‘Ivan, you’ve got your nose in books again. Talk to me.’
Aleka and Kirby were on the terrace. The weather was drier and warmer each day. There was the softest of golden hazes shimmering above the sea. Kirby had his manuals and his notes in page-fluttering profusion on a table and over his lap.
‘You talk, Princess,’ he said, ‘and faithfully I promise to listen.’
‘What a terrible man you are,’ she murmured, ‘you’re still far more interested in those stupid manoeuvres than you are in me. If I were to make your life a thing of misery for your indifference to me, it would be no more than you deserved.’
He felt he had little to fear. She seemed to be indulging a temporary mania for doing nothing. It was so uncharacteristic that he wondered if, despite her light-hearted references to the incident, the attempt on her life had been more of a shock than she would admit.
‘I’m not indifferent,’ he said, ‘but perhaps you and I feel it’s more stimulating to progress than it is to arrive. Perhaps we enjoy anticipation so much that we prefer the event always to be ahead of us.’
‘Darling,’ she said, ‘I anticipate. You procrastinate. Procrastination is not at all stimulating, it’s very uncomplimentary. It makes me feel that one day I shall be very odious to you.’
She was almost absurdly Russian. She lived in phases, he thought, in brief devotion to lovers or causes. Andrei had been a phase. Now it was his turn, Kirby supposed. How long would he last once they became lovers? A week? And then she would be looking over her shoulder. He could not deny it might be an illuminating week. She was superbly beautiful. The sea air and the warm days had erased her pallor and given back to her skin its pampered lustre of pearly whiteness.
He was held back not by lack of natural desire but by his inescapable regard for Olga, by a feeling that to make love to Aleka would be to betray innocence. But since he could never be more to Olga than someone she knew, that feeling was an absurdity. Nevertheless, it was there.
‘You must allow me to consider how delicate you still are,’ he said.
‘My God,’ she said, ‘what a ridiculous man you are and what strange ideas you have about women. When a woman needs love do you think she wants to be regarded as delicate and untouchable? She wants to be subjected to fire, passion and conquest. Don’t you know how primitive women are? Darling, put women into a jungle and they’d survive. Put men in and they’d perish.’
‘Eaten by the women, do you think?’ he suggested.
She lifted her white hands to the sky and turned her eyes to its blue as if entreating the heavens to bear witness to the hopelessness and impossibility of men. He smiled. If she ever did marry she would at least never bore her husband, unless in one of her careless moods she picked a man who did not like theatricals.
The Russian manoeuvres, engaging divisions from the army of the Caucasus, took place on a plateau in the north of the Crimea. They were for Kirby not too far removed from Aleka’s descriptions. They consisted of movements which, to him, appeared unrelated to common sense. Soldiers in their thousands marched across the line of guns, offering themselves, it seemed, as willing targets. The officers from generals downwards were immaculate, bemedalled models of martial haute couture. They rode horses just as immaculate. In groups they trotted elegantly from one point to another, expressing restrained consternation as marching brigades periodically collided with other formations marching from elsewhere.
Generals, omnipotently observing the scheme of things from places of high vantage, bristled at the incompetence of others or beamed in acknowledgement of their own genius, according to whether confusion or cohesion was uppermost. The Tsar was there each day, surrounded by his staff, the only sober-hued note being struck by Nicholas himself and the massively austere Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich, the Russian commander-in-chief.
The Tsar, a military enthusiast, enjoyed every moment. Masses of marching infantry aroused admiration in him. The power and potential of polished guns brought compliments from him. He watched from a high ridge one afternoon as limbered guns were raced into position, the carriages swaying and rocking, the horses pounding, the artillerymen shouting. It looked spectacular. But Brigadier Rollinson, senior British observer, grunted. And Kirby, who had no military experience but a knowledge of armaments, did not have to ride down to examine the guns before pronouncing them aged and inferior. However, if the quality of much of the Russian armament was unimpressive, the manpower that surged and poured over the immense plain each day had a swamping effect on the imagination.
Nicholas, whenever observers from friendly powers were close enough, never failed to exchange friendly words with them. Especially did he seem to appreciate Kirby’s presence.
‘Exciting, isn’t it, my dear fellow?’
‘It’s new to me, sir,’ said Kirby.
‘Ah, they’re splendid soldiers, the very best,’ said Nicholas, leaning forward on his horse to embrace the columns of moving infantry with a wave of his arm. He looked around, smiled whimsically and murmured, ‘If only my generals could manoeuvre as well as my soldiers can march.’
He was in his element.
Kirby began to get a little bored. Relatively his role was an inactive one, sitting his horse among men who spoke a jargon unfamiliar to him. As a diversion he tried to discover if he knew more than the Russian staff officers about what was afoot each day. But as manoeuvre followed manoeuvre he could only conclude that where the greatest weight of numbers engaged, there lay tactics of generals smothered by unmanageable quantities of men.
Each evening he and his fellow officers compared notes under the supervision of Brigadier Rollinson. Kirby felt these sessions were meaningless as they dealt with the obvious. And that was that Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich could face an enemy with the most formidable array of manpower in the world. He said so. Brigadier Rollinson smiled bleakly at the implied criticism, which disregarded the formidability of the Grand Duke himself. In any war, he felt the Grand Duke would come to terms with quantity.
The brigadier liked Kirby better now that the Navy-style beard had gone. He might lack experience but he did not lack a gift for communicating with Russians. It was an extremely useful gift.
At night the British and other foreign observers were entertained in Russian messes. Kirby was introduced to the fleshpots Aleka had spoken of. Whatever the Russians thought of their own manoeuvres they wholeheartedly embraced the nightly sorties into the wine cellars. Kirby avoided getting drunk. He merely achieved a state of glassy-eyed, stiff-backed immobility. The Russians got very drunk. They danced and sang until the early hours. Kirby sang too, and in Russian, but so solemnly and tunelessly that the Russians howled with delight. They slapped him on the back and told him that although he had a terrible voice he was a fine fellow.
‘Frankly,’ said Kirby, cautiously sitting down again, ‘I sing better when I’m drunk.’
They roared at this. Brigadier Rollinson made a note that Colonel Kirby might have a future as a liaison officer.
On the final day of what Kirby considered a week of inconclusiveness, the Tsar was to review his troops. He arrived early that morning in an open motor car. He was greeted with unrestrained enthusiasm. He stood up in the motor car and responded with smiles and salutes. There was a girl with him.
Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna was colonel-in-chief of a regiment in St Petersburg. In this capacity she had come from Livadia with her father to be present at the review. Nicholas did not hide his pride in her as he assisted her from the motor car. Olga wore a white, golden-braided military jacket with skirt and boots. A red-and-white cap adorned her gleaming hair. She was shy at being so much the centre of attention for the moment, but responded to the gallantries of officers with quick smiles. Her horse was brought, together with the Tsar’s, and they rode at a walk, Olga side-saddle, between lines of officers until they reached the front of a stand erected to seat privileged onlookers and observers. The stand was full, the women dressed colourfully, their whites and gree
ns, yellows and blues alternating with the sober hues of formally attired foreign attachés.
The Tsar turned, rode forward and halted, easy and relaxed on his mount, his pleasure in the occasion obvious. Olga stayed in a position behind him but to his right. Flanking her was Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich, a soldier of integrity and ability, of stern kindness, and idolized by the troops. Over six feet tall, he sat his horse majestically. Behind the group were masked senior officers of the Tsar’s staff, as well as some foreign observers, Kirby among them.
He was some ten paces behind the Grand Duchess. Her horse shifted a little, she quietened it. He could only see her back. It was very straight, her jacket enhancing her slender waist. Beneath her cap her hair, thickly plaited and wound around her head, was like dark, burnished russet in the sunlight. He could not take his eyes off her.
The troops began to march past to the music of massed regimental bands. It was an acclamation as much as a parade as the Tsar saluted each regiment. Banners whipped and fluttered, and the thud of marching feet became a ceaseless rhythm. Olga sat in an attitude of composure and pride as her father took so many salutes.
The artillery appeared, guns and carriages heavily indenting the trampled earth. They were horse-drawn, the long traces black in the bright light, the men upright in their saddles. The long columns of horsed men and grey metal bruised the ground and threw up dust, the sun sent light running over gun barrels and spinning around wheels.
It was the Cossacks who brought the review to its emotional close. They came in a sweeping, thunderous gallop on their small horses. Their noise, their rhythm and their abandonment quickened the blood of every onlooker. Sabres glittered amid a sea of tossing manes and impulsively the crowded stand rose to the onrushing spectacle. Kirby saw Olga visibly quiver, so infectious was the excitement evoked by the galloping Cossacks. When they had finally passed there was an audible sigh from the women in the stand.
Kirby did not know if his regard was too obsessive, too intent, but suddenly as emotional bodies relaxed Olga turned in her saddle and looked directly back at him, as if she had felt his eyes upon her. She had not seen him without his beard but recognition was immediate. Blue eyes looked into grey. Kirby smiled. Colour rushed into her face, then she turned to her front again, her eyes bright with joy.
It was over. The Tsar turned, wheeling his horse. Olga moved close to him.
‘Papa, did you know? Colonel Kirby is here – is he to be invited to Livadia? He—’
But there were so many voices, so much noise, with her father receiving the congratulations of his staff and his generals, as well as the applause from the crowded stand. He rode back to the car with Olga, escorted by officers. She passed quite close to Kirby, gave him the shyest of glances, the quickest of smiles, and was then swallowed up in the tide of uniforms. At the car Nicholas was in no hurry to dismount. He had enjoyed it all far too much to give up the pleasure of exchanging further comments with the Grand Duke and others. He was in genial commendation of everything, his smile constantly lighting up his handsome face, while Olga shook her head at the extravagances of officers who declared they would suffer indescribable torment if she did not stay and dine with them. Cossack officers, returning from their ceremonial gallop, were pressing forward now to bring their own greetings to the Tsar and his daughter before they left for Livadia, where they were now in residence with the rest of the family.
Nicholas and Olga finally dismounted. Grand Duke Nicholas, commanding and courtly, handed her into the car at a moment when more Cossacks burst upon the crowded scene, swelling the numbers dangerously in their exuberantly reckless way. Kirby felt as if he was being squeezed by irresistible movement and weight. His mount, a mare, threw up her head. A compact but fiery Cossack stallion snapped its teeth at her. Rolling-eyed she backed, then reared in shrill fright from its odour and viciousness. Kirby toppled backwards, he lost stirrups and seat and thudded to the ground. Olga, standing in the car, saw it all. In paralysing horror she saw the mare wheel and plunge, bringing shod forefeet crashing down. The right hoof broke Kirby’s left arm, the other hoof struck the peaked cap from his head.
The blood drained from Olga’s face. Her gloved hands stifled a scream. There was a disorderly milling of men and horses, the mare shivering. But Nicholas was not as indecisive in a common crisis as in an Imperial one. He shouted a command that was surprisingly clear and authoritative.
‘Nicholas Nicolaievich! Get them clear!’
Grand Duke Nicholas roared, ‘Rabble! Get back, you fools!’ He struck out, a giant of a man undwarfed even by horsed men, and the melee broke apart. Noisy Cossacks sprang from saddles to see to the fallen, unconscious British colonel. They brought him out, one arm limp and dangling, his head bloody.
He awoke to a sense of drowsy comfort, to the light of the late afternoon sun streaming through open windows. Brocaded curtains hung back in soft, heavy folds. The room and its furnishings were in blue and gold, the walls adorned with ikons and pictures. Vases were filled with the spring flowers of the Crimea, each bloom fresh and new, and with its own delicate scent.
The atmosphere was quiet, beautiful.
He knew where he was.
He turned his head, he winced as the movement shattered his drowsiness and brought stabbing pain. It hammered at his temple for long seconds before subsiding to a sensitive ache. His left arm was heavy with plaster, the pain a dull, throbbing insistence. He was in blue pyjamas, the jacket embroidered with the Imperial crest. He lay there, recalling his fall, the breath-robbing impact as the ground rose to meet his back, the plunging forelegs of the frightened horse above him. That had been a moment of fine balance between life and death.
Someone came quietly in. It was Karita. She looked crisply delicious in her full-skirted blue dress with white front. Every golden hair was in place. She regarded him silently for a moment as if she could not make up her mind whether he had been unforgivably clumsy or excessively unfortunate. She must have given him the benefit of the doubt, for she smiled and said, ‘Poor Ivan Ivanovich, you’re better now?’
‘Better than – oh, great God,’ he said as speech imparted throbs to his skull. ‘What’s happening to my head?’
‘Nothing’s happening now,’ said Karita, ‘the damage is already done. But there was only a small cut and a big bruise, so you haven’t been bandaged. It’s your arm that’s bad, you’ve broken it.’
‘Not me, the horse,’ he said, speaking economically and with care.
‘Well, never mind, you’re all right now,’ said Karita.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘Well, at least you’re better,’ she said. She hoped he was. The Imperial family had been most concerned, the Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna distressed. ‘Dr Botkin himself attended to your arm,’ she went on. ‘They put it in splints after it happened and then you were brought here, and Dr Botkin could not have served you better if you’d been the Tsar himself. The Empress telephoned Princess Karinshka and asked if I might come over, and Princess Karinshka too of course. But Her Highness said she’d come tomorrow as long as—’
‘Yes?’ he said as Karita stopped to pat a pillow and hide a smile.
‘As long as you weren’t dying today. She said you were probably drunk, but not to Her Imperial Highness, of course.’
‘To you.’
‘She wasn’t serious,’ said Karita. ‘Everyone here has been so kind and the children were in such a bother about you. The Tsarevich is not very well himself but he commanded all his sisters to be quiet and to only creep about, as if this was only a small house instead of a palace. The Empress said I’d be a great help to you if I could come and so I came at once. Ivan Ivanovich, you see, you need to be unfortunate to find out how lucky you are. They could not have been kinder to a Grand Duke.’
‘They don’t have to be.’ He winced again. ‘Grand Dukes don’t fall off their horses.’
‘I’ll fetch you something to eat,’ said Karita.
‘Nothi
ng to eat, angel, just some tea. Thank you, Karita.’
‘It isn’t me, it’s our Father Tsar and all his family,’ she said. ‘You should be proud, I am very proud.’
‘Livadia,’ he said abstractedly. ‘Well, I never.’
‘Yes, Livadia,’ said Karita, looking at the open windows, the invading brightness. ‘It’s the loveliest place in the world, full of goodness and God. I’ll fetch the tea.’
He felt drowsy again when she’d gone. He felt at peace. The ache and the pain were unimportant.
He heard the sound of a trolley being wheeled in. He turned his head slowly, keeping the thumping contained to a bearable level. He saw the white trolley and the silver samovar, with the dish of lemon. He saw the skirt of a primrose-yellow dress. That was odd. He raised his eyes and looked into the face of Olga. Her eyes were dark with concern, her soft wide mouth parted a little. Her dress was waisted by a red sash, her hair unbraided and flowing. She had sat her horse that day in quiet composure, in pride of her father. She had looked superb. Now she was as lovely as the blossoms of spring. And so young, so much beyond him because of her youth and her birth.
The intensity of his love was shattering.
‘I’m absolutely sure you aren’t Karita,’ he said. Each word he spoke seemed to thump in his head, but that was unimportant too.
‘Oh, Mr Kirby!’ Olga was breathless with relief and gladness. ‘Karita said you’d woken up, that you were better— oh, I mean Colonel Kirby, of course. But you were unconscious for so long, are you really better?’
‘Much,’ he said. ‘How is the horse?’
She stared down at him, unable for the moment to place his question in context. Then she understood and she laughed.
‘Oh, I’m so relieved,’ she said, ‘and as for the horse, Alexis says he’ll give it a good talking-to. Everyone is so sorry about your accident but, oh, you see, I said to Alexis days ago that you still might come. I didn’t think it would be this way, which has been very painful for you, but now you’re here Mama will see that you’re well looked after. Your arm isn’t going to matter at all and you’ll have to stay until you’re really better. Oh, I’m talking when I should be doing this.’
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