The Secret Generations (62 page)

‘
And it was my grandfather who backed the sly Ramillies,’ Caspar added darkly.

To which C grunted,
‘And the last we know of your little brother, Caspar my boy, is that he was picked up in Petrograd and carted away. Probably shot that day. So many of our people in Russia have gone, or are going.’ He thought again for almost a minute. ‘You know, I had one devil of a row with Giles Railton. He was dead against any British military or naval intervention in Russia against the Bolsheviks. DNI went through the same business with him. Now we know why.’

There was a final act in the whole Railton drama of those times. But this was not to be revealed completely for several decades. Yet Giles did point the way. James and Caspar both maintained they had an inkling as soon as they heard Giles
’ testimony. The secret historians say Giles Railton was but the first of many to exchange class and privilege for the hidden hair shirt of treachery. Yet he managed that without giving up anything – except those he loved. The first hint of that last knife twist which Giles had built into his treason came around 1935.

1935

In the wake of strikes and a world recession there were many young undergraduates, living in the rarified atmosphere of the great Oxbridge universities who became affected
– some would say infected – by what they saw as the class struggle of socialism. They had come, late, to Giles Railton’s own cause, and one such was another Railton – Donald, eldest son to James who in 1935 was in his final year at Cambridge.

‘
Talks a lot of half-digested, emotional tommyrot,’ James said angrily to Caspar. Both had grown high in rank, and wise in the ways of the secret world. ‘Workers of the World, Unite. March under the banner of Freedom!’ He gave a sarcastic snort. ‘Let them go. Go to the cradle of the Revolution and see if they like the purge of freedom.’

‘
A phase,’ Caspar chuckled. ‘He’d have got on well with your uncle, Grandfather Giles. Member of the Young Socialists, is he?’

‘
Don’t think it’s quite gone that far.’

It had not gone that far, but neither James nor Caspar was to know that young Donald was not a member of the Labour Party because of strict instructions.
‘You can serve the Party better,’ a friend told him, ‘if you do not publicly display your politics. Keep clear of Labour meetings; don’t get mixed up with demonstrations; and for God’s sake don’t join the Movement.’

It was in October 1935 that this same friend invited Donald to his rooms, in Trinity,
‘to meet a Comrade who will instruct and help us. He has British origins, but has lived in the USSR for some time.’ The friend’s name does not matter. It is now as familiar as any well-known brand of lavatory cleaner.

Donald went to the rooms, in Trinity, on a damp, bitter, late October night when the wind cut into the university city, straight, as some often said, off the Steppes.

The comrade from Russia spoke for almost two hours, to an audience of six. He offered help and instruction in ‘fighting with stealth for the cause of the Party,’ and invited questions. He was tall, in his forties, but with prematurely grey hair.

Donald went with one of the other young men to see him off on the late train to London. There was something terribly familiar about the comrade from Russia, but Donald could not put his finger on it
– something in his voice, mannerisms, walk, features.

On the train itself, their visitor sat back and closed his eyes. He was tired. Tomorrow he would speak with others in London, then it was time to return to Moscow. Progress reports to write; names to be passed on; a meeting with the Cheka hierarchy
– they were in the midst of merging the NKVD, OGPU and UGB.

He smiled to himself. So that was James
’ son. Like his father. Very like his father. So much so that he would have to show extreme caution. Ramillies Railton – now known under a dozen aliases – wondered to himself about the circular progress of history. Who would have thought he’d have met his kinsman, unrecognized, in these circumstances? Grandfather would not have been surprised, naturally.

Many, many years later
– and that is a different tale – when the truth of that night, its aftermath, and dramatis personae became certain knowledge, Caspar stood, looking out onto a damp and drizzling Whitehall. ‘Bloody Giles,’ he said, softly. Then, the inevitable Shakespearean tag, ‘
And is old Double dead?
’