On the outbreak of the First World War Cudbert Thornhill was recruited by Mansfield Cumming into MI6. He went to work for Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Hoare, the head of the SIS station in Petrograd. Other members of the unit included Oswald Rayner, Stephen Alley and John Scale.
In 1916 Thornhill was made an assistant military attaché, controlling the collection of military intelligence. A journalist who met him in Russia during the war claimed that Thornhill was "one of the bravest men - and most silent - I have ever met." He added that Thornhill was "a calm dignified, silent man, almost detached in his bearing, until the moment came for quick action; then the iciness would erupt like a volcano." One of his agents was Arthur Ransome, the Russia correspondent of The Daily News.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SSthornhill.htm
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