CHAPTER FIVE
MY WORK IN Moscow was at an end. Nearly all of my Russian agents had already left the city; the few who remained were not in immediate danger. I entertained no further fears for Capt. Hill’s safety. The day before we had decided that the best plan was for him to come out of his concealment and unobtrusively rejoin the British mission which now, during Lockhart’s imprisonment, was in charge of Capt. Hicks. The latter acquiesced and Hill was included in the list of Britishers for whose evacuation negotiations were in progress with the People’s Commissaries.
It now remained for me only to arrange for my trip to Petrograd. During several days one of my agents had been investigating the possibilities of my making this trip in safety by railway. His reports were not encouraging. All the railway stations were watched, no passengers were permitted to buy tickets without presenting their identification papers, a special control had been installed at the entrance to the train platforms and all passengers had to submit to a searching examination at two points en route, at Tver and at Luga. The chances of my slipping successfully through this chain of controls seemed very slim. I had nearly decided to attempt the northern round-about route via Vologda, intending to get on the train at a station which I could have reached on foot some distance out of Moscow, when one of my agents, Mme D., suggested that she might be able to obtain for me a ticket to Petrograd at the agency of the International Sleeping Car Co.
Such a ticket procured in advance meant three immense advantages: (1) it obviated my exposing myself to the danger of recognition while in a queue before the ticket office at the station; (2) it spared me the necessity of identifying myself when buying the ticket; and (3) as sleeping cars were almost exclusively used by the Commissars and by privileged persons, there was the likelihood of the examination of holders of sleeping car tickets being much less rigorous.
Mme D. had a friend at the sleeping car agency and, being a very attractive and clever woman, she relied upon her natural advantages to persuade him to issue a ticket without his asking too many embarrassing questions. The ticket was to be for an aged relative, who was too feeble to come to the agency in person.
Mme D. had no success at her first call at the agency, all tickets had been sold out for the 11th, and she was asked to return the next day. She did, and it seemed that she would not fare any better as again all the tickets had been sold out. She was already on the point of leaving, when her ticket-selling friend called her back and told her that a telephone message had just come through from the German embassy cancelling one of the two berths which had been engaged for a couple of attachés going to Petrograd. Like a hawk, Mme D. pounced upon this extraordinary chance and extracted from her friend the precious ticket for her feeble relative, Georg Bergmann.
This latest of my aliases was part and parcel of a rather doubtful passport which Capt. Hill had procured some time ago and which, in an emergency, he intended to use himself. As he was now on the point of re-assuming his identity, he generously made me a present of the document. It had been issued, or pretended to have been so, under the old regime, to a certain Georg Bergmann, merchant, born in Riga in the ’80s, i.e. at least ten years after I had made my entrance into this world. This chronological discrepancy, however, was fully compensated by two most excellent features of this identifying document: it had no photograph attached to it, and the description of Herr Bergmann was so vague that, at a pinch and with the expenditure of some force of argumentation, I could claim it as my own. Besides, I had been compelled to destroy all other identifying documents, so that for the time the Bergmann passport was my only documentary standby. It was a case of ‘Hobson’s choice’ and so I became Herr Georg Bergmann. As will be seen later, I had never any reason to regret it.
My greatest difficulty had been brilliantly solved by the resourcefulness of Mme D. I not only had a ticket for Petrograd, but I also had the incredible piece of luck of being able to travel in a compartment engaged by the German embassy! The rest would be easy!
My last hours in Moscow I spent in the office of the Armenian merchant, who, believing me to be a Russian officer seeking to avoid mobilisation by the Bolsheviks, had given me shelter the night before. Capt. Hill came to say goodbye to me and brought me as a present a pair of his own hairbrushes which I had frequently praised for the hardness of their bristles. This simple kindness touched me greatly.
Capt. Hill gave me the news that Lockhart’s release was expected shortly and that the negotiations for the evacuation of the members of the British mission were proceeding hopefully. This news greatly relieved my mind as to my personal responsibility for the trouble and discomfort which the members of the mission had experienced during the last fortnight. I gave Capt. Hill detailed instructions as regards the official report he was to make about our activities in the event of my failing to reach London and also about some of my private affairs. Throughout this interview I felt that Capt. Hill had very little faith in the success of my escape and that he did not expect to see me alive again. On this rather pessimistic note we parted. Nearly two – for me very eventful – months passed before we met again in the Savoy Hotel in London.
My train was leaving at 8.30 p.m. I had decided that my best chance of slipping into the train unobserved was as close as possible to the time of its departure. It was important to avoid as far as lay in my power the examination of my sole document, the Bergmann passport. In this I again was favoured by chance. Just as I was ready to start a terrific shower began to deluge the city. Like once before, in Petrograd, I took advantage of this truly heaven-sent opportunity.
The station was crowded with people who were trying to take refuge from the rain and the station guards had their hands full in keeping back the crowds. I managed to squeeze through into the station, and almost immediately the first bell was sounded for the departure of the Petrograd train. The entrance to the platform was guarded by a railway official and a soldier, around whom was surging a small crowd of passengers whose papers and tickets were being examined. I edged close to the entrance on the left where the official was posted. There was a violent altercation between an old lady and the soldier over some irregularity in her papers. The soldier appealed to the railway official who eagerly joined in the fray. The second bell went and the crowd of passengers surged forward. ‘Now or never!’ I said to myself, and with one strong push I squeezed through and found myself on the other side of the guarded line. Not daring to look back, and with no apparent hurry, although with considerable inner trepidation, I walked to the sleeping car.
The conductor inspected my ticket and showed me to the compartment. Knowing that my fellow passenger would be German, I entered the compartment with a very hearty ‘Guten Abend’. A dark, slightly built, rather bookish looking man, with eyeglasses and dressed in a cut-away morning coat, jumped up from his seat, bowed from the waist a couple of times and echoed ‘Guten Abend! Guten Abend!’ I bowed and again assured him that the evening was good. It certainly was – so far!
‘So, Sie sprechen Deutsch; na, das ist ja wunderschön!’ were his next words.
I assured him that I did. He seemed delighted with this information, and an atmosphere of goodwill was immediately established.
Just then the third bell clanged and the train began to move out of the station. I heaved a sigh of relief: I was out of Moscow!
Very soon my fellow traveller confided to me that he had been only a few days in Moscow; that he had been invalided from the army and sent out by a group of German newspapers and attached to the German embassy as an unofficial observer on economic conditions in Russia; and that, not knowing a word of Russian (I was delighted to hear this!) he found it awfully hard to make head or tail of the situation.
‘Das ist ja hier ein wahres Irrenhaus,’ he said, and I had to compliment him on his rapidly acquired perspicacity.
I had to give confidence for confidence, and I told him that I was a native of the Baltic provinces and an art dealer; that I had come to Moscow to buy antiques,
but that I had experienced considerable annoyance from the Bolshevik authorities and was now returning to Riga in order to be once more ‘unter uns Deutsche’ and away from these wild Russians!
We were now practically countrymen, and in the succeeding hours our friendship grew fast.
At first our conversation was all about art. I had been a collector all my life and I had no difficulty in entertaining my newly found friend on this subject. Later we turned to politics. He was tremendously eager to gather information on Russian conditions and I did my best to oblige him. With typical German thoroughness he proceeded to make copious notes of my information with the object of incorporating them, as he said, in his first report to Berlin. Whenever I gave him what he considered to be a particularly interesting item, he would chuckle with delight and anticipation of his superiors’ praise, and would exclaim: ‘Aber das ist ja köstlich … aber das ist ja hoch interessant; das muss ich aufschreiben.’
How much more delightful, if only my German friend had known it, was to me the idea that I, a British intelligence officer, was supplying him with material for his official report!
We had been travelling for a couple of hours; I had hardly eaten anything that day and I had become very hungry. I knew that Mme D. had packed into my small battered suitcase a paper parcel containing some food. I got the parcel and suggested to my companion that he should share my repast. He told me that the butler at the embassy had provided him with a large food parcel and suggested that we should pool our provisions and make a picnic of it. We ordered tea from the car attendant and proceeded to unpack our parcels. His parcel disclosed a wealth and variety of food, the sight of which made my mouth water. There was a roasted chicken, a meat pie and a profusion of cakes. For weeks I had not seen such miracles of the culinary art!
I did not know what was in my parcel, but I felt sure that it could only be very plain food, and I felt a sense of awkwardness when opening it in the presence of my epicure friend.
There it was: a piece of veal cut into slices, some black bread, some hard boiled eggs, a piece of butter, some sugar and half a Dutch cheese!
Abashed I showed my victuals to the German. Had I exhibited to him a live pup his look of amazement could not have been greater. I felt puzzled, possibly somewhat hurt.
‘Sie haben ja Käse!’ he almost screamed, grasping the cheese, staring at it with the utmost surprise and turning it to all sides, as if wishing to assure himself that it was really there.
‘Das ist ja unglaublich; das ist ja wunderschön; das ist ja köstlich!’ followed a string of other superlatives in praise of the cheese.
I was genuinely puzzled and asked my friend to explain his transports. It appeared that he had not eaten cheese since leaving the army; that cheese could not be bought by the civilian population in Germany for love nor money; that he was ‘leidenschaftlich [passionately]’ fond of cheese and especially Dutch cheese; that he had been looking for cheese in Moscow, but in vain; and that, therefore, the sight of my cheese had stirred him so profoundly!
I assured him that nothing could give me greater pleasure than his acceptance of the cheese as a memento of our acquaintance.
Despite his protestations, I finally gained my point and he accepted what was left of the cheese after our meal was concluded. We made a very enjoyable repast, and I think that weight for weight I had eaten almost as much of his cakes as he of my cheese.
It was now past midnight; my companion, replete with cheese, was getting drowsy; presently he stretched himself out on his couch and went to sleep.
The feeling of elation which had possessed me throughout the evening over the initial success of my escape began to wane now, under the chilling influence of silence and darkness. My thoughts returned to the recent events in Moscow and Petrograd, and the ‘might have been’s’ crept out of all the recesses of my brain and assailed me with renewed vehemence.
If René Marchand had not been a traitor; if Berzin had not shown the white feather; if the Expeditionary Force had advanced quickly on Vologda; if I could have combined with Savinkoff; if, if, if … one after another they came upon me and stabbed me.
I thought of Cromie and his prophetic words to me in July – ‘If I do not leave by the beginning of August, they will surely get me!’ And now he was dead! Had he been punctual to his appointment with me on that fateful Friday, 30 August, he would have been alive now. Ten minutes’ delay determined the difference between life and death for him. Anyway, he was out of it now. Need not trouble how to save his skin as I am doing … had died like a soldier – defiant and fighting … Wish Lockhart had accepted my offer to come forward and take all the blame for the conspiracy on myself … Would have gloried in standing up to the scum and hurling my contempt at them … Death? Far better than this miserable flight! … To what end? Duty? The Chief! Return to one’s unit … Report? What good have all our reports done? Will they, over there, ever understand that what is happening here is a far greater thing than the whole bally war? That to win the war and to lose here is still to lose and far more disastrously! Today this appalling cancerous growth could still be arrested with a quick thrust of the knife; tomorrow it will be too late! The slimy octopus will throw its tentacles over the world and strangle it as it has strangled Russia! Russia – mutilated, defiled, spat upon, gory like a woman violated by a drunken rabble!
Peace, peace on any terms – and then a united front against the true enemies of mankind…
• • •
It had grown very dark in the compartment, and it seemed as if billow upon billow of a greyish cloud was rolling in upon me and was going to engulf me. On and on the billows came, and the denser they grew the lighter I became until I seemed to lose weight and become part of the cloud…
Presently a stout little peasant woman stepped out of the cloud and sat herself down beside me. On her head was a black shawl, in one hand she had a stick and in the other she carried a basket as if on her way to market.
‘Ah, batiushka [little father],’ she said, ‘what times we have come to! Bread at three roubles a pound, and even then you can’t get it! The bloodsuckers! The ogres! It is all their fault.’
Her face was familiar to me. It was the same woman whom I had once seen put out of a tramway car for loudly vilifying some Red Guards. I now remembered her perfectly.
I tried to calm her, whispering that she may be overheard and arrested.
‘Arrest me? Ha! Ha! Ha!’ she shrieked with laughter. ‘Let them try it! I am not afraid of them! Ha! Ha! Ha! … Do you know who I am? I am Russia! Yes, sir, that very same! The little mother Russia! I am deathless! I will wait a little while longer and then I will kill them all, like dogs, like mangy dogs; with this stick I will beat them to death. And I have also brought my basket with me—’ she finished rather unexpectedly and faded into the darkness…
And now a procession was coming out of the cloud; an endless stream of men, women and children. The crosses and banners were waving over them like a sea of ripe corn. At the head of the procession walked He, the Patriarch, in shimmering golden vestments, a white mitre with a white flowing veil on his head. The end of the veil was carried by a short stocky man, with black piercing eyes, a black goatee and dressed from head to foot in black leather.
I instantly recognised him as Sverdloff, the president of the Republic. I saw him draw an enormous pistol from his belt and take aim at the back of the Patriarch.
‘Lord have mercy upon us! Lord have mercy upon us!’ chanted the people, and the billows of greyish cloud caught up the prayer and bore it upwards. Nobody seemed to be aware of the Patriarch’s danger.
Desperately I tried to rouse myself, to rush towards him, to scream … I could not move a limb, my voice would not come … I was paralysed. In my agony I began to pray, inwardly, and in frantic haste – and the miracle came to pass. I had regained my freedom of movement, I rushed towards the Patriarch and Sverdloff – when a monstrously big Red Guard stepped in front of me and cried ‘Halt!’
• • •
With a jerk I awoke. The nightmare had dispersed. The train had stopped. I peered through the window. There was the usual bustle and noise of a station. ‘Tver – Station Tver – ten minutes’ stop!’ a conductor was calling.
‘Here is the passport control!’ flashed through my mind, and with this I was wide awake and bracing myself to meet the coming ordeal.
A few minutes later I heard the tread of heavy footsteps, the banging of doors and the coarse voices so typical of the followers of the new social order. I threw myself on my couch, pretending to be asleep.
Presently the examination of the passengers in the compartment next to ours was completed and with a wrench our door was opened. A Commissar, a Red Guard and the car attendant stood in the door.
‘Dokumenti poljaluite [Please show your documents],’ said the Commissar.
I half rose and in an aggrieved voice, mimicking a German accent, said: ‘What documents? We are members of the German embassy!’
The Commissar looked questioningly at the car attendant. ‘Da, da [yes, yes],’ said the latter, ‘this compartment has been engaged by the German embassy.’
‘Then why did you not say so at once?’ said the Commissar, and the car attendant began to mumble excuses.
Adventures of a British Master Spy Page 7