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

by Tim Chant

  Baxter felt his lip trying to curl in disgust but managed to stop it. He hadn’t had much contact with Britain’s intelligence services, until Arbuthnott, but he didn’t have much time for what Juneau had just described — a form of secret police. But, he reminded himself, it was a form of police charged in part with keeping Juneau and his family safe — he couldn’t fault them for that.

  “But you are right, husband — we cannot be sure it is him, let alone have charges brought against him,” Ekaterina said as though the brief interruption had not happened. “We must observe him, and see if he is the guilty party.”

  “Indeed. There is, after all, little he will be able to do once we are back at sea — the admiral plans to sail into the deep Pacific.”

  Baxter found himself yearning for that. As much as he had enjoyed the privacy being ashore had afforded him and Ekaterina, he could feel the pull of the sea, the simplicity of that life. The desire to wash away the grime and complication of life on land.

  Juneau sighed, and nodded. He didn’t look happy, but as usual he seemed content to take his wife’s lead in these matters. Which, once again, made Baxter wonder who she actually was. “Well, we should go aboard. There is still much to be done and I suspect the admiral will give orders to weigh anchor sooner rather than later.”

  “You remember that storm, after the Cape?” Baxter said. He had to raise his voice over the wind that whipped around the quarter gallery, and foaming green water covered his boots as the Yaroslavich wallowed her way over another wave.

  For as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a procession of itinerant green-blue mountains that battered into the Russian ships. The squadron, only just reunited at Madagascar, was getting increasingly spread out as the storm descended on them. Baxter caught sight of one of the big battleships — he couldn’t tell which — as she went through another wave. A plucky destroyer bobbed in her wake. The smaller ships’ coal bunkers would never have sustained them across the Pacific, and they were instead being towed. Baxter didn’t envy the crews of the tiny vessels, hurled around as they would be by the coming weather; towing them wouldn’t be much fun either, even for the big beasts. They were rearing so far out of the water as they crested waves that the red-painted undersides of the hulls could be seen, freshly scraped of clinging weed.

  “How could I forget!” Juneau replied with a grin, bracing his feet apart with his foul weather gear flapping about him. “Why do you ask? I can assure you, I recognise that there is a storm brewing.”

  Baxter nodded to the darkening sky to the east with a grin. “That isn’t a storm — that’s a typhoon. It’s going to get worse — a lot worse.”

  “You sound like you relish the prospect.”

  “What sailor doesn’t enjoy a good blow?” Baxter asked, then shrugged. “Out here, my friend, there is only the sea. If you forget that, let yourself worry about other things, you will die. If you focus, trust yourself and your crew, you will live. I find it … liberating.”

  Juneau was silent, as though he realised quite how much it had taken Baxter to wring those words from himself. Then they both had to cling on to the rail as the cruiser started to crest the largest wave yet. “Well, I think that’s my signal to join the captain on the bridge.”

  Baxter sniffed, looking again at the sky as the first drops of rain hit his face. “You’d best find me some oilskins as well. Get the feeling you’re going to need me, and everyone else, before this breaks.”

  It was as bad as he’d feared, and worse. The typhoon tore down on them like the wrath of an ancient god, hammering into the Russian vessels as it tore up the ocean to ever-more towering heights. Most of the other ships were soon lost in the murk of lashing rain, occasionally glimpsed as terrifyingly fragile children’s toys toiling up the sides of mountainous waves and then disappearing over the top.

  Baxter had sailed these waters before, learning his trade under his father’s tutelage on a sailing brig running up the east coast of Africa from Cape Town. He’d seen some foul weather then, but nothing to compare to this. As he reeled along the upper deck, clutching the lifelines strung fore and aft, he found himself grinning into the face of the storm. Rain stung his skin and the wind pulled at him, opening gaps in his oilskins so he was soon soaked to the skin. Footing on the planking was treacherous and the ship lurched sickeningly as she successfully crested a wave and everyone aboard lived for another few moments.

  He pulled himself up the companionway, past the armoured wheelhouse and onto the open bridge. Juneau was braced against the fore railing, next to the speaking tubes that connected him with the wheelhouse and engine room — the two most vital parts of the ship in these seas. The first officer looked haggard and drawn — he’d barely left his post in the hours the typhoon had battered them, whereas Baxter and others had been able to get below to dry off and find something to eat. Even on a modern warship, the galley fires had to be out but Pavel and Lieutenant Koenig had between them contrived a makeshift galley in the blazing heat of the engine room. The repast provided wasn’t anything to write home about, but it was hot and most importantly it came with an endless supply of tea. Baxter had never rated the Russian penchant for tarry teas, but he knew now that he’d never be able to live without it.

  Of Captain Gorchakov, there had been no sign. Rumour had it he was laid out in his cabin, dead drunk or sick as a dog. Or both.

  Baxter clapped Juneau on the shoulder, as much to let him know he was there as to indicate companionship. The Russian mustered a smile, leant close to shout in his ear. “How much longer must we endure this, do you think?”

  Baxter shrugged. “No idea!” he roared back cheerfully. “Never seen it this bad!” He was fishing around in the pockets of the slightly too-small oilskins. They were Vasily’s, so more or less broad enough for him but too short. With a grunt of triumph he managed to pulled out a thick sandwich, wrapped in oilcloth, and a flask of tea. “The countess had Pavel whip this up. I added a dash of vodka to the tea.”

  Juneau’s smile brightened briefly, then they both leaned forward and grabbed the polished rail. A wall of grey-green water towered above them, rearing up as though it would smash the ship like so much inconsequential flotsam, dashing away the lives held within. The cruiser’s bows rose, up and up and up, until it felt like she was almost vertical, that she would tip over backwards, and Baxter had to admit to a thrill of fear, his stomach rising, then there was nothing but foam and green water threatening to engulf them as the ship teetered and then started to slide down the other side.

  They breathed for another few moments.

  “It’s pure, basic seamanship,” Juneau shouted, almost as though he was trying to reassure himself. “As long as the engines keep beating and we keep our bows to the oncoming waves, we will ride this out!”

  “That’s the spirit!” Baxter shouted back. He was about to ask where he was needed, but an apparition appeared on the bridge — as though summoned by Juneau’s confident words.

  It was Yefimov, his face pale with a terror Baxter hadn’t thought to see there. He didn’t have his foul weather gear on and his uniform clung to his gaunt frame. He looked frantic as he clawed his way along a lifeline. Juneau went to meet him, moving away from Baxter, and his panicking deputy shouted something, his words whipped away by the wind. Baxter knew it could be nothing good, from the man’s expression and the way Juneau’s mouth dropped open.

  Juneau waved Lieutenant Koenig over, shouted in his ear and then gestured for Yefimov and Baxter to follow him. They left the young officer in temporary command and retreated to the brief shelter of the wheelhouse that lay below the bridge.

  Vasily Ivanovitch was there, to lend his massive strength to the quartermaster at the wheel. It was an enclosed, armoured space, but even with the shutters up the noise of the wind was barely diminished. “Speak,” Juneau almost spat at his subordinate.

  “But this is best not overheard…”

  “The enlisted men do not speak French,” Jun
eau said coldly, glossing over what Yefimov actually meant. The older man swallowed, tugged at his beard in a nervous gesture.

  “I regret to report, Graf, that it has come to my attention that … we … did not catch all of the revolutionaries aboard.” That last bit came out in a rush. “And I believe one or more of them has sabotaged the engines.”

  Baxter stared hard at Yefimov, trying to gauge him.

  “I’m sure a common stoker would not know how to sabotage the engines that badly,” Juneau said dismissively, then broke off as he saw their informant’s expression.

  “I am … given to understand that he is an engineer’s mate,” Yefimov went on, sounding sick. “The problem with educating the peasants, Graf…” This was said with a wan smile that Baxter wanted to wipe off his face with the back of his hand. He wanted to grab the weaselly officer by the front of his shirt and shake the truth out of him. Even in these desperate circumstances, Yefimov was trying to preserve the fiction that he had just stumbled onto this information.

  Juneau’s eyes widened as he understood the implications. “If we lose power now, we’re all dead! Our mutineers are committing suicide!”

  Yefimov nodded unhappily. “It seems this is their intention, as they believe themselves to be dead men anyway.” There was a flash of anger in his eyes. “They intend to take some aristocrats with them.” He swallowed hard, obviously aware that he had perhaps said too much. He clearly wasn’t committed to the cause — not to the point of dying, anyway — but he certainly harboured resentment against the established order. Baxter could almost sympathise, if he wasn’t such an obvious idiot who had thrown in with Arbuthnott and whomever backed him.

  “Well, we must of course stop them,” Juneau declared.

  “I fear the sabotage has already been undertaken,” Yefimov said, his quiet voice miserable. “I did not find out about it until…”

  Baxter loomed over him, struggling to control his temper and to hold back from smashing the man against the side of the wheelhouse until either his bones or the metal structure gave. “What have they done?” he snarled, his own voice quiet but filled with menace.

  “I do not understand such matters,” Yefimov snapped with a touch of his previous hostility.

  “And that’s the problem with the officer classes in most navies,” Baxter rumbled. He gathered a double fistful of Yefimov’s sodden uniform jacket, not hurriedly, and then lifted him from the deck with no apparent effort. From the corner of his eye he saw Vasily stir and then subside at Juneau’s gesture. “Tell me what you know, you little prick.”

  Yefimov’s brief defiance crumbled. “I believe they have sabotaged the oiling system for the shaft…”

  Baxter didn’t need to hear more. He dropped Yefimov so suddenly the man collapsed in a wet pile on the deck, spun to Juneau. Engineering wasn’t his province but he knew enough to understand how dangerous that was. Juneau clearly knew less, but the look on Baxter’s face spurred him to action. He dashed to the wheelhouse’s speaking tube and shouted a series of terse questions down it.

  A strained silence settled over the cramped space. Baxter positioned himself between the hatch and the traitorous officer in case he had some idea about bolting. Juneau stared fixedly at the speaking tubes, as though willing the chief engineer to respond that everything was fine.

  He didn’t even want to think what it must be like in the engine room right now, deep below the waterline. Even there they would be feeling the pitch and heave of the ship, and while they were insulated from the wind and the rain the noise and heat would be horrendous as the massive steam engines laboured away at full power.

  Juneau lunged his head forward to listen to the engine room’s report, barked a response. Baxter couldn’t hear what was being said but Juneau’s expression told him everything. “It seems Yefimov’s intelligence is accurate,” Juneau said, managing to muster a certain amount of sarcasm despite the situation becoming even more desperate. “On inspection, the drive shafts are overheating — they are minutes away from having fused entirely, it seems.”

  “What are we to do?” Yefimov almost wailed from the deck. His jaw snapped shut at Baxter’s glance.

  “I have ordered revolutions reduced, but that will only give us a little more time. It is impossible to know how much more.”

  Juneau chewed his lip. Baxter could well understand his conundrum. A ship not making at least some headway and able to keep her bows into the waves was dead. In this storm, there would be no rescue even if anyone survived.

  The ship lurched, and Baxter stepped up to throw his strength into the wheel along with Vasily and the two quartermasters. The four of them strained against the natural tendency to turn away from the rising water, and managed to keep her bow on. At least here, with the shutters up, they didn’t have to look at what Mother Nature was throwing at them — they just had to follow the orders shouted down from the open bridge.

  Juneau was snapping orders for more men to be sent to the wheelhouse. As Baxter had just discovered, it was enormously taxing work. With no end to the storm in sight and conditions on the ship worsening the helmsmen would need to work in shifts. That would only help, though, if they were under power…

  “You still have masts, old chap,” he heard himself saying, and was surprised at how nonchalant and calm he felt. “I assume they have sails.”

  Juneau blinked at him. The Yaroslavich was, indeed, one of that peculiar breed of ships — a steam ship with an auxiliary sailing rig, albeit not the full hamper she’d been built with thirty years ago.

  Understanding came into Juneau’s eyes, and trepidation. They both knew the crews had barely trained on the masts and yards, let alone gone through any kind of arduous drill until working them became second nature.

  They didn’t have any other choice though.

  “I will need your help,” Juneau said simply.

  “You’ll have it. I have no desire to die on this bloody ship.”

  CHAPTER 15

  It was verging on complete chaos on deck as the officers, such as could be dragged from their cabins, tried to martial the crew that had been unwillingly driven topside. Men ran back and forth, driven by petty officers — some of whom at least were old enough to have done this before. Baxter threw in where he could, but he rapidly discovered a significant problem with his command of Russian.

  “Up the ratlines!” he bellowed to a parcel of sailors who were milling about uncertainly. “The sails, you dolts!” He knew his rage stemmed from frustration at himself. He gestured at the masts, but the men were so overcome by the heave and pitch of the ship, the incredible noise of the wind and rain, that they merely stared at him blankly if they met his gaze at all. Juneau was on deck with him, leaving Koenig in charge on the bridge, but was having little more success.

  “The trick is just to get a scrap of sail up,” he roared in Juneau’s ear. “Anything more and it’ll carry away and we’re fucked!”

  “The trick is to get it up quickly — the chief engineer tells me the shafts are on the verge of seizing entirely and we will have to stop revolutions in about a minute!”

  It was rapidly becoming clear that this wasn’t going to be a quick operation. The bluejackets didn’t understand how much depended on them getting this done and were baulking at clambering up the ratlines, despite the threat of violence from burly petty officers. The handful of, for the most part, junior officers who were on deck weren’t much better.

  “Even if we save the ship, men are going to die,” Baxter muttered darkly. And saving the ship was looking increasingly unlikely.

  He turned, stared aft. The situation around the mizzen and after masts were no better than the foremast. Turned for’ard again in time to see a man get smashed off the ratlines into one of the light guns and fall limply; those coming after him shying away from their duty. The next wave was building beneath them, the peak rearing above. It was, of course, the biggest yet.

  “Right. Not having this.” Baxter grabbed Juneau’s sh
oulder. “Send everyone to the foremast! We’ll get something there and that might get us over!”

  Without waiting for an acknowledgement, he strode forwards. He wanted nothing more than to grab onto a lifeline, but he knew he had to show complete confidence, total competence, now.

  There was no point trying to shout orders or encouragement to the men who huddled miserably in any shelter they could find. He couldn’t blame them for their unwillingness to go aloft and try to carry out unfamiliar tasks in the worst conditions imaginable. They didn’t know that the steady, thumping heartbeat of the engines he could just feel through his boots was about to stop, or that when it stopped they were all dead men if they couldn’t manage this task.

  Without hesitation, he grabbed onto the ratlines and swung himself out. Water raced past under his back as the cruiser heeled and he didn’t let himself think about that, or what a misplaced hand or foot would lead to. He climbed doggedly, the wind dragging at his oilskins and trying to snatch him away from the flimsy safety of the ropes. He didn’t look down, didn’t give any indication he was interested if anyone was following him. Hand over hand, one foot at a time, knowing they were running out of time but that if he hurried he would fall and drown. His muscles burned and limbs shook from the cold — it appeared that he hadn’t fully recovered his strength after the fever. He couldn’t pause, though.

  “Tommy better not bloody show up,” he growled, and found himself throwing his head back to laugh his defiance at the racing clouds and rain.

  Up and up, until he came to the crosstrees. He allowed himself a moment to pause and breathe, try to recover his strength. He allowed himself to look down for the first time, and picked out Juneau back at his station on the bridge. Even at that distance, he could read his friend’s expression.

  The engines had been shut down.