Divided loyalties  Traitor or peace-broker? Julia Jones is
intrigued by the contradictions of Arthur Ransome  "I think of
England as a sort of dream country," Arthur Ransome wrote to his
mother in July 1917. He was the Daily News foreign correspondent
in Petrograd - "a sick city", as he described it then. Half a
million soldiers had been killed on the Galician front and
deserters were streaming home. There was hunger, mutiny,
political chaos.    1. The Last Englishman   2. : The Double
Life of Arthur Ransome   3. by Roland Chambers   4. Find this on
the Guardian bookshop  "It really was jolly hearing about
Tabitha and you playing at retrieving grouse," he continued
wistfully. "All that, however, seems so very far away and every
sentence in your letter which touched on Russia showed that
people in England, even intelligent birds like yourself, have no
notion of the condition of things here."  Later, Ransome
expressed fury at the failure of his mission to explain.
"Shouting in daily telegrams across the wires f