The Straits of Tsushima: An action-packed historical military adventure (Marcus Baxter Naval Thrillers Book 1)

by Tim Chant

  “The wine is not to your taste, Mr Baxter?” Juneau said, much later. They had risen from the table and stood or sat around the cabin, breaking up into amiably chatting groups. The countess had retired to her cabin and the two men were now standing at the stern windows, watching the harbour lanterns and ships’ lights glitter in the darkness.“The wine is excellent, Mr Juneau, but I must confess I have never been much of a wine drinker.”

  “And you feel you must be on good behaviour,” Juneau said, with an amused gleam in his eye.

  “It’s been known to happen,” Baxter admitted with a shrug.

  “But you could not maintain this during your time in your own Navy?”

  Baxter felt a scowl starting to form and smoothed his features. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with Juneau’s continual questioning, but as the Russian had said, he had to be on his best behaviour. “I tried, but I just reached a point that I punched one of the buggers.” He couldn’t help an evil grin when he said that, but it did not seem to worry Juneau.

  Lieutenant Yefimov, who was sitting by the fire reading one of the consignment of newspapers that had been delivered that day, suddenly burst into a stream of angry invective. Baxter picked up enough to realise that the news about the incident with the fishing trawlers had finally caught up with them.

  Juneau looked troubled as he listened to the tirade. Yefimov had the whole wardroom’s attention now, reading out the headlines and snippets from the various international newspapers. He stood suddenly, clutching a copy of the Standard and turned slowly to glare at Baxter. “Is this wretched Baltic Fleet,” he read out, in slow and deliberate English, “to be permitted to continue its operation?”

  A chorus of voices joined in Yefimov’s condemnation. Baxter realised, for the first time, that the officers still believed they had fought off a determined attack by Japanese torpedo boats; and that the fishing fleet had either been caught in the crossfire or had brought it upon themselves by allowing the enemy to hide amongst them.

  He found himself, once again, assessing options for an escape. The obvious route would be through the windows behind him and swim for it. Young Tommy would have to fend for himself; now that he knew Juneau’s wife had taken an interest in the boy he could be certain of his safety.

  “Gentlemen!” Juneau snapped, in loud, clipped French. “Contain yourselves and your anger, justified or not. From what Kirill Leodonovic has read, there will be a tribunal to determine the truth of things. Let us conduct ourselves with restraint in this issue.”

  “But, Graf—” Yefimov began, only to be silenced by a glare from Juneau.

  Baxter was sorely tempted to make a break in a less violent fashion and retire to his cabin. Juneau caught his eye and shook his head almost imperceptibly. A moment later, a slightly more muted buzz of conversation started up in the wardroom.

  “I fear Lieutenant Yefimov came somewhat close to being a bugger getting punched,” Juneau said quietly, his normal good cheer returning to his countenance. “And that would have been unfortunate.”

  Baxter grinned at the smaller man and didn’t ask for whom it would have been unfortunate, choosing instead to change the tack of the conversation. “I find myself curious, Mr Juneau, about the countess.”

  “My wife? You mean my wife who remained in Riga and will be travelling overland to meet us in Vladivostok, once we have successfully broken the Japanese siege of Port Arthur?”

  Baxter blinked. “Umm. Yes, that’s the one.”

  Juneau’s grin was positively impish. “Even that journey would not have been exciting enough for Ekaterina. She, well, instructed me to make arrangements for her to join us on the voyage.”

  Baxter was beginning to like the sound of this woman. “The privilege of wealth and station?”

  “Indeed, Mr Baxter. But even in the Imperial Russian Navy, such behaviour is frowned upon — particularly by more old-fashioned officers.” This was said with a significant glance towards Yefimov.

  “Hence the open secret, and her pretence of being a brother officer.”

  “Indeed! You are more perceptive than you appear.” Juneau’s face fell as soon as he said that, realising that something may have been lost in translation. Baxter merely accepted the compliment with a slight bow.

  “I assume you will put her ashore at some point before you actually face the Japanese?”

  Juneau shrugged, obviously discomfited by the question. “The countess has instructed me that she will remain on board until Port Arthur. We are confident of sweeping the enemy before us, much as Tromp did to your Navy.”

  “You do know he was killed in action against an English fleet?” Baxter replied, very slightly emphasising the Scottish burr that underlay his accent. “If I may speak freely, Mr Juneau — I would strongly recommend that the countess is put ashore in a friendly neutral port. Like, for instance, this one. A battle at sea is no place for a civilian, whether or not you are victorious.”

  Juneau looked thoughtful. “Perhaps, though I fear for my life if I was to press my point.”

  Baxter shrugged. At the end of the day, it wasn’t his business. And a little part of him, he knew, would be glad if she was aboard for longer. “Well, seeing as I have hard work ahead of me tomorrow, Mr Juneau, I think I might turn in.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “So much for your vaunted Royal Navy!” Juneau shouted, not un-jovially, over the rising noise of the wind.

  They had cleared Vigo earlier that morning, escorted out into international waters by a Spanish cruiser. Their unwilling but courteous hosts had relented to a certain extent on their refusal to allow resupply, allowing each ship to take on some four hundred short tons of coal. The crews had set to with a will, officers included, to take on double that amount from the Hamburg-Amerika Line colliers which had joined them in the port.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure!” Baxter replied, equally affably, pointing aft.

  The two of them were standing on the little quarter gallery of the old cruiser. As resentment over the way Britain was treating the Russian squadron grew, it had become something of a welcome ritual for Baxter, as Juneau didn’t seem to be taking the political manoeuvrings personally.

  Juneau followed his pointing arm. He squinted into the spray.

  “Four of them on the port quarter,” Baxter prompted. “Cruisers.”

  The two men watched as the British vessels — for so it became clear they were — steamed up past the Russian battleships. They were in perfect line astern, evenly spaced, and cut easily through the rolling waves of the Bay of Biscay only a few hundred yards to starboard of the behemoths they were shadowing. So close, but still too far for Baxter to make a sudden break for freedom.

  “Are they trying to provoke us?” Juneau asked, sounding almost bewildered.

  “It shouldn’t be too hard, given what else has provoked the battleships.”

  “They would be smashed at this range!” Juneau protested. Then his face fell as he realised what Baxter was leaving unspoken. What he said was true — if the battleships’ big guns hit the cruisers even a few times they would go down. Hitting them, though, would be the trick.

  “And I shouldn’t be surprised if Beresford’s battleships weren’t just over the horizon.”

  “Your vaunted battleships,” Juneau said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “While there may be more of them, as the admiral said only the first four will count. And our Borodinos are very fine ships indeed.”

  Baxter, for once, knew to keep his peace. The cruisers made his point for him, some little while later, as they fell astern on the port side of the Russian squadron, still in perfect order but letting themselves be overhauled until the point that they could cross over the straight wakes of the battleships and commence the process again.

  “They are making sport of us,” Juneau grumbled.

  “Indeed they are — cruiser captains can be like that.”

  Juneau sighed. “Ours is not,” he said, his voice so quiet that Baxter coul
d barely make him out. The note of disappointment was unmistakable, though.

  Someone on the bridge, however, was determined not to let the insult — of having literal circles sailed around them — pass. The British cruisers were lining up to make their way along the Russian line, maybe slightly closer this time, and as they picked up speed the Yaroslavich healed suddenly, changing course to starboard, her old boilers labouring to drive her faster. Juneau staggered at the sudden shift and Baxter — sensing it coming and with his sea legs under him — lunged to steady the Russian.

  “What is Yefimov doing?” Juneau exclaimed.

  “Being a cruiser captain.”

  Juneau’s eyes widened. They both knew Gorchakov would have felt the change of course in his cabin but would not act quickly. It would fall to the first officer to rein in the officer of the watch. “Come on!”

  The two of them raced back through the wardroom and up the companionways onto the deck, which was heaving under their feet as the Yaroslavich steamed on an intercept course with the British cruisers. A lamp was flashing from the flagship’s towering bridge, accompanied by the crack of her signal gun, no doubt demanding the cruiser return to formation.

  Instead she bore down on the sleeker British vessels, close enough now that Baxter could read the name of the lead vessel, Drake. She was coming on, seemingly oblivious to the almost quaint old Russian ship on a collision course. The Russian sailors were hooting and jeering at their British counterparts, and the water was creaming down the side of the cruiser now.

  Baxter grinned at the thrill of it. He knew exactly how he would handle it, if he had the cruiser’s con. Sure enough, she was picking up speed smoothly and, in a contemptuous display, passed across the Yaroslavich’s bows without having to alter course. It was a narrow thing, either through luck or fine judgement. Rigid silence was the order of the day aboard the British ship, in stark contrast to the hollering from the Russians, but those not on duty lined the rail to peer curiously at this ancient oddity trying to joust with them.

  Yefimov was shouting again. This time Juneau was ready and clung onto the rails of the ladder up to the bridge as the helm went over to port, bringing her head round as the rest of the British flotilla passed astern. The cruisers were past, though, vastly outpacing the old Russian ship.

  The flagship signalled again, this time with a pair of peremptory guns. Juneau swarmed onto the bridge, bellowing in French in a volume and a tone Baxter had never heard from the normally mild-mannered officer. He decided it would be politic to remain on the main deck as the first officer alternated tearing into his subordinate and giving orders for their return to the line.

  The RN kept up its hounding of the Russian ships for three days and two nights. Baxter could feel the simmering resentment of the Russian officers and sailors as a procession of ships — sometimes only one or two, sometimes a half dozen tearing over the horizon — came to look at the lumbering behemoths. At night the cruiser crews played games with their searchlights, darting the beams across each other and then onto the Russians. He knew he should resent it, too, after the shabby way he had been treated, but the execution of the manoeuvres, the seamanship, was too perfect.

  The second day of November had been particularly trying. The steering gear of the Oryol, one of the powerful Borodino-class ships, had broken down, forcing a stop while the British squadron hovered suspiciously nearby. Baxter understood that it was a perennial problem of the big battleship — indeed, the whole squadron suffered often unexplainable mechanical faults.

  “Destruction to the Royal Navy!” Yefimov growled in his heavily-accented French over the celebratory lunch the following day, raising his glass high.

  Baxter refused to rise to the bait, and indeed raised his own glass. A vestige of professional pride baulked at it, but he knew his and Tommy’s position was precarious at best and would become more so the further away from Britain they got.

  One of the junior lieutenants — Baxter still hadn’t fixed all of them in his mind — nodded in ascent. “They have hounded us like criminals, although we fired in self-defence. And even though the admiral, as a gesture of appeasement, left witnesses behind. Even Captain Klado was left in Riga, which will be a sad blow to the fleet.”

  “We will miss his acumen, certainly,” the doctor agreed. “I am surprised the admiral chose to lose his counsel.”

  “I suspect the admiral has little time for Captain Klado,” Juneau put in from the head of the table, speaking over the rim of a glass of rather fine claret. “They were at odds when the squadron was being constituted.”

  “Pah!” Yefimov spat. “Klado was right! The more ships we have, the more likely it is that the Japanese will spread their fire and we will overwhelm them with ours.”

  “The ships Klado wanted,” Baxter broke in, speaking slowly and clearly, “were all old and outdated, with guns that will not throw a shell as far or as accurately as your new ships, and with engines that will not drive them as quickly. And need I remind you that Klado’s strategy would have sacrificed the crews of many old ships to protect the big ships?”

  Silence fell across the table, broken only by the constant noises of a ship at sea — the throb of the steam engines, somewhere deep below them; the creak of the light fittings over their heads and the clink of glasses in racks as the cruiser rolled across the long swell. All of them, Baxter knew, were reflecting on the fact that the Yaroslavich was an old ship and that, in Klado’s mind, they were only there to draw enemy fire.

  “I fear, though, that separated from the squadron, Captain Klado will make even more of a nuisance of himself,” Juneau said eventually, breaking the silence. He brightened. “However, we are at sea again, which even Mr Baxter can agree is where a sailor belongs. The weather is fine, particularly for the season, and soon we will be visiting Tangier. Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of our beloved Tsar’s ascension to the throne. We have, therefore, many reasons to be cheerful!” He rose, raising his glass. “To the Tsar and his Tsarina. God’s blessing on them both!”

  The assembled company responded heartily, including Baxter — it would have been churlish not to.

  All were full-voiced in their approval but Yefimov, Baxter noted. He had nodded along in agreement with Juneau’s sentiments until the mention of the Tsar, at which point his face had closed-up entirely. It would have been impossible for him to avoid making the loyal toast, but he had been far from enthusiastic about it.

  As they steamed south into warmer climes, Baxter became more and more aware of a certain resentment that existed amongst some of the junior officers and some of the more educated crewmembers.

  It was never stated explicitly, but Baxter occupied a strange space apart from the crew and that occasionally made them less guarded around him. Perhaps more willing to be open, in case he was a potential ally.

  Juneau was not the cause of this simmering discontent, or even the focus, but his obvious wealth and the privilege of bringing his wife aboard certainly ensured his inclusion within it. Yefimov quite clearly despised the first officer, but that was personal. Baxter couldn’t help the feeling that the surly lieutenant was probably a better seaman, though with a less deft touch with his subordinates.

  The others, though… The occasional pamphlet he found told him what was what. The incendiary materials weren’t left lying around openly, but nor was care taken to squirrel them away. They were there to be found, and read, and this he did. He read less Russian even than he spoke, but the tracts were quite obviously written for the barely literate and he understood enough of them.

  Marxism.

  A word to instil fear into even the stoutest of wealthy hearts, its tendrils had even reached into Britain. Baxter had even heard that the purportedly evil genius behind it had spent time in the grime and depression of the northern cities of Britain. He was astonished this sort of thing was going on so openly aboard ship; he had no illusions that the lower decks of a British warship would have their share of sea lawyers and revolut
ionaries, but they would not be this blatant.

  He had, however, had more of an opportunity to get to know the Russian bluejackets far better than he had during his time in the Royal Navy. It had begun with a dinner invitation in Tangiers.

  “The admiral has heard of you,” Juneau told him as Vasily assisted him in dressing for dinner. Somewhat clumsily. Baxter had protested that he’d been putting his clothes on by himself from a young age, but Juneau insisted. He appeared to derive endless entertainment from it. “He has asked to inspect this strange beast, an English Navy officer who claims to be no such thing.”

  “I ain’t a bloody Royal Navy officer,” Baxter growled, without any real heat. This had become something of a ritual of theirs. “I’m a merchant sailor, and there’s nothing more to it.”

  Juneau laughed, clapped his hands with delight. “Yes. This is what a spy would say.”

  The performance seemed a little false, as though the Russian officer was covering for a deep nervousness. He was in his full-dress uniform, dripping with gold braid and decorations, and Baxter doubted the thought of dining with the commander of his squadron would hold much to fear for a man of his standing. He suspected it was more to do with fear of what their Britisher might get up to.

  He inspected himself in the mirror. The cruiser’s officers had their own tailor, Gregory, who had been commissioned to provide evening wear. He was, unfortunately, only versed in Russian uniforms and the latest gentlemen’s fashion, and Baxter felt vaguely ridiculous.

  He’d survived worse. Like being cashiered from the Navy. That thought gave him the spurt of anger he needed, straightening his back and shoulders in a way that would have split the seams of the close-fitting frock coat if it hadn’t been cut for his solid frame.