Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

Shortly after Barrows left the consulate, Ned met with his wireless team and informed them that he would be going away on short notice and didn’t know when he’d be back. He advised the senior communicator to reach out to Colonel Ward or Lieutenant Colonel Neilson at the British Military Mission for further orders. He also notified the senior State Department official, a young consular officer newly relocated from Samara, of his impending departure.

Ned then checked his mail slot one last time for messages, hoping against hope that one of Father Timofey’s letters might have been forwarded by diplomatic pouch from Samara, where an agent made a daily check of accommodation addresses that Ned had set up there for his informants. The ex-priest had been out of touch since Zhanna’s execution and Ned feared the worst.

Among the letters, cables, newspapers and other papers in his mail slot, he found a letter in a woman’s handwriting postmarked a few days earlier from Petrograd. He recognized the elegant Cyrillic handwriting at once as belonging to Yulia Yushnevskaya. Not wanting anyone to see his reaction to the letter, he stuffed it in his pocket and carried it to his office to open behind closed doors.

“Dear Edmund,

I hope that the New Year finds you safe and in good health. After spending much of the autumn traveling between Omsk and Samara, I have at last sold or abandoned all my family’s remaining properties in Russia, except for a house in Petrograd that was confiscated by the Bolsheviks and is now occupied by more tenants than I can count.

As for me, I will sail to London very soon to rejoin my boys. The proceeds from selling our properties suffice now to support my small family comfortably in a London that has grown far more expensive than when I left. Even so, I expect I will need to find gainful employment, if only to fill the time and feel useful.

Having heard of your efforts to save Zhanna Stepanovna’s life, I offer you my heartfelt condolences upon her loss. We are all deeply in her debt for inspiring Admiral Kolchak to do what was needed to defeat Bolshevism and set Russia on a better path. I doubt we will ever see another like her.

If you should come to London, I would be very happy to see you.

Affectionately yours,

Yulia

P.S.—Since Zhanna Stepanovna’s death, I have been questioned several times by officers representing themselves as from the Stavka. Their questions seemed to imply that I played a role in her capture, a notion that I reject completely. Once the officers learned of my plans to leave Russia, I saw no more of them.”

Ned put down the letter while he thought about what it said and did not say. Now that she was able to leave Russia with the funds she needed to resume her life in London, Yulia seemed to have regained her grip on life. Could she really have betrayed Zhanna at Kazan? Though he didn’t want to believe it, Ned knew that people under duress often did terrible things. But if Yulia had wronged the Maid, she would likely inflict worse punishment on herself in the coming years than anything Ned could devise. Either way, he might never know the truth.

* * *

The train pulled out of the last stop en route to Petrograd, some two hours before reaching its destination. Whoever had bought Ned’s ticket had booked him generously into a first class sleeper compartment all to himself. Once aboard in Moscow, Ned had played it safe and remained secluded in the compartment the entire night, not even asking the steward to bring him food or tea. Nor had he slept, other than the occasions when he had dozed off in his seat facing the door, his .45 caliber pistol cocked and ready at his side.

But having eaten nothing since lunch in Moscow, nor having drunk anything but the bottled water left for him in the cabin, he was famished, and felt he could use something to steady his nerves before leaving the train and making his way to Petrograd’s port district.

Ned unlocked the door to his compartment and peeked outside. The steward was not in his usual place at the rear of the car. Ned considered whether to venture the short distance to the dining car. Though he knew it wasn’t a wise idea, his stomach was growling and his lips were parched. Besides, he was quite certain he had ditched the two heavy-set thugs who had picked up his trail outside the consulate and tried to follow him into the city. Ned had thrown them off long before he arrived at Moscow’s Nikolayevsky Station, where he had used his RRSC pass to hole up in the railroad offices before boarding the train to Petrograd.

So, seeing no one in the darkened corridor, Ned made his way toward the rear of the train, through two sleeper cars, without meeting either steward along the way. He found the two missing attendants in the dining car, smoking, drinking beer and playing cards with the restaurant’s headwaiter. A few steps away, a pair of teenaged busboys set tables for breakfast.