The first rays of dawn poked through the trees. Gladys trudged on. The trek seemed to be a little easier in daylight when she could see where she was going. She hoped the sun would provide some much-needed warmth. But as the sun climbed high in the sky, the chill of Siberia seemed to drain the heat from its rays before they reached her. For most of the day, Gladys shivered violently, especially when she had to feel her way through the long railroad tunnels that the icy wind also howled through. In the chilling blackness inside the tunnels, she often wondered what animals might have taken shelter there.
Finally, long after the sun had set, Gladys saw the twinkling lights of Chita far off in the distance. She was going to make it! She wasn’t going to die in the Siberian wilderness after all. About two hours later, totally exhausted, Gladys finally climbed onto the railway platform in Chita. She hoped that when people saw how exhausted she was, someone would help her. But no one looked at all interested in a lone women who couldn’t speak their language. Finally, Gladys was too tired to care anymore. She arranged her two suitcases on the platform and lay down on them. When the sun came up the next morning, powdery snow that had fallen during the night completely covered Gladys and her bags so that she resembled an abandoned pile of luggage.
The events of the previous two days and nights were like a foggy dream to Gladys. She tried to push herself up with her hands from where she lay, but her hands wouldn’t move. They were too cold to do what she wanted them to do.
Gladys lay still, wondering what to do next. People, mainly soldiers, were walking around her, and although she called out, no one seemed to hear her. She tried to focus on a plan of action instead of on the throbbing pain in her frozen fingers and toes and the pangs of hunger that racked her stomach. It seemed so ridiculous to be freezing to death on a station platform in full view of people. It had taken her thirty hours through freezing temperatures to walk back to Chita, and after another night in the exposed cold on the station platform, she needed to get warm, and quickly. To get the help she needed, she had to draw attention to herself. But how was she going to do that?
As Gladys thought about what to do, she saw an important-looking officer in a red cap walking down the platform, and she got an idea. If she could get her leg out from under her coat, she could trip him as he walked by. That would surely get her arrested, which, in turn, would lead to a warm cell. At that moment, nothing mattered more than getting warm, even if it meant getting arrested. Gladys was struggling to free her leg when the red-capped officer signaled to two other soldiers. The three men descended on Gladys. She didn’t need to trip the officer after all. The officer waved his hand at Gladys as though he were trying to swat a fly. Gladys got the idea. She was in the way and needed to move from the platform. But where did he expect her to move? Onto the railroad tracks? Into the woodpile? She struggled to sit up, and that, she stubbornly decided, was as far as she would go. She wouldn’t move from the platform to die in some forgotten corner of the world. One of the soldiers tried to get her to move, but she shook her head.
Eventually the three men gave up trying to communicate with Gladys. Two of them roughly grabbed her by the arms and dragged her down the platform towards the station building. There they threw her into a tiny room at the side of the building. With a click, the door locked behind her. Gladys had gotten herself arrested, although her “warm” cell wasn’t warm at all. The glass in the small window high in the wall was broken, and snow had drifted into the room, forming a mound on the floor. A few sticks of broken furniture were in one corner and a pile of filthy rags in another. But worse than the bitter cold was the stench in the room. It stunk worse than anything Gladys had ever smelled before. It made her sick to her hunger-ravaged stomach. Cold as it was, Gladys stood under the window and tried to avoid the stench by sucking in through her mouth the freezing air that blew in through the shattered glass.
The hours passed slowly, and Gladys wondered what might happen to her next. She also wondered what had become of her bags. How she wished she had her small suitcase with her. She desperately needed something to eat. The gnawing in her stomach was unbearable. The stale cookie she’d eaten a day and a half day before on the trek back to Chita was the last thing she’d eaten. But she didn’t have her bag with her, so instead of eating, she reached inside her corset and pulled out her Bible. As she did so, a slip of paper fell from it. Someone had handed the slip to her as she boarded the train in London. She held it up to the fading light coming in through the window. Written on it in bold letters were the words: “Be ye not afraid of them, I am your God (Nehemiah 4 verse 14).” Gladys repeated the verse from the Bible over and over again until she felt her strength returning. She told herself that whatever happened, God would be watching over her.
It was late in the evening when a key finally jangled in the lock. The door swung open, and a soldier walked into the room. He leered at Gladys, then motioned for her to follow him. He led her to another room. At least this room didn’t smell. It was also warmer, not because it had any heating but because the windows weren’t broken. Gladys stood in front of a long desk. The officer in the red cap and another man sat across the desk. The red-capped officer barked an order to the soldier who had escorted her to the room, and the soldier quickly left. He reappeared again a few moments later holding a mug. He thrust it at Gladys, who took it gratefully and swallowed the strong, lukewarm tea it contained. When the tea hit her empty stomach, it reminded her she hadn’t eaten for over two days now.
The red-capped officer barked some more orders, and with cruel smiles on their faces, the two men behind the desk watched as the soldier made Gladys strip to her underclothes. The soldier then made her take off her corset. He chuckled to himself as he found the maze of pockets Gladys’s mother had carefully sewn into the garment. Gladys tried not to think about what was happening. Instead, she concentrated on the verse from Nehemiah. At last, the soldier seemed satisfied he’d found all he was going to find and motioned for Gladys to put her clothes back on.
The contents of her pockets lay on the table in front of her. Gladys knew she had to do something and fast. She picked up her passport and waved it at the officer. “British. Me British,” she explained, wondering whether she should start singing “God Save the King” to stress the point.
The man seated beside the red-capped officer reached out and took her passport. “I look,” he said.
Gladys was relieved—finally, someone who spoke English.
The man studied every page of the passport. “You machinist?” he asked, flipping to the front of her passport.
“No, no,” said Gladys. “Not machinist, missionary.”
The man looked confused, as if he couldn’t hear the difference between the two words.
Gladys looked around, desperate for some way to explain. She saw her Bible and grabbed it. She held it out so he could see it. Then she folded her hands like she was praying and repeated, “Missionary, missionary.”
“Yes, machinery. Need good working people, can make machinery go good,” he continued, as if he hadn’t understood a thing Gladys had been trying to convey to him.
Before Gladys had a chance to say anything further, the red-capped officer abruptly scooped all her belongings, except the Bible, which she was still holding, into a box and marched out of the room. The second man followed right after him. Gladys sat down on a rickety chair and cried. She cried because she was so hungry. She cried because she was so cold. She cried because she had no idea what was going to happen next. Weak and weary, she cried herself to sleep, sitting in the chair with her head resting against the wall.
The next morning she awoke to the prod of a rifle butt. She opened her eyes to see two soldiers standing in front of her. They dragged her to her feet, and then the red-capped officer and his interpreter marched back into the room.
“Machinist good sleeper,” smiled the interpreter.
Gladys didn’t know whether to correct him or not. The night before he had paid no attention to what she had to say. But before she could decide whether to bother, the interpreter pulled out her passport and pointed to the stamp she had gotten four long days before when she’d unwittingly been on her way to the front line of a war. “Why come back to Chita?” the interpreter demanded.
Gladys tried to explain that she had to come back because of the fighting. But the interpreter wouldn’t believe she’d walked back through the snow by herself without help. She tried to make him understand, but in the end she gave up. What difference would it make? He didn’t believe anything she said anyway.
After several more minutes of trying to get her to answer their questions, the two men gave up and left the room. They didn’t return again until mid-afternoon. By then, Gladys was so hungry she was barely conscious. She had to concentrate hard on what the interpreter was saying to her. He handed back her passport. Inside was a cheaply printed document with seals and stamps all over it. Next he handed her two pieces of cardboard. “This ticket to Nikol’sk-Ussuriyskiy, and then take other train to Pogranichnaya. Train leave now. Go,” he said, pointing to the door.
Gladys didn’t need to be told twice. She steadied herself before turning and staggering to the door. Outside, her two suitcases were waiting for her. Without looking back, she picked them up, handed the conductor the tickets, and stepped onto the train. As the engine hissed away from the station, she sank into her seat. An old woman sat next to her, and although she smelled of old fish, Gladys inched closer to her for warmth.
It took over an hour of sitting on the train before Gladys had the strength to open her bags. The large suitcase had felt strangely lighter when she’d picked it up. When she flipped open the lid she could see why. All her clothes were gone, except for an old pair of darned stockings her aunt had given her. Gladys clicked open her other suitcase. Thankfully, her spirit stove had been stuffed in there, and the remainder of her food was still there, too. She slumped back in her seat. All she had left was her Bible, the photo of her brother, a pair of darned stockings, her spirit stove, the last of her food, and the English one-pound note she’d been given in The Hague. It was in the only secret pocket the soldier had failed to find in her corset. Everything else she had set out with from London was gone.
As the train rocked and rumbled across the Siberian wilderness, Gladys finally ate her first meal in three days. Never had stale cookies tasted so good!
Of course, Gladys wasn’t exactly sure the train was taking her to Nikol’sk-Ussuriyskiy. For all she knew, the whole thing could be a trick to get her to a factory somewhere so she could be the “expert machinist.” But the thought of how unmechanical she really was brought a smile to her face in spite of her situation.
The train wound its way eastward, along the border with China. Although it was not a trick, when the train finally arrived at Nikol’sk-Ussuriyskiy, more problems awaited Gladys. An official met her at the train and studied her passport and the paper that had been placed inside it in Chita. She showed him her ticket to Pogranichnaya, where she imagined she would catch another train to Harbin, China. The official shook his head vigorously and took Gladys by the arm. He guided her onto another train and stayed with her until it was ready to leave. As the train gathered speed, Gladys realized they were headed south, but not to China. A fellow passenger, a man with a cage full of chickens, smiled a toothless smile and said, “Vladivostok.” The official had put her on a train for Vladivostok, the port city at the end of the railway line across Russia and Siberia. Gladys had no idea what would happen once she got there. And in her worst nightmare, Gladys would never have imagined the ordeal that awaited her in Vladivostok.
