Throughout the meeting, the admiral made no attempt to hide the fact that he regarded the Legion with contempt. Contaminated by the opinions of his own staff officers, he had been persuaded that the Czechs and Slovaks were little more than a revolutionary rabble themselves — infected as they had been by the SRs’ egalitarian attitude to military discipline and having the temerity to choose for themselves when and where, and even for whom, they would fight. Kolchak left Paul in no doubt that it wasn’t the kind of army he was used to, where a conscript peasant could be flogged to death for an impertinent word to an officer. Nor was it the kind of army he envisaged leading in his crusade to return Holy Russia to her God-appointed proprietary class.
Colonel Frank had obviously shared the Supreme Governor’s vision for Russia. He spent much of the meeting clarifying points for Frazer who scribbled copious notes which, Paul fervently hoped, adhered to Ward’s injunction not to mention Paul’s name, given that his work in Russia was supposedly secret. Ward looked decidedly disgruntled by Kolchak’s vision of a return to autocracy, and not least by Nielson’s calm acceptance of such.
Steveni’s reaction was harder to read and, as the meeting broke up, Paul took the opportunity of leaving the carriage ahead of the others while they donned their heavy coats. Waiting outside the train trying to shelter from the freezing wind that was whistling through the parked rolling stock, he took Steveni aside as he stepped down from the carriage, heading towards Nikólskaya Square and his rooms in the building next to Stavka headquarters.
‘I was hoping for a word,’ Paul said.
Steveni was a little taller than Paul with a long angular face cut horizontally by a dark moustache.
‘I’ll walk you back to your rooms,’ Paul offered.
‘Best not,’ said Steveni. ‘Krasilnikov has friends at Stavka.’
‘I’m not sure there’s much to that story,’ Paul said lightly.
‘I’m rather afraid there is,’ Steveni said. He took Paul’s arm in his gloved hand and steered him along the length of Ward’s train into the shadows beyond the reach of the arc lights Ward had had erected to illuminate his perimeter. ‘Krasilnikov and your cousin mean to see you dead. You’ll be well-advised to return to the Legion as Ward suggested. No one will think the worse of you, old chap. And if there are those that do, their opinion won’t be worth having.’
Paul was glad the shadows prevented Steveni from seeing the colour rise in his face. Steveni’s remark confirmed that it hadn’t been just his own over-delicate sensibilities that had made his decision to return to the Legion look like pusillanimity.
‘You know who sent me here, don’t you?’ he said to Steveni.
Steveni smiled. ‘If you’re suggesting we are both working for the same man…’
‘And we’re not talking about General Knox.’
‘No, I don’t believe we are.’
‘I was given to understand you were on the general’s staff.’
‘And so I am,’ said Steveni. ‘But there are wheels within wheels, if you catch my meaning.’
It had dawned upon Paul during the meeting that Steveni still worked for Cumming. Valentine’s warnings to steer clear of Steveni and Nielson had been no more than a variation of Cumming’s injunction to keep away from all his other agents and anyone on the diplomatic side, like Cromie and Lockhart. At the time, Paul had supposed Cumming had wanted to keep Paul’s mission secret; now he believed it to be more a case of Cumming not wanting an amateur like Paul blundering in exposing more established agents. Everything, Cumming had told him, had to go through Hart, although it now appeared that Cumming’s injunction had not been in force in the reverse direction.
For a second, thinking of how he had almost been murdered in London and then on the steamer, Paul wondered if it might have been Steveni who had betrayed him. But no, that was ridiculous. Steveni was well in with Stavka, but it hadn’t been Stavka who wanted him dead — not at the time. It had been the Bolsheviks to whom his mission had been betrayed and Paul had begun to suspect the man responsible for that was Ransome. Perhaps not consciously but rather unconsciously — not so much in his sleep but while sleeping with his mistress. Trotsky’s former secretary, Evgenia Petrovna Shelepina might have been with Ransome in Finland by the time Paul had arrived in Petersburg, but Ransome had certainly known of his imminent arrival.
That, though, was water under the bridge. Without evidence, there was probably nothing he could do about it even if he ever got back to England.
‘When are you leaving?’ Steveni asked.
‘Tomorrow. There’s a Legion supply train leaving for Ekaterinburg in the morning. I’ve arranged to be on it. I’m to take a communication from Colonel Ward to the consul there, Mr Preston, and then a note to Syrový.’ He paused. ‘The thing is, I’ve not had the opportunity to tell Valentine.’
‘Valentine?’
‘Perhaps you know him as Hart,’ Paul said.
‘I’ll see he knows,’ said Steveni briskly. ‘Any message?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘For anyone else, perhaps?’ Steveni was smiling again.
‘Do you know her?’
‘We’ve met socially.’
‘Then tell her I’ve gone, will you? If you meet socially again, that is. It is what she wanted, after all.’
‘And that’s all?’
Paul was grateful for the dark again.
‘Tell her I’ll find her. Somehow.’
He hadn’t seen Steveni again. Had not seen any of them except for Ward the following morning as he had said his goodbyes. The bluff soldier-cum-politician had returned his salute and offered his hand.
‘Good luck to you, lad. There’s work to be done here in Russia if the country’s to regain her rightful place in the world. And if we all play our part then it’ll be a more equitable Russia and a better future for everyone. You’ll be useful, Ross, I know.’
48
Ward’s fine sentiment had all been very well at the time. But Paul had long since disabused himself of any notion that he had a useful part to play in Russia. He had, indeed, long since resolved to quit the country at the first opportunity: make your own way back, as Browning had told him in Cumming’s office all those months ago.
The trouble with resolutions, though, was that they could not always be put into effect. The opportunity to leave had never arisen.
He had presented his note from Ward to Syrový in Ekaterinburg. After reading the note with his one good eye, Syrový had granted Paul an interview on the strength of Paul’s being present in Omsk during the coup and privy to the subsequent meeting between Kolchak and Ward.
Ripples from the coup had already passed through Ekaterinburg. The day after Kolchak’s assumption of power in Omsk, White officers in the town had stormed the Palais Royale Hotel where the party leader, Chernov, and other SRs were based. A member of the Constituent Assembly had been killed and Chernov and other leading SRs taken prisoner. Only the timely arrival of a Czech unit saved them from summary execution. The Czechoslovak National Council intervened and ensured that all prisoners and any other endangered SRs were transferred to Ufa, where remnants of Komuch still resisted, rather than to Omsk. But it did little good. At the end of the month Kolchak issued ‘Order 56’, suppressing the remnants of Komuch and had any remaining members of the administration and other leading SRs arrested and transferred to Omsk. Chernov managed to escape but few others did.