by Tim Chant
“Very well done, Mr Koenig,” was all he said. “Fine seamanship.”
Koenig actually blushed slightly at the praise. “Luck, more than anything, and the fact we had a steam engine. Not quite in the same league as bringing two open boats in.”
Baxter shrugged uncomfortably. “Two open boats crewed by good seamen,” he said. “Any news of the Yaroslavich?”
Koenig’s face fell. “None,” he said. “Nor of much of the rest of the fleet. Enkvist managed to extricate his cruisers, but has disappeared. Nebogatov gave up without a fight.”
“It was a fight he couldn’t win,” Baxter pointed out, managing to keep his voice calm. “And many men will see their homes again because he chose not to fight it. And Rozhestvensky?”
“As far as anyone can tell, injured and probably a prisoner. He was taken off the Suvorov by destroyer, and I have heard reports they were captured.”
The discussion of the absolute destruction, in operational terms, of the once-proud fleet was obviously depressing Koenig, and Baxter cast around for something to change the subject. There didn’t seem to be a lot else to say.
“The Grafinya has asked me…” Koenig blurted, revealing another source of his unhappiness. “She has asked me to tell you that she cannot see you and will not receive you. She has, further, instructed me to deliver this letter.”
Koenig held out an envelope. Baxter recognised Ekaterina’s elegant copper plate on the front. He took it, feeling the weight of the paper. Turned it over and saw she had formally sealed it with wax. Anything to be doing anything, as a great cold gulf had opened up inside him.
She cannot see you and will not receive you. The dismissal was … impersonal. So very aristocratic.
He held it dumbly, unsure what to make of it all. Not knowing if he wanted to open it, or if it was better to leave such matters in his wake. Make a clean break of things when he left this port. After a moment, in which he was conscious of Koenig’s unhappy scrutiny, he tucked it into his coat.
“Tomas’ka,” Koenig went on after a moment, “is well, and arrangements are being made to send him home. He sends his best.”
Well, that was it then.
“And me?” he asked, not knowing why he was asking Koenig this. He was as unlikely to know as Baxter was.
The lieutenant brightened slightly. “We are to be travelling companions!” he declared. “I am given charge of your custody, with orders to escort you to St. Petersburg.”
Koenig made it sound like it would be a jolly jaunt, and at least Baxter would be in the custody of a fellow Naval man, rather than these flint-eyed secret policemen. There was no point protesting that the whole exercise was pointless, that they could put him on a neutral ship right now and never have to think of him again.
“When do we leave?”
“On the next Trans-Siberian express, in three hours.”
Baxter barked a laugh. After being in limbo, knowing nothing of what his future held, he was suddenly on the move again. “Well, I have nothing to pack,” he said. “So we should have a drink, and toast to an easier journey than our last one.”
***
Join our mailing list for the latest releases, eBook deals, author news, and much, much more!
SIGN UP HERE
A NOTE TO THE READER
Dear Reader,
I first became interested in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904/5, and the naval aspects in particular, through reading about the Dogger Bank incident. It’s something I’d always heard about, but never knew the full context of. When I delved into it a bit more, I rapidly disappeared down the rabbit hole of the fascinating, epic journey of the 2nd Pacific Squadron. The ill-fated expedition was not the last great military odyssey, but it surely rates as one of the most remarkable. The battle of Tsushima itself was the only fleet engagement where pre-Dreadnoughts formed the majority of the battle lines, and was arguably one of the most immediately decisive naval engagements in history. With the loss of the Pacific Fleet, that had taken on the aura of a crusade for him, Tsar Nicholas II’s last gamble had failed and he was forced to the negotiating table with few cards in his hand. The outcome of the war was to shape the next fifty years of international relations in the Pacific.
It is seems odd to me that the wider conflict and Imperial Russian Navy’s part in it are not as well-known as they perhaps should be. While only Russia and Japan exchanged ammunition, the other major European powers were involved in one way or the other (and indeed Britain, a staunch ally of Japan at the time, came close to war with Russia over the Dogger Bank incident). While there have been a number of scholarly tomes that were invaluable for research purposes, not much has been written in terms of fiction that I know of. This is my own small contribution to changing this unhappy state of affairs.
How much of the story, then, is fictional and how much is true to the history? Much of the wider story of the voyage and the battle itself I have tried to keep true to the record. In many ways, it was an adventure that wrote itself, a saga filled with eccentric characters, acts of great bravery and humanity and the occasional bout of utter incompetence that required little or no embellishment. The sources I’ve used do vary in their accounts, and I have written in the gaps between them, occasionally going with interpretations that suit my narrative purposes. I hope I have done justice to the Russian sailors who faced adversity with fortitude and fought with greater courage. In particular, I have endeavoured to avoid the pitfall of making the Russian admiral, Rozhestvensky, the ‘Mad Dog’ of the British press, when he was a considerably more complex person. He was certainly the man to get his ships all the way from the Baltic to the Sea of Japan, even if he was not perhaps the right man to lead them into battle against Togo.
Baxter, Juneau, Ekaterina, the Yaroslavich and everything associated with them are fictional. The ship herself is loosely based on the transitional armoured cruiser Vladimir Monomakh, part of the 3rd Pacific Squadron and one of the oldest ships engaged at Tsushima. To the best of my knowledge, the Tsar’s secret police — the Guard Department or Okhrana — did not employ women; however history is replete with women who were able to use the influence, wealth, subterfuge or sheer dogged determination to open doors normally closed to their gender. I hope I can be forgiven this minor indulgence. Nor is there any record of any plots or conspiracies to draw Britain into the shooting war through a ‘false flag’ operation. Naval panics did occur, often an occurrence blown out of all proportion by those who felt the UK’s seaborne defences were in need of shoring up.
So why, then, a complicated plot to put a disgruntled ex-RN officer onto Russian ships rather than telling the tale from the point of view of a Russian officer in the squadron? Partly, I wanted someone who was an outside observer to the fascinating and, I think, quite strange society and culture of the Russian Empire and its Navy. Partly because espionage and skulduggery often go hand-in-hand in naval fiction, and this provided a story for my protagonists set against the backdrop of the wider events. And partly because I didn’t want a protagonist tied too closely to any one organisation — Marcus Baxter is going to have a long, varied and chequered career around the world…
I am greatly indebted to my good friends Dr Malcolm Kinnear and Paul Hurley, for their insights into Imperial Russian culture and naval architecture respectively, and to Drachinifel for his help with a cover image. As always, the Edinburgh Schismatics writers group has been invaluable with their incisive criticism and boundless encouragement.
It goes without saying that none of this would have been possible without the team at Sapere Books.
Thank you for taking the time to read my debut historical fiction novel — I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it. If you enjoyed it, it would be great if you could drop a review into Amazon and Goodreads — these can be a great help to authors. You can find me on Twitter and Facebook for short rambles about my hobbies, other interests and writing:
I’m also developing a blog, mostly ab
out naval history and my great-grandfather’s career in the Royal Navy, which can be found here: timchantauthor.com
A note on names, dates, and nomenclature
Imperial Russia utilised the Julian calendar. The Battle of Tsushima, to the men of the Russian Pacific Fleet, was fought on 14-15th May (the Julian calendar). To the rest of the world, it was on the 27th-28th May (the Gregorian calendar). As Baxter would think in those terms, I’ve stuck with the Gregorian calendar. Similarly, measurements such as gun calibres are in Imperial (inches) and formation designations are those that would have been familiar to our protagonist. The smallest ships in the Russian force I have seen described as both destroyers and torpedo-boats — given that those that survived were latterly reclassified as destroyers I have gone with that designation as it more closely describes the vessels (in my view).
I have seen the names of both people and vessels rendered in a number of different ways. All I can say is I have tried to be consistent in the spellings (greatly aided by the excellent team at Sapere) — this was a particular struggle with Vice-Admiral Rozhestvensky.
ALSO BY TIM CHANT
THE MARCUS BAXTER NAVAL THRILLER SERIES:
Mutiny on the Potemkin
AS TQ CHANT
The Sam Cane Series:
Sam Cane: Hard Setdown
Sam Cane: Hard Lessons
Sam Cane: Hard Time
The Canes’ Laws Series
The Ascension Run (Cane’s Laws 1)
The Kukuza Gambit (Cane’s Laws 2)
Angel Ark (A Cane’s Laws Novel)
Published by Sapere Books.
20 Windermere Drive, Leeds, England, LS17 7UZ,
United Kingdom
saperebooks.com
Copyright © Tim Chant, 2021
Tim Chant has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales are purely coincidental.
eBook ISBN: 9781800553309