Red Dusk and the Morrow

The snow glittered brilliantly in the frosty sunshine on the afternoon of March 11, 1917. The Nevsky Prospect was almost deserted. The air was tense with excitement and it seemed as if from the girdling faubourgs of the beautiful city of Peter the Great rose a low, muffled rumbling as of many voices. Angry, passionate voices, rolling like distant thunder, while in the heart of the city all was still and quiet. A mounted patrol stood here or there, or paced the street with measured step. There were bloodstains on the white snow, and from the upper end of the Prospect still resounded the intermittent crack of rifles.

How still those corpses lay over there! Their teeth grinned ghastlily. Who were they and how did they die? Who knew or cared? Perhaps a mother, a wife.⁠ ⁠… The fighting was in the early morning. A crowd⁠—a cry⁠—a command⁠—a volley⁠—panic⁠—an empty street⁠—silence⁠—and a little group of corpses, hideous, motionless in the cold sunshine!

Stretched across the wide roadway lay a cordon of police disguised as soldiers, prostrate, firing at intervals. The disguise was an attempt to deceive, for it was known that the soldiers sided with the people. “It is coming,” I found myself repeating mechanically, over and over again, and picturing a great cataclysm, terrible and overwhelming, yet passionately hoped for. “It is coming, any time now⁠—tomorrow⁠—the day after⁠—”

At Aberdeen the control officer had received orders to pass me through by the first train to London. At King’s Cross a car was waiting, and knowing neither my destination nor the cause of my recall I was driven to a building in a side street in the vicinity of Trafalgar Square. “This way,” said the chauffeur, leaving the car. The chauffeur had a face like a mask. We entered the building and the elevator whisked us to the top floor, above which additional superstructures had been built for war-emergency offices.

I had always associated rabbit-warrens with subterranean abodes, but here in this building I discovered a maze of rabbit-burrow-like passages, corridors, nooks, and alcoves, piled higgledy-piggledy on the roof. Leaving the elevator my guide led me up one flight of steps so narrow that a corpulent man would have stuck tight, then down a similar flight on the other side, under wooden archways so low that we had to stoop, round unexpected corners, and again up a flight of steps which brought us out on the roof. Crossing a short iron bridge we entered another maze, until just as I was beginning to feel dizzy I was shown into a tiny room about ten feet square where sat an officer in the uniform of a British colonel. The impassive chauffeur announced me and withdrew.

At last the train stopped at Rajajoki, the last station on the Finnish side of the frontier. It was a pitch-dark night with no moon. Half-a-mile remained to the frontier, and I made my way along the rails in the direction of Russia and down to the wooden bridge over the little frontier river Sestra. I looked curiously across at the gloomy buildings and the dull, twinkling lights on the other bank. That was my Promised Land over there, but it was flowing not with milk and honey but with blood. The Finnish sentry stood at his post at the bar of the frontier bridge, and twenty paces away, on the other side, was the Red sentry. I left the bridge on my right and turned to look for the house of the Finnish patrols to whom I had been directed.

Finding the little wooden Villa with the white porch I knocked timidly. The door opened, and I handed in the slip of paper on which Melnikoff had written the password. The Finn who opened the door examined the paper by the light of a greasy oil lamp, then held the lamp to my face, peered closely at me, and finally signalled to me to enter.

“Come in,” he said. “We were expecting you. How are you feeling?” I did not tell him how I was really feeling, but replied cheerily that I was feeling splendid.

The figure disappeared in the doorway, and the women went on waiting⁠—waiting for seven o’clock.

“Follow me,” said the guard. He moved along the corridor and turned down a side-passage. They passed others in the corridor, but no one heeded. The guard stopped. Looking up, the woman saw she was outside the women’s lavatory. She waited. The guard pointed with his bayonet.

“In here?” queried the figure in surprise. The guard was silent. The woman pushed the door open and entered.

Lying in the corner were a dark green shawl and a shabby hat, with two slips of paper attached. One of them was a pass in an unknown name, stating that the holder had entered the building at four o’clock and must leave before seven. The other had scrawled on it the words: “Walk straight into St. Isaac’s Cathedral.”

Mechanically she destroyed the second slip, adjusted the shabby hat, and wrapping the shawl well round her neck and face passed out into the passage. She elbowed others in the corridor, but no one heeded her. At the foot of the main staircase she was asked for her pass. She showed it and was motioned on. At the main entrance she was again asked for her pass. She showed it and was passed out into the street. She looked up and down. The street was empty, and crossing the road hurriedly she disappeared round the corner.

Like dancing constellations the candles flickered and flared in front of the icons at the foot of the huge pillars of the vast cathedral. Halfway up the columns vanished in gloom.

“Yes, but this is the spot we’ve got to drive past quickly!”

We were crossing the line of Lissy Nos, a jutting point on the coast marking the narrowest part of the strait. Again a beam of light shot out from the fortress, and the wooden pier and huts of Lissy Nos were lit as by a flash of lightning. But we had passed the point already. It was rapidly receding into the darkness as we regained the open sea.

Sitting upright on the heap of hay, I kept my eyes riveted on the receding promontory. We were nearly a mile away now, and you could no longer distinguish objects clearly. But my eyes were still riveted on the rocky promontory.

Were those rocks⁠—moving? I tried to pierce the darkness, my eyes rooted to the black point!

Rocks? Trees? Or⁠—or⁠—

I sprang to my feet and shook the Finn by the shoulders with all my force.

“Damn it, man! Drive like hell⁠—we’re being pursued!”

Riding out from Lissy Nos was a group of horsemen, five or six in number. My driver gave a moan, lashed his horse, the sleigh leapt forward, and the chase began in earnest.

“Ten thousand marks if we escape!” I yelled in the Finn’s ear.

For a time we kept a good lead, but in the darkness it was impossible to see whether we were gaining or losing.