MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET• 347nate an enemy agent but mistakenly kills the wrong person, an inci-
dent that the Old Etonian Kelly later acknowledged had been close
to something that had happened to him.
TheAshendenstories were sufficiently authentic to alarmWinston
Churchill, who declared that they were a breach of theOfficial Se-
crets Act. Accordingly Maugham burned 14 of the remaining unpub-
lishedAshendenmanuscripts. The others tell of an encounter with
one of Ashenden’s sources who was also selling information to the
Germans. Another agent threatens to denounce Ashenden to the
Swiss police when he is refused an increase in pay, and a suspected
Indian agitator who has been spreading anti-British dissention com-
mits suicide before he can be intercepted. All were based on fact,
although in his preface Maugham claimed, ‘‘This book is a work of
fiction, though I should say not much more so than several of the
books on the same subject that have appeared during the last few
years and that purport to be truthful memoirs.’’
In August 1916, almost as soon as he returned to London,
Maugham set off on a long voyage to the Pacific, but as he made his
way back through New York in June 1917 he received another request
from SIS, this time throughSir William Wiseman, SIS’s representa-
tive in the United States. Wiseman’s proposal was that Maugham
should travel to Petrograd and deliver a large sum of cash to the Men-
sheviks in the hope of keeping Russia in the war. Reluctantly,
Maugham agreed to the mission and in July arrived in Vladivostok
by steamer from Tokyo and embarked on the Trans-Siberian Express
bound for the Russian capital. Once again his cover was that of a
writer, which proved convenient as Maugham spent much of the day
learning Russian and most of the night enciphering reports to Lon-
don. In his coded messages Maugham referred to himself as ‘‘Somer-
ville,’’ the name adopted by Ashenden while in Switzerland.
In October 1917 Maugham was invited to meet the prime minister,
Alexander Kerensky, who asked him to travel immediately to Lloyd
George in London with a secret plea for political support and, more
importantly, weapons and ammunition. Maugham promptly left for
Oslo, where he was met by a destroyer that took him to Scotland.
The following day he was in Downing Street, but the prime minister
was unwilling to help Kerensky. As Maugham contemplated how he
should break the news to Kerensky, the Bolsheviks seized power and