Memoirs of a British Agent by R. H. Bruce Lockhart

Author:R. H. Bruce Lockhart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Frontline Books
Published: 2011-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

BOOK IV

“HISTORY FROM THE INSIDE”

“HISTORY IS generally only the register of the crimes, the follies, and the mistakes of mankind.”

Gibbon

CHAPTER ONE

OF THAT VOYAGE home to England I remember very little. I had to travel via Finland and Scandinavia and was seeing Stockholm for the first time. On this occasion it made no impression on me. I do not remember where we stayed. As far as I can recollect, I avoided our Legation. I kept no diary during this period. My mental anguish was extreme, and I wanted to forget.

All that remains in my mind is the memory of the railway journey from Christiania to Bergen. The scenery, wilder, more picturesque than the Canadian Rockies, provided the proper background for my own melancholy. The wild stretches of moor, the lofty peaks and tortuous ravines, the lochs and turbulent trout-streams, above all, the firs and the birches, their leaves golden with the first tints of autumn, reminded me of Scotland. At Bergen I met Wardrop, who was to take my place in Moscow. He was an elderly, scholarly man, and the personification of caution. Obviously, the Foreign Office were taking no more chances with youth. Mechanically I gave him the information he required about Moscow. I cannot say I enjoyed the interview. I could not bear the thought of having to talk about Russia. All I wanted was to go to my own country and fish.

I assume that I made the dreary journey—exciting only because of the danger from submarines—from Bergen to Aberdeen and that I crossed in the Vulture. In a court of law I could not swear either to the name of the ship or to the port of landing. I know that I arrived in London on the morning of the day on which Korniloff’s troops were marching on St. Petersburg. I went straight to the Foreign Office to report myself. I was received with the greatest kindness. I was a man who had accomplished great things at the expense of his health. I was to take a long rest and not to think about the war or work or Russia until I had made a complete recovery. With disgust in my heart I accepted the rôle which had been forced on me, and that same day I made arrangements to go to the Highlands to stay with my uncle. Before I left I had one more ordeal to face. Within a few hours of my arrival in London the Daily Mail succeeded in tracking me down. They wanted information about the outcome of the Kerensky-Korniloff clash. Opinion in London favoured Korniloff’s chances. I held definite views regarding the inevitability of Korniloff’s failure. Would I write an article? It would have to be done at once. The Mail would pay handsomely for it.

There and then, with the sacrifice of my dinner, I scribbled out the article with the Mail’s representative looking over my shoulder. I threw in some new photographs of Kerensky and Savinkoff and I received a cheque for twenty-five guineas.

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