Tsarskoe Selo, Russia, February 1917
Tsar Nicholas stayed in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo for two months after the murder of Rasputin, making plans for a spring offensive against the Germans. The billiard room was covered in maps marked with a profusion of arrows, crosses and scribbles, which he pored over night and day. Dmitri thought he was deluded to imagine he was capable of planning such a campaign. Did he have any idea that levels of desertion from the Russian army were rising daily and that there was a growing threat of all-out mutiny? Like them, he had no faith in his Tsar’s abilities as a commander and wished he would hand over the reins to one of his experienced generals. Nicholas sometimes acknowledged him with a quick nod when they passed in a corridor, but never spoke to him, and Dmitri wasn’t sure that he knew who he was.
For six blissful weeks he was able to see Tatiana every day. She was hard at work in the hospital while he had many duties as a member of the royal escort but they sought each other during breaks, when they would talk and play with Ortipo, just as in the old days. He teased her that her training of her pet had been so lax that when they went for walks, Ortipo chose the route; that when she threw a ball for her, she invariably ended up fetching it herself. Ortipo was the boss.
In the evenings he sometimes joined her in the wards to listen to a group of Romanian musicians who had been hired to play chamber music to the patients, and they sat close, not quite touching. Dmitri felt the air between them charged with the delicious secret that they were man and wife. He heard Volodya had been transferred elsewhere to convalesce and was relieved not to come face to face with his erstwhile rival.
Tatiana had no inkling of life outside the palace and Dmitri decided not to enlighten her. It would cause her distress to no purpose because she could not solve the country’s economic problems. For ordinary Russians bread was scarce, meat unheard of, and prices in the few shops that still stocked food were sky-high. Her father had outlawed the production and sale of vodka at the outbreak of war and men were brewing home-made versions that made them wild drunk and uncontrollable. Ugly mobs burnt pictures of her parents in the streets and cartoons in the press showed the Tsar and Tsarina eating meals of caviar and lobster or lighting cigarettes with hundred-rouble notes while their people starved. Tatiana would have been baffled and greatly upset had she seen them.
The mood of the public was the foremost worry preying on Dmitri’s mind until in mid February, Tatiana came to tell him that both Olga and Alexei had succumbed to fever and hacking coughs and the doctor had diagnosed measles.
‘Poor little Alexei,’ she sighed. ‘He so wanted to return to Mogilev with Papa. I think the men there are very kind to him.’
‘You will stay away from the sick room, won’t you?’ Dmitri urged. ‘I don’t want you to catch it.’
‘Mama is nursing them as she has already had measles and I don’t think you can catch it twice. I have moved into Maria and Anastasia’s room.’
That evening, Dmitri thought Tatiana looked a little flushed as she went about her duties in the hospital. ‘Do wrap up warmly for your journey back to the palace,’ he cautioned, but it was too late: the following morning his fears were confirmed when her ladies’ maid, Trina, came to tell him Tatiana too had fallen ill. She sent a quick note but her handwriting was scrawled and quite unlike its normal copperplate: ‘I pray I have not passed the sickness to you, my darling. This really is the most horrid affliction. Forgive me that I do not feel sufficiently well to write more.’
Dmitri sent her a note with an early snowdrop pressed between the pages, saying that he was sure she would still look dazzling, even when covered in spots. There was no reply and within days Trina brought news that the illness had worsened. Tatiana developed abscesses in her ears that made her deaf and the doctor was concerned her hearing might be permanently affected. It was agony for Dmitri to think of her suffering. If only it were possible, he would have taken the measles upon himself to spare her; he had already had a dose as a child and did not suffer too badly. Trina told him that Tatiana’s beautiful auburn hair had been cut short to quell the fever, and he begged for a lock. When she brought one he slipped it under his pillow and every night he stroked the soft hair across his cheek and in his head he whispered words of love to his secret wife. He pined for her.
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.