‘We must get Untourist to take us up there on our sightseeing tour,’ said Kenneth. This was our one chance. We decided to ask Co and Barbara to come with us. They had no idea of our purpose, but welcomed the idea of an outing.
After breakfast next day there were signs that Untourist was yielding to the blandishments of Miss April. ‘He says he will take us after lunch,’ she told us. ‘I said that my mother would not allow me to go out with him alone.’
We decided to spend the morning trying to find out when our boat would sail. Untourist professed complete ignorance which, on his past performance, was probably genuine. And why should he worry? The trip to Vladivostok was an unsupervised holiday, and enjoying the company of a beautiful girl was something worth prolonging.
The manager answered our enquiries with a curt ‘Nyeznaiu’ (I don’t know), a fact which obviously depressed him. He clearly wished that we would leave Vladivostok as soon as possible, whether for the outside world or for a Soviet prison being a matter of no great interest, though he might have felt that the latter was more suitable.
At three o’clock an archaic Mercedes Benz with rusty paint, frayed upholstery, patched tyres and a cracked glass screen between what was once the chauffeur’s seat and the passenger compartment, drew up at the hotel door. Untourist and Miss April squeezed in with the driver, and we four in the back. This was probably an unusually easy load for the poor old car. After a dusty tour of the non-sights of the town we turned up a steep hill, the engine labouring until the road petered out on the crest.
Followed by Untourist and the girl we jumped out. Anxious to show his proficiency as a guide Untourist pointed out the steeple of the former English church, the railway station and the hospital. A few steps forward would give us a better view of the harbour installations. We signed to Miss April. Gently she slipped her hand into Untourist’s and led him away over the grass. The naval harbour was spread below us like a model. A light cruiser lay at anchor in the gulf and a destroyer of the Leningrad class in the inlet beyond the commercial harbour. Three large destroyers were moored at right angles to the shore and two similar vessels were under repair in the dockyard. Three or four MTBs with cutaway bows were tied up near the quay and six submarines occupied a small dock. Turning away to avoid suspicion we memorized the whole layout intently. Suddenly Untourist realized the extent of our view.
‘Back into the car,’ he urged, pushing us in and slamming the door. Miss April curled up beside him, gently stroking his hand.
We hoped that the outing would cost none of us too dear.
Next morning there was still no news of the boat and no more sights we could pretend to want to see. We suggested to the manager that he should swap our remaining sightseeing coupons for a dish of butter, but although they were worth sixty roubles each at face value he refused to make any kind of deal. In the middle of the morning our passports were given back to us with the heartening news that the boat would sail for Japan at five in the evening. The rest of the morning was spent in packing and after lunch we went to see the Japanese Consul to check our visas. He received us in the billiard room of the Tsarist villa which housed himself and his office, and invited us to a game.
‘I have bad news,’ he said. ‘The boat will not sail. It is a Russian “Sunday” and they refuse to unload the cargo.’
On our return Untourist was taken aback that we were so well informed about the boat. In touristic matters he was always one jump behind, and it didn’t look as though a successful career in the NKVD lay before him.
If the boat was not to sail, more roubles would be handy, so we made a last hurried trip to the pawnshop. The man offered a hundred roubles for Dorothy’s beaded evening bag and only eighty for mine, remarking that hers was bigger, though mine was more intricately beaded.
When we returned the manager was waiting. ‘You must all go up to your rooms,’ he said.
‘Why?’ we asked. ‘If the boat is not sailing.’
‘Very well, you can all go up to one room.’
So we settled down to an apathetic game of rummy. The hours dragged by. Towards seven o’clock we saw from the window the April family, with their luggage, leaving the hotel. Someone turned the key in the door of our room. Our hearts sank.
At eight o’clock the manager unlocked the door. ‘Since you ceased to be guests of the hotel at five o’clock there will be no supper,’ he said, almost cheerfully.
‘Why can’t we leave? When can we go?’
‘You will be told,’ he replied, and went out banging the door. We shared out the two bars of chocolate and the piece of cake from the train, which we had been saving up for an emergency. Ten o’clock and eleven o’clock passed and at midnight, just as we were beginning to despair, we were called downstairs. Our luggage was piled into a shabby bus waiting outside. Untourist shook us each warmly by the hand. The manager, slamming the door of the bus, turned on his heel.
We jolted over the familiar potholes to the quay. The customs shed was filled with a convoy of refugees, most of whom had been there since five o’clock. Perhaps, mental anguish apart, we had been lucky to spend the past seven hours indoors instead of in this cold, draughty shed with nowhere to sit down.
Stakhanovite customs men were still searching the refugees. Having combed their luggage they were now embarking, behind makeshift sacking screens, on body-searching, dragging out gold coins and small pieces of jewellery from the most private places. Rings were pulled roughly from women’s fingers and babies’ nappies torn off in search of hidden valuables. In the middle of the shed two rabbis, their ritual curls swaying beneath their flat black hats, were intoning a rhythmic prayer. For these refugees, the results of a lifetime of toil and thrift were being annihilated and the years ahead appeared to offer only pain. Some of these people, drained with exhaustion, seemed numb to the final indignities, their faces blank with a merciful anaesthesia.
The examination dragged on endlessly. Parcels of food spilled out in greasy confusion on the examination counter, staining the contents of someone else’s luggage. Each unsightly object was valuable, either for its memories, or as some fragile defence against hunger, cold and degradation.
At last our luggage was spread on the counter. Perhaps because his Russian was so fluent, Co had attracted the attention of a particularly keen customs man. We were fortunate in having a white-haired official who handled our clothes tenderly, but was nervous, and passed every book or photograph to a younger man, obviously his senior.
‘What is this?’ asked the new man, turning one of our ‘Government Property’ rolls over and over and peering down the middle. To someone who had never come across anything finer than newspaper in a loo, the smooth sheets seemed meant for higher things, and the message printed on each could be propaganda. Without a pang we handed over the remaining rolls. Soon, we hoped, we should be in Japan and surrounded by the loveliest paper in the world.
Dorothy’s birthday book gave us an awkward moment. Why should she have chosen to register the date of birth of so many people? Luckily, the official’s attention was distracted by the Breusovskaya’s receipt for the confiscated tomatoes. Here at last was something he could read, and a useful precedent for his confiscation of our toilet rolls.
The leather holdall was only superficially examined. Finally our luggage was bundled together and piled onto a lorry. Out on the quay it was chilly, but a great moon, almost symmetrical, rode high in the sky. On the far side of the Golden Horn scattered lights twinkled. The merciful darkness hid the dirt and squalor lying behind us, but arc lights shone mercilessly down on the surrounding misery.
At last a series of rickety buses drew up and all the men were herded in. With a sure instinct the Russians had touched a raw nerve of apprehension. As the men were taken off all the women, including ourselves, felt a pang of terror. Why should they separate us? Were the men going to be shot? Would the women be taken away to a camp?
But the buses came back and the women an
d children climbed in.
An incredibly bumpy ride between sheds, each guarded by a soldier with a fixed bayonet, took us to the wharf where the men were waiting. At the far end the HARBIN MARU was tied up, looking immense and very clean, though in reality she was only a small coasting steamer.
‘We can’t go on board,’ said Nick. ‘They only started unloading at midnight and the captain won’t accept any passengers until all the cargo is on shore. It’s nearly three o’clock and there is no sign of any end to it all. Would you like to go back to the hotel?’
We were unanimous in our refusal, though by now all of us were shivering.
At half past three the Japanese Consul’s car drove up and he got out, followed by Mr Shimada. After a consultation with a ship’s officer Shimada crossed over to us. ‘At the Consul’s request, they say you may accompany us on board,’ he said. In the Consul’s car, meanwhile, a baby’s nappies were being changed.
Once more we were first-class passengers and almost free agents. Our narrow little cabin was clean and bare and seemed to us absolutely idyllic. By four o’clock the last of the refugees had come on board and we hoped that the relief would do something to diminish their misery. The mooring ropes were cast off and the ship slowly churned away from the quay.
‘Let’s go on deck arid see the last of Vladivostok,’ said Kenneth.
Co was leaning over the rail. ‘Out there is Russian Island where I lived as a boy,’ he said, pointing to a dark outline ahead.
‘We’ve got away. We’re free,’ we called back, jumping in our joy. A dark figure loomed up beside us. A Russian officer in uniform.
‘We haven’t reached the harbour boom yet,’ whispered Co. ‘We’re still in Russian waters. He’ll be taken of by the pilot boat.’
As the pilot cutter chugged away with the officer our last link with the Soviet Union was broken and we felt indescribably grateful.
Journey’s End
The time we spent in Japan waiting for a passage to Canada was a curious blend of aesthetic delights and apprehension at Japan’s obvious preparations for war. Dance halls and luxury shops were already closed, and the amount one could spend on meals—even in the most expensive restaurants—was austerely limited. Arriving in Tsuruga, we had been questioned for an hour on end by naval intelligence officers about the ships and submarines in Vladivostok harbour, but it was easy to stall when we had such a limited number of words in common.
Our burning anxiety was for news of the boys, but although we enquired at the Embassy every day, there was no reply to our telegrams.
On every possible occasion we escaped from Tokyo into the lovely countryside. After the vast monotony of Siberia and the drab disorder of the Soviet cities the intricate foliage, miniature scale and delicate outlines of the Japanese landscape were a delight. In order to assimilate what we could of the real Japan we spent, at Mr Shimada’s suggestion, a week-end in the traditional Japanese hotel used to accommodate overflow guests from the Emperor’s summer palace at Hayama.
On October 26th we embarked on the HIE MARU, bound for Vancouver. For the whole ten days of the voyage the sea and sky were grey. Our cabin bell was never answered and wireless news bulletins were taken down from the board before we were able to read them. On the last evening the captain cancelled his dinner party and we expected that the ship would be recalled to Yokohama at any moment because war had broken out. There was, in fact, still a year to go before Pearl Harbour.
On Sunday, November 7th we landed in Vancouver and set out by train for the east, breaking the journey for four days’ recuperation in Banff. The large hotels were closed, but we found a small place where we could read and sleep. Between whiles we bathed in steaming hot pools on the mountain side while storm clouds swept round the peaks and sleet stung our faces. A friendly taxi man took us to the town garbage dump where brown bears sat licking out the empty fruit tins. ‘Keep right inside the car,’ he warned. ‘They get ugly if you haven’t any food to offer them.’
In Ottawa we found the longed-for telegram. My mother, unable to communicate with us had, on her own responsibility, cancelled the journey arrangements and the boys were safe in England.
In Ottawa we were told it would be ten days at least before the EMPRESS OF BRITAIN sailed, but if we caught the next train to Montreal we could travel in the DUCHESS OF RICHMOND which was leaving that night. The DUCHESS had come on hard times and was doubling as a troop ship. Blankets slung down the middle of a single dining room divided the first and second class passengers. Men in uniform were sleeping on the floor of the library and the gym. The deck was close-packed with tanks and guns and, since we were not travelling in convoy, the lifeboats were slung out permanently from the boat decks.
With every porthole blacked out, the congestion below decks seemed even more oppressive. One day Kenneth was attempting to reassure Dorothy and me by explaining, with the help of the salt, mustard and pepper pots, that with our speed of nineteen knots no submarine could torpedo us.
‘Even if something unpleasant should happen,’ he said, ‘we would stay afloat for hours.’
‘Not with what we’ve got on board, sir,’ said the steward over his shoulder. ‘There’s two hundred tons of TNT down below.’ Life belts had to be carried everywhere and we were told to sleep dressed in readiness for a sudden alarm. One morning we saw, floating on the grey sea, a single lifeboat.
‘She’s from the CITY OF BENARES,’ said the bo’sun. ‘Sunk on the 25th of September and seventy-nine of the ninety kids on board lost.’ We blessed my mother’s instincts.
On the evening of November 29th, after ten days at sea, we sailed up the cold grey Mersey and anchored in mid-stream. The sun had set, but a glare brighter than day shone through any flaw in the blackout. Liverpool was on fire, and no one was allowed on shore.
Next evening, after one of those halting railway journeys which were to become so familiar, the train finally gave up at Willesden, as the line was blocked owing to a bomb. A valiant taxi, circumnavigating burning buildings and crackling over broken glass, took us to the Cumberland where we were offered a room on the fifth floor with window glass, or one on the first without.
Next morning we reported at head office.
‘Oh it’s you,’ said the duty officer. ‘We didn’t expect to see you for some time yet.’
No mention was ever made of the telegram ordering us to Helsinki. It was assumed to be just another casualty of war.
THE END
APPENDIX:
The First World War and Latvian
Independence
At the beginning of the First World War in 1914 alignment, as far as the Baltic States were concerned, was quite clear-cut. It was, very roughly, Western Europe and Russia, to which the States belonged, against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The German campaign in the East met with success and by the autumn of 1915 the army had overrun Lithuania and Courland. In November 1916, hoping to gain Polish goodwill and useful reserves of manpower and grain, the Germans restored the Kingdom of Poland, formerly part of the Russian Empire.
When revolution broke out in Russia in the spring of 1917, the Imperial Government was replaced by a Provisional Government and in November the Bolsheviks took over. Eight Latvian regiments joined the Red Army. The nationalists, who had tried unsuccessfully to negotiate with each government in turn, formed a Latvian National Council and in January 1918 declared that Courland, South Livonia and Latgale had formed an independent republic. This was given de facto recognition by France.
By the end of February, however, the whole of Livonia was under German occupation and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Russian and the victorious Germans recognized a German Protectorate in Courland and a temporary German ‘police occupation’ of Livonia. The Latvian Nationalist movement went underground. Within a short time German troops were within a hundred miles of Petrograd, the former St Petersburg.
The German occupation, though bring
ing three years of intense hardship to Lithuania and Courland and one year to Livonia and Estonia, probably saved the Provinces from being submerged in the Soviet Union and made the ultimate achievement of independence possible.
The German High Command favoured a straightforward annexation of the Baltic States, which would be merged into a single province and act as a buffer against Russia. Besides being completely contrary to the aspirations of the three nations concerned, this did not appeal to the Centre and Left parties in the Reichstag, who feared the accusation of land-grabbing. So, at the instigation of the German authorities, the Courland Landestag invited Kaiser Wilhelm to accept the grand-ducal crown of the Province. A similar invitation was extended by the Baltic barons in Estonia. The Kaiser agreed, but no concrete action was taken.
The Estonians, who had been negotiating with the Russian Provisional Government, declared their independence from Russia immediately after the Bolshevik coup d’etat in November 1917. The local barons, however, appealed to Germany for military aid and at the end of February 1918 the German army moved in. Nationalist leaders were arrested and all political activity forbidden.
In Lithuania the Germans, anxious to keep a check on Polish power, encouraged the nationalist movement, which was automatically anti-Polish, and allowed a carefully vetted list of two hundred delegates to establish a Taryba or national parliament. At the same time, they proposed the union of Lithuania with the house of Hohenzollern. However, the Lithuanians preferred Duke Wilhelm of Urach, who was an alleged descendant of Mindaugas, an ancient Lithuanian king, as their future ruler.
As soon as the Armistice was signed on November 11th, 1918, the nationalist leaders of all three Baltic countries set about drafting the constitutions for their future republics, and a Provisional Government with Karl Ulmanis as prime minister was proclaimed in Latvia. This was given de facto recognition by the British.
However, by the terms of the Armistice the Allies ordered the German troops to remain in Latvia, to drive out the Bolsheviks, and withdraw when their usefulness was at an end, but the men were war-weary and mutinous and began a disorderly retreat taking arms, provisions and even rolling stock with them.
Baltic Countdown: A Nation Vanishes Page 22
