avalry division was engaged and on the move. The unit was always up
front, close to the fighting lines and the work was hard.

That summer I entered Officers Training School and did not see Nelka
for a very long time.

On the first of February 1917, I received my commission as second
lieutenant in the First Infantry Guard Regiment. This was the last
promotion done by the Emperor. I was assigned to the Reserve
Battalion stationed in Petrograd.

Less than a month later the Revolution broke out and I had a week of
street fighting. Then chaos ensued.

Through most of the summer of 1917, I was at the front in Galicia.
Nelka was somewhere at the front near the Rumanian border. We did not
know where each of us was and had no communications.

Gradually the discipline in the Army, under the impact of the
Revolution, broke down and the front started to disintegrate.

While my regiment was coming apart on the Galician front, Nelka's
unit was doing the same on the Rumanian border. Some time towards the
end of the summer the remnants of her unit were in Rumania and
finally came apart. She was left with but a few sisters and her
assistant chief, a friend of hers, a Finnish gentleman, Baron Wrede.

At a certain moment she sent him with some of the personnel and
equipment from Rumania over the border back into Russia. However, she
herself remained behind to take care of the local priest who was
desperately ill. A few days later, the priest died and she was ready
to follow the unit back over the border. Just before leaving she
found and picked up a poor, small abandoned kitten. Tying the kitten
up in her shawl and hanging it from her neck, she rode away from
Rumania back to Russia. One soldier was riding back with her. At
night time they arrived at a small village and for some reason or
other, the soldier disappeared. After waiting for a while, there was
nothing to do but to continue. And so in the night, Nelka rode alone
through the woods and over the mountains over the border from Rumania
into Russia. A woman, riding alone, in the night in the midst of the
Revolution! She rode all night, the kitten dangling in front of her.
By morning she reached a Russian village and soon located the unit.
She said she would never forget that ride in the night. The next day
the lost soldier turned up very much upset at having lost her on the
way.

The revolution was taking its toll and everything was rapidly coming
apart, disintegrating and