ifty, and I chose what I
wanted. I was so hungry that I couldn't wait until I got back to camp. I ate
two cans of  sardines,  some salmon, ham,  and chocolates so  fast  that the
Greek merchant could barely believe his eyes.
     In  the evening I made my way back to camp without incident, and shared
some  of  my food with my companions,  who had not expected me to come  back
with such treasure. From then  on I was the  go-between  between the village
and camp. My comrades awaited my arrival with impatience.  One day they told
me about a  Russian soldier who lived in a nearby  village. I asked  to meet
him and two days later they introduced us.  He  was a sailor, not a soldier,
and had been wounded during  the war and  cared for in the English hospital.
By the time he was well, the Revolution had broken out, and he had married a
Greek woman and settled down on the island.
     Since he  spoke Greek  quite well,  he  was a great  help to  me  as an
interpreter. He advised me  that pistols were very much in demand and that I
had been selling mine much  too cheaply. A few days later, I arrived in town
with three pistols and  asked  a  thousand  drachmas  apiece.  The merchants
pointed to their foreheads to indicate that I must  be mad. I walked out  of
the  store. At the edge of  the village they  caught up with me and the real
bargaining  began. Two hours later, we  had agreed on eight hundred drachmas
per pistol.
     At this point the  English soldiers  left the island, and  the Cherkess
guards  took over  the  part of the line they had been  covering. This  made
getting  through  much more  difficult, but  for a while  I was able to slip
through  between  two outposts.  By  now  I was obsessed  with  the idea  of
escaping. My sailor  friend told me  that  there were several bands of Greek
smugglers.  If  I paid  them  well enough,  they could  get  me to Greece or
Turkey.  I had  no  money,  but  I still  had my gold cigarette  case, which
weighed two grams. I asked my friend to introduce me to them.
     The smugglers  were enough to strike fear into the heart of  the timid.
They  were big, rough  men, windburned from the open sea. They invited us to
share their meal and we accepted. After eating and prodigious drinking, they
fell to  singing. When that was over,  the serious conversation  between the
"captain" and me began. To my great surprise, he  spoke Russian. He had been
born in Odessa and had lived there until he  was  twenty-five. He had had to
leave the city  in a hurry to escape arrest for killing  a customs official.
When I heard his story, I decided not to trust myself to his mercies, but  I
continued the negotiations. I  told him I had no  money  but that I  owned a
gold cigarette case. He was pleased,  until I told him that I had left it in
the camp  and  would show it to  him when we  met  next. He didn't much like
that, but agreed  to  take me  to Salonika in two weeks, since  he was going
there on business.
     When we left, I  told my sailor friend that I would never dare to go to
sea with those ruffians. He insisted that I was wrong to judge them on their
appearances, that they were honest men in spite of their trade. I decided to
postpone  my  decision  until the  next  meeting. I had a little  reserve of
provisions, so I delayed a few days before returning to the village.
     Three days later, an  old colonel whom I had known for a long time came
to  me.  He  was  dying of  hunger,  he said, because he couldn't digest the
rations issued to us. He offered me his  Mauser and asked me  to trade it in
the  village  for something he could eat.  I could not refuse this old, sick
man the opportunity to  eat some  decent food before  he died. I promised to
go.
     I  got there without any  problem and sold his  pistol easily, since he
had also  supplied some cartridges,  a very scarce item.  I bought some food
for  him I was sure he would like, and  on the way home I was thinking about
how pleased he would be. But when  I  arrived at my usual  crossing point, I
found an  outpost manned by three  Cherkess soldiers. Whichever  direction I
went, I found more guards. It was getting later and later, and I knew things
would be even worse in the morning.
     One side of  the small peninsula where our  camp  was located faced the
open  sea,  but the  other  side was  bounded  by a bay where the water  was
relatively shallow and calm when the wind blew from the land. That night the
wind was  blowing  from the center of the island. I crept to  the shore  and
found the water was  very cold but shallow  enough to walk  in. I still  had
about a mile to go to reach the camp. I packed the colonel's supplies and my
clothes around my shoulders  and waded  in.  I walked out to about ten yards
from  the shore; nobody  could see  me from shore.  The water  was  up to my
chest. I was frozen.
     About halfway across,  the wind suddenly changed. It began to blow into
my face. The waves were over my head. The undertow grew stronger and I began
to lose my footing. At this point, the shore was rocky and forbidding, and I
couldn't  climb  out of  the  water. I  thought  of  ditching  the colonel's
foodstuffs and my clothes. But  where could I find new clothing --  I decided
to fight it out. Once more, Lady Luck came to  my rescue.  The wind suddenly
shifted. I slowly  made my way  to a safe  part of the shoreline  and  later
reached camp, frozen and exhausted but alive.
     Our situation was more desperate with each passing day. With the hunger
and cold, the increasing filth  of our clothing and living quarters, many of
the Cossacks and officers began  to think they would die on  that  miserable
island.  We  were  told  that  General Wrangel  had  gone  to  Bulgaria  and
Yugoslavia  to ask  asylum  for  his  soldiers.  Meanwhile,  the French  had
announced their intention to cut off their aid to the refugees. Shortly they
showed  their  hand:  "Enlist in  the Foreign Legion and your future will be
secure."  France  had a Moroccan war  on its  hands  and needed  experienced
soldiers.  Many Cossacks enlisted, and some returned to Russia to take their
chances there rather than die on Lemnos or in North Africa.

        7. Flight from Lemnos

     I WOULD NOT ENLIST in the legion, but neither could I return to Russia.
I would certainly  be hanged on the spot. I kept trying to think of some way
to escape, and I would certainly have ended up going  with the smugglers  if
some good  news had not reached us at last. General Wrangel had obtained the
agreement  of the Yugoslav government to accept the  women,  children, sick,
wounded and elderly refugees on Lemnos. A ship was to come for them in a few
days.  Of  course,  I didn't belong  to any of the  groups that were  to  be
evacuated.
     When  the day of departure  dawned,  a huge  Russian ship, the <i>Kherson,</i>
appeared  on the horizon. It was too large to get  close to the island and a
small Greek boat was brought out to ferry the  passengers. A  crowd began to
gather very early in the morning and boarding was set for 9 A.M. Since I had
nothing better to do,  I went down  to watch.  The  arrangements were  being
supervised by the Russian commander who, when he saw me, whispered:
     "Nicholas, do you want to get out of this place?"
     "Do I? But how?"
     "Take a piece of paper out of your pocket and pretend to show it to me.
I'll pass you onto  the ferry. When you get  aboard, hide until it's time to
board the <i>Kherson.</i> From there on, you're on your own."
     I looked for  a hiding place  on the ferry.  The decks  and cabins were
full; I would have to go down into the hold. The first hold was too close to
the deck to be safe, but, as  I  searched,  I  found  a  small  opening in a
corner.  This led to a lower hold which would, I thought, make a safe hiding
place. So I climbed down the iron ladder into the darkness. I couldn't see a
thing. I felt around me and came on some empty crates. I sat down  on one of
them.
     Suddenly,  I heard something  move  nearby and  then something  brushed
against  me. Rats. I  tried  to  build a  barricade around  myself  with the
crates, and then  I sat down with  my  back against the hull. I had  thought
they would  leave me alone,  but I  was wrong. The rats attacked me from all
sides. Picking up a  plank, I  began to swing left and right, but this  only
served to madden them. Several  jumped on  my legs and bit me before I could
knock them off.
     I  was so desperate I  almost called  out. At that  moment,  the ship's
engines started  up and  I would  not have been heard, in any case.  I found
another plank  and with the two  of them I battled the rats for a quarter of
an hour that seemed like an eternity. I could feel the plank hitting against
what seemed like  a carpet of  rats but they kept jumping  onto my  legs and
biting me.
     Then  the  boat  slowed  down,  and  a  few  minutes later  it  stopped
altogether.  I made my way  toward the ladder, literally walking on rats and
kicking them out of the way;
     as I climbed up the ladder two of them still clung to my legs.  At last
I  reached  the  upper  hold  and then got  onto the deck. I  was  safe  but
everybody was staring at me;
     there was blood all over my hands and legs.
     The Greek captain saw immediately  what had happened to me. I explained
my dire  situation to him in French, and he  took me to his  cabin, where he
washed and disinfected my wounds. After he had bandaged them, he urged me to
seek medical  help on board  the <i>Kherson.</i>  What he  had been able to  do was
inadequate, and my wounds were likely to become infected. And rats can carry
the plague.
     As soon as I reached the deck of the  <i>Kherson,</i> I was taken charge of by
a nurse, who led me to the infirmary. The ship's doctor examined me all over
as I told him what had happened.  He  had my clothes burned  and told  me to
wash thoroughly. What a pleasure it was to put on clean clothes again. Under
the attentive care of the nurses, I began to revive.
     I tried not  to  think of the future;  how  would  I survive in foreign
countries where I knew nobody? I had no  job skills and  not  a  penny in my
pocket.
     On the morning of December 31,  1920, the <i>Kherson</i> pulled into an  inlet
between  some mountains. Passing  through the Gulf of Kotor we steamed  into
the great harbor of Katarro. In front of us was Mount Lovtchen, on which was
perched  the kingdom of Montenegro; to our right, in the distance, we  could
see Albania. We gradually approached  the little port of Zeienika,  where we
were to disembark.
     The cafes and restaurants reminded  me that I was hungry. I didn't want
to sell any of my "treasures" but I had been given some slippers on the ship
and I was carrying my new  English leather  boots in a  sack. I  put them on
sale in a  cafe.  After  a little  haggling,  I  had  a hundred crowns in my
pocket. As  I left the cafe, I ran  into  a captain whom  I had  known quite
well. He had fifty dinars. Pooling our resources, we had enough to celebrate
the New Year in style.  We  went to  a  cafe  that was frequented by Russian
refugees, most  of them wounded  officers like  my friend  the captain. They
invited  us to join  them, and  then the drinking began.  We  drank  to  our
country and  to a quick return; we drank really to forget  our exile and the
uncertain future. I drank so much that I do not remember how I ended up in a
barracks  with  my friend. But I had nothing to fear. No one  asked  me  any
questions and I was put  on  the list to receive  free food and four hundred
dinars a month. The king of Yugoslavia welcomed us like brothers. Later, all
the Cossacks on Lemnos were evacuated to Yugoslavia, where many of them were
assigned  to border patrols.  Many Russian officers and physicians were able
to find positions in Yugoslavia that resembled what they had had in Russia.
     My leg  wounds were a  source of concern. They were healing very slowly
and the treatments  I  received  from a Russian doctor did not  seem to help
much. I was also  worried about  proper  clothing. After my clothes had been
burned on the <i>Kherson,</i> I  had been given  some  that had been disinfected so
often that they smelled to high heaven. They were also too small for me.  My
captain friend told me  that there  was a  warehouse  of civilian clothes in
Zei-enika sent by the American Red Cross.
     I  went  to see Mr.  Rodzianko, the head  of the Russian Red  Cross  in
Zeienika, but to my surprise I  was refused any help. I was so angry  that I
began to plan my revenge on  him and, at  the same time,  get what I needed.
Each week we  went in  groups to baths, which were next to a deep  and rapid
creek that ran down  from the mountains. We entered the baths from  the side
away from the creek,  there we left our shoes  and hats. Then we went into a
large  room on the creek side, where we took off our clothes, made a package
out of them, and put them inside a steam  cylinder  to be disinfected. After
we bathed, we emerged on the  other side, where we found  our shoes and hats
and retrieved our clothing from the opposite end of the steam cylinder.
     After  I undressed, I waited for everyone else to  go into the baths. I
made a pack of my clothes and put two heavy stones inside it. Stark naked, I
walked  back out and  threw the bundle into the  creek. Then I went into the
bath, washed  thoroughly,  and came out  with all  the others to wait for my
clothes to be taken out  of the disinfectant.  When  they  didn't turn up, I
began to protest loudly  and  to complain of the cold. I was given a blanket
while everyone searched high and low for my  clothes. It soon  became  clear
that they would not be found. An attendant  was dispatched to Rodzianko, who
finally relented.  I was issued clean underclothing and a splendid suit. The
label in one of the pockets read, "Wood & Saxe, Tailors, New York."
     That was one thing solved. There remained the problem of my legs, which
were giving me more and more  trouble.  The camp  physician  sent me to  the
hospital  in  Ragusa  (today Dubrovnik),  which  was  located in an enormous
former convent with endless corridors and rooms of every size and shape. The
physician in  charge  was the former  chief medical officer  of the Austrian
army and there was also a Russian doctor. Soldiers of the new Kingdom of the
Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes  served as nurses. I spent a month there and was
very well taken care of. Toward the end of my stay, I learned that my uncle,
the colonel of the former Escort  of the Czar, now called  the Kuban  guard,
was also in Yugoslavia.
     I  was just getting ready  to leave the  hospital when I became deathly
ill. Two days before I was to leave, I  had gone to the toilet at night with
almost no clothes on. The hospital had no electric light after 10 P.M. There
were small alcohol lamps in the rooms but  no light at all in the corridors.
The toilets  were  quite  far  from  my  room and  I got lost  in the  unlit
corridors. I was terribly cold and  I  called out to the nurse but the place
was so huge that I wandered for almost an hour before anyone heard me. I was
trembling like  a  leaf. In the  morning I had  a  high  fever and developed
pneumonia. For two weeks I was between life and death. Even  after the fever
had passed, it took me  two weeks to  recover my strength.  I had to stay in
the hospital another month.
     Finally I was discharged from the  hospital. The administration gave me
a new civilian suit,  a  little money, and a ticket to the city of Novi Sad,
where my uncle was living. His wife had left Russia to join him three months
earlier  with  their  son and  two daughters. Novi  Sad  had belonged  until
recently to  Hungary and  had three names -- Novi Sad in Serbian,  Neusatz in
German,  and  Ujvidek  in Hungarian -- and its population was as mixed as its
names. The children  playing  in  the streets spoke not  only three national
languages but also Yiddish,  for there was also a sizable Jewish population.
It was a wonderfully charming city on the Danube.
     My aunt was an enterprising woman. She had managed to save her valuable
jewels and with the money had bought a hotel  with a superb cafe. (Two years
later, she and one of her partners lost control of  the establishment to the
third  partner. But in the meanwhile, I lived the high life.) I had the best
room in the hotel; I  ate  in the cafe and my aunt gave me pocket money. She
bought me two new suits in the latest fashion. It was a soft life, but I was
uneasy living off  my relatives. So  one day I decided to go to  Belgrade in
search of any  former comrades  who might  be there.  Belgrade had  suffered
terribly during the war from bombardment by the Austrians across the Danube.
Rebuilding was going on everywhere.
     After  several days in Belgrade I was involved  in a dramatic  incident
and  my good luck  saved  me once again. The  parliament building  had  been
renovated and  was to  be dedicated by the prince  regent,  the  future King
Alexander. He was to be accompanied by President Pasic. I found a spot along
the parade route near a large building where construction work was going on.
In order to see over the mounted guards along the street, I stood on a small
pile  of bricks. I could hear  the cheering  in the  distance and  then  the
church bells began to ring. There was a foreigner standing next to me, a man
of medium height who could not  see over the guards. Since I was tall enough
to see the parade from ground  level,  I gave him my  place on  the  pile of
bricks. The parade came along and I could  see  the regent and Pasic, seated
in an open carriage.
     After that, things happened so  quickly  I couldn't tell what was going
on. The horses fell under their traces;
     there were  people  covered with blood. The police  were running in all
directions. There had been an  assassination attempt against the regent. The
foreigner next to me was stretched out on the ground, his face covered  with
blood.  As  I tried to reach him, the police arrived and carried  him to  an
ambulance. Next day I read in the newspapers that he was Swiss  and had been
hit by  a bomb  fragment. He had been blinded. Given my height, the shrapnel
would have hit me in the chest if I had stayed standing on the bricks.

        III. The Treasure of the White Army


        8. A Fantastic Secret

     AT THE RUSSIAN EMBASSY in Belgrade I  ran into a fellow officer who had
been attached to  the same brigade as I at the outbreak of the  Civil War. I
had not laid eyes on him since those days.
     "My dear  friend," he said, "you  are just the man I  have been looking
for. Of course, I had no idea  I  would find you here though I knew you were
in  Yugoslavia. I  have  just returned from Bulgaria, and I had a  talk with
General Pokrovsky in Sofia. He asked  me to try to find  you and to set up a
meeting  with  him there.  Here  is  a ticket. His  address is marked on the
back."
     I was startled. I had not  even seen the general for ages and had never
felt  sympathetic toward him. I disapproved of his cruelty to the enemy and,
as well, his behavior toward the Cossacks. Why on earth would he wish to see
me? Out of curiosity, and because  I was  bored and  wanted to  do something
new, I decided to go anyhow.
     I went back to Novi Sad to tell my aunt and uncle.
     They tried  to dissuade me  from going without being quite sure why. My
uncle  knew Pokrovsky and  didn't think highly of him. But I had made up  my
mind,  and two days later,  I  took the train for  Sofia.  I didn't  have  a
passport,  but  I managed to get through  both the Serbian and the Bulgarian
customs with a sort of identification that my uncle had written out  on some
of his leftover regimental letterhead.
     When I arrived at Pokrovsky's house, his orderly  informed me that  the
general  was  in Tirnovo, the  former  capital of the Bulgarian kingdom. The
next day I found him in a house on the outskirts of the city. It belonged to
a  Bulgarian  colonel  who was  an  adversary  of the government.  Pokrovsky
greeted me warmly:  'T am delighted  to see  you, <i>molodoi</i> [young man].  I'll
tell you  later  why  I  sent for you. First, let's go eat.  But  forget the
General Pokrovsky. I am incognito here. I am Captain Ivanov."
     The political situation  in Bulgaria was complicated. Czar Ferdinand of
Bulgaria  had  sided with the Germans during the war, against the sentiments
of most of his people. After  the war, he had been exiled, and his son Boris
had succeeded to the throne. A general  election had given a majority to the
Austrian Party, which  was leftist, though  not communist, and the president
of that party, Stam-bolisky, headed the government. To add to  its troubles,
the country was regarded by the Allies as a former enemy.
     With help  from the Allies, General  Wrangel had persuaded Stambolisky,
heading the new government, to allow refuge to some of the  exiled survivors
of  his  White  Army.  But it was not sitting  well with Stambolisky.  These
foreign  soldiers, with rightist  political attitudes,  could well side with
his opposition and assist in a coup d'etat. And the Soviet Union was unhappy
with  him  for granting asylum to  its mortal enemies. But the White Russian
Army and its leaders were scrupulously neutral regarding Bulgaria's internal
affairs. Their  dreams  of  returning to  Russia had  been encouraged by the
mutiny of the sailors at Kronstadt  against the Bolsheviks, and incidents of
fierce partisan resistance in the Caucasus.
     I was  still bewildered by Pokrovsky's summons.  I  was very  young and
much too junior to be any help to him. But after a splendid dinner he handed
me  a hundred dollars and told me to  go to a certain address  in Burgas and
wait for him there. "I will tell you there what I want you to do."
     I told him good-bye, and by the next evening I was in Burgas, the large
Bulgarian port on the Black Sea. The  address the general had given me was a
large building on the  outskirts, surrounded  by a high stone wall.  It  had
been rented by a  Russian  colonel  who  was living there  and  posing  as a
businessman organizing a  small commercial fishing  company.  A large vessel
from Constantinople was sitting in the harbor.
     The  ship  was commanded  by a Greek  captain who  was originally  from
Kertch in  the Crimea. The  crew of  six were all from Odessa  and had  been
longtime volunteers in the White Army. The ship was to land supplies for the
partisans  on the shore  of the Black  Sea. At first, I thought this was the
mission the colonel had in mind for me. I knew that part of the world and my
name was well known  to the Cossacks who were  resisting  the  Reds there. I
would have accepted such  an assignment in spite of the dangers; besides any
patriotic motives, it would have given me a chance to look for my mother and
maybe  to  bring her back  to Bulgaria. This was not what the general had in
mind.  General  Pokrovsky, now  Captain  Ivanov,  arrived  one  night  soon,
accompanied  by  his  orderly, a  Cossack noncommissioned  officer  who  was
utterly devoted to him. There was a lieutenant colonel in the house who also
lived  under a false name. General Pokrovsky said,  "Now,  gentlemen, let us
talk  about  serious  matters." And, turning to me,  "I  have  summoned you,
<i>molodoi,</i> for  two reasons.  First of all, you come from an excellent family,
renowned  for  its  honor   and  its  sense  of  loyalty.  I  remember  your
grandfather,  who served three emperors without the slightest fault, and who
was a hero  of the war  of 1877. I also  knew your uncle, the colonel of the
Imperial Guard, and I have had the honor of being his commanding officer.  I
know also that several members of your family have been killed  by the Reds.
Not long ago  you lost your younger brother. You yourself have  served under
me, and even  if your inexperience has caused you to make a few  mistakes, I
know you to  be courageous and trustworthy. The  second reason has precisely
to do with your youth and physical strength. You will need both."
     The general then  told me the rest.  When Denikine had finally realized
that  victory was hopeless,  he had named Pokrovsky director of the military
affairs  behind  the  lines.  In  this  position he  had  been charged  with
gathering all the deposits  of both State and private  banks, as well as the
contents of private estates whose owners were assumed dead or in flight. The
money was intended to support sabotage and intrigue against the Reds. He had
hidden everything he had got hold  of in a secret place known only to two or
three people. We sat at the table  listening as  the general paced  the room
and spoke in nervous bursts.
     "According  to  what  I  have  learned   from  our  Bulgarian  friends,
Stambolisky's police are planning an action against me.  There is a  traitor
among  us  who has denounced us  as an organization that intends to continue
the resistance against the Reds. The Bulgarian government is friendly to the
Soviet Union and is under severe pressure from them for having even admitted
us. It is urgent that we hide our treasure in an absolutely secure place. It
is well hidden now, but not safe enough. A really  good search might uncover
it, and that would mean the end  of our cause.  We must decide where and how
to hide it better.
     He turned to the two colonels and the lieutenant colonel. "I have asked
you, gentlemen, to give me  your suggestions on  how to  find another hiding
place. What have you to say?"
     The lieutenant  colonel answered. "Excellency, the colonel  and  I have
given it a great deal  of  thought. I have personally explored the territory
around the city for about fifty miles. I believe the only really safe hiding
place  must be away from the city,  in a heavily wooded area, and I think  I
have found the spot. It will  take a tremendous amount of work. Fortunately,
we have our young comrade with us now, but I wonder if even he can manage."
     <i>"I</i> can  assure you," I responded  grandly,  "that  nothing will  be too
much."
     "Very well, <i>molodoi,"</i> said the general. "I am counting on you."
     All  night we discussed the project. The lieutenant colonel and I would
look over the location the next day. Then the general led us downstairs into
the cellar.  The lieutenant colonel removed about twenty bricks from one  of
the walls.  They were so well matched to the rest of the wall that it  would
have been  impossible  to find  the hiding place without tearing  the  whole
cellar  apart.  I  could see only  part of the treasure  but  what I did see
amazed me: foreign currency, bushel baskets of diamonds and emeralds, silver
plate and gold. A fabulous treasure.
     Then it dawned on me  why the general had had  the bricks taken off and
was removing some  of  the treasure.  He was going to take some of the money
for his own needs and give each of us enough to support ourselves before the
treasure was  buried.  Early  the  next morning, he  bade  us  farewell  and
promised to return. We felt somehow that we would never see him again.
     We  had decided that we  would  divide the  treasure four ways and bury
each portion a half mile away from the other.  We got right down to the task
of exploring the forest for hiding places where we could work  without being
noticed. We roamed all day without seeing a soul  within  a radius of six or
seven miles. Still, we planned to  work  only at  night and  search  for our
hiding spots during the day.
     The lieutenant colonel  went off  in search of some  cases  the Russian
army had used to store rifle cartridges. And I was sent  to  find some waxed
paper we could wrap the currency and stock certificates in to keep them dry.
I  had  to  go to Sofia.  I thought from there I might  get  a letter  to my
mother. I was worried sick about her; most of my relatives were  either dead
or in  prison. It was very  complicated to  get a letter from Bulgaria  into
Russia. Germany was the only country that had  postal relations with Russia,
so  one  had  to  send a  letter to Germany with  a  request  to the  postal
authorities  there  to forward it  to Russia. Along with my letter I sent  a
return envelope marked to myself, "General Delivery, Sofia."
     When I got back, the lieutenant colonel and I got to work. The treasure
had been brought out of Russia in six or seven large zinc cases. It was only
when I was  helping the  lieutenant  colonel divide  it  up to  put  it into
smaller cases that I got  any real idea  of how large it was. In spite of my
youth and inexperience, even I could see that it was worth a fabulous sum. I
have forgotten  what figure the colonel cited, but I know that it turned  my
head. I still remember, fifty years later, how awed I was.
     One case  contained thousands of  gold rubles  and presented us  with a
terrible  problem,  since  we  had only about twenty  smaller cases  and the
original  containers  were  too  large  to  hide.  Finally,  we  bought  two
medium-sized iron water tanks  for the gold  pieces, but we had to  lug them
into  the  forest empty,  then  bring the  gold pieces out in sacks and fill
them. We later buried these in the third and fourth hiding places. We had  a
terrible time, as well, with about four hundred and fifty pounds of platinum
--   the purest  in the world, the  colonel  assured me -- but at  least it was
molded in flat bars and  didn't take up as much room as the  gold pieces. We
wrapped the platinum bars in heavy rags and put them  inside burlap bags and
then wrapped the whole thing in big leather pouches.  These  were to go into
the first and second hiding  places. Another large part  of the treasure was
made  up of  about forty-five pounds  of  jewelry set  with precious stones,
diamonds, emeralds, and rubies.  Some of the stones were  huge and must have
represented large fortunes just  by themselves. There were some smaller bags
with pounds  of  loose, uncut precious  stones of various sizes. Then  there
were  a  number  of wooden  boxes literally stuffed with foreign  notes  and
currency, most of them English pounds. The stock and bond  certificates were
interesting because  they represented some of  the greatest companies in the
world.  I remember  there were some  from  de Beers  diamonds, and from  the
Canadian  Pacific  railroad.  Besides  the  valuables,  one  case  contained
documents which,  General  Pokrovsky told me, would be  enormously important
for future historians. The  band the documents  were tied with was inscribed
in red, in Russian: "Top secret. Of the greatest importance to the State." I
can still see the inscription as if it were before my very eyes. How would I
evaluate the treasure as  a  whole? It's hard to give even an approximation.
But I would estimate that it was worth over a hundred million dollars.
     Our first expedition took place a few days after I got back. We set out
early  in  the evening, since  the  first spot we had picked was a very long
way. We had hidden our tools there. I had bought three powerful  flashlights
in Sofia. It was exhausting work.  The lieutenant colonel was an old man and
had a heart condition. The ground  was frozen and we  had to dig a deep hole
at least three  and a half feet. It was summer and so daybreak came just  as
we had gotten the cases in  place. We filled the hole in, camouflaged it and
hid our tools, and  then walked a half  mile.  At  that point we fell on the
ground and slept all through  the afternoon.  Afterward, we waited for  dusk
before we dared return to the house.
     The following night, on our second expedition,  we  had a bad scare. We
had just begun to dig when the lieutenant colonel suggested that we stop and
eat  something.  We  were  leaning against  a tree, relaxing,  when we heard
footsteps  about a hundred yards away, then  voices  that were  not speaking
Bulgarian.  I recognized it  as  Turkish because  it resembled Tartar, which
some of our servants had spoken.
     We drew our pistols-we had been ordered to kill anyone who came upon us
and to conceal their bodies.
     Whoever they were,  they  halted and remained  there,  in  silence, for
almost an hour.  We thought  there  were five or  six of them. Finally, they
moved away, in the same direction from which they had come, toward the sea.
     When  we had finished our work we went to  examine the spot where  they
had remained  for so long.  It was light, and after searching for a  bit, we
found a natural excavation hidden under  a thicket. Inside it  was all kinds
of  foreign merchandise. Our visitors had apparently  been Turkish smugglers
who were delivering their goods to their Bulgarian connections.
     Our discovery could  have had serious consequences. We had chosen their
hiding  place as a site to bury part of our treasure. If  the  smugglers had
come upon us, we would have had no choice but to fire. Given the numbers
     involved, there would have been some doubt as to the outcome.
     But the rest of our work  proceeded smoothly, and we were relieved when
it was over.  Our main concern was the colonel, who  was having a great deal
of trouble with his heart. After our work was finished, he  admitted that he
had had several attacks. There was no way to get any medicine for him.
     It was now a full month since I had mailed the letter to  my mother and
I  was  impatient  to get  to the  post  office in Sofia even though I could
hardly expect a response so soon. Nonetheless, as soon as I arrived in Sofia
I went there and, with great apprehension, inquired at the general  delivery
window. I almost fainted with  emotion when the clerk handed me the envelope
I had addressed to  myself a month before.  I walked out of the post office,
feeling almost  drunk,  and sat  down  on a  bench  before  the  magnificent
cathedral of Alexander Nevsky.
     I saw a tiny bit of paper and unfamiliar writing and knew that my fears
had  been  justified. "Dear Nicholas,"  the letter read, "I am a Cossack who
used to work in your home. When your letter  arrived, they  tacked it  up on
the bulletin board in the meeting room of our soviet. I am terribly sorry to
have to  tell you that  your mother died on April 21  last year of typhus. I
hope  you are  well."  My mother  was  forty years old. I  walked around for
several hours and then returned to Burgas. The two colonels tried their best
to console me. To  pass the time,  the lieutenant  colonel and  I had gotten
into the  habit of going  to a cafe frequented by  Russians, where we played
chess. We met a young Bulgarian who was employed in the  police headquarters
and who,  like the majority of  Bulgarians, was a Russophil and disliked the
present government.
     One evening, quite late, we had just finished our chess game. He walked
in and stood facing me and with a movement of his head suggested that we two
step outside. I followed casually. He was waiting for me behind a tree. "You
must leave immediately," he said in Russian. "A few minutes ago I received a
telegram for  the prefect  from Sofia.  It  contains three names: yours, the
colonel's and the lieutenant colonel's. The prefect is ordered to arrest you
immediately and  send you to Sofia  under heavy guard until the  authorities
arrive from  the capital.  You must  hurry. I  have to  deliver  the message
immediately."
     "Thank  you,  my friend," I  said. 'Tell  me how much time  we  have to
collect the colonel and a few things."
     "At most a  half hour," he replied. "And don't  forget that the prefect
has a car."
     We shook hands, and I went in to  get  my friend. I asked him to follow
me without wasting a moment and on the way to the house I explained what was
happening. He was worried about the colonel. "He is old and sick;  we cannot
leave him alone here. What are we going to do?"
     When we got  there, we told the colonel what was going on and asked him
to get ready  as fast as  possible and to gather any compromising papers. As
he was getting the papers together, he clasped his hand to his heart and lay
down on his bed. "It is  nothing," he said. "It will pass." And with that he
closed his  eyes and died.  "He is better  off," my  friend said.  "He could
never have stood what is ahead of us."
     We kissed him, and recited a prayer for the repose of his soul. Then we
took our  handguns  and the money and papers and left. The closest border we
could head for was the Turkish. To avoid the police, we circled the city. In
the distance, we could hear the siren of the prefect's auto.
     It was a dark, warm night  and we made good time. As we walked along we
tore up the papers we  had  taken with  us. The  area between Burgas and the
border was sparsely populated and heavily wooded. It  was a simple matter to
avoid the few villages.
     When  day broke, we  found a well-covered  hiding  spot in  a grove and
slept there for several hours. When  we awoke, we were dying  of  hunger and
thirst.  A little way along we came to a large  farm. The lieutenant colonel
guarded  our arsenal while I went to get something to eat and drink. I had a
heavy walking  stick with me,  luckilv,  because no sooner had I entered the
yard than I was attacked by a half-dozen savage dogs. They had  me backed up
against a wall when an old  woman appeared from the  house.  She chased  the
dogs away, yelling at them and throwing stones.
     She lived alone in the  house  with her young grandson. I  explained to
her that I was Russian and that my friend and I were looking for work in the
forests. I showed  her my money and  asked her  if I could  buy something to
eat.  She sold me some bread, two dozen eggs, a wheel of  cheese and a large
jug of milk. That was fine, but  how was  I to  get out by the dogs? The old
woman worked out a stratagem, coaxing them into the stable with some cheese.
While they were fighting over it, she closed the door and I got away.
     As day broke on the third day, we saw a barrack with the Bulgarian flag
in the distance. This was the border. We moved off the road and waited until
dark to try to pass over. It was very hot, but we found a small stream where
we  could  drink  and  wash  ourselves.  The  day  dragged  on  and  we  got
increasingly  nervous. Greek troops were guarding the  border,  since all of
what  had been European Turkey  was occupied  by the Allies.  At last, night
came and we moved out slowly. We  clambered into a stream, but  there was no
way of knowing in the dark when we had crossed over to the "other side."
     The night was completely still. We would have prayed to heaven for some
wind  or rain, even  a storm, rather than that quiet in which our every step
resounded. We held our pistols ready and agreed that we would not fall alive
into  the hands of the border patrols. We  walked for  about  another twenty
minutes, about ten yards away from each other. I was just about to say to my
companion that we  had probably crossed the border  when  we  heard  a shout
fifty yards behind us,  <i>"Stoi!" --</i>  "Halt" -- in Bulgarian. We were still  not
across.
     A hundred yards  ahead lay the  shadowy  outline  of  the  forest,  and
bullets whistled around  us. One passed so close to  my right ear that I was
briefly  deafened. One  more burst of  energy and we reached  cover. Bullets
struck the  tree trunks. We were so out of breath and tired that we couldn't
run any more. Our only recourse  was to resist, to return fire until we  had
recovered  enough strength  to move  on. The lieutenant  colonel took  cover
behind a thick tree trunk, and I lay down behind a felled tree.
     Immediately another foe appeared -- a Greek patrol drawn by the sound of
the Bulgarian firing. They could not see what was going on and  began firing
back at the Bulgarians. They soon saw  their mistake and began firing in our
direction.  They could not see us, but from the echo of the bullets  as they
hit the tree trunks, we  knew they were both in front and behind us. We were
in  a cross fire. Without a word between us, my companion turned his fire on
the Greeks, who were  nearer to him, while I aimed at the Bulgarians. We had
semiautomatic  weapons  and  we  fired  in  short  bursts  to  conserve  our
ammunition. Off and on we would hear cries of wounded men. We were in a much
better position:  invisible in the shade of the forest,  while we could spot
their patrols against the horizon as the sky grew lighter.
     I held off their advance by hitting three of the five men  who remained
able to  fight. Nonetheless, our situation was worsening.  The patrols would
certainly be  reinforced, and our ammunition was running out. I had only two
charges left. I was dashing to my companion when I  heard his firing stop. I
reached him crawling on my hands and knees, but he was dead, a bullet in his
head.
     I  could still hear  firing behind  me but  the bullets were no  longer
whistling by. I then took my  friend's ammunition,  money  and papers, fired
another round, and took off through the  underbrush. The forest was not very
dense, and soon I was able to stand up and run at full speed.

        9. At Loose Ends in Turkey

     SINCE i HAD had some rest  during the shooting match,  I set out  on an
all-day,  all-night marathon.  Though  I stopped  from  time to time, I  was
utterly exhausted by the end, too tired even to feel hungry. My mouth was so
dry I could hardly swallow. As I stood at the edge of a small wood at dawn I
could hear dogs barking in the distance and headed in that direction.
     I was moving along cautiously when I saw a  man watching me from behind
a bush. I took out my Mauser. He called out <i>"kardache,"</i> the Turkish word for
friend. I  had come on  a  <i>"pomak,"</i>  one of  those  Bulgarians  who had been
converted  to  Islam by  the Turks. We spoke to each other  in Bulgarian.  I
explained to him that I trying  to get to Constantinople  to look for  work,
because  there  was none to be  found in  Bulgaria, and that some Greeks had
fired on me as I was crossing the frontier and I had returned their fire. He
replied that he  hated the Greek dogs and would help me as much as he could.
He offered  me food,  though all I wanted was something  to  drink and  some
sleep.
     He  led  me  to a  small thatched log cabin. He took care of  about two
hundred  sheep that  belonged  to him  and his family  and hated  the  Greek
soldiers, who were constantly stealing them. There  was a huge jug of  cool,
clear spring water. He smiled at me as  I gulped it down. Then he piled some
sheepskins in the corner and I threw myself on them. The shepherd covered me
with  skins until I was completely hidden.  I had  my arms ready  to  defend
myself in the event of danger.  I might  be  discovered  at any  moment by a
Greek search party, or the shepherd might betray me. He had an honest face --
and guests are sacred in his country -- but I couldn't know what was going on
inside his head.
     I fell  asleep immediately and when  I awoke, it was night. I had slept
away the entire day.  The shepherd  was sitting on a stool near the  doorway
and when he saw me  emerge from the sheepskins,  he smiled and wished  me  a
good evening.
     "The Greeks were here looking for you. You and your friend killed a lot
of  them,  and  some  Bulgarians, too. They  looked in here but  didn't  see
anything.  They  told me I would get a reward if I saw you and reported your
whereabouts  to the  police. I gave  them a lamb to get rid  of them." I was
ashamed that I had doubted his goodwill. I shook his hand warmly and thanked
him.
     I  felt strong again and hungry enough  to eat a sheep. My host gave me
an  enormous  piece of cold mutton and some homemade cheese, which  I washed
down with spring water, since wine is forbidden to Moslems. As I ate, my new
friend  counseled  me  on  how  to  avoid  all  the  traps  on  the  way  to
Constantinople. The most dangerous  places,  he said, were on the outskirts.
They  were occupied by French, English  and Italian soldiers,  who patrolled
all the roads leading into the city. I might be  arrested  and  thrown  into
prison  for  entering Turkey illegally.  Not to mention the gunfight at  the
border  --  the Greeks had better  not learn that I  had taken  part in  that
battle.  (There  had been  two Greeks  killed  and  three wounded,  and  the
Bulgarians had one dead and five wounded, as I later learned.)
     I had to get  moving. The Greeks might come back at  any time. One last
time I thanked my Bulgarian friend and  gave him my  automatic pistol. Tears
came to his eyes. I couldn't have kept it  anyhow. It was too heavy and hard
to  hide, not  to speak of incriminating.  I cautioned him that it could get
him into serious trouble and warned him to keep it hidden.
     I  practically had to lose my  temper in order to  get  him  to  accept
twenty English pounds,  a small  fortune to him. Furnished with  a supply of
meat, bread and cheese, I set out at about 10 P.M.
     I moved  along a narrow path,  my Mauser in  my hand, a  bullet in  the
chamber. It was a clear night. The clouds had disappeared  and the landscape
was brightly  lit by a half moon. Suddenly, two uniformed figures loomed  in
front of me, Greek policemen. But they  had made  a bad mistake.  Instead of
carrying  their  carbines  at  the ready, they  had  them slung  over  their
shoulders. I didn't want to  kill them but I had to do something. I fired at
their legs and they crumpled with screams of pain.
     I ran most of the night, then slept for a couple of hours in a thicket,
ate something, and started out again, avoiding the villages. From the top of
a hill I saw a Greek patrol in the distance.
     At  dusk I came on a small stream and decided to spend the night there.
My feet  were killing me. I  bathed them in the stream for a long  time  and
rubbed  them with grease from the mutton. I found a sheltered spot and spent
a peaceful  night,  and  in the morning  I felt refreshed and  ready for the
road. That  day passed without  incident. But my shoes  were  falling apart,
which was a serious problem.  The ground  was rocky and in  a day  or  two I
would be barefoot.
     I  spent the  next night near a stream and in the morning I  decided to
risk everything. I  had to find a hamlet where  I wouldn't be discovered  by
the  police but where I could  buy  a pair  of the woven shoes  the peasants
wear, which are comfortable for walking in the mountains and forests. In the
afternoon, I spotted a tiny hamlet, just a few houses around a small mosque.
I had no choice but to dare it since I also needed more provisions.
     As I entered  the village a pack of dogs  set up a terrible  racket and
some Turks came  out of  their houses. I greeted them with <i>"Shalom  alechem"</i>
the common greeting in all Moslem countries. They began  to  speak to me  in
Turkish but I indicated by sign language that I didn't understand. They were
neither hostile nor  friendly  --  merely  suspicious. They exchanged anxious
glances and asked if I were Greek, English  or French.  I told the truth: "I
am <i>ourousse</i> [Russian]."
     To my great surprise, their attitude immediately  changed.  They  began
shaking my hands and slapping me on the back. One of them led me by the hand
into his  house. Then I  grasped  the reason for their change  of  heart. My
Turkish host kept repeating over and  over "Kemal  Pasha  [Ataturk],  <i>ourous
kardache"</i> Kemal Pasha was  battling the Greek army  in  Asia Minor with arms
supplied by the Soviet Union. The Turks did not make any distinction between
Red and White Russians. All Russians were <i>"kardaches"</i> to them.
     A crowd gathered around me  while I  ate. I explained that I was trying
to get to Istanbul (the Turks disliked the name Constantinople), showed them
my  tattered  shoes and a five-dollar bill. (The rest of the  money was tied
around my  waist in a  cloth belt.) No one would take my  money but in a few
minutes they had set before  me several pairs of  boots of the kind worn  by
Balkan peasants, made  of strips of sheepskin. They are  so light you hardly
know you  have them  on. One wears them with long woolen stockings the women
weave, and a pair  of  these were brought to me. Then I  was escorted to the
fountain in the courtyard of the mosque, where I  washed my feet, put on the
stockings and my size 44 shoes, and felt like a new man.
     I spent the  night in this hospitable village. All evening long I heard
patriotic songs in which I could distinguish only one word: Kemal Pasha. The
Turks were  incredibly proud of his victories  over the Greeks. On the other
hand, they detested the Allies, who occupied their capital, and explained to
me in  sign language that  it would  not  take their hero long to throw them
out.
     The next day the entire village accompanied me to the Istanbul road. On
my back  was another gift from  these Turkish peasants, a  large embroidered
cloth bag  full  of  provisions. Once  again,  they  adamantly  refused  any
payment. As I walked along I thought of the wonderful people I had met since
crossing the  Bulgarian border  and  of the age-old traditions that  make  a
stranger a cherished friend to them.
     Of course, the Turks knew nothing of my adventures with the patrols and
I had no way of explaining, as they pointed out the road to Istanbul, that I
had to avoid the direct routes. So after a few kilometers I struck off  on a
path  that  ran  parallel  to   the  road  and  two  days  later  I  sighted
Constantinople. Night  was  falling  as  I  arrived  at  Galata, an outlying
district  of  the city  on  the Bosporus. I was glad it was  dark,  as I was
filthy and my clothes were torn and unkempt. While I walked through more and
more  densely populated neighborhoods, people stared at my strange getup and
I  grew more  and  more  dismayed. As I turned a corner, I saw two men whose
clothes  identified them as Russian soldiers. I asked if they could tell  me
where I could spend the night.
     We were standing  under a streetlight. One of them looked at my costume
and said, "Where have you come from in that condition?"
     "I  walked all  the way from  Bulgaria. Tomorrow I  will go to see  our
military attache."
     "Are you an officer?"
     "Yes. "Then maybe you're part of this Bulgarian business that veryone's
talking about."
     "I don't know what you're talking about. I Hed from Bulgaria to  escape
being arrested."
     "Very interesting. We are a Russian naval and a merchant marine officer
and we live in  a rented house  a few steps away. Come and tell us your tale
and let's see what we can do for you."
     My  appearance caused  a  sensation among my clean, well-dressed hosts.
"Where did you find that ragamuffin?" one of them asked the officer  who led
me in.
     They all laughed. But they stopped laughing when they heard where I had
come from and why.  Everyone  crowded around to listen. Someone showed me to
the shower they had built for themselves, and each one brought me a piece of
clothing  from  his  modest wardrobe  -- one, trousers, another  underwear, a
shirt, and so on.  When I had shaved and looked human  again, I sat down  at
the table and told them the whole story, except the part about the treasure.
     They,  in turn, filled me in on what  had  happened after the defeat at
Burgas. The newspapers  had been full  of it. Stambolisky had turned against
our organization in Bulgaria, which had wanted to continue the fight against
the Bolsheviks by any and all means. Colonel Samokhvalov, our chief of staff
in  Sofia,  had been arrested  and  imprisoned. The  membership roll of  the
secret organization  was  found in  his desk. Except  for  the  colonel  and
myself, who  had been alerted in time, everyone had  been arrested.  General
Pokrovsky had been killed by the police during arrest and General Koutiepov,
commander-in-chief of the Russian troops in Bulgaria, had been expelled.
     So, General Pokrovsky, the colonel, and the lieutenant colonel were the
treasure's  first  victims. There would  be others.  I was  so upset  that I
couldn't sleep in  spite of my exhaustion.  I  was  the sole survivor  among
those who knew about  the treasure. What  made it  all  the more strange was
that I  had learned of its  existence only  recently, and that those who had
gathered it were all dead. I was overwhelmed by the responsibility.
     Should I speak to the highest ranking Russian military authorities? The
three of us had  solemnly sworn to General Pokrovsky  not to reveal anything
without his explicit permission. But now the general was dead and my promise
had no more force. Whom should I tell? Considering the moral standard of our
high-ranking  officers  --  with  the exception of  Denikine and  Wrangel-the
treasure would  certainly  be  misappropriated in short order.  By  the next
morning I had made a decision  to speak of  the treasure  to no one  for the
time being. It was securely hidden, though I had no way  of  recovering  it.
Later I would confide in someone I trusted absolutely.
     I had breakfast with the officers, borrowed a little Turkish money, and
promised to return in the evening. I set off downtown. The first thing I had
to do was  change some money to buy some  clothes. At Galata I found a Greek
money changer and changed fifty  English  pounds, quite a large  sum for the
times.
     All  the  foreign   diplomatic  missions  were   still  functioning  in
Constantinople.  The Russian military  attache was quite  helpful  when he'd
heard my story. On the spot, he provided me with identity papers, in Russian
and French, under  the name of Sergei  Orel, as he thought it would be safer
not to use my real name until public interest in the Sofia affair died down.
He asked me whether I had any money.  I was faced with  a dilemma. If I said
yes, it would  seem  strange,  given  the  general  poverty  of the  Russian
refugees.  On the  other hand, I knew  he couldn't be  very  well off and it
embarrassed me  to take  money I  didn't  need. I replied that two or  three
Turkish  pounds would do me for  the  moment. He seemed  relieved and added,
since I had told him I had borrowed the clothes  I was  wearing, "I'll  give
you a letter  to Mme. IIovaiskaia, the general's  daughter, who is secretary
to Miss  Mitchell, the head of the American  Red Cross. She will outfit  you
from head to toe."
     I thanked the general sincerely and promised to let him know my address
as  soon  as  I  had found somewhere to  live.  At  the headquarters of  the
American Red Cross, Mme. IIovaiskaia provided me with  a fine blue pinstripe
suit (with a label from a Philadelphia tailor), shirts and underwear, shoes,
and even a hat.
     A month later, I received  a visit at  my small hotel in Galata from an
officer who served  the military attache.  His superior wanted  to see me as
soon as possible. The next  morning, when I went to the embassy, the general
received me promptly.  He led me into a  private office and closed  the door
carefully. His first question took me off guard.
     "What do you know of the treasure General Pokrovsky was guarding?"
     "What treasure, Excellency?"
     "You know nothing of it?"
     "I only  met  General Pokrovsky, under whom I had served in Russia, two
months  before  I  fled Bulgaria.  The  general  never  spoke to  me  of any
treasure. I have no idea whether such a thing exists."
     "In that case, <i>essaoul,</i> let me ask you where you got the money you have
been  spending. You  told me you had  no money  and I lent  you five Turkish
pounds. Now you are living in a hotel that, modest as it is, costs a pound a
day. You eat in a  restaurant every day that must  cost another  pound.  You
bought a suit  from an Armenian tailor. Over and above this, I know that you
have given over one hundred Turkish pounds to various refugees.  Allow me to
ask you where this money -- a small fortune for a refugee -- comes from."
     They've been watching me ever since I got to Constantinople, I  said to
myself. If only I had told him that General Pokrovsky  had given each of his
aides a  small  amount. Too late now. "It is true, Excellency, that I had no
money when  I arrived. What I  did not say -- and I don't  know why  I should
have-is that I brought a few valuables from Russia, including  a  heavy gold
cigarette box signed by Faberge. It was a family heirloom  and I didn't want
to sell it but as you know, there is no  work here and I was forced to." (In
fact, I had sold it in Yugoslavia.)
     "In that case, you can tell me to whom you sold it."
     "To an American tourist on the <i>Mauritania.</i> I  didn't want to sell it in
a jewelry shop. They're all run  by Greeks and  Armenians.  You know  what a
ridiculous price they would have given me."
     He was looking me in the eye and I stared back. Then he asked me to let
him know  where  I could be reached if I left the hotel, but I never saw him
again.
     I stayed at the hotel two more months, until my money ran out, and then
I moved  into  a boardinghouse  for refugees where it was only five piasters
for  a bed for the  night. It was a  wooden building and, like many  Turkish
houses,  harbored a  fantastic colony of bedbugs that were impossible to get
rid  of. The only solution  would have been  to burn the  whole  thing down,
bedbugs and all. The beds were made of iron and we burned out every possible
hiding place on them  with gasoline.  Then  we set  the  legs in tin cans of
gasoline but  the damned bugs crawled up to the ceiling and  dropped down on
us  while we slept. Sometimes, when I was half crazy with them, I would take
my bedclothes and sleep on the  lawn of  one of  the abandoned cemeteries in
the city.
     Then the day arrived when I didn't even have  the five piasters. It was
winter,  an  unpleasant  season  in Constantinople, with  icy winds and rain
almost every day.  I was facing disaster and had nowhere to turn. Once more,
good luck intervened. On the main street of  Pera I saw  someone who  looked
familiar. We gazed at each other and then we fell into each other's arms. It
was  like  a miracle.  At  the  military  school  at Irkutsk,  my  bunk  and
Teliatnikov's had been next to each other. He was from Tashkent, had been an
assistant  manager of  a  bank, and was  forty years  old; I was  then  just
eighteen.  Now  he  told  me  of  how  he  had escaped from  Russia  through
Vladivostok, had roamed over half the world and ended up  in Constantinople.
For two years now he had been the chief accountant at the Nobel Company, the
principal owner of the Baku oil fields.  The Bolsheviks were  selling  Nobel
his own oil.  My  friend  thought it  couldn't last because  the  communists
needed the  oil badly  themselves  and  were  only selling  it  for  foreign
credits. He loaned me a little money and promised to try  to help. Two  days
later he arranged for me to come to work for Nobel as a gasoline salesman.
     So there I was, with a Crimean  Tartar driver who  spoke Turkish. Every
day  we went to a different neighborhood in a specially equipped wagon drawn
by  two  mules carrying  twenty-  and fifty-liter  cans. Most often I had to
carry  them on my shoulders because the streets were too narrow or too steep
for the wagon. The driver helped me but it was still very hard work. I stank
so of gas that people turned away as I  passed. I had to sleep in the stable
with the mules but I got  pretty  good pay, ate three  meals  a  day, and my
compatriots envied me my job. Twice a week it brought me to the rear of  the
famous Pera Palace  Hotel, where I gazed  at the lovely women on the arms of
the  Allied  officers. The Italian officers, with the comic  opera uniforms,
were the most elegant.
     I still did not  know what to  do about the  treasure- whether I should
abandon it forever or tell the right person. Who was the right person?
     I worked at Nobel for four months and got to know Constantinople as few
foreigners do. I  also learned to speak Turkish in order to bargain with the
grocers. But when Nobel stopped buying oil, I was out of work again.
     After a few days of near  panic,  I  heard that  the  English army  was
hiring Russian refugees to work on their bases in  the Dardanelles. I had no
idea what kind of work it was but I had no choice so I signed on for a year.
A boat  took  us to an English  base on the right bank of the straits facing
Chanak,  where we were lodged in unheated Turkish army barracks. We slept on
the bare wooden floor and shivered with  cold day and night.  It rained  all
the  time and the  wind was freezing.  We could  never get our clothing dry.
Canned  meat  and  soup  were  the  only hot food we  had  and  so  we  were
perpetually hungry. We  used to steal a few cartons  of food once in a while
but eventually  we  stopped as a point of honor. We worked  hard and long in
the rain and mud.  The English noncoms treated us like prisoners even though
we were free workers. A lot of the time, we worked  unloading heavy cases of
shells.  I  wondered  why  the  British  were  stockpiling  so much militarv
material when their war was  over. Kemal Pasha was continuing his successful
campaign  against  the  Greeks but  the English had remained neutral in that
conflict.
     About a month after I arrived, we were ordered to unload cases of heavy
artillery  shells.  Four  men  could hardly  lift  the cases. Since I  spoke
English, my comrades designated me to inform the sergeant  that we could not
and would not. The cases were unwieldy and if one fell, we would be blown to
bits.  The  sergeant  was  well  aware  of this  and kept  his  distance.  I
approached  him, but  instead of  listening  to our complaint, he started to
curse  at me as only an English  sergeant  can. "You have no right to insult
me," I said. "I am not a prisoner or a slave."
     He went wild,  and dragged me by the arm to the major in charge. I took
off  my  cap. The  major put  his  on.  He  sentenced  me to  a hundred  and
sixty-eight hours (why a hundred  and sixty-eight  hours instead of a week?)
in  prison for disobedience.  I  was not permitted  to utter  one word. They
locked  me in  a barbed wire enclosure with two tents where there were three
other  Russians, who  were  being punished for  refusing  to eat corned beef
every day.
     It was the first time I had  ever been  locked up. At the crack of dawn
we were rousted out with yelling  and swearing.  All day, with only  a short
break for lunch, we  were made  to run on  the double to  the  beach, fill a
fifty-kilo bag  with sand, run back to the prison with it, and empty it onto
a pile.  When the pile was large enough, we took the sand back bag by bag to
where we'd gotten it. When we slowed down, the English  soldiers  threatened
us with long clubs.
     One  night after it  had  rained for twenty-four  hours the  tents were
flooded  up  to our  knees. We complained to the guards but  all they  would
allow  us to do was  fill some sacks with sand and pile them up so we  could
squat on them. We were trembling with the cold, our teeth chattering so that
we could barely talk.
     The next  day I told my companion, a  sublieutenant, that I had decided
to  break  out and  that he was welcome  to come  with me. He agreed. I  had
noticed that by lifting the barbed wire where we gathered the sand you could
dig a ditch deep enough to slip under. The  next night  the rain stopped but
there came a very strong  wind,  almost of hurricane force.  Our  tents were
almost blown away but fortunately it was  a dark,  starless night. We waited
until very late and then slipped  out of the tent. We filled some sacks with
damp  sand  and slipped them  one  by one  under the wire. This opened up  a
narrow passageway. It took a long time and we were very nervous. The guards,
who slept in a small wooden barracks at the far  end of the  compound, could
emerge  at any moment and they  would almost  certainly shoot us. Our  hands
were  bleeding  from the barbed  wire. My companion was  smaller than  I and
slipped  out easily. I  had  some  trouble but I finally managed  to squeeze
through.
     We  took the  road that ran  along the strait to Gallipoli. Late in the
morning, when  were  some  distance from the  camp,  my  companion  suddenly
shouted, "Watch out. They're  after us." Sure enough, there were two British
soldiers on bicycles with dogs about a kilometer away and moving toward us.
     There was nowhere to retreat to. On the right was the water, and on the
left a steep rise  covered with thick underbrush. Ahead about  three hundred
yards away there was a small bay, where four men were unloading stone blocks
onto the bank. Without stopping to think, we 'dashed toward them.  They were
Turks. I explained  that the English were after us because we didn't want to
work for them and  as soon as  they heard the magic word <i>ourousse</i> they said,
"Jump into the felucca."
     When the  English soldiers got  there five minutes  later,  we were one
hundred yards from the shore. The  dogs  were barking angrily at having lost
their trail  and the English soldiers concluded that we must  be underwater.
They  waited  around  for an hour or  two before  returning to base.  In the
evening, the  Turks  reentered the cove.  It was too  late  to work  so they
dropped  anchor about  fifty meters from shore  and invited us to  spend the
night. We accepted gratefully. They gave us tincture of iodine for our hands
and a meal of grilled fish and sour milk. Our hosts began to sing and again,
over  and over, we heard the name Kemal Pasha. The night passed uneventfully
and early  the  next morning,  we  thanked  our rescuers and  pressed  on to
Gallipoli.
     The  appearance  of the  city,  which  was  empty  and  abandoned,  was
sinister. It was bizarre to see a good-sized  city  inhabited by nothing but
wild cats,  who would run when we approached,  and by pigs darting in  every
direction. Finally we found a few French soldiers who were
     ^
     guarding  the  lighthouse, and  four Russians  -- the sole  survivors of
General  Koutiepov's  army,  which  had  been  evacuated  into  Bulgaria and
Yugoslavia. A  single  trace  of their encampment remained  -- a  pyramid  of
stones. Every soldier and officer  had brought  one  stone to  build it, the
inscription read. This moving monument was all that testified to the fate of
an "army of chevaliers," as one French writer called it.
     The Russians told us that  the Greek population had abandoned the city,
when Kemal Pasha's army reached the opposite shore of the Sea of Marmara. It
was better to be a refugee in Greece than face the Turkish soldiers, who did
not treat Greeks gently.
     When I got back to Constantinople, I faced the same problems as before:
I was  a  penniless refugee  in a city where there was  no work to be found.
There was a three-or four-month waiting list to emigrate to America and even
then I would have had  to have at least twenty-five  Turkish pounds, which I
had no way of getting.
     Once  again,  a  solution presented itself --  to enlist  in the Foreign
Legion.  My  companion  and  I  went  to  the  recruitment office  and  were
interviewed by a French officer. "Formal swearing in," he informed  us "will
take place at Fort Saint-Jean  in  Marseilles. In the meantime, you  will be
lodged and fed at the post here."
     He gave us a note for the commanding officer. The post was a formidable
building surrounded by high walls that  looked  more  like a  prison than an
army camp. We arrived  at mealtime, and for the first time in three days ate
all we wanted. It wasn't very good, but as the saying goes, we didn't look a
gift  horse in the  mouth.  However, we  realized immediately that  we  were
trapped. Once inside there was  no  getting out. The next  day, a  transport
ship arrived from Marseilles.  Some legionnaires who were being  demobilized
for illness or wounds stopped at the post on their way back home. There were
Serbs, Bulgarians, and Rumanians. Needless to say, we asked them  about life
in the legion.
     Their  response was unanimous: "The legion is living  hell. You work on
the roads twelve hours a day in the broiling sun. At night, as often as not,
you have to fight , since Morocco is in open revolt. The discipline is cruel
and  punishment is brutal.  The only relief, when you get your lousy pay, is
to get drunk enough to forget."
     All  we could think of was to  escape.  In two days the transport would
leave  for Marseilles and formal enlistment, which would mean five  years of
hell. But we didn't know how  escape  would be possible. We had noticed that
certain trusties went out  in the evening, and there were also some civilian
employees,  mostly Greeks, who left for the night.  They had to  show  their
exit permits to a noncommissioned officer. On alternate days, the officer in
charge was a Sengalese who did not even read the  papers, just waved the men
on. My comrade  and I did  have Russian  military identity papers. We waited
for  the Sengalese noncom to come  on duty  and got in line. We flashed  our
papers at him and he let us pass. Once outside, we ran as fast as we could.
     The next  day  I remembered that the owner of the  Russian newspaper in
Constantinople, a man named Maxi-mov, had known my father. I went to ask him
for  work. By chance,  the man who had distributed the papers to  the retail
dealers  had just left for America, so I  inherited his  menial job. It paid
just enough to feed me and allow me to  feed  my blood  to  the bedbugs that
infested the quarters reserved  for Russian refugees.  I couldn't go on like
this. I had to find a way to get out.
     One  day I read  in one  of the newspapers I  distributed  that a  ship
headed  for  Marseilles with  a French  regiment  would  also  take  Russian
refugees  who  had French visas.  I was off that day, so  I  went up  to the
Galata port. Maybe I  would have a chance to say good-bye to someone I knew.
And I did  meet a lieutenant I had known. He had studied at the conservatory
and now led  a  Russian orchestra  and had a  three-month  engagement  in  a
nightclub in* Nice. Out of the blue, he said: "Do you want to go to France?"
     "Of course. What a question! But how? I have no money and no visa."
     "But it's very simple, my friend. Get your bags, get on board, and I'll
tell the boarding officer that your name is on the group passport."
     I  ran home,  grabbed my two  bags, ran back and up  the long gangplank
right into the arms of the boarding officer "Passport?" he asked. From below
the orchestra leader yelled up, "He's with us. His name is on the group pass
port.
     After a bit he came on board and  hid me  with their baggage. I  waited
there  for  six or seven  hours, scared  to death. Then  I  heard  the  most
beautiful  sound  imaginable,   the  ship's  whistle;  we  were  under  way.
Eventually, my friend came to rescue me. "You can come out now. Even if they
find  you  out,  there's  nothing  they  can  do.  You're  on  your  way  to
Marseilles."
     The crossing  took  five days.  The French soldiers fed  me from  their
rations.

        10. France in the Twenties

     so, FOR THE FOURTH TIME,  I  was fleeing,  leaving behind what little I
possessed. What would become of me in Marseilles? The  thought tormented me.
But  when  we  arrived, it  turned out that  there  were about twenty of  my
compatriots on  board  in the same fix I was in,  with no passport or visas.
"These  damned  Russians," the  commissioner of the port police  said with a
tolerant  smile,  "they keep  arriving from all sides." They  let  us in and
ordered  us to go to the Russian consulate to get proper papers  and then to
report to the local employment office.
     It was September 24, 1923. Everything was odd in this land of my dreams
that I now saw for the first time .  . . both strange  and enchanting. After
four years of nightmare, the  French were living life to the hilt. There was
a lot of construction and  workers were needed everywhere. Things were cheap
and  one  could actually  live on  one's  salary. In  their effort to forget
hardship and  bereavement,  the  French  were  living as  if  there  were no
tormorrow.
     All of us were offered  work in the Departement of the Aisne in a metal
factory near  Soissons, not far from  Laon. We were  issued  tickets for the
train and set out, hungry and somewhat bewildered. None of us had a penny in
his pocket and we were happy Just to get where we were going. Our good humor
was short-lived. We disembarked,  not even at a station,  but at a makeshift
wooden  barrack.  The  surroundings  looked  like a  picture  of the moon  --
completely  barren, not a  tree, nothing  but trenches  and excavations.  We
asked a railroad clerk where the metal factory was. He gazed back at us with
an ironic expression. "The factory? Well, you see the road that  goes up the
hill  over there? When  you reach the  top, you  will see  your factory." He
smiled.  In spite of our hunger, we formed a  small military  detachment and
marched off, singing. We  got to the top of the hill. There was  no factory.
There  were  about twenty barracks  and long rows of  something we could not
make out. (They turned out to be piles of  shells and shrapnel.) A youngster
came along on  a bicycle and  I asked where the factory was. "What factory?"
he asked. I showed  him the paper that had been  given us in Marseilles with
the name of the factory. "There is no factory here. Look at your papers. You
see, it's in Alsace. All we do here is to gather the shells from the fields,
defuse them, and send them to the factory."
     We had been tricked once again. Now we  were  under contract for a year
and we had been lied to about the nature of  the work, and not told anything
of  the dangers involved. We agreed  that we could not accept it and that we
would announce  our  decision as soon  as we arrived at the barracks. As  we
drew closer, we could  see  that one  of the barracks flew the banner of the
Red  Cross. I asked to speak to whoever was in  charge,  and  a man came out
immediately  to greet  us. When we told him  our decision, he blew up.  "How
dare you? Do you think I'm an idiot? You signed for a year's work, your trip
was paid for, and now  you refuse to work. You are asking to be put in jail.
I'll telephone the police to come and arrest you."
     "You are the one who  should be  under  arrest, monsieur,"  I  replied.
"Look at my papers. It says in black and white that we are supposed  to work
in a  metal factory. Where is the factory?  We've been lied to and we're not
such idiots that we're going to get killed  for a few francs. There is a Red
Cross  barrack  full  of  injured  men.  We're  the ones who  are  going  to
complain."
     He changed his  tune. "Listen, the work really isn't dangerous and I'll
raise your salary if that's the problem." We laughed at him and went  off to
find the mayor.
     "This is not the  first  time,"  he told us,  "that  these  people have
deceived  their workers. You are absolutely correct to refuse.  My advice to
you is to go to Laon and apply for work at the labor office."
     We had eaten nothing  for two days and I felt  as if my legs were about
to cave in.  I had  made friends  with a lieutenant about my age and we  had
decided  to hang in together. The others had left before us, so by  the time
we  arrived at  the  employment  office,  they had  already been hired by  a
threshing factory.  The only  jobs left were  on a  farm in the  village  of
Chalandry -- it was called the  Chateau-Chalandry and  was about  seven miles
away. We  must have looked pretty sour at  the prospect of such a  long walk
because  the office manager finally asked us when we had last eaten. When he
heard, he gave us some bread and butter.
     We walked to the farm by fields of sugar beets. We  ate one of them and
felt a little better.  I remember that we arrived at the farm at suppertime.
We had expected  something  grand because it was called a  "chateau," but it
was only a mediocre farm with a silly-looking tower, from which it must have
gotten its name.
     The  farmhouse was  in the  middle of a  large courtyard surrounded  by
barns.  We saw an old man, one of  the  owners.  He ran  the  farm  with his
brother-in-law. "Do you  know  how to  do farm work?" he asked. My companion
did not speak  French so I answered  for both: "Yes, sir. We know  all about
farms. We used  to be farm workers." He looked at us skeptically.  "I  don't
really believe you were farmers, but  we'll see about  that." He looked over
our papers  and then invited us into  the kitchen for something to eat.  "If
you work as well as you eat," he said, "I have made a good bargain."
     After supper, he  took us  over to a ladder. "Climb up there," he  told
us. "There are blankets and someone will wake you in the morning."
     I was so exhausted that when someone waked me  up  I felt  as if I  had
slept for only an hour. After a measly breakfast, we went out to pick beets.
We  had  arrived at  the hardest work season  of  the  year.  We  used  huge
pitchforks to load the beets onto horse-drawn wagons. The beets were deep in
the earth and it took tremendous effort to pry them loose. We were weak from
malnutrition,  and by noon of the  first  day our  hands  were bleeding.  My
friend was in better shape than  I was,  and not  nearly so done in. "You do
what you like," I told him as we  walked  back to  the  farmhouse for lunch,
"but I can't manage. Look at my hands."
     "I'm still okay," he said, "but if you have to quit, I'm going too."
     Just then the other owner came  over  to me. "From now on you'll be  in
charge of  the  cows.  You'll  be told  what to  do." I  accepted  this  new
assignment gladly,  and slept contentedly in the barn  with my  cows for the
next eight months.
     I took care of the cows and the whole  dairy as well. Usually, I had to
get the hay ready and load it. I was badly exploited, working twelve hours a
day for a few dollars a month and lousy food. The older brother was at least
agreeable, but the younger one was  plain mean, stu-. pid and brutal. I used
to fantasize  about punching him in the nose, but  I never did it. I  had to
earn enough money to get away and find something better.
     I don't  really  regret  those  eight  months.  Working on  the land is
healthy and  satisfying and I had  never  worked with my hands before. I got
back some measure of physical strength and even acquired a bit of patience.
     When  I had saved  about  two  hundred and  fifty  dollars I  left.  My
companion had already quit.  I went to  the  Employment Office  in  Laon and
found  a better-paying  and safer job in Resigny as a wagon driver at one of
the processing plants of a huge dairy company. Each morning I drove  a wagon
all around the  neighborhood, collecting about two thousand gallons of milk.
I  got back  to the  plant  about noon. The milk  was processed,  and in the
afternoon it was loaded onto trucks in cans and early the next morning  sold
in  Paris. It  was  pleasant  work,  especially in the summer. The  Ardennes
forest  reminded me a little of my native Caucasus.  I  planned to stay long
enough to save five hundred dollars and then try my luck in Paris.
     I used to subscribe to a Paris newspaper to keep up with what was going
on in the rest  of the world. And since I was absorbed by the affairs of the
Russian emigres, I also  took the two most important Russian-language papers
that were published in Paris. Rut all this time I was thinking more and more
seriously about "my" treasure . . . the treasure of the White Army.
     It  was crucial  for me  to understand the interconnections between the
various  groups  of emigres to figure out whom I could eventually  go to for
help to  recover at least part of  the treasure. I had already made one firm
decision:
     I would  not  offer the treasure,  or any  part of  it,  to  the exiled
Russian  military   organizations.  These   organizations  had   sprung   up
everywhere,  under the leadership of General Wrangel. Later, after his death
in 1928, General Koutiepov assumed the role of leader. Rut the Civil War was
over.  We were defeated  and in exile. All we  could do now was to adjust to
our  new circumstances  and understand that  there  was  no  possibility  of
overthrowing the Soviet regime from  abroad. General  Koutiepov and all  the
exiled class of  officers dreamed of nothing  else; I shared their passions,
needless  to say,  but  I  had come to terms with  reality.  Many  Russians,
blinded by their hatred of Rolshevism, could not understand  that aggressive
action against the communist government from abroad would only reinforce the
regime.  The  White organizations were riddled with provocateurs  and double
agents; even General Skoblin, who had commanded one of the most brilliant of
the  White regiments,  had betrayed us. General Koutiepov and his successor,
General Miller,  were  both kidnapped, to  the consternation  of the  French
press.  What  kind  of  organizations  were these,  whose leaders  could  be
kidnapped in broad daylight in the middle of Paris? I was not going to share
a single kopek with any of them. I would go after a part of the treasure and
try to recover enough to finance a full-scale expedition. Then I would share
it with the Russian schools, our disabled veterans and the Russian churches.
     In the  meantime, there I was at Resigny and the  drudgery at the dairy
plant.  The manager was a bastard. He paid us eighty dollars a month, though
we  got enough to eat  and a decent place  to sleep.  Rut I noticed  that he
preferred non-French-speaking employees  and I soon  discovered  why. He was
cheating us. Each month as we received our pay, we signed for it on a  list.
I noticed that he kept his finger over the place next to each name. Finally,
one day,  I had had enough,  and I pushed  his hand out of my  way.  He  was
cheating each of us' out of one  hundred francs. Eleven of us at one hundred
francs apiece each month . . . not bad! I went to  the manager and told him,
"Monsieur, either you pay us  what you owe us, or I'm going to write to your
superiors in Paris."
     The next day, he called me into his office. "Okay, I'll pay you but not
the Polaks."
     "No, either you pay everybody or I'm going to report you."
     I realized,  of course, that  after this I could not stay  on under any
circumstances. Finally, he gave me my missing back pay for seven months. The
Polish workers were afraid of losing their jobs so they  settled for the one
hundred  francs that  had  been  "omitted"  from their  last  wages. I  said
good-bye and went on my way.
     I knew that a former Russian soldier was the  manager of a plant  about
twelve miles from Laon that rented farm  equipment out to the local farmers.
I  got a  job as a tractor driver  and  worked at harvesting the wheat  near
Vervins. It was summer and  the  life  was so pleasant that I  didn't give a
thought  to  the  treasure. When the harvesting  was  finished, I worked  at
plowing with the same machine.
     By now I had saved what I had planned on, but I decided to accumulate a
bit more. I didn't know Paris, and I was both attracted and intimidated. How
would I manage in that vast city  with  no friends or acquaintances? So when
the  plowing was finished, I took a job  in a nearby sugar-processing plant.
Toward the end of November, as I was going about  my work one day, I saw two
foremen and two policemen approaching.
     "Are you Sergei  Orel? Do  you  have  an  identity card?" I gave him my
card. "Okay, get your belongings and come along."
     "But why?"
     "We have  a  warrant from  Laon for your  arrest.  You are  accused  of
stealing." I was terrified.
     "But there must be some mistake. I've stolen nothing."
     "You  can  tell  that  to  the  judge.  We are only  carrying  out  our
instructions."
     The gendarmes  were riding bicycles,  so  I  had to  trot along between
them. They didn't handcuff me; they were quite decent to me, in fact.
     It was a  Saturday, so  I had  to spend two days in the  police station
before I could be transferred to the  Laon jail. The jail was  in an ancient
monastery, with thick walls and long corridors. I was outraged at being held
as a suspect without trial, much less a sentence. According to the law, work
in  prison is optional, but  I  was  put to work  as soon as I arrived.  The
building  was freezing cold-it  hadn't been  heated in  centuries  -- and was
almost unbearable once the sun had gone down. We were made to  get  into our
nightclothes  and  march double  time  over  the cold  stone floors  to  our
dormitory. Once we were inside, the doors were locked and nothing could move
the guards to open them. After several days, I was at last called before the
judge  for a preliminary  hearing. Before he said a word, I demanded to know
why I was being held.
     He  replied, "I have issued a  warrant  against you on a complaint that
you robbed a worker at the Maggi Dairy at Resigny."
     The theft had supposedly occurred on a Sunday, over  a month  before; a
suitcase belonging to one of the workers had disappeared. I asked how I came
to be accused and the Judge informed me that  the manager had suggested that
I was the guilty party.
     I explained to the judge  why  the manager might wish  to get even with
me,  and that at the time of the theft I had been forty  miles away from the
scene. To be absolutely sure of my alibi,  I asked for a day so that I could
figure  out <i>exactly</i> where I had been that Sunday. I sat up all  night doping
it  out,  and by morning  I  had it all fitted together.  At the time of the
alleged crime, I had  been playing billiards with Cassart, a former military
policeman. I reported  back to  the judge and he  promised to call  Cassart.
Cassart backed me up, and  twenty days after I had  been arrested, the judge
let me go.
     I was released just before Christmas. After  that experience, with more
than twenty-five hundred francs  in my pocket, life looked rosy. I took  the
train  for Paris  and settled into  a  hotel  near the  Gare du Nord.  I was
fascinated  by Paris. For the  first three  days I hardly slept. I wanted to
see everything.
     Then it was  time to think about finding work  and lodgings. I  had the
address of a Russian who had worked at the Resigny dairy and was now working
at Joinville-le-Pont and lived on the Quai de la Marne. I moved into a small
hotel near him. I still had twenty-two hundred francs left after my Parisian
"extravagances." Instead of looking for a job right away, I decided to get a
driver's license. That way I would have a skill to sell instead of having to
apply as an unskilled worker.
     In a month I had obtained my license both for pleasure driving  and for
trucks and I found a job  as  a  truck driver at a mill near Troyes. The pay
was good, although the work was hard. I had to load and unload hundred-pound
sacks of flour. I intended to keep the  job for only a few  months, as all I
needed was enough money to work out a scheme to get at the treasure. I would
spend  everything I had, my money and my  strength, to get my  hands on that
treasure. I had had enough deprivation.
     When  I got  back  to Paris,  I had almost five thousand francs, a good
suit   and  overcoat.   I   was  quite  presentable.  Again  I   settled  in
Joinville-le-Pont, which was then a charming little  town. Since automobiles
were rare  in those  days, most Parisians spent Sundays and  holidays in the
towns around Paris, especially  Nogent-sur-Marne and <sup>!</sup> Joinville,
where there were  plenty of nice  restaurants and  <i>[</i> taverns. I moved into a
little hotel and the man who <sup>a</sup> owned it became a  good friend. He
only charged  me sixteen  francs a  day for a very nice room and full board,
including wine.
     I  began to look up people I had known in Russia who were now living in
Paris,  preferably civilians  or acquaintances of my family. That  took some
time, as there  were an enormous number of Russians spread all over Paris. I
finally met the former district  attorney  of  St. Petersburg, who had known
both my father and grandfather. He was almost  fifty years older  than I but
he  seemed  to enjoy my  company.  We  met  regularly to have dinner and  to
gossip.
     I  began to realize that my  friend  knew many  important  Parisians. I
decided  to tell him about  the treasure  after swearing him to reveal not a
word about it to anyone, even if he decided not to help me.
     "I  believe  I  can  help  you,  though,"  he  told  me.  "But,  before
introducing you to the person I have in mind, I want you to understand  that
he is a  very  important man  and won't get mixed up  in anything that could
hurt his  reputation. But I have  known him for a long time  and  he is very
pro-Russian, and I think he will help."
     After I had given it some  thought, I told  him:  "I  don't think it is
necessary  to  tell him where the treasure  came from. It would  be wiser to
tell him that it had belonged to my family."
     I  saw  him  a few  days later. "Everything is okay," he  told me. "The
person I  was telling you about is the  Marquis  de Navailles, chief  of the
European department of the French Foreign Ministry. He will receive you in a
few days. If he agrees to help, under no circumstances offer him any reward.
He would kick you out."
     A few days later I was  ushered into the  office of M. de Navailles. He
was  a  big  man,  with  a  ruddy  complexion   and  exquisite  manners,  an
eighteenth-century aristocrat. I told him my tale. He agreed to  help me "on
condition  that your story is true."  I  assured  him that no  embarrassment
would come to him. He gave me a personal letter to the French ambassador  at
Sofia, asking him to accept a package  from me and to forward  it to him. He
also gave me a letter  to  the police requesting a French  passport for  me.
That  very day I  received my  passport  and  a visa for Bulgaria.  The only
problem that remained  was money, and  somehow the  former  prosecutor found
another five thousand francs for me. I was on my way to the treasure.

        11. The Treasure Stays Where It Was

     i TOOK THE ORIENT EXPRESS for  Bulgaria in January 1927. The winter had
been severe in  France, and  I was hoping  it  would  be warmer  in southern
Europe. But it was even colder there.
     Hoping the weather would warm up, I delayed a few days in Sofia. But it
did not change  and I had to keep moving to avoid arousing the suspicions of
the  Bulgarian  police,  who  took  careful note  of  the  arrival  of every
foreigner.  I couldn't stay in my  hotel just  doing nothing. So  I told the
desk clerk, who was undoubtedly a police agent, that I had to go to Plovdiv,
the second  most  important city  in the country,  to look  into the tobacco
market there.  Plovdiv  is  on  the railroad line to Burgas. I  spent  a day
purchasing  my digging  tools  and  work clothes and  then  continued  on to
Burgas. I could definitely  not spend more than twenty-four hours in  Burgas
without arousing suspicion. Why would a foreigner come to such a small city,
where there was nothing to do, in the dead of winter?
     I  arrived  in  Burgas  in the morning  and spent  almost the whole day
looking for a place to change  my clothes. That night  I went to  the public
park near  the  beach,  which was deserted at that hour. In  an icy wind,  I
changed into my work  clothes, hopping up and down to keep from  freezing. I
checked my street clothes  at the  railroad station, drank some hot  coffee,
then set off to the first hiding place. It was growing colder and colder. In
spite of my warm clothing, I was trembling like a leaf. A strong wind bit my
face  and slowed me down. I didn't reach even the nearest cache until nearly
midnight, and  then it  took me a half hour  to locate it with a flashlight.
Everything  was  in  order;  no one had discovered our  secret. I tested the
ground. It was  frozen hard as  a rock. I  tried to  dig, not at the  actual
site, so as not to betray it, but a little distance  away. Useless. It would
take dynamite to break the ground. I was furious that all my effort, my long
trip, had been in vain. I would return to Paris empty-handed.
     In the morning, half-frozen, I returned to Burgas and took the train to
Sofia. Before returning to my hotel, I went to the public baths to change my
clothes. The frigid weather continued; there was no way of  knowing  when it
would end and I couldn't stay where I was. I returned to Paris.
     My friend, the former prosecutor, was disappointed with me. I  gave him
my  passport  and  M.  de Navailles' letter and  asked  him  to  explain  to
Navailles why I had failed. I was worried about the money  he had loaned me.
I did not know whether he had borrowed it from someone else. One night, as I
tossed and turned in bed trying to find a  solution,  I decided to go see my
former commander, General Postovsky, who was a great gambler. The next day I
went  around and asked him to take  me to his gambling club that evening.  I
needed to make some profit on my last thousand francs.
     "You've come at a bad time," he  said. "I've had a losing streak  for a
week and I've lost more than fifty thousand francs. All I have left is three
thousand. But if you wish, come along. I'll try, but I make no promises."
     I gave  him my wallet and  he played baccarat for both of us. By 2 A.M.
he had won seventy thousand francs for himself and more than twenty thousand
for me. I practically had to drag him away from the table.
     I returned the  money I had borrowed and went to Join-ville to  rest. I
regretted that I had been so precipitate. I should have waited for spring to
go to Bulgaria. The next expedition time I would plan more carefully. And  I
would need a companion.
     After  a  few  days  of  relaxation, I  decided  to get  started  doing
something.  I  knew  that Lieutenant  General Rafalo-vitch, who was a former
commander of the Cossack cavalry and  a good friend of my family, was living
in  Brussels, He was a man of absolute integrity  and loyalty. I went to see
him. He was very glad to see me  but I did not  tell  him about the treasure
right away. I waited for about  a month and then I told him the whole story.
He listened to me carefully.
     "I have  been  expecting you to speak  to me about this  business. I've
heard  some  rumors  about  a  war treasure taken out of  Russia by  General
Pokrovsky. They say that  you know where it is. Some people even  claim that
it has been in your  possession since Pokrovsky's death. I am glad that  you
have  told me  the  true  story.  You must realize  that you  are  in a very
delicate and dangerous  position. If either  the Reds  or Whites ever become
convinced that you know  where the treasure is, your life will be in danger.
They will kidnap  you, torture you to obtain  the secret, and then they will
kill you."
     "I've thought  of  all that," I replied. "But that  still wouldn't give
them  any chance at all  of finding the treasure. Even if I gave  someone  a
detailed description of the general location, they still  couldn't find  the
exact spot without digging up the  entire area,  about twelve  square miles.
Once I was dead, no one could find it."
     "All right," he said, "I'm convinced. But what are you going  to do?" I
explained in detail my plan to recover the  treasure and what I intended  to
do with it afterward. He asked for a few days to think it over.
     When I returned, he said, "I have concluded that you are right. I agree
that it would  not be wise  to  talk to the Russian authorities in Paris. In
the first place, they couldn't do  anything without your help. And once they
got  their  hands on it,  it would disappear. Like you,  I  am  against  any
attempt  to  attack  the Bolsheviks from abroad.  Furthermore, I believe you
have  demonstrated  a right to the treasure. Keep me advised. I will try  to
help.  But  you must  be  careful; you  will be in bad  trouble if word gets
around."
     It was the  spring of  1927  and it was to be two years before I  found
just  the  right   man.  During  those  two  years  in  Brussels  I   became
administrative director of the famous Russian chorus, the Cossacks of Kuban.
One day in Brussels I  saw a man on the street dressed in the costume of the
Kuban Cossacks.  I could not  believe  my eyes  --  for  as he came closer, I
recognized George Vinnikov, a great  old pal who had been in my regiment. We
went  into  a cafe  and he told me  his story. Because  he  had  had musical
training, in Yugoslavia the <i>ataman</i> of the Kuban Cossacks, General Naoumenko,
had commissioned him to form a  Cossack choir.  For several years the  choir
had remained in Yugoslavia but eventually it began to receive invitations to
perform  abroad. They were in Brussels to give  three concerts. Naturally, I
attended the  opening night. The next day  at lunch, Vinnikov  remarked: "It
would  be so much more convenient if  we had  someone who knew this  part of
Europe and  could  speak the languages. I  know only a bit of French and the
rest speak nothing but Russian. We  always have to find a translator."  Then
out of the blue, he said: "We need someone exactly like you. How about being
our director?"  I was  taken  by surprise  and told him that  I didn't  know
anything about that sort of business. "And," I said, "right now I don't have
the  kind of money  to do a  lot  of traveling, and that would be necessary,
wouldn't it?"
     "Yes," he replied, "you would have to be  our advance man, make all the
arrangements, sign contracts,  and so forth.  But,  naturally, you  would be
paid  the  same salary  as  I, and your expenses would be taken  care of." I
explained my difficulties  with the  police. "Listen, Nicholas," he replied,
"I have  known  you  for a long  time and  I  know that you are incapable of
dishonesty. We  would be  honored to have you."  I agreed on condition  that
General  Naoumenko  give  his  approval,  and  I  wrote  him  explaining  my
situation. Two weeks later  I received a letter  from the general confirming
my appointment. I contacted all the great impresarios of Europe and arranged
manv appearances. The choir was a great success everywhere.
     In 1929, a construction engineer of Russian descent, a man named Arian,
introduced me  to a  Belgian diplomat, Baron K., a counselor  at the Belgian
embassy in a neighboring country. He had been stationed in St. Petersburg as
a young man and  had  married a  Russian woman. He agreed to help me get the
treasure out of Bulgaria.
     Arian knew only the bare outlines of the plan and I assured his silence
by promising  him  a generous commission.  Unfortunately,  I did not realize
that his business  was in  trouble  and that he was deeply in debt. Our plan
was for the  baron to go to Bulgaria  after  me, receive  a suitcase from me
containing  part  of  the  treasure, and take it out of the  country  in the
diplomatic  pouch. In a few days he had obtained a  passport and a Bulgarian
visa for  me  under the name  of  Nansen. I was  to  leave  first.  We would
register at  different hotels in Sofia. I would proceed to Burgas, return to
Sofia, meet the baron at the Belgian legation, and give him my suitcase.
     I arrived in Sofia  and waited  four days, but there was no sign of the
baron. I  was frantic. At  the legation I  finally found  a message.  He had
fallen ill en route and was in Belgrade. He asked me to wait in Sofia, as he
hoped the doctor would allow  him  to move in two  or three days. Four  days
later, another message arrived: he was worse and had  to return to Brussels.
He promised to continue our business when he had recovered.
     This was  a  terrible  blow.  I went  back  immediately and visited the
baron's bedside. He was very upset that  he had been unable to  complete his
voyage.  He  promised again that  we  would resume our  mission  as  soon as
possible. I went  to  see  Arian,  who  was  very cool  to  me.  I could not
understand until he finally blurted out: "You know I don't believe a word of
this story of the baron's sickness. I think this was a diplomatic illness. I
think you  carried off the affair  and  are keeping  it from me  so that you
won't have to pay me my share."
     "You are out of your mind,"  I told him. "Even if you don't believe me,
do you really think the baron would risk his reputation and career for a few
pennies? Go ask him yourself."
     I learned later that he had indeed gone to  the  baron, who had  thrown
him out of the house.
     A week  later I  was  arrested on  a charge of suspicion of  swindling.
Arian had brought an accusation against  me to the Belgian police. The story
was all over the papers.
     I protested,  of course, but  I was held  for  thirty days. Six  months
later,  the case was dismissed for  lack  of evidence, but my reputation was
ruined. No end  of false stories had appeared  in  the Belgian press and the
police had sent inquiries about me to a number of other countries. There was
nothing on the books against  me anywhere, but I was labeled undesirable and
effectively  barred from  several  countries  forever.  This  was  a ghastly
situation for a stateless person.
     I had not a cent, no means  of leaving  the country  much less reaching
Bulgaria. I was near the end  of my rope  when  I  found a jeweler  who  was
willing to  lend me  the  twenty  thousand  francs  I  needed  for  my  next
expedition. I put it in a bank while I  made my  preparations and waited for
my chance to go back to Bulgaria.
     Then  one morning I received a  summons to appear  before the police. I
was accused once again of swindli