The Secret Wife(30)
Dmitri’s thoughts were focused on the invalids, but he heard rumblings from the town that thousands of women had taken to the streets to protest about the food shortages and that their numbers were being swollen by the hour. On the afternoon of the 25th of February he heard the sound of gunfire outside the palace gates and gathered a handful of guards before running out to seek the cause of the commotion. Several hundred townspeople were protesting, many waving placards and some of them armed.
‘Pray calm, I beg you,’ he shouted over the noise. ‘The royal children are critically ill.’
‘Let them rot in hell!’ a woman yelled. ‘At least they are fed, unlike my children.’
Dmitri sent two guards to fetch bread from the palace kitchen and a telegram was dispatched to Nicholas in Mogilev to ask what he would have them do. While they waited for a reply Dmitri urged the kitchen staff to bake as much bread as they could for distribution to the crowd. What they would do if supplies ran out, he could not imagine. Perhaps by then some solution could be reached.
The following day, Nicholas telephoned from the front and ordered the captain of the guards to suppress the demonstrations by force. He was incandescent with rage that the mob were scaring his sick children and said the men should not hesitate to open fire. Dmitri felt sick to his stomach. Had the Tsar learned nothing from the revolution in 1905, when he had been forced to hand many of his powers to a newly created government body known as the Duma? His only option was to negotiate because most of his army was at the front and, besides, he could no longer rely on the troops’ loyalty.
After the telephone call, the captain convened a meeting of the guard to pass on this order and Dmitri knew from his colleagues’ grim expressions that it was useless.
‘I’ve had enough,’ one man said, laying down his weapon. ‘The army opened fire in St Petersburg and hundreds are lying dead in the streets. Me, I won’t shoot my own people.’
A chorus of voices joined him, all in agreement. Dmitri and the captain remonstrated, but half-heartedly. They knew there was not enough manpower to hold back a determined mob, and any more casualties would only inflame tensions. The Tsar’s orders would not be carried out.
Every day brought news of further regiments that had mutinied. This revolution had been building for a long time but now it had begun no one knew what would happen next or which direction it might take. It largely depended on Nicholas. If he was determined to try and shoot his way out of trouble, Dmitri feared the consequences – for him and for the country as a whole.
He and his royal escort comrades patrolled the palace grounds with rifles and bayonets shouldered, ignoring the shouts of the crowd and the intermittent sounds of gunfire in the city. The snow was deep and the temperature bitterly cold but he marched with determination: no one would break into the palace where Tatiana lay while he was on hand to protect her.
On the evening of the 28th of February Alexandra came out into the courtyard to talk to the guard, swathed from head to toe in furs. ‘For God’s sake, I ask all of you not to let any blood be shed on our account,’ she pleaded. Dmitri was shocked to see how much she had aged in a few days, her complexion pale as parchment.
‘How are the grand duchesses, Your Imperial Highness?’ he ventured to ask.
She shook her head. ‘Not yet recovered. The Chairman of the Duma has advised that we evacuate the palace but the girls simply cannot be moved.’
‘You can count on us to remain at our posts,’ Dmitri promised. ‘No matter what.’
She pursed her lips and nodded her thanks, anxiety etched on her brow.
Dmitri couldn’t believe it when rumours began to spread on the 2nd of March that the Tsar had abdicated. It didn’t ring true. Nicholas was too arrogant, too wedded to the idea of his divine right. At first it was said that he had stepped down in favour of Alexei, which seemed ridiculous given the boy’s frailty and lack of experience. Next came word that Nicholas wanted his brother Michael to take the throne, but Michael had refused. Gradually Dmitri realised the gossips must be right. Who would lead the nation now?
Orders came that the Guards Equipage were to vacate the palace, leaving officers of the royal escort as the only force guarding the perimeter. They rearranged their rotas and cut down on sleep so there would always appear to be enough guards on view to deter the mob from breaking in. It was a game of brinksmanship. As Dmitri marched by the railings, someone with a harmonica began to play the ‘Marseillaise’, the anthem written after the French Revolution of 1789. Dmitri’s fingers tightened on his rifle: he felt like shooting that man on the spot. Everyone was jumpy, but none could have as much at stake as him, with his wife desperately ill inside the besieged palace.
Still there was no word from Nicholas. He had promised to return to Tsarskoe Selo on the 1st of March but the days dragged by without any sign. On the 5th of March the telephone and electricity lines to the palace were cut and food supplies were beginning to dwindle. When Dmitri rushed to the kitchen after an overnight shift to thaw his fingers and toes in front of the great ovens, the only food he could find was a tough loaf and some chicken bones from the day before.
As he walked through the courtyard, charred scraps floated from the chimneys and drifted on the breeze like oversized black snowflakes. A colleague told him Alexandra was burning her correspondence and diaries. Why would she do that if she had nothing to hide? Dmitri could not help wondering what injudicious disclosures might have graced the pages of her letters to Rasputin. Better if they did not reach the hands of the new rulers, whoever they might prove to be. One scrap still had some legible words on the edges and he ground it to dust beneath his heel.