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

by Tim Chant

  His presence and the rudimentary feast could not detract from the high spirits aboard. They had succeeded in doing something many would have thought next to impossible. They’d found the proverbial needle in a haystack, and chased away a meddling British cruiser, and they were not far from a return to the safety and stability of their own ship.

  They knew the squadron was at sea when, two days later, they saw the enormous cloud of black coal smoke that hung over the assemblage. They had been part of it for so long, seeing it from below, that Baxter hadn’t really appreciated just how dense and, well, enormous it was. It was like the Russians’ very own storm cloud following the squadron around.

  “Well, if the Japanese need to find us they won’t have to look hard,” he muttered to Tommy. “Vasily…”

  “Towards the devil’s cloud, yes,” the big petty officer said cheerfully. Vasily seemed far more outgoing in these situations — he was, of course, away from any officers and enlisted men were often more at their ease in those circumstances.

  Baxter felt a palpable sense of excitement from the bluejackets as the pinnace bobbed its way across the waves towards the ships, expecting to find the Yaroslavich at her normal station on the edge of the formation. They were on the move! The bows were pointed north, and the course set for Vladivostok. Baxter scrutinised the formation to see if the much-prophesised and dreaded 3rd Pacific Squadron had joined, but there seemed to be the usual number of ships.

  Perhaps Rozhestvensky had finally made good on his threat to continue without waiting?

  As with many things on this journey, though, the activity was not what it appeared to be. Not long after they first sighted the ships, it became clear they were jostling into position to sail into Van Phong Bay.

  “It was my understanding that we were en route there before our pleasure cruise began?” Ekaterina commented. “To coal and await the third squadron.”

  Baxter smiled at her use of the phrase ‘pleasure cruise’. It had been very far from that, but as it turned out there had been compensations. He lowered his field glasses. “Indeed. I have the Yaroslavich in sight, so we will know what’s what soon enough. Vasily, fire a blank to get their attention, if you please.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” Tommy asked. “They’re reet jumpy, remember?”

  “I know Tomas’ka is speaking a form of English, but sometimes…”

  Baxter’s smile became a grin. “The lad has a point — we don’t want them to think they’re about to come under attack. We’ll send up a flare when we’re a bit closer.”

  Under his obvious pleasure at seeing the pinnace returned, Juneau appeared worn and haggard. “Well, I see you have been successful,” he said completely unnecessarily. They were standing outside Yefimov’s cabin, where the disgraced officer was now under arrest. “And I am glad to see you all safely returned.” This with a particular smile at his wife, but which encompassed Baxter at the periphery.

  “What the devil is going on with the squadron?” Baxter asked. He could not help a note of annoyance — just like the bluejackets, the prospect of finally being on the move, of charging north into danger and resolution, had got his blood up. “We’ve been away more than a week, and yet it seems only just to be arriving at Van Phong.”

  “Oh, we have been here for a few days. Long enough for there to be a mutiny on the Oryol, in fact. Then de Jonquières returned and ordered us to move on again — in accordance with the strict rules of neutrality. It seems Rozhestvensky is no longer trying to pretend he cares, though — as soon as the French admiral had sailed away we turned around and returned.”

  “And for how long does he intend to keep this up?”

  “As before,” Juneau said, slightly shortly. “Until the third squadron arrives or we run so low on coal we have no other option but to go on.”

  Baxter sighed, rubbed his brow. “My apologies, Juneau. It’s been a trying trip, in many ways.”

  The Russian’s blue eyes were light as he glanced between his wife and Baxter. “I’m sure it was relaxing in other ways. But you should both go and rest. Mr Yefimov and I must have words.”

  “Be careful, my husband,” Ekaterina said. “Yefimov seems subdued, but now that he is close to his protector…”

  “Oh, the captain will be no help to him now — or to anyone else,” Juneau said bleakly, without explaining further.

  “Then he may become desperate.”

  Juneau gave her a tight smile and patted the grip of the Nagant revolver he wore holstered on his hip. “I have taken precautions, my love. Now, go and get cleaned up and rest, both you. That’s an order.”

  Baxter and Ekaterina both nodded and turned up the passageway as Juneau went in to see their prisoner. Neither of them spoke and they did not touch, but they walked close together. He was certain now that Juneau was aware of their liaison, and either didn’t mind or actively approved. There was no way they could talk about it now, and he knew there was no point thinking about the future at this juncture. Well, not the future before the voyage to Vladivostok.

  “Well, my lady…” Baxter began as they reached the door to her cabin. A single gunshot, a sharp pop, prevented further dialogue. He spun, but Ekaterina was even faster, running back down the way they had come. It was only a few short steps and her automatic had appeared in her hand as she burst through the door and came up short with a gasp.

  A thousand things flew through Baxter’s mind as he followed her in. He was ashamed that one of them was the thought that Yefimov had overpowered and killed Juneau, which would free Ekaterina…

  The smell of cordite hit his nostrils, overlaying the copper tang of blood. Juneau was over by the porthole, unlatching it. The sunlight streaming through illuminated the cloud of acrid powder smoke that swirled and danced as it started to disperse. Baxter felt an overwhelming sense of relief that his friend was still alive.

  The same could not be said for Yefimov. He slumped in the chair he’d been tied to, head back, and the porthole Juneau was opening was splattered with blood and chunks of brain. Baxter walked round, swallowing gorge. The hole in Yefimov’s brow, just above his left eye, was deceptively small — the Nagant fired a powerful round and it had made a mess of the back of the traitor’s head. Blood and pulped brain matter dripped from the ragged, fist-sized hole there and pooled on the decking. Baxter noted that one of Yefimov’s hands was free, scored bloody — no doubt as he pulled it free from his bonds.

  “He came for me, you see,” Juneau said in a slightly distracted voice. He sounded calm — too calm, in fact. Baxter stepped around the expanding pool of blood to his side. He was shaking, very slightly. “He managed to work his hand free. I’d shot him before I’d even thought about it.”

  Baxter reached out and gently took the still-smoking revolver from Juneau’s hand; he gave it up without resistance. The barrel was warm to the touch and Baxter worked the ejection lever to remove the remaining live rounds before placing it on a side table and pocketing the bullets.

  Baxter glanced across at Ekaterina. Her eyes were wide, the merest hint of a tear at the corner of her eye. He knew she had been thinking the same thing, as they rushed here, and the thought of her husband being dead had obviously terrified her. He felt an agonising stab of jealousy and fought it down. “Sounds like he didn’t give you a choice, my friend,” he said. He could hear the sound of feet beyond the door, moved quickly to block it before people could come barging in.

  “Everything is under control,” he told Lieutenant Koenig, the leader of the pack running here. “Second Captain Juneau is in shock. He and the countess will go to his cabin. Please ask Dr Andropov to attend him, and alert Pavel that he will need a drink. A stiff one.”

  “I heard a gunshot, will the doctor not be needed…” Koenig began, and quailed at Baxter’s scowl.

  “Mr Yefimov is beyond any medical assistance,” he said bluntly. “Detail a party to collect his body and prepare it for burial. And someone to clean this mess up.”

  �
��You’re a good man to have around in a crisis,” Ekaterina said as she took her husband’s arm. She was still pale, but had composed herself. “You keep your head.”

  Baxter shrugged. “I’m a sailor, ma’am, who’s survived more than a few years at sea.”

  She smiled, slightly sadly, and patted his arm as she escorted a shaking Juneau from the cabin.

  “He’s sleeping,” Ekaterina said later, as she and Baxter relaxed over a pot of tea in the Juneaus’ receiving cabin. “So try to keep your voice down.”

  Baxter cocked his head and looked at her inquisitively. The shock and worry of before had been replaced by something else. Almost as though she was angry with her husband.

  “It wasn’t his fault, you know. We should have had Yefimov watched at all times, or at least tied him better.”

  She shot him a slightly scathing, but also vaguely amused look. “Well, Juneau will be pleased he fooled at least one person.”

  That took Baxter aback. He opened his mouth, closed it again and thought. “You think…”

  “I suspect. It’s more or less how I would have set it up.”

  Occasionally, she said things that left him chilled to the bone. No — not what she said, but the way she said it. Clinically, almost casually.

  “Well, he’s no longer a threat to us…”

  “Oh, don’t be so naïve!” She slumped back in her chair, took up her beverage. “Yes, he was a threat, but one under control.”

  “You sound angry that he’s dead?”

  “Because I wanted to question him, get intelligence on who his backers are and what they’re planning.”

  “Well, I think we already know that,” he said gruffly, starting to feel his anger stir. He knew her response to hearing the shot, and relief at seeing Juneau alive, was making him behave in an utterly irrational and churlish manner.

  “We know what you have told us,” she said, her voice slightly caustic, then relented and waved a hand in apology. “And while I have no doubt you are telling the truth, as far as you understand it, I would like to have more … corroboration?”

  Of course he was telling her the truth, because he knew he was hers, now. He was beginning to realise, though, that she would never be his. Not truly. That stung him, right down to his core, but it was something he knew he would learn to live with. Just as he’d learned to live with other disappointments.

  She was staring levelly at him, almost as though she could look through his skull and read whatever was going through his mind. Given he’d always been something of an open book and she was unusually perceptive, it was likely she was doing exactly that. “Well, at least he isn’t a danger to us anymore,” he reiterated, by way of attempting a distraction.

  “And that is why, I think, Cristov did it — Yefimov was a threat to the two people he cares about most in the world.” Baxter raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh, my husband has taken quite a shine to you,” she said, her eyes now dancing with amusement. “It might have been one of the things that has kept you alive.”

  “There’s more than one?”

  “I’m told you have your uses.” A wicked smile was playing over Ekaterina’s mouth now, then her expression became stormy again. “I am given to understand that Gorchakov’s health has deteriorated to the point that he has been confined to his bed by Dr Andropov. I fear this may break our good captain entirely, and depending on who replaces him things could change around here. Significantly.”

  “Has this been reported to the admiral’s staff?”

  “Not as yet, no.”

  He shrugged. “Well, I’m sure there’s still a good chance the good captain will recover his health and wits and reassume command. I’m sure there’s no need to inform the staff until such time as we are absolutely certain he will not make a recovery. Which probably won’t be until we’re thoroughly at sea and with no easy option for him to be replaced. Sadly.”

  She looked at him quizzically, and then grinned. “You are truly a practical species, you sailors.”

  “I couldn’t possibly know what you mean.”

  She nodded. “I will speak to Dr Andropov. This will put a large burden on Juneau, you know.”

  “He’s already carrying it, and he’s got some good officers to support him.”

  “And a good friend.”

  Baxter rose rather than responding to that, wondering just how true that really was. He wasn’t sure hoping someone was dead to free his wife fit the definition of a ‘good friend’. “So, what next?”

  “We bury Yefimov, as a good Christian should be, but with little ceremony as he was a traitor. And then, I’m told — ever onwards, ever northwards.”

  She couldn’t hide the scorn in her voice.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Straits of Tsushima. Morning, 27th May 1905

  “Damn this fog.”

  Baxter glanced across the open bridge at Lieutenant Koenig’s exclamation. The young officer was an indistinct shape in the heavy fog that blanketed what was now the Imperial Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet, since the 3rd Squadron had finally joined up.

  “This fog, if it holds, could be the only thing that gets us through to Vladivostok,” he pointed out, moving across to join Koenig in staring east, towards Japan. Trying to make anything out was hopeless, of course. They were steaming more or less blind. Somewhere to starboard the rest of the fleet was the occasional fleetingly-seen glimpse, when the fog banks broke, or more commonly a dark shape the lookouts were just about aware of.

  “True,” Koenig admittedly ruefully. Like a lot of the younger officers, he appeared to remain devoted to the idea of forcing a decisive engagement at this point. While Baxter agreed it would be a deciding match, he was less sure that it would go the way some of the Russians still believed it would. “It does mean we don’t even know if Togo and his ships are even at sea.”

  They had limited intelligence on what the Japanese movements were. With Port Arthur taken and the independent cruiser squadron at Vladivostok contained, they knew Togo would have taken the opportunity to return to port to resupply and refit. Their own hold ups, particularly the interminable weeks at Van Phong while they waited for the reinforcements, had been a gift to their enemy.

  Baxter sniffed the damp air. “If he isn’t at sea, he’ll be ready to put to sea quickly. We’re not far from a number of ports.”

  “It begs the question of why the admiral chose to come this way,” Koenig muttered, looking vaguely abashed at having the temerity to question the fleet’s commander.

  “He doesn’t have any choice — the ships are worn and in need of maintenance, even without having to worry about coal,” Baxter said, his voice gentle. He couldn’t blame Koenig for his tension, which was shared by most aboard. “This is the most direct route to Vladivostok.”

  It was also, of course, the most dangerous. The straits between Korea and Japan were relatively narrow and easy to cover, and the Japanese owned both shores. Rozhestvensky had timed his arrival well, approaching at night in the hopes of slipping through, and the fog had been a bonus.

  Baxter had allowed himself to start hoping that they might actually pull this off. It wouldn’t be a victory, but they would have survived as a formation and, with time to refit and resupply, could become an effective fighting force.

  Juneau arrived on the bridge. There were bags under his eyes, which remained slightly haunted by what he’d done. None of them had spoken of what had transpired with ‘their friend’, and didn’t even speak his name. Baxter was still unsure whether Juneau had, in fact, murdered the traitor, or whether it had been a shooting in self-defence.

  “I gather congratulations are in order, First Captain,” he greeted his friend.

  Juneau gave him a wan smile that was still genuine. “Thank you. It was confirmed this morning. Gorchakov will be transferred to one of the hospital ships today, and a shore hospital at the earliest convenience.”

  “Your first command?”

  “Of any real substance, yes.”
Juneau took his glasses off and wiped them with a silk handkerchief. “I hope it does not last merely a day.”

  Juneau straightened, and adjusted the hang of his double-breasted, black overcoat. It hadn’t seen the light of day for quite some time, and hung loosely about him. “Well, gentlemen, at least we are out of that interminable heat! This weather suits my Russian soul better.”

  There was a murmur of agreement and some laughter that helped break the tension.

  “Hello, who’s that?” Koenig said almost to himself, the mild interjection sending ice water down Baxter’s back. “Oh, it’s just the Orel.”

  A break in the fog had revealed the hospital ship, trailing a bit behind the fleet. In accordance with international custom and law, she was fully illuminated, the red crosses on her white-painted superstructure serving to make it clear that she was not a legitimate target. It was the decent thing to do, but the glow of her lights in the fog risked drawing enemy attention.

  “Who’s that she’s signalling, though?” someone else asked. Any number of people were now staring at the ship — any break in the monotony of the fogbound early morning.

  Orel was signalling to port, more or less across Yaroslavich’s stern. Juneau led a small procession to the other wing of the bridge to scour the sea scape for the mysterious communicant.

  “Orel’s signalling as though that’s a ship in the fleet, but she looks like a merchantman,” Juneau said, confusion apparent in his voice.

  Baxter had the distant vessel in his field glasses now, studied her carefully. “She’s a merchantman,” he said slowly. “But she’s an armed one.”

  “Is it the Ural?” Juneau asked, referring to the armed merchant cruiser assigned to close escort of the fleet auxiliaries.

  Baxter felt a gnawing sense of doubt and growing dread. “She’s off station if she is. Could have got lost in the fog, I suppose.” That wouldn’t be unusual. “Or one of the ships sent out to create a diversion, trying to rejoin.”

  Rozhestvensky had trimmed the fleet down somewhat during the final approach, sending most of the transports away and detaching the less useful warships to try to distract the Japanese. Juneau and Baxter hadn’t even raised the possibility of Ekaterina or Tommy departing on those vessels. They were still in a war zone and subject to attack, true, but it was more a common understanding that the four of them were going on together.