Murder and Revolution

by Evelyn Weiss

  Unfortunately, this letter must be brief. Please give my love and best wishes to all the family, and all members of the Host, and assure them that I am being well treated. And, I have a request.

  A young American lady, Miss Agnes Frocester, is investigating the Svea Håkansson murder, and has gathered important evidence, which she will share, if she can, with the Swedish government. They may make representations on my behalf, because they will wish to see the correct person brought to justice for the crime.

  I would be grateful if you could write a letter to the Swedish government, to submit one piece of information to be added to that evidence. This is my testimony.

  When we were in Moscow, we met my former colleague, Mr Bukin, who gave us his account of events on the day of the Håkansson murder. Mr Bukin told us that he was in the library of the main Dacha at the imperial estate of Tri Tsarevny, talking with the Tsarina, when he heard the shot that killed Miss Håkansson.

  As Mr Bukin was telling his story, I recalled something I did not get a chance to mention, because I was arrested immediately afterwards.

  When we heard the shot fired at Tri Tsarevny, I was in the ‘Third Princess’ house on the lake with Mr Grigor Rasputin. I went to the porch of Rasputin’s house, and looked out to see what was happening.

  I looked all around. When I looked up at the main Dacha, I saw a window being opened. Then, two figures appeared in it. Although they were far away, I am certain that I recognised the Tsarina, dressed in white, and Mr Bukin, standing next to her at the window. He was much too far away to shoot at Miss Håkansson.

  Therefore, this is a solid alibi for Mr Bukin, and corroborates his own account of events.

  If for any reason the Tsarina is unavailable as a witness, then this information may be useful. It does not of course help my own case, but I would not be at all surprised if the random finger of accusation was suddenly pointed at Mr Bukin instead of me. If that happens, my testimony may help to establish his innocence.

  Your Faithful Son

  Yuri”

  For the second time this morning, I see tears in Mrs Sirko’s eyes. I hear a single sob, then she bursts out. “You see! That is so like Yuri! – to spend most of his precious letter trying to help that Mr Bukin.”

  The professor mutters quietly. “If the Tsarina is unavailable… prophetic words indeed.”

  But I can’t help myself: my question comes straight out. “So – Yuri is in Baku. Where is that?”

  Mrs Sirko looks sadly at me. “Far away to the south, beyond any of the Cossack lands. I know no-one who has ever been there.”

  But Rufus smiles. “It’s not really that far, by air. What’s more, it’s covered on our map. There are oilfields there; Baku is the Texas of Russia. And where there’s oil, there’s airplane fuel.”

  The wind is in my face. Thousands of feet below our aircraft, fishing boats bob on the surface of the Caspian Sea. The water stretches out below us, like a vast blue canvas. But a few minutes ago, a long coastline came into sight on the horizon. Now we can see it growing closer every moment. Beyond the thin line of a yellow beach, the land is covered with a dense, dark forest. The professor shouts to Rufus.

  “Where’s the airfield?”

  “My map shows it next to the oil wells.”

  We’re flying lower now, and suddenly I realise: the forest is man-made. The derricks of oil wells stand up like clusters of trees; they are shaped like tall, thin pyramids. Within minutes, we’re above them, and ahead we can see an expanse of smooth baked earth; our landing place. The wheels bump and rumble along, and we slow to a halt.

  It’s not like Orenburg: no-on appears, and the airfield seems deserted. We get down from the airplane and walk towards a shed that, perhaps, functions as an office. It’s completely empty. Rufus looks at us with raised eyebrows.

  “An airfield with no ground crew! We’ll have to go and search for some sign of life.”

  Beyond the shed, we walk towards the towering derricks. They are all covered with wooden clapboards, I guess to protect them from the weather. From here on the ground, they look like tapering, four-sided wooden chimneys. The derricks are packed literally side by side, like a chessboard with twice the proper number of chessmen.

  We follow a path which threads its way through the derricks: it turns into a narrow, raised causeway of wooden planks. I can see why the walkway is raised above the ground: in the few places where there is bare earth, it is mixed with spilt oil into a slimy sludge. The soil is a victim of the greedy rush to extract every drop of ‘black gold’ from this land. The noise of the pumping grows with every step we take, as does the thick, heavy smell.

  Ahead of us on the causeway we see a figure. It’s a familiar sight: a man on guard. It is no surprise at all to see a rifle in his hands. He wears the usual red sash of the Red Guards. Rufus smiles and extends a hand.

  “We’re in an aircraft: we’ve just landed, and we need to refuel.”

  “Come with me.” The man isn’t unfriendly: he beckons to us, and we follow him deeper into the oilfield, among even more densely packed derricks. The clanging and banging of the pumping is a crazy cacophony. Finally we come to a small office, its walls and windows black with oily soot.

  “Wait in there, please.”

  “Will you get someone who is authorized to provide us with the fuel? We can pay.”

  As we step into the office, Rufus shows the man his wallet, which is stuffed with notes. It’s half the remnant of the money the Bolsheviks provided me in Moscow. The other half I’m keeping back, in case anything goes wrong and we still need money.

  It’s horribly hot and stuffy in the office. The clanking of the oil pumps is just as loud in here. We stand with sweat running down our faces as the man looks silently at the money. His mouth hardly moves, but I can tell by his eyes that he’s impressed. After a few seconds he says “There will be no problems for you. Wait here – I will sort it out.”

  As the man disappears, Rufus beams with joy at us, but the professor looks more wary. “There is a English phrase, is there not, about counting your chickens before they are hatched? I will not relax until we touch down on Iranian soil.”

  Five minutes pass in the stifling heat of the office. Now and then, Rufus rubs his hands together expectantly. Axelson taps his foot nervously on the wooden floor; the vibration seems to be in rhythm with the noise outside. For some reason, it sets my teeth on edge.

  I look out through a grime-covered window, and see the guard who met us, coming back along the walkway towards the office. His face under the shadow of his cap is smiling, as if amused by some private joke. Then, a few paces behind him, I see another man. Something in the way the second man is striding along the wooden causeway stirs a memory in me, a sense that I’ve seen the same thing before...

  The door opens. The second man is General Aristarkhov.

  “Miss Frocester, Professor Axelson – and Mr Rufus du Pavey. I should say I’m surprised to see you. But I’m not. Because, we’ve been expecting you.”

  My skin goes cold as the general explains.

  “Of course, you may all be wondering why I am here in Baku. After I led a detachment of the Red Guards in the capture of the Winter Palace, I was rewarded by being appointed in charge of security and intelligence for the Baku Soviet Committee. There are many opponents of the Revolution in this city. I am here in order to investigate traitors and spies.

  A few hours ago, one of my intelligence officers brought me a report from the Red Guards at Astrakhan airfield. They had spotted a large flying aircraft in the distance, heading towards the Caspian Sea. The aircraft matched a description of one reported stolen from Kamensk near Yekaterinburg, and another description too, given by staff at Orenburg airfield. The staff at Orenburg also described all three of you, in detail. And of course, I have been in touch with Commandant Yurovsky at Yekaterinburg. He explained to me about your unauthorized disappearance from Yekaterinburg. All the evidence added up.”

  I look at him
open-mouthed. He shrugs.

  “Russia is big, but we are able, contrary to what you Westerners think, to communicate across the miles.”

  The general’s voice is filled with satisfaction. He pauses, as if to savor the moment, before continuing. “It goes without saying, of course, that you are all under arrest.”

  None of us respond. Because another voice speaks. It’s the guard who first met us on the oilfield causeway.

  “No, General Aristarkhov. It is you who are under arrest.”

  Looking Aristarkhov straight in the eye, the guard pulls off his own red sash. Then he flings it on the floor with a gesture of contempt. Aristarkhov is struck dumb with shock.

  I see several armed men running along the causeway. The first of them throws open the office door. He points a rifle right between the general’s eyes. Now, Aristarkhov finds his voice.

  “What in the name of God is going on?”

  One of the men laughs out loud. “General Aristarkhov, I thought you didn’t believe in God! You’re an atheist and a communist – so you believe in the power of the people, don’t you?”

  Aristarkhov stares down the barrel of the rifle, as the man continues.

  “The power of the people! Well, the people of Baku have chosen. They want no Bolsheviks, no Baku Soviet Committee, no Red Guards. And they don’t want you, General Aristarkhov.”

  28 Letters of passage

  I look out of my hotel window. My room is high up, and I can see the skyline of the city of Baku; the domes and minarets of mosques, the round towers and spires of the Armenian churches, the squat office blocks of the oil companies. It’s a familiar view: we have been stranded here for seven weeks.

  As Rufus would say, our arrival in Baku brought good news and bad news. The good news was, of course, that the Bolsheviks have indeed been toppled from power in this city. But the bad news is threefold. First, the airplane was requisitioned ‘for the defence of Baku’. Without it, we have no means of escape.

  Secondly, despite spending all my time making enquiries, I have not found Yuri. All we have discovered is that he was transferred from Moscow to imprisonment in Baku on Aristarkhov’s orders. I was told by one indiscreet official the reason why Yuri was moved here.

  “When the Bolsheviks ruled this city, General Aristarkhov’s word was law. He insisted that Captain Sirko was transferred from Moscow to Baku, because the captain is accused of murdering a foreign lady, and there are delicate issues of diplomacy and politics. So, the general himself wanted to preside at Captain Sirko’s trial.”

  The third bad thing is less easy to put into words. There is something undefined, uneasy, in the air here in this city. It’s almost tangible. No-one in the streets of Baku looks at us; nor do they look at each other. Even the street markets are conducted in silence. Food, it’s true, is in short supply. But that’s not the source of the atmosphere that I sense. Right now, I look down from my hotel room window onto the street below me, and I see dark-robed figures of women and children flitting furtively from doorway to doorway, as if they are afraid to be outside their homes. Rarely, I glimpse people’s faces; when I do, every pair of eyes is somehow the same. As if they are watching and waiting, for something that they dread.

  When we first came to this hotel, my chambermaid mentioned to me that there had been trouble in the city a few months ago. Although she and I were alone in the room, she told me in a whisper.

  “The Bolsheviks, and that man Aristarkhov, had arrested many people in Baku. All the men he arrested were Azeri people, who are Muslims. So, a few months ago, the Azeris marched through the streets, protesting against the Bolsheviks. Then Red Guards with guns came out to put down the protests, and they were joined by Armenians.

  A lot of the Armenians carried weapons too – knives and so on. Some people said that the weapons were to protect themselves from the Azeris, but I don’t know whether that was true. It is hard to know, in this city, what is the truth and what is a story. I grew up in Moscow, so I do not understand either side. But I know there are old hatreds in Baku between the Armenians and the Azeris.”

  “What happened to the demonstration?”

  “The Red Guards started shooting at the crowds. After that, I was afraid, and I stayed inside this hotel. I saw nothing more.”

  But since then, over the course of many evenings in the hotel, we have found out more about what happened. Most people staying here are staff of oil companies; many of them in fact are Americans. All of them are desperate to leave, and every one tells us that they saw horrible things. They tell us their stories – but there is always a point where their voice becomes hushed, and then they say “I can’t go into details.”

  From the stories, we have pieced together what happened. The Azeri men who took part in the protests were not the only victims. After the shooting broke out, the whole Azeri population tried to flee from the city centre, but they were chased by mobs armed with guns and knives. Azeri women, children and the elderly were slaughtered indiscriminately.

  The Azeris who survived sent messages of appeal to their traditional allies, the Turks. After years of war, there is peace between Bolshevik Russia and Ottoman Turkey. So the Bolshevik leaders of Baku were confident that the Turks would not attack.

  But now, things are different. Baku has deposed the Bolsheviks and declared itself separate from Russia. Its former leaders, including General Aristarkhov, are in prison. The newly independent Baku – the ‘Central Caspian Dictatorship’ as it calls itself – has no treaty with the Ottoman Empire. And of course, the city now has no protection from the Red Army. Soon after we arrived, we heard news that the Turks had agreed to support the local Azeri people.

  A Turkish army has approached the city and is camped on the hills a few miles inland. Some days ago, we heard gunfire, but then it stopped, replaced by this strange silence. But everyone says the same thing: the Ottomans will attack soon. They will avenge the massacre of the Azeris. ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ is the phrase I hear every day. No quarter will be shown to men, women or children.

  There’s a knock at the door. I don’t call out in response, because I’m afraid. Instead, I go and get the gun I found in the lake at Tri Tsarevny. Every day we hear of incidents of violence, fights between Azeris and Armenians, that quickly result in weapons being drawn.

  The professor and Rufus are not in the hotel right now. They went out a few minutes ago to buy food, and I don’t expect them back for an hour or more. I still have much of the money that I received in Moscow: it is cheap to stay at this hotel, but food is expensive. So every day we buy bread, and eat it openly in the hotel restaurant. None of the staff care.

  The knock comes again, accompanied by the timid voice of a hotel porter.

  “Apologies for disturbing you, Miss, but there is a gentleman waiting to see you in the bar.”

  I put the gun in my handbag and go down to the hotel bar, a shabby place that’s almost always deserted. Rows of bottles of vodka, whiskey and even champagne from the oil-rich days of the past gather dust on the shelves.

  A tall man wearing a khaki British Army uniform stands at the bar. His crinkled brows and lined face are those of a man in his fifties, but he stands upright, and his eyes sparkle with the spirit and energy of youth. His hand extends to mine.

  “Lovely to meet you, Miss Frocester. I hope your stay here is not too uncomfortable? I’m Lionel Dunsterville – General Lionel Dunsterville. But I insist you call me Lionel. I’m here because I have some important news for you. May I buy you a drink?”

  “Thank you. I’ll have a small brandy. I’m sorry: my companions are out – looking for food.”

  He turns the barman. “A brandy and a Scotch whisky, please.” Then he looks at me. “The food prices are absurd. I buy food for my army; I pay twenty rubles for a water melon, four rubles for a bottle of mineral water and three rubles for an egg. They say an army marches on its stomach.” He looks at me with a wry smile. “But, I’m not here in a military capac
ity. I’m here, in fact, to deliver a letter to you.”

  “Sorry, ah – Lionel. Could I stop you there? You have an army?”

  “An extremely small army; we drove here in a few Ford cars. The British command decided to give my troops the ridiculous name of Dunsterforce. But everyone calls it the Hush-Hush Army. Officially, we don’t exist.”

  I look at him, trying to take in what he’s saying. “It sounds very odd. I suppose it’s all top secret? How much can you tell me?”

  “There’s not much to tell, Miss Frocester. We’ve been sent here from British bases in Iran, in a desperate attempt to protect the people of Baku from the Turks. We’re camped up there on the hills, so that we stand between the Ottoman Army and the city. But there’s a only a handful of us. We can’t save Baku.”

  “So the rumors about the strength of the Turkish Army are true then?” I look around the deserted bar.

  “The situation is probably worse than any of the rumors. The Turks, along with mercenaries and Azeri irregular troops – which means boys with guns – outnumber us fifty to one. Of course, we have the support of local Baku troops, mostly Armenian, but they are completely untrained. They don’t have a clue. Last night at sunset, for example, I inspected the front line. In one place where there should have been a whole Armenian battalion, there were seventy men. Then I went on to the most dangerous point of the line, where a Turkish attack is most likely. We should have had two machine guns and hundreds of men at that point, but there was no-one – no-one at all! Then I came down into Baku and found all the missing troops here, loafing about at the harbor.”

  “Can nothing at all be done?”

  “I’ve spent days arguing with the governors of Baku – the self-styled ‘Caspian Dictators’. Most of them are only a few years out of school. They are idealistic fools, who are very pleased with themselves for kicking out the Bolsheviks. They spout a lot of nonsense about bravery and heroism, but they have not even been up onto the hills to take a look at our defences.” He looks wearily out of the window. When he turns back to me, there’s a haunted look in those blue eyes.