receive a similar assurance from Russia regarding Korea. But the Russians stonewalled the request until Japanese patience finally eroded. As a declaration of protest, the Japanese ambassador was recalled to his homeland.

  After a few years of this political shadowboxing, the Japanese finally made their move. Russian diplomats assured the tsar that Japan would never fight over the Peninsula. Indeed, how could the tiny island nation, which only a few years ago had been totally isolated from the world, possibly have the nerve to cross swords with the Holy Russian Empire?

  But the Nippon Empire rose to the challenge. One night in the first week of February, the Japanese fleet quietly entered the harbor at Port Arthur and opened fire on the anchored Russian fleet. Considering that tensions between the two nations had been mounting for weeks, the Russians were shamefully unprepared. Two Russian battleships were completely disabled, along with several smaller ships; Admiral Togo of the Japanese fleet steamed out of the harbor unscathed.

  The unprovoked attack raised Russian nationalism to fever pitch. The only person Mariana knew who showed no enthusiasm for the war in those first weeks was her papa Sergei.

  “I have been through one Russian war,” he said shortly after the attack, “and nothing I have seen of late shows me that anything has changed in twenty-seven years. We have the stoutest, bravest soldiers on earth. Unfortunately, they are led by a bunch of incompetent nincompoops. Admiral Alekseev completely bungled the defense of Port Arthur.”

  “But wasn’t it a surprise attack, Papa?”

  “He’s the viceroy of the Far East, for heaven’s sake! There is no way he couldn’t have known how badly relations with Japan had deteriorated. The fleet should have been placed on alert weeks before the attack.”

  “I must agree with you, son,” said Viktor as they sat together around the dinner table. “But as an ex-army commander myself, I do take some offense at your comment about ‘nincompoops.’ “ He spoke with a hint of amusement in his eyes, but Mariana saw that his words stung Sergei nevertheless.

  “I’m sorry, Father. I suppose I was a bit rash. There are worthies in command, and you were definitely one of them, but they are far too rare.”

  “Too true,” lamented Viktor. “I’ll never understand why our emperors insist on surrounding themselves with inept fools.”

  “It’s the onl
y way the tsar can make himself look good.”

  Raisa Sorokin, the friend with whom Anna and Sergei lived, clucked her tongue. “Please, gentlemen, the walls have ears.”

  “Forgive me, Raisa,” said Sergei. “I love Russia, but sometimes . . .” He shrugged his shoulders and smiled apologetically, but Mariana had seen the look of frustration in his eyes.

  3

  Many days later, the train conductor came to the schoolhouse and announced, “We’ll be getting underway soon.”

  A great cheer rose from the bored and miserable women. Much to their surprise and delight, the time estimate on the repairs had been fairly accurate. Mariana welcomed the monotonous vibration of the moving train again, and she was soon lulled into the best sleep she’d had for days. She awoke several hours later to a beautiful sunrise.

  The new day revealed a sight almost stunning in its beauty. As the train rounded a bend, Mariana glimpsed a huge body of water, the light behind it giving it an ethereal quality, golden and shimmering. Her guidebook told her this was Lake Baikal, but few Siberians ever referred to it as a lake—to them it was a sea, and indeed, Mariana could not deny the accuracy of the description. It was the largest freshwater lake in all of Europe and Asia, three hundred and ninety-five miles long and, at its widest point, fifty miles wide—approximately the size of Switzerland.

  For all its glorious beauty, Lake Baikal was, at the present, something of a thorn in Russia’s flesh. It was one of the weakest links in Russia’s war effort. In order to save money, the builders of the Trans-Siberian Railway had decided that instead of building the costly rail around the lake’s southern tip, they would ferry freight and passengers across. A tenable plan in normal times, it was becoming a nightmare during wartime. The lake was frozen at least six months out of the year, forcing soldiers to hike forty miles over the icy, windswept lake, which added days to the already ponderous trip to the front.

  Mariana was lucky to arrive during the thaw because the women were to be ferried across with the supplies while the soldiers still had to march around the lake. On the ferry she was able to enjoy the scenery and see at close range the exceptionally clear water of the lake. But even late in June, it was chilly and windy.

  As she pondered the wonders of the lake, she also began to consider the events that had brought her to this faraway place.

  For all Papa Sergei’s dissatisfaction with the war, he had been the only one not to discourage Mariana from answering Russia’s call for service at the front. He didn’t like the idea, but he seemed to understand and trust her motives.

  Sometimes Mariana wondered if even she really understood what was driving her toward Manchuria and war. And as she drew closer to it, she became even more uncertain. Normally Mariana couldn’t be bothered with the intricacies of unraveling her hidden motivations. Such pursuits were probably best left to the likes of Stephan Kaminsky, her onetime friend and suitor. He had always known just where he stood and why he stood there. So far all Mariana really knew was that at the end of this journey there existed a need she was trained to fulfill. At last her life would have real purpose. Did she need to fathom the deeper nuances of this war? Did she even have to agree with it? There was a war out there, no matter that it might have been caused by incompetence or greed or arrogance. Men would be hurt and in need, and she was prepared to minister to those needs. In the end, that’s all that really mattered.

  What she was doing had little to do with nationalism or politics or even altruism. From the beginning she had simply known this was the way she must go. Moments of fear and wavering—or even near-brushes with death—could not change that inner sense of “rightness.” She belonged here, on this journey, and she already sensed that the journey’s end would bring her to both a physical and a spiritual destination.

  4

  Mariana knew she had reached foreign lands. Since entering Manchuria, the train had been passing peculiar pagoda-shaped buildings. The laborers in the fields wore high-collared jackets that looked like pajamas and wide-brimmed hats an officer called “coolie” hats. Mariana thought the villages dotting the mountainous landscape were more squalid than those in Russia, but then, she might just be showing her prejudice. All available land, even the slopes of the mountains, was covered in beans, or in millet growing as tall as fifteen feet.

  But not until the train passed Mukden did Mariana truly feel she had entered a world unlike any she had known. Here were the first real signs of war. All along the way since crossing the Urals, she had seen soldiers guarding the all-important railroad to try to prevent just the sort of sabotage her train had experienced. She had heard that at least fifty-five thousand men were thus employed along the length of the railroad. But here, in the Liaotung Peninsula, there could be no doubt that a war was being waged. The troops of soldiers marching in the fields were not crisp and clean like those guarding the railroad in Siberia. These men were worn and filthy, dragging their feet as if they had been marching for years without halt. No doubt the oppressive heat weighed them down as much as their rifles and knapsacks.

  But even more disconcerting than the sight of these war-weary soldiers was the distant sound of artillery and explosions. Mariana and her companions were not so close as to be in immediate danger, but the sounds were frightening nevertheless.

  At Liaoyang, however, Mariana received her first real initiation into her chosen career. Her supervisor informed her that she and five other nurses would debark in order to help load wounded onto the Russia-bound train on the adjacent track. Mariana’s original assignment was to serve in the hospital at Port Arthur, and her supervisor assured her that she would get there eventually. But for the moment the greater need was here. Apparently a major battle was being fought south of Liaoyang, and casualties were pouring into the station faster than they could be evacuated away.

  With trembling fingers, Mariana straightened out the white apron of her pale gray uniform. She had put it on fresh that morning, so it was still white and stiff with starch. Glancing at her reflection in the car window, she determined that her veil was on straight, then she donned her navy cape—not that she needed it in the heat, but it looked so professional. She smiled weakly at Ludmilla, who was also to debark, then rose and made her way off the train.

  “Over here, girls!” yelled an orderly as he boosted a stretcher up into a train car.

  “This isn’t going to be like in the hospital at home,” said Ludmilla.

  Mariana swallowed and shook her head. “We didn’t think it would be, did we?” Her question was directed as much to herself as to her companion. In reality, she had given very little thought to what nursing at the front of a war would be like. They had learned in theory about treating traumas, but had little firsthand experience.

  In another moment they found themselves busy working among the stretchers, and there was no time to muse over their situation.

  “Come in here,” a woman called to them from the open door of one of the freight cars of the converted hospital train.

  Using an overturned crate as a step, Mariana and Ludmilla climbed aboard. Inside, the walls were lined with eighteen suspension beds, nine on each side of the car. The beds were fitted with springs intended to help absorb the jostling of a moving train, but after spending weeks on a train herself, Mariana could imagine how excruciating such a journey would be for a wounded man.

  Besides the beds, there was little else in the car except a small cabinet for storage and a few buckets for waste. The car was filled with foul odors, and even with the huge sliding doors wide open, the heat was stifling. Mariana quickly tossed aside her cape.

  The car contained little room for the nursing personnel to move about, and situating the patients on the beds was at best a difficult maneuver, resulting in frequent moans and cries from the wounded. Mariana tried not to think of any of this, but instead focused all her energy on the task at hand. Not thinking, however, proved to be her most difficult job. She could not keep from regarding these poor men as individu
als—frightened, in pain, and dying. Many would never make it to their destination—the hospital at Irkutsk—and she felt completely helpless to do anything for them.

  “What are you doing?” the nurse in charge asked. As the long lines of stretchers waiting by the track increased by the minute, the woman’s patience was quickly ebbing away.

  Mariana had paused by one of the wounded soldiers and had begun to read a letter to him that he had handed to her.

  “He asked me to—”

  “Not now, girl! We have three more cars to fill, and the wounded keep coming.”

  Mariana smiled apologetically at the soldier.

  “It’s all right,” he answered weakly. “There’ll be time later.”

  But Mariana wondered; the man’s coloring was gray, and the fresh bandage she had applied to the stump of his amputated leg was already soaked with blood.

  They worked past sundown. When the train was full, they had to transport the remaining wounded to the hospital at Liaoyang, which was already filled to overflowing. Mariana hardly remembered having a hurried dinner, and when she was finally relieved for the night, she was as exhausted as she ever recalled being. Since she and the other nurses had not been expected to stay in town, however, they had to wait while sleeping accommodations could be arranged.

  She and Ludmilla and a couple of the other nurses found a supply area where some stacks of crates offered the only seating available. Two of the orderlies Mariana had worked with that day had also availed themselves of the makeshift seating, and they welcomed the girls. It seemed safe enough to mix with the men unchaperoned—if for no other reason than that the men looked as exhausted as the women.