Adventures of a British Master Spy

by Sidney Reilly

  I quickened my pace, and was almost running, when I turned into the street where the British embassy maintained a precarious oasis of civilisation in the midst of the waste that was Petrograd. And this is what I saw:

  In front of the British embassy was arranged a line of bodies – the dead bodies of Bolshevik soldiers. Four cars were drawn up opposite, and across the street was drawn a double cordon of Red Guards. The embassy door had been battered off its hinges. The embassy flag had been torn down. The embassy had been carried by storm. That line of Red bodies told that the garrison had sold the place dearly.

  Suddenly a voice addressed me by name, and I spun round to find myself looking into the face of a grinning Red soldier.

  ‘Well, Comrade Relinsky, have you come to see our carnival?’

  ‘I have longed to see this sight,’ said I sweetly. ‘But, behold my usual luck. I ran all the way, and I am too late. Tell me, comrade, what happened?’

  The man was one I had met fairly often in my guise of Comrade Relinsky of the Tcheka-Criminel, and he proceeded with the greatest gusto to tell me what had been happening, while I was awaiting Cromie at Balkoff’s.

  The Tcheka were endeavouring to find one Sidney Reilly, and had actually raided the British embassy in the hope that he would be there.

  In the embassy were some forty British subjects with Woodhouse at their head. When the raid took place Woodhouse had rushed upstairs to the upper room, where were kept all the embassy papers, which he proceeded to destroy as fast as he could. Meanwhile, the gallant Cromie, a Browning automatic in each hand, had held the stairs against the Red horde, and had emptied both magazines into them before he had fallen, literally riddled with bullets.

  • • •

  A man commonly sleeps very well on the night following a great catastrophe. It is the waking on the morning after which is often queer and upsetting. I was awake very early on the morning of the 31st, tossing on my couch and recapitulating in my mind the terrible events of the previous day. The British mission had vanished at a blow. Cromie was dead. My English associates in Petrograd were dispersed. The Tcheka was hot upon my trail. Where the next blow would fall it was impossible to say. In Moscow there were still Lockhart and Hill. What was happening in Moscow? In view of what had occurred the situation there must be desperate indeed. The full weight of the terror would be felt there. Somehow or other I must get my agents out of the trap. Come what might, I must go to Moscow today.

  I had spent the night at the house of a friend, one Serge Sergeievitch Dornoski. Even while I had been at Balkoff’s café, G.’s house and No. 10 had been raided.

  The long fingers of the morning slowly crept in at the window as I lay there tossing with my thoughts. What was happening in Moscow? What was happening in Moscow?

  I remained under cover that morning, while Serge went out and made a reconnaissance. In the course of two hours he returned, bringing with him a copy of the official communist journal, the Pravda, and the news that parties of the Tcheka were busy in every quarter of Petrograd.

  ‘The streets will run blood,’ was Serge’s grim comment. ‘Uritzky has been killed in Petrograd. Somebody has had a shot at Lenin in Moscow, and unfortunately missed him. Here it all is,’ and he spread out the copy of the paper before me.

  My eye fell on the fatal headline of that accursed Pravda. There had been an attempt on Lenin. The Tcheka were carrying out a series of raids in Moscow. They were on the track of a mighty English conspiracy. The name of the Cheremeteff Pereulok caught my eye. For a moment the paper swam before my eyes, the walls rocked and surged towards me. The window seemed to advance and recede, advance and recede.

  • • •

  ‘I must go back to Moscow at once.’

  Grammatikoff agreed with me, while letting it be plainly seen that he regarded my chances of getting out of Moscow alive as small indeed. He had no definite news from Moscow, but rumour had it that the gutters of the city were running with blood as a reprisal for the assassination of Uritzky and the attempt on Lenin. Nobody was safe there. Women and children had been shot down. Lockhart was said to be in prison. The chances were great that my part in the conspiracy was known.

  Grammatikoff arose and walked up and down the room in his agony.

  ‘It is impossible for you to go to Moscow, Sidney Georgevitch,’ he groaned. ‘It is going straight into the lion’s den. Think how you are known there. Think what their vengeance will be now they have found out how you have tricked them. It is horrible to think of, horrible.’

  He covered his eyes with his hands, as if to blot out the terrible spectacle which his imagination presented before them.

  ‘We know nothing definite from Moscow yet,’ I pointed out, ‘and we must have some information before we decide how to act. You know what precautions we have taken. Mademoiselle S., Dagmara and the rest are staunch, and can be relied on not to betray me. And then, when it comes to the matter of being known, I am really in infinitely greater danger in Petrograd, where hundreds of people of all classes are acquainted with me or with my appearance.’

  ‘Yes, you are right,’ Grammatikoff admitted resignedly. ‘Our friends in Moscow are staunch, as you say, but you know what fiends the Redskins are, and who can remain true under much torture?’

  About forty miles to the west of Moscow on the railroad is the station of Kline, where the trains stop for ten minutes or so, while tickets and passports are examined by the Red officials. The station possesses a bookstall, where papers and communist literature are to be bought. We arranged that I should proceed by rail as far as Kline, and purchase the Moscow papers there. Only if the news they contained was sufficiently reassuring was I to proceed to Moscow. Otherwise I was to return to Petrograd and confer with Grammatikoff again.

  It was at Grammatikoff’s sister’s flat that this conversation took place. Grammatikoff told me with a smile how when his own flat had been ransacked the previous night, the Tcheka agents had failed to notice the private telephone wire, and had only broken down the line which was registered in the telephone book. As a result he had been able to speak to his secretary this morning, giving her final orders and learning exactly what had happened during the Tcheka raid.

  His conclusion was that the Tcheka could have found nothing incriminating.

  ‘Not that they need to,’ he admitted with a shrug. ‘Petrograd is an unhealthy place these days, Sidney Georgevitch. Once a man gets the infection he dies very quickly. I must move out in a few days for reasons of health. But I will stay here a little. If you return from Kline telephone me at Dornoski’s. I must get my sister away from Petrograd, that is certain.’

  Yes, there would be plenty of people striving to get out of Petrograd during the next few days. With the new outburst of the terror, more émigrés would be slipping down to the frontier, where the Finns and the Red patrols eyed each other across the narrow river. Across that river the helping hands of the Finns would be stretched out to drag the poor refugees to safety, but the Bolshevik Guards would be alert. What proportion of the fugitives would get safely over, I wondered, and what harvest of carnage would the Red soldiers reap before this fatal week was over. In imagination I saw tenderly nurtured women and brave men haled back to the grim dungeons of No. 2 Gorohovaya, when safety was already within their sight, I saw torturings and shootings and carnage, I heard the shrieks of the tormented and the groans of the dying, and the fingers of the Bolshevist’s Chinese hirelings dripping blood.

  It would not be easy for anyone to get out of Petrograd. The forces of the Tcheka would be at every station scrutinising the passengers as they arrived. No place could be more dangerous. However it would be easier for me, travelling to Moscow. No one would fly to Moscow from the Terror.

  I shook hands with Grammatikoff, and slipped down into the street.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE TEETH OF the man next to me were chattering. Every time anybody looked at him he seemed to meditate instant flight. A woman near was praying under her
breath. But for the most part the crowd in which we were wedged was silent and cowed. We were pressing up to the barrier of the platform from which the train departed for Moscow. In front of us at the gate was a small group of Red Guards and officials examining passports. They were making a good job of it. One by one the crowd filtered through the barrier and joined the mass of humanity on the platform.

  At last I came up level with the barrier. It was a nervous moment. My pass had been signed and sealed by an official of whom I had no news since last seeing him. For all I knew his part in the conspiracy had already been discovered, or he had slipped away from his post while yet there was time. The chances that he had been discovered were certainly big.

  I had already arranged my plan of campaign and was ready for all eventualities. My right hand was on the butt of my revolver. If I was to be taken I would not be the only victim. With my left hand I thrust my passport into the soldier’s face, at the same time favouring him with my most malevolent stare. It was the Tcheka stare, boring him through and through. ‘Ah, my fine friend,’ it said, ‘in these days even a comrade might be in the pay of the cursed English, and I am not sure that I do not suspect you yourself.’

  Such was the message my look was meant to convey, and so did the fellow interpret it. Innocent or guilty, it was no pleasure for a Red soldier to be suspect by the Tcheka. The Tcheka had an uncanny way of proving a man’s guilt.

  ‘Collaborator of the Tcheka,’ said the soldier, pushing back the document to me with hardly a glance at it. ‘Pass, comrade.’

  I was on the platform and in a minute had mixed with the crowd. A compact, seething mass of humanity was pressing, swaying, forcing its way into the carriages. Others came up and burrowed their way through. The squeeze was terrific. Some of the more athletic found a place on the roof. Bolshevik Russia always travels so. For my part, in my position of a collaborator of the Tcheka-Criminel, and officer of the Extraordinary Commission, I was justified in travelling first class. Third is for the canaille. Comrades travel first. But I did not choose to assert my authority too strongly. I put my head down, and burrowed and wriggled my path through the swarm into one of the third-class cars, and landed bruised and breathless on the dirty floor. The carriage stank abominably and it was packed to suffocation point. Nobody spoke a word. The only sound was that of the breathing of my travelling companions. It was quite dark. The windows were blotted out by surplus members of this human freight. It was insufferably hot. Outside the Black Hole of Calcutta or the hold of a slave ship, the world can have seen few things to compare with the interior of a Soviet train.

  At last we pulled up at Kline. A number of people got out, myself among them. I walked over to the bookstall and bought copies of the Moscow papers. There was ten minutes to wait, and I had ample leisure to find out exactly what was happening in Moscow. The news was not reassuring. Through the instrumentality of René Marchand a great anti-Bolshevist plot, emanating from the Allied legations in general and the British in particular, had been discovered. The complicity of Lockhart had been proved. Friede had been arrested and he and his sister were prisoners, the Mlles S. were prisoners. Berzin had made some astounding revelations.

  The game was up, and, according to my arrangement with Grammatikoff, my course was an immediate return to Petrograd. But my responsibility was too great. Through me my friends were involved in the greatest risk, Lockhart was a prisoner, Hill, the gallant and trusty Hill, was – the Lord knew where. And now my Russian agents were leaderless in the midst of a city of terror. The vengeance of the Tcheka was a ghastly thing. If I left my friends in their present terrible plight and slipped back to Petrograd and Finland, how could I ever look the world in the face again? Besides, something might yet be done. I might assist in the escape of some of those, who were gravely committed and as yet had avoided capture. At the worst I might offer up myself as the sole author and instigator of the plot and hostage for my friends. The whole of my scheme had collapsed, and at the moment I felt that I had nothing left to live for, and might just as well die as Cromie had done.

  It took me barely a minute to decide upon proceeding to Moscow. It was pretty obvious in the present condition of affairs that I could not travel by the train and run the gauntlet of the Red inquisition at the station. And at that very moment I noticed a Red soldier and a Commissary making their way down the platform and examining the papers of the people crowded thereon. The man was only a few paces from me. There was not a moment to be lost. I edged my way back to the train, and, seizing a favourable moment, dropped on to the line and dived under the car. Of course, many people in the crowd saw me, but I did not mind that. For passengers to hide under a train while the inspection of papers is in progress is not an unusual thing in Red Russia.

  As a matter of fact on this occasion I found quite a little colony of fugitives already huddled beneath the train, and my course was seriously impeded as I crawled down the track towards the rear. About fifty yards from the track I noticed a small group of trees and in them I made up my mind to take cover. Slowly I raised myself until my eye was on a level with the platform. The Commissary was busy with a poor wretch, who had fallen on his knees before him, crying and protesting; the Red soldier was fingering his bayonet suggestively. Now for it. Bending low I raced from the railway track to the friendly cover of the trees, where I threw myself on the ground on my face. As soon as I had recovered my breath sufficiently I drew myself up and reconnoitred the station. The train was just drawing out. Nobody seemed to have noticed anything.

  I did not waste any time. I walked into Kline and found a peasant, who had a horse and carriage with which he was prepared to drive me to the next village in the direction of Moscow. It was about half past eight in the morning, when I left Kline, and using relays of horses from village to village I was in the outskirts of Moscow the same night. The night was dark, for which I was unfeignedly thankful. I rewarded my charioteer handsomely and watched him drive away, then walked briskly down the road into the city of the Terror.

  Nobody was about. I had not the least idea where to go. The Cheremeteff Pereulok was barred to me, and it was impossible to say in what other of my accustomed haunts the blow would next fall. I was naturally extremely tired after the tedious day’s journey, and wanted rest confoundedly, but I dared not visit any of my friends, until after I had made a preliminary reconnaissance. The English, of whom a few had still been living in Moscow, would all be prisoners or fugitives at the consulate.

  At last I decided to billet myself upon a White Russian, whose name and address I knew, but who personally was quite unacquainted with me. He was to have been one of Judenitch’s provisional army, but otherwise was not deeply compromised, and accordingly might well have escaped suspicion. He was some sort of distant relation of Dagmara, who had reported well of him, and accordingly I was not so diffident as I might otherwise have been in trusting myself to his mercy.

  Everything was silent as I slipped up the untidy litter strewn stairs of the house, and rattled at his door. People do not sleep soundly in Russia. I had but a minute to wait before steps shuffled up to the door, which was opened about half an inch, and a woman’s voice, hoarse with agitation, asked, ‘Who is there?’

  ‘A friend of Dagmara K.,’ I answered in a whisper.

  ‘We don’t know any Dagmara K.,’ came the voice in a groan.

  ‘I think you do,’ said I, completely reassured by her manner. ‘Do not be afraid, I am an officer and a fugitive. I want shelter. Let me in.’

  Immediately came the rattling of a chain, and the door was opened just wide enough to admit me. I slipped in and the door was closed and bolted behind me. I turned round and struck a match and beheld an old lady, fully dressed, white and trembling with fear.

  ‘Where is Ivan Stefanitch?’ I asked her. ‘Is he in?’

  ‘Oh, sir, we know nothing about refugees,’ said the old dame. ‘We are harmless people and know nothing of politics.’

  ‘Then I am sure you will not betr
ay me,’ I said, ‘I am a refugee from the Soviet, and would be grateful for shelter for the night.’

  ‘What name shall I call you?’ asked the lady.

  ‘Michael Markovitch is my name,’ I told her. ‘I was an officer in the Tsar’s army, and I am wanted by the Redskins for some reason best known to themselves.’

  ‘Then you are welcome to what poor shelter I can give you, Michael Markovitch,’ said my hostess now quite reassured, ‘and the good God knows it is poor enough in these days. Will you eat? We have bread, but little else, I fear.’

  ‘Thank you, at the present moment all I want is sleep.’

  ‘Come this way,’ said the old lady, and led me into a barely furnished room at the back. ‘The furniture has been taken by the house committee. It is the best I can do.’

  There was a mattress in the corner. I had not slept a minute for thirty-six hours. Mumbling my thanks, I threw myself down and was asleep at once. I seemed to hear the door close and a key turn in the lock, but it might have been a dream.

  Somebody had flashed a torch in my face. And afterwards I had a sort of consciousness that I had heard the door close. My first move was for my revolver, and I sighed with relief as my hand encountered the butt of that trusty weapon. Then cursing myself for my casualness I groped across to the door, and put my back firmly against it before striking a match. Nobody was there.

  I dragged the mattress across the floor and put it against the door. A short reconnaissance showed me that I had a good retreat through the window and a comparatively easy descent. I closed the shutter and fastened it firmly on the inside. I had been sleeping in my boots and my feet were hurting consumedly. I dared not undress, however, and having satisfied myself that the room was secure I lay down again and fell asleep.