Red Wheels Turning

by Ashton, Hugh

  “Well, it has its uses here, I suppose. But like you said, there’s not really a lot of situations you could use it in on the Western Front. But from what I remember hearing when I was in Germany, there aren’t a lot of roads between here in Moscow and the border, and the ground is pretty flat, so railways are the big thing, and it’s got to be some sort of use here.”

  “I think you’re right. If you could get something like this to go on ordinary ground without rails – a sort of land battle cruiser – it would be quite something. Put the fear of God into anyone meeting it for the first time.”

  “But it’s a waste of time to build something like this, and let it go to ruin in this way.” Harry’s instincts as a first-class mechanic who loved machinery were coming to the fore. “It makes me wonder how much use this thing is as a fighting machine if they have let the guns get into the same state as the engines.”

  “We can check.” Brian stepped over to one of the machine-gun ports. “Now that is really strange.”

  “What?”

  “See this gun?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s not a real gun. It’s wood, painted to look like a machine-gun.”

  “The Russians must be really desperate if they’re building these fancy secret weapons without giving them proper guns to fight with.”

  “It seems like it. Quiet, they’re coming back.”

  Petrov led a small procession of railway engineers and soldiers, who climbed through the hatches of the Zaamurets. The hatches were slammed and bolted shut, and Brian felt as he had in the submarine – shut in and sealed off from the world. The only light came from two electric bulbs, and a little daylight shining through the chinks in the armour.

  “Is it possible to get a little more light and fresh air in here?” asked Brian.

  “Certainly,” said Petrov. “In fact, if you think you can manage to hang on tight, you can even travel on the roof. He shouted an order to one of the crewmen, who climbed a short ladder attached to the inside of the hull, and opened a hatch leading to the roof. “There you go.”

  “Thanks,” said Brian. “Coming, Harry?”

  The two Englishmen climbed the few steps to the ladder and found a convenient place to wedge themselves. Beneath them, they could hear the engines start, and a few shouted words in Russian.

  “What’s all that about?” asked Harry.

  Brian smiled. “The railway engineers are saying that they’ve never heard the engines running so quietly, and they’re thanking the army mechanics for their hard work.”

  “Well, I hope they’re not taking the credit for what I did,” said Harry.

  “Don’t worry, the army blokes are giving all the credit to the genius of an Englishman who’s currently sitting up on the roof. And I don’t think they’re referring to me.”

  “We’re off,” remarked Harry, as the Zaamurets started to move off smoothly. As they passed a signal box, a loud blast sounded from the train’s horn, startling both men. The exhaust fumes from the engines streamed behind them as they chugged their way slowly through the Moscow suburbs.

  “What a way to travel, eh?” said Brian, smiling.

  -oOo-

  Kolinski too, was travelling on the roof of a train out of Moscow, but in his case, no-one knew he was there. Or so he hoped.

  His escape from the prison hospital in Reval had been ridiculously easy once he had disposed of the nurse and the marines and changed into the guard’s uniform. Carrying the carbine, he had smartly saluted everything in sight that looked as though it should be saluted, and walked out of the door. The clothes he had arrived in were in the knapsack over his back, and as soon as he could find a place out of sight of the world, he changed out of the uniform into his own garments. He dumped the uniform into the river, weighted with the gun, which he abandoned with regret, but he had no illusions about being able to carry it around the city in civilian clothes without attracting attention. His knife had been removed from his belongings while he had been in hospital. Strangely, they had left his papers intact. He had to assume that they had been copied. Surely they wouldn’t have been overlooked?

  In any case, he had a lot of time to wait before the arranged meeting in Petrograd. For obvious reasons, Reval was not a suitable place for him to wait. He had to assume the authorities had read the note he was carrying, so it would be foolish to wait in Petrograd until the time of the meeting. Even if the paper didn’t contain the actual date on which the meeting was actually to take place, the police might well assume that he was in Petrograd, waiting for the meeting, and would be on the lookout for him.

  Best, he thought, for him to make straight for the Netopyr at the proving ground outside Moscow and skip the Petrograd meeting. Even if they had managed to break the code and read his instructions, they wouldn’t be expecting him. And the Chief would be delighted if he managed to carry out his mission so quickly.

  He had to assume that his description had been circulated, and that the railway stations and ferry terminals were being watched. Now he rather regretted having disposed of the uniform so quickly and having reverted to civilian attire. If he were to travel in uniform, no-one would ever question him. Especially if it were a police uniform...

  He was lucky to be in a part of Russia where quite a few people were as tall as him, and, as he noticed, many of these tall men seemed to be in the police force. As he hung around outside the railway station, hunched over inside his thick overcoat, he noticed one strapping young policeman with a particularly vacant look on his face, who appeared to be bored with his job of standing outside the station. Time to arm himself. He went to a shop round the corner, returning with a bottle of vodka hidden inside his coat, and waited until his quarry was relieved at the end of his shift. Kolinski followed the off-duty policeman as he moved away from the station. As his quarry turned down a small side-street, Kolinski quickened his pace, and clapped the man on the shoulder.

  “Ivan Gregorivich, how glad I am to see you!” he exclaimed heartily.

  The policeman jumped, startled. “My name’s not Ivan Gregorivich,” he said. “Even if my name is Ivan, my father’s name is Vladimir. I would trouble you to take your hands off me, you scum.”

  “My mistake,” apologised Kolinski. “From the back, you looked exactly like my friend’s nephew, Ivan Gregorivich. I am so sorry to have surprised you in that way. Nothing worse than being startled like that, is there, my dear fellow?”

  “Well,” said the other, accepting the olive branch. “I suppose it’s my turn to apologize for my hasty words. As you say, I was startled.”

  “Of course, of course,” cried Kolinski. “We should seal this with a drink. Are you on duty?” he enquired innocently.

  “Just come off duty,” explained the other. “I’m not altogether sure that I should be drinking, though. Not in uniform like this.”

  “Too bad,” said Kolinski, pulling the vodka bottle from inside his coat. “In that case, I’ll have to drink this by myself,” winking.

  “Hey! I meant I couldn’t go to a bar or restaurant with you while I was in uniform. I didn’t mean that I couldn’t drink at all.”

  “That’s good,” said Kolinski. “I like a man who can be flexible.” He opened the bottle and passed it to the other. “You first.”

  The policeman took a sniff of the bottle. “Good stuff,” he remarked. “Your health, sir.” He took a good swig, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before passing the bottle back to Kolinski, who took a drink in his turn before handing the bottle back.

  “Are you sure?” asked the policeman. “I thought this bottle was for your friend’s nephew. I shouldn't be drinking it.”

  “No, not at all,” replied Kolinski airily. “I wasn’t expecting to meet Ivan Gregorivich in any case – it just seemed to me that you looked like him. This was just for my personal enjoyment. But good drink is best enjoyed with friends, don’t you think?”

  A nod, and the level of vodka in the bottle dropped significantly.
As Kolinski had guessed, the policeman’s empty stomach and the long hours of standing guard had weakened his resistance to alcohol. He already seemed a little less steady on his feet, and when he spoke, there was a slight hesitation as he forced his mouth to frame the words.

  “It really is most kind of you to let me share this. I wish there was something I could do for you in return.”

  “Actually, there is something,” replied Kolinski. “I’m known round these parts as something of a joker, and I want to surprise my friend. He’s going to be waiting for me just round the corner in a few minutes. If I was to turn up in a police uniform, and pretend to arrest him, it would be a bit of a shock for him, wouldn’t it? Especially when we get close to the police station, and I let him see it’s me?”

  “That would be a good joke,” agreed the policeman.

  “And I notice that you and I are much of a size, so if you could lend me your uniform for an hour or so, that would give me time to play my joke. And then I could come back and give you your uniform back.”

  “I’m not sure about that. I mean, it is a police uniform, after all.”

  “That’s what makes the joke better. But you didn’t think I was going to ask you to do this for nothing, did you?” Kolinski produced one of his gold pieces.

  “Well, as you say, it would be a good joke. Where do you want to change clothes?”

  “As I say, my friend lives just round the corner, so why don’t we change in this alley here behind the warehouse? I don’t think anyone will be coming this way at this time of night.” Kolinski led the way, and tried the warehouse door. “Better and better. Right out of the way. No-one will see us.”

  Kolinski started taking off his coat and shirt. “I’ll keep my own boots, I think,” he said. “Wearing another man’s boots is never comfortable.”

  In a few minutes each man was dressed in the other’s clothes. “You see, I was right,” said Kolinski. “We are very much of a size, and this uniform could almost have been made for me, don’t you think?”

  “You certainly do look like a real policeman,” smiled the other. “The only thing is that you kept your own belt, and you don’t have my proper police belt. Here, let’s change.” He unthreaded his belt, and removed the pistol from its holster before holding out the belt to Kolinski.

  “I think I’d better have the pistol as well, just to look the part,” said Kolinski, unthreading his own belt and replacing it with the police belt.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” said the younger man.

  “I’m leaving the bottle with you,” said Kolinski. “And I’ll bring another one with me when I return to change back into my own clothes.”

  “Oh, here you are,” holding out the pistol, butt first, towards Kolinski.

  “Thank you,” said Kolinski, taking the pistol, flipping the safety catch, and shooting the other through the forehead in one swift fluid motion before thinking of any possible discovery. A passing tram rattled past on the other side of the wall; with luck, it would mask the noise of the shot, Kolinski hoped, but he stayed alert, revolver in hand, in case anyone had heard anything untoward and decided to investigate. He relaxed after a minute or so, “Thank you,” he repeated to the corpse, stuffing his own gold-laden belt into the pocket of the police greatcoat and stooping to retrieve the gold coin from the pocket where the dead man had carefully stowed it a few minutes previously.

  He took another swig from the vodka bottle, almost emptying it. “I told you I was leaving the bottle with you. See, I keep my promises,” he told the dead body, tossing it onto the floor beside the corpse. It rolled, but didn’t break.

  Once again, Kolinski stooped down, this time to retrieve the coded papers that had been given to him in Zurich. He decided to leave the ruined Swiss and Russian passports in the pockets, though. They were useless to him now.

  Next he looked at his new police identification, noting with pleasure that there was no photograph against which his face could be compared. Still, it might be a good idea if he were to trim his beard, or even shave it off. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea to entrust the operation to a barber. A pair of scissors should be an easy enough thing to come by, though, and he guessed he could always use a window of an empty shop in a side-street as a mirror.

  -oOo-

  An hour or so later, he had put his plan into effect. His once luxuriant flowing beard was now neatly trimmed. He thought he looked quite dashing and handsome with this new look and the uniform. Maybe he’d keep his beard trimmed this way after all this was over.

  He decided to try his luck and ask at the station for an official pass to travel to Moscow. A pity he’d killed the police officer, he thought to himself. It would have been amusing to handcuff the man with his own handcuffs and turn him into a prisoner being escorted under guard to Moscow, but he hoped that he would be able to travel at government expense to Moscow anyway. The idea was almost as amusing as taking along a policeman as a prisoner. And if they didn’t give him an official ticket, what were they going to do? Call the police? He grinned to himself.

  Forcing his way to the head of the line as he’d seen the police do so many times, he shoved an elderly woman who was buying a ticket out of his way, and demanded an official rail pass to Moscow.

  “Where are your orders signed by your commanding officer?” asked the ticket clerk.

  That was a nasty one. He’d never heard of this before, but decided to bluff it out. He felt in his pocket, and retrieved his police identification, laying it ostentatiously on the desk in front of him. A look of pretended horror came over his face as he continued to search fruitlessly in his pockets.

  “I must have left it back at the station. I can’t go back,” he bluffed. “Superintendent Gretchkin will make sausage-meat out of me if I have to go back, and this is urgent. You know you don’t really need the orders, do you?”

  “Orders is orders,” said the other firmly.

  “Quite right,” replied Kolinski. “And my orders are to be in Petrograd. And what’s it going to look like when I tell them at the Ministry that I was late because of a stupid donkey of a railway clerk who couldn’t recognise an official on urgent business when he saw one? Your name?” pulling out a notebook and pencil.

  The clerk swallowed. “Very well,” he said, writing out a travel pass in the name of the dead policeman. “When do you want to leave?”

  “At last you see some sense,” said Kolinski. “Maybe I won’t have to report you after all. It’s urgent, I tell you. The next fast train to Petrograd.”

  “In a little less than ten minutes,” replied the other, with a slight edge of malice in his voice.

  “Then you’d better write fast, hadn’t you?”

  The pass was written, and handed over. Kolinski pocketed it and strode away without a word of thanks, playing the arrogant police bully to the last.

  On the train, he commandeered one of the best seats in the carriage, rudely forcing others out of the way. The combination of his size, the police uniform, and the scowl on his face meant that no-one was in any mood to argue with him.

  It would be time to change identities once again in Petrograd. It was quite possible that the Reval authorities had discovered the body of the policeman and had telegraphed ahead to Petrograd to alert them of Kolinski’s arrival. It might be a good idea to shave off his beard completely – he hadn’t been clean-shaven since he was a teenager. At least it would be safer to have a barber shave him in Petrograd than in Reval.

  The train eventually pulled into Petrograd, and Kolinski set out to look for a barber who could help with the transformation. He chose a small barber in a working-class district some way from the centre of the city, and explained that he had just been seconded from Reval, hence his uniform, but that his new commanding officer in Petrograd was not in favour of the policemen under his command wearing beards. He was surprised when the barber refused his offered payment after the operation was complete.

  “It’s brave lads like you
who are keeping us safe from those socialist and communist scum,” the barber had said, and went on at length about his love for the old regime and how it would protect his profits.

  Bourgeois parasite, thought Kolinski, but kept his opinion to himself. Petrograd was not a place where he wanted to stir up more trouble than he had to. The ministries and national police headquarters were in the city, and he had no wish to bring himself to the notice of the authorities. Still, he was grateful to the barber, who had not only shaved his beard neatly, but had also trimmed his rather long and shaggy hair, transforming him completely. In his own eyes, he looked even more like a police officer than he had done previously, but it was time to make yet another change of clothes and find a new identity. After leaving the barber, he made his way through the back streets, searching. He found what he was looking for in a few minutes.

  Pushing open the door of the shabby pawnbroker's, with “A. Solomon” written over the front, he surprised the owner, a bearded Jew in a caftan.

  “Your Honour, I've paid already this month. I can't afford any more right now.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at Kolinski. “You're new here, aren't you?” He looked a little closer at the buttons on the police uniform. “You're not even from Petrograd, are you? You've got no business here.”

  “I might be a customer, you know. I'm not after your money. Are you prepared to help the government?”

  “Of course, Your Honour. Why shouldn't I help? As long as it's not money. I pay my taxes like everyone else, and I pay the police to keep me safe. You want to know who brings me the things here? I can show you a list of names and addresses, all with dates and amounts. Here.” He reached behind the counter and pulled out a large ledger.

  “I'm not interested in that right now,” said Kolinski. “I have special orders to track a very dangerous man, who has killed several people in Reval, and is believed to be making his way to Petrograd even now. My chief has ordered me here to find this man and arrest him, but I can't do it in uniform, can I now? I have to do it in plain clothes. Do you have any old clothes here to fit me?”