The King's Commisar

CHAPTER TWELVE

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Sixth instalment of the account, written by Lt-Cdr H. G. Dikeston RN, of his journeyings

in Russia in the spring and summer of 1918

The Germans it was, right enough, though if I'd had to rely on Nadezhda the secretary or her master, Sverdlov, for information, I'd never have known. I've wondered often, since, what became of that woman, for she had the makings of power if ever a woman had. A real bluestocking, with one of those cold and superior brains: she was the kind that makes grown men feel like small boys, with all the snap of the scrubbed schoolroom about her.

Daily I went to see Nadezhda, and daily she told me nothing. But no-that's not entirely true, though it might as well have been. Every afternoon I went through the same drill, showing Sverdlov's pass at the Spassky gate and proceeding to her office, there to be told that the Romanov family remained in good health in the hands of the Urals Oblast Soviet. Thereafter I was virtually obliged to leave. After many days of this, and with time on my hands, I began to cast about for other sources. I went to see Robert Bruce Lockhart in his room at the Elite Hotel and had short shrift. At the time I had the impression he was strongly pro-Bolshevik, but it was untrue, though certainly he and Trotsky liked and admired each other. All Bruce Lockhart did was treat me courteously for a minute or two and then throw me out with the advice to make my way to Murmansk and take a British ship home. There were others I tried of the scattered Britons in Moscow. Arthur Ransome, for one, then a reporter for the Manchester Guardian, and a naval man named Le Page who had some strange liaison assignment. But mention of the Tsar to any of them produced at the very least impatience, if not outright boredom. And so, it went on, until one day when I was in the corridor after leaving Nadezhda's office, I saw a group of men walking confidently towards me and stood aside to let them pass. Suddenly I believed I heard my name spoken. I turned to see one of this approaching band had halted and was repeating my name:

'It is Dikeston - yes, I knew it!'

I blinked at him, and from him to his companions, two of whom were in German uniform!

'Come now, you recognize me!'

'Oh yes,' I said, goggling.

'What are you doing here?' he demanded. He was jovial, but looking at me sidelong all the same; for this was Graf Wilhelm von Mirbach, German ambassador, since the treaty was signed at Brest-Litovsk, to the Bolshevik Government.

It was a difficult question, but fortunately I did not have to answer; or not at that moment. He said, 'Can you wait? I shall not be more than twenty minutes.'

I nodded and he and his group strode off, I noted where they went, for it was through a familiar door: the German Ambassador was now closeted with Sverdlov. As for me, I felt myself to be in a dilemma. As a serving officer of the Royal Navy, I had no business to be greeting Germans on terms of friendship, even on neutral soil. Yet it was at once clear that my acquaintance with Willi von Mirbach might be of great value. Remembering the man Le Page and his naval liaison work, I decided quickly to pretend his role was my own, at least for Willi's ears, and then stood smoking a cigarette and awaiting the promised return.

And he was as good as his word. Within fifteen minutes he was striding towards me, smiling, and demanding, 'Have you found a tennis court in Moscow, Harry?'

Tennis was the last thought in my head. I smiled and said, 'No.'

'Pity.' He took my arm. 'I haven't played since nineteen-fourteen. And you and I - when was that?'

'Biarritz,' I said, 'in nineteen-eleven.'

'No, no, in London!' He came sometimes for Wimbledon, before the war. 'The year the Doherty brothers won!'

'They won every year,' I protested.

'No, the last time. Must have been nineteen-five. Will you dine with me?'

'A little improper, is it not, Willi?'

'The war, you mean - or the dinner? Yes, it's improper. But we'll meet as Russians, eh? There's a gipsy restaurant, the Streilna. Tomorrow, if you're free.' He turned to one of his aides. 'I'm clear, am I not?'

And upon being assured he was: 'At nine, Harry! And I'll set about finding a court.'

And then they were gone.

Were we friends? I suppose not - friendly acquaintances was more like it. But our paths had crossed several times: in St Petersburg when I was first posted there, in Berlin, in Wimbledon, in Biarritz. I used to beat him at tennis, though not by any great margin, and he was forever demanding the return match. And now Willi was Ambassador of His Imperial German Majesty in Moscow!

I had only the clothes in which I stood, and by now they were far from fresh. How, then, could I dine with an Ambassador? But then I remembered my first arrival in Moscow, and being taken to choose a naval uniform suited to Yakovlev. I had had a suitcase with me then, and had left it in that malodorous hall of uniforms. I returned, and found the bag untouched, still in the care of the custodian. So it was a different Dikeston who went next night to the Streilna restaurant. Tsiganer music reached gaily out into the street as I arrived and I thought then that this was a strange place indeed to find still extant in Bolshevik Moscow. By the time I was inside and being seated at Mirbach's table, the music had saddened, and a woman with a grave, dark beauty was singing 'Black Eyes'. I felt then that here was a last stirring of days that were almost gone, and I was right, for the restaurant closed soon after. Willi von Mirbach arrived intent upon enjoyment. 'We'll speak only Russian, Harry. No German, no English. All right?'

'All right.'

'And we'll get drunk!'

I grinned and said, 'Good!' though I had no such intention. Already, looking round the smoky room, I had caught sight of Bruce Lockhart, the British Consul-General, with a noisy group at another table. If he saw me with Willi and told the Admiralty, there was a fair chance of my being shot!

We drank charochki - toasts in vodka - to everything we could think of, and made pigs of ourselves, on caviare of course, and became, both of us, gradually less discreet. It was an absurd conversation we had, considering our respective positions, for he was charged with preventing the intervention in the war of the Allied troops which had already landed in northern Russia, and those forces were in part British!

Furthermore, I was the enemy. For enemies, though, we got along well. We talked of places and acquaintances, of tennis-players and old times, and of summers and scenes gone by. And then abruptly, as we spoke of such matters, my head was filled with an image of that Family now beleaguered in Ekaterinburg and I said to Willi, 'Can you help the Tsar?'

My tone must have told him that I took the matter seriously for he became quiet and looked carefully around him before replying.

Then he said, 'He's quite safe.'

'You're sure?'

'I have assurances that the whole family is well-treated -'

'From whom do these assurances come?'

He frowned. 'From Sverdlov. Also from Lenin. The Romanovs are held in Ekaterinburg, but it is temporary.'

'You believe they will be released?' I demanded.

He put a hand on my shoulder. 'Not so fierce, Harry, this is not your affair.'

'It's yours, then?'

'The Tsarina is German, Harry, and her daughters are German princesses. Yes, it¿s ours. And it is well in hand, please believe it.'

'What would you say,' I asked, 'if I told you there was a majority on the Urals Oblast Soviet for murdering the lot of them? Would you still say it was well in hand?'

He looked hard at me. 'No. But I would ask where you got your story. How you know.'

'Because I came to Moscow from Ekaterinburg, Willi. Because I have seen their prison, because I have met their captors.'

He laughed. 'What nonsense! Too much vodka, Harry. How could it be so?'

'You don't believe me!' I was stung.

'Another drink, Harry. Come -'

But I had the pass from my pocket now and pushed it beneath his nose. 'Read that!'

He bent his nose over it, and from the time he took, must have read it three or four times.

'You are Yakovlev?'

'Your humble servant.'

He looked at me in astonishment. 'How did all this happen? You must tell me.'

And tell him I did. Everything from Tobolsk to Ekaterinburg and back again -1 told it all, and watched his face as I did so, and for all that Willi von Mirbach had the still mien of the professional diplomat, I saw the emotions at play upon his face. He war keen on every detail. He wanted to know the demeanour of those who turned me back at Omsk, the attitudes of officials and populace at Ekaterinburg. I told all I knew, and then I too asked a question: 'It was for you, was it not, that they were to be brought to Moscow?'

He blinked at me, and sighed. 'Harry, I'm responsible, here in Moscow. I cannot speak freely to you, much as I trust you, for your plain duty is to your country, as mine is to mine!'

'My duty,' I said, 'as I see it, is to seek to save their lives -the Romanovs. You have my word nothing you say will go farther.'

'Very well, then. It was a promise. The Romanovs would be brought to Moscow - I agreed it in early May with Sverdlov and Trotsky. Trotsky demanded the right to put the Tsar on public trial with himself as prosecutor; he envisaged such a trial broadcast by wireless throughout the country. But the women and the boy would go to Germany. That was agreed. We have had a train at Ekaterinburg station, waiting for the-m.'

'You've been tricked, Willi!'

He nodded, and his jaw tightened. 'I can trust all you say?'

'Every word.'

'Tomorrow,' he said grimly, 'I am to attend again at the Fifth All-Russian Congress at Moscow Opera House. I'll see Trotsky there, never fear. And Lenin, too. And I'll frighten the life out of them, Harry, my friend! I'll have the Romanovs here in days!'

And so we left matters. I had no doubt, that night, that freedom for the Tsar and his family lay a day or two away, or that Mirbach's talk with Trotsky on the morrow would be sufficient to guarantee safety for the Romanovs. Was not a German army at Moscow's gates!

But it was not to be. The fifth congress became a brawl, through the penultimate attempt of the Left Social-Revolutionary opposition to retain a hold on power, and it took all Lenin's powers of persuasion to prevent mass fist-fighting. Mirbach was there, I know he was, because both sides jeered him from the floor, and when finally he left it was with soldiers protecting him. Next day, towards evening, I was seized in the street by Cheka agents, and taken in a truck to one of the Kremlin fortresses. There I was flung into a cell and joined shortly after by three brutal-looking men who demanded to know why I had been with Count von Mirbach. I told them we were old friends, and was punched and kicked for my pains, but when I spat out Sverdlov's name, along with a loose tooth, they looked at me with different eyes. They searched me then, and discovered two papers bearing the Chairman's name and became remarkably polite.

'We apologize,' said their leader. 'But when a tragic murder is under investigation, it is sometimes unavoidable -'

'Murder!' I said. 'Whose murder?' 'The assassination of Count von Mirbach.'

When next day I went to see Nadezkhda, she showed me direct into Sverdlov's office. The Chairman was not alone: standing at the window, his back to me as he looked out, stood a man whose posture struck some faint chord of memory, though I could not immediately place it. Nor did I, at that moment, have either interest or time to look more closely, for Sverdlov was staring up at me, black beard bristling.

'He told you, did he?'

'What do you mean?'

'Mirbach. He told you we have agreed to release the Romanovs?'

'Yes,' I answered, thinking; if I'm the only one who knows, my life isn't worth a hair!

He nodded. 'Are you ready for another journey?'

'To what end?' I asked. 'And where?'

'To conduct the Romanovs out of Ekaterinburg.'

4Me?'

'Of course, you\ Nicholas has your paper, has he not? You will meet him and his family. You will conduct them to the German train that waits at the station in Ekaterinburg. And on the way you will obtain your paper from him. Clear?'

'Perfectly.'

He nodded. 'And here's your companion for the journey.'

The man at the window turned, and I nearly dropped with surprise, for I had seen him last in the prison at Ekaterinburg the day the Tsar was taken to the Ipatiev house, and this man had stared at me malevolently and expressed his strong desire to hang me!

'I believe,' said Sverdlov, 'that you have already met Comrade Goloshchokin?'

We did not shake hands; he did not offer and nor did I. Cool nods were exchanged, no more. I thought to myself that no man looking for a travelling companion would readily look in Goloshchokin's direction, but there was clearly nothing to be done.

'When do we go?' I asked.

'When I tell you. But soon,' Sverdlov said.

We left on the ninth. There was trouble on the rail line east, so we were warned to anticipate delays, and we encountered them, too, but there was no great discomfort. As princes had travelled in former times, so commissars journeyed now: Goloshchokin and I had a first-class carriage for just the two of us, bathroom, dining-room, bedrooms and all, so that it was barely necessary for us to meet, though we did of course, driven into each other's company by an absence of reading matter and a surfeit of flat country beyond the window glass.

I had thought him poisonous on first meeting and nothing I heard from him then changed that impression. For a start, the man was, though a revolutionary by disposition, a dentist by training, and I have never for the life of me understood the impulse that drives a man to pass years in study in order to spend the rest of his life peering into reeking mouths filled with rotting teeth. He could talk though. Maybe it was the cry of his profession, 'Open wide,' ringing forever in his ears, but his mouth barely closed. He was a boozer too, which helped. They are, you know, these politicians they're all talkers and all fond of the bottle. And braggarts, too. Aside from Lenin and Trotsky, Sverdlov was the top man in Russia then, so I got Sverdlov by the earful. Hearing him blether on about Sverdlov's house (he'd been staying there in Moscow) was like hearing women talk about dresses; he remembered every stitch, colour and texture: odd for a Red revolutionary, if you ask me. But I learned other things too, and they had a nasty significance, some of them. For one thing, he didn't want the Romanovs released, no matter what advantage to the state. 'Yet I must obey,' he said.

'Obedience is the lesson all Russia must learn.'

'Obedience to whom?' I asked.

'To the Party.'

'That means Lenin,' I said. 'Why not say so?'

But he wouldn't have it. He was an intelligent man, but he parroted and distorted as they all do. His orders were from the Party, not from Sverdlov - even though I knew the opposite. Still, they were clear enough and sounded simple, but as Goloshchokin talked I realized they weren't.

'There'll be no snags this time?' I asked.

'How can there be,' he wanted to know, 'when it is all arranged within the Party? A procedure has been set out, Comrade Yakovlev -' he persisted in calling me Yakovlev, though his English was good and he knew my name - 'and it will be followed.'

Then he got into his cups and the braggart floated up through the vodka. So I asked about conditions inside the House of Special Purpose.

'Better, much better now.' Goloshchokin said, and belched.

'Now-why now?'

He fumbled in his pocket and produced a page from a signal pad. 'Read it.'

So I read:

Beloborodov to Sverdlov and Goloshchokin - Moscow

syromolotov has gone to reorganize according centre's instruction, no cause for alarm, avdeyev removed. moskhin arrested. yurovsky replaces

AVDEYEV. INTERNAL GUARD REPLACED.-July 4

'You see?' he demanded thickly.

'Who are these people? Who's this Avdeyev? Why has Moskhin been arrested?'

'Avdeyev commanded the guard inside the House of Special Purpose. He's been removed.'

'Goon.'

'The man's r thief. Barbarous anyway. Couldn't keep his men: n order. There were complaints.'

I poured vodka into his glass. 'Complaints?'

'Behaviour towards the prisoners, especially the young girls. Can't have it. The new society must be -'

and he belched again - 'must be better.'

Bit by bit I got it out of him. Moshkin was Avdeyev's deputy and as bad as his master.

'Yurovsky - what about him?'

Goloshchokin grunted. 'Jewish,' he said, as if that explained much.

'So?’ I asked.

'He's bitter. We're all bitter, but he was in the army in the Ukraine. Cossack trouble.'

'So?' I asked again.

'Pogrom - you need to ask?'

'Not in the army, surely?'

'Some village,' Goloshchokin said. 'When we made him Regional Commissar for Justice he thanked us with tears in his eyes. The Tsar controlled the Cossacks, that's what he said, and it would be a privilege -'

he smiled -'to sentence him to death. And to carry it out personally!'

I said incredulously, 'And he's in charge at the house?'

Goloshchokin giggled. 'Don't worry. Yurovsky's a good Communist.'

He was slipping into sleep and I let him go over. But I disliked deeply the sound of what I had heard. Avdeyev's toughs making free of the Imperial Family's possessions and insulting the Grand Duchesses was bad enough; but now they were all in the hands of a man who not only had a lust for vengeance but, as Commissar for Justice, had the power to sentence. And, as gaoler, the opportunity to carry it out. Yet I slept soundly enough, and next day we continued our journey across the great flat plain. Once when the train stopped, at Kazan, Goloshchokin said, 'The holy city.'

'This is?' I said, looking out of the window. 'Why?'

'Because here Lenin was a student.' He was perfectly serious. 'In years to come it will be a place of pilgrimage.'

'Really,' I said, and he gave me a look and jumped down from the train and went to the telegraph office. A message awaited him and he came back to the carriage frowning over it.

I said, 'Trouble?'

'The Whites have Omsk and are approaching Ekaterinburg. It doesn't look as though they can be held.'

'What's the Red strength?'

He looked at me grimly. 'Not enough. It's not just the Whites we fight - the Czech Legion is there.'

'So withdraw,' I said.

He smiled faintly. 'Oh, we shall - until they're dog-tired of advancing. And then -' He drew his finger across his throat. 'But in the meantime, Yakovlev, there'll be those who'll want to kill the Romanovs to stop them falling into White hands.'

In truth, Goloshchokin's mind was concentrated less upon the Imperial Family than upon the defence of the entire region which was now governed by the Urals Oblast Soviet; he served upon that body as Commissar for War, and war was certainly moving steadily and remorselessly towards him. When we arrived at the station at Ekaterinburg on July 12th, the chairman himself stood, fat and impatient, upon the platform as the train steamed in.

'It's good you're back,' Beloborodov told Goloshchokin. 'The military situation is causing great anxiety!'

His eyes rested but briefly upon me, and though recognition snowed, he did not speak to me. Moments later, by which time all three of us were in a Mercedes car, driving away from the station towards the Hotel Americana, Beloborodov returned to military affairs. It was clear he was a worried man, and with reason, for the Bolsheviks had a wild beast loose in their midst that was like to devour them. It was a beast moreover of their own creation. For when the treaty at Brest-Litovsk produced peace between Germany and Russia, all the Czech forces fighting on the Allied side in Russia were withdrawn and put on trains to journey to Vladivostok and thence home. But they objected when attempts were made to disarm them. The Czechs then overpowered their guards, reformed themselves into the Czech Legion, joined up with the Bolsheviks' White Russian enemies, and set to fighting with a will against the Reds. Arriving at the Hotel Americana, we went direct to a small meeting-room on the mezzanine floor where several members of the Urals Soviet were gathered. An easel held a large-scale map of the area, and beside it stood a man in uniform khaki, seemingly explaining.

Upon Goloshchokin's appearance, this man came to attention and saluted. As the meeting progressed I discovered him to be the General Berzin whose signal giving assurances of the good health of the Imperial Family had been shown to me in Moscow by Sverdlov.

For those present, his news was anything but reassuring. The map bore tapes and arrows, setting out a complex picture of positions and advances. But its message was crushingly simple. Goloshchokin looked at it grimly, turned to General Berzin and asked his question in a single word:

'Encirclement?'

Berzin nodded.

'It is inevitable?'

'There is no possibility of halting the advance,' Berzin said, and his hands made a gesture of weariness.

'We are fighting two full divisions of Czechs, together with the Whites. We simply have not the strength!'

'How long?' Goloshchokin demanded.

'A week, if we're lucky. Probably less. Our men are fighting like tigers, Commissar, believe me. But we are fewer in number, less well-trained, less well-armed -'

'I understand. In the end,' Goloshchokin said, 'we shall win. But meantime withdrawal. . . The discussions began, with me quiet in a corner, looking at faces and wondering whose they were. Bronard/Ruzsky was there, and I identified one Chutskayev whom Preston had mentioned to me. But it was Yurovksy, Commissar for Justice and commander of the guard at the Ipatiev House, whom I sought. I concluded finally that he could not be present, and when the meeting was concluded, asked Goloshchokin.

It was Beloborodov, however, who answered. 'He barely leaves the Ipatiev House now.'

I asked why, and he shrugged. 'Yurovsky is obsessed with the Romanovs.' Beloborodov then turned and began shaking hands as the others departed. I noticed one or two lingered, though - or perhaps he detained them. When the door closed, there were six of us: Beloborodov himself, Goloshchokin, Chutskayev, Berzin, Ruzsky and myself. Goloshchokin wasted no time.

'The Romanovs are to be releasedt o their German relatives,' he said. 'If you wonder why Moscow has so decided, it is because we have harsher priorities than dealing with them. The chairman has had a further telegram today reporting that Germany is seeking the right to station a battalion of troops in Moscow-yes, in Moscow! - to protect her embassy. We cannot allow that, yet we cannot stop them if they choose to move. It is vital at this moment that the Germans be placated, however much we hate it!

So - we will placate them with the useless Romanovs they want so much!'

'Spare them after all?' yelled Ruzsky angrily. 'When they should be punished according to the people's justice!'

'It is necessary,' Beloborodov told him harshly. 'And it is agreed at the highest level.'

Ruzsky subsided, muttering, while I watched him and wondered at his purpose in going through this play-acting. He had a place - and no doubt a reputation - to keep up. It must have been that.

'One thing more, ' Goloshchokin said, indicating me with a wave of his hand. 'This is Yakovlev. Some of you know him or know of him. He has the task, given him by Comrade Sverdlov personally, of delivering the Romanovs to the Germans. That means getting them out of the House of Special Purpose. So - it is vital Yurovsky be not told!’

'It will be difficult to get them out,' General Berzin said. 'The last time I saw him, Yurovsky swore to me not one of them would ever leave the house alive.'

'What if we were to order it - as a Soviet?' Beloborodov asked, with more than a little of pomposity. Berzin said, 'I asked him much the same thing. I said, "Trotsky wants to put them on trial before the world, in Moscow." Yurovsky said that in that case Trotsky would have to come and fetch them personally and promise they'd die for their crimes against the people. Only then might he let them leave the Ipatiev.'

'Then means will just have to be found,' Goloshchokin said. 'Yakovlev and I will discuss the matter. But I repeat - Yurovsky must not know. '

'It must also be quick,' Beloborodov said then. 'If the Whites and the Czechs overrun us, they may try to restore Bloody Nicholas to the throne. He must be out of here, if he is not dead. But he must not fall into their hands.'

And so it was left, but as we broke up and went our ways Ruzsky nudged my arm and muttered that he must talk to me later. We arranged to meet in the familiar place, at the rear wall, of the Palais Royal at eleven. When we did, he gave me news which sounded sinister indeed.

'You should know,' said he, 'that Yurovsky has been asking Scriabin for his maps and charts.'

I'd forgotten about Ruzsky's friend Scriabin, and certainly knew nothing of maps or charts. 'What maps?'

'Scriabin is Commissar for Natural Resources,' Ruzsky told me then. 'He knows all about the mining in this region.'

'Why is that important?"

Ruzsky said, 'Because it means he also has records of mine shafts. Yurovsky's looking for one that's disused and remote.'

'My God!'

'And there's more,' Ruzsky said, and when he spoke of matters like this there was an unpleasant, low relish about the man. We were supposed to be serving the same cause, yet I could hardly bear to be with him. I waited uneasily for his next revelation. It was delivered with a smile.

'He's ordered petrol," Ruzsky said, 'barrels of it. And a massive amount of sulphuric acid.'

As he spoke, there was a low rumble in the distance, which some might have thought to be a summer evening's thunder, but I knew it for guns - the Whites and the Czechs were forcing the Red Army back. Next morning I was up at six and down to the station - and there I halted, sniffing, as I passed the station restaurant. Fresh ground coffee, unmistakable ; and new-baked pastry ! I breakfasted, guiltily but fully, in no more than ten minutes and began looking round for the German train, which was hardly difficult to find, standing as it did on

11Oa marshalling spur no more than a furlong from the restaurant. I looked at it in speculation. Six carriages, two engines, Red Cross markings and drawn blinds. No German flag; indeed nothing to indicate its origins - and there was no lack of wisdom in such anonymity considering the Russian opinion of things German. I stopped for a moment beside the big driving wheel and felt the boiler casing for heat. It was cold, and there was no glimpse of fire when I hoisted myself half up to the footplate.

I walked to the nearest carriage, swung half up and tried the door. Locked. Damned Hun stayabeds, I thought, and banged at the door with my fist until a baggy-eyed orderly swung it open, looked irritably down at me and demanded to know my business.

'I must see the commander of the train. '

'Who are you?' Then he added a tentative, 'mein Hen,' in case I held rank.

'From Goloshchokin, Commissar for War,' I snapped. 'Is the commander asleep?'

'I don't -'

It was all plain enough. They'd been here for weeks and were bored stupid. I sent the orderly to rout out his master, found the saloon, and took a seat.

The commander came in his dressing-gown - and a great ornate affair it was in figured brocade. The fat crest on his left breast pocket had enough gold and silver wire in it for a Bulgarian admiral and he was screwing a monocle into his right eye. There was a duelling scar from the eye to the lip. If you were caricaturing a German general for Punch, here was your model. All the same, he'd heard of me. When I told him I was Yakovlev, he gave me a level look and said: 'You came close, my friend, so I hear.'

'And this time we'll do it,' I said.

He gave me a glare that was all surprise. 'We?'

'You haven't been told - from Moscow?'

'I'll tell you what I think,' Beloborodov said. 'I think that now he's living only for the thought of killing them. And relishing the how and when of it!'

So that was that. If the Imperial Family was to be brought out of the Ipatiev House it seemed it must be done despite the guard.

Which meant - by force.

And by me ...

I went next to Berzin, seeking a soldier's eye and memory, and spent a whole day racing on a thin, scraggy pony from one distant defensive emplacement to the next before I ran him to earth at last, seated on a wooden stool outside a smallish tent which was his present headquarters. He looked tired to the point of collapse, but yet had the soldier's way of sloughing off weariness in a second. Then, in ten minutes' work with a sketch-pad, Berzin produced for me a plan of the interior of the House of Special Purpose - and it was one, furthermore, which showed the positions occupied by guards. The outside I had seen for myself, with its double stockade fronting the arched entrance. When we were finished I tucked the drawing into my pocket and swung into the saddle of my sinewy pony, and then Berzin called and I wheeled to face him again.

'Make a close inspection of that aspect of the house which shows itself from the side alley,' he advised. That alley's name is Voznesensky Street, I think.'

'Go on,' I said.

'There's a stair there, rising from the garden to a verandah up above. It's not guarded, or wasn't when I saw it. Good luck.'

'Thank you,' I said, and waved and wished him the same with a hypocritical tongue. He smiled tiredly. 'Luck won't help me. I need ten thousand men and five hundred guns.'

I rode away then, with the rumbling sound of White gunfire ringing me on both sides and to the rear. Only 'Oh yes. Reliable fellows for dirty work, our Lithuanian friends." Then he added unexpectedly,

"Good luck.' He spoke in English and I must have reacted and looked at him in surprise, for he laughed shortly. 'You are British, aren't you?'

I disdained the remark and turned to leave. Von Kleber followed me to the carriage door and there said quietly, 'Don't worry, my British friend. I'm here at the Kaiser's own request. To succeed in this task I'd make an ally of Satan himself!'

Now time began to be lost more than I liked, but there was much to arrange with many people, all of them too busy to be free with their time. First Goloshchokin and Beloborodov went off together to the Ipatiev House to talk to Yurovsky. For ammunition they had with them a telegraph message received that day from a plainly-worried Sverdlov to the effect that if anything happened to Nicholas, then Beloborodov, Goloshchokin and Yurovsky would answer with their necks. I was waiting at the Hotel American when they returned. My fingers were crossed, for if they had succeeded in conveying to Yurovsky the wider issues involved, then perhaps the Family would be released, and my delivering of them to von Kleber's train would be no more difficult a task than ordering a cab or two.

But I knew at once that they had failed, for Goloshchokin came slowly into the room and stood shaking his head. His hands lifted from his sides, then fell again helplessly and he said, 'Yurovsky's alerted.'

' What? How can he be?'

'Or maybe he guesses, I don't know,' Goloshchokin said. 'I think the man's gone mad. He was talking of waiting until the Whites march in, then summoning the White generals and executing the whole Romanov family before their eyes.'

'And what of Sverdlov's message - doesn't Yurovsky value his own life?'

I’ll tell you what I think,' Beloborodov said, I think that now he's living only for the thought of killing them. And relishing the how and when of it!'

So that was that. If the Imperial Family was to be brought out of the Ipatiev House it seemed it must be done despite the guard.

Which meant - by force.

And by me ...

I went next to Berzin, seeking a soldier's eye and memory, and spent a whole day racing on a thin, scraggy pony from one distant defensive emplacement to the next before I ran him to earth at last, seated on a wooden stool outside a smallish tent which was his present headquarters. He looked tired to the point of collapse, but yet had the soldier's way of sloughing off weariness in a second. Then, in ten minutes' work with a sketch-pad, Berzin produced for me a plan of the interior of the House of Special Purpose - and it was one, furthermore, which showed the positions occupied by guards. The outside I had seen for myself, with its double stockade fronting the arched entrance. When we were finished I tucked the drawing into my pocket and swung into the saddle of my sinewy pony, and then Berzin called and I wheeled to face him again.

'Make a close inspection of that aspect of the house which shows itself from the side alley,' he advised.

'That alley's name is Voznesensky Street, I think.'

'Goon,' I said.

'There's a stair there, rising from the garden to a verandah up above. It's not guarded, or wasn't when I saw it. Good luck.'

'Thank you,' I said, and waved and wished him the same with a hypocritical tongue. He smiled tiredly. 'Luck won't help me. I need ten thousand men and five hundred guns.'

I rode away then, with the rumbling sound of White gunfire ringing me on both sides and to the rear. Only ahead, to the north where the city lay, was there no threatening firing. Next morning I was ordered to see Goloshchokin, who demanded to know if I yet had a plan. I told him I had.

'Explain it.'

'No,' said I. 'I will not explain. Once it's told, even to you, then it's out and somebody could carry the tale to Yurovsky. I'm not risking it!'

He glowered at me, but he was no fool.

'When?' he demanded.

"When I am ready. There are things still to be done.'

'Then do them," Goloshchokin said.

When I reached the German train in its siding at the station, General Baron von Kleber was about to take a comfortable breakfast and invited me to join him. When I declined, he insisted it was the merest Imbiss and I must at the very least take a cup of coffee. His breakfast table groaned: cheeses and cold meats, a variety of breads and pastries and fruit - and four soldier servants to heap his plate. The coffee was quite excellent.

Clearly first things came first with von Kleber: the filling of his plate he watched hawk-like, and only when all was to his satisfaction did he look across at me. 'Go on.'

I said, 'Tonight, probably.'

He gave a slow nod. 'You want my Swabian veterans?'

'Yes.'

'Your plan?'

'Is secret.'

'The best way, always.' Von Kleber compressed his lips. 'Tell me what you can.'

'I intend to bring the Imperial Family to you, here, in the early hours of tomorrow. You should have steam up on the engine and be ready to leave.'

'Certainly.'

'Your men, your Swabians - I would prefer they be

I’mdressed in the same drill khaki worn by the Bolshevik forces, but-'

'No buts,' said von Kleber. 'We have khaki.' He must have seen my surprise, for he added, "and sailor suits, my friend, and field grey. We came prepared.'

'Good. Have you arms?'

'Of course. Good German - or poor Russian?'

'German will suffice. You said twelve men. Arm ten with pistols, two with rifles.'

Von Kleber nodded and placed a morsel of game pie in his mouth. Speaking round it he said, 'Paraded where?'

'Paraded nowhere. They are to walk, one by one and from different directions, to Ascension Square. In front of the church, which stands opposite the British consulate, I shall meet them.'

'You'll be conspicuous, my friend.'

'No,' I said. 'There are no street lights at that point. And they'll be there only a moment.'

He picked up his glass. 'Think you can succeed?'

'I can try.'

Despite the early hour, von Kleber now called for cognac. When it was poured, he raised his glass formally. 'To your success, my friend. And to their freedom.'

We drank to it and I departed.

At noon, at my request, Beloborodov took himself to the House of Special Purpose to sample the atmosphere.

He came back with a pale and hunted look about him and as he entered the room at the Americana, his first words were: 'The barrage is getting very near. This -' and he gestured at the double windows of the room - 'this muffles the noise. It's loud in the street.'

'What of Yurovsky?' I demanded. By now I was beginning to know Beloborodov, and understood that with the city about to fall and much to be done, he wished only to get on with it. The Romanovs were merely a burden to him. Already now he was bending over a map.

'Yurovsky?' I said again.

He raised his head. 'Determination. Nothing is changed, except that Yurovsky's grip is tighter.'

It was difficult to see how it could be made tighter. 'How?'

Beloborodov said, 'I went to the stairs, intending to go to the upper rooms to inspect the prisoners. He stopped me.'

I frowned. 'How far does his authority stretch?'

'There was a revolver in his hand. That stretches authority.' Beloborodov smiled grimly. 'I was in no danger. But if I had insisted I doubt if Yurovsky would have hesitated. He has the Romanovs marked for his own killing. Nobody else goes near to them.'

'Then why does he keep them alive?'

Beloborodov shrugged. 'I asked him, don't imagine I didn't! He said to me "I hold them only in trust for the people, until the enemy arrives. At that moment, when it is clear I cannot hold them - then as the people's Commissar for Justice, I shall dispense justice." '

I said to Beloborodov, 'I'm the enemy. Even with you behind me, even with Sverdlov and Lenin himself behind me. I'm still the enemy - to Yurovsky!'

Beloborodov game the ghost of a smile and said 'Then move softly and discreetly.'

I had one more question for him and asked it despite his obvious impatience. 'Did you notice anything changed there?'

He flicked me a glance. 'In what way?'

'In any way.'

He gave a small nod. 'I should have mentioned it. There was hammering from above - from the floor where the Romanovs live.'

'Did you ask what it was?'

Beloborodov nodded. 'Yurovsky said he was reinforcing his prison. I told you he's obsessive to the point of madness! He's boarding up all the windows on the side overlooking the garden.'

'What!' This was shattering to me.

He repeated: 'Boarding up the windows. He says he fears an attack.'

I said, 'Does he guess - about us?'

He shook his head. 'It's the Whites he fears - a raid into the city.'

But now my plan was in ruins! I had intended to decoy the guards at the south entrance, and then to lead von Kleber's Swabians up the stairs from the garden to the balcony. Once there, and in the house, there would be a dozen men to guard the family, to hold the interior stairs if Yurovsky's men attacked, and to take the Romanovs to safety down the garden stairs to where Ruzsky would be waiting with a truck at the south entrance in Voznesensky Street.

Angrily I told Beloborodov the rescue was now impossible.

'You mean your plan is impossible.'

'Yes.'

'Then find another!'

And against the odds. I did, though it was not a plan as the other had been. That had been based upon calculation of the dispositions, and the proper use of strength and surprise. It was a military plan. Now talk would count more and action less. And Bronard was involved . . .