Cold Blood

by James Fleming

  Then again, what if Glebov didn’t bite? How would it be if in fact he were the bloodhound and I the fugitive?

  One thought led to another...

  The next I knew was that the air was filled with the crash of cymbals and trumpets, with gongs, with factory hooters and earthquakes. I sat up sharply. Crackety-crack, crackety-crack, crackety-crack—it was the first of the Kazan refugee trains rocketing through with Vladivostok in their sights. Our siding was fifty yards away from the main line and concealed in a slight declivity. Nevertheless our windows quivered, the putty fell out of them and the cap on the pipe leading up from our stove bobbled like the lid of a kettle. The noise faded, with a last whistle as it raced through Chirilino.

  That train was the first and it was the fastest, the rig of someone who’d had the foresight to purchase the coal and a driver before the rush. Not just any old coal but the best that was around in Kazan, leaving for the rest of the flighty the slack at the bottom of the heap, which was as hard to shovel as dust and burned poorly.

  “They’ll get slower and slower, you wait and see,” I said to Xenia, throwing back the covers and slapping her pink haunch. “The last’ll be scarcely able to move.”

  I was proved right. The rest of the refugee trains wheezed past us, moving so gently that one could examine the patterns of rust on the wheels as they passed. Stray dogs from the town ran alongside the carriages, snapping at the ankles of the refugees sitting sideways on the coach buffers, making them draw up their legs and cling to each other.

  Here a question should be asked: Did any of us wave to these unfortunates or call out a cheerful greeting? How much of the good Samaritan was in us?

  The answer is, Yes, Vaska, our young naïf did. When the first of the slow trains arrived he walked beside it saying things like “How are you?,” “Where do you come from?,” “The day’s still young,” and other rural commonplaces, his wide peasant’s face full of smiles and goodness.

  But that was the last time he did it. Mrs. D. smacked him down fiercely, saying it would only encourage refugees to abandon their hopeless form of transport and take their chances with us.

  “You ask the Colonel if he wants a bunch of useless hungry layabouts under his command. Go on. He’s only five yards away.”

  Bewildered, Vaska did just that. Of course I said No. And I looked at Mrs. D. in a different light from then on.

  All day long the trains came past us, Boltikov scanning them avidly for signs of wealth. He wanted to believe that tubs of icons, tiaras, pearls, rubies, emeralds—every species of jewel, not to mention cloaks of Arctic fox and rolls of medieval Bokharas—were still being shifted out of the country. He’d already filled a wagon with stuff to sell from his dreamed-of warehouse in Constantinople.

  “Kazan is rich. Think of the Tartar cattle merchants and the like. Don’t tell me they still put their trust in bank vaults.”

  I replied, “Alexander Alexandrovich, a for apple you’ll be lucky to get to Odessa let alone Byzantium and b for baksheesh the goods that you seek will, for the most part, be leaving Russia not with their owners but through underground channels unknown to either of us but of a certainty in existence since conditions were primitive.”

  He was not persuaded. “But Russia is so huge! Twelve days from Moscow to the Pacific on the fastest train! Think how much wealth there is around. Some of it must be in these trains. Let us at least stop and search them. It can do no harm. You never know—some of these Siberian gems, Charlie, you’ve never seen anything like them—just one prime diamond would buy us a palace on the Bosphorus—OK, every other train, then— OK, so we have to put the Kazan job back a day, what of it...”

  I said he should go and open Blumkin’s store to work off his appetite for profit. But selling candles and the like didn’t appeal to him. He went to watch Kobi giving Vaska sabre drill.

  We remained where we were, observing the movements on the railway. By the evening the refugee trains had ceased: the line to Kazan was clear.

  Forty-six

  WE SHOWED no running lights. A fuzzy patch of sparks above the chimney was all that gave us away as we slid through the belly of the night. Even the kerosene lamp that played on the water gauges had been hooded.

  Pressure was right down. The dampers were virtually closed. We were just trundling along because Stiffy was at his wireless and bracketed to his wagon was its aerial, all 120 feet of it. For the moment we were travelling through open farmland with no bridges over the line to foul it. When we got nearer Kazan, we’d be close enough to Glebov to pick up his signals without it. In the meantime I wanted to know about every single piece of wireless traffic, Red and White. We had to have the aerial up and we had to travel slowly.

  Dawn was my deadline: six thirty. By then Glebov had to be dealt with and the gold had to be ours. I didn’t want us to be wandering round Kazan in daylight in Bolshevik uniforms.

  In front the sky had a bruised tinge. Like the Verey lights that had signalled the Bolshevik onslaught, it was reflected onto the clouds over the city, turning them into huge violet pillows.

  There could be no doubt: Kazan was burning.

  No, said Shmuleyvich, it was some queer relic of the day’s sun—to do with the coming of the equinox. He’d seen it before, in Siberia. But whatever its cause, it was a bad colour. “Pitch black would have suited us better for the gold.” Glancing at me, “Though perhaps not for the other thing.” He made a stabbing motion with his hand. “For that you must be able to see clearly. No good guessing where the bastard is.”

  There were just the two of us in the cab. Our rifles were propped in the corner, below the coal. The iron wings meant we were safe from anything except a grenade or a direct hit from a shell—or from gas. I hadn’t heard of anyone using it in Russia but only the worst was to be expected from Trotsky.

  For a moment Shmuley’s face was profiled against the sky. Remarking to myself upon the strong nose of a man who enjoys women, I asked him the same question as I’d put to Joseph, How did he feel about being dead by this time tomorrow.

  He grunted. “If I could be certain it was going to happen, I’d want to lie in bed with my woman and smoke and drink simultaneously right up to the moment of death. That’s what I most like doing. I’m a basic man, born from Adam’s seed.” He chuckled. “My feet know where the ground is. There’s nothing airy-fairy about Yuri Shmuleyvich.”

  The night was smooth on my face. It was a companionable feeling being alone with this large, vigorous man. It was as if the two of us had sworn a pact to take on all of Trotsky’s armies by ourselves.

  He continued: “Any fool can have a woman at the same time as he’s smoking. If he’s taking a long time about it, she’ll probably want a cigarette as well. The problem is with the drinking. Let’s face it, we like to use our hands to get a grip on things, wouldn’t be men if we didn’t. And she likes us to get a grip, let’s not forget that a woman likes being gripped. Annushka—”

  “Annushka?”

  “Annushka Madam Davidova,” he said with a chuckle.

  At that moment the bell we’d rigged up to the carriages rang, barely audible above the noise of the engine.

  I said, “Too bad. Will Annushka wait until next time?”

  “She’d better, boss. She’d better wait forever.”

  I went back through the coal tender and was met by Vaska. He led me down the train to the dining car. We had blackout stuff at all the windows—cloth from Blumkin’s stores. Jones was at the table with decrypt papers strewn all round him. His smile was ragged at the edges. He probably thought he should be in his bed.

  “They’ve opened a new code.”

  “But you broke it and here I am, Leapforth. No need to be dramatic.”

  “Yeah, I broke it... in the end. They’ve moved on from the Caesar alphabets and all that Vigenère stuff. What they’re at now—a polyalphabetical substitution. Greek and Russian only so far. Makes sense for the Russkis to use Greek. I guessed that one right away. Then th
ey used a repeating keyword, which was kind of them.”

  “They’re through with Elizaveta?”

  “It’s only Propaganda who’ve been using it, I told you that. This was to Trotsky from the commander of the Northern Army. The Reds have captured the railway in two places. Our railway.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. I haven’t seen any foot traffic the whole night. Capture the railway and you capture the road, that’s what it looks like on the map.”

  The road ran alongside the railway, dead straight, no bridges, not twenty yards away. Even in that light we’d have seen movement. Handcarts, wagons, dogs, horses, donkeys—encampments round a fire with prayers and weepings and songs of death, animals and humans alike suspicious of the promises flying around. We’d have had to be blind not to see ten thousand refugees hoofing it east.

  I said, “The Reds’ll have done it to put pressure on the city. There’ll be all these mothers and children and old people crying out for food and water. Getting in the Whites’ way. Getting desperate.”

  He said, “So it doesn’t worry you that the line they’ve captured is the very one we’re on? That we’re shafted?”

  I looked him over, chin resting in my palm. I said, “Why do you suppose we have all these Red uniforms? What’s your game, Jones? You’re not behaving like a man who expects to be moving out soon with 690 tons of gold. You’re acting too sluggish. No modest man ever made a fortune. Keeping something back, are we, plut?”—that being slang for a confidence man.

  “The false whiskers are in my pocket, Charlie boy,” he said, moving quickly out of his anxious mode and pouring that smile of his over me like syrup.

  I shouted for Vaska and sent him back to Shmuley with orders to stop the train. We needed to prepare for meeting the Reds. I’d take the aerial down at the same time. “And then go through the coaches telling everyone to get changed into their Red kit. Run, boy! Zhivo!”

  Jones made to leave but I stopped him. “It’s time you and I got things cleared up. Tell me straight what you’re doing. Arrange the words so that I believe you. Otherwise I leave you behind.”

  I took out my Luger and laid it on the table.

  That got his attention. He opened his palms, spread them wide as if to show he was unarmed—or at least innocent.

  “Sure I’m not after the gold. That sort of thing’s for kiddies’ storybooks. Stiffy thinks we are, but he’s still got a lot of kiddie in him. All that playing around with wireless sets... Well, I guess I’m sorry for the deception, for undermining my commanding officer”—he laughed pleasantly to prove we shared a joke—“but what I’ve been sent to do is highly confidential, you get me, Doig? Top, top, top secret. I can tell you now because tomorrow I’ll be out of your life. What’s going on is this: my country and Lenin’s lot want to have unofficial talks about the relationship between them—you know, what’s to happen to property owned by American corporations, what’s to happen to Serbia, Johnny Turk, the war with Germany—all that sort of heavyweight stuff. OK? Am I getting myself believed? However, there is a problem here for both sides: they can’t be seen sitting down at the same table. For our President it’d be ruin and for Lenin likewise since the only reason he got where he is was by telling Russians that all capitalists were evil. It’d look like one big cheat if he suddenly showed himself as our buddy. So I’m the go-between. Me and Trotsky first. If that goes well, me and Lenin. Then maybe me and Lenin and the President. Now you see why I had to vanish from US Army records. These fellows at the top, they hate to have loose ends lying around that some busybody’ll trip over.”

  “So why are you telling me if it’s top secret?”

  He chuckled. “By tomorrow night you ain’t going to be around no more. You and your crowd—believe me, you’ll be food for the crows by this time tomorrow and it won’t do you a blind bit of good looking to me for protection. I’ll be gone. Underground. Me and Trotsky. Big time.”

  Forty-seven

  THE GENERATOR bulb glowed green in the semi-darkness of the wireless van. A chink of light came from the back where Stiffy had his box of tricks. I slipped into the canvas-backed chair beside him. The valves were burning gently, just right.

  “What’s on?” I mouthed. The time was 2 a.m., as near as makes no difference.

  He glanced at me, the headphones making him look topheavy. He was on Receive, his fingers taking the dial through the wavelengths a hair’s breadth at a time. Every fibre in him was concentrating on the diddidahs—on eavesdropping, on that other life of his.

  His eyes held mine as he scribbled on a shorthand pad.

  He pushed one headphone forward at an angle and said, “Muraviev.”

  “Doing what?”

  “His signaller. Asking Kazan for a fresh report on the Bolshevik regiments, identification thereof. Routine stuff.” He looked at his pad.

  He could have married this wireless of his. I said, “Stiffy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have a problem sending a message in cleartext?”

  “You mean, not encrypted at all?” He removed the headphones entirely and stared at me.

  “Not at all.”

  “Letter by letter? Standard Morse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, sir, as long as it’s short... they’ll have a direction-finder somewhere.”

  “It is short. Trust me. I know what long is.”

  “What call-up signal shall I use?”

  “Same as for the Elizaveta messages. Same wavelength, same everything. Whatever that sender used, you use.”

  “Let’s have it then, sir.” He held his pencil ready.

  “NEMESIS TO GLEBOV STOP...”

  I paused, not having the next few words quite right in my mind. The nail of his index finger tapped nervously at his pad as he waited for me. He jumped up, tugged his trousers straight, dug around in his arse, sat down again—spat into his palms and rubbed them together. If he’d had five sets of fingers, they wouldn’t have been enough to do all he wanted.

  I snatched the pad from him. It took me a couple of goes before I got it right.

  His hand glided to the set, clicked the switch to the right for Send. Finger above the black button—hovering, itching to be social...

  He turned to me, his eyes very serious. “Sir, are we being wise?”

  “Do you think he doesn’t already know I’m here? Don’t think your wireless is the only set of lugs in town.”

  “But on his doorstep? When he could have a plane over us in ten minutes?”

  “Stiffy, I have some advice for you. When in Russia, be a Russian. That means not being a fucking Anglo-Saxon and democratic and quibbling. When I say, Give Glebov a fright, you do it. Yes or no?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very well. Your usual speed. NEMESIS TO GLEBOV STOP WATCH OUT BEHIND YOU STOP THE BIGGEST SHADOW IS DEATH—then the letter for goodbye. Or however you end a message. Go on, do it now.”

  Every Red signaller’d pick it up, shake his woolly head and rush off to find out what it meant. Tension would be created. Look over there, the shadow in that doorway, it’s Doig. Bang-bang, down he doesn’t fall. Only Glebov would understand how profoundly I meant what I’d said. For all I knew there could be a hundred thousand people in Kazan tonight. But only two of us mattered. And then there’d be one.

  Forty-eight

  SCUNNERED, THAT’S what my old man would have said of them. Yelling “Karl Marx! Karl Marx!” as they charged had turned out to be a worthless certificate of immortality. Sixteen inches of Czech steel, honed every morning to a frosty blue, had punctured that one. Other reasons for the poor Red morale: ammunition, victuals, morphine—nowhere to be had except by conquest. Boots—likewise. Their foot wrappings stank like a slaughterhouse in August. Nothing had happened as foreseen except for the flies, which had grown to the size of blackberries on the rich diet of flesh.

  Victory, where was it, then? Where was the loot, where the tender white princesses who were now to be the property
of all?

  And that five-hundred-rouble payout that had been promised each man when Kazan was taken, what good was that going to be if a fellow could no longer enjoy it—if he’d been executed by Trotsky, got tif or had had his balls lopped off by a White sabre?

  “Capture the place first, duraki, idiots,” said the lieutenants and junior captains wearily. “Can’t you understand even primitive reasoning?” But they too were pretty well scunnered. What was the point in having officers whose orders could be refused if disagreeable to those being ordered? Why not run away if one’s destiny was to be taken to the back and shot for failure?

  But fear is powerful and it was fear of Trotsky that had given the Reds the courage to secure the railway line by which we were entering Kazan. Having pushed out the Whites, who’d always loathed fighting in the dark, they’d driven a couple of lorries onto the foot crossing, set a few sentries and then climbed into the lorries and gone fast asleep, piled on top of each other like a mob of piglets because they’d been fighting non-stop for two nights and a day.

  That’s how we found them, that’s how I know.

  Boltikov said, “Let’s smash through the lorries, Charlie. Get Shmuleyvich to put up some smoke and then wap them in the guts, send them sky-high.”

  I said, “Why’d we want to do that carrying Bolshevik slogans on our train and wearing Red Army uniforms? What’d happen if they’ve torn up a rail and we hit the gap at speed?” My idea was to shimmy through the cordon into the no-man’s-land between the armies and do the business discreetly.

  “We’ll keep the fireworks till we’re leaving,” I said.

  He said, “You sure the Whites are going to try and run the gold out tonight?”

  “That’s what Stiffy says the intercepts say.”

  “So that’s the strategy at the top, but as their great plan is unfolding, some of it just squirts out on our side, that it, Charlie? What’s with the women while this is going on?”