Men of War (2013)

by John Schettler

  When Haselden first saw Fort Shevchenko from the air it looked like the maw of a great seabird, with a great reddish lake for the bird’s eye and a long isthmus of land jutting out into the Caspian parallel to the main coastline that looked like the top of the beak.

  “What have we gotten ourselves into this time,” he muttered to Lieutenant Sutherland. The lean SAS man was also peering out the window, noting the shoals and murky greenish water, especially north of the harbor where the Caspian was very shallow.

  “My Lord, there’s nothing here,” said Sutherland, “not a tree to be seen in any direction for miles.”

  Eighty years on there would be much more to see. Tall oil platforms and off shore rigs would stand in tall brooding clusters over the water, their umbilical pipelines slithering down into the silted earth beneath the sea to seek out the precious commodity of oil. In Fedorov’s day a big Chevron operation would be right beneath their feet, with officers and installations right there in Ft. Shevchenko and further up the coast at Buzachi. The Kashagan superfield would be just north in the dull blue waters of the Caspian, but now the place was empty and forlorn, a vast vacant wasteland under a mackerel sky.

  “That’s no bother,” said Haselden. He had been accustomed to places like this, wide open tractless stretches of desert that went on and on for hundreds of miles and took a man nowhere if he ever found himself lost there.

  “Well it doesn’t offer much cover, “ Sutherland complained.

  “We won’t need it here,” said Haselden. “Remember, we’re just Lend-Lease survey officers on this side. We don’t have to become commandos until we get over the Caspian.”

  “What did you make of that bit at the end about the Germans?”

  “What of it? Did you think this was going to be a joyride, Davey boy? We’ll move all night, two days in, a couple days to find this man, and then back to the coast.”

  “Sounds wonderful, unless there’s a armored car or two at our backside. Then what? We’re not packing any heavy weapons, eh?”

  “I’ve one of those new popguns Seventeen talked about if we need it. A prototype. They give our sort all the new things for testing. Sergeant Terry will do the honors.” He was referring to the new British AT weapon introduced that year, the PIAT, which stood for Projector Infantry Anti-Tank, a hand held mini-mortar of sorts that could propel a 2.5 pound bomblet a little over a hundred yards. It would not see widespread use until the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, but Seventeen-F had a way of getting his hands on all the latest tools of the deadly trade he and his men practiced.

  “Today we play our little ruse on this end,” said Haselden. “We walk about with clip boards and field glasses and survey equipment while the flight crews set up our base camp and get the wireless sorted out. Then a few hours sleep, a good meal and it’s off in your swift boat we go.”

  “Best to cross by night,” Sutherland agreed.

  “Right, then we set up on the far side with Corporal Severn seeing to the boats and all, and the three of us, you, me and Sergeant Terry, make the trek west tomorrow night.”

  “Splendid,” said Sutherland. “We’ll see what we can learn on the radio tomorrow before we leave. And let’s hope the Russians don’t give us any trouble and remember who’s side they’re on.”

  “Count on trouble, Davey. Count on it. That way when it comes you’ll be more than ready for it. The NKVD obviously want this man as badly as we do. They yanked him right out from under our noses and shipped him thousands of miles to get him here. Now we’ve got to bring him back, and they won’t like it. Mark my words. They won’t like it one bit.”

  They played their roles admirably, speaking with the local authorities and hearing their requests for supplies, trucks, cranes and other equipment, and strutting about the port area with clipboards and surveying equipment. That night their supply team had set them up on the coast on the small peninsula that Haselden took for a bird’s beak from the air. They had their two inflatable rafts deployed just after dark and the four men slipped silently into the Caspian, paddling west to get well away from the shore before they would risk starting their small motors to make the crossing. Their supply team covered for their absence with a clever story about survey work up the coast. The Caspian was 140 miles wide at this point, much too far to cross without a motor assist, and soon they were cruising on the dark waters of the sea, lit by a waning gibbous moon.

  Sea conditions were calm, with only a light breeze and mild temperatures. The warm summer days were cooling into autumn, but still comfortable. At times they would see the distant shadowy forms of other boats on the sea, small steamships towing what looked to be long lines of grayish metal oil tanks, gleaming in the pale moonlight. These were actually oil cisterns that had been filled and floated for just this purpose, linked together by long rusty chains and then slowly towed north towards Astrakhan.

  These encounters would often force them to turn their motor off and stop for a time, laying low in the black rubber inflatables until the distant traffic passed. Sutherland coordinated their movement stealthily, sending hand signals to Sergeant Terry and Corporal Severn following behind them. He navigated with a compass and the moon, guiding them unerringly west. Haselden kept a sharp eye with his field glasses, spotting out the next traffic well before it could pose any problem. At one point they got a little too close to a steamship, and a small trawler flicked out a searchlight, missing them by a close margin and then moving on again.

  They made the crossing in a little over five hours and soon made out the dark flat shoreline of Chechen Island in the distance. It was located off a headland on the western coast, the province of wild flights of seabirds which hovered and swooped over the brackish shore, gathering in thick clusters and whitening the rock there with guano. They navigated well north of the island, switching off their motors as they approached and taking to the paddles again.

  Going was slow at this point, as they had to quietly navigate shoals and shallows near the coast, but they were soon ashore, dragging their boats up a thin beach to an area of low scrub. Severn would do his best to conceal the boats and keep a watch while the other three men began shouldering their packs and supplies for the long trek west.

  The moon was finally down at a few minutes past four in the morning and Haselden wanted to use those brief hours before sunrise to get his team inland. They made their way along the wandering course of a small stream which eventually led them to a road about two miles inland.

  “This is it,” Haselden hissed in the dark. “It should take us all the way in to Kizlyar, so let’s get a move on. We’ve got an hour or two left before sunrise, then we’ll lay low as the sun gets up, and get some rest. This road will only take us so far, because if this place is being probed by the Germans there will certainly be Russian troops there. This is going to be a bit dicey.”

  That was an understatement, Sutherland thought. How in the world were they supposed to find this man? He could be any one of a thousand men in this town, and they certainly couldn’t wander about shaking hands and asking for a Mister Orlov. All they had to go on were a couple of photos of the man and his description. He may be in NKVD uniform, tall, well muscled. He might be with an older woman. It was all very thin, and he realized it would come down to patience, stealth, good field glasses, and a desperate search for a tall husky man and a woman together that might be a giveaway. They had no idea that Orlov’s grandmother was a young beauty of eighteen years.

  If the team were spotted it was likely they would be taken for slackers or deserters at first sight, or worse, German scouts. He shook his head, thinking this whole mission had not even the slightest chance of succeeding. Then he chastised himself and thought: this is 30 Commando, Her Majesty’s very best, and by God we’ll get the job done one way or another.

  * * *

  When Orlov reached the coastal town of Makhachkala it seemed a desolate and empty world compared to his grandmother’s farm in the lush lowland hills south of the Caucasu
s. He had been many hard days on the road, hitching rides on passing trucks when he could. He quickly learned that he had to remove his Ushanka cap with insignia when he wanted a ride, or the driver would hasten on by, unwilling to pick up a security man who might bring a lot of trouble in his pockets.

  Along the way Orlov went through Baku, where he saw firsthand the hectic and hasty dismantling of the oil rigs and drilling equipment. At one point a Commissar noticed him, with a dark surmise that promised trouble, but Orlov was quick on his feet, and simply began shouting orders to a group of nearby men who were lugging equipment towards a truck.

  “Come on, you limp dicks! Put your backs into it! You there—get it up on your shoulder!” His natural authority and assertive spirit helped him play the part well, and the Commissar simply smiled, thinking Orlov was just another man from another detachment flailing the rank and file along to get the heavy work done.

  Orlov thought Baku might be a place to look for Anya Kanina, his grandmother, so he lingered there for a long day, snooping around to see what he could learn, going to hotels and brothels and hostels and asking about the woman. People stared at him with dull grey eyes, weary and wary of this big man with an NKVD cap and jacket, and he learned very little.

  He was hoping she had not left too long ago, and had not already endured the violation his grandfather spoke of at the hands of a man named Molla. Even now his grandfather’s voice was whispering to him in his mind, like Svetlana would talk to him through the earbuds. “And Molla, he was a dark swarthy man that one…The old Commissar Molla put his hands on your grandmother in a way no man should, and did unspeakable things. Molla and Burzan.”

  Unable to find her, he decided the next best thing would be to try and track this Molla down. If he was a Commissar, he would be better known, and so he took to asking local work crews and labor detachments if they knew of the man, eventually giving up and jumping a truck north to Makhachkala. It was there that he had his first run in with trouble.

  “You there—what are you doing?”

  Orlov had just stepped off the truck and was wandering along the street, his eyes watchful as he scanned the dull sided buildings and muddied streets. There were many soldiers about, some marching in long lines along the roadway, others gathered in small groups in the dingy streets looking tired and dispirited. Orlov knew instinctively that the challenge had been directed at him, though he tried to ignore it, walking slowly toward the nearest building.

  “I say you!”

  Orlov felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned, frowning to see a short stocky man in a police officer’s uniform staring up at him. His insignia was of a Lieutenant, which immediately worked to Orlov’s favor, as he had taken the rank of an NKVD Captain, and the man saw this at once.

  “Oh… I’m sorry, Captain. I thought—”

  “You thought I was another drifter off the line, Lieutenant? Well if you must know I’m looking for a place to take a good long piss. I’ve been on that damn truck for hours.”

  The officer smiled. “The hotel, sir. Right there.” He pointed at the building Orlov was sizing up himself. Then the Chief thought this man might be able to help him.

  “What’s been going on here, Lieutenant?”

  “The war, sir. What else? I am Anatoly Ivanovich Anokhin, military police. The division is setting up positions outside the city to defend the port. You are with the Makhachkala Division, yes?” Orlov nodded, saying nothing as the man went on. “Well they sent a battalion out yesterday to the front. The Germans are swinging north toward Kizlyar. A lot of civilians are still on that road. It could be very bad if the Germans get through.”

  “I see,” said Orlov. “Well we’ll stop the bastards then, won’t we.”

  “Of course, sir.” The officer forced a smile.

  “Listen Anokhin, I’m going there myself, eh? I want to find a man named Molla, and another man—Burzan. You’ve heard these names?”

  “Commissar Molla? Yes, sir. He went that way—to Kizlyar. You are assigned to his unit? Good luck to you then. He’s a hard man, that Molla. One of Beria’s men—he always finds his henchmen down here. If I were you I would stay clear of him. Molla came through here yesterday with three truckloads of women from the villages. He says they’re going up to Astrakhan, but who knows what he really means to do with them.”

  Orlov’s eyes narrowed. His bet that any local Commissar of note would be well known and easily found had paid off. Three truckloads of women…. He didn’t like the sound of that.

  “Good then,” he said. “Now I’ll take that piss.”

  The Lieutenant saluted and went about his duties, and Orlov shuffled into the hotel, giving the desk clerk a sallow look and asking him for directions. Safe in the men’s room, he took a moment to activate his Jacket Computer and ask about the Makhachkala Division. He learned it was a special NKVD Rifle division formed from the local border defense, railway security teams, and supply train guards. It was attached here to the 58th Reserve Army and would remain in the region for another two months until that November. Now his Captain’s getup was likely to see him trundled off to some defensive post in short order, he thought.

  He considered what to do, and decided his best bet would be to say he had orders for Commissar Molla. His brawn and natural assertive nature would back most other men down if he was questioned, and his Captain’s rank came in handy as well. All he had to do was steer clear of a nosey Colonel if he ran across one, as his present rank would trump most other officers he might meet on the road. His need to deliver these secure orders for Molla would surely get him on a truck heading north, and he had to get there soon, because he knew where those truckloads of women were going, and it wouldn’t be any place they would ever care to remember.

  A lot of equipment was still moving north from Baku. The trains had been creaking with the weight of old rusting pipe, weathered drills and derricks, tools, shovels and anything else they could safely remove from the oil works. They intended to use them to find new oil elsewhere, and vast work camps were being set up, now collecting thousands to serve as raw labor in the new oil fields. Commissar Molla would find his grandmother here, he knew, and then he would take her and all the others in those trucks to God knows where. He had little time to waste now, and so after a meal and some brief rest at the hotel, he went out to look for another ride north to Kizlyar.

  The city was now a gathering point for fragments of broken army divisions that had been shattered in the fighting and were slowly regrouping here, receiving supplies from barges offloaded at the port. He saw shoulder patches of the 317th, the old Baku Division that had been destroyed at Izyum and reformed here, and also the 319th, a new Rifle Division forming here along with the NKVD units.

  He sighed, realizing that no matter how hard he tried to escape from it, anywhere he went in Russia now the war would soon find him, as it had found him here in the muddied streets of Makhachkala. No matter. He had come a long way now, from an aimless drunkard whoring his way along the Spanish coast, across seas and around the high mountains to this desolate place—but he had a mission now—he was no longer a lost and wandering soul, and that made all the difference.

  Part IX

  Letters From The Dead

  “Dead letters! Does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitting to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the flames? Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, molders in the grave; …he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more on errands of life…”

  — Hermann Melville, Bartleby The Scrivener

  Chapter 25

  Fedorov found Karpov on the bridge, pulling him aside, his eyes serious with some hidden energy and obvious concern. “Can we speak in the briefing room, Captain?”

  “Very well, Fedorov,” said Karpov, half distracted by the scene bei
ng displayed on the overhead HD video monitors. They were delivering two more helicopters today, and he was watching a KA-40 maneuvering to land on the aft deck. He turned to Rodenko. “Keep an eye on things for a moment, Lieutenant. I’ll be with the First Officer in the briefing room.”

  The two men entered the room off the back of the citadel bridge, and Fedorov made a deliberate point of shutting the door for privacy. The Captain saw that he had a couple of thick volumes under his arm, with book markers jutting from them to mark out places he had obviously been reading. Fedorov and his books again, he thought, but he had learned to listen to his young Starpom by serving in that same role for him in the Med, so he paid close attention. When Fedorov went to his history books he had something on his mind, and it was most likely important.

  “What now Fedorov?” he pointed at the heavy books as the younger man set them on the briefing table.

  “Something very odd,” said Fedorov. “I was doing some reading about the war to see what we might have changed. Look, here—this is my original volume of the Chronology Of The Naval War At Sea. You remember, it’s the book I gave to Admiral Volsky.”

  “Only too well,” said Karpov. “This rat of a man actually snuck into the Admiral’s quarters to have a good long look at that book.”

  “Well this other book is the same publication I picked up in the city a few days ago. I was comparing the two to see what was different, and in September of 1942 I noted an operation in the Med—this one.” He was fingering a passage in his original volume for Operation Agreement, scheduled and carried out Sept 13-14, 1942, the raid on Tobruk.

  “It was in the old volume as well,” he said. “But there was just a minor variation, a man who survived that was supposed to have died in my original version. So I marked the passage for further study—marked it with a yellow highlighter like I did with these other passages.”