Fall of Giants

“Ah, good. When you get back to town, you might have a word with him.”

Now that was interesting. “I’ll see him at any time, of course,” said Fitz, trying not to show his eagerness.

“I’ll ask him to get in touch. He may have another mission for you.”

They were at the door to Bea’s rooms. From inside, there came the distinctive cry of a newborn baby. Fitz was ashamed to feel tears come to his eyes. “I’d better go in,” he said. “Good night.”

“Congratulations, and a good night to you, too.”

{IV}

They named him Andrew Alexander Murray Fitzherbert. He was a tiny scrap of life with a shock of hair as black as Fitz’s. They took him to London wrapped in blankets, traveling in the Rolls-Royce with two other cars following in case of breakdowns. They stopped for breakfast in Chepstow and lunch in Oxford, and reached their home in Mayfair in time for dinner.

A few days later, on a mild April afternoon, Fitz walked along the Embankment, looking at the muddy water of the river Thames, heading for a meeting with Mansfield Smith-Cumming.

The Secret Service had outgrown its flat in Victoria. The man called “C” had moved his expanding organization into a swanky Victorian building called Whitehall Court, on the river within sight of Big Ben. A private lift took Fitz to the top floor, where the spymaster occupied two apartments linked by a walkway on the roof.

“We’ve been watching Lenin for years,” said C. “If we fail to depose him, he will be one of the worst tyrants the world has ever known.”

“I believe you’re right.” Fitz was relieved that C felt the same as he did about the Bolsheviks. “But what can we do?”

“Let’s talk about what you might do.” C took from his desk a pair of steel dividers such as were used for measuring distances on maps. As if absentmindedly, he thrust the point into his left leg.

Fitz was able to check the cry of shock that came to his lips. This was a test, of course. He recalled that C had a wooden leg as a result of a car crash. He smiled. “A good trick,” he said. “I almost fell for it.”

C put down the dividers and looked hard at Fitz through his monocle. “There is a Cossack leader in Siberia who has overthrown the local Bolshevik regime,” he said. “I need to know if it’s worth our while to support him.”

Fitz was startled. “Openly?”

“Of course not. But I have secret funds. If we can sustain a kernel of counterrevolutionary government in the east, it will merit the expenditure of, say, ten thousand pounds a month.”

“Name?”

“Captain Semenov, twenty-eight years old. He’s based in Manchuli, which lies astride the Chinese Eastern Railway near its junction with the Trans-Siberian Express.”

“So this Captain Semenov controls one railway line and could control another.”

“Exactly. And he hates the Bolsheviks.”

“So we need to find out more about him.”

“Which is where you come in.”

Fitz was delighted at the chance of helping to overthrow Lenin. He thought of many questions: How was he to find Semenov? The man was a Cossack, and they were notorious for shooting first and asking questions later: would he talk to Fitz, or kill him? Of course Semenov would claim he could defeat the Bolsheviks, but would Fitz be able to assess the reality? Was there any way to ensure he would be spending British money to good effect?

The question he asked was: “Am I the right choice? Forgive me, but I’m a conspicuous figure, hardly anonymous even in Russia… ”

“Frankly, we don’t have a wide choice. We need someone fairly high-level in case you get to the stage of negotiating with Semenov. And there aren’t many thoroughly trustworthy men who speak Russian. Believe me, you’re the best available.”

“I see.”

“It will be dangerous, of course.”

Fitz recalled the crowd of peasants battering Andrei to death. That could be him. He repressed a fearful shudder. “I understand the danger,” he said in a level voice.

“So tell me: will you go to Vladivostok?”

“Of course,” said Fitz.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE – May to September 1918

Gus Dewar did not take easily to soldiering. He was a gangling, awkward figure, and he had trouble marching and saluting and stamping his feet the army way. As for exercise, he had not done physical jerks since his school days. His friends, who knew of his liking for flowers on the dining table and linen sheets on his bed, had felt the army would come as a terrible shock. Chuck Dixon, who went through officer training with him, said: “Gus, at home you don’t even run your own bath.”

But Gus survived. At the age of eleven he had been sent to boarding school, so it was nothing new to him to be persecuted by bullies and ordered about by stupid superiors. He suffered a certain amount of mockery because of his wealthy background and careful good manners, but he bore it patiently.