Lorimers at War

by Anne Melville

  ‘So you have remained faithful to your Serbs, foolish one.’

  ‘There are not many of them left,’ Kate said. ‘Those who survived the second retreat were badly treated. When the officers of the Russian divisions found that they could no longer rely on their men to obey orders without mutinying, they used the Serbs instead to take the force of the German attack – but without doing them the favour of giving them any weapons. Yet later, when the death penalty was abolished and the Russians began to desert to their home villages, the Serbs were forced to stay in the line because they had nowhere to go.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear you speak so fluently. I was a good teacher, was I not? But the words you use are bitter.’

  ‘I’m speaking of the past,’ said Kate. ‘Like everyone else, I hope for better things in the future. Are you having success in building your new army?’

  ‘It goes well, yes. The difficulty is in finding officers. We’re having to recruit from amongst the officers of the old Imperial Army.’

  ‘I thought most of them were in hiding.’

  ‘This is their opportunity to emerge. Those who don’t take advantage of it will proclaim themselves as enemies of the people. There will be no second chance.’

  Kate was careful to keep her voice under control so that Sergei could not guess her personal interest in the subject. ‘And do you find them reliable?’ she asked.

  ‘Every unit of the army is to have its own political commissar, who will soon report any disloyalty. And of course, not all officers are equally welcome. If any of the old nobility expect to obtain an amnesty in this way, they very soon discover that they are mistaken.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Kate.

  ‘We shoot them. Except in a few cases – of men who handed over all their land and property to the people voluntarily, right at the beginning, before it became impossible for them to do anything else.’

  Kate felt that her sudden pallor must be too visible for Sergei to ignore; and now that she had heard what she feared she was anxious to change the subject as quickly as possible. But it seemed that her old friend had his own anxieties.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here, you know. You should have gone long ago, while it was still possible. You could be in great danger.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Kate. ‘I mean, I’ve been in danger almost without pause for three years now. Why should this be any worse?’

  ‘The news isn’t generally known outside Moscow and Petrograd,’ Sergei said, ‘but the Intervention is becoming more serious. The British have landed troops at Vladivostok and Murmansk. That’s too far away for them to give any protection to you. But their presence on Russian soil is bound to stir up great anti-British feeling. In fact, hatred of foreigners has become Party policy. We have no choice.’

  ‘I speak Russian all the time,’ said Kate. ‘I have a Russian name. Nobody knows that I’m British.’

  ‘Your Serbs know.’

  ‘They would never betray me.’

  ‘You can never be quite sure. It only needs one. By mistake, even – mentioning the English doctor when he thinks no one is listening. Would you leave if I could find a way? It may be too late already. The French and British have both sent warships to take off some of their own people: I doubt if there will be a second chance. But if I could find a route, would you go?’

  ‘If what you say is true, you would surely be putting yourself in danger by helping a foreigner.’

  Sergei smiled. ‘Do you remember that I once saved your life?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, Sergei, how could I ever forget!’

  ‘Well then, when a man saves someone’s life he’s responsible for that person for ever.’

  ‘Sergei!’ They were both laughing with happiness as they embraced. ‘I couldn’t be sure – I didn’t want to get you into trouble.’

  ‘I’m the one who gets people into trouble,’ he said. ‘You may trust me not to be sentimental. But of course what makes the decision easier in this case is that I know you have never been an enemy of the people. Will you go?’

  Kate needed a moment longer to think, and it was a reminder of the new barriers which had sprung up between friends that she could not afford to let Sergei know what she was thinking. She would not go without her husband, and in the eyes of a Bolshevik Vladimir would undoubtedly be an enemy of the people. They could try to deceive Sergei – but the documents which were adequate to support Vladimir’s identity in a place where he was established with no reason to arouse suspicion might not stand up to the more detailed investigation which the issuing of a passport would involve.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You are kind, as you have always been kind to me. But I believe in the new society as passionately as you do. I’m a Russian now. And soon I shall be the mother of a Russian as well.’

  ‘Ah!’ he said. He drew away and looked at her more closely. ‘And I thought you were wearing three overcoats to keep out the cold. The father is Russian, then, not Serbian?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He thought again. ‘It’s still my opinion that you aren’t safe here. You should go to some place where you aren’t known. As a doctor you can make yourself useful anywhere. If I may speak without immodesty, your speech is a credit to my teaching. You can pass for Russian as long as no one has any cause to suspect that you are not. I’ll give you a travel permit. No journey is safe now, I’m afraid. If the train is stopped by bandits, you’ll have to hope for your pregnancy to protect you. If the line’s cut by the Whites, I suppose it might be worth while to reveal your nationality. The British are supposed to be supporting them, after all. This authorization will only serve if it’s the Cheka who stop you.’

  ‘I should want my husband to travel with me,’ said Kate firmly.

  ‘Greedy, greedy.’ But Sergei was smiling. He sat down and opened the briefcase he carried, taking out a selection of papers and rubber stamps. ‘You’d better have an official posting to another military hospital, in order to keep your ration entitlement. What’s your husband’s name?’

  ‘Vassily Petrovich Belinsky.’

  ‘And occupation?’

  ‘Anaesthetist.’

  Sergei laughed in incredulity. ‘You have been able to get anaesthetics for your hospital?’

  ‘No,’ said Kate, joining in his laughter, although with a trace of bitterness. ‘Not any longer. His function now is to hold the patient down while I operate.’

  ‘There’ll be fewer problems in keeping you together if we choose something less specialized,’ said Sergei. ‘Medical assistant should do.’ He scribbled and stamped for a few minutes before considering again. ‘I’ll send you to Petrograd,’ he said. ‘I don’t recommend that you stay there too long. The food shortages are worst in the big cities. But it’s the best place to establish a new identity, and it’s a place where doctors are badly needed. After a year or so you could move on to somewhere smaller if you wanted to – Novgorod, perhaps – and settle down. There you are, then. I’ll tell the chairman of your soviet that I’ve transferred you, but I won’t say where you’re going. You need to muddy your tracks if you’re to be safe.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you very much. And Sergei – I am so very glad for you, that you’ve been able to return to your own country. I know how much it always meant to you.’

  ‘You were kind to me when I was an exile,’ he reminded her. ‘I don’t forget that. I only hope that you won’t regret cutting yourself off from your country and your family.’

  ‘From each according to his ability; to each according to his need,’ quoted Kate. ‘I believed that, you know, long before I ever came to Russia. I can see the need here, and I have the ability to help. Shall we meet again, Sergei?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s a big country – even after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. But I shall know where you are, at least to start with. And if you are in any trouble, you can write to me in Moscow. Cautiously, of course – other people will read the letter. In the meantime, I wish you all happiness.’ />
  ‘And you, Sergei.’ They embraced for a second time before Kate went off to find Vladimir.

  ‘I wish it were anywhere but Petrograd,’ she said, when she had told him of Sergei’s fears for her safety. ‘There must still be people there who know you. But I dared not risk raising difficulties, in case he should ask too many questions.’

  ‘I doubt if I could be recognized with my beard and shabby uniform,’ he said. ‘And we shall hardly be moving in the same social circles as before. What worries me more is the danger of the train journey to the baby. It’s difficult to believe now that there was once a time when a journey on a Russian train was the most luxurious form of travel in the world. I’m afraid we’re going to find it very different now.’

  3

  There were people on the roof of the train and people travelling on its outside steps. Kate looked at the jostling crowd on the station platform and at the packed wagons which were drawing to a halt beside it and saw no possibility of finding a place. She felt Vladimir’s strong fingers gripping her arm.

  ‘Hold on to my shoulders and follow me,’ he said. ‘Don’t let anyone push in between us. Now!’

  He thrust forward towards the nearest wagon door. Those who were already on the train did their best to push the new passengers away, whilst those at the back of the platform pressed forward. More frightened than she had ever been in the middle of a battle – since now it was her baby that was at risk – Kate longed to use her arms to protect herself. The pressure was so great that she could hardly breathe and it was difficult not to panic. All her self-control was needed to obey Vladimir’s instructions in the five-minute struggle which seemed to last for ever.

  The wagon was divided into compartments and the sides of each compartment were fitted from floor to ceiling with sleeping shelves. The compartment into which Vladimir eventually forced an entrance already held at least a hundred people, instead of its official maximum of thirty. There were three or four people on each shelf and the floor between was stacked with bundles and baggage. Vladimir looked quickly round and discovered a top shelf which was occupied by only three people. Ignoring their loud protests that there was no room for more, he hauled Kate up to join them, himself standing on the edge of one of the lower shelves to make sure that she did not fall from her precarious perch. Kate, breathless and bruised, listened to the thumping of her heart and was frightened again, but her anxiety for the baby came to her rescue. She forced herself to relax, to breathe deeply and lie as still as though she were sleeping. Still grumbling, but accepting the presence of an intruder, the old woman beside her allowed her a few more inches of the shelf.

  The first struggle might be over, but the discomforts of the journey had only just begun. It was impossible to move. Even after twelve hours had passed it seemed risky to produce what food they had managed to carry with them, in case it should be snatched away by their hungry fellow-passengers. The few windows of the wagon were tightly sealed against the cold outside and the atmosphere became steadily more stifling. The smell was appalling. All the travellers were dirty and a good many of them were visibly verminous. They spat, they smoked and they urinated. How long, Kate wondered, would it take to reach Petrograd?

  Her defence was to retreat into what was almost a trance, removing her mind from her body so that she could feel peace instead of disgust. Occasionally she was aware of Vladimir’s hand stroking her cheek or his lips softly kissing hers, but she did not speak. The train crawled on across the huge sub-continent.

  From time to time it came to a halt. This might mean that it had arrived at a station, but the density of bodies within each wagon was such that it was impossible for anyone else to enter. Once – or so the rumour came down the length of the train – it was because there was no more fuel to fire the engine; all the passengers at the front had been ordered out to chop wood from the forest. If Kate strained her head downward she could see out of one of the windows, but there was little variety in the view – sometimes an unbroken sheet of snow, stretching to the horizon; sometimes a dark forest, equally silent and uninhabited. Sometimes the moon was shining and sometimes there was daylight, but she made no attempt to keep track of the passage of time.

  She was asleep in the middle of an afternoon when the train stopped yet again, but this time with a shuddering jolt which aroused and alarmed all the passengers. All of them were well aware of the various dangers of which Sergei had warned Kate. So many different armed bands were at large that no one could feel safe.

  The door was opened from outside. Kate’s first feeling was one of relief as the foetid atmosphere was disturbed at last by a shaft of air which was icy cold but so clear that its invasion of the wagon was visible. She breathed deeply through the scarf which she had pulled across her mouth, but at the same time listened with anxiety to the shouted commands coming from near the front of the train. More sinister still, there was the sound of gunfire; somebody screamed.

  ‘Who is it? Who is it?’ Everyone was calling to those nearest the door. The answer was brief and sinister.

  ‘Cheka!’

  A wave of fear swept through the passengers. The Cheka was supposed to be on the side of the peasants and proletarians and only against the bourgeoisie and what was left of the nobility, but there was no one who had not heard stories of the Red Terror, of hostages taken and executed, of innocent men shot merely as an example to others. And there were few people – even amongst the poor – who could feel sure that they were not offending against one of the new regulations which flooded out of the Bolshevik headquarters. It was generally known that anyone who denied carrying firearms and was then found in possession of a revolver would be shot immediately; but Kate detected a feeling of terror in the old lady lying beside her as someone else on the same shelf shouted a reminder that it was against the law now to possess more than two of any article of clothing.

  Kate had more reason than her neighbour to be nervous. She had been told often enough that she spoke Russian with sufficient fluency to persuade anyone who had no grounds to suspect otherwise that she was indeed Russian, although he might presume that she must come from a different district from him – the huge Russian state contained so many nationalities that there was necessarily a wide variation of dialects and accents, especially amongst those for whom Russian was a second language. But it would be impossible for her to sustain a plausible identity under interrogation by somebody who was looking for irregularities, and Sergei’s warning about the danger of being British had been a valid one. Nor was she anxious only on her own behalf. Vladimir, like any other aristocrat, had been brought up to speak French, with English as his second language, so he, like Kate, had learned Russian only as a foreign tongue. And he too would have difficulty in producing acceptable answers if his life before the Revolution was investigated too closely. His identity papers were those of an Estonian, and any interrogator from that area would realize immediately that he had no right to them. He and Kate were equally at risk. Their only hope was to remain inconspicuous, two anonymous and insignificant figures in a crowd.

  Vladimir had scrambled towards the door when it opened, in order to look outside. Now he climbed back again and spoke quietly into her ear so that no one else could hear.

  ‘Groan,’ he said, and repeated the command urgently as Kate looked puzzled. ‘Groan. As though the baby were coming. As though your labour had started.’

  Kate did as she was told, moaning faintly to begin with and then panting more loudly. She was not clear what the purpose of the charade was. The baby was not due for several months and she could not produce it now merely to create a diversion. She continued to groan, though, as Vladimir muttered to the old lady beside her that his wife’s time was approaching, that he must go and see whether there were a doctor anywhere on the train, just in case one should be needed. Kate grabbed at his hand.

  ‘You’re not really going to leave me.’

  ‘Listen,’ he said. Once again his lips were close to her ear. ‘Wh
en the Red Guards come, you groan again. You don’t speak. Whatever happens, you don’t say anything. The old lady will tell them what the trouble is. They won’t do anything to help, but your travel papers are in order so with any luck they’ll leave you alone.’

  ‘But why won’t you be here?’

  ‘They’re calling all the men of military age off the train to have their papers checked,’ said Vladimir. ‘You’re not to worry. It will be all right, of course. But just in case anything goes wrong, you mustn’t be associated with me. I’ll step out from a different compartment.’

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Kate. Too frightened to be cautious, she tried to sit up, but Vladimir held her down.

  ‘As a couple, we could make them suspicious. Separately, we can get away with it. I’ll be further down the train, and I’ll be watching. I shan’t let them take you off. That’s a promise. If there’s really trouble, I’ll come back to you. But there won’t be trouble.’

  ‘But suppose – oh, dearest, suppose they take you off, to join the Red Army. It might happen. Sergei said there was compulsory recruitment.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the end of the world. It would give me a better set of papers when I was discharged. I’d come back to you.’

  ‘Where? How should we ever meet again?’

  ‘Ssh!’ The warning was necessary, for Kate’s voice was rising as her fear increased. She could tell, though, that Vladimir recognized the difficulty as a serious one.

  ‘Listen, then,’ he said. ‘If we’re both on the train when it moves off, then I shall see you at the station at Petrograd. If I’m taken off, you must go first to the hospital and take up your post there. I’ll know where to find you. But when the time comes for the baby to be born, go to Tsarskoe Selo. I expect it’s called something else now that the Tsar is dead, but you’ll find it. It’s not too far from Petrograd. We had a theatre palace there. We’ll use that as a rendezvous. Not the palace itself, of course; it was looted in the February Revolution. But there’s a lodge by the south gate. The lodgekeeper’s wife was my wet nurse. Two years ago I would have trusted her with my life. Now, one can’t be quite sure. Take it carefully. You should be able to find out whether she’s loyal to the family, whether she’d help you to care for my baby. If you’re doubtful, protect yourself by saying that you were seduced and deserted. Beside the gate of that lodge there’s a hollow tree. I used to put messages there when I was a boy. That’s where I’ll look for a letter from you, to tell me where you are and who can be trusted. If I get there first, I’ll leave the same information for you.’