Memoirs of a British Agent

by R. H. Bruce Lockhart

  The only point in the men’s favour was that between them they had about eighty pounds in English notes, and the total value of the goods found on them was less than three pounds. I made great play of this anomaly and also of the fact that a misunderstanding might have arisen over the language difficulty. I requested an interview with the two men.

  My eloquence, however, was vain. The Pristaff smiled condescendingly.

  “You have your duty to do, Mr. Consul,” he said. “I have mine. It is a bad case.”

  There seemed nothing for me to do except to retreat. At this moment a good-looking young man burst into the room.

  “Papa,” he said excitedly, “we’ve won.”

  Then he saw me, stared confusedly for a moment, rushed forward and shook me warmly by the hand.

  “Mr. Lockhart,” he said, “you don’t remember me. I played against you last year. I’m the centre-half of the Union Club.” His face glowed. He dashed back to his father. “Papa, this is Mr. Lockhart, who used to play for the Morozovtsi—the best team in Russia. He must have tea with us.”

  The Pristaff frowned and then smiled.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “In discussing our business, I forgot all about tea.”

  He rang the bell, ordered more cups and some vodka, and, as we sat and pledged each other, the boy told us the story of the afternoon’s match. The Pristaff listened in silent admiration. Obviously, he doted on his boy. I, too, sat on, hoping for an unexpected dénouement to my own problem. When the boy had finished his recital, he turned again to me:

  “And what are you doing here, Mr. Lockhart?”

  The father blushed.

  “Mr. Lockhart has some official business to discuss with me. I think you had better go.”

  When the boy had gone, there was an awkward silence. Then the Pristaff cleared his throat.

  “Mr. Consul,” he said, “I have been thinking over this case. I am convinced that you are right and that a British naval doctor with fifty pounds in his pocket would not steal a few worthless handkerchiefs. The devil of it is that the goods were found in both the men’s pockets. If only all the goods had been in the gunner’s pockets and we could call the doctor as witness, the case would not be so difficult.”

  He scratched his shaven head. Then he pushed the bell.

  “Send me the policeman who made the protocol on this English case,” he ordered.

  The policeman appeared—a stout, honest fellow conscious of having done a good day’s work and expecting to be praised.

  “Did you make this protocol?” asked the Pristaff.

  “Yes, sir,”

  “Did you find the goods in the pockets of both men?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you quite sure?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the policeman.

  “Think again,” roared the Pristaff in a voice of thunder.

  The policeman blenched but made the same answer. Even for a Russian he was slow in the uptake.

  The Pristaff returned to the charge.

  “Do you think that a naval doctor, an officer of the English fleet, would steal a pair of socks and a handkerchief?”

  The policeman shuffled.

  “Yes, sir—I mean, no, sir,” he stammered.

  “Fool,” growled the Pristaff. “What do you mean? Do you mean that you found all the goods in the petty officer’s pocket and nothing in the pockets of the doctor.”

  This was said very slowly and deliberately, every word being punctuated with a tap of a large ruler on the table.

  This time even the policeman understood.

  “Yes, sir,” he whispered hoarsely.

  The Pristaff tore up the protocol.

  “Go,” he said. “Draw up a new protocol at once and don’t let me catch you out in inaccuracies again.”

  He turned to me with a sheepish grin.

  “That’s all I can do,” he said. “The case will have to go before the magistrate. I warn you there will be trouble over the detective who is a pig-headed fellow and who in any case is paid by results. But at any rate you have now a witness for the defence. The rest depends on you. I can release the doctor at once.”

  Football has its uses. I thanked him profoundly, begged him to send the doctor round to my flat, and rushed off to enlist the services of Alexander Wilenkin, the Consular lawyer.

  That same evening we laid our plans. The naval doctor stuck to his story that they had intended to pay for the goods, and Wilenkin, who knew England almost as well as he knew Russia, saw his way clear. The petty officer would have to stand his trial. The doctor’s evidence would be valuable, but the chief witness for the defence was to be myself. This was Wilenkin’s plan of campaign.

  At once I raised objections. I was doubtful about the propriety of a British Consular officer appearing in a case of this kind. In any case I did not see how I could be of assistance.

  “Leave it to me, my dear-r Lockhart,” said Wilenkin in his guttural Jewish accent. And I did.

  Wilenkin, who belonged to a rich Jewish family, had the reputation of being the best-dressed man in Moscow, and in his defence of the two Englishmen clothes played an important part.

  On the Tuesday we all appeared before the examining magistrate, Wilenkin and I, complete in morning coats, striped trousers, monocles and top hats. Our entry into the squalid, crowded court made a sensation.

  The case opened badly. The shop detective gave his evidence with overwhelming effect. The petty officer, dirty and unshaven after three days in prison, made an unfortunate impression on the bench. Wilenkin’s speech, however, was a masterpiece. Basing his defence on the fact that the two men were well supplied with money, he pointed out the improbability of two such distinguished members of His Majesty’s Navy risking their careers for the sake of a handkerchief and a pair of socks. Englishmen were, admittedly, queer people. They washed. They had a preference for clean linen. What more natural than that they should profit by their stay in Moscow to permit themselves the luxury of a wash and a clean handkerchief. The detective had erred on the side of eagerness. Finally, the matter had a profound political aspect. England and Russia were now friends—almost Allies. One day—how soon no one knew—they might be fighting side by side. Had the magistrate weighed in his mind the deplorable effect a miscarriage of justice might have on the present happy state of Anglo-Russian relations? Autres pays, autres mœurs, and in order to demonstrate that English customs were different from Russian he had brought into this court a very busy man—the acting British Consul-General.

  I stepped forward with all the dignity I could muster and took the oath.

  “Is it quite a common occurrence in England for respectable people to enter a shop, pick up an article off the counter and put it in their pocket before they have actually paid for it?” asked Wilenkin.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you done it on occasions yourself?”

  “Yes,” I answered without a blush.

  The petty officer left the court without a stain on his character. But that night every newspaper in Moscow came out with large headlines: “British Consul in Moscow swears that in England shoppers may put goods in their pocket before paying for them!”

  My reputation, however, survived this sarcasm. I was beginning to know my Moscow.

  This was merely a minor achievement for Wilenkin. In peace time regarded by most people as a fop, he proved himself a lion of Judah in the war. He was, in fact, the bravest Jew I have ever met. He was one of the first Russians to enlist as a volunteer. By his physical courage as much as by his intelligence he rose from the ranks to be a junior officer. He won the St. George’s Cross for bravery in action. Bemonocled and cleanshaven in his civil life, in war he grew a magnificent beard and mustachios. When the first revolution came, he threw himself heart and soul into the task of persuading his men to continue fighting. His skill as an orator raised him to the dignity of Vice-President of his Army Soviet, and it was he who brought back to St. Petersburg the troops which suppr
essed the first Bolshevik attempt at a coup d’état in July, 1917. After the Bolshevik revolution of November, 1917, he threw in his lot with Savinkoff and had a hand in almost every counterrevolutionary plot against the new régime. His indifference to danger amounted almost to foolhardiness, and on several occasions I warned him of the risks he was running. In July, 1918, he was arrested in Moscow as a counter-revolutionary. He was one of the first victims of the official terror, when, as a reprisal for the attempt on Lenin’s life on September 1st, 1918, the Bolsheviks shot seven hundred of their political opponents.

  Throughout the spring and early summer of 1914 my life ran on active and pleasant lines. I had sufficient work to keep me out of mischief. My interest in Russia and things Russian was amounting almost to a mania, and my ambition to make myself the best-informed Consular officer in Moscow was well on the way to fulfilment. My pride was pleasantly titillated, when the Austrian Consul-General borrowed our annual report (written mainly by me) in order to paraphrase it as his own. In the past he had always conferred this honour on his German colleagues. If I showed any disposition to “let up,” a judicious mixture of praise and exhortation from Bayley kept my nose to the grindstone. It has been my fate in life to be the willing horse of various masters. My pleasures were few—a little tennis, an occasional game of billiards, and an odd weekend in the country. Yet I was not unhappy. My home life was peaceful and undisturbed. Obviously, if I was the last person any woman should have married, marriage was good for me.

  In June, 1914, I had another surfeit of official entertainment. Admiral Beatty and a picked selection of the officers of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron paid an official visit to Moscow. The youthful appearance of the youngest Admiral since Nelson nearly led to my official undoing. Dressed in uniform and cocked hat, I had been sent by Bayley to meet the train and to welcome Beatty on the platform. It was my first encounter with the Navy, and I knew less than nothing of the distinguishing marks of the different ranks. On the platform I found the Prefect, the Governor, the General commanding the Moscow district, and other Russian officials to whom I should have to introduce the British admiral. The train drew up, and out of the special carriage stepped a brisk young man who looked no older than myself and whom I naturally supposed was Beatty’s flag-lieutenant. I stood waiting for the emergence of the great man himself, and there was an awkward pause. It was ended very quickly by my supposed flag-lieutenant.

  “How do you do?” he said. “I’m Beatty. Introduce me and tell me whom I shake hands with first.”

  I went hot and then cold. When I told him afterwards of my embarrassment, he laughed and took it as a compliment.

  In my own defence I must admit that the Russians were equally astonished by Beatty’s youthfulness.

  The visit was a tremendous success. Beatty’s officers, who included Admiral Halsey, Admiral Brock, and several other captains, whose names were to become household words during the war, went down with the Russians like a dinner. Their clean-shaven, red-cheeked faces brought a breeze of health and vigour into the parched atmosphere of the Moscow summer, and Beatty’s square jaw and the jaunty angle at which he wore his cap gave a lasting joy to the Moscow caricaturists, who were only too glad to have this opportunity of contrasting the efficiency of the British Navy with the shortcomings of their own. The climax to a whirlwind triumph came with Beatty’s speech at a dinner given by the town in a large marquee in the Sokolniki park. After a succession of dreary orators the English admiral arose, and in a voice which would have carried through a gale, delivered a speech which stirred the sluggish Muscovites to an extraordinary display of emotion. Never before had they seen an admiral who had not a beard down to his knees. The military strength of Britain might be insignificant, but the British Navy was the real thing. To-day, I often wonder why Lord Beatty has never gone into politics. That voice of his would wake even the sleepers in the House of Lords. It was a first-rate performance, and his visit did much to enhance British prestige.

  Then came tragedy—swift as an eagle in its descent and pitiless in its consequences. On June 28th the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was murdered, and, however secure London may have felt, Moscow realised from the first moment that the red sun of war had already risen. It was at this time that a tragedy occurred in my own family. In June my wife had been expecting a child. I had wished to send her home and had written to my grandmother in the hope that she would provide the necessary financial assistance. The reply had been stern and uncompromising. She herself had given birth to her first child under a bullock cart in New Zealand. A woman’s place on those occasions was by her husband.

  The doctor recommended to my wife was a German called Schmidt—a kind and gentle old man who was long past his best. I had misgivings and wished to employ a Russian. The English women in Moscow, however, were strongly prejudiced against Russian doctors. Schmidt spoke English, and my wife liked him.

  The crisis came on June 20th and lasted all through the night. Inexperienced as I was, I soon realised that the birth was complicated. It was one of the hottest nights I have ever known in Moscow or anywhere else, and for hours on end I stood at the open window in the drawing-room, smoking cigarette after cigarette and trying to keep my mind a blank. At three o’clock Schmidt came into the room. The sweat, streaming from his face, had dripped on to his white overalls.

  “It is difficult,” he gasped, “very difficult. I must have another doctor.”

  He gave me the number, and I rushed to the telephone. Hours seemed to pass. Again I resumed my stand at the window, listening for the sound of the “droschke” wheels on the cobbled streets. After several false alarms the doctor arrived—a young man, whose efficient manner inspired me with a new confidence. Then he disappeared into the bedroom, and again there was an immense silence. At five o’clock all was over. Katja, the cook, tiptoed across the room, her apron up to her eyes. Then the young doctor came in.

  “The mother is alive,” he said gravely. “The girl will not live.”

  Very quickly he told me the details. The birth had been difficult. There had been great exhaustion, and they had had to use instruments. The first instruments had been defective. If he had been summoned sooner …

  “The child is dead?” I whispered. He nodded.

  In a dream I ordered coffee and biscuits for the doctors. In a dream I saw them off at the door. Then I sat down to wait for the morning. At seven o’clock my mother-in-law came in and took me into the room which would have been our nursery. The child was lying in a cot. They had dressed her in the clothes which for months past my wife had been making for her. Her eyes were open. There was not a mark on the little waxen face. She looked so fresh and sweet that it was impossible to believe that she was dead. The little cap which covered her head concealed the fatal bruise.

  Mechanically I went about the tasks of the day. I telephoned to Bayley to tell him what had happened. I called on the chaplain to see what could be done about the burial, and in the afternoon I walked down to the Sadovaya to order the tiny coffin. As I passed the Hermitage, a street-woman accosted me. I walked past, and she came back to me. Silently I handed her five roubles; for a moment our eyes met; then she turned and ran. I think she thought I was mad.

  Two days later I made the long “trek” out to the German cemetery, carrying the coffin on my knees. The sun beat down pitilessly from a cloudless sky, but I never felt the heat. An Englishman of seventy was being buried, and it was among strangers that I stood, while the chaplain read the burial service and the two coffins of the man who had lived his full life and of the nameless child were lowered into their common grave …

  All through that burning July, while my wife lay in danger, first, of her life and then of her reason, I toiled at the Consulate-General, striving to kill my thoughts with a surfeit of work. And, as the days passed, the tension of the Russian people grew, until gradually it swelled into an angry murmur. Why was England hanging back? As July broke into August, scores of people telephoned daily to know
the reason and, not receiving satisfaction, grumbled and threatened. Through the long white days troops in full marching kit tramped through the streets, singing their plaintive songs and leaving a cloud of dust in their trail. The heart of Russia was on fire with war.

  On the morning of Wednesday, August 5th, I set out as usual on my short walk to the Consulate-General. At the street corner opposite the office a crowd of demonstrators impeded my progress. A band was playing, and raucous voices were calling for the Consul-General. Suddenly a man in the crowd recognised me. “Way for the British Vice-Consul,” he roared. Strong hands passed me over the heads of the crowd to the entrance, while a thousand voices thundered: “Long live England.” A bearded student kissed me on both cheeks. England had declared war on Germany. Another day’s delay, and the demonstrators would have smashed our windows.

  1 A police inspector of a district; generally an ex-army officer.

  BOOK III

  WAR AND PEACE

  “EINE GROSSE Epoche hat das Jahrhundert geboren, aber der grosse Moment findet ein Kleines Geschlecht.”

  (The century has given birth to a great epoch, but the great moment finds a petty generation.)

  Goethe

  CHAPTER ONE

  MY RECOLLECTIONS of those first war months in Moscow arc remarkably vivid, although to-day in the light of after events they seem more like a strange dream than an actual experience. The contrast between 1914 and 1932 is too great. I have to shut my eyes to recall the enthusiasm of those early days. There in the patchwork of my memory I see again those moving scenes at the station: the troops, grey with dust and closely packed in cattle trucks; the vast crowd on the platform to wish them God-speed; grave, bearded fathers, wives and mothers, smiling bravely through their tears and bringing gifts of flowers and cigarettes; fat priests to bless the happy warriors. The crowd sways forward for a last handshake and a last embrace. There is a shrill whistle from the engine. Then, with many false starts, the overloaded train, as though reluctant to depart, crawls slowly out of the station and disappears in the grey twilight of the Moscow night. Silent and bare-headed, the crowd remains motionless until the last faint echo of the song of the men, who are never to return, has faded into nothing. Then, shepherded by the gendarmes, it files quietly out into the streets.