The Summer Day is Done (39 page)

If any of the affected powers or their representatives showed signs of withdrawing
from the brink, others energetically interceded to ensure that all rushed over the edge together. August 1914 provided the most fearsome example of the homicidal drive of politicians. Typically, all the politicians, with few exceptions, survived the holocaust. It is a fact that conditions and circumstances which lead to war are created by politicians. It is another fact that politicians stand apart from the conflicts they promote, leaving the battlefields to those of inferior vision. Even kings and emperors fall. In the war of 1914–18, Wilhelm II of Germany, Tsar Nicholas II, the Austro–Hungarian monarchy and other dynasties went down into oblivion. The politicians came out unscathed and gruesomely to swell their ranks Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin emerged. The difference was that Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin had promised to be nice to the people.

Nicholas declared war on behalf of the Slavs. And Russia, which had been seething and fermenting with discontent, became united in support of the Tsar. Of all the committed countries, none opened the war on a greater wave of patriotism than Russia. Nicholas had never been better loved than on the day Russia began hostilities against its traditional enemy, Germany. Revolutionaries who declared against the war, against the Tsar, had to go into hiding from the angry people. The Duma was unanimous in its support. Its Bolshevik members were cowed by the intensity of the national feeling.

There were two prominent dissidents who were neither revolutionaries nor Bolsheviks. Count Sergius Witte and Gregor Rasputin both
opposed the war. Rasputin, recovering in his Siberian village from an attempt on his life, telegraphed Nicholas not to do it. Nicholas for once lost his temper and shredded the telegram. Rasputin responded by darkly prophesying that the Imperial family would be doomed by the conflict. Witte spoke his own case in more practical terms. Neither the prophecy nor the practicalities had any effect.

Answerable only to the Tsar in the field of hostilities was the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army. His integrity was unquestionable, his ability undoubted. If he lacked armaments he did not lack manpower. Confidently, Russia awaited the outcome. The men marched and the women waved.

But who, when patriotism and zeal were at their highest, would have thought corruption and vanity in the shape of the Minister of War were to play a greater part than integrity and ability, were to be more influential than marching men and waving women? General Vladimir Sukhomlinov, who was inordinately jealous of Grand Duke Nicholas, was the quintessence of Russian double-dealing. He more than any other man was responsible for the abysmal shortage of everything Russian soldiers needed to fight the military might of Germany.

From the beginning to the end of their war Russians fought with each man’s hands tied behind his back.

The Tsar took up residence at army headquarters, his family stayed at Tsarskoe Selo
outside St Petersburg which, because of its Germanic derivation, had now been renamed Petrograd. There were occasions, however, when Alexandra could bear no longer to be without sight of Nicholas. She travelled then with her children to stay with her husband for a while. She was suffering mental anguish at this time because of accusations that she was pro-German. She was not. She never had been. She hated Prussian Germans. She had come from Hesse and Hessians were themselves, they had been forcibly unified with Germany by Bismarck in her mother’s time. Wholeheartedly she prayed for an Allied victory, and nothing was sweeter to her than to have Britain as one of her allies.

The war changed many things, not least the daily routine of the family. Alexandra, with Olga and Tatiana, took up nursing. It was a vocation in which all three were naturally gifted, their love and compassion at last brought to bear in practical service to others.

The Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo was turned into a military hospital. And there Olga worked each day, quietly and quickly efficient. Only at night did she have time to dream.

Kirby had at last had his resignation accepted. It had lain in a pigeonhole for many months. In the end they accepted it on condition that he remained in the army for the duration of the war and joined the British military team in Russia. His knowledge of Russia and Russians was too invaluable not to be used at this critical time. He could forget Prolofski and a certain piece of paper. Neither meant anything now. Britain and Russia were allies. He did not argue. He could not, in fact, have been more satisfied. The extraordinary luck of the game was incredible.

His aunt, massively possessive, was very satisfied too. She was a Victorian, she dressed like one, she lived like one. She was entirely lovable but did her very best not to seem so.

‘Good,’ she said when he broke the news, ‘it’s not before time. You’ve been kicking your heels. That isn’t good for any man, especially a single one.’

‘But I’m leaving you again, dear thing,’ he said.

‘You’ll settle one day, I hope,’ said Aunt
Charlotte. Her voice boomed a little when she allowed herself emotion. ‘Besides, my dear boy, you left something behind in Russia. I am not quite blind. Whatever it was, bring it back with you when you return. You’re an incomplete man, quite unlike your father, who was the completest man I ever knew, bless him.’

‘That, I suppose, was because Father had Mother,’ he said.

‘Father and mother, they make complete together always,’ said Karita, now like one of the family but still with a sense of what was proper.

‘How right you are, child,’ said Aunt Charlotte. She wore a welter of deep grey garments pinned with brooches, and dwarfed the slim Crimean girl. ‘I’ve begun to despair of his future. However, we’re at war now and who knows what may happen? But I sincerely hope he’ll not marry some flighty nurse simply because there is a war. Men do impetuous things in wartime.’

‘Flighty nurse, she is impetuous?’ said Karita, not knowing whether the implications were inconsequential or dreadful.

‘There’s no such thing as a flighty nurse,’ said Kirby.

‘You forget, I was a nurse myself during the Boer War,’ said Aunt Charlotte.

‘You flighty nurse?’ said Karita, brown eyes intrigued. She wore a white blouse and blue skirt, was the essence of attractive simplicity and, when she topped this outfit with a straw boater, a delight to the eyes of Walton.

‘Good heavens, girl,’ said Aunt Charlotte.

‘She not flighty nurse,’ said Kirby, shaking his head at Karita.

‘Don’t make such fun of her,’ said Aunt Charlotte, who adored the girl. ‘Karita speaks English very well, but that won’t help her. She not flighty nurse indeed, what do you think you’re at?’

‘Oh dear, making fun, I suppose.’

Aunt Charlotte smiled. Karita laughed.

‘Well, I suppose you’ll want to make your preparations,’ said Aunt Charlotte. ‘The minister must think some good will come of sending you to Russia if he wants you there so quickly.’

‘He didn’t say so himself,’ said Kirby, ‘he was elsewhere with serious matters on his mind.’

‘Your going is serious enough, do you say it isn’t?’ boomed his aunt.

‘Only to you and me, dearest,’ he smiled.

‘And to me,’ said Karita.

He had had some difficulty in making Them understand he must take Karita with him. He had promised that when he did return to Russia, even if not until after the war, he would take her with him. Karita had said that she would think he would. With her country at war she would not countenance being left behind now. They had given in gracefully in the end. Karita was ecstatic. She liked it at Walton, loved the old cottage with its mellow warmth, its oak and mahogany furniture, its crowded bedrooms, its pictures and its huge fireplace. She adored to stand by the little landing stage where the lawn met the Thames and the ducks came paddling to her.

As a foreigner she was intrigued by everything being so different. It was not necessarily better, but it was different. There were so many chestnut trees and green hanging willows. It pleased her to wave to people gliding by in boats and punts, it delighted her when they waved in response. The road to the village was full of light and shade because of the many trees, and she was amazed by the number of people who rode bicycles. The tinkle of bicycle bells was such a happy sound.

Kirby had bought her a bicycle and taught her to ride it, she in blushing confusion at times because her petticoats would fly and show him her legs. He only laughed at the flutter and swirl. It was all very well for him, he bicycled in trousers with clips to hold them in place. But it was such fun. She quickly became accomplished and looked very picturesque in her boater and fluttering skirts riding down to the shops for Aunt Charlotte.

Aunt Charlotte had been so kind. She had been intimidatingly suspicious at first. It did not seem right to her that Kirby should have a girl as pretty as this for his personal servant. But there was obviously only the right and proper relationship between them, and the girl was a delight in her willingness to serve the aunt as happily as she served the nephew.

Young men came courting her. With her golden hair and her brown eyes Karita was a target for every bachelor in the neighbourhood. Karita was polite to all of them, walked out with those she liked the best, thought all of them very gallant – except one who tried to kiss her
and received the point of her parasol in his stomach – but considered none of them with any seriousness. A most impressed young gentleman, a Mr Hargreaves, astonished her by proposing to her. She recovered quickly enough to prevent him embracing her and told him in her delicious English that it was most hospitable of him, that she was quite ungoverned by his affection, but that it would never do, that Colonel Kirby would never approve. When he asked what Colonel Kirby had to do with it, Karita was astonished again.

‘But I am his responsibiliky, he is my father and mother.’

‘Good grief,’ said the surprised young gentleman.

‘He is having confusingk times without me and would not approve my marryingk no one.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ said Mr Hargreaves.

‘You are not asked to,’ said Karita as nicely as she could. Mr Hargreaves was highly desirous of pressing his suit farther, thinking Karita a golden Russian rosebud who would beautify a little cottage he had his eye on at Shepperton, but Karita simply did not want to be either engaged or married. Really, it was only by fortuitous circumstances that she had not drifted into marriage with Oravio. An escape like that was a warning. Besides, Colonel Kirby would never consent. She might argue with him, she would never disobey him. Her mother would be furious.

She had come to call him Colonel Kirby now.
Aunt Charlotte could not believe her ears when she first heard the Russian girl address him as Ivan Ivanovich. She said that that simply could not be allowed. It did not matter what obtained in Russia, it was not the thing in England. Karita, always willing to please even if she did not understand – and who could understand the English? – bowed to one more strange English custom and thereafter refrained from what Aunt Charlotte thought was an uncomfortable familiarity.

Karita was delighted about the prospect of returning to Russia. Had it not been for the war she would have remained at Walton with pleasure; but now, seized by an excess of love and patriotism, she wanted to be in Russia, to see her country at work in the war against Germany. Germans were monsters. It was said that their soldiers were not averse to roasting babies.

‘Oh, and eating them, I suppose?’ said Kirby.

‘Even that,’ said Karita.

‘That, Karita, is against all your common sense and you know it.’

‘I don’t say it myself, but it’s what I’ve heard,’ she said.

‘Silly girl,’ he said, ‘I thought you’d given up believing anything you hadn’t seen for yourself.’

‘Yes,’ said Karita, ‘but Mr Browning has a brother in France who told him of this and was I to call him a liar?’

‘Mr Browning?’

‘Yes. He is our new postman and I am walking out with him.’

‘Well, you can kiss him goodbye this evening, we are going tomorrow.’

They arrived in Petrograd in January. The sea trip had been cold and hazardous. Petrograd was cold but more brilliant than ever, white with shining ice and snow, full of light and crowded with people. The familiar droshkies swished by, the sleighs jingled, and Karita wore again her sable fur and hat. Her eyes sparkled as they drove to an hotel, where Kirby was to stay for two days before going to the Polish front to join the British military team there. To Karita’s astonishment, as soon as Kirby’s British cap and greatcoat were recognized people on the street cheered him. She blushed with pride. That was something to write to her parents about indeed.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you’re very popular.’

‘I will be,’ he said, ‘if my arrival coincides with a great Russian victory.’

Petrograd was exciting and gay. The gaiety did not seem to have much to do with earnest endeavour, only with the necessity for people to enjoy the atmosphere of the capital in wartime. Since there was a war, the citizens of Petrograd danced, celebrated and made love, for these were the activities they excelled at. To add to the glitter, uniforms predominated and beautiful women sacrificed themselves in every way to amuse and entertain the heroes of the Admiralty and the War Office. The heroes responded with the social elan they were born with. At the front men and officers died in the snow.

The hospitals were overflowing, the casualties had been enormous. The trains brought the
wounded in daily and it was difficult to get a hospital bed unless one was privileged. It did not help that anarchists and revolutionaries were beginning to toss bombs among civilians again, except that, as Trotsky said in so many words, this was for the good of the people in the long run.

Olga and Tatiana were working in the Catherine Palace. They blenched at times because of the hideous and brutal effects of war. Nothing they had been told, nothing they had heard about war and battles, conveyed the reality like wounded men did. Doctors and staff generously and tactfully attempted to protect the Grand Duchesses from too close a contact with the more distressingly wounded, but Olga and Tatiana firmly refused such protection. They did not want to play at nursing, to minister only when casualties had had their wounds dressed and hidden. Nor did Alexandra wish them merely to look the part. The Grand Duchesses were allowed to take their responsibilities seriously, and they shared as much of the distress and heartbreak of a military hospital as the rest of the nursing staff.