Professor Lomonosoff is the Minister of Railways. We are carrying six
and a half million pounds in gold, which he is taking to Germany to buy
locomotives. We are accompanied by an armed guard.
We were held up many hours last night because there was an accident
on-the line and it took a long time to clear. Periodically the axle of
the gold car breaks or the oil-box takes fire, and we stop perpetually:
but we are steadily nearing our goal. It really does not matter how long
we take so long as we catch next Thursday’s boat from Reval.
Besides Lomonosoff’s staff, which he is taking with him to Germany, our
party consists of Vanderlip and Neuroteva, and a charming man called
D----, who is a railway expert. He was once a very rich man and in the
Tsar’s entourage. He seemed anxious to tell me as quickly as possible
that he was a Monarchist, as if to be mistaken for a Bolshevik were more
than he could bear. He looked anæmic and well bred, with deep-set, sad
eyes and a calm and resignation that were almost tragic.
He differed bitterly and openly in his views from Lomonosoff, and said:
“I am a Russian. I am working for Russia, not for the Bolsheviks,” and
then called them robbers. Professor Lomonosoff sat back in his chair and
chuckled. He said: “You call us robbers, but we called you robbers.” It
was just a question of which robber came out on top.
Afterwards, when Lomonosoff left us, I begged D---- not to indulge in
any more political discussions. “I shall be over the frontier in a few
hours, but you have to live here. Do take heed for yourself.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “One dies but once,” he said, laughing, and
then explained: “They know my views well, but I can do good work for
them, and they know that I am not in touch with counter-Revolutionary
movements, and that I take no part in politics, so I am safe enough.”
Lomonosoff, who had been a railway official in Tsarist days, told us how
he had accompanied the Tsar’s train to Tsarskoe-Selo. The Tsar, he said,
had even up to that moment not realised the meaning of the Revolution.
He probably thought he was retiring to Siberia until the storm had blown
over. At the station, on his arrival, his bodyguard had by courtesy been
drawn up to greet him. The Tsar alighted from the train, and went to
inspect the guard with the usual greeting: “Good health to you,
soldiers!” The answer is: “Good health to your Imperial Majesty,” but on
this occasion the soldiers answered almost with one voice, “Good health
to you, Colonel!” The Tsar seemed to realise for the first time the real
situation. He became ashen white, turned the collar of his overcoat up,
and shrank away.
Lomonosoff also gave us a vivid and thrilling account of the detailed
organisation, in which he took part, with the purpose of wrecking the
Tsar’s train while he was on his way to Siberia. Two runaway engines
were to be despatched with no one on board to collide with the back of
the Tsar’s train. These plans were only frustrated at the last second by
news of the Tsar’s abdication.
When he proceeded to tell us how the Tsar’s _entourage_ deserted him as
rats do a sinking ship, it was evidently very painful to D---- who sat
grimly silent. I could not help feeling that they enjoyed his
discomfiture a little bit.
Later, when we were again alone together, he said to me rather
passionately: “It is not true that everyone deserted my Tsar, for my
best friend followed him to Siberia to share his death, and there were
devoted friends of the Tsarina who did the same.”
We are now nearing the frontier. The little country stations, decorated
for the 7th with red bunting and pictures of Lenin, will soon be passed.
Back we go to the old world of tips and restaurants and civilisation.
Good-bye, wonder world, good-bye--good-bye!