all over the country. The front was fluid
with small units moving back and forth, here and there, occupying
this or that area or this or that village. There is where misfortune
struck me. A Red Finnish patrol took possession of the area and I was
caught by the Red patrol.

This has nothing to do with this story I am now writing about Nelka,
so I will not go into this complicated and lengthy matter of how I
managed to escape from the Finnish Reds. This is a long story.
Suffice it to say, that I managed to get away.

But it was not possible any more for me to remain on Finnish ground
and I crossed in the night back into Russia. Having no money I was
obliged to walk and walked about 30 miles to Petrograd. I finally
made it, but I did not know where to look for Nelka so I went to our
man. He told me that Nelka was to come and see him that morning at
about eleven, and so I waited. Nelka arrived on time. When she saw me
she went into an absolute fury, for my having come back. I always
said that she was in such a fury with me that for about 48 hours I
never even had a chance to try to tell her why I was back.

Finally I got it over to her, and while we were happy to be together
again, our position was just as desperate, if not worse, and we were
back where we had started. We knew that we better do something fast.
However, while Nelka had managed to get some money, there was not
enough to pay the man to get us over.

So I made a suggestion. In as much as I had crossed the border twice
and knew the way pretty well, I suggested that we go on our own
without any guide or assistance. We explained this to our man who was
very nice about it and said that if we wanted to take the risk it was
up to us.

However, there was little choice so we decided. We paid him for my
first trip and had a little money left. Through some black market
dealer we managed to get a loaf of black bread and with nothing else
but the clothes on our backs, we started out. Nelka wore a sisters
uniform black dress, a heavy cloth coat, a fur cap and black leather
high boots--like riding boots. I wore a military field uniform
without insignia, like most of all the population wore at that time.
While adequate, none of this was too warm for long stays in the cold,
but we had nothing else. It was the end of December.

Early in the morning we took a train in the direction of the Finnish
border. Trains ran as far as the border, but we got off two stations
earli