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Show ADVENTURERS' CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES V OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF1 "Siberian Melodrama' HELLO, EVERYBODY: Here's a yarn that sounds as if it might have happened hap-pened out in the old Wild West when two-gun hombres fought it out in the streets and booted and spurred cow-punchers cow-punchers cleaned out dance halls with well-directed volleys from their six guns. I don't know whether those things ever happened out in the West. All I know is what I see in the movies. This incident inci-dent I'm going to tell you about sounds like the West, but it happened way over in the eastern part of Siberia, and it happened to Samuel C. Taylor of New York City. You know, we had troops in Siberia for a couple of years after the World war. Sam Taylor was one of them. He was with a platoon of 60 men from Company D, Thirty-first United States infantry, stationed at the little Siberian town of Uglonaya. The town itself was nothing but a railroad station and a few houses. The soldiers were living in half a dozen box- cars that had been taken off their wheels and set on the ground beside the track. But though the town was small it was affording plenty of excitement. It was about the middle of January, and for days the Americans had been watching an army go through the town. It wasn't a hostile army but at the same time it wasn't a friendly one either. It was a Bolshevik army moving to attack Vladivostok, not far away as distances go in Siberia. Sam says there were thousands of them, well equipped with machine guns, and lugging enough field pieces to blow those 60 Americans and their box cars to Halifax. But they couldn't be bothered with the Americans. Taking Vladivostok was more important. im-portant. Sam Acted as Provost Guard at the Station. On the afternoon of January 18, Sam was acting provost guard, at the railroad station. It was a bitter cold day. A cutting wind was sweeping past the station and Private Pat Strong, on sentry go, was stamping up and down the platform. Two Bolshevik troop trains had Be whipped the automatic up and let go. just pulled in on a siding, and Bolshevik soldiers had crowded Into the station where they could buy hot tea and vodka. And as Pat Strong paced up and down the platform a big Russian said something to him in Russian. Pat couldn't understand him. He came to port arms while the Russian stormed and gesticulated, and finally grabbed Pat's gun. Pat tried to pull the gun away, but the Russian was a powerful brute. He spun Pat around and threw him in a snow bank. A couple more Americans Amer-icans came running up. He threw them Into the snow bank, too, and made a mad dash for the station. That's where Sam came into the pieture. As provost guard, he rated a sentry box down at the end of the platform. He saw the fight just as the Russian broke loose and started into the station, sta-tion, and he came out on the run. Wilb the other three Americans Ameri-cans at his back he started after bim. Says he: "I went bursting into the station as if the whole U. S. army was stepping on my heels. That station was full of Bolshies, singing, talking and yelling. Dots of them had rifles, some of them had hand grenades tied to their belts. But I didn't have time to look over the grenade situation just then. That big Russian had found himself a rifle. I was five feet inside the door when I spotted him, but he must have seen me first because he was raising his gun." It Was a Question Who Would Shoot First. Sam had a .45 automatic, and it was a question of whether he or the Russian could shoot first. Without even taking time out to think, he whipped that automatic up and let go. The big Russian dropped. For an instant there was a dead silence in the station. "Those Ruskies were surprised," says Sam, "and so was I. For a second well I almost opened fire on the whole bunch of them, but I caught myself just in time." It was a tough spot and Sam knew it. Here was a whole roomful of wild Russians and he had just shot one of their pals. If he started out the door, some of them would be sure to begin shooting. If that happened, hap-pened, there'd be general disorder, with 60 Americans fighting a whole troop train full of Bolsheviks. And what was more to the point, it would be curtains for Sam. "I had to use my head," he says, "and I decided I'd bluff them. I stood in the middle of the floor, waved my pistol over their heads and pointed to the door. And then happened the thing that probably saved my life. In swinging my arm I tightened tight-ened my grip on the pistol to keep from dropping it. And in doing that I squeezed the trigger too hard. BANG! Off she went again. That bullet struck somewhere behind the bar and down came a lot of glassware." Sam says the falling glass created a terrible racket The Russians must have thought a shell had burst in there. They turned and stampeded stam-peded for the door,, and Sam says they went through it like a Kansas tornado. In ten seconds there wasn't a Bolshevik in the place. "And where were the other three fellows?" says Sam. "They were outside, turned into a rear guard. When they heard those shots inside and saw all those Ruskies piling out, they ran for camp to tell the others the Russians had eaten me alive and were coming to eat them, too." Sam says he certainly did NOT feel like a hero when he went into that station. He just didn't have time to think about it. "It was only after I got inside," he says, "that I realized I was in a swell pickle. I've often thought afterwards, suppose I hit one of the grenades those Russians had tied to their belts." Boy, that WOULD have been an adventure. Copyright WNU Service. |