IN THE DUNGEONS OF THE EXTRAORDINARY COMMISSION
I was arrested by the Vecheka (the usual contraction for the Russian
words signifying “All-Russian Extraordinary Commission”) at 12.30 on the
night of Good Friday. I had passed the evening in the company of a very
cheery electrical engineer called Falk who, though a Russian, had served
in the French Army throughout the Great War, and was not a Bolshevik. He
is at present helping to carry out the vast engineering scheme for the
electrification of the villages which I have described elsewhere, and
his frank and naïve appeal to me, to assist by my pen in putting Russia
on her legs again, moved me more than all the elaborate arguments of the
well-primed specialists who had previously been let loose on me. The
corrective came half an hour after midnight in the shape of the Vecheka.
I was asleep at the time of the visitation, but a loud knocking on the
door soon woke me up. I was not alarmed on hearing it, for correspondents
in possession of important news had been in the habit of thus waking
me up unceremoniously at night. On opening the door I saw a group of
soldiers outside—five or six young men. One of them said: “You are
arrested, and we are going to make a search.” Switching on the electric
light, I invited them to enter, but the invitation was unnecessary, for
they were already in my room when it was made. Among them was the young
soldier who was acting as hotel manager at the Savoy. All of them were
excited and were breathing heavily. They evidently expected resistance,
and one of them asked me if I had any arms. They themselves were all
armed with revolvers.
I was proceeding to dress, when they plucked away my clothes from me, and
began to search them, not only turning out the contents of my pockets,
but also feeling all over each garment to see if there were any document
hidden in the lining. If there had been any, it would have betrayed its
presence by the crinkling of the paper. Only a few weeks earlier I had
secreted in the lining of my coat a photograph of myself in military
uniform, stamped on the back “Director of Military Intelligence, War
Office,” with the word “correct,” and the signature of an officer in the
M.I. Department at the War Office added in ink. Luckily I had destroyed
this, along with a great deal of other documentary evidence establishing
my connection with the Army. It would certainly have been discovered on
this occasion, for the searchers knew their business thoroughly; and, if
discovered, my stay in prison would be lengthy, or, which would be worse,
not lengthy. The only compromising object in my possession was an army
identity disc worn round the neck, but the soldiers apparently mistook it
for a charm or religious emblem of some kind. Painted in large letters on
the outside of my leathern hunting kit-bag was my name and military rank
and the one fatal word “Intelligence,” but I had rubbed some ink over
this inscription, to which the searchers paid no attention, though a wet
rag would have removed all the ink in a few moments without obliterating
the tell-tale letters underneath. The interior of the bag was very
carefully examined, however, even the space between the canvas lining and
the outer skin being opened up and minutely scrutinized.
Having searched my clothes, the soldiers of the Vecheka returned them to
me and told me to dress. While I was doing so, they examined all my other
belongings with the same expert care. These police of the Revolution
are twice as competent at their work as the old police of the Tsar,
for, during the imperialistic régime, they themselves (having been in
jail most of the time) knew every trick for secreting documents, and
now they put that expert knowledge to account in order to discover the
documents that others may have secreted. One of them even hammered on the
wall in order to ascertain if, during the week I had occupied the room,
any _cache_ for papers had been hollowed by me in the wall underneath
the wall-paper. It was documents they were practically in search of.
I happened to have a good many, and they collected every scrap of
writing, as well as of printed matter, including even bits of newspaper
which I had wrapped round pieces of bread, etc., and tied them all
together in one large package which they treated with particular care,
and which they would not even allow me to approach. They were evidently
afraid of some sudden grab on my part, or some of trick of legerdemain
which might result in the destruction or the disappearance of some
compromising document. But, luckily, as I have already pointed out, I had
no compromising document in my possession. My mind was perfectly easy,
therefore, and I could even afford at times to be jocose. This had its
effect on the police. Their laboured breathing soon became normal, and
their manner natural.
I took advantage of this change in their demeanour to ask why I had been
arrested, and what the charge was, but everybody burst out laughing
at this unusual question, and the leader of the party replied darkly,
“Oh! you’ll learn that soon enough.” I then asked him if he had got any
warrant, whereupon he showed me a document from the Vecheka ordering the
arrest of “the English journalist, Francis McCullagh, and a search of his
rooms.” The warrant was signed by the head of the Vecheka, but no charge
was stated.
When the search was finished, the leader of the party asked me to sign
a document, stating that I had no complaints to make with regard to the
manner in which the search had been conducted. I said that I protested
against both the search and the arrest, but, as he explained that that
was not the point, and that the only question at issue was whether I had
been offered unnecessary personal violence or had any of my belongings
stolen, I signed.
Having packed up all my belongings, they tried to telephone for an
_izvoshchik_ (cab), but, as the _izvoshchik_ did not come, they asked
me to help them to carry my things downstairs. I carried one bag; they
carried all the rest between them; and so we left the house at about 2
a.m., the girl-clerks of the “hotel” forming a frightened group at the
foot of the stairs, and regarding me with tragic eyes as I passed through
them.
We had not far to go, for the Vecheka was only about 600 yards off. It
struck me, as I staggered along under the weight of my luggage, that
the reason for my transfer from the Mala Hartonovskaya to the Savoy
was that the latter “hostel” was much nearer to the Vecheka than the
former. I should be under closer observation in the Savoy; and, when the
time for my arrest came, I should only have to be brought across the
Lubyanka Square in order to be “run in.” When correspondents in the Mala
Hartonovskaya are now invited to transfer themselves to the Savoy, they
generally make their wills and prepare for the worst.
The exterior of the dreaded Vecheka is as little calculated to strike
one with terror as the exterior of, say, Harrod’s or Selfridge’s. Far
from resembling a gloomy prison like the forbidding fortress of SS. Peter
and Paul, it is light and airy in its style of architecture, and there
is not a single iron bar on any of its exterior windows. It is a huge
block of business premises situated between the Bolshaya and the Malaya
Lubyanka, and opposite the Vladimir gate of the Kremlin on the other side
of Lubyanka Square. Built only a few years back by the great Insurance
Society “Rossia,” its very modern appearance is rendered almost flippant
by contrast with the aged Kremlin walls. It occupies an island site, as
it is called, and juts up to a great height like a rocky island, but
all trace of austerity is removed from its outline by the gay turrets
and pinnacles, weathercocks, and plaster figures which give a light and
frivolous air to its skyline, as well as by the enormous shop-windows
and office-windows which break up its exterior surface, not only on the
ground-floor, but on every storey. No greater contrast could be imagined
than that between those generous windows and the narrow, barred slits
in Petropavlovsk _kryepost_, unless perhaps it be the contrast between
the fair modern façade of Lenin’s “Holy Office” and the mediæval horrors
of the interior. Like the Bolshevik system, the Vecheka presents an
ultra-modern front to the world, while, inside, it is a throw-back to the
days of Ivan the Terrible.
The inscriptions on the windows all speak of peaceful
occupations—“Dentist,” “Music Shop,” “Bank,” “William Miller and Sons,
Petrograd and Moscow.” (This last inscription in English, Messrs.
Miller and Sons being, I believe, an English company which used to brew
beer and manufacture soap, candles, etc.). The biggest inscription of
all advertises a Life Insurance Company, but some of the huge gilt
letters have fallen off. The topmost figure on the roof is that of a
benignant female deity of some kind; and at her feet on each side sit two
half-naked allegorical figures, also of benignant aspect.
As seen from the street, the insides of the rooms with the plate-glass
windows differ little from what they were in peace-time. They are still
offices. Clerks still sit on high stools and work at desks. The cashier
in the bank still hands out money through a grille, and apparently the
bank-clerks are still busy writing in huge ledgers. But the bank is
simply the financial department of the Vecheka. It pays the employees
of that great organization, and some of the payments it makes against
scrawls signed “Derzhinsky” are for services such as would surprise
an English bank manager. The objects of value in the safes of this
extraordinary bank consist not only of money, but also of jewelry,
strings of pearls, and of precious stones, taken from suspects arrested
by the Vecheka. The clerks writing in the other offices are dealing
not only with the complicated business side of their extraordinary
organization, but also with secret and incredible matters such as
office-boys in England like to read about in penny dreadfuls, but which
no English clerk ever writes about, at least during office hours.
I was brought into what had apparently been a large shop. It was now
cut in two by a wooden partition in which there was a door. Behind
this door was the police-office of the Vecheka—a police-office with
a large plate-glass window as big as any in Bond Street. This window
was unprotected by bars, but the glass was rendered opaque by means of
whitewash. There was no fear of any prisoner attempting to escape by
jumping through the window, for, before he had got near it, he would have
been spitted by the policeman who was on duty with fixed bayonet, or shot
by some of the other policemen, all of whom were armed with revolvers.
What surprised me about these police officials, as it had surprised me
about the policemen who had arrested me, was their youth. Their average
age was about twenty-four, and some of them were mere boys. Apparently
the best police agents of the Vecheka are of the “larrikin” type,
dissipated, conceited, cruel, as all boys tend to be when allowed to
run wild, and, when the occasion demands it, desperate. Some of these
lads were probably sailors, but the majority were factory-hands. Few of
them could be described as educated, but they were all of them fanatical
believers in Bolshevism.
This was the first visit I had ever paid in my life to a police station,
but I had always imagined such an institution to be a silent place
presided over by a grave inspector of mature years and containing,
besides a loudly ticking clock, a police-clerk, the prisoner, and the
large constable who has brought the prisoner. Most of the officials in
this police station looked, however, like brutalized schoolboys engaged
in some savage “rag.” Here I was again searched and my belongings
examined, the youthful police-inspector indulging all the time in cruel
jibes at my expense. When I asked to be allowed to keep my safety razor,
he said: “No, you won’t want to shave for another year.” He marvelled
at my having six tooth-brushes, and declared that I must be a merchant.
“We in the Red Army,” he said, “have only one tooth-brush for every
two men, and you have six,” at the same time glaring at me as if this
disproportion were a crime to my charge. When he came to my field-glasses
he said: “In the Red Army we have very few binoculars, while you, a
civilian, have got a good pair of field-glasses. What do you want with
them?”
This habit of making out a man to be a criminal because he has got
something which the Reds have not got, is universal among the Bolsheviks,
being based, of course, on the first principles of Communism. The
Communists have a theory that no man should have more than one blanket,
two suits of clothes, two sets of underlinen, two pairs of socks, two
day-shirts, two night-dresses, two pairs of shoes, one cap, one piece of
soap, one overcoat, and a very few other strictly necessary articles. He
is also allowed to have a bag of some kind for carrying his spare linen,
etc. My own modest kit was soon cut down to this scale, and I was also
allowed to take with me two tooth-brushes, not good ones, but worn-out
ones. The bag into which I was allowed to put my spare things was the one
which bore in bold lettering (concealed by a thin coating of ink), my
name, military rank, and unit. It remained in my cell with me during my
incarceration, and was never examined. All the things taken from me were
packed together and sealed with the seal of the Vecheka. My money and
valuables were sent upstairs to the bank which I have already described;
and, after my release, I got them back again.
Here, again, I was asked to sign a statement to the effect that this
search, as a search, had not been improperly conducted. I had also to
fill up a long form, intended apparently for Russians only, asking not
only for the usual particulars—name, age, birthplace, nationality,
etc.—but also if I had relatives in the White Army, had served myself in
the Red Army, and that sort of thing.
Having done this I was brought up three flights of stairs to the office
of the Governor of the jail. That functionary, a man of about thirty-five
years of age with the hard face of a professional jailer, searched me
personally, even putting his hands into my pockets and feeling all over
my clothes. Then he showed me a paper which stated in very general terms
the property that had been taken from me downstairs—R.10,000 in Soviet
money, R.10,000 in Omsk money, and one bag full of clothes, books, etc.
I signed this, but explained at the same time that it was obviously
no check as a detailed list of my belongings was not given. And, as a
matter of fact, I afterwards discovered that a number of things were
stolen, and all my efforts to have them returned proved unavailing. I
also discovered, by comparing my treatment with that of other victims of
the Vecheka who were not journalists or authors, that I had been dealt
with very gently indeed. As a rule, a prisoner’s money is all kept, and
returned at the rate of 1,000 roubles a month. Mr. Bleezdale, an English
engineer who had been thus robbed of all the earnings he had made in
Russia since the beginning of the war, calculated that, in order to get
back his money repaid to him at this rate, he would have to remain seven
years in Russia; and, though he was offered a well-paid technical job in
addition by the Soviet, he refused to wait, and left the country at the
same time as myself. I could cite thousands of similar cases, but this is
not the place to give them.
It was 4 a.m. before the Governor of the jail had done with me; and then
I was conveyed by the soldier with rifle and fixed bayonet, who had been
in attendance on me all the time, into that part of the building which
had been converted into a prison. The soldier knocked at a closed door: a
sentry opened it carefully; and I was inside the Communist Inquisition,
the most dreaded prison in Moscow. This part of the house had evidently
been used as living quarters by the staff of Messrs. William Miller
and Sons; and, with its lighted corridors, linoleum floor, and gay
wall-paper, it still resembled the living-quarters of well-paid clerks.
At the end of the first corridor was a door which gave me rather a shock,
for it differed from all the other doors I had passed by having a sentry
posted outside it. Was it a condemned cell? I had never seen a condemned
cell, but had read that it was differentiated from the others by having a
warder stationed day and night at the door.
Into this sinister cell I was ushered: the key grated in the lock;
and I was alone. After the manner of gentlemen in story-books, who
find themselves immured in a dungeon, I next proceeded to examine my
surroundings. My first thoughts were practical. A dismantled plank bed
lay in the corner; and I lost no time in fixing it up, spreading my one
blanket on it, and rolling up my overcoat and coat so as to constitute a
sort of pillow. I then turned my attention to the room. I did _not_ try
the lock, as heroes in fiction do, for I presumed that it was all right;
and, even if it had not been secure, there was no object in my opening
the door, for an armed sentry stood outside it, and, besides, there were
quite a number of other doors and other sentries between me and liberty.
As for the window, which is the next thing that the hero turns his
attention to, I cannot say that I “examined” it, for I placed no hopes
in it at all as it was a long way above the ground, but I looked hard at
it and found it to be secured by thick iron bars. Despite Soviet Russia’s
lack of iron and of skilled ironworkers, both iron and skilled labour
were here employed to produce a very neat piece of work indeed—from the
jailer’s point of view; and an enormous amount of similar work must have
been done all over Russia since the Bolsheviks came into power. All the
old Tsarist prisons having been filled to overflowing, private houses,
business establishments, and monasteries have been converted into jails
and fitted up accordingly. A small army of men must be needed for this
work, and also for the detective and police work of the Vecheka.
My room was five yards square, twelve feet high, and contained no
furniture beyond the plank bed. It was lighted by electricity controlled
from the outside. The walls were covered with light wall-paper of gay
design, but the pencilled inscriptions with which it was covered were
anything but gay. I made out some words of them, and found to my surprise
that some of the scrawls were in English. There were half a dozen
opened jam tins strewn about the floor, and full, not of jam, but of
urine; and there was quite a pool of the same filth in a corner of the
room. This disgusting state of things was due to the fact that, in all
Russian places of detention, the prisoners are only allowed to visit the
latrines once a day, and that it is difficult to get this rule altered.
Great inconvenience is caused by this arrangement, as the rough kind of
food, to which nearly everybody in Russia is now reduced, acts in such
a way on the bowels and kidneys, that in all cases several visits per
day are necessary. I suffered from this rule myself until the last day
of my detention, when it was modified in my favour. All my requests to
see a doctor were ignored, probably because the visit of a doctor might
divert my mind, even for a few moments, from the gloomy reflections which
naturally filled it, and undo to some extent the effects of the solitary
confinement to which I was condemned.
My reflections this first night were gloomy enough, when suddenly there
was a sharp click from the door, and I saw that, through a peep-hole
in it, an eye was watching me. Hastily undressing, I lay on the plank
bed—there was no mattress—and covered myself with my blanket. I could
not sleep, more especially as the electric light was left burning for
about an hour after I retired. Even after it was switched off outside, I
remained awake listening to the occasional movements of the watcher on
the threshold; and it was near daybreak before I fell into a troubled
doze.
I could not tell at what hour I got up next morning, for my watch had
been taken from me, and my cell was almost dark, even in the daytime,
owing to the whitewash on the windows, and to the fact that a high wall
at a distance of ten feet from my window cut off all direct light. I
could see this wall through scratches in the whitewash. The light was
so bad that I could only read a few lines of the typewritten notice on
the wall, though my ignorance of some of the many warnings of which this
notice was composed might have been fatal. The only two prohibitions I
could make out were (1) not to make a noise, and (2) not to stay in that
part of the cell where I would be invisible to the sentry through the
eye-hole in the door. To make a noise was sometimes necessary, as there
was no other way of attracting the attention of the sentry outside, and,
owing to the complaint from which I suffered, I was frequently obliged
to attract his attention. I was given no facilities for washing, and was
beginning to think that I should get no breakfast, when the key rattled
in the lock and the door opened wide enough to admit a hand and arm which
deposited a large jug of hot water on the floor, and then withdrew again
immediately, shutting the door as they did so. Luckily I had been allowed
to bring with me an enamelled mug which had seen much war service and
also some tea. Hastily seizing the jug, I filled my mug and was making
myself some tea when the door opened again, the hand reappeared, and the
jug was rapidly withdrawn, the door being immediately afterwards closed
and locked.
This mysterious performance showed me what the game was. The inquisitors
meant, before questioning me, to submit me to such a dose of strictly
solitary confinement as would shake my nerves and render me an easy
subject for them when they came to examine me. I was amused at first
at the wall of impenetrable silence, broken only by terrifying sounds,
with which they surrounded me; and also at the disquieting sights
they sometimes permitted me to see, for there was a good deal of the
boy’s penny dreadful about the whole proceedings. But I could not help
reflecting on the cruelty of treating delicate women in this way. And
delicate women were so treated. Mrs. Harrison of the American Associated
Press had been arrested in the Savoy the same day as myself, and, as
I afterwards learned, was at that very moment being subjected to the
same terrible régime in another part of the building. Other women were
enduring the same punishment, and thousands of women and girls have
suffered similar treatment at the hands of the Vecheka.
Even in my own case the isolation and anxiety soon became almost
unbearable. Absolutely solitary confinement is a terrible punishment
if prolonged for any considerable length of time; and the jailers of
the Vecheka are past-masters in the art of getting the full benefit out
of it. If I had had books, for example, or pencil and paper, I could
have occupied my mind; but they took particular pains to deprive me of
all printed matter, even of the smallest scraps of newspaper, and of
all facilities for writing. What this means will be readily understood
by anyone who has never, since he learned to read, been alone without
a book or notebook or newspaper. Deprived of outer stimulus or of any
possibility of exercising itself, the mind tends to prey on itself, and
to become lost in morbid speculations and gloomy thoughts. I tried to
struggle against this tendency, but found it impossible to prevent my
mind from traversing a futile and tiresome round of surmises. “Who had
given me away?” This was the question that I asked myself a thousand
times a day; and the answers I gave myself were always the same.
1. Nobody. The Vecheka had no evidence against me, and had merely
arrested me on suspicion, expecting that, if reduced to a sufficiently
nervous and hysterical condition, I would incriminate myself. This
conviction remained uppermost to the end and finally saved me.
2. Some of the young officers of our party had been imprudent in their
conversation. Instances of supreme imprudence on the part of young
British officers rushed at once to my mind. There are no people in
the world so frank and open as young British subalterns, so ready to
pooh-pooh secrecy and mystery. Their physical detestation of closed and
darkened rooms and foul air is only equalled by the irresistible impulse
they all have to throw open the windows of their minds, and let the
air and light of heaven in. It is a glorious impulse, but not suited
to all countries. I knew a Colonel at Omsk who insisted on keeping his
windows open in mid-winter, and who laughed in scorn when told that it
was a dangerous practice. To leave the physical aspect of the question,
I would not like to estimate the number of British lives that have been
lost in this war through the national virtue of transparent frankness.
We are not a loquacious people, but we hate to keep secrets or return
indirect answers; and we credit people who have been properly introduced
to us, and who apparently sympathize with our point of view, with the
same honesty as we have ourselves. Unfortunately my experiences in Russia
proved to me beyond all manner of doubt that the people whom we should
most expect to be on our side are, some of them, in the clutch of the
enemy. They hate Bolshevism as much as we do, but the Extraordinary
Commission has got a hold on them, either through offences they have
owned up to in writing when on the verge of mental collapse through
solitary confinement, or through a similar hold which that terrible
Inquisition has got on persons who are near and dear to them, and to
whom they confide everything. This is not surmise on my part. I _know_
of such cases. Hence it is that the Vecheka possesses allies in the most
unexpected quarters. Delicate, aristocratic ladies, officers of the
Guards, foreigners, even trusted secret-service agents of the European
Powers: there are members of all these classes acting consciously or
unconsciously as spies of the Soviet. This is not surmise, I repeat. I
_know_ of such cases.
3. Some of the British civilians in Moscow in whom I had to confide may
have given me away, also through imprudence in their conversation.
4. Some of the very few Russians in Siberia who knew all about me may
have been themselves arrested, and evidence against me may have been
found on them.
This exhausted the possibilities, and all my thinking during the next
three days tended to run in these narrow grooves. But of course I
combated this tendency, as I would, when swimming in a rough sea, have
combated waves that threatened to engulf me. I tried my best to crest
all these dark billows, to swim on the surface, and to keep the sky
and the land in sight. I divided the long day into several parts. For
hours I would sing songs in various languages; and this exercise had a
wonderfully exhilarating effect on me. One song of Thomas Moore’s I was
fond of repeating, and I sometimes sang it in an audible voice. It was
“The Minstrel Boy”; and I thought it was _apropos_, for the Bolsheviks
might make my writing for them a condition of my release; and of course
I was determined to refuse this condition. I sang it out loud, as I
suspected that there was somebody who understood English listening to me.
Perhaps the sentry at the door did not understand, but I noticed that
high up on the wall, near the roof, there was, underneath the wall-paper,
a large square of boards instead of brick. Some of the wall-paper had
peeled off, disclosing the nature of this contrivance, which I suspected
to be a sort of box accessible from the adjoining room, and containing at
times a listener who understood English.
But I should be cowardly and ungrateful indeed if I omitted to say,
though I have an extreme reluctance to speak of such things, that my
greatest consolations in those dark moments were given me by Him who so
often invited the afflicted to come to Him, and that I more than once
felt my sinking soul held up by the strong arms of comrades who had
passed from my side at Gallipoli into that unknown land at whose dread
frontier I now stood. I had begged the intercession of those soldiers
with all the more confidence inasmuch as I had never for a single day
forgotten them in my prayers.
I also prepared a number of speeches on Russian subjects, and declaimed
them to myself in a low voice. I walked a great deal up and down my cell
while engaged in these mental exercises, so that, despite the bad food,
my health continued good, and, when I was brought before the Inquisitors,
I felt quite calm and self-possessed. My food was very bad, scanty, and
unpalatable. In the morning I had hot water and three-quarters of a pound
of black bread. In the middle of the day, and again in the evening, I got
some fish-soup with nothing but fish-bones and water in it, followed by
some concoction of salty cabbage. I could never take more than one or two
spoonfuls of these dishes, which were quite repulsive. On the first day
of my imprisonment I got ten cigarettes and a box of Soviet Government
matches, which all refused to light.
I was visited once every day by the Governor of the prison, a silent and
most forbidding-looking man, who never asked me more than one question:
“What is your name?” When he had asked me this on the third day and
refused to be drawn into any discussion about anything, I concluded that
he meant to go on making the same enquiry until I had forgotten my name.
Then he would probably report that my nerves were sufficiently wrecked,
and that I might be brought before the Extraordinary Commission.
It was on the third night, after seventy hours’ solitary confinement,
that I was summoned to appear before that terrible tribunal. The summons
was brought in the same dramatic manner as had marked all the proceedings
of the Vecheka. After I had gone to sleep, I was awakened by the sound of
the key grating in the lock, but at first I paid no attention to this,
as my jailers had been in the habit of rattling the key in this way once
every ten minutes or so for hours at a time during the night, with the
object presumably of breaking my night’s rest, wrecking my nerves, and
thus reducing me to a helpless, neurasthenic condition in which I would
be more likely to blurt out every secret to my examiners. I therefore
pressed my fingers to my ears, and tried to sleep again, but suddenly I
felt somebody touching me, and, on looking up, I saw a soldier with a
rifle and fixed bayonet bending over me. “Get up and follow me,” he said.
“You are going to be examined.”
My hour, then, had come; and, jumping up, I quickly dressed, and
followed him along several corridors and up two flights of stairs, until
he threw a door open and ushered me into the Inquisition Chamber. It
was certainly not a place of the rack and thumbscrew order, being, on
the contrary, a large and commodious office fitted with electric light,
desks, typewriters, telephones, and all the most up-to-date office
furniture. Even the two men who sat at a large desk at one side of the
room were not out of keeping with their surroundings, save that they
wore the semi-military khaki uniform which most employees of the Soviet
Government wear. Xenofontov, who was standing, was a man of about thirty,
with mild dark eyes and a countenance to which a sympathetic, Biblical
touch was lent by a short silky beard which had never apparently been
touched by a razor. The other, Comrade Mogilevsky, who was sitting at the
desk, was thin, nervous in manner, and clean-shaven save for a slight
moustache. He looked harder than his companion, but I do not think that
he was harder.
I was asked to sit down and then offered a cigarette, which Mogilevsky
lighted for me, at the same time apologizing for the inconvenience he had
put me to. Pointing to a pile of papers on the desk—my papers as I saw at
a glance—he said: “We find nothing suspicious in these, but there are a
few things we would like you to clear up for us.”
They then went through all my papers and asked me to explain sundry
passages in them. One passage was in very badly written shorthand
which even Mr. Pitman himself, if he were alive, would probably have
found impossible to decipher. Unfortunately this passage gave me away
completely, and I cursed my imprudence which had left this one damning
piece of evidence unobliterated, while marvelling at the sure instinct
which had led them to select it from among a mass of innocuous notes also
in shorthand. While they both watched my face narrowly, I translated it
for them freely, so very, very freely that they were quite satisfied.
I was surprised afterwards that they let me off so easily, for the
Bolsheviks have a department in the Kremlin where ordinary English
shorthand is easily deciphered, and where notes written in any system
of phonography can soon be made out, if the writer of the notes
is induced to give them the principles of his system. I know of at
least one English correspondent who was so “induced”; and if they had
confronted me with this expert of theirs who, if not an Englishman,
must know English extremely well, I should have been ruined. I might
also add that they have an excellent cryptographic department, where
some of the most secret ciphers of foreign nations are decoded. Several
of my own papers were, I think, treated chemically, so as to disclose
the presence of invisible writing; and, in short, the Bolshevik Secret
Service employs very efficient cryptographic experts and the most modern
cryptographic methods. The other things about which the Inquisitors
wanted an explanation were all easily explainable, being names and
addresses of various Bolsheviks in Moscow, as well as odds and ends of
general information which I had picked up. Some of this information
dealt with the economic condition of the country, and I was surprised to
discover that they regarded any enquiry into their economic or industrial
conditions as espionage.
“You say you are only a journalist,” said Mogilevsky in a menacing
tone, “but why do you collect all this data about our factories and our
agriculture? A newspaper man does not write on such subjects.”
I might have told him that these are the very subjects which a good
journalist does write about, especially if he is in the habit of
contributing to serious periodicals, but I thought it better to remind
him that I was an author as well as a journalist, and that I was
collecting material for a book. This answer appeared not only to satisfy
him, but to raise me considerably in his esteem.
Telling his companion that he would ask Derzhinsky to sanction my
release that night, he went into another room, and then Xenofontov,
the mild-looking man who is, as a matter of fact, Derzhinsky’s ablest
adjutant, looked at me in his mildest manner, and repeated some things
which I had only told Mr. North. It was not a very important matter, but
the fact that it had got out rather unnerved me, and I had the greatest
difficulty in explaining it away. The mild-looking man then remarked
casually that, being a newspaper correspondent, I had probably been in
the habit of visiting Kolchak’s Intelligence Department at Omsk. Did I
happen by any chance to recollect the names of the men employed there?
I said that I had met a Colonel Goldstein in the Military Operations
Department, but that I had never met anyone belonging to the M.I. He
pressed me to give him the names of any agents whom Kolchak had sent into
Russia, but I said that I did not know any. His object, of course, was
to terrorize these men, who had nearly all been captured by the Reds,
into giving him the names of other agents inside Soviet Russia. These
would be made to betray others still, and the vision of endless cruelty
and bloodshed which this prospect opened up so appalled me, that I was
heartily glad when Mogilevsky returned and told me that I could go. He
also gave me a document certifying that I had been released from the
prison of the Vecheka.
The soldier who had brought me had been waiting all this time at
the door, and he now led the way back to my cell, where I packed my
belongings with a vigour that I had seldom shown in that work during the
whole course of my life. Within the space of an hour I was back in the
Savoy Hotel, and I could hardly have been more pleased had it been the
Savoy in the Strand to which I was restored.