The King's Commissar

by Duncan Kyle

  One of his Letts stamped over to us as Goloshchokin turned the truck round and then reversed it until its rear entered the gap in the stockade. The guard's rifle was in his hands rather than at his shoulder - another sign the whole place was alert.

  'Who are you?' the Lett demanded.

  'Ruzsky,' responded Bronard cheerfully, 'with Commissar Goloshchokin. Here's my pass. Tell me - do you like fish?'

  'Fish?' repeated the guard, made uncertain by this joviality on the part of a high official. He took the pass. 'Well

  'Because we've found a barrel of pickled herring. Thank you -' he took his pass back - 'found it at the Americana Hotel and it's Baltic herring, my friend, and I said, those Baits in Comrade Yurovsky's guard would enjoy eating those. Am I right?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Yes, Comrade,'1 cried Bronard. 'Come on, let's get it unloaded!'

  So we left Goloshchokin at the wheel and Bronard and I unloaded the herring barrel and a bottle or two of chilled vodka and a jar of pickled cucumbers. Gaining entry to the Ipatiev House, the gaol of a king, was as easy as that. The guard stood and watched as the two of us walked through the high stockade with our little hoard of food.

  I had thought Yurovsky might be asleep, but he stood waiting as we entered the first hallway: a thin man of medium height, with sparse sand-coloured hair. He wore, as I had been told he usually did, a short white jacket of the kind often worn by doctors and dentists. His glance rested briefly upon me and he frowned, but then he turned at once to Bronard and said, 'What is this nonsense?' Over his shoulder I could see, through the open doorway, that two Lettish guards were standing, at ease but watchful.

  'Brought something for your men,' Bronard said loudly. Whether he actually was a little drunk I do not know, but I doubt it. Still, he gave the impression of one with overmuch liquor in him. He explained the discovery of the herring barrel in the hotel's cold-room. 'Thought straightaway, Yurovsky's men would like 'em, that's what I thought. Brought something to go with 'em, too!' He waved a vodka bottle in each hand.

  I watched Yurovsky carefully. So much depended upon how he received this farrago of nonsense. But all seemed well. Where he had been frowning, his face now relaxed into a faint smile, one almost of indulgence.

  'How kind of you - come along through here.' He gestured at the doorway in an almost courtly way. We followed and placed our load upon the table that apparently served as his desk, and he now made a great fuss: 'Herrings from the Baltic, yes, my Letts will be delighted,' and 'Hasn't it been hot today!' and so on. I could almost have been at tea with a maiden aunt.

  We had agreed, Bronard and I, that we must take him prisoner at the first good opportunity. Both of us were armed with pistols and I know that when I put the heavy pickle jar on the table, I turned, with my hand ready by the pistol, only to see that for the moment it was impossible: two guards with rifles occupied the doorway. We would have to wait.

  Yurovsky gestured towards me. 'Who is this?'

  'Yakovlev.'

  Now the frown returned with a vengeance. 'But he was expelled from the city!'

  'He came back from Moscow with a personal despatch from Trotsky to General Berzin,' Bronard said. 'He's a messenger, that's all. But he can drive a truck, so I put him to work, eh Yakovlev?'

  'A pleasure,' I said.

  Yurovsky's eye was still hard upon me. 'Are you Trotsky's man, then? You were Sverdlov's once.'

  I said, 'Neither, Comrade. I am a pair of hands and a pair of feet. I do as I'm told.'

  'But by whom?'

  'The Party. If you make me choose a man, then I'm always Lenin's, like all of us.'

  'Hmmm.' His hand ran across his chin as he looked at me, and I could hear the rasp of his beard. 'When did you leave Moscow and have you heard Trotsky's intentions about the Romanovs?'

  'A week ago. There's talk of a trial in Moscow to be broadcast to all of Russia.'

  'Whose idea is it - Trotsky's?'

  I said, 'Characteristic of him. Good propaganda, perhaps.'

  'Will it happen?'

  'I doubt it,' I said. 'I don't think, apart from Trotsky, that anybody else cares.'

  That sentence has echoed in my brain all down the years. I have examined it a thousand times for shades of meaning, for hidden subtleties. But I am not a subtle man, neither in speaking nor in examining words. I can see nothing there.

  All that happened was that Yurovsky said, 'It's so hot in here. The heat gets into the stones by day and comes out again at night.' He produced a handkerchief and mopped his brow. Then, 'For refreshment - your own vodka, Comrades? Or -' and he became chatty; I repeat, there was a most marked resemblance between Yurovsky and my maiden aunts - 'the capitalists know how to look after themselves, I can tell you, Comrades. Why, in this house there's a huge refrigerator, made by Westinghouse and brought all the way from America! So we have ice - think of that, in a private house! - and tonight I made lemonade!'

  I remember smiling at the thought of lemonade; that too was a link with my aunts.

  'You'd like some?' Yurovksy asked almost eagerly.

  'Very much.'

  He slipped out then, past the two in the doorway, and closed the door behind him. I turned to Bronard and said, 'When he returns.'

  He nodded urgently. 'The instant he returns!'

  I loosened the pistol in my pocket, ensuring that I could produce it swiftly and without entanglement, then I rose and stood by the curtained window. From somewhere in the house I heard footsteps on a wooden floor. One of the Imperial Family, perhaps, so near to freedom now. Then there was silence, interrupted after a few seconds by a sudden sharp cracking sound.

  I glanced at Bronard and saw his head had cocked to one side and he was listening.

  And then it came: that single crack was followed by a rapid volley of gunfire. Unmistakably it was a barrage of shots, and close at hand! I sprang to the door and jerked it open. Silence now and the corridor outside was deserted. As I looked anxiously first one way and then the other I heard first a cry of pain, then a thump, repeated, and then a further shot.

  I raced along the corridor, pistol in hand, entered a hallway with a wide stair. I plunged through the open door opposite, across another room and into a square hall, the air of which was grey blue with reeking gunsmoke. Yurovsky stood facing me and I halted, gaping, at the sight of him. He wore a strange smile and in his hand was a revolver from whose barrel a thin trace of smoke ascended. And he said in a high, mad, cracked voice, 'Lemonade you wanted, eh? Not this -'

  I knew by then, of course - had known from the instant of the first shot. I flung myself past him while the shots still echoed and saw to my left open double doors and a wall of men's backs. And still there were shots.

  Then a ghastly quiet fell and there came a whimper and a thud and a last crack.

  I forced myself through the wall of backs and saw .., a charnel house.

  I will not describe that scene. In the room eleven people, fine people who had been alive a single minute earlier, now lay slaughtered. Dazed with horror, I recognized Tsar Nicholas, his Tsarina, his son, his daughters - and oh God! . . , there Marie, my beautiful Marie, lay dead in a pool of her own blood! Gaping round, through rage and a stream of hot tears, I recognized only Botkin, the royal doctor. The remaining four must have been servants.

  And then I saw a movement . . , one of the Letts . . , kneeling beside her, beside Marie!. . , and searching . . , robbing her body!

  I stepped close, shot him in the neck and then swung round, with Yurovsky next in my mind. Yurovsky must die! But he was not there, must be outside the room. I stepped forward, and now saw Bronard, saw his foot swinging quickly up, kicking my revolver from my fist.

  I was seized by the Letts, dragged from that room to Yurovsky's, flung inside. Goloshchokin stood there, ashen-faced, holding a pistol pointed at Yurovsky who still wore that sickening grin of triumph.

  'Kill him!' I yelled, and Yurovsky leered at me and said, 'Too late, isn't it?'

  I
flung myself at him, but somehow Bronard had interposed himself, and he, too, was armed. I stood raging, helpless as they forced me back. Of the four of us, probably only Bronard was sane at that moment.

  And he was more than sane: for he was actually thinking! The first words then spoken were his, and I shall never forget their cold calculation. He directed them at Goloshchokin, who stood trembling visibly with fear. He said, 'There will be a way all this can be turned to advantage . . .'

  Advantage! With the whole Imperial Family lying butchered a few yards away he was looking for advantage. Yes, and quickly finding it! He walked to Goloshchokin and cracked his flat hand across the man's cheek, and snarled 'Think - and listen, damn you! Or we're dead!'

  'Sverdlov!' Goloshchokin kept muttering. 'He'll shoot us all!'

  'Not if he doesn't know! Bronard said.

  'How can he not know?'

  'I'll tell you how.' Words tumbled from Bronard, and he turned quickly to Yurovsky. 'That mine on the Koptyaki road. Did you -?'

  Yurovsky nodded, still smiling. 'Petrol and oil of vitriol. All there.'

  'How much?'

  'Enough.'

  Bronard stood blinking for a moment. Then he picked the telephone from Yurovsky's desk and thrust it at Goloshchokin. 'We need another truck. Arrange it -quickly!'

  There was something totally compelling about the fellow. Goloschchokin, a man of greater authority and influence, deferred unhesitatingly and did as Bronard bade.

  Bronard, meanwhile, was still talking, half to himself. 'Mystery,' I heard him say, 'is to everyone's advantage if we can create it.'

  Goloshchokin replaced the telephone. 'A second truck is coming.'

  'Then here's what we must do,' Bronard said. 'We must take them all away - the Romanovs, the servants, everybody!'

  I found my voice now, and began to protest and he levelled his revolver at me and said, 'A word - one word -and I shoot you! Just listen, damn you.'

  He said Yurovsky had already planned the last resting-place of the Romanov Dynasty - at this mine he referred to as the Four Brothers shaft. 'Now,' he hurried on, 'we also have the four servants and there is the dead Lett and the doctor. Six bodies. Take them to the mine, Yurovsky. The Whites will be in the city in a week but it will be an age before the mine is found. Scatter Romanov clothing, and a few possessions there.'

  'But they'll know!' Goloshchokin protested. 'Everybody will know. There are forensic tests that will identify -'

  'Shut up!' Bronard said. 'I told you to listen. The Whites will say we Bolsheviks killed the Romanovs - oh yes, they'll say it. But how can they prove it when they are the wrong bodies?'

  'Where will the other bodies be?'

  'We'll take them,' Bronard said, pointing at me. 'He and I will take them, and bury them. Yakovlev's a man for a Christian burial I've no doubt!'

  'What of the Letts?' cried Goloshchokin. 'They know.'

  'Send them to the front!' offered Bronard brutally. 'You're Commissar for War. Make sure they're killed in action. Or shoot them yourself. But wait until they have scrubbed this place clean!'

  And so, at dead of night, when as legend says the blackest deeds are done, it was done; the bodies of the royal servants and the doctor were placed in a truck and driven away by Yurovsky and Goloshchokin. Bronard and I then set to the melancholy task of bringing the remains of the Imperial Family from the room in which Yurovksy had murdered them all.

  You may wonder why I did nothing to take revenge for them but there was, in truth, nothing I could do. All were dead! Had there been the smallest chance of aiding them, I should not have hesitated to act at whatever risk, but of course there was not.

  Furthermore Bronard's words rang in my mind. The Imperial Family had been deeply devout. A good Christian burial they must have - and only I cared enough to ensure it. That service, the last possible service to them on this earth, must be done for all the Romanovs, and especially for Marie.

  We wrapped each in a blanket brought from the sleeping quarters upstairs, and one by one they were placed in the truck and by me, at least, with reverence. No one saw us, of that I am certain. When all was done, Bronard summoned the Lettish corporal and ordered that he and his men remain in the Ipatiev house until orders came from Commissar Goloshchokin. They were forbidden to venture out, or to speak to anyone. At last Bronard turned to me and said, 'Get in. We take the road east, and then we turn on to small tracks.'

  'The paper,' I reminded him, because I was curious. 'Are you not going to seek it out?'

  He looked at me grimly. 'It doesn't matter now. And we must be away.'

  We came strangely, and while there was still dark, to a place a dozen miles or so to the east of the city. It was uncanny because abruptly the carbide lamps of the truck picked out a small shrine beside the track and beyond it what seemed to be a great black cross silhouetted against the night sky. Mystified, I stopped the truck and went to look, treading carefully, for I soon found this was marshland. And there was the cross, true enough, though a far from perfect one: made by a big, symmetrical tree, half-destroyed by lightning, but with two great boughs forming the crosspiece. What more could I do, I thought, than see that the Imperial Family be buried, all together, at the foot of a great cross!

  Spades we had brought, and as the first of the light began to grow across the sky, Bronard and I bent our backs to the digging. Though the surrounding earth was wet, a little knoll lay beneath the tree, and it was there, in spongy soil, that we made the grave. It was a hard task, and Bronard dug little, but I worked violently, glad of a fierce spell of activity to direct my mind, however momentarily, away from the hates and the horrors of the night. And I swore two vows. Swore them to myself, and swore them upon the grave I dug. I swore to kill Yurovsky, and I swore to kill Sverdlov. The machinations of the one had delivered the whole family to the executioners of the other. They merited death, and more.

  And then, came a dreadful task; for the bodies had to be carried, one at a time, from the truck to the tree. I fashioned a rough stretcher from birch branches and rope, and we began, working in the same oppressive silence we had maintained ever since leaving the Ipatiev House. When at last all seven lay side by side in the grave, Bronard sank to his haunches beside it and produced cigarettes.

  I said, 'Not here, man!' He shrugged and moved off a little, and lit up. As he did so he inhaled deeply and with evident satisfaction. Then he gave me that detestable grin of his and said, 'Well, it's over! And we did well, eh?'

  I exploded. 'Well?' I said. 'With a dozen deaths! With regicide and assassination! Well?'

  'I never have understood,’ he interjected, 'how Zaharoff came to send you.'

  'What do you mean?' I demanded. 'Damn you - this is a wretched moment for -'

  'Calm down,' he said. 'We've worked hard. We need a rest. I do, anyway.'

  I could bear him no longer. I turned away and returned to the truck, for I too had need of tobacco and mine was there. With a cigarette lit, I looked down at the trembling of my hands, felt the pounding of my heart and the pressure in my head. Yet he was so calm! Glancing towards him, I saw he was standing now, with both hands against his face. Mystified, I stared harder, trying to work out what he was doing.

  And then I realized - he had a camera and was taking a photograph!

  But why?

  I ran to him, and found he had done yet more. The blankets in which each of the royal corpses had been wrapped had been opened, so that faces and clothes were plainly visible!

  As I whirled on him, he was taking yet another picture. I dashed the camera from his hands and he swore at me. 'You damn fool!' His hand was at his pocket, and I saw the butt of a revolver emerging and flung myself at him. Though he was quick, I was quicker and filled now, moreover, with a wild and vengeful fury. In a second, I had him by the throat . . .

  Yet even then his nerve held. As I tightened my grip, Bronard used the breath that could have been his last, to croak: 'Don't you want to know why?'

  Even then h
e lied. Had I not seen the Tsar's signature and read the document that now rested in the Finnish Bank in Moscow, I might have believed him, for he was plausible as the devil. He told me the tale as I had understood it first, on my arrival in Moscow from England, as I had gathered it in listening to that conversation in Lenin's office: the money deposited in London for the purchase of arms for the Imperial forces; the promise by Zaharoff that arms worth fifty million would be available to the Bolsheviks provided the Tsar would sign the document.

  'What was in the paper?' I demanded. 'And why did you say, this morning, that it didn't matter?'

  'It is a disclaimer,' he said. 'But the Tsar is dead. It has no value now.'

  That was when I knew he lied; and knew also that he must have lied about many things. To me as to others. To Goloshchokin, for one. 'It was you,' I said.

  He looked at me in insolent enquiry. 'Me? What about me?'

  I said, 'You told Yurovsky!'

  Bronard looked me in the eye. 'Don't be stupid! Why would I do that?'

  I said, 'So that all of them would die. As they did. So that even if the Tsar's disclaimer could not be obtained, or could not be taken to London, there would be no Nicholas, and no Tsarina, and no children.'

  Even as I spoke it was becoming clearer. I knew why, at that moment, the corpses of the doctor and the servants were being destroyed at the mine.

  I said, How much was it? How much had the Tsar sent?'

  He stared at me. I said angrily, 'Zaharoff volunteered fifty million to the Bolshevik leaders. Half, was it? Half of the hundred million Nicholas sent to London. If they're dead, it can't be claimed. If they've disappeared -' And then it hit me like a blinding light!

  Oh, they'd been clever. So damned murderously clever. Zaharoff more than Bronard, as you would imagine - you who read this now.

  I killed him with my own hands. I completed the burial of the Imperial Family, and made a rough sketch-map of where the grave lay. Bronard's body I dragged into the marsh and left to be devoured by predators less evil than himself.

  There is little left to tell. I left the forest bearing with me the map and the camera - and a new vow. Yurovsky was to be first to die; and he died, within a month, at my hands in Moscow, where he had fled with many royal valuables.