David Oldman: Dusk at Dawn

Paul Ross — An army officer

Mansfield Cumming — Head of SIS

Valentine — A friend of Paul Ross

Colonel Browning — SIS officer, assistant to Mansfield Cumming

Pinker — A salesman. Passenger aboard the steamship Hesperus

Turner — A steward aboard the Hesperus

Reverend Pater — A Passenger aboard the Hesperus

Mrs Hogarth — A Passenger aboard the Hesperus

Miss Andresen — A Passenger aboard the Hesperus

Berglund — A Finnish agent

Jalonen — A Finnish agent

Admiral Kolchak — Commander of the White Russian forces

Sofya Ivanovna Rostova — Paul’s cousin

Mikhail Ivanovich Rostov — Paul’s cousin and Sofya’s brother

Malinovsky — Captain of a riverboat

Karel Romanek — A Czechoslovak legionnaire

Colonel Voitzekhovsky — A White Russian attached to the Czechoslovak Legion

Colonel Čeček — A leader of the Czechoslovak Legion

General Syrový — A leader of the Czechoslovak Legion

Radola Gajda — A leader of the Czechoslovak Legion

Colonel John Ward — C. O. of the 25th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment

Colonel Krasilnikov — A Cossack officer

Captain Steveni — A British army officer and SIS agent

Captain Gavenda — A Czechoslovak legionnaire

Colonel Švec — An officer in the Czechoslovak legion

The railway station was a bedlam. Around him, people were rushing in every direction, bumping and colliding like automata following separate sets of instructions. The colours, still khaki and black, lent the scene the muted aspect of an oddly animated Flemish canvas. A Bruegel, was it? He couldn’t remember. What wasn’t muted was the noise. It was shattering. Pushing his way towards the platform, the uproar struck him like a wave. The clank of engines… the hiss of steam… the bellowed orders of NCOs trying to get the right body of men in the right place… The noise enveloped him. And, overlaying it all was the cacophonous din of carriage doors slamming and the shrill piercing discordance of guards’ whistles.

The July evening was warm and Paul Ross felt hot and conspicuous in the greatcoat. He had been carrying it earlier, but when he got the man in the cap’s blood on his jacket he had no choice but to put the thing on. He’d managed to wipe his hands clean although he could still feel an unpleasant stickiness between his fingers. But there hadn’t been much he could do about his jacket. And after that damned woman started screaming all he had time to do was make a run for it. He was two streets away when he heard the first police whistle and had stopped only long enough to pull on the heavy coat to hide the bloodstains.

Now, threading his way through the crowd towards his platform, he couldn’t help looking back over his shoulder every time he heard a guard’s whistle.

At the gate he rummaged in his pocket for his ticket. It was second-class — a fact he had noted as soon as Cumming gave it to him. They couldn’t even spring for a first-class carriage, he thought at the time, and noting his reaction Cumming had said rather curtly:

‘You might as well get used to it. You’ll find it’s all one class on the steamer. Being Finnish they don’t hold with that sort of thing anymore. The navy usually arranges a cruiser and escort for this sort of thing but there hasn’t been a passage since the ambassador came back in January with Hart. I’m afraid the War Office wasn’t prepared to stump up a ship in this instance. It might be different if you were part of a diplomatic mission, but these days they’re a bit chary risking ships what with the Hun scattering mines all over the place. Their U-boats are still pretty active and they baulk at risking a ship for someone like you. I daresay they haven’t got over Kitchener drowning yet.’

Cumming had stared past Paul’s shoulder to some point in the middle distance where things might have turned out differently if the Field Marshal had been a better swimmer. Paul had often wondered the same thing about his own father.

‘Anyway,’ Cumming finally resumed, ‘we managed to get hold of an old steamer from the Finland Steamship Company fleet. Ostensibly it’ll be their first commercial passage since their ships were impounded at the outbreak of war, so she’ll be carrying a cargo. You’ll be stopping at Copenhagen, Malmo and Stockholm before Helsingfors. Inconvenient, I know, but we have to keep up appearances. You and Hart will board in Yarmouth this evening. There are other passengers so we’ve got you down as a mining agent looking to buy lumber for pit props. You’ll carry papers in the name of Harry Filbert. There won’t be many other passengers but even so, you’ll be advised to keep your eyes open. We’ve just heard from Kell that they might try to sneak an agent aboard.’

‘An agent?’

Cumming dismissed Paul’s look of concern with a wave of the hand.

‘Let Hart worry about him once you get to Yarmouth.’

Cumming having mentioned Hart earlier and not wanting to confuse this man with the agent Kell said might be aboard, Paul asked how he would recognise Hart.

Cumming and Browning exchanged a glance.

‘Used another name, probably,’ Browning said. ‘Good man, Hart.’

‘Not a rascal,’ Cumming agreed and looked pointedly at Paul as if he should infer something from the exchange.

But Paul thought there had already been too much he should have inferred and was by now thoroughly confused.

It had come as no surprise that they weren’t prepared to risk a warship on his behalf, of course, even while they assumed he would risk everything on theirs. Two years in the trenches had disabused him of any illusions he might have held concerning the value they put on people like him. Like everyone else — below the dizzying heights of the top brass, that is — he was regarded as little more than a counter to be moved around on a map. But even so, surely there were circumstances here Cumming had lost sight of?

For one thing, Paul had been under the impression that Finland was in the middle of a civil war. In those circumstances it was hardly surprising they hadn’t yet made up their minds as to quite what sort of thing they held with. As Paul understood the situation there, the revolutionary faction supporting the Bolsheviks in Russia were busy shooting the somewhat less revolutionary faction who wanted an independent state. They, in turn, were naturally shooting back. And, just to compound the confusion, the German army had marched in to pick up the pieces. In these circumstances Helsingfors seemed a somewhat dangerous destination. When pressed on the point, though, Cumming seemed to become irritated and dismissed it all as a little local difficulty. In fact, he had maintained that the chaos would work in their favour: Paul and Hart could just slip in and out while the Finns and Germans were at each other’s throats. Barely noticed.

As far as Paul could see that was one more indication of Cumming not being too bothered with detail — particularly if it got in the way of his plans. A disconcerting thought given the position they wanted to put him in.

And now, on top of it all, Cumming had announced that Kell thought they might sneak an agent on board the steamer. It was all very well being warned to keep his eyes open but how was he supposed to tell one dull passenger from another?