‘Pyatnitski,’ I said. ‘From Kiev.’
None of these were partisans. Some were dressed as I was. Others wore smart, featureless uniforms of the kind affected by Trotsky and Antonov. They had the fresh-minted Bolshevik insignia: metal stars on their caps, carefully-sewn felt stars on their sleeves. The Reds were manufacturing such things on a large scale. Half the people in Bolshevik-occupied Russia were employed running up fresh red flags and pressing out brand-new metal stars.
They greeted me. Some put their hands forward to be shaken. ‘I was on my way to Odessa. Party business. I was kidnapped, literally, by one of those bandits from the railway yards.’
‘Keep calm, comrade.’ A small, prematurely wizened creature with soft lips and white hands: ‘I’m Brodmann. It’s a problem already familiar to us. Let’s go in here.’ He put his hand on my spine and took me into a room full of hard, straight-backed chairs. There was a map of Southern Ukraine on the wall. Someone else closed the door quietly behind us. They seemed to relax. They were more frightened than me. Brodmann said, ‘We are political people. Bolsheviks and Barotbists. There’s been a suggestion Hrihorieff should be liquidated. That’s out of the question for the moment. He’s the best commander here. I say nothing, of course, against Comrade Antonov. He has also done brilliantly. Hrihorieff commands a huge army. He’s sympathetic to our cause. But he’s impossible to discipline. He has no real ideological education. That’s why it’s so important to keep him sweet while we educate his troops. When that’s done our problems will be much simpler.’ He went on in this manner for at least twenty minutes. Anyone who wants a larger bucket of the same drivel need only read one of those novels which wins the Stalin Prize with the regularity of a steel-press. I picked out all the useful information and then said, ‘Is there no way for me to get to Odessa?’
‘You were on the last train.’ A tall, thin man in a leather overcoat spoke from near the window. He had been observing a convoy of trucks and artillery. ‘You were very unlucky. The French have forbidden further trains.’
‘Can I send a telegram?’
His moody, lugubrious features showed a degree of amusement. ‘Hrihorieff controls the telegraph as his personal means of communication. One of our people is supposed to be keeping an eye on him but he’s completely under Hrihorieff’s spell. He’ll do nothing without direct orders from the Ataman. We’re only allowed to use the telegraph to communicate with Hrihorieff, or sometimes Antonov.’
‘And where is Antonov?’
‘Trying to catch up with Hrihorieff. The bastard moves fast. It’s why he’s gathering so much support.’
I was furious. This was socialism in action: death, destruction and slow strangulation in red tape. None of my risks had been worth a kopek. I should have remained with Yermeloff. My best plan was to board a train to Kiev where at least I would be on home ground. Mrs Cornelius might be able to help me. ‘Is there a train to Kiev?’
‘Probably,’ said the thin man. He drew on his cigarette as a starving baby draws on a teat. ‘They never give us any information.’
‘And Grishenko? Can he be punished?’
‘It depends how Hrihorieff feels. As his confidence grows he ignores us more.’ Brodmann offered me a chair. Fastidiously he helped me off with my coat. He placed it in a corner of the room. I must have looked odd in my blood-stained suit and felt boots. I sat down. I had a view from the window of the passing convoy. It was impressive.
‘Have you made an official complaint?’ asked the thin man.
‘If the officer downstairs took any notice.’
‘He’s efficient. One can’t say that for most of the others. The complaint will go to the appropriate DivCom.’
I was satisfied that at least Grishenko would be severely embarrassed. It was less than he deserved for cutting me off from my family, calling me foul names and forcing me into the company of coarse oafs, of cynics like Yermeloff. My new comrades asked me what I had been doing in Kiev. I said I had been sabotaging Petlyura’s defences. This impressed them. I explained how Grishenko had made me fix his broken truck. I was a trained engineer. I had crucial work at the Odessa docks. I felt my importance growing as I spoke. The gaps in my knowledge of party etiquette were thus glossed over. I was not only a ‘political man’; I was an ‘activist’. Therefore I ranked very highly in their fanatical hierarchy. I drew on acquaintanceships from Odessa days, from my months in Petrograd. I spoke casually of trains wrecked and guns put out of action. Two or three of those in the room said my name was familiar. My abduction, instead of being a familiar affair, came to be seen in a serious light. My eloquence, my anger, also helped me. I think I could have formed my own socialist group there and then. Thousands would have followed me.
It was easy to become a leader in those days. Most Russians found it impossible to think in terms of self-sufficiency. We must stick together, they said, against the common enemy. The only common enemy I ever found was iconoclasm and egotism. But Trotsky did not want Russia saved. He wanted to be a god. As a god, he would stand on the roof of his Red Train and issue a proclamation: ‘Let there be peace.’ Trotsky desperately wished to be acknowledged our Saviour, like an Old Testament prophet. Robbed of this, he turned against Stalin. I wonder how he faced God after Stalin kicked him out and he wound up in a Mexican bordello with a pick-axe in his back. I can imagine the scene. Did God stand on the roof of a train and say to Trotsky: ‘You are forgiven’? I doubt it. That pick-axe is probably proving useful in Hell.
My new friends took me down to the back of the hotel. Here was a small dining-room. The thin man left us. We sat at bare tables and good simple food was brought to us (Party people always have the best in Russia). I ate little. I still felt the effects of my sickness. There was coffee. I drank several cups. This settled my stomach. The thin man came back. They had been discussing the problem of billeting me. Only a few places were available. Most of the political people slept in Wagons-Lits at the sidings. I, of course, had no wish to return there. I explained why.
‘I’ve spoken to our friend at the telegraph post,’ said the thin man. ‘He has had a thousand messages from Hrihorieff. They all conflict, as usual. I sent a complaint about that officer who kidnapped you. It was received and acknowledged. The officer is to be shot. I saw the order.’
Though the brute deserved it, I did not want any man’s blood on my hands. ‘Could he not merely lose rank?’ I asked. ‘Or be whipped?’
‘Hrihorieff only has one punishment. Death. You’re generous, comrade. But we might not get another chance to teach those pogromchiks a lesson.’
One less Grishenko would be no bad thing for the world, but I had had no wish to take such a cruel vengeance. I do not possess the killing-instinct. I am a scientist first and foremost. If Fate had given me a slightly better hand of cards I would now be working happily at the National Physical Laboratory or teaching at London University.
It was decided I should share Brodmann’s room. Brodmann’s partner would go to the yards. As I left with the small revolutionist I asked the thin man, ‘When will the punishment occur?’
‘Immediately. An arrest. An accusation. A firing squad. I gather he’s not a popular officer.’
‘That’s true.’ I only hoped Yermeloff would not blame me and seek me out.
‘Then we should not have much trouble.’ He stopped himself in mid-gesture as if realising he had committed a social blunder. ‘Did you want to witness it?’
‘No, no.’
‘He must be shot. Hrihorieff could return, change his mind and have us shot instead. It’s happened.’ His lips moved in a smile.
I walked with Brodmann through the roaring darkness of a town troubled by excited military preparations. Trucks towing guns honked, teams of artillery horses whinnied. Troops of cavalry and infantry quarrelled and cursed and went their ways. Men in full kit ran rapidly across the street into their division headquarters. We passed through all this to the far side of Alexandriya and reached a street of prosperous cottages. Here, so far from the sidings, it was relatively peaceful. We came to a walled garden with a gate in it. Brodmann admitted us with a large key. It was an old-fashioned latch. It had been polished. We strolled along a stone path. This part of the town was almost idyllic, with trees and fences and widely-separated little gabled houses. ‘Our landlord,’ said Brodmann, ‘is a retired doctor. He hates us. He calls us vampires. Of course, “Jew” is his favourite form of insult. I advise you not to let yourself be drawn into an argument with him. He’s harmless.’