Armistice Day In Old Rockdale

    The insistent blast of the mill whistle woke Massey from a sound sleep. He could not remember what he was dreaming, but he was sure it was pleasant. Massey fumbled with his blanket and grabbed his alarm clock, nearly upsetting the washbasin. The luminous hands of his Big Ben pointed to 3:24―much too early for the shift change. He was about to return to sleep when the whistle was joined by bells from Saint Joseph's steeple and the blast of a steam locomotive. Next was the deep-throated sound of the village fire alarm followed by the ooga-ooga of klaxons from several cars and trucks and the shrill screech of yet another steam whistle. A mere down pillow over his ears was not going to be enough to defeat the clangs, bangs, toots and screams that were merging into one clamorous roar.

    “Not again” Massey muttered and felt his way to the window. Just four days ago, all of Rockdale had exploded in a joyous shivaree when someone passed on the rumor the war was over, and he had yet to recover his lost sleep. Massey threw open the window and let in the noise and a cold blast of November air. The scene greeting him was etched into his memory forever. Below, Moen Avenue had swelled into a sea of cheering men and women, and sleepy children banging pots and pans with wooden spoons in time with Louie Antonelli’s hurdy-gurdy.. Firecrackers left over from the Fourth finally had their chance to contribute their pops and from the nearby canal, skyrockets from a towboat showered the night with cascades of red and green.

    “It's over.” the crowd chorused over the din. “This time it's over for sure. The war is over.”

 * * *

* * *

   The end came at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year 1918. The German command on the Rhine sent out the wireless message, “Im Westen nichts neus”―”Nothing is new on the Western front.” The ally’s message was briefer-”All is quiet.”

Excerpted from Slogans: Our Children, Our Future 

Author's Note: I mislabelled Louie Antonelli's musical instrument. Actually it was a street barrel organ.

The Pribish Boys Go To War

It is difficult to imagine the scope of World War Two.  The war that began nearly eighty years ago enveloped millions and spread misery across the entire Earth.  No family was left untouched as sons and fathers, uncles and cousins were called into the service.  Two of my family members who found themselves in this maelstrom of terror were my father and uncle, Stafan and John Pribish.

PCF John Pribish

My uncle John Pribish, referred in my novels as Vanya, immigrated to the United States in 1933.  He obtained his citizenship in 1940 and was shortly afterwards drafted in early 1941.  While his term of service was to be only one year, declaration of war in December of 1941 changed that.

John as a Tommy gunner in the ETO

John was stationed stateside until 1944 when he participated in the Normandy invasion.  As a lineman, his mission was repairing communication lines cut by the enemy.  It was a job without much chance for longevity.  He received several combat decorations while battling across Europe and remained there as part of the Allied occupation forces until 1948.  John returned to Rockdale with a war-bride and started his career with Caterpillar.

Seaman Stefan Pribish

Stefan quit barbering when the war broke out and found employment at a defense plant, thus ensuring him a deferment.  With a one year-old son and a daughter on the way, he could have ridden out the war at home, but instead joined the Navy at the age of 31.

Sefan during shore duty on Kwajalien

After boot camp he was assigned to the cruiser USS Chester as a ship's barber and gunner's mate.  Stefan saw action in the Sought Pacific and the bombardment of Iwo Jima, where he claimed his gun crew was responsible for downing several Japanese aircraft.  Stefan was discharged in 1946 and returned to Rockdale to resume barbering.

USS Chester

Fourth of July

Celebrating our independence from Great Briton with fireworks has been an annual American tradition since 1777.  I used a July Fourth event from a century ago to illustrate the growing fear of foreigners.  Just as today, dire predictions of terrorist activity were projected by the government and like most warnings, nothing occurred.

Celebrating the Fourth of July

* * *

The Independence Day explosions came as predicted but not as the American Protective League anticipated.  Massey did not understand America's fascination with firecrackers, aerial bombs or any other device that shattered his midsummer's peace.  It seemed every schoolboy and yahoo with a few pennies wreaked havoc upon Rockdale.  Whether launching wizz-bangs at neighbors, sending pinwheels dancing down the streets or tying strings of ladyfingers to a mangy cat's tail, there was no end to the mischief the holiday evoked.  Thankfully for Massey and the rest of the Russians, none of the perpetrators of the July detonations were Bolsheviks.  Attorney General Palmer's dire warnings of violence on the Fourth passed without incident.  However, the same could not be said several weeks later.

* * *

The anticipated explosions did occur in early August. They were not from terrorist bombs, but rather from a volatile mixing of races.

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga is a character from Eastern European fold lore.  She is an evil crone embodying the worst evils of the forests and marshes of Ukraine and Belarus and appears in all three of my novels, serving a different role in each. 

Ikons

In Ikons: Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker, Baba Yaga represents the independent spirit of the Belarus inhabitants of the village of Hutava centered in the Pripet Marches.  

Baba Yaga

* * *

As each succeeding invasion washed over the Slavic lands the population of the marsh dwellers increased.  Faced with the terrifying choice of death, enslavement, or flight many Slavs chose flight into the Pripet.  The Pripet's inhospitable environment was refuge for the fugitives and death to the unwary.  Even Vikings and Mongols trembled at the thought of the baba yagi, the ravaging marsh demons that were said to rip the flesh from invading armies leaving only stacks of dried bones.

In the marsh the fugitives remained, built their villages and raised families in a place safe from all things, but nature.  Unconquered and resistive, future generations would never know the yoke of the Tatar or the Mongol, or the whip of the Pole.  In time the inhabitants believed it was they, not the baba yagi that kept the invaders at bay.  They, so the new legends would go, were the marsh demons of the Pripet. 

* * *

Banners

In my second novel Banners: For God, Tsar and Russia, Baba Yaga became the boggeyman.  Kataya used the myth of Baba Yaga to terrify her young nephews, Stepha and Vanya.  In this scene I show the effects of Teta Kataya's stories on the two boys.

Stefa's vision of Baba Yaga

* * *

Boris looked with dismay at Stepha.  His grandson had removed his head wrapping and defiantly stood between Ultia and Vanya.  Suddenly Stepha’s lip began to quiver and tears rolled down his eyes.  “I will not let Baba-Yaga eat Vanya,” cried Stepha.  “The witch cannot have him.”

 
Boris grabbed Stepha and held him.  “How dare you speak to this kind woman like that.  She is a good woman, not Baba-Yaga.  Where do you get these ideas?”  No sooner did Boris ask the question than he knew the answer.  A look of disdain came over his face and he turned toward Kataya.   

“Haven’t these little ones suffered enough without more of your stories?”

* * *

Slogans

In my third novel, Slogans" Our Children, Our Future,   Baba Yaga, serves several different roles.  In the first she characterizes the old woman to whom eight-year-old Stepha delivers cheese and butter.  His first encounter with the woman does not go well.

Baba Yaga's hut on fowl legs

* * *

Stepha parked his cart at the end of the weed-choked lane and started up the path to Rosina's hut with a milk jug and cheese box.  He could still vividly recall the first time his mother had taken him to Rosina's and how he had screamed because he was sure it would be his last day on earth.  He was positive Rosina's hut would rise up on chicken legs, chase him and eat him.  But that was when he was little and didn’t understand.  Now he knew the giant bones lining the pathway were from beasts that had died many, many years ago and were there to frighten evil men, not little boys.  Even the immense tusks forming the arch before Rosina's hut now inspired awe instead of terror. 

* **

Rosina's physical characters gave reason for Stepha to fear her.  It also gave her a cover for the dangerous tasks she would take on.

* * *

Nice is not a word usually used to describe Rosina Ashtakova.  Twenty-five years ago it was true, but now Rosina's appearance was truly that of a baba yaga.  A self-exiled crone, Rosina lived in the forest several versti outside Unkurda.  Her widow's black garb covered a dowager's hump right in keeping with the traditional image of baba yaga.  Add a nose flattened by a prison guard's baton and Rosina was every child's nightmare.  In her prime, however, she was anything but.

* * *

I also used the legend of Baba Yaga to illustrate Akulina's position in the Siberian village.  In this exchange between Akulina and Ultia, the older woman explains why the villagers fear Akulina.  Akulina goes on to explain away her gift, but later admits to experiencing unexplainable events.

* * *

Akulina set the cup down and wiped her hands on her apron.  “I am not peering into God's world, Ultia.  I'm just thinking and the leaves help me concentrate.”

Ultia approached the table and stood beside Akulina.  “Thinking?  Some sayest otherwise.  Some sayest thou art in league with the devil.  Some sayest,” Ultia bent toward Akulina's ear and whispered, “thou art baba yaga.”

“Baba yaga?”  Akulina shook her head, laughed and blessed herself.  “Nyet, Ultia Yauhoraka, I can assure you I'm no baba yaga.  If I had magical powers, do you think I’d be happy toiling here in Unkurda?  I would be living in Moscow or Petrograd selling love-potions to nobles.  No, I am what you see, a simple woman.”  Akulina pointed to the chair next her.  “Sit Ultia Yauhoraka and give me your hand.”

* * *

Later in their discourse, Akulina admits to seemingly psychic powers.

* * *

“So, thou dost see the future.”

“The future is there for everyone to see, Ultia Yauhoraka.”  Akulina choked back her tears.  “Perhaps I'm just foolish enough to look."

* * * 

Baba Yaga and Me

Anyone who has followed my dispatches from the writing front, knows there are parallels in Stepha's and my experiences.  So it is with Baba Yaga.  My Baba Yaga was an old women who lived in a second floor apartment off Jefferson street in Joliet.  Her striking feature was her nose, she had none.  Instead, there was a liver-colored gap between her eyes and two holes for nostrils.  

She would lean out her apartment window and call out to us as we passed by.  "Boys," she yelled in a pronounced nasal tone, "can you help me."  The first time we stopped, we stared at her, then each other.  "Please," she pleaded.

Overcoming our fear we stood beneath her window and nodded.  From that day on, whenever we walked by she called out and lowed a basket with a shopping list and a quarter.  Sometimes she sent us to the bakery and others to the pharmacy.  There was no money other than the quarter.  The shop owners recognized her list, gave us the goods and we returned it to her basket.  She always gave us a quarter, no matter how many of us appeared.  Then one day her window was shut, not to open again.  We never did learn the fate of our Baba Yaga.

Coming of age with a hack, hack, cough, cough.

For generations, a boy's big step into manhood was the cigarette.  It was the time to show the other guys you were no longer a baby.  My big leap took place at the ripe old age of eight in a fort we had constructed in the woods near Joliet's West Park. 

As kids back in late forties, our main source of income was the returnable bottle.  Empty twelve-ounce pop and beer bottles fetched two cents each, and a prized quart bottle brought in a whole nickle.  It usually didn't take more than a few days of scrounging byways and alleyways to come up with the necessary currency for smokes.

Each bottle was worth two cents

Our goal was to collect enough money for a pack of Marvels.  Marvels was not great tasting cigarette, but it was cheap.  For eight bottles we could get a pack, plus a book of matches.  The grocery store clerk usually looked the other way when a handful of pre-pubs entered, plopped down their coins and nonchalantly ordered a pack.  If the clerk hesitated, a deep-throated, "They're for my old man," usually sealed the deal.

Cheap, but effective

We were wise enough to realize we would never get past our mothers with breaths reeking of tobacco, so we also purchased a box of Sen-Sen mints.  To our young minds, the licorice scented bits would cover any suspected mischief .  They didn't.

Didn't fool a mother's nose

In my novel  Slogans: Our Children, Our Future, I was not content to have my young protagonist, Stepha, just prove himself against wolves, bullies, and marsh witches.  I decided to have him take up smoking to show his mettle.  Of course, I used my own experience to describe this particular venture into manhood.  Like all boys his age, Stepha never admitted to being a novice.  No matter what, he was not going to let the older boys deem him unworthy.

***

There was no turning back.  Stepha accepted Kolya's lit cigarette and slowly brought it towards his lips.

“You've done this before, right?” Kolya asked.  “I didn't swipe these from Yakov just so you waste 'em.”

* * *

In his mind, Stepha considered himself a seasoned veteran.

* * * 

Stepha nodded and hoped a real cigarette wasn't too different from the twigs he pretended to smoke, allowing his wintry breath to drift away like Maksim's scented clouds.

* * *

Young Russian orphans share a smoke to ward off hunger

I wrote Stepha's reaction to his first cigarette just as I remembered mine.

* * *

After the sixth puff, Stepha began felt heady and leaned against the wall, relishing the feel of cold stone.

Tolya peered into Stepha's face and grimaced.  “You don't look so good, kid.  You better sit down before you fall over.”

Gingerly, Stepha lowered himself onto the snow, dropped his head against his knees and desperately gulped for clean air.

“That's the same thing that happened to me when I first smoked Turkish,” said a rapidly fading voice.

“Ah crap, he's passing out, just like ...” were the last words Stepha heard.

* * *

In a later chapter I used smoking to show Stepha believed he was ready to assume the mantel of manhood and rebel against his mother.  In this scene, Stepha acts out against Akulina for the first time.

* * *

Akulina's face reddened and her jaw tightened as another small blade pierced her heart.  “Oh, now my Stepha thinks he's a man,” she said and rose just a tad taller to look down into her son's eyes.  “Such a big shot you are that you think you can smoke and lie to your mother.  Hah.  Next you'll have me to call you Stefan Mataovich and be addressed as thou.”
 
Yes I would, Stepha wanted to say.  He also wanted to say he was a man because he worked like a man.  He sharpened tools, moved rocks, plowed the field, sowed the seeds, and sweated and ached just like Daduska.  Maybe his arms didn't have muscles as big as Kolya's, but he could flex his forearms and biceps and wrestle down Vanya or Oleg with ease.  And if he sat with the men after a long day and enjoyed sharing a cigarette and using course language, what of it?  But he didn't utter those words.  Instead he spun around and stormed out, leaving his thoughts hanging in the air.

* * *

Stepha was now a man

It's hard to believe in today's anti-smoking world that tobacco's haze once was prevalent everywhere.  For this reason I chose the cigarette as a prop in many of my novels' scenes.  After all, they are historic fiction novels and that's the way it was.  Same planet, different world.

Rockdale School Fire

One of my writing associates is a great believer in totally structured plots.  That is, before he writes his novel, he creates a detailed outline describing each and every event.  I, on the other hand, write organically.  I know where my story begins and ends, but unexpected events crop up that generate new and totally unforeseen scenarios.

Example of An Organic Event

In Chapter Twenty-One of Slogans: Our Children, Our Future, the Peoples' committee of Unkuda  confiscate the dacha of absent aristocrat and turn it into a school for the village's children.

* * *

The estate was as vast as its storied past.  It boasted an immense yellow brick dacha trimmed in blue with a dozen well-lighted rooms, a carriage house and an offset summer kitchen.  Several out buildings sprinkled the rolling grounds and included a smoke house, ice shed, two barns and even a watchman's tower.  The entrance to the grounds was guarded by a massive set of stone pillars anchoring a seemingly impregnable wrought iron gate.  A curved roadway wound through an apple orchard and past sculptured gardens and was designed to impress even the most jaded revelers with the owner's diverse array of flora.  At the terminus visitors were welcomed by a squad of whitewashed Greek columns that stood at attention across the veranda and supported a red-tiled roof soaring more than three stories above a series of curved steps.  At the top of the stairs, a thick wooden double door, twice the width of a stout man, presented the final barrier to the interior.

* * *

Stepha was one of those arriving the first day of school and was awestruck and humbled by a elaborate structure unlike anything he had ever witnessed.

* * *

Stepha followed the designs until they lead to a staircase that bisected main floor and rose up to a mezzanine.  From there the stairs ascended to the second floor and spread to the hallways beyond.  Stepha craned his neck to see the chandeliers hanging high above him and felt light-headed when he tried to grasp the immensity of the building.  His eyes flitted across the ceiling and rested on the figures of angels carved into the corners of the crown molding.  The heavenly beings looked bewildered and stared down at Stepha and seemed to ask, “Why do you desecrate our home?”

* * *

A few months later, Stepha's educational experience took a path similar to mine.  I began first grade in 1948, a week after Labor Day.  As I posted previously, I was the youngest member of our local "gang" and was eager to participate in their mysterious world called school.  In the predawn hours of early November, our world came crashing down -- literally.

At approximately 4:00 am, a fire broke out in our school's kitchen and quickly spread.  As the town's fire department siren wailed, my father burst into my bedroom and outlined against the orange glow of the window told me to get dressed. "Your school's on fire."

Rockdale volunteer firemen hose down the remains of their school

Like my father and I, Stepha and his brother Vanya, rushed to the scene of their burning school.

* * *

Accompanied by the pealing of the village bell and distant shouts, the two hurried from the izbah straight into hell.  The sky was as bright as midday and a cloud of acrid smoke hung over the village like the morning fog’s cloak.  At first, it looked as if the flames were just outside their home, but as they ran it became apparent the fire was farther away.  They followed the beckoning brilliance along the river to its source beyond the village's edge.  The inferno's call led them to the school.

* * *

While the photo below is not that of my school, it is what I remember from that morning and the way I described it from the boys point of view.

Fire engines from several departments assisted the Rockdale volunteers

 * * *

As they grew nearer, they could feel the heat on their faces and hear the crackle.  Fire shot from the windows and door, and crept along the joints of the brick   For a moment thick smoke billowed from the beneath the ground floor, then erupted into a sheet of flame that forced the onlookers to shield their faces.  The crackle became a roar and even the ground around the school was covered with smoke and fire.

* * *

I wanted to write something more dramatic for the source of Unkurda's fire than kitchen grease, so I placed the blame on Simon Petr and his hatred for the the village's new rulers.

* * *

Flashes of flame played across Simon Petr's face and his eyes burned with a fierceness beyond the reflected light.  “Yes, we will pay.  But thou will pay also.  Do thou believe only the guilty wilt learn fear?  No, Boris Lukavich, the innocent shalt learn to fear the ungodly ones.”  Simon Petr then swept his hand across those gathered before him and shouted.  “Perhaps thou more so than I.”

* **

The older boys told me they heard yowls from the trapped custodian's cat during the fire.  Whether it was true or not, the image and sound invaded my dreams.  I decided to pass this experience on to my protagonist and give Stepha restless nights.

* * *

The roaring of the flames mixed with the imagined screams of the caretaker's trapped cats stole Stepha’s sleep for weeks following the school fire.  He huddled on his ledge next to Vanya and tried to dispel the cries by concentrating on the sounds of the long winter’s night: Dadushka snored with a deep rasp, while Mati let out soft puffs and the izbah groaned from cold. 

* * *   

The Aftermath

When I introduced the school fire, I didn't anticipate its importance to Stepha and how the burnt ruins would become the site of many pivotal scenes.  I believe my most moving scene expressing brotherly love takes place within the confines of its charred timbers.

* * *

“Here,” Vanya said taking off his own coat and gloves, “I've warmed them up for you.”  Stepha allowed Vanya to slide his arms into the heated shoba and barely moved when his little brother placed the rukavetsa on his hands.  “I'll leave the ear flaps up,” Vanya said after he put the ushanka on Stepha's head.  “It's not that cold.”

Stepha didn't even object after Vanya donned his own clothing and squeezed in next to him. 

“You ran very fast, Stepha.  I didn't think I could catch you.”  Then Vanya cradled his big brother in his arms and prepared to face a long night.

* * *

Rockdale Public School Today

Both Stepha and I continued our education in new buildings.  Stepha moved over to the carriage house and my class spent several months as guests of the United Sates Navy.  The Great Lakes Naval Training Center allowed Rockdale to use several Quonset huts at the reserve center.  My classroom was the gunnery training facility and contained several varieties of 20 and 40 mm antiaircraft guns.  Playing on those guns during recess is all I recall from those days.

Full Circle

Last week I received a photo of my vacationing grandson.  He unknowingly reenacted my experience from seventy-years ago while visiting the battleship USS North Carolina.

Grandson manning a 40 mm antiaircraft gun

My Inner Child

My two characters, Stepha and his little brother Vanya (In real life my father Stefan and uncle John), occur in all three of my novels.  I had no trouble developing both their personas since I sculpted theirs on mine.  Stepha's goal was acceptance by the village's older boys, while Vanya wanted nothing more than to win the admiration of his big brother.

Growing up in Rockdale in the late 1940's and early 50's, I experienced both boys' goals.

I was the youngest of the gang of children that caused havoc in my little village and I volunteered for any low level job that would earned me praise.  If it meant being a lookout for orchard raiders or the all-time catcher* in pickup baseball games, I would do it.  In the summer of 1949, my only claim to fame was being flattened at home plate without dropping the ball.  In Slogans: Our Children, Our Future, Stepha was desperate to be a member of the Brati gang as illustrated in this excerpt. 

* * *

Maksim fingered his budding chin hairs and pondered his most important decision of the day.  What would the great Lenin do?  Should he trust this youngster with the discovery?  Everyone else who knew was at least three years older than the pesky little sputnik.  To the Brati, as they wanted to be known, the secret should be shared by them―”the brothers”―and not with this little tag-along.  If the wrong ones found out―well that would never do.  True, Stepha was just seven summers and had a family but he was tough, very tough.  He stood up to wolves and kept his word about Old Rosina.  Toughness counted for much to the Brati―perhaps the only thing that really counted.

* * *

Andy, Donna and Me

Stepha's role required dual personalities.  In addition to his role as the youngest gang member, he was also a big brother who had to put up with a younger sibling.  While I didn't have a little brother, I did have a little sister, Donna.  As can seen in the above picture, Donna wasn't one to shy away from the rough and tumble world of boys.  But, like Vanya, she could be a problem and ditching her was often my main goal. 

* * *

“No.  You're too little,” Stepha said and pushed his brother away.

“You said if I went to school, I could go with you everywhere.”  Vanya screwed up his face.  “You lied.  I'll tell.”

Stepha bared his teeth and pulled Vanya to his face.  “You're not going.  And you better not tell, you little rat.  If you do…”  Stepha slid his finger across his throat.  “Just like Chornik, Vanya.  Just like Chornik.”

* * *

While I relied primarily on the my memory of boyhood interactions, I was also fortunate enough to have a pair of grandsons approximately the age of my characters.  The two provided me with real incidents on how Stepha and Vanya's roles may have played out.  

* * *

As always Stepha led and Vanya stayed a respectable two paces behind.  In a different lifetime they may have walked side-by-side, but years of war, exile and life without a father had made Stepha the man of the family and he was not about to relinquish his exalted role.  He was the man and Vanya was the child and as Glorious Chairman often stated, “That was that.”

 * * *

 

Stefa and his Great-Grandson

Vanya and his Great-Grandnephew

The two cousins' relationship fluctuated between best friends and thinly veiled tolerance echoing the relationship I attributed to their bygone male relatives. The boys' imagination and exuberance also reflected those from nearly a century ago and verified many of Stepha and Vanya's reactions  to the perils I presented.  In a side note: I could not find a photo of my grandsons without smiles.  It's a much different world today in many ways.

* All-time catcher was a baseball position invented to provide a spot for the player nobody wanted, usually me.  It meant I spent the entire game behind the plate shagging errant curve balls and sliders thrown by inept nine-year and ten-year olds. 

The Tsar's Lost Gold

One of the many things I like about writing historical-fiction is the ability to connect my characters to even the most obscure historical events.  Such is the case of the Tsar's lost gold.  Supposedly, during the Russian Civil War a train load of Tsarist gold was lost somewhere in Siberia.  There have been books, articles and television shows speculating on the whereabouts of the treasure.

A 15 ruble gold coin from the reign of Tsar Nicholas the Second

Since the gold was lost in Siberia and Slogans: Our Children, Our Future takes place in that region, it was not much of a stretch to have my characters involved.  Much of the story revolved around a military organization know as the Czech Legion, a unit composed of Czech and Slovak prisons of war who fought in the Russian Army during the First World War. To tell the story of the Legion I created a character named Domek Pazaryk.

* * *

By himself Domek Pazaryk frightened no one.  Even in his native Moravia, a region of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire not known for powerful giants, he was a considered a small, frail man.  By the spring of 1918, however, Vladimir Lenin, new head of the Soviet government, had good reason to fear Domek Pazaryk and the 45,000 like him.  Domek Pazaryk was a rifleman in strongest, best-disciplined fighting force now threatening Soviet Russia―The Czech Legion.

* * *

Members of the Czech Legion

The story of the Czech Legion is an epic in itself.  After Russia signed a truce with Germany in 1918, the legionnaires were labeled deserters by the victorious Germans and sentenced to death.  Rather than face firing squads, the Legion commandeered armed Russian trains and attempted to escape Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

The Czech Legion aboard a captured Russian train

The Legion's first battle occurred outside the city of Chelyabinsk.  In my novel it was during this battle Stepha protected Vanya from the bombardment.  Later in the story Kataya witnessed the battle's effects.

* * *

For a moment, Florence held her breath.  “These men,” she said sweeping her arm across the wounded, “are coming from Chelyabinsk.”

“Who …?  What happened?”

Doctor Farnsworth knelt down next to a stretcher and lifted a bloody bandage to reveal a festering wound.  “The Czech Legion and Kolchak's Whites.  These men were to disarm the Legion and this is the result."

* * *

As the Legion's train traveled east past Chelyabinsk, Private Pazaryk made an history changing discovery.  There in a forested siding, he and his rail clearing crew discovered several abandoned boxcars.

* * *

Private Pazaryk placed his bar into the first car's lock and pulled.  It took three attempts before the straining bar snapped the door open.  The car's inside was stacked a third of the way to its roof with small crates.  Private Pazaryk hoisted himself into the car and studied one.  It looked like an ordinary military hardware crate but was too small to contain rifles or ammunition.  Running his fingers across the top he felt rather than saw the embossed emblem of Imperial Russia.  Putting aside his bar, he attempted to lift the crate and nearly sprained his already tired back.  It felt like a crate full of lead or maybe…?

* **

Abandoned railway engine

The Legion used the gold to buy safe passage from the Bolshevik and reached the safety of Vladivostok.  How much of the gold remained behind is still the subject of the mystery.

My research into the Czech Legion brought me full circle to my hometown of Joliet, Illinois.  A news report from the 1918 Joliet Herald told of a Canadian military officer recruiting local Austrian-Hungarian men who had been interned after the United States entered the First World War.  The men, primarily young, unmarried Slovaks from Joliet's east side, were to be part of the Czech Legion being organized for action on the Western Front. 

Newly formed Czech Legion in France

The article did not say how many, if any, of the young men enlisted.  If they did, there was a good chance they would have seen duty in Murmansk, Russia as part of allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.  But that's another story.