A few days later I found out why that news had made them so sad. Several soldiers from the Fourth came in secret to say their goodbyes. The old soldiers, those most friendly to us, those we had called “our guard” instead of our guards, were to leave us.
March brought even worse news as I served lunch to Prince Dolgorukov and Papa in his study. Colonel Kobylinsky knocked on the door and came in. He had just received a telegram.
We were to be put on soldiers’ rations and given a stipend from which to maintain our household. Our expenses were no longer to be paid by the State. The same State that had taken everything from us, decided what little we could keep, and with the stroke of a pen, turned us into beggars as well as prisoners.
That cloak of grief and sadness that I was certain only I could see, that I tried and tried to blink away but couldn’t, pulled at my father’s soul. I could see the toll of it in his eyes.
Resolved to our new fate, to this new judgment, Papa and Prince Dolgorukov drew up the accounts.
I went to tell Mama, and she and I joined them as they went over the numbers again and again.
“We shall have to dismiss ten servants,” Dolgorukov said.
Mama put her hand on Papa’s shoulders, trying as if by magic, to draw away the weight of that wearying cloak. They spoke quietly, not of themselves, but of what would happen to the servants and their families, for their devotion to us had led them down this dark road that would start with beggary and end up worse. They would forever be tainted by their association with us.
Like Father Vasiliev, who had been sent off, like Commissar Pankratov who’d shown us kindness, they would be branded as traitors to the new Soviet Russia.
Was everyone who touched our lives to be condemned for doing so?
Chapter Eight
Camp Budapest
The strategic reconnaissance section, under Lieutenant Turgenev, would be leaving camp in the morning. The Germans had come up with the money, though, as Hoffmann had said, mostly in paper, rather than coin. It had been increased substantially because of that. The pistols were in hand, each man in the section having put about three hundred rounds downrange. They also had eight of the much shorter Model 1907 carbines, and every man had requalified on them. The M1907s, moreover, had been disassembled, had their forestocks cut down, and now reposed in two cases that, from appearances, couldn’t possibly contain rifles.
There was a portable telegraph set, with a small spool of wire, courtesy of the Germans. Indeed, it was a German set. The men wore civilian clothing, to include foot gear and hats. Uniforms were tucked into their bags.
There was a code set up. Indeed, the Germans, thorough as they tended to be, had had their Swedish Office send a message each to Tobolsk, Yekaterinburg, and Tyumen, addressed to Pan-Siberian Import Export, to, in the first place, prove the lines were still up, and, in the second, give the team a reason to send a telegram, or a series of them, to Sweden.
The Germans had even found them a thoroughly unprincipled Romanian smuggler, a nasty old pirate named Bogdan Vraciu. He plied the Euxine, bribing who he had to or robbing, condemning, and killing whom he could. For a high fee he’d agreed to bring them approximately to Rostov-on-Don.
The budget hadn’t gone up, even though there were now three extra men—Shukhov, a combat engineer, also called a “pioneer,” Timashuk, a medic, and Sarnof, the signaler, added to the roster. Private Sarnof wasn’t especially happy about the assignment. It would also be Sarnof’s job to encode any messages. In his bag was also the portable telegraph and the copy of Chernychevsky’s What is to be Done?, just as Timashuk carried an aid bag, and Shukhov a limited quantity of demolitions, less the blasting caps, which were split between Turgenev and Mokrenko.
“If we get caught doing this,” Sarnof insisted, “we’ll all be shot!”
“Could be worse,” answered Mokrenko; “they could hang us instead.”
For some inexplicable reason, this thought failed to calm Sarnof down in the slightest.
“We’re ready, sir,” Turgenev told Kostyshakov, later, in the canvas walled officers’ mess tent. “Materially, anyway, we’re ready, except, maybe, for a potential shortage in cash. We can probably fix that with a bank robbery, if we absolutely must. But there’s still a problem. What if others… well, I mean, of course there are going to be others; what if there’s already a plot afoot to rescue the royal family? What if there are twenty such plots, as there may be?”
Daniil, who actually hadn’t given that any thought yet, opined, “Probably more than twenty. We’re Russian; plotting is what we do. What are your thoughts?”
“Yes, sir, probably more than twenty,” Turgenev agreed. “However many, though, I think that, for the most part, we need to have as little to do with any of them as possible,” answered Turgenev. “There may be someone who has useful information, I suppose, but what if they’re really working for the Reds? I mean; the tsar has been deposed and under guard for almost a year, now, and no attempt at a rescue? That smells to me of someone trusted by someone else who is working for the other side and turning any rescuers over to the Bolsheviks.
“And—and here’s the real problem, for us, anyway; for the entire mission, I mean—what if there is someone, or many someones, who are only exciting Bolshevik paranoia and causing the Reds to be more on guard? To have them calling in reinforcements? To have them putting the royal family under tighter control, maybe with guards present to shoot them on the slightest fear of a rescue attempt? What then?
“And what about the smugglers who are to transport us across the sea?”
Daniil thought upon that, silently, for a several long moments, before answering, “You probably need to kill them. Or to get the Bolsheviks to do so. Yes, it would be sad, especially if their hearts are in the right place, but the safety of the royal family and the future of the empire are more important than a few incompetents, even with good hearts. And as for the pirates who are supposed to transport you back home… dead men tell no tales, if you suspect these might tell some.”
“Thank you, sir,” Turgenev said. “I… we… had already come to those conclusions. We disliked it so much we needed, really needed, someone to give us the moral absolution of telling us so.”
Daniil let his chin and eyes sink groundward. That, I suppose, is what I get the lavish pay for.
“Don’t spare any tears for the smuggler the Germans found for you. They wouldn’t use him if he were not both expendable and deserving of being expended. But how are you going to deal with him?”
“None of us can sail a boat,” Turgenev said. “We need them for that. Moreover, we probably ought not do anything to them unless we have reason to become suspicious. If we have any hint they mean us ill, we figure to wait until he’s a few hours out from Rostov-on-Don, kill him and his crew, dump the bodies, launch the lifeboat, set the boat on fire and row in.”
“Sounds plausible,” Daniil agreed. “The timing may not, however, work out so conveniently.”
Burgas, Bulgaria
“I’m sorry,” said Feldwebel Weber, indicating with his finger a sailing vessel moored to the group’s front. As always, Weber stood slightly stooped. He added, “But this was all we could come up with. Be on your guard. Do not trust any of the crew.”