Ace of Spies (26 page)

Finally arriving in Marseilles at 11 a.m. the next morning they met up with John Picton Bagge, who was returning to his post as Consul-General in Odessa, and John Waite, the former Consul- General in Helsingfors. As merchants, accredited by the Board of Trade, Hill and Reilly, along with Bagge and Waite, boarded the Greek warship
Isonzo,
bound for Malta. Hill notes that this was not a strange arrangement, as Greek naval ships often carried traders. The
Isonzo
docked at Valetta at noon on 17 December, where the party stayed overnight. Reilly spent his time in Valetta
‘making purchases’
²⁸
and writing to Nadine in New York. At 3 p.m. the following day they set sail for Constantinople on board the
Rowan,
provoking complaints from Reilly that it was, ‘the dirtiest ship [I] ever saw’.
²⁹
After a near miss with a floating mine off the coast of Gallipoli on 22 December, they finally arrived in Constantinople at 8 a.m. the next day, which Reilly described as ‘a lovely sight’.
³⁰
After lunch aboard HMS
Lord Nelson,
as guests of Admiral Calthorpe, commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, the final stretch of the journey to Sevastapol was made on the minesweeper
Larne.
The
Larne
’s skipper, Cmdr Hilton, clearly struck up a good rapport with Reilly, who found him to be a ‘tremendous chap’.
³¹
They finally stepped ashore on Christmas Eve, and immediately set about arranging meetings.

Reilly and Hill had arrived at a particularly crucial time, for the British government had resolved on 13 November to aid the anti-Bolshevik forces, or Whites as they were known, led by Gen. Anton Denikin. Based in the south of Russia, the hope was that his Volunteer Army might defeat the Bolsheviks by pressing up through the Ukraine and into the heart of Russia, where another White Army, led by Admiral Alexander Kolchak, was advancing from the east.

Christmas Day was, according to Reilly, a very quiet affair, as were the New Year celebrations at the Kuban Club in Ekaterinodar.
³²
In complete contrast, however, Hill recalls that they celebrated New Year at the Palace Hotel in Rostov, and refers in graphic detail to:

…a large ballroom which had a balcony round it, divided into boxes. In the centre of the ballroom a beautiful fountain played. The tables were thronged by queerly assorted, oddly dressed men and women. Beautiful women wore threadbare blouses, down-at-heel shoes, yet on their fingers displayed rings or on their necks colliers that would have made even a Cartier’s assistant’s mouth water. Others, with the air of duchesses, wore luxurious fur coats, which as a rule they took good care to keep fastened, for in most cases anything worn beneath
was scanty and painfully shabby. One girl I especially remember was particularly well dressed, yet she wore hand-knitted socks and bark sandals.
³³

Reilly and Hill were apparently decked out in full evening dress. Everyone, to Hill’s recollection, seemed to be enjoying themselves although Reilly particularly disliked the ‘old regime formalities’, such as the band’s impromptu habit of striking up numerous national anthems, which obliged all present to stand rigidly to atten-tion. After one such rendition, Hill observed Reilly with interest ‘as he sipped Turkish coffee, took an occasional drink of iced water, and with precision smoked one Russian cigarette after another’.
³⁴

Many hours and drinks later, Hill recalls feeling ‘desperately tired’, and making his way to his bedroom where he got into his pyjamas. Faintly, from below, he heard the band playing. Responding to the strains of
The Old Hunters’ March,
he put on his dressing gown and went downstairs, where ‘something’ possessed him to lead the band and a crowd of revellers on a march ‘up and down the corridors and stairs, into the attics and through the kitchens of the Palace Hotel’.
³⁵

Which is the correct recollection? How could they each be in two separate locations, celebrating New Year, when the one thing they do agree on is that they celebrated New Year together? Although an initially perplexing conundrum, the answer is a very simple one. Until the Bolsheviks took power, Russia was using a calendar that was thirteen days behind that used in Britain and indeed most other places in the world. The Bolsheviks decreed that Russia should fall into line with everyone else. The Whites, who controlled the zone Reilly and Hill were in, opposed everything the Bolsheviks did on principle, and stubbornly carried on with the old Russian calendar. Reilly had a small English Letts pocket diary, and recorded all the events which took place while he was in Southern Russia on a daily basis, following on from their departure from London. Rather like the man who does not adjust his watch when moving from one time zone to another,
Reilly had simply carried on regardless. Hill, by contrast, was going by the calendar in use in the area at the time, and so a thirteen-day time gap exists between the two sets of recollections. Proof of this theory is to be found in Reilly’s diary, where on the 13 January he refers to ‘great NY celebrations, everyone getting horribly drunk – Hill leading band in dressing gown. Old regime all over’.
³⁶

It is equally clear from his diary that Reilly set about his task of collecting information about the Black Sea coast and South Russia with enthusiasm, arranging a whole series of meetings with political and military leaders in the area in order to draft his dispatches. On 27 December he had met Denikin’s Minister for War, Gen. Lukomsky, and had ‘a long conversation’ with him. From his very first report Reilly nailed his colours firmly to Denikin’s mast, stating that ‘the Volunteer Army represents the only concrete dependable force and living symbol of Russian unity’ whose success or failure would be determined by the extent of Allied support.
³⁷
On New Year’s Eve he sent off the report along with a letter to Nadine. The New Year celebrations were noted as being very tame.

By the time of his second dispatch it was noted that ‘the prevailing atmosphere is not a healthy one, neither for the political stability of the Kuban territory nor for the Volunteer Army which is still greatly dependent upon the territory’s resources and upon its support in men’.
³⁸
On 5 January he met with Gen. Poole, who had recently returned from the battle front, and noted that ‘our ideas are practically in agreement’.
³⁹

Those ideas formed the nucleus of his next despatch, which advised that:

… the military situation of the Volunteer Army is extremely serious, the question of its equipments, provisioning, armaments and of its technical means cannot be characterised otherwise than appalling (I am borrowing this definition from a conversation with Gen. Poole); the question of the urgency of Allied assistance becomes therefore more important than the question of its extent.
⁴⁰

It also mentions arms to carry on the fight, ‘Whippet tanks, and bombing planes’, as well as clothing.
⁴¹
Reilly estimated that the Red Army would be quite a formidable force by the spring of 1919 with more than a million men in the field. He expressed the view, however, that the task of overcoming them would be ‘a comparatively easy one’. He believed that ‘Bolshevik armies will not stand up to regular troops’, and that this would be even more the case ‘if the latter are technically equipped’, and stated that he thought that ‘it will be fateful for Russia and probably Europe if this task is not accomplished by next summer’. As painful experience would show, however, Denikin and his army would find overcoming the Bolshevik troops to be anything but easy.

In terms of political analysis, Reilly claimed that the reformist objectives of the National Centre were in harmony with Denikin’s ultimate objectives. ‘Although in the main lines the political tendencies of the commander-in-chief and his council are identical with those of the National Centre, still monarchist aspirations are strong in some political coteries close to the commander-in-chief’. This was typical of a good number of statements made by Reilly. Like the Delphic Oracle of Ancient Greece, he often couched his pronouncements with qualifications and get-out clauses. In this case he identified generals Lukomsky and Dragomirov as ‘convinced monarchists’, both of whom held sway with Denikin in political matters. Reilly concluded his second dispatch almost prophetically, asserting that ‘there can only be one opinion on the urgent necessity of worldwide propaganda against Bolshevism as the greatest danger that ever threatened civilisation’.
⁴²
Clearly feeling ‘very pleased at the success of number 2’,
⁴³
Reilly got to meet Denikin and his key advisors on 10 January. The following day he was to quote Denikin’s views directly:

People think that in order to pacify Russia, all one has to do is to take Moscow. To hear again the sound of the Kremlin bells would, of course be pleasant, but we cannot save Russia through Moscow. Russia has
to be reconquered as a whole, and to do this we have to carry out a very wide-sweeping movement from the south, moving right across Russia. We cannot do this alone. We must have the assistance of the Allies. Equipment and armament alone are not sufficient; we must have Allied troops which will move behind us, holding territories which we will reconquer, by garrisoning the towns, policing the country and protecting our lines of communication.
⁴⁴

It is worth noting that Denikin uses the word reconquer as opposed to liberate in this interview with Reilly, which is an indication in itself of his outlook. It also highlights one of the main reasons for his ultimate failure to win widespread trust and support among the general population.

Whether or not this sentiment caused him any concern is not recorded in either Reilly’s dispatches or in his diary. He could not fail but notice the general disenchantment among the people, however, and warned that workers were being ‘driven into the arms of the Bolsheviks by the suppression of every kind of labour association’,
⁴⁵
and that all sections of society were outraged by the reactionary character and abuse of power by the regime of Cossack leader Peter Krasnov. Reilly was certainly correct in believing that Krasnov’s recent alliance with Denikin could not be relied upon, nor could Krasnov be trusted to respect Denikin’s authority.
⁴⁶
Proof of Reilly’s concerns about Krasnov were confirmed when the Cossack ‘flared up’ in a ‘rather aggressive way’
⁴⁷
during a meeting between the two. Krasnov stridently put forward the view that Denikin’s Volunteer Army command was only ‘thinking of grasping the maximum amount of power’.
⁴⁸
He also felt that the formation of Denikin’s government was ‘still in the experimental stages’. By contrast, he asserted that his own government had ‘a fully organised apparatus to take charge not only of the military but also of the economical tasks’.
⁴⁹

On a personal note, Reilly noted disapprovingly that Gen. Poole was still ‘fooling around’ with two women.
⁵⁰
It is not clear, however, whether his displeasure was incurred by the ‘fooling
around’ or that they were ‘such ugly women’.
⁵¹
Reilly felt that this made a very ‘bad impression’!

On 22 January Reilly and Hill received news that, on C’s recommendation, they were to receive the Military Cross ‘for distinguished services rendered in connection with Military operations in the Field’.
⁵²
That evening Reilly treated everyone to champagne, but noted in his diary that Col. Terence Keyes had refused to drink and was behaving ‘like a cad and fool’.
⁵³
Keyes and Reilly had taken an immediate dislike to each other on first meeting. Reilly’s diary is punctuated with a number of remarks about Keyes’ caddish behaviour. For his part, Reilly seems to have taken some delight in ‘annoying him immensely’.
⁵⁴

On 3 February Reilly and Hill arrived in Odessa on the last leg of their mission together. The next day Hill was due to return to England and at Reilly’s behest they spent part of the day strolling around the city. While walking along Alexandrovsky Prospect, Reilly’s steps began to falter, his face went white and he fell to the ground. After some minutes he recovered but refused to discuss what had happened. Hill assumed that this was the result of an emotional crisis, possibly triggered by childhood memories or the like.
⁵⁵
This incident occurred outside house No. 15, and for this reason Hill theorised that Reilly may possibly have lived there as a child. While it is most likely that Reilly’s ‘emotional crisis’ was in fact a mild epileptic fit of the type he was prone to have at times of acute stress, the story is an intriguing one. Was it coincidental that his collapse occurred at this particular spot or was there perhaps, as Hill thought, something there that might have brought it about?

During the 1880s and ’90s, No. 15 was owned by one Filuring Leon Solomonovich.
⁵⁶
There are no indications that anyone by the name of Rosenblum owned the property at any time during Reilly’s lifetime. His family could, of course, have been tenants, although following up such a theory is next to impossible due to the destruction of records for this particular period during the Second World War. However, one further
possibility has since come to light as a result of research into Rosenblum family records. Five houses from the spot where Reilly fell stands 27 Alexandrovsky Prospect, the home of the late Mikhail Rosenblum, occupied in 1919 by his daughter Elena Rosenblum.
⁵⁷

Late the following day Reilly accompanied Hill to Constanza Station to see him off on his long journey home. For reasons not apparent or explained, Reilly records in his diary ‘saw Hill off; were shot at’.
⁵⁸
This is a most puzzling reference, for it does not appear in Hill’s recollection of his departure. Although it is possible that this incident happened to Reilly after Hill’s train had departed, the circumstances surrounding the incident remain a mystery.

The very same day that Hill departed from Odessa, Margaret Reilly arrived in London from Brussels. Having heard nothing from her husband as a result of her recent letters, Margaret had crossed the Channel, booked into the Buckingham Hotel off the Strand, and made a beeline for the Air Ministry. There she met one G.E. Pennington, who later wrote a brief minute of their meeting: