The dawn might be red but it would be coloured by blood. More of a dusk than a dawn.
The locomotives were getting up steam. Agitated by the preparations to leave, the crowd had started milling in front of the soldiers again like nervous sheep looking for a gap in a fence. A man came up to Paul and pulled a piece of paper from his coat, waving it under Paul’s nose.
‘It is a pass to join the train. I have authorisation!’
Paul looked at the grubby pass and saw a dubious-looking stamp and a signature scrawled in an illegible hand. The man had probably bought it from some charlatan posing as a member of Kolchak’s staff. No matter the crisis, there was always time before abandoning the city for one final dishonest act, time to part one last desperate man from what little he had left. It was like simony, the medieval church’s corrupt practise of selling indulgences to ease a penitent soul into heaven, Paul reflected. Heaven in this case being anywhere except Omsk.
But it wasn’t Paul’s business and there was nothing he could do for the man. He ground the butt of his cigarette into the snow and turned away.
For some reason the phrase ‘penitent soul’ brought Valentine to mind. He didn’t know why. One could hardly describe the shameless way Valentine had admitted to the pitchblende swindle as a means of getting Paul into Russia as ‘penitent’. But that all seemed so long ago now, in another life. It didn’t worry Paul that he hadn’t tried to find the consulate. Valentine wouldn’t have been there and nor would it be on Paul’s conscience because he didn’t try. Browning’s injunction ‘to make your own way back,’ popped into his head and Paul pictured Valentine already sitting in some London club enjoying a whisky-soda, giving Paul and his predicament no more thought than how he was going to pay the bill. Yet Paul couldn’t begrudge Valentine if he had got out. Good luck to him. There was no point in feeling bitter. It was probable that Valentine had got involved in Russia at Cumming’s behest just as Paul had, and like him could always have said no. Only Valentine wouldn’t have said no, of course. Keen was the word for Valentine. Paul thought it was even possible that Valentine might try to stay in Omsk after the Red Army moved in, adopt one of his outlandish guises and bury himself behind the Bolshevik lines as he had in Petersburg.
At the end of the platform Paul dropped onto the hard-packed ice, looking up into the carriage windows as he walked the length of the convoy. He was hoping to get a glimpse of Sofya, some assurance that if she hadn’t left already she was aboard one of these last trains. Most of the windows had steamed up, though, and the soldiers were stopping anyone getting too close.
Ahead, behind their ring of bayonets, he noticed a man standing on the steps of one of the carriages, looking back towards the platform as if for someone who was late. Dressed in a fine coat with a fur collar and fur hat, he seemed the epitome of a successful merchant, or a banker perhaps. Someone who had done well out of the opportunities Omsk had afforded as was now ready to leave. As Paul approached the carriage, he realised the man was looking in his direction, waving a hand. Paul glanced over his shoulder but no-one in the seething mass of bodies behind him appeared to be taking any notice of the merchant.
The man jumped off the carriage step onto the ice and pushed his way through the ring of soldiers, still waving.
‘Ross! Ross, old man. You’re here!’
Valentine grabbed Paul’s coat and dragged him into the magic circle behind the guards.
‘I heard you were on the Legion train. It’s a bit of a scrum, isn’t it? Kolchak’s on the train behind, of course, so they won’t let anyone near.’ He laid a hand on Paul’s shoulder. ‘How are you? You don’t know how good it is to see you.’
And Valentine did look genuinely pleased. More enthusiastic than Paul had ever seen him, in fact, with the possible exception of the zeal he had formerly exhibited for the mystical properties of pitchblende. He hadn’t even asked if Paul had been followed.
‘I imagined you’d be long gone by now,’ Paul said. ‘As it happens, I was only just thinking of you.’
‘Oh, you know me, old man. Had to stay to the bitter end.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I’ve been setting up a network before the Reds arrive. We’ll need information on their regime and conditions in Bolshevik held territory… who’s who, that sort of thing…’ He nodded earnestly. ‘As you know, it’s what C sets most store by.’
Paul wasn’t sure he had ever known what Cumming set most store by.
‘Getting the word out will be the tricky part. Decent couriers are as rare as hens’ teeth. Once out, of course, they’re chary about going back in.’
‘Naturally,’ said Paul.
‘I’d invite you into my carriage, old man,’ Valentine said casting a look back over his shoulder at the misted window behind him where an officer wearing a Staff Captain’s cap gazed vacantly down at them. ‘But the gold is on this train and it’s packed with the admiral’s guards. As you see, I’m having to share my compartment with some Stavka officers. A rum bunch they are too. Rum being the word. Or perhaps I should say vodka since the fellows are drunk most of the time.’
‘That’s all right,’ Paul said. ‘I’m expected back.’
‘I dare you know how they feel about the Legion,’ Valentine said, nodding up at the officers in his compartment, ‘and what with you being in Czech uniform…’
Paul glanced up at them. ‘One might have expected a little more gratitude. We’ve been the only thing standing between them and the Red Army.’
‘I know, old man, I know. But that’s Russian officers for you. The collapse of the front is always someone else’s fault and they have to have a scapegoat. Their refusal to shoulder responsibility has been the problem all along. I could tell you stories you wouldn’t believe.’
‘I’ve probably heard them,’ Paul said.
‘Your cousin’s on board, by the way.’
‘Sofya?’
‘Mikhail. What with the gold being on this train, I mean. I don’t believe he’s let the money out of his sight since we left Kazan.’
‘Sofya isn’t with him?’
‘Yes, she’s here too.’ Valentine grinned at him. ‘I’ll let her know I’ve seen you.’
‘Would you? Tell me, how is she?’
Paul’s eagerness seemed to amuse Valentine. ‘Obstinate. But I don’t have to tell you that. She could have left Omsk some time ago, of course. Her brother wanted her to go but she refused.’
‘Krasilnikov?’
Valentine knotted his brow. ‘The Cossack colonel? What about him?’
‘Is he still around? With Mikhail, I mean.’
‘Oh, you mean that business last year?’
‘What business?’
‘When I last saw you. You’d been stopped by some nasty-looking characters by the square. They had a list of names.’
‘Oh, that.’
‘I assumed yours was on it because C had sent you. Although why your cousin should have taken exception to that, I have no idea.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Paul said.
‘Water under the bridge now, anyway.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Your cousin… I mean, he’s got more on his mind just now than you, old man, what with the way things are going. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I heard Krasilnikov cleared out when he saw which way the wind was blowing.’
As if in sympathy with Valentine’s metaphorical wind a train whistle blew, prompting the crowd to renew their scurrying up and down the platform.
‘Surely we’re not leaving yet?’ Valentine said. ‘Perhaps someone’s spotted a Bolshevik.’ He laughed at his own joke but turned towards the train anyway. ‘Look, why don’t we catch up further down the line, old man? We’ll get together then.’