by Tim Chant
He hadn’t moved from his vigil when the cruiser was sent to join the 1st Division, the great modern battleships that dwarfed everything else in this crowded waterway. A great dark shawl of coal smoke lay over the squadron, matching the black mood that descended on Baxter as he watched first Brighton and then the White Cliffs of Dover dwindle into the distance. Soon enough, despite the slow pace, all he had as a reminder was the cruiser’s straight white wake. Even that was soon lost in the swell and the churning screws of the other warships.
“I am sorry,” Juneau said, having appeared silently at his side. He held a delicate china cup and saucer in each hand, and Baxter caught the grateful waft of coffee.
He didn’t reply but took the cup. He knew what Juneau was apologising for, and it was not the blow he had struck before. “Those trawlers are slow,” he said, trying not to sound bitter. “But they’ll be making landfall soon.”
“We will be well away from British waters by that point.”
Baxter laughed. It sounded hollow even to his ears. “If the Royal Navy does decide to hunt you down, do you think that will make a difference?”
“If they do, we will fight. I should hope that our absence would offer less of a provocation, until cooler heads prevail.”
Baxter resisted the urge to point out what would happen if even a fraction of the power of Beresford’s fleet came down on them. Juneau was perhaps more perceptive than he appeared, though, and obviously saw the conflict on his face.
“If you are not a Royal Navy officer, Mr Baxter, it’s quite clear that you were once.”
Baxter shrugged, sipped the still-scalding coffee while he thought. Lying to Juneau at this point seemed churlish. “I was, for a few years.”
“What happened, might I ask?” Juneau spread his hands, his expression open and inquisitive. “It is quite clear that you are not a man who would have chosen a civilian life willingly.”
Baxter stirred, suddenly uncomfortable. But he had started talking about it, and for once he didn’t feel the urge to close the conversation down, or box his interlocutor about the ears. “One has to be a certain sort, to be an officer in the Royal Navy. Have a certain background, the right parents. I did not quite match up to those requirements, and that didn’t sit well with my brother officers. And that’s more than I’ve said on the subject in years, and as much as I’m willing to say. I imagine it is much the same in your Navy.”
Juneau laughed, perhaps slightly uncomfortably. “Why, we are a most egalitarian navy, as you will find. We may not have learnt much in the way of useful gunnery from our French friends, but we learned that much. There is even an officer on the flagship who is a Courlander. Imagine that! A Courlander!”
Baxter blinked, trying to remember where on earth Courland was and why Juneau should find the idea of one of its natives being a naval officer so shocking. But he could not help laughing as well. “If I might observe, Mr Juneau — you are an odd fellow.”
“Oh, odd enough that I’ve only risen to my position purely through wealth and influence. Can you not tell?”
CHAPTER 5
“They are refusing us resupply,” Juneau told Baxter, his voice glum. “The machinations of your government, I can only assume.”
The 1st Division had raised the Spanish coast earlier that morning, sailing in remarkably good weather with only a gentle breeze stirring the heavy pall of smoke that they took with them. Their arrival in Vigo harbour after three weeks at sea had been uneventful — Baxter had fully expected at least one of the big battleships to hole one of their smaller consorts or smash a local vessel as they jostled into the anchorage.
Baxter shrugged. “You’re a combatant fleet in a time of war, and this is a neutral port. There are rules to conduct on the high seas, as I suspect you will find out shortly.”
Baxter knew he sounded surly. It was taking him longer than he’d expected to readjust to life on a naval vessel. The constant pitch and roll of the ship were not an issue for him, but even after some time ashore in a busy tenement he found the constant noise and activity of several hundred men packed into a metal shell more than somewhat unsettling.
“How so?” Juneau asked.
Baxter gestured to the mouth of the harbour. A lean, dangerous shape was steaming slowly into port, the Royal Navy’s White Ensign snapping from her mastheads.
“One of your cruisers,” Juneau mused. “I fail to see how one measly ship is going to enforce the rules of the sea upon us.”
“It’s not the ship that counts,” Baxter growled, piqued despite himself at the description of the cruiser as measly. She was too far away from him to see which cruiser she was. He could tell she was a Monmouth class, modern and fast armoured cruisers designed for independent work away from interfering admirals. Exactly the sort of vessel he’d dreamed of commanding one day, before the prejudices of his brother officers caught up with him. “It’s what she represents.”
Juneau took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and seemed to release a growing anger. “You are right, of course.” He gave Baxter a disarming smile. “Where there is one, there will be more.” It was said in a light, bantering tone and Baxter found he was unable to continue mustering his anger.
Instead he grinned back. “And there’s no place in the world you can go where we won’t reach you if we want to.”
“I imagine there will come a day where we’ll find out what happens next,” Juneau said, his tone still breezy. “Now, if you will excuse me, Mr Baxter, I must attend to my duties.”
“By all means, Mr Juneau. Unless you have other preferences, I shall continue to take the air.”
“As long as you don’t … what is the expression? … go for a goose.”
Baxter looked nonplussed for a second. “A gander, Mr Juneau, a gander. And I’m sure Vasily here will ensure that no waterfowl of any kind make an appearance.” The big bluejacket was an ever-present shadow in Baxter’s waking hours. He seemed to have no other duty than ensuring he made no attempt to escape or launch into some madcap scheme to sabotage the cruiser.
Baxter looked back along the length of the vessel. “I doubt I could do anything that they won’t manage by accident,” he muttered once Juneau was out of earshot. Gorchakov seemed to run a tight ship, and Juneau despite his claim to the contrary appeared to be a capable first officer. From what he’d seen of the other officers, though, they appeared to be affable but not necessarily first rate.
He turned to survey the pleasant sweep of the broad harbour; the rows of whitewashed houses that climbed gently away from the bay. The great steel castles of the Russian ships dominated much of the harbour, a vain challenge to the peaks of the Pyrenees that gleamed in the distance. The Yaroslavich was moored away from the shore and the mole, and rode easily at her anchor in the sheltered space.
He’d still be able to swim it, though, even with Tommy Dunbar on his back. He had considered just going for it, running to the edge of the deck and diving overboard; there was a reasonable chance with him free that the Russians wouldn’t bother keeping a Scots bairn prisoner — indeed, he had no doubt that Tommy would make himself more trouble than he was worth to keep. He couldn’t guarantee that Gorchakov would be that reasonable, though, and he was responsible for the lad. He couldn’t really leave him behind, having brought him along in the first place.
So all he’d have to do would be to shake off or overpower Vasily (not a happy prospect), get Tommy out of the sickbay, get over the side without being noticed and either swim to the cruiser or make it to shore in the hopes the Russians wouldn’t risk a further international incident by landing armed sailors in a Spanish town.
He grinned. So not much at all, really.
He strolled aft and then down a companionway towards the sickbay, hands thrust into his pockets and whistling tunelessly, drawing as much attention as possible from the Russian sailors. And not a little annoyance from those on harbour watch. Vasily maintained a discreet distance, a hulking but polite shadow.
Baxter t
urned over possible next steps in his mind. He didn’t know how long they’d be in port here, particularly as the Spanish seemed to be bowing to the demands of His Britannic Majesty’s Government and would likely require a departure. His best shot was getting to the RN cruiser as well — he didn’t fancy being ashore in a foreign country with no funds and only the wet clothes on his back.
Which meant that, whatever he had to do, he had to do it quickly. He wasn’t sure if he could overpower Vasily, if he was honest with himself, and trying would take too much time and make too much noise.
Nothing that dash and a bit of luck wouldn’t overcome, though. As he came to the companionway down to where the sickbay was tucked away in the core of the ship, he grabbed hold of the highly polished rails and lifted his feet after pushing off, sliding down the staircase. He saved valuable seconds that way and jumped the rest of the distance while Vasily was still at the top. He swung the hatch into the sickbay closed and dogged it, with a conspiratorial wink at the slack-jawed sickbay attendant.
He walked quickly to the far end, where Tommy resided in his curtained-off section. Behind him he could hear the big Russian pounding on the door and demanding to be let in. Baxter almost regretted not laying out the attendant, but the fellow seemed inoffensive and not particularly quick on the uptake.
“Tommy, my lad, we’re going!” he declared, tugging the curtain to one side.
The only problem was that the bed was unoccupied, though unmade.
Baxter turned on his heel, frustration mounting. “This is what you get for going off half-cocked, old son,” he muttered to himself, then switched into his broken Russian to shout at the attendant, who was struggling to open the hatch. “You! Where the boy?”
He didn’t understand much of the fast babble of Russian that came back, but the one thing he did pick up was ‘lady’ and ‘Ekaterina’. And maybe something about ‘not long ago’.
“That dirty blighter Juneau lied to me,” Baxter muttered as he hurried through the far door of the sickbay.
He was into unexplored territory here, a long white-painted corridor with doors on either side. As he slammed the hatch behind him and locked it, a drowsy head poked out of one of the doors. He realised, as the sailor gawped at him, that he was running between the large cabins where the bluejackets bunked. He ran down it, heart rate increasing as voices started to raise in alarm.
He stopped at the companionways at the far end of the corridor. One went up, into what he suspected was the officer’s quarters on the spar deck, and one went further down into the bowels of the ship. He took the stairs up two at a time — if there was a lady on board, he couldn’t imagine her dirtying her petticoats in the depths of the ship.
Baxter paused at the top, struggling to get his breathing under control. He was in officer country, that much was clear from the fact that the corridor was carpeted and had more electric bulbs strung along it. He only had seconds, but if there was one good thing about Tommy’s piping voice, it had a certain carrying quality.
He followed the boy’s cheerful chatter aft — right into the stern of the ship, in fact — and barged open the door without stopping to check who’s cabin it was.
He stopped, poised on the balls of his feet and framed in the doorway, staring into the unwavering muzzle of an automatic pistol.
What really gave him pause, though, was that it was held by a woman.
“Well, if I have to get shot…” he began, just before Vasily hammered into him.
“I do apologise for intruding into your quarters,” Baxter said thickly a few minutes later as Juneau handed him some ice folded into a starched linen napkin. He winced as he applied the icepack to his left eye.
Juneau’s voice was colder than the ice. “And what did you mean by barging in here. Not to mention giving Vasily here the slip?”
Baxter was still struggling to focus — Vasily had hit him very hard indeed. Right now there appeared to be two Juneaus stood next to the single chair in the quarters. That chair was occupied by the same poised young woman who had brought him to heel. She was holding the automatic with the same confidence with which she’d aimed it, though mercifully it was no longer pointed directly at his head.
Probably not much point in lying. He could have claimed he was merely worried for the well-being of Tommy, but he liked Juneau well enough and the ship had suddenly got a lot more interesting. Instead he shrugged. “I was trying to escape but didn’t want to leave Tommy behind.”
Juneau’s stony expression softened very slightly at Baxter’s disarming truthfulness. “And you thought he would be mistreated if you escaped without him?”
“I thought he’d probably be put ashore, but I couldn’t be sure. And his ma’ll be missing him.”
The Russian woman laughed throatily, and said something in a low, fast voice to Juneau. He replied, smiling indulgently at her, and she tucked the pistol into a clutch. “My wife assures me that the only person she was a danger to was you.”
Baxter blinked. “Your wife?”
“My apologies, Mr Baxter. May I present Countess Ekaterina Andreevna Juneau, whom I am lucky enough to call my wife.”
“You really weren’t joking when you said you had money and power.”
Juneau gave him a half-bow. “I was not, though I am sorry if I gave you the impression that I was incompetent and would therefore brook an escape attempt.”
“Perish the thought. You must understand, though, Mr Juneau, that you have me in a sticky situation. You can’t blame a fellow for trying.”
The woman laughed again, then rose and stepped closer to inspect him. Scandalously — or it would be, to a mind more prudish that Baxter’s — she was dressed in a version of a Naval officer’s uniform, lacking only the embellishment of rank or other insignia; the close-fitting jacket and long skirt emphasised how slim she was. She had strong-features and pale skin, dark chestnut hair mounded on her head. The eyes she assessed him with were an emerald green, her gaze lively and intelligent. There was also something ... calculating in her inspection that warned Baxter to be on his guard around her; that she was most certainly not the sort of woman he was used to mixing with.
After a moment, she turned back to her husband and spoke again.
“My wife has decided she likes you. You have … spirit. Maxim also likes you. This will go very well for you.”
“And Vasily — how does he feel about me?”
“He hasn’t made up his mind. It takes a long time for a peasant to make up his mind. He did say that you have a hard head and fears he broke a knuckle.”
“Well, I can understand why you are so insistent on keeping me around if you all like me so much.”
Juneau’s gaze was expressionless. “The captain, however, is not overly fond of you. He wants you to know that, given the situation here, the admiral has ordered the posting of armed guards, and that you will be shot without warning if you attempt to escape again.”
Baxter nodded. He almost joked about not being overly worried about Russian marksmanship, but caution for once overtook his mouth.
That evening, Baxter was permitted to dine with the Russian officers; now that the secret was out the countess also joined the men. The Yaroslavich’s wardroom was comfortably appointed without being as lavish as the captain’s day cabin. A heavy oak dining table crossed the width of it at the stern, affording diner’s magnificent views from the stern windows, while comfortable armchairs and a sideboard dominated the far end of the room. Baxter was surprised to see a number of dogs chasing each other or themselves around the compartment, though none of them were of the scale or magnificence of Juneau’s great hunting dog. Maxim himself was stretched out in front of the small coal fire, watching everything and everyone through half-closed eyes.
The dinner was every bit as sumptuous as the room. As Juneau brought the assembled officers to the table, silent servants glided from the pantry bearing heavily laden salvers of food.
Baxter was acutely conscious of the fact th
at he was somewhere between a prisoner and a guest — while previously he hadn’t cared much for social niceties, a miss-step here could cause more than the normal problems for him.
“Allow me to help you to some of this excellent cod,” his neighbour to the left said, in fluent French, after they had settled and the wine had been poured. Watery but intelligent blue eyes regarded from behind small, round steel-framed glasses. The man’s uniform was as impeccable as his manners and his French. “And you must accompany it with these gratin potatoes. I am Andropov, the ship’s doctor.”
“A pleasure,” Baxter replied after a moment. He was finding his French coming back to him more quickly — most of a life spent on a merchant ship plying the waters of the globe had given him a smattering of any number of languages. None of them were little better than passing and most not even that good.
“And how is your eye, Mr Baxter?” This was said with a diffident smile. “I’m told the sailor who hit you was most impressed with how hard your skull is.”
“I’ve heard that before.” Baxter resisted the temptation to probe the bruise that was spreading across his face. “I’ve also had worse before — though not by much!”
“I must caution you against receiving multiple blows to the head in short sequence. I tended to you after you were brought aboard and had concerns for both your skull and the brains within it.”
The dinner continued along those lines. Baxter made small-talk in his broken French or the Russians’ broken English, never giving away his own slight command of their language (although he had come to the conclusion that few if any of the officers actually spoke Russian). The company was in good spirits, having made port somewhere at least vaguely friendly. Juneau at the head of the table was in fine flow; as well he should be with his wife holding court at the opposite end. The sole exception to the cheerfulness was the second officer, Yefimov Kirill Leodonovic. He was a scowling dark-haired man, approaching middle age, who said little but drank even more copiously than his comrades — one of the carafes of vodka was never far from his hand.