In December Dmitri’s division was dispatched further south to the strategically important town of Tsaritsyn, which the Red Army refused to abandon, and straight away there were fierce clashes. The Soviet 10th Army they faced had twice as many men, dozens of machineguns and artillery placements, but still it seemed the White Army was creeping into the suburbs, winning over the town street by street. Dmitri took a few men with him on daily reconnaissance missions to check where the big guns were placed before each assault. They needed their wits about them in the hostile terrain, but his superlative training took over. He knew he was more capable than these Bolshevik opponents, who could spout socialist rhetoric but knew nothing of military tactics. It would not be long before they drove them back.
On the 1st of January 1919, the White Army launched a major assault on Tsaritsyn. Within two weeks they had advanced to form a semicircle around the city and looked set for victory. One afternoon Dmitri’s men were in a tall office building near the town centre, planning their next move, when suddenly shells began to rain down. He sprinted up to the roof and, peering through his binoculars, realised they were surrounded and vastly outnumbered by Red Army troops that had materialised seemingly out of nowhere. No other White Army groups were in sight. He ordered a small band of men to break free of the building and ride for help, but as he watched they were shot down in the street like wild boar on a country shoot.
While the officers were debating what to do, a shell smashed through a corner of the room, showering them in debris. As the dust settled, Dmitri saw that Malevich was trapped beneath the rubble. He was unconscious, his face white with plaster dust. Dmitri crouched to listen for sounds of breathing but couldn’t detect any.
Working frantically he heaved aside the debris, urging, ‘Malevich, wake up. Open your eyes. Breathe, man.’ After lifting one massive block he was confronted by a hideous sight: Malevich had been cut in half by the force of the blast, his upper body separated from his lower. His guts spilled out of the torso, while his mangled legs were facing the other way. Dmitri screamed in high pitch, and couldn’t stop screaming. His entire body shook in revulsion. He turned away, unable to look at the slippery coils of intestine, the blank expression on his dearest friend’s face. No, God. Please. How can you do this? Why?
He should try to drag him clear and arrange a Christian burial but the room was empty now. There was no one left to help. The sounds of shelling were further away but the smell of blood and smoke still filled the air. Dmitri’s ears rang and he was shivering with shock as he paced up and down, up and down. Eventually he decided the only thing he could do was to cover Malevich where he lay. He did that, murmuring a prayer for God to have mercy on his soul since he had allowed his body to be so hideously butchered.
When Dmitri finally went to look for his men, he realised the fighting had moved several blocks away. He ducked into doorways, making his way back towards the muster point where they had started that morning. No one was there. He headed towards the camp in the woods where they had slept the night before. Much of it was intact, the horses still tethered and bedding rolls abandoned on the ground, but there were no men in sight. He picked up his pack, which contained his most treasured possessions: Tatiana’s diary and the waistcoat she had knitted for him.
Dmitri found his horse, filled a canteen with water then rode out to try and locate his troops, but wherever he went he found piles of the dead. It had been a mass slaughter. He tried for several hours but couldn’t find anyone to report to, or any group of survivors numbering more than two or three. His unit seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Somehow he found himself on the outskirts of town, riding through snowy conifer woods towards open country. I should turn back, he thought. This is desertion. But he did not. He galloped till nightfall, sustained only by sips of water from his canteen. When tiredness overwhelmed him, he took a room in a cheap inn, where he was tormented by bedbugs and traumatised by vivid dreams of his best friend’s body ripped in two.
Next morning, over breakfast, he saw the landlady reading a newspaper with a headline about the Romanovs, so he begged to be allowed to borrow it. The story read that Admiral Kolchak had commissioned a man named Sokolov, a local prosecutor in Ekaterinburg, to head an enquiry into the fate of the royal family, and it seemed he had found some burnt remains by a mineshaft outside Ekaterinburg: fragments of clothing, a pair of old spectacles, and some jewels that had belonged to the family. Among the more grisly remains there was a severed finger and the body of a small dog. Dmitri felt sick. The family would never have left one of their dogs behind if they could help it. Had it been poor Ortipo? And whose was the finger?
The story continued with a fresh insistence from the Bolshevik government that although Nicholas had been executed, the family were safe. It said they were being accommodated in the town of Perm. Dmitri’s heart leapt. He did not trust this government one iota, but why would they specify Perm if there was no truth in it? Tatiana’s Aunt Ella had lived in Perm, so perhaps they were staying with her. Oh God, he hoped so.
It was at least a thousand miles to the north, too far to ride, but if he changed into peasant clothes he could maybe take a train without raising suspicion. His mind made up, he went to enquire about train times.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Perm, Russia, spring 1919
Travel was treacherous in a country in the midst of civil war, especially when you had recently deserted from your army. Dmitri kept himself to himself on the train and did not get drawn into any of the heated discussions amongst his fellow passengers, both for and against Bolshevism.
Perm was in the hands of the White Army. It was unlikely anyone in this northern group would recognise him, but Dmitri kept a low profile all the same. He took lodgings under an assumed name, bought a horse, and began riding through the town, street by street, just as he had done in Verkhoturye. There were heavily guarded munitions factories but he could find no private houses with guards outside. He began making discreet enquiries, asking if anyone had seen the Romanovs arrive but was disheartened by the casual response: ‘They’re all dead, my friend.’ No one seemed to care. From one café owner he heard that Tatiana’s Aunt Ella and her Uncle Michael, along with several other family members, had been executed by the Bolsheviks, but still he refused to believe they could have killed the young grand duke and the duchesses. They were children! He kept busy during the day, and at night he drank himself unconscious to drown out the appalling dreams of Tatiana being dragged away by men with axes, and Malevich cut in half.
By spring 1919, the tide in the civil war had swung firmly against the White Army: Admiral Kolchak surrendered to the Bolsheviks in May 1919 and was promptly executed. The territories they had fought so hard for were recaptured. International help dried up and the Red Army were once again advancing towards the Urals.
When he had exhausted his search of Perm, Dmitri caught a train south just before the Red Army arrived in town. A young man travelling alone would arouse suspicion and he did not want to find himself detained by a local soviet, answering questions about where he hailed from. He intended at long last to visit his mother and sisters in Lozovatka, which was in Ukrainian hands, but on the way there he heard from a fellow passenger that Tatiana’s grandmother, Maria Feodorovna, and several other relatives were staying at the Livadia Palace in Crimea so he decided to go there first. If Tatiana had managed to escape her captors, that’s where she would head. She had always loved Livadia.
It was mid-summer and the heat was fierce when he arrived at the Romanovs’ luxurious white-granite Livadia palace to find it deserted, apart from a handful of servants.
‘Where is the Dowager Empress?’ he asked a housemaid who answered the door.
‘They were rescued a few weeks ago by a ship sent by King George V of England. All were very relieved.’
‘Were any of Tsar Nicholas’s children with them?’ He held his breath.