I learned of the ice-route to Finland from my courier, who came back that way, and who returned to Finland the following night on the same sledge. Discreet inquiries at the logman’s hut produced the information that the courier’s smuggler, granted that he had safely reached Finland, was not due back for some time, but another one had arrived and would take anyone who was willing to pay. The sum demanded, two thousand marks, when converted into foreign exchange, was about twenty pounds. But the Finn thinks of a mark as a shilling.
As ill-luck would have it, I found on arrival in Finland that Ivan Sergeievitch was in the Baltic States and no one knew when he would return. But I saw his wife, who had sent the indiscreet message to Petrograd leading to Varia’s arrest. She was mortified when I broke this news to her, but was unable to throw any light on Zorinsky. I also met several other Russian officers, none, however, who had known Melnikoff, and I thus got no further information.
The Doctor, of course, had denounced Zorinsky as a provocateur, but there was as yet little evidence for that charge. Zorinsky might be an extortionist without being a provocateur. Wild charges are brought against anybody and everybody connected with Sovdepia on the slightest suspicion, and I myself have been charged, on the one hand, by the Bolsheviks with being a rabid monarchist, and, on the other, by reactionaries with being a “subtle” Bolshevik. However, my aversion to Zorinsky had become so intense that I resolved that under no pretext or condition would I have anything more to do with him.
My time in Helsingfors was occupied mostly with endeavours to obtain official assurances that any couriers I despatched from Russia would not be seized or shot by the Finns, and that reasonable assistance should be given them in crossing the frontier in either direction. The Finnish Foreign and War Offices were willing enough to cooperate, but appeared to have but little sway over their own frontier authorities. The last word belonged to the new Commandant at Terijoki, a man of German origin, who defied the Government whenever instructions ran counter to his open German sympathies. Being in league with German Intelligence organizations in Russia, he was naturally disinclined to do anything that would assist the Allies, and it was only when his insubordination passed all limits and he was at last dismissed by the Finnish Government that facilities could be granted which made the operation of a secret courier service across the frontier in any degree feasible.
The story of intrigue and counter-intrigue amongst Finns, Germans, Russians, Bolsheviks, and the Allies at this time, both in the Finnish capital and along the Russian frontier, would be a fascinating one in itself, but that is not my province. On the occasion of my brief visits to Finland my prime object was not to become involved, and this was the main reason why, depressing though the prospect of returning to Petrograd was under existing circumstances, I nevertheless cut short my stay in Finland and prepared to return the moment I learned positively that the German frontier commandant was to be removed.
Earnestly as I had striven to remain incognito, my unavoidable participation in the negotiations for arranging a courier-service had drawn me into unfortunate prominence. The German Commandant, still at his post, appeared to regard me as his very particular foe, and learning of my intention to return to Russia by sea he issued orders that the strictest watch should be kept on the coast and any sledge or persons issuing on to the ice be fired upon. Thus, although I had a Government permit to cross the frontier, the smuggler who was to carry me positively refused to venture on the journey, while all patrols had orders to afford me no facilities whatsoever.
But I evaded the Commandant very simply. At the other extremity of the Russo-Finnish frontier, close to Lake Ladoga, there is a small village named Rautta, lying four or five miles from the frontier line. This place had formerly also been a rallying point for smugglers and refugees, but in view of its remoteness and the difficulties of forest travel it was very inaccessible in midwinter from the Russian side. At the Commandant’s headquarters it was never suspected that I would attempt to start from this remote spot. But protesting, much to the Commandant’s delight, that I would return and compel him to submit to Government orders, I travelled by a very circuitous route to the village of Rautta, where I was completely unknown, and where I relied on finding some peasant or other who would conduct me to the border. Once arrived at the frontier I was content to be left to my own resources.
Luck was with me. It was in the later stages of the tedious journey that I was accosted in the train by a young Finnish lieutenant bound for the same place. Russians being in ill-favour in Finland, I always travelled as an Englishman in that country, whatever I may have looked like. At this time I did not look so bad, attired in an old green overcoat I had bought at Helsingfors. Noticing that I was reading an English paper, the lieutenant addressed me in English with some trifling request, and we fell into conversation. I was able to do him a slight service through a note I gave him to an acquaintance in Helsingfors, and when I further presented him with all my newspapers and a couple of English books for which I had no further use, he was more than delighted. Finding him so well-disposed I asked him what he was going to do at Rautta, to which he replied that he was about to take up his duties as chief of the garrison of the village, numbering some fifteen or twenty men. At this I
