Read Russian Roulette: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Plot for Global Revolution for Free Online

‘and his father, hearing him moan something about the cold, tried to extricate himself from the wreck of the car in order to put a coat over him; but struggle as he might, he could not free his smashed leg.’
    If he was to have any hope of reaching his son, there was only one thing to do. He reached for his pocket knife and hacked away at his mangled limb ‘until he had cut it off, after which he had crawled over to the son and spread a coat over him.’ Nine hours later, Cumming was found lying unconscious next to his son’s dead body.
    His recovery was as remarkable as his survival. He was back at his desk within a month, brushing aside any outer shows of mourning for his son. Cumming had the ramrod emotional backbone that so typified the gentlemen of his social class and era. Just a few months after his accident, one of his operatives visited him at his offices on the top floor of Whitehall Court.
    Cumming, who had not yet received his artificial leg, was inching his substantial frame down six flights of stairs: ‘two sticks, and backside, edging its way down one step at a time.’ Little wonder that his friends described him as ‘obstinate as a mule.’
    The spy, Edward Knoblock, recalled that when Cumming did finally acquire a prosthetic limb made of wood, he used it to theatrical effect. He would terrify potential recruits by reaching for his sharp letter knife and raising it high in the air. He would then slam it through his trousers and into his wooden leg, ‘concluding, if the applicant winced, “Well, I am afraid you won’t do.” ’

    Mansfield Cumming kept in daily touch with Samuel Hoare during his long months in Russia. Hoare was a diligent head of bureau and could usefully have remained at his post until the end of the war. But he was disenchanted with life as a spy and left Petrograd shortly after Rasputin’s murder. He had been hoping for danger and excitement: all he got was bureaucracy and paperwork.
    The rest of Hoare’s team remained in the city, including Oswald Rayner. He was lucky to escape censure or worse for his role in the murder of Rasputin. Although the tsar had voiced his suspicions, Rayner was neither apprehended nor even questioned by the Russian police. He spent the day after the murder chatting with Yusupov in his private chambers, making a hasty exit when Grand Duke Nicholas arrived to interrogate the prince.
    At the time, Yusupov vehemently denied playing any role in the murder and used his formidable network of connections to ensure that he was never put on trial. The tsar banished him to his country estates in South-West Russia, a lenient punishment for someone widely believed to have orchestrated the murder of the tsarina’s favourite.
    Whatever Yusupov and his conspirators may have hoped, Rasputin’s death made little change to the defeatist atmosphere on the streets of Petrograd. Daily hardships were on the increase and people began openly protesting about the regime. On 10 March 1917, the Petrograd correspondent of the Daily News , Arthur Ransome, took a stroll around the city and sensed that events were starting to spin out of control.
    ‘A rather precarious excitement,’ he wrote, ‘like a Bank Holiday with thunder in the air.’
    The number of protestors on the streets had increased dramatically by the following morning. ‘Crowds of all ages and conditions made their way to the Nevsky,’ recalled Robert Wilton, correspondent for The Times . But the mood was still good-humoured and there was no inkling of the violence to come.
    Accounts vary as to where and when the first shots were fired. Wilton was close to Moscow station at 3 p.m. when he heard the crack of gunfire. By the time he reached the scene, the crowd had been dispersed and the snow ‘was plentifully sprinkled with blood.’
    Cumming’s team in Petrograd was by now seriously alarmed. There had been political demonstrations in the past and even open condemnation of the tsar. But the outbreak of