The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “And we cannot let her go without protection,” Philip put in.

  “Of course I’m going with her.” Daniel spoke without a moment’s hesitation.

  Mariana nearly protested the idea that she needed protection. But the prospect of having Daniel along on the journey was too attractive to resist.

  “Now, I must return to my duties,” said Philip. Before departing, however, he asked Daniel, “May I give Mariana a parting farewell, in the Russian style? She did, after all, save my life and I shall be forever in her debt for that.”

  Daniel nodded his approval, and Philip gave Mariana an enthusiastic hug.

  When Philip was gone, Daniel smiled. “Imagine him asking me for permission to hug you. He is a bit old fashioned, isn’t he?”

  “Just a little.”

  “Did he really propose to you?”

  “Practically on bended knee.”

  “I may not be able to top that.”

  “You don’t need to, Daniel. And I don’t expect you to propose marriage to me this instant, either.”

  “But someday . . . ?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I definitely plan to, Mariana.”

  She smiled and nodded. “But first, let’s just get used to this idea of being in love. It’s quite a big enough step from being friends—for the time being.”

  He gazed at her with open love. He seemed ready to sweep her into his arms with far more than a Russian-style embrace. Mariana felt the romantic tension and diverted their attention to another matter.

  “I’m glad you’re going with me, Daniel, even if I don’t really need protection. On second thought, Karl Vlasenko will be along, so perhaps I might need protection after all.”

  “Now I’m more sure than ever!”

  “Daniel, you won’t mind leaving the action to accompany me?”

  “You know me, Mariana, I can find news wherever I go. But I came here in the first place to be with you, so there’s no reason for me to stay if you’re gone. And, when I see you safely ashore, I can always return to the war.”

  “I’m to be assigned to Mukden afterward.”

  “Then we can go there together.”

  45

  Despite Stoessel’s war on the press, Nojine had some friends in Port Arthur’s high command. When he heard of Stoessel’s plan to use the hospital ship to get vital information out of Port Arthur, he immediately thought of Daniel, who had mentioned that he would accompany the boat.

  He told his contact, Smirnoff’s aide, about Daniel. What better decoy to use as a spy than a foreign correspondent who had no direct ties to Russia?

  Nojine approached Daniel the day before the boat was to leave.

  “Daniel, I have a great opportunity for you.”

  “I hope you’re not going to try to get me to stay. My mind is made up.”

  “Not at all. How would you like to turn this voyage into a real coup for your newspaper?”

  Daniel shrugged, amazed himself that he wasn’t more interested.

  Nojine continued, “Stoessel has some information he must get out—”

  “Hold on! Are you suggesting I act as a spy for Stoessel, of all people?”

  “I think this could be extremely beneficial to you.”

  “Why don’t you do it?”

  “They’d rather have a foreigner in order to distance themselves in case—well, just as added insurance. Besides, someone has to stay behind to report the fall of Port Arthur.”

  “How would this be beneficial to me?”

  “You name it, Stoessel will give it to you in return for your services.”

  Daniel leaned forward, growing more interested by the minute. “Are you sure?”

  “You can talk to them yourself. Smirnoff’s aide will meet us in an hour at Saratov’s.”

  An hour later, Daniel, Nojine, and Captain Zinkov sat at a table in deep discussion.

  Zinkov explained what he wanted. “We captured a Japanese officer and under interrogation he revealed information about troop movements. The Japanese have recently landed eight thousand troops. We need to apprise Kuropatkin of this situation, for it will have a direct effect on his operations. Another contingency of troops will be landing before the end of the year.”

  “Don’t you think that using the Red Cross boat in this way will place them at risk?”

  “You, of course, would have to be willing to take all responsibility upon yourself. On the remote chance that the boat is scrutinized, the Japanese will no doubt accept your story that you acted completely on your own. We wouldn’t do this if we thought there was any danger at all to the passengers. Even you should be perfectly safe disguised as one of the wounded. However, a disguise should be a last resort. We feel it would be best if no one else on the boat knows of the situation. Their ignorance will give you the best cover.”

  “Well, I’ll play that one by ear,” said Daniel.

  “Does that mean you’ll do it?”

  “I’ll expect certain compensation.”

  “Of course. What did you have in mind?”

  “A guarantee of free movement at the front. I’ll be going to Mukden after the boat excursion, and I want to cover Kuropatkin’s spring campaign. And I want an exclusive interview with Kuropatkin himself.”

  “The assignment to the front, we can arrange. But it is difficult to speak for General Kuropatkin.”

  “Come now, Captain. I’ll be taking a great risk here; surely you can arrange one tiny interview. Remember, the general should be quite grateful to receive the information I’ll be carrying.”

  “All right, Mr. Trent, you have my word on it.”

  “Then it’s a deal.”

  “The ship will be leaving tomorrow morning with the tide. Stop by my office before then for the documents.”

  The captain bade the two correspondents a good evening and left. Nojine folded his arms together with a self-satisfied grin on his face.

  “Was I not right? A real coup, eh?” he said.

  By now Daniel was completely caught up in the thrill of such an adventure, not to mention the prospect of great material for future articles. He had been toying with the idea of writing a book about his war experiences in Manchuria; now he was certain he’d have all the ingredients for a bestseller. Any initial reluctance he might have had was quickly fading into thoughts of glory.

  “How can I thank you?” Daniel said, eyes glinting.

  “Dedicate your book to me.”

  “You’ve got it, my friend.” Daniel forgot for the moment that he’d already promised himself that if he did write a book he was going to dedicate it to Mariana.

  46

  Mariana breathed in the cold fresh sea air in a hungry gulp. She had never sailed on the water in her life, and she was enjoying the ocean in spite of her queasy stomach.

  “You’ll get your sea legs before you know it,” said Daniel, coming up beside her.

  “I hope so. We can’t spare stomach medication for the nurse.”

  “Only about half the patients are seasick.”

  “The poor boys. Most are peasants, you know—farmers, not sailors.”

  “It’s you I’m most concerned about.”

  “Oh, I’ll be fine as long as I can breathe fresh air.”

  Mariana lifted her eyes to take in the surrounding sea. She had never seen anything like it. Dark blue water under a pale winter sky, gentle swells with occasional whitecaps. It seemed to go on forever. There was a constancy to the ocean, a strength that gave her an odd sense of security. She knew it could be fickle and dangerous, but it didn’t frighten her the way war did. The ocean was entirely God’s creation, and because of that she felt safe.

  They were into the second day of their journey. Port Arthur and all the horrors and dangers of the siege were far away. The coast of Korea, though unseen at the moment, was miles off to their port side. The skipper said they were approaching the southern tip of Korea, and by tomorrow they would be entering the Tsushima Straits. T
here, they would come as close to Japan as ever on the journey. If they were to experience trouble, it was likely to be in the well-patrolled straits.

  Mariana hardly had a chance later that morning to come up for air. A hundred and fifty patients with only one doctor, one nurse, and three attendants made for unending work. Mariana just didn’t have time to think of her stomach. Even Karl Vlasenko was working like a trooper, despite his constant complaints of having to do woman’s work, which was how he viewed nursing. Mariana ignored his whining—and the odor of liquor on his breath.

  On the afternoon of their third day, they had crossed the Tsushima Straits and were heading up the Sea of Japan on the last leg of their journey, a day out of Vladivostok. Daniel had come below to lend a hand with the patients in hopes of a chance to visit with Mariana as she worked. They were now in the main hold of the ship, which had been converted into a large hospital ward with about fifty beds. The remainder of the patients were distributed among the other cargo holds and cabins; the crew and other passengers were crowded into two cabins. Mariana, as the only female, had her own cabin despite Karl’s grumbling about unfair treatment. As ranking officer, he believed he should have his own quarters.

  Daniel was helping to turn a rather brawny corporal as Mariana changed his soiled linens. They were nearly finished when an attendant poked his head into the ward.

  He motioned Daniel and Mariana aside and said in a low voice, “Just spotted a Japanese cruiser about two miles away and closing fast. Better pray they’re not trigger-happy.”

  The attendant scurried away after delivering his ominous news. Alarm coursed through Daniel. He tried to hide it from Mariana, but she obviously saw right through him.

  “We’re flying a Red Cross flag,” Mariana said reassuringly. “What can they do but request to board and inspect us? They’ll find we are exactly what we claim to be.”

  Daniel nodded but was unconvinced.

  “Daniel,” Mariana went on, “I should think you’d be thrilled—you know, an opportunity to interview the Japanese navy.”

  “Yeah, of course.” He tried to shrug off the incident as trivial.

  They returned to their task, but the moment Mariana turned her back to gather up the dirty linens, Daniel quickly took Stoessel’s documents from inside his shirt, where he kept them at all times for security, and started to slip them under the patient’s mattress.

  Unfortunately, Mariana turned back too soon. She saw the pouch just before Daniel hid it.

  “What’s that?” she asked, brow furrowed.

  Daniel couldn’t lie to her. “Documents,” he said simply.

  “What are you doing with them?”

  Before he answered, Daniel noticed that the corporal was taking a keen interest in the exchange. Placing the documents back in his shirt, he nudged Mariana to a far corner where they could talk privately.

  “Mariana, please don’t be upset with me, all right? But . . . well, you may as well know. Stoessel recruited me to get vital intelligence out of Port Arthur. I would have told you, but they thought that, for your own safety, no one else should know. However, they assured me no danger would come to anyone on the ship.”

  Mariana was silent for a long time as she absorbed Daniel’s confession. Finally she said, “Now I see why Stoessel was so adamant about accepting the Japanese offer. The self-serving fool—”

  “Mariana, I’m no fan of Stoessel’s, but you must remember that the information I have will benefit the Russian army, perhaps save thousands of lives. If there was any risk at all to this ship, I wouldn’t have agreed to do it.”

  “Then why are you hiding the documents?” Mariana asked incisively.

  “Hiding what documents?” came a new voice from behind.

  Karl Vlasenko had entered unobserved, hearing the last part of Daniel and Mariana’s discussion.

  Daniel groaned inwardly. This thing was getting out of hand. “Nothing,” he said defensively. “It’s really not a big deal, I tell you.”

  “I demand to know what is going on!” boomed Vlasenko.

  By now all the patients were turning their heads toward the rising altercation.

  “Let’s discuss this outside,” Mariana said. When the two men hesitated, she added with authority, “Now!”

  They followed her out, and she closed the door behind them.

  “Daniel is carrying secret intelligence out of Port Arthur,” she told Vlasenko.

  “Extremely important intelligence,” Daniel added as if this validated his actions.

  “You are using this ship for espionage?” exclaimed Vlasenko. “You could get us all shot!”

  “Oh, simmer down—both of you.” Daniel had had enough of their overreaction. “No one’s going to get shot, for heaven’s sake! There is absolutely no reason to panic.” He forgot his own panic a few moments ago when he had impulsively tried to hide the documents. “If—and that is a huge if—my so-called espionage is discovered, I will simply say that no one here had any knowledge of my intentions. That will be the truth. In that case, I’m the only one who’s gonna get shot.”

  “Oh, Daniel!”

  “But at the very worst, they will probably just detain me for a while, then slap my hands and release me.” Daniel sounded quite certain. In reality, he wasn’t so sure at all. Maybe they would shoot him. He began to wonder if the promise of a juicy assignment at the front and an interview with Kuropatkin was worth the risk. It had seemed so at the time he had accepted, but now, with the Japanese breathing down their necks, he wondered. Why did he throw aside all good sense when it came to his job?

  “I will not jeopardize my patients or my staff,” declared Vlasenko, his voice shaky.

  “I wouldn’t ask you to,” said Daniel.

  “Just so you understand,” Vlasenko continued. “I would just as soon feed you to the sharks than—”

  “I get the point,” broke in Daniel impatiently, perturbed at Vlasenko’s sudden and uncharacteristic paternal interest in his patients.

  “I’m going to go topside and see what’s happening,” Vlasenko said. “I would suggest that you, Mr. Trent, stay out of the way.”

  When Vlasenko was gone, Daniel said to Mariana, “I know you must think this terribly irresponsible of me, but I truly did believe it was an important duty.”

  “But why would you place yourself at such risk, Daniel? You’re not even Russian. And as a correspondent, you are supposed to be neutral.”

  “How can I be neutral when the woman I love is Russian?” He paused, struggling over the real truth. Then he looked at Mariana and knew he had to tell her everything. “Stoessel offered me some compensation for my efforts, so what I’m doing isn’t entirely altruistic—” He stopped and corrected himself. “It’s not at all altruistic. I’m doing it for a prime assignment at the front with Kuropatkin himself, and an exclusive interview with the general.”

  Mariana smiled.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked a baffled Daniel.

  “The very things I love about you also make me so angry at times. I hardly understand it myself. But I guess at the root of it all is that I do love you, and I can’t expect you to be perfect.”

  “I’d be forced to disappoint you far too often, if that were the case.”

  They paused as they felt a change in the ship’s movement. The engines were slowing. No doubt the Japanese cruiser had signaled for them to stand ready to be inspected.

  “What are you going to do now, Daniel?”

  “I’ll hide the documents.”

  “What if they are found?”

  “I’ll confess. In the meantime, perhaps if you gave me a stethoscope to wear around my neck, I’ll look at least as much the part of a doctor as Vlasenko.”

  They started to reenter the ward, but Daniel laid a gentle restraining hand on Mariana’s arm. “Thank you, Mariana, for not getting too angry at me. You are far better than I deserve.”

  She quickly brushed his cheek with her lips. “I think that’s w
hat true love is all about. I can’t promise always to be so understanding and reasonable, but I’ll try when I can.”

  47

  Karl Vlasenko had no intention at all of going topside. He wanted to get as far from a possible encounter with the enemy as he could.

  Immediately after leaving Mariana and Daniel, Vlasenko went to his cabin, the tiny cell he was forced to share with Daniel and the three attendants. He had to remind himself once more of what a magnanimous fellow he was. His father would not have been so generous as to share his quarters with peasants and a mere American.

  His father—ha!

  Cyril Vlasenko would not have allowed himself to have been placed in such a position in the first place. He would have demanded private quarters as a physician and as commander, by proxy, of this floating hospital. Karl had suggested such an arrangement to Dr. Itkinson, who had merely replied with an ironic chuckle and a patronizing explanation of how they must squeeze a hundred and fifty beds, staff, and crew on a ship barely large enough for a fraction of the passengers.

  “We must make do, and rise to the occasion,” Itkinson had crooned.

  Karl had backed down, mostly because he was afraid that in balking too much, the chief of staff might find another doctor to accompany the boat. That was a possibility Karl was not willing to risk. He had been desperate to get out of Port Arthur. Why he had volunteered for the Army Medical Corps in the first place, Karl could not remember. He had more than likely been drunk at the time. The liquor had lulled him along with some insane visions of glory. The reality he found was not what he had expected. Another minute in that stinking town, with the maddening roar of bombs, and bleeding men with shattered arms and legs and faces, and Karl would have surely cracked. The hospital boat had provided him with the perfect and honorable escape.

  Now that idiot, Trent, threatened to bring upon him as much danger—if not more—as he’d experienced in Port Arthur. Karl’s hand shook as he opened the cabin latch. He slipped inside, then stopped. What was that? The engines were slowing. The Japanese were going to board the ship! They were all going to be arrested and tossed into some Japanese prison camp. Karl had heard all about those vermin-infested pits, unfit for decent humans!