Fall of Giants

“I suppose I was confident until about the age of seven. And then… well, you know what schoolgirls are like. Everyone wants to be friends with the prettiest. I had to play with the fat girls and the ugly ones and those dressed in hand-me-downs. That went on into my teenage years. Even working for the Buffalo Anarchist was kind of an outsider thing to do. But when I became editor I started to get my self-esteem back.” She took a sip of champagne. “You helped.”

“I did?” Gus was surprised.

“It was the way you talked to me, as if I was the smartest and most interesting person in Buffalo.”

“You probably were.”

“Except for Olga Vyalov.”

“Ah.” Gus blushed. Remembering his infatuation with Olga made him feel foolish, but he did not want to say so, for that would be running her down, which was ungentlemanly.

When they had finished their coffee and he called for the bill, he still did not know how Rosa felt about him.

In the taxi he took her hand and pressed it to his lips. She said: “Oh, Gus, you are very dear.” He did not know what she meant by that. However, her face was turned up toward him in a way that almost seemed expectant. Did she want him to…? He screwed up his nerve and kissed her mouth.

There was a frozen moment when she did not respond, and he thought he had done the wrong thing. Then she sighed contentedly and parted her lips.

Oh, he thought happily; so that’s all right, then.

He put his arms around her and they kissed all the way to her hotel. The journey was too short. Suddenly a commissionaire was opening the door of the cab. “Wipe your mouth,” Rosa said as she got out. Gus pulled out a handkerchief and hastily rubbed at his face. The white linen came away red with her lipstick. He folded it carefully and put it back in his pocket.

He walked her to the door. “Can I see you tomorrow?” he said.

“When?”

“Early.”

She laughed. “You never pretend, Gus, do you? I love that about you.”

That was good. I love that about you was not the same as I love you but it was better than nothing. “Early it is,” he said.

“What shall we do?”

“It’s Sunday.” He said the first thing that came into his head. “We could go to church.”

“All right.”

“Let me take you to Notre Dame.”

“Are you Catholic?” she said in surprise.

“No, Episcopalian, if anything. You?”

“The same.”

“It’s all right, we can sit at the back. I’ll find out what time mass is and phone your hotel.”

She held out her hand and they shook like friends. “Thank you for a lovely evening,” she said formally.

“It was such a pleasure. Good night.”

“Good night,” she said, and she turned away and disappeared into the hotel lobby.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX – March to April 1919

When the snow melted, and the iron-hard Russian earth turned to rich wet mud, the White armies made a mighty effort to rid their country of the curse of Bolshevism. Admiral Kolchak’s force of one hundred thousand, patchily supplied with British uniforms and guns, came storming out of Siberia and attacked the Reds over a front that stretched seven hundred miles from north to south.

Fitz followed a few miles behind the Whites. He was leading the Aberowen Pals, plus some Canadians and a few interpreters. His job was to stiffen Kolchak by supervising communications, intelligence, and supply.

Fitz had high hopes. There might be difficulties, but it was unimaginable that Lenin and Trotsky would be allowed to steal Russia.

At the beginning of March he was in the city of Ufa on the European side of the Ural Mountains, reading a batch of week-old British newspapers. The news from London was mixed. Fitz was delighted that Lloyd George had appointed Winston Churchill as secretary for war. Of all the leading politicians, Winston was the most vigorous supporter of intervention in Russia. But some of the papers took the opposite side. Fitz was not surprised by the Daily Herald and the New Statesman, which in his view were more or less Bolshevik publications anyway. But even the Conservative Daily Express had a headline reading WITHDRAW FROM RUSSIA.

Unfortunately, they also had accurate details of what was going on. They even knew that the British had helped Kolchak with the coup that had abolished the directorate and made him supreme ruler. Where were they getting the information? He looked up from the paper. He was quartered in the city’s commercial college, and his aide-de-camp sat at the opposite desk. “Murray,” he said, “next time there’s a batch of mail from the men to be sent home, bring it to me first.”

This was irregular, and Murray looked dubious. “Sir?”

Fitz thought he had better explain. “I suspect information may be getting back from here. The censor must be asleep at the wheel.”

“Perhaps they think they can slacken off now that the war in Europe has ended.”

“No doubt. Anyway, I want to see whether the leak is in our section of the pipe.”