I had a very decent place on the second tier, and, by a bit of
good luck, the topmost bench over my head was occupied
only by luggage, which gave me room to climb up there and
sit more or less upright under the roof with my legs dangling
above the general tumult of mothers, babies, and Bolsheviks
below. At each station at which the train stopped there was
a general procession backwards and forwards through the
wagon. Everybody who had a kettle or a coffee-pot or a tin
can, or even an empty meat tin, crowded through the
carriage and out to get boiling water. I had nothing but a
couple of thermos flasks, but with these I joined the others.
>From every carriage on the train people poured out and
hurried to the taps. No one controlled the taps but, with the
instinct for co-operation for which Russians are remarkable,
people formed themselves automatically into queues, and by
the time the train started again everybody was back in his
place and ready for a general tea-drinking. This
performance was repeated again and again throughout the
night. People dozed off to sleep, woke up, drank more
tea, and joined in the various conversations that went on
in different parts of the carriage. Up aloft, I
listened first to one and then to another. Some were
grumbling at the price of food. Others were puzzling why
other nations insisted on being at war with them. One man
said he was a co-operator who had come by roundabout
ways from Archangel, and describing the discontent there,
told a story which I give as an illustration of the sort of thing
that is being said in Russia by non-Bolsheviks. This man,
in spite of the presence of many Communists in the carriage,
did not disguise his hostility to their theories and practice,