At midnight I started on my further journey.  About a fortnight later I received a despairing message from the local militia chief at Zema for help; he said he was nearly surrounded by the Baikal Bolshevik contingent, which had suddenly appeared.  I took the message to Russian Headquarters at Omsk, and called attention to my wire to Irkutsk and the refusal to protect this part of the line.  Later I received a report from the commander of the Russian force sent to deal with the situation.  He said that the Bolshevik leader had come into Zema expecting to receive material and military help from the people.  He found them disarmed and unfriendly, and determined to take no part in further outrages against established order.  He wreaked vengeance upon some of his false friends, and was then surprised by Government troops, who dispersed his forces, killing 180 and capturing 800, together with ten machine guns and 150 horses.

As a rule, Bolshevik contingents were easily disposed of in a town.  They usually looted everything and everybody.  Officers were elected from day to day, with the result that such a thing as discipline did not exist.  Still, had that party arrived when I was in Zema we should have had a pitched battle worth a lifetime, for as it turned out they had many machine guns, while we had only four; but there would never have been any doubt about the result, for though we were only a “garrison battalion,” the steadiness of my men under fire had hitherto been excellent.

We had been passing through hundreds of miles of wonderful virgin forests for the last two weeks, with only an occasional opening for village cultivation and an occasional log town of more or less importance.  The hills and valleys as we approached Krasnoyarsk, covered with pine trees and frozen rivers, looked like a huge never-ending Christmas card.  At last we arrived at Krasnoyarsk, a large, straggling town of great importance on the River Yenisei.  As we approached we passed miles of derelict war material—­tractors, wagons, guns of every kind and calibre all cast aside as useless, there being no place where minor defects could be repaired.  Some had no apparent defects, but there they lay, useful and useless, a monument to the entire absence of organisation in everything Russian.

I had suffered a slight indisposition, so Major Browne deputised for me, and inspected the Russian and Czech guards of honour drawn up to welcome the troops on their arrival.  I found the town in a very disturbed condition, and as it was necessary to guard the great bridge, I accepted the suggestion to quarter a company under the command of Captain Eastman, O.B.E., in the excellent barracks which had been prepared for my unit.  This place had been originally fixed upon as the station for the whole battalion, but important events were happening in Omsk.  Our High Commissioner, Sir Charles Eliot, and the Chief of the British Military Mission, General Knox, had already arrived there, and