Duncan Kyle - The King's Commisar

And he was as good as his word. Within fifteen minutes he was striding towards me, smiling, and demanding, 'Have you found a tennis court in Moscow, Harry?'

Tennis was the last thought in my head. I smiled and said, 'No.'

'Pity.' He took my arm. 'I haven't played since nineteen-fourteen. And you and I - when was that?'

'Biarritz,' I said, 'in nineteen-eleven.'

'No, no, in London!' He came sometimes for Wimbledon, before the war. 'The year the Doherty brothers won!'

'They won every year,' I protested.

'No, the last time. Must have been nineteen-five. Will you dine with me?'

'A little improper, is it not, Willi?'

'The war, you mean - or the dinner? Yes, it's improper. But we'll meet as Russians, eh? There's a gipsy restaurant, the Streilna. Tomorrow, if you're free.' He turned to one of his aides. 'I'm clear, am I not?'

And upon being assured he was: 'At nine, Harry! And I'll set about finding a court.'

And then they were gone.

Were we friends? I suppose not - friendly acquaintances was more like it. But our paths had crossed several times: in St Petersburg when I was first posted there, in Berlin, in Wimbledon, in Biarritz. I used to beat him at tennis, though not by any great margin, and he was forever demanding the return match. And now Willi was Ambassador of His Imperial German Majesty in Moscow!

I had only the clothes in which I stood, and by now they were far from fresh. How, then, could I dine with an Ambassador? But then I remembered my first arrival in Moscow, and being taken to choose a naval uniform suited to Yakovlev. I had had a suitcase with me then, and had left it in that malodorous hall of uniforms. I returned, and found the bag untouched, still in the care of the custodian. So it was a different Dikeston who went next night to the Streilna restaurant. Tsiganer music reached gaily out into the street as I arrived and I thought then that this was a strange place indeed to find still extant in Bolshevik Moscow. By the time I was inside and being seated at Mirbach's table, the music had saddened, and a woman with a grave, dark beauty was singing 'Black Eyes'. I felt then that here was a last stirring of days that were almost gone, and I was right, for the restaurant closed soon after. Willi von Mirbach arrived intent upon enjoyment. 'We'll speak only Russian, Harry. No German, no English. All right?'

'All right.'

'And we'll get drunk!'

I grinned and said, 'Good!' though I had no such intention. Already, looking round the smoky room, I had caught sight of Bruce Lockhart, the British Consul-General, with a noisy group at another table. If he saw me with Willi and told the Admiralty, there was a fair chance of my being shot!

We drank charochki - toasts in vodka - to everything we could think of, and made pigs of ourselves, on caviare of course, and became, both of us, gradually less discreet. It was an absurd conversation we had, considering our respective positions, for he was charged with preventing the intervention in the war of the Allied troops which had already landed in northern Russia, and those forces were in part British!

Furthermore, I was the enemy. For enemies, though, we got along well. We talked of places and acquaintances, of tennis-players and old times, and of summers and scenes gone by. And then abruptly, as we spoke of such matters, my head was filled with an image of that Family now beleaguered in Ekaterinburg and I said to Willi, 'Can you help the Tsar?'

My tone must have told him that I took the matter seriously for he became quiet and looked carefully around him before replying.

Then he said, 'He's quite safe.'

'You're sure?'

'I have assurances that the whole family is well-treated -'

'From whom do these assurances come?'

He frowned. 'From Sverdlov. Also from Lenin. The Romanovs are held in Ekaterinburg, but it is temporary.'

'You believe they will be released?' I demanded.

He put a hand on my shoulder. 'Not so fierce, Harry, this is not your affair.'

'It's yours, then?'

'The Tsarina is German, Harry, and her daughters are German princesses. Yes, it¿s ours. And it is well in hand, please believe it.'

'What would you say,' I asked, 'if I told you there was a majority on the Urals Oblast Soviet for murdering the lot of them? Would you still say it was well in hand?'

He looked hard at me. 'No. But I would ask where you got your story. How you know.'

'Because I came to Moscow from Ekaterinburg, Willi. Because I have seen their prison, because I have met their captors.'

He laughed. 'What nonsense! Too much vodka, Harry. How could it be so?'

'You don't believe me!' I was stung.

'Another drink, Harry. Come -'

But I had the pass from my pocket now and pushed it beneath his nose. 'Read that!'

He bent his nose over it, and from the time he took, must have read it three or four times.

'You are Yakovlev?'

'Your humble servant.'

He looked at me in astonishment. 'How did all this happen? You must tell me.'

And tell him I did. Everything from Tobolsk to Ekaterinburg and back again -1 told it all, and watched his face as I did so, and for all that Willi von Mirbach had the still mien of the professional diplomat, I saw the emotions at play upon his face. He war keen on every detail. He wanted to know the demeanour of those who turned me back at Omsk, the attitudes of officials and populace at Ekaterinburg. I told all I knew, and then I too asked a question: 'It was for you, was it not, that they were to be brought to Moscow?'

He blinked at me, and sighed. 'Harry, I'm responsible, here in Moscow. I cannot speak freely to you, much as I trust you, for your plain duty is to your country, as mine is to mine!'

'My duty,' I said, 'as I see it, is to seek to save their lives -the Romanovs. You have my word nothing you say will go farther.'

'Very well, then. It was a promise. The Romanovs would be brought to Moscow - I agreed it in early May with Sverdlov and Trotsky. Trotsky demanded the right to put the Tsar on public trial with himself as prosecutor; he envisaged such a trial broadcast by wireless throughout the country. But the women and the boy would go to Germany. That was agreed. We have had a train at Ekaterinburg station, waiting for the-m.'

'You've been tricked, Willi!'

He nodded, and his jaw tightened. 'I can trust all you say?'

'Every word.'

'Tomorrow,' he said grimly, 'I am to attend again at the Fifth All-Russian Congress at Moscow Opera House. I'll see Trotsky there, never fear. And Lenin, too. And I'll frighten the life out of them, Harry, my friend! I'll have the Romanovs here in days!'

And so we left matters. I had no doubt, that night, that freedom for the Tsar and his family lay a day or two away, or that Mirbach's talk with Trotsky on the morrow would be sufficient to guarantee safety for the Romanovs. Was not a German army at Moscow's gates!

But it was not to be. The fifth congress became a brawl, through the penultimate attempt of the Left Social-Revolutionary opposition to retain a hold on power, and it took all Lenin's powers of persuasion to prevent mass fist-fighting. Mirbach was there, I know he was, because both sides jeered him from the floor, and when finally he left it was with soldiers protecting him. Next day, towards evening, I was seized in the street by Cheka agents, and taken in a truck to one of the Kremlin fortresses. There I was flung into a cell and joined shortly after by three brutal-looking men who demanded to know why I had been with Count von Mirbach. I told them we were old friends, and was punched and kicked for my pains, but when I spat out Sverdlov's name, along with a loose tooth, they looked at me with different eyes. They searched me then, and discovered two papers bearing the Chairman's name and became remarkably polite.