The noise of gunshots shatters the night. It echoes into our room, again and again. Hot tears run down my cheeks, and the professor’s hand is over my mouth, to stop me screaming. Repeatedly, I hear the banging of guns, mixed with shouts and squeals of agony.
Then Yurovsky shouts. “Out of the room! There’s too much gunsmoke, we can’t see a thing!”
There’s a clatter outside our door. But the screams from the other cellar go on. One word is called out again and again. “Mother!”
Yurovsky and his men have come out of the cellar: I can hear them, right outside our door. His voice is husky, as if choked with smoke.
“Nicholas and Alexandra are dead. But all the children are still alive! Hell, men, that was useless.”
There’s a one-second pause: it feels like my whole lifetime.
A thickset voice speaks, as if talking between its teeth. “God, that was hard work! And now we’ll have to kill that professor and the others too, the three we locked in the store-room.”
A slurred voice, like that of a drunk in a bar, bursts out. “For Christ’s sake, don’t complain! I enjoyed shooting those parasites—”
Yurovsky’s voice silences the others. “You’re a useless drunkard, Ermakov! And, you missed with every single shot. But as to those prisoners in the storeroom – as it happens, orders came through anyway, a few minutes ago, to dispose of them. So those three have made our work easier, by coming to the Ipatiev House tonight.”
I heard the slurred voice laughing. “Ha ha, those fools! They’ve come here to be killed!”
But Yurovsky interrupts. “Shut up. We need to get back in the cellar now, and do the children.”
One shaken voice replies. “Sir, we can’t see to aim the guns in that cellar. The smoke…”
“We’ll all go back in – now. Don’t shoot, it will just make more smoke. Use the bayonets.”
I hear the sound of boots again. The screams are still going on, but there are also girls’ voices. I can hear the words of their prayers.
A different voice speaks.
“I may be a bit of a waster at times. But while you two are listening to those horrors, I’ve done this.”
The professor and I look round. Rufus is standing, holding the whole metal frame of our window in front of him. He’s wrenched it out of its concrete surround.
“It was totally rusted. Come on.”
I squeeze through the window, followed by the professor, then finally Rufus maneuvers his large shoulders through the gap. It’s a tight fit, but in a moment he’s standing beside us. We’re in the narrow trench between the cellar window and ground level. Rufus links his hands, holding them out in front of me like a stirrup.
“Step on my hands, then onto my shoulder, and you should be able to climb up.”
In seconds, all three of us stand on a narrow strip of grass between the house and the palisade. In front of us is a gap in the fence: the gate we came in by. It’s wide open. We don’t wonder why: we just run out into the street. A few moments later, the palisade is just a black wall behind us in the gloom. Above it, the white, fully-lit house rises like a sepulchre.
“Quick!” Rufus’s hands grip my shoulders, and he pulls me behind the shadow of a tree trunk. The silhouetted figures of guards are coming out of the gate of the house.
The figures form an odd H-shape. So far, my stunned mind hasn’t actually processed what we heard inside the house. But now, I can see what’s going on. The uprights of the H are two guards. Slung between them is the pathetic body of a little boy. The men fling their burden into the back of the lorry. Then I hear a voice from the garden.
“I’ve got all the clothes off one of the girls. She’s got jewels sewn into her underwear.”
The drunken voice we heard before interrupts the speaker. “You selfish bastard, Medvedev. Let me look. I want to see all these bitches naked.”
Yurovsky barks at them. “Ermakov, you idiot, back off! And Medvedev – don’t undress any of the bodies here. We’ll strip them all at the disposal site. Then we can search them for any valuables. But for now, just get them all into the lorry, quickly and quietly.”
I feel the professor’s hand, holding mine tight to try to give me comfort, and I hear his low voice. “There’s nothing we can do, nothing at all, Miss Agnes.”
Rufus whispers. “So – they were planning to kill us as well.”
“The Bolsheviks want there to be no witnesses to the last days of the Romanov family. But as yet, those guards don’t know we’ve escaped.”
Rufus points. “Look – they are all going into the house again, to get another body. Now’s our chance. Run.”
23
Out of the frying pan
There is light in the sky: dawn must be only an hour away. There’s no-one in the street behind us, and we hear no voices, no footsteps. But we know Yurovsky’s men will discover our escape within minutes. I gasp out loud.
“Perhaps we can hide, professor? Will anyone let us into their house?”
“I doubt it, Miss Agnes.” The professor puffs his words as we run. “Everyone in this city is terrified of the Red Guards, and anyone who sheltered us would be shot along with us. But anyway, there are no houses along this street.”
It’s true. We’re now two blocks away from the Ipatiev House, and we are no longer among homes and gardens: this street is walled with brick-built warehouses. All we can do is run, straight ahead, hoping for a few more minutes of life.
The street opens out, and I see the last thing I expected. In front of us is a city park, scattered with trees. Ahead, beyond a stone balustrade, a wide lake reflects the moonlight.
“Look!” Rufus utters a hoarse whisper.
To our left, there’s a promenade along the side of the lake, and buildings among the trees of the park. One is a café, another a tobacconist’s kiosk, all shuttered for the night. They look so quiet, so benignly innocent and civilized, after what we’ve just witnessed.
And in the distance there’s another, larger building, jutting out over the waters of the lake. It’s a boathouse.
“Yes.” Axelson nods decisively.
We climb down the side of the boathouse. It’s built on top of the struts and joists of a wooden jetty standing in the water. The moonlight helps: we clamber among the wooden frame, underneath the floor of the boathouse, which grazes out heads. There’s maybe three feet of clearance: the water is touching our feet. We wedge ourselves among the struts, and wait.
One minute later, I hear voices, and the glow of lanterns. “Where in God’s name are they? Are you sure they came this way?”
“Ah – I’m not totally sure, sir. I thought they did, but—”
“Search the boathouse, then we will have to get back. The clean-up at the house will take hours.”
I see the boots of a man descending: he places his feet on the wooden beam next to my head. His knees start to bend: he’s trying to crouch down to look underneath the boathouse.
“Kabanov! Get back here, quickly. Obviously, they didn’t come this way.”
“Yes, sir.”
The boots disappear, but the talking continues. The voices are hoarse with anxiety: they know that witnesses to their crime have escaped.
“Yurovsky’s going to kill us for letting those three get away.”
“We’re damned anyway. Did you hear those girls praying, asking God to take their souls to heaven? The Almighty will kill us and send us to hell for what we did tonight.”
“There is no God, you fool.”
Another minute passes: the voices and the footsteps die away, and I breathe.
The professor looks warily around. “So far, so good, as you would say in English. But the problem remains of how we escape from Yekaterinburg. Even if we were to get out of the city, there is a thousand miles of wilderness in every direction. The only option is the train.”