I have now completed
the draft for the second chapter of my new novel The Obscurati Chronicles. I have already published the first draft
chapter as a sample, see: http://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-obscurati-chronicles-sample-first.html.
I originally planned to publish nothing else until the book was complete,
something that will take many months or even years. However, on reflection, I have
chosen to publish the draft for the second chapter on Ben's Bookcase. The main reason
for this is that the novel's format could be described as two stories in one. I
intend for the book to be narrated in the third person by the two main characters,
Robin Ursall and Will Ursall. The sample of Chapter One was Robin's narration
so I only thought it fair for Will to have the same chance. Therefore I am
giving you Will's sample narrative introduction to the novel as well.
Alternating chapters from now on will be narrated by each character, the odd
numbers by Robin and the even numbers by Will. As usual, I am not entirely
satisfied with what I have written here. This is merely a draft which I will
revise. The final result may well be very different to what you are reading
below. This has been a difficult piece of writing and it has taken me over four
months. One of the issues I had to deal with was how to present the dialogue.
This chapter is set mostly in Russia and the dialogue in real life therefore
would be mostly in Russian. However I am, of course, writing in English. The
late American thriller author Tom Clancy often did the same. Clancy filled his American
and British English-speaking characters' dialogue with all sorts of
colloquialisms and naturalisms that a native English-speaker would use; but
when his characters who spoke Russian or other foreign languages were in scene,
Clancy gave them a very stilted and toneless style. It was really just his way
of indicating that the characters were speaking a different language that he
had translated into English. I have taken a different route; I have chosen to
make my Russian-speaking characters talk as if they were English-speakers using
British English colloquialisms. This is, I am guessing, how Russian would
actually sound to the ears of another Russian-speaker. I have also included
expressions that only exist in today's world such as "go viral". This
phrase did not exist among English speakers in 1918, when the story is set; but
because of my policy I saw no harm in letting my Russian characters from that
era use it. This sample chapter, like the first one, will hopefully give
readers an idea of what the story is about and encourage them to purchase the
complete book when I have finished it. This might take some time, but it also
commits me morally to completing the work. I have included illustrations in
this sample that will not be present in the finished work. Please watch this
page for any future updates.
The Obscurati
Chronicles
by Ben Emlyn-Jones
Sample Second Chapter
Wilfred Ursall fought back tears as he strode along Neal
Street. This was far more difficult than he had
expected it to be. He had invited his brother to accompany him as part of his
logistics plan for delivering his letter to their mother. He could easily have
simply posted the letter, but he had persuaded himself that the Royal Mail and
Lancombe Pond Mail were not as efficient as they should be, so he was worried
about his letter getting lost in the post. Getting his brother to take it back
from London was safer; and the
letter absolutely had to be delivered to his mother. Very early on, he had
ruled out leaving it anywhere at home for her to find because she may well have
found it sooner than he wanted her to, soon enough to chase after him and try
and stop him; to implore him not to go. Now he understood that this had just
been the excuse he gave himself. He saw the subconscious motives that had
really driven him to spend his last day at home with his brother. Over the last
three years Will had come to deride Robin for his immaturity, his ditsy
fixation on superstitions, conspiracy theories and fantasy literature. His
sixteen year old sibling had aged into a scatterbrained dreamer. Yet turning
his back on Robin and walking away had made Will deeply sad. He felt the urge
to turn around and run back to him. His pace slowed. He gritted his teeth and
corralled his thoughts away from that and any other notions that might make him
change his mind. He sped his pace again. He knew he had to move quickly and be
careful in which direction he went because he had to make sure he did not bump
into Robin while the latter was on his way home. His younger brother would
probably travel from Covent Garden to St Pancras and so
Will headed for Tottenham Court Road and took a train on a different line. It
was just a few stops to Paddington Station where he rose to the surface,
crossed Praed Street and
entered the vaulted interior roofed by Brunel's elegant curves. The stench of
coal, oil and soot met his nostrils. A train whistle sounded from a platform
that made him jump. He looked over his shoulder, feeling he was being followed.
Nobody was there except a thousand shuffling commuters. It was rush-hour and
the crowds were thickening. He had to queue for quarter of an hour to buy his
ticket and then he walked to the correct platform to board the train to Oxford.
He chose a third class compartment and squeezed in between the other
passengers. There was a rumble and the train began moving. Will had a window
seat and gazed out at the west London
urban sprawl. There were rows of roofs with black smoke seeping from a thousand
chimneys. After ten minutes the city petered out and the green fields and woodland
cruised past, dimmed to grey emerald by the failing light and low clouds.
Hedgerows moved from the front to behind, shifted in parallax like the spokes
of a wheel. He couldn't believe that this may well be the last time he would
ever see the British landscape again. By the time the train approached Oxford
it was dark. All Will could see out of the window were specks of lights
rolling across the vista like stars in space. He walked out of the station and
headed directly up Hythe Bridge Street
and George Street to Balliol
College. He kept his head low and
his cap pulled down over his forehead. Although the Hilary Term had not yet
started there was always the risk that somebody who would recognize him might
be roaming around. The castle-like facade of the college loomed over Broad
Street. Will passed through the entrance and went
up to the porters' lodge. The porter on reception was an elderly man with
greasy black hair and a sharp nose, typical of the Oxford
porters. The porters were the staff who handled security, postage and managed
maintenance in Oxford University.
The man raised his eyebrows. "Mr Ursall, is that you?"
"Yes,
Kimber."
"You're back
a bit early, aren't you, sir? We weren't expecting anybody until the
weekend."
"I know,
Kimber. I've returned early to sort out some business. Could you check my
pigeonhole please?" Will was nervous, wondering if somehow it might not be
there. Kimber went through a door behind the reception desk and came back a
minute later with a stuffed manila envelope. It was addressed to Will with a
neat printed sticker. Will sighed with relief. He took the package to his
bedroom in the halls of residence. He was careful to shut the door behind him
properly, then he sat on his bed and opened the package. Everything he needed
was there, as arranged. He lay back on the mattress for a moment.
"Right!" he murmured. There was nothing to stop him now. He carefully
packed the envelope into his satchel, along with a few other belongings from
his university life, and headed out of the college back to the railway station.
He felt more relaxed now that he had the parcel and he took his time walking
there. He took a detour through St Ebbes. It had been a long time since he had
last explored this residential district of Oxford. He shivered as he recalled
the moment he had entered this place; it was a moment that had changed his
life. It was a hot steamy day in June of 1914 and he had been on a five-day
tour of the University along with fifteen other boys from Greyguides who had
applied for scholarships. He had managed to slip away from the others at
lunchtime and went on a solitary stroll around the city. St Ebbes housed many
of Oxford's proletarians. It was a
tiny neighbourhood, just a few streets crammed in between the old Cotswold
limestone walls of the Town Hall and Pembroke
College; and the long straight rows
of dons' accommodation leading south to the river. Will had turned off the main
road and the first thing that struck him was the smell. It was something his
nose had never experienced before. It was vaguely recognizable; the dustmen who
cruised the streets of the Mansfields
carried it upon their bodies where it was barely perceptible, almost
subliminal. Here is was like a solid object, something that could be hammered
with a mallet or cut with an axe. He couldn't begin to guess what caused the
odour, but it was deeply unpleasant. It was everywhere, in every corner of
every alleyway; a stench surrounding every rotting, lopsided house. It wafted
from all the greasy discoloured windows that were open in this weather. Most of
their panes were cracked or had segments missing. The principle sound was
voices, especially the voices of children. The urchins ran around the streets
playing games that only they could define. They were barefoot or had ragged
shoes; even more ragged than the rest of their clothing. Moth-eaten wool caps
adorned their heads and their overgrown matted hair pushed out from underneath
them. They cavorted amongst broken glass and dog excrement; and the rubbish.
Everywhere there was rubbish; overflowing sacks of it by front doors, scattered
across the pavements and roads, old bottles, torn paper, decomposing food.
Flies buzzed around it, competing with the pigeons for the best scraps. A few
times Will saw rats scamper across the cobbles. He reached a small crossroads
where a grocery shop stood. Here the usual stink was mixed with others, some
even worse. A group of adults were loitering outside it. They glared at Will
with analytic and dispassionate hostility, as if sensing instantly that he came
from outside their dominions. One of the men in particular was branded on
Will's memory; middle-aged and bearded, sneering like a mugger. Despite this,
his eyes gleamed with intelligence. His bowler hat was ripped across the brim
and up almost to the crown. Beside him was a young woman with a stained white
blouse, perhaps his daughter. Her crinkled skirt led down to unshaved calves
and leather sandals. Her expression was different to the man's; it was slightly
sympathetic, as if sensing Will's unease. Will turned away hastily and made his
way back towards the macadamized splendour of the main road. Before he left, he
noticed the name of the street and couldn't suppress a guffaw of irony; it was
called Paradise Square. He
emerged into the familiar as if waking from a coma. He blinked and looked
around himself. He staggered back to the college where his school friends were,
in a daze. They ate lunch in the dining hall of Exeter
College with the students. The
college master sat at the top table beneath an array of oil paintings on the
oak panelled walls. The boys were served with duck and asparagus in plum sauce
and Doré potatoes. "What's up with you, Will?" asked one of his
friends. "You look like you're in a trance." Several times his
schoolmates had commented on Will's sudden shift in demeanour.
"Nothing." He replied. "I'm fine." He was not. In
fact everything now looked different in his eyes. If was as if he had gone into
St Ebbes and come out in another world, a parallel universe in which all the
colour and vitality had been drained out of everything. He looked at the
servants who walked obediently around the tables in their smart suits. They
were all young men, about the same age as the students; groomed hair, smart suits,
bow ties. All the diners ignored them, as if they were automata from a
futuristic yarn. "Thank you." Will looked up at the man who presented
him with his Pesca Melba dessert and smiled. The waiter glanced briefly back,
but did not respond.
That had been
almost four years ago. In the intervening time, Will's life had transformed in
ways he could never have predicted. It was a journey that had led to this
moment. As Will walked through St Ebbes on this chilly January evening in 1918
he suddenly experienced a surge of liberation. The district now looked
different to him. The horror that had infected every cell of his body for all
that time was gone. He felt as if he had been carrying it around, like heavy
weights, pulling him down into the ground; and now the weights had been lifted.
He felt as if he could leap ten feet in the air and run at a hundred miles per
hour. He looked in through one of the mud spattered downstairs windows of a
house. Inside a family were sitting around a table eating what meagre scraps of
junk food passed for their supper. "Not for much longer." Will spoke
aloud in a voice too low for them to hear. "One day very soon, these slums
will be torn to the ground and you shall have proper homes." His gaze
settled on a girl of about four years old, almost too small to reach the table.
She was spooning the revolting slop from a filthy bowl into her mouth.
"And you, my dear, will be eating strawberries and cream." Will felt
tears rising in his eyes. He had wept many times over spectacles like this, in
rage, guilt and despair; but now his tears were of joy, hope and enthusiasm.
The first thing he
retrieved from the parcel when he returned to the railway station was a one-way
train ticket to Liverpool. The train rocked and rolled
through the darkness outside. It was less crowded than the one from London
and he had a compartment to himself. A little way into the journey he looked at
his watch and saw that it was almost eight PM.
By now Robin would probably be home and his mother would have read the letter.
Will gasped with a sudden and unexpected stab of anguish. It was the first time
he had thought of his mother that evening. He put his face in his hands and
stifled a groan. He realized that it was not too late; he could go back. He
could catch an eastward train from Birmingham
and be home before midnight. He felt
himself rent in two as a part of him begged the rest of him to do so. He
stomped on his entire person with his internal White fascist jackboot.
"No!" he hissed at himself. "You must keep going! You promised!" What would his family be doing
at that moment? Probably trying to stop him. They would frantically telephone
Balliol, then all his friends and acquaintances. However, they wouldn't be able
to find him. They would never guess where he was. At Birmingham
he changed trains, but he did not take the train east; he took one north. He
arrived at Liverpool Lime Street
station at eleven-forty-five PM and headed through the dark city to the docks.
Searchlights flickered back and forth across the sky as the army checked for
Zeppelins. The ship Lahtka was
exactly where his instructions told him it would be, tied up in the Canning
Dock. It was a small short-sea freighter with a single funnel. Will felt
nervous as he approached the gangplank. This would be the first time he had to
speak Russian to a native in real-time; but the moment he met the skipper he
relaxed. The man was Will's image of a stereotypical Russian, stocky, tall and
with a huge black beard. He greeted Will warmly and escorted him aboard the
ship, explaining to him in a jolly manner that he was pleased to have his
passenger aboard, although the man had a strange accent and Will only
comprehended about one word in three. The Bolshevik pin the captain wore
proudly on his duffle coat was additionally reassuring. Will shook hands with
some of the other crewmembers and was shown to his cabin, which he shared with
another man. He had hardly slept the night before because of nerves so he
dropped straight off into a deep sleep.
Will was woken by
the rumbling of the ship's engines and saw a slight blue glow in the porthole.
His cabin mate was not in the room. He dressed hurriedly and ran up on deck. It
was early morning twilight and the ship was cruising slowly along the River
Mersey. To its starboard side was the distinctive twin tower roof of the Royal
Liver Building.
There were several other ships close by and when the captain saw him, he came
over and explained to Will that they were joining a convoy. It suddenly struck
Will that this voyage would be rather dangerous. He scolded himself for not
realizing something so obvious. Ahead of the merchant ships were some Royal
Navy submarine chasers. They would have to travel according to U-boat avoidance
procedures. Will shrugged; he knew he would have to get used to danger. He did
hope that he could at least reach Russia
alive though. He looked up and saw the Russian flag flying from the Lahtka. Would the Germans leave them
alone, seeing as there was a ceasefire and Lenin was currently negotiating a
peace treaty? Even if they wanted to, it probably wouldn't be possible to pick
them out seeing as the Russian vessel was sailing within a British convoy. The
ships signalled to each other via a Morse light and the captain gave continuous
orders to the manoeuvring watch to keep his vessel in formation. They sailed
slowly on a course which zigzagged randomly every few minutes to make it harder
for enemy ships and submarines to target them. The morning grew lighter as the
file of ships headed away from the English coast. The clouds parted and patches
of sunlight played across the brown winter sea. The icy blasting wind
eventually drove Will below deck.
The rate of
advance across the Irish Sea was slow because of the
defensive manoeuvres. It was not until mid-afternoon that the convoy reached
the southern coast of the Isle of Man where it turned
north. Lahtka cruised through The
Minches as night fell. The evening meal was served in the ship's dirty mess and
it consisted of herring and mixed vegetables. The captain told Will what the
dish was called, but Will had never heard of it. To his dismay, most of the
conversation at the table was not carried out in Russian. Will thought it might
be Ukrainian or Belarusian. He picked the occasional Russian loanword or place
name out of the conversation, but apart from that he had to nod his head and
smile in polite incomprehension. When they addressed Will directly most of them
spoke to him in Russian. Those who didn't Will suspected could probably not
speak it and were confined to their own vernacular. None of them spoke a word
of English. As the evening wore on Will found talking to the crew grew easier.
He had previously only heard the language spoken on the gramophone discs that
he had ordered of lectures by Lenin, Plekhanov and various other revolutionary
leaders. His subconscious must have picked up more from them than he had hoped.
He had met a few Russians at meetings since 1914, but they had all spoken in
English. He felt seasick after dinner and threw up in the head. He retired to
his bunk and slept. The weather grew rougher and he was disturbed in the middle
of the night by the crewman he was sharing the cabin with coming in after his
watch. By the following morning the ship was in the North Sea
west of Orkney. The wind grew stronger and Will's seasickness returned. He
spent the day in his bunk. At times he felt well enough to read one of his
books. He had brought as many books with him as he could carry, books that had
changed his life so much that they became a treasure. Their paper pages and
cardboard covers developed a sanctity directly connected to the words they
delivered. He read What Is to Be
Done?-Burning Questions of Our Movement by Lenin for the hundredth time,
dictations of various speeches by Lenin and Martov; and eventually he went back
to the socialist roots by digging out the fantasies News From Nowhere by William Morris and What Is to Be Done? by Nikolai Chernyshevsky; he considered its
original Russian edition far superior to the English translation, although he
admitted that, seeing as he only spoke the language inexactly, this might be
his sentimentality for Russia
poking through. These texts were ones he returned to again and again,
especially at times like this when he needed to be reminded of why he was doing
what he was doing. At two AM lights appeared ahead of Lahtka around a pulsing sweep of a lighthouse. Will was awake and
on deck as the ship crawled through the archipelago surrounding the port
of Stavanger. Will's Norwegian
contacts were waiting on the quay. Will bade the captain and crew of the Lahtka a heartfelt farewell and then got
into the car.
The contacts were
two men and a woman and they quickly drove east away from Stavanger
along narrow twisty roads. They didn't speak at all to Will, seeing as they
spoke no English or Russian, and only talked quietly amongst themselves in
their own language. Will knew that they were members of Arbeiderpartiet, the Norwegian labour party, from correspondence
with the organization. Will looked out of the car window and saw the grey contours
of snowy mountains against the starry night sky. The occasional glint of a
village poked out of the gloom. Eventually an electric glow appeared on the
overcast above them and they crested a pass to see the city of Oslo
beneath them. At that hour, five AM,
the streets were quiet and the streetlights illuminated the fine buildings.
Will looked out at their facades, but there was no time to take in more of the
city. The car pulled up by the station and Will stepped out into the bitterly
cold night. His three Norwegian companions seemed in a hurry to drop him off
and continually looked over their shoulders, as if they were concerned about somebody
seeing them. They shook Will's hand and whispered goodbyes in their own
language. "Much appreciated." Will smiled back at them. And then the
car sped off, skidding slightly on the icy streets. The train was waiting; the
locomotive was quietly hissing with little wafts steam issuing from the funnel.
He was allowed to board straight away and found himself in a warm and cosy
carriage full of young men like himself who were heading in the same direction
and for the same purpose. Greetings were exchanged and introductions made; a
few more arrived during the next half hour and then the train blew its whistle
and clanked away into the night.
The sun rose
behind the cloud and Will saw Norway.
The landscape was beautiful, upholstered with snow like he had never seen
before. Mountains and hills scrolled past the moving train. His fellow
travellers, in both meanings of the term, were from all over the world. There
were Spaniards, Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, a Mexican, an Australian and a
handful of Americans and Canadians. It was a relief for Will to be able to
speak English to the latter three demographics. The others conversed amongst
themselves in their native tongues. He spent a lot of time explaining to his
companions that although he spoke English with a British accent he was in fact
technically not British. "Lancombe Pond? What's that?" replied Nicky,
a New Yorker sitting next to Will in the carriage. Clarifying this point caused
much amusement and interest during the long journey north.
It was dark again
when the train drew to a halt in a station where they were told this was an
all-change point. Will and the others stepped onto the platform and looked up
at the signboard: Haparanda. He
realized with a surge of passion and excitement that this was the same place
that Vladimir Illych Ulyanov, the
great Lenin himself, passed through ten months ago on his way home from his exile
in Switzerland.
The same revelation came to the others. There was a chatter of excitement in their
different languages. They waited for a few minutes on the chilly platform until
their guide arrived who led them along the night-time streets to a frozen river
where they walked across. The plain of ice stretched away in front of them like
an outdoor ice rink. The guide carried a lamp so they could see where they were
going. They were close to the sea at the northern end of the Gulf of
Bothnia and a cryogenic breeze washed through them from the south.
Will was still wearing his British winter jacket and the wind penetrated it
like needles. The ice under his feet felt as solid as rock and he found it hard
to believe there was a river flowing beneath him. They eventually came to the
far side of the river. Will was trembling from more than the cold as he lifted
his foot off the clear flat ice and placed it on the upward slope of the river
bank. He entered Finland,
a new nation freed by the Bolsheviks just a few weeks earlier. When Lenin had
planted his boot on the spot Will now did, it had been Russia.
They had gone the long way round because it was not possible to travel direct due
east from Western Europe because of the war. It was just
a short walk to Tornio railway station where they
boarded another train for the last stage of their journey. There was almost a
party atmosphere on the train south from the Finnish border. Vodka was served
to the passengers by suited stewards. Will's only experience so far of alcohol
had been beer and cider in the various venues where he had attended meetings.
His head spun from the powerful spirit and he sat back in his seat and recalled
the process that had brought him here.
Will had up till
then never considered himself a soldier in the literal sense. He had joined several
socialist clubs at Greyguides and Oxford; and SANoLLP- the Socialist Alliance
of Nottingham, Leicester and Lancombe Pond two years earlier, but for the first
year of his activism, he had not progressed beyond handing out leaflets on the
street or pushing them through letterboxes, trying to sell the Alliance's
journal Socialism Today to passers-by
and occasionally heckling an MP at a public meeting. He walked for miles along
city streets with the Suffragette protests, trades union protests and anti-war
protests. Every Sunday the Alliance
held a meeting in a cheap hired venue, often the Belgrave Masonic hall in Nottingham
or a room above a pub in Leicester. Will dutifully
attended every meeting when he was home from Greyguides or Oxford
and the other members of SANoLLP were closer to him than friends. One day in
April 1917 a guest speaker attended the meeting to give a "lead-off",
a speech that was a prelude to a discussion among the members. He was a Russian
who had just arrived in the country who called himself "Japarov".
Will had been in the organization long enough to understand, without being
told, that this was not his real name. He was a shifty young man with a thin
face and darting suspicious eyes. Japarov began his lead-off in good English
with a strong Russian accent: "Comrades, I have been sent here to talk to
you by the great Lenin himself. You all know what is happening at the moment in
Russia. Tsar
Nicholas II has abdicated. Russia
is in chaos!..." He went on to describe the situation. Revolution had
erupted in Russia
with the downfall of the Tsar. The mainstream media had been filled with
official commentary about it for over a week. A situation of "dual
power" reigned where workers' councils, known as soviety, controlled industry, many farmlands and the city streets,
while at the same time the Duma, the
Russian parliament, had been taken over by a new provisional government led by
the flamboyant minister Alexander Kerensky. This Japarov regarded as false and
reactionary. "The Bolsheviks are going to take power!" Japarov
pointed at his audience emphatically. "When they do, there will be war!...
Britain and
many other nations will wage war on Russia.
The conflict will spread to other nations. This future war could be as bad as
the current one, or worse!..." A chilled silence descended on the room.
SANoLLP members
used to joke about Will a lot. These jokes were affectionate and his comrades
respected him, despite his tender years. One of the things they used to laugh
over was what they called "Will-fullness". Will himself understood
this element of his own personality. Sometimes during meetings, almost without
even knowing it, he would slip into a state of near ecstasy. During these
phases he would giggle and cry as he tried to articulate himself. When he came
down from this passion seizure he often would forget what had just taken place
and wonder, like a man with a hangover, if he did or said anything embarrassing
during these episodes. "We simply
have to do something!" He yelled when the chairman called him to
speak, his eyes blurred with tears. The thought of the revolution being
destroyed was so unthinkable that it set his mental pot boiling to the point of
ignition. He went on to rant about the necessity for action to match words so
exactly that they were a mirror image of each other, the possibility of losing
everything they had worked so hard to achieve, how the entire future of the
world depended on this moment. When he sat down there was a reverent silence followed
by a stocky round of applause. Smiling faces turned towards him. After the
meeting as he walked to Leicester railway station
through the evening gloom, Japarov caught up to walk beside him. He invited
Will to join him for a cup of coffee before both men caught their trains to go
home; Japarov was staying at a Bolshevik safe-house in London.
"You were serious, back there at the meeting, weren't you?" asked
Japarov rhetorically as he sat opposite Will in the station cafeteria.
"Yes! Of course." said Will.
"What would
you be willing to do to defend the revolution?"
"Anything!" Will replied almost before the older man had
finished speaking.
"Really?" he raised his eyebrows, almost in jest.
"Why do you
say that?"
He paused.
"Because there is a possibility that you might be able to do just that,
Comrade Ursall."
Will gasped.
Nobody had ever called him that before. Members of SANoLLP usually just
addressed each other by their first names.
"You see, the
people in your organization are good activists. We need outspoken foreigners in
this revolution. In Germany
in particular excellent progress has already been made. But it's one thing to
come out into the streets in your own country, your own town; another entirely
to travel a thousand miles and pick up a rifle to fight, to kill, to be harmed
and possibly to die... Your comrades are too old for that; not just in terms of
physical agility, but mentally, psychologically. You though, Comrade Ursall, I
sense are ripe for battle."
Will's mind churned.
He felt he was on the edge of a precipice "What do you mean? What are you
saying?"
"I am asking
you to come to Russia
and fight; I mean really fight."
"H...
how?"
"Never mind
how. Will you?"
"My God
yes!" Will puffed.
He smiled. "Good...
Arrangements can be made. I know the right people who can get you what you'll
need. We can take you to Russia.
However, I will need money."
"How
much?"
"Sixteen
pounds."
As Will rode home
on the train that evening he could hardly sit still. Before he had left the
station he had drafted a telegram cheque to Japarov's account together with a
request for an emergency overdraft to his own bank manager. In return he had
received a list of telephone numbers, nameless except for Japarov's. It never
crossed his mind for a second to distrust the Russian, to question whether he
might just be a conman who would disappear as soon as he had his hands on the
cash. He could somehow sense that the man was sincere. A whirligig of thoughts
and feelings orbited around his head; hopes, thrills, misgivings, doubts. He
went to bed and lay staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep. He had jumped off
the precipice and his entire previously projected life was left behind on the
edge above him forever.
They stopped for
the night in Tampere. Outside the railway
station a number of Finns had set up stalls in the freezing streets selling
warm woollen and fur clothing. They must have known in advance that a convoy of
newcomers was passing through, which sounded familiar. Will purchased a jacket,
a hat and a pair of mittens, knowing he would need them in Russia
at that time of year. The following morning just before dawn the train clanked
into motion again for the last stage of the journey. On the train from Tampere
Will and his colleagues ate a hefty meal. This might be the last time they
would be able to eat a normal amount for a very long time. The war had caused
massive food shortages and most of Russia
was struck down by conditions of famine or semi-famine. The Russian staple diet
at the moment was sunflower seeds. Will slowly devoured his three course
railway dinner with reverent relish. The train crossed into Russia
without any announcements, let alone stops. There appeared to be no active
customs post. At one point Nicky was walking down the aisle on the way to the
toilet and said: "Hey, Will. You know we're in Russia
now?"
"What?
Seriously?"
"You bet. We
crossed the border a few minutes ago; the guard just told me."
Will rushed to a
window, cursing to himself. The countryside was flitting past just like it had
been for the entire journey, not looking outwardly different. This was not how
he had dreamed it would be like, entering Russia
for the first time. He had been anticipating it to be a dramatic moment,
playing over in his mind like a wonderful movie of the future. He felt deflated
with disappointment, knowing that the opportunity would never return; but then
remembered that far better was yet to come. As the train slowed down to enter Petrograd,
Will deliberately averted his gaze from the outside world to maximize the
occasion. The train finally screeched to a halt at its final destination. There
was a chatter of excitement in the carriages. Will shrugged into his new winter
jacket and stepped down onto the frozen platform. Bright cloudy sunlight filled
his eyes. He was outdoors and ahead of him was a railway station building that
was small and modest compared to the grand arches of Paddington or Birmingham,
but for Will it held a hundred times their significance. He was at the Finland
Station. Ten months ago Lenin had arrived here to a rapturous welcome.
Thousands of people; workers, peasants, soldiers, sailors and representatives
of the Duma parliament and soviety were lined up to greet him on
his return from exile. A brass band played La
Marseillaise. The great man had got to work immediately. Before he had even
left the station he jumped up onto a high step and launched into an exalted
speech about how terrible the Great War was and how it had to end as soon as
possible. He implored the Russian people to let him lead them. "Long live
the world socialist revolution!" he had yelled. "All power to the soviety! I promise you peace, bread and
land!"
There were no
crowds to greet Will and his fellows, but there was the recruiter whom they had
been told would be waiting. He stood in a matchboard kiosk in the station
concourse. Will's enlistment into the Red Army was surprisingly quick and
simple. He filled in a single paged form of his basic particulars and signed
it. It took him five minutes. He was then told to report for duty to a soviet Military Commission officer in
the Tauride Palace
at four PM. That gave Will a few
hours to wait. He and his new comrades stepped out of Finland Station onto the
streets. Immediately they all gasped and looked up in awe. They wandered off in
separate directions without saying a word, as solitary as zombies. Petrograd,
formerly Sankt Pyetirborg, was a city
of square stone canyons with broad boulevards lined by even terraces of tight, regular
windows and arches. Facades were coloured in pastel shades of pink, yellow,
blue and green. Carvings and rows of marble balusters paced alongside the
windows and arches on all floors. Will felt as if his feet were not touching
the ground. The solid objects around him seemed ethereal. The air was as cold
as liquid gas. He could see a thin fog in the air which was the humidity
freezing. Ice burrs covered the tram-wires suspended overhead making it look as
if a giant spider had spun webs of ice over the city. Wooden planks had been
placed across the compacted snow on the pavements to improve foot traction and
on every street corner stood a wood brazier. It was the traditional motif of
the striker, but also provided essential warmth. Each one had a cluster of people
around it, including young women with their faces uncovered. They wore
seductive smiles and were looking outwards, trying to catch the eyes of
passers-by. Will knew that these were prostitutes. There were queues of people
outside provision distribution points that snaked along entire streets and
round corners. The staff inside from the Petrograd soviet dished out scoops of sunflower
seeds, millet and buckwheat porridge. Everybody was given a single tiny dried
fish fillet. The people were wrapped in whatever warm clothes that they could
find. Short of clothing, they improvised blankets, sheets and pillowcases.
These were crudely stitched together with packing cord making the wearer look
like a walking pile of textile scrap. Colours were irrelevant as were styles.
One tough-looking old man hobbled past him wearing a pink ladies' beanie. Will
couldn't tell who was fat and who was thin. Everybody looked fat, encased as
they were in fabric. A boy of about ten ran up to him and asked if he could buy
Will's coat. He offered him five of something that went by a word Will didn't
recognize; he guessed it was a nickname for a large number of what used to be
single currency units, seeing as the Russian rouble had so badly crashed.
"Apologies, citizen; but I need it myself." Will mumbled and walked
swiftly on. One thing that every single figure had on them was a red ribbon on
their chest, sometimes fixed with a decorative badge. A few had larger red
cloths, tied round their neck like kerchiefs or slung over their shoulder like
a sash. It was the symbol of support for "those of the majority", the
Bolsheviks. There were health advice posters on every available surface warning
people: AVOID CHOLERA! DO NOT DRINK
UNTREATED WATER! and: HEADLICE SPREAD
DISEASE! CUT YOUR HAIR SHORT! However, above them in places of more
prominence were banners of blood red with golden text on them, the Cyrillic
script of Russian looking almost like Greek or Egyptian hieroglyphs: THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT RULES!,
a quote from Lenin: LET US BUILD THE NEW
SOCIALIST ORDER! and: COMRADES, UNITE
TO CREATE A NEW WORLD! These standards hung in pride of place in every
street and every square; on the walls of the canals and from the windows of the
cathedrals. The previous year these streets had been flooded by a tsunami of
people; angry, hopeful, determined to put an end to evil.
Will had no map,
but he didn't need one. He knew the streets of Petrograd
almost as well as if he had walked them before, as he was doing so now. He
could find his way anywhere as easily as he could in Mansfield.
He had studied endless street maps. He had read, re-read and re-read again
descriptions of this city and everything else that had happened here during the
last few years. He had listened to the voices of those who were there over and
over on gramophone records. He had dreamed through many nights this very walk
he was doing now; only this time it was real. The dark brown concave frontage
of the Hotel Astoria was where a dramatic battle had raged last February
between the Bolsheviks and officials loyal to the tsar. The bullet holes and
broken windows had not yet been repaired. There was the cruiser Aurora, a crude grey warship topped by a
headdress of funnels and ventilators. It was moored on the river Neva
where it had fired a single blank round from its forecastle cannon back in
October. This was a signal for the Bolsheviks to attack the Winter
Palace and depose the provisional
government, marking the start of the glorious revolution, which was the whole
reason Will had come to Russia.
The Winter Palace
itself looked like an elaborately decorated cake. Its green walls and
sculptured windowsills were like mint icing. It had been constructed in the
early 1700's by Tsar Peter I "The Great" as a symbol of autocratic
imperialist power. In January 1905, in the decorated forecourt of this
building, hundreds of innocent people had been shot dead by the royal guards.
All they had wanted was to speak to the previous and last tsar about the
squalor of their living conditions and the suffering it caused. They had been
unarmed and led by a priest; begging for mercy and sustenance. But the Palace
had fallen with invigorating ease four months earlier as Lenin's men stormed
into the building. Kerensky and his cohorts fled and the provisional government
came to an end. The single rule of the
soviety began. The iron gates of the palace were open and Will could see
people wandering in and out of the former Romanov sanctuary as if it were just
another part of the city's streets. The gilded double-headed eagle of the
dynasty had been ripped off the top of them. Many of the people who wandered
the Palace Square were
armed. They wore sabres around their waists or rifles slung over their
shoulders. Will's attention was drawn to a cluster of people crossing the
Square. As he looked they passed beneath the Alexander Column. Even at that
distance, Will could recognize the man striding along in the middle of the
group. It was a face and stature he had come to know as well as any.
Before he knew it, Will was running
towards the group. His feet pounded through the intersections of spoors in the
crushed snow. His eyes were fixated on the face ahead of him as it grew bigger
and bigger in his vision. The high forehead, covered by a deerstalker, the
neatly-trimmed black goatee, the sly oriental eyes. "Comrade Lenin!"
Will shouted at the top of his voice. "Comrade Lenin!"
The Russian leader
looked around briefly as he heard Will's words and their eyes met for a moment;
but then he was distracted by somebody else. A dozen people were talking to
Lenin at the same time and he was trying to maintain all those conversations at
once.
"Comrade
Lenin, I have come to fight for you! I've travelled all the way from England!"
Will was panting as Lenin and his entourage moved away across the square and
headed for the end of Nevksy Avenue.
Will laughed with joy as he watched the departing back of the great man, his
boots trudging through the crisp fall. Will was home, where he truly belonged.
This was heaven on earth.
Dear Mother.
It is Tuesday the eleventh of June, five
months to the day since I arrived in Russia. I am near Samara. We had to leave the city
a few days ago because the local soviets have decided to disaffiliate from the
Bolshevik leadership. They have the Czech Legion on their side and they have ordered
us out. We're not sure exactly where we can go. The Legion are controlling the
station and this part of the railway and it's a long walk back to Moscow. So we are just sitting here and waiting,
trying to make our rations last as long as we can. I have a feeling that we
will soon receive orders to try and recapture the city. However we will need a
lot of reinforcements to do that. There are only about sixty of us here at the
camp and there are a couple of thousand Czechs spread out all along the city
limits. It's such a happy thing that we no longer have to fight the Germans in
the west of Europe. It means more Russian men are free to
fight for the Bolsheviks where we're needed against our internal enemies, as I
am. But from our point of view, little has changed. We still have the same
manpower, the same resources, the same munitions expenditure. It's a very
confusing situation. We get very little information from outside our own
immediate theatre of action. I have no idea how the war is progressing. I feel
a bit like a chessman; blind and mindless, being moved about the game-board by
somebody I don't know and whose plans I have not been told.
It is a pity because where I am right now
is a lovely spot. I am writing this letter sitting on a log under some trees a
few miles north Samara. Ahead of me is the river Volga which is gleaming in the sunlight. It is a huge river, so much bigger
than the Thames in London. The opposite bank is about a mile away and
that consists of hills covered in bright green forest. There are a few small
wooded islands in the middle of the river too. They look to me like grandma's
lettuce beds in her greenhouse. It all seems so natural and tranquil; it's hard
to believe there is a war going on. I can hear church bells tinging somewhere;
in a nearby village I think. It is very hot. I'm glad of the shade, in fact all
the men have camped down under trees. It is strange when I remember the bitter
cold I felt when I first came to Russia. Now I'm struggling to remember a summer's
day in the Pond that was this roasting. Russia really is a land of extremes. I feel very
greasy. I've not had a chance to bathe for a few weeks now. Also this petroleum
jelly I've smeared on my face and arms is uncomfortable; but it keeps the
mosquitoes away.
I hope Father, Robin and Blanche are
alright. I hope Harry and Mezzie are growing bigger every day. I really miss
you, ALL of you; even Father and Blanche whom I never thought I would miss.
Hopefully we are not long from the wonderful day when Russia is free and I can return home. I still
truly believe I am fighting for something good here and I have no regrets about
coming here. Despite this I once again apologize for all the hurt and worry I
have caused you.
Lots of love from your little comrade.
Wilfred.
Will checked the
date in his pocket diary; it was hard to keep track now that the new calendar
had been introduced. He wrote it at the top of the page, then he folded the
letter and slid it inside the envelope. He wrote his address on the front of it
in both Russian and English. He felt homesick whenever he wrote letters. There
was no sealant available for the envelope so he just folded the flap inside and
hoped the postmen were trustworthy enough not to open it before delivery. He
stood up and looked across the forest glade. He was pleased to see that the
logistics cart was still there, waiting on the track. The horse was quietly
grazing while the driver chatted to the company commander. Will approached the
back of the cart and waited for the driver to finish his conversation and
notice him. "Yes?" he muttered with a bored sigh.
"I wonder if
you could take this for me."
The driver looked
at the letter. He was a cheery-faced old man with a black peasant's cap and a
dirty beard. "It'll be a while before I get back to the depot, even if I
get there at all; and you know how the trains are running these days. Even if
they allow me to leave some cargo, there may not be a train to carry it for
weeks."
"Even so, I'd
like you to try."
"Young man, I
am unlikely to succeed and it will not be cheap."
"How
much?"
"Twenty K."
Will reached into
his pocket and pulled out an emergency treasury certificate; these had replaced
normal banknotes as inflation had risen. "I've got ten."
The driver rolled
his eyes, but there was a glint of sympathy in them. "Alright."
"Thank you,
comrade." He took the ten thousand rouble certificate and Will gratefully
handed him the envelope. The driver tucked it into a cloth sack that was
squeezed between the boxes of ammunition and canned food on the back of the
cart.
Will walked back
down the hill to the river. His fellow soldiers were all reclined in the grass
feasting on cans of cold rations. Some were reading letters from home or
newspapers. They paid Will no attention as he walked past. Will looked away
from them. He could hear them chattering amongst themselves in their own
impenetrable languages and dialects about trivial matters. This had been a huge
disappointment for Will. He had no idea it would be this way. He now realized
that he was naive to have assumed otherwise; but back at home, learning about
the glories and dreams of the revolution, he imagined Russia
being filled with people just like him. Once immersed into the reality of the
Russian Civil War he discovered that almost nobody was. The literature and
recordings by the leaders of the revolution had been printed and produced by
educated urban Russians for educated urban Russians. These were the people
whose language and customs Will had spent every free moment learning about. The
moment he had reported in at the Tauride
Palace in Petrograd
the day he had arrived, he had been issued with a kit which consisted of
nothing but a woollen cap with a crudely embroidered Bolshevik emblem on and a
rifle. There was no uniform or other soldier's tools. The rifle was long and
light; and it looked similar to the ones Will had fired at Greyguides during
Combined Cadet Force skirmishes. It was a Mosin-Nagant bolt-action weapon.
Although it was fitted with a five-round magazine, this was empty. Its wooden
stock was chipped and had a few woodworm holes in. The leather sling was worn
to tatters. In a two places it had snapped and a previous owner had tied the
two broken ends together in a knot. This inevitably made it shorter than it
should have been. A rusty bayonet was fixed to the muzzle. Will was then led
into the grounds of the palace where he was made to march up and down with a
few squads of other men, including some of the foreigners who had joined him on
the train. They were also taught the basic functioning of their weapons as much
as possible short of actually firing them. A drill sergeant yelled at them to
correct any mistakes they made. So began Will's career in the Red Army,
marching back and forth in the ice rink courtyard of a grand Russian palace.
After the introductory parade, all the men were issued with an order sheet. The
way the clerk handed these out, Will suspected it was random and which
assignment you got depended on where you were standing in the queue. Will's
directed him to join an infantry unit at a base in the Penza Oblast; Will had
no idea where that was or any map available to look. He was driven to the
station and put on a train. At that point he was then separated from Nicky and
his other companions; he had never seen any of them since. When he arrived at
the base in Penza three days later
he was finally allowed to fire his Mosin-Nagant; just three live rounds were
permitted. The three holes he made in a cardboard target were the extent of his
military training. When he was introduced to the other men in his platoon they
greeted Will in a reasonably friendly manner, but it soon became clear that
they had so little in common with Will that interaction became almost
impossible. Only about half of them spoke Russian as their first language; the
others were a collection of Finns, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Georgians,
Armenians, Tartars and several other ethnicities Will never identified. When
speaking Russian, their language was so polluted with foreign accents and
regional dialects that Will had a more difficult job of talking to them than he
had on the Lahtka. He eventually
managed to engage one man in a conversation about Lenin and asked what his
fellow soldier thought about the April Thesis. The man nodded his head politely
with a bewildered frown. He had never read Lenin's April Thesis; in fact Will
later learned that he had never read anything at all because he was illiterate.
It turned out that about half the soldiers in his unit could not read. They had
come from isolated communities in the rural heartland of Russia
and its surrounding nations. They were all farmhands by trade and had had at
best a basic education. Most wore a religious emblem of some kind. When Will
had made the decision to go to Russia, he had been eagerly expecting to find
himself surrounded by millions of fellow aficionados for socialism, the kind of
people he had had detailed and passionate discussions with at SANoLLP meetings.
He had felt lonely and detached from most people in his everyday life and
enjoyed those meetings so much for that reason. Now in Russia
he once more found himself among people who knew nothing about socialism and
had no interest in it. Few of them had even heard of Karl Marx. For them, this
was simply one more war that they had been ordered to fight by a government
they knew nothing about. One of them stunned Will with his ignorance when he even
referred to Lenin "the new tsar."
Will reached the
water's edge and leaned down to fill his drinking canteen from the Volga.
Then he returned it to his kitbag and strode back up the hill to the
encampment. "Comrade Ursall." The company commander beckoned him over
to where he was sitting by a tree with his legs crossed on the ground reading a
sheaf of papers.
Will approached
him. "Yes, comrade commander?"
"You're to
report immediately to Commissar Zhlavuts at battalion HQ with all your kit. I'm
afraid we have no transport available so you'll have to walk."
Will's breath
caught in his throat. "Can you tell me what it's about comrade commander?"
He shook his head
as he flicked through his briefing documents. "It doesn't say."
Will quivered as
he left the camp and set off north along the main road. The battalion's
headquarters was in Stavropol-on-Volga
about twenty miles away so it would be quite a trek. Luckily Will had become
very fit over the last few months. His body was light and lean, and his lungs
powerful. Despite this he sweated, and not just from the heat. "What does Zhlavuts
want with me?" he muttered out loud as he paced along the road. In fact he
could make fairly a good guess. Dmitri Zhlavuts was their zampolit, a political commissar governing their unit. All units in
the Red Army had a zampolit, whose
job it was to ensure loyalty to the Bolshevik party and its cause among the
rank and file of the armed forces. As Will had noted, political awareness was a
rare commodity among the troops, as was cultural and linguistic uniformity. The
zampolity were there to indoctrinate
and inspire everybody behind a common idea, that of Bolshevism and the need to
defend it. Every so often Zhlavuts would pay a visit to their company and give
the soldiers a pep talk. He was a big bald man with a tone of forced conviviality
and bonhomie; and an unmilitary demeanour, very typical of a zampolit. This talk would consist of a
lecture about Bolshevik theory, a tiny amount of news from the ongoing war in
other areas of Russia
and a question and answer session. The last part made the men rather nervous
because they knew one of Zhlavuts' jobs was to locate dissent in the ranks. He
would be making notes of any individuals he believed were not ideologically
committed enough. Every so often men who asked or answered in a certain way...
"went on leave". What this entailed was not entirely clear, but
rumours circulated about "re-education centres" which involved hard labour
and various other punishment duties. Of course Will's fate would be much worse
than that.
Back in April his
unit had been in the flat country near Tsaritsyn as part of a defence force to
repel the advance of General Krasnov and his Cossack legion. The
counterrevolutionary leader had been determined to capture the city. It was
here that Will had first experienced real combat. It was not as bad as he
thought it would be. He had been concentrating so much that he had no time to
feel any emotion, including fear. He just recalled running, shooting and hiding
in response to orders while the sound of gunshots and flashes of light broke
out around him; until they stopped, marking the end of the fight. After their
victorious battle the company had withdrawn to a quiet glade in some woods near
the river Volga. This was a baptism of fire for all of
them and they were overcome by their achievement. They whooped for joy,
exhilaration and relief; but also for sadness at the four comrades who had not
come back. There was a lot of concern for the five who had survived, but were
wounded and were currently being cared for at a field hospital. The battle had
been led by a charismatic and dark moustachioed Georgian known as
"Kolba" although others called him "Stalin". Halfway
through the celebrations Commissar Zhlavuts had dropped by. He was brisk in his
manner, as always, and came straight to the point. "Alright, chaps. I'm
glad you're happy; we should be, but it's not over yet. We've got a problem."
The soldiers all
stopped carousing and gulping vodka to listen. "What is it, comrade zampolit?" they asked.
"A mass
mutiny. Every member of the local Red militia has defected to the
Cossacks."
"How does
that concern us?" asked Will.
"You know the
rules, Comrade Ursall. If a man betrays the Bolsheviks then his family pay the
price. The militia was mostly from the village
of Zitkoor; it's about a dozen
miles from here. Our company has been given the task of exacting revolutionary
justice. The village has been listed for disposal. You are to attack tomorrow
morning and leave nobody alive. And please remember, comrades; bullets are
expensive and these are just women, children and old folk you're going after,
so try to stick to bayonets and daggers if you don't mind..." He carried
on giving them instructions for a few minutes and then left.
The men got to
work planning the raid with cold efficiency. Will stood with them, listening
attentively and poker-faced as the company commander pointed at a map and
talked about the operation as dispassionately as if he were organizing an exercise.
He then ordered the men to their tents to sleep. Will lay awake and listened to
his comrades snoring. He had been concealing his horror and disgust all
evening. He knew that to express his feelings in any way might be fatal for
him. He eventually sat up and made a decision. He listened intently for a few
minutes to make sure everybody was asleep, then he gingerly crawled over his
fellows he was sharing the tent with and stepped out into the open air. The map
was inside a satchel that was lying on the ground outside the commander's tent.
The commander himself was snoring like everybody else. Will took the map out
and then fetched himself a lamp. He did not light it until he was well clear of
the camp. It was a cold and crisp spring night as he jogged along the road. He
ran as fast as he could, pacing himself for the distance. The landscape was as
flat at a billiard table and covered with coarse grass which rustled in the
light breeze. It reminded Will of Holland. It took him about an hour to reach
his destination. Zitkoor was a small farming community typical of the lower Volga
valley. It consisted of a circle of low huts with a small wooden chapel in the
middle. The triple-barred Russian crucifix above its entrance was silhouetted
against the star-studded sky. The smell of manure filled the air as did the
sound of chickens clucking sleepily in the barnyards. There was a light on in
one of the houses. Will bolted up to that one and hammered on the ancient
wooden door. It was opened by an old woman with a peasant's shawl wrapped round
her head. "Who are you?" she slurred with her toothless mouth.
"What do you want at this hour? Don't you know what time it is?"
"Listen!
You've got to get out of here! All of you!?"
"What are you
talking about? Are you pissed up or something?"
"Get
everybody awake and flee!" he shouted. "NOW!" His voice has
alerted other people in the village because he saw more lights appear in other
windows. Will ran around the village, spinning like a dervish, yelling at the
top of his voice and trying to explain what fate was about to descend onto
their community. Eventually enough of them understood. Mothers roused children
from their beds, old ladies were lifted onto the backs of carts, horses were
harnessed, lamps were lit and over the space of about half an hour, the
population of Zitkoor began moving. "Go to your friends and
families!" said Will. "Go as far away as you can! Don't come home for
at least a week."
The villagers
slowly trundled away into the darkness of the night, a few muttering confused
words of thanks; and Will was halfway through a sigh of relief at saving their
lives when he realized that he now had to act very quickly otherwise he would
lose his own. He ran back to the road and headed for the camp, hoping desperately
that he could find his way before reveille just after daybreak. The sound of
snoring in the tents as he approached was as sweet as music in Will's ears. He
relaxed and paused a hundred years away, waiting for his breath to come back.
If anybody caught him that close to the camp it wouldn't be a problem; he could
just tell them he was going to the toilet. He could explain the presence of the
map in his possession as him simply revising the plan for tomorrow's operation
while he was awake. He put the map back, returned to his tent and lay down
feeling happy. He was certain he had done a good thing. Then he began thinking
about this situation and how it related to the revolution. How could something
as glorious and essential for the world as the socialist revolution be turned
to such a horrific purpose? How could the quest for freedom and equality
involve such crimes? Obviously in war soldiers kill each other; there was even
a justifiable case for violent military discipline. However their targets
tomorrow were not soldiers, they were defenceless civilians. These were the
ultimate in vulnerable people; the elderly, women, children. What disturbed
Will even more was the total indifference of his fellow soldiers to the
atrocity they were about to commit. A few were even smiling as if looking
forward to it. Will had heard a few of the men talking about their lives in
their home villages in the Russian countryside and noticed that they had a
fairly primitive and barbaric attitude to women. They seemed to regard rape as
a normal part of somebody's sex life. No doubt they had intentions along these
lines tomorrow with the women of Zitkoor, before slaughtering them; possibly
even the little girls too. Will trembled as he lay in his sleeping bag.
They were ordered
awake in the morning twilight, breakfasted and then organized into single file
for the march to Zitkoor. Will went along with them totally, showing as much
eagerness and ruthlessness as any other man, not indicating the tiniest
difference in behaviour. When they reached the empty village they stumbled around
in confusion and indignation which Will also feigned with great aplomb. The
commander ordered that they set fire to the houses. There was no way Will could
escape this action. The cows lowed and the chickens squawked in fear as fires
broke out. As he ignited the straw thatch of one of the houses and watched the
flames spread he felt sad and guilty, but at least he had saved the people.
Will ran through
these events in his mind from two months ago as he strode along the main road
towards Stavropol-on-Volga. Had the
authorities found out what he had done? If so, what would happen to him? There
was no question; he would be summarily executed by firing squad. The internal
discipline of the Red Army had gone to every extreme deemed necessary by the
expediency of war. The Cheka, the
military intelligence outfit which also organized the zampolit corps, ran a force of "punitive brigades" whose
purpose was to place a barrier on the rearguard in a battle and any solider or
unit that retreated without permission would be attacked by these brigades. Any
survivors would be shot. The same went for surrendered prisoners-of-war. The
commander-in-chief of the Red Army often toured the front line personally to
preside over trouble in the ranks. He was an infamous figure in the soldiers'
community, a bookish-looking Jew called Comrade Trotsky. He travelled on a
private train that was armoured like a tank on rails. He strutted around
arrogantly in his long leather trench-coat and budenovka hat ordering decimations and floggings in his calm
intellectual voice. Will had admired Leon Trotsky back in Lancombe Pond when he
used to read his literature along with Lenin and the others. Trotsky was one of
the founders and chairmen of the original Petrograd soviet. Today, he had learned to regard
Trotsky as a figure of fear like all his colleagues did. Nobody defied Comrade
Trotsky and lived to tell the tale. By warning the citizens of Zitkoor in
advance of their extermination, Will had perverted revolutionary justice and
colluded with the enemy. He could expect no mercy. He wondered if he should try
and escape, disappear into the countryside and make his way home; but where
could he go? He was more than a thousand miles from the border in any direction;
and if he were caught at any time, which he almost certainly would be in the
heightened surveillance state of war, he would be treated as a deserter which
also carried the death sentence. He decided that the only viable option in this
dilemma was to keep his appointment with the zampolit and hope for the best. He wondered if Zhlavuts was certain
of Will's treason or was just suspicious. He began rehearsing what he would say
in his head to talk himself out of the situation, should it be possible.
The battalion
headquarters was a series of prefabricated huts and large tents sitting by the left
riverbank on the northern end of a prominent thirty mile wide meander in the
river Volga. This location was good for geographical
strategy because no boat could approach Samara from either direction without
people at the camp knowing. There was one hut with a tall antenna sticking out
of the top of it where regular wireless communication traffic passed to and
from Moscow, the new Bolshevik
capital, along with other places in Russia.
Telegraph wires emerged from the same hut and were looped over posts leading
off into the woods. Will approached the gate sentry and identified himself. He
was ordered to wait in the camp grounds and did so under the nearest tree,
grateful to be out of the sun. Another solider approached him. "Comrade
Ursall, the commissar will see you now." Will took a deep breath and
followed him.
Commissar Zhlavuts
smiled as Will entered his crude office in one of the huts. "Ah, Comrade
Ursall. Thank you for coming." He reached out and shook Will's hand.
"What can I
do for you, comrade zampolit?"
Will was taken aback at Zhlavuts' upbeat and informal manner and wondered what
it implied. Over-exuberance to compensate for bad news?
"I've had
orders to supply a man from the battalion for a special operation in
Yekaterinburg and I think you'd fit the bill perfectly... comrade?"
Will had not
replied when Zhlavuts had prompted him to. This was because Will had been
momentarily struck dumb with relief. This was not going to be an interrogation
about the Zitkoor affair. "Erm... Why me, comrade zampolit?"
"You're a
foreigner. Which country are you from?"
"Lancombe
Pond."
He frowned.
"Where's that?"
"Great
Britain."
"So do you speak English?"
"Yes, it's my
native language."
"Good... It
has also not escaped my attention that you appear to be far better endowed in
the brain department than your fellow troopers. This is an operation that
requires intelligence and education. You come across as learned. Are you?"
"I was a
student at Oxford, comrade."
"The famous Oxford?"
He nodded.
"Excellent...
You see, and you must have also noticed, most men who are fighting this war are
just a bunch of yokels. They can hardly count the fingers on their hands.
Cultured intellectuals are in short supply and they are sometimes needed more
than they are available. I think you are wasted in the infantry, Wilfred Francheskovich."
"What does
this special operation involve, comrade?" He was surprised that Zhlavuts
had just addressed him with the patronymic, the traditional Russian formal
manner used between equals.
"I can't tell
you that right now; it is highly classified. We're arranging transport to take you
to Yekaterinburg and as soon as it's ready you'll be leaving."
"Yes,
comrade."
"You'll be
quite close to the eastern front. Kolchak's legion is advancing hard at the
moment."
"Yes,
comrade."
"There's one
more thing." He paused and looked at Will with a subtle frown. "The
region around Yekaterinburg is under the jurisdiction of the Ural soviet. They were among the best
comrades of the revolution. However... sometimes there are... misunderstandings
between their executive and that of Moscow."
Travelling from
Samara to Yekaterinburg would not be quick or easy. It was five hundred miles
away as the crow flies, but Will had to take a roundabout route because of the
direct railways being controlled by the Czech Legion. He waited under a tree in
the encampment until a boat departed from Stavropol
heading north upstream. The riverboat was an old rusty hulk that was overloaded
with troops and other travellers. It chugged slowly against the current
belching huge clouds of black smoke from its funnel. The only place Will could
ride was on a few squares of cloth on the deck. In the middle of the night he
had to take cover along with everybody else topside because unidentified
snipers on the western bank opened fire on the boat. One man was shot in the
arm. Unable to sleep, Will watched the lights of Simbirsk sweep past on the
boat's port side. There was no time for it, but otherwise he would have liked
to have stopped here and done a bit of sightseeing because this was the
birthplace of Lenin. The following morning the boat reached the Tartar port
of Naberezhnye Chelny where Will
disembarked. It was then just a three-hour wait at the station until he finally
boarded a train for Yekaterinburg. The wooden bench in the passenger
compartment had a ragged horsehair cushion, but it felt like eiderdown to Will
and he slept almost non-stop until the train pulled into Yekaterinburg Station
Number Two at three AM the next
morning. He staggered sleepily off the train and into the waiting room at the
end of the damp platform. His instructions told him nothing except that
somebody called Commander Alexander Ardeev would meet him at the station, but
they did not say when. Ardeev turned up at dawn. Will was intrigued at his
appearance because he was clearly in the throes of a major hangover, yet he was
dressed in a proper Red Army officer's uniform, the first time Will had seen
anybody wearing one since he left Petrograd. It made
Will feel very shabby in his woollen cap and threadbare civvies. He saluted.
"Comrade commander!"
"Yeah yeah
yeah." Ardeev waved his salute away in a bored tone. "You must be
Comrade Ursall. Welcome." He muttered the last word sulkily and
insincerely. He led Will to an automobile and they drove through the city
streets which were full of people engaged in their morning bustle. "This
assignment involves guarding some prisoners. We've got them holed up in a house
down by the river."
"Not in the
gaol?"
"No, these
prisoners are special."
"Why?"
He smiled and
shrugged. Ardeev was a peculiar contradiction. His uniform was fairly clean and
neat, but his face was blotched and unshaven. His eyes were bloated and baggy;
his hair unkempt. His hands were greasy and there was black dirt underneath his
fingernails as he moved the steering wheel. He gave off a powerful stench of
stale vodka. They came to a house which had been recently and hastily converted
into a small military outpost and Will was issued with a new kit, including his
own proper uniform. As he entered Ardeev's office to check himself in, he was
surprised and delighted to see that the commandant had copies of books and
pamphlets on his shelf by Lenin, Trotsky and other great theorists. Some were
editions that Will had read too. He even had a copy of The Communist Manifesto and other writings by Marx and Engels. Will
pointed to another pamphlet that he recognized. It was lying on Ardeev's desk
as if he had just been reading it. "I see you have a copy of Lenin's April
Thesis, comrade commander. What did you think of it?" There followed over
the next fifteen minutes exactly the kind of discussion Will had been longing
for since he arrived in Russia.
There was a spring in his step and warmth in his heart for the alcoholic
commander as they walked out to begin Will's orientation. It was a cool overcast
day, but the air was dry.
The spring soon
left his step as Will and Ardeev rounded a corner and saw ahead a wooden wall.
A crude palisade had been erected using mouldy planks of different lengths. A
sentry box stood outside a gap in the palisade and half a dozen Red Army
soldiers loitered beside it. Above the palisade Will could make out the roof of
a house. The architectural style was traditional for the region and the gable
was low with a pair of arched superstructures that looked like eyes peering
over the top of the wooden blockade. Nothing was visible below roof level. The
road outside was broken up and muddy. "What is this place?" asked
Will.
"The house of
special purpose." Ardeev replied in a grim tone.
"What
purpose?"
Ardeev shrugged
again.
"Move along
there!" yelled one of the guards at a group of passers-by who had slowed
their pace and were staring at the building. They frowned at the guards and
muttered to each other, as if they knew a secret about the place they had been
staring at.
"This is
Comrade Wilfred Ursall." said Ardeev to the same guard. "He's the new
leader of two-watch."
"Comrade." The guard stood to attention.
Will nodded. He
had been told beforehand, but had not had the chance to prepare himself for the
fact that he now had some authority. All he had ever done before was obey
orders from his unit commander and other senior officers. He and Ardeev passed
through the gate which led to a second inner barrier built just like the first
along which they had to walk to find the second entrance staggered from the
first. Beyond that Will was shocked and embarrassed to see that the inner wall
of the palisade had been covered with graffiti which consisted of lewd
statements and obscene drawings. Ahead of them was an entrance door; the dark
energy that he had detected outside fell heavier. The interior of the house was
warm and looked dim after the watery sunlight of the outdoors. The first thing
Will noticed was that the windows were obscured by what looked like newspapers
taped over the panes. Ardeev led him along a corridor; ahead was the sound of
multiple voices and the aroma of food. They walked into the room. A family were
sitting at a dining table. "Nikolai
Alexandrovich." said Ardeev. "Apologies for interrupting your
breakfast, but I'd like to introduce a new member of the household, Comrade
Wilfred Ursall."
"Who is that,
Papa?" asked a teenage girl sitting at a table.
Will almost fell
over in astonishment. The girl had spoken in English. Will had not heard his
native tongue spoken, nor had he spoken it except in letter-writing, for more
than five months. This explained Zhlavuts' question about his language
abilities.
A man stood up. He
was short and middle aged, but carried himself with authority. To his left sat
a woman of similar age; beside her were four younger women. On the other edge
of the table was a man dressed in a naval sailor's uniform from the imperial
fleet and on his lap was sitting a thin and pale young boy. "Good morning
to you, sir." said the standing man to Will in Russian. "You are most
welcome in our home."
Will took a step
back. His head was reeling. There was no mistaking this man standing in front
of him. Even without his royal tunic with military epaulets he was instantly
recognisable. The neat beard and wide blue eyes were engrained in Will's memory
from numerous photographs and descriptions. "What!?... Aren't
you...?"
The man nodded.
"Yes, although as you can see my family's circumstances have changed
somewhat." He gave an amused half-smile at his ownunderstatement.
Will was standing
face-to-face, not ten feet apart, from Nicholas Romanov, until recently Tsar
Nicholas II.
"Excuse me." The brash man strode over to
intercept Will as he walked down the road to work. Will knew him, had seen him
before. He was always hanging round the area, trying to engage people in
conversation. He was short and round with small beady eyes. His clothes made
Will think that he was probably Jewish. "I was wondering when I'm going to
be allowed to have my house back."
"What house
is that, citizen?"
The man jerked his thumb at the double
palisade. "That's my home! I was very rudely turfed out on my arse by a
bunch of Red Army thugs back in April. I've been living at the Americanskaya
Hotel; do you know how much that place costs!?"
Will sighed and
replied with a frustrated grimace: "Why don't you just join the Ural Soviet? Their headquarters are kept
there for free."
"Not
funny!" the man snapped.
"Alright,
citizen; but we are trying to fight a war here. Needs must."
"Yes, but we
all need homes!"
Will took out his
notebook and pencil. "What's your name?"
"Nicholas
Ipatiev."
"Like the
monastery?"
He nodded.
"I'll see
what I can do."
The man chuckled
scornfully. "Do you think we don't know whom you've got in there? Did you
really think you could keep it a secret?... The whole city knows!"
Will looked around
himself uncomfortably. A few other people were standing randomly along the
street, half looking at him. One of them, a young man, was carrying a handheld
camera. Will walked quickly on towards the gate. A nun was waiting by the
sentry box as usual, chatting casually to the guard. She smiled at Will as he
approached, knowing that he was about to take over the watch. "Good
morning, Leader Ursall."
"Good
morning, Sister Augustina." replied Will. He pointed at the linen sack in
her hand. "The usual?"
"Just a
little something for the family." She blushed and glanced briefly at the
other guard.
Will nodded and took
the bag from her. He returned her gaze knowingly. The last time the nuns from the
Novo-Tikhvin Convent had brought gifts for the family, Ardeev and the men of three-watch
had taken it all for themselves. The num caught on and smiled back at Will
gratefully. He hid the bag on top of a cabinet in the watch leaders' office and
then went out into the entrance hall to attend the guard mount. He signed his
name on the calendar as he organized the soldiers into their duty sections; it
was Thursday July the fourth. "American Independence
Day." Will whispered to himself. The whole world outside his own
day-to-day experience seemed like a dream; non-existent. He marvelled that he
had only been at the "house of special purpose" for three weeks. It
felt like longer than that. The sense of notional time passing very slowly had
happened to him once before, but this had been a school holiday he had gone on
in France three
years earlier. He poked his head into the commandant's office, but Ardeev was
not there. "He's up at the soviet
again." said Alapyutov, the leader of the departing one-watch, when he saw
Will looking in.
Will groaned.
"What do they want with him this time?"
"Gawd
knows." He picked up his bag. "Have a good day, Will."
"You too,
Mishka. Sleep well." When all the men had left to take up their posts,
Will went and retrieved the bag from the leaders' office. He tiptoed to the
stairs and treaded gently up to the first floor. As usual, the family was in
the salon. Will skulked outside in the passageway as the guards changed shift.
As he expected they paused to chat for a few minutes. He walked in and saw the
family looking up at him expectantly. Will grinned playfully and put the sack
in the middle of the coffee table.
The daughters
clasped their hands with glee. Anastasia, the youngest, gave a barely
suppressed squeal of delight. The mother Alexandra gave her characteristically
regal smile and young Alexei lifted his head in his a lethargic way from where
he sat, as usual, leaning on Seaman Nagorny's shoulder. Nicholas and Dr Botkin
stood up. "Wilfred." whispered the former. "I don't know how to
thank you."
"You're
welcome, Nicholas Alexandrovich. It
was easy to do. I intercepted the sister from the convent before the other
staff could get to her. You must hide these things quickly; put them under your
bed. Smirnov and Petrov will be doing their rounds soon."
"I wish there
was some way I could speak to the sisters."
"I'll pass on
your greetings as always."
"Wilfred." said Dr Botkin. "This food makes all the
difference for us; for the Tsarevich
it could..." He lowered his voice. "It could mean the difference
between life and death."
Will knew what the
sack contained; milk, butter, cheese, eggs and other basic foodstuffs. It
supplemented the prisoners' meagre rations. The former Tsarevich, the crown prince, in particular looked like he needed
feeding. Even after all this time, Will pulled himself up short for thinking in
those terms. Right here and now that child was merely Alexei Romanov, a poorly young
boy, a haemophiliac, aged thirteen. The monarchy had been abolished and nobody
supported that abolition more than Comrade Wilfred Ursall. The family ate
breakfast and then went back to the Salon where they played board games, read
newspapers and books or chatted. This was all they could do. The routine for
the guards was almost as monotonous. The watch was divided into perimeter and
interior corps. The perimeter corps patrolled the outside of the house,
watching passing members of the public for threats and checking the palisade
for any breaches. There were machine guns set up that were manned at all times
pointing outwards from the attic windows of the house. The house itself was
constantly in the sights of another machine gunner sitting in the belfry of the
nearby Voznesensky Cathedral, the only place outside the house that could be
seen from ground level. The gunners' instructions were to open fire if the
former tsar appeared outside the compound, even if it meant shooting some of
his fellow soldiers as collateral damage. The interior corps kept an eye on the
family themselves, strolling along the corridors and peering into the rooms,
all of which had their doors removed. The newspaper had gone from the windows
and had been replaced with more permanent white paint. This allowed in a
translucent glow of sunshine, but blocked any view.
Will walked along
the corridor to see what the guards were doing. He walked into the bathroom
where there was a toilet and washbasin. The guards used it as well as the
family. Along with the usual mindless smut, somebody had scrawled a caricature
on the wall of Grigori Rasputin, the "mad monk", having sexual
intercourse with Alexandra. The artist clearly had far more talent than the
average squaddie and the picture was quite well rendered. Will stuck his head
out of the door. "Smirnov!"
The guard walked
up to him with a look of childlike innocence on his face. "Yes, comrade leader?"
Will pointed.
"What's this?"
"I don't know
anything about it, comrade leader."
"Don't give
me that, Smirnov! Only you can draw that well."
Smirnov shrugged.
"It was just a bit of fun, comrade leader. Taking the Mickey out of that
bourgeois aristocratic cow."
"Wash it off!"
"Must
I?"
"Yes! Quickly
now before the ladies see it."
Will was secretly
referring to one lady in particular, Maria.
At ten o'clock in the morning the family and their
servants were allowed half an hour's exercise in the garden, one of only two
such sessions per day. Nicholas Ipatiev's house had about half an acre of
elegant grounds although it had clearly suffered from neglect after the
property had been commandeered. The lawn was overgrown and the flowerbeds full
of weeds. The weather was fine and the sky was a deep blue without any clouds. The
former tsar jogged in circles while the four girls Olga, Tatiana, Maria and
Anastasia sat on a wide swing, rocking back and forth. Alexandra was having
trouble walking and stayed in a wheelchair making a tapestry. Alexei took a few
feeble steps, holding the hand of his carer Nagorny. Dr Botkin, the court
physician, was close by to monitor his health. Will was watching the former
Grand Duchess Maria. She was half a year older than him and stunningly
beautiful. She had a pleasant personality too. Her hair had been quite short
when Will had first arrived, due to it being cut off when she had measles, but
it was growing out again. There had been no girls or women at Will's school and
there were only a handful of female students at Oxford.
Unlike many boys in his educational system he had never succumbed to
homosexuality, whether temporary or permanent. He had never had a girlfriend;
but, unlike most of the other guards, had always declined to use the services
of the local prostitutes. He often imagined to himself, with great relish, what
sex might be like; but he knew he had no idea. He just sat quietly outside the
office where the prostitutes plied their trade, sipping vodka in a civilized
manner while the raucous drunken laughter mixed with puffing and panting went
on behind the door. He had not thought about girls at all since he arrived in Russia,
not until he met Maria. He flicked his vision away when he spotted her father
looking at him; he clearly had noticed. He walked up to Will. "Wilfred Francheskovich, will grant me a
favour?"
"If I can,
sir."
He lowered his
voice, so that his family could not overhear, and switched to English, knowing
that Will alone among the guards spoke it. "Take care of my family
after..."
"After
what?"
"It's only a
matter of time before I am sent to Moscow
to be put on trial. That trial can only have one verdict... and only one
sentence."
Will felt
surprisingly sad. "I'll do what I can, Nicholas Alexandrovich."
"Thank
you." He sighed.
Will paused.
"It's strange you know. I have always considered you evil. 'Bloody
Nicholas', that's what you were known as; because of Bloody Sunday."
"I never
ordered that attack. I wasn't even in the Winter
Palace when those people were shot.
You know Father Gapon was actually a Bolshevik mole?... You know I was a great
reformer. 'Nicholas the peacemaker' was my previous nickname. I tried to keep Russia
out of needless wars. The one with Japan
was unfortunate, but not needless. I lowered the working week decades before
Lenin did. I abolished nightshifts for women and boys less than seventeen years
of age..."
Will shook his
head. "I can't think about the rights and wrongs of all that when I'm in
this place. It's just that right here, right now, you're just a bloke. A bloke
with a wife and kids. You're good company actually; I have to admit it... My
God!" Will lurched back two whole steps.
"Are you
alright, Wilfred?"
Will struggled to
calm himself down. His heart was pounding; his breath came in gasps.
"Yes... yes." They were speaking Russian again now. "Sorry,
Nicholas; it's just that... your face..."
"Did I just
shape-shift? I do apologize if it alarmed you. It happens every so often."
"Oi!"
yelled Osolin, the internal corps leader, Will's deputy. "That's it! Your
time's up. All of you, get inside!" Will realized that Osolin had been
watching Will and Nicholas' conversation; albeit from a distance and unable to
understand.
"You're
right, Wilfred." said Nicholas, looking at him sincerely. "I am just
an ordinary man, one with a family. I know what I am. I know my people are
different to yours. We are not really the same as you; but in another way we
really are. The bodies we inhabit are human flesh and blood. I love my wife and
my children. I worship God. Don't read too much into what you just
witnessed." As the family reluctantly traipsed in through the backdoor,
the deputy approached Will. Osolin was a Latvian in his early fifties with a
sulky manner and untidy grey hair. Like many of the guards, he had a penchant
for vodka and prostitutes; although his appetite for both surpassed that of
most of the others. "Comrade leader." he began in an ingratiating
tone. "May I remind you that the guards are not permitted to engage the
prisoners in casual conversation; and that the prisoners are not permitted to
speak in foreign languages? It makes it worse when you, in your position of
supervision, encourage them by breaking those rules too."
"Why don't
you let me worry about my record, Maris? Perhaps you should just concern yourself
with your own job and let me do mine, eh?" Will patted him on the shoulder
sarcastically. He was glad of dealing with something normal to help him recover
his nerves. What had caused his shock was that he had seen Nicholas Romanov's
face change. For an instant, his skin had turned light green and rough, almost
scaly, and his eyes had become bright yellow with vertical slits as pupils. It
looked like a cross between a human and a snake. Will sat down on the garden
bench and rubbed his face. "A hallucination. I must be getting stressed
out." he murmured to himself.
After their
morning outdoor exercise session there was not much for the family to do except
read, talk and play games until luncheon. The guards paced along the corridors
keeping an eye on them. "Wilfred, Francheskovich,
something you might be interested in." Dr Botkin was reading a newspaper
and he pointed to a back page column.
Will took the
paper from him and read: Foreign news
from agency correspondents in London.
Last month British press reported that something very strange happened in the
little duchy of Lancombe Pond. An airship came down in some woods which appears
not to be of any kind known to be manufactured in any nation of the world.
There were four occupants none of whom survived the crash. They were described
as being small and with no hair. The witness was a doctor living close to the
scene and working for the government of that small country; and so he wishes to
remain anonymous. He said that the eyes and other facial features of the four
men were so strange that at first he thought that they were some kind of
mannequin. They had no pupils, irises or any other biological structure to
them. The prevailing view among his colleagues in government is that these men
came from the planets Mars or Venus. The airship they were flying in is of a
most unusual kind. It has no engine, wings or envelope; in fact no obvious
means of function at all. The agency addressed a spokesman for the Lancine
authorities, but he declined to comment. It remains a lead that can neither be
confirmed nor denied at the present time..." How unusual." said
Will.
"I've heard
of such things before, Wilfred. Strange things seen in the sky. Sometimes weird
aircraft landing with unearthly people climbing out and walking around. Right
here in Russia."
Will chuckled,
remembering his brother Robin talking about spaceships months ago back in
Mansfield; it felt like another world now, or a fantasy no more real than one
of Robin's. "The only news I've heard that has got through to me from home
since I left six months ago, and it is something from a novelty column."
Will folded the paper until he found the front page. "Dr Botkin, did you
see the date? This newspaper is from February!"
Botkin took the
paper from him and looked. "Damn! Can't we get any of today's papers?
Surely Commandant Ardeev can manage that!"
"I can
ask..." At that moment a gunshot rang out. It came from the bedroom occupied
by the former princesses. Everybody ran along the corridor to the room and
found Anastasia crouched on the bed crying with fear. Her parents comforted her
while Will dashed outside from where the shot had come. Vilyukin, a young
guardsman on the perimeter corps was standing in front of the palisade under
the window. Will shouted down to him: "Comrade, Vilyukin! What's going
on!?"
"Somebody
stuck their head out of the window, comrade leader. Orders from the commandant
say we must fire immediately when that happens."
A second guard
spoke up: "We'd better seal that window too, like all the others."
Will shrugged.
"It's hot weather; the prisoners need fresh air... I'll see if the
engineers can put some kind of grille over it. Luckily the girl was not hurt.
She's just a bit shaken."
The shift changed
at seven PM and the personnel of three-watch turned up in the usual way the
guards did for a night shift, with a case of vodka and a handful of pretty young
women who were obviously prostitutes. Still there was no sign of Ardeev or his
deputy. Then, just before Will was about to hand over the shift and leave the
house, he heard the sound of car engines outside the gate.
"ATTENTION!" barked a voice he had not heard before. A group of a
dozen men marched along the palisade passage and up to the front door as if
they were wrestlers heading for the ring. They were all dressed in dark
greatcoats and hats. Behind them trailed Ardeev and his staff. They're faces
were masks, avoiding eye-contact, looking down at the ground. "Halt!"
shouted Will, feeling intimidated. "Who goes there!?" The door guard
next to him held his rifle up horizontally to act as a barrier. "Somebody
who is taking over!" snapped the leader of the procession, a man with
watery brown eyes and a thick moustache that spread across his face like the
barrier in front of him held by the guard. He seized the rifle violently and
thrust it aside. "ATTENTION!" he yelled.
"Who are
you!?" demanded Will.
The man reached
into the inside pocket of his coat, casually drew out identity papers and held
them up. "Yakov Yurovsky, Internal Security. I am taking command so stand
aside!"
The door guard was
deflated and stood back. The newcomer strode past him as if he wasn't there.
Will was stunned. "Did he say 'Internal Security'?"
"Yes, comrade leader."
"The Cheka!" Will almost whispered, as
if the word itself were a black magic spell.
The moment he was
inside the house, Yurovsky immediately began laying out orders as if he had
been in command for years. He strutted up and down with his nose in the air and
a sneer under his moustache. "I want all of two and three-watch assembled
in the downstairs hallway NOW! Send for the off duty men immediately! Nobody
must leave the building." His henchmen began circulating around the offices
like a wolf pack. Will spotted Ardeev entering the commandant's office and
followed him in after checking nobody was looking his way. Ardeev was pulling
open draws and moving his personal possessions into his leather satchel.
"Alexander, what's going on?" Will whispered.
Ardeev's face was
blanched and downbeat. "I've been relieved, so has Ukrainstev."
Constantin Ukrainstev was the deputy commandant. "I expect the same is
about to happen to you and the rest of the unit. The Cheka are taking over this entire operation."
"ATTENTION!" Yurovsky roared again.
"Go on!"
hissed Ardeev. "Before he cans you!... Goodbye Wilfred. Take care of
yourself." He forced a thin smile.
Will waved feebly
as he bolted from the room.
All of the three
watches lined up in neat military rows in the corridor. One-watch were on a day
off, but had been summoned with all dispatch from the barrack houses. Yurovsky
paced up and down slowly, inspecting them as if he were a general. He was
carrying a clipboard which he lifted and began to read. "Right, Comrade
Petrov, Comrade Vasily Smirnov, Comrade Nikolai Smirnov, Comrade Osolin,
Comrade Ursall, Comrade Urotskin, Comrade Alapyutov. Advance one step
now!"
Will obeyed, along
with all the other men named.
"The rest of
you, you're relived of all your duties; be out of this house in five
minutes." The bulk of the unit almost tripped over themselves in their
haste to obey, remembering all the horror stories they had heard about the Cheka secret police. When they were gone,
Yurovsky examined each of the seven remaining soldiers in turn. "Right,
you lot. From now on you are on an indefinite secondment to Internal Security.
I am the new commandant here, the 'house of special purpose' in henceforth
under the jurisdiction of Internal Security and you will obey all my orders;
understood?"
"Yes, comrade
commandant." they all replied in unison.
Will was still
standing at attention with eyes front, but he could see in his peripheral
vision more dark suited men marching in through the front door, in regular gaps
and one at a time, as if there were an infinite row of them outside. Yurovsky
was still lecturing them on obedience and discipline when there was a piercing
scream from the prisoners' accommodation upstairs. Will recognized the voice as
that of the Alexei, the former crown prince. A figure in a sailor's uniform was
frogmarched down the stairs, as roughly as if he were being arrested for
violent disorder. It was Seaman Nagorny. "Please!" He was weeping.
"I need to stay! I need to look after Alexei!"
"Move
it!" retorted the Chekist grabbing his right arm. Another man following
him, although he was quieter and didn't resist. Will couldn't tell without
looking straight at him or hearing his voice, but guessed that he was Sednev
the princesses' footman.
There was a sound like thunder in the early morning sky. The
rising sun washed the underside of the high cloud in a rosy glow, promising a
fine day ahead. The thunder came in pops and bursts, but there was no lightning
or any heavy cloud to indicate an approaching storm. Will strolled down the
road from the barracks house to the "house of special purpose". He
felt the usual sense of gloom as he turned off Voznesensky
Lane and approached the stark wooden barrier
surrounding the property. The dormers and roof gables poking above it looked
lifeless, as if the house were a strangely shaped natural rock outcrop. The
whitewash on the windows made them look like cataracts in a blind man's eyes.
He walked up to the door guard's post and saw that it was occupied by a Cheka officer, so he just walked by and
said nothing. The man glared at him, but did not speak. He recognized Will and
so did not prevent him entering. Will couldn't even remember his name. If one
of the few remaining Red Army personnel had been at the post, Will would have
muttered a brief greeting, but they would not have talked for as long or as
cheerfully as they used to. Will entered the house and stood in the corridor
for the guard mount. He exchanged glances with Smirnov and Petrov and forced a
pained smile. Commandant Yurovsky wasted no time. He read out the shift
allocations as a monotone litany and then returned to his office, shutting the
door with a bang. Will walked up the stairs to the prisoners' apartment and
relieved his three-watch counterpart. These days there were so few Red Army
guards that he was never alone with any of his former colleagues and the
Romanov family together. One or more Chekists were always present. He had also
been demoted and was no longer the watch leader; in fact all senior roles in
the operation were occupied by Cheka
operatives. The original rules laid down by the Ural Soviet had not changed, but they were far more strictly enforced.
Will had not been able to converse with any of the family since Yurovsky had
taken control. There was a bell on the salon sideboard and if any of the
prisoners wanted to use the toilet they had to ring it; then a guard would
escort them for the twenty foot walk to the toilet and stand outside until they
had finished for the walk back. It was as if the prisoners were small children.
All dialogue between guards and prisoners had to be functional and in Russian. The
guards were kept under a much tighter regime. The vodka and whores were now
banned. Will had learned to enjoy his guard duty in the house for the first two
weeks he had been there, but the second half of the month since he arrived
stripped him of that. He now dreaded coming to work. A pall of misery and
tension had fallen over Nicholas Ipatiev's residence during the last fortnight.
Will felt a sense of foreboding; something dreadful was about to happen, he was
sure of it. Every time he came on duty he expected to find Nicholas gone,
shipped off to court in Moscow,
followed inevitably by a firing squad; and seeing the family devastated by his
loss.
As Will strolled
around the salon he heard Dr Botkin whisper at him: "Pssst! Take a look,
Wilfred." Will turned round and saw the former court physician handing him
a newspaper.
"What do you
think you're doing!?" bellowed another voice, and one of the Cheka guards came pounding over to
investigate. "Where did you get that!?" He pointed at the paper in
Will's hand. "Botkin, you know very well that you are no longer permitted
newspapers!"
"It's an old
one, Comrade Medvedev." put in Will. "Look at the date; the tenth of
March. It must have been left here before Dr Botkin arrived."
"Get rid of
it!" snapped Medvedev before he strutted away.
Will glanced at
Botkin apologetically and plodded slowly to the stairs down to the offices. When
he was in the corridor outside Yurovsky's office he looked at the page Dr
Botkin was pointing at: Foreign news from
agency correspondents in London.
An update on our report from the tiny state of Lancombe Pond beset with the
rumour that an airship from another world had landed in the countryside. Our
spokesman in the Lancine government has now told our agent that no such
incident occurred. He stated that people were confused by an accident involving
a cart carrying a large canister of explosive gas. The British army corps of special
engineering helped their Lancine fellows to neutralize the threat by safely
retrieving the canister and taking it to a place where it could be disposed of.
The Duke Bellswill, leader of Lancombe Pond, wished to express his gratitude to
Mr David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, for his people's assistance
and in return will...
The door to the
office was flung open and Yurovsky stomped out into the corridor with typical
abruptness. "Comrade Ursall, what are you doing down here?" He
demanded.
"Just
disposing of some rubbish, comrade commandant." Will tossed the journal
into the waste paper basket.
"Well then
get on with it and get back to your post!" He stormed off down the
corridor.
"Yes, comrade
commandant." Will muttered at his departing back. He was about to head
back to the staircase when he heard the telephone ringing in the commandant's
office. He looked in through the open door, wondering if he should answer it.
He looked over his shoulder, but Yurovsky was in deep conversation with the
Chekist watch leader. Will walked into the office and picked up the receiver.
"Hello, house of special purpose. Comrade Ursall speaking."
"Good
morning, I'd like to speak to Commandant Yurovsky?" The voice was a mellow
tenor one that Will sensed was familiar.
"Who is
speaking please?"
"It's Comrade
Lenin."
Will's head spun.
"Wh... what... Who!?"
A hand like a
steel hook seized Will's shoulder and wrenched him back. "Give me that
'phone!" Yurovsky shouted. He snatched the instrument from Will's hand and
spoke into it with a nervous smile. "Comrade Lenin. Good morning." He
waved his hand at Will for him to leave. Will obeyed and shut the door.
"What's up with
you? You look like you've seen a ghost?" Osolin and he were sitting in the
rest room on the lower floor eating their midday
meal, one of the few times personnel were permitted to speak to each other
freely. Will's relationship with the older Latvian had improved since Will had
stopped being his superior and so no longer had to supervise him.
"You're not
going to believe this, Maris; but we had a telephone call earlier from Comrade
Lenin."
"You're
kidding!... The Lenin!?"
Will nodded.
"What was he
doing 'phoning here?"
"Don't know.
He just wanted to talk to Yurovsky."
Osolin whistled
and shook his head. "It must have been very important for Vladimir Illych himself to call personally."
Will looked up
when he heard the sound of more thunderclaps outside. "What's going on
with all this thunder?" he asked. "It's been booming all morning, yet
there's not been a drop of rain."
Osolin laughed.
"I can't believe an ex-infantryman like you didn't recognize that sound.
It's not thunder, Wilfred; it's artillery."
"Really?"
"Yes. I'm
astonished you've not heard the news! It was all over the barracks last
night."
"I went out
for a walk and then went to bed."
Osolin laughed.
"Lightweight!... Anyway, Kolchak is advancing west into the trans-Ural
area. The Czech Legion is in control of almost all the railways. They're
running Chelyabinsk; they executed
the entire sub-soviet there. These
guys mean business! They want every Bolshevik dead! The factory battalions from
Petrograd have been trying to hold them back."
Will shivered, remembering
the battle for Tsaritsyn. "So are they coming for us now?"
Osolin nodded.
"Yekaterinburg would be the jewel in their vulgar White crown."
"What about
the prisoners?"
He shrugged.
"I suppose we'll have to move them somewhere else."
The following day was a Sunday, the fourteenth of July.
Yurovsky left the house after a team from the local Red militia showed up at
the door. They went off together on an errand nobody could fathom. This was
such unusual behaviour that the Red Army guards broke their vow of silence to
talk about it for the brief period when the Cheka
were conferring amongst themselves about the provisional management.
Habitually, the commandant hardly ever left the Ipatiev house, virtually living
permanently in the offices of the ground floor. They only stopped talking when
the Cheka officers ordered them to.
In the afternoon Yurovsky returned with soil on his clothes and hands, as if he
had been a child playing around in a garden. He used his entire water ration to
clean himself up when a priest turned up. The priest and his deacon were from the
local church. They held a Divine Liturgy for the family and their companions in
the salon. The guards all kept a respectful distance, even the Cheka ones; if only subconsciously.
Yurovsky himself obtrusively supervised the service, standing in a corner with his
leather pistol holster on full display as the family knelt on the floor and
chanted. Will stood around the corner by the bedrooms listening. He recalled
the conversations he'd had with Nicholas and the family, Dr Botkin and the
other court servants; and he felt sad at how things had changed.
At seven PM Will
was scheduled to go off duty. Along with his demotion, he had been moved to
one-watch when the Cheka took over.
Three-watch was due to take over and guard the house until seven AM the following morning. He was relieved and looked
forward to a quiet drink in a tavern, dinner and a peaceful sleep in his bunk
at the barracks. He went to take his place at the guard mount, but today the
procedures were different. Yurovsky ordered one-watch back to their posts while
three-watch all went to the main guards' office. The door was shut and nobody
else was allowed in. "I hope this briefing won't last long." muttered
Petrov. "I need a bloody beer."
"What does he
want to brief them about?" replied Will.
"Something
simple and unimportant I hope."
The secret
briefing in the office took two hours. Then three-watch were ordered to take
over the guard, but before one-watch could go off duty they themselves were
ordered into the office, presumably to have the same briefing. However when he
was following the line of men in through the door, Yurovsky put out his hand to
stop him. "Not you, Comrade Ursall."
"Why not,
comrade commandant?"
"You're not
cleared for this information. Go off duty." He slammed the door without
another word. Will alone out of the entire watch was excluded from this
briefing. He walked out of the Ipatiev house. Before he left, he stopped and
looked over his shoulder at the lighted window of the office. He said goodnight
to the Red Army gate guards and headed back to the barracks.
The following
morning he walked back from his barracks house as usual. He saw Grigory Nikulin,
another of the one-watch guards, walking along the lane and caught him up.
"Hey, Grigory; wait up."
The guard looked
over his shoulder briefly and kept walking at the usual pace.
"Grigory, wait!"
"What is it,
Wilfred?" He muttered, not looking at him.
"What was
that briefing about last night?"
Nikulin shrugged
and tittered. "Bah! A bit of this and a bit of that. Nothing
important."
"What do you
mean 'nothing important'? It took two hours. The other guys didn't get back to
the digs till midnight... And why was
I left out of it if it was nothing important?"
"Maybe you're
too important for it, Wilfred." He chuckled evasively.
"Don't mess
about, Grigory. Come on! What did you lot talk about?"
Nikulin stopped
walking and turned suddenly to stare at him. His cheeks trembled and there was
fear in his eyes. "Wilfred... please!... Just don't ask. Believe me, you
don't want to know." He walked on as quickly as he could, keen to end the
conversation with Will. Will stood and stared at him. In the distance, the
rumble of distant artillery fire continued.
After Monday's shift, one-watch doubled back. This meant
they were off duty until the following evening, giving them twenty-four hours
free time. This only happened once every nine days and normally it was a day of
celebration, involving a pub crawl and social dinner or, for the guards who
liked that sort of thing, a trip to the brothel. This time nobody was partying.
The men hung around the barracks, sitting silently on their bunks, staring at
the floor as if hypnotized. Will eventually gave up asking them for an
explanation. It was like being at a funeral where everybody knew who the
deceased was except him, and they didn't want to tell him. On the twenty minute
walk to the Ipatiev house that evening Will noticed that the tense and
secretive atmosphere was not confined to his unit. There were far more soldiers
on the street than usual. A curfew was in force; something which occasionally
happened in Yekaterinburg, but there hadn't been one for over two weeks. No
explanation was given to the people for the curfew. When he arrived at the
house he realized with a jolt that something exceptional was going on. The
entire unit was waiting there; all three watches. Some were loitering outside
to save space indoors. There was no formal guard mount tonight. The men
chattered about irrelevant subjects as if afraid to say what they were actually
doing. Will pushed his way inside and approached Yurovsky. "Comrade commandant,
what's going on?"
"Ah, Comrade
Ursall." Yurovsky smiled at him. "We're moving the prisoners tonight.
It's all happening later on. Nothing must be said to them until just
beforehand." He held his finger up to his lips. "They're all eating
dinner at the moment. We should let them enjoy it... We're going to need some
vehicles. Go to the motor-pool in Listvennyy and pick up a truck. They've got
one waiting for you."
"Yes, comrade
commandant." Will headed off with raised eyebrows. He had never seen Yakov
Yurovsky smile before, in fact the man's general persona had suddenly and completely
changed.
Listvennyy was a
few miles away and the walk was made longer because the bridge one would
normally cross over the river was damaged and closed. The streets were dark and
silent with most streetlamps unlit. Nobody walked the pavements and roads
except soldiers. They left Will alone when they saw his uniform. There was a
long dark lane that linked the district with the rest of Yekaterinburg which
was completely unlit. The road was of comparatively good quality, with no
danger of tripping over, and Will strode along it in total darkness, feeling as
if he were not moving and walking on the spot, or on a treadmill. The meagre
specks of light that signified the location of the suburb slowly came closer
until he arrived. He had only a rough idea where the Red Army motor-pool was
and it took him a while to find it. The truck was a sixty horsepower Fiat four-wheeler.
Will had never officially learned to drive and there was no licensing agency or
formal process in Russia
for qualifying drivers. He had picked it up in stages from a member of his
former unit. He lurched and swerved a bit with this unfamiliar vehicle until he
got used to it. When he pulled up beside the Ipatiev house, the Cheka guards instructed him to park
outside for a moment while the large double gates to the garden were opened;
the first time Will had seen them opened. The area was well lit and there was a
lot of activity. Some of the Chekists were ones he hadn't seen before.
"Okay, comrade. Pull up in the side driveway. Switch off the engine and
wait here." one of them instructed him. Will looked at his wristwatch; it
was half past eleven. He looked in
the rear-view mirror, but saw no other vehicles. The gates leaned shut behind
him. There would not be enough room to transport the entire family in this one
truck. Did they expect him to make multiple journeys? In which case the new
hideaway for the Romanovs could not be very distant.
Will dozed in the
driver's seat and only woke when Yurovsky leaned in through the passenger's
window. "Comrade Ursall, switch on your engine. We're about to bring out
the prisoners."
"Yes, comrade
commandant." The ignition rolled and the engine caught.
"Now, keep
your engine running, no matter what. Understood?"
"Yes, comrade
commandant."
Outside the
vehicle, the house's two side doors to the driveway were open and lights glared
from them. A cluster of silhouettes appeared in the front doorway and a row of
people walked out into the driveway escorted by the Cheka guards. Will recognized them as Nicholas Romanov and his
family. A few of his loyal staff were with them too. They were all dressed
warmly for the journey. Some of them carried pillows to make themselves more
comfortable, which was understandable if they would be riding in the rear of
the truck. To his surprise, they were led past the truck and into the other set
of doors. This puzzled Will because the corridor beyond only led to some
storerooms and an empty chamber on the northwest side of the Ipatiev house. The
double doors to that corridor were shut from the inside. He sat back in his
seat and stretched his legs, but because of his orders he kept the engine
running. He dreamily watched the mouth of a nearby drainpipe dripping slightly
from a period of rain a few hours ago...
Will jumped out of
the truck as a series of pistol shots rang out from inside the house. He ran up
to the doors and turned the handle, drawing his own weapon with his other hand.
As he pushed the door open, a rough pair of hands pushed against him. "No!
Shut the door! Stay outside! Stay outside!" a voice bellowed from within. The
gunshots continued.
"What's
happening!?" yelled Will. "Who's shooting!?"
"Stay
outside!" repeated the voice from within. The gunshots continued for a few
minutes, bursting out in random salvoes; they slowly grew less frequent. Loud
voices shouted in between the pistol volleys. Suddenly the loud voices
transformed into screams of terror. There was a cascade of footsteps and Will
just had time to step back before the door was wrenched open and a dozen men
poured out into the courtyard blubbering in panic. Their faces were red and
their eyes as wide as lanterns. Some of the non-Russians were sobbing in their
native languages. The others were swearing and gasping for breath. "What's wrong?" demanded Will. He
stepped inside and walked down the corridor. "What's going on? Where are
the family?
"DON'T GO IN
THERE!" one yelled at him.
The corridor was
foggy with propellant fumes from the guns. Will began coughing and his eyes
stung. The passageway ran the entire length of the house. At the end Will
turned left into a room with an arched ceiling. A small window was set high up
on the right-hand wall. The fumes were mixed with plaster dust making it
difficult to see what was within it. The single light bulb on the ceiling had a
halo around it caused by the miasma. There was a second set of double doors on
the far side of the chamber. The far wall appeared to be partly demolished with
numerous bullet holes. The floor was covered in a liquid that Will at first
thought was tar, but then realized was blood. Then he did a double take. He
jerked back with a yelp and ran back down the corridor. Lying on the floor of
the room was a pile of corpses, a few were human, but the others looked like
dead crocodiles. When he reached the entrance door to the driveway he saw
somebody had locked them shut, probably out of fear. He hammered on them until
they were opened and ran out into the fresh air. "How... how the hell did
they get in there!?... What the fuck are they!?"
"It's
them!" one man wept. "It's them! The prisoners! They changed into
them!"
"Come
now!" barked Yurovsky. The Cheka
commandant had recovered his wits before the others. "We need to go back
inside and remove the bodies."
"I'm never
going back near those things again!" shouted a guard.
"There's
nothing in there!" retorted Yurovsky. "Nothing except the
prisoners... Look, comrades; we were all inhaling the fumes. We've been seeing
things. Fumes can have that effect on people... Now get the sheets together and
we'll go back inside."
Despite their
commanding officer's reassurances, the guards tiptoed cautiously down the corridor,
close together for support, pistols still drawn. They peeped round the frame of
the door to the chamber. The fumes had cleared slightly, but the intoxication
must still have been in effect, because some of the bodies still looked like
crocodiles; although not quite. The green scaly skin of their heads did not
taper to a crocodile's long snout, but instead the front of their heads were
rounded like a constrictor snake. Some of them had died with their mouths open
and the double rows of their even white teeth glinted in electric light. The
beasts were squeezed into clothes that looked like the ones the family had been
wearing. They were bigger than their human forms and the fabric was stretched
tight or torn. One of them was wearing Nicholas' cavalry tunic and its shoulder
seam had burst, displaying the patchy emerald hide beneath.
"Alright." said Yurovsky in a voice that was meant to sound calm and
authoritative, but was stuttering and quivering. "I don't know about you
gents, but I am still a bit smashed. I see what I saw before. But we mustn't
let our broken minds fool us. We know what's here and we need to get on with
our duties!... Ermakov! Get the sheets ready! We must wrap the bodies and carry
them..."
Then one of the
reptilian forms began moving. The men shrieked. One of them fired his pistol
and missed. The creature rose up from where it had been lying. Blood gushed
like tap from a bullet wound on its forelimb. Its eyes opened; they were a
sickly yellow in colour with a deep black pupil that was a vertical vesica piscis, like a cat or lizard. Its
mouth opened wide displaying a dry brown palate and it let out a deafening
warbling roar; a sound Will had never heard come from any animal before.
Grigory Nikulin dove forward with his rifle raised, hollering uncontrollably,
and the bayonet plunged deep into the lizard's neck. The monster reared up
slightly, silenced by the blow, and then collapsed to the ground with an impact
vibration that Will felt through his feet. The reptilian's body was constricted
by a textile that he recognized as Anastasia's dress.
The soldiers fled
again. This time they collapsed to the cement paving of the driveway, panting
and moaning. Will recalled the time he saw Nicholas' face change in a similar
way two weeks ago. "I've been working here too long!" He laughed,
hardly believing that he was able to do so. Adrenalin and endorphins were
waltzing through his bloodstream, altering his perceptions almost as much as
the gunpowder smoke had. Eventually one of them dared to return to the death
chamber and reported back that nothing lay on the floor except human bodies,
the bodies of the family and their four devoted retainers. "That was
scary." sighed Yurovsky. "Next time we do something like this it must
be in the open air."
The men wrapped
the bodies in bed sheets from the prisoners' apartments. Will picked up one; he
guessed that it was Alexandra by its size. A great patch of red gore seeped
into it and dripped onto the ground. Will was at the rear and he trod carefully
along to corridor so as not to get his boots soaked in the gore. They were
piled up in the back of the truck along with bags of the family's belongings
from the upper floor and then Will got back behind the steering wheel. Yurovsky
sat beside him to give him directions. A larger personnel lorry had turned up
in the street outside and it carried the rest of the execution squad. The
streets of Yekaterinburg were as quiet as a cemetery as the grisly convoy
slowly crawled along, not wanting to wake up any of the population. Will did
not turn on his headlights until they were outside town. They were heading on
the road to the village of Koptyaki.
Yurovsky gave him directions to their destination and they soon left the main
road and started bumping along a pitch back forest track; trees passed by on
each side and grotesque shadows loomed on either side of the vehicles. The
weight of the eleven dead people behind them dragged the truck down like lead
blocks and its suspension strained. Will forced his mind away from his gruesome
cargo and focused on the patch of white ahead cast by the headlights. The truck
suddenly jerked to a halt. Before Will had a chance to brake or turn aside, the
left front wheel had sunk into a patch of mud. "Oh shit!" cursed
Yurovsky. It took almost half an hour to free the truck from the mud pit. Will stood
on the accelerator while the others pushed at the back. Steam rose from the
radiator.
Eventually they
came to a clearing where some fires had been lit to provide warmth and light. A
group of about twenty militiamen were waiting there. "Oh, for crying out
loud! They've only brought one bloody spade!" growled Yurovsky. He leaped
out of the truck before it had stopped and he confronted the men. A blazing row
broke out. While it was going on Will and his colleagues pulled the bodies out
of the truck and laid them on the ground. Fifty feet away on the edge of the
clearing was a huge square hole in the ground.
Will managed to
escape; not physically, but within his own mind. He watched his own hands at
work as if they belonged to somebody else. The manifested stranger's hands
tugged the clothes off the pale slabs of blood-caked flesh that a few days
before he had been talking to and had watched kneeling to worship a God that
had revealed Himself to be a frivolous fantasy in the starkest way possible, by
forsaking them. The clothes were thrown onto the fires, but not before the
gravediggers made a discovery. The family's underwear was loaded with jewellery
sewn into it between layers of cloth and rows of stitching. The Romanov family
fortune had been hidden in the only place the family thought that they might
remain safe. Yurovsky and the other leaders watched the men like hawks in case
any of them succumbed to temptation by trying to steal a diamond or other gem.
The stripped and dispossessed bodies were thrown into the pit; it was an old
mine shaft. Terracotta jars of liquid were poured in after them. They contained
sulphuric acid and the acrid stench of it rose out of the square gap in the
ground. By then the sun was rising through the trees. Will was physically exhausted,
but not at all sleepy. A fresh argument broke out among the men when they
realized that the shaft was only about nine feet deep and full of water. Will had
to drive back to Yekaterinburg and report to the Ural Soviet about what was going on. He was made to wait in the lobby of
the Americanskaya Hotel and left alone. Drowsiness then overcame him. He took
advantage of the break to sleep for a few hours, upright in the chair he was
sitting in. Impromptu naps in odd locations was a skill Will had learned during
his six months fighting the Russian Civil War. The bustle of the hotel around
him did not disturb him at all. He was awoken only when a soviet clerk awoke him. He drove to a warehouse and the truck was
loaded down with more jars of acid and cans of petrol which he then took back
to the forest where the makeshift grave was being prepared. He was surprised to
see that the bodies had all been pulled out of the pit and were back on the
grass in the clearing. Coils of rope lay around on the ground beside them;
presumably they had been used to hoist the cadavers back to ground level.
"What's going on?" asked Will.
"It's no
good." Yurovsky looked grey-faced with exhaustion. "We've been trying
to fill in the hole and we can't. We even tried to blow the thing up with hand
grenades. We've been told about another place we can ditch these stiffs. It's
closer to town, but the ground is softer. It shouldn't take so long this time
and will be easier to cover up." The location was two miles away and when
they arrived Will was thankfully spared mortician duties this time. He was
posted to stand by the side of a nearby road with a rifle to discourage any
passers-by from curiosity about what was taking place a short distance away in
the forest. It was a more populated area than the place of the first attempted burial,
but only a handful of people walked past during the night. They paid little
heed, even when there were large fires obviously burning in the woods just a
few dozen yards away. Will could feel their radiated heat on his back. The war
had taught people to look the other way and not even notice it. As the night
wore on, tiredness seeped into Will's body again. He leaned against a tree and
entered a state of half-sleep even as his legs were still supporting him. He
was roused with a jolt as he felt a hand clap down on his shoulder. He yelped
as he awakened fully. He swung round and saw Yakov Yurovsky standing beside
him. "It is done, Comrade Ursall."
"What?"
His head spun in confusion.
"The burial.
We have just one more task. Seeing as you can drive that Fiat like nobody
else... can you get it through these woods? It's only a short distance."
Will took the
truck away from the road through the thick summer undergrowth to the site of
the burial. The soldiers had laid a row of railway sleepers over the place
where the bodies had been interred. Will drove the truck backwards and forwards
over the sleepers until they had been deeply embedded into the ground, making
it look like they had been there for a long time. "Nine of them are under
there." said one of the guards pointing downwards. "We buried one of
the girls and the little boy over there." He pointed to a second grave
site under some trees about fifty feet away.
Will gulped as he
heard those words. He thought of the beautiful Maria, the sweet young Alexei.
He saw their eyes looking at his. He heard their voices in his years; their
lips moving in his mind's eye. They were people; people who could have lived a
hundred years.
"Alright, comrades."
said Yurovsky. "Good work, all of you. We're now going back into town to
get some food and some rest."
The men cheered
feebly. Some of them were staggering, close to collapse.
Yurovsky rode in
the passenger seat of the Fiat truck beside Will as they traversed the road
into Yekaterinburg. Will wasn't sure where to go. In his energetically depleted
state he automatically parked outside the "house of special purpose".
Some Red Army men Will did not know were hastily disassembling the palisade.
Nicholas Ipatiev was standing confidently outside the gate talking to them.
"We need to
get that place back to normal as soon as possible." Yurovsky spoke.
His words made
Will jump. Tiredness had given his ears a low threshold of alarm. "Because
of the Czechs?"
"Yes,
Wilfred."
Will was startled
that Yurovsky had addressed him so informally. In fact Yurovsky had generally
been exhibiting a totally different personality since the shooting had begun.
"Will they take the town?"
He nodded. "Come
with me." The two men got out of the truck and walked into the still open
garden gates. They entered the rear door and headed down that infamous
corridor. The death chamber looked different with daylight washing in from the
small window. Four people were hard at work. Two of them had mops and buckets
and were swabbing the floor. Two others were cutting square holes in the vertical
stripped wallpaper with builders' tools. "These Cheka operatives are collecting all the bullets we discharged the
other night and removing the bloodstains." said Yurovsky. "When the
Whites get here, as far as they will be concerned, Nicholas Romanov and his
family were no more present in this place than the fairies. They must never
find the bodies; they will never find
the bodies." He beckoned and the two men walked back out of the house and returned
to sit in the truck.
Will grasped the
steering wheel and sighed. "That was an execution, wasn't it?"
Yurovsky nodded
again. "Not very well performed, but successful in the end."
"Why did you
kill them?"
Yurovsky snorted.
"I'm surprised you need to ask! Isn't it obvious?... What were we supposed
to do? Let General Kolchak rescue them? Allow him to parade the Tsar and his
family in front of the world's media, the 'rightful ruler of Russia!',
still alive?... Even if they just unearthed the corpses, the story would go
viral! It would be enough to boost international sympathy for the Whites
through the roof!... Imagine if your average Russian saw that! Good old
God-fearing Vlad and Eva in their Podolsk
maisonette! That family we just disposed of have a spiritual power over the people! The church regards them as
demigods! They were the ultimate reactionary focus. They had to disappear,
Comrade Ursall! Don't you understand? Not merely die; disappear!"
"Couldn't we
have just moved them to the west?"
"How? By train?" Yurovsky snorted
sarcastically. "The Czechs now control the entire railway."
There was a long
silence. "Why did you leave me out of that briefing?"
"Because I
noticed that you had a special relationship with Nicholas Romanov and his
family that the others in your unit did not experience... What would you have
done if you had heard that we were planning their execution?"
Will opened his
mouth to answer, but no words came out.
Yurovsky turned to
face him, leaning one elbow on the back of the front passenger seat.
"Wilfred, you must realize that what we have just done was a kindness. The
Red militia we enlisted to help with their disposal were promised that the
prisoners would be alive when we delivered them for burial. They were hoping to
toy with the women before killing them... Maybe the young boy too. We saved the
prisoners from that ordeal."
Will looked down
at his lap, blinking furiously.
"I've read
your file, Comrade Ursall; and I've been in touch with Zampolit Zhlavuts. He speaks very highly of you; he says you have a
brilliant mind."
"You've done
your homework on me, comrade commandant." Will gave the last two words
what he gauged was just the perfect weight of sarcasm.
"Did you
think I wouldn't? It takes a special kind of individual to carry out the duty
you just performed. Mission
accomplished, eh?" He winked and chuckled.
"This mission. Of course there are more."
"If you want
them?"
Will started at
him in shock. When he made his last statement, he had been referring to the
inevitable upcoming battle to defend Yekaterinburg. Such an eventuality went
without saying at that point. Yurovsky's tone suggested something else.
"Comrade Yurovsky... What do you mean?"
He leaned close
and almost whispered very slowly: "You really think we don't know what you
did at Zitkoor?"
Will's body
stiffened. His hand reached for the truck door handle, as if he hoped to flee.
Yurovsky chuckled
amiably. "Relax, Wilfred Francheskovich.
You're not in any trouble. I'm merely interested in your personality. You're an
intelligent young man, an Oxford
scholar. And you're a foreigner. You've travelled a heck of a long way and
you've sacrificed an awful lot to be where you are today. You are a true
revolutionary, in a way that very few of the comrades you know could possibly
understand." As he said those words he looked at Will with a gaze of
sincere affection. "You really are committed to the ideals of socialist
revolution... aren't you?"
Will nodded.
"The compassion
you showed the Romanovs, like that you showed the Zitkoor peasants, does not
diminish your ideological purity. In a paradoxical way that only a genuinely
deep Marxist theoretician could fully understand...in the long term... it
confirms it." He glimpsed sideways at him. "It's not just from the zampoliti we gain our intelligence. We
have our observers in other countries, scouting for talent."
Will gasped in
shock. "What!?... Do you mean?..."
"Did you
think western socialist movements are an island far away from our influence and
awareness?... Yes, we knew all about you before you even landed in Russia.
Your contact 'Mr Japarov' was told all about you before he appraoched your
organization."
Will shook his head
and laughed ironically, and with nerves. He saw another precipice approaching
ahead.
"There may be
a new mission for you after the war, if you choose to accept it.
Will cleared his
throat. "After the war? Are you so sure we will win it?"
"Yes. One day
very soon, the Soviet
Union will be born. A union that will spread across the world like
a brushfire." Yurovsky spoke with such assurance that Will could almost
catch a glimpse of the real future, as if able to time travel. "Wilfred,
you are a very unusual kind of activist. You are both committed to the cause of
revolution... but you also understand how the bourgeois counterrevolutionary mind thinks
and how their heart feels in a way that very few others do. Do you realize how
unique this makes you?"
Will hesitated,
unsure of how to respond. "What's your point, Comrade Yurovsky?"
He gave a
half-smile. "When this war is won, we could merely thank you for your
service and send you home to Lancombe Pond to live out the rest of your life in
an ordinary way... Or..."
Will joined in
with his pause. "Or what?"
"You could be
very valuable to the revolution in the years and decades ahead."
"In what
way?" Will was looking out of the windscreen. It was now fully daylight.
The sun was peeking between the rooftops of Yekaterinburg. The operation to
return the Ipatiev house to normal was nearly complete. The palisade had almost
been dismantled apart from a few stray planks that were being rocked back and
forth to uproot them at that very moment.
Yurovsky followed
his gaze. "I can't tell you that... but I shall put you in touch with a
man who can."
