The two following extracts from my diary record incidents which occurred at this time.

“February 1, 1919.  Last night three Bolshevik conspirators entered the officers’ quarters of the 1st and 2nd Siberian Regiment disguised as Russian soldiers.  The first intimation outside that anything was wrong was rapid revolver shots inside.  The sentry captured one of the imitation soldiers as he tried to escape from the building.  In less than two minutes the conspirators had shot five officers, two of whom were mortally wounded in the stomach.  One conspirator was shot dead, one was captured, one got away.  The knout was applied to the prisoner, and at the hundredth stroke he gave the whole conspiracy away.  Over fifty arrests followed his confession, with the result that all is again quiet in Omsk.”

“February 3, 1919.  Lieutenant Munro has just arrived at Omsk from Vladivostok with comforts from the ladies at Shanghai, Hong-Kong and Singapore.  Words fail to describe the feelings of both officers and men as they received these tokens of love and remembrance from their own countrywomen in this cold inhospitable climate.  It is a beautiful feeling, and though the actual work performed is the effort of a few, the whole sex receives a crude sort of deification from these womanly acts.  The way one of the commonest Tommies looked at a small wash-flannel that had evidently been hemmed by hands unused to work of any description, and asked me if I would give the lady his thanks, would have gone to the heart of the fair but unknown worker could she have witnessed it.

“I heard news of general insubordination among the Canadian troops that had just arrived at Vladivostok.  If all the information received could be relied upon, the sooner they were shipped back to Canada the better.  There is enough anarchy here now without the British Government dumping more upon us.  I can see that it is a great mistake to mix Canadians and British troops in one Brigade.  Naturally, British soldiers carry out orders; if other troops do not, then the British troops have to do all the work.  The situation produced is that the highest paid soldier does no work and the lowest paid all the work.  It soon percolates to the slowest Sussex brain that discipline does not pay.  Nothing but the wonderful sense of order in the make-up of the average Englishman has prevented us from becoming an Anglo-Canadian rabble, dangerous to Bolshevik and Russian alike.  I am told that Brigadier Pickford had done his best to maintain order and discipline in his ranks; that he had been compelled to make very awkward promises to his troops which having been made had to be fulfilled.  In all the circumstances it was generally agreed that the proper thing to have done was to send the Canadians home to their farms, and leave the few Britishers who were there to carry on.  We had established excellent relations with the Russians which it would have been a thousand pities to spoil.”