The next attempt followed a notice in Briva Zeme that an air mail would leave Moscow for England on the 10th and 25th of each month. This proved tantamount to dropping the mail into an oubliette and might even have been a clumsy device for keeping the Russian censorship department occupied. A letter from my mother, which had taken nearly five weeks on the way, reached us bearing British, German and Finnish censorship labels. Our experiments came to an end when, after the German invasion of Norway and Denmark, the Riga Post Office announced that no more mail would be accepted for England.
From time to time the Bag brought precious letters from my mother and the boys. Though happy at school, they obviously felt the loss of their home in Riga and were wistful about the things they had been obliged to leave behind. Sam was particularly concerned about the wooden boat he had made. ‘If you will send it,’ he wrote, ‘I will pay the postage as long as it is not above 1/-, which it should not be. It is old, and it is war, so I don’t see why I should pay much customs.’ We explained the postal difficulties and said we would do our best. The letter postage rate in England had just risen to 2 1/2 d and Sam wrote that he had sent a letter to himself to commemorate the event.
Earlier in the winter the Latvian Government had organized an expedition to Sigulda for which the Diplomatic Corps were expected to dress up in ski clothes and proceed over the snow to a grandstand which gave a good view of one of the rare ski jumps in the country. After some hasty coaching our own Minister was still uncertain on skis. Each time he fell, he was courteously helped to his feet by the German Minister, perhaps out of kindness or possibly because he was blocking the piste. In spite of plentiful vodka and the Latvian Glühwein made from brown bread and apples, the presence of so many elderly diplomats and the high standard of politeness made the going a little slow, so we decided with our French colleagues that we would organize a more adventurous outing. Having arranged a Saturday morning off, we set out by train the previous evening. There were seven of us in the party, de Beausse the French First Secretary and their Commercial Attaché Malgrat, our own Military Attaché Croxton Vale, Tom Brimelow and a Latvian guide.
As usual the train dawdled along with frequent stops for refuelling.
‘You know why they run the trains so slow,’ Malgrat observed. ‘It’s to make the country seem bigger. C’est malin.’
To enjoy this decelerated travel one would have to adopt the mentality of the peasants, who believe that to travel is more interesting than to arrive, and are prepared to settle down at a station indefinitely like seals on a beach, indifferent to cold draughts and hard floors.
At Madona sledges were waiting and we piled in, I in the first with Croxton and a Polish driver. The other three sledges followed, one with a local driver and the other two driven by the guide, Kenneth and de Beausse in turn.
In Latvia, transport often follows a different course in winter, crossing lakes and swamps which would be impassable during the summer months. After a heavy fall of snow the track becomes invisible and the horse is left to find its own way without interference from the driver. Many a peasant has been brought home dead from exposure after a drunken bout, the beast being unaware that anything was amiss with its master.
Stars shimmered above a light mist which shone whitely with the reflection of the snow. The horses trudged on through an immense silence. Not a light could be seen. The rare farmhouse was shuttered and black. Occasionally someone called ‘nu, nu’ to a horse. The other two sledges plodded quietly after us, mile after mile.
From time to time the silence would be broken with cries of ‘t-r-r-r’ to bring the sledges to a halt. One of the horses had missed the track and plunged into the deep snow, capsizing its sledge and temporarily burying the occupants.
About two in the morning, chilled and drowsy, we reached a farmhouse and were welcomed by the peasants with hot milk and home-baked bread spread with honey and wild strawberry jam. The farmer’s wife showed us into two dormitories with eight narrow beds in one and three in the other. The smaller one was allotted to Kenneth and me. In the centre of the floor stood the white chamber pot which was always offered to the ladies of a party on arrival at a farmhouse.
While we were tugging off our boots the others came into our room to discuss arrangements for the next day, all but de Beausse, whom we could see through the open door kneeling at his bed in prayer. De Beausse, a devout Catholic and father of eight children, was one of the small group of aristocrats one used to meet in the French Foreign Service who continued to work in an increasingly distasteful ambience from a strong sense of duty.
As we went into the kitchen for breakfast next morning Malgrat came in from the garden shouting with laughter. ‘Venez, venez voir le petit Mont Blanc.’
One by one we were conducted to the outside privy. From the centre of the hole cut in the wooden bench rose a small symmetrical peak—more like Fujiyama than Mont Blanc in fact—capped with a neat topping of snow which had blown in during the night. Normally the ample depths of a Latvian privy can cope discreetly with the accumulations of a whole winter, which remain perfectly inoffensive at low temperatures, but the abnormal cold had deep-frozen deposits as they touched down and produced this towering oddity.
The sun was shining brilliantly as we set out for Mount Gaisina, the goal of our expedition. One thousand and twenty-three feet above sea level, though only a few hundred feet higher than the surrounding country, this was an object of pride to the Latvians. For us, it was a relief to enjoy a few minutes of downhill run after the usual hours of langlauf.
Lunch at the farmhouse was excellent, with thick peasant soup and roast veal. The thoughtful French had provided two tins of the Ambassador’s precious sardines and several bottles of Burgundy. That evening we ate only bread and butter, enlivened by a couple of bottles of champagne contributed by the British, and awarded to the man who had made the most spectacular tumbles during the day.
Next morning, our rucksacks were piled into the sledges and we set out for a run of thirty kilometres over deep snow with a frozen crust which continually broke to trap one’s skis. A farmhouse lunch of turkey soup, roast pork with cabbage, followed by stewed apples and bilberries piled with whipped cream raised our spirits temporarily. This time we drank claret. As darkness fell our guide lost his way and we limped over the final kilometre only just in time to catch the last train of the day.
As the situation in Europe deteriorated the number of visa applicants, with or without hope, increased. Ciphering was a continual burden both in and out of office hours. Besides this, it was decided that a useful source of semi-overt intelligence on trends and conditions in the Soviet Union should come to the office twice a week during the afternoon. This man, always referred to as ‘Our Friend’, had the sharp features and rufous colouring of a dog fox, accentuated by the tawny fur collar which muffled his cheeks and mingled with the fur of his papacha.
His arrival, by way of the mews at the back of the building, was heralded by three little rings at the door of the former servants’ entrance, which was opened by Dorothy Corrie after a careful peep through the ‘magic eye’ fixed in the centre panel.
Dorothy then returned to her work and Our Friend would settle on the one empty chair in my cubby hole and, unfolding copy after copy of Pravda and Izvestia would read aloud the interesting pieces, translating them into German as he went along. These I took down on my typewriter in English. Sometimes a request would come from Head Office to pay particular attention to reports on a certain factory, or signs that supplies of such and such a product were breaking down. Some of the most interesting articles were the obligatory pieces of self-criticism, when the manager of a big industrial combine or a state production unit would be selected to confess that output had fallen by X number of tons; that so and so many workers had been sent for corrective detention in Siberia; that the whole production of tractors from a certain works had proved unfit for use. To a Westerner, such outpourings would appear a poor advertisement
for the Soviet system, and hardly calculated to encourage Russia’s ally, Germany, but unless they had served the Government’s purpose, they would certainly not have appeared.
One morning in early April we saw the first blades of grass for nearly four months, in a sheltered patch on the south-facing bank of the canal. They were not a fresh green promise of spring, however, but brown and crushed and rather a reminder of the iron repression of winter.
People were still crossing the frozen Daugave on foot, though spreading pools of melt-water made the operation look increasingly unsafe. This rather risky short-cut came to an abrupt end when news arrived that broken ice, coming down the river from Russia, was piling up to threaten the power station at Kegums and must be allowed free passage to the sea. The ice below the Riga bridges had to be dynamited immediately.
Crowds gathered on the ice just upstream of where the charges were being laid and watched with apparent unconcern as the explosions cut a clean line from bank to bank and the broken ice floated downstream to leave open water only a few yards from the line of spectators.
Before the ice had ceased to threaten the power station Norway and Denmark were invaded by the Germans, and Miggs, in Stockholm, was now like us cut off by land and sea.
With a thaw in sight, passengers on the ski trains were now regularly conscripted for an hour or two to load onto carts the logs stacked by the railway tracks, as once warmer weather set in all the horses would be needed for ploughing, sowing and harvesting and there was not sufficient motor transport to distribute the stocks of wood. The thaw would also mean a temporary shortage of fresh fish. In winter these could be caught through holes in the ice to which the fish flocked, attracted by the light, sometimes in such numbers that they could be scooped out in bucketfuls. Normal fishing could not be resumed until the ice had melted.
On Sunday April 7th we decided to take a last look at the frozen sea and walked along the beach at Bulduri. The ice, wrought into strange textures by the action of the waves, stretched to the horizon. We walked out over the sea for about half a mile but still there was no sign of open water. Just ahead lay a sheet of diamonds, glittering in the sun. Coming nearer, we saw that some reaction of thaw and frost had formed crystal feathers, each about ten inches long and standing upright on the ice bed. Every plume was delicately fretted and swayed in the breeze, curving at the tip and catching the sunlight with a blinding flash. It was like the ruffled breast of a gigantic silver goose.
Further out, the ice had piled up in huge blocks, forming mounds thirty feet high. Some great chunks stood on one edge, appearing precariously balanced, but in reality immovable. It was difficult to guess what force had thrown up these monstrous lumps, since the ice stretched smoothly seawards without any sign of violence caused by a storm. A few days later all these marvels had vanished without trace, leaving open sea.
Spring came overnight and with it a longing for the fresh air of the beach and forest. Dick and Kathleen Whishaw, who both came of Anglo-Russian families, had a dacha by the Lielupe. In the garden was a small detached house. There was one room downstairs and, reached by an outside stair, two small bedrooms and what the Germans so compactly describe as a Waschgelegenheit or means of washing—in this case a cold tap and a china basin—perfectly adequate with a beach of white sand and the clear water of the river just at the bottom of the garden. The loo was hidden behind a clump of sunflowers.
‘The children used the small dacha for their friends,’ said Kathleen Whishaw. ‘You need bring nothing from Riga but your swimming things and anything Lotte needs. She can share our kitchen and sleep with our cook. We should love to have you.’
The offer was too good to miss, even if half our nights would have to be spent on cipher standby in Riga. Lotte was delighted.
‘Vufi will guard the small dacha when you are away. Once a week I shall go to Riga and clean the flat and do the washing,’ she assured me, ‘and see that there is everything you need when you are there.’
On our first night at the dacha a soft spring rain was falling, fresh with the scent of pines and moss. Buds were unfolding so fast in the early warmth that one would return in the evening to find a tree transformed. Humans eagerly adopted the joyful domesticity of the small animals and birds, all sensing the urgency of the short-lived summer.
Two days later, on May 10th, the Germans without warning invaded France, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The serious war in Europe had began.
Rotterdam fell and the Dutch Royal Family and the Netherlands Government arrived in London. A Bag from Stockholm brought a letter from Miggs saying that should the Germans invade Sweden she was to join a small mobile party which would accompany the Swedish Government in flight up country. On May 30th the British army was cornered at Dunkirk and during the next four days the historic rescue operation across the Channel took place. Churchill made his famous speech, ‘... we shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the landing grounds, we shall fight them in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight them in the hills; we shall never surrender.’
A letter from my mother dated June 4th declared, ‘Britain must win. Never doubt it.’
Seen from a distance and with evidence of the crushing force of the enemy so near to us, this seemed a pathetic, though admirable, delusion. This feeling was clearly shared by the Germans who were now much in evidence in Riga. By agreement with the Latvian Government, two thousand of the Balts who had assumed German nationality were allowed to remain in Riga to liquidate the assets of the evacuees. These were all hardcore Nazis, regarded by the German Government as reliable.
The commuter train to the Strand and lunch at our usual restaurant had now become an ordeal, as copies of the Berliner Tageblatt were spread wide while one well-fed German called to another details of the latest military success.
In contrast, the German Minister, a diplomat of the old school, politely agreed to please his Latvian hosts at the Tennis Club party by leading the Lambeth Walk. This was excused by his staff as being really a piece of anti-British propaganda, since the song recalled the suffering of prisoners forced in olden times to cross the Thames at low tide, and throwing their manacled hands in the air as they cried out in fear of drowning.
While we were tied more closely than ever to the office, Lotte was enjoying the dacha, especially since the change of air was doing her plants good. The date palm which should have sheltered her in her old age had come to a premature end, since she had tried to reproduce its native climate by standing it in the oven. Its place had been taken by another sprouting date stone, a relic of Christmas dinner, which at present showed only a spike the size of a gramophone needle. Her prize exhibit was a mysterious plant that had developed three leaves with the texture of green linoleum, and an enigmatic knob of the same appearance.
June 15th was to be Mark’s eleventh birthday and he had written to ask for details of the one he had spent in Rindseln six years before, as he was busy writing the story of his life. Anukelchen, we told him, had dressed both boys in skirts of mare’s tails and made them crowns of flowers. A throne covered in lilac had been arranged for Mark on the verandah and beside it a birthday table with four candles and a Kringel topped with shiny walnuts and caramelized sugar. His special present was a small yellow cart with blue wheels and we took it in turns to pull him up and down under the chestnut trees until he was daring enough to career down the slope from the great house on his own. The yellow cart was still in the loft when we had last visited Rindseln.
This year, on Mark’s birthday, following an ultimatum handed to the government by Molotov, Russian troops marched into Lithuania. Molotov accused the Lithuanians of kidnapping Soviet soldiers, with the connivance of local officials, and demanded the trial of General Skucas, Minister of the Interior and Chief of the Political Police. Paleckis, a collaborator with the Russians, was entrusted with the formation of the Lithuanian ‘people’s government’ friendly to the USSR.
Chapter 15
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nbsp; On June 17th there was thunder in the air and everyone’s nerves were on edge. Communications with the outside world were cut, and there was a general feeling of uneasiness. As we returned to the office after lunch we heard a distant rumbling. People were hurrying, like leaves before the wind, down the broad Brivibas iela towards the centre of the town. As we crossed the corner of the Raina Boulevard the first Russian tanks came in sight.
There was no time to be lost. We must start burning our confidential documents at once. Within a few minutes black smoke was rising from the chimneys of all the Legations.
Nothing is more frustrating than burning paper in a hurry. Separated sheet by sheet it flares up dangerously and takes an age to get through a pile, but if you put a solid block of paper into the fire it remains as serenely unscathed as Shadrach, Meshak and Abednigo.
For the next few hours all four of us knelt, each in front of a tall Russian stove, and fed through the small door the confidential work of years. The naked flames were confined to the single opening, but as the afternoon wore on the great porcelain flanks, running from floor to ceiling, became too hot to touch. To avoid congestion, ash had be to raked out frequently, and settled on our hair and skin, making our eyes smart. Our faces became painfully scorched, until we hit on the idea of shielding them with a mask made of cardboard with slits for the eyes.
Baltic Countdown: A Nation Vanishes Page 11
