Murder and Revolution

by Evelyn Weiss

  “I have told the Dictators, Miss Frocester, that there is only one thing we can do – and we must do it quickly. We must send a flag of truce to the Ottoman Army commander, and tell him that we need to evacuate all women and children from Baku. If the Turks will allow safe passage for those civilians, we will surrender the town and all the oilfields intact. But we must also tell the Turks that if they refuse, we will destroy everything we can in the oilfields, including the machinery that pumps the oil through the pipelines to the tankers in the harbor, and to Batumi on the Black Sea. That’s the only reason the Ottoman Army is here.”

  “I thought the Turkish Army is here to support the Azeri people?”

  “No, Miss Frocester. They are here for only one thing – the oil. Now that the Red Army is no longer here to defend Baku, the Turks have spotted their chance to grab the oilfields for the Ottoman Empire.”

  “You mean the Turks are just using what happened to the Azeris as an excuse to attack Baku?”

  “Exactly. But all the same, when the Ottomans capture Baku, I fear desperately that there will indeed be another massacre like the one in March. The Azeris will take their opportunity for full revenge on the Armenians.”

  I see something shining in his eyes: it’s tears. But he smiles at me.

  “Anyway, chin up, as they say! Now, to my business. I have some correspondence for you, from an acquaintance of yours – Lord Buttermere. When he heard that the Hush-Hush Army was setting off from Iran, he wired me with every detail, and it’s all set down in here.”

  He hands me a bulky envelope. I take out a sheaf of letters, and read.

  “Dear Miss Frocester

  It has come to the attention of British Intelligence that you, Professor Axelson and our former agent Rufus du Pavey are stranded in the city of Baku.

  As the bearer of this letter will explain, we are making all efforts to defend Baku against attack by the Ottoman Empire. But we are virtually certain that the small British force we can deploy will, at best, only be able to slow the Turkish advance, not prevent it.

  Therefore, I enclose, with this letter, three letters of safe passage; one for each of you. Each letter is written in Russian, Turkish and Persian. Please hand the letters to the new governing authorities in Baku.

  The letters are addressed from the British Crown, and request Mr Lemlin, Mr Sadovsky and the other Caspian Dictators to provide you with safe passage out of Baku, by use of a boat which can sail the short distance to neighbouring Iran.

  The Dictators are very likely to agree to this request. They are keen to have British support: they depend on the forces commanded by General Dunsterville for their survival.

  As soon as you arrive in Iran, please present yourselves to the British consulate at Bandar-e Anzali, who will organise your travel to Tehran and your repatriation onwards from there.

  I will close this letter by stressing the importance of you of using the letters of safe passage immediately. We are very close to defeating the Kaiser and all his allies; Western Europe is finally about to become a place of safety and peace. Baku, by contrast, has become the most dangerous place in the world.

  Yours sincerely

  Clarence, Lord Buttermere”

  While I’ve been reading, the general has been sipping his Scotch, his face thoughtful. He says quietly “I don’t need to tell you to heed the contents of that letter: you’re an intelligent young woman. In fact, you remind me of my wife, when she was young.”

  “Were you thinking of her, just now, when I was reading the letter?”

  “Yes. Very much. Daisie is in Mumbai, waiting for me. I was daydreaming about her. If you must know, I was wondering if I will ever seen her again. Right now, it seems highly unlikely.”

  He stands, bows, and takes his leave of me. I watch him walk away, through the hotel lobby – and I see the professor and Rufus arriving, with rueful looks on their faces. They come over to me. “Nothing in the market, we’re afraid, except these two flatbreads.”

  I explain about the letters of passage, and the professor nods sagely. “Let’s take the letters to the city governors. Right now.”

  Warily, we step out of the hotel into the silent streets. It’s only a five-minute walk to the governors’ office. I show the letters of passage to the clerk at the desk, and add “And, you have in captivity a Captain Yuri Sirko. He must be released, and accompany us when we depart for Iran.”

  The clerk says nothing, and he looks down, avoiding our gaze. He disappears with the letters. Rufus looks at me. “We may get out of here, but they are hardly likely to release your friend.”

  We wait: minutes seem like hours. But then the clerk returns.

  “Your requests for safe passage will be granted. A steamer, the Circassia, is sailing to Bandar-e Anzali in Iran in three days’ time, to collect further military supplies for the defence of Baku.

  At a point in time before its departure, we will send an authorized person to accompany you to the Circassia and ensure you are safely aboard. You may then spend the remainder of your time in Baku aboard the ship in the harbor, until it is able to depart. That will be safer for you. At the end of your voyage to Iran, you may disembark in Bandar-e Anzali, and we will arrange for members of the British Consulate to meet you there.”

  The professor and Rufus can’t contain their smiles. The clerk continues. “The Caspian Dictators will discuss the release of Captain Sirko. But in the meantime, you may visit him. I am not at liberty to say where he is imprisoned. But the authorized person, before taking you to the Circassia, will come to your hotel and accompany you to see the captain.”

  “When?”

  “When an official is available, Miss. As you can see, our staff are stretched rather thin here in Baku. But when he is available, the authorized person will call at your hotel and take you see Captain Sirko, and then on to your ship.”

  29 Death in September

  Last night, I didn't sleep. Soon after midnight, the strange silence ended. The air erupted with the high-pitched whistling of shells, the heavy blasts of explosions.

  The Ottomans are attacking at last: they have captured the slopes above Baku, and are now firing directly down into the harbor. The sun is rising in a cloudless sky; between the shrieking shells passing overhead, I hear birds singing in the old garden of our hotel. But the hotel itself is deserted, except for the professor, Rufus and me. At dawn, I came down to the lobby and found no-one here; the professor’s guess is that all the staff, being Armenian, have fled to the harbor in fear of their lives, to try to find a ship out of Baku.

  For the last two hours, the three of us have been waiting here in the lobby for the promised official who will take us to visit Yuri, and then to our ship. We’ve decided to wait just one hour more. Once that hour has passed, we, like the hotel staff, will simply have to make our own desperate efforts to find an escape.

  The shadow of a man appears in the hotel doorway, then he steps forward. He’s a fresh-faced youth, virtually a boy, dressed in the dark suit typical of the Baku government officials. He speaks nervously.

  “Three passengers for the Circassia?”

  I answer him. “Yes. But we also need to visit a Captain Sirko, who is in jail somewhere in this city. We were told that you would be able to take us to him. And we hope he can be released, and accompany us out of Baku.”

  “Of course. I have a warrant for the captain’s release, signed by the Caspian Dictators.”

  I can hardly believe it. But I don’t have time to take in the good news; the professor’s voice is brisk. “Well then – let’s go immediately.”

  We hasten down the hotel steps into the bright morning air. For a moment, the noise of the Turkish shelling has ceased. The sunlight casts sharp shadows across the street. On the lowest step of the hotel, the man turns to speak to us.

  But no words come out. He looks at me, his eyes wide open; an empty, expressionless stare above his open mouth. Then he falls, clutching his chest. Blood squirts out between his
fingers, spattering my dress.

  “Sniper!” Axelson drags me around the corner of the hotel. “The devil was hiding in the shadows across the street.”

  We crouch in a shallow alcove in a wall, scanning everywhere for danger. I stare at the professor. “Where’s Rufus?”

  But as I look up, Rufus appears, panting for breath.

  “That was a close one! I’ve had a quick look at that poor fellow; he’s a goner, I’m afraid. Bullet right through the heart. But I went through his pockets. I took our boarding passes for the Circassia; here they are.”

  “Well done!” Axelson breathes his words: we’re all in stunned shock. Rufus is trembling, but he carries on explaining.

  “I also found a note in the man’s pocket. It says where Captain Sirko is imprisoned: in the police cells on the upper floor of the Baku Courthouse. And there’s this, too.”

  Rufus holds up the warrant for Yuri’s release, with the names and signatures of the Caspian Dictators at the bottom.

  We inch our way along the hotel wall, looking around all the time for snipers. We can see no-one, but we know that any shadow might hide a gun. Eventually we reach the end of the block, and, peering warily in all directions, cross a deserted street. Axelson holds his hand to his ear.

  “Listen!”

  Rufus eyes him. “I can’t hear anything.”

  “Exactly. The noise of shelling has stopped.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I have no idea. How far is it to the courthouse, Miss Agnes?”

  “Four blocks. And from there, two more to the harbor.”

  We pick our way along the street. It is so empty that we might be the last humans on Earth. But I hear a new noise, like the buzzing of bees.

  I point, although there is nothing to see. “That strange sound – it’s ahead of us.”

  We continue moving along, still watching warily for snipers. My heart pounds with every step. The buzzing sound increases, a murmuration that seems to reverberate along the street. I can hear distinct sounds among it now, like a high edge to its guttural rumbling.

  Then I realise. The mixed sounds include human screams.

  A man steps out from a doorway, right in front of us. He’s dressed in a ragged robe, and holds an ancient rifle, pointing it at my chest. It touches the material of my dress. He speaks in broken Russian.

  “Is this girl Jewish?”

  The professor and Rufus stand either side of me; none of us has any idea what is going on. Then Axelson tries his best at a smile, and asks the man. “Why do you need to know?”

  The gun swerves away from me. It now jabs into the professor’s face.

  “So – she belongs to you, old man! I’ve been told I can have ones like her – unless she’s Jewish. We had an order from the commander that we must not touch the Jewish women.”

  The muzzle of the gun is alongside the professor’s nose, pointing straight into his right eye. The man’s finger strokes the trigger.

  “Well?”

  Axelson replies, choosing every word. “We are all three of us Jews, from overseas. We are a diplomatic mission to the Turkish government.”

  “I know nothing about the Turks, except they have paid me and others to help them capture Baku. Now that we are victorious, the Turkish Army is allowing mercenaries like me to plunder the city first, as is traditional in the Ottoman Empire. We’ve been told we may do anything we like to the women – except Jewish ones.”

  He lowers his gun, sliding it down the professor’s cheek, then pointing it away from us. There is almost a concerned look in his eyes, as if he is giving us advice. “You three Jews – take care, above all things, that you are not mistaken for Armenians.”

  Then he steps away from us, and waves us cordially on our way.

  We walk on. None of us say anything: we are all stunned by the encounter. I feel chilled to the bone by the man’s words. The air is now strangely quiet: the buzzing sound has gone. The street is empty. We’re now just one block from the courthouse. We turn a corner, and I step immediately into a deep pool.

  Blood covers my shoes.

  I lift my head, my eyes look in front of me, like an automaton. My skin is like ice: I feel blood drain from my face, my arms and legs. I have no control of my body: there’s warmth running down the inside of my thighs, as my bladder opens involuntarily.

  The street is completely covered with naked bodies. All of them are children.

  “Come this way.” The professor is pulling me back from the scene: he’s noticed an alley leading away from the horror. On one side the alley is closed in by a long wall; on the other, buildings tower above it, and scores of windows look down on us. There could be armed men at any window. But we just walk, without speaking. I don’t even look up at the windows for snipers. I’m almost unaware of my surroundings; I put one foot in front of the other, and after two minutes the open door of the courthouse appears in front of us.

  Wordlessly, we go in. There is no-one at all inside. The marble floor, the ornate pillars, and the classical-style statue of blindfolded Justice, a nude woman holding a sword and scales, all seem like an obscene joke. I see the rooms and corridors of the courthouse passing before my eyes, as if in a dream. We come to a door marked “Cells”, and push it open. Then we follow a flight of steps upwards.

  At the top of the stairs, a passageway is lined with heavy wooden doors. Each has a small window in it, and at the first window, I see a face.

  “Agnes!”

  The face I see, the voice I hear, is Yuri’s. But the sound seems to come to me across a great empty distance.

  The slaughtered children fill my sight; I don’t know what is real anymore. I must be dreaming, because one of the murdered victims is right in front of me, in the cell-lined corridor, standing and speaking as if still alive.

  The little girl is talking to me, talking to Rufus, and to the professor. In my crazy dream, she is speaking in English, with an American accent. She’s about twelve years old. Brown hair frames an oval, olive-skinned face, and she wears a simple white smock. The dead child is holding out a bunch of keys and pointing to the cell doors, Axelson is taking the keys from her, speaking to her, this flesh-and-blood ghost…

  “You fainted for a moment there, Miss Agnes.”

  Professor Axelson is speaking. I open my eyes. I’m sitting on a wood-slatted bed in Yuri’s cell. Four faces surround me; the professor, Yuri, Rufus – and the girl. I speak.

  “Was it real – what we saw, out there on the street?”

  The professor nods gravely. “Baku, I’m afraid, has become a human slaughterhouse. We can only hope that our ship is in the harbor – and that it hasn’t been sunk by the bombardment. Perhaps we can still get there. This young girl is Armenian: she came up here to the prison cells to hide. We must take her with us: to leave her in Baku would be the cruellest form of murder.”

  I look at the girl, my eyes staring and blinking stupidly. Get a grip, Agnes. I try to speak sensibly. “Do we have keys for the other cells? Are there other prisoners in here?”

  Yuri looks at me. I hear the voice I’ve missed for so long.

  “I’m glad to see the color coming back to your cheeks, Agnes. And to answer your question – yes, there is one other prisoner in these cells, someone you know. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him brought in here! But let’s forget old grudges. I’m going to try the other keys, one by one, in his cell door, and release General Aristarkhov. Then all of us must get to the harbor.”

  Yuri stands up, holding the bunch of keys. But he gets no further. Our eyes all swivel to the open door of the cell. It’s filled by the figure of a tall, powerful man. Behind his shoulders stand two soldiers, brandishing guns with saw-edged bayonets.

  The man’s uniform is pale brown, like sand: his chest is covered with medals, and a gold chain extends from his shoulder to his waist. He wears a tall fez, below which I see a startlingly handsome face, like that of a Mediterranean god. My gaze takes in his perfect olive s
kin, his strong classical nose, and eyes like deep, limpid pools. Judging by his uniform, he’s a very senior officer, but his physique beneath the uniform is athletic and youthful. His full lips part in a smile, as he speaks in perfect Russian.

  “Don’t think about trying to escape. Baku is now part of the Ottoman Empire, and you are all my prisoners.”

  30 The memory of bones

  There’s a moment’s silence, then the man stares at Yuri.

  “Give me those keys.”

  Yuri looks at the light glinting on the soldiers’ bayonets. He drops the bunch of keys into the man’s outstretched hand. The man looks at us all with those clear, deep-brown eyes, and speaks again.

  “Now, all of you – hand over that Armenian child. She is not part of your group. She is booty for the mercenaries and irregular soldiers.”

  Yuri is still standing in the middle of our cell. He holds the intruder in his gaze; his voice is low and polite, but seems to echo off the walls.

  “Who are you, sir?”

  The man’s face hardens. “I’m Commander Kılıç Pasha, of the Ottoman Army of the Caucasus.”

  “Kılıç Pasha, I am Captain Yuri Sirko of the Tsar’s Astrakhan Cossack Host. The Armenian girl is under my personal protection.”

  The man glances back at his two soldiers; he speaks contemptuously. “Take the girl away.”

  The soldiers step forward. One of them angles the point of his bayonet towards Yuri’s neck. But Yuri looks unblinking into Kılıç Pasha’s eyes, and speaks again in that soft but compelling voice.

  “I have some knowledge of Turkish soldiery. You have a strong code of honor.”

  “You are right: we are men of honor, who abide by our promises. We pledged not to harm any Jews in the taking of Baku, and we are honoring that promise. But our pledge does not extend to Armenians, or to any legitimate prizes, including the female population of any city that resists our Empire. So, my decision about the girl is final.”