Now we went back to the Kerkira, picked up our things and then…"Adieu!" What to do now was the next question. There came a Romanian captain looking for an Austrian crew. We did not trust him so we stayed here. Then came the agents of the "Red Army." They promised us 500 Ruples and good provisions for serving six months at the front and "anything we capture, we can keep." We did not go for that either. We were glad that the war for us was finally over. After that, one of our "Frigate Lieutenants" came and asked us to assemble a guard detachment. We will get officer quality food, new outfits and six Kronens a day. And we would serve 24 hours and be off for 48.
Forty of us men agreed and joined together. We were quartered into a formerly Russian Imperial castle. During one night, 40,000 German troops arrived from Turkey. Then it got uncomfortable. On teh 6th of November we decided we wanted to go home and said farewell. We took with us whatever we could use. Uniforms, shoe-sole leather, a 10 kilogram bag of sugar, canned rations, my diary books and the educational material that I had collected to study for the merchant marine. I had two full duffle bags to carry.
Six of us took a horse-drawn wagon to the railroad station. The old horse could hardly manage with us and all our baggage. At the station some German riflemen tried to stop us. We brandished our pistols and they let us pass. When the train left the station, the Germans fired after us with bursts of machine gun fire. Was this supposed to be the so-called :Armed Brotherhood?" But we were on our way and didn't worry about it.
The train went on toward Ternopol. On the way it stopped a few times in the open country and they came around collecting "fares." Whoever turned over less than 50 Kronens got at least a slap on the ear as receipt. This wasn't really robbery but extortion. Finally we pulled into Ternoplol. For a normally three hour trip it took us seven hours.
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