n in Bulgaria was complicated. Czar Ferdinand of
Bulgaria had sided with the Germans during the war, against the sentiments
of most of his people. After the war, he had been exiled, and his son Boris
had succeeded to the throne. A general election had given a majority to the
Austrian Party, which was leftist, though not communist, and the president
of that party, Stam-bolisky, headed the government. To add to its troubles,
the country was regarded by the Allies as a former enemy.
With help from the Allies, General Wrangel had persuaded Stambolisky,
heading the new government, to allow refuge to some of the exiled survivors
of his White Army. But it was not sitting well with Stambolisky. These
foreign soldiers, with rightist political attitudes, could well side with
his opposition and assist in a coup d'etat. And the Soviet Union was unhappy
with him for granting asylum to its mortal enemies. But the White Russian
Army and its leaders were scrupulously neutral regarding Bulgaria's internal
affairs. Their dreams of returning to Russia had been encouraged by the
mutiny of the sailors at Kronstadt against the Bolsheviks, and incidents of
fierce partisan resistance in the Caucasus.
I was still bewildered by Pokrovsky's summons. I was very young and
much too junior to be any help to him. But after a splendid dinner he handed
me a hundred dollars and told me to go to a certain address in Burgas and
wait for him there. "I will tell you there what I want you to do."
I told him good-bye, and by the next evening I was in Burgas, the large
Bulgarian port on the Black Sea. The address the general had given me was a
large building on the outskirts, surrounded by a high stone wall. It had
been rented by a Russian colonel who was living there and posing as a
businessman organizing a small commercial fishing company. A large vessel
from Constantinople was sitting in the harbor.
The ship was commanded by a Greek captain who was originally from
Kertch in the Crimea. The crew of six were all from Odessa and had been
longtime volunteers in the White Army. The ship was to land supplies for the
partisans on the shore of the Black Sea. At first, I thought this was the
mission the colonel had in mind for me. I knew that part of the world and my
name was well known to the Cossacks who were resisting the Reds there. I
would have accepted such an assignment in spite of the dangers; besides any
patriotic motives, it would have given me a chance to look for my mother and
maybe to bring her back to Bulgaria. This was not what the general had in
mind. General Pokrovsky, now Captain Ivanov, arrived one night soon,
accompanied by his orderly, a Cossack noncommissioned officer who was
utterly devoted to him. There was a lieutenant colonel in the house who also
lived under a false name. General Pokrovsky said, "Now, gentlemen, let us
talk about serious matters." And, turning to me, "I have summoned you,
molodoi, for two reasons. First of all, you come from an excellent family,
renowned for its honor and its sense of loyalty. I remember your
grandfather, who served three emperors without the slightest fault, and who
was a hero of the war of 1877. I also knew your uncle, the colonel of the
Imperial Guard, and I have had the honor of being his commanding officer. I
know also that several members of your family have been killed by the Reds.
Not long ago you lost your younger brother. You yourself have served under
me, and even if your inexperience has caused you to make a few mistakes, I
know you to be courageous and trustworthy. The second reason has precisely
to do with your youth and physical strength. You will need both."
The general then told me the rest. When Denikine had finally realized
that victory was hopeless, he had named Pokrovsky director of the military
affairs behind the lines. In this position he had been charged with
gathering all the deposits of both State and private banks, as well as the
contents of private estates whose owners were assumed dead or in flight. The
money was intended to support sabotage and intrigue against the Reds. He had
hidden everything he had got hold of in a secret place known only to two or
three people. We sat at the table listening as the general paced the room
and spoke in nervous bursts.
"According to what I have learned from our Bulgarian friends,
Stambolisky's police are planning an action against me. There is a traitor
among us who has denounced us as an organization that intends to continue
the resistance against the Reds. The Bulgarian government is friendly to the
Soviet Union and is under severe pressure from them for having even admitted
us. It is urgent that we hide our treasure in an absolutely secure place. It
is well hidden now, but not safe enough. A really good search might uncover
it, and that would mean the end of our cause. We must decide where and how
to hide it better.
He turned to the two colonels and the lieutenant colonel. "I have asked
you, gentlemen, to give me your suggestions on how to find another hiding
place. What have you to say?"
The lieutenant colonel answered. "Excellency, the colonel and I have
given it a great deal of thought. I have personally explored the territory
around the city for about fifty miles. I believe the only really safe hiding
place must be away from the city, in a heavily wooded area, and I think I
have found the spot. It will take a tremendous amount of work. Fortunately,
we have our young comrade with us now, but I wonder if even he can manage."
"I can assure you," I responded grandly, "that nothing will be too
much."
"Very well, molodoi," said the general. "I am counting on you."
All night we discussed the project. The lieutenant colonel and I would
look over the location the next day. Then the general led us downstairs into
the cellar. The lieutenant colonel removed about twenty bricks from one of
the walls. They were so well matched to the rest of the wall that it would
have been impossible to find the hiding place without tearing the whole
cellar apart. I could see only part of the treasure but what I did see
amazed me: foreign currency, bushel baskets of diamonds and emeralds, silver
plate and gold. A fabulous treasure.
Then it dawned on me why the general had had the bricks taken off and
was removing some of the treasure. He was going to take some of the money
for his own needs and give each of us enough to support ourselves before the
treasure was buried. Early the next morning, he bade us farewell and
promised to return. We felt somehow that we would never see him again.
We had decided that we would divide the treasure four ways and bury
each portion a half mile away from the other. We got right down to the task
of exploring the forest for hiding places where we could work without being
noticed. We roamed all day without seeing a soul within a radius of six or
seven miles. Still, we planned to work only at night and search for our
hiding spots during the day.
The lieutenant colonel went off in search of some cases the Russian
army had used to store rifle cartridges. And I was sent to find some waxed
paper we could wrap the currency and stock certificates in to keep them dry.
I had to go to Sofia. I thought from there I might get a letter to my
mother. I was worried sick about her; most of my relatives were either dead
or in prison. It was very complicated to get a letter from Bulgaria into
Russia. Germany was the only country that had postal relations with Russia,
so one had to send a letter to Germany with a request to the postal
authorities there to forward it to Russia. Along with my letter I sent a
return envelope marked to myself, "General Delivery, Sofia."
When I got back, the lieutenant colonel and I got to work. The treasure
had been brought out of Russia in six or seven large zinc cases. It was only
when I was helping the lieutenant colonel divide it up to put it into
smaller cases that I got any real idea of how large it was. In spite of my
youth and inexperience, even I could see that it was worth a fabulous sum. I
have forgotten what figure the colonel cited, but I know that it turned my
head. I still remember, fifty years later, how awed I was.
One case contained thousands of gold rubles and presented us with a
terrible problem, since we had only about twenty smaller cases and the
original containers were too large to hide. Finally, we bought two
medium-sized iron water tanks for the gold pieces, but we had to lug them
into the forest empty, then bring the gold pieces out in sacks and fill
them. We later buried these in the third and fourth hiding places. We had a
terrible time, as well, with about four hundred and fifty pounds of platinum
-- the purest in the world, the colonel assured me -- but at least it was
molded in flat bars and didn't take up as much room as the gold pieces. We
wrapped the platinum bars in heavy rags and put them inside burlap bags and
then wrapped the whole thing in big leather pouches. These were to go into
the first and second hiding places. Another large part of the treasure was
made up of about forty-five pounds of jewelry set with precious stones,
diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. Some of the stones were huge and must have
represented large fortunes just by themselves. There were some smaller bags
with pounds of loose, uncut precious stones of various sizes. Then there
were a number of wooden boxes literally stuffed with foreign notes and
currency, most of them English pounds. The stock and bond certificates were
interesting because they represented some of the greatest companies in the
world. I remember there were some from de Beers diamonds, and from the
Canadian Pacific railroad. Besides the valuables, one case contained
documents which, General Pokrovsky told me, would be enormously important
for future historians. The band the documents were tied with was inscribed
in red, in Russian: "Top secret. Of the greatest importance to the State." I
can still see the inscription as if it were before my very eyes. How would I
evaluate the treasure as a whole? It's hard to give even an approximation.
But I would estimate that it was worth over a hundred million dollars.
Our first expedition took place a few days after I got back. We set out
early in the evening, since the first spot we had picked was a very long
way. We had hidden our tools there. I had bought three powerful flashlights
in Sofia. It was exhausting work. The lieutenant colonel was an old man and
had a heart condition. The ground was frozen and we had to dig a deep hole
at least three and a half feet. It was summer and so daybreak came just as
we had gotten the cases in place. We filled the hole in, camouflaged it and
hid our tools, and then walked a half mile. At that point we fell on the
ground and slept all through the afternoon. Afterward, we waited for dusk
before we dared return to the house.
The following night, on our second expedition, we had a bad scare. We
had just begun to dig when the lieutenant colonel suggested that we stop and
eat something. We were leaning against a tree, relaxing, when we heard
footsteps about a hundred yards away, then voices that were not speaking
Bulgarian. I recognized it as Turkish because it resembled Tartar, which
some of our servants had spoken.
We drew our pistols-we had been ordered to kill anyone who came upon us
and to conceal their bodies.
Whoever they were, they halted and remained there, in silence, for
almost an hour. We thought there were five or six of them. Finally, they
moved away, in the same direction from which they had come, toward the sea.
When we had finished our work we went to examine the spot where they
had remained for so long. It was light, and after searching for a bit, we
found a natural excavation hidden under a thicket. Inside it was all kinds
of foreign merchandise. Our visitors had apparently been Turkish smugglers
who were delivering their goods to their Bulgarian connections.
Our discovery could have had serious consequences. We had chosen their
hiding place as a site to bury part of our treasure. If the smugglers had
come upon us, we would have had no choice but to fire. Given the numbers
involved, there would have been some doubt as to the outcome.
But the rest of our work proceeded smoothly, and we were relieved when
it was over. Our main concern was the colonel, who was having a great deal
of trouble with his heart. After our work was finished, he admitted that he
had had several attacks. There was no way to get any medicine for him.
It was now a full month since I had mailed the letter to my mother and
I was impatient to get to the post office in Sofia even though I could
hardly expect a response so soon. Nonetheless, as soon as I arrived in Sofia
I went there and, with great apprehension, inquired at the general delivery
window. I almost fainted with emotion when the clerk handed me the envelope
I had addressed to myself a month before. I walked out of the post office,
feeling almost drunk, and sat down on a bench before the magnificent
cathedral of Alexander Nevsky.
I saw a tiny bit of paper and unfamiliar writing and knew that my fears
had been justified. "Dear Nicholas," the letter read, "I am a Cossack who
used to work in your home. When your letter arrived, they tacked it up on
the bulletin board in the meeting room of our soviet. I am terribly sorry to
have to tell you that your mother died on April 21 last year of typhus. I
hope you are well." My mother was forty years old. I walked around for
several hours and then returned to Burgas. The two colonels tried their best
to console me. To pass the time, the lieutenant colonel and I had gotten
into the habit of going to a cafe frequented by Russians, where we played
chess. We met a young Bulgarian who was employed in the police headquarters
and who, like the majority of Bulgarians, was a Russophil and disliked the
present government.
One evening, quite late, we had just finished our chess game. He walked
in and stood facing me and with a movement of his head suggested that we two
step outside. I followed casually. He was waiting for me behind a tree. "You
must leave immediately," he said in Russian. "A few minutes ago I received a
telegram for the prefect from Sofia. It contains three names: yours, the
colonel's and the lieutenant colonel's. The prefect is ordered to arrest you
immediately and send you to Sofia under heavy guard until the authorities
arrive from the capital. You must hurry. I have to deliver the message
immediately."
"Thank you, my friend," I said. 'Tell me how much time we have to
collect the colonel and a few things."
"At most a half hour," he replied. "And don't forget that the prefect
has a car."
We shook hands, and I went in to get my friend. I asked him to follow
me without wasting a moment and on the way to the house I explained what was
happening. He was worried about the colonel. "He is old and sick; we cannot
leave him alone here. What are we going to do?"
When we got there, we told the colonel what was going on and asked him
to get ready as fast as possible and to gather any compromising papers. As
he was getting the papers together, he clasped his hand to his heart and lay
down on his bed. "It is nothing," he said. "It will pass." And with that he
closed his eyes and died. "He is better off," my friend said. "He could
never have stood what is ahead of us."
We kissed him, and recited a prayer for the repose of his soul. Then we
took our handguns and the money and papers and left. The closest border we
could head for was the Turkish. To avoid the police, we circled the city. In
the distance, we could hear the siren of the prefect's auto.
It was a dark, warm night and we made good time. As we walked along we
tore up the papers we had taken with us. The area between Burgas and the
border was sparsely populated and heavily wooded. It was a simple matter to
avoid the few villages.
When day broke, we found a well-covered hiding spot in a grove and
slept there for several hours. When we awoke, we were dying of hunger and
thirst. A little way along we came to a large farm. The lieutenant colonel
guarded our arsenal while I went to get something to eat and drink. I had a
heavy walking stick with me, luckilv, because no sooner had I entered the
yard than I was attacked by a half-dozen savage dogs. They had me backed up
against a wall when an old woman appeared from the house. She chased the
dogs away, yelling at them and throwing stones.
She lived alone in the house with her young grandson. I explained to
her that I was Russian and that my friend and I were looking for work in the
forests. I showed her my money and asked her if I could buy something to
eat. She sold me some bread, two dozen eggs, a wheel of cheese and a large
jug of milk. That was fine, but how was I to get out by the dogs? The old
woman worked out a stratagem, coaxing them into the stable with some cheese.
While they were fighting over it, she closed the door and I got away.
As day broke on the third day, we saw a barrack with the Bulgarian flag
in the distance. This was the border. We moved off the road and waited until
dark to try to pass over. It was very hot, but we found a small stream where
we could drink and wash ourselves. The day dragged on and we got
increasingly nervous. Greek troops were guarding the border, since all of
what had been European Turkey was occupied by the Allies. At last, night
came and we moved out slowly. We clambered into a stream, but there was no
way of knowing in the dark when we had crossed over to the "other side."
The night was completely still. We would have prayed to heaven for some
wind or rain, even a storm, rather than that quiet in which our every step
resounded. We held our pistols ready and agreed that we would not fall alive
into the hands of the border patrols. We walked for about another twenty
minutes, about ten yards away from each other. I was just about to say to my
companion that we had probably crossed the border when we heard a shout
fifty yards behind us, "Stoi!" -- "Halt" -- in Bulgarian. We were still not
across.
A hundred yards ahead lay the shadowy outline of the forest, and
bullets whistled around us. One passed so close to my right ear that I was
briefly deafened. One more burst of energy and we reached cover. Bullets
struck the tree trunks. We were so out of breath and tired that we couldn't
run any more. Our only recourse was to resist, to return fire until we had
recovered enough strength to move on. The lieutenant colonel took cover
behind a thick tree trunk, and I lay down behind a felled tree.
Immediately another foe appeared -- a Greek patrol drawn by the sound of
the Bulgarian firing. They could not see what was going on and began firing
back at the Bulgarians. They soon saw their mistake and began firing in our
direction. They could not see us, but from the echo of the bullets as they
hit the tree trunks, we knew they were both in front and behind us. We were
in a cross fire. Without a word between us, my companion turned his fire on
the Greeks, who were nearer to him, while I aimed at the Bulgarians. We had
semiautomatic weapons and we fired in short bursts to conserve our
ammunition. Off and on we would hear cries of wounded men. We were in a much
better position: invisible in the shade of the forest, while we could spot
their patrols against the horizon as the sky grew lighter.
I held off their advance by hitting three of the five men who remained
able to fight. Nonetheless, our situation was worsening. The patrols would
certainly be reinforced, and our ammunition was running out. I had only two
charges left. I was dashing to my companion when I heard his firing stop. I
reached him crawling on my hands and knees, but he was dead, a bullet in his
head.
I could still hear firing behind me but the bullets were no longer
whistling by. I then took my friend's ammunition, money and papers, fired
another round, and took off through the underbrush. The forest was not very
dense, and soon I was able to stand up and run at full speed.
9. At Loose Ends in Turkey
SINCE i HAD had some rest during the shooting match, I set out on an
all-day, all-night marathon. Though I stopped from time to time, I was
utterly exhausted by the end, too tired even to feel hungry. My mouth was so
dry I could hardly swallow. As I stood at the edge of a small wood at dawn I
could hear dogs barking in the distance and headed in that direction.
I was moving along cautiously when I saw a man watching me from behind
a bush. I took out my Mauser. He called out "kardache," the Turkish word for
friend. I had come on a "pomak," one of those Bulgarians who had been
converted to Islam by the Turks. We spoke to each other in Bulgarian. I
explained to him that I trying to get to Constantinople to look for work,
because there was none to be found in Bulgaria, and that some Greeks had
fired on me as I was crossing the frontier and I had returned their fire. He
replied that he hated the Greek dogs and would help me as much as he could.
He offered me food, though all I wanted was something to drink and some
sleep.
He led me to a small thatched log cabin. He took care of about two
hundred sheep that belonged to him and his family and hated the Greek
soldiers, who were constantly stealing them. There was a huge jug of cool,
clear spring water. He smiled at me as I gulped it down. Then he piled some
sheepskins in the corner and I threw myself on them. The shepherd covered me
with skins until I was completely hidden. I had my arms ready to defend
myself in the event of danger. I might be discovered at any moment by a
Greek search party, or the shepherd might betray me. He had an honest face --
and guests are sacred in his country -- but I couldn't know what was going on
inside his head.
I fell asleep immediately and when I awoke, it was night. I had slept
away the entire day. The shepherd was sitting on a stool near the doorway
and when he saw me emerge from the sheepskins, he smiled and wished me a
good evening.
"The Greeks were here looking for you. You and your friend killed a lot
of them, and some Bulgarians, too. They looked in here but didn't see
anything. They told me I would get a reward if I saw you and reported your
whereabouts to the police. I gave them a lamb to get rid of them." I was
ashamed that I had doubted his goodwill. I shook his hand warmly and thanked
him.
I felt strong again and hungry enough to eat a sheep. My host gave me
an enormous piece of cold mutton and some homemade cheese, which I washed
down with spring water, since wine is forbidden to Moslems. As I ate, my new
friend counseled me on how to avoid all the traps on the way to
Constantinople. The most dangerous places, he said, were on the outskirts.
They were occupied by French, English and Italian soldiers, who patrolled
all the roads leading into the city. I might be arrested and thrown into
prison for entering Turkey illegally. Not to mention the gunfight at the
border -- the Greeks had better not learn that I had taken part in that
battle. (There had been two Greeks killed and three wounded, and the
Bulgarians had one dead and five wounded, as I later learned.)
I had to get moving. The Greeks might come back at any time. One last
time I thanked my Bulgarian friend and gave him my automatic pistol. Tears
came to his eyes. I couldn't have kept it anyhow. It was too heavy and hard
to hide, not to speak of incriminating. I cautioned him that it could get
him into serious trouble and warned him to keep it hidden.
I practically had to lose my temper in order to get him to accept
twenty English pounds, a small fortune to him. Furnished with a supply of
meat, bread and cheese, I set out at about 10 P.M.
I moved along a narrow path, my Mauser in my hand, a bullet in the
chamber. It was a clear night. The clouds had disappeared and the landscape
was brightly lit by a half moon. Suddenly, two uniformed figures loomed in
front of me, Greek policemen. But they had made a bad mistake. Instead of
carrying their carbines at the ready, they had them slung over their
shoulders. I didn't want to kill them but I had to do something. I fired at
their legs and they crumpled with screams of pain.
I ran most of the night, then slept for a couple of hours in a thicket,
ate something, and started out again, avoiding the villages. From the top of
a hill I saw a Greek patrol in the distance.
At dusk I came on a small stream and decided to spend the night there.
My feet were killing me. I bathed them in the stream for a long time and
rubbed them with grease from the mutton. I found a sheltered spot and spent
a peaceful night, and in the morning I felt refreshed and ready for the
road. That day passed without incident. But my shoes were falling apart,
which was a serious problem. The ground was rocky and in a day or two I
would be barefoot.
I spent the next night near a stream and in the morning I decided to
risk everything. I had to find a hamlet where I wouldn't be discovered by
the police but where I could buy a pair of the woven shoes the peasants
wear, which are comfortable for walking in the mountains and forests. In the
afternoon, I spotted a tiny hamlet, just a few houses around a small mosque.
I had no choice but to dare it since I also needed more provisions.
As I entered the village a pack of dogs set up a terrible racket and
some Turks came out of their houses. I greeted them with "Shalom alechem"
the common greeting in all Moslem countries. They began to speak to me in
Turkish but I indicated by sign language that I didn't understand. They were
neither hostile nor friendly -- merely suspicious. They exchanged anxious
glances and asked if I were Greek, English or French. I told the truth: "I
am ourousse [Russian]."
To my great surprise, their attitude immediately changed. They began
shaking my hands and slapping me on the back. One of them led me by the hand
into his house. Then I grasped the reason for their change of heart. My
Turkish host kept repeating over and over "Kemal Pasha [Ataturk], ourous
kardache" Kemal Pasha was battling the Greek army in Asia Minor with arms
supplied by the Soviet Union. The Turks did not make any distinction between
Red and White Russians. All Russians were "kardaches" to them.
A crowd gathered around me while I ate. I explained that I was trying
to get to Istanbul (the Turks disliked the name Constantinople), showed them
my tattered shoes and a five-dollar bill. (The rest of the money was tied
around my waist in a cloth belt.) No one would take my money but in a few
minutes they had set before me several pairs of boots of the kind worn by
Balkan peasants, made of strips of sheepskin. They are so light you hardly
know you have them on. One wears them with long woolen stockings the women
weave, and a pair of these were brought to me. Then I was escorted to the
fountain in the courtyard of the mosque, where I washed my feet, put on the
stockings and my size 44 shoes, and felt like a new man.
I spent the night in this hospitable village. All evening long I heard
patriotic songs in which I could distinguish only one word: Kemal Pasha. The
Turks were incredibly proud of his victories over the Greeks. On the other
hand, they detested the Allies, who occupied their capital, and explained to
me in sign language that it would not take their hero long to throw them
out.
The next day the entire village accompanied me to the Istanbul road. On
my back was another gift from these Turkish peasants, a large embroidered
cloth bag full of provisions. Once again, they adamantly refused any
payment. As I walked along I thought of the wonderful people I had met since
crossing the Bulgarian border and of the age-old traditions that make a
stranger a cherished friend to them.
Of course, the Turks knew nothing of my adventures with the patrols and
I had no way of explaining, as they pointed out the road to Istanbul, that I
had to avoid the direct routes. So after a few kilometers I struck off on a
path that ran parallel to the road and two days later I sighted
Constantinople. Night was falling as I arrived at Galata, an outlying
district of the city on the Bosporus. I was glad it was dark, as I was
filthy and my clothes were torn and unkempt. While I walked through more and
more densely populated neighborhoods, people stared at my strange getup and
I grew more and more dismayed. As I turned a corner, I saw two men whose
clothes identified them as Russian soldiers. I asked if they could tell me
where I could spend the night.
We were standing under a streetlight. One of them looked at my costume
and said, "Where have you come from in that condition?"
"I walked all the way from Bulgaria. Tomorrow I will go to see our
military attache."
"Are you an officer?"
"Yes. "Then maybe you're part of this Bulgarian business that veryone's
talking about."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I Hed from Bulgaria to escape
being arrested."
"Very interesting. We are a Russian naval and a merchant marine officer
and we live in a rented house a few steps away. Come and tell us your tale
and let's see what we can do for you."
My appearance caused a sensation among my clean, well-dressed hosts.
"Where did you find that ragamuffin?" one of them asked the officer who led
me in.
They all laughed. But they stopped laughing when they heard where I had
come from and why. Everyone crowded around to listen. Someone showed me to
the shower they had built for themselves, and each one brought me a piece of
clothing from his modest wardrobe -- one, trousers, another underwear, a
shirt, and so on. When I had shaved and looked human again, I sat down at
the table and told them the whole story, except the part about the treasure.
They, in turn, filled me in on what had happened after the defeat at
Burgas. The newspapers had been full of it. Stambolisky had turned against
our organization in Bulgaria, which had wanted to continue the fight against
the Bolsheviks by any and all means. Colonel Samokhvalov, our chief of staff
in Sofia, had been arrested and imprisoned. The membership roll of the
secret organization was found in his desk. Except for the colonel and
myself, who had been alerted in time, everyone had been arrested. General
Pokrovsky had been killed by the police during arrest and General Koutiepov,
commander-in-chief of the Russian troops in Bulgaria, had been expelled.
So, General Pokrovsky, the colonel, and the lieutenant colonel were the
treasure's first victims. There would be others. I was so upset that I
couldn't sleep in spite of my exhaustion. I was the sole survivor among
those who knew about the treasure. What made it all the more strange was
that I had learned of its existence only recently, and that those who had
gathered it were all dead. I was overwhelmed by the responsibility.
Should I speak to the highest ranking Russian military authorities? The
three of us had solemnly sworn to General Pokrovsky not to reveal anything
without his explicit permission. But now the general was dead and my promise
had no more force. Whom should I tell? Considering the moral standard of our
high-ranking officers -- with the exception of Denikine and Wrangel-the
treasure would certainly be misappropriated in short order. By the next
morning I had made a decision to speak of the treasure to no one for the
time being. It was securely hidden, though I had no way of recovering it.
Later I would confide in someone I trusted absolutely.
I had breakfast with the officers, borrowed a little Turkish money, and
promised to return in the evening. I set off downtown. The first thing I had
to do was change some money to buy some clothes. At Galata I found a Greek
money changer and changed fifty English pounds, quite a large sum for the
times.
All the foreign diplomatic missions were still functioning in
Constantinople. The Russian military attache was quite helpful when he'd
heard my story. On the spot, he provided me with identity papers, in Russian
and French, under the name of Sergei Orel, as he thought it would be safer
not to use my real name until public interest in the Sofia affair died down.
He asked me whether I had any money. I was faced with a dilemma. If I said
yes, it would seem strange, given the general poverty of the Russian
refugees. On the other hand, I knew he couldn't be very well off and it
embarrassed me to take money I didn't need. I replied that two or three
Turkish pounds would do me for the moment. He seemed relieved and added,
since I had told him I had borrowed the clothes I was wearing, "I'll give
you a letter to Mme. IIovaiskaia, the general's daughter, who is secretary
to Miss Mitchell, the head of the American Red Cross. She will outfit you
from head to toe."
I thanked the general sincerely and promised to let him know my address
as soon as I had found somewhere to live. At the headquarters of the
American Red Cross, Mme. IIovaiskaia provided me with a fine blue pinstripe
suit (with a label from a Philadelphia tailor), shirts and underwear, shoes,
and even a hat.
A month later, I received a visit at my small hotel in Galata from an
officer who served the military attache. His superior wanted to see me as
soon as possible. The next morning, when I went to the embassy, the general
received me promptly. He led me into a private office and closed the door
carefully. His first question took me off guard.
"What do you know of the treasure General Pokrovsky was guarding?"
"What treasure, Excellency?"
"You know nothing of it?"
"I only met General Pokrovsky, under whom I had served in Russia, two
months before I fled Bulgaria. The general never spoke to me of any
treasure. I have no idea whether such a thing exists."
"In that case, essaoul, let me ask you where you got the money you have
been spending. You told me you had no money and I lent you five Turkish
pounds. Now you are living in a hotel that, modest as it is, costs a pound a
day. You eat in a restaurant every day that must cost another pound. You
bought a suit from an Armenian tailor. Over and above this, I know that you
have given over one hundred Turkish pounds to various refugees. Allow me to
ask you where this money -- a small fortune for a refugee -- comes from."
They've been watching me ever since I got to Constantinople, I said to
myself. If only I had told him that General Pokrovsky had given each of his
aides a small amount. Too late now. "It is true, Excellency, that I had no
money when I arrived. What I did not say -- and I don't know why I should
have-is that I brought a few valuables from Russia, including a heavy gold
cigarette box signed by Faberge. It was a family heirloom and I didn't want
to sell it but as you know, there is no work here and I was forced to." (In
fact, I had sold it in Yugoslavia.)
"In that case, you can tell me to whom you sold it."
"To an American tourist on the Mauritania. I didn't want to sell it in
a jewelry shop. They're all run by Greeks and Armenians. You know what a
ridiculous price they would have given me."
He was looking me in the eye and I stared back. Then he asked me to let
him know where I could be reached if I left the hotel, but I never saw him
again.
I stayed at the hotel two more months, until my money ran out, and then
I moved into a boardinghouse for refugees where it was only five piasters
for a bed for the night. It was a wooden building and, like many Turkish
houses, harbored a fantastic colony of bedbugs that were impossible to get
rid of. The only solution would have been to burn the whole thing down,
bedbugs and all. The beds were made of iron and we burned out every possible
hiding place on them with gasoline. Then we set the legs in tin cans of
gasoline but the damned bugs crawled up to the ceiling and dropped down on
us while we slept. Sometimes, when I was half crazy with them, I would take
my bedclothes and sleep on the lawn of one of the abandoned cemeteries in
the city.
Then the day arrived when I didn't even have the five piasters. It was
winter, an unpleasant season in Constantinople, with icy winds and rain
almost every day. I was facing disaster and had nowhere to turn. Once more,
good luck intervened. On the main street of Pera I saw someone who looked
familiar. We gazed at each other and then we fell into each other's arms. It
was like a miracle. At the military school at Irkutsk, my bunk and
Teliatnikov's had been next to each other. He was from Tashkent, had been an
assistant manager of a bank, and was forty years old; I was then just
eighteen. Now he told me of how he had escaped from Russia through
Vladivostok, had roamed over half the world and ended up in Constantinople.
For two years now he had been the chief accountant at the Nobel Company, the
principal owner of the Baku oil fields. The Bolsheviks were selling Nobel
his own oil. My friend thought it couldn't last because the communists
needed the oil badly themselves and were only selling it for foreign
credits. He loaned me a little money and promised to try to help. Two days
later he arranged for me to come to work for Nobel as a gasoline salesman.
So there I was, with a Crimean Tartar driver who spoke Turkish. Every
day we went to a different neighborhood in a specially equipped wagon drawn
by two mules carrying twenty- and fifty-liter cans. Most often I had to
carry them on my shoulders because the streets were too narrow or too steep
for the wagon. The driver helped me but it was still very hard work. I stank
so of gas that people turned away as I passed. I had to sleep in the stable
with the mules but I got pretty good pay, ate three meals a day, and my
compatriots envied me my job. Twice a week it brought me to the rear of the
famous Pera Palace Hotel, where I gazed at the lovely women on the arms of
the Allied officers. The Italian officers, with the comic opera uniforms,
were the most elegant.
I still did not know what to do about the treasure- whether I should
abandon it forever or tell the right person. Who was the right person?
I worked at Nobel for four months and got to know Constantinople as few
foreigners do. I also learned to speak Turkish in order to bargain with the
grocers. But when Nobel stopped buying oil, I was out of work again.
After a few days of near panic, I heard that the English army was
hiring Russian refugees to work on their bases in the Dardanelles. I had no
idea what kind of work it was but I had no choice so I signed on for a year.
A boat took us to an English base on the right bank of the straits facing
Chanak, where we were lodged in unheated Turkish army barracks. We slept on
the bare wooden floor and shivered with cold day and night. It rained all
the time and the wind was freezing. We could never get our clothing dry.
Canned meat and soup were the only hot food we had and so we were
perpetually hungry. We used to steal a few cartons of food once in a while
but eventually we stopped as a point of honor. We worked hard and long in
the rain and mud. The English noncoms treated us like prisoners even though
we were free workers. A lot of the time, we worked unloading heavy cases of
shells. I wondered why the B