Back in Petrograd, Paul Dukes knew nothing about the problems his rescuers were facing. In fact, he thought that his luck might actually be changing for the better.
That morning as he shuffled down the road towards Petrograd he had seen a broken-down fence surrounding what appeared to be a copse of stunted trees. Paul had never paid attention to this area before but now, with the instincts of a true scrounger, he forced his way between the broken palings in the hope of finding more firewood or perhaps something more valuable. To his surprise he found that he was on the edge of the enormous Volkovo Cemetery. He had not realised that it extended this far. He looked around and saw that he was in an enclosed area set aside for an obscure religious sect known in Russia as ‘the Old Believers’. Judging by the overgrown and dilapidated state of the graves, no one came here very often.
Paul forced his way through the bushes and long grass, looking for anything that might be useful among the array of wooden crosses many of which were leaning at irregular angles, the names long ago weather-worn and rendered indecipherable. Here and there were one or two stone tombs, mostly collapsed, but at length he came to one which was in a slightly better condition. One corner of the tomb had fallen away and it was possible, with a bit of a squeeze, to climb inside it.
The air was foul, but the earth was dry and the stone walls provided shelter from the elements. Paul decided to rest there for a while before heading into the city. It would be good to stay somewhere fairly warm and safe for a few hours. As he lay there he reflected that he had been hunted by one means or another since the day he had arrived in the city …
When Paul had arrived in Petrograd on that first Monday, 25 November 1918, his first thought had been to find the apartment belonging to John Merritt. As a former member of Cromie’s intelligence network he should have quickly been able to lead Paul to other former agents who had survived the Red Terror.
Paul left the Finland Station, took a few moments to orientate himself and then set off in the direction of the address that Melnikov had given him. He had not travelled very far when he came across an old man who was standing against a wall, sobbing. Forgetting where he was for a moment Paul stopped and asked the old man what was wrong:
‘I’m cold and hungry,’ whimpered the old man. ‘For three days I have eaten nothing.’
Glancing around in case anyone was watching him, Paul reached into his pocket and quickly pushed a twenty-rouble note into the old man’s hand, but the old man simply looked confused:
‘Thank you,’ he mumbled. ‘But what is the good of money? Where shall I get bread?’
The full tragedy of life in the city came home to Paul at that moment. He pulled from his coat a small loaf of black bread which he had been saving for an emergency. At first he tore the loaf in half and offered a portion to the old man but, seeing his emaciated state, Paul then shoved all the bread into the man’s outstretched hands. That was the last of Paul’s food. Although he still had plenty of money, he had no idea where he could purchase more provisions. After a long cold night in the open he was already very hungry, but he had a suspicion that things would get a lot worse.
Less than an hour later Paul arrived at the address that Melnikov had given him. It was Paul’s first test as an undercover agent and he immediately made his first mistake. He tried to slip into the apartment building unnoticed and was challenged by the caretaker who closed the door firmly behind him and then barred the way. When Paul asked for Merritt, the caretaker said that he had been arrested by the Cheka and, clearly suspicious, he asked what Paul’s business with Merritt was. Building caretakers had become the stool-pigeons of the Cheka. They were mostly poor and uneducated, but many had been placed in charge of new house-committees, free to search flats and denounce residents at their will. Many were revelling in their new power. One word from them to the authorities and an occupant would be snatched away by a Cheka squad before they could even protest – leaving the caretaker and his cronies free to pillage the flat of the ‘traitor’.
Paul knew all this from his time in Russia six months earlier and he knew that unless he could talk fast he was in trouble. His first instinct was to wave his Cheka identity card and try to cow the man into letting him out. But this man did not look as if he would be easily fooled and Paul was sharp enough to know that if he pretended to be Cheka the man would wonder why he had not known about Merritt’s arrest. The caretaker was still watching him suspiciously and in desperation Paul said the first thing which came into his mind. He offered up the small parcel he was carrying which actually contained his spare clothing and some money. He said that he had no idea who Merritt was, but that he had been asked to deliver the package to him.
The caretaker looked far from convinced, but there was little he could do to challenge the story. However, when Paul said that he would take the parcel back to the person who had asked him to deliver it, the suspicious caretaker insisted that he leave it behind. Paul did so and hurried gratefully from the building.
This was a terrible blow so early in his mission. The one man he had hoped would be his chief contact was already in the hands of the Cheka. Worse, because of his poor tradecraft Paul had lost most of his belongings in a city which was desperately short of everything – especially food.
Paul did not know it but Merritt had been targeted by the Cheka because of a lead from an informant. In August 1918 they had arrested a black marketeer named Boris Borisovich Gol’dinger. Gol’dinger had done a lot of business with the British community in Petrograd who were desperate to get their hands on supplies and who, unlike most of the area’s citizens, had the funds to pay black-market prices. Under interrogation by the Cheka, Gol’dinger quickly decided that his only hope was to turn informant and among the morsels he offered up was the name of John Merritt. Whether this was a lucky guess or whether Gol’dinger had been approached by Cromie or Merritt at some stage to work for their network is not known, but in any case the Cheka added Merritt to their list. In the wake of the Cromie murder they had to be careful before arresting such a prominent British citizen, but they soon discovered that Merritt was helping people escape across the border. They decided to bring him in, hoping that he would betray the rest of his network.
Meanwhile Paul had to move to his back-up plan – find Melnikov. Not feeling confident enough to fight his way onto one of the overcrowded city trams, he walked four miles across the city to the hospital in a street called Kamenostrovsky Prospekt where Melnikov had said he sometimes stayed with one of the doctors who was a relation of his. When Paul asked for Melnikov at the porter’s lodge, he was told that he had not been seen for some time. Another dead end. That only left the café which was on the other side of the city from the hospital. Paul thought of the long weary trudge back across Petrograd. The adrenalin surge of sneaking across the border and arriving in the city had worn off by now and he felt hungry and weary. But then he had an idea: Melnikov had said that the café did not open until late in the afternoon so he had plenty of time. Paul decided to spend a little of his money. He bought some newspapers, some rather ropy-looking apples and some very stale biscuits. Then he hired one of the few remaining horse-drawn cabs and headed back to the Finland station where he had arrived that morning. He knew there was a waiting room there where he could sit in the warm and read until the café opened. He was also less likely to be stopped and questioned by a patrol there.
The journey in the cab depressed Paul utterly. Although he had only been away for six months the rapid decay of the city was frightening. The streets were strewn with rubbish and the faded red bunting which still hung across the streets from the celebration of the anniversary of the Revolution a few weeks earlier only emphasised the desolation. The Finnish guards who had told him about starving Petrograd citizens carving the flesh from the corpses of dead horses abandoned in the street had not exaggerated the situation. Everywhere Paul looked there was hunger, desperation and decay.
Late in the afternoon of that first day he finally made his way to the café. It was run by a mother and daughter in a top-floor apartment situated in a fashionable part of the city not far from the Nevsky Prospekt, the main street running through Petrograd, comparable with the Champs Elysées in Paris. Melnikov’s name was enough to gain Paul admittance to the flat and he was relieved to hear that Melnikov had been there on Saturday, the day after he had set off from Viborg. At least Melnikov had made it this far. Paul decided to wait at the flat to see if Melnikov returned. He was about to make his second big mistake of the day and although it would take several weeks for the threat to materialise it was an error which was to almost cost him his life.
The café was empty when Paul arrived but soon about a dozen people came in, including four young men who, from their overbearing manner, Paul guessed to be former army officers. Paul soon learned that Melnikov had continued to be indiscreet as the younger of the two owners, named Vera, came to his table and told him that Melnikov had warned her that Paul might be coming:
‘I shall ask no questions. You may feel quite safe here and nobody will notice you.’
But as Paul glanced around at his fellow diners, he knew that he was in an awkward spot. His ruffian-like appearance might pass out on the street where there were so many beggars and travellers from the countryside, but the patrons of the café were far better turned-out and he knew that they must be wondering who this unkempt-looking character was who they had never seen before. The four army officers seemed particularly wary of him. They were drinking and making a lot of noise, but casting occasional suspicious glances at him. As Paul wondered if he should pay the bill and leave without waiting for Melnikov, one of the officers suddenly stood up and walked over to Paul’s table.
The officer was tall and thin, with sunken eyes, hair brushed straight back and a narrow black moustache. Paul was particularly struck by his slightly crooked mouth, perhaps the legacy of some injury. But he was not unfriendly. He sat at the table and introduced himself as ‘Captain Zorinsky’. He said that he knew that Paul was waiting for Melnikov. Paul admitted nothing. Zorinsky continued nevertheless: he did not know when Melnikov would return but if, in the meantime, he could be of any assistance, Paul had only to ask. Paul thanked him for the offer, but showed no inclination to talk so Zorinsky simply smiled, bowed and returned to his noisy friends. Paul did not like the look of Zorinsky at all, but he knew that this was no gauge of the man’s reliability. Even so, he decided that there were other leads he could try before he called on Captain Zorinsky.
However, one thing was clear: he could not remain here. He wondered who else Melnikov had told about him apart from the hostess of this café and Zorinsky? The Finnish border guards had jokingly referred to Melnikov as a ‘chuckleheaded scatterbrain’, but Paul was beginning to suspect that they were right. There was certainly no safety to be found here: if they would admit someone looking as disreputable as he did then it was simply a matter of time before a Cheka informant managed to infiltrate the place. He glanced at the other diners again. Perhaps one was already here?
In fact, the café was a well-known haunt of White sympathisers and the Cheka were already aware of it. It was just about the most dangerous place that Melnikov could have sent Paul to. Even though Paul did not know this he could sense that something was very wrong with the place: despite the delicious food and the attractive young owner who urged him to call again soon, after he had paid the bill he decided that he would never go back there again.
Out in the street it was already dark even though it was only six o’clock in the evening. Paul was almost exhausted. He had not slept at all the night before and then had spent much of the day walking. Although he had spent the afternoon at the railway station he had not dared to doze off in case a Cheka patrol arrived. If he was to find somewhere warm and safe for the night he had just one option left – the flat belonging to Melnikov’s smuggler friend Ivan Sergeivitch. Paul had never intended to use this address as, apart from his brief meeting with the man, he didn’t know Ivan at all, but now he had no choice. He turned up the collar of his coat against the cold and set off.
There were forty flats in Ivan Sergeivitch’s apartment building near the Kazanskaya (the street leading to Kazan Cathedral). Ivan’s apartment turned out to be on the very top floor. Once again Paul had to trudge up many rubbish-strewn flights of stairs, but at least this time there appeared to be no caretaker to ask difficult questions. And he was in luck. Just as Ivan had promised, the housekeeper was still living there. Although she was suspicious she finally allowed Paul to enter the flat. Her name was Stepanova and she was staying there with two other people, her nephew Dmitri and Varia, the family nanny. They were surviving on the meagre Red Army rations that Dmitri earned. But with typical old Russian hospitality they shared their cabbage soup and black bread with Paul and also offered him a place to rest for the night. As he fell asleep on the couch in the study with the snow falling again outside he could at least console himself with the knowledge that he had made it across the border and survived his very first day in the city. He might not have made contact with Melnikov yet, but there had been far worse starts to secret operations. He slept soundly.
The next day Paul paid Stepanova for the food he had eaten and then went back across the city to the hospital in Kamenostrovsky Prospekt. There was still no sign of Melnikov. The snow was now falling steadily and there was a biting wind. The previous evening’s meal had not been very filling and Paul was already hungry again. But food was rationed and to get it one had to have a ration card. The Finnish guards had not been able to provide him with one so Paul wondered where he was going to get his next meal. He was also out of leads. If he was to rebuild Cromie’s networks he was going to have to think of something.
He wandered the streets for the rest of the morning, hoping that an idea would occur to him while he kept an eye out for Cheka patrols. Not surprisingly, he drifted towards the area of the city where he had once lived and it was here that he found a small restaurant in a private flat run on the same basis as Vera’s café where he had been the day before. It was risky, but he was so hungry that he took a chance. Inside the flat the food was only gruel (Paul now had a pretty good idea what happened to the horses), but there were mouldy carrots and fresh bread as extras and the woman in charge told him that he could eat there every day as long as he had money and as long as they didn’t get raided.
It was still freezing cold and Paul didn’t relish the prospect of a long night out on the streets, but the bread at the restaurant also gave him an idea. Purchasing three loaves of white bread, he returned to Ivan’s flat that afternoon. He had only been supposed to stay there for one night, but Stepanova was so overjoyed by the gift of white bread rather than the gritty black bread which usually appeared in the rations that she invited Paul to stay another night. And Dmitri’s army rations for that day included meat so the meal that evening almost counted as a feast. While the meal was being prepared, Paul made use of the telephone from the hall at the block of flats. He phoned the café which he had visited the day before. Unfortunately there was still no news of Melnikov.
That evening as Paul dozed off, he realised something: he had only been in the city for two days but he was beginning to relax. At first he had been panicked, living, as he said later: ‘from minute to minute and hour to hour.’ But now he no longer saw eyes on every street corner. Although he did not know it he was going through a process which all intelligence officers experience on a new mission and that sense of fitting in, of knowing that you have not been discovered and are truly ‘undercover’, is one of the best feelings in the world. He drifted slowly off to sleep …
The doorbell in the flat rang loudly and Paul awoke with a start.
He had slept late. Stepanova had kindly allowed him sleep in one of the spare beds and she had even found him an old pair of Ivan’s pyjamas. There were no sheets, but there were plenty of blankets and Paul had been cosy and warm. Now it was 7.45 a.m. and here he was half-asleep and without his clothes. Suppose it was the Cheka at the door? In a panic he realised that he had no idea what to do. The windows of the apartment were too high for him to jump from and like a fool he had chosen a hiding place with no other exits. There was nothing he could do but produce his Cheka papers and demand to know what they were doing here. But as soon as he thought this, he knew that it wouldn’t work – the Cheka would know if they were raiding the flat of one of their own. He was reduced to waiting nervously as he stood in Ivan’s pyjamas whilst Stepanova shuffled to the door to find out who it was. As he stood there with his stomach in knots, Paul swore that he would never again sleep in a place from which there was only one exit.
It was as he was standing there in the middle of the room feeling like a fool that the door of the room burst open and in strode Melnikov. He was wearing new clothes and a pair of glasses, but it was definitely him. Paul was overjoyed. He had been increasingly convinced that the Cheka must have picked him up. And there was other good news as well because behind Melnikov stood a giant of a man with ginger hair and dressed in a tatty brown suit whom Melnikov introduced as John Merritt. The caretaker had been wrong: he had not been arrested. The Cheka had come for him, but he had escaped through a back window as they were smashing their way in through the front door. He had been on the run ever since. Merritt explained that he had managed to evade capture by shaving off his beard; few people seemed to recognise him without it (although now it was growing back and Merritt joked that he had better find a barber). However, he had nearly been caught in random searches several times. Once he had been stopped in the street by a Chekist and had been about to be arrested because his papers were not in order. But then he had asked for a cigarette and as the Chekist reached into his pocket Merritt had knocked him out with one punch and had run for it. Paul asked him why he had not just cleared out of the country? Merritt replied that although he had escaped the Cheka had managed to grab his wife. He had been hiding out in the city, trying to think of a way to free her. Then Melnikov had spotted him in the street the previous evening and they had been searching for Paul ever since.
Having brought the two British agents together as he had promised, Melnikov was keen to move on. He told Paul to meet him that afternoon at the 15th Communal Eating House just off the Nevsky Prospekt (a sort of soup kitchen for those who did not have ration cards). He also warned Paul that he should never sleep more than two nights in the same place – and then he was gone.
Over a cup of tea as Paul dressed, Merritt gave Paul the names and details of the members of Cromie’s network who were still at large and were not so terrified that they might agree to work for Britain once again. Promisingly, one or two of them still occupied positions at the Russian Admiralty and Ministry of War. He would also take Paul to one or two safe houses he could use. The best ones were those belonging to people who were working (reluctantly) for the new Bolshevik administration. As government employees they were less likely to be visited by the Cheka. In the meantime Merritt had an appointment to see a member of the Cheka who he thought might be able to give him information about his, Merritt’s, wife. The man was a former member of the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police, but many of them were being re-employed because of their knowledge and experience. This man had no love for the Bolsheviks and – if the price was right – was prepared to help those in need. Paul agreed to go with Merritt. After all, this Cheka informant might turn out to be useful.
They left the flat and Merritt made his way through the streets to the south of the city. The risk of being picked up by a Cheka patrol was so great that the two men travelled separately. Merritt led the way and Paul followed about fifty metres behind so that if one of them was stopped the other had a chance to walk away unnoticed (but to walk, never to run). First, Merritt took Paul to a dilapidated flat where his former housekeeper was living. The flat had belonged to another British citizen whom Merritt had helped to cross the frontier and who had left him the keys in gratitude. Merritt introduced Paul (simply as ‘Mihail Mihailovich’) to the housekeeper, Maria, and said that Paul could use it as a safe house, describing it as ‘… one of the safest places in town’. The place was dirty and had very little furniture left, but it would do in an emergency.
Then they moved on to one of Merritt’s contacts, a 35-year-old former journalist who was working as a clerk for the Soviets in the Department of Public Works. Like Dmitri (Stepanova’s nephew who was in the Red Army) he was doing this simply to get an official ration so that he could live. At first, he seemed a little reluctant to go on assisting Merritt and he kept whining about his problems, but the gift of half a pound of gritty black bread was enough to transform his attitude and suddenly he was all smiles and cooperation.
Merritt was using the ex-journalist’s flat in the Liteiny Prospekt (just off the Nevsky) to meet the Cheka informant whom Paul only ever referred to as ‘the Policeman’. When he arrived a short while later, the Policeman turned out to be a short, red-faced, self-important little man. He told Merritt that his wife was being held in a communal cell with thirty or forty other women and that she was taken out and interrogated several times a day because the Cheka believed that she must know where her husband was hiding. There were no washing facilities, few bunks and very little food or water. The women were only taken from the cells at Gorohovaya for two reasons: to be interrogated or to be shot. The executions took place at exactly the same time each day: those who were dragged out at seven o’clock each evening knew what their fate would be.
John Merritt was distraught. He demanded to know how much it would cost to smuggle his wife out of Gorohovaya – he would pay anything. The Policeman smiled quietly and said that it could possibly be done – for thirty thousand roubles. Paul was shocked, but Merritt agreed to pay it without argument and handed over ten thousand roubles on account. Apparently he had already given the informant ten thousand roubles and Merritt promised the final ten on the day his wife was released. The Policeman said it would take a day or so to arrange and invited Merritt to come to his house the day after next and then offered him a bed for the night. The informant said it would be quite safe. Merritt agreed. If Paul was horrified at the risk Merritt was taking he never said so, but he must have known that the reward for handing over Merritt would be considerable.
After the Policeman had left, Paul asked Merritt about the risk. Merritt explained that everyone in the city was convinced that the British would invade any day now. The Policeman would do nothing that might compromise his future success. He also suggested that the ex-journalist should be told that Paul was a British agent. He was a coward, but a venal one. As long as Paul kept him well paid he would do as he was told and the flat would provide another safe house for Paul to use. After some thought Paul agreed and immediately won the ex-journalist over by giving him money to keep the flat well-heated, saying that he would return later that night.
Paul then left for his meeting with Melnikov at the 15th Communal Eating House. Things were going well and he was looking forward to seeing his friend who had been such an important part of his success so far. But when he arrived at the Eating House he was shocked to find that the building was encircled by the militia and by Soviet sailors who often provided the muscle for Cheka raids. The occupants of the restaurant were being led out in single file and others in the street were being searched. He hung around hoping to see if Melnikov was one of those who had been caught and while doing so he bumped into Zorinsky, the army captain from the café. Zorinsky told him that Melnikov had been one of the first to be arrested and taken away. Apparently the Cheka had been tracking him for several days. Zorinsky offered to take Paul back to his flat to talk about what might be done to get Melnikov released. Still not sure whether to trust Zorinsky, but reluctant to turn down any possible lead, Paul agreed.
Zorinsky and his wife Elena turned out to be doing suspiciously well, living in a well-furnished flat with plenty of food and a supply of good vodka. They could even afford to employ a maid. After dinner, Zorinsky explained that his wife was a successful actress in the theatre, which entitled her to extra provisions, and that he was signed on there as a manager. He did no work but drew pay and rations. That left him free to indulge in his ‘hobby’. Zorinsky then boldly announced that his hobby was intelligence and produced a document which Paul was astonished to see was a copy of recent top-level negotiations between the Bolshevik government and their political opponents. If the document was genuine, it was just the sort of political intelligence that Cumming was looking for.
Zorinsky asked if the document interested Paul at all? Fearing a trap, Paul tried to act nonchalant and handed the document back, but Zorinsky waved him away and told him to keep it. He said there would be other reports available shortly if Paul would like to see them. Zorinsky then topped everything off by claiming that he had been one of Cromie’s agents!
Paul tried to gather his wits. This was all just too good to be true. Merritt had not mentioned Zorinsky when talking about Cromie’s network – but would Merritt have known all of Cromie’s contacts? Every instinct was telling Paul to get out of the flat, but he was transfixed. If this man was genuine, he might be able to provide all the intelligence Cumming could ever want. Paul just did not know what to say. He was facing a common dilemma for any undercover officer: it is often the most dangerous and least trustworthy contacts who have the best information. Deciding on the right ones to trust is what separates good spies from dead spies. It was as Paul was wrestling with all these thoughts that Zorinsky landed his final punch:
‘John Merritt has had hard luck, hasn’t he?’
Still reeling, Paul made his most stupid mistake of the mission so far:
‘John? So you know him too?’
Zorinsky instantly became very interested and leaned forward in his chair:
‘I know of him. Tell me, you don’t happen to know where he is, do you?’
Paul hesitated. For a moment he was on the brink of telling Zorinsky the whole story. It would make everything so simple. But then his instincts saved him. Paul said firmly that he had no idea of Merritt’s whereabouts – it was just that he had heard about Merritt’s arrest before he left Finland.
Zorinsky looked disappointed and sat back. He was probably not convinced by Paul’s answer, but he clearly decided not to push this promising new contact too hard at this early stage. He had almost certainly concluded by now that Paul was a beginner at this game. He could wait.
Zorinsky offered to let Paul sleep in a spare room in the apartment that night. Paul accepted. Considering Zorinsky’s odd behaviour this might seem like a terrible mistake, but Paul had been learning from John Merritt: if Zorinsky was some sort of Cheka agent then troops would have arrived and arrested him by now. Zorinsky could have easily put in a call. Besides, like the ex-journalist, he would have known that the British were expected in Petrograd soon and that, together with the fact that there was probably more profit in keeping Paul ‘in play’, should have meant that Paul was safe for that night. And then there was the possibility that Zorinsky was genuine, that he really had been one of Cromie’s contacts. If that was true then Paul might well make him the head agent, in charge of the whole network.
The next morning Paul left and headed for Maria’s flat where he had agreed to meet Merritt. He did not arrive there until 11 a.m. but Paul deliberately took a circuitous route to throw off any followers that Zorinsky might have arranged the night before. John Merritt arrived shortly afterwards, his head covered by a large black shawl. He looked very shaky, far from his defiance of the evening before. Even Maria was frightened by his haggard appearance.
It soon became clear that it was the latest report about his wife that had caused the change. The Cheka had tried a new tactic in their questioning of her. She had been forced to stand in place for seven hours, without being allowed to move an inch, without food or water, whilst she was continuously interrogated. If she moved she was beaten. Eventually she had fainted. The Cheka had forced her to tell and retell her story over the past few days and now they had highlighted various inconsistencies as she had become more and more confused and disorientated. They were forcing her to explain the inconsistencies and she was getting herself more and more tied up in knots and giving away more and more information. Things looked very bleak for her unless she could be rescued from prison somehow.
The information she had given them so far was allowing the Cheka to close in on Merritt. They now knew that he had shaved his beard, which was the reason for the shawl, but with his height and build simply covering his face was no disguise at all. A special detachment of the Cheka had been formed to hunt for him and there was a large reward for information leading to his capture. It was only a matter of hours before a Cheka street patrol would pick him up. This flat was one of the last places which would be safe for him.
And so John Merritt had taken the terrible decision to leave the country. If he remained, all that would happen would be that the Cheka would get both him and Paul. Merritt begged Paul to take over the rescue plans that he had started to arrange with the Policeman. He knew it was a risk on top of Paul’s other espionage duties, but there was no one else he could turn to. Naturally Paul agreed. He promised that he would personally take Merritt’s wife over the border to make sure that no harm came to her. This seemed to ease Merritt’s anguish a little.
Merritt decided that he would leave the next day. First he agreed to visit a business friend of his in the local Jewish community who would provide the money that would be needed to bribe the guards to release Mrs Merritt. Before he set off, Paul asked him about Zorinsky. Merritt said he had never heard of him.
And with that Merritt was gone. Paul spent much of the rest of the day writing his first CX report for MI6, using invisible ink on a tiny scroll of tracing paper. Merritt would carry it out in the sole of his boot.
Paul saw John Merritt again briefly the next morning, Friday, 29 November. Merritt had covered his face in dirt and wore a driver’s cap. He was carrying the identity papers of his former coachman. He hoped that these would be good enough for him to be able to travel north from the city by rail from the Okhta station. This was in the east of the city from where most of the rail lines headed deeper into Bolshevik Russia so it was less likely that the Cheka would be watching it. But one line branched and ran north towards the Finnish border. Merritt planned to leave the train at some point and then to cross the border on foot.
It was late in the day when Merritt turned and said his final goodbyes to his faithful housekeeper. They were never to meet again. Paul then escorted Merritt to the station, using the trams with Paul watching Merritt’s back in case he was being followed. But Paul saw nothing. By the time they reached the station it was dark. The tiny wooden station was packed with refugees. When the train arrived they all surged forward and climbed into and onto the carriages any way they could, even sitting on the roof. Paul’s last sight of John Merritt was of the giant British agent fighting his way through the window of an already overcrowded railway carriage and then burrowing deeply into the heaving mass of desperate passengers inside in the hope of avoiding discovery. In his pocket Merritt carried a loaded revolver and in his boot Paul’s secret report. He had promised Paul that he would sell his life dearly if the Cheka cornered him.
And then the train was gone.
As he trudged back into the centre of Petrograd in the cold and the dark, a wave of depression swept over Paul. With the departure of John Merritt and the arrest of Melnikov, the last reliable links with Cromie’s old network were gone. Meanwhile the mystery of Captain Zorinsky remained. Merritt had not heard of him, but that was not proof of anything. Paul decided that the best step was to have Zorinsky’s document checked out. If that was genuine then there was still a chance that Zorinsky might be genuine as well. The only problem was how to do it?
Paul set to work. Over the next few weeks, he followed Melnikov’s advice and never spent a night in the same house twice in a row. He was also careful not to let the occupants of any of them know about the other places. He began contacting the people on the list of former agents given to him by Merritt. Many of them believed that Paul’s appearance meant that Britain would be liberating Petrograd any day now and his first job was to dampen these expectations and prepare them for a much longer haul. He was not entirely successful in this, but some of them listened and slowly he began to reconstruct the intelligence networks. He also arranged a back-up plan in case the Cheka finally got him. He had to pick one trustworthy agent and in the end decided that Merritt’s former housekeeper Maria was the best. She was nervous, but she was reliable. Paul told her that if he disappeared she should wait several days and then send someone to the British Consul at Helsinki giving his name and as many details as were known about his fate. Soon Paul began entrusting her with all the details of his movements and told her at which safe house he would be sleeping so that if he did disappear MI6 would have a better idea of who had betrayed him. He even used her as part of his courier service and she hid all his reports in the flat while he was waiting for someone who could take them out of the country.
In between agent meetings Paul spent time attending public meetings where he collected general intelligence on opinions and conditions within Russia which the British government (and therefore Cumming) so desperately needed. Paul found the long public speeches unbelievably tedious, but he also had the opportunity to see Bolshevik leaders such as Trotsky, Zinoviev and Lunarcharsky at close quarters.
His other task was to free his friends. This meant dealing with the two agents he found most odious: the Policeman and Captain Zorinsky. Obviously, he did not trust either of them but they seemed to have the best contacts. They also both seemed to have just one aim in mind – to bleed as much money from Paul as possible. For instance, the Policeman claimed to be part of a group who could seize control of the entire city – if Paul would only hand over 100,000 roubles ‘for expenses’. Meanwhile, Zorinsky wanted 60,000 roubles to bribe the investigator handling Melnikov’s case – although it would still take more than a month to release him and there might be a need for further payments to bribe other officials concerned with the case. Zorinsky recommended paying 30,000 roubles up front and the rest when Melnikov was released.
Paul went to see the Jewish banker whom John Merritt had spoken to before leaving the country. Although the banker was sympathetic there was no way he could raise the whole sum, but he did provide enough so that, adding in the remains of his operational budget, Paul could pay the first instalment for Melnikov’s release. It was at about this time, in mid-December, that Paul decided that he must return to Finland. He had proved that it was possible to live in Petrograd undercover, but he needed to contact MI6 to get more money and to set up a reliable courier system. His intelligence reports were stacking up at Maria’s flat and there were fewer and fewer people who might be able to take them. He also wanted to find out if John Merritt had got back safely and to check out Zorinsky.
But he did not want Zorinsky to find him gone and abandon the attempt to free Melnikov. So he told Zorinsky about his plan to return to Finland. Zorinsky immediately became very interested. He wanted to know how Paul was getting out of the country and when Paul pretended to be undecided, Zorinsky strongly recommended attempting to cross at Bielo’ostrov Bridge. This was the official frontier station leading into Finland and as such could be expected to be the most heavily guarded point on the border. Zorinsky replied that he had contacts there and for around 7,000 roubles he could bribe the commissar and the guards at the station so that Paul would be able to sneak across.
Once again Paul did not know whether to trust Zorinsky. If he really did have those contacts then crossing at Bielo’ostrov would be far safer than the dash through the open countryside. But there was something suspicious about the predatory way in which Zorinsky had reacted to the news and it was not the first time Paul had seen him react strangely. Risky or not, he decided to stick with his original plan. A few days later he told Zorinsky that he had abandoned his plans to travel to Finland but would be going to Moscow for a few weeks instead to make contact with agents there. If Zorinsky was some kind of double agent then Paul hoped that the prospect of being able to obtain information about a British spy network in Moscow would buy enough time for him, Paul, to escape over the border.
Meanwhile the Policeman’s plan to release Mrs Merritt from prison was finally in place. He had hoped that she would have been moved from the Cheka headquarters at No. 2 Gorohovaya to one of the state prisons at Shpalernaya or Deriabinskaya where security was less stringent, but the Cheka had refused to let her go and it seemed that they were serious about their threat to execute her. If she had been English there would have been some hope, but she had been born in Russia and therefore the Cheka felt they could do as they wished because no one in England would care – what was one more dead Russian?
The only positive news was that since their spies had learned that John Merritt had escaped to Finland the Cheka had stopped their daily interrogations. There was no point now. That meant that if the Policeman could get Mrs Merritt out of whichever communal cell she was being held in then her absence might not be noticed for several hours, perhaps even days. But now was the time to act, before they started taking an interest in her once again.
And so at three o’clock on the afternoon of 18 December 1918, Paul set out for St Isaac’s Cathedral. On the way he passed No. 2 Gorohovaya, looking for any suspicious activity. There had been blizzard conditions in the city that morning, and although these had eased at around midday it was still bitterly cold on the streets. People hurried along with their heads down. The Petrograd Cheka headquarters at No. 2 Gorohovaya was laid out like its sister building, the infamous Lubianka in Moscow. It was a grim stone building several storeys high and built around a central courtyard. There was one main entrance to this courtyard through an archway which connected with the main street. This made it easy to monitor those who went in and out of the building. As Paul walked past, hunched against the freezing cold and trying not to be noticed by the occasional Cheka patrols that left the building, he found it hard to believe that the odious little Policeman could secure Mrs Merritt’s escape from such a place.
Inside No. 2 Gorohovaya, Mrs Merritt waited in her crowded cell on one of the lice-ridden pallets at the back of the room. Shortly before four o’clock the cell door opened unexpectedly and her name was called. Many of the other women looked up curiously: it was not the execution hour, but it was unusually late in the day to be called for questioning. What could it mean? Mrs Merritt sighed and stood up. She knew that whatever this was there was no point in struggling or protesting and besides she was too weak. She shuffled towards the door.
She did not recognise the face of the solitary guard beneath his peaked cap. He locked the door behind her and then signalled with his rifle that she should walk ahead of him. They passed along the stone-flagged corridors past the rows of other cell doors, but instead of going up one of the staircases to the offices of the Cheka above, the guard forced her further along to one of the numerous side passages in the cellar. He made her stop at a door and motioned her inside with his bayonet. Mrs Merritt could see that this was a women’s toilet, but female prisoners in the cell were usually expected to use a bucket which was emptied once a day. These toilets were never used by them. She was immediately suspicious, but the guard refused to answer her questions and simply pushed her through the doorway.
Lying on the floor in one of the cubicles was an old green shawl, a shabby hat and two slips of paper. Nervously, Mrs Merritt picked them up and read them. One was a day pass to Gorohovaya issued to some relation of a prisoner in a name she had never heard of. The pass stated that the visitor had entered the building at four and must leave by seven o’clock. The other piece of paper simply said: ‘Walk straight into St Isaac’s Cathedral.’
It could have been a trap – she was smart enough to know that. But she was too worn out to care. What was the difference between a bullet in the back as she was walking out through the front gates or a bullet in the head as she knelt in the courtyard one evening just a few days from now? She destroyed the instructions, wrapped the dirty shawl around herself and stepped outside.
The guard had gone. Mrs Merritt walked back along the passage to the main staircase. There was a desk here where all visitors were checked in and out. She presented the pass. The guard barely glanced at it and waved her past. Hardly daring to believe her luck, she walked slowly up the stairs, trying to look ahead at each turn in the staircase to see if anyone was waiting to ambush her. But the staircase was empty.
She arrived in a corridor and at the far end could see the main doors through which she had been dragged in the middle of the night almost one month before. Tears were streaming slowly down her cheeks. Still clutching the shawl around her, she stumbled forwards. She passed office doorways where the clacking of typewriters and murmured conversations showed that the Cheka was still hard at work, but no one looked up. At the doors, a guard held one of them open so that she could pass through and she stepped into the twilight of the late afternoon.
The courtyard was busy with Cheka troops passing back and forth on various errands. The familiar canvas-covered trucks of the Cheka were parked here and there. The transport by which their victims arrived and in which the bodies were taken away. To Mrs Merritt’s left was the archway and main gate of the building.
She stepped carefully down the steps into the courtyard. Still no one challenged her. She walked slowly towards the gates, not daring to hurry but at any moment expecting to hear her name called or a shot ring out.
Mrs Merritt was at the gates.
The sentry with a rifle slung over his shoulder took her pass and read it. He glanced briefly at her, added the pass to a pile of others on the desk behind him and then waved her through.
Fifteen minutes later Paul was still at St Isaac’s and almost out of his mind with worry. He had been there for over an hour and had burned two whole candles as he knelt before one of the icons from where he could watch the entrance to the cathedral. He had never met Mrs Merritt and the Policeman had only told him to watch for a woman in a green shawl at around four o’clock. It was now a quarter to five but Paul could not afford to let his concentration on the door lapse for even a moment. He smiled wryly as he thought how impressed any watcher must be by his devotion to the blessed icon.
And then he saw the green shawl. It looked almost black in the candlelight in the cathedral, but it must be her, he thought. Mrs Merritt hesitated at the door. She appeared to be on the point of collapse. Slowly she advanced towards the altar and then Paul was by her side. Taking her gently by the wrist he told her that he was an Englishman who had been sent by her husband and that he would be taking her across the border to Finland that night. She almost collapsed in his arms. He led her to a pew to rest for a few moments, but he knew they could not wait for long. As soon as she felt strong enough to stand he led her out into the street.
It was a long way to Maria’s flat and Paul wasn’t sure that Mrs Merritt would make it. It meant taking a risk, but he hailed one of the horse-drawn sleighs from across the square. Even though the woman was weak, Paul could not afford to head there directly in case they were being watched. At an intersection known as Five Corners they left the sleigh and hurried through the deep snow down one of the side streets. With Mrs Merritt leaning heavily on his arm Paul led her through twisting alleyways, hoping to throw off any followers but taking care that they didn’t turn a corner and bump into a Cheka patrol at the same time. Finally he felt that he had done enough and that John Merritt’s wife could not take any more. He hailed another sleigh and they made their way as quickly as possible to Maria’s flat.
Even here there was no time to rest. Maria was overjoyed to see her former employer but in less than an hour it was time to move on. Paul planned to use the same route as John Merritt to get out of the country and the last train from Okhta Station left at seven o’clock. Paul helped Mrs Merritt out of the hat and green shawl and wrapped her in a dark cloak which he had purchased at one of the unlicensed street markets that morning. She was very weak and Paul dreaded to think what conditions would be like at the station, but there was nothing he could do. After a last farewell to Maria he took Mrs Merritt downstairs and hailed another sleigh. He had to conserve whatever strength she had for the long walk across the border – if they made it that far.
At Okhta the scrum to board the train was every bit as bad as it had been on the day when Paul had seen John Merritt. Paul dragged Mrs Merritt through the crush, barking at her in Russian, hoping to look as little like an English couple as possible. But the press of people trying to get out of the city was so great and Mrs Merritt was so weak that it did not look as though they were going to make it before the train departed. Then, almost at the point of giving up, Paul saw that an extra boxcar was being fitted to the front of the train. The crowd surged forwards and Paul ran with them, half-dragging Mrs Merritt as she stumbled in the snow behind him. People were piling in through the open doors of the boxcar. In a moment the opportunity would be gone. Paul hauled Mrs Merritt to her feet and lifted her bodily above the heads of the others who were struggling to scramble aboard. She cried out in pain, but there was nothing for it. With a final effort, Paul forced his way in among the mass of passengers and their bags of belongings and then the door of the boxcar was slammed shut behind them.
Paul later said that the thing which struck him most about the journey was the almost complete silence in that boxcar. The people were all crammed in to the point of suffocation, but after the screams and oaths and struggles on the platform no one spoke – or if they did it was only in brief murmurs. Only one thing disturbed the quiet: a young boy who was jammed in next to Mrs Merritt coughed and coughed and coughed until Paul thought he might brain him. For five hours the train chugged steadily north, stopping occasionally at small stations for passengers to try and fight their way off the train before the boxcar door was slammed shut and they headed off through the snow again.
It was midnight by the time they reached the end of the line at Grusino. People streamed off the train and headed into the pine forests on their own private quests for food and firewood. It was bitterly cold and the snow here was deep. Paul helped Mrs Merritt to climb down. Paul had been told by John Merritt where to find a contact here but first he led Merritt’s wife in the opposite direction to the border, in case anyone was watching them. When he was certain that they were safe he took her to the hut on the edge of the forest which Merritt had given him directions for.
The hut turned out to be occupied by several people. One was a sixteen-year-old boy named Fita. His father had been shot by the Cheka for ‘speculation’. He now took revenge on the Bolsheviks and earned a meagre living by leading refugees across the border. There were four other people waiting for the journey to begin. Fita told Paul that one was an army officer who had been asking for a guide in the village for the past few days and had finally wound up here. He had brought three women with him. Two of the women, aged just fifteen and seventeen, were ‘princesses’, distant relations of the Tsar. The other woman was their governess. All four were dressed in rough peasant clothes in the hope of avoiding discovery. Paul dreaded to think what would happen if he and Mrs Merritt were caught by the Cheka along with these ‘enemies of the proletariat’. But then, as a British spy he was in so much trouble by now that it probably wouldn’t make much difference.
The party set off in two sleighs. Paul paid Fita a little extra for the fastest sleigh just in case they had to make a run for it. They travelled north because the direct route west to the Finnish border would be too dangerous. Even so, they had to make several wide detours to avoid border outposts. Normally the area was a combination of forest and impassable bogs and the outposts were designed to cover the few safe forest tracks. But with everything now frozen the sleighs could safely glide over the bogland and give the outposts a wide berth.
About fifteen miles from Grusino they reached a tiny village, barely more than four or five huts, deep in the forest. Here the party left the sleighs and Fita handed them over to the next contact. From here they would walk. This was the part of the journey which Paul feared Mrs Merritt would never manage.
The party said goodbye to Fita. They did not know it, but within a few weeks he would be dead, tracked down and shot by the Cheka for ‘conspiring with counter-revolutionaries’.
The new guide was a highly disreputable-looking individual, little more than a vagrant. Both Paul and the officer protecting the princesses tried to persuade him to allow them to take the sleighs for the rest of the journey. The peasant replied that it was only about a mile to the border and in any case the snow was too deep for the sleighs to force their way through. The princesses seemed to have brought quite a lot of bags with them. Even though he had to support Mrs Merritt Paul helped the officer and the guide to carry as many of them as possible.
They set off through the trees. The peasant led them at a determined pace. Although the nights were long, it was important to cross the border before the morning when the patrols would become more active. Things were not helped by the fact that the officer insisted on stopping every fifteen minutes so that the princesses could rest. Far from the mile which the guide had predicted it soon became clear that the distance to the border was more like ten or twelve. Mrs Merritt’s resilience astonished Paul. She seemed to have got her second wind: despite a month in the hands of the Cheka with almost no food and constant interrogation she trudged onwards through the snow and made her way with almost no assistance. She certainly handled the journey with greater fortitude than any of the other women.
Finally they arrived at a clearing beyond which was a broad ditch. The guide told them that this marked the border. They could see a black and white post sticking out of the snow on the far side. That meant Finnish territory and safety. He warned them that the Russian border posts were only a mile away on either side of them and patrols were frequent so they had to cross quickly. But there seemed no way to cross. There should have been a bridge, but as they walked up and down the bank there was no sign of it.
Then, as they were standing around wondering what to do, a figure carrying a rifle emerged from the trees behind them. For a moment there was panic, but no other patrolling figures appeared and, looking more closely, the guide recognised the man who was walking towards them. He was a hunter from a nearby village. After greeting the guide, the hunter told them that they had missed their mark and that the bridge was in another clearing a few hundred yards away. Ten minutes later the party was making its way gingerly across a thin, heavily iced plank of slippery wood which was apparently the ‘bridge’ into Finland. Once on the other side, the members of the party hugged each other in celebration.
‘It’s all right for you, you’re out of it, but I’ve got to go back,’ grumbled their guide.
As Paul looked back across the ditch he knew that he would have to go back as well. His work for MI6 had only just begun. With some more money he could really get Cromie’s networks back on their feet.
And besides, he had a friend to rescue.