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

by Tim Chant

  Baxter was certain they had crossed the Equator not long before the squadron dropped its anchors at Libreville. He knew this from his previous visit, through navigation had never been his strong suit. The Russian crews, though, marked the event in the time-honoured way the day after they had weighed and continued their slow journey south.

  “It is fascinating, is it not?” he commented to Juneau as they watched the festivities unfold. ‘Neptune’ had come aboard not long after nine in the morning and mounted his gun carriage, his arrival saluted by the ship’s band that now accompanied the slow procession towards the prow, where a giant canvas tub had been set up. The ancient sea god — in fact Vasily — was stalking the ship, preceded by capering devils and barbers with giant razors, half-dressed warriors and Russian peasants, gathering up those who had not crossed the line and herding them forward. It was, in this case, most of the crew. Much hilarity ensued as the neophytes were hunted down.

  “What is, Mr Baxter?”

  “Having had the opportunity to observe naval and other customs from many different nations, I have noted many differences. Some minor, merely in how a rank or title is styled. For instance, in the Royal Navy you would be a lieutenant-commander not a captain of the second rank. Others are significant. And yet, across all seafaring nations, this pageant is observed with a religious fervour. It may differ in its details, but the intent and the spirit are the same.”

  “One might even say pagan fervour,” Juneau mused. “If the ship’s chaplain may not be in earshot.”

  “I believe he is hiding from a considerably older deity.”

  “Sensible man.”

  Baxter turned to face the Russian officer, a slow smile spreading. “You have not seen this done before, have you?” he said, keeping his voice as mild as he could manage.

  Juneau shook his head. “Indeed. I have never been so far from home.”

  “And I understand that officers are not considered exempt from marking this important occasion,” Baxter went on. Looking down, he caught the eyes of a hunting party of devils, whose job it was to bring sacrificial victims before the ancient god of the sea. The procession was passing just below them at that moment. He tilted his head very slightly at the first officer, and one of them nodded his understanding.

  “I understand that even the flagship’s captain has not avoided it. I cannot imagine our own noble captain would subject himself to such an indignity.” Juneau turned, a suddenly alarmed expression on his face. “You would not, Mr Baxter!”

  “I, of course, most certainly would not. However…” Baxter nodded to the hands who were making a ham-fisted attempt to creep up a companionway and surprise the first officer.

  Juneau threw his hands up in mock indignation. “Very well, I must submit myself, it seems!” he declared as he allowed himself to be led away. Baxter noted, as he went, that the normally elegant officer was wearing an older and slightly threadbare uniform.

  Two of Neptune’s followers grinned at him, a mixture of fear and slyness on their faces. He was the biggest man on the ship, with the exception of Vasily, and no one really knew yet what his status was. Prisoner? Guest? To be included in the ship’s customs or not?

  Baxter smiled, held his hands out to his sides. “The line, I have crossed many times,” he said in deliberately broken Russian. They smiled, ducking their heads before heading off in search of other prey. One of them at least looked more than relieved. “Though Tomas’ka?” he called after them in English. He shook his head when one of them looked back. “He has not.”

  From somewhere further back there came a muffled cry of trust betrayed and the sound of bare feet slapping on the deck. He heard Ekaterina laughing and tilted himself over the rail to see her leaning back to laugh as the lad made a beeline for cover. She glanced across at him, and her smile didn’t go, but changed somewhat. He looked away quickly, confused and unsure of what to make of … any of it, really.

  CHAPTER 9

  “How goes the day, Master Dunbar?” Baxter asked.

  They were far south, now, not far from the Horn, and the temperature at least had dropped off somewhat. The preceding days had dragged past as they crawled further south. Africa, vast beyond comprehension, appeared only as a drab, dun mass forever to port. The baking heat had made everyone lethargic and the tedium had made them tetchy. Only the soporific heat kept tempers from flaring to violence, though Vice-Admiral Rozhestvensky had also let it be known that any ill-discipline would be met with abandonment in an open boat. This had quelled an incipient mutiny by civilian stokers who had been brought on to the biggest ships and ensured that any further trouble was kept well out of sight.

  Tommy had become more subdued the further from home they got. His ritual ducking and shaving — and a fine down had started to appear on his chin — had been a high point for him, as in a way it had made him more a part of the shipboard community than Baxter was.

  Ekaterina had done what she could to keep the lad’s spirits up, though she had passed the word that perhaps Mr Baxter would speak to the boy. After the attempted assassination at Libreville, most of her interactions with Baxter had been at that distance. She communicated with him through intermediaries and passing pleasantries at the dinner table, though he sometimes fancied he caught her watching him. Her gaze was usually assessing and calculating, but he occasionally caught himself hoping there might be something more to it.

  “It was all right. I was showed some knot tying.”

  Baxter noted the boy’s glum tone. “And how are you holding up?” he asked quietly. They were in the stern of the ship and there were others nearby, though most gave the prisoners a modicum of space.

  Tommy looked up at him, eyes brimming, and Baxter knew exactly what was going through the boy’s mind. “It’s all right to be scared, Tommy,” he said. “You’re a long way from home and getting further every day.”

  A look of indignation replaced the tears that had threatened to fall. “I ain’t scared, Mr Baxter! I’m just worried about my ma. She’ll be sick with worry about me.”

  Baxter didn’t say that Mrs Dunbar would almost certainly be grieving for her dead son. He cursed himself for getting the boy involved in this. For not standing his ground, for being too hungover to insist that Tommy went home. For being so desperate that he’d taken the job in the first place.

  “Do you know where we are, lad?” he said at last, rather than expressing any of that.

  “Coast of Africa?” Tommy said sullenly. “Where we’ve been for months.”

  That, of course, was a slight exaggeration. “Not far above the Cape,” Baxter said. “Which, for centuries, has been a special place for sailors like you and me, Tommy. It’s where we’ll start heading more east than south. Just imagine that, Tommy — the fabulous Orient!”

  That didn’t cheer the boy greatly — if anything, mentioning going even further from home made him look more glum. Baxter leant in close, craning his neck and putting a slightly awkward hand on the boy’s shoulder. He’d never been any good with children. “And it’s a British colony,” he said as quietly as he could. He squeezed the shoulder, perhaps a little harder than he should, to warn Tommy not to make a fuss of that.

  For once, Tommy seemed to get the hint. “Why’re we going this way, anyway? Thought the whole point of the Suez Canal was to cut the journey short?”

  Baxter looked down, surprised despite himself, and blew out a breath. “Well, that’s a good question and one for the admiral. Some say it’s because he’s worried the Canal would be too shallow for his big ships, but that’s tosh. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s scared the Japanese will attack him in the Canal. Which is also rubbish, just as it’s nonsense they tried to attack him in the North Sea. But he’s an odd fish, Rozhestvensky, and has some strange ideas.”

  He realised he was perhaps being indiscreet, and when he looked round he realised Ekaterina was on the superstructure overlooking the stern. Watching him with those cool, assessing eyes.

  He tur
ned his face back to the sea. The Yaroslavich was stationed towards the forward edge of the 2nd Pacific Squadron’s rough formation, giving him a magnificent view of the other warships. Even with a clutch of the big old battleships and the destroyers, not to mention the support ships, dispatched through the Canal, it was a magnificent assembly — in terms of numbers, anyway, though he had to admit the Russians had some fine vessels. The setting sun gilded the ships under their canopy of smoke, doing much to disguise the coal dust and the many flaws his experienced eye had picked out.

  Looking out to the south and east, the gathering darkness was already deeper than it should have been, presaging a dirty night. It wouldn’t be the first time their progress had been hindered by foul weather. Coaling at the German colony of Angra Pequena, a bit further to the north, had been a miserable business, the worst yet, due to the powerful gale that had come up, at one point driving one of the colliers onto the Suvorov’s main guns. They’d resorted to coaling using the ships’ own boats until the wind had died down.

  Baxter had been half considering an escape attempt there, to the small British colonies on the islands just outside the bay. The weather had put a crimp on that plan, and intelligence brought by the German governor — know universally as ‘the Major’ — had further hampered him.

  He shook his head now, remembering his frustration. “Torpedo schooners,” he muttered derisively.

  “Wha’s that, Mr B?” Tommy asked.

  “That idiot German put the idea in Rozhestvensky’s head that we’re converting sailing schooners into torpedo boats for the Japanese, at Durban on the other side of the Horn. The most preposterous thing I’ve heard on this ridiculous voyage, as it’d never work.” Baxter didn’t add that the unsubstantiated rumours had put the Russians on edge, making it harder for him to attempt an escape.

  As they drew closer to the Horn and the eventual turn north, past Durban, that agitated state only became more acute. If the weather didn’t put pay to the plan he’d hinted to Tommy, to make a break for Cape Town or at least somewhere on dry British land, the paranoia settling over the fleet would.

  Luckily, for him at least, the British Empire was one on which the sun never set.

  Ekaterina glided up next to him, glanced down at the boy. “Tomas’ka,” she said with a fond smile. “Run along so Pavel can dress you for dinner.”

  Tommy bobbed his head. “Yes, miss,” he said, and darted off, weaving between the sailors. With a start Baxter realised the exchange had been in Russian, on both sides.

  “I think we’re in for some foul weather, Countess,” Baxter said awkwardly. “I wouldn’t necessarily bank on a formal dinner this evening.”

  “You British, letting your standards slip so easily.”

  He bristled slightly. “At sea, the weather dictates the standards,” he said, voice abrupt to the point of rudeness.

  She laughed off his ill temper. “I apologise, Mr Baxter, I have been perhaps … churlish?” Her command of English was perfect, and only the occasional pause like that and the slightest accent gave away that it was not her native language. “Tell me, have you thought further on our unfortunate encounter in Libreville?”

  He had. It had gnawed at him during the long, dark hot nights as he lay awake in his cabin or, more frequently, slung a hammock somewhere on deck. He could not shake the feeling that the attempt somehow connected with Arbuthnott and whatever he was scheming. But how had the man got someone there so fast, or even known that Rozhestvensky would be insane enough to go all the way round the Horn?

  No, far more likely that it was a disaffected sailor or jealous officer. That had to be it.

  “I have given it some thought, Countess, though with so little information it is hard to see what further we can deduce.”

  “Well, hopefully that charming French policeman will have some luck with the bullet and fulfils his promise to telegram the squadron.”

  That was interesting — it seemed Juneau shared everything with his wife rather than seeking to shield her from some things. “And what of you, if I may ask? Perhaps, when we have reached a more developed port, you could await further word while the fleet sails onwards.”

  Fire flashed in her eyes. “Where my husband goes, Mr Baxter, I go. And how would I catch up with the ship if word did reach me?”

  He acknowledged the point, and the implicit rebuke, with a slight nod. She changed course again, throwing his footing off.

  “And what do you make of the reports of what awaits us at Durban?” It was asked innocently enough, but there was just that slight edge of cunning in her gaze. She’d obviously overheard some of what he’d been saying to Tommy, so she already knew what he thought. Which meant she was trying to trip him up, trap him somehow. “Does Durban have the facilities to carry out this work?”

  Very clever. She was after some information, even the smallest titbit, from his RN days. Any sort of way in, he realised, and wondered again who she really was.

  “Well, ma’am, it’s been a long time since I was in Durban,” he said carefully. “So I couldn’t say one way or the other.” He bowed slightly. “I should go and dress for dinner as well. Good day to you, Countess.”

  “I shall see you at dinner, Mr Baxter.”

  Baxter very much doubted that anyone would be dining formally by the time the gale broke. He dined alone in his cabin, a thick sandwich of cold beef and coal dust, perfectly comfortable as the cruiser rose up the side of a wave, lurched over the crest and then almost fell into the following trough; the waves following in an endless progression before eventually destroying themselves on the cape. He could feel the engines thumping as they pushed the ship away from that ironbound shore. Even here he could hear the wind and rain howling about the upper decks — being on the open bridge or anywhere else on deck right now would be beyond miserable, particularly for those new to the sea.

  Gorchakov, if he was any kind of seaman, would be on that exposed bridge, overseeing the safety of his ship; but Baxter guessed that duty had fallen to Juneau. He’d already heard people running past his cabin on the way to the heads — most of the junior officers would not be used to weather this dirty.

  He was just starting to doze off on his cot when someone started hammering madly on the door. “All right, all right,” he grumbled as he pulled himself up and yanked it open. Pavel, Juneau’s servant, stood trembling and wild eyed before him. If anything, the man looked even pastier than usual and most certainly should not have been on any errands. He had to grasp the door frame as the cruiser lurched and rolled.

  “What is it, man?” Baxter demanded after a long moment, remembering to switch into French, the language he had in common with Pavel. The one he would admit to having in common.

  “It is Master Tomas. This great storm has deeply upset him and he has fled into the rest of the ship. Countess Ekaterina, she has gone after him but I am worried — so deeply worried — as it has been so long and all the officers are either on the bridge or prostrated by this gale that will be the end of us all…”

  “Calm yourself, Pavel,” Baxter growled, then clapped him reassuringly on the shoulder. “This is little more than a hard blow. They’re neither of them fool enough to go on deck, so they’ll be somewhere below.” He could see this did not satisfy Pavel. He pulled on his jacket. “Go back to your quarters and do not stir yourself again until this has blown over — I’ll look for Tommy and the countess, make sure they’re safe.”

  Moving through the ship under these conditions was more of a controlled reel than a walk. Even with his knees bent and feet spread it wasn’t easy getting about. Baxter enjoyed a good blow as much as any experienced sailor, though. “Just glad I don’t have to be on deck,” he muttered. Within the armoured shell of the high-sided cruiser the fury of the storm was muted. Those high sides, though, meant she rolled dreadfully. “Now, where would I go if I was a frightened bairn?”

  The answer, of course, was into the lower decks. Either amongst the crew, or right into the lower
compartments where the motion of the ship and the sound of the gale would both be muted.

  Below decks, the old cruiser was cramped and dingy, and right now smelt of fear and vomit. Baxter moved quietly amongst the miserable crew, mostly going un-noticed and unremarked. He guessed Tommy wouldn’t go to the lowermost mid-ships decks, towards the great steam boilers and engines that were the beating heart of the ship. The magazines and other compartments devoted to the Yaroslavich’s warlike purpose would be off limits. Instead he dove down in the honeycomb of storerooms that filled any space that was not otherwise occupied. Everywhere he turned, there were the cursed sacks of coal, even alongside what fresh food was left and wedged in amongst the hated casks of salt beef and sacks of biscuit; fare that would not have been completely alien to Nelson’s sailors.

  Light glimmered through the open hatch of one such compartment. He was about to blunder through, calling out cheerfully for Tommy, but the low Russian voices he could hear gave him pause. He was too far away to make out much, but something in the tone and the occasional word he picked up, plus the oddity of sailors being down here at this time, stopped him.

  The compartment, he saw as he sidled up to the hatch coaming, was one of the larger food stores, lined with shelves and stacks of barrels. Three or four figures were crouched at the far end, around a lit storm lantern. He slipped through the hatch, keeping low. He knew a sensible man would walk away. There were things that went on amongst the lower decks that the wardroom — to which he tentatively belonged — didn’t need to know about as long as they were not prejudicial to discipline or the ship’s safety. There was something about this gathering, though, that struck him as conspiratorial.

  As he drew closer, he started to make out what they were talking about. Class, wealth, privilege. Capital — a notion of which he only had the vaguest notion. Could this be the revolutionary cell that had been dispensing pamphlets? And, if so, could this be turned to his advantage? He inched closer, crouching down and moving silently behind a bulwark of coal sacks, trying to make out who the conspirators were. The uncertain, flickering light of the storm lantern cast their faces into alternating stark relief and deep shadow. He wasn’t sure he’d recognise any of them, even if he did by chance know them.