by Jasper Kent
There was no sign of the railway. I looked at the compass. We were heading almost due south. Previously our path had been northeast. I turned left until we were back on the right bearing. Now we were travelling parallel to the railway, assuming it hadn’t changed direction, but I still did not know where it was. Given that we had been heading south, it was probably to the north, but we could have gone in any direction while the plane was out of control. I turned north, looking out of the cockpit for any sign of the track, but also counting seconds. I saw nothing. After a minute I turned back south and stuck to the course for 90 seconds. Still there was no sign of the railway. I continued the process, increasing the duration and therefore the distance of the journey each time. It was on the ninth pass, almost half an hour later, that I finally saw the tracks – some tracks at any rate, and I doubted there would be more than one line out here.
I turned back on to them, heading once again northeast, and feeling quite proud of myself for the way I’d handled things. But I still didn’t feel confident to land the thing. I looked at the fuel gauge; we had half a tank left. I could only hope that Danilov would return in time. He was an idiot. We had no control over when the change between us took place – we couldn’t even predict it. It would get us both killed. And that meant he wasn’t an idiot. That was what he wanted. He didn’t care about the tsar, or Ascalon. His one goal was just the same as it always had been – my destruction. But I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. I gripped the joystick with new resolution. I would fly this thing, and if need be I would land it.
I watched as the fuel gauge gradually moved closer to empty.
We still had a few minutes left when I brought the plane in to land. I hadn’t rushed. I’d been back in control for some time, but there was no point in landing before we needed to. I could only say that I was impressed by Iuda’s handling of the aeroplane, not so much in his regaining control, but in the methodical way he had got us back on course. During the war we’d lost as many planes to bad navigation as we had to German guns.
I talked Iuda through what I was doing. We would have to break the journey up into five or six legs, and that meant five or six landings. The chances were he would be in command for at least one of those. There were plenty of fields long enough for us to land and take off. I chose one right beside the railway. It took me only minutes to refill the fuel tank from one of the cans we had brought. I left the engine running. Then we were away again. As we flew, I remembered Nikolai Ivanovich Kibalchich. He had been a brilliant engineer and had told me his dreams of building a machine that would take men to the moon. His idea had been nothing like this – it was based on rockets – but he would still have been overjoyed to see how much had been achieved by others with the same boundless imagination that he possessed. I remembered us discussing the fact that though it would be men like him who designed such a vehicle, it would be a man like me who piloted it. That had been proved correct. It was my conversations with him that had sparked my curiosity and made me so keen to be one of the pioneers when the military finally realized the power of what Kibalchich had envisaged.
I wondered which he would have been happier to witness coming to fruition: his dreams of powered flight or his dreams of a Russia free from the tyranny of any tsar. He had not come close to seeing either. He’d been hanged in 1881 for his part in murdering the only decent tsar I’d ever known – Aleksandr II.
As we flew on into the night it began to grow bitterly cold. The fact we were so low meant the temperature was better than it might have been, but I doubted we would survive until morning. And there was always a risk the ailerons would freeze up. When the fuel again began to run low, I looked for a place to spend the night. I wanted to avoid civilization. Any town out here would be under the control of either the Reds or the Whites. I could prove my loyalty to neither, and each would want to requisition a weapon as valuable as a Lebed XIII. Eventually I saw a field with a barn in it. By my reckoning we were still some way short of Vyatka. Once we’d landed it was no problem to find wood for a fire, and we could spare a little fuel to get one started. The barn was big enough for it to be safe to have the fire inside. I had to stop the aircraft’s engine, which would mean starting it again in the morning. That would be easy enough with two of us.
I laughed out loud. It was a good thing, I suppose, to regard Iuda as a separate being from myself, so separate that he had his own physical presence. Better that than admit that with every day our minds were bound more tightly one to the other. And for now it didn’t matter. Even on my own I’d be able to start the engine – it would just take a bit of running back and forth from the cockpit to the propeller as I adjusted the controls. I opened the tin box and found some sandwiches in there, filled with sausage. The tea in the flask was almost cold, but it was delightfully sweet. I lay back against the barn wall and fell asleep, warmed by the fire.
I awoke to find that we were flying. Ahead of us the sun was just beginning to creep over the horizon. Evidently Iuda had awoken before me and managed to move our body without disturbing my slumbering mind. He’d even managed to get the plane started and to take off. I was impressed by his skill, and by his determination to get to Tobolsk as quickly as possible.
Beneath us the railway tracks rolled unceasingly by. All morning we saw only two trains, one in each direction. The roads were busier. On one an armoured car stopped and took some shots at us, but Iuda smoothly dipped away and returned to our planned route a few versts later, when we were out of sight. He didn’t bother to consult the chart, but I noted the towns and cities as we passed over them, first Vyatka and then Perm. After that we crossed the Urals and we were truly in Siberia.
Iuda landed us for that stint, refuelled, and took off again. After about an hour I discovered that I was again in command. Just like Iuda I momentarily lost control as our hands went limp for a period during which he was not able to use them and I was not aware that I was supposed to. I regained control more quickly than he had, but I realized he couldn’t really be blamed for what had happened; it would be the same for even the finest of pilots under these circumstances.
As we passed over the city of Yekaterinburg I looked at the fuel gauge. We were doing well. With luck we’d be able to make it all the way with just one more refuelling. We made the stop about a hundred versts before Tyumen, after which we still had spare in the cans. At Tyumen we left the railway and followed the river northeast. It meandered wildly, and it was easier to climb to a higher altitude and get a view of its general direction than to stay close and follow its every twist and turn. The road to Tobolsk followed the valley. I wondered if Susanna or even Dmitry was somewhere down there, in a lorry, safely shielded from the sun. It would be dusk soon. We weren’t going to make it to Tobolsk by then, not by several hours. It might be that we were already too late. It was Tuesday evening now – almost two days since Susanna had left Petrograd. If she’d been lucky with her journey she might already have arrived. On the other hand, she might not get here until tomorrow. We would soon know.
As chance would have it, it was I who was granted the honour of bringing us in for our final descent. Just as Major Tsigler had suggested, the broad, white river made an obvious landing strip. I could only hope that the ice was still thick, but I was in little doubt. It was colder here than it had been in Petrograd.
I took a long approach. For most of the trip the wind had been from the east, but now it was northerly, which aligned roughly with the river. That would make it easier. I turned into the wind and pushed in the throttle, pulling back on the stick as Danilov had shown me. I was only a few feet from the ice now. I’d already done this, on snow, so I felt confident. Even so, I was cautious; we had distance enough for a gentle touchdown. Then, without warning, we dropped like a stone. I tried to understand what was happening, but my only guess was that close to the ground the wind was coming from a different direction. I revved the engine up to full power, hoping to gain enough lift to give us some kind of soft landing.
To that extent it worked, but in achieving it I was distracted from the dozen other factors that required attention. The wing dipped to the left and brushed against the ice. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but just ahead was a bank of blown snow. The wingtip sliced into it and came almost to a halt; the rest of the plane did not. We pivoted round the point where it was stuck until the wing became free. Our momentum carried us on in the direction we had been travelling, but now our motion was sideways. We were still in the air, but no longer flying. Now the leading wing hit the ice and dug into it. We flipped right over. The wing collapsed and the fuselage began to fall, still spinning.
I found myself out of the plane, sliding across the ice on my back. I heard a regular thumping sound, accompanied by the noise of the engine, struggling to stay alive. As soon as I came to a halt I rolled on to my stomach and looked. It was an awful mess. The right wing had been torn away completely. The left was twisted under the fuselage, tipping the plane forward. The sound I’d heard was the one remaining blade of the propeller thwacking against the ice. Soon the engine could do no more and stuttered to a halt.
I stood up and mentally checked my body, but found nothing that felt worse than a bruise. I wondered if I should go and rescue what few possessions we had in there, but something – Danilov’s years of experience – held me back. Seconds later I saw flames begin to flicker around the engine. It was nothing much at first, but soon the canvas that formed the skin of the plane began to burn too. There would still be a little petrol in the tank and more in the refuelling cans. Whether it would burn or explode I did not know – and I wasn’t going to stay to find out.
Fortunately the map that Tsigler had given us was in my pocket. There was a single wooden bridge over the river, shown on the map, which acted as a reference point. The Governor’s Mansion – indeed the whole town – was situated on the right bank. It was impossible that the burning aeroplane would not attract attention, but that might be to our advantage. There would still be guards at the mansion; the spectacle might draw some of them away. I climbed off the ice near the foot of the bridge. It didn’t take long to find the place. It was an uninspiring building: square and squat – two storeys high. I guessed it was about a hundred years old. Looking back towards the river I could see the glow of flames, and a column of smoke rising high into the air. No one could miss it, and therefore no one would be paying much attention to guarding the prisoner. It couldn’t have worked better if I had planned it.
I skirted warily around the building, considering the best way to break in.
Iuda would have done better to have invested his caution in flying the plane than in getting into the house. But I couldn’t blame him. I’d had hours of training before ever taking an aeroplane in to land; and I’d never had to put one down on ice like that. There was a wooden fence between us and the mansion, but it was little problem to climb over. The entrance to the building was an excessively grand portico whose roof formed a balcony accessible from the rooms on the first floor. At the window that looked out on to the balcony I saw the silhouette of a girl, staring into the night. I don’t think she saw me. I knew that all four of the tsar’s daughters lived here with him. That could well be one of them, perhaps his youngest, Anastasia. Or it could be a different Anastasia.
I looked around but saw no one on guard. As I got closer, I could see why. From a distance the untidy heap near the door had looked like a pile of earth. That should have raised my suspicions. The ground was iron-hard here and there would be no cultivation possible until spring. If the mound had been paler I might have taken it for shovelled snow, but as I got closer I could make out that its dark brown was the familiar colour of a Bolshevik’s leather overcoat.
There were two of them, one heaped on top of the other. I pulled the first one away by his shoulder. He rolled over and then slid down his comrade’s back on to the snowy ground, their leather coats offering little friction to one another. It was a familiar wound – his throat had been ripped open. It had been done quickly – to kill rather than to feed – and recently. I doubted he’d been dead even half an hour. I turned the other one over to see much the same injuries. They wouldn’t have stood a chance; even for hardened thugs such as these, the sight of a young girl trudging through the snow would have aroused more sympathy than suspicion. That was presuming that Susanna had come alone, but I could not see who might have helped her. She had run out of allies.
I realized I’d come without a weapon, but I was in a garden and it didn’t take long to find something appropriate. Along the fence that I’d climbed over there were a number of saplings planted. It was easy enough to use Iuda’s knife to cut one free of the post that supported its flimsy trunk, but more of a struggle to pull out the post itself. It was a little long, perhaps, but had already been sharpened to a point at the base, as if made for the purpose.
I balanced its weight in my hand, judging where I should hold it so that I could thrust it forward with the greatest force. I went back to the portico. The door stood open. I went inside.
I found myself at the end of a corridor that ran the full length of the building to another door. There were further doors on either side. The décor was uninspiring, as was to be expected; the ground floor was for the servants. The only break in the corridor was a little way down, on the left, where it opened on to a staircase. By my reckoning this would lead up to the room where I’d seen the girl. I began to ascend, taking cautious steps, the stake held out in front of me. There was a half-landing with a window as the stairs turned through 180 degrees. I carried on up. At the top was a pair of double doors, closed. I reached out and pressed the handle. The door opened smoothly. I stepped through.
It was a huge room, laid out almost like a ballroom, with all the furniture set against the walls rather than in the centre. I didn’t suppose that the former tsar had held many balls there, but clearly he liked to mimic the grandeur of his previous life – or more likely his wife did. Between the tall windows the walls were decorated with paintings of a former time – ancient princes and generals who reflected Russia’s lost glory. One of them I recognized, Pyotr Mihailovich Volkonsky. He’d been a friend of Aleksei’s. In one wall there was a fireplace, piled high with glowing logs. Above it hung a pair of crossed sabres.
At the window, looking out, just where I had seen her, stood the figure of a girl. I could not see her face, but the slight protrusion of her belly told me who she was. She turned. If she was surprised to see me, she didn’t show it, though she had no reason to suspect anyone had been aware of her departure from Petrograd, let alone her destination. She gave the slightest hint of a smile.
‘Ever the resourceful one, Richard.’
I felt a little affronted. As far as I could recall it was my resource that had brought us here so swiftly, not Iuda’s. ‘Where is he?’ I asked.
‘Romanov?’ She nodded her head towards one of the doors, immediately beside where she was standing. ‘He’s through there. You’re just in time.’
I eyed her warily, raising the stake in both hands. I’d have to walk close by her to get to him. She lifted her arms in a gesture of openness and took a few paces away from the door. I walked over to it, still keeping the sharpened tip pointing towards her. I reached behind me and turned the handle, then backed into the room, never taking my eyes off her, but aware that at some point I would have to turn and face what was inside.
It was a strange way to take in a room, the reverse of what one would normally experience. The first thing I noticed were the curtains, opened, that hung over the door I’d come through. There was another door to my left, similarly adorned, but this time obscured by the heavy velvet. To my right was a desk facing out towards the window. I could sense that there was a man sitting at it, but without turning – and I dared not take my eyes off Susanna – I couldn’t make him out. There was a dog at his feet, a King Charles spaniel, who looked up at me. With two steps further back I could see who the man was, not that I had expected any
one else: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov, my first cousin once removed. Many Russians, even now, would have been in awe of him, but in my time I had known many better men, a few better Romanovs and one better tsar. I owed him nothing as my emperor.
‘Who the devil are you?’ he asked.
I broke my gaze on Susanna and looked him in the face. We had never met, but I had seen countless pictures of him. He looked older than in any of them, older than his forty-nine years. He was leaning forward, his elbows on the desk in front of him so that his hands were raised to the level of his eyes. Between them he held a short length of wood, stained with dark blemishes and sharpened to a point at one end: Ascalon. He had been examining it closely when I distracted him.
‘My name’s Danilov,’ I said. ‘Mihail Konstantinovich Danilov.’
I’d expected him to know the name, but his reaction was one of more than mere recognition. He let Ascalon drop to his desk with a clatter. He rubbed his hands through his beard and across his cheeks. ‘God be praised,’ he muttered. Then he shouted it. ‘God be praised!’
He stood up and came round his desk to approach me. ‘My great-uncle told me all about you. Always in our hour of need you have been here, you and your ancestors. I should have expected it as soon as she came; as soon as she gave me that.’ He cast his hand behind him in the direction of Ascalon. ‘I should have had faith.’