After Zenda

by John Spurling

  ‘And what’s our objective after that? To flow through the whole country - to end up in Strelsau?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think we have the capacity for that. Maybe the Captain wants to be able to bargain for some sort of Slav autonomy in Karapata.’

  That seemed a retrograde goal - to break yet one more fraction off a small country which was hardly viable as it was. On the other hand it was in my personal interest to weaken the current regime in Strelsau. I rubbed my head vigorously - the reappearing hair was itching - and knelt down on the floor in a corner of the shed to pore over a street-map of Bilavice by the light of the Corporal’s torch.

  ‘Tell me about Our Lady of Chostok,’ I said, when we had memorised our route to the centre and worked out which junctions and open areas might be especially risky. The Corporal’s friendliness vanished instantly; it was as if we were back in the farm-yard with his boot between us.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ he snapped.

  ‘She made an extraordinary impression on me.’

  ‘Of course. Why not?’

  ‘Where does she come from?’ I persisted in a tone of innocent interest, ignoring his hostility. ‘Is she a local girl?’

  ‘A local girl! You . . . you . . .’

  He became inarticulate with anger, snatched up the town plan and started to walk away.

  ‘You are just a journalist after all,’ he said and switching off the torch, stumped away into the darkness of the orchard.

  His reaction was so violent and instinctive that I could only think he really believed, like Tishkon, that she came directly from Heaven; or at least he didn’t want to consider any alternative. I wondered where she would be during the assault on Bilavice - presumably waiting in some hide-out until a message brought her to the church to change into her white costume for another propaganda exercise. My feelings about her now were distinctly bitchy - Radichev had probably detected them under my faux-naiveté - all because of that fleeting glimpse of her sitting in the back of the Range Rover like any ordinary mortal.

  The assault was a doddle to begin with. We walked steadily in a spaced-out line along a road which soon began to be built-up. There was the odd example of cheap, Soviet-style architecture - a cooperative milk depot, a block of flats that looked empty, a locked and shuttered police-station - but mostly it was thick whitewashed walls with small window-boxes. Some of them still had bright flower-displays, though it was so late in the year.

  When we came to street-corners we treated them like rivers, sending a couple of men across first to cover the blind side while the rest of us crossed. My section of twenty men was the advance party - Corporal Radichev and the rest followed after a short interval. The Corporal hadn’t spoken to me again since last night’s incident, except to say ‘Move!’ when we were all ready to leave the orchard.

  We soon reached taller houses with gables facing a small park beside the river. Bilavice was not built into a hill-side like Chostok, but on a broad plateau between the highest range of mountains we’d just left and the lower range which gradually dwindled into foot-hills. The river here was broad and fast and there was an old stone bridge crossing it perhaps half a mile ahead on our right, at the far edge of the park, with a road that led straight from the bridge to the centre of town. That was the entry-route for another group of our army -ours went down a street immediately to our left, turned right again further on and arrived at the central square from behind the church.

  So far we hadn’t seen another human being. It was incredibly early, of course, and hardly even light - the sky was covered with a low mat of grey cloud - but everyone in the district must have been aware that the rebels were closing in, since we’d been treating the whole landscape as if we owned it, so they’d probably be keeping out of sight until the trouble was over.

  Turning left into our side street, we walked steadily, almost nonchalantly down it, toting our Kalashnikovs in front of us like huge penises looking for a poke. There’d been no sign of any rival invaders on the bridge and I was hoping we might be first into the square and sitting smugly on the church steps by the time Michael and his veterans arrived. Suddenly there was a terrific engine-noise and a small tank came out of the right-hand turning in front of us and stopped, blocking our way. We’d had no training with tanks -actually this was more of an armoured-scout-car or armoured personnel carrier, running on wheels not tracks - and the only exercise we’d done that was remotely comparable was an assault on a haystack. That had been a case of keeping the haystack pre-occupied with covering fire from one flank, while rushing it from the front. Mere we didn’t have flank cover and this steel-plated haystack was just now levelling its machine-gun so as to hose the whole section away down the street. Our own guns were useless unless somebody chose to put his head out of the top.

  ‘Get back!’ I shouted. ‘Back round the corner!’ and ran myself, stooping and weaving as the armoured-vehicle’s machine-gun opened up. It made an appalling noise in the narrow street, but whether deliberately or because the gunner hadn’t quite adjusted his sights yet, the first burst was well overhead. The second was lower, but by that time we were round the corner, all but the slowest mover, a genial, flat-footed, flat-faced simpleton called Krabik whose skull was shattered from behind and who must have been dead well before he hit the road. This was bad, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. The problem was what to do now. For anything we had to give it in return, the armoured-vehicle could just keep following us straight down the road we’d come in by and run us literally out of town.

  I signalled to Radichev further back down the entrance-road to get into cover, but there wasn’t much offered - houses along one side and the park along the other. The park contained the odd tree and bench and a children’s playground with swings and slides, but it was otherwise just open lawn and paths. The river beyond that might not be as polluted as the Volzer, but it was swollen and dangerous even for good swimmers. I stood there hating Michael for dropping us into this horrible heap of shit. What was the use of training us to fight in the mountains when he wanted us to capture a town? How come nobody ever mentioned armoured-vehicles or told us what we were supposed to do about them?

  My section, sweating and trembling, were looking at me with pitiful, panic-stricken expressions and there were only seconds to decide what order to give them. The armoured-vehicle was approaching our end of the street and must now be just about straddling Krabik in the entrance. The houses to our left abutted directly on the pavement, but across the street we had just escaped from, on the corner facing us, there was a house set back inside some sort of enclosure, a yard or garden. The wall was high, but not impossible. If we could get in there we’d have a breathing-space, we might even be able to outflank the steel monster altogether and penetrate to the town centre through or between the houses. But the monster was between us and safety.

  When I panted out this desperate scheme to my section they looked unbelieving. Run away towards the enemy? But at that moment the armoured-vehicle appeared and turned towards us, jerking its gun downwards as it did so, ready to mow us down point-blank as we huddled in a tight group against the wall. I seized the nearest man -it was Tishkon - by his arm, put my head down and raced straight under the gun, the length of the car, and reached the enclosure on the far corner. The others were close behind us. The gun opened up, but too late. We were already helping each other over the wall and, as the turret swivelled round on to its new target, we were over and safe inside. The gun fired anyway, but its rounds only shattered a few windows well above our heads.

  My men weren’t looking as happy as they might have been after such a miraculous escape and there was a bad smell. What with all the fruit they’d consumed in the orchard and the terror of being under fire for the first time, several had shitted themselves. But I felt exhilarated, extremely pleased with myself- maybe I could become a professional mercenary if I failed to make King of Ruritania. I counted heads and found fifteen, including my own. Four, the othe
rs said, had preferred to run the other way, back towards the Corporal. The armoured-vehicle, meanwhile, was still in the entrance to the street, just the other side of the wall, probably debating with itself whether to go after Radichev’s section or hold the street in case we emerged again. I considered that course - to get behind the vehicle and race for the centre by our original route - but it seemed too risky and I doubted if any of the others would follow me.

  The tight space we were in, at the back of a house, was a yard used for keeping chickens. There were coops of them all round the walls and they looked even more frightened than we did. I thought I had a glimpse of somebody peeping down at us from an upstairs window with broken panes, but we didn’t need to trouble our hosts further: there was a high wooden door in one corner of the yard and it wasn’t locked. I pushed it cautiously and peered round. An alley beside the house led into a narrow cobbled lane. As I crept stealthily forwards to see further, a white cat on a low wall sat and stared at me from a half-crouched position, with its shoulders projecting, as if it thought I might be bad or mad but was giving me the benefit of the doubt. I put one finger out towards it and it allowed me to rub its head and pull its ear, then immediately rolled over to have its belly tickled. When I went back to the yard it followed me with its tail in the air, but took fright when it saw fourteen more of me and jumped up on the wall we’d just come over. There it sat coolly observing both sides of somebody else’s quarrel, the interlopers in the yard and the armoured-vehicle still immobile with its engine running in the entrance to the street.

  ‘Our Lady is with us,’ I said to my section, indicating the white cat, which might have been a Tom, and led them out into the cobbled lane.

  The lane twisted a bit, but was obviously making for the centre. The engine of the armoured-vehicle was still threateningly audible, but there was no other sound at all and no sign of life in the houses we passed. I wondered what had happened to the rest of the Army of the True Faith - perhaps they’d already been routed in the approaches to the town and we were the forlorn hope. The lane led us into a street which I calculated must be the one we’d been aiming for all along. It was empty and, very warily indeed, we turned to the right along it. The far end seemed to be blocked by a high, sheer wall, but as we got nearer we could see that it was set back and was in fact the rear of the church, with a narrow railed space round which our street turned both left and right to reach the central square at the front of the church. Just as we reached this point we heard gunfire. It didn’t seem to come from the armoured-vehicle behind us but from more to the right, towards the bridge.

  I chose the slightly longer, left-hand route round the church -there were some cars parked on the street here which provided cover - and we approached the square one car at a time like boys playing Prisoners’ Base, until we were almost level with the portico in front of the church. Still in the lead and holding my gun in my left hand while I used my right to signal to the others - come on, keep back, space out! - I suddenly noticed a soldier leaning on one of the pillars under the portico. He was wearing a helmet, so he clearly wasn’t one of ours, and catching sight of me at the same moment, he was in the act of levelling his gun at me. I jumped aside as he fired and ran behind a parked car so as to fire back, but Tishkon, just behind me, had fired already and punched his arms in the air like a successful footballer as the enemy soldier flopped backwards.

  ‘Get down!’ I shouted and took off my cap and flapped it at them to reinforce the message, just as the cars around us started to ping and clang. The dead man’s comrades in the portico, kneeling or lying behind the pillars, were raking our position. Then there was a new burst of fire straight down the street: another soldier in a helmet was half round the corner of the building opposite the portico. I had a go at him and forced him temporarily back out of sight, but our position was unpleasant, not least because we had no idea whether we were dealing with a few odd snipers or the outposts of a regiment. What I could sec of the square seemed to be completely empty, but they would hardly be drawn up on parade. If we rushed the portico we’d be exposed to the man or men round the corner, and vice versa. Either way we might find ourselves confronting hopelessly superior numbers.

  But Our Lady of Chostok was still watching over us: the car I was sheltering behind had its key in the ignition. It was a medium-sized beige Lada, as square as a tank but not so well plated. Four of us got into it, leaving the others to keep the portico covered. I started the engine, found first gear and roared straight for the square, while my passengers on the right wound down their windows and gave a broadside to the portico. Tishkon was in the back directly behind me - his window was already shattered - and as we turned the corner he treated its blind side to a sustained sweep of fire at waist-level. There were four or five soldiers there and at least two of them dropped immediately. The others were probably hurt - at any rate they gave us no further trouble as I veered round in a steep curve -the car handled like a farm-cart - and accelerated towards the front of the church. As I did so I saw another armoured-vehicle. It was half-way down the broad street leading to the bridge and was firing vigorously in the direction of the bridge. We were now speeding alongside the length of the portico and I braked as smoothly as I could to allow our right-hand broadside, which Tishkon had left his side to join, full scope. The enemy in the portico - perhaps half a dozen - were now exposed to fire from two sides and they crumpled. When I turned full circle to give them a second dose from Tishkon’s window the two or three mobile ones were scurrying towards the safer end of the portico. They didn’t make it. Leaving our boys on foot to occupy the portico, I paused with the engine still running to survey the square. It looked to be clear.

  Then from another street which left the square opposite the church but at a sharp angle so that we couldn’t see down it, appeared our third armoured-vehicle to date. It wasn’t coming very fast and it wasn’t about to destroy us with its gun - it was travelling backwards, retreating from some unseen threat further down its street. It backed into the square and seemed temporarily uncertain what to do next, as a strange contraption heaved up beyond it. It was a lorry disguised as a shed. A huge sheet of corrugated iron stretched right across the front of the bonnet and rose almost level with the roof of the cab, so that the driver must have been able to see out only by sitting on a huge pile of cushions; another sheet of corrugated iron protected the back of the lorry, from which every so often an arm appeared and lobbed some sort of grenade towards the armoured-vehicle. No wonder it was retreating as these things - which may have been as home-made as the armoured lorry - bounced off its plating and exploded near its wheels.

  I was wondering if there was anything I could do to make things worse for the armoured-vehicle, when Tishkon pointed out a new hazard. Soldiers in helmets were pouring out of a stately building

  - the town-hall, in fact - at right angles to the church, and clearly deploying for a counter-assault on the portico, where my section was still busy appropriating helmets and weapons from the dead. Guns blazing, we drove straight at the assault party where it was thickest and, as they scattered, chased one of them and ran him down. This was a mistake. The impact slowed us almost to a halt and the enemy now had an easy target. Tishkon was hit and so was I. We scrambled out of the car on the covered side and prepared to die for the cause with our guns in our hands, but we had already lost Tishkon’s accuracy. He made it out of the car, but he was humped down on his knees staring at the paving-stones and pouring blood all over them.

  But while we had been evacuating our Lada, the corrugated-iron lorry had rammed the armoured-vehicle. Men from the lorry were jumping on to the car to get at its occupants, but others - a mass of them, who must have been moving up behind the lorry - were surging towards our attackers. At the same time there was an explosion behind us - the armoured-vehicle guarding the approach from the bridge was in flames. Our attackers were now fleeing for their lives, which many of them lost there and then, and the square was ours.

&nbs
p; The cost to me was heavy. I really liked Tishkon and he’d obviously had it. We laid him on the ground, told him we’d taken Bilavice and he must live to enjoy the victory, but his eyes only flickered and blood continued to pour out of his clothes. We got the jacket off and pushed it against the hole in his side where a bullet had gone in, but it didn’t make him feel better. My sight was blurred with tears when I looked up to find a half-circle of our rescuers round us.

  ‘He was the best,’ I said miserably to the nearest figure in camouflage, a medium-sized, rather slim fellow in a forage-cap, who seemed to be their leader.

  ‘What was his name?’ he said in a low, controlled voice which sounded odd after all the loud, harsh voices I’d got used to.

  ‘Tishkon Yavelets,’ I said.

  ‘And yours?’

  Exhausted and overstrained with excitement and grief - and my left arm had started to hurt abominably - I couldn’t immediately answer. For half a minute at least I couldn’t recall which name I was currently under.

  ‘Don’t you remember?’ said the unusual voice.

  I wiped the tears out of my eyes with the back of my hand, then took off my cap and scratched my head. That did the trick.

  ‘Karl Marx Berg,’ I said, looking at the soldier’s face clearly for the first time.

  There could be no doubt about it. Tishkon pegged out at about that moment, but I hope he also recognised our Lady of Chostok with her long hair pushed up under her forage-cap and an AK47 tucked comfortably under one armpit.

  11 Ruritanian Made Easy

  Bilavice belonged to us. The armoured vehicle which had so nearly done for us had been destroyed, like the one on the road to the bridge, by a hand-launched rocket belonging to Michael’s group. Why hadn’t we been issued with one? Weren’t we expected to meet any armour or didn’t we matter - cannon-fodder - only intended to create a diversion? The inside of Bilavice’s church was scoured out like Chostok’s and the same kind of performance laid on afterwards, but I took no part in any of it. Tishkon’s death had spoilt my sense of achievement and I shouldn’t have enjoyed it; in any case I was being operated on. My wound wasn’t as bad as it might have been - the bullet had entered my upper arm and missed the elbow - but I had ceased to be a combatant.