Lenins roller coaster, p.20
Lenin's Roller Coaster, page 20
Anton Belov was a change from the Drobolyubovs. The greeting was friendly enough but didn’t extend to the eyes. A monkey in a suit, McColl’s father would have called him, a white-collar man who worked in a blue-collar world. He didn’t drive trains but told those who did where and when. He gave off that quiet sense of confidence that the Drobolyubovs appeared to have lost.
The new room was barely long enough for its bed—Cheselden’s feet would have stuck out the door. But the goods yard and depot were visible through the window—a line of German wagons, newly converted to the Russian gauge, were standing in one of the sidings. It was Belgium all over again, and for one heady moment McColl thought he scented the perfume his Resistance contact Mathilde had often used. He wondered if she was still alive.
Davidson was leaving, anxious not to have the droshky outside for longer than was necessary. “Anton Vostyovich will fill you in on the details,” he said in English. “I’ll be seeing you every few days when you bring the reports. Anton will tell you where and when.”
“A drink?” Belov asked once Davidson was gone.
“Thank you,” McColl said.
The Russian poured him a generous measure and passed it across. “To the czar,” he said, raising his glass.
“The czar,” McColl echoed. In Belgium it had been King Albert, and the drink homemade anis. Here it was homemade vodka tearing a strip off his throat.
The next few days were spent familiarizing himself with his new role. There were about a dozen men involved in the Kiev train-watching network, all of whom worked for the railway in some capacity or other. Around half were train watchers of the classic sort, simply noting the composition and cargoes of trains that ran past their points of vantage; the rest had jobs in the goods depot and signaling section that provided them with access to current and projected German movements. None of them knew one another, and McColl had weekly meetings with each individual at different workers’ cafés in the area around the station. He then collated the reports and passed them on to Davidson for onward transmission to Moscow and eventually London.
It was a smooth-running operation, and by the end of the week McColl felt as if he’d been doing the job for much longer. There appeared to be little in the way of danger—the Germans seemed thin on the ground, and those in evidence were mostly involved in guarding critical infrastructure. They wanted their trains to run and didn’t seem to care who knew what they were carrying.
The job rarely took up more than half of any given day, which gave McColl plenty of time to pursue Davidson’s more general request, of assessing the political mood among the city’s lower classes. This also involved sitting in cafés and bars, often for hours on end to little apparent effect. As many of the overheard conversations were in Ukrainian, his lack of that language was a handicap, but enough were conducted in Russian, or a mixture of the two, to convince him there was no such thing as a uniform mood. On the question of Ukrainian independence, those he listened to seemed equally divided between those who’d always been in favor, those who were now disillusioned, and those, like the local Russians, who’d always been against. On ideological matters there was an even wider spread. The Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, liberals, and monarchists all had followings, but all were also split: the Bolsheviks over Brest-Litovsk, the monarchists over who they wanted for their monarch, and so on and so on.
In the more well-to-do parts of the city, anti-Bolshevism reigned. McColl had two rendezvous with Davidson in the first ten days and on each occasion took the opportunity to explore the central area, eating at restaurants packed with refugees from Moscow and Petrograd. Their conversations revealed the men as bankers, landlords, and sundry businessmen, the women as their proud, indignant, and overdressed chattels. Outside on the streets, the pavements were full of expatriate prostitutes, less proud, less indignant, but just as overdressed, with dark red lipstick and drug-filled eyes. On Nikolayevsky Street, McColl was intrigued enough by the clientele to spend a couple of hours in the Dust and Ashes nightclub, where a succession of male poets in extravagant makeup declaimed the evils of Bolshevism.
After that the cafés around Kiev Station seemed almost like home, but as the days went by, the job and its risks seemed harder to justify. The number of troop transports had shrunk to almost none, and there were no westward movements of oil or cotton, or at least not through Kiev. There was some grain traffic—spring wheat, McColl assumed—but not on a scale that would feed many German villages, let alone towns or cities. He had no way of knowing what was moving on other routes or what might soon be moving on this one, but he couldn’t help thinking that there must be better uses for his talents and time.
One was suggested at his next meeting with Davidson. It was another beautiful early-summer morning, and they were sitting in the pavilion of the Merchant’s Garden, looking out across the quarter-mile-wide Dnieper.
“The gasworks in Dvortsovaya,” Davidson said, in the manner of someone announcing a prize. “It supplies the whole southern half of the city, including most of the German barracks and command centers. There are two big holders—blow them up and half of Ukraine will see the flash. Our people in Moscow are keen.” He gave McColl an expectant look.
“Are they indeed?” McColl said dryly. “I don’t suppose they know how well these works are guarded.”
“No, but I do,” Davidson said almost smugly. “There’s a military post by the front gates and a regular patrol of the perimeter, but there are no guards inside the walls at night.”
“And the walls?”
“Ten feet high, with barbed wire on top. Not easy, but far from impossible.”
“Not if you’re only interested in getting in.”
“There’ll be time to get out again. In Poltava a few weeks ago, one of our teams destroyed a holder by starting a fire alongside and then firing a few rounds into it from about a hundred yards away. It blew up all right, but every man’s nose bled for days. So now we’re using time bombs. Much more efficient. They’ll be coming in from Kharkov, and all you and your Bolshevik friends have to do is collect them from the station.”
“My Bolshevik friends?”
“Kerzhentsev and his comrades. You talked about taking joint action against the Germans, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, this seems an ideal opportunity.”
McColl was suspicious. “Why this sudden desire to work with the Bolsheviks?”
Davidson shrugged. “There’s no one else available,” he said. “I’ve got saboteurs in every German-held town but this one. Didn’t you see the morning paper, the gas holder blown up in Kursk? Or last week’s in Cherkassy? You and your Bolshevik friends are all I’ve got in Kiev.”
“They may be busy.”
“They may, but there’s no harm in asking.”
“I suppose not. And if we succeed, what then? The Germans will go berserk.”
“Ah, that’s the other thing I have to tell you. Once this business is taken care of, Cumming wants you in Moscow—”
“What in God’s name for?” There weren’t any Germans in Moscow.
“Not a clue. Ours not to reason why, eh? But we’ll get you there on the double. I’m sure Belov can smuggle you onto some sort of train.”
“And Kerzhentsev’s men?”
“I doubt they’ll want to leave. And it’s up to them how they ensure their own survival. We’re at war with the same enemy—it’s not as if they’re doing us a favor.”
After reaching the top of the steps, McColl needed the time to get his breath back. The view from the Vladimir Monument was an elevated version of the one from the Merchant’s Garden, but this time the sky was clouded over, the receding steppe wreathed in haze. A well-dressed couple were standing arm in arm at the edge of the drop, and McColl had the sudden feeling that they were about to jump. A moment’s hesitation and he was hurrying toward them, wondering what to say.
There was no need. He was still several yards away when the twosome suddenly turned around, their faces wreathed in smiles, leaving McColl to stifle a laugh at his own relief. Kiev might be a city where despair was becoming commonplace, but here were two members of the Russian bourgeoisie whose world hadn’t turned black with the Bolsheviks.
“Speaking of the devil,” he murmured to himself as Kerzhentsev strode toward him. He looked a lot better turned out than when they last met, but then so did McColl. They warmly embraced, McColl aware of the gun in the Russian’s side pocket, Kerzhentsev of the belted Mauser in the small of the Scotsman’s back. Men who were more than they seemed, McColl thought. And maybe less.
“It is good to see you,” the Russian said as he took in the panoramic view. “How does the train counting go?”
McColl smiled. “Well enough. But I have a proposition for you,” he added, glancing around to ensure there were no listeners. “How would you like to blow up the Dvortsovaya gasworks?”
“Very much. We have been thinking about it for couple of weeks, ever since the one at Kursk was destroyed, but we haven’t yet found a way of doing it without sacrificing at least one of our men.”
“It was our people at Kursk. They used time bombs, which made all the difference. When the bombs eventually went off, everyone was miles away. And we can get the same devices for the works here.”
“So why do you need us?” the Russian asked.
“We’re overextended, and you and I did talk about joint action.”
Kerzhentsev gave him a searching look and seemed satisfied with what he saw. “We did. And anything that hurts the Germans . . . But first I must convince my comrades. They’re not all as broad-minded as I am.”
McColl laughed. “Neither are mine. Shall we meet again here, same hour, in two days’ time?”
Kerzhentsev nodded. “I’ll be here.”
“So how are your wife and children?”
The Russian sighed. “They left for Moscow this morning. It’s safer there, but I miss them already.” He smiled at McColl. “But this business—it will be my consolation. I will persuade my friends.”
As he watched Kerzhentsev walk off, McColl realized he was hoping that the comrades said no. Why? The gasworks appeared to be a target worth hitting, the attendant risks hardly excessive. Was it because the operation seemed such a win-win for the British—if he and the Bolsheviks succeeded, it was one in the eye for the Germans, and if the Bolsheviks were subsequently caught, then who in London would shed a tear? McColl liked Kerzhentsev more than Davidson and half suspected he would find the Russian’s colleagues more to his taste than the Englishman’s.
As he made his way back down the steps, he wondered where it would end. The day he favored Bolshevism more than the system he worked for was the day he should hand in his notice.
Two days later Kerzhentsev reported his comrades’ agreement to the sabotage mission. McColl told Davidson, who passed on the news to Kharkov, where the time bombs were being put together. Delivery was promised in ten days or less.
June had arrived, and the weather was suddenly hotter, as if the gods had belatedly noticed the date. McColl continued to collect reports from his train watchers, but the only significant event was the transit of a large cotton shipment—the Germans had finally started moving the stuff across the Caspian. He also had another meeting with Kerzhentsev, who was fretting at the wait. The Russian had enlisted three comrades, two of whom were not much more than boys. “Orphans,” he added. “Their parents were killed by the Germans.”
McColl tried, without much success, to keep up with news of the wider war. A third big German offensive had begun toward the end of May, but finding out how successful it had been—or still was—proved beyond him. The Marne was mentioned in one report, which he hoped was a mistake. That was the river that had marked the German high tide in 1914, and if they’d reached it again, then Paris would be in their sights.
He supposed he would find out in Moscow, if he ever got there.
The big Russian news was the revolt of the Czech Legion. The process of moving the Czech force east to Vladivostok had started in early spring, but over the last few weeks things had gone badly wrong and a substantial chunk of the legion had taken up arms against the Russian authorities. The Kiev newspapers—anti-Bolshevik to a man—were ecstatic.
On the evening of June 7, Belov reported that the train carrying the time bombs was leaving Kharkov at seven that evening and was expected to arrive in Kiev twenty-four hours later for overnight remarshaling. The bombs were hidden among the disassembled parts of a Russian engineering works, which the Germans had decided could be more profitably sited in their own country.
The necessary details arrived the following afternoon. On Davidson’s orders Belov met McColl and Kerzhentsev on a prearranged street corner a few hundred yards from the goods depot. “Line 8, Car 17, the crate numbered B24,” Belov said succinctly, as McColl leaned in to light his cigarette.
“Thank you,” McColl said, but his dispatcher host was already on his way. “Get that?” he asked Kerzhentsev.
“I did,” the Bolshevik said, staring at Belov’s back with ill-concealed disdain. “Is that why he couldn’t just carry the damn things out in his lunch box?” he demanded. “Because he hates Bolsheviks?”
“Probably. But he’s given us the train, and he’s spent the last week checking the timing of the German patrols. We couldn’t have collected the bombs without him.”
“We haven’t yet.”
The night was clear but mercifully lacking a moon. Soon after ten, Kerzhentsev cut a neat flap in the wire fence the Germans had erected around the goods depot. There were only four points of entry, two for trains, two for carts and motor lorries. All four were gated and guarded. Searchlights illuminated the long stretches of unguarded wire that separated the depot as a whole from the through lines and surrounding streets. Thanks to the shadows cast by two towering birches, the spot they had chosen for ingress was darker than most, but McColl felt far from invisible. As they hastened across the stretch of open ground that lay between them and the nearest line of wagons, he half expected a shout of alarm, swiftly followed by gunfire.
Once under a wagon, they took a few moments to check that they hadn’t been seen. All McColl could hear was the clanking of buffers elsewhere in the yard and an engine in steam much farther away—no running feet, no guttural voices. They were safely in. Now to find the bombs and then get safely out.
Track 8 was the eighth of fourteen sidings, counting up from the main line. The two of them began working toward it, carefully checking each walkway between trains for signs of movement, then ducking under the nearest pair of couplings and checking the next. The train, which McColl had watched arrive soon after seven, was easily recognizable, some thirty unmarked boxcars topped and tailed by wagon-mounted machine guns. There had been at least thirty soldiers on board, but according to Belov the usual procedure was to allow them all off once the train was inside the fenced-off area.
He seemed to be right. The train on Track 8 stretched a long way to their left and almost as far to their right. The locomotive was gone, presumably for coaling.
“I can’t see any markings on the wagons,” Kerzhentsev said in a whisper.
McColl tried the other end, and there it was—a large number 5. He beckoned the Russian over and pointed it out.
They started walking down the train, keeping as close as possible to the left-hand rail and wheels. The sound of something passing stopped them in their tracks, but as far as McColl could make out, it was only an engine running light, probably bound for the far end of the yard.
Car 17 was distinguished only by its neatly scrawled number, under which someone had scrawled “siebzehn,” as if Russian numerals were rendered differently from German ones. The door was well oiled, sliding back with hardly a sound. As agreed beforehand, Kerzhentsev interlinked his fingers to receive McColl’s foot and helped hoist him up through the opening. Once inside, McColl slid the door shut before striking a match and finding a place to wedge the candles he’d brought along.
There were upwards of a hundred boxes in the car, stacked by size rather than number. After whispering a warning to Kerzhentsev that the search might take a while, he began working his way through the piles, starting with those of the smaller crates. Ten minutes later he had—as his father would have said—more wax burns than a drunken Catholic. He was beginning to doubt he’d ever find the damn box when a stenciled “B24” popped into view. It took another minute to lever off the lid, but there, neatly nestled among several boxes of mysterious steel castings, was a small canvas bag containing three pipe-shaped time bombs.
Dousing the candles, he slid the door open and passed the treasure down to the waiting Russian. Once he was on the ground again, they headed back the way they had come. The urge to hurry was intense, but they managed to overcome it, treating each gap between trains like the firing range it might turn out to be. It was only when they reached the last line of wagons that everything fell apart.
“Halt!” a German voice shouted, nervously shrill.
It wasn’t directed at them. Crouching down, they could see both hunters and prey. Two German soldiers, their rifles raised, advancing on two small boys. The older one, who was carrying a bag, looked around ten, his companion about two years younger. Both looked panic-stricken, and with good reason—as McColl knew from Belgium, the Germans were not shy when it came to murdering children.
“We can take them,” Kerzhentsev said in a whisper. And without giving the surprised McColl a chance to argue, he squirmed out from under the wagon, gun clasped behind his back, and cheerfully asked, “What have we here?”
It clearly hadn’t occurred to the Russian that the Germans would not understand him. One of the soldiers must have noticed the hidden hand, because he barked out a warning and opened fire just as Kerzhentsev pulled his own trigger. The other German went down, but so did the Russian, still clutching the bag full of bombs.
