Duncan Kyle - The King's Commisar

Koznov, it turned out, was already alert and his men stood in the corridor with rifles trained upon the approaching riders. Similar scenes are commonplace in these modern days in cinema films about the West in the United States of America. The difference here was that the attack was not by a tribe of painted savages, but by cavalrymen. Whose were they? I snatched a look through binoculars at them, and at the far larger group surrounding the train ahead. Suddenly I noticed a milk-white horse . . . Dutov!

'Don't shoot,' I told Koznov, but it was a useless instruction, for even as I spoke we ourselves were under fire, and Koznov's men were firing back.

'Hold your fire!' I shouted, and snatched up a white pillow from a compartment and waved it from the window. I had them drop their rifles then, and descend to the track with their hands raised. They were resentful, but this was the only thing to be done: it would have been slaughter otherwise. We were then made to sit by the track and wait as the battle raged farther ahead. But even at that stage it was clear enough that Dutov's troops must carry the day, for it was a couple of hundred against a thousand or more: revolutionary guards against highly-trained men. Determined resistance was certainly put up, but at last the red flags at either end of the Red train were torn down and the inevitable surrender occurred.

It was a full hour after that that I was prodded to my feet with a cavalry sabre and marched to where Dutov sat, on horseback still, beside the surrendered train.

He glared down at me, the big moustache bristling. 'Where is the Tsar?'

I told him straight: 'Imprisoned in Ekaterinburg.'

He struck angrily at his thigh with a gauntleted hand. 'I knew it! Bound to happen. He's alive still?'

'To the best of my knowledge."

'Alive but abandoned,' Dutov raged. 'You've left him to rot.'

'I was imprisoned, and then turned out of the city,' I protested. 'If I go back they'll arrest me.'

'Where are you bound now?'

I said, 'The other royal children are still at Tobolsk. I said I'd return.'

'Stay by your train,' said he. 'We'll talk when I've done here.' And he wheeled away. In the next hour or so he mopped up. The survivors from the attacked Bolshevik train were formed up, with their wounded, and set to marching due north, and a dishevelled-looking crew they were. Dutov's men then swarmed aboard the train and seemed to be taking for themselves anything that was both movable and useful. Then the white horse came cantering towards us and Dutov swung one leg forward over the horse's neck and slid to the ground.

'Got any vodka?' he demanded.

There was perhaps two inches of the lemon remaining. I handed the bottle to him and watched his head tilt back as he drained it. 'None on that damned Bolshevik train!' he said. 'Precious little of anything. All we got was a few rifles and some ammunition boxes. God knows what they live on!'

I told him we had a little food in tins, but he wasn't interested. 'It's arms we want. I could do with money, too-it's a while since my rascals were paid. Not -' and he laughed wickedly-'that they could spend it anywhere, eh! But it keeps a man loyal, money does, no matter what the Bolsheviks say! Now, tell me about Nicholas.'

So I told him what I knew: of the pressure for assassination, of the place where he was imprisoned. But not, of course, of the paper.

'What forces have the Bolsheviks?'

'Impossible to know. There are guards everywhere, men with weapons in the streets.'

'Rabble!' says he. 'You can give a man a gun, it doesn't make him a soldier.'

'You're thinking of attack?'

He gave me a glittering grin. 'No! I'm not thinking of anything of the kind. God, I had you for a lily-livered nothing running off with your tail curled down, and what is it you want of me? To attack Ekaterinburg with my little force, no less! But don't worry, it will be retaken before too long, that's a promise.'

'I hope it won't be too late,' I said soberly.

He regarded me for a moment, then fished in his tunic pocket, brought out a leather cigar case and lit one carefully. 'Upmann,' he said through wreathing, fragrant smoke, 'and I have seven left. The boy's where?'

'The Tsarevitch?'

'Yes, Alexei.'

'At Tobolsk. Why?'

Dutov drew on the cigar and looked hard at me. 'The succession, man!'

'Nicholas abdicated for himself and his son.'

Dutov nodded angrily. 'Damn fool. The boy would have been a rallying point.'

'Probably a dead one,' I said.

'Not necessarily. And he wouldn't be the first son to reclaim a father's throne. ' Dutov was tempted, he told me a moment later, to ride for Tobolsk, and secure the Romanov children; and he was angry when I shook my head.

'Why not?'

'There are extremists in Tobolstz who'll kill them at the first sign of an army. You'd never get near enough!'

'But yew would?'

They know me, the Bolsheviks there.'

'Maybe, but do they trust you?'

I shrugged. "The sight of Yakovlev won't set them murdering the youngsters.'

'Thinking of a boat, are you - from Tobolsk up the Ob?'

I shook my head, though that was precisely the direction of my thoughts. 'What will you do, General?'

He puffed smoke. 'More of the same. Harass these Bolshevik dogs wherever I can. Wait for the rest to arrive: they'll be here in a few weeks!'

'Who will - what others?'

'The Whites. Kolchak's army, the Czech Legion, all of them. It's advance, advance at the moment and the Bolsheviks are falling back. One day soon you'll get your wish. We'll take Ekaterinburg. Meanwhile I need guns and money.'

'Let's hope the Tsar will still be alive when you reach him. Will money buy guns?'

'Takes time,' Dutov said. 'Munitions have a long way to come from the Far East, but yes.'

For some minutes I had been looking at General Dutov with a thoughtful and sceptical eye, for there was a picture in my mind of that chest of gold coins, and a rearing question: should it be handed to Dutov? My own instinctive answer was that it should; what is a royal treasure for if it is not to be spent on the arms necessary to preserve the royal life? But Dutov was a brigand if ever I saw one. He was not a man who, shown the gold, would say at once, 'How generous! A thousand thanks.' Dutov would say, 'Where did it come from?' and 'How much more?'

Therefore I asked him, as great favour, to arrange for the line ahead to be cleared of the standing train. He agreed-'I like playing with trains' - and departed to arrange it. The task would be a simple one, for there was a spur siding actually in view.

Then, while he was away, I had Koznov assist me to lift the chest from the carriage, bear it forward to my wagon-lit, and stow it beneath the bed. That done, I took up the pillow used earlier to surrender, stepped down to the track and began to wave it. The signal brought a galloper and I said, 'Ask General Dutov if he can spare me a moment.'

The man appeared to regard this as mild effrontery. 'You should go to the General,' he admonished me.

'Tell him it will be worthwhile.'

I watched him ride off. A minute passed, then the milk-white beast came flying towards me.

'What's this?' barked Dutov. 'A damned summons?'

'Come with me.' I climbed aboard the train.

'What is it, damn you?' All this was an offence to his dignity. He followed me along to the wagon-lit, growling to himself.

I flung open the door and pointed to the handle of the chest where it protruded from beneath my bed.

'Help me pull it out.'

'I'll get one of my men.'

'Better,' I said, 'if this is private.'

He looked at me sharply.

'Entrusted to me by the Tsar,' I said, 'so it wouldn't fall into Bolshevik hands.'