by Tim Chant
A slight change in the motion of the deck under his feet made him pause as he bent to grab a sack from the growing pile being deposited by the sailors labouring on the collier. He straightened as the cruiser lifted unexpectedly, a heavier swell from off the Atlantic carrying her into the side of the collier. The big ships had anchored further into the bay, providing some shelter from the sea, but the anchorage was so crowded that the accompanying cruisers were further out and therefore more exposed. They had fenders out between cruiser and the collier supplying her, but he could not help but think they were perhaps too flimsy.
“Boom her off, you Goddamn lubbers!” he roared at the sailors and officers who were supposed to be watching out for this sort of thing. The cruiser was riding high and fast into the side of the collier. Before anyone could act the two ships hammered together, at least one of the fenders coming free and another just collapsing under the impact. The tortured scream of metal filled the air as the two ships’ hulls ground together. He saw men lose their footing, and a panicked cry came from forward, where the fender had come away.
The ships were sliding apart, the cruiser dipping and the swell carrying the collier slightly higher and shoreward. Confused shouts ran along the deck. Gorchakov was nowhere to be seen, and most of the officers seemed too confused or too worn out to respond. The crew seemed to think that the danger was past, but Juneau at least was pushing through the crowd and dodging around piles of coal to get to the bows.
Baxter could feel another, stronger swell starting to develop. He was already in motion, using his bulk to bully bluejackets out of his way or just running up and over the coal. Trained almost from childhood to work aboard a ship, his footing was sure. He seized up one of the booms the confused sailors were supposed to be using. “Boom her off!” he yelled again.
Juneau was giving much the same orders, the sailors sluggish to obey. They managed to get the spars pointed out over the side, but the weight of the ships and the momentum was such that they could not hope to prevent another contact, just lessen the blow to the hulls. He put everything he had into bracing the boom. Other hands were grabbing onto it, including Tommy’s. The wood was bending, groaning under the strain.
It snapped suddenly, sending them all plunging to the deck. He didn’t have time to think, just threw himself onto Tommy as splinters slashed across the deck. Someone was screaming in pain, and someone was shouting about a man overboard.
Then the hulls crunched together again, a veritably gentle bump after the grinding impact before. The colliers’ crew was yelling in a range of languages, and as he looked up he saw that someone on that vessel at least had some kind of sense and was sheering away, smoke beginning to belch from her funnels as she got up speed and pulled away from the cruiser.
He pulled himself up, saw Juneau crouched behind a gun mounting. “We need to sheer off as well!” Baxter called to his friend. “To starboard!”
“Vasily! Vasily is overboard!” Juneau replied. He was moving, though, heading towards the bridge.
Baxter ran to the rail. The water below was churned into white froth, and soon the collier’s screw would add to the mess. He thought he could see where Vasily had gone in. More to the point, if he surfaced in the same spot he’d probably get torn to pieces by the passing merchantman.
He kicked off the simple shoes he wore, breathing hard to fill his blood with oxygen. Then he breathed out as much as he could and went over the rail in a headfirst dive.
The water was a warm slap in the face as he hit. Probably also infested with sharks. He didn’t think about that as he struck downwards, spotting Vasily trying to thrash back towards the surface. The light shining down through the clear water was cut off as the collier passed overheard and Baxter drove down desperately. The beat of so many engines nearby was a physical assault, hurting his ears and thumping his body.
He caught the enormous Russian sailor by the collar and dragged him down rather than let him try to surface. He could feel the tug of the German ship’s screw, trying to pull him back towards the surface, back to be minced; his lungs were burning, aching. Vasily was struggling against him, madly trying to strike out.
Then there was light again. Baxter reversed, kicking and scooping water with his free hand, his other hand locked in a death grip on Vasily’s collar. The sunlight shimmered above, seemed to be fading. His mind told him to open his mouth, breathe in. He pushed it down, fought upwards, and then breached, sucking air into himself greedily, pulling his erstwhile guard clear of the water. The great bull of a man was alive, and breathing, thrashing, an expression of mindless terror on his face. He tried desperately to grab onto his rescuer, threatening to drag them both down. Mustering all his strength, Baxter threw the best punch he could without firm footing, not hard enough to knock the Russian out but enough to stun him. He hooked a hand under the man’s chin to keep his mouth out of the water and looked around.
“You’re all right, Vasily. Just relax and I’ll get you back to the ship.”
The Yaroslavich was almost a silhouette against the setting sun now — Baxter was still getting used to how quickly it went down at this latitude — and he could just make out a boat pulling towards them. The cruiser was standing off, thick columns of black smoke over her funnels.
“At least we’re clean,” he pointed out to Vasily as he kicked water, keeping them both afloat until rescue arrived. “Though we may get eaten by sharks before the boat gets here.”
Baxter’s stock aboard rose after that, at least with the bluejackets. Like many sailors throughout history, it seemed few of them could swim and the mysterious British sailor had therefore taken on an almost supernatural aspect for them. Gorchakov, of course, was furious that the ship had been embarrassed in front of the entire fleet. While it was true they’d been lax even if the sudden swell had been unexpected, what Gorchakov didn’t seem to grasp was that the fault lay with him as the captain. They were lucky they’d got away with mostly cosmetic damage and some repairs needed to the armoured belt.
Gorchakov, though, seemed determined to find some way to make it Baxter’s fault, although Yefimov had had the watch. Some of the older officers, who tended to congregate around the surly second officer, were increasingly frosty with Baxter. The younger men in the wardroom seemed torn, impressed by his decisiveness and the fact he’d dived into danger to rescue Vasily. He was certain, though, that his one true friend aboard was Juneau.
Tommy was a firm favourite with the crew, darting here and there, treating everything as a great jape. He was rarely far from Ekaterina as she did her rounds of the ship.
Ekaterina was not one of the people, that much was clear. She did, however, genuinely seem to care about the peasant sailors and they responded to that. She’d taken to bringing round water for the men during the sweltering work of the occasional coaling — or, more accurately, Tommy and her personal servant carried pails of water that she doled out at various points. Her wardrobe rotated between a bluejacket’s uniform and a lightweight version of an officer’s normal service uniform, though she was always immaculate in a gown for the frequent dinners in the wardroom.
For any of them to be within hailing distance of clean was a rare achievement indeed. Baxter felt grimy even after he’d washed and changed clothes. Dust filled the air, coating every surface. It filled his nose and lungs, and the food often had a hint of grit about it. Ekaterina made no complaint about it, though, and that was just one of the many things about her he found himself admiring more and more.
It was clear that the young officers aboard also coveted her company — although there were other women accompanying the fleet, they were more-or-less inaccessible aboard the Orel hospital ship, although some enterprising officers from the Dmitri Donskoy had been caught out by a surprise night drill, the Suvorov’s searchlights picking out their small boat after they escorted a nurse back to her berth. The admiral’s wrathful response was seen by some as hypocritical, as it had been apparent since Dakar that the head nurse wa
s his mistress.
Ekaterina’s status, as both a noble and the wife of the first officer, of course kept her above any open declarations or anything more than an admiring glance, but Baxter felt a certain amount of tension among the younger man when neither Ekaterina or her husband were around. Almost as though they were competing for the right to woo her if something befell Juneau.
CHAPTER 8
The French colony of Gabon gave some relief from both the cloying, humid heat aboard and the tension of being cooped up together. It had taken two weeks to labour the 2,000 miles from Dakar to France’s equatorial colony. Two weeks of nervously watching the big battleships as they wallowed in even gentle water, sitting deep enough in the water that their lower decks were often awash. The crews had slept on deck to escape the heat and coal-dust laden atmosphere below, braving being lashed by intense rain in the early morning.
Two weeks of breakdowns, so frequent that some said they were the result of deliberate action; botched exercises and fraught, frantic signals from the flag berating officers and ordering summary punishments. Luckily, the Yaroslavich managed to avoid the ignominy of being ordered out of line to take station to starboard of the flagship. This would have been the ultimate shame.
In a way that reflected the fact that nobody, from the fleet commander to Enkvist, who had charge of the cruiser squadron, seemed to know what to do with the old, outmoded cruiser. She couldn’t take her place in the line of battle or keep up with the modern cruisers. She was an anomaly, almost making her own arrangements and just generally pottering along with the rest of the Imperial Russian Navy’s 2nd Pacific Squadron.
Tension had been high as the fleet nosed its way into the estuary of the Gabon and towards the small, sleepy French colonial capital of Libreville nestled there. The ships followed steam pinnaces that marked out a safe passage and berths in the crystal clear, inviting water. The order to drop anchor had been given outside territorial waters and every eye observed the launch that slid across the placid water towards them from the distant French colonial capital. Those with glasses or telescopes could see the boat bore the fresh fruit and a crate of Champagne for the flagship.
Although no one but Rozhestvensky would be able to sample these gifts, a palpable sense of relaxation came across the officers and men. There would be a friendly reception here, it seemed. Without a telegraph station, there was no way for the colonial authorities to have anything more than the vaguest sense of what was occurring in the wider world.
The hated colliers were still a few days away, and shore leave was granted. Captain Gorchakov had, apparently, reluctantly agreed with Juneau that there was little opportunity for Baxter and Tommy to abscond. The colony was surrounded by jungle rife with cannibals, so rumour had it. Libreville also received little in the way of foreign visitors — indeed, the Russian ships’ arrival was probably the most dramatic thing that had ever happened here and the only other vessels in the harbour were fishing boats and a single somewhat dilapidated French coastal freighter. There would therefore be limited chances to escape by sea.
“It hasn’t changed much,” Baxter commented to Tommy as one of the cruiser’s launches crawled across the placid water. The bluejackets at the oars drove the boat forward with power but little co-ordination or smoothness. This was despite the cox’ns best efforts and exhortations, as Ekaterina and a gaggle of officers were in the stern. Ekaterina was resplendent in a light, white summer dress and the officers were bedecked in their smart dress uniforms (and no doubt suffering as a result). As Lieutenant Yefimov, looking sour as always, was in the party Baxter had taken himself to the bows with the excited lad.
“’Ave you bin here before, sir?” Tommy asked unnecessarily.
“Years ago. I was fifteen, so not much older than you,” Baxter said. “My father’s ship called here on the way to Cape Town. The Land of the Lotus Eaters, he called it.”
“Never had lotus,” Tommy said, slightly wistfully.
“Me neither, lad. I think it’s just an expression.”
“It is a reference to Greek mythology, Mr Baxter,” Ekaterina said from the stern. Baxter coloured slightly, both at being overheard and at having his lack of a classical education highlighted. He could see Yefimov and some of the other officers who understood English smirking. “It means … it is a place to forget yourself and your woes. But also, the things that make you strive.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad,” Baxter muttered.
“I wouldn’t want to forget anything,” Tommy blurted. “I’ve never been somewhere forrin.”
“And you will remember this adventure your whole life, Tomas’ka.” Ekaterina’s voice was indulgent.
“Just stay away from the lotuses,” Baxter muttered, making Tommy laugh. “You’ll be fine.”
A few minutes later, the boat crunched up onto pristine white sand. Baxter jumped over the side with the bluejackets, letting the blood-warm water rise up his legs, and helped pull the launch far enough up so that the lady and officers could disembark without soiling their finery. He’d known exactly how hot it would be here and had commissioned a light linen suit in preparation. It was dry within a few minutes as he wandered up the beach with the rest of the party.
Looking back at the gentle lapping waters of the bay, he saw the beach was already lined with boats. Although there was a small pier, it seemed most crews thought it would be quicker and easier to land here and go straight up into the quiet little town of whitewashed buildings. Merchants were already lining the beachfront to greet the visitors, just as a swarm of what he would call ‘bumboats’ was beginning to surround the ships.
They reached the breakwater, the soft sand above the tideline making the going slightly harder. As they reached the hard-packed road that ran along the beachfront, Ekaterina gestured to Tommy. “Come along with me now, Tomas’ka,” she said quietly, with something approaching an apologetic look at Baxter, just as Yefimov stepped into his path.
The sour Russian officer gave him a rare smile, devoid of any pleasantness. “Enjoy Libreville, Mr Baxter,” he said in his poor French. “I hope the meaning of the name is not too ironic for you.”
Baxter opened his mouth, colouring slightly as he realised he had been ambushed. There had been a plan forming in his head, to see if there was a British consulate here and take shelter, or even just find a bolthole and hope the business of the squadron wouldn’t allow the Russians to tarry long enough to find a couple of errant British citizens.
He couldn’t countenance abandoning Tommy, though, and someone on the Yaroslavich obviously well understood that. He didn’t think it was Juneau, but he could quite believe it was Ekaterina. She knew that keeping the two of them separate guaranteed Baxter’s continual compliance. And, he was certain now, she was so much more than the first officer’s wife who’d come along for an adventure.
He gritted his teeth briefly, feeling a flash of the old desire to knock Yefimov’s block off. He forced a smile and a courteous nod over the smaller man’s head to Ekaterina. “Make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble,” he said, thinking he sounded affable enough.
Yefimov obviously didn’t like being ignored. “Botsman Kobach will accompany you,” he said, his voice acidic. “To help carry any purchases you make.”
Baxter looked blankly at him for a second, until he realised he was referring to the sailor who was still his ever-present shadow. He realised he’d never heard anyone refer to Vasily by his rank and family name — hadn’t even known that his rank was bo’sun. That made him a relatively senior non-commissioned officer.
The big man emerged from the press of sailors waiting eagerly to be dismissed to their pleasures. He was smiling agreeably, obviously not overly worried about having to spend his time trailing around after their ‘guest’. Baxter had, after all, saved Vasily’s life and he seemed to feel he owed Baxter a debt. Baxter had come to value the stolid presence, even though he had no doubt that if push came to shove Vasily would do his duty.
“
Well, Vasily, what does a Russian sailor do on liberty?” Baxter said loudly in English. When the bo’sun just stared blankly at him — Vasily was still maintaining the pretence of not understanding even a word of English — he laughed and clapped the man on the shoulder. “Much the same as British sailors do, I shouldn’t wonder.”
It was the first time in weeks Baxter had set foot on dry land, and he realised with surprise that there was no relief here. He was essentially a prisoner of the Russian fleet, but at least he was at sea. On land, though — that was where things could get more complicated than he liked.
The town was already crawling with sailors. The enlisted men were, in equal parts, excited and bewildered to be somewhere this exotic. Most of them were from farming villages deep within the interior of Russia and had been no further than the Baltic or, at best, some other European port. There was little definition between the town of low stone buildings and wooden huts and the jungle. The sailors marvelled at the trees that loomed overhead, the undreamed-of colours of the enormous flowers; the shapes and sounds of the monkeys that swung about overhead; the great turtles that basked on the beach between the boats.
Contrary to his expectations, Vasily was content to explore the town rather than make for one of the small number of drinking establishments — which mostly just appeared to be open-fronted shacks. Baxter had always relished this part of his seaborne upbringing. He’d had the chance to visit places and experience things most people couldn’t even dream of, including Libreville. He was content to wander with his minder, taking in the sights and sounds and smells.