He was now considering another scheme that had been suggested to him by a number of financiers in the Far East, which involved the active co-operation of two influential generals — to organize and dispatch a punitive expedition to the gold-mines in order to compel the miners to restart work. This somewhat complicated scheme had necessitated a trip to Tokio to interest another Russian general who was there in the scheme; and all the families, no doubt thinking that he was trying to escape from his responsibilities, followed him to Tokio, thus unnecessarily increasing his expenses. He had had great difficulty in finding accommodation for his family in Vladivostok; but for Fanny Ivanovna, Sonia, Nina, Vera, Baron Wunderhausen and himself he had procured the ground floor of a little house. All the others had also settled down in Vladivostok. And the Baron would, no doubt, find it difficult to evade military service.
“And how are you?” asked Nikolai Vasilievich. “I wondered if you would be coming with the Admiral. We half expected that you would. Well, what do you think of it?”
“Think of it!” I said. “Why, we are the men of the hour. You should have seen the deputations, proclamations, speeches, hailing him as the new Lafayette. He said to-day, jokingly of course, that he would have to work out a time-table for seeing people. Dictators, say, from 7 to 10; supreme rulers between 10 and 1; prime ministers could be admitted between 2 and 5. Then till seven he would be free to cabinet ministers of the rank and file. Supreme commanders-in-chief could come from 8 to 1. And so forth, down to common general officers commanding. Yes, it was hardly an exaggeration.…”
Nikolai Vasilievich smiled one of his kindly smiles. “Do you think it will be all right?” he asked.
“Rather!” I replied irrelevantly. “It’s the climax of his career. He has been called upon by four joint deputations representing, I think, four separate All-Russia Governments whose heads conferred on him the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief of All the Armed Military and Naval Forces operating on the Territory of Russia,’ or something of this sort. And he made a speech to them; said that Foch was wrong and Douglas Haig was wrong, and all those muddle-headed politicians! The war was to be won on the Eastern Front.”
“I too think it will be won on the Eastern Front,” said Nikolai Vasilievich. “It ought to, anyhow.”
“Why?”
“Well, because the Eastern Front has unquestionably the greater resources in mineral wealth. The gold-mines ought to be cleared of the enemy before anything else if you want to win the war.”
“Yes,” said I with an assumed and exaggerated pensiveness, “that is unquestionably the case.”
We arranged to meet again to-morrow, as we descended arm in arm the shabby flight of steps, and it was decided that Nikolai Vasilievich should call for me and drive me home to see the family.
The rain had ceased. We parted at the cross-roads.
When I turned into my bedroom I beheld the Admiral and a little dark-haired man, aquiline featured, sitting on my bed and talking like two conspirators. The dark-haired little man then rose with the precision common to Russian officers, and shook hands. He was, I learnt afterwards, Admiral Kolchak.
It was very late that night when I fell asleep. I was thinking of my meeting on the morrow with the family, with Nina. I pictured to myself her image as I last remembered it. And, interlacing with these thoughts, there was the thought of the gallant Admiral in the bedroom opposite, tucked away between his heavy blankets, his teeth in a glass of water on the table at his side — no presentable sight! — seeing visions of a Napoleonic ride athwart the great Siberian plain, at the head of his vast new armies marching onward to take their stand on the re-established Eastern Front.
Then in the small hours of the morning he was wakened by the noise of a dog that ran through the half-open door of his bedroom in pursuit of a cat. I heard the Admiral strike a match, then jump out of bed and fumble with his stick under the bed and cupboards and chest of drawers, evidently looking for the animals. I went in to him and offered my services in the chase.
“Can you see the dog?” came the Admiral’s sturdy voice from under a cupboard.
“I’m looking for the cat, sir.”
“Cat! Where did that come from?’
“I saw it run into your room after a rat.”
“Nonsense!”
“I did, sir, and the dog ran in after the cat.”
We fumbled with our sticks.
“I don’t believe there was a rat,” said the Admiral.
“There was, sir. I saw it myself.”
“I don’t mind the dog so much. Cats I hate. But I can’t stick the rat. Why did you tell me?”
I did not answer this.
“Can’t find them, sir,” I said, rising.
“They’ve gone, I hope,” said the Admiral.
“They’ve hidden themselves somewhere, I think.”
“Damn them! I shan’t be able to sleep all night.”
“Good night, sir,” said I.
The Admiral could not sleep. I heard him get out of bed and fumble with his stick beneath the furniture. I think the uncertainty of the whereabouts of the animals disturbed his peace of mind. Then I heard him creep into bed, and all was still. I could just hear the rain drum against the window-pane; and I thought that by now the cat had probably eaten up the rat.
II
NIKOLAI VASILIEVICH WAS TO CALL FOR ME AFTER lunch. At lunch there were many guests, and the conversation was necessarily political. I was impatient, for Nikolai Vasilievich might call at any moment; and the entire scheme of “Intervention” seemed to me, in my mood of acute expectancy, singularly unimportant. I watched the Admiral who in his serious, deliberate way looked straight into his principal guest’s eyes and listened very earnestly and nodded with approval, while the guest, a Russian General, was talking arrant nonsense. In that stiff and martial attitude common to a certain type of Russian officer (who assumes it as it were in proof of grim determination) the guest was saying: “All these complaints about arrests and executions by the loyal troops — I decline to take them seriously. In the present wavering state of mind of the population you can’t guarantee that there won’t be people who will complain because the sun shines in the daytime only and not at night as well.”
The Admiral gave an emphatic nod; and at a glance I could see that he had classed his guest as a “good fellow.” The Admiral, I may explain, divided the world into two big camps: the humanity that he called “good fellows,” and the humanity that he called “rotters”—and there you are! Simple. (As a matter of fact, he used a substitute for this last word, but I am afraid the original is unprintable.) But while the guest was being engaged by General Bologoevski, a quiet silver-haired British Colonel took the opportunity of telling the Admiral in his quiet silvery manner the conclusion he in his quiet silvery mind had quietly arrived at after interviewing for many months innumerable Russian officers. “I am afraid,” said he, “that whenever you come to examine very carefully a Russian officer’s scheme for the restoration and salvation of his country, it invariably boils down to giving him a job.”
And at a glance I could see that the Admiral had classed the fellow as a “rotter.”
I forget the substance of the conversation of that lunch, which stands out in my memory merely on account of its coincidence with the day on which I met the family; but I remember how a remark of General Bologoevski’s, that he understood the Bolshevik commissaries never washed, lit up the Admiral’s face with ominous glee, and one could guess at sight that he condemned the Bolshevik commissaries.