Ace of Spies (25 page)

Despite the self-created myths of daring missions behind German lines, this was his only genuine encounter with German personnel during wartime. That aside, it should equally be acknowledged that he was taking no risks at Revel. Had he been exposed as a fleeing British spy, he would certainly have faced a firing squad.

While Reilly was on his way back to London from Helsingfors, the US Consul, De Witt Poole, en route to America, called into the British Embassy in Christiania (now Oslo) on 30 September. His interview with the British Ambassador resulted in a ‘personal and most secret’ telegram to the Foreign Office in London from Ambassador Sir Mansfeldt Findlay:

There is strong suspicion that an agent named Reilly, whose wife appears to be living in New York, has either compromised Lockhart, who employed him in propaganda among Letts, by exceeding his instructions and endeavouring to provoke a revolt against the Bolsheviks, or has even betrayed him.

Reilly advocated encouraging a revolt, but Lockhart, after consulting the United States Consul General and the French Consul General, refused to do so, and instructed Reilly to limit his efforts to propaganda with a view to deterring the Letts soldiers from resisting Allied forces. It appears that Reilly was in communication with a certain Russian strongly suspected of being an
agent provocateur,
to whom he had given
an address at which he still remained some days ago. Lockhart is now arrested. Neither Reilly nor the Russian has been arrested, and they are still at large. Hence suspicion.
¹³

The telegram clearly caused quite a stir when it was decoded in London on 1 October. The Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, appears to have concurred with the cautious advice from his Department of Political Intelligence. The DPI’s Rex Leeper advised Balfour that he had seen several reports from Reilly and had found them satisfactory. He further pointed out that Poole’s account at least cleared Lockhart of the charges levelled at him by the Bolsheviks. The FO’s Russia Department also assured Balfour that Reilly would be, ‘closely interrogated’ on his return. The matter was then passed over to Maj.-Gen. George Macdonogh, the Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office. Macdonogh in turn sent a copy to Lt-Col. C.N. French, the War Office liaison with SIS, who contacted C for his response. The response to French was used to compose a reply to Sir Ronald Graham at the Foreign Office on 10 October:

Reilly is an officer who was sent to Russia as a military agent last March. In June, it became apparent that his utility as a military agent was being impaired by the fact that he was in touch with Mr Lockhart, who was using him for some political purpose. Reilly had been warned most specifically that he was not to get into any official position, or to get mixed up with politics; therefore when it became apparent that he was doing so, a wire was sent ordering him to proceed to Siberia to report on German prisoner-of-war camps – this with the idea of getting him away from the political atmosphere, in which he was being involved. He apparently never went there; perhaps he was ordered not to by Mr Lockhart. He certainly had no business to be doing propaganda, which he apparently was instructed to do by Mr Lockhart. MI1c [SIS] have all the details of this man’s career, and I suggest that it is advisable to wire to Sir M. Findlay to advise him and Mr Poole that they should not raise a hue and cry about Reilly until
we know more about the circumstances. We have had one report that it was a Lettish officer who gave the plot away; and because it has failed, it does not seem right or just that the blame should be cast on this man who should properly have never been employed on such work. Presumably the clue to which the United States Consul General refers, is the fact that Reilly’s wife is in America. MI1c have her address, and incidentally some of Reilly’s valuables and his Will.
¹⁴

Reilly arrived back in England on 8 November and immediately reported to C to give a personal account of himself. Whether C confronted him about his background check or opted to let sleeping dogs lie is not known. Clearly concerns were raised by Poole’s cable and the fact that his cover had been blown. Reference to Reilly in the Russian press had been picked up by journalists in England and on the continent, resulting in a measure of unwelcome publicity for the novice agent.

This had other unfortunate repercussions for Reilly, as it would appear that one avid reader of the ‘Lockhart’ story in the Brussels press was none other than his estranged wife Margaret, who, as a result, had presented herself at the Netherlands Legation (British Section) on 15 October seeking news of her husband. Two days later she followed up her visit with a letter:

Dear Sir,
Referring to the interview I had with your bureau last Tuesday 15 instant, it was only after I came away from the Rue de la Science, that I remembered that I omitted to leave you my address. Since giving up my house in the Rue Montoyer I have been staying with friends (Mr and Mrs Wary) 13 Rue de Linthout.

It has been announced a few days ago in the Dutch papers that Colonel Lockhart the English agent had arrived at the Swedish frontier coming from Russia. Colonel Lockhart will have been accompanied by a number of other Englishmen. It is possible that my husband Mr Reilly may have been among the number. At all events it is certain that Colonel Lockhart will be able to give direct news of him.

I ask you earnestly Mr van Kattendyke, to try and get me into communication with my husband as soon as possible. I feel and know that I cannot hold out much longer.
In hopeful anticipation, I remain yours truly,
Margaret Reilly
¹⁵

A month passed and with no news presenting itself as a result of her letter, she wrote directly to the War Office in London on 16 November 1918:

Gentlemen,
I write to ask for news of my husband, Sidney George Reilly, who I have reason to believe has been actively working against the Bolshevist government in Russia.

In various papers published here in the first weeks of September of this year there were accounts of a Franco-English programme to capture Lenin, Trotsky and company and to establish a military dictatorship in Moscow. The names of the American and French Consuls POOL [sic] and GRONARD were mentioned. Also the French general Lavergne. The leader of the movement, however, seems to have been the English colonel Lockhart who was actively seconded by the English agent Lt Reilly.

In reading these reports I was forced to the conclusion that the agent in question [Reilly] could be no other than my husband as he knows Russian extremely well having been a well-known naval agent and shipbroker in St Petersburg before the war. As I have been totally without news of my husband since 28 July 1914 you will understand Gentlemen how anxious I am to know if he is alive and to able [sic] to get word to him. Pray be so good as to let me have a reply as soon as possible.
Yours very truly
Margaret Reilly
¹⁶

An unsigned copy letter in reply advises her that, ‘If you will send him a letter at the above address same will be forwarded
by first opportunity’. The carbon copy gives no clue to ‘the above address’, but it is fair to assume that it was the Air Board, under whom all RAF personnel came. Officially, Reilly was an RAF lieutenant, and any enquiries from family concerning the whereabouts of service personnel were dealt with in a like manner. Not unsurprisingly, it would appear that Reilly made no reply to Margaret’s letter, and as a result she wrote on 4 January 1919 directly to the Air Board:

Gentlemen,
I ask you urgently for news of my husband Sidney G. Reilly who I am told is captain in the Royal Flying Corps. Since the outbreak of war I am absolutely without a word or message of any kind from him. I, having been surprised by the war here in Belgium whilst my husband was in St Petersburg where he had an important business as naval agent and ship-broker.

Friends met him in London in April 1918. He was wearing the uniform of a captain in the Royal Flying Corps and was staying at 22 Ryder Street, St James’s. He mentioned to the friends in question that he would very shortly be going abroad; though he did not say where he was going.

The British Minister here, Sir Francis Villiers, received a despatch from the Foreign Office stating that Mr Reilly had been working against the Bolsheviks and, being compromised, escaped into Finland.

It was Sir Francis who advised me to write to you. Will you not have pity for me gentlemen, and let me know as soon as possible what has become of my dear husband? If you can communicate with him please let him know that in health I am well but that I desire ardently to hear from him. My financial situation is also rather strained. I enclose a photograph of Mr Reilly. Thanking you in anticipation for a word in reply,
I remain yours truly
Margaret Reilly
¹⁷

One cannot help suspecting that the main motive for wanting to trace her estranged husband was the ‘strained financial position’
she refers to. It would seem that Margaret had been experiencing a difficult time financially during the war when she lost contact with Reilly. In fact, there is strong evidence to suggest that her financial problems extended somewhat further back. On 15 May 1914 she made a Will naming the sole beneficiary as one Joseph Wary of The Villa Charlotte in Zellick, Belgium, ‘as evidence of my gratitude for the financial help which he gave me’.
¹⁸

Little did Margaret know, as she sat down to write to the Air Board on 4 January, that her ‘dear husband’ was at that moment several thousand miles away back in Russia, lunching with Boris Suvorin in Ekaterinodar, Ukraine. As an acknowledgement of C’s confidence he had, within weeks, been assigned another mission, this time in the company of Capt. George Hill, whose acquaintance he had made in Moscow.

A few days after arriving back in London on 11 November, the day the war finally came to an end, Hill was summoned to SIS headquarters by C to report personally on the work he had undertaken in Russia.
¹⁹
At the end of the interview Hill was given one month’s leave. ‘Alas’, recalls Hill, ‘less than a week had passed before I was summoned back to his office once again’.
²⁰
On arrival, he found none other than Reilly in C’s room. Reilly’s presence was no doubt the result of his intense lobbying to return to Russia at the first opportunity. On 25 November, for example, he had written to Lockhart to solicit his help and support:

I have told C (and I am anxious that you should know it too) that I consider that there is a very earnest obligation upon me to continue to serve – if my services can be made use of in the question of Russia and Bolshevism. I feel that I have no right to go back to the making of dollars until I have discharged my obligations. I also venture to think that the state should not lose my services. If a halfway decent job would be offered me I would chuck business altogether and devote the rest of my wicked life to this kind of work. C promised to see the FO about all this.
²¹

Five days later, on 30 November, the Foreign Office agreed that two agents should be sent out to the south of Russia under the cover of the British Trade Corporation. Reilly, it was decided, should go, ‘with an assistant of his own choosing’,
²²
hence Hill’s summons to Whitehall Court. With both Reilly and Hill now before him, C explained that ‘certain important information about the Black Sea coast and South Russia was wanted for the Peace Conference that was to assemble in Paris at the end of the year’. Not only was Hill asked to volunteer to accompany Reilly on this mission to Russia, thereby forfeiting his leave, but was also informed that the Southampton train from Waterloo was departing in two hours time. After some coaxing from C, Hill agreed to go. Reilly had apparently had his passport issued and been briefed on the mission two days before where he ‘got final instructions’ and was told that he would, ‘leave on 12th’.
²³
Why Hill was called in at such short notice is not clear. His claim to have only been a week into his leave when summoned back may have been in error, however, as according to Reilly’s diary their meeting with C occurred on 12 December.

Several days before the meeting with C, the
Izvestia
newspaper had reported in Moscow that both Reilly and Lockhart had been sentenced to death in their absence by a Revolutionary Tribunal for their roles in the attempted coup, and that their sentence would be carried out immediately should either of them ever be apprehended on Soviet soil in the future.

Clearly unperturbed by this, no mention appears in Reilly’s diary. The diary does, however, corroborate the fact that Hill was somewhat less than enthusiastic to go. Hill recalls that as they left Whitehall Court that afternoon, ‘Reilly could not bear the leisurely way in which I left the building with him’,
²⁴
and quotes him as saying, ‘Hill, I don’t believe you want to catch that train. I bet you fifty pounds you won’t be on it’. As it turned out, Hill caught the train with only seconds to spare. Arriving on the platform he saw Reilly, ‘hanging out the window’ of a first-class compartment halfway up the train. Apparently he ‘paid up like the
sportsman he was’. Reilly himself simply recorded in his diary that day, ‘Left at 4.30 p.m. Hill just managed catch train’.

According to Hill, Reilly was ‘extremely keen on the trip’. This may have been down to revelling in his new role as ‘gentleman spy’, or could have been for other reasons. If there was any truth to the story that he had been secreting away a wife and two children in Port Arthur, and then in Petrograd, where better to have moved them than to Odessa? He had maintained close personal and business ties with the city, which was not only free from Bolshevik control, but was an international port and a gateway to other destinations should a further move be necessary.

Arriving in Paris the following day they dined at La Rue in the Boulevard de la Madeleine, the proprietor of which was none other than the former chef at the Café de Paris (known as Kiuba’s) in St Petersburg. Hill recalls they had, ‘a great welcome and a great dinner, with marvellous wine and the oldest brandies served as brandy should be served, in crystal goblets’.
²⁵
They then proceeded to the Gare de Lyon to catch the 8 p.m. train to Marseilles. Although occupying a first-class compartment, Reilly records that he had a ‘horrible night’.
²⁶
This is hardly surprising, for according to Hill, ‘we were packed liked sardines in a firstclass carriage with people sitting on the floor and along the entire length of the corridor outside the coupes’. The train was not only overcrowded with ordinary passengers but with ‘scores of badly wounded French soldiers on their way from hospital to their homes in the south’.
²⁷