Saving the Romanov family #12

"Потопление Мордвинова"
ГА РФ ф. 683 оп. 1 д. 125 л. 20

En route to Arkhangelsk, July 1918

We cautiously infiltrated the enemy frontline under the cover of darkness. The diversion we created gave the Red Army soldiers the impression they were under attack by a large force. While they were distracted, the convoy was able to pass through unnoticed. The refugees were in awe at the flares, explosions and gunfire when we rejoined them and continued on our way. Most of them have never seen combat before.

A few miles into enemy territory, we came across an abandoned Gulag. The prisoners had been massacred by the retreating Cheka, probably to prevent the Czechoslovaks from liberating them. The half-dug graves suggest they left in a hurry. The bodies had been stripped and mutilated similar to what Yurovsky would've done to the Romanov family. I warned the refugees to stay back but some of them wanted to see it for themselves. Despite Empress Alexandra's protests, we didn't bury the bodies and moved on. We had lingered long enough.

We set up camp in the evening. Our Mosin-Nagant rifles were passed on to the princes Ioann, Konstantin, Igor and Vladimir Paley, seeing as they were decorated war heroes before the revolution, though I stopped short of supplying them with ammunition. For now I only trust my companions with loaded firearms. Giving them bayonets for fixing to their rifles is enough.

A few refugees were gathered around a small campfire. They couldn't sleep after such an eventful day. I tried to take Olga's mind off it by asking her to think of a good memory, something that made her really happy. That was when she began reminiscing about one of her family trips to Mogilev in the summer of 1916, when they messed around with an officer by the name of Anatoly Mordvinov and sort of tried to drown him in the Dnieper river. Her sisters also remembered that day and spoke fondly of it, giggling for a bit. I finally saw Olga smile, though it slowly disappeared when she wondered what happened to him and the officers in the tsar's escort.

The grand duchesses speak to us in English nowadays. They had long suspected from our accents that we were not Russians. It disappointed them once I confirmed their suspicions, for they had hoped to be rescued by their compatriots, particularly someone they knew. But anyone still loyal to their father is either dead or powerless to help. Now their fates are in the hands of us mysterious foreigners. Nonetheless, they are deeply indebted to us for our aid.