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Michael searched for his family in the darkness. Afterwards, in Paris and Berlin, and New York and London, and often in an English country garden, he remembered that night and that nightmare. He stared into the pallid faces of the crowds camped in the neighbourhood of the docks. They sat huddled about their baggage—family groups with sleeping children wrapped in blankets and sheepskins; groups who had drifted together in this panic flight and slept, or failed to sleep, across each other’s bodies, though they had been strangers until this night.

Most of them were of the bourgeois class—elderly men with astrachan collars to their overcoats, old ladies who had been brought down to Sebastopol in farm carts or on army wagons, young girls with shawls tied about their heads like peasant women, though they had once worn pretty frocks in St. Petersburg and Moscow and Kieff; ex-officers still wearing military boots below their civilian clothes; Cossacks in their long black coats and high fur caps, Circassians, Georgians, Jews, Tartars. They lay about on the hard stones or the bare earth, among piles of packing-cases and bundles, in the darkness illumined only by the port lights and here and there a street lamp. Men were smoking cigarettes—the eternal comfort of the Russian in hours of tragedy or despair, or indifference to fate. These little points of fire glowed about the huddled bodies of those who were lying down in exhaustion if not in sleep. From this mass of human beings there rose the stench of filthy sheepskins and damp rags and unwashed feet. In some of the groups to which a boy came with searching eyes women were weeping and wailing. But some of them were quarrelling—all their nerves on edge and fear making their voices harsh and shrill. Once, even in this nightmare, Michael heard laughter from a group of young people down by the docks. It was fantastic that they should laugh at some joke between them on this night of terror.

Away beyond the docks there were cobwebs in the velvety sky above an invisible sea—the ropes and wires of many ships. Fingers of white light felt through the darkness as though reaching for something. These searchlights touched the houses of Sebastopol with sudden illumination, making them look like stage scenery. They dipped and flooded the multitude of fugitives along the quayside with their white glare, revealing a mass of human misery and making the faces of men and women as pallid as the death from which they were in flight.

Once Michael, this searching boy, stooped over the body of a young girl lying with her head in the lap of a woman who sat propped against a packing-case.

“Is that you, Olga?” he asked sharply.

The girl opened her eyes and lifted her head a little.

“I am Anna Petlova,” she answered. “Who’s that?”

“Pardon,” said Michael. “I’m looking for my family. I thought it was my sister Olga.”

Several times he thought he saw his mother with a shawl tied round her head among these huddled women.

“Is that you, mother? I am Michael.”

It was never his mother.

He saw faces which he recognized. Among them was that of Countess Kovaleska. Her daughter was with her. They were both sitting with their backs to a heap of baggage. Their eyes stared through the darkness.

“Have you seen my mother and sisters?” asked Michael. “I am Michael Pavlovitch Markov.”

He had often kissed the hand of Countess Kovaleska when she had driven over to the Villa Mimosa. He stooped now and kissed her hand.

“I haven’t seen them, my poor boy,” said this lady. “They may be here. We are all here—the last of us—who were foolish to stay so long.”

She took Michael’s dirty hand and pressed it between both of hers.

“You look exhausted, my dear. You look in need of food.”

“I must find my mother and sisters,” he answered. “It will be terrible if I don’t find them.”

Paula Kovaleska, who was with her mother, fumbled in her lap, and held out a packet of chocolate.

“Take that, Michael,” she said. “It’s very comforting.”

“No, no!” said Michael. “You will need it, Paula.”

He had once played ‘Blind Man’s Buff’ with this girl in her house at St. Petersburg. He had played ‘Forfeits’ with her and had to kiss her before all the party. It had made him very shy as a boy of thirteen. She had been dressed as a Columbine and looked enchanting.

“Take it, please,” said Paula. “I have eaten too much of it. It makes me feel sick.”

He took the chocolate and ate some of it as he went farther in his search. It brought back a little strength to his body.

He met some of his comrades who were walking aimlessly about, searching for their own families.

“Serge! Is that you? Have you by any chance seen my mother and sisters?”

It was Serge Miliakov, who had been a neighbour of Michael’s in St. Petersburg before the War. Their families had had sleighing parties in winter-time. Serge was six years older than Michael and had married a year ago, during the Revolution.

“I am looking for my wife,” he said, in an agonized voice.

“You look hungry and ill,” said Michael.

“Yes, I’m hungry and ill,” said Miliakov. “I am also in an agony of mind. If I don’t find Nadia I shall go mad.”

“Here is some chocolate, my dear Serge,” said Michael, handing over a bit of that precious comfort. “It will give you strength to go through the night.”

“No, no!” said Serge. “I couldn’t take it from you, comrade. You are too generous.”

But while he said he couldn’t take it, he took it and put the whole piece into his mouth.

“I must leave you,” said Michael. “I must keep on looking for my mother and sisters.”

“Nadia is lost,” said Serge. “If I don’t find her I shall shoot myself. I am going mad, I think.”

He looked a little mad then, staring like a wild animal through the darkness.

“God has abandoned Russia,” he said. “Or perhaps there is no God. I have become an atheist. It’s a world of devils.”

“I still have a little hope,” said Michael. “When the dawn comes we shall see better.”

He met other friends, who knew nothing of his mother and sisters but were looking for their own families. Once he was sick at a street corner. It was perhaps the chocolate on an empty stomach which had made him sick. Several times he wept, and felt the salt tears in his mouth. He wept again when he met Elizabeth Browne.

That was when dawn had come over Sebastopol. He was wandering down by the docks again. The sleepers had awakened. Children were crying. Women were trying to clean themselves a little by rubbing their faces and hands on handkerchiefs or towels. Girls were combing their hair. One girl was changing her stockings, and it was when Michael stepped over her bare legs that he saw Miss Browne who had been governess to Olga and Tania and with his family all through the War and Revolution.

Michael saw her coming towards him. She was with a man in uniform—a young English naval officer who was talking to her. Her round English face, which Olga had once said was like an apple dumpling, was flushed with unusual colour. She said something with a laugh to the young officer at her side. She had a red handkerchief tied over her hair and under her chin like a peasant woman, though she wore a coat and skirt of grey tweed, too tight for her plump figure. Not even War and Revolution had made her thin. To Michael her face, which as Olga had said, was like an apple dumpling, seemed at that moment as beautiful as an angelic vision. Where Miss Browne was his family would not be far away. She would never desert them. She had been their friend and comrade through the dark years.

He gave a loud cry and stumbled into a run towards her, treading on people’s legs.

“Miss Browne! Brownie! Oh, my dear Brownie! Where is mother? Where are Tania and Olga?”

Miss Browne was embarrassed when this boy of eighteen put his arms about her and kissed her on both cheeks and wept. But she had tears in her own grey English eyes, which had been so calm and steady and unafraid through tragic years.

“My dear boy!” she cried. “You’re making my face all wet. And I don’t like being kissed in public.”

“Pardon,” said Michael. “But I have suffered so much.”

“It’s nice to see you alive,” said Miss Browne. “We were all very frightened about you.”

“Where’s mother?” asked Michael. “Are Tania and Olga safe?”

His mother and sisters, he learned, were farther down the quayside with a heap of baggage.

“This officer is going to help us,” said Miss Browne. “Let me introduce you, Michael—except that I don’t know his name yet.”

The English naval officer introduced himself.

“Oliver Alden. Supposed to be a naval officer, but not much of a one really. R.N.V.R., you know!”

“How do you do, sir,” said Michael in his best English, which he had learnt from Miss Browne. He did not know the meaning of those mystical letters.

“You must have had a hell of a time,” said Lieutenant Oliver Alden. “All you people must have had a hell of a time.” He held Michael’s hand in a strong friendly grip, smiling at him, and then became grave. “I’m afraid it’s not all over yet. Lots of these people will have to be left behind to the tender mercies of the Reds.”

“That will be awful,” said Michael. “My mother and sisters——”

He had a sudden terrible fear that they would be left behind to the tender mercies of the Reds.

“I’ll see what I can do about it,” said the English naval officer.

“Please, please!” said Michael. “I beg of you!”

“If there’s any chance,” said the English officer.

He saluted, and pushed his way through the crowd.

Michael followed Miss Browne as that young woman made her way along the quayside. His mother and sisters were sitting there like gipsies in a field.

“Mother!” cried Michael in a strangled voice.

She heard his cry and stood up, holding out her hands with a look of joy on her face, and then wept with her arms round him. Tania and Olga laughed and wept at the same time.

It was Olga, the elder of his sisters, who presently complained of his filthiness.

“How dirty you are, Michael! I believe you’re lousy. If so, please keep away from me. I’m sorry I hugged you so tight.”

“I can’t be free from lice,” said Michael, “but nothing matters now that I’ve found you all again. Don’t look so frightened, mother. We shall get away all right. There’s an English officer who promises to get us on his ship. He’s a friend of Miss Browne.”

“I’m trying not to feel frightened,” said Michael’s mother.

She put her hand through his hair and then down his cheek, her delicate hand which he loved so much and thought so beautiful. He put his arms about her again and felt the trembling of her body, and whispered to her:

“Mother, don’t be afraid. It’s all right now.”

“Not if we get left behind,” she said. “I’m so frightened about Olga and Tania and you. It would be better to kill ourselves.”

There was the sound of guns not far from Sebastopol. They were the guns of the Red Army, closing in.