Red Wheels Turning

by Ashton, Hugh

  The man appeared to be wearing an English army uniform, as far as Kolinski could tell, but he wasn’t the same man who’d escorted Kolinski in the ambulance to the hospital in Reval. Presumably this was the proletarian engineer officer he’s been told about. The girl was a different matter. She was wearing a riding skirt and a Russian infantry tunic, but of much better cut and material than the usual private’s uniform.

  “Turn around, put your hands in the air, and put your feet apart,” she ordered. The pistol was pointing directly at Kolinski’s head. Slowly, he did as he had been ordered, and he felt what seemed to the be muzzle of the pistol pressed against the back of his neck.

  “One false move and your head comes off, Bolshevik scum,” she hissed at him. How had he ever thought her beautiful? he asked himself. “The Lieutenant is going to search you. Stay absolutely still.”

  He felt hands patting his tunic pockets, and feeling under his arms. They were the hands of someone who had done this kind of work before, it seemed, and they were carrying out the task quite rapidly. They would reach the bayonet soon. It was now or never.

  With a sudden ducking twist, he turned to face the girl, and knocked his hand upwards against her wrist. The pistol went flying out of her hand as Kolinski ducked down, and grabbed the ankle of the British officer, who went flat on his back as Kolinski heaved at his leg. The confusion gave Kolinski the few vital seconds he needed to reach inside the waistband of his tunic and pull out the bayonet, which he flourished in the face of the girl.

  “Come with me, darling,” he leered. “Stand right here,” indicating a point immediately in front of him, between him and the Netopyr’s gun. She obeyed, seemingly hypnotised by the bright shining steel of the bayonet. Kolinski grinned his horrible grin at her. "Now, you're not going to make trouble, are you?" She shook her head. "And what about you?" he asked the Englishman, who just stared at him as he struggled back to his feet.

  "He doesn't speak Russian," explained the girl. "I'll tell him."

  The Englishman said something to Kolinski, who understood not a word.

  "What was that?" he asked the girl.

  She shook her head and said nothing.

  "Come on, damn you. Or one of those pretty little ears of yours comes off." The bayonet flashed to emphasise his words.

  "It wasn't exactly a compliment. And he added that he promises that if you hurt me, you will die. Very slowly."

  Kolinski laughed. “I spit in the face of threats like that, little one. Tell him that.”

  She spoke to him, and to Kolinski’s surprise, the Englishman laughed back in his face, but without saying anything in reply.

  “What do you want, anyway?” the girl asked Kolinski.

  “Justice for the workers,” he replied, repeating a phrase he had heard at Party meetings. “Or to be more exact, I want to see the death of that monster, and all those connected with it,” jerking his head towards the Netopyr.

  “And is this what you call justice?” she flashed back at him. “You know, there are people like my father who might even listen to what you people have to say, if you would just behave like civilised human beings instead of like animals.”

  “And who is your father, then? Even if he listened, would he take any notice? Would he agree with what we told him? Even if he did agree with us, could he persuade anyone else to listen and agree with him? No, my pretty little one, we don't believe that talking to your father will do any good. Action is the only way forward for us.” Kolinski was now a little confused. Intellectual debate was far from being his strong point, and he had almost run out of words. Now he was even less sure about whether he was going to be able to kill this girl in cold blood. It wouldn’t be the first time he had killed a woman, but his previous victims had been of a somewhat different class, and the circumstances had been more heated.

  He must have relaxed his grip while he was considering all this, because suddenly she twisted in his arms to face him, and brought her knee up sharply between his legs. Kolinski reacted to this in the same way as most men do when hit hard in the testicles. He doubled up sharply in agony, but still managed to keep his grip on the bayonet, though losing his hold on the girl, who managed to wriggle completely out of his grasp. As Kolinski desperately sucked in air, he noticed through the black spots dancing in front of his eyes that the Englishman was making a dive for the girl’s pistol lying on the ground where it had fallen. Still bent almost double and gasping for breath, he debated his best course of action. The girl was still within reach, and he made a grab for her arm, seizing it, and dragging her in front of him once again as a shield between his own body and the Englishman. Now, with the pain between his legs sending waves of nausea surging through his body, he had no qualms about slicing the bitch’s throat open, and he lifted the bayonet to her face, pressing the edge against the skin of her neck. He bared his teeth in a snarl of pain and ferocity.

  Before he could tense himself for the final stroke to cut her throat he saw the Englishman raising the pistol, seemingly about to fire. He swiftly switched his attack to counter the immediate danger from the pistol, and hurled the bayonet at the Englishman’s face. As if in a dream, he watched the blade spinning end over end, and realised it would go low, and miss its target. The Englishman automatically dodged, but did so clumsily; too slowly to avoid the bayonet’s point, which lodged itself firmly into the side of his neck, just above his shoulder. He slumped down to the ground, dropping the pistol. Kolinski was still drawing his breath in massive heaves and trying to make sense of what was going on round him, when the sudden noise of a firearm behind him made him start. A bullet cracked past him from behind and his hand felt the wind of its passing, too close for comfort. Before he could react to this new development, the sound of another shot rang out, and a sudden sharp pain in his right hand distracted him from the ache between his legs. Dazed and shocked, he looked down at his hand, and was horrified to see that it was covered with blood. He tried to move it, and quickly gave up the attempt. Even a slight movement of the fingers sent waves of agony shooting through his body to mingle with the pain spreading from his groin.

  -oOo-

  “There, that took your mind off being kicked in the balls, didn’t it?” came a new voice. Kolinski couldn’t see the speaker, but the voice didn’t seem to be coming from inside the Netopyr. Rather, it seemed to be coming from behind him. Looking around him cautiously, he noticed that the girl was now bent down over the injured Englishman. “Don’t worry, we’ll meet soon enough,” said the voice behind him. “Just keep perfectly still and don’t move a muscle.”

  With the pain in his groin and in his shattered hand, moving was one of the last things on Kolinski’s mind. He stood and waited, hearing steps coming from the woods behind him.

  The footsteps passed him and halted in front of him. Raising his eyes, Kolinski saw another English uniform, worn by a man as tall as Kolinski himself, but considerably slighter, carrying a sniper’s rifle fitted with telescopic sights.

  “By God, if you’ve killed Harry…” said the stranger, fixing Kolinski with a pair of cold green eyes. Now Kolinski recognised the Englishman who had ridden with him in the ambulance to the hospital in Reval. “Maria, how is he?” without taking his gaze from Kolinski’s face.

  “Breathing,” came the girl’s voice. “But he needs a doctor.”

  “Damn it, there’s no wireless or telephone here, is there? Can he be taken back to the base in the Netopyr?"

  "I'm not a doctor, but my feeling is that he shouldn't be moved any more than necessary, and the Netopyr isn't really suitable as an ambulance."

  "I'll run back and fetch help," came a voice from behind them. "I used to be the champion long-distance runner at school, and I've kept in training since then. I can take short cuts that the Netopyr can’t manage and I promise you I’ll be faster than any machine."

  At the sight of the speaker, a strange look came over Kolinski's face. "You here, Comrade?" he asked curiously. "You told me that yo
u wouldn't be on the Netopyr today."

  "I'm not your Comrade, you piece of Communist garbage," spat back the other.

  "Do you mean to say that you know this maniac, Alexander Alexandrovich?” asked Brian.

  "Indeed he does," came another voice. Kolinski looked up to see what appeared to be the whole crew of the Netopyr emerging from the hull of the monster, led by a short portly man in Russian officer's uniform, presumably Colonel Petrov. It was he who had spoken. "I'll explain later. Are you all right, my dear?" to the girl. She nodded dumbly. "Lieutenant, keep your rifle to that man's head. Alexander Alexandrovich, start running now. Get a doctor and an ambulance. Bring the doctor here first on a horse or a motorcycle if you can, and let the ambulance follow. You two," pointing to two other men, "bring the handcuffs and irons that we brought with us – you’ll find them in the top turret – and make sure this bastard can’t get away.”

  “Not much danger of that for some time,” said Kolinski, attempting a feeble grin. “This bitch here has wrecked my manhood, and this bastard here has wrecked my right hand.”

  The Englishman strode forward and slapped him twice across the face, so hard and fast that Kolinski's ears rang. “That’s for calling me a bastard,” he said. “And this,” driving his fist into Kolinski’s face, “is for calling her a bitch.” Kolinski heard something crack – either his nose or his cheekbone, or maybe both. He wasn’t going to lift his hands up to his face to find out – it was just too much effort.

  “Leave him to us, Lieutenant,” were the last words Kolinski heard from the fat officer before the black spots in front of his eyes joined up to make a solid impenetrable black veil, and he slumped to the ground in agony as he passed out.

  -oOo-

  “Good shooting there, Lieutenant, and good timing,” said Petrov to Brian, who was ruefully rubbing the hand he had used to hit Kolinski.

  “Not good enough on either count, sir,” replied Brian. “Harry looks as though he’s in a bad way, and I was far too late.”

  “At least you were here.” Brian had returned from his mission to Petrograd, having delivered Featherington to the submarine, just in time to see the Netopyr being fuelled and armed with a machine-gun. Since Harry had briefed him already about the trip, Petrov had not asked too many questions, but had simply handed him a sniper’s rifle, and explained that he was to hitch a ride on the rear trail of the Netopyr, and jump off at a point which Petrov indicated on a map, before circling round to the rear of where Kolinski was expected to be lying in wait.

  Brian was too surprised by Petrov’s apparent knowledge of Kolinski’s movements to argue, and did exactly as he was told. However, until he had seen Maria coming out of the Netopyr with Harry, he had had no idea that she was on board. What, he asked himself, was Petrov doing allowing her to come out and meet Kolinski like this? Brian had met men like Kolinski before, though none had been quite as vicious or remorseless as the Russian, and he had no intention of under-estimating Kolinski’s ruthlessness or his cunning.

  The way that Kolinski had been standing had made it impossible for him to take a clean shot for fear of hitting either Harry or Maria, until Kolinski, obviously still incapacitated from Maria’s knee to his groin (Brian had been unable to stop himself wincing in unconscious sympathy), had drawn his arm back to throw the bayonet at Harry. Brian, for all his skill, had been unable to draw a bead on his target before the throw, and had had to content himself with firing two quick shots at Kolinski’s hand after the event. He felt sick at the way that he had let Harry down. If only he’d been a bit quicker, he told himself. He forced himself to look at Harry, who was breathing regularly, but shallowly. The wound in his throat looked as though it had missed the vein, but there was an obscene sucking noise as Harry breathed. Brian had heard that sound before, from men who had been shot in the throat. They usually died quickly, and sometimes very painfully. I should have managed better, he told himself again. I should have been quicker.

  “You couldn’t have been any quicker than you were,” said Petrov, reaching up to put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. Brian realised that he must have been speaking aloud. “Don’t worry,” Petrov told him. “You did more than I would have believed possible, under very difficult circumstances.”

  “I’ve seen this sort of wound in the past,” Brian said. “It’s never good news.”

  Maria was still tending to Harry. She’d taken off her tunic and rolled it up to put under Harry’s head. Better her than me, thought Brian. He was amazed that tears were blurring his eyes. After all those months in the trenches. All that mud and blood. All those deaths. This one was different.

  “Where’s Kolinski?” he asked. Anything to take his mind off Harry.

  “He’s there, under the Netopyr. Don’t damage him any more. We are going to want to find out more about him and his organisation and we want him to be able to speak. After we’ve finished with him, we’ll shoot whatever’s left of him.”

  “Shooting’s too kind for that bastard,” said Brian.

  “Come now,” replied Petrov. “Where’s that sense of British sportsmanship and fair play we hear so much about? If we break the rules of decent behaviour, that makes us no better than them.”

  “Sod decent behaviour. I just hope that the doctor arrives soon.”

  “He will be here in a few minutes. Worrying about it won’t do a thing to help Harry. Maria’s trained to look after wounds – she’s been doing some volunteer nursing in the hospitals, and she knows what she’s doing. You and I would only be in the way.”

  “And I think she has a strong personal interest in making sure the patient recovers,” added Brian.

  Petrov shot him a sharp look. “Yes, I’d noticed that, too. If it wasn’t for damned social conventions, I would say that they’d make a good match. You look surprised, eh? I have to tell you, I am regarded as a dangerous radical by many of my extended family. That’s one reason I’m not wearing a uniform covered in gold braid and prancing up and down on a white horse in front of regiments of cannon fodder. I think they fear I might infect the troops with revolutionary ideas or something.”

  “But you don’t go along with lunatics like Ulyanov and his gang of Bolsheviks?” Brian was curious. This was a side of Petrov that he had only just discovered.

  “No, of course not. They’re crazy dreamers. You know, they say they’re for the working man, but most of them have never done a day’s work in their lives. Ulyanov, for example. A few months at most working as a lawyer, and he talks about the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. What does he know about the Russian proletariat, living in Zurich? I would wager that I come into closer contact with the Russian proletariat every week than he does in five years. But even so, I would like to see more democracy in our country, and less reliance on one person and his personal whims and fancies. And an end to the corruption and the lies and thievery that make this country weak. I can tell you all this because I can trust your discretion.” It was not quite a threat.

  Brian nodded. “Thank you for the confidence.”

  Petrov cocked an ear. “I think I hear the sound of an engine.”

  “You’re right. A motorcycle?”

  “I think so,” Petrov agreed.

  A few minutes later, and Alexander roared the machine to a stop. The army doctor, looking somewhat the worse for his bumpy cross-country ride, dismounted shakily, tightly clutching his bag of instruments.

  “This one first, doctor,” said Petrov, pointing to Harry.

  The doctor bent over the patient and went into consultation with Maria.

  “Excuse me,” said Brian to Petrov, and walked away from the scene, ostentatiously turning his back on everyone, and staring blindly into the forest.

  After about ten minutes, Brian felt a gentle tap on his arm. “Lieutenant Finch-Malloy?” He turned to look into Maria’s face. Her eyes were swimming in tears.

  “It’s not good news, then?” Brian asked. He felt helpless.

  “Not bad news, eith
er.” She forced a smile of sorts. “At least, the doctor seems to think so. It looks as though he is in a very serious condition, but with proper treatment and care, he should make a perfect recovery. At least that’s what the doctor told me.” There was an element of doubt in her voice.

  “And you’re not so sure?”

  “I don’t know what to believe. I’ve seen many men with similar wounds in the hospital. Not many of them survived.”

  Brian said nothing. The tears were starting to his own eyes. He sniffed. “Maria, we have to pull ourselves together. This is not going to help Harry. We have to get him back to the sick bay.”

  “An ambulance is coming. But they’ll have to carry him on a stretcher to the road. The doctor does seem confident he’s going to live, though.”

  -oOo-

  Harry died an hour after he was put to bed in the sick bay, without regaining full consciousness.

  “Loss of blood,” said the doctor. “And shock. I did all I could.”

  “I know you did. Thank you, doctor,” said Brian, but there was no gratitude, or indeed, any emotion at all discernible in his voice.

  Petrov said nothing, but sat impassively. Maria burst into tears and fled from the room. Brian half-rose, but Petrov waved a hand, and Brian sat down again.

  “Believe me, Lieutenant. She’s better without us at a time like this. Leave her alone for now. Her maid will look after her better than you or I could manage.”

  “I think we need a few explanations here, Colonel,” said Brian, after the two men had sat in silence for a few minutes, each ostentatiously avoiding the other’s eyes. “You were expecting that maniac, obviously. You told me that he was waiting to ambush the Netopyr. You knew he was armed. Why the hell, begging your pardon, sir, did you send out only Harry and Maria to meet him and deal with him?”