Kirov Saga: Devil's Garden (Kirov Series)

by Schettler, John

  “Morse code? From that ship?”

  “Possibly, sir. It is using a call sign of MPG. Very odd, sir.” He listened intently, jotting down something on his notepad. “It reads CQ, CQ, CQ, GZXW - MPG Calling ship off our port bow - requesting identification, KW – Back to you.”

  “MPG?”

  “Apparently a ship identifier call sign, sir.”

  “Can we look that up, Mister Nikolin?”

  “I will try, sir. But should I return this signal?”

  “Use the radio and transmit in English. Ask them to identify themselves as well.”

  Nikolin sent a standard hail, but the only reply they received was a continued stream of Morse code, nothing on voice radio. He used the ship’s computers to try and look up the call signs he was receiving, and found a reference.

  “I have a record in the ship registry, sir, but there are two references. One is for GZXW as the Canadian Pacific Steamships Company. The MPG designates this ship as the Empress Of China. I have looked it up in the ship database, and there is no current listing for a ship by that name.”

  “Use the historical index,” said Karpov. “Find out if there were ships using that name in the past.”

  “Right, sir. I have three references. They were all ocean steamship liners belonging to that same company, yet our image database would seem to match the first one: Empress of China, built by Naval Construction & Armament Co., Barrow, England for Canadian Pacific Steamships, LTD. The ship was making regular runs as a British Royal Mail Ship out of Vancouver BC to ports east, including Japan and sometimes even Vladivostok. Yokohama is listed as her most frequent Eastern Pacific terminal port.”

  “You say it was built by the British? What year, Nikolin? When was it commissioned?”

  “Laid down in 1890. Launched on the 25th of March, and her maiden voyage was15 July 1891.”

  “1891? Quite an old ship…How long was this ship in service? Does it list that information?”

  “Yes, sir. The registry reads that the ship ran aground in rough seas and fog on 27 July 1911 off Yokohama. She was abandoned, salvaged and scrapped there in 1912.”

  “My God! 1912? If that is, in fact, the Empress of China, then we…We must be somewhere between those dates, between 1891 and 1912! We must have moved further back in time, not forward.”

  “We should verify this information, Captain,” said Rodenko. That ship could be a replica. We have never displaced to a time earlier than 1941.”

  “Why would it refuse our radio hail and answer only in Morse Code? Nikolin… Signal them back in Morse. Give our callsign as KIRV. Tell them our ship’s chronometer is damaged. Request the current date and time.” It was a good ploy, because ship’s chronometers were essential to navigation in early decades.

  Nikolin tapped out the message in Morse, and within minutes they received a reply. “Sir…They reply and state their ship’s chronometer currently reads 09:40 – 100708. That would be the 10th day of July—”

  “1908?” The look of astonishment on Karpov’s face said everything.”

  * * *

  The ball dropped for the very first time in Times Square that year, marking the start of a long tradition counting down the last few seconds as time rolled on in its endless round. 1908 had begun with a flourish of celebration and renewed optimism, in an era where new firsts, and the energy of discovery still infused life with a sense of vigor and boldness.

  People were different then. They were not tethered to one another by wires just yet, or slaves to modern devices like computers, touch pads, cell phones. Planes and cars were in their infancy, more items of fancy for the adventurous and the very rich than anything else. A man named Henry Ford would change all that later that year, when he began turning out the very first Model Ts from an assembly line in September. Oil was discovered on the Arabian peninsula for the first time in May of 1908, insuring that Ford's cars would have a steady and reliable source of fuel for the next 150 years.

  The people of 1908 were not yet dependent on all these electronics and engines, the full bloom of a seed that was only now being planted in the fields of technology and industry. They were stronger in many ways than the denizens of our modern cities, taking life in their hands and carrying it on their broad shoulders in a way people in the modern world of 2021 would never understand. They were quieter of spirit, more settled, rooted to the land, much like the farmer Walt Whitman wrote about in his poetry, a man “of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person; the shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, and the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes—the richness and breadth of his manners…”

  There was something of that farmer that was still the root and sinew of most people of that day. Life was more rustic, even in the big cities. It was raw, unrefined, and in some ways still vested with a quality of innocence. The world had not yet committed itself to the insanity of a world war yet, though that dreadful experience was just ahead as the century settled into its stride. It was to be a year of fire, of discovery, and first time achievements; a year of hard won races and marathon journeys of endurance. It was a year where the color of white was all the rage for navies and athletes, and for the strange and largely unexplained “white nights” that illuminated most of Europe and even parts of North America in early July.

  Scientists and industrialists of that day were flush with the energy of invention and discovery as well. A 40,000 year old Neanderthal skeleton was dug up in southwest France. Helium had been liquefied for the first time. The term schizophrenia entered the English language, darkening the ruminations of psychologists in all the days ahead. The Geiger counter was invented to detect an energy that few, if any, really understood in that day. The Nobel Prize in physics went to Gabriel Lippman for the first reproduction of colors in photography. Atomic theory was being pioneered by Ernest Rutherford at a time when a great future physicist like Edward Teller, inventor of the hydrogen bomb, was just being born. Astronomers discovered one of Jupiter's moons that year, and ruminated on comets and meteors, but failed to spot something else looming on the near horizon of the ecliptic plane, even now bearing down on planet earth.

  Twelve days into the new year the first long distance radio message was sent from the Eiffel tower, marking a new era in communications. On a roll, the very next day the French pilot Henry Farman became the first European to fly roundtrip, heralding the onset of airline operations that would span the whole of the globe in decades to come. The first passenger flight actually occurred on May 14th that year, with many more to come in a time long before the endless security and check-in lines at modern day airports.

  In New York City women's rights took a hit when the city passed an ordinance forbidding women to smoke. The men of the city were exempt, however, allowing them to preserve the ritual with cigar, pipe and cigarette as yet one more privilege they could lord over the fairer sex. Cincinnati Mayor Mark Breith also proclaimed that, “women are not physically fit to operate automobiles.” Thankfully, the first railway tunnel under the Hudson River opened that year on February 21st, so they could go by train.

  It was a good year for explorers when Shackleton climbed Mt. Erebus in Antarctica on March 5th, while at the opposite end of the earth, Frederick A. Cook claimed to reach North Pole—a proclamation that was later disputed and found to be false. In the US, one John Krohn began his walk around the entire perimeter of country, which was to take him all of 357 days. On wheels, the “Great Auto Race,” an around the world marathon from New York to Paris kicked off on February 12th. They would head west to cross the US, planning to work their way up the coast through Alaska and cross the Bering Sea to Siberia where top German and American contenders would witness a truly earth shattering event before their journey ended.

  Not to be upstaged by achievements in the burgeoning airline industry, the “Great White Fleet,” a conglomeration of 16 American battleships and smaller escorts, pulled into San Francisco Bay May 5th while circumnavigating the globe and sh
owing the world the US had a real blue water navy. Germany quickly responded by ordering the construction of four new battleships. A part of the US fleet smugly watched the explosion of an airship dirigible over San Francisco Bay on May 23rd, sending sixteen passengers into the drink, who thankfully all survived the mishap. And to prove that there was still a fast, viable alternative to those damnable flying contraptions, the Lusitania crossed the Atlantic and set a new speed record of 4 days, 15 hours to New York City.

  The untimely eruption of Mount Vesuvius on April 7, 1906 had devastated the city of Naples and caused a postponement of the Olympic games scheduled for Rome that year. London was selected for 1908, and the games were held in the “White City Stadium” in Shepherds Bush, West London. Causing a bit of a row, US flag bearer, Ralph Rose, refused to dip the flag to Edward VII when he passed in review, and it was later said that “this flag dips for no earthly king.” The chastened, upstart Americans, with all the bravado of their President Teddy Roosevelt, relented and deigned to dip their flag at last before the whole of the Royal family. To further rub their noses in it, the British ran away with the games that year, winning 56 gold to only 23 for the 2nd place US team, and taking 146 medals in all to the US 47. If the Americans believed in their imminent sunrise, that same sun still never set on the far flung British Empire.

  With recreation in the wilderness in vogue, national parks were opening all over the US that year, and another national pastime celebrated its groundbreaking for the construction of Philadelphia's Shibe Park, future home of both A's & Phillies. The song “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” would be copyrighted on May 2nd, and soon sung forever after at ballparks all across the nation. And on the Field of Dreams, pitchers dominated the Boys of Summer, with Bill Burns working a no-hitter on May 21st, with two outs in the 9th inning before it was finally broken up by a hit. Another great pitcher was also denied that achievement a week later on May 30th, but he would persist and finally nail down the no-no a month later.

  The year was half gone by June 30, a fine mid-summer day when the big right hander Denton True “Cy” Young stood on the mound in New York, staring in at the last man he would face that game. He had missed a chance at a perfect game by walking the first man up in the game, but now he looked in to get the sign with the odd thought that he would need just one final out to pitch the third no-hitter of his amazing career. For a man his age, 41, that would be no small feat, and he thought to himself that it would be only fitting to throw the batter just what he expected, a fastball at the speed of a raging cyclone, the pitch that had garnered him his nickname.

  Even at 41, Young was still an imposing pitcher, 6'-2” and 200 pounds, with experience and guile to equal the strength he still had in that golden right arm. Young was still building on a remarkable streak of winning seasons that would stand the test of history for more than a century. After winning 27 games in 1891, he would go on to win 20 games or more in all but three of his next 17 seasons, and for those three when he won 19, 18 and then a measly 13 games. But to atone for that he added four seasons where he piled up over 30 wins each year during that incredible streak, winning all of 36 games in 1892!

  After two sub-par years, in 1905 and 1906, the sports writers had come to call Young the “Old Man” of baseball. Yet when he turned 40 the following year, he went right back to his winning ways with 21 wins and started the 1908 season with 457 wins behind him. He would win 21 more this year on his way to amassing an insurmountable record of 511 career wins. Yet, to the soft spoken and amiable Cy, this win was just like all the rest.

  A month earlier to the day, he had missed nabbing his third no hitter against Washington when Jerry Freeman smacked a single off his slow pitch, a pitch modern hurlers now called their “changeup.” Today, on June 30th, he was just a tad tight when he first took the mound, and walked the leadoff hitter for the New York Highlanders, Harry Niles. They picked off Niles trying to steal second, and the next 25 men would be retired in order.

  From the sixth inning on the New York home town fans were firmly behind the 'Old Man,' rooting against their own team as Young piled up the outs, aided by some spectacular defensive plays by shortstop Heinie Wagner, and outfielders Denny Sullivan and Gavvy Cravath, who had just made a leaping catch at the center field fence to prevent a hit. Now there was just one last man standing. Young was only one pitch away from his 468th win and third no-hitter, a record that would stand until a young left hander named Sandy Koufax, “the left hand of God,” would notch his fourth no-hitter on Sept 9, 1965.

  Young reached back, spun up that big right arm in a whirlwind windup, and let the ball fly. As it thundered wildly toward the plate to secure his third no-hitter, something much more ominous was also hurtling through the jet black skies of northern Siberia, a world away, though no one present in the stadium that day would know about it for years to come.

  It came out of the northeast, a little after 7:15 on the morning of June 30th 1908, cleaving away the fading night like a great sword of doom. Its piercing blue light gleamed on the sapphire waters of the great Lake Baikal, lighting up the skies with a searing smear of cobalt fire as it sped north. Those that saw it that morning said it was as if a second sun had come that day, illuminating the vast reaches of the heavily forested taiga with its blazing light. Then came the immense explosion, high up in the sky above the Stony Tunguska River, and from that moment on the world was never the same.

  A young Russian naval officer named Fedorov would witness the event in a chance encounter with a man named Mironov at the Railway Inn at Ilanskiy, and a reporter from the London Times named Thomas Byrne disappeared soon thereafter. He had been sent to get the story of the Great Race, but would end up seeing much more than he imagined.

  Chapter 9

  Captain Rupert Archibald stood on the bridge of the Empress of China holding the long eyepiece of his telescope to a grey browed eye and peering at the distant silhouette of an approaching ship with a vague disquiet. His ship was one of three built for the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company, in an agreement that was part of the Canadian Pacific Railway development that now spanned the north American continent. Once the rail lines ended in Vancouver, a means of getting things across the Pacific, particularly mail and passengers, resulted in three beautifully elegant ships, the three Empresses of India, China and Japan.

  Their exotic names seemed to fire the imagination and put the thirst for adventure that would compel a long sea voyage in the minds of potential passengers. Empress of China could also bear the prefix RMS for “Royal Mail Ship” with an agreement to carry mail to the far east outpost of Hong Kong for the Royal Post. As such, it was no surprise that the officers and men who commanded these ships were often born of the Royal Navy itself, sturdy and experienced reserve officers from the nation that had conquered the known world with its superb navy.

  The Empresses proved to be fast, reliable ships as well, with the Empress of Japan currently holding the Blue Ribbon for speed in the Pacific, which she won in 1897 and held for 20 years. Rated at a steady 16 knots, the ships could easily spin up to 18 knots or better. The Captain had seen the world in his day, serving aboard Empress of India as her Chief Officer before becoming Captain of Empress of China in 1905. Something about the look of this ship now bearing down on him was most unsettling. It had a tall superstructure, rising in tiers like the battlements of a great fortress, its aspect profoundly threatening even at this distance. It was certainly a military ship in his estimation.

  “Have a look at this, Mister Robinson,” he handed off the telescope to his Chief Officer of the boat, Commander Samuel Robinson, simply called the “Chief” in reference to his post as first officer.

  Robinson took a long look, his brow furrowing with obvious concern. He had worked his way up through the ranks of Junior Officers on Empress of Japan to reach his present post, and was destined to have a long and storied career at sea.

  “My goodness…Look at that bow wave! This ship must be very fast. They look like th
ey might be making all of twenty knots.”

  “And note its size, Chief. It has the look of a battleship, does it not?”

  “It does, sir, but out here? Who would it be? The Great White Fleet sailed from San Francisco several days ago, but they aren’t scheduled to arrive in Hawaii for another week.”

  “Let’s get off a message on the Marconi wireless. Send our call sign and request identification.”

  “Right away, sir.” Robinson saw to the matter, and soon returned no more the wiser. “They say they have a dodgy chronometer, sir and request our date and time readings for navigation.”

  “No identification?”

  “We received the call sign KIRV, but there’s nothing in the code book for it. In fact, I checked schedules for outbound traffic. Monteagle is the only other ship that should be approaching us from the southwest, but she just left Shanghai on the eleventh, and there’s no way she could be this far out. Slow as molasses.”

  “Indeed, Robinson. Well, this ship seems intent on making our acquaintance, but I can’t imagine why. A doggy chronometer is one thing, but what would a warship be doing out here alone like this?” Battleships of the day moved in grand formations, whole fleets deployed, and it was most uncommon to see a solitary vessel out like this.

  “Can you make out her colors, sir?”

  “Not at this range. In fact, I can’t seem to spy any markings or standards at all. But my eyes aren’t what they used to be. Perhaps this is a Japanese ship. There isn’t anything left of the Russian Pacific Fleet these days after that disaster at Tsushima Strait in 1905.”

  “And another point, sir. She’s not making smoke. How can a ship work up that kind of speed without darkening the skies in her wake. She should be smoking like a wild locomotive, yet look, not a wisp.”