The Secret City

by Sir Hugh Walpole

  III

  At this point I am inevitably reminded of that other Englishman who, twoyears earlier than Bohun, had arrived in Russia with his own pack ofdreams and expectations.

  But John Trenchard, of whose life and death I have tried elsewhere tosay something, was young Bohun's opposite, and I do not think that thestrange unexpectedness of Russia can he exemplified more strongly thanby the similarity of appeal that she could make to two so variouscharacters. John was shy, self-doubting, humble, brave, and agentleman,--Bohun was brave and a gentleman, but the rest had yet to beadded to him. How he would have patronised Trenchard if he had knownhim! And yet at heart they were not perhaps so dissimilar. At the end ofmy story it will be apparent, I think, that they were not.

  That journey from Newcastle to Bergen, from Bergen to Torneo, fromTorneo to Petrograd is a tiresome business. There is much waiting atCustom-houses, disarrangement of trains and horses and meals, longwearisome hours of stuffy carriages and grimy window-panes. Bohun Isuspect suffered, too, from that sudden sharp precipitance into a worldthat knew not _Discipline_ and recked nothing of the _Granta_. Obviouslynone of the passengers on the boat from Newcastle had ever heard of_Discipline_. They clutched in their hands the works of Mr. Oppenheim,Mr. Compton Mackenzie, and Mr. O'Henry and looked at Bohun, I imagine,with indifferent superiority. He had been told at the Foreign Officethat his especial travelling companion was to be Jerry Lawrence. If hehad hoped for anything from this direction one glance at Jerry'sbrick-red face and stalwart figure must have undeceived him. Jerry,although he was now thirty-two years of age, looked still very much theundergraduate. My slight acquaintance with him had been in those earlierCambridge days, through a queer mutual friend, Dune, who at that timeseemed to promise so magnificently, who afterwards disappeared somysteriously. You would never have supposed that Lawrence, Captain ofthe University Rugger during his last two years, Captain of the Englishteam through all the Internationals of the season 1913-14, could havehad anything in common, except football, with Dune, artist and poet ifever there was one. But on the few occasions when I saw them together itstruck me that football was the very least part of their common ground.And that was the first occasion on which I suspected that Jerry Lawrencewas not quite what he seemed....

  I can imagine Lawrence standing straddleways on the deck of the_Jupiter_, his short thick legs wide apart, his broad back indifferentto everything and everybody, his rather plump, ugly, good-natured facestaring out to sea as though he saw nothing at all. He always gave theimpression of being half asleep, he had a way of suddenly lurching onhis legs as though in another moment his desire for slumber would be toostrong for him, and would send him crashing to the ground. He would besmoking an ancient briar, and his thick red hands would be claspedbehind his back....

  No encouraging figure for Bohun's aestheticism.

  I can see as though I had been present Bohun's approach to him, hispatronising introduction, his kindly suggestion that they should eattheir meals together, Jerry's smiling, lazy acquiescence. I can imaginehow Bohun decided to himself that "he must make the best of this chap.After all, it was a long tiresome journey, and anything was better thanhaving no one to talk to...." But Jerry, unfortunately, was in a badtemper at the start. He did not want to go out to Russia at all. Hisfather, old Stephen Lawrence, had been for many years the manager ofsome works in Petrograd, and the first fifteen years of Jerry's life hadbeen spent in Russia. I did not, at the time when I made Jerry'sacquaintance at Cambridge, know this; had I realised it I would haveunderstood many things about him which puzzled me. He never alluded toRussia, never apparently thought of it, never read a Russian book, had,it seemed, no connection of any kind with any living soul in thatcountry.

  Old Lawrence retired, and took a fine large ugly palace in Clapham toend his days in....

  Suddenly, after Lawrence had been in France for two years, had won theMilitary Cross there and, as he put it, "was just settling inside hisskin," the authorities realised his Russian knowledge, and decided totransfer him to the British Military Mission in Petrograd. His angerwhen he was sent back to London and informed of this was extreme. Hehadn't the least desire to return to Russia, he was very happy where hewas, he had forgotten all his Russian; I can see him, saying verylittle, looking like a sulky child and kicking his heel up and downacross the carpet.

  "Just the man we want out there, Lawrence," he told me somebody said tohim; "keep them in order."

  "Keep them in order!" That tickled his sense of humour. He was to laughfrequently, afterwards, when he thought of it. He always chewed a jokeas a cow chews the cud.

  So that he was in no pleasant temper when he met Bohun on the decks ofthe _Jupiter_. That journey must have had its humours for any observerwho knew the two men. During the first half of it I imagine that Bohuntalked and Lawrence slumbered. Bohun patronised, was kind and indulgent,and showed very plainly that he thought his companion the dullest andheaviest of mortals. Then he told Lawrence about Russia; he explainedeverything to him, the morals, psychology, fighting qualities,strengths, and weaknesses. The climax arrived when he announced: "Butit's the mysticism of the Russian peasant which will save the world.That adoration of God...."

  "Rot!" interrupted Lawrence.

  Bohun was indignant. "Of course if you know better--" he said.

  "I do," said Lawrence, "I lived there for fifteen years. Ask my oldgovernor about the mysticism of the Russian peasant. He'll tell you."

  Bohun felt that he was justified in his annoyance. As he said to meafterwards: "The fellow had simply been laughing at me. He might havetold me about his having been there." At that time, to Bohun, the mostterrible thing in the world was to be laughed at.

  After that Bohun asked Jerry questions. But Jerry refused to givehimself away. "I don't know," he said, "I've forgotten it all. I don'tsuppose I ever did know much about it."

  At Haparanda, most unfortunately, Bohun was insulted. The SwedishCustoms Officer there, tired at the constant appearance ofself-satisfied gentlemen with Red Passports, decided that Bohun wascarrying medicine in his private bags. Bohun refused to open hisportmanteau, simply because he "was a Courier and wasn't going to beinsulted by a dirty foreigner." Nevertheless "the dirty foreigner" hadhis way and Bohun looked rather a fool. Jerry had not sympathisedsufficiently with Bohun in this affair.... "He only grinned," Bohun toldme indignantly afterwards. "No sense of patriotism at all. After all,Englishmen ought to stick together."

  Finally, Bohun tested Jerry's literary knowledge. Jerry seemed to havenone. He liked Fielding, and a man called Farnol and Jack London.

  He never read poetry. But, a strange thing, he was interested in Greek.He had bought the works of Euripides and Aeschylus in the Loeb Library,and he thought them "thundering good." He had never read a word of anyRussian author. "Never _Anna_? Never _War and Peace_? Never _Karamazov_?Never Tchehov?"

  No, never.

  Bohun gave him up.