‘I don’t think so, sir.’
‘Easton’s the best marksman in your company, in the whole brigade. Perhaps you’re slightly jealous? When you pulled him out of that damned crater, maybe he didn’t thank you properly? Look, if he really bothers you, I’ll transfer him to another company, will that be all right?’
Nobody will want him Alex thought, but didn’t say.
‘Actually,’ the major said, ‘this little problem ought to solve itself. The third battalion’s moving soon. The orders came this morning. We’re all going to Russia.’
Russia, thought Alex – why should they go to Russia?
Chapter Twenty
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ frowned Alex.
‘You heard me, Mr Denham. Our government’s keen to keep in with the Russians. Well, some of the Russians. Of course we don’t support the Reds. They made peace with the Hun.’
‘So we’re going to fight the Bolsheviks?’
‘I don’t know about fight. There’s civil war in Russia, as you know. I reckon we’re being sent to make it clear to Comrade Lenin that the British Government supports the other side.’
The major scratched his chin. ‘There are big ammunition dumps in Archangel, left there by our boys before this revolution business started. The Reds apparently help themselves, and Lloyd George isn’t having it.’
Alex could hardly believe what he was hearing. ‘You mean a crack battalion of seasoned fighting men is being sent to Russia to guard a heap of shells?’
‘Yes, you could say that.’
‘But we have unfinished business here.’
‘Listen, Alex – other chaps are capable of dealing with the Germans. We’re well out of it, if you ask me. This Russian stunt should be a cushy number, the men will be delighted, but don’t go telling everyone just yet. It’s all hush-hush for now.’
‘I think the men should know at once.’
‘I dare say they’ll find out. They always do. You don’t look very happy, man. I thought you’d be pleased?’
‘Oh, I am, sir,’ Alex told him, deadpan. ‘I’m absolutely thrilled.’
He rode back to the ruined village where the third battalion was dug in. The British field artillery was pounding German strongholds a couple of miles away, and when the barrage lifted the battalion would attack.
Alex didn’t want to go to Russia. He’d meant to stay in France, to see the Germans finally defeated, not hear about it in some distant land.
As he went downstairs into the cellar that served as company headquarters, his servant Private Arrowsmith appeared. ‘I hear we’re off to fight the Ruskies, sir?’
‘How do you know, Arrowsmith?’
‘Chinese whispers, sir.’ Private Arrowsmith tapped his nose and grinned. ‘A bloke from the King’s Own Yorkshires mentioned it to me last Saturday. Good news, ain’t it sir? All the lads is fit to bust with joy!’
Indeed, the men seemed jubilant and very keen to go. Alex supposed this was because although the Germans might look almost beaten, and there were rumours of an armistice, there were also rumours of a whole new battle plan involving tanks and aerial bombardment, to get under way the following spring.
Alex couldn’t see the Germans holding out that long, but the enemy might have reserves. The Americans might pull out and go back home. Men who’d done it once would do almost anything, go almost anywhere, to escape a winter in the trenches.
A lot of them were going to escape it anyway, he decided. Dozens were ill with some sort of infection that made them sweat and shiver and eventually collapse. He’d sent five to the CCS that morning and, as the company formed up in readiness to attack, he could see that several others didn’t look very fit.
A fortnight later he had three days leave, and met Rose in Amiens. He had hardly begun to tell her he was going to Russia before she informed him that she knew.
‘But how did you find out?’ he frowned, wondering what other secret plans were common knowledge.
‘Elsie’s father is on the Staff, he tells her everything.’ Rose looked at him and smiled artlessly. ‘Maybe I could come along?’
‘I never heard anything so ridiculous. Rose, this won’t be a parish outing.’
‘It will be less dangerous than staying here in France. Especially if the Germans rally, like they did before.’
‘They won’t do that, they’re spent, exhausted.’
‘All the same, I’d like a change, to get away from all this mess and chaos.’ They were in a bombed-out café that had just re-opened, drinking bitter coffee made from chicory and acorns, and eating yellow, rubbery brioche. ‘They’re bound to send some nurses, so I’m going to volunteer.’
‘You can’t go to Archangel.’
‘Of course I can. Alex, you’re such a spoilsport. You don’t like me having any fun.’ Rose looked at him from underneath her lashes. ‘I’m never going to get another chance to go to Russia, after all.’
‘I hope they keep you here in France. Russia’s a ghastly place by all accounts, and the Russians are a vicious race. The Reds and Whites are equally sadistic. Both lots skin their enemies alive.’
‘I’m sure they don’t,’ said Rose. ‘Darling, sometimes you’re so miserable. You don’t like anyone or anything.’
Alex watched Rose cut into her cake and pop it piece by piece into her mouth. They wouldn’t accept her, he decided, even though she had the skills and training.
Of course they’d send some nurses. But only about a dozen at most, and probably – hopefully – those would all be regular QA.
But Rose got what she wanted, then talked Elsie Dennison into volunteering too, although Elsie didn’t need much persuading.
‘It’ll be so exciting!’ she exclaimed. ‘I can’t wait to see the Northern Lights! Rose, do you think we might meet Eskimos? Will there be polar bears?’
‘I hope so.’ Rose stuffed clothes into a case. ‘Elsie, I’m so glad you’re coming, but I was surprised you volunteered. I thought you might have had enough of nursing. They reckon the Germans can’t hold out much longer, and aren’t you dying to go home?’
‘Yes,’ admitted Elsie. ‘But this is my last chance to have adventures, so I want to go to Russia, too. When I get home, I’ll have to settle down. I’ll be a country doctor’s wife, I won’t go anywhere, do anything. If George comes back, of course.’
‘I’m sure he will.’
‘But even if he doesn’t, my mother will want me back at Haddeston Manor. It’ll be like it was before the war – paying calls and making soup for charity, playing tennis, knitting socks and gloves. My whole life was so trivial and dull, you can’t imagine.’
‘I can.’ Rose thought of her mother and her life at Charton Minster. ‘Mine was just the same.’
Elsie, Rose and twelve other nurses crossed the English Channel in a fog, then caught the evening sleeper train to Cardiff. The following morning they had a hurried breakfast in a Forces cafeteria, then stood watching from the quay as tugs and a flotilla of small boats brought the former P&O liner into Cardiff Bay.
‘What’s it called?’ frowned Elsie, peering at the ship shortsightedly.
‘The Kalyan,’ Rose replied.
‘What sort of a name is that?’
‘They can’t all be the Galahad or Invincible!’ Rose laughed at Elsie’s frown. ‘Come on, let’s go and get a better look.’
An hour later the two doctors, fourteen nurses and a dozen orderlies were allowed on board.
‘This is wonderful!’ cried Elsie as they walked the decks, exploring wards and operating theatres, all newly installed, all gleaming white. ‘Look at this place! Look at all the lights, the tables, trolleys, all this new equipment. We’ve got running water. The last time I was in an operating theatre, we were in a horrible old tent and all the water was in buckets!’
The ship had been well-insulated, too. Radiators everywhere gave off almost suffocating heat. ‘We won’t be cold this winter!’ Rose exclaimed.
‘Miss Dennison and M
iss Courtenay, do calm down.’ The middle-aged QA sister in charge of all the nursing staff looked pained and disapproving.
‘But it is exciting, Sister Harrison,’ said a staff nurse. She turned to Rose and smiled. ‘This is an adventure for us all.’
‘It might be for you younger girls, but I’ve served in South Africa and Malta. So you must excuse me if I don’t get worked up about a bit of ice and snow.’
Sister Harrison pursed her lips. ‘Miss Courtenay and Miss Dennison, you may be volunteers, but don’t forget you’re still on active service. I should not need to tell you that you must behave with proper dignity and decorum at all times.’
Then Sister Harrison swept off – probably, thought Rose, to discipline the captain and the crew.
Rose and Elsie chose a cabin on the larboard side, so they could look out for whales and icebergs.
‘When did Captain Denham leave?’ asked Elsie.
‘Last Thursday,’ Rose replied. ‘I didn’t come because of him, you know. I probably won’t see him, anyway.’
‘Oh, you might,’ said Elsie. ‘I hope he doesn’t get hurt, of course. But maybe we could get up concert parties now and then, if Sister Harrison agrees. Does Captain Denham sing?’
‘I honestly don’t know. So you think that old dragon plans to let us have some fun?’
‘You never know. Staff Nurse Pelham says she might look like the wrath of God, but she’s quite a sweetheart underneath.’
‘I’ll bet she wears an iron vest,’ said Rose.
The ship took on supplies of food and fuel, and finally left Cardiff on the third day of November, escorted by a British battleship and three French destroyers.
They were off the coast of Lapland and Elsie had just spotted her first iceberg when the captain sent a message to ask the crew and passengers to meet him on the bridge.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, ‘I have just received a radio message. This morning, at eleven o’clock, Germany and all her allies formally surrendered. So the war is over.’
‘Over?’ whispered Rose. She suddenly felt cold. Although she’d been expecting this, although she’d dreamed and longed for peace for years, she felt somehow bereaved. She found she couldn’t move. She couldn’t say another word. She almost heard the silence ticking by. It was as if the crew and passengers had all been turned to stone.
Then Sister Harrison sighed and shook her head. She brushed her eyes, and Rose saw she was crying. Dr Miller bit his lip, and several other nurses started weeping, or blinking rapidly.
‘We should be happy,’ whispered Elsie.
‘Yes, we should.’ But Rose’s eyes had filled. ‘You’ll see your fiancé soon.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ Rose saw Elsie’s eyes were very bright. ‘George is still in Africa, and one of the crew was saying yesterday the ice is building up. We won’t be going home until the spring.’
Twelve days after leaving Cardiff, the liner left the open waters of the cold White Sea and steamed into the estuary of the River Dvina.
Now, they were so near the Arctic Circle that the autumn days were barely light. But through her cabin window Rose could just make out the iron-grey hulks of British warships, which had come – to stop the Bolshevik Revolution? To safeguard British interests in Russia?
To make sure the Reds were hammered, as Alex might have put it, to support a noble cause, to help the Whites prevail? Or just to guard a heap of rusting shells, and in doing so waste more British lives?
Where might he be, she wondered, as she gazed across the snowy landscape at the deep, dark forest that must go on for ever, at the wooden houses lurking among the slender silver birches, firs and pines.
‘It looks like something from a fairy story,’ whispered Elsie. ‘I keep expecting to see elves and witches.’
‘I can see some people.’ Rose had acquired a pair of field-glasses, and now she pointed to the headland on which the town of Archangel was built, to the huddled clusters of grey-brown wooden houses among the winter trees. A scattering of more substantial buildings – a post office, a hospital, a city hall, perhaps – loomed in the gloaming near the centre of the town, and they could see the gilded onion domes of a small wooden church.
Smoke coiled lazily from the crooked chimneys. In the scrubby gardens, people bundled up against the cold seemed to be pulling roots. Or maybe they were feeding pigs or chickens.
‘Let’s go up on deck,’ suggested Rose.
‘All right, said Elsie, looking doubtful. ‘If you think it’s safe?’
‘Why shouldn’t it be safe?’
‘I don’t know.’ Elsie shuddered, although the cabin was – as always – stifling. ‘Rose, I don’t like this place. Look at those awful woods.’
‘They’re only trees, for heaven’s sake,’ said Rose.
Muffled up in sheepskin greatcoats, thick serge skirts and sheepskin hats with ear flaps, Rose and Elsie leaned over the rail, watching as the crew dropped ropes and chains to men below. They gazed across the snowy landscape at the silver birches, at the forest – full of wolves and Bolsheviks?
They should be safe enough in Archangel, thought Rose. The docks and harbour had become an army camp, with tents and dozens of prefabricated wooden huts, with sentries stationed everywhere. The perimeter wasn’t fenced or wired, she noticed, but perhaps there wasn’t any need. The natural boundary was the forest.
Sister Harrison called a meeting of the nurses. ‘You may leave the ship in pairs,’ she said. ‘You may walk around the army camp. But you may not leave it, and the town itself is out of bounds. This whole district is alive with Reds.’
‘Why did we come here?’ whispered Elsie.
‘You may play hockey, if you wish,’ the sister went on crisply. ‘I’d recommend it, because the exercise will do you good. The men have marked out several pitches, and the brigadier tells me we may use them. Of course, there must be no contact with the men.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find a way to see him,’ murmured Elsie. ‘I expect he’ll come and look for you.’
‘Miss Dennison, did you wish to address the meeting?’ snapped Sister Harrison.
‘No, Sister Harrison,’ Elsie said.
‘Then have the goodness to attend when I am speaking, and stop whispering to your insubordinate friend.’
The weeks went by and Rose saw hardly anything of the army – just the men on sentry duty who stamped their dreary way round the perimeter of the camp, and the ones she treated on board ship.
From these few casualties, she learned patrols went deep into the frozen forest, staying there for weeks, looking for Reds. The actual front, where the White Russians and the remains of the Imperial Army were making their last stand against the Reds, was several hundred miles away.
There was lots of skirmishing in the forests. The beleaguered Whites were taking plenty of punishment from the Reds, the wounded soldiers said. The ammunition dumps were strongly guarded by British and Canadians, but still the Bolsheviks found ways to help their devious selves.
As time went on, a steady stream of wounded came out of the woods. Most of the men had gunshot wounds or frostbite. The wards for men and officers filled up. Lurid tales of what the Bolsheviks did to men they captured made Rose shudder.
‘I’m sure they make it up,’ she said, as Elsie shook and shivered. ‘You know how soldiers gossip. They all exaggerate, and most of them tell lies.’
But as more casualties came in, floated on great wooden barges down a channel in the River Dvina or brought overland on fur-lined sleighs, Rose began to understand why people feared the Reds, and why the local peasants who brought wood and game into the camp had terror in their eyes.
The nurses were used to seeing awful sights and dreadful wounds, but now they started seeing things they’d never seen before – men who had been deliberately mutilated, men who had been captured by the Bolsheviks and rescued, but only after they’d been tortured.
Several nurses started having nightmares, and hardened vet
erans of the Somme and of the Ypres Salient refused to leave the safety of the ship.
‘Did you hear about that poor young chap in Henley Ward?’ Elsie asked Rose, shuddering, as they sat down to supper one December evening.
‘You mean the one the Reds took hostage?’ Rose didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Yes, I heard,’ she said. ‘Elsie, would you pass the gravy, please?’
‘Staff Nurse Pelham told me Captain Miller’s patched him up. But after what they did to him, I don’t think he’ll be able – I mean, he won’t have children. He won’t be a man.’
‘I’m amazed the Russians are so cruel. They’re far worse than the Germans.’ Rose gave up trying to eat her supper. She sat back and lit a cigarette, hoping it would calm her fraying nerves.
Christmas came and went without the usual concert parties, dressing up or any other festive mirth. The war was over, they had cause to celebrate, but nobody was in the mood for fun. They wanted to go home, to leave this ghastly country, get away.
But the seas had frozen. They were trapped until the spring.
Rose tried to find out where the Royal Dorsets had been sent. She finally discovered they and the Canadians had gone deep into the forest. As well as the ammunition dumps, they were guarding fords and levees on the River Dvina, shooting wolves and Reds, and living like wolves themselves on what they hunted, beast or man.
She wished she’d never asked for details. ‘They’re not eating Bolsheviks,’ she said, as she changed the dressing on a sergeant-major’s arm. ‘Wolves and bears, perhaps. But British people don’t eat other human beings.’
‘If there’s nothing else, they do.’ The sergeant-major shrugged. ‘A Red tastes just like pork, without the crackling. Of course, you don’t get apple sauce out there.’
One afternoon in January, as the sullen light was slowly dying, Staff Nurse Pelham came into the rest room where nurses not on duty read or sewed. ‘Miss Courtenay, Sister Marlow, Miss Devine?’ Rose saw she looked flustered and upset. ‘You’re needed down on Walton Ward. The Bolsheviks attacked a dump last night. The Canadians had the worst of it, but they got a few of our boys, too.’
The Silver Locket (Choc Lit) Page 24