PART TWO
MRS REILLY’S NARRATIVE
CHAPTER SEVEN
MY FIRST MEETING with Sidney Reilly took place at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin. It was in the December of 1922, and the Reparations Commission was in session in the German capital. I was staying there with my mother and sister and among the acquaintances we made was an English delegate serving on the Commission.
The delegate was a charming man. He entertained us with many anecdotes of a singularly wide experience. And among other things he told us of Sidney Reilly. What heroic proportions the intrepid intelligence officer assumed as the delegate unfolded his story! How I trembled for his safety as the delegate said that even now this mysterious Mr C. would go back to Russia – to that terrible Russia where he had thrice been condemned to death in contumaciam. There is something irresistible in such light-hearted courage, and I am not sure but that before even I met him I was dangerously interested in the fearless Mr C.
I well remember the occasion when his name, or rather his alias, first cropped up in conversation.
‘Do you know who is staying here?’ asked the English delegate. ‘Mr C., the man who only just missed smothering Bolshevism in its cradle. You have heard of him, Count?’
We were taking tea à trois in the lounge of the Hotel Adlon at Berlin, the British delegate, a German ex-naval officer and myself.
The German naval officer whistled.
‘Mr C., your ace of espionage? Heard of him? I should think I have. I have more than heard of him. I have seen him. I have spoken to him. I have dined with him. I have drunk with him. And all in the security of a German naval base during the war, when I was an officer in the German Navy and he was a secret service agent in the employ of the British government. Heard of him? Himmel! I should think I have. And he is actually staying here?’
‘I saw him this afternoon,’ replied the British delegate, ‘but I could not get a word with him. But your story interests me, Count.’
‘I look forward to meeting him again,’ said the sailor. ‘What courage the man had – nerves of proved steel. And what a charming fellow with it. I give you my word, we were all pleased that he escaped, and, though the Admiral looked very grim when the news came through too late who he really was, I am sure that he was as pleased as the rest of us that the fellow had got away. It would have been our duty to shoot him, and one does not like to shoot a brave man.’
‘Who is this Mr C.?’ I asked.
‘Who is he not?’ asked the British delegate. ‘I tell you, Mrs Chambers, this Mr C. is a man of mystery. He’s the most mysterious man in Europe. And incidentally I should say he has a bigger price on his head than any man breathing. The Bolsheviks would give a province for him, alive or dead. Three times they have condemned him to death. The Lord alone knows how many times he has been in their clutches, if they did but know it. Why, I dare swear, seeing him in Berlin today, that he is fresh from Russia now, and is going back tomorrow. And Russia is not a healthy place to be in for anybody nowadays, even if he is not wanted by the Tcheka.’
‘Particularly if he’s English,’ put in the naval officer.
‘Then why does this Mr C. go?’ I asked.
‘The exigencies of the service,’ said the delegate with a laugh. ‘He’s a man that lives on danger. He has been our eyes and ears in Russia on many an occasion, and, between ourselves, he alone is responsible for Bolshevism not being a bigger menace to Western civilisation than it is at present. They put him over the frontier in Finland. It is ticklish work, I should say, dodging the Red patrols. Then he takes train to Petrograd, where all passports are examined. Ugh! I should not like to take the risk. But when did you last meet him, Count?’
‘It was at Reval in 1918,’ said the naval officer. ‘He had just escaped from Petrograd after dodging a particularly nasty death there for a few months. I need not tell you that he had a price on his head in Germany too. We had put some of our best counter-espionage agents on him but without success. Well, one day a Dutch motor boat put into Reval with a Russian refugee on board. The Russian had got away in a hurry without a passport and without a change of clothes. But he had remembered to bring his moneybags with him. He became very popular at the naval base. He proved himself to be a most charming companion and made friends with many of our officers. Then one day he slipped away. Just in time too. Somebody had already suspected him, and the secret of his real identity reached us about twelve hours after he had gone.’
It was the same evening that I had my first glimpse of Sidney Reilly, the man who was to be my devoted husband for two short years and then to vanish into the unknown. I need not say how the conversation between the British delegate and the German naval officer had fired my imagination, and the intrepid British officer assumed heroic proportions in my imagination, when raising my eyes from my coffee, I found them looking straight into a pair of brown ones at the other side of the room. For a moment his eyes held mine and I felt a delicious thrill run through me. The owner of the eyes presented a well-groomed and well-tailored figure, with a lean, rather sombre face, which conveyed an impression of unusual strength of resolution and character. The eyes were steady, kindly and rather sad. And with it all there was an expression, which might almost have been sardonic, the expression of a man, who not once but many times had laughed in the face of death.
All this was photographically impressed upon my mind during the second or two in which his gaze held mine. Then I looked away, wishing I knew somebody to introduce me to this fascinating stranger. I was not the only one who had noticed him. A small rat-faced man had followed him unobtrusively in and now sat in a corner whence he could command the chair in which the debonair stranger sat. I remember noticing with a sort of unreasoning irritation the keen curiosity of the rat-faced man. I suppose it was a sort of jealousy on my part, for of course at that time I did not attach any importance to the fact that the one man should watch the other so closely. Now I know that, wherever he moved, Sidney Reilly was being watched and dogged by the secret agents of the Tcheka.
Sidney, it appears, had been as attracted by me as I was by him. He had made up his mind at once that he must have an introduction to me. The task was not difficult for him. In a very short time he had found somebody to perform the ceremony. It was the British delegate who introduced Sidney to me.
Again his eyes met mine. Again a thrill ran through me. He stayed there talking to me, and his conversation fascinated me. He spoke of the state of Europe, of Russia, of the Tcheka, of the war, of Reval, and suddenly revelation came to me.
‘You are Mr C.,’ I said almost breathlessly, and—
‘Found out,’ said Sidney with a laugh.
Sidney always said that it was a case of love at first sight, and I do not think that he was far wrong. At the end of a week we were engaged.
Our engagement was a secret one, and I carefully kept it from my mother and sister during the short time that we were together. During that period too Sidney had little time to tell me of the work on which he was engaged. In a very short time he moved on to Prague and Paris. But a few weeks after we met again in London, whither I had returned to undergo an operation for appendicitis.
On 18 May 1923, the very day that I left the nursing home we were married at the Register Office in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, Sidney’s old friend, Captain Hill, acting as a witness. And it is a strange enough commentary on human fame that in the accounts which appeared in the papers on the following day the interest was focussed on me, Pepita Bobadilla, the well-known actress, the widow of Haddon Chambers, the famous dramatist, rather than on the man, whose work behind the scenes of European politics had been so colossal, so important, so singularly unrewarded.
Sidney never spoke of his past achievements or adventures. Now and again there would be a passing reference in conversation – that was all. I might almost have thought that he wished to wipe entirely from his memory the horrors he had faced and survived, and finally to shut the door on all that part o
f his life with which they were connected. But it was not so. Not only was he devoted to the country of his origin, but he loved the land of his adoption. He lived in the present and the future. The experiences of the past were but incidents in a great campaign from which, as long as he lived, he would never for one moment rest, a campaign for the rehabilitation of his beloved Russia. The sole importance his past adventures had to him was the extent to which they could form a guide to his future activities.
Gradually I was initiated into those strange proceedings which were going on behind the scenes of European politics. I learned how beneath the surface of every capital in Europe was simmering the conspiracy of the exiles of Russia against the present tyrants of their country. In Berlin, in Paris, in Prague, in London itself, small groups of exiles were plotting, planning, conspiring. Helsingfors, the capital of Finland, was absolutely seething with the counter-revolution, which had been financed and abetted by several of the governments of Europe. In this whole movement Sidney was intensely interested and was devoting much time and money to the cause.
The great hope of the counter-revolutionists was Boris Savinkoff, who was living in Paris. This man was almost worshipped as a hero in many quarters, Sidney himself thought very highly of him and regarded him as the potential saviour of his country. Sidney had brought Savinkoff to the notice of Mr Winston Churchill, who fully shared his opinion of him and always talked and wrote of Savinkoff as a great man.
Savinkoff was a firm opponent of despotism in any shape or form, and had been a strong and outspoken enemy of Tsarism. Of course the great majority of the counter-revolutionaries had been participators in or sympathisers with the first Russian Revolution. A short seven years before they had been revolutionaries themselves, and they naturally took Savinkoff as their leader. Sidney himself did not regard the restoration of monarchy in Russia as either feasible or desirable: he looked upon Savinkoff as the future dictator of the country. The Tsarists even were reconciled to the leadership of Savinkoff in the great crusade against Bolshevism. At the head of the Tsarists was a very able and brave man, General K., head of the Russian anti-Soviet Intelligence Department. In Russia itself, in Moscow and Petrograd, the counter-revolutionaries had their organisations in the charge of Savinkoff’s aide, Pavlovsky, of whom more will be heard as my tale advances.
Of the White Russians as a whole Sidney did not have a very high opinion. He regarded them as vain, talkative and ineffective. They were full of words and schemes, but seemed incapable of translating their ideas into action. Many were undisguisedly apathetic, of many more the loyalty was more than doubtful. As a class Sidney did not regard them as reliable when outside his immediate control or supervision. From this general stricture he excepted Savinkoff.
Savinkoff had been financed by the Polish, French and Czech governments, but, as time passed, and nothing was done the interest of these foreign sympathisers waned, and Savinkoff was left to his own resources. He was now financed by a few private individuals, among whom Sidney was prominent, and, about the time of our marriage, Sidney was anxious to secure further support for him.
There can be no doubt that my husband had the highest regard for Savinkoff, with whom he had hoped to co-operate at the time of his abortive conspiracy in 1918.
My husband’s funds were not inexhaustible and were much depleted by the advances he had made to Savinkoff, but there was legally due to him a large sum of money, part of which he intended to use for further financing the Russian leader. This dated back to before the time when he entered the British service. At the outbreak of the war he had been sent to America by the Russian government to place contracts for arms and equipment. In this work he had been highly successful, and it was in this connection that a large sum of money was due to him from an American firm. Owing to the change of government in Russia, difficulties had arisen with regard to the payment of this amount, and my husband had now decided to institute proceedings for its recovery.
Accordingly almost immediately after our marriage my husband announced our pending visit to America. From London we went to Paris, where Savinkoff was living. It was amazing to what a degree some of his followers idolised this man. A self-constituted bodyguard was watching over him very carefully. People who came to Paris to see him were watched and followed wherever they went. He did not see interviewers, who were received by his lieutenant, M. Dehrental.
On the face of them these precautions seemed a little melodramatic. As I was to learn, Sidney’s life was in infinitely greater danger than Savinkoff’s, and he went about absolutely unattended. But the fact is that the precautions were not entirely unnecessary. Unseen and hostile eyes were watching Savinkoff’s every movement. The agents of the Tcheka never for one moment let him out of their sight. His residence was under an observation which slept neither night nor day. Shortly before our arrival in Paris we were told, an attempt had been made to kidnap him, which had been frustrated by the intelligence of the ubiquitous M. Dehrental. I remember that at the time I did not believe the story. And I am not sure that I believe it now.
However, be the truth of it what it may, there can be no doubt of the vigilance with which Savinkoff was guarded and the measures which were taken to keep his movements hidden. Sidney had announced by letter his impending arrival in Paris, and we were duly awaited by the secret agents. A message was sent at once to Savinkoff, and my first meeting with the great Russian hero took place in a private apartment of the Chatham Hotel.
Savinkoff was a great disappointment to me, though, knowing how much my husband admired him and regarded him as the hope of his country, I kept my unfavourable opinion to myself. A portly little man strutted in with the most amusing air of self-assurance and self-esteem – a little man with a high brow, a beetling forehead, little eyes and an undershot chin. The little man posed in front of the mantelpiece. Now he gave us a view of one side of his profile, now of the other. Now he thrust his hand into his breast in the approved Napoleonic manner, now he flourished it in the air with a theatrical gesture. Every pose was carefully studied, and had been studied so long that he had passed beyond the stage of taking even a glance at his audience to gauge the measure of its appreciation.
His little court fully shared Savinkoff’s estimate of his own importance. When he frowned, a cloud settled on the assembly. When he smiled, answering smiles appeared on every face. When he condescended to a joke, which was but seldom, it was greeted with discreet and respectful merriment.
The conversation was conducted in Russian, which I did not understand. Dehrental did most of the talking. Savinkoff attitudinised in the background. Dehrental became excited and gesticulated wildly, but, whenever Savinkoff opened his mouth, he subsided into respectful silence.
The conversation, as Sidney afterwards told me, concerned itself principally with funds. Not only was money badly needed for the counter-revolution, but subscriptions were in urgent request for the keep of Savinkoff, together of course with that of M. and Mme Dehrental. The withdrawal of the support of the French, Czech and Polish governments had been a serious blow to the cause of counter-revolution. Sidney had already pointed out the danger of exhausting the patience of friendly governments. The feeling was spreading in Europe that, for all the White Russians could do, Bolshevism had come to stay.
Dehrental produced reports from Pavlovsky and the other counter-revolutionary agents in Russia, from which it appeared that the time was not yet ripe. His wife on the other hand seemed to be of opinion that the sooner action was taken the better. On only one point were they agreed, that funds were urgently needed.
There was nothing more for my husband to do in Europe and he was free to proceed to America on his own affairs, which were causing him some worry at this time. We sailed for New York in July in the Holland–America liner Rotterdam.
At New York we stayed at the Gotham Hotel for several months. A year passed uneventfully, but Sidney was becoming more and more worried about his affairs. He made elaborate arrangements for my future i
n the event of his meeting with some mysterious accident, which he feared might befall him. At the same time he was assisting his friend, Sir Paul Dukes, in the translation of Savinkoff’s last work, The Black Horse. The law delayed, and I saw that Sidney’s health was suffering in consequence. Finally his lawsuit was postponed.
In the midst of all these perplexities came a letter from Savinkoff asking for Sidney’s presence on a matter of grave importance.
In the summer of 1924 we sailed from New York on board the Paris and arrived in London.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I WAKENED SUDDENLY FROM my sleep and sat up in bed. Sidney was standing in the moonlight of the window, looking out towards the Embankment. He seemed like a man in a dream. I went over and stood by his side, but he was not aware of me. He was looking, looking intently over the deserted drive, chequered with black shade and silver light, looking into the abysmal deeps of the shadows beyond. What was it at which he was gazing so intently? I too peered out shuddering, standing there by his shoulder, but he did not see me. Was it a hallucination? To my dying day I shall never know if it was a material thing I saw, as I stood there by Sidney’s side, in the window in the moonlight. But as I peered, slowly looming out of the black shades I too seemed to see a grey shadow with face hideously cowled, looking across towards us, and beckoning, beckoning with arm slowly outstretched, beckoning with an air of irresistible command, beckoning to Sidney – beckoning to me, beckoning to both of us to come to it. In my terror I turned to Sidney, as he stood there, beside me, trying suddenly to hold him to me. But his face was unchanged and his eyes expressionless. He was asleep.
Again I turned my eyes fearfully to the window looking out over the deserted road. Again I strove to pierce through the black shadows. Nothing was there. As if to add to the air of normality a policeman was passing down, flashing his light on the doors of the houses as he went. Inside the room all was inky blackness. Sidney was breathing heavily, like a man in great distress. I led him gently back to the bed. He awakened there, and buried his face in my shoulder, sobbing like a child.
Adventures of a British Master Spy Page 9