The Secret Wife(42)
As soon as they parted, he hurried to send a telegram to Malevich saying that the cargo they had discussed would be arriving in Omsk before the end of the month and asking if he could deal with its onward dispatch. Suddenly, rescuing the Romanovs seemed a real possibility. From Omsk, they could be spirited by automobile to Crimea and taken by boat to Constantinople without having to pass through Bolshevik-held territory. It was a perfect location.
His heart sang and he longed to tell Tatiana, but it was too dangerous to risk putting it in a letter. The less she knew, the safer she would be.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tobolsk, Siberia, April 1918
Dearest Malama,
We had a visit yesterday evening from the very charming Commander Yakovlev. Papa trusts him and I hope he is right to do so. He tells us that we are to be moved but yet again he will not say where, although he hinted we would go north and west. The trouble is that Alexei is not well enough for the journey. He has a haemorrhage in his groin, which has been causing excruciating pain. Papa explained this and Yakovlev tried to overrule him but after seeing Alexei with his own eyes he reluctantly agreed that some of us may stay behind to nurse him. Mama was torn: should she go with her husband or stay with her sick son? Eventually she decided that Papa needs her most, so Olga, Anastasia and I will remain behind with Alexei, until he is sufficiently recovered.
Dmitri gasped with horror – ‘No!’ She should have told him Alexei was ill. Why had she not? He supposed she was trying to spare him from worry, just as he had spared her by not telling her of his father’s death, but it ruined his plans. He snatched up his pen to reply:
My love, I beg you to reconsider. It is essential that your family stick together at a time like this. Believe me when I tell you I have reasons that I cannot share in a letter. Please do not be alarmed but consider whether it might be possible to make Alexei comfortable enough to travel with cushions spread all around him. Any comforts that would help, you can rely on me to find. Please do this for me, Tatiana. Please keep the family together.
She replied that she was alarmed by the tone of his note but maintained that it would be impossible to move her brother. Dmitri clutched his head in despair. If only he could see her face to face for just one minute, he could explain this was their only hope of rescue. But it was impossible.
He quickly sent a telegram to Malevich, who had already arrived in Omsk, telling him that the cargo they had discussed was being sent in two batches. Would there be any way to keep the first batch safe until the second arrived in a month or two? Malevich replied that it would be difficult but he would endeavour to do as he was asked.
Dmitri had planned to travel close behind the Romanovs and to help with the operation to smuggle them out of Omsk and overseas. Once they were on board ship, he hoped to have time to visit his mother and sisters and to arrange their escape as well. But now all his plans would have to be changed. A car came to pick up the Tsar and Tsarina along with their middle daughter, Maria, leaving the remaining children inside the Governor’s House with their guards.
‘I am reading to Alexei from Tales of Shakespeare,’ Tatiana wrote immediately after the departure.
He is especially fond of Julius Caesar, in particular the murder scene. Why do boys relish violence?
I have a feeling from your letter that you know more than you are telling me about our parents’ destination and I wish you would share it with me. I wonder if they are headed for Sweden or Norway, since Yakovlev hinted they were to go north and west? But he also said the journey would take five days, so perhaps that is too far. I hope it is not to Moscow. This new government does not seem well-disposed towards us. Do tell me what you know, Malama, or else I will be fearful.
Dmitri was more than fearful: he was terrified that when the Bolshevik government realised Yakovlev had taken the royal couple to Omsk, outside the territory they controlled, they would take revenge on the remaining children. He replied to Tatiana’s letter, trying to calm her fears, but at the same time he bought several rifles and distributed them amongst monarchist sympathisers in the town in case it became necessary to storm the compound. He watched the house night and day for any change in routine that could signal trouble and he wrote to Tatiana suggesting that she stow her valuables securely in case a journey became necessary sooner than expected. If they could have spoken directly, he would have trusted her with all, but he could not risk writing anything that would give the game away should the guards decide to search Trina.
The poor communications between Tobolsk and the outside world were infuriating, especially when Dmitri received a telegram from Malevich saying that the expected cargo had not arrived in Omsk. What had gone wrong? Where were Tsar Nicholas and his wife?
Dmitri’s nerves were in tatters. If only Yakovlev would send him a telegram; but he supposed he would not dare, since all telegrams were routinely read by the local soviets.
A week after the royal couple’s departure from Tobolsk, Dmitri was walking along the street when he heard a news vendor crying out the day’s headline: ‘Tsar and Tsarina moved to Ekaterinburg.’
Ekaterinburg! There could be nowhere worse. It was a town in the country’s industrial heartland, home to the most militant workers, who were fiercely hostile to the monarchy. His heart sinking, he grabbed a paper to read the story: it said the royal party had arrived in the city two days earlier and had been jeered by crowds at the railway station. They were being accommodated in the merchant Ipatiev’s house, to be known henceforth as the ‘House of Special Purpose’. Everything about it sounded ominous.