The Quick Boat Men, page 28
McWilliams floated nearby, buoyed up by the air in his oilskin. Edward tried to support him. He held on until the icy water numbed his fingers. McWilliams slipped away and vanished.
‘Oh, Christ, Paddy,’ Edward moaned. ‘No.’
He swam round in a circle, shouting. But there was no one to help. Edward realised that, if he were to remain alive himself, he had to direct his energies to reaching the shore. His heavy leather coat threatened to drag him down. It was a struggle to get it off, but Edward succeeded without swallowing too much water.
How long he swam, he didn’t know. But he made it to the shore. Dragging himself from the water, he heaved himself upright. He was frozen to the bone, exhausted, and still in Russian territory.
Scrambling from the beach, Edward headed inland through a huddle of tall firs. After a while he came to a road and set off along it, boots squelching. As daylight came he spotted a barn-like structure ahead of him.
Inside there were a few crude farm implements, a plough with a wooden blade, a primitive rake on wheels. The barn had a straw-filled loft. There was no ladder but he managed to climb up and flung himself down in the straw.
When Edward awoke, he guessed by the position of the watery sun that it must be late afternoon. He judged himself to be 60 or so miles from the Estonian border and guessed that he should reach it in four days. The chief problem was food.
A scraping noise below him, made Edward start. Scratching the hay from the floorboards of the loft, he peered down. A woman, round as a barrel, was staring upwards, alerted by the trickle of chaff through the cracks in the floor of the loft.
‘Dobroye utro,’ he tried.
‘Bozhe moi.’ The woman opened her mouth to scream.
Edward put his finger to his lips and shook his head.
‘Zdravstvuite.’
Edward was unlikely to get very far, he realised, with nothing more than ‘Good morning’ and ‘hello’. He took a chance and jumped down. She watched him nervously, but it was clear she was more curious than alarmed. He pointed to his mouth and, fishing in his pocket, produced what money he had. It was damp and stuck together and he had difficulty in peeling it apart.
‘Amerikanski?’
‘Nyet. Anglichanin.’
Pointing down the road, she mimed holding a rifle to her shoulder. He got the impression she was trying to tell him there were British soldiers not far away. Again he pointed to his mouth and offered the money. She looked at it with interest but shook her head.
‘Kasha,’ she said and pointed down the road again, beckoning him to follow her.
They set off together and in the distance he noticed a low sod-roofed building with a wisp of smoke rising from the chimney. As they walked he tried to find out more about her with the few sentences of Slav he had picked up. He grasped the fact that she owned the farm but that her husband had been shot by the Communists.
‘Klavdia Kusobev,’ she said, tapping her chest.
‘Edward Bourdillon.’
She nodded. ‘Ed-vard Boo-dillon. Khorosho.’
‘Kasha’ turned out to be a crude porridge in which the kernels of the oats crunched under his teeth. But the woman also provided bread and tea, unsweetened and without milk in Russian fashion. As he ate, she sat opposite him, watching with apparent fascination.
‘Khorosho?’
He nodded – ‘Khorosho. Good’
He rose to his feet and indicated he should be on his way. She shook her head.
‘Bronevik,’ she said. ‘Bronevik.’ She made a noise like a car. Edward couldn’t work out what she meant. But there was another barn behind the farmhouse and she indicated it was there he should rest.
He spent the day lying in the straw, dozing. But his senses were alerted, later in the afternoon, by the sound of an engine. Peering out, Edward saw the woman trudge slowly along the road. Beyond her was a crude armoured car, steel plates bolted to a motor car body and a machine-gun mounted in the back.
Convinced she had betrayed him, he sneaked out of the barn and took cover behind a group of trees to watch the armoured car, which he now realised was the ‘bronevik’ she had been warning him about. Two men in leather coats carrying rifles climbed out. He waited for the woman to denounce him but she shook her head and pointed to the east. The men stood talking and smoking, then climbed back into the car and set off in the direction from which they had come.
Edward emerged from his hiding place.
‘Chinovniks,’ she said, when she spotted him. ‘Duraki.’
She prepared a sort of bacon stew and they ate it with black bread, just the two of them sitting alone in the shabby, smoke-filled farm room. Afterwards she produced a bottle.
‘Vodka,’ she said and, fetching two thick glasses, almost opaque from long use, she poured out tots for them. The spirit clawed at his inside. She poured two more larger measures and they sat back, grinning at each other.
By this time it was dusk and she indicated the road, then pointed at his uniform jacket and shook her head. Producing a sheepskin jacket and fur cap, she indicated he should put them on.
‘Khorosho,’ she said. ‘Polushubok. Papakha. Good.’
She took away his jacket and handed him a cloth in which she had wrapped dry porridge, a lump of dark bread and a chunk of fatty bacon, then pushed him to the door. Edward didn’t know how to thank her. Then he remembered a phrase McClumpha’s daughters had taught him. He hoped it meant the same to a Russian.
‘Tsaritsa moyevo serdsta,’ he said. ‘Queen of my heart, Spasibo. Thank you.’ And he bent forward to kiss her on the cheek.
Her ugly face went pink with pleasure and she struggled to find a reply. Then she stood up straight. ‘Bozhe king khrani,’ she said. ‘God save King.’
Forty-two
It took him five days in bitter cold to reach the frontier. He walked between dusk and dawn and hid in the fields during the day.
The frontier consisted of nothing but a line of trees and he walked across it without difficulty. The first people he saw were German soldiers who were helping the Estonians set up their buffer republic against the Russians. The British consul in Narva provided him with a train ticket to Riga where he said there was a British Army headquarters. He also provided money for a meal, an old civilian jacket of his own and a clean shirt.
The train was crowded with refugees, and the smell of unwashed bodies and old clothes was overpowering. Because Riga had been unexpectedly occupied by Bolshevik sailors, the train took a circular southerly detour to Yelgava. At the station, Edward found an RAF flight sergeant with a Crossley tender who was awaiting officers from a ship from England, and he directed Edward to British Army headquarters, where he was received with some surprise. ‘We heard you were dead,’ he was told. ‘Your family’s been notified, I’m afraid.’
The officer tried to explain the general situation. ‘As far as I can make out,’ he said, ‘everybody’s fighting everybody else. We’ve got White Russians towards the Chinese border and round the Crimea. And they’re taking quite a beating. Naturally. Their officers are afraid of being shot in the back by their own men. And the British-led troops are German territorials. It’s a funny old business. And Poles. It’s a terrible mess, if you ask me.’
Edward was none the wiser.
No one had heard of a women’s voluntary ambulance corps in the area and Edward decided to try the hospital.
The hospital had once been government offices but had been taken over for British sick. It was still in a chaotic state, constantly besieged by civilians begging for treatment that couldn’t be given. What was needed, simply, was food. But nobody had any to give and the RAF men, who were living on barges on a nearby canal, handed out every day thick slices of bread and jam to starving children. The fields had been denuded by hungry people who had been surviving on dried fish and bread made of rye straw for nearly two years. The hospital knew of no women’s ambulance corps.
Eventually Edward made his way by train to the port of Libau. It had been evacuated during the war by the Russians who had destroyed the port facilities and burned stores. The entrance had been closed by block-ships and it seemed to consist solely of shattered buildings and half-submerged vessels.
The train drew in a day or two after a mutiny by White Russian troops and, as Edward stepped into the forecourt, his arm was caught by a British military policeman.
‘Hang on, sir,’ he said. ‘I should keep out of the way if I were you.’
The condemned ringleaders had just been brought into the station forecourt. They were blessed by ringleted priests, sprinkled with holy water, and kissed before being lined up against a brick wall. And then, without further ado, they were shot.
There were no ships heading westwards but finally it was decided to send a guarded train via Berlin. Travelling with diplomats and the control commission’s agents were a few wounded men and Edward. He was supplied with a civilian suit and overcoat and a passport. ‘They won’t stop civilians,’ he was told. ‘But they don’t like Allied soldiers one bit.’
It was a dreary journey through the empty plains of Poland. Every time the train stopped for more carriages to be hooked on it was surrounded by starving families. The blockade which had forced Germany into surrender had still not been properly lifted, and everywhere there were soup kitchens. The peace conference at Versailles was still debating the political issues that had arisen from the war, but seemed to have no time to address the most critical issue – the starving people of Europe.
Germany was a battlefield. The returned soldiers detested the politicians who had let them down. On every street corner there were armed men who had refused to be demobilised, still wearing steel helmets and manning machine-gun emplacements. More than once, Edward heard small-arms fire, and saw scattered groups of fugitives, some in sailors’ uniforms, pursued by grey-clad army men.
At Berlin the train was switched south to Dresden because of trouble in Brunswick. At Dresden they were told it was going no further because fighting was halting all traffic.
There seemed to be no alternative but to try to find a hotel for the night. In the growing dusk, Edward went into a nearby bar.
The place was thick with smoke. Gaunt civilians were warily watching a group of soldiers, their coal-scuttle helmets on the seats alongside them. There was only one place, alongside a woman who was sipping a cup of coffee she held in both hands as though to warm them.
Edward gestured at the empty seat and she lowered the cup and smiled. She was wearing a leather coat and a fur hat. Beside her lay a soft leather bag that looked big enough to carry a machine-gun. He ordered a coffee and a weinbrandt. The coffee was terrible but the spirit sent a warm glow through his body.
‘You are English, I think,’ said the woman.
‘Yes.’
‘The English are not very popular here. Especially with those gentlemen over there.’ She nodded towards the soldiers.
He smiled. ‘You speak very good English.’
‘I was three years at school in England. I am Leni Haeft.’
‘Edward Bourdillon.’
The soldiers on the next table were listening to the conversation.
‘They would like to know who you are.’
‘I’m not important.’
‘They think you might be a left-wing politician. A Spartacist. A Marxist. An American or British sympathiser.’
‘I’m just someone who needs a hotel for the night.’
The woman finished her coffee, then said, ‘I think you’d better come with me.’
As he rose to follow her, Edward noticed that the soldiers had disappeared. But he wasn’t surprised to see them again as they stepped into the alley at the back of the bar.
‘Quick,’ said the woman.
As they ran, they could hear the thud of boots behind them. And rounding the corner, they came face to face with a soldier. He had a pistol in his hand. Without thinking, Edward swung the heavy carpet bag he was carrying. It caught the peak of the steel helmet, and the strap round the soldier’s chin jerked his head back. There was a clunk as the helmet hit the wall, and the soldier sagged to the ground.
As they raced across the street, there was a burst of firing. Edward realised it was coming from a group of men in naval uniform in the archway of the building alongside the station. A Mercedes lorry with a swastika painted on the side was their target. The lorry screeched to a standstill and a group of uniformed men leapt out, and returned fire.
Edward and the woman made a dash for the station, and sheltered, panting, behind a pillar, as a hail of bullets chipped at the stonework.
‘Nothing like a nice quiet evening stroll,’ said Edward.
The station was deserted. Using what cover they could, since stray bullets were ricocheting all over the place, they crossed to the other side and comparative safety.
Edward offered to carry the woman’s bag. It weighed a ton. She snatched it back. ‘It is all right,’ she said. ‘I am used to it.’
‘What’s in it?’
‘This and that.’
Eventually they reached a block of flats and the girl produced a key. ‘Here we are at last. The Haeftenstahls, I’m glad to say, are rather more hospitable than those people back there.’
‘Is that your name?’
‘My real name is Elena von Haeftenstahl. My family have estates in East Prussia.’
‘Are you a Communist?’
‘Let’s say I believe in people. My parents never did. That’s why they’re in East Prussia and I’m in Dresden. I’m a socialist.’
‘Like Lenin.’
‘Lenin is a Communist. There is a difference.’
Her apartment was well furnished, with soft chairs, good pictures and attractively shaded lights.
‘Plenty of people have stayed here before,’ she said. ‘People on the run from the Freikorps. There is a spare room. The Freikorps would also like to talk to me.’ She produced a bottle and two glasses. ‘The trains won’t run for days now. But you’re welcome to stay until they do.’
She made them both a sandwich. ‘It isn’t much but it will have to do.’
‘Tell me,’ said Edward, enjoying the coarse bread and sausage. ‘Why do you carry a gun?’
‘They shot Rosa Luxembourg. They’re not going to shoot me.’
‘Couldn’t you prove you’re not a Spartacist?’
‘You don’t think they hold trials, do you?’
‘Perhaps I could get you out.’
‘And then what?’
‘You’d be safe in England.’
‘Doing what?’ Her look was one of contempt. ‘A job as a German governess? No. If Germany is in agony then I’ll suffer with her.’
Forty-three
Leni Haeft had a long classic face that reminded him of Burne-Jones’ portraits. But there was a harsh resolve that occasionally made her features set like iron, and the delicate beauty vanished.
When he awoke next morning, Edward heard a man’s voice in the salon and decided that perhaps Leni had a live-in lover. But he changed his mind when he met him. The man was young, with a thin neck, unkempt hair and thick spectacles on a large nose.
‘Rudi Goltz,’ she introduced. ‘Our propaganda expert.’
Goltz gave Edward a surprisingly sweet smile. ‘I’m a reporter on the Zeitung. I do what I can for the party in my spare time.’
He listened in silence to Edward’s story of his Baltic experiences but could not hold back when he heard about the attack on Kronstadt.
‘The Russians are as bad as the Freikorps,’ he said hotly. ‘They’re both trying to squeeze human heads until they’re the right shape and the right colour. Ludendorff’s a madman. So’s Goering. Lenin’s not much better. And the National Socialists grow more powerful every day. They’ll go the same way as the Fascists in Italy. They’re a political party now. Are you political? You should be. It’s the duty of all intelligent men.’
Later in the day he came back to the flat with a single-sheet newspaper, badly printed, with it’s title, Rote Fahne, in red. ‘Circulation’s gone up,’ he shouted. ‘From three hundred to three hundred and one. The tide is turning!’
Edward was unable to read the spidery German script but he knew the title meant Red Flag. Then he saw the name ‘Leni Haeft’, followed by his own name, or something resembling his own name – Edward Danny-Boy Dillon.
‘What’s this?’ he demanded furiously.
Leni laughed. ‘I fear Rudi doesn’t always get it right.’
She crossed to him and kissed him on the cheek.
Edward’s anger quickly subsided. ‘Aren’t you being a little rash to allow your name to be in the paper?’
‘I suspect Rudi’s trying to build me into another Rosa.’
The trains were still not running. There were reports of fighting in Berlin and elsewhere between Spartacists, Communists and the soldiers of the Freikorps.
Leni sat down beside Edward on the sofa. He could feel the warmth of her body and caught her sweet perfume.
‘Will you please put your arm round me?’
Edward did so and she lifted her face to be kissed. He obliged, wondering what he was getting into this time…
Leni couldn’t stand being cooped up for long. Her favourite place was called the Rattsherrnkeller, whose main room was surrounded by wooden statues of city councillors dating from the Middle Ages. There was always a small orchestra on a dais, classical musicians playing dance music for a pittance because they were reduced to penury by inflation. It gave the beer cellar an air of unreal gaiety.
They ate and drank there on a number of evenings, but Leni sometimes couldn’t help being gloomy. ‘I used to come here often in the old days, when I was a student at the University. I got engaged in this very room, you know. He was a doctor of philosophy.’
‘So what went wrong?’
‘He was killed on the Somme. Such a waste.’
One morning a friend of Leni’s, Walther Busch-Schatter, turned up. He was lean-faced, with lank, dark hair which almost hid his eyes.
