At this we stopped, crouched by the door. He went on:
“Plans have been prepared, but in no considerable detail, for a spurious expedition through your Alaskan province, aimed at the British North American possessions. It was thought that if these could be brought to the attention of the British Government, in a suitably accidental manner, they would divert the enemy’s attention from the eastern theatre entirely.”
“I don’t like it,” says Khruleff’s voice. “I have seen the plan, majesty; it is over-elaborate and unnecessary.”
“There are,” says Ignatieff, quite unabashed, “two British officers, at present confined in this house – prisoners from the Crimea whom I had brought here expressly for the purpose. It should not be beyond our wits to ensure that they discovered the false North American plan; thereafter they would obviously attempt to escape, to warn their government of it.”
“And then?” says Duhamel.
“They would succeed, of course. It is no distance to the Crimea – it would be arranged without their suspecting they were mere tools of our purpose. And their government would at least be distracted.”
“Too clever,” says Khruleff. “Playing at spies.”
“With submission, majesty,” says Ignatieff, “there would be no difficulty. I have selected these two men with care – they are ideal for our purpose. One is an agent of intelligence, taken at Silistria – a clever, dangerous fellow. Show him the hint of a design against his country, and he would fasten on it like a hawk. The other is a very different sort – a great, coarse bully of a man, all brawn and little brain; he has spent his time here lechering after every female he could find.” I felt East stiffen beside me, as we listened to this infernal impudence. “But he would be necessary – for even if we permitted, and assisted their escape here, and saw that they reached the Crimea in safety, they would still have to rejoin their army at Sevastopol, and we could hardly issue orders to our forces in Crimea to let them pass through. This second fellow is the kind of resourceful villain who would find a way.”
There was a silence, and then Duhamel says: “I must agree with Khruleff, majesty. It is not necessary, and might even be dangerous. The British are not fools; they smell a rat as soon as anyone. These false plans, these clever stratagems – they can excite suspicion and recoil on the plotter. Our Indus scheme is soundly based; it needs no pretty folly of this kind.”
“So.” The Tsar’s voice was a hoarse murmur. “The opinion is against you, Count. Let your British officers sleep undisturbed. But we thank you for your zeal in the matter, even so. And now, gentlemen, we have worked long enough –”
East was bundling me on to the dark landing before the voice had finished speaking. We closed the door gently, and tip-toed across towards our passage even as we heard the library doors opening down in the hall. I peeped round the corner; the Cossack was snoring away again, and we scuttled silently past him and into East’s room. I sank down, shaking, on to his bed, while he fumbled at the candle, muttering furiously till he got it lit. His face was as white as a sheet – but he remembered to muffle the mouth of the hidden speaking-tube with his pillow.
“My God, Flashman,” says he, when he had got his wind back. We were staring helplessly at each other. “What are we to do?”
“What can we do?” says I.
“We did hear aright – didn’t we?” says he. “They’re going for India – while our back’s turned? A Russian army over the Khyber – a rebellion! Good God – is the thing possible?”
I thought of ’42, and the Afghans – and what they could do with a Russian army to help them. “Aye,” says I. “It’s possible all right.”
“I knew we were right to watch and listen!” cries he. “I knew it! But I never dreamed – this is the most appalling thing!” He slapped his hands and paced about. “Look – we’ve got to do something! We’ve got to get away – somehow! They must have news of this at Sevastopol. Raglan’s there; he’s the commander – if we could get this to him, and London, there’d be time – to try to prepare, at least. Send troops out – increase the north-west garrisons – perhaps even an expedition into Persia, or Afghanistan –”
“There isn’t time,” says I. “You heard them – seven months from tonight they’ll be on the edge of the Punjab with thirty thousand men, and God knows how many Afghans ready to join in for a slap at us and the loot of India. It would take a month to get word to England, twice as long again to assemble an army – if that’s possible, which I doubt – and then it’s four months to India –”
“But that’s in time – just in time!” cries he. “If only we can get away – at once!”
“Well, we can’t,” says I. “The thing’s not possible.”
“We’ve got to make it possible!” says he, feverishly. “Look – look at this, will you?” And he snatched a book from his bureau: it was some kind of geography or guide, in Russian script – that hideous lettering that always made me think of black magic recipes for conjuring the Devil. “See here; this map. Now, I’ve pieced this together over the past few months, just by listening and using my wits, and I’ve a fair notion where we are, although Starotorsk ain’t shown on this map; too small. But I reckon we’re about here, in this empty space – perhaps fifty miles from Ekaterinoslav, and thirty from Alexandrovsk, see? It startled me, I tell you; I’d thought we were miles farther inland.”
“So did I,” says I. “You’re sure you’re right? – they must have brought me a hell of a long way round, then.”
“Of course – that’s their way! They’ll never do anything straight, I tell you. Confuse, disturb, upset – that’s their book of common prayer! But don’t you see – we’re not much above a hundred miles from the north end of the Crimea – maybe only a couple of hundred from Raglan at Sevastopol!”
“With a couple of Russian armies in between,” I pointed out. “Anyway, how could we get away from here?”
“Steal a sled at night – horses. If we went fast enough, we could get changes at the post stations on the way, as long as we kept ahead of pursuit. Don’t you see, man – it must be possible!” His eyes were shining fiercely. “Ignatieff was planning for us to do this very thing! My God, why did they turn him down! Think of it – if he had had his way, they’d be helping us to escape with their bogus information, never dreaming we had the real plans! Of all the cursed luck!”
“Well, they did turn him down,” says I. “And it’s no go. You talk of stealing a sled – how far d’you think we’d get, with Pencherjevsky’s Cossacks on our tail? You can’t hide sleigh-tracks, you know – not on land as flat as your hat. Even if you could, they know exactly where we’d go – there’s only one route” – and I pointed at his map – “through the neck of the Crimean peninsula at – what’s it called? Armyansk. They’d overhaul us long before we got there.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” says he, grinning – the same sly, fag grin of fifteen years ago. “Because we won’t go that way. There’s another road to the Crimea – I got it from this book, but they’d never dream we knew of it. Look, now, old Flashy friend, and learn the advantages of studying geography. See how the Crimean peninsula is joined to mainland Russia – just a narrow isthmus, eh? Now look east a little way along the coast – what d’ye see?”
“A town called Yenitchi,” says I. “But if you’re thinking of pinching a boat, you’re mad –”
“Boat nothing,” says he. “What d’ye see in the sea, south of Yenitchi?”
“A streak of fly-dung,” says I, impatiently. “Now, Scud –”
“That’s what it looks like,” says he triumphantly. “But it ain’t. That, my boy, is the Arrow of Arabat – a causeway, not more than half a mile across, without even a road on it, that runs from Yenitchi a clear sixty miles through the sea of Azov to Arabat in the Crimea – and from there it’s a bare hundred miles across to Sevastopol! Don’t you see, man? No one ever uses it, according to this book, except a few dromedary caravans in summer. Why, the Russians
hardly know it exists, even! All we need is one night of snow, here, to cover our traces, and while they’re chasing us towards the isthmus, we’re tearing down to Yenitchi, along the causeway to Arabat, and then westward ho to Sevastopol –”
“Through the bloody Russian army!” cries I.
“Through whoever you please! Can’t you see – no one will be looking for us there! They’ve no telegraph, anyway, in this benighted country – we both speak enough Russian to pass! Heavens, we speak it better than most moujiks, I’ll swear. It’s the way, Flashman – the only way!”
I didn’t like this one bit. Don’t misunderstand me – I’m as true-blue a Briton as the next man, and I’m not unwilling to serve the old place in return for my pay, provided it don’t entail too much discomfort or expense. But I draw the line where my hide is concerned – among the many things I’m not prepared to do for my country is die, especially at the end of a rope trailing from a Cossack’s saddle, or with his lance up my innards. The thought of abandoning this snug retreat, where I was feeding full, drinking well, and rogering my captivity happily away, and going careering off through the snow-fast Russian wilderness, with those devils howling after me – and all so that we could report this crazy scheme to Raglan! It was mad. Anyway, what did I care for India? I’d sooner we had it than the Russians, of course, and if the intelligence could have been conveyed safely to Raglan (who’d have promptly forgotten it, or sent an army to Greenland by mistake, like as not) I’d have done it like a shot. But I draw the line at risks that aren’t necessary to my own well-being. That’s why I’m eighty years old today, while Scud East has been mouldering underground at Cawnpore this forty-odd years.
But I couldn’t say this to him, of course. So I looked profound, and anxious, and shook my head. “Can’t be done, Scud. Look now; you don’t know much about this Arrow causeway, except what’s in that book. Who’s to say it’s open in winter – or that it’s still there? Might have been washed away. Who knows what guards they may have at either end? How do we get through the Crimea to Sevastopol? I’ve done a bit of travelling in disguise, you know, in Afghanistan and Germany … and, oh, lots of places, and it’s a sight harder than you’d think. And in Russia – where everyone has to show his damned ticket every few miles – we’d never manage it. But” – I stilled his protest with a stern finger – “I’d chance that, of course, if it wasn’t an absolute certainty that we’d be nabbed before we’d got halfway to this Yenitchi place. Even if we got clear away from here – which would be next to impossible – they would ride us down in few hours. It’s hopeless, you see.”
“I know that!” he cried. “I can count, too! But I tell you we’ve got to try! It’s a chance in a million that we’ve found out this infernal piece of Russian treachery! We must try to use it, to warn Raglan and the people at home! What have we got to lose, except our lives?”
D’you know, when a man talks like that to me, I feel downright insulted. Why other, unnamed lives, or the East India Company’s dividend, or the credit of Lord Aberdeen, or the honour of British arms, should be held by me to be of greater consequence than my own shrinking skin, I’ve always been at a loss to understand.
“You’re missing the point,” I told him. “Of course, one doesn’t think twice about one’s neck when it’s a question of duty” – I don’t, anyway – “but one has to be sure where one’s duty lies. Maybe I’ve seen more rough work than you have, Scud, and I’ve learned there’s no point in suicide – not when one can wait and watch and think. If we sit tight, who knows what chance may arise that ain’t apparent now? But if we go off half-cock, and get killed or something – well, that won’t get the news to Raglan. Here’s something: now that Ignatieff don’t need us any more, they may even exchange us. Then the laugh would be on them, eh?”
At this he cried out that time was vital, and we daren’t wait. I replied that we daren’t go until we saw a reasonable chance (if I knew anything, we’d wait a long time for one), and so we bandied it to and fro and got no forrarder, and finally went to bed, played out.
When I thought the thing over, alone (and got into a fine sweat at the recollection of the fearful risk we’d run, crouching in that musty gallery) I could see East’s point. Here we were, by an amazing fluke, in possession of information which any decent soldier would have gone through hell to get to his chiefs. And Scud East was a decent soldier, by anyone’s lights but mine. My task, plainly, was to prevent his doing anything rash – in other words, anything at all – and yet appear to be in as big a sweat as he was himself. Not too difficult, for one of my talents.
In the next few days we mulled over a dozen notions for escaping, each more lunatic than the last. It was quite interesting, really, to see at what point in some particular idiocy poor Scud would start to boggle; I remember the look of respectful horror which crept into his eyes when I regretted absently that we hadn’t dropped from the gallery that night and cut all their throats, the Tsar’s included – “too late, now, of course, since they’ve all gone,” says I. “Pity, though; if we’d finished ’em off, that would have scotched their little scheme. And I haven’t had a decent set-to since Balaclava. Aye, well.”
Scud began to worry me, though; he was working himself up into a fever of anxiety and impatience where he might do something foolish. “We must try!” he kept insisting. “If we can think of no alternative soon, we’re bound to make a run for it some night! I’ll go mad if we don’t, I tell you! How can you just sit there? – oh, no, I’m sorry, Flashman; I know this must be torturing you too! Forgive me, old fellow. I haven’t got your steady nerve.”
He hadn’t got Valla to refresh him, either, which might have had a calming effect. I thought of suggesting that he take a steam-bath with Aunt Sara, to settle his nerves, but he might have enjoyed it too much, and then gone mad repenting. So I tried to look anxious and frustrated, while he chewed his nails and fretted horribly, and a week passed, in which he must have lost a stone. Worrying about India, stab me. And then the worst happened: we got our opportunity, and in circumstances which even I couldn’t refuse.
It came after a day in which Pencherjevsky lost his temper, a rare thing, and most memorable. I was in the salon when I heard him bawling at the front door, and came out to find him standing in the hallway, fulminating at two fellows outside on the steps. One looked like a clergyman; the other was a lean, ugly little fellow dressed like a clerk.
“… effrontery, to seek to thrust yourself between me and my people!” Pencherjevsky was roaring. “Merciful God, how do I keep my hands from you? Have you no souls to cure, you priest fellow, and you, Blank, no pen-pushing or pimping to occupy you? Ah, but no – you have your agitating, have you not, you seditious scum! Well, agitate elsewhere, before I have my Cossacks take their whips to you! Get out of my sight and off my land – both of you!”
He was grotesque in his rage, towering like some bearded old-world god – I’d have been in the next county before him, but these two stood their ground, jeopardizing their health.
“We are no serfs of yours!” cries the fellow Blank. “You do not order us,” and Pencherjevsky gave a strangled roar and started forward, but the priest came between.
“Lord Count! A moment!” He was game, that one. “Hear me, I implore. You are a just man, and surely it is little enough to ask. The woman is old, and if she cannot pay the soul-tax on her grandsons, you know what will happen. The officials will block her stove, and she will be driven out – to what? To die in the cold, or to starve, and the little ones with her. It is a matter of only one hundred and seventy silver kopecks – I do not ask you to pay for her, but let me find the money, and my friend here. We will be glad to pay! Surely you will let us – be merciful!”
“Look you,” says Pencherjevsky, holding himself in. “Do I care for a handful of kopecks? No! Not if it was a hundred and seventy thousand roubles, either! But you come to me with a pitiful tale of this old crone, who cannot pay the tax on her brats – do I not know her son – wo
rthless bastard! – is a koulakq in Odessa, and could pay it for her, fifty times over! Well, let him! But if he will not, then it is for the government to enforce the law – no man hindering! No, not even me! Suppose I pay, or permit you to pay, on her behalf, what would happen then? I shall tell you. Next year, and every year thereafter, you would have all the moujiks from here to Rostov bawling at my door: ‘We cannot pay the soul-tax,30 batiushka; pay for us, as you paid for so-and-so.’ And where does that end?”
“But –” the priest was beginning, but Pencherjevsky cut him short.
“You would tell me that you will pay for them all? Aye, Master Blank there would pay – with the filthy money sent by his Communist friends in Germany! So that he could creep among my moujiks, sowing sedition, preaching revolution! I know him! So get him hence, priest, out of my sight, before I forget myself!”
“And the old woman, then? Have a little pity, Count!”
“I have explained!” roars Pencherjevsky. “By God, as though I owe you that much! Get out, both of you!”
He advanced, hands clenched, and the two of them went scuttling down the steps. But the fellow Blank31 had to have a last word:
“You filthy tyrant! You dig your own grave! You and your kind think you can live forever, by oppression and torture and theft – you sow dragon’s teeth with your cruelty, and they will grow to tear you! You will see, you fiend!”
Pencherjevsky went mad. He flung his cap on the ground, foaming, and then ran bawling for his whip, his Cossacks, his sabre, while the two malcontents scampered off for their lives, Blank screaming threats and abuse over his shoulder. I listened with interest as the Count raved and stormed:
“After them! I’ll have that filthy creature knouted, God help me! Run him down, and don’t leave an inch of hide on his carcase!”
Within a few moments a group of his Cossacks were in the saddle and thundering out of the gate, while he stormed about the hall, raging still:
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