Duncan Kyle - The King's Commisar

'I thought so - Dikeston!'

I laughed too, delighted to see the old reprobate. 'Vassily Alexandrovitch!' He had been supplier of fodder for the Embassy horses for many years, a great cheerful Cossack and himself a horseman of enormous daring.

'Why are you sitting so sadly -' he kicked the suitcase -'on that?'

'Because I have nowhere else.'

'No? And they -' he gestured scornfully at the Embassy building - 'so busy looking after themselves they have no time for you. Eh?'

'True enough,' I lied, I need to get to Moscow, and it seems -'

He gave a great laugh. 'Difficult? Yes, my friend, it is difficult. What is not difficult?' Then he bent his shaggy head close to mine. 'But nothing is impossible, eh?' And laughed hugely.

'You can help me?'

He picked up my case in his enormous paw and took my arm. 'A drink, my friend. A little talk, some food. And then we see!'

He now had only a third of his fine house, but it was more than enough, for he lived alone. More important, he saw himself as in my debt because, years earlier when he had been in England, I had been able to arrange for him to visit a Newmarket trainer of my acquaintance, whom I suspect he had startled greatly with his vaults and side-riding and other Cossack tricks. Like everyone else in the aftermath of the Revolution, Vorozhin was waiting. Horses had always been needed, were needed now and would always be needed, and he was patient, waiting to discover how his eye and his skills could best be employed by new masters. That and maintaining his friendships. We ate frugally: bread and a little fish and some tough horsemeat (The old ones die, my friend, and keep us alive. A last service, eh?') and talked over old times, and drank some vodka, and my difficulties began to disappear. There was a former corporal of cavalry, it seemed, now employed in the railway station, with apparently unlimited authority over the movement of people. 'We'll see him in the morning, Dikeston, old friend. First, more vodka, then sleep, eh?' He loved using my surname, thus, and also teasing me by converting my Christian names into a bastard Russian patronymic form: Henry Georgevitch. A wonderful man and a fine friend. True to his word, he had me on the Moscow train early next morning. By nightfall, suitcase still in hand, I wished he again stood beside me as I faced a levelled machine-gun at the entrance to the tunnel arch that led through the Kremlin wall beneath the Spassky Tower, with the musical clock chiming high above. The same clock which once had played 'God Save the Tsar' now ground out the sober notes of the Internationale.

The gun barrel was levelled at my chest. Thumbs rested on the firing buttons. Several pairs of eyes stared at me, examining from head to foot. At last one of the men, a black-bearded giant with fierce and angry eyes, jerked his head to indicate I should approach.

'Your business?'

'I have a letter for V. I. Lenin.'

'ComradeLenin.'

'Yes, for Comrade Lenin."

'Who's it from?'

'An old friend.'

The giant stuck out his hand. 'Give it to me.'

I shook my head. 'Only to his secretary.'

His manner became more menacing. 'Give.'

Again I shook my head.

'Do you imagine,' he grated, 'that Comrade Lenin has time to waste with -' and his eyes ranged over my clothing-'bourgeois postmen?'

'I imagine,' I said levelly, 'that he might be angry if this letter were not delivered.'

He stared at me wrathfully, a jack-in-office faced with a situation of which he was uncertain. This examination, like the first, went on for some moments, but at last he jerked his head again, this time to indicate I might pass beneath the arch. 'Present yourself at the Kavalersky Building and wait.'

I proceeded through, suitcase still in my hand, and found that the Kavalersky Building stood, as described, opposite the Potyeshny Palace. Again I was stopped and asked my business. Again I explained about the letter. Again I was examined closely by hostile eyes. Finally I was allowed to enter and found myself at the end of a long corridor. A guard sat at a table with his pistol before him. He did nothing: did not rise, did not ask what I wanted, did not invite me to be seated. He did not even answer when I spoke. I had been given instructions to wait, however, and that is what I did, turning my back upon the guard and fixing my attention upon an icon over the main door. It has always seemed to me that one of the advantages conferred upon a young man by service training is the ability to stand still for extended periods, without impatience and without the need for such distractions as magazines and newspapers. So I stood properly at ease, hands behind my back and kept my gaze upon the icon. How long I stood so I do not know, but after a time there came the sound of swiftly approaching footsteps, and a youthful voice demanded, 'You have a letter for Comrade Lenin?'

Turning, I saw a sailor in uniform, in his early twenties, scrubbed and red-faced. 'You are his secretary?'

'No, Comrade, I am not. But I am privileged to assist him.'

'I will deliver the letter only to Comrade Lenin's secretary.'

We stared at each other for a moment, he a little impatient of this stranger who sought to impose his will, I guessing that my only hope of achieving my goal was to be entirely firm. Behind him the corridor was busy, men crossing from room to room with pieces of paper in their hands. For a moment one of them looked familiar, a medium-sized man in a tunic with a shock of hair, a small goatee and wearing pince-nez. 'Is that Trotsky?' I demanded.

'It may be Comrade Trotsky.' The sailor did not look round. I was again instructed to wait, and resumed my contemplation of the icon. That sight of the revolutionary leader, however, had had its effect upon me. It was like a sight of an enemy warship, with the knowledge than an encounter was to begin: I was suddenly aware that here, in the Kavalersky, I stood only steps away from the determined crew of Bolsheviks who had seized power so ruthlessly and triumphantly a few short months ago! These were the men who had wiped away a Romanov Dynasty which had held in autocratic thrall the largest nation on earth for more than three hundred years! I felt my heart begin to thud within me more powerfully even than it had at St James's Palace; King George was but a constitutional Sovereign, for all his dignity, and these men were, or aimed to be, the power in all the Russias.

The footsteps came again. 'Follow me.'

I walked after the sailor down the long corridor, steps clicking on the tiled floor, but having to pause once or twice as somebody emerged hurrying from a room and crossed in front, heedless. The sailor stopped and gestured with his hand. I entered a room equipped entirely, and in unlikely fashion in this place, with light birchwood furniture, perhaps from Karelia. A man in a dark suit sat behind a desk and he too wore pince-nez from which a black ribbon fell to his neck.

'This letter,' he said. 'You must give it to me. We must have an end to these childish mysteries!'

'You are Comrade Lenin's -'

'Secretary?' He sighed. 'Yes.' And held out his hand commandingly. 'From whom does it come?'

'From Mr William Clark, at the British Museum in London.' I took the envelope from the inside pocket of my jacket and handed it to him.

'I will ensure that it reaches Comrade -'

He was interrupted by the abrupt appearance through another door of Lenin himself! Though for a brief moment I did not recognize him: for his head was shaved and his celebrated beard gone and thus he was of altogether more Asiatic appearance than I had imagined.

He looked at me sharply. 'From Clarke

I stood to attention. 'Yes. Comrade Lenin."

'Who are you?'

'Commander Dikeston, Royal Navy.'