There’s a knock at the door. I don’t call out in response, because I’m afraid. Instead, I go and get the gun I found in the lake at Tri Tsarevny. Every day we hear of incidents of violence, fights between Azeris and Armenians, that quickly result in weapons being drawn.
The professor and Rufus are not in the hotel right now. They went out a few minutes ago to buy food, and I don’t expect them back for an hour or more. I still have much of the money that I received in Moscow: it is cheap to stay at this hotel, but food is expensive. So every day we buy bread, and eat it openly in the hotel restaurant. None of the staff care.
The knock comes again, accompanied by the timid voice of a hotel porter.
“Apologies for disturbing you, Miss, but there is a gentleman waiting to see you in the bar.”
I put the gun in my handbag and go down to the hotel bar, a shabby place that’s almost always deserted. Rows of bottles of vodka, whiskey and even champagne from the oil-rich days of the past gather dust on the shelves.
A tall man wearing a khaki British Army uniform stands at the bar. His crinkled brows and lined face are those of a man in his fifties, but he stands upright, and his eyes sparkle with the spirit and energy of youth. His hand extends to mine.
“Lovely to meet you, Miss Frocester. I hope your stay here is not too uncomfortable? I’m Lionel Dunsterville – General Lionel Dunsterville. But I insist you call me Lionel. I’m here because I have some important news for you. May I buy you a drink?”
“Thank you. I’ll have a small brandy. I’m sorry: my companions are out – looking for food.”
He turns the barman. “A brandy and a Scotch whisky, please.” Then he looks at me. “The food prices are absurd. I buy food for my army; I pay twenty rubles for a water melon, four rubles for a bottle of mineral water and three rubles for an egg. They say an army marches on its stomach.” He looks at me with a wry smile. “But, I’m not here in a military capacity. I’m here, in fact, to deliver a letter to you.”
“Sorry, ah – Lionel. Could I stop you there? You have an army?”
“An extremely small army; we drove here in a few Ford cars. The British command decided to give my troops the ridiculous name of Dunsterforce. But everyone calls it the Hush-Hush Army. Officially, we don’t exist.”
I look at him, trying to take in what he’s saying. “It sounds very odd. I suppose it’s all top secret? How much can you tell me?”
“There’s not much to tell, Miss Frocester. We’ve been sent here from British bases in Iran, in a desperate attempt to protect the people of Baku from the Turks. We’re camped up there on the hills, so that we stand between the Ottoman Army and the city. But there’s a only a handful of us. We can’t save Baku.”
“So the rumors about the strength of the Turkish Army are true then?” I look around the deserted bar.
“The situation is probably worse than any of the rumors. The Turks, along with mercenaries and Azeri irregular troops – which means boys with guns – outnumber us fifty to one. Of course, we have the support of local Baku troops, mostly Armenian, but they are completely untrained. They don’t have a clue. Last night at sunset, for example, I inspected the front line. In one place where there should have been a whole Armenian battalion, there were seventy men. Then I went on to the most dangerous point of the line, where a Turkish attack is most likely. We should have had two machine guns and hundreds of men at that point, but there was no-one – no-one at all! Then I came down into Baku and found all the missing troops here, loafing about at the harbor.”
“Can nothing at all be done?”
“I’ve spent days arguing with the governors of Baku – the self-styled ‘Caspian Dictators’. Most of them are only a few years out of school. They are idealistic fools, who are very pleased with themselves for kicking out the Bolsheviks. They spout a lot of nonsense about bravery and heroism, but they have not even been up onto the hills to take a look at our defences.” He looks wearily out of the window. When he turns back to me, there’s a haunted look in those blue eyes.
“I have told the Dictators, Miss Frocester, that there is only one thing we can do – and we must do it quickly. We must send a flag of truce to the Ottoman Army commander, and tell him that we need to evacuate all women and children from Baku. If the Turks will allow safe passage for those civilians, we will surrender the town and all the oilfields intact. But we must also tell the Turks that if they refuse, we will destroy everything we can in the oilfields, including the machinery that pumps the oil through the pipelines to the tankers in the harbor, and to Batumi on the Black Sea. That’s the only reason the Ottoman Army is here.”
“I thought the Turkish Army is here to support the Azeri people?”
“No, Miss Frocester. They are here for only one thing – the oil. Now that the Red Army is no longer here to defend Baku, the Turks have spotted their chance to grab the oilfields for the Ottoman Empire.”
“You mean the Turks are just using what happened to the Azeris as an excuse to attack Baku?”
“Exactly. But all the same, when the Ottomans capture Baku, I fear desperately that there will indeed be another massacre like the one in March. The Azeris will take their opportunity for full revenge on the Armenians.”
I see something shining in his eyes: it’s tears. But he smiles at me.
“Anyway, chin up, as they say! Now, to my business. I have some correspondence for you, from an acquaintance of yours – Lord Buttermere. When he heard that the Hush-Hush Army was setting off from Iran, he wired me with every detail, and it’s all set down in here.”
He hands me a bulky envelope. I take out a sheaf of letters, and read.
“Dear Miss Frocester
It has come to the attention of British Intelligence that you, Professor Axelson and our former agent Rufus du Pavey are stranded in the city of Baku.
As the bearer of this letter will explain, we are making all efforts to defend Baku against attack by the Ottoman Empire. But we are virtually certain that the small British force we can deploy will, at best, only be able to slow the Turkish advance, not prevent it.
Therefore, I enclose, with this letter, three letters of safe passage; one for each of you. Each letter is written in Russian, Turkish and Persian. Please hand the letters to the new governing authorities in Baku.
The letters are addressed from the British Crown, and request Mr Lemlin, Mr Sadovsky and the other Caspian Dictators to provide you with safe passage out of Baku, by use of a boat which can sail the short distance to neighbouring Iran.
The Dictators are very likely to agree to this request. They are keen to have British support: they depend on the forces commanded by General Dunsterville for their survival.
As soon as you arrive in Iran, please present yourselves to the British consulate at Bandar-e Anzali, who will organise your travel to Tehran and your repatriation onwards from there.
I will close this letter by stressing the importance of you of using the letters of safe passage immediately. We are very close to defeating the Kaiser and all his allies; Western Europe is finally about to become a place of safety and peace. Baku, by contrast, has become the most dangerous place in the world.