Petrograd was in chaos. There was occasional shooting, and fighting around Vasilievsky Island and in the Malaia Okhta District, for elements of the White Garrison still appeared to be active. Yet nobody knew who was in power or even in charge.
The Revolutionary Committee, and its plethora of off-shoots, had decamped to Moscow, its varied and loggerheaded ‘Second Elevens’ being left in Petrograd. You could get sense from nobody. Officialdom had vanished overnight. Few would take any real responsibility.
On the first evening, Ramillies walked the dangerous streets, aware of the small bands of young men and women who seemed intent only on looting and, possibly, burning things.
Some women stood in lines by shops, hoping that a miraculous consignment of food would arrive; others went out of the city, using initiative and plundering farms or barns.
People were generally to be found in small groups, huddled together with the strongest taking leadership, though half of them were really political vagrants.
He fell in with one of these groups, who accepted him and led him off. They passed old and young sitting around fires in the streets or arguing in houses where doors had been ripped off to provide fuel.
The disorganization, the leader of Ramillies’ group – a big student called Peter – maintained, was the strength of the revolution. ‘We can now exchange ideas in the open.’ Though Ramillies could not, for the life of him, see how this helped.
They had taken over a house near the old Finland Station, in the Vyborg District, and they sat talking and arguing all night. Two claimed to be Anarchists, one was, she said, a Menchovik, the others claimed Bolshevism.
One of the men found wine in the cellars of the house, and the arguments were fired by alcohol. Two of the men fought in the hall, one cycling up with his nose smashed, while another took a young girl upstairs. Everyone laughed when they heard the steady bumping above them.
At last they slept, and at dawn Ramillies crept away. Men and women still hung about the streets, young men, armed to the teeth, went by, trying to look important – which probably meant they were trigger happy and needed watching. The lack of control, or some central authority, was all too obvious. Ramillies still carried his trowel like a badge of office.
Perhaps it was too like a badge of office; or possibly they mistook it for a weapon. Or was there yet another reason why the three young Vechekists approached him, asked for his name, then wanted to see his papers? One took the trowel and it seemed as though he was threatening him with it.
‘You are Vladimir Khristianovich Galinsky?’ the leader asked.
‘Yes.’
‘You are from Moscow?’
‘Originally, yes.’
‘Why are you not there now?’
Ramillies told his story, and the three men huddled round him, exchanging glances, passing the papers from one to another, as though something was wrong. Eventually, their leader said that Galinsky must come with them.
‘Why? I’ve done nothing. Where do we go?’
‘Just down the street. Number two. Headquarters of the Vecheka. A few questions.’
At five o’clock that afternoon, they took him to the railway station. Four of them took him, and they arrived in Moscow two days later. October 1918 was not the best time to travel in Russia.
In Moscow things seemed quiet enough, but there was a strange atmosphere, a commingling of euphoria and tension. ‘Where are we going?’ Ramillies asked.
‘Not far. To the new Vecheka Headquarters, Bolshaia Lubianka, number eleven. Near the Kremlin.’
They took him straight in, hustling him upstairs to a large office bare but for a table, chair and one man sitting behind a desk.
The man was engrossed in reading a document and he muttered, ‘Sit down.’ They pushed Ramillies forward, and the man behind the desk said they were to be left alone. He still studied the document.
At last he looked up, cold, quizzical, almost amused eyes below a high forehead, down which a lock of hair strayed. The mouth was firm, the moustache curving at either end, and the goatee beard neatly trimmed. There was something hard, uncompromising, about the man.
Then he gave a smile which chilled Ramillies almost as his grandfather’s cold moments froze him. Ah, welcome. Mr Ramillies Railton, I understand.’ It was not a pure Russian accent. ‘We have been expecting you. My name is Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, and I believe we have much to talk about.’
The rest is silence, Ramillies thought, again. Feliks Dzerzhinsky was the all-powerful supreme leader of the Revolution’s Secret Police.
He was correct. There is no further official record of Ramillies Railton.
*
When Charles returned to the office, after that week-end at Redhill, in the Summer of 1917, he did not, at first, take kindly to the desk work.
After a month or two he relaxed, for ‘Brenner’ did not call him for any further meetings.
If, during that period, Charles realized he was being placed in a restricted situation within MI5, he did not show it. Vernon Kell remained friendly, and saw him often.
The bombshell burst upon him over a year later, in October 1918.
Though the accusations against Charles Railton were never made public at the time, the family connections and privilege assured that an individual knowledge of what had occurred was given to relatives within twenty-four hours.
Reactions within the family were predictable. The sombre news of Charles’ arrest came in the wake of immense rejoicing. In September Sara had given birth to a son. Even Giles had managed to write a note from his sick bed, indicating that, while she had brought new blood to herself, the family regarded her, and hers, as Railtons. ‘The ultimate accolade, Giles being what he is,’ Sara declared.
There was also a sense of the advent of peace, though few realized it was less than a month away. When the news about Charles reached them, each reacted in a different manner. Then they closed ranks. All were stunned, and Andrew seemed to speak for the whole family when he said – very privately – ‘If it’s true, then Rupert and Caspar fought in vain; Mary Anne went through her hell for nothing; Dick Farthing’s situation is meaningless; little Denise has suffered for nought. Come to that, if a man like Charles, with his family, education and background, can be guilty of this, then, God knows, those thousands of young men on the ground in Flanders, France, the East – and those at sea and in the air – have all probably died for a spit in the eye.’
Few would deny that today, though Charles’ case was hardly worthy of such a melodramatic and damning statement at the time.
On the morning it happened, Charles arrived at his desk as normal at around nine-thirty. According to the record, he was his usual self, and at nine-forty-six showed no surprise when Granby, who was the department quartermaster, entered his office, flourished a document and asked if he could have Charles’ personal weapon – a Webley revolver – ‘Just for the usual routine checks. Get it back within the hour, old boy.’
Charles continued with his paperwork. At ten-five Miss Wedge came in to ask if he would go up to Colonel Kell’s office.
‘You wanted me, Vernon?’ The door was closed behind him by Partridge, who then placed himself on Charles’ right, while Wood closed in on the left. Basil Thomson stood directly in front of Vernon Kell’s desk.
Kell muttered, ‘Sorry, Charles.’
Basil Thomson addressed him, ‘You are Charles Arthur Railton, of Cheyne Walk, London?’
He still did not appear to understand the gravity of what was going on. ‘What the devil is this? ’Course I’m Charles Railton, Basil. What’s…?’
Thomson cut him off and formally charged him, ‘I have a warrant for your arrest, under the Official Secrets Act, in that between March 1916 and July 1917 you contrived to pass information of a secret, military, and economic nature to the enemy, in full knowledge of its sensitive nature – the information being handed to one Hans-Helmut Ulhurt, an agent of the German Secret Service.’
‘This i
s… What…?’ Charles’ hand went to his throat, and Wood snatched the arm away.
Basil Thomson had said earlier they had best get a statement quickly, ‘Very quickly. He mustn’t even be given time to think.’
‘Who the devil’s Hans-Helmut Ulhurt?’ Charles asked, looking bewildered.
‘Charles,’ Thomson became the old comrade. ‘Listen, everybody knows there are probably extenuating circumstances. We know some of it. Give us the full strength, eh?’
The pause was like a long intake of breath. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. It was supposed…’ he stopped dead.
‘It was supposed to what?’
Charles simply shook his head, lowering his eyes and moving his head constantly from side to side, until Kell spoke.
‘You can be tried in the civil courts. In the Central Criminal Court.’ Kell rose. ‘We would all appreciate it if you elected to be Court Martialled, in camera, of course. It would be in in camera at the Old Bailey, naturally; but a private Court Martial would not only save your family from the Press, but allow us to keep it in our family.’
‘You do what you like.’ Charles suddenly appeared to pull himself up to his full height. ‘I have one request. I want to see my uncle, Giles Railton, and I wish to see him in private.’
A sense of embarrassment filled the office. Basil Thomson coughed. Then, quietly, Vernon Kell said, ‘You haven’t heard? Nobody’s told you?’
Charles didn’t answer, staring blankly at them, eyes becoming wilder, looking from solemn face to solemn face.
It was left to Kell. He offered Charles a chair, ‘I think you’d better,’ so Charles sat down, and Kell broke the news.
Denise Grenot had gone to her grandfather’s bedroom on the previous evening, and again found him half out of bed.
‘Oh, Christ!’ a sob in Charles’ voice. ‘Oh, Christ, not dead?’
‘No, not dead. A second seizure. He’s paralysed and lost his speech. He cannot communicate.’
Charles’ reaction shocked everyone. He laughed, and it was no sudden fit of hysterics, but a dry, sober, controlled laugh. ‘Trust Giles. Cannot communicate? Give the devil his due.’ Then, he suddenly became calm again. ‘I still want to see him – alone, and quickly.’
Thomson advised that he should make a statement now. ‘We’ve got a mountain of evidence. It’ll be best for everyone.’ But Charles said that they could talk until they were blue in the face. He needed to see Giles Railton.
The doctors said he could see Giles, but not for at least forty-eight hours. The old man was at home, being cared for by a series of nurses; they did not expect him to live for long, a couple of months at the most, a few days more likely. Two doctors called daily. Churchill, now Minister of Munitions, had seen him, and the family were, at this moment, each spending a few seconds with him. What, they wondered in Kell’s office, could the accused possibly gain by sitting for a few minutes with a dying man who could not converse? Charles then made his second demand. He must see his uncle Giles alone; he wanted nobody present.
In turn, they each tried to convince Charles he should make a statement now. ‘After all, the stuff you gave them wasn’t all that serious. It’s the reasons we’re after.’
‘At least tell us why,’ Wood pleaded.
No, No, and no. He would see Giles, and then – well. Who could tell? He was not a guilty man. He didn’t know the fellow they talked about. No!
‘The evidence is there. Damning,’ and that was the last Thomson had to say at this stage.
Charles seemed visibly torn by the accusations. Then he shut his mouth and refused to speak. He even resisted friendly conversation when it was offered. He would see no other members of the family, though Mary Anne had already been brought, told the seriousness of the charges, and offered to see her father. Like the other Railtons, she did not believe it. ‘Yes, there was some funny business with an enemy agent, but that was different. Not treason!’ Yet, in the quiet, reasonable portions of their minds, each must have wondered, citing the strain of the months when Mildred was so ill, and the terrible battles he had been called upon to fight in that private life. What could he have hidden among the other skeletons?
So they decided. Give him a small piece of rope; let him see the old man, that doyen of their trade; then they would face him with the whole weight of evidence; produce his confession. There was no point in bringing the man to a Court Martial, or trial, unless they had a confession. Too many odd things might come out of the woodwork, there would have to be lawyers present, whatever happened – and you know about lawyers, they tend to talk, at the Garrick, or the Wig and Pen, or wherever. Nobody wanted to look a fool.
*
The arrangements were made, complicated and near military, with Thomson’s men being allowed to search the sick room, identifying that the only exits consisted of the main door and the two front facing windows, which were immediately jammed shut. They also removed all objects with which the accused could possible inflict harm on himself. ‘Don’t want him doing anything silly,’ Thomson grunted.
They took away several pens, a paper knife, Giles’ shoes from his wardrobe – presumably because of the laces – his ties, belts and scarves (Charles was kept in gym-shoes without laces; while his own tie and braces had been taken away). Anything heavy, pointed, or with cutting capability was removed. In effect, the room was almost stripped. The large men were watched by the weak patient, whose alert frightened eyes followed them as the ritual continued.
They would even have removed the big Bible, with its thick, wide leather marker, from the bedside table, but Giles began to grunt in an agitated manner. ‘There’s no harm,’ the nurse said, not quite understanding what was going on. ‘He won’t let anyone move that for a second. It seems to be a comfort, bless him.’ So the Bible remained, and the Branch men were posted outside at every possible exit, near the door of the room itself, and on the stairs.
The doctors said Giles’ best time was early afternoon. They had visited him then and it was the period when he always appeared to be most alert. One of the doctors, in fact, spoke to Charles when they brought him to the house, telling him to expect nothing in the way of movement or speech. ‘He can make only grunting noises and gets rather frustrated. If there’s any way of communication, it’s with his eyes. The mind is quite obviously unimpaired.’
They were gentlemanly about the whole business, putting Charles on his honour to call a nurse or doctor if he thought Giles was becoming worse.
He entered the room at eight minutes past two. As the Branch man closed the door, he saw Charles pull a stand chair up beside the bed, so that he could sit near the old man’s head.
Charles emerged at three o’clock and was taken straight back to a safe house which Kell shared with C’s Service in the centre of London. Both C and Kell were present, as was Thomson and a nominee of the DNI’s office.
Kell began, somewhat nervously. ‘We’ve kept our part of the bargain. Now, will you talk to us?’
Charles Railton looked at them, then slowly shook his head before speaking very quietly. ‘I shall be making no statement to you, either now or at any later date. If you wish to conduct a trial, please do so. I do not wish to be represented, I shall not put in a plea, there will be no defence.’
They thought he was just being difficult, though something changed in his eyes. Later, Wood was to describe it as ‘a hardening.’
So, as Charles sat at a desk, impassive, and certainly unspeaking, they trotted out the evidence – every man becoming his own expert now. First there were the decodes, several of them, beginning in the spring of 1916 but emanating from an earlier source. ‘We had occasional messages, going to and fro. The Angler file, we called it. Commercial code, with a few odd bits and pieces to make it difficult. Instructions came in and various short messages went out. We also knew that we were not picking up all of them. Some came and went via a short-wave wireless, almost certainly to an off-shore submarine. The suggestion was that they we
re to and from a German agent operating in Britain.’
The Angler file was obviously connected with ‘The Fisherman’. The content of the messages proved to be obscure. They even trotted out the one ordering him to go to Dublin. Their first prize appeared to be a short, outgoing signal concerning the death of another agent, coded M6. M6, the expert said, was undoubtedly the woman Hanna Haas.
There were also several incoming signals which appeared to be lists of questions. One of these signals contained the code-name ‘Brenner’.
‘Our contention will be that you, Charles Railton, are “Brenner”.’ Charles did not even smile.
The messages were fragmentary, disputable, but certainly pointed to the fact that Angler received certain orders, including lists of intelligence questions to be answered by his contact ‘Brenner’. Because of their fragmentary nature it was also obvious that Angler – after a time they reverted to using ‘The Fisherman’ – was receiving instructions by hand, almost certainly getting replies out by way of a friendly neutral postal service.
Next, they came to Hans-Helmut Ulhurt, whose body had been discovered in the early hours of that July morning, following Charles’ return from Glasgow to London.
They produced statements from ticket collectors and guards, employed by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company, which in any court would have been damning. Charles had claimed to have returned on the night train as a Mr Harker. They not only had descriptions of Mr Harker, but a statement from the man himself. Railton would certainly have had to be a master of disguise, for Harker was barely five feet one inch in height and built like a small barrel.