stefansson-wrangel-09-16-029-004

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communicate with anybody, and an officer was sent to the wireless
station with notice that, should Wells ignore their order and bring any
message, it was not to be transmitted but returned to the ship.

One of the Eskimo women had some throat trouble, and
Wells' sore eye was improving but slightly. They were taken to a doctor
in a hospital for examination and medicine was given them.

On all occasions I served Wells and the Eskimos as
their interpreter.

Our entry into Vladivostok port was with great pomp.
The Red October was met by two torpedo boats and escorted to the inner
harbour. Then the Commander of the Russian fleet came aboard and paid
tribute to all the men for the "great services rendered to the Soviet
Republic."

Wells was taken to a first class hotel, although it was
rather dirty looking, as are all the hotels in Vladivostok, and told that
all he had to do was to live there and wait, as one of the members of
the expedition was to go to Moscow to make a report. Wells was told by
the administration of the expedition that all arrangements had been made
with the hotel management as to the expense of his living there, and that
he did not have to worry about it. But four days later Wells was
notified by the hotel management that he would have to pay his own
expenses or get out of there. Such were the instructions of some local
official. He said that his office was not going to bear the expenses.

It appeared then that Wells actually was under the care
of two different institutions: one to pay his expenses, the other,political,
to decide his fate. And the one that was supposed to pay refused to do
it. The man that would have had the definite say about it was off to
Moscow.

Wells was desperate, as he was penniless. I advised
him to go to the British Consul (or rather British Trading Mission with
the rights of a consul) and apply for help. He did so and was refused
such help. It looked to me as though the British Government did not wish
to be tangled up in Wells' case in Vladivostok, as its position there
was already not favourable.

But the same day (or another) my manager asked me for
some particulars of C. Wells. I told him. Then he sent me to the hotel
manager to tell him that, in case the Soviet Government refused to pay
Wells' expenses, the Hudson's Bay Company would. I cannot say who actually
paid Wells' expenses, the Hudson's Bay Company, or the British Trading
Mission through the Hudson's Bay Company.

I left Vladivostok on the 19th of November, 1924, but
did not have the chance to say good-bye to Wells. He was living in the
hotel comfortably, but was not very well. He had a bad cold.