Red Dusk and the Morrow · Chapter 1 (2/4)

Alas, no! Pardon me, reader, I was forgetting! There are still things I may not divulge. There are things that must still remain shrouded in secrecy. And one of them is⁠—who was the figure in the swing desk-chair in the darkened room at the top of the roof-labyrinth near Trafalgar Square on this August day in 1918? I may not describe him, nor mention even one of his twenty-odd names. Suffice it to say that, awe-inspired as I was at this first encounter, I soon learned to regard “the Chief” with feelings of the deepest personal regard and admiration. He was a British officer and an English gentleman of the finest stamp, absolutely fearless and gifted with limitless resources of subtle ingenuity, and I count it one of the greatest privileges of my life to have been brought within the circle of his acquaintanceship.

In silhouette I saw myself motioned to a chair. The Chief wrote for a moment and then suddenly turned with the unexpected remark, “So I understand you want to go back to Soviet Russia, do you?” as if it had been my own suggestion. The conversation was brief and precise. The words Archangel, Stockholm, Riga, Helsingfors recurred frequently, and the names were mentioned of English people in those places and in Petrograd. It was finally decided that I alone should determine how and by what route I should regain access to Russia and how I should despatch reports.

“Don’t go and get killed,” said the Chief in conclusion, smiling. “You will put him through the ciphers,” he added to the colonel, “and take him to the laboratory to learn the inks and all that.”

We left the Chief and arrived by a single flight of steps at the door of the colonel’s room. The colonel laughed. “You will find your way about in course of time,” he said. “Let us go to the laboratory at once.⁠ ⁠…”

And here I draw a veil over the roof-labyrinth. Three weeks later I set out for Russia, into the unknown.

I resolved to make my first attempt at entry from the north, and travelled up to Archangel on a troopship of American soldiers, most of whom hailed from Detroit. But I found the difficulties at Archangel to be much greater than I had anticipated. It was 600 miles to Petrograd and most of this distance would have to be done on foot through unknown moorland and forest. The roads were closely watched, and before my plans were ready autumn storms broke and made the moors and marshes impassable. But at Archangel, realizing that to return to Russia as an Englishman was impossible, I let my beard grow and assumed an appearance entirely Russian.

Failing in Archangel I travelled down to Helsingfors to try my luck from the direction of Finland. Helsingfors, the capital of Finland, is a busy little city bristling with life and intrigue. At the time of which I am writing it was a sort of dumping-ground for every variety of conceivable and inconceivable rumour, slander, and scandal, repudiated elsewhere but swallowed by the gullible scandalmongers, especially German and ancien regime Russian, who found in this city a haven of rest. Helsingfors was one of the unhealthiest spots in Europe. Whenever mischance brought me there I lay low, avoided society, and made it a rule to tell everybody the direct contrary of my real intentions, even in trivial matters.

In Helsingfors I was introduced at the British Consulate to an agent of the American Secret Service who had recently escaped from Russia. This gentleman gave me a letter to a Russian officer in Viborg, by name Melnikoff. The little town of Viborg, being the nearest place of importance to the Russian frontier, was a hornets’ nest of Russian refugees, counterrevolutionary conspirators, German agents, and Bolshevist spies, worse if anything than Helsingfors. Disguised now as a middle-class commercial traveller I journeyed on to Viborg, took a room at the hotel I had been told Melnikoff stayed at, looked him up, and presented my note of introduction. I found him to be a Russian naval officer of the finest stamp and intuitively conceived an immediate liking for him. His real name, I discovered, was not Melnikoff, but in those parts many people had a variety of names to suit different occasions. My meeting with him was providential, for it appeared that he had worked with Captain Cromie, late British Naval Attaché at Petrograd. In September, 1918, Captain Cromie was murdered by the Bolsheviks at the British Embassy and it was the threads of his shattered organization that I hoped to pick up upon arrival in Petrograd. Melnikoff was slim, dark, with stubbly hair, blue eyes, short and muscular. He was deeply religious and was imbued with an intense hatred of the Bolsheviks⁠—not without reason, since both his father and his mother had been brutally shot by them, and he himself had only escaped by a miracle. “The searchers came at night,” he related the story to me. “I had some papers referring to the insurrection at Yaroslavl which my mother kept for me. They demanded access to my mother’s room. My father barred the way, saying she was dressing. A sailor tried to push past, and my father angrily struck him aside. Suddenly a shot rang out and my father fell dead on the threshold of my mother’s bedroom. I was in the kitchen when the Reds came and through the door I fired and killed two of them. A volley of shots was directed at me. I was wounded in the hand and only just escaped by the back stairway. Two weeks later my mother was executed on account of the discovery of my papers.”

Melnikoff had but one sole object left in life⁠—to avenge his parents’ blood. This was all he lived for. As far as Russia was concerned he was frankly a monarchist, so I avoided talking politics with him. But we were friends from the moment we met, and I had the peculiar feeling that somewhere, long, long ago, we had met before, although I knew this was not so.

Melnikoff was overjoyed to learn of my desire to return to Soviet Russia. He undertook not only to make the arrangements with the Finnish frontier patrols for me to be put across the frontier at night secretly, but also to precede me to Petrograd and make arrangements there for me to find shelter. Great hostility still existed between Finland and Soviet Russia. Skirmishes frequently occurred, and the frontier was guarded jealously by both sides. Melnikoff gave me two addresses in Petrograd where I might find him, one at a hospital where he had formerly lived, and the other of a small café which still existed in a private flat unknown to the Bolshevist authorities.

Perhaps it was a pardonable sin in Melnikoff that he was a toper. We spent three days together in Viborg making plans for Petrograd while he drank up all my whisky except a small medicine bottle full which I hid away. When he had satisfied himself that my stock was really exhausted he announced himself ready to start. It was a Friday and we arranged that I should follow two days later, on Sunday night, the 24th of November. Melnikoff wrote out a password on a slip of paper. “Give that to the Finnish patrols,” he said, “at the third house, the wooden one with the white porch, on the left of the frontier bridge.”

At six o’clock he went into his room, returning in a few minutes so transformed that I hardly recognized him. He wore a sort of seaman’s cap that came right down over his eyes. He had dirtied his face, and this, added to the three-days-old hirsute stubble on his chin, gave him a truly demoniacal appearance. He wore a shabby coat and trousers of a dark colour, and a muffler was tied closely round his neck. He looked a perfect apache as he stowed away a big Colt revolver inside his trousers.

“Goodbye,” he said, simply, extending his hand; then stopped and added, “let us observe the good old Russian custom and sit down for a minute together.” According to a beautiful custom that used to be observed in Russia in the olden days, friends sit down at the moment of parting and maintain a moment’s complete silence while each wishes the others a safe journey and prosperity. Melnikoff and I sat down opposite each other. With what fervour I wished him success on the dangerous journey he was undertaking for me! Suppose he were shot in crossing the frontier? Neither I nor anyone would know! He would just vanish⁠—one more good man gone to swell the toll of victims of the revolution. And I? Well, I might follow! ’Twas a question of luck, and ’twas all in the game!

We rose. “Goodbye,” said Melnikoff again. He turned, crossed himself, and passed out of the room. On the threshold he looked back. “Sunday evening,” he added, “without fail.” I had a curious feeling I ought to say something, I knew not what, but no words came. I followed him quickly down the stairs. He did not look round again. At the street door he glanced rapidly in every direction, pulled his cap still further over his eyes, and passed away into the darkness⁠—to an adventure that was to cost him his life. I only saw him once more after that, for a brief moment in Petrograd, under dramatic circumstances⁠—but that comes later in my story.

I slept little that night. My thoughts were all of Melnikoff, somewhere or other at dead of night risking his life, outwitting the Red outposts. He would laugh away danger, I was sure, if caught in a tight corner. His laugh would be a devilish one⁠—the sort to allay all Bolshevist suspicions! Then, in the last resort, was there not always his Colt? I thought of his past, of his mother and father, of the story he had related to me. How his fingers would itch to handle that Colt!

I rose early next day but there was not much for me to do. Being Saturday the Jewish booths in the usually busy little marketplace were shut and only the Finnish ones were open. Most articles of the costume which I had decided on were already procured, but I made one or two slight additions on this day and on Sunday morning when the Jewish booths opened. My outfit consisted of a Russian shirt, black leather breeches, black knee boots, a shabby tunic, and an old leather cap with a fur brim and a little tassel on top, of the style worn by the Finns in the district north of Petrograd. With my shaggy black beard, which by now was quite profuse, and long unkempt hair dangling over my ears I looked a sight indeed, and in England or America should doubtless have been regarded as a thoroughly undesirable alien!

On Sunday an officer friend of Melnikoff’s came to see me and make sure I was ready. I knew him by the Christian name and patronymic of Ivan Sergeievitch. He was a pleasant fellow, kind and considerate. Like many other refugees from Russia he had no financial resources and was trying to make a living for himself, his wife, and his children by smuggling Finnish money and butter into Petrograd, where both were sold at a high premium. Thus he was on good terms with the Finnish patrols who also practised this trade and whose friendship he cultivated.

“Have you any passport yet, Pavel Pavlovitch?” Ivan Sergeievitch asked me.

“No,” I replied, “Melnikoff said the patrols would furnish me with one.”

“Yes, that is best,” he said; “they have the Bolshevist stamps. But we also collect the passports of all refugees from Petrograd, for they often come in handy. And if anything happens remember you are a ‘speculator.’ ”

All were stigmatized by the Bolsheviks as speculators who indulged in the private sale or purchase of foodstuffs or clothing. They suffered severely, but it was better to be a speculator than what I was.

When darkness fell Ivan Sergeievitch accompanied me to the station and part of the way in the train, though we sat separately so that it should not be seen that I was travelling with one who was known to be a Russian officer.

“And remember, Pavel Pavlovitch,” said Ivan Sergeievitch, “go to my flat whenever you are in need. There is an old housekeeper there who will admit you if you say I sent you. But do not let the house porter see you⁠—he is a Bolshevik⁠—and be careful the house committee do not know, for they will ask who is visiting the house.”

I was grateful for this offer, which turned out to be very valuable.

We boarded the train at Viborg and sat at opposite ends of the compartment, pretending not to know each other. When Ivan Sergeievitch got out at his destination he cast one glance at me but we made no sign of recognition. I sat huddled up gloomily in my corner, obsessed with the inevitable feeling that everybody was watching me. The very walls and seat seemed possessed of eyes! That man over there, did he not look at me⁠—twice? And that woman, spying constantly (I thought) out of the corner of her eye! They would let me get as far as the frontier, then they would send word over to the Reds that I was coming! I shivered and was ready to curse myself for my fool adventure. But there was no turning back! Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit, wrote Virgil. (I used to write that on my Latin books at school⁠—I hated Latin.) “Perhaps some day it will amuse you to remember even these things”⁠—cold comfort, though, in a scrape and with your neck in a noose. Yet these escapades are amusing⁠—afterwards.

At last the train stopped at Rajajoki, the last station on the Finnish side of the frontier. It was a pitch-dark night with no moon. Half-a-mile remained to the frontier, and I made my way along the rails in the direction of Russia and down to the wooden bridge over the little frontier river Sestra. I looked curiously across at the gloomy buildings and the dull, twinkling lights on the other bank. That was my Promised Land over there, but it was flowing not with milk and honey but with blood. The Finnish sentry stood at his post at the bar of the frontier bridge, and twenty paces away, on the other side, was the Red sentry. I left the bridge on my right and turned to look for the house of the Finnish patrols to whom I had been directed.

Finding the little wooden Villa with the white porch I knocked timidly. The door opened, and I handed in the slip of paper on which Melnikoff had written the password. The Finn who opened the door examined the paper by the light of a greasy oil lamp, then held the lamp to my face, peered closely at me, and finally signalled to me to enter.

“Come in,” he said. “We were expecting you. How are you feeling?” I did not tell him how I was really feeling, but replied cheerily that I was feeling splendid.

“That’s right,” he said. “You are lucky in having a dark night for it. A week ago one of our fellows was shot as we put him over the river. His body fell into the water and we have not yet fished it out.”

This, I suppose, was the Finnish way of cheering me up. “Has anyone been over since?” I queried, affecting a tone of indifference. “Only Melnikoff.” “Safely?” The Finn shrugged his shoulders. “We put him across all right⁠—a dalshe ne zanyu⁠ ⁠… what happened to him after that I don’t know.”