'You imagine he'd give it to me? He knows me, remember. No, you're the only one he'd trust.'
I did not tell Ruzsky the Tsar's view of me now. Instead: 'I could give you a note to him,' I said.
'A note of hand?' Ruzsky laughed sharply. 'If the guards search me and find it, what then? I'll tell you I'm the bearer of clandestine messages between you, who tried to take the Tsar to safety, and Nicholas himself. And my life then would be worth nothing!'
We regarded each other warily. At last I said, 'What will happen to them?'
Ruzsky shrugged. 'Do you care?'
'Yes. I care.'
'My guess is that there is a majority of the Soviet in favour of killing them.'
'Cold-blooded execution?'
'It is a difficult question. There is a lot of discussion. Good Bolsheviks should not molest women and children, some say. But others say this is the German woman, and that's different.'
He knew more of the circumstances of imprisonment than I. 'Is there,' I asked him, 'any chance of freeing them?'
He gave me an amused glance. 'White horses to the rescue, you mean? No, my friend. They're as good as dead, that's my view, unless they have value in bargaining. And yes, that they have, but only with the Germans.'
'So?'
'So they will be there for a long time, unless a rescue is attempted. In that case the guards will pull triggers at once. There are White Russian armies loose in Siberia and you may be sure of one thing, my friend: neither Nicholas nor his son will be allowed to fall into White hands. There are still some who would restore the Throne.'
'You have suggestions, then?'
'Yes, wait.'
'And do nothing?'
He gave me a look. 'Be patient. What is there to do? If he'd signed that paper you could have been off to England now, but you didn't force it!'
T couldn't force it. But it seems to me I might just as well set off for England, anyway. I have no position here. You have, though. Whatever's to be done, you'll have to do it!'
'I told you, be patient! Remember the purpose. It is not to save the Tsar's neck, it is to get his signature on the paper. Don't forget that. The paper, signed, and off to Moscow and London.'
'I wish I knew what was in it!'
'You know enough,' Ruzsky said roughly. 'Remember this: the only thing that will save the Romanovs'
necks is that paper, signed and on Lenin's desk.'
'If Lenin wants it he can -!'
He shook his head. 'That's not the way of things. Think, man, can you see Lenin coming here, in person, to bicker with men like Beloborodov and Goloshchokin and even be refused? By yokels like that? And then have word spread through the country that Lenin himself betrays the Revolution by talking to the Tsar. No, not in a thousand years. So it comes back to you, whom the Tsar may trust. He'll certainly trust no one else! If you leave now, his death-warrant is signed.'
'I'm helpless,' I said.
Ruzsky made that odious gesture: finger laid along his nose. 'Nobody is ever helpless,' he said. 'Time creates opportunities.'
We parted then, I to return to the train for I had nowhere else to go and it ought to be standing at Ekaterinburg station, still. The arrangement for the future was that we should meet nightly, at the same time, in the same shadowed place behind the Palais Royal Hotel. But when I reached the train there was a guard on it and I was given instructions to report at once to the office of the station-master. When I got there it was quickly apparent that this was no professional station-master, but a nonentity in unfamiliar shoes too large for him. He had orders for me, though: orders I did not like, that came from the Urals Soviet under Beloborodov's name. I was to take the train forthwith out of Ekaterinburg and return it to Tyumen where the engine and rolling stock rightly belonged. In no circumstances was I to remain in the city. If I did, I would be subject to arrest and trial on suspicion of pro-Tsarist activities.
I found my engine-driver and roused him. He grumbled a little, but it seemed he was not sorry to be going, for in Ekaterinburg he had found himself in an odd position, caught between those who wanted low gossip from the driver of the Imperial Family's train, and those who regarded him as a criminal for even driving it. He had been offered both drinks and threats.
The train had been shunted into a siding after the removal of the royal passengers and my own arrest, and it was there still, guarded in two ways. The Urals Soviet had a couple of men by the engine and two more at the rear: factory workers with rifles, from the look of them. Aboard, there remained several of the cavalrymen who had been with me since my first arrival in Tyumen, including the sergeant, Koznov, who made it abundantly clear he was pleased to see me.
'Where to, sir?' he asked brightly.
'Tyumen. You have no other orders?'
'No.' He looked at me expectantly, in that way every officer in a fighting force knows: he would obey any order.
But orders were needed. A good man but without initiative.
It was a characteristic of those chaotic days that nobody believed anybody else, and the next events at Ekaterinburg station proved it. Though I was under direct instruction from the highest local authority Beloborodov and his Soviet - and their instructions had been transmitted to me via the man in charge of the station, the lone guards did not believe any of it. There was a long debate about which of them should be sent to the station-master to make a check on the matter, and when a man had been chosen and despatched and had at last returned, he was not believed either. So, in the finish, all four of them made separate forays to the office.
At last they were all convinced and we could set about getting steam up. I«could also ask Koznov the question it had been impossible to ask in their presence.
'The contents of the two locked carriages,' I said anxiously, 'have they been disturbed?'
'No,' Koznov told me. 'One of the guards wanted to look inside and was greatly insistent. For a minute I thought I might have to restrain him by force, bat it was his companions who prevented it. The Tsar's property was community property now, they said, and must remain so.'
I thanked God for that, and busied myself as fireman, thrusting wood into the engine's furnace and keeping my eye on the steam pressure gauge. Those two locked carriages, to which I had the keys, must hold things of great value, and I was deeply concerned at having responsibility for them. It must have been two or three o'clock in the morning when, with a full head of steam and the signal clear, the train hissed and clanked out of the station, and began its journey east from Ekaterinburg, back towards Tyumen.
As the city fell behind and the train came out on to the wide lonely spaces, I found myself standing in the corridor of the
noroyal coach, in the very place where I had stood once before - for that single magical hour with the Grand Duchess Marie. Then the night had been black dark, so that I could barely see her; now there was a trace of moonlight. Oh, had she only been with me now . . .
I was overcome for a little while by melancholy and then by a fearful sense of helplessness. For what could I do? By staying in Ekaterinburg I would be putting myself at risk -and pointlessly, too, for it was already obvious the Tsar was to be sealed away from any outside contact. If I went to Moscow it would be to report complete failure - and where was the sense in that? I must somehow contrive a purpose for remaining in the region: a purpose which would stand up to all examination. I brought my thoughts back to reality and considered my situation. The paper was in Tobolsk. I had the train. Simple: I must go and get the paper! If the paper was itself a weapon, perhaps I could use it, too. What were the realities? I had been ordered out of Ekaterinburg. Very well, I had obeyed orders. But those orders gave me justification for remaining in the wider region, for they required me to return the train to Tyumen and keep its contents intact. The reason was obvious enough: if I were with the train in Tyumen, I would not be stirring trouble in Ekaterinburg. And further, since the contents of the train were valuable, having Yakovlev stand guard over them in a place as remote as Tyumen was one way to keep them safe. So both ways I was secure. I was armed with Urals Soviet written orders concerning the train and Sverdlov's laissez-passer concerning my own person. Anyone who would not accept the one ought to accept the other.