The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [23]
Besides these, there were units from the Allied Powers, who seemed to have been sent there by their capricious Governments and forgotten; there was a corps of British engineers and some French artillery; there were also liaison officers and military attachés to the General Headquarters Staff.
Among the latter was a French cavalry officer a few years older than Boris. To most educated Russians before the war French was as familiar as their own language.
Boris and the French attaché became close friends. They used to smoke together and talk of Moscow and Paris before the war.
As the weeks passed it became clear that Kolchak’s campaign could end in nothing but disaster.
Eventually a council of officers decided that the only course open was to break through to the east coast and attempt to escape to Europe.
A force had to be left behind to cover the retreat, and Boris and his French friend found themselves detailed to remain with this rearguard. In the action which followed, the small covering force was completely routed.
Alone among the officers Boris and his friend escaped with their lives, but their condition was almost desperate.
Their baggage was lost and they found themselves isolated in a waste land, patrolled by enemy troops and inhabited by savage Asiatic tribesmen.
Left to himself, the Frenchman’s chances of escape were negligible, but a certain prestige still attached to the uniform of a Russian officer in the outlying villages.
Boris lent him his military overcoat to cover his uniform, and together they struggled through the snow, begging their way to the frontier.
Eventually they arrived in Japanese territory. Here all Russians were suspect, and it devolved on the Frenchman to get them safe conduct to the nearest French Consulate.
Boris’s chief aim now was to join his mother in America. His friend had to return to report himself in Paris, so here they parted.
They took an affectionate farewell, promising to see each other again when their various affairs were settled. But each in his heart doubted whether chance would ever bring them together again.
Two years elapsed, and then one day in spring a poorly-dressed young Russian found himself in Paris, with three hundred francs in his pocket and all his worldly possessions in a kitbag.
He was very different from the debonair Boris who had left the military academy for Kolchak’s army. America had proved to be something very different from the Land of Opportunity he had imagined.
His mother sold the jewels and a few personal possessions she had been able to bring away with her, and had started a small dressmaking business.
There seemed no chance of permanent employment for Boris, so after two or three months of casual jobs he worked his passage to England.
During the months that followed, Boris obtained temporary employment as a waiter, a chauffeur, a professional dancing-partner, a dock-labourer, and he came very near to starvation.
Finally, he came across an old friend of his father’s, a former first secretary in the diplomatic corps, who was now working as a hairdresser.
This friend advised him to try Paris, where a large Russian colony had already formed, and gave him his fare.
It was thus that one morning, as the buds were just beginning to break in the Champs Elysées and the couturiers were exhibiting their Spring fashions, Boris found himself, ill-dressed and friendless, in another strange city.
His total capital was the equivalent of about thirty shillings; and so, being uncertain of what was to become of him, he decided to have luncheon.
An Englishman finding himself in this predicament would no doubt have made careful calculations.
He would have decided what was the longest time that his money would last him, and would have methodically kept within his budget while he started again “looking for a job.”